“The refusal of the Official Committee of Examiners to award any prize for the Oxford Latin verse of 1842, has naturally led to a supposition that the scholarship and intelligence of the competitors has fallen short of the usual standard. Having, however, perused the following copy of verses, which are probably a fair specimen of those sent in, I am inclined to think, as a graduate and somewhat conversant with such subjects, that this discouraging inference is unfounded, and that the committee have been influenced in their discretion by some unexplained reason, involving no reflection on the candidates for the prize, as compared with those of former years.” The real fact I believe to have been, so far as George was concerned, that there were two false quantities in his verses; and though these were so palpable, as your grandfather remarked, “as to be obvious to any fifth-form boy, and plainly due to carelessness in transcription, and want of revision by a second person,” the Examiners were clearly not bound to make allowances for such carelessness. Many years after, in a letter to his sister, on some little success of her boy at Rugby, George writes:— “I congratulate you on Walter’s success. We are much more interested for our brats than we were for ourselves. I remember how miserable my poor father made himself once when I did not get a Latin Verse prize at Oxford, and how much more sorry I was for him than for myself. Anyhow, there is no pleasure equal to seeing one’s children distinguish themselves—it makes one young again.” But I must return to his freshman’s year at Oxford. I have told you already that this was our first separation of any length. I did not see him from the day he went to Oxford in January until our Rugby Eleven went up to Lords, at the end of the half-year, for the match with the M.C.C. It was the first time I had ever played there, and of course I was very full of it, and fancied the match the most important event which was occurring in England the time. One of our Eleven did not turn up, and George was allowed to play for us. He was, as usual, a tower of strength in a boys’ Eleven, because you could rely on his nerve. When the game was going badly, he was always put in to keep up his wicket, and very seldom failed to do it. On this occasion we were in together, and he made a long score, but, I thought, did not play quite in his usual style; and on talking the matter over with him when we got home, I found that he had not been playing at Oxford, but had taken to boating.