In October 1812 he commenced residence at Trinity College as a sub-sizar. His first University distinction was the Chancellor’s gold medal for English Verse, the subject being ‘Boadicea.’ In after years he was fond of expressing the theory that ‘a prize-poem should be a prize-poem’: by which he probably meant that the subject should be treated in a conventional fashion, with no eccentric innovations of style or metre. It must be admitted that his own work conformed exactly to this standard. The poem was welcomed with profound admiration in the family circle at home; but his old master took a different view of the question. Professor Owen relates that Mr Rowley called one day at his mother’s house, and began as follows: ‘“I’ve sad news for you, Mrs Owen, to-day. I’ve just had a letter from Cambridge; that boy Whewell has ruined himself, he’ll never get his Wranglership now!” “Why, good gracious, Mr Rowley, what _has_ Whewell been doing?” “Why, he has gone and got the Chancellor’s gold medal for some trumpery poem, ‘Boadicea,’ or something of that kind, when he ought to have been sticking to his mathematics. I give him up now. Taking after his poor mother, I suppose.”’ The letters which he wrote home give us some pleasant glimpses of his College life, which he evidently thoroughly enjoyed. For the first time in his life he had access to a good library—that of Trinity College—and he speaks of ‘an inconceivable desire to read all manner of books at once,’ adding that at that very moment there were two folios and six quartos of different works upon his table. The success which he afterwards achieved is a proof that he entered heartily into the studies of the place; and among his friends were men who were studious then, and afterwards became eminent. Among these we may mention Mr, afterwards Sir John, Herschel, Mr Richard Jones, Mr Julius Charles Hare, and Mr Charles Babbage. A correspondent of his, writing so late as 1841, recalls the ‘Sunday morning philosophical breakfasts,’ at which they used to meet in 1815; and there are indications in the letters of similar feasts of reason and flows of soul. It must, on the other hand, be admitted that a few indications of an opposite character may be produced. He admits, in a half-bantering, half-serious way, that he had laid himself open to the charge of idleness; and he describes the diversions of himself and his friends during the long vacation of 1815 as ‘dancing at country fairs, playing billiards, tuning beakers into musical glasses,’ and the like. It need be no matter of surprise that a young man of high spirits and strong bodily frame, brought up in the seclusion of Lancashire, should have taken the fullest advantage of the first opportunity which presented itself of appreciating the lighter and brighter side of existence. This, however, was all. Whewell knew perfectly well where to stop. No scandal ever attached itself to his name; and he ‘wore the