It was hardly to be expected that Milnes, with his taste for the general in literature rather than the particular, would achieve distinction in the Cambridge of 1830. We have seen how Thirlwall disposed of his classical aspirations, and in mathematics he fared no better. He read hard, and hoped for distinction in the college examination. But he had overtaxed his energies; his health gave way, and he was forced to give up work altogether for some days. Happily, the benefit a man derives from his three years at a university need not be measured by his honours, and we may be sure that the experience of men and books that Milnes gained there was of greater service to him than a high place in any Tripos would have been. He roamed in all directions over the fields of knowledge; phrenology, anatomy, geology, political economy, metaphysics, by turns engaged his attention; he dabbled in periodical literature; he acted Beatrice in _Much Ado about Nothing_, and Mrs Malaprop in _The Rivals_; he made an excursion in a balloon with the celebrated aeronaut, Mr Green; he wrote two prize-poems, _Timbuctoo_ and _Byzantium_, but only to be beaten by Tennyson and Kinglake; he obtained a second prize for an English declamation, and a first prize for an English essay, _On the Homeric Poems_; he became a member of the club known as ‘The Apostles,’ in which he maintained a kindly interest to the end of his life; and last, but by no means least, he was a constant speaker at the Union. It is impossible, at a distance of just sixty years, to form an exact estimate of the success of Milnes in those debates. But that it was something more than ordinary, is, we think, certain; for otherwise he would not have ventured to present himself at the Oxford Union in December 1829, in the character of a self-selected missionary, who hoped to carry light and leading into the dark places of the sister University. As this expedition has been twice described by Milnes himself, first in a letter to his mother soon after his return to Cambridge, and secondly in a speech at the opening of the new building of the Cambridge Union Society in 1866; and also, more or less fully, by four of his contemporaries, Sir Francis Doyle, Mr Gladstone, Cardinal Manning, and Dean Blakesley, it is clear that it was regarded by himself and his friends, both at the time and afterwards, as something uncommon and remarkable, and we feel sure that we shall be excused if we try to give a connected narrative of what really took place.