“A gentleman commoner,” he said, “if he be a man of fortune, is soon told that it is not expected from one of his form to mind exercises; if he is studious, he is morose, and a heavy bookish fellow; if he keeps a cellar of wine, the good natur’d fellows will indulge him, tho’ he should be too heavy-headed to be at chapel in the morning.” In proof of this assertion I will take the case, from a sheaf of others, of Mr Harris, afterwards Lord Malmesbury, who was an Undergraduate of Merton in 1763. “The discipline of the university happened also at this particular moment to be so lax,” he wrote, “that a gentleman commoner”--and it would seem not to be of great moment whether he had riches or not--“was under no restraint, and never called upon to attend either lectures, or chapel, or hall. My tutor, an excellent and worthy man, according to the practise of all tutors at that moment, gave himself no concern about his pupils. I never saw him but during a fortnight, when I took it into my head to be taught trigonometry. The set of men with whom I lived were very pleasant but very idle fellows. Our life was an imitation of high life in London.” The entire lack of compulsion to work, however, did not by any means cause Harris and his friends to dwindle into mere “wasters.” From that little coterie eventually emerged Charles Fox and William Eden. Gibbon, the historian of world-wide renown, never did one stroke of work while at Magdalen, nor was he ever asked, with any firmness, to do so. In his much discussed reminiscences he set down that “some duties may possibly have been imposed on the poor scholars, whose ambition aspired to the peaceful honours of a scholarship; but no independent members were admitted below the rank of gentleman commoner, and our velvet cap was the cap of liberty.” Commenting upon the prevailing slackness of tutors, Gibbon quoted his own experiences. The learned doctor to whose care he was first confided, described as “one of the best of the tribe,” had suggested that Gibbon should read the comedies of Terence every morning with him. “During the first weeks,” wrote Gibbon, “I constantly attended these lessons in my tutor’s rooms; but as they appeared equally devoid of profit and pleasure, I was once tempted to try the experiment of a formal apology. The apology was accepted with a smile. I repeated the offence with less ceremony; the excuse was admitted with the same indulgence; the slightest motive of laziness or indisposition, the most trifling avocation at home or abroad, was allowed as a worthy impediment; nor did my tutor appear conscious of my absence or neglect.... No plan of study was recommended for my use; no exercises were prescribed for his inspection; and at that most precious season of youth, whole days and weeks were suffered to elapse, without labour or amusement, without advice or account.”[20]