In the second term of his third year (1781), Porson obtained one of the Craven University Scholarships, which, being open to the free competition of the whole body of undergraduates, have always been regarded among our most honourable academical distinctions. He took the degree of B. A. in 1782; and, on the mathematical tripos, obtained the respectable place of third senior optime: but he gained the first of the medals annually given by the Chancellor of the University to the two commencing bachelors of arts, under certain restrictions, who pass the best examination in classical learning. In the following September he was elected Fellow of Trinity College. He proceeded to the degree of M.A. in 1785; but being unwilling, from conscientious motives, to subscribe to the articles of the Established Church, he could not take orders, and, according to the rules of the College, vacated his Fellowship in 1791. He was thus for the second time dependant upon the liberality of his friends. Nor did they neglect him: a subscription was entered into by Mr. Cracherode and some others, from the proceeds of which a life annuity of 100_l._ was purchased for him. In 1792 he was elected Regius Professor of Greek: but, as the salary of this office is only 40_l._ per annum, he was still a poor man; and not being able to procure a suitable lecture room, he was prevented from making the usual addition to his income, by delivering lectures on the Greek authors. In 1795 he married Mrs. Lunan, the sister of Mr. Perry, the well-known Editor of the Morning Chronicle. From this union, short as it proved, Porson derived important benefits. He laid aside, while it lasted, most of the unseemly and intemperate habits which he had contracted at College: but unfortunately his wife died of consumption in 1797, and he subsequently relapsed into his former course of life, and, as is too notorious, sacrificed friends, health and fortune, to his passion for drinking. After her death the kindness of his brother-in-law provided him with a home, gave him an opportunity of mixing in good society, and preserved him from many inconveniences, to which a man of Porson’s careless habits is always exposed.