“Well—in I went yesterday, and was examined. It was such a queer concern. One of the junior Tutors had me up, and he must be a new hand, he was so uneasy. He gave me the slowest examination! I don’t know to this minute what he was at. He first said a word or two, and then was silent. He then asked me why we came up to Dublin, and did not go down; and put some absurd little questions about βαίνω. I was tolerably satisfied with myself, but he gave me no opportunity to show off. He asked me literally nothing; he did not even give me a passage to construe for a long time, and then gave me nothing more than two or three easy sentences. And he kept playing with his paper knife, and saying: ‘How are you now, Mr. Brown? don’t be alarmed, Mr. Brown; take your time, Mr. Brown; you know very well, Mr. Brown;’ so that I could hardly help laughing. I never was less afraid in my life. It would be wonderful if such an examination _could_ put me out of countenance. “There’s a lot of things which I know very well, which the Examiner said not a word about. Indeed, I think I have been getting up a great many things for nothing;—provoking enough. I had read a good deal of Grote; but though I told him so, he did not ask me one question in it; and there’s Whewell, Macaulay, and Schlegel, all thrown away. “He has not said a word yet where I am to be lodged. He looked quite confused when I asked him. He is, I suspect, a _character_. “Your dutiful son, etc., “ROBERT.” _Mr. White to Mr. Brown, sen._ “MY DEAR SIR, “I have to acknowledge the kind letter you sent me by your son, and I am much pleased to find the confidence you express in us. Your son seems an amiable young man, of studious habits, and there is every hope, when he joins us, of his passing his academical career with respectability, and his examination with credit. This is what I should have expected from his telling me that he had been educated at home under your own paternal eye; indeed, if I do not mistake, you have undertaken the interesting office of instructor yourself. “I hardly know what best to recommend to him at the moment: his reading has been _desultory_; he knows _something_ about a great many things, of which youths of his age commonly know nothing. Of course we _could_ take him into residence now, if you urge it; but my advice is that he should first direct his efforts to distinct preparation for our examination, and to study its particular character. Our rule is to recommend youths to do a _little well_, instead of throwing themselves upon a large field of study. I conceive it to be your son’s fault of mind not to see exactly the _point_ of things, nor to be so well _grounded_ as he might be. Young men are indeed always wanting in _accuracy_; this kind of deficiency is not peculiar to him, and he will doubtless soon overcome it when he sets about it.