"In rowing and law it had fallen off, but good-fellowship still differentiates the College, and prevents it from surrendering to the prevailing tendency to make the colleges in our grand old University pale copies of French _lycées_--all cut on one pattern and administered by schoolmasters, who will rule over dunces of universal acquirements examined to the point of death." The other question on which he failed to secure support was his attack on the Royal Academy: 'What I really wanted was that the Academy should be reminded that they obtained their present magnificent site upon conditions which have not been observed, and that they ought at least to give a free day a week at their exhibition, and give up a portion of their privileges against outsiders.' But the attack, as he admits, was not pressed with spirit for he had only the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and the _Examiner_ with him in the Press. In the House Lord Elcho [Footnote: Better known as Lord Wemyss, long the venerable father of Parliament.] and Mr. George Bentinck 'alone understood the question,' and the latter was too intimate with all the Academy leaders to afford a hope that he would do otherwise than take their side. So, feeling his isolation in the matter, Dilke limited himself to moving for some papers, which were given. By the summer of 1876 Sir Charles was well again: 'I began this year to stay a great deal at Lady Waldegrave's, both at Dudbrook in Essex and at Strawberry Hill; and ultimately I had a room at Strawberry Hill, to which I went backwards and forwards as I chose. The house was extremely pleasant, and so was Fortescue, and he passionately adored his wife, and was afterwards completely broken down and almost killed by her death. Fortescue was my friend; but she was an excellent hostess, and the house was perfectly pleasant, and that in a degree in which no other house of our time has been. The other house which was always named as "the rival establishment," Holland House, I also knew. Some of the same people went there-- Abraham Hayward, commonly called the "Viper," and Charles Villiers, for example. Lady Waldegrave always made everybody feel at home, which Lady Holland did not always do. Those of whom I saw the most this year, in addition to the Strawberry Hill people (who were Harcourt, James, Ayrton, Villiers, Hayward, Dr. Smith the editor of the _Quarterly,_ Henry Reeve the editor of the _Edinburgh,_ the Comte de Paris, and the Due d'Aumale), were Lord Houghton and Mrs. Duncan Stewart. Lord Houghton never met me without referring to a review of his collected works, which appeared in the _Athenaeum_ in the spring, and which had cut the old man to the heart' (because it rated his poetry on a level with that of Eliza Cook).