It was a definitely ecclesiastical foundation, and preserved a larger number of quaint names and symbolical customs than are preserved at other colleges; such as announcing dinner by the sound of the trumpet, and the retention of the name Taberdar for scholars. Pater lived a very secluded and unobtrusive life in the back quadrangle, associating with a few friends; he worked at classics with moderate diligence, amusing himself with metaphysics, which even in his school-days had begun to exercise an attraction over him. There is nothing which would lead one to suppose that his thoughts turned in the direction of either art or literature. It has been stated in some notices of his life that Jowett discovered Pater’s abilities, and gave him gratuitous teaching. From this it would seem to be inferred that Pater found a pecuniary difficulty in providing himself with adequate instruction, which was not the case. The explanation is simply that Jowett, as Professor of Greek, offered to look over the Greek compositions and essays of any members of his class who cared to submit them to him, and Pater took advantage, like many other men, of the offer. Jowett indeed divined a peculiar quality in Pater’s mind, saying to him one day, in one of those lean simple phrases that seem to have exercised so remarkably stimulating a power over his pupils’ minds, “I think you have a mind that will come to great eminence.” But Pater failed to do himself justice in his examinations, taking only a second-class in the Final Classical Schools in 1862. For a couple of years he lived in lodgings in High Street, and took pupils. In 1864 he was elected to a Fellowship at Brasenose, where he immediately went into residence. Pater’s mother had died while he was at school at Canterbury. His aunt, an unmarried sister of his father, came to take charge of the family in her place. When Pater went up to Oxford, his aunt took his sisters to Heidelberg and Dresden, to complete their education, and it was there that Pater spent his long vacations. But he made no German acquaintances, and lived a life of quiet work and interior speculation; he did not even acquire a conversational knowledge of German. In 1869 he took a tour in Italy with Mr. Charles Lancelot Shadwell, his closest and most intimate friend. They visited Ravenna, Pisa, and Florence, and it was then that art became for him the chief preoccupation of his inner life.