of Milton Lockhart), says that, on arriving at College after the vacation, he heard how a senior student, a third year's man in Greek, proposed making "a stunning profession." Lockhart, therefore, mastered the same books, and was successful. He afterwards looked on this as "a shabby trick," for his opponent, had he known what Lockhart was about, might have made a larger "profession." But a brother of the vanquished said, "It was quite fair, we never blamed him for it." "John, on my telling him this, was much delighted," says Mr. Lawrence Lockhart. Probably the examining professor was guided rather by the quality of the work done, than by the quantity of the work "taken up."

"1

Lockhart's success in the Blackstone settled his

career. He was offered, "quite unexpectedly," one of the Snell Exhibitions, founded long before by John Snell, Esq., for Glasgow students going to Balliol. In the author's time, and now, the Snell Exhibitions are the rewards of an examination in written work, like scholarships at Oxford. The income used to be about 105 per annum, a great assistance to the purse of a Scottish parent, and doubtless was more, when only one exhibition was given, not two, as in later times. The exhibition has been held by many distinguished men, as Sir William

1 It is not in the author's recollection that the winners in his own day (Thomas Shute Robertson, Esq., and Henry Craik, Esq., C.B., both later of Balliol,) made a single slip in their Blackstones.

Hamilton, Adam Smith, and Professor Sellar. It does not carry the privilege or burden of a scholar's or open exhibitioner's gown. Lockhart's parents hesitated to accept the prize on account of his youth, (he was not yet fifteen!). However they decided to accept, and, like Mr. Jowett, the future Master, Lockhart went up in a round schoolboy's jacket. He came to a Balliol then small, almost obscure, by no means noted for excellence in the schools, but retaining its old buildings, its chapel with the beautiful glass and Jacobean panelling, and fortunate in reckoning among its tutors, Mr. Jenkyns, "the Old Master," who really made the Balliol of to-day. We know not where Lockhart's rooms were, but Southey's, he says, were in Rat's Castle, a dilapidated old pile in the inner quadrangle.

Such are the brief records of Lockhart's childhood and boyish days. We see him with a character already formed, shy, affectionate, stoical as a Red Indian, proud, quick, industrious when he chooses to work, humorous, melancholy, mischievous, a lover of poetry, an admirer of that great man with whom his fortunes were to be linked, and whose life he was to chronicle.

CHAPTER II

OXFORD, 1808-1813

The journey to Oxford described in "Reginald Dalton."--Prince Charles at Derby.-Companions on the way.-Letter to Dr. Lockhart.—Mr. Jenkyns.--The Oxford of 1809.—Lockhart's College friends.-Sir William Hamilton.-Constancy of Lockhart's friendships.-Mr. Jonathan Christie.-His description of Lockhart as an undergraduate.-Letters to Mrs. Lockhart.-Balliol sermons.-No Fellowships for Scots.-Hamilton's kindness. -A wine party.-St. Andrew's Day.-The Prince's memory.— Lockhart "crossed."-His wish to join the Spaniards against Napoleon. His linguistic studies.-Letters to Mr. Christie.Hamilton's studies in magic.—Lockhart in The Schools.-Dinners at Godstowe." No Scotch Need Apply."-Gets a First-Class.— Leaves Oxford.-His acquirements.

IT was to an Oxford and a Balliol very unlike those of our time that Lockhart took his way, and by a very different and more expensive mode of travelling. In "Reginald Dalton" he describes the drive from Carlisle to Oxford, in "one of the largest and heaviest, but also one of the gayest and gaudiest, of all possible stage-coaches. It bore the then allpredominant name of the hero of Trafalgar, and blazing daubs of Neptunes, Bellonas, and Britannias illuminated every panel that could be spared from a flourishing catalogue of inns and proprietors."

A "beer-faced conductor" patronised the ale

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BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE

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offered, in a foaming can, by the rural waiting wench, wherever the "Admiral Nelson" stopped. A senior man, going up to Christ Church, would take the reins, and perhaps cause one of these collisions in which, at least, "you know where you are,' while, in a railway accident, "where are you?" "There is always some one either to laugh with or at . . . . and you have excellent meals three times a day, and snowy sheets every night. We never hear the horn blowing without envying those that are setting out,-above all, those that, like our friend Reginald, are starting for the first time."

So we may imagine Lockhart starting, "eagerhearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's" manse. He was obviously impressed most of all by "the richest, and perhaps grandest too, of all earthly prospects, a mighty English plain," when, following the route of Prince Charles, "he saw it in all its perfection from the hill of Haynam, that spot where Charles Edward, according to local tradition, stood below a sycamore, and gazing with a feeling of admiration which even rising despair could not check, uttered the pathetic exclamation, 'Alas! this is England!'"

It was not the Prince who despaired, nor the men who sharpened their claymores at Derby, and who would have followed him to death or victory, had their chiefs not flinched. So Lockhart may have mused on the scene of lost opportunity. However,

he probably forgot that sad memory, in the bustle of the road, "the charming airy country towns, "the filthy large towns with manufactories and steam engines," "the stately little cities, with the stately little parsons walking about them, two or three abreast, in well-polished shoes, and blameless silk aprons, some of them; and grand old churches, and spacious well-built closes, and trim gardens; and literary spinsters," such as Miss Anna Seward, in Lichfield. Like his hero, Reginald, Lockhart visited the house where Samuel Johnson's father sold books, "and walked half a mile further, on purpose to see the willow which surly Sam himself planted in Tetsy's daughter's garden." He met the "men" going up, talking of "Classes, the Newdigate, Coplestone's pamphlets, and the B.N.C. Eight-oar," for already that distinguished College was famed on the river.

In the "Admiral Nelson " fared "the young tutors, in tight stocking pantaloons and gaiters, endeavouring to show how completely they can be easy, wellbred, well-informed men of the world," or unbending to sing the All Souls' ditty of "the Swapping, Swapping Mallard." Before reaching Oxford, Lockhart may have heard, as his hero does, about his own college tutors, especially the recluse with whom, a solitary pupil, Sir William Hamilton read for a short time, "the most learned man in all our college, but he lives retired."

To the picture of a first journey to Oxford, as