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INTRODUCTION. |
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Westmoreland was not far distant; and the boy, after a short course of study in the Bishop Auckland grammar-school, was removed to the house of a clergyman at Kirkby Stephen, in the Lake District. His childhood had been an incessant struggle for life; and the out-of-door existence which he led in that invigorating air greatly strengthened him. He delighted in wandering solitary among the Westmoreland mountains, rebuilding in fancy the ruined halls, castles, and moated houses that then abounded there, and repeopling the forests with knights and deer and orders passed away.
At the age of eleven he was transferred to Shrewsbury school, and then was sent to Harrow, where he was under the instruction of Dr. Longley, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. Here he gave much time to English literature. The ordinary recreations of an English school-boy had little attraction for him, but he was a good swimmer and rider.
He matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1832. He failed to secure a scholarship; but his examination was satisfactory enough to bring him the offer of rooms, and he "went into residence" in the Lent term of 1833.
He was prepossessing in appearance, graceful, and talented, and, as an old lady said when he was a boy, and was trying to plead off from some escapade, "had sic a pratty tongue." But his freedom of |
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