of him and employed him in drawing diagrams for lectures. The Rev.
Walter Brown, his college tutor, afterwards Rector of Wendlebury, won
his good-will and remained his friend. His private tutor, the Rev.
Osborne Gordon, was always regarded with affectionate respect. But the
rest seem to have looked upon him as a somewhat desultory and erratic
young genius, who might or might not turn out well. For their immediate
purpose, the Schools, and Church or State preferment, he seemed hardly
the fittest man.

The gentlemen-commoners of Christ Church were a puzzle to Mrs. Ruskin;
noblemen of sporting tastes, who rode and betted and drank, and got
their impositions written "by men attached to the University for the
purpose, at 1s.6d. to 2s.6d., so you have only to reckon how much you
will give to avoid chapel." And yet they were very nice fellows. If they
began by riding on John's back round the quad, they did not give him the
cold shoulder--quite the reverse. He was asked everywhere to wine; he
beat them all at chess; and they invaded him at all hours. "It does
little good sporting _his_ oak," wrote his mother, describing how Lord
Desart and Grimston climbed in through his window while he was hard at
work. "They say midshipmen and Oxonians have more lives than a cat, and
they have need of them if they run such risks."

Once, but once only, he was guilty, as an innocent freshman, of a breach
of the laws of his order. He wrote too good an essay. He tells his
father:


"OXFORD, _February_, 1837.

"Yesterday (Saturday) forenoon the Sub-dean sent for me, took me up