among men who are to be distinguished in literature, not the
exception. The honours attained at Oxford by Mr. Swinburne, whose
Greek verses are no less poetical than his English poetry, were
inconspicuous. At St. Andrews, Murray read only `for human
pleasure,' like Scott, Thackeray, Shelley, and the rest, at
Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge. In this matter, I think, he made
an error, and one which affected his whole career. He was not a man
of private fortune, like some of those whom we have mentioned. He
had not a business ready for him to step into. He had to force his
own way in life, had to make himself `self-supporting.' This was
all the more essential to a man of his honourable independence of
character, a man who not only would not ask a favour, but who
actually shrunk back from such chances as were offered to him, if
these chances seemed to be connected with the least discernible
shadow of an obligation. At St. Andrews, had he chosen to work hard
in certain branches of study, he might probably have gained an
exhibition, gone to Oxford or elsewhere, and, by winning a
fellowship, secured the leisure which was necessary for the
development of his powers. I confess to believing in strenuous work
at the classics, as offering, apart from all material reward, the
best and most solid basis, especially where there is no exuberant
original genius, for the career of a man of letters. The mental
discipline is invaluable, the training in accuracy is invaluable,
and invaluable is the life led in the society of the greatest minds,
the noblest poets, the most faultless artists of the world. To
descend to ordinary truths, scholarship is, at lowest, an honourable
gagne-pain. But Murray, like the majority of students endowed with
literary originality, did not share these rather old-fashioned
ideas. The clever Scottish student is apt to work only too hard,
and, perhaps, is frequently in danger of exhausting his powers