distinguished himself as a writer on political and historical
topics.

Nor was it any better in Latin. We were reading, during
that term the ``De Senectute'' of Cicero,--a beautiful
book; but to our tutor it was neither more nor less than
a series of pegs on which to hang Zumpt's rules for the
subjunctive mood. The translation was hurried through,
as of little account. Then came questions regarding the
subjunctives;--questions to which very few members of
the class gave any real attention. The best Latin scholar
in the class, G. W. S----, since so distinguished as the
London correspondent of the ``New York Tribune,'' and,
at present, as the New York correspondent of the London
``Times,'' having one day announced to some of us,--with
a very round expletive,--that he would answer no more
such foolish questions, the tutor soon discovered his
recalcitrancy, and thenceforward plied him with such
questions and nothing else. S---- always answered that he
was not prepared on them; with the result that at the
Junior Exhibition he received no place on the programme.

In the junior year matters improved somewhat; but,
though the professors were most of them really distinguished
men, and one at least, James Hadley, a scholar
who, at Berlin or Leipsic, would have drawn throngs of
students from all Christendom, they were fettered by a
system which made everything of gerund-grinding and
nothing of literature.