in water-colour, and was accounted, by those who had had the privilege
of hearing him, the best amateur pianist on this side of the Tweed.
Little wonder, then, that he was idolised by the undergraduates of his
day. He did not, however, honour many of them with his friendship. He
had a theoretic liking for them as a class, as the "young barbarians
all at play" in that little antique city; but individually they jarred
on him, and he saw little of them. Yet he sympathised with them
always, and, on occasion, would actively take their part against the
dons. In the middle of his second year, he had gone so far that a
College Meeting had to be held, and he was sent down for the rest of
term. The Warden placed his own landau at the disposal of the
illustrious young exile, who therein was driven to the station,
followed by a long, vociferous procession of undergraduates in cabs.
Now, it happened that this was a time of political excitement in
London. The Liberals, who were in power, had passed through the House
of Commons a measure more than usually socialistic; and this measure
was down for its second reading in the Lords on the very day that the
Duke left Oxford, an exile. It was but a few weeks since he had taken
his seat in the Lords; and this afternoon, for the want of anything
better to do, he strayed in. The Leader of the House was already
droning his speech for the bill, and the Duke found himself on one of
the opposite benches. There sat his compeers, sullenly waiting to vote
for a bill which every one of them detested. As the speaker subsided,
the Duke, for the fun of the thing, rose. He made a long speech
against the bill. His gibes at the Government were so scathing, so
utterly destructive his criticism of the bill itself, so lofty and so
irresistible the flights of his eloquence, that, when he resumed his
seat, there was only one course left to the Leader of the House. He
rose and, in a few husky phrases, moved that the bill "be read this
day six months." All England rang with the name of the young Duke. He