As I Shall Return To
This Later On, I Will Merely Mention Here The Names Of Such
Men As Thackeray, Tennyson, Frederick Locker, Stirling Of
Keir, Tom Taylor The Dramatist, Millais, Leighton, And Others
Of Lesser Note.
Cayley was a member of, and regular
attendant at, the Cosmopolitan Club; where he met Dickens,
Foster, Shirley Brooks, John Leech, Dicky Doyle, and the wits
of the day; many of whom occasionally formed part of our
charming coterie in the house I shared with his father.
Speaking of Tom Taylor reminds me of a good turn he once did
me in my college examination at Cambridge. Whewell was then
Master of Trinity. One of the subjects I had to take up was
either the 'Amicitia' or the 'Senectute' (I forget which).
Whewell, more formidable and alarming than ever, opened the
book at hazard, and set me on to construe. I broke down. He
turned over the page; again I stuck fast. The truth is, I
had hardly looked at my lesson, - trusting to my recollection
of parts of it to carry me through, if lucky, with the whole.
'What's your name, sir?' was the Master's gruff inquiry. He
did not catch it. But Tom Taylor - also an examiner -
sitting next to him, repeated my reply, with the addition,
'Just returned from China, where he served as a midshipman in
the late war.' He then took the book out of Whewell's hands,
and giving it to me closed, said good-naturedly: 'Let us
have another try, Mr. Coke.' The chance was not thrown away;
I turned to a part I knew, and rattled off as if my first
examiner had been to blame, not I.
CHAPTER X
BEFORE dropping the curtain on my college days I must relate
a little adventure which is amusing as an illustration of my
reverend friend Napier's enthusiastic spontaneity. My own
share in the farce is a subordinate matter.
During the Christmas party at Holkham I had 'fallen in love,'
as the phrase goes, with a young lady whose uncle (she had
neither father nor mother) had rented a place in the
neighbourhood. At the end of his visit he invited me to
shoot there the following week. For what else had I paid him
assiduous attention, and listened like an angel to the
interminable history of his gout? I went; and before I left,
proposed to, and was accepted by, the young lady. I was
still at Cambridge, not of age, and had but moderate means.
As for the maiden, 'my face is my fortune' she might have
said. The aunt, therefore, very properly pooh-poohed the
whole affair, and declined to entertain the possibility of an
engagement; the elderly gentleman got a bad attack of gout;
and every wire of communication being cut, not an obstacle
was wanting to render persistence the sweetest of miseries.
Napier was my confessor, and became as keen to circumvent the
'old she-dragon,' so he called her, as I was.
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