-name
had followed him up to Oxford. It was not wholly apposite, however. For,
whereas the peacock is a fool even among birds, the Duke had already
taken (besides a particularly brilliant First in Mods) the Stanhope,
the Newdigate, the Lothian, and the Gaisford Prize for Greek Verse. And
these things he had achieved currente calamo, "wielding his pen," as
Scott said of Byron, "with the easy negligence of a nobleman." He was
now in his third year of residence, and was reading, a little, for
Literae Humaniores. There is no doubt that but for his untimely death he
would have taken a particularly brilliant First in that school also.

For the rest, he had many accomplishments. He was adroit in the killing
of all birds and fishes, stags and foxes. He played polo, cricket,
racquets, chess, and billiards as well as such things can be played.
He was fluent in all modern languages, had a very real talent 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
sp