acaulay, and Carlyle, and Sir Walter Scott suffered editors gladly or
with indifference, and who are we that we should complain? This extreme
sensitiveness would always have stood in Murray's way.

Once more, Murray's interest in letters was much more energetic than his
zeal in the ordinary industry of a student. As a general rule, men of
original literary bent are not exemplary students at college. 'The
common curricoolum,' as the Scottish laird called academic studies
generally, rather repels them. Macaulay took no honours at Cambridge;
mathematics defied him. Scott was 'the Greek dunce,' at Edinburgh.
Thackeray, Shelley, Gibbon, did not cover themselves with college
laurels; they read what pleased them, they did not read 'for the
schools.' In short, this behaviour at college is the rule 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,
schola