of Academe or amid those surnamed Peripatetics
and the Sect Epicurean. Yet nonsense notwithstanding, the Essay Club had
members who proved in time to have superior minds if ever men had, and
their disputations in one another's rooms helped to sharpen their mental
apparatus, to start trains of ideas however immature, and to shake the
cherished dogmatisms brought from beloved homes, even if dogmatism as
stringent took their place. This is how the world moves, and Oxford was
just beginning to rub its eyes, awaking to the speculations of a new
time.

When he looked back in after times, Mr. Gladstone traced one great
defect in the education of Oxford. 'Perhaps it was my own fault, but I
must admit that I did not learn when I was at Oxford that which I have
learned since--namely, to set a due value on the imperishable and
inestimable principle of British liberty. The temper which too much
prevailed in academical circles was that liberty was regarded with
jealousy and fear, something which could not wholly be dispensed with,
but which was to be continually watched for fear of excesses.'[46]

III

TRIES FOR THE IRELAND SCHOLARSHIP

In March 1830 Gladstone made the first of two attempts to win the
scholarship newly founded by Dean Ireland, and from the beginning one of
the most coveted of university prizes. In 1830 (March 16) he
wrote:--'There is it appears smaller chance than ever of its falling out
of the hands of the Shrewsbury people. There is a very formidable one
indeed, by name Scott, come up from Christ Church. If it is to go among
them I hope he may get it.' This was Robert Scott, afterwards master of
Balliol, and then dean of Rochester, and the coadjutor with Dean Liddell
in the famous Greek Lexicon brought out in 1843. A year later he tried
again, but little better success came either to himself or to Scott. He
tells his father the story (March 16th, 1831) and collegians who have
fought such battles may care to hear it:--

I must first tell you that I am _not_ the successful candidate, and
after this I shall have nothing to communicate but what will, I
think, give you pleasure. The scholarship has been won by (I
believe) a native of Liverpool.[47] His name is Brancker, and he is
now actually at Shrewsbury, but had matriculated here though he had
not come up to reside. This result has excited immense surprise.
For my own part,