Master, he is felt to be a characteristic and a
real personage, even by those little familiar with his work or writings.
He was, moreover, an ardent Pickwickian and thoroughly saturated with the
spirit of the immortal book, to appreciate which a first-rate memory,
which he possessed, is essential; for the details, allusions, names,
suggestions, are so immense that they require to be present together in
the mind, and jostle each other out of recollection. In the 'fifties,
there were at Cambridge a number of persons interested in the Book, who
were fond of quoting it and detecting oddities. It was in the year 1858
or 1859--for, curious to say, the year cannot be fixed--that Calverley
conceived the _bizarre_ idea of offering a premium for the best answers
to a series of searching examination questions, drawn from this classic.
It was held at his own rooms at 7 o'clock in the evening, as Sir Walter
Besant, one of the candidates, recalls it. There were about a dozen
entered, the most formidable of whom were Skeat, the present professor of
Anglo-Saxon, a well-known Chaucerian scholar, and Sir Walter Besant
aforesaid. The latter describes the scene in very dramatic fashion--the
Examiner, in his gown, cap, and hood, gravely walking up and down during
the two hours the examination lasted, going through the ceremonial with
all the regular solemnity of the Senate House. The candidates, we are
told, expected a sort of jocose business, and were little prepared for
the "stiffness" of the questions which were of the deep and searching
kind they were accustomed to in the case of a Greek Play or a Latin Epic.
Almost at once, three-fourths showed by their helpless bewilderment that
the thing was beyond them; and the struggle lay between the two
well-versed Pickwickians--Besant and Skeat. The latter was known to have
his "Pickwick" at his fingers' ends, and Besant confessed that he had but
small hopes of success. Both plodded steadily through the long list of
questions. It should be said that the competition was open only to
members of Christ Church College, which thus excluded the greatest
reputed Pickwickian of them all, John Lempriere Hammond--the name, by the
way, of the "creator" of Sam Weller on the stage. Besant went steadily
through his list of questions to the end, revised his answers, and got
his paper ready for delivery, but Skeat worked on to the very last
moment. An evening or two later, as they were going into Hall,