etly enquired
into the facts; and finding that what he had before been inclined to
consider as undue severity in his own case, was positively an injustice
compared with that of another, appreciating thoroughly the character of
the party he had to deal with, and coupling the present with certain
previous minor snubbings from the same quarter, he from that moment
declared war.

Now, the Rev. Mr Hodgett, sedate and dignified as he was, had better
have danced a hornpipe in his thinnest silks amongst a bed of stinging
nettles, or have poked sticks into a wasp's nest, or amused himself with
any other innocent recreation, than have made an enemy of John Brown. It
was what he himself would have called a wrong move, and it played the
deuce with his game. John was the very man who could annoy him, and he
did. None of us knew he had so much ingenuity, or so much malice in his
composition, until he commenced his hostilities against the dean. The
fact was, he was more piqued, perhaps, than any other man in college
would have been by so small a matter. Too sensible to be really ashamed
of being the son of a man in trade, he was conscious, nevertheless, that
it was in some sort a disadvantage to him, and that, descended as he was
from an old and once knightly line, (his father had been an ill-used
younger son,) he did not quite occupy his proper position in the world.
His feeling of this made him sensitive to a fault; it led him rather to
shun than to seek the society of his contemporaries; and much as he was
esteemed by myself and others who knew him well, I will not say that he
was a universal favourite. Men did not understand him: at that time of
life (alas, why not always?) most of us are open and free-hearted; they
did not relish his shy and reserved manner, his unwillingness to take
the initiative in any social intercourse, his _exigeance_ to a certain
extent of those forms which the freedom of college friendship is apt to
neglect. "Why didn't you turn into my rooms the other night, when you
came in from Oriel?" said I to him early in our acquaintance. "Hobbs
says he told you I had some men to supper."--"You didn't ask me," was
the quiet reply.--"I couldn't see you, or else I should; but you might
have known I wanted you; don't serve me such a trick as that again, old
fellow." But it let me into a secret of his character, and ever after
that, I was as particular in my invitations as possible. Men thought him
proud, and cold, and