rd Eldon
went to Eton with me, and when Charles Wood left, in July, 1858,
he wanted to give him a book; but knowing nothing of the custom
of parents providing books, he went out and bought a half-crown
copy of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and sent it to C. Wood's room.
Two shillings and sixpence was a good deal to a Lower Boy at the end
of the half; and it was, I should think, an almost unique testimony
from a small boy to one at the top of the house."

In October, 1858, Charles Wood went up to Christ Church. There
many of his earlier friendships were renewed and some fresh ones
added: Mr. Henry Chaplin coming up from Harrow; Mr. H. L. Thompson,
afterwards Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford, from Westminster;
and Mr. Henry Villiers, afterwards Vicar of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge,
from a private tutor's. Charles Wood took his full share in the
social life of the place, belonging both to "Loder's" and to
"Bullingdon"--institutions of high repute in the Oxford world;
and being then, as now, an admirable horseman, he found his chief
joy in hunting. In his vacations he visited France and Italy, and
made some tours nearer home with undergraduate friends. In 1861
he took his degree, and subsequently travelled Eastward as far as
Suez, and spent a winter in Rome. In 1862 he was appointed Groom of
the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, and in this capacity attended
his royal master's wedding at St. George's, Windsor, on the 10th
of March, 1863, and spent two summers with him at Abergeldie. At
the same time he became Private Secretary to his mother's cousin,
Sir George Grey, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and
retained that post until the fall of Lord Russell's Administration
in 1866.

"There was," writes Lord Halifax, "a question of my standing for
some Yorkshire constituency; but with my convictions it was not
easy to come out on the Liberal side, and the project dropped.
I never can remember the time when I did not feel the greatest
devotion to King Charles I. and Archbishop Laud. I can recall now
the services for the Restoration at Eton, when everyone used to
wear an oak-leaf in his button-hole, and throw it down on the floor
as the clock struck twelve."

This may be a suitable moment for a word about Lord Halifax's
"convictions" in the sphere of religion. His parents were, like
all the Whigs, sound and sturdy Protestants. They used to take
their children to Church at Whitehall Chapel, probably the least
ec