ount of Greek which he _professed_ at the
Blackstone examination. It was thought a _profession_ of reasonable
amount "when a student intimated his willingness to translate and be
examined critically on Anacreon, two or three of Lucian's dialogues,
extracts from Epictetus, Bion, and Moschus, and perhaps a book or two
of Homer." "But," declares one of his former fellow-students,
"Lockhart professed the whole Iliad and Odyssey and I know not how
much besides." His brilliant success on this occasion led to his being
offered one of the Snell Exhibitions to Oxford,--an offer which was
accepted after some hesitation on account of his youth. He was not yet
fifteen, and still wore the round jacket of a schoolboy when he was
entered at Balliol College.

One of Lockhart's closest friends at Oxford and ever after, Mr. J. H.
Christie, describes the young student at this time: "Lockhart
immediately made his general talents felt by his tutor and his
companions. His most remarkable characteristic, however, was the
exuberant spirits {p.xvi} which found vent in constant flashes of
merriment brightened and pointed with wit and satire at once droll and
tormenting. Even a lecture-room was not exempt from these
irrepressible sallies; and our tutor, who was formal and wished to be
grave, but had not the gift of gravity, never felt safe in the
presence of his mercurial pupil. Lockhart with great readiness
comprehended the habits and tone of the new society in which he was
placed, and was not for a moment wanting in any of its requirements;
but this adaptive power never interfered with the marked individuality
of his own character and bearing. He was at once a favorite and
formidable. In those days he was an incessant caricaturist; his
papers, his books, and the walls of his rooms were crowded with
portraitures of his friends and himself--so like as to be
unmistakable, with an exaggeration of any peculiarity so droll and so
provoking as to make the picture anything but flattering to the
self-love of its subject. This propensity was so strong in him that I
was surprised when in after-life he repressed it at once and forever.
In the last thirty years of his life I do not think he ever drew a
caricature."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Quarterly Review_, vol. cxvi. p. 447.]

In these days Lockhart read not only Greek and Latin, but French,
Italian, and Spanish. German interested him later. At Balliol he
formed some friendships which ended only wit