th their
management, and sought still to be sole director. As the founder, his
will was to be absolute law; everybody must consult his wishes, and
bow to his decision; and although he had, with advancing years, become
less capable, and had always been wanting in the _sustaining_
power which successfully _carries on_ great work, he insisted upon
regulating every matter of detail and discipline connected with the
two institutions.

The result was inevitable. Difficulty after difficulty arose. A
painful disease at this time attacked him, making him more irritable
and exacting. Professors and other officers of the college retired one
after the other. Friends fell off. Subscriptions were dropped. Pupils
were withdrawn, and complete anarchy prevailed. At length Chancery
was appealed to, and Mr. Cox, having been defeated, retired, somewhat
sulkily and disdainfully, from the town--disappointed, dejected,
dispirited, and with a feeling which embittered the remaining years of
his life--a feeling that he had been very greatly misunderstood, and
most ungratefully treated.

Sands Cox, in private life, was gentleness and simplicity itself. At
a dinner party, while ladies were present, he was very quiet; but the
merry twinkle of his eye when the conversation became animated, showed
that he was keenly alive to all that was going on. After the ladies
had retired, he generally joined in the conversation, and had, almost
always, some quaintly curious story, which, told, as it always was, in
a shy way, as a schoolboy might tell it, was irresistibly droll.

He had few amusements. He was fond of a quiet rubber; kept a tame
monkey, whose grotesque antics were to him a perpetual source of
gratification; and he was very fond of fishing. With the fly rod he
was very skilful, and he would occasionally steal a few days' holiday
to indulge in trout or salmon fishing. He did not disdain, however,
the far humbler sport that lay within an easy reach of Birmingham, and
I occasionally went with him to a favourite spot for perch fishing. On
one occasion, by an accident, he lost his bagful of baits, and had to
use some of mine. Finding it inconvenient to come to me every time he
wanted to bait his hook afresh, he took half the worms from my bag,
which he crammed--all slimy and crawling as they were--into the pocket
of a nearly new satin waistcoat. At another time, just as he was about
to put on a fresh bait, his line became entangled in a bush, so as t