thic details--and one
is not surprised to find him soon concerned with the Oxford Society for
Promoting the Study of Gothic Architecture. "They were all reverends,"
says a letter of the time, "and wanted somebody to rouse them."

Science, too, progressed this year. We read of geological excursions to
Shotover with Lord Carew and Lord Kildare--one carrying the hammer and
another the umbrella--and actual discoveries of saurian remains; and
many a merry meeting at Dr. Buckland's, in which, at intervals of
scientific talk, John romped with the youngsters of the family. After a
while the Dean took the opportunity of a walk through Oxford to the
Clarendon to warn him not to spend too much time on science. It did not
pay in the Schools nor in the Church, and he had too many irons in the
fire.

Drawing, and science, and the prose essays mentioned in the last
chapter, and poetry, all these were his by-play. Of the poetry, the
Newdigate was but a little part. In "Friendship's Offering" this autumn
he published "Remembrance," one of many poems to Adele, "Christ Church,"
and the "Scythian Grave." In this last he gave free rein to the morbid
imaginations to which his unhappy _affaire de coeur_ and the mental
excitement of the period predisposed him. Harrison, his literary
Mentor, approved these poems, and inserted them in "Friendship's
Offering," along with love-songs and other exercises in verse. One had a
great success and was freely copied--the sincerest flattery--and the
preface to the annual for 1840 publicly thanked the "gifted writer" for
his "valuable aid."

At the beginning of 1839 he went into new rooms vacated by Mr. Meux, and
set to work finally on "Salsette and Elephanta." He ransacked all
sources of information, coached himself in Eastern scenery and
mythology, threw in the Aristotelian ingredients of terror and pity, and
wound up with an appeal to the orthodoxy of the examiners, of whom Keble
was the chief, by prophesying the prompt extermination of Brahminism
under the teaching of the missionaries.

This third try won the prize. Keble sent for him, to make the usual
emendations before the great work could be given to the world with the
seal of Oxford upon it. John Ruskin seems to have been somewhat
refractory under Keble's hands, though he would let his fellow-students,
or his father, or Harrison, work their will on his MSS. or proofs; being
always easier to lead than to drive. Somehow he came to terms with the