et,
Thiers, Bluntschli, Maine, Froude, Bagehot, Seeley, Maitland, Stubbs,
Gardiner, Acton, John Morley, Bryce, Dicey, Tout, Mahan, Holland Rose,
G. M. Trevelyan, Hilaire Belloc and H. W. C. Davis. Two recent books
that gave him special pleasure were Mr. G. P. Gooch's masterly
"History of Historians" and Mr. F. S. Marvin's entrancing little work
"The Living Past."

His hard reading was crowned in December, 1914, by a considerable
achievement, for he won the coveted Brakenbury Scholarship in History
and Modern Languages at Balliol College, Oxford. This scholarship,
worth L80 per annum, is tenable for four years; to it subsequently
Dulwich College added an exhibition of the annual value of L20. He was
the first Balliol scholar in history from Dulwich. Not at all
confident that he had won the Brakenbury, he went up to Oxford a
second time, while the result of the Balliol examination was still
unknown, to try for a less exacting scholarship. Happily there was no
necessity for him to undergo this second test, as he found on his
arrival at Oxford that his name had just been posted as a Brakenbury
scholar.

When he went up, in the last week in November, 1914, for examination
at Balliol College, it was his first visit to Oxford. Short as was
his stay within its precincts, it was long enough for the glamour and
beauty of the venerable university to steal into his soul; and the
spell of it remained with him as a permanent possession. In spite of
examination anxieties he had a pleasant time at Oxford, as the
following letter shows:

THE OLD PARSONAGE,
OXFORD,
_December 1st_, 1914.

Everything going as well as could be anticipated. But I don't
expect to win the Brakenbury, so there can't be much of a
disappointment. I have done one paper already, the
essay--subject, "A Nation's character as expressed in its Art and
Literature." I think I got on fairly well. The papers end by
Thursday afternoon. I was round with all the Dulwich fellows in
Wetenhall's rooms at Worcester College last night, and had a
great time. Cartwright came across, and a lot of other O.A.'s.
To-night I am dining with Gover, an old friend of mine, in hall
at Balliol, and going on to his rooms afterwards. I am booked for
brekker and dinner to-morrow. Dulwich is a magic n