n himself. Besides, Vincent looked much
older than he really was; he was of a full habit, with a florid
complexion and large blue eyes, and showed a deal of linen at his bosom,
and full wristbands at his cuffs. Though a clever man, and a hard reader
and worker, and a capital tutor, he was a good feeder as well; he ate
and drank, he walked and rode, with as much heart as he lectured in
Aristotle, or crammed in Greek plays. What is stranger still, with all
this he was something of a valetudinarian. He had come off from school
on a foundation fellowship, and had the reputation both at school and
in the University of being a first-rate scholar. He was a strict
disciplinarian in his way, had the undergraduates under his thumb, and
having some _bonhomie_ in his composition, was regarded by them with
mingled feelings of fear and good will. They laughed at him, but
carefully obeyed him. Besides this he preached a good sermon, read
prayers with unction, and in his conversation sometimes had even a touch
of evangelical spirituality. The young men even declared they could tell
how much port he had taken in Common-room by the devoutness of his
responses in evening-chapel; and it was on record that once, during the
Confession, he had, in the heat of his contrition, shoved over the huge
velvet cushion in which his elbows were imbedded upon the heads of the
gentlemen commoners who sat under him.

He had just so much originality of mind as gave him an excuse for being
"his own party" in religion, or what he himself called being "no party
man;" and just so little that he was ever mistaking shams for truths,
and converting pompous nothings into oracles. He was oracular in his
manner, denounced parties and party-spirit, and thought to avoid the one
and the other by eschewing all persons, and holding all opinions. He had
a great idea of the _via media_ being the truth; and to obtain it,
thought it enough to flee from extremes, without having any very
definite mean to flee to. He had not clearness of intellect enough to
pursue a truth to its limits, nor boldness enough to hold it in its
simplicity; but he was always saying things and unsaying them, balancing
his thoughts in impossible attitudes, and guarding his words by
unintelligible limitations. As to the men and opinions of the day and
place, he would in the main have agreed with them, had he let himself
alone; but he was determined to have an intellect of his own, and this
put him to g