ed upon him being that he should every evening
attend family prayers at his uncle's house. The two years he spent at
King's College were, he says, 'most happy.' He felt himself changed from
a boy to a man. The King's College lads, who, indeed called themselves
'men,' were of a lower social rank than the Etonians, and, as Fitzjames
adds, unmistakably inferior in physique. Boys who had the Strand as the
only substitute for the playing-fields were hardly likely to show much
physical prowess. But they had qualities more important to him. They
were industrious, as became the sons of professional and business men.
Their moral tone was remarkably good; he never knew, he says, a more
thoroughly well-behaved set of lads, although he is careful to add that
he does not think that in this respect Eton was bad. His whole education
had been among youths 'singularly little disposed to vice or a riot in
any form.' But the great change for him was that he could now find
intellectual comradeship. There was a debating society, in which he
first learnt to hear his own voice, and indeed became a prominent
orator. He is reported to have won the surname 'Giant Grim.' His most
intimate friend was the present Dr. Kitchin, Dean of Durham. The lads
discussed politics and theology and literature, instead of putting down
to affectation any interest outside of the river and the playing-fields.
Fitzjames not only found himself in a more congenial atmosphere, but
could hold his own better among youths whose standard of scholarship was
less exalted than that of the crack Latin versemakers at Eton, although
the average level was perhaps higher. In 1846 he won a scholarship, and
at the summer examination was second in classics. In 1847 he was only
just defeated for a scholarship by an elder boy, and was first, both in
classics and English literature, in the examinations, besides winning a
prize essay.

Here, as elsewhere, he was much interested by the theological tone of
his little circle, which was oddly heterogeneous. There was, in the
first place, his uncle, Henry Venn, to whom he naturally looked up as
the exponent of the family orthodoxy. Long afterwards, upon Venn's
death, he wrote, 'Henry Venn was the most triumphant man I ever knew.'
'I never,' he adds, 'knew a sturdier man.' Such qualities naturally
commanded his respect, though he probably was not an unhesitating
disciple. At King's College, meanwhile, which prided itself upon its
Anglicanism,