had a strong liking for drawing, and,
during the winter of 1853-4, his family again took him to Italy, where,
being now eighteen, he looked on the works of the old masters with
intelligence.

In October, 1854, he went into residence at St. John's College,
Cambridge. He showed no aptitude for any particular branch of academic
study, nevertheless he impressed his friends as being likely to make his
mark. Just as he used reminiscences of his own schooldays at Shrewsbury
for Ernest's life at Roughborough, so he used reminiscences of his own
Cambridge days for those of Ernest. When the Simeonites, in _The Way of
All Flesh_, "distributed tracts, dropping them at night in good men's
letter boxes while they slept, their tracts got burnt or met with even
worse contumely." Ernest Pontifex went so far as to parody one of these
tracts and to get a copy of the parody "dropped into each of the
Simeonites' boxes." Ernest did this in the novel because Butler had done
it in real life. Mr. A. T. Bartholomew, of the University Library, has
found, among the Cambridge papers of the late J. Willis Clark's
collection, three printed pieces belonging to the year 1855 bearing on
the subject. He speaks of them in an article headed "Samuel Butler and
the Simeonites," and signed A. T. B. in the _Cambridge Magazine_, 1st
March, 1913; the first is "a genuine Simeonite tract; the other two are
parodies. All three are anonymous. At the top of the second parody is
written 'By S. Butler, March 31.'" The article gives extracts from the
genuine tract and the whole of Butler's parody.

Besides parodying Simeonite tracts, Butler wrote various other papers
during his undergraduate days, some of which, preserved by one of his
contemporaries, who remained a lifelong friend, the Rev. Canon Joseph
M'Cormick, now Rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, are reproduced in _The
Note-Books of Samuel Butler_ (1912).

He also steered the Lady Margaret first boat, and Canon M'Cormick told me
of a mishap that occurred on the last night of the races in 1857. Lady
Margaret had been head of the river since 1854, Canon M'Cormick was
rowing 5, Philip Pennant Pearson (afterwards P. Pennant) was 7, Canon
Kynaston, of Durham (whose name formerly was Snow), was stroke, and
Butler was cox. When the cox let go of the bung at starting, the rope
caught in his rudder lines, and Lady Margaret was nearly bumped by Second
Trinity. They escaped, however, and their pursuers were s