the Cambridge section of the Evangelical circle. But whatever had been
the inducement to make it, the choice proved singularly fortunate. The
tutor, it is true, was narrow in his views, and lacked the taste and
judgment to set those views before his pupils in an attractive form.
Theological topics dragged into the conversation at unexpected moments,
inquiries about their spiritual state, and long sermons which had to be
listened to under the dire obligation of reproducing them in an epitome,
fostered in the minds of some of the boys a reaction against the outward
manifestations of religion;--a reaction which had already begun under
the strict system pursued in their respective homes. But, on the other
hand, Mr. Preston knew both how to teach his scholars, and when to leave
them to teach themselves. The eminent judge, who divided grown men into
two sharply defined and most uncomplimentary categories, was accustomed
to say that private schools made poor creatures, and public schools sad
dogs; but Mr. Preston succeeded in giving a practical contradiction
to Sir William Maine's proposition. His pupils, who were limited to an
average of a dozen at a time, got far beyond their share of honours at
the university and of distinction in after life. George Stainforth,
a grandson of Sir Francis Baring, by his success at Cambridge was
the first to win the school an honourable name, which was more than
sustained by Henry Malden, now Greek Professor at University College,
London, and by Macaulay himself. Shelford was strongly under the
influence of the neighbouring university; an influence which Mr.
Preston, himself a fellow of Trinity, wisely encouraged. The boys were
penetrated with Cambridge ambitions and ways of thought; and frequent
visitors brought to the table, where master and pupils dined in common,
the freshest Cambridge gossip of the graver sort.

Little Macaulay received much kindness from Dean Milner, the President
of Queen's College, then at the very summit of a celebrity which is
already of the past. Those who care to search among the embers of that
once brilliant reputation can form a fair notion of what Samuel Johnson
would have been if he had lived a generation later, and had been
absolved from the necessity of earning his bread by the enjoyment of
ecclesiastical sinecures, and from any uneasiness as to his worldly
standing by the possession of academical dignities and functions. The
Dean who had boundless goodwill f