" Another defect
was his not having a skilful and effective private tutor at a time when
he felt that he stood specially in need of one. "I could not form my
reading habits alone, and I had not sufficient help. I did enough,
however, to show I was not an ass. I got a scholarship. I was twice in
goodish places in the first class. I had a name for flute-playing;" and
then, ending this retrospect, which he wrote with some disgust, he tells
how he left Cambridge in his third year, going out B.A. with no contest
for honours. His college vacations were spent either in London with
college friends, or with a reading party under Wilkinson, the tutor, at
Redcar. In gathering up his recollections, he says he saw a good deal of
society: one summer was very musical; of another which he spent at home
he enumerates his occupations--"botany," "music," "Deeside." Through
all, his study was theology, but in "small doses" he says. His brother
Marmaduke joined him on the Christmas holiday of 1816, when they worked
together at the cryptogamics, and then went up to Cambridge
together--Edward to renew his theological studies with the help of the
formal lectures at the University. He spent the remainder of that season
at Bath with friends and relatives. He speaks of the Bath society, its
gaiety, theatricals, music--some rich clergymen giving good dinners, and
brother Marmaduke coming for his long vacation to a farm-house two miles
from Bath, "where we had some good botanical fun.
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