' The argument
being, that this is a capital world, for beggars, because he, being a
beggar, has managed to get on horseback.
Hugby owes his eminence to patient merit and agreeable perseverance. He
is a meek, mild, inoffensive creature, with just enough of scholarship
to fit him to hold a lecture, or set an examination paper. He rose by
kindness to the aristocracy. It was wonderful to see the way in which
that poor creature grovelled before a nobleman or a lord's nephew, or
even some noisy and disreputable commoner, the friend of a lord. He used
to give the young noblemen the most painful and elaborate breakfasts,
and adopt a jaunty genteel air, and talk with them (although he was
decidedly serious) about the opera, or the last run with the hounds. It
was good to watch him in the midst of a circle of young tufts, with
his mean, smiling, eager, uneasy familiarity. He used to write home
confidential letters to their parents, and made it his duty to call upon
them when in town, to condole or rejoice with them when a death, birth,
or marriage took place in their family; and to feast them whenever they
came to the University. I recollect a letter lying on a desk in his
lecture-room for a whole term, beginning, 'My Lord Duke.' It was to show
us that he corresponded with such dignities.
When the late lamented Lord Glenlivat, who broke his neck at a
hurdle-race, at the premature age of twenty-four, was at the University,
the amiable young fellow, passing to his rooms in the early morning,
and seeing Hugby's boots at his door, on the same staircase, playfully
wadded the insides of the boots with cobbler's wax, which caused
excruciating pains to the Rev.
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