From Brighton, Frederick Leveson was promoted in due course to Eton, where he played no games and made no friends, had poor health, and was generally unhappy.  One trait of Eton life, and only one, he was accustomed in old age to recall with approbation, and that was the complete indifference to social distinctions.

“There is,” he wrote, “a well-known story about my friend, the late Lord Bath, who, on his first arrival at Eton was asked his name, and answered, ’I am Viscount Weymouth, and I shall be Marquis of Bath.’  Upon which he-received two kicks, one for the Viscount and the other for the Marquis.  This story may not be true, but at any rate it illustrates the fact that if at Eton a boy boasted of his social advantages, he would have cause to repent it!”

Leaving Eton at sixteen, Frederick Leveson went to a private tutor in Nottinghamshire, and there he first developed his interest in politics.  “Reform,” he wrote, “is my principal aim.”  Albany Fonblanque, whose vivacious articles, reprinted from the Examiner, may still be read in England under Seven Administrations, was his political instructor, and indoctrinated him with certain views, especially in the domain of Political Economy, which would have been deemed heretical in the Whiggish atmosphere of Trentham or Chatsworth.  In 1832 he made his appearance in society at Paris, and his mother wrote:  “As to Freddy, he turns all heads, and his own would be if it was to last more than a week longer.  His dancing fait fureur.”

In October, 1837, he went up to Christ Church, then rather languishing under Dean Gaisford’s mismanagement.  Here for three years he enjoyed himself thoroughly.  He rode with the drag, was President of the Archery Club, played whist, gave and received a great deal of hospitality, and made some lifelong friendships.  Among his contemporaries was Ruskin, of whom his recollection was certainly depressing.  “He seemed to keep himself aloof from everybody, to seek no friends, and to have none.  I never met him in anyone else’s rooms, or at any social gathering.  I see him now, looking rather crazy, taking his solitary walks.”

That Freddy Leveson was “thoroughly idle” was his own confession; and perhaps, when we consider all the circumstances, it is not surprising.  What is surprising, and what he himself recorded with surprise, is that neither he nor his contemporaries paid the least attention to the Oxford Movement, then just at its height, although—­and this makes it stranger still—­they used to attend Newman’s Sermons at St. Mary’s.  They duly admired his unequalled style, but the substance of his teaching seems to have passed by them like the idle wind.