“‘Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.’

“When I tried to talk they broke into my thought with stupid gibes and jokes.  Their highest idea of humour was an obscene story.  No, no, Tyrrell and Mahaffy represent to me whatever was good in Trinity.”

In 1874 Oscar Wilde won the gold medal for Greek.  The subject of the year was “The Fragments of the Greek Comic Poets, as edited by Meineke.”  In this year, too, he won a classical scholarship—­a demyship of the annual value of L95, which was tenable for five years, which enabled him to go to Oxford without throwing an undue strain on his father’s means.

He noticed with delight that his success was announced in the Oxford University Gazette of July 11th, 1874.  He entered Magdalen College, Oxford, on October 17th, a day after his twentieth birthday.

Just as he had been more successful at Trinity than at school, so he was destined to be far more successful and win a far greater reputation at Oxford than in Dublin.

He had the advantage of going to Oxford a little later than most men, at twenty instead of eighteen, and thus was enabled to win high honours with comparative ease, while leading a life of cultured enjoyment.

He was placed in the first class in “Moderations” in 1876 and had even then managed to make himself talked about in the life of the place.  The Trinity Don whom I have already quoted, after admitting that there was not a breath against his character either at school or Trinity, goes on to write that “at Trinity he did not strike us as a very exceptional person,” and yet there must have been some sharp eyes at Trinity, for our Don adds with surprising divination: 

“I fancy his rapid development took place after he went to Oxford, where he was able to specialize more; in fact where he could study what he most affected.  It is, I feel sure, from his Oxford life more than from his life in Ireland that one would be able to trace the good and bad features by which he afterwards attracted the attention of the world.”

In 1878 Oscar won a First Class in “Greats.”  In this same Trinity term, 1878, he further distinguished himself by gaining the Newdigate prize for English verse with his poem “Ravenna,” which he recited at the annual Commemoration in the Sheldonian Theatre on June 26th.  His reciting of the poem was the literary event of the year in Oxford.

There had been great curiosity about him; he was said to be the best talker of the day, and one of the ripest scholars.  There were those in the University who predicted an astonishing future for him, and indeed all possibilities seemed within his reach.  “His verses were listened to,” said The Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates’ Journal, “with rapt attention.”  It was just the sort of thing, half poetry, half rhythmic rhetoric, which was sure to reach the hearts and minds of youth.  His voice, too, was of beautiful tenor quality, and exquisitely used.  When he sat down people crowded to praise him and even men of great distinction in life flattered him with extravagant compliments.  Strange to say he used always to declare that his appearance about the same time as Prince Rupert, at a fancy dress ball, given by Mrs. George Morrell, at Headington Hill Hall, afforded him a far more gratifying proof of the exceptional position he had won.