With his vigour and fervour, his depth of knowledge and breadth of humour, his close reasoning illustrated by an expansive imagination,—­set off, as these gifts were, by the advantage, at that period of life so irresistible, of some experience of the world at home and abroad,—­Austin was indeed a king among his fellows.

                         “Grave, sedate,
 And (if the looks may indicate the age,)
 Our senior some few years; no keener wit,
 No intellect more subtle, none more bold,
 Was found in all our host.”

So writes Moultrie, and the testimony of his verse is borne out by John Stuart Mill’s prose.  “The impression he gave was that of boundless strength, together with talents which, combined with such apparent force of will and character, seemed capable of dominating the world.”  He certainly was the only man who ever succeeded in dominating Macaulay.  Brimming over with ideas that were soon to be known by the name of Utilitarian, a panegyrist of American institutions, and an unsparing assailant of ecclesiastical endowments and hereditary privileges, he effectually cured the young undergraduate of his Tory opinions, which were never more than skin deep, and brought him nearer to Radicalism than he ever was before or since.  The report of this conversion, of which the most was made by ill-natured tale-bearers who met with more encouragement than they deserved, created some consternation in the family circle; while the reading set at Cambridge was duly scandalised at the influence which one, whose classical attainments were rather discursive than exact, had gained over a Craven scholar.  To this hour men may be found in remote parsonages who mildly resent the fascination which Austin of Jesus exercised over Macaulay of Trinity. [It was at this period of his career that Macaulay said to the late Mr. Hampden Gurney:  “Gurney, I have been a Tory, I am a Radical; but I never will be a Whig.”]

The day and the night together were too short for one who was entering on the journey of life amidst such a band of travellers.  So long as a door was open, or a light burning, in any of the courts, Macaulay was always in the mood for conversation and companionship.  Unfailing in his attendance at lecture and chapel, blameless with regard to college laws and college discipline, it was well for his virtue that no curfew was in force within the precincts of Trinity.  He never tired of recalling the days when he supped at midnight on milk-punch and roast turkey, drank tea in floods at an hour when older men are intent upon anything rather than on the means of keeping themselves awake, and made little of sitting over the fire till the bell rang for morning chapel in order to see a friend off by the early coach.  In the license of the summer vacation, after some prolonged and festive gathering, the whole party would pour out into the moonlight, and ramble for mile after mile through the country, till the noise of their