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104 lower division in 1796, and in 1799 in the upper division. The head-master was George Heath but the reins of command were held by him very loosely and the numbers in the school declined from 489 to 357. Still many distinguished names can be found in the lists and among them figure a future prime minister and a future archbishop of Canterbury. The beaux and wits of after years were in great force at Eton at this period. Brummell and Raikes paced in Eton jackets its playing-fields and the two Matthews boys were in their company. Henry Matthews indeed made himself conspicuous by driving a tandem right through Eton and Windsor. Scrope's younger brother, Thomas, was also a King's Scholar at Eton and in 1802 was head-boy of the fifth form upper division. His college was Merton college at Oxford, no doubt selected on account of the connections of the family of Berdmore with it and he enjoyed a fellowship there from 1807 to 1840. Like his better-known brother the last part of his life was spent abroad. Let us hope that it was not for the same reason!

In 1801 Scrope proceeded to Kings College, Cambridge and was elected a scholar in July 1802. Next year he was awarded by the provost of Eton, the Belham Scholarship, a gift bestowed upon the scholars of Kings who had behaved well at Eton and he continued in possession of it until 1816. At that period the undergraduates at Kings were not required to submit themselves to the University examination for the degree of B.A. They took their degrees and obtained their fellowships as a matter of course without being compelled to face such an irksome ordeal as that. Scrope became B.A. in 1806 and M.A. in 1809 and was elected to a fellowship in July 1805. The course of time advanced him to a senior fellowship in 1822 and upon its proceeds he lived abroad until 1852. Scholarships and fellowships must have brought into his pockets