Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/125

 many thousands of pounds. Not a bad return for the talents of a man whose life benefitted neither his college nor his country. Once and once only is he mentioned by the latest historian of his college, and then, not very creditably. There was found one morning on the handle of the Lodge door a game hamper directed to the Provost with "Mr. Scrope Davies's compliments." It was opened and "found to contain a dead cat and even less attractive objects. Of course Scrope Davies was convened but he coolly maintained that if he had sent the hamper his own name was the last which he would have chosen to attach to it; and so he escaped."

Byron was introduced to Scrope at Cambridge by Charles Skinner Matthews and their common tastes at once brought them together in terms of intimate friendship. Davies excelled in all athletic games such as boxing, cricket, tennis and swimming. At cricket or tennis he was unconquerable and he could compete on favourable terms with Byron in swimming. The pair united in depreciating the style of Matthews in that exercise. He swam "with effort and labour and too high out of the water" and Byron claimed that Scrope and he had always predicted that their friend "would be drowned if ever he came to a difficult pass in the water." This prediction, if ever uttered, was verified and after that event Davies became Byron's particular friend. He was admitted to his rooms at all hours and one occasion "found the poet in bed with his hair en papillote." Davies was the best talker of them all in this little côterie. He was "always ready and often witty." Hobhouse and Byron invariably went to the wall in their contests of wit with the other pair "and even Matthews yielded to the dashing vivacity of Scrope Davies."

To Byron's eyes Davies appeared more a man of the world than the other members of this little set and he did