Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/92

 his childhood and youth. He was country bred,—and such a country, too,—imbibing no taste that was not equally good for head, heart, and body. Health, the essential condition of all great achievements, he stored up abundantly, while at the same time the discipline of his mind was by no means neglected. His family were neither rich nor poor, but in that "just middle" state which neither suggests to the youth that exertion is superfluous, nor inflicts on him the labor of acquirement as an unavoidable drudgery. Till his fourteenth year he attended a local school in the vicinity of Salisbury, whence he was removed to Queenwood College, Hants, where he remained for two years. There he had the good luck to benefit by the teaching of Professors Tyndall and Frankland. He next attended King's College, London; and in 1852 he was duly entered as a student of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. To Cambridge young Fawcett brought with him an unquenchable love of all manner of rural pursuits, the frame of an athlete, the ringing voice of a huntsman, and a tolerable store of learning. He did not neglect his opportunities at the university. He was an adept at boating, skating, riding, angling, walking, rackets, cricketing, and prize-taking. In 1856 he graduated seventh wrangler, and was subsequently elected a fellow of his college.

From a very early age he had displayed premonitory symptoms of a more than ordinary devotion to politics. While still an undergraduate, the writings of the late John Stuart Mill made a deep impression on his mind, and partly determined him to seek an entrance into Parliament by the time-honored avenue of the bar. He accordingly commenced to "keep terms" at Lin-