CHAP. II.]

COLLEGE.

he describes it himself, a " knack at hoping;" and at all
times, it must with equal certainty be affirmed, a knack at
getting into scrapes. Like Samuel Johnson at Oxford, lie
avoided lectures when he could, and was a lounger at the
college gate.* The popular picture of him in these Dublin
University days, is little more than of a slow, hesitating,
somewhat hollow voice, heard seldom and always to great
disadvantage in the class-rooms ; and of a low-sized,, thick,,
robust, ungainly figure, lounging about the college courts on
the wait for misery and ill-luck.excellent man ; means, thongh