men, who was never known to have been in a passion; and, above all, he gave to the poor all the no small profits derived from his literary work.
Robert Montgomery, who had already made a name for himself by his versification, entered Lincoln, as a Commoner, at the age of twenty-two, in February, 1830, paying for his tuition by the profits of his pen. He was by no means popular with his class-mates, some of whom started the rumor, which seems to have been more than a rumor, that his father was a circus-clown; and the youth was the victim of all sorts of practical jokes. It is said of Montgomery that his vanity led him to ask the Vice-Chancellor that a certain public examination of him might be postponed until vacation, in order to avoid the crowds who were sure to gather to listen to the eloquence of "so distinguished a poet." The Vice-Chancellor did not comply with the request; and it is not recorded that the crowd was unusually dense, either in numbers or in intellect.
In 1832, when Montgomery advertised his forthcoming work, "The Messiah," he added, on the title-page, that it was "By the Author of 'The Omnipresence of the DeitY'" the name of a previous work!
Tradition says, in rather a vague way, that
