frequently he attended the celebration of Holy Communion in that church.
Sometimes he read all night, until two o'clock in the morning; at other times he rose early, even at four o'clock in the winter months; now and then he would fall asleep in his study chair, wake up again to read until four or five, go to bed and to sleep, until the hour of morning chapel. In 1845 he wrote to his affianced wife: "After the requisite cursing and swearing the former as usual directed against his Holiness I knelt down before the President, and was admitted a Probationary Fellow of the noble Society [Trinity]. Since then I have been chiefly engaged in investigating a great problem, as to wherein the duties of a Probationary Fellow consist; for, as far as I have yet done, my chief business is reading newspapers in the Common Room, and drinking ale out of a silver tankard instead of a crockery-ware mug." His Fellowship was vacated by his marriage. His figure at this time, we are told, was still slight; and his old habit of skipping in his walk was not overcome. He had also, it seems, an odd way of flapping the sleeves of his Scholar's gown like wings, which earned for him the nickname, among his fellow Fellows, of "The Bantam Cock."
One John Skinner, who entered Trinity in
