He was generally liked as well as universally admired, was a leader in the college societies, active and successful in sports, simple, hearty, unaffected, without a touch of priggishness and with a wealth of wholesome animal spirits.
But in these college days, besides the vague feeling of students and professors that they had among them a very remarkable man, there is a clear indication that the qualities which afterwards raised him to fame and power were already apparent, and affected the little world about him.

All his contemporaries of that time speak of his eloquence.

The gift of speech, the unequalled power of statement, which were born in him, just like the musical tones of his voice, could not be repressed.

There was no recurrence of the diffidence of Exeter.

His native genius led him irresistibly along the inevitable path.