Harrison, his literary Mentor, approved these poems, and inserted them in "Friendship's Offering," along with love-songs and other exercises in verse.

One had a great success and was freely copied--the sincerest flattery--and the preface to the annual for 1840 publicly thanked the "gifted writer" for his "valuable aid." At the beginning of 1839 he went into new rooms vacated by Mr.Meux, and set to work finally on "Salsette and Elephanta." He ransacked all sources of information, coached himself in Eastern scenery and mythology, threw in the Aristotelian ingredients of terror and pity, and wound up with an appeal to the orthodoxy of the examiners, of whom Keble was the chief, by prophesying the prompt extermination of Brahminism under the teaching of the missionaries.
This third try won the prize.

Keble sent for him, to make the usual emendations before the great work could be given to the world with the seal of Oxford upon it.

John Ruskin seems to have been somewhat refractory under Keble's hands, though he would let his fellow-students, or his father, or Harrison, work their will on his MSS.

or proofs; being always easier to lead than to drive.