Note 43 — ROBERT LOWE VISCOUNT SHERBROOKE[41]

There was an anecdote current in the University of Oxford down to my time that when Lowe was examining in the examination which the statutes call “Responsions,” the dons “Little-go,” and the undergraduates “Smalls,” a friend coming in while the viva voce was in progress, asked him how he was getting on. “Excellently,” said Lowe; “five men plucked already, and the sixth very shaky.” Another tale, not likely to have been invented, relates that when he and several members of the then Liberal Ministry were staying in Dublin with the Lord Lieutenant, and had taken an excursion into the Wicklow hills, they found themselves one afternoon obliged to wait for half an hour at a railway station. To pass the time, Lowe forthwith engaged in a dispute about the charge with the car-drivers who had brought them, a dispute which soon became hot and noisy, to the delight of Lowe, but to the horror of the old Lord Chancellor, who was one of the party.