Roundell told him that he remembered Ferrier well at College; he described him as 'careless about University work,' but as writing clever verses, several of which he repeated with considerable gusto. Of other friends the names alone are preserved, William Edward Collins, afterwards Collins-Wood of Keithick, Perthshire, who died in 1877, and J. P. Shirley of Ettington Park, in Warwickshire;[1] but what influences were brought to bear upon him by his University life, or whether his interest in philosophical pursuits were in any way aroused during his time at College, we have no means of telling. A later friend, Henry Inglis, wrote of these early days: 'My friendship with Ferrier began about the time he was leaving Oxford, or immediately after he had left it—I should say about 1830 or thereabout. At that University I don't think he did anything more remarkable than contracting a large tailor's bill; which annoyed him for many years afterwards. At that time he was a wonderfully handsome, intellectual-looking young man,—a tremendous "swell" from top to toe, and with his hair hanging down over his shoulders.' Though later on in life this last characteristic was not so marked, Ferrier's photographs show his hair still fairly long and brushed off a finely-modelled square forehead, such as is usually associated with strongly developed intellectual faculties.
It is known that Ferrier took his Bachelor's degree in 1832, and that he had by that time managed to acquire a very tolerable knowledge of the classics and begun to study philosophy, so that his time could not have been entirely idle. For the rest, he probably
- ↑ Mr. Shirley was Member of Parliament for South Warwickshire, a well- known genealogist, and the author of The Noble and Gentle Men of England.
