Francis Thompson: Medical Student and Poet

(I never could rememoer which)," after leaving Ushaw College, Durham, in July, 1877, became a medical student at Owen's College, Manchester. We do not know much more of his student days than of those of Keats, but whereas Keats qualified, Thompson never sat; at least, he never passed his medical examinations. Under the pressure of his family, he spent six years at this uncongenial task. He was a lax attendant at lectures, constitutionally absent-minded, solitary, reserved ; and his biographer, Mr. Everard Meynell, records the poet's own impression of his medical training : "I hated my scientific and medical studies, and learned them badly. Now,