 Lang started at Balliol in October 1882 . In his first term he successfully sat for the Brakenbury Scholarship , described by his biographer John Gilbert Lockhart as " the Blue Ribbon of history scholarship at any University of the British Isles " . In February 1883 his first speech at the Oxford Union , against the disestablishment of the Church of Scotland , was warmly received ; the chairman likened his oratory to that of the Ancient Greek statesman , Demosthenes . He became the Union 's president in the Trinity term of 1883 , and the following year was a co @-@ founder of the Oxford University Dramatic Society ( OUDS ) . 
