What I Remember, Volume 1

Of course all this did not tend much to harmonise the conflicting partisans of High and Low Church in the Harrow world of that day.

I may add here another “reminiscence” of those days, which is not without significance as an illustration of manners.

Among the neighbours at Harrow was a Mr. —— (well, I won’t print the name, though all the parties in question must long since, I suppose, have joined the majority) who had a family of daughters, the second of whom was exceedingly pretty. One day this girl of some eighteen years or so, came to my mother, who was always a special friend of all the young girls, with a long eulogistic defence of the vicar. She was describing at much length the delight of the assurances of grace which he had given her, when my mother suddenly looking her straight in the eyes, said, “Did he kiss you, Carrie?”

“Yes, Mrs. Trollope. He did give me the kiss of peace. I am sure there was no harm in that!”

“None at all, Carrie! For I am sure you meant none!” returned my mother. “Honi soit qui mal y pense! But remember, Carrie, that the kiss of peace is apt to change its quality if repeated!”

CHAPTER V.

The expedition was to be made with my father in his gig. A horse was to be sent on to Guildford, and by dint of starting at a very early hour, and there changing horses, the distance was to be performed in one day. We were to travel, not by the more generally used coach road by Hounslow and Bagshot, but over the district called the Hog’s Back from Guildford to Farnham—chiefly, as I remember, for the sake of showing me that beautiful bit of country. For to my father beautiful scenery was as great a delight as it has always been to myself.

At Farnham there was time, while the horse was being baited at “The Bush,” for us, after snatching a morsel of cold meat, to visit hurriedly the park and residence of the Bishop of Winchester. I, very contentedly trotting by the side of my father’s long strides, was much impressed by the beauty of the park. But, as I remember, my mind was very much exercised by the fact, then first learned, that the Bishop’s diocese extended all the way to London. And I think that it seemed somehow to my child’s mind that the dignity of my position as one of William of Wykeham’s scholars was enhanced by the enormous extent of the diocese of his successor.

We reached Winchester late in the evening of the day before the election, putting up, not at “The George,” or at “The White Hart,” as most people would have done, but at the “Fleur de Lys,” pronounced “Flower de Luce,” a very ancient, but then third-rate hostelry, which my father preferred, partly probably because he thought the charges might be less there, but mainly because it is situated in the vicinity of the college, and he had known and used it of old. We spent the evening at the house of Dr. Gabell, the head master, an old friend of my father’s, where his eldest daughter, an intimate friend of my mother’s, who had often been a visitor in Keppel Street, made much of me.

And the next day I became a Wykehamist! And the manner of so becoming was in this wise. The real serious business of the six electors—three sent from New College, and three belonging to Winchester, as has been set forth on a previous page—consisted in the examination of those scholars, who, standing at the top of the school, were in that year candidates for New College. All the eighteen “prefects,” who formed the highest class in the school, were examined; but the most serious part of the business was the examination of the first half dozen or so, who were probably superannuated at the age of eighteen that year, and who might have a fair chance of finding a vacancy at New College (if there were not one at that present moment) in the course of the ensuing twelve months. And this was a very fateful and serious examination, for the examiners in “the election chamber” would, if the examination disclosed due cause, change the order of the roll as it came up to them, placing a boy, who had distinguished himself, before another, who had not done so. And as the roll thus settled was the order in which vacancies at New College were taken, the work in “the chamber” was of life-long importance to the subjects of it.

Very different was the “election” of the children, who were to go into Winchester. Duly instructed as to the part we were to play, we went marvelling up the ancient stone corkscrew stair to the mysterious chamber situated over the “middle gate,” i.e. the gateway between the outer court and the second quadrangle where the chapel, the hall, and the chambers are. The “election chamber” always maintained a certain character of mystery to us, because it was never opened or used save on the great occasion of the annual election. In that chamber we found the six solemn electors in their gowns waiting for us; especially the Bishop of Hereford, who was then Warden of Winchester College, an aged man with his peculiar wig and gown was an object of awe. No Bishop had in those days dreamed as yet of discarding the episcopal wig.

And then the examination began as follows: “Well, boy, can you sing?” “Yes, sir.” “Let us hear you.” “‘All people that on earth do dwell,’” responded the neophyte—duly instructed previously in his part of the proceeding—without attempting in the smallest degree to modify in any way his ordinary speech. “Very well, boy. That will do!” returned the examiner. The examination was over, and you were a member of William of Wykeham’s college, Sancta Mariæ de Winton prope Winton. “Prope Winton,” observe, for the college is situated outside the ancient city walls.

The explanation of this survival of the simulacrum of an examination is that the ancient statutes require that candidates for admission as scholars must be competently instructed in plano cantu—in plain chant; the intention of the founder being that all his scholars should take part in the choral service of the chapel.

I and my fellow novices thus admitted as scholars in that July of 1820 were not about to join the school immediately. We had the six weeks holidays before us, the election taking place at the end of the summer half year. Election week was the grand festival of the Wykehamical year. For three days high feast was held in the noble old hall. The “high table” was spread on the dais, and all old Wykehamists were welcome at it. The boys in the lower part of the hall were regaled with mutton pies and “stuckling.” That was their appointed fare; but in point of fact they feasted on dishes or portions of dishes sent down from the abundantly-spread high table, and the pies were carried away for the next morning’s breakfast. I do not think anybody ate much “stuckling” beyond a mouthful pro formâ. It was a sort of flat pastry made of chopped apples and currants. And the specialty of it was that the apples must be that year’s apples. They used to be sent up from Devonshire or Cornwall, and sometimes were with difficulty obtained. Then there was the singing of the Latin grace, with its beautiful responses, performed by the chapel choir and as many others as were capable of taking part in it. The grace with its music has been published, and I need not occupy these pages with a reprint of it. And then in the afternoon came the singing of “Domum” on the fives court behind the school, by the whole strength of the company.

Nine such election weeks did I see, counting from that which made me a Wykehamist in 1820 to that which saw me out a superannuate in 1828. I did not get a fellowship at New College, having narrowly missed it for want of a vacancy by one. I was much mortified at the time, but have seen long since that probably all was for the best for me. It was a mere chance, as has been shown at a former page, whether a boy at the head or nearly at the head of the school went to New College or not.

The interesting event of a vacancy having occurred at New College, whether by death, marriage, or the acceptance of a living, was announced by the arrival of “speedyman” at Winchester College. “Speedyman,” in conformity with immemorial usage, used to bring the news on foot from Oxford to Winchester. How well I remember the look of the man, as he used to arrive with all the appearance of having made a breathless journey, a spare, active-looking fellow, in brown cloth breeches and gaiters covered with dust. Of course letters telling the facts had long outstripped “speedyman.” But with the charming and reverent spirit of conservatism, which in those days ruled all things at Winchester, “speedyman” made his journey on foot all the same!

Of course one of the first matters in hand when this fateful messenger arrived was to regale him with college beer, and right good beer it was in those days. In connection with it may be mentioned the rather singular fact, that, whereas all other supplies from the college buttery to the boys—the bread, the cheese, the butter, the meat—were accurately measured, the beer was given absolutely ad libitum. In fact it was not given out at all, but taken. Thrice a day the way to the cellar was open, a back stair leading from the hall to the superb old vaulted cellar, with its central pillar and arches springing from it in every direction. All around were the hogsheads, and the proper tools for tapping one as soon as another should be out. And to this cellar the boys—or rather the junior boys at each mess—went freely to draw as much as they chose.

And the beer thus freely supplied was our only beverage, for not only was tea or coffee not furnished, it was not permitted. Some of the prefects (the eighteen first boys in college) would have “tea-messes,” provided out of their own pocket money, and served by their “fags.” But if, as would sometimes happen, either of the masters chanced to appear on the scene before the tea-things could be got out of the way, he used to smash them all, using his large pass key for the purpose, and saying “What are all these things, sir? William of Wykeham knew nothing, I think, of tea!”

We used to breakfast at ten, after morning school, on bread and butter and beer, having got up at half-past five, gone to chapel at half-past six, and into school at half-past seven. At a quarter to one we again went up into hall. It was a specialty of college phraseology to suppress the definite article. We always said “to hall,” “to meads” (the playground), “to school,” “to chambers,” and the like. The visit to hall at that time was properly for dinner, though it had long ceased to be such. The middle of the day “hall” served in my day only for the purpose of luncheon (though no such modern word was ever used), and only those “juniors” attended whose office it was to bring away the portions of bread and cheese and “bobs” (i.e. huge jugs) of beer for consumption in the afternoon.

Sunday formed an exception to this practice. We all went up into “hall” in the middle of the day on Sunday, and dined on roast beef, the noontide dinner consisting of roast beef on that day, boiled beef on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and baked plum pudding on Friday and Saturday. But the boiled beef, with the exception of certain portions reserved for the next morning’s breakfast of the seniors of the messes, or companies into which the “inferiors” (i.e., non-prefects) were divided, was not eaten, but given away. During the war Winchester had been one of the depots of French prisoners, and the beef in question was then given to them. When there were no more Frenchmen it was given to twenty-four old women who were appointed to do the weeding of the college quadrangles. It must be understood that this arrangement was entirely spontaneous on the part of the boys, though it would have been quite out of the question for any individual to say that he for his part would eat his own beef. How all this may be now I know not. Probably the college, under the enlightened guidance of Her Majesty’s Commissioners, have seen the propriety of providing the youthful Wykehamists with table napkins and caper sauce, while the old women go without their dole of beef. On the Friday and Saturday the pudding was carried down out of hall by the juniors for consumption during the afternoon.

At about a quarter-past six, at the conclusion of afternoon school, we went up into hall for dinner—originally, of course, supper. This consisted of mutton, roast or boiled, every evening of the year, with potatoes and beer. But it was such mutton as is not to be found in English butchers’ shops nowadays, scientific breeding having improved it from off the face of the land. It was small Southdown mutton, uncrossed by any of the coarser, rapidly-growing, and fat-making breeds. And that it should be such was insured by the curious rule, that, though only a given number of pounds of mutton were required and paid for to the contractor, the daily supply was always to be one sheep and a half. So that if large mutton was sent it was to the loss of the contractor.

Furthermore it was the duty of the “prefect of tub” to see that the mutton was in all ways satisfactory. The “prefect of tub” was one of the five boys at the head of the school; another was the “prefect of hall”; a third “prefect of school”; and the fourth and fifth “prefects of chapel.” These offices were all positions of emolument. That of the “prefect of tub” was far the most so, and was usually held by the senior college “founder,” or boy of “founder’s kin,” during his last year before going to New College. The titles of the other offices explain themselves, but that of “prefect of tub” requires some elucidation.

In the hall, placed just inside the screen which divided the buttery hatches from the body of the hall, there was an ancient covered “tub.” In the course of my eight years’ stay at Winchester this venerable tub—damnosa quid non diminuit dies?—had to be renewed. It was replaced by a much handsomer one; but, as I remember, the change had rather the effect on the popular mind in college of diminishing our confidence in the permanency of human institutions generally. The original purpose of this tub was to receive fragments and remains of food, together with such portions—“dispers” we called them—of the evening mutton supper as were not duly claimed by the destined recipient of them at his place at the table, that they might be given to the poor; and the “prefect of tub” was so called because it was part of his office to see that this was duly done. It was also his duty to preside over the distribution of the aforesaid “dispers”—not quasi dispars, as might be supposed by those who can appreciate the difference between a prime cut out of a leg of mutton and a bit of the breast of a sheep, but “dispers” from dispertio. Now the distribution in question was effected in this wise. The joints were cut up in the kitchen always accurately in the same manner. The leg made eight “dispers,” the shoulder seven, and so on. The “dispers” thus prepared were put into four immense pewter dishes, and these were carried up into hall by four choristers under the superintendence of the “prefect of tub” and distributed among the fifty-two “inferiors”—i.e., non-prefects. The eighteen prefects dined at two tables by themselves. Their joints were not cut into “dispers,” but were dressed by the cook according to their own orders, paid for by themselves according to an established tariff drawn with reference to the extra expense of the mode of preparation ordered. The long narrow tables were six in number, ranged on either side of the noble hall, exactly as in a monastic refectory. The dais was left unoccupied, save at election time, when the “high table” was spread there. At the first two tables on the left hand side as one entered the hall, the eighteen prefects dined.

This bloated aristocracy was supplied with plates to eat their dinner from. The populace—mere mutton consumere nati—the fifty-two inferiors, had only “trenchers,” flat pieces of wood about nine inches square. These fifty-two “inferiors” were divided into eight companies, and occupied the remaining four tables. But this division was so arranged that one of the eight seniors of the “inferiors” was at the head of each company, and one of the eight juniors at the bottom of each, the whole body being similarly distributed. And each of these companies occupied a different table every day, the party who sat at the lowest table on Monday occupying the highest on Tuesday, and so on. So that when the “prefect of tub” entered the hall at the head of the procession of four choristers, carrying the four “gomers” (such was the phrase) of dispers, he proceeded first to the table on the opposite side of the hall to that of the prefects, and saw that the senior of the mess occupying that table selected as many of the most eligible dispers as there were persons present. If any junior were absent by authority of, or on the business of, any prefect, his disper was allowed to be taken for him. This senior of the mess, it may be mentioned obiter was called, for some reason hidden in the obscurity of time, the “candlekeeper.” Assuredly neither he nor his office had any known connection with the keeping of candles. Any dispers remaining unclaimed at the end of his tour of the hall belonged to “the tub.”

In return for the performance of this important office, the “prefect of tub” was entitled to the heads, feet, and all such portions of the sheep as were not comprised in legs, shoulders, necks, loins, and breasts, as well as to the dispers of any individuals who might from any cause be absent from college. Of course he did not meddle personally with any of these perquisites, but had a contract with the college manciple, the value of which was, I believe, about £80 a year. Such was the “prefect of tub.”

Orderly conduct in hall generally, which did not imply any degree of violence, was maintained by the “prefect of hall,” the dignity of whose office, though it was by no means so profitable as that of the “prefect of tub,” ranked above that of all the other “officers.” No master was ever present in hall.

But the most onerous and important duty of the prefect of hall consisted in superintending the excursion to “hills,”—i.e. to St. Catherine’s Hill, which took place twice on every holiday, once on every half-holiday during the year, and every evening during the summer months. On these occasions the “prefect of hall” had under his guidance and authority not only William of Wykeham’s seventy scholars, but the whole of the hundred and thirty pupils of the head master, who were called commoners. The scholars marched first, two and two (with the exception of the prefects who walked as they pleased), and then followed the commoners. And it was the duty of the prefect of hall to keep the column in good and compact order until the top of the hill was reached. Then all dispersed to amuse themselves as they pleased. But the prefect of hall still remained responsible for his flock keeping within bounds.

St. Catherine’s Hill is a notably isolated down in the immediate neighbourhood of Winchester, and just above the charming little village of St. Cross. There is a clump of firs on the top, and the unusually well marked circumvallation of a Roman (or British?) camp around the circle of the hill. The ditch of this circumvallation formed our “bounds.” The straying beyond them, however, in the direction of the open downs away from the city, and from St. Cross, was deemed a very venial offence by either the prefect of hall or the masters. But not so in the direction of the town. It was the duty of the three “juniors” in college—one of whom I was during my first half-year—to “call domum.” When the time came for returning to college one of those three walked over the top of the hill from one side to the other, while the other two went round the circumvallation—each one half of it—calling perpetually “Domum ... domum” as loudly as they could. All the year round we went to “morning hills” before breakfast, and to afternoon hills about three. In the summer we went, as I have said, every evening after “hall,” but not to the top of the hill, only to the water-meads at the foot of it, the object being to bathe in the Itchen.

Many of the Winchester recollections most indelibly fixed in my memory are connected with “hills.” It seems impossible that sixty years can have passed since I stood on the bank of the circumvallation facing towards Winchester, and gazed down on the white morning mist that entirely concealed the city and valley. How many mornings in the late autumn have I stood and watched the moving, but scarcely moving masses of billowy white cloud! And what strange similitudes and contrasts suggested themselves to my mind as I recently looked down from the heights of Monte Gennaro on the Roman Campagna similarly cloud hidden! The phenomenon exhibited itself on an infinitely larger scale in the latter case, but it did not suggest to me such thick-coming fancies and fantastic imaginings as the water-mead-born mists of the Itchen!

There were two special amusements connected with our excursions to St. Catherine’s Hill—badger baiting and “mouse-digging,” the former patronised mainly by the bigger fellows, the latter by their juniors. There was a man in the town, a not very reputable fellow I fancy, who had constituted himself “badger keeper” to the college. It was his business to provide a badger and dogs, and to bring them to certain appointed trysting places at “hill times” for the sport. The places in question were not within our “bounds,” but at no great distance in some combe or chalk-pit of the neighbouring downs. Of course it was not permitted by the authorities; but I think it might easily have been prevented had any attempt to do so been made in earnest. It seems strange, considering my eight years’ residence in college, that I never once was present at a badger baiting. I am afraid that my absence was not caused by distinct disapproval of the cruelty of the sport, but simply by the fact that my favourite “hill-times” occupations took me in other directions.

Nor, probably for the same reason, was I a great mouse-digger. Very many of us never went to “hills” unarmed with a “mouse-digger.” This was a sort of miniature pickaxe, which was used to dig the field-mice out of their holes. The skill and the amusement consisted in following the labyrinthine windings of these, which are exceedingly numerous on the chalk downs, in such sort as to capture the inmate and her brood without injuring her, and carry her home in triumph to be kept in cages provided ad hoc.

There was—and doubtless is—a clump of firs on the very centre and summit of St. Catherine’s Hill. They are very tall and spindly trees, with not a branch until the tuft at the top is reached. And my great delight when I was in my first or second year was to climb these. Of course I was fond of doing what few, if any, of my compeers could do as well. And this was the case as regarded “swarming up” those tall and slippery stems. I could reach the topmost top, and gloried much in doing so.

But during my later years the occupation of a hill morning which most commended itself to me was ranging as widely as possible over the neighbouring hills. Like the fox in the old song, I was “off to the downs O!” As I have said, the straying beyond bounds in this direction, away from the town, was considered a very light offence; but I was apt to make it a somewhat more serious one by not getting back from my rambling, despite good running, till it was too late to return duly with the main body to college. It was very probable that this might pass without detection, if there were no roll-call on the way back. But it frequently happened that “Gaffer” (such was Dr. Williams’s sobriquet among us) on his white horse met us on our homeward march, and stopped the column, while the prefect of hall called names. As these escapades in my case occurred mainly during my last three years, I being a prefect myself owed no allegiance to the authority of the prefect of hall. But the roll-call revealing my absence would probably issue in my having to learn by heart one of the epistles of Horace. Prefects learned their “impositions” by heart, “inferiors” wrote them.

Every here and there the sides of these downs are scored by large chalk-pits. There is a very large one on St. Catherine’s Hill on the side looking towards St. Cross; and this was a favourite scene of exploits in which I may boast myself (’tis sixty years since!) to have been unrivalled. There was a very steep and rugged path by which it was possible to descend from the upper edge of this chalk-pit to the bottom of it. And it was a feat, in which I confess I took some pride, to take a fellow on my shoulders (not on my back), while he had a smaller boy on his shoulders, and thus with two living stories on my shoulders to descend the difficult path in question. And the boy in the middle—the first story—could not be a very small one, for it was requisite that he also should hold and balance his burthen thoroughly well. I think I could carry one very little boy down now!

It was the “prefect of hall” who managed the whole business of our holidays—as they would be called elsewhere—which we called “remedies.” A “holiday” meant at Winchester a red-letter day; and was duly kept as such. But if no such day occurred in the week, the “prefect of hall” went on the Tuesday morning to the head master (Wiccamice “informator”) and asked for a “remedy,” which, unless there were any reason, such as very bad weather, or a holiday coming later in the week, was granted by handing to the prefect a ring, which remained in his keeping till the following morning. This symbol was inscribed “Commendat rarior usus.”

But in addition to these important duties the “prefect of hall” discharged another, of which I must say a few words, with reference to the considerable amount of interest which the outside world was good enough to take in the subject a few years ago, with all that accurate knowledge of facts, and that discrimination which people usually display when talking of what they know nothing about.

It was the “prefect of hall,” who ordered the infliction of a “public tunding.” The strange phrase, dropped by some unlucky chance into ears to which it conveyed no definite meaning, seems to have inspired vague terrors of the most terrific kind. Very much nonsense was talked and printed at the time I refer to. But the following simple and truthful statement of what a public tunding was, may enable those, who take an interest in the matter, to form some reasonable opinion whether the infliction of such punishment were a good or a bad thing.

At the conclusion of the evening dinner or supper, whichever it may be called, the “prefect of hall” summoned the boys to the dais for the singing of grace. Some dozen or so of boys, who had the best capacities for the performance, were appointed by him for the purpose, and the whole assembly stood around the dais, while the hymn, Te de Profundis, was sung. When all were thus assembled, and before the singers commenced, the culprit who had been sentenced to a tunding stepped out, pulled off his gown, and received from the hands of one deputed by the “prefect of hall,” and armed with a tough, pliant ground-ash stick, a severe beating. I never had a tunding; but I have no doubt that the punishment was severe, though I never heard of any boy disabled by it from pursuing his usual work or his usual amusements. It was judiciously ordered by the “prefect of hall” for offences deemed unbecoming the character of a Wykehamist and a gentleman, and only for such. Any such petty larceny exploits as the scholars at some other “seats of learning” are popularly said to be not unfrequently guilty of, such as robberies of orchards or poultry-yards or the like, would have inevitably entailed a public tunding. Any attempt whatsoever to appropriate unduly either by fraud or violence anything sent to another boy from home—any portion of a “cargo,” as such despatches were called—and à fortiori any money or money’s value, would have necessitated a public tunding. The infliction was rare. Many half years passed without any public tunding having been administered. And my own impression is, that the practice was eminently calculated to foster among us a high tone of moral and gentlemanlike feeling.

These reminiscences of the penal code that was in vigour among ourselves are naturally connected with those referring to the subject of corporal punishment in its more official form.

On one of the whitewashed walls of the huge schoolroom was an inscription conceived and illustrated as follows: “Aut disce!” and there followed a depicted book and inkstand; “Aut discede!” followed by a handsomely painted sword, as who should say, “Go and be a soldier!” (offering that as an alternative for which no learning was needed, after the fashion of a day before examinations for commissions were dreamed of!); and then lastly, “Manet sors tertia cædi,” followed by the portraiture of a rod.

But this rod is of so special and peculiar a kind, and so dissimilar from any such instrument as used elsewhere, that I must try to explain the nature of it to my non-Wiccamical readers. A stick of some hard wood, beech I think it was, turned into a shape convenient to the hand, about a yard long, and with four grooves about three inches long and as large as a cedar pencil, cut in the extremity of it, formed the handle. Into these four grooves were fitted four slender apple twigs about five feet long. They were sent up from Herefordshire in bundles, cut and prepared for the purpose, and it was the duty of the “prefect of school” to provide them. These twigs, fitted into the grooves, were fixed by a string which bound them tightly to the handle, and a rod was thus formed, the four-fold switches of which stood out some foot—or more than that towards the end—from each other.

The words “flog,” or “flogging,” it is to be observed, were never heard among us, in the mouth either of the masters or of the boys. We were “scourged.” And a scourging was administered in this wise. At a certain spot in the school—near the seat of the “informator,” when he was the executioner, and near that of the “hostiarius” or under master when he had to perform—in front of a fixed form, the patient kneeled down. Two boys, any who chanced to be at hand, stepped behind the form, turned the gown of a collegian or the coat tails of a commoner over his shoulders, and unbuttoned his brace buttons, leaving bare at the part where the braces join the trousers a space equal to the diameter of a crown-piece—such was the traditional rule. And aiming at this with more or less exactitude the master inflicted three cuts. Such was a “scourging.”

Prefects, it may be observed, were never scourged.

The “best possible instructors” of this enlightened age, who never treat of subjects the facts of which they are not conversant with, have said much of the “cruelty,” and the “indecency” of such infliction of corporal punishment, and of the moral degradation necessarily entailed on the sufferers of it. As to the cruelty, it will be readily understood from the above description of the rod, that it was quite as likely as not that no one of the four twigs, at either of the three cuts, touched the narrow bare part; especially as the operator—proceeding from one patient to another with the utmost possible despatch, and with his eyes probably on the list in his left hand of the culprits to be operated on—had little leisure or care for aiming. The fact simply was that the pain was really not worth speaking of, and that nobody cared the least about it.

The affair passed somewhat in this wise. It is ten o’clock; the morning school is over; and we are all in a hurry to get out to breakfast. There are probably about a dozen or a score of boys to be scourged. Dr. Williams, as well beloved a master as ever presided over any school in the world, has come down from his seat, elevated three steps above the floor of the school, putting on his great cocked hat as he does so. He steps to the form where the scourging is to be done; the list of those to be scourged, with the reasons why, is handed to him by the prefect, charged for the week with this duty, together with the rod. He calls “Jones” ... swish, swish, swish!... “Brown” ... swish, swish, swish!... “Robinson” ... swish, swish, swish! as rapidly as it can be done. Each operation takes perhaps twenty seconds. Having got through the list, he flings the rod on the ground, makes a demi-volte so as to face the whole school, taking off his hat as he does so, and the “prefect of school” who has been waiting on the steps of the master’s seat, with the prayer-book open in his hand, instantly reads the short prayer with which the school concludes, while those who have been scourged stand in the background hurriedly readjusting their brace buttons so as not to be behind hand at the buttery hatch for breakfast. Of any disgrace attached to the reception of a scourging, no one had any smallest conception.

Of the cruelty of the infliction the reader may judge for himself. Of the indecent talk about indecency he may also know from the above accurate account what to think. The degree of “moral degradation” inflicted on the sufferers may perhaps be estimated by a reference to the roll of those whom Winchester has supplied to serve their country in Church and State.

The real and unanswerable objection to the infliction of “corporal punishment,” as it was used in my day at Winchester, was that it was a mere form and farce. It caused neither pain nor disgrace, and assuredly morally degraded nobody. I have been scourged five times in the day; not because, as might be supposed, I was so incorrigible that the master found it necessary to go on scourging me, but simply because it so chanced. I had, say, come into chapel “tardè,” i.e. after the service had commenced; I had omitted to send in duly my “vulgus”; I had been “floored” in my Horace; I had missed duly answering “sum,” when on returning from “hills” “Gaffer” had met the procession on his grey horse and caused the “prefect of hall” “to call names,” the reason being that I had been far away over the downs to Twyford, and had not been able to run back in time; and an unlucky simultaneousness of these or of a dozen other such sins of omission or commission had occurred, which had to be wiped off by a scourging by the “hostiarius” at the morning school, and another by the “informator;” by a third from the former at “middle school,” when the head master did not attend; by a fourth from the “hostiarius” at evening school, and a fifth from the “informator” the last thing before going out to dinner at six. But this was a rare tour de force, scarcely likely to occur again. I was rather proud of it, and wholly unconscious of any “moral degradation.”

I have spoken of the “informator” putting on his cocked hat when about to commence his work of scourging. I am at a loss to account for his having worn this very unacademical costume. It was a huge three-cornered cocked hat very much like that of a coachman on state occasions; and must, I take it, have been a survival from about the time of Charles the Second. It has, I believe, been since discarded.

The mention above of a “vulgus” requires some explanation. Every “inferior,” i.e. non-prefect, in the school was required every night to produce a copy of verses of from two to six lines on a given theme; four or six lines for the upper classes, two for the lowest. This was independent of a weekly “verse task” of greater length, and was called a “vulgus,” I suppose, because everybody—the vulgus—had to do it. The prefects were exercised in the same manner but with a difference. Immediately before going out from morning or from evening school, at the conclusion of the day’s lesson, the “informator” would give a theme, and each boy was expected then and there without the assistance of pen, paper, or any book, to compose a couple, or two couple, of lines, and give them vivâ voce. He got up, and scraped with his foot to call the master’s attention when he was ready; and as not above five or ten minutes were available for the business, a considerable degree of promptitude was requisite. The theory was that these compositions—“varying” was the term in the case of the prefects, as “vulgus” in that of the inferiors—should be epigrammatic in their nature, and that Martial rather than Ovid should be the model. Of course but little of an epigrammatic nature was for the most part achieved; but great readiness was made habitual by the practice. And sometimes the result was creditable to something more than readiness.

I am tempted to give one instance of such a “varying.” It belonged to an earlier time than mine—the time when Decus et tutamen was adopted as the motto cut on the rim of the five-shilling pieces. The author of the “varying” in question had been ill with fever, and his head had been shaved, causing him to wear a wig. Decus et tutamen was the theme given. In a minute or two he was ready, stood up, and taking off his wig, said, “Aspicite hos crines! duplicem servantur in usum! Hi mihi tutamen nocte”—putting the wig on wrong side outwards; “Dieque decus,” reversing it as he spoke the words. The memory of this “varying” lives—or lived!—at Winchester. But I do not think it has ever been published, and really it deserves preservation. I wish I could give the author’s name.

When at the end of the summer holidays in that year, 1820, I returned to college, again brought down to Winchester by my father in his gig, I confess to having felt for some short time a very desolate little waif. As I, at the time a child barely out of the nursery, look back upon it, it seems to my recollection that the strongest sense of being shoved off from shore without guidance, help, or protection, arose from never seeing or speaking to a female human being. To be sure there was at the sick-house the presiding “mother”—Gumbrell her name was, usually pronounced “Grumble”—but she was not a fascinating representative of the sex. An aged woman once nearly six feet high, then much bent by rheumatism, rather grim and somewhat stern, she very conscientiously administered the prescribed “black-dose and calomel pill” to those under her care at the sick-house. To be there was called being “continent;” to leave it was “going abroad”—intelligibly enough. Tea was provided there for those “continent” instead of the usual breakfast of bread and butter and beer; and I remember overhearing Mother Gumbrell, oppressed by an unusual number of inmates, say, “Talk of Job indeed! Job never had to cut crusty loaves into bread and butter!”

I saw the old woman die! I was by chance in the sick-house kitchen—in after years, when a prefect—and “Dicky Gumbrell,” the old woman’s husband, who had been butler to Dean Ogle, and who by special and exceptional favour was allowed to live with his wife in the sick-house, was reading to her the story of Joseph and his Brethren, while she was knitting a stocking, and sipping occasionally from a jug of college beer which stood between them, when quite suddenly her hands fell on to her lap and her head on to her bosom, and she was dead! while poor old Dicky quite unconsciously went on with his reading.

But I mentioned Mother Gumbrell only to observe that she, the only petticoated creature whom we ever saw or spoke with, was scarcely calculated to supply, even to the imagination, the feminine element which had till then made so large a part of the lives of ten-year-old children fresh from their mother’s knee.

Perhaps the most markedly distinctive feature of the school life was the degree in which we were uninterfered with by any personal superintendence. The two masters came into the school-room to hear the different classes at the hours which have been mentioned, also, when we were “in chambers” in the evening, either during the hour of study which intervened between the six o’clock dinner and the eight o’clock prayers in the chapel, or during the subsequent hour between that and nine o’clock, when all went, or ought to have gone, to bed; and subsequently to that, when all were supposed to be in bed and asleep, we were at any moment liable to the sudden unannounced visit of the “hostiarius” or second master. The visit was a mere “going round.” If all was in order, it passed in silence, and was over in a minute. If any tea-things were surprised, they were broken, as before mentioned. If beer, or traces of the consumption of beer, were apparent, that was all right. The supply of a provision of that refreshment was recognised, it being a part of the duty of the bedmakers to carry every evening into each of the seven “chambers” a huge “nipperkin” of beer, “to last,” as I remember one of the bedmakers telling me when I first went into college, “for all night.” The supply, as far as my recollection goes, was always considerably in excess of the consumption. If all was not in order, “the prefect in course”—i.e. the prefect who in each chamber was responsible for due order during the current week—was briefly told to speak with the master next morning. And this comprises about all the personal intercourse that took place between us and the masters.

Not that it is to be understood that any hour of our lives was left to our own discretion as to the employment of it; but this was attained by no immediate personal superintendence or direction. The systematised routine was so perfect, and so similar in its operation to the movements of some huge irresistible machine, that the disposal of each one of our hours seemed to be as natural, as necessary, and as inevitable as the waxing and waning of the moon. And the impression left on my mind by eight years’ experience of such a system is, that it was pre-eminently calculated to engender and foster habitual conceptions of the paramount authority of law, as distinguished from the dictates of personal notions or caprices; of self-reliance, and of conscious responsibility in the individual as forming an unit in an organised whole. Of course the eighteen prefects were to a much smaller degree coerced by the machine, and to a very great degree active agents in the working of it. And I was a prefect during three years of my eight in college. But at first, when a little fellow of, say, ten years old, entered this new world, it was not without a desolate sensation of abandonment, which it needed a month or two’s experience to get the better of.

All this, however, was largely corrected and modified by one admirable institution, which was a cardinal point in the Wiccamical system. To every “inferior” was appointed one of the prefects as a “tutor.” It was the duty of this tutor to superintend and see to the learning of his lessons by the inferior, and the due performance of his written “prose” and “verse tasks,” to protect him against all ill-usage or “bullying,” and to be in all ways his providence and friend. These appointments were made by the “informator.” The three or four senior prefects had as many as seven pupils, the junior prefects one or two only; and the tutor received from the parents of each pupil, by the hands of the master, two guineas yearly.

In order rightly to understand the working of all these arrangements, it must be explained that each individual’s place in “the school” and his place “in college” were two entirely different things. The first depended on his acquirements when he entered the college and his subsequent scholastic progress. The latter depended solely on his seniority “in college.” The junior in college was the last boy whose nomination succeeded in finding a vacancy in any given year; and he remained “junior” till the admission of another boy next year, when he had one junior below him, and so on. Thus it might happen, and constantly did happen, that a boy’s junior in college might be much above him in the school, either from having come in at a later age, or from being a better prepared or cleverer boy. And all the arrangements of the domestic college life, the fagging, &c., depended wholly on juniority “in college,” and had no reference to the place held by each in the school. But all this seniority and juniority “in college” ceased to operate in any way as soon as the individual in question became a prefect. He had then equal authority over every “inferior,” whether such inferior were his senior or junior in college.

It is evident, therefore, that the prefect’s authority was frequently exercised over individuals older, bigger, stronger than himself; and for the due and regular working of this system it was necessary that the authority of the prefect should be absolute and irresistible. It was traditionally supposed in college that for an “inferior” to raise his hand against a prefect would be a case of expulsion. Whether expulsion would have actually followed, I cannot say, for during my eight years’ residence in college I never remember such a case to have occurred. I have heard my father and other old Wykehamists of his day declare that no such absolute authority as that of a prefect at Winchester existed in England, save in the case of the captain of a man-of-war. It should be observed, however, in modification of this, that any abuse of this authority in the way of bullying or cruelty would at once have been interfered with by that other prefect, the victim’s tutor. An appeal to the master would have been about as much thought of as an appeal to Jupiter or Mars.

CHAPTER VI.

Some boy or other—he was, I fancy, a “commoner,” or one of Dr. Gabell’s private pupils—was guilty of some small delinquency which had the unfortunate effect of especially angering the Doctor, who, in his rage, without giving a second thought to the matter, wrote off a hurried letter to the boy’s father, telling him that if his son continued his present conduct he was on the high road to ruin.

Unfortunately, the parent lived in one of the far northern counties. In extreme distress he at once left home and posted to Winchester.

Rushing, in agitation and anxiety, into Gabell’s study, he gasped out, “What is it? Tell it me at once! What has my unhappy boy done?”

“What boy?” snorted Gabell. “What do you mean? I don’t know what you are talking about!”

The father, much relieved, but more amazed, pulls out the terrible letter which had summoned him, and puts it before the much crestfallen “informator.”

“I had forgotten all about it!” he was compelled to own. “The boy is a good boy enough. You had better go and talk to him yourself, and—and tell him not to miss answering his name again!” The parent’s feelings and his expression of them may be imagined.

It used to be said, I remember, that of the two masters of Winchester, one snored without sleeping (Gabell), and the other slept without snoring. Gabell was, in truth, always snorting or snoring (so to call it); but the accusation against Williams of sleeping was, I think, justified only by his peculiarly placid and quiet manner. He was a remarkably handsome man; and his sobriquet, among those of the previous generation rather than among us boys, was, “The Beauty of Holiness”—again with reference to the unruffled repose of his manner. We boys invariably called him “Gaffer.” Why, I know not.

Gabell, I think, had no nickname; but there was a phrase among us, as common as any household word, which was in some degree characteristic of the man. Any conduct which was supposed likely to turn out eventually to the detriment of the actor was called “spiting Gabell;” and the expression was continually used when the speaker intended no more reference to Dr. Gabell than a man who orders a spencer has to the first wearer of that garment.

Mr. Ridding was not a popular master, though I do not know that he had any worse fault than a bad manner. It was a jaunty, jerky, snappish manner, totally devoid of personal dignity. It was said that in school he was not impartial. But by the time he became second master, on the retirement of Gabell, I had reached that part of the school which was under the head master, and have no personal knowledge of the matter. I do not think any boy would have gone to Ridding in any private trouble or difficulty. There was not one who would not have gone to Williams as to a father.

But in my reminiscences of the college authorities, I must not omit the first and greatest of all—the Warden. Huntingford, Bishop of Hereford, was Warden during the whole of my college career. He was an aged man, and somewhat of a valetudinarian. And to the imagination of us boys, who rarely saw him, he assumed something of the mystic, awe-inspiring character of a “veiled prophet of Khorassan.” The most awful threat that could be fulminated against any boy, was that he should be had up before the Warden. I do not remember that any boy ever was. He alone could expel a boy; and he alone could give leave out from college; as was testified by the appearance every Sunday of a great folio sheet, on which were inscribed, in his own peculiar great square characters, each letter standing by itself, the names of those who had been invited by friends to dine in the town, and who were thereby permitted to go out from, I think, one to five. To go out of the college gates without that permission was expulsion. But it was a crime never committed. There were traditional stories of scaling of walls, but I remember no case of the kind.

There was one occasion on which every boy had an interview with the Warden—that of taking before him the “college oath,” which took place when we were, as I remember, fourteen. On a certain day in every year the “prefect of hall” made inquiry for all of that age who had not taken the oath, and required them to copy a sheet of writing handed to them. I cannot remember the words in which the oath was couched, but the main provisions of it were to the effect that you would never by word or deed do aught to injure the college or its revenues; that you would be obedient to the authorities; and that you would never in any way by word or deed look down on any scholar of the college, the social position of whose family might be inferior to your own. And I remember that there was appended to the oath the story of a certain captain in Cromwell’s forces, who, when the Parliament troopers were about to invade, and probably sack, the college, so exercised his authority as to prevent that misfortune, being influenced thereto by the remembrance of his college oath. Before swearing, which we did with much awe, we had to read over the oath. And I well remember that if a boy in reading pronounced the word “revenue” with the accent on the first syllable (as it was already at that time the usual mode to do), the Warden invariably corrected him with, “Revènue, boy!” It was, I suppose, an exemplification of the dictum “No innovation,” which (with the “a” pronounced as in “father,”) was said to be continually the rule of his conduct.

Probably it did not occur to him that the Herefordshire people might have considered it an innovation that Herefordshire candidates for orders should be obliged to come to be ordained in Winchester College Chapel, as was the case, instead of finding their Bishop in his own cathedral church!

Bishop Huntingford was a notable Grecian, and had published a rudimentary book of Greek exercises, which was at one time largely used. I take it he was not in any larger sense a profound scholar. But I remember a story which was illustrative of his grammatical accuracy. The Dean of Winchester, Dr. Rennell, was an enthusiastic Platonist, and upon one occasion in conversation with the Warden and others, quoted a passage from Plato, in which the adjective “παντων” occurred. Upon which the Bishop promptly denied that any such words were to be found in Plato. The controversy was said to have been remitted to the arbitrament of a wager of a dinner and dozen of port, when the Warden, who in fact knew nothing of the passage quoted, but knew that the Dean had said “παντων” in the masculine, when the substantive with which it was made to agree required the feminine, said, “No! no! πασων, Mr. Dean, πασων!” and so won his wager.

The Warden’s nickname, borne among sundry generations of Wykehamists, was Tupto (τυπτω), as we always supposed from that Greek verb used as the example in the Greek grammar. But I have heard from those of an earlier generation that it was quasi dicas “tiptoe,” from the fact of his father having been a dancing-master. The former derivation seems to me the more plausible.

“Tupto” very rarely came to college chapel, and when he did so in his episcopal wig and lawn sleeves, it was felt by us that his presence gave a very marked additional solemnity to the occasion. Though assuredly far from being a model bishop according to the estimate of these latter days, I believe him to have been a very good man. He lived and died a bachelor, having at a very early period of his life undertaken the support of a brother’s widow and family, who had been left unprovided for. And it was reported among Wykehamists of an earlier generation than mine that never was husband so severely ruled by a wife as the Bishop was by his sister-in-law. “Peace to his manes,” as old Cramer, the pianist, used to say, always pronouncing it monosyllabically, “mains”! His rule of Winchester College was a long and prosperous one; and as long as it lasted he was able to carry out his favourite maxim, “No innovation!”

But when old Tupto went over to the majority, the spirit of innovation, so long repressed, began to exert itself in many directions. I am told for instance that it has been found too much for young Wykehamists of the present generation to wait for their breakfasts till ten in the morning, and that the excursion to “morning hills” before breakfast is declared to be too much for their strength. Well, I wish it may answer, as Sterne’s Uncle Toby said. But I do not think that the college during the latter years of our century can show better bills of health than it did in its earlier decades.

The dormitory arrangements are much changed, I believe, and it may be worth while to record a few reminiscences of what they were in my day.

The second or inner quadrangle of the college buildings was formed by the chapel and hall and kitchen on one side, and on the other three by the lodgings of the fellows and the “hostiarius” on the first floor, and the “chambers” of the scholars on the ground floor. These chambers were seven in number. They contained therefore on an average ten beds each. But they were by no means equal in size. The largest, “seventh” (for they were all known by their numbers), held thirteen beds; the smallest, “fifth,” only eight. A few years before my time, that side of the quadrangle under which were situated the “first” and “second” chambers was burned. And the beds and other arrangements in these two chambers were of a more modern model. In the other five the old bedsteads remained as they had been from time immemorial. They were of solid oak of two to three inches thickness in every part, and were black with age. The part which held the bed was a box, about six feet and a half long, by three wide, with solid sides some six inches deep, and supported on four massive legs. But at the head for about eighteen inches or so these sides were raised to a height of about four or five feet, and covered in. The whole construction was massive, and afforded an extremely snug and comfortable sleeping place, which was much preferred to the iron bedsteads in the two new chambers. Older bones might perhaps have found the oak planking under the bed somewhat hard, but we were entirely unconscious of any such objection.

The door in every chamber was well screened from the beds. There was a huge fireplace with heavy iron dogs, on which we burned in winter large faggots about four feet long. Four of such faggots was the allowance for each evening, and it was abundantly sufficient. It was the duty of the bedmakers, whose operations were all performed when we were in school, to put four faggots in each chamber, which we used at our discretion—i. e. at the discretion of the prefects in the chamber. As the eighteen prefects were distributed among the seven chambers, there were three prefects in each of the larger, and two in each of the smaller chambers. By the side of each bed was a little desk, with a cupboard above, which was called a “toys,” in which each boy kept the books he needed for work “in chambers,” and any other private property. For his clothes he had also by his bedside a large chest, of a make contemporary with the bedstead, which served him also for a seat at the desk of the “toys.” In the middle of the chamber was a pillar, around which were hung our surplices. Over the huge fireplace was an iron sconce fixed in the wall, in which a rushlight, called by us a “functure” was burned all night. And the “prefect in course” was responsible for its being kept duly burning. The nightly rounds of the “hostiarius” were not frequent, but he might come at any minute of any night. Suddenly his pass key would be heard in the door—for it was the rule that every chamber door should be kept locked all night; he came in with a lanthorn in his hand, and if all was right, i. e. if the functure was duly burning, every boy in his bed, and his candle put out, he merely looked around and passed on to another chamber. If otherwise, the “prefect in course” had an interview with him on the following morning. These chamber doors, which, as I have said, it was the rule to keep always locked during the night, were exceedingly massive, ironbound, and with enormous locks and hinges. Now there was a tradition in college that a certain former “senior prefect in third” (subaudi chamber) had carried the door of that chamber round the quadrangle. The Atlas thus remembered was a minor canon of the cathedral, when I was “senior prefect in third,” and the tradition of his prowess excited my emulation. So I had the door in question taken from its hinges and laid upon my bent back, and caused the door of “fourth” to be carefully placed on the top of it, and so carried both doors round the quadrangle, thus outdoing the minor canon by a hundred per cent. In due proportion the feat should surely have made me in time a canon! But it has not done so. I think, however, that I might challenge any one of my schoolfellows of the present generation, whose constitutions are cared for by the early breakfasts, which we did not get, to do likewise—supposing, that is, the old doors to be still in existence, and in statu quo. From seven to eight we were, or ought to have been, at work, seated at our “toys” in chambers. And during that hour no “inferior” could leave the chamber without the permission of the “prefect in course.” At eight we went into chapel—or rather into the ante-chapel only—for short prayers, and after that till nine we were free to do as we pleased. Some would walk up and down “sands,” as the broad flagstone pavement below the chapel wall was called.

Each prefect in the chamber had a little table, at which he sat during the evening, and which in the morning served as a washing-stand, on which it was the duty of the “junior,” who was his “valet,” to place his basin and washing things. But all “inferiors” had to perform their ablutions at the “conduit” in the open quadrangle. In severe or wet weather this was not Sybaritic! But again I say that it would have been difficult to find a healthier collection of boys than we were.

The discipline which regulated that part of college life spent “in chambers,” must have been, I think, much more lax at a former day, than it was in my time, for I remember to have heard my father, who was in college under Dr. Warton, say that Tom Warton, the head master’s brother (and the well-known author of the History of Poetry) used frequently to be with the boys “in chambers” of an evening; that he would often knock off a companion’s “verse task” for him, and that the Doctor the next morning would recognise “that rascal Tom’s work.” Now in my day it would have been altogether impossible and out of the question for any outsider, however much an old Wykehamist, and brother of the master, to be with us in chambers.

There was an anecdote current I remember among Wykehamists of that generation respecting “that rascal Tom,” to the effect that he narrowly missed becoming head of Trinity, of which college at Oxford he was a fellow, under the following circumstances. There was a certain fellow of the college, whose name need not here be recorded, rather famous among his contemporaries for the reverse of wisdom or intelligence. Upon one occasion, Tom Warton, sitting in his stall in chapel close to the gentleman in question, who was reading the Psalms, and when the latter came to the verse, “Lord, thou knowest my simpleness,” was so indiscreet as to mutter in an almost audible tone, “Ay! we all know that!” But it so chanced that not very long afterwards there was an election for the presidentship of the college, and Warton, who was a very popular man, was one of two candidates. The college, however, was very closely divided between them, and “that rascal Tom” had to apply to his “simple” colleague for his vote. “Not so simple as all that, Mr. Warton!” was the reply; and the story goes that the historian of poetry lost his election by that one vote.

And this college chapel anecdote reminds me to say, before concluding my Wiccamical reminiscences, a few words about our chapel-going in the olden time. In this department also very much of change has taken place, doubtless here at least for the better.

But it must be remembered that any change of this sort has been contemporaneous with change, at least as strongly marked in the same direction, in the general tone of English manners, sentiments, and habits. We English were not a devout people in the days when George the Third was king, especially as regards all that portion of the world which held aloof from evangelicalism and dissent. We were not altogether without religious feeling in college, but it manifested itself chiefly in the form of a pronounced abhorrence for those two, as we considered them, ungentlemanlike propensities. For about three weeks at Easter time the lower classes in the school read the Greek Testament instead of the usual Greek authors, and the upper classes read Lowth’s Prælections on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews—a book unimpeachable in point of Latinity and orthodoxy, for was not the author a Wykehamist? But I do not remember aught else in the way of religious instruction, unless it were found in the assiduity of our attendances at chapel.

We went to chapel twice (including the short evening prayers in the ante-chapel) every day. On Fridays we went three times, and on Saturdays also three times; the service in the afternoon being choral. On Sundays we went thrice to chapel, and twice to the cathedral; on red-letter days thrice to chapel, and as often on “Founder’s commemoration,” and “Founder’s obit.” These latter services, as also those on Sundays and holidays, were choral. We had three chaplains, an organist, four vicars choral, and six choristers for the service of the chapel. The “choristers,” who were mentioned at a former page as carrying the “dispers” up into hall, though so called, had nothing to do with the choral service. They were twelve in number, were fed, clothed, and educated by a master of their own, and discharged the duty of waiting on the scholars as messengers, etc., at certain hours.

Our three chaplains were all of them also minor canons of the cathedral. Very worthy, good men they were—one of them especially and exceptionally exemplary in his family relations; but their mode of performing the service in the chapel was not what would in these days be considered decorous or reverential. Besides the chaplaincy of the college, and the minor canonry of the cathedral, these gentlemen—all three of them, I believe—held small livings in the city. And the multiplicity of duty which had thus to be done rendered a decree of speed in the performance of the service so often a desideratum, and sometimes an absolute necessity, that that became the most marked characteristic of the performers. In reading, or rather intoning the prayers, the habit was to allow no time at all for the choir to chant their “Amen,” which had to be interjected in such sort that when the tones of it died away the priest had already got through two or three lines of the following prayer. One of our chaplains, who had the well-deserved character of being the fastest of the three, we called the diver. For it was his practice in reading or intoning to continue with great rapidity as long as his breath would last, and then, while recovering it, to proceed mentally without interruption, so that we lost sight (or hearing) of him at one point, and when he came to the surface, i.e., became audible again, he was several lines further down the page; and this we called “diving.” It was proudly believed in college that this was the gentleman of whom the story was first told, that he was ready to give any man to “Pontius Pilate” in the Creed, and arrive at the end before him. But however worthy competitor he may have been in such a race, I have reason to believe that the chaplain of a certain college in Oxford was the original of the story.

Another of our three chaplains was a great sportsman. It was the practice that the lessons were always read in chapel by one of the prefects.

I remember by the bye (but this is parenthetical), that one of our number was unable to pronounce the letter “r,” and we used to scheme that it should fall to his lot to tell us that “Bawabbas was a wobber.”

Now the boy who read the lessons, sat, not in his usual place, but by the side of the chaplain who was performing the service. And it was the habit of the reverend sportsman I have referred to, to intercalate with the verses of the Psalm he was reading, sotto voce, anecdotes of his most recent sporting achievements, addressed to the youth at his side, using for the purpose the interval during which the choir recited the alternate verse.

As thus, on one twenty-eighth evening of the month, well remembered after some sixty years: