FOOTNOTE:

"A drowsy, frowsy poem calledThe Excursion,Writ in a manner which is my aversion,"

"A drowsy, frowsy poem calledThe Excursion,

Writ in a manner which is my aversion,"

and "Tommy Steel" opened my eyes to a new world of beauty. By the way, he had known Wordsworth, and had entertained him at Harrow; and he told us that the Poet always said "housen," where we say houses.

Another of our curiosities was Mr. Jacob Francis Marillier, a genial old gentleman without a degree, who had been supposed to teach writing and Mathematics, but long before my time had droppedthe writing—I suppose as hopeless—and only played a mathematical barrel-organ. He had joined the staff at Harrow in 1819, and, as from my earliest days I had a love of Links with the Past, I learned from Mr. Marillier a vast amount about the ancient traditions of the School, which, even in 1869 (when he resigned), were becoming faint and forgotten.

Yet a third oddity must be commemorated; but in this case it is desirable to use a pseudonym. I think I remember in one of Bulwer-Lytton's novels a family called Sticktoright,[3]and that name will do as well as another. The Rev. Samuel Sticktoright was essentially what is called a "Master of the old school." He was born in 1808, came to Harrow in 1845, and had a large House for thirty years. I have just been contemplating his photograph in my Harrow album, and he certainly looks "the old school" all over, with his carefully-trimmed whiskers, double-breasted waistcoat, and large white "choker," neatly tied. By the boys generally he was regarded as an implacable tyrant, and I have heard (though this was before mytime) that a special victim of his passionless severity was a pink-faced youth with blue eyes called Randall Thomas Davidson. Personally, I rather liked him; partly, no doubt, on the principle on which Homer called the Æthiopians blameless—namely, that he had nothing to do with them. But there was a sly twinkle in the corner of Mr. Sticktoright's eye which bespoke a lurking sense of humour, and in the very few words which he ever bestowed on me there generally was a suggestion of dry—very dry—fun. He was, of course, the most uncompromising of Tories, and every form of change, in Church or State or School, was equally abhorrent to him. In local society he played a considerable part, both giving and receiving hospitality; and it was the traditional pleasantry to chaff him as an inveterate bachelor, at whom all the young ladies of the place were setting their virginal caps. These jests he received very much as Tim Linkinwater received the allusions of Mr. Cheeryble to the "uncommonly handsome spinster," rather encouraging them as tributes to the fact that, though now advanced in years, he was well preserved, and, as most people surmised, well off.

These facetious passages were, of course, confined to the society in which the masters moved, and we boys knew them only by hearsay. But what we saw with our own eyes was that the only human being who ever dared to "cheek" Mr. Sticktoright, or to interfere with his arrangements, or to disregard his orders, was his butler, whom we will call Boniface. Everyone who knows school-boys knows that they have a trick of saying things about those in authority over them, which really they do not the least believe but which they make a bold pretence of believing. So in the case of "Sticky" and Boniface. They were of much the same age, and rather similar in appearance; wherefore we said that they were brothers; that they had risen from a lowly station in the world, and had tossed up which should be master and which butler; that "Sticky" had won the toss, and that the disappointed Boniface held his brother in subjection by a veiled threat that, if he were offended, he would reveal the whole story to the world. This tradition seemed to present some elements of unlikelihood, and yet it survived from generation to generation; for not otherwise could we account for the palpable fact that the iron severity whichheld all boy-flesh in awe melted into impotence when Boniface was the offender.

The solution of the mystery was romantic. Dr. Butler, contrary to his usual practice, was spending the Christmas holidays of 1876-7 at Harrow. One day a stranger was announced, and opened the conversation by saying—"I regret to tell you that your colleague, Mr. Sticktoright, is dead. He died suddenly at Brighton, where he was spending the holidays. I am his brother-in-law and executor, and, in compliance with his instructions, I have to ask you to accompany me to his house." Those who know the present Master of Trinity can picture the genuine grief with which he received this notification. Mr. Sticktoright had been a master when he was a boy at school, and a highly-respected colleague ever since he became Head-master. That the bearer of the sad news should be Sticktoright's brother-in-law seemed quite natural, for he must have married a Miss Sticktoright; and the Head-master and the executor went together to the dead man's house. There, after some unlocking of drawers and opening of cabinets, they came upon a document to this effect: "In case of my dying away from Harrow, this is to certify thaton a certain day, in a certain place, I married Mary Smith, sometime a housemaid in my service, by whom I leave a family."

So there had really been much more foundation for our tradition than we had ever dreamed, and Boniface had probably known the romantic history of his master's life. The extraordinary part of the matter was that old Sticktoright had always spent the Easter, Summer, and Christmas holidays in the bosom of his family at Brighton, and that no one connected with Harrow had ever chanced to see him basking in their smiles. [N.B.—the names, personal and local, are fictitious.] In the north aisle of Harrow School Chapel, where departed masters are commemorated, you may search in vain for any memorial to the Rev. Samuel Sticktoright.

Yet one more curiosity must be named, this time not a Harrow master. "Polly Arnold" kept a stationer's shop, and, as a child, helping her grand-mother in the same shop, had sold pens—some added cribs—to Byron when a boy in the school. Here was a Link of the Past which exactly suited me, and, if only Polly could have understood the allusion, I should have said to her—"Ah, did youonce see Byron plain?" I happened to have a sister who, though exceptionally clever and lively, had absolutely no chronological sense. I took her to see Polly Arnold one day, when this conversation ensued—"Well, Miss Arnold, I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I have often heard of you from my brother. He tells me you remember John Lyon. How very interesting!" [N.B.—John Lyon founded Harrow School in 1571.] To this tribute Polly replied with much asperity—"I know I'm getting on in life, Miss, but I'm not quite three hundred years old yet"—while my sister murmured in my ear—"Whoisit she remembers? I know it's someone who lived a long time ago."

But the name of Arnold, when connected with Harrow, suggests quite another train of thought. At Easter, 1868, Matthew Arnold came to live at Harrow, with a view of placing his three boys in the School. The eldest of the three was the invalid to whom his father referred in a letter quoted in my first chapter: I was able to show him some little kindnesses, and thus arose an intimacy with the parents, brothers, and sisters which I have always regarded as—

"Part of my life's unalterable good."

FOOTNOTE:[3]"The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze-land to the Sticktorights—an old Saxon family if ever there was one."My Novel. Book I.

[3]"The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze-land to the Sticktorights—an old Saxon family if ever there was one."My Novel. Book I.

"I may have failed, my School may fail;I tremble, but thus much I dare;I love her. Let the critics rail,My brethren and my home are there."W. Cory.

"I may have failed, my School may fail;I tremble, but thus much I dare;I love her. Let the critics rail,My brethren and my home are there."

"I may have failed, my School may fail;

I tremble, but thus much I dare;

I love her. Let the critics rail,

My brethren and my home are there."

W. Cory.

Everyone who travels by the North Western, or the Great Central, or the Midland Railway, must be conversant with the appearance of that "Pinnacle perched on a Precipice," which was Charles II.'s idea of the Visible Church on Earth—the Parish Church of Harrow on the Hill. Anselm consecrated it, Becket said Mass in it, and John Lyon, the Founder of Harrow School, lies buried in it. When I was a Harrow boy, the Celebrations of the Holy Communion in the School Chapel were rare, and generally late; so some of us were accustomed to communicate every Sunday at the 8 o'clock service in the Parish Church. But even in holy places, and amid sacred associations,the ludicrous is apt to assert itself; and I could never sufficiently admire a tablet in the North aisle, commemorating a gentleman who died of the first Reform Bill.

"JOHN HENRY NORTH,Judge of the Admiralty in Ireland.Without an equal at the University, a rival at the Bar,Or a superior in chaste and classic eloquence in Parliament.Honoured, Revered, Admired, Beloved, Deplored,By the Irish Bar, the Senate and his country,He sunk beneath the efforts of a mind too great forHis earthly frame,In opposing the Revolutionary Invasion of the Religion andConstitution of England,On the 29th of September, 1831, in the 44th year of his age."

Alas! poor Mr. North. What would he have felt if he had lived to see the Reform Bills of 1867 and 1885? Clearly he was taken away from the evil to come.

Until the Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker Street, the Hill stood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt country, separated by five miles of grass from the nearest point of London, and encompassed by isolated dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to country houses. Most of these have fallen victims to the Speculative Builder, and have been cut up into alleys ofbrick and stucco, though one or two still remain among their hay-fields and rhododendrons. When I first ascended Harrow Hill, I drove there from London with my mother; and, from Harlesden onwards, our road lay between grass meadows, and was shaded by hedgerow timber. Harrow was then a much prettier place than it is now. The far-seen elms under which Byron dreamed[4]were still in their unlopped glory, and the whole effect of the Hill was wooded. So an Eton man and Harrow master[5]wrote:—

"Collis incola frondeiNympha, sive lubentiusNostra Pieris audies,Lux adest; ades O tuisHerga[6]mater, alumnis!""Goddess of the leafy Hill,Nymph, or Muse, or what you will,With the light begins the lay,—Herga, be our guest to-day."

"Collis incola frondeiNympha, sive lubentiusNostra Pieris audies,Lux adest; ades O tuisHerga[6]mater, alumnis!"

"Collis incola frondei

Nympha, sive lubentius

Nostra Pieris audies,

Lux adest; ades O tuis

Herga[6]mater, alumnis!"

"Goddess of the leafy Hill,Nymph, or Muse, or what you will,With the light begins the lay,—Herga, be our guest to-day."

"Goddess of the leafy Hill,

Nymph, or Muse, or what you will,

With the light begins the lay,—

Herga, be our guest to-day."

The site now covered by the externally hideousSpeech-room—a cross between a swimming-bath and a tennis-court—was then a garden. In truth, it only grew strawberries and cabbages, but to the imaginative eye, it was as beautiful as the hanging pleasaunces of Semiramis.

Dr. Butler, with a hundred gifts and accomplishments, had no æsthetic or artistic sense; and, under his rule, the whole place was over-run by terrible combinations of red and black brick; and the beautiful view from the School-Yard, stretching away across the Uxbridge plain, was obstructed by some kind of play-shed, with a little spout atop—the very impertinence of ugliness.

Of the various buildings at Harrow, by far the most interesting is what is now called "The Fourth Form Room," in the West wing of the Old School. It is the original room which John Lyon designed—"A large and convenient school-house with a chimney in it,"—and in its appearance and arrangements it exactly bespeaks the village Day School that Harrow originally was. Its stout brick walls have faced the western breezes of three hundred years, and in their mellow richness of tint remind one of Hatfield House and HamptonCourt. This single room has been the nucleus round which all subsequent buildings—Chapel and Library and School-Rooms and Boarding-Houses—have gathered; and, as long as it exists, Harrow will be visibly and tangibly connected with its Founder's prescient care.

John Lyon knew nothing of Conscience Clauses. He ordained that all his school-boys should attend the Parish Church; and so they did, stowed away in galleries where hearing was difficult and kneeling impossible. In 1836 Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, was elected Head-master of Harrow, in succession to the genial but too gentle Longley. Seeing that Worship was practically impossible for the boys under existing conditions, he set to work to build a Chapel. It occupied the same site as the present Chapel, but only one fragment of it remains, embedded in the West wall of Sir Gilbert Scott's more graceful structure. The Chapel was consecrated by the Visitor, Archbishop Howley, in 1839. Dr. Wordsworth, justly proud of his handiwork, invited his brother-master, Dr. Hawtrey of Eton, to view it. Much to Wordsworth's surprise, Hawtrey did not take off his hat on entering theChapel; but, when he neared the altar, started back in confusion, and exclaimed, in hasty apology, "I assure you, my dear friend, I had no notion that we were already inside the Sacred Edifice."

So much for the æsthetics of Harrow Chapel as originally constructed, but time and piety have completely changed it. In 1855, Dr. Vaughan added a Chancel with an apsidal end, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. Next, the central passage of the Chapel became a Nave, with pillars and a North Aisle. Then the South Aisle was added, and decorated with glass before which one shudders, as a Memorial to Harrow men who fell in the Crimea. So the Chapel remained till 1903, when two curious additions, something between transepts and side-chapels, were added in memory of Harrow men who fell in South Africa. The total result of these successive changes is a building of remarkably irregular shape, but richly decorated, and sanctified by innumerable memories of friends long since loved and lost. A tablet, near which as a new boy I used to sit, bears this inscription—

In mournful andaffectionate remembrance ofJOHN HYDE D'ARCY,Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford,and formerly Head of this School.He passed through the Strait Gateof Humility, Toil, and Patience,into the clear light and true knowledge of HimWho is our Peace."If any man will do His Will, he shall know of the doctrine."

Few sermons have ever impressed me so powerfully as this significant memorial of a life which lasted only nineteen years.

The morning and evening services in the Chapel were what is called "bright and cheerful"—in other words, extremely noisy and not very harmonious or reverent. We had two sermons every Sunday. The Head-master preached in the evening; the Assistant-masters in the morning. Occasionally, we had a stranger of repute. Dr. Butler's preaching I have already described, and also that of Farrar and Westcott. Mr. Steel's traditional discourses were in a class by themselves. But other preachers we had, not less remarkable. I distinctly remember a sermon by Mr. Sticktoright, who told us that we did not know in what way the world would be destroyed—it might be by fire, orit might be by water (though this latter alternative seems precluded by Genesis ix. 11). The Rev. James Robertson, afterwards Head-master of Haileybury, compared the difference between a dull boy and a clever boy to that between an ox and a dog. "To the ox, the universe comprises only the impassive blue above, and the edible green beneath; while the dog finds a world of excitement in hunting, and a demi-god in man." Dean Stanley, preaching on Trinity Sunday, 1868, thus explained away the doctrine of the Trinity—"God the Father is God in Nature. God the Son is God in History. God the Holy Ghost is God in the Conscience." And Thring of Uppingham bellowed an exposition of Psalm lxxviii. 70 with such surprising vigour that he acquired among us the affectionate nickname of "Old Sheepfolds." It is a pleasure to place in contrast with these absurdities the truly pastoral and moving sermons of Mr. John Smith, whose apostolic work at Harrow I have already commemorated. His paraphrase of 1. St. Peter iv. 7-8 still lingers in my ear—"Be watchful, be prayerful, be very kind." He is thus described on a Memorial Tablet in the Chapel:

To the Young a Father,To friends in joy or grief a Brother,To the poor, the suffering, and the tempted,A minister of Hope and Strength.Tried by more than common sorrows,And upborne by more than common faith,His holy life interpreted to manyThe Mind which was in Christ Jesus,The Promise of the Comforter,And the Vision granted to the Pure in Heart.

It may seem odd that one should remember so much about sermons preached so long ago, but Bishop Welldon's testimony illustrates the point. "When I came to Harrow, I was greatly struck by the feeling of the boys for the weekly Sermon; they looked for it as an element in their lives, they attended to it, and passed judgment upon it." (I may remark in passing that Dr. Welldon promptly and wisely reduced the Sunday Sermons from two to one.)

But the day of days in Harrow Chapel was Founder's Day, October 10th, 1868, when the preacher at the Commemoration Service was Liddon, who had lately become famous by the Bampton Lectures of 1866. The scene and the sermon can never be forgotten. Prayers and hymns and thanksgivings for Founder and Benefactors had been duly performed, and we had listened with becoming solemnity to that droll chapter about"Such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing." When the preacher entered the pulpit, his appearance instantly attracted attention. We had heard vaguely of him as "the great Oxford swell," but now that we saw him we felt a livelier interest. "He looks like a monk," one boy whispers to his neighbour; and indeed it is a better description than the speaker knows. The Oxford M.A. gown, worn over a cassock, is the Benedictine habit modified by time and place; the spare, thin figure suggests asceticism; the beautifully chiselled, sharply-pointed features, the close-shaved face, the tawny skin, the jet-black hair, remind us vaguely of something by Velasquez or Murillo, or of Ary Scheffer's picture of St. Augustine. And the interest aroused by sight is intensified by sound. The vibrant voice strikes like an electric shock. The exquisite, almost over-refined, articulation seems the very note of culture. The restrained passion which thrills through the disciplined utterance warns even the most heedless that something quite unlike the ordinary stuff of school-sermons is coming. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thoushalt say, I have no pleasure in them." The speaker speaks of the blessedness and glory of boyhood; the splendid inheritance of a Public School built on Christian lines; the unequalled opportunities of learning while the faculties are still fresh and the mind is still receptive; the worthlessness of all merely secular attainment, however desirable, however necessary, when weighed in the balance against "the one thing needful." The congregation still are boys, but soon they will be men. Dark days will come, as Ecclesiastes warned—dark in various ways and senses, darkest when, at the University or elsewhere, we first are bidden to cast faith aside and to believe nothing but what can be demonstrated by "an appeal, in the last resort, to the organs of sense." Now is the time, and this is the place, so to "remember our Creator" that, come what may, we shall never be able to forget Him, or doubt His love, or question His revelation. The preacher leans far out from the pulpit, spreading himself, as it were, over the congregation, in an act of benediction. "From this place may Christ ever be preached, in the fulness of His creative, redemptive, and sacramental work. Here may you learn to remember Him in the days ofyour youth, and, in the last and most awful day of all, may He remember you."

Five minutes afterwards we are in the open air. Boys stare and gasp; masters hurry past, excited and loquacious. Notes are compared, and watches consulted. Liddon has preached for an hour, and the school must go without its dinner.

Enough has now been said about the Chapel and its memories. I must now turn to lighter themes. I remember once hearing Mrs. Procter, who was born in 1799 and died in 1888, say casually at a London dinner-party, when someone mentioned Harrow Speech-Day—"Ah! that used to be a pleasant day. The last time I was there I drove down with Lord Byron and Doctor Parr, who had been breakfasting with my step-father, Basil Montagu." This reminiscence seemed to carry one back some way, but I entirely agreed with Mrs. Procter. Speech-Day at Harrow has been for more than forty years one of my favourite holidays. In my time the present Speech-Room did not exist. The old Speech-Room, added to John Lyon's original building in 1819, was a well-proportioned hall, with panelled walls and large windows. Tiers of seats rose on three sides of theroom; on the fourth was the platform, and just opposite the platform sat the Head-master, flanked right and left by distinguished visitors. There was a triumphal arch of evergreens over the gate, and the presence of the Beadle of the Parish Church, sumptuous in purple and gold, pointed to the historic but obsolescent connexion between the Parish and the School. The material of the "Speeches," so-called, was much the same as that provided at other schools—Shakespeare, Sheridan, Chatham, Aristophanes, Plautus, Molière, Schiller. An age-long desire to play the Trial inPickwickwas only attained, under the liberal rule of Dr. Wood, in 1909. At the Speeches, one caught one's first glimpse of celebrities whom one was destined to see at closer quarters in the years to come; and I never can forget the radiant beauty of "Spencer's Faery Queen,"[7]as I saw her at the Speeches of 1869.

While I am speaking of Celebrities, I must make a short digression from Speech-Day to Holidays. Dr. Vaughan, some time Head-master of Harrow and afterwards Dean of Llandaff, was in 1868 Vicar of Doncaster. My only brother was one ofhis curates; the Vaughans asked my mother to stay with them at the Vicarage, in order that she might see her son, then newly ordained, at his work; and, the visit falling in the Harrow holidays, they good-naturedly said that she might bring me with her. Dr. Vaughan was always exceedingly kind to boys, and one morning, on our way back from the daily service, he said to me—"Sir Grosvenor Le Draughte[8]has proposed to break his journey here, on his return from Scotland. Do you know him? No? Well—observe Sir Grosvenor. He is well worthy of observation. He is exactly what the hymn-book calls 'a worldling.'" The day advanced, and no Sir Grosvenor appeared. The Doctor came into the drawing-room repeatedly, asking if "that tiresome old gentleman had arrived," and Mrs. Vaughan plied him with topics of consolation—"Perhaps he has missed his train. Perhaps there has been an accident. Perhaps he has been taken ill on the journey"—but the Doctor shook his head and refused to be comforted. After dinner, we sat in an awe-struck silence, while the Vaughans, knowing the hour atwhich the last train from Scotland came in, and the length of time which it took to drive from the station, listened with ears erect. Presently the wheels of a fly came rumbling up, and Dr. Vaughan, exclaiming, "Our worst anticipations are realized!" hurried to the front door. Then, welcoming the aged traveller with open arms, he said in his blandest tones—"Now, my dear Sir Grosvenor, I know you must be dreadfully tired. You shall go to bed at once." Sir Grosvenor, who longed to sit up till midnight, telling anecdotes and drinking brandy-and-water, feebly remonstrated; but the remorseless Doctor led his unwilling captive upstairs. It was a triumph of theSuaviter in modo, and gave me an impressive lesson on the welcome which awaits self-invited guests, even when they are celebrities. But all this is a parenthesis.

I should be shamefully ungrateful to a place of peculiar enjoyment if I forbore to mention the Library at Harrow. It was opened in 1863, as a Memorial of Dr. Vaughan's Head-mastership, and its delicious bow-window, looking towards Hampstead, was my favourite resort. On whole-holidays, when others were playing cricket, I usedto read there for hours at a stretch; and gratified my insatiable thirst for Biographies, Memoirs, and Encyclopædias. The Library was also the home of the Debating Society, and there I moved, forty-two years ago, that a Hereditary Legislative Body is incompatible with free institutions; and supported the present Bishop of Oxford in declaring that a Republic is the best form of Government. The mention of the Debating Society leads me to the subject of Politics. I have said in a former chapter that the Conservative Reform Bill of 1867 was the first political event which interested me. It was a stirring time all over the world, in France, in Italy, and in Mexico. There were rebellions and rumours of rebellion. Monarchical institutions were threatened. Secret Societies were in full activity. The whole social order seemed to be passing through a crisis, and I, like the Abbé Siéyes, fell to framing constitutions; my favourite scheme being a Republic, with a President elected for life, and a Legislature chosen by universal suffrage. But all these dreams were dispelled by the realities of my new life at Harrow, and, for a while, I perforce thought more of Imperial than of Papal Rome, of Greek than of English Republics. But in the summerof 1868, Mr. Gladstone's first attack on the Irish Church caused such an excitement as I had never before known. It was a pitched battle between the two great Parties of the State, and I was an enthusiastic follower of the Gladstonian standard. In November 1868 came the General Election which was to decide the issue. Of course Harrow, like all other schools, was Tory as the sea is salt. Out of five hundred boys, I can only recall five who showed the Liberal colour. These were the present Lord Grey; Walter Leaf, the Homeric Scholar; W. A. Meek, now Recorder of York; M. G. Dauglish, who edited the "Harrow Register," and myself. On the polling day I received my "Baptism of Fire," or rather of mud, being rolled over and over in the attempt to tear my colours from me. The Tory colour was red; the Liberal was blue; and my mother, chancing to drive through Harrow with the light blue carriage-wheels which my family have always used, was playfully but loudly hissed by wearers of the red rosette. Among the masters, political opinion was divided. Mr. Young, whom I quoted just now, was a Liberal, and a Tory boy called Freddy Bennet (brother of the present Lord Tankerville) covered himself with glory by pinninga red streamer to the back of Young's gown while he was calling "Bill."

In the following year our Politics found a fresh vent through the establishment ofThe Harrovian. I had dabbled in composition ever since I was ten, and had printed both prose and verse before I entered Harrow School. So here was a heaven-sent contributor, and one morning, in the autumn of 1869, as I was coming out of First School, one[9]of the Editors overtook me and said—

"We want you to contribute toThe Harrovian. We are only going to employ fellows who can write English—not such stuff as 'The following boyswere given prizes.'" Purism indeed!

Here began my journalistic career. For three years I wrote a considerable part of the paper, and I was an Editor during my last year, in conjunction with my friends Dumbar Barton and Walter Sichel.

Harrow is sometimes said to be the most musical of Public Schools; and certainly our School Songs have attained a wide popularity. I believe that "Forty Years on" is sung all over the world. But, when I went to Harrow, we were confined to the traditional English songs and ballads, and tosome Latin ditties by Bradby and Westcott, which we bellowed lustily but could not always construe. E. E. Bowen's stirring, though often bizarre, compositions (admirably set to music by John Farmer) began soon after I entered the school, and E. W. Howson's really touching and melodious verses succeeded Bowens' some ten years after I had left. Other song-writers, of greater or less merit, we have had; but from first to last, the thrilling spell of a Harrow concert has been an experience quite apart from all other musical enjoyments. "The singing is the thing. When you hear the great body of fresh voices leap up like a lark from the ground, and rise and swell and swell and rise till the rafters seem to crack and shiver, then you seem to have discovered all the sources of feeling." This was the tribute of a stranger, and an Harrovian has recorded the same emotion:—"John was singing like a lark, with a lark's spontaneous delight in singing; with an ease and self-abandonment which charmed eye almost as much as ear. Higher and higher rose the clear, sexless notes, till two of them met and mingled in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that trill was the answer to the quavering, troubled cadences of the first verse; the vindication of thespirit soaring upwards unfettered by the flesh—the pure spirit, not released from the human clay without a fierce struggle. At that moment Desmond loved the singer—the singer who called to him out of heaven, who summoned his friend to join him, to see what he saw—'the vision splendid.'"[10]

I am conscious that, so far, I have treated the Moloch of Athletics with such scant respect that his worshippers may doubt if I ever was really a boy. Certainly my physical inability to play games was rendered less bitter by the fact that I did not care about them. I well remember the astonishment of my tutor, when he kindly asked me to luncheon on his carriage at my first Eton and Harrow match, and I replied that I should not be there.

"Not be at Lord's, my boy? How very strange! Why?"

"Because there are three things which I particularly dislike—heat, and crowds, and cricket." It certainly was a rather priggish answer, but let me say in self-defence that before I left the school I had become as keen on "Lord's," as the best of my compeers.

That, in spite of his reprehensible attitude towards our national game, I was still, as Mr. Chadband said, "a human boy," is proved by the intense interest with which I beheld the one and only "Mill" which ever took place while I was at Harrow.[11]It was fought on the 25th of February, 1868, with much form and ceremony. The "Milling-ground," now perverted to all sorts of base uses, is immediately below the School-Yard. The ground slopes rapidly, so that the wall of the Yard forms the gallery of the Milling-Ground. The moment that "Bill" was over, I rushed to the wall and secured an excellent place, leaning my elbows on the wall, while a friend, who was a moment later, sat on my shoulders and looked over my bowed head. It would be indiscreet to mention the names of the combatants, though I remember them perfectly. One was a red-headed giant; the other short, dark, and bow-legged. Neither had at all a pleasant countenance, and I must admit that I enjoyed seeing them pound each other into pulp. I felt that two beasts were getting their deserts. To-day such a sight would kill me; but this is the degeneracy of old age.

Now that I am talking about school-fellows, several names call for special mention. As I disliked athletics, it follows that I did not adore athletes. I can safely say that I never admired a boy because of his athletic skill, though I have admired many in spite of it. Probably Sidney Pelham, Archdeacon of Norfolk, who was in the Harrow Eleven in 1867 and 1868, and the Oxford Eleven in 1871, will never see this book; so I may safely say that I have seldom envied anyone as keenly as I envied him, when Dr. Butler, bidding him farewell before the whole school, thanked him for "having set an example which all might be proud to follow—unfailing sweetness of temper, and perfect purity of life." In one respect, the most conspicuous of my school-fellows was H.R.H. Prince Thomas of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, nephew of Victor Emmanuel, and now an Admiral in the Italian Navy. He came to Harrow in 1869, and lived with Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Arnold. He was elected King of Spain by a vote of the Cortes on the 3rd of October 1869. He was quite a popular boy, and no one had the slightest grudge against him; but, for all that, everyone made a point of kicking him, in the hope of being able to say in after-life that they had kicked the King of Spain. UnfortunatelyVictor Emmanuel, fearing dynastic complications, forbade him to accept the Crown; so he got all the Harrow kicks and none of the Spanish half-pence. When I entered Harrow, the winner of all the classical prizes was Andrew Graham Murray, now Lord Dunedin and Lord President of the Court of Session; a most graceful scholar, and also a considerable mathematician. Just below him was Walter Leaf, to whom no form of learning came amiss; who was as likely to be Senior Wrangler as Senior Classic, and whose performances in Physical Science won the warm praise of Huxley. Of the same standing as these were Arthur Evans, the Numismatist, Frank Balfour, the Physiologist, and Gerald Rendall, Head-master of Charterhouse. Among my contemporaries the most distinguished was Charles Gore, whose subsequent career has only fulfilled what all foresaw; and just after him came (to call them by their present names) Lord Crewe, Lord Ribblesdale, Lord Spencer, Mr. Justice Barton of the Irish Bench, and Mr. Walter Long, in whom Harrow may find her next Prime Minister. Walter Sichel was at seventeen the cleverest school-boy whom I have ever known. Sir Henry McKinnon obtained his Commission in the Guards while he wasstill in the Fifth Form. Pakenham Beatty was the Swinburnian of the school, then, as now, a true Poet of Liberty. Ion Keith-Falconer, Orientalist and missionary, was a saint in boyhood as in manhood. Edward Eyre seemed foreordained to be what in London and in Northumberland he has been—the model Parish-Priest; and my closest friend of all was Charles Baldwyn Childe-Pemberton, who, as Major Childe, fell at the battle of Spion Kop, on a spot now called, in honour of his memory, "Childe's Hill."De minimis non curat Respublica; which, being interpreted, signifies—The Commonwealthwill not care to know the names of the urchins who fagged for me.[12]But I cherish an ebony match-box carved and given to me by one of these ministering spirits, as a proof that, though my laziness may have made me exacting, my exactions were not brutal.

On the 15th of June, 1871, Harrow School celebrated the three-hundredth anniversary of its foundation. Harrovians came from every corner of the globe to take part in this Tercentenary Festival. The arrangements were elaborated with the most anxious care. The Duke of Abercorn, affectionately andappropriately nicknamed "Old Splendid," presided over a banquet in the School-Yard; and the programme of the day's proceedings had announced, rather to the terror of intending visitors, that after luncheon there would be "speeches, interspersed with songs, from three hundred and fifty of the boys." The abolition of the second comma dispelled the dreadful vision of three-hundred-and-fifty school-boy-speeches, and all went merry as a marriage-bell—all, except the weather. It seemed as if the accumulated rain of three centuries were discharged on the devoted Hill. It was raining when we went to the early celebration in the Chapel; it was raining harder when we came out. At the culminating moment of the day's proceedings, when Dr. Vaughan was proposing "Prosperity to Harrow," the downpour and the thunder drowned the speaker's voice; and, when evening fell on the sodden cricket-ground, the rain extinguished the fireworks.

On that same cricket-ground nine days later, in the golden afternoon of Midsummer Day, George Clement Cottrell, a boy beautiful alike in face and in character, was killed in an instant by a blow from a ball, which struck him behind the ear when he was umpiring in the Sixth Form game. On the29th of June his five hundred school-fellows followed him to his resting-place in the Churchyard on the Hill, and I believe we unanimously felt that he whom we had lost was the one, of all our number, of whom we could say, with the surest confidence, that he was fit to pass, without a moment's warning, into the invisible World.Beati mundo corde.

FOOTNOTES:[4]Writing to John Murray in 1832, Byron said—"There is a spot in the Churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the Hill looking towards Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a boy: this was my favourite spot."[5]The Rev. E. M. Young.[6]Herga is the Anglo-Saxon name of Harrow.[7]Charlotte Seymour, Countess Spencer, died 1903.[8]The name is borrowed from "Sybil." The bearer of it was an ancient physician, who had doctored all the famous people of his time, beginning with "Pamela."[9]Mr. R. de C. Welch.[10]The Hill.Chapter vi.[11]Some authorities say that it was the last on record.[12]This paper appeared inThe Commonwealth.

[4]Writing to John Murray in 1832, Byron said—"There is a spot in the Churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the Hill looking towards Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a boy: this was my favourite spot."

[5]The Rev. E. M. Young.

[6]Herga is the Anglo-Saxon name of Harrow.

[7]Charlotte Seymour, Countess Spencer, died 1903.

[8]The name is borrowed from "Sybil." The bearer of it was an ancient physician, who had doctored all the famous people of his time, beginning with "Pamela."

[9]Mr. R. de C. Welch.

[10]The Hill.Chapter vi.

[11]Some authorities say that it was the last on record.

[12]This paper appeared inThe Commonwealth.

"For place, for grace, and for sweet companee,Oxford is Heaven, if Heaven on Earth there be."Sir John Davies.

"For place, for grace, and for sweet companee,Oxford is Heaven, if Heaven on Earth there be."

"For place, for grace, and for sweet companee,

Oxford is Heaven, if Heaven on Earth there be."

Sir John Davies.

The faithful student of "Verdant Green" will not have forgotten that Charlie Larkyns, when introducing his Freshman-friend to the sights of Oxford, called his attention to a mystic inscription on a wall in Oriel Lane. "You see that? Well, that's one of the plates they put up to record the Vice's height. F.P.—7 feet, you see: the initials of his name—Frederick Plumptre!" "He scarcely seemed so tall as that," replied Verdant, "though certainly a tall man. But the gown makes a difference, I suppose."

Dr. Plumptre was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford from 1848 to 1851, and Master of University College for thirty-four years. He died in 1870, andthe College thereupon elected the Rev. G. G. Bradley, then Head-master of Marlborough, and afterwards Dean of Westminster, to the vacant post. It was an unfortunate choice. Mr. Bradley was a man of many gifts and virtues, and a successful schoolmaster; but the methods which had succeeded at Marlborough were not adapted to Oxford, and he soon contrived to get at loggerheads both with Dons and with Undergraduates.

However, there existed at that time—and I daresay it exists still—a nefarious kind of trades-unionism among the Headmasters of Public Schools; and, as Bradley had been a Head-master, all the Head-masters advised their best pupils to try the scholarships at University College.

So far as I had any academical connexions, they were exclusively with Trinity, Cambridge; and my father was as ignorant of Oxford as myself. All I knew about it was that it was the source and home of the Oxford movement, which some of my friends at Harrow had taught me to admire. Two or three of those friends were already there, and I wished to rejoin them; but, as between the different Colleges, I was fancy-free; so when, early in 1872, Dr. Butler suggested that I should try for ascholarship at University, I assented, reserving myself, in the too probable event of failure, for Christ Church. However, I was elected at University on the 24th of February, 1872, and went into residence there on the 11th of the following October. The Vice-Chancellor who matriculated me was the majestic Liddell, who, with his six feet of stately height draped in scarlet, his "argent aureole" of white hair, and his three silver maces borne before him, always helped me to understand what Sydney Smith meant when he said, of some nonsensical proposition, that no power on earth, save and except the Dean of Christ Church, should induce him to believe it. As I write, I see the announcement of Mrs. Liddell's death; and my mind travels back to the drawing-room and lawns of the Deanery at Christ Church, and the garland of beautiful faces

"Decking the matron temples of a placeSo famous through the world."

"Decking the matron temples of a place

So famous through the world."

The 13th of October was my first Sunday in Oxford, and my friend Charles Gore took me to the Choral Eucharist at Cowley St. John, and afterwards to luncheon with the Fathers. So began myacquaintance with a Society of which I have always been a grateful admirer. But more exciting experiences were at hand: on the 20th of October it was Liddon's turn, as Select Preacher, to occupy the pulpit at St. Mary's. The impressions of that, my first University sermon, have never faded from my mind. A bright autumn morning, the yellow sunlight streaming in upon the densely crowded church, the long array of scarlet-robed doctors, the preacher's beautiful face looking down from the high pulpit, with anxious brow and wistful gaze. And then the rolling Latin hymn, and then the Bidding Prayer, and then the pregnant text—He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. Are we listening to St. John the Baptist or St. John the Evangelist? The preacher holds that we are listening to the Evangelist, and says that the purpose of St. John's Gospel is condensed into his text. "If to believe in Him is life, to have known and yet to reject him is death. There is no middle term or state between the two.... In fact, this stern, yet truthful and merciful, claim makes all the difference between a Faith and a theory." And now there is a moment's pause. Preacher and hearersalike take breath. Some instinct assures us that we are just coming to the crucial point. The preacher resumes: "A statement of this truth in other terms is at present occasioning a painful controversy, which it would be better in this place to pass over in silence if too much was not at stake to warrant a course from which I shall only depart with sincere reluctance. Need I say that I allude to the vexed question of the Athanasian Creed?" The great discourse which was thus introduced, with its strong argument for the retention of the Creed as it stands, has long been the property of the Church, and there is no need to recapitulate it. But the concluding words, extolling "the high and rare grace of an intrepid loyalty to known truth," spoke with a force of personal appeal which demands commemoration: "To be forced back upon the central realities of the faith which we profess; to learn, better than ever before, what are the convictions which we dare not surrender at any cost; to renew the freshness of an early faith, which affirms within us, clearly and irresistibly, that the one thing worth thinking of, worth living for, if need were, worth dying for, is the unmutilated faith of Jesus Christ our Lord,—these may be theresults of inevitable differences, and, if they are, they are blessings indeed."[13]

The same Sunday was marked by another unforgettable experience—my first visit to St. Barnabas'. The church was then just three years old. Bishop Wilberforce had consecrated it on the 19th of October, 1869, and made this characteristic note in his diary:—"Disagreeable service. Acolyte running about. Paste squares for bread, etc., but the church a great gift." Three years later, a boy fresh from Harrow, and less sensitively Protestant than the good Bishop, not only thought "the church a great gift," but enjoyed the "acolyte running about," and found the whole service the most inspiring and uplifting worship in which he had ever joined. My impressions of it are as clear as yesterday's—the unadorned simplicity of the fabric, emphasizing by contrast the blaze of light and colour round the altar; the floating cloud of incense; the expressive and unfussy ceremonial; the straightforward preaching; and, most impressive of all, the large congregation of men, old and young, rich and poor, undergraduates and artisans, all singingEvangelical hymns with one heart and one voice. It was, if ever there was on earth, congregational worship; and I, for one, have never seen its like. The people's pride in the church was very characteristic: they habitually spoke of it as "our Barnabas." The clergy and the worshippers were a family, and the church was a home.

At the Dedication Festival of 1872, there was a strong list of preachers, including W. J. E. Bennett, of Frome, and Edward King, then Principal of Cuddesdon. But the sermon which made an indelible impression on me was preached by R. W. Randall, then vicar of All Saints, Clifton, and afterwards Dean of Chichester. It was indeed a memorable performance. "Performance" is the right word, for, young as one was, one realized instinctively the wonderful art and mastery and technical perfection of the whole. There was the exquisitely modulated voice, sinking lower, yet becoming more distinct, whenever any specially moving topic was touched; the restrained, yet emphatic action—I can see that uplifted forefinger still—and the touch of personal reminiscence at the close, so managed as to give the sense that we were listening to an elder brother who, thirty years before, had passed throughthe same experiences, so awfully intermingled of hope and tragedy, which now lay before us on the threshold of our Oxford life. It was, in brief, a sermon never to be forgotten; it was "a night to be much remembered unto the Lord."

Some thirty years later, I was introduced to Dean Randall at a London dinner-party. After dinner, I drew my chair towards him, and said, "Mr. Dean, I have always wished to have an opportunity of thanking you for a sermon which you preached at St. Barnabas', Oxford, at the Dedication Festival, 1872." The Dean smiled, with the graceful pleasure of an old man honoured by a younger one, and said, "Yes? What was the text?" "The text I have long forgotten, but I remember the subject." "And what was that?" "It was the insecurity of even the best-founded hopes." "Rather a well-worn theme," said the Dean, with a half-smile. "But not, sir," I said, "as you handled it. You told us, at the end of the sermon, that you remembered a summer afternoon when you were an undergraduate at Christ Church, and were sitting over your Thucydides close to your window, grappling with a long and complicated passage which was to be the subject of next morning's lecture; and that, glancing for amoment from your book, you saw the two most brilliant young Christ Church men of the day going down to bathe in the Isis. You described the gifts and graces of the pair, who, between them, seemed to combine all that was best and most beautiful in body and mind and soul. And then you told us how, as your friends disappeared towards Christ Church Meadows, you returned to your work; and only were roused from it two hours later, when a confused noise of grief and terror in the quadrangle below attracted your attention, and you saw the dead bodies of Gaisford and Phillimore borne past your window from their 'watery bier' at Sandford Lasher."

On Advent Sunday, December 1, I saw and heard Dr. Pusey for the first time. He was then in broken health; but he gathered all his physical and mental energies for a great sermon on "The Responsibility of Intellect in Matters of Faith." The theme of this sermon was that Intellect is a great trust confided to us by God; that we are responsible to Him for the use of it; and that we must exercise it in submission to His revealed Will. What He has declared, that it is our duty to believe. Our Lord Himself had uttered the most solemn warningagainst wilful unbelief; the Athanasian Creed only re-echoed His awful words; and the storm which assailed the Creed was really directed against the revealed Truth of God. "This tornado will, I trust, by God's mercy, soon pass; it is a matter of life and death. To remove those words of warning, or the Creed because it contains them, would be emphatically to teach our people that it isnotnecessary to salvation to believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in One God as He has made Himself known to us."

Immediately after delivering himself of this great apology for the Faith, Pusey went abroad for the benefit of his health, and did not return to Oxford till the Summer Term. I well remember the crowd of ancient disciples, who had missed their accustomed interview at Christmas, thronging his door in Christ Church, like the impotent folk at the Pool of Bethesda.

Another reminiscence, and of a very different kind, belongs to my first Term. Dean Stanley had been nominated as Select Preacher, and the old-fashioned High Churchmen made common cause with the Low Churchmen to oppose his appointment. There was a prodigious clamour, but Dr.Pusey held aloof from the agitation, believing—and in this he was conspicuously right—that "opposition would only aggravate the evil by enlisting the enthusiasm of the young." The vote was taken, in an unusually crowded Convocation, on the 11th of December. It was a noteworthy and rather an amusing scene, and was well described by an eyewitness.[14]"Oxford was fairly startled from the serenity which usually marks the fag-end of the Michaelmas Term by a sudden irruption of the outer world. Recognitions took place at every street-corner. The hotels were put upon their mettle. The porters' lodges of the Colleges were besieged, and Boffin's Refreshment Rooms ran over with hungry parsons from the country. As an evidence of the interest which the question of Dean Stanley's appointment excited beyond the walls of the University, I may mention that even the guards and porters at the railway hallooed to each other to know "the state of the betting"; but even they did not seem quite to have calculated on the matter being so warmly taken up in London and by the country at large." At half-past one o'clock the bell of St. Mary's gave notice to the combatants to prepare forthe fray, and immediately the floor of the Theatre was sprinkled with representative men of all the schools. The non-residents appeared in gowns of various degrees of rustiness, some with chimney-pot hats and some with wide-awakes. The early comers conversed in small groups, hugging instinctively those sides of the building on which were written respectivelyPlacetorNon-Placet, giving thereby an inkling of how they meant to vote. The gathering increased every moment, and soon the Doctors in their scarlet began to dot the seats around the Vice-Chancellor's chair. Prince Leopold, by right of his royalty, entered the sacred enclosure with Dr. Acland, and afterwards took his seat among the Doctors. Before two o'clock every inch of the floor was full, the occupants standing in anticipation of the coming encounter. "Still they gravitated towards their respective voting-doors, and on thePlacetside one descried the scholarly face of Professor Jowett, the sharply-cut features of the Rev. Mark Pattison, and the well-known physiognomy of Professor Max Müller. On the opposite side Mr. Burgon was marshalling his forces, and Dean Goulburn, from the Doctors' benches, looked out over the seething mass of M.A.'s below him." At two o'clockthe Vice-Chancellor arrived, and forthwith commenced proceedings in Latin, which must have been extremely edifying to the ladies who, in large numbers, occupied the Strangers' Gallery, backed by a narrow fringe of Undergraduates. The object of the Convocation was stated as being the appointment of Select Preachers, and the names were then submitted to the Doctors and Masters for approval. "Placetne igitur vobis huic nomini assentire?" being the form in which the question was proposed.

The name first on the list was that of the Rev. Harvey Goodwin; and a faint buzz in the assembly was interpreted by the Vice-Chancellor, skilled in such sounds, as an expression of approval. Thereupon he passed on to name number two, which, with some agitation, but with clear, resonant voice, he read out as "Arthurus Penrhyn Stanley." Immediately there ensued a scene of the wildest confusion. On thePlacetside, cheers and waving of trencher-caps; on theNon-Placetside feeble hisses; and from all sides, undergraduate as well as graduate, mingled shouts ofPlacetandNon, with an accompaniment of cheers and hisses; until the ringing voice of Dean Liddell pronounced the magic wordsFiat scrutinium. Thereupon the two Proctorsproceeded first of all to take the votes of the Doctors on their benches; and, when this was done, they took their station at the doors labelledPlacetandNon-placet. During the process of polling we had an opportunity of criticizing the constituents of that truly exceptional gathering. It was certainly not true to say, as some said, that only the younger Masters voted for Dean Stanley. There was quite a fair proportion of white and bald heads on thePlacetside. "The country contingent was not so numerous as one had expected, and I do not believe that all of these went out at theNon-placetdoor. Evidently, parties were pretty evenly balanced; and, when theNon-placetshad all recorded their votes there were about twenty-five left on Dean Stanley's side, which probably would have nearly represented the actual majority, but, at the last moment, some stragglers, who had only arrived in Oxford by 2.25 train hurried in, and so swelled the numbers. One late-comer arrived without his academicals, and some zealous supporter of the Dean had to denude himself, and pass his cap and gown outside to enable this gentleman to vote." Soon it was over. The Proctors presented their lists to the Vice-Chancellor, who, amid breathless silence,pronounced the fateful words—"Majori parti placet." Then there was indeed a cheer, which rang through the building from basement to upper gallery, and was taken up outside in a way that reminded one of the trial of the Seven Bishops. The hisses, if there were any, were fairly drowned. Oxford had given its approval to Dean Stanley, the numbers being—Placet, 349;Non-placet, 287.

When the fuss was over, Liddon wrote thus to a friend:—"It was a discreditable nomination; but, having been made, ought, in the interests of the Faith, to have been allowed to passsub silentio; for, if opposed, it must either be defeated or affirmed by Convocation—a choice,me judice, of nearly balanced evils. To have defeated it would have been to invest Stanley with the cheap honours of a petty martyrdom. To have affirmed it is, I fear, to have given a new impetus to the barren, unspiritual negations which he represents."

I went up to Oxford well supplied with introductions. Dr. Cradock, the well-beloved Principal of Brasenose, scholar, gentleman, man of the world, devout Wordsworthian, enthusiastic lover of cricket and boating, had married a connexion of my own, who had been a Maid of Honour in Queen Victoria'sfirst household. Theirs was the most hospitable house in Oxford, and a portrait of Mrs. Cradock, not quite kind, but very lifelike, enlivens the serious pages ofRobert Elsmere. Dr., afterwards Sir Henry, Acland, with his majestic presence, blandly paternal address, and ample rhetoric, was not only the Regius Professor of Medicine, but also the true and patient friend of many undergraduate generations. Mrs. Acland is commemorated in what I have always thought one of the grandest sermons in the English language—Liddon's "Worth of Faith in a Life to Come."[15]The Warden of Keble and Mrs. Talbot (then the young wife of the young Head of a very young College) were, as they have been for 40 years, the kindest and most constant of friends. Dr. Bright, Canon of Christ Church and Professor of Ecclesiastical History, was a lavish entertainer, "with an intense dramatic skill in telling a story, an almost biblical knowledge of all the pages of Dickens (and of Scott), with shouts of glee, and outpourings of play and fancy and allusion." But I need not elaborate the portrait, for everyone ought to know Dr. Holland's "Personal Studies" by heart. Edwin Palmer, Professor of Latin, was reputed to be the bestscholar in Oxford, and Mrs. Palmer was a most genial hostess. Henry Smith, Professor of Geometry, was, I suppose, the most accomplished man of his time;[16]yet he lives, not by his performances in the unthinkable sphere of metaphysical mathematics, but by his intervention at Gladstone's last contest for the University. Those were the days of open voting, and Smith was watching the votes in Gladstone's interest. Professor ——, who never could manage his h's, wished to vote for the Tory candidates, Sir William Heathcote and Mr. Gathorne Hardy, but lost his head, and said:—"I vote for Glad——." Then, suddenly correcting himself, exclaimed, "I mean for 'Eathcote and 'Ardy." Thereupon Smith said, "I claim that vote for Gladstone." "But," said the Vice-Chancellor, "the voter did not finish your candidate's name." "That is true," said Smith, "but then he did not even begin the other two." Henry Smith kept house with an admirable and accomplished sister—the first woman, I believe, to be electedto a School Board, and certainly the only one to whom J. W. Burgon (afterwards Dean of Chichester) devoted a whole sermon. "Miss Smith's Sermon," with its whimsical protest against feminine activities, was a standing joke in those distant days. The Rev. H. R. Bramley, Fellow of Magdalen, used to entertain us sumptuously in his most beautiful College. He was a connecting link between Dr. Routh (1755-1854) and modern Oxford, and in his rooms I was introduced to the ablest man of my generation—a newly-elected Scholar of Balliol called Alfred Milner.

It is anticipating, but only by a Term or two (for Dr. King came to Christ Church in 1873), to speak of Sunday luncheons at the house of the Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology, and of Dr. Liddon's characteristic allusion to a remarkably bloated-looking Bishop of Oxford in balloon sleeves and a wig, whose portrait adorned the Professor's house. "How singular, dear friend, to reflect thatthat personshould have been chosen, in the providential order, to connect Mr. Keble with the Apostles!"

But though the lines seem to have fallen unto me in ritualistic places, I was not without Evangelical advantages. Canon Linton, Rector of St. Peter-le-Bailey, was a dear old gentleman, who used toentertain undergraduates at breakfasts and luncheons, and after the meal, when more secularly-minded hosts might have suggested pipes, would lead us to a side-table, where a selection of theological works was displayed, and bid us take our choice. "Kay on the Psalms" was a possession thus acquired, and has been used by me from that time to this. Nor must this retrospective page omit some further reference to J. W. Burgon, Fellow of Oriel and Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin. Dean Church called him "the dear old learned Professor of Billingsgate," and certainly his method of conducting controversy savoured (as Sydney Smith said about Bishop Monk) of the apostolic occupation of trafficking in fish. But to those whom he liked, and who looked up to him (for this was an essential condition), he was kind, hospitable, courteous, and even playful. His humour, which was of a crabbed kind quite peculiar to himself, found its best vent in his sermons. I often wondered whether he realized that the extreme grotesqueness of his preaching was the spell which drew undergraduates to the Sunday evening service at St. Mary's.

For my next reminiscence of hospitality to Freshmen I must rely on the assistance of a pseudonym. At the time of which I am writing, Oxfordnumbered among her Professors one who had graduated, at a rather advanced age, from Magdalen Hall. Borrowing a name from Dickens, we will call him "Professor Dingo, of European reputation." To the kindness of Professor and Mrs. Dingo I was commended by a friend who lived near my home in Bedfordshire, and soon after my arrival in Oxford they asked me to Sunday luncheon at their villa in The Parks. The conversation turned on a new book of Limericks (or "Nonsense Rhymes," as we called them then) about the various Colleges. The Professor had not seen it, and wanted to know if it was amusing. In my virginal innocence I replied that one rhyme had amused me. "Let's have it," quoth the Professor, so off I went at score—

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