PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.
A.D.1893 being the quincentennial anniversary of our glorious foundation, an enterprising publisher has undertaken to bring out a third edition of this sketch of the life of a Winchester Junior in the dark ages of 1835-40. Thirty years have elapsed since the book was originally written, twenty since the second edition was brought out, and fifty-seven since I first became a Wykehamist.
No one is more aware than myself how entirely devoid of literary merit is this little book; but as it is a true and faithful account of the state of the school under a system that has long been superseded, any interest that it may have must increase from year to year, as the times of which it treatsbecome more distant, and the manners and customs which it depicts present a greater contrast to those of the present day. Except in the last chapter, which I have rewritten, there is but little difference between this and the previous editions, firstly because I have nothing to add or alter in my record, and secondly, because the work being stereotyped, considerable expense would have been incurred by altering all those passages which, written in 1862, allude to the then existence of Dr. Moberly, the state of Meads, and Antechapel at that date, &c., &c., which the reader can correct for himself, but which do not in any way affect the object of the work, viz., the economy of the school in 1835-40.
The representation of “a Hot” by Mr. Holmes gives an excellent idea of that peculiar feature of the game of football as played at Winchester at the date of which I write. The other pictures by Mr. Garland sufficiently well represent the architectural features of the College, but justice is scarcely done to the figures of the boys,who did not go through their labours and amusements in such rigid style as might be inferred from their figures and attitudes as here represented. The cuts in the Glossary would also have been more effective if the artist (not Mr. Garland) had ever seen a Winchester scholar in his peculiar costume.
The sweeping changes that commenced during my school-days were mainly owing to the initiative of Charles Wordsworth, the late lamented Bishop of St. Andrews, as distinguished at Oxford for his scholarship and as a theologian as he was for his supreme excellence in cricket, rowing, tennis, skating, and all athletic exercises. He had been appointed to the office of Second Master one half year before I came as a boy, and, with the willing assistance of the beloved Warden, Barter, and the Head-Master, speedily began to make many much-needed changes in the arrangements, which have made Winchester equal, if not superior, to any other public school as regards the comfort and wellbeing of theboys, and worthy of its glorious reputation for five hundred years.
I take this opportunity of expressing my great gratification at the success of the book, and to express my thanks to my numerous correspondents for their flattering letters. Wykehamists of every standing have expressed their interest in this account of the manners and customs of the School in times past, and those of my own have testified to its accuracy. From India and America I have received most interesting letters from old school-fellows, who had discovered from internal evidence the personality of the writer. In one quarter alone have I met with adverse criticism. I was accused (shortly after the publication of the first edition) by “The Wykehamist” (a monthly publication, edited by the boys at Winchester) of having been actuated by a feeling of ill-will towards the School, and of untruth. How such an idea as the former could have been gathered from the book I am at a loss to conceive, and when it wasfirst published the only merit that I knew it possessed was its truth. And now I have the best public testimony to my veracity;—a cotemporary, Mr. Gould Adams, who, in the preface to his charming book “Wykehamica” (a work which should be one of “the hundred books” possessed by every Wykehamist), states that he has been indebted for some of the materials for his work to “my very truthful picture of the Winchester of my day.”
The Bishop of St. Andrews, who kindly allowed me to use his engravings of the “Trusty Servant,” and of the large tablet at the west end of school with the inscription “Aut disce,” &c.; Mr. Mackenzie Walcot, who permitted me to use the cut of the old Commoners Buildings that appeared in his work on Winchester College, and my cousin, Mr. Elliot Blackstone, of New College and the British Museum, who greatly assisted me in bringing out the first edition, when I was abroad, have all passed away. But I must again (for thethird time) give vent to my feelings of gratitude to the Rev. H. Moberly for answering the many questions I troubled him with, and to my cousin, the Rev. Algernon Simeon, for his valuable assistance in compiling the slang glossary, and to Mr. Wrench for the very great assistance he has rendered me in supplying me with information as to the alterations in the manners and customs of the School, which I have embodied in the last chapter.