when i went into college in 1820, at ten years old, dr. gabell was the “informator,” and mr. (afterwards dr.) williams the “hostiarius,” or second master. when i quitted it in 1828, dr. williams was head master, and mr. ridding second master. i do not know that gabell was altogether an unpopular man, but he never inspired that strong affection that his successor did. his manner was disagreeable. in short, he was not so completely a gentleman as williams was.
i am tempted to give here an anecdote that was currently told of gabell—though i cannot say that it occurred within my knowledge—because it is at all events a very characteristic one.
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.{126}
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{127} 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{128} 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{129} 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{130} 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{131} 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{132} 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{133} 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 exceed{134}ingly 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{135} 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,{136} 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{137} 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 pr?lections 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{138} 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{139} “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:
“who smote great kings: for his mercy endureth for ever.”
then aside, in the well-known great rolling, mellow voice (i can hear it now):
“on hurstley down yesterday i was out with jack woodburn” (this was another minor canon of the cathedral, but not one of our chaplains)....
“sehon king of the amorites: for his mercy endureth for ever.”
{140}
“my black bitch juno put up a covey almost at our feet.”
“and gave away their land for an heritage: for his mercy endureth for ever.”
“i blazed away with both barrels and brought down a brace.”
“who remembered us when we were in trouble: for his mercy endureth for ever.”
“but jack fired too soon and never touched a feather.” and so on.
now there would be no sort of interest in recording that we unfortunately chanced to have at one time a very graceless chaplain, if such had been the case, which it was not. the interest lies in the fact that the gentleman in question was a worthy and excellent man in all the relations of life; that he was absolutely innocent of intentional impropriety; and that, as far as i can remember, we had none of us the faintest idea that we ought to have been shocked or scandalised. such was the state of things and men’s minds “sixty years since.”
the brother of this chaplain was the manciple of the college, and was known among us as “damme hopkins,” from the following circumstance. his manner was a quaint mixture of pomposity and bonhomie, which made a conversation with him a rather favourite amusement with some of us. now the manciple was a very well-to-do man, and was rather fond of letting it be known that his independent circumstances made the emoluments of{141} the place he held a matter of no importance to him. “indeed,” he would say, “i spoke to the bishop [the warden] a few months ago of resigning, but the bishop says to me, ‘no, no, damme hopkins, you must keep the place.’” and i have no doubt that the deficiency of dramatic instinct which thus led the worthy manciple to transfer his own phraseology to his right reverend interlocutor rendered him quite unconscious of any inaccuracy in his narration.
we used to go twice every sunday, as i have said, to the cathedral. but we did not attend the whole morning service. we timed our arrival there so as to reach the cathedral at the beginning of the communion service, and to be present at that and at the sermon which followed it. we had no sermons in college chapel, save on certain special occasions, such as 5th of november, “founder’s commemoration,” or “founder’s obit.” on the former of these occasions a sermon used to be preached with which we had become familiar by the annual repetition of it during a succession of years. i wonder how many there are left who will remember the words, “a letter was sent, couched in the most ambiguous terms, and who so likely to detect it as the king himself?”
at the cathedral a series of benches between the pulpit and bishop’s throne and the altar were reserved for us, so that the preacher was immediately in front and to the right of us. the surplice was used in the cathedral pulpit at the morning service, the geneva gown at that in the afternoon. at the{142} former one of the prebendaries or the dean was the preacher, at the latter a minor canon.
i remember that we used to think a good deal of the dean’s sermons, and always attended to them—a compliment which was not often paid, to the best of my recollection, to the other preachers. dean rennell was a man of very superior abilities, but of great eccentricity, mainly due to extreme absence of mind. it used to be told of him that unless mrs. rennell took good care, he was tolerably certain, when he went up to his room to dress for a dinner-party, to go to bed. it will be understood from what has been said of the accommodation provided for us in the cathedral, that in order to face us, the preacher, addressing himself to the body of the congregation in the choir, must have turned himself round in the pulpit. and this rennell would sometimes do, when he thought what he was saying especially calculated for our edification. he was, as i have already mentioned, a great platonist, and when he alluded, as he not unfrequently did, to some doctrine or opinion of the grecian philosopher, he would turn to us and say, in a sort of parenthetical aside, “plato i mean.”
among the stories that were current of rennell i remember one to the effect that when upon one occasion he was posting from winchester to london he stopped at egham for luncheon. a huge round of boiled beef, nearly uncut, was placed upon the table. but the dean found it was, as he thought, far too much boiled; so without more ado he cut the{143} huge mass into four quarters and helped himself to a morsel from the centre! the landlady, when the mutilated joint was carried out, was exceedingly indignant, and insisted that a guinea should be paid for the entirety of it. the dean, much against the grain, as the chronicle goes, paid his guinea, but packed up the four quarters of the round and carried them off with him.
further indication of his eccentricity might be seen, as i remember, in his habit of wearing in the cathedral pulpit in cold weather, not a skull cap, but a flat square of velvet on his head, with which occasionally he would in the heat of his discourse wipe his face, then clap it on his head again.
the cathedral, as i have had occasion to mention in a former chapter, had been undergoing a very extensive restoration, one operation in the course of which had been the removal of the organ from over the screen; and the question whether it should be replaced there or be transferred to the north transept was very earnestly, and, it was said, somewhat hotly debated by the chapter. the dean was exceedingly vehement in supporting the latter course, which was eventually adopted, it can scarcely be doubted by those who see the church as it now is, with entire judiciousness.
i could, not without gratification to myself, chatter much more about reminiscences of the years i passed at winchester. but i feel that the only excuse for having yielded to the temptation as far as i have must be sought in the illustrations afforded{144} by what i have written of the large changes in habits, thoughts, customs, feelings that have been wrought in english society and english institutions by the lapse of some sixty years.
and now the time had come when i, having attained the age of eighteen, was superannuated at the election in the july of 1828. it was not at that time certain whether i should or should not succeed to a fellowship at new college, for that depended upon the number of vacancies that might occur in the year up to the election of 1829. eventually i missed it by, as i remember, one only. one more journey of “speedyman” before july, 1829, announcing the marriage or the death of a fellow of new college, or the acceptance of a college living by one of them, would have made me a fellow of new college. but “speedyman” did not make his appearance.
i left winchester a fairly good latin scholar, and well grounded—i do not think i can say more—in greek; and very ignorant indeed of all else. according to what i hear of the requirements at the present day, i had no scholarly knowledge whatever of my own language. i knew nothing whatsoever of anglo-saxon, or of medi?val english. i had never—have never, i may rather say—had any english grammar in my hand from my cradle to the present hour.
it is certain, however, that the enlarged requirements in this department, to which i have referred, have somehow or other failed to banish from the{145} current literature of the day a vast number of solecisms, vulgarisms, and grammatical atrocities of all sorts, which defile the language to a much greater degree than was the case at the time of which i have been writing, and which would have been as abhorrent to me when i left winchester as they are now.
of arithmetic i knew nothing—i should write “know”—and of all that arithmetic should be the first step to, à fortiori, still less. in the art of writing i received the best possible instruction, for i was licked by my tutor and scourged by the masters if my writing was illegible. of less indirect tuition i had none.
there was a writing master—one mr. bower, fungy bower he was called, why, i know not—who sat at a certain low desk in the school during; school hours. i never received from him, or saw any one else receive from him, any instruction in writing. nor did he, to the best of my knowledge and belief, form any part of william of wykeham’s foundation. the only purpose his presence in school appeared to serve was to mend pens and make up the weekly account of marks received by each boy which regulated his place in the class.
the register containing the account of these marks was called the “classicus paper,” and was kept in this wise. all the members of each “class”—or “form” as it is called in other schools—continually changed places while proceeding with the lesson before the master, each, if able to answer{146} a question which those above him could not answer, passing up above them. and part of the punishment for failing altogether in any lesson, for being as the phrase was “crippled in virgil,” or “crippled in homer,” was to go to the bottom of the class. thus the order in which the class sat was continually changed. and the first business every morning was for the two boys at the head of the class to take the “classicus paper,” and mark 1. against the name of the boy at the bottom, 2. against the next, and so on; so that the mark assigned to him at the head was equal to the number in the class. and this record of the marks was handed every week to fungy bower to be made up, so as to indicate the place in the class held by each member of it. but though this was done weekly the account was carried on during the whole half year, so that a boy’s final place in the class was the accurate result of his diligence and success during the whole “half.”
of course i was a cricketer—we all were, and were indeed obliged to be, whether willingly or not, until we became prefects, when, of course, those only who loved the game continued to practise it. i never was a great cricketer, but have been “long stop” quite often enough to know how great is the nonsense talked by those of the present generation, who maintain that all the elaborate precautions against being hurt which are so abundantly taken by the players of these latter days are necessitated by the greater force of the bowling as now practised.{147} in simple truth this is all bosh! though i can hardly expect a generation in cute curanda plus ?quo operata to believe a very old batter and fielder when he tells them so!
my favourite game was fives. we had a splendid fives court, and the game was played in a manner altogether peculiar to winchester; now i believe—like so much else—abandoned. we used a very small ball, hardly bigger than a good-sized walnut, and as hard as if made of wood, called a “snack.” and this was driven against the wall by a bat of quite peculiar construction. it was made, i think, of ash, and there were only two men, rivals, who could make it. it was about a yard long, the handle round, and somewhat less than an inch in diameter. it then became gradually thinner and wider, till at about the distance of six inches from the extremity it was perhaps an inch and a half wide, and not thicker than half-a-crown. then it expanded and thickened again into a head somewhat of the shape of an ace of spades, some three inches across and half an inch thick. the thin part was kept continually well oiled—in such sort that it became so elastic, that the heavy head might almost be doubled back so as to touch the part nearer the hand. it will be understood both that the difficulty of striking a bounding ball with this instrument was considerable, and that the momentum imparted to the small hard ball by the blow was very great indeed. it is true that accidents occasionally, though very rarely, happened from a{148} misdirected blow. but it does not seem necessary that the old bat should be abandoned, for our judicious grandsons might play with great comfort and safety in helmets!
of course i, like most of my contemporaries, left winchester—and indeed subsequently left oxford—as ignorant of any modern language, save english, as of chinese! and as for music—though oxford and cambridge are the only universities in europe which give degrees in music—it is hardly an exaggeration to say that, with very rare exceptions, to have taught an undergraduate, or a boy at a public school, music, would have been thought much on a par with teaching him to hem a pocket-handkerchief. and here the present generation has the pull to a degree which it perhaps hardly sufficiently recognises!
it was during my last year at winchester that i made my first attempt at authorship. old robbins, the grey-headed bookseller of college street, who had been the college bookseller for many years, had recently taken a younger partner of the name of wheeler, and this gentleman established a monthly magazine, called the hampshire and west of england magazine, to which i contributed three or four articles on matters wiccamical. i have the volume before me now—perhaps the only extant copy of that long since forgotten publication. the rev. e. poulter, one of the prebendaries of winchester, who had a somewhat wider than local reputation as a wit in those days, was the{149} anonymous contributor of a poetical prologue of such unconscionable proportions that poor wheeler was sadly puzzled what to do with it. it was impossible to refuse or neglect a reverend prebendary’s contribution, besides that the verses, often doggerel, had some good fun in them. so they were all printed by instalments in successive numbers, despite the title of prologue which their author gives them.
