_OXFORD._
My brother went up to Oxford full of good resolves as to reading,
which he carried out far better than most men do, although undoubtedly
after his first year, his popularity, by enlarging the circle of his
acquaintance to an inconvenient extent, somewhat interfered with his
studies. Your grandfather was delighted at having a son likely to
distinguish himself actually resident in his own old College. In his
time it had occupied the place in the University now held by Balliol.
Copleston and Whately had been his tutors; and, as he had resided a
good deal after taking his degree, he had seen several generations of
distinguished men in the common room, including Arnold, Blanco White,
Keble, Pusey, and Hampden. Moreover, there was a tradition of University
distinction in his family; his father had been Setonian Prizeman and
Chancellor’s Medallist at Cambridge, and he himself had carried off the
Latin verse prize, and one of the English Odes recited before the United
Sovereigns, when they paid a visit to the Oxford Commemoration in 1814,
with Wellington, Blücher, and a host of the great soldiers of that day.
His anxiety as to George’s start at Oxford manifested itself in many
ways, and particularly as to the want of punctuality, and accuracy in
small matters, which he had already noticed. As a delicate lesson on this
subject, I find him taking advantage of the fact that George’s watch was
in the hands of the maker for repairs, to send him his own chronometer,
adding: “As your sense of trustworthiness in little and great things is
a considerably multiplied multiple of your care for your own private
property (which doubtless will grow to its right proportion when you have
been cheated a little), I have no doubt old Trusty will return to me in
as good order as when he left me. Furthermore, it is possible you may
take a fancy to him when you have learnt the value of an unfailing guide
to punctuality. In which case, if you can tell me at the end of term that
you have, to the best of your belief, made the most of your time, I will
with great pleasure swap with you. As to what is making the best of your
time, you would of course like to have my ideas. Thus, then”—and your
grandfather proceeds to give a number of rules, founded on his own old
Oxford experience, as to reading, and goes on:—
“All this, you will say, cuts out a tolerably full
employment for the term. But when you can call this in your
recollections, ‘_terminus alba cretâ notandus_,’ it will be
worth trouble. I believe the intentions of most freshmen are
good, and the first term generally well spent: the second and
third are often the trial, when one gets confidence in oneself;
and the sense of what is right and honourable must come in
place of that deference for one’s superior officers, which is
at first instinctive. I am glad you find you can do as you
please, and choose your own society without making yourself
at all remarkable. So I found, for the same reasons that
facilitate the matter to you. Domestic or private education,
I believe, throws more difficulties in the way of saying ‘No’
when it is your pleasure so to do, and the poor wight only gets
laughed at instead of cultivated. After all, one may have too
many acquaintance, unexceptionable though they be. But I do not
know that much loss of time can occur to a person of perfectly
sober habits, as you are, if he leaves wine parties with a
clear head at chapel time, and eschews supping and lounging,
and lunching and gossiping, and tooling in High Street, and
such matters, which belong more to particular cliques than to
a generally extended acquaintance in College. In all these
things, going not as a raw lad, but as a man of nineteen, with
my father’s entire confidence, I found I could settle the
thing to my satisfaction in no time: your circumstances are
precisely the same, and the result will probably be the same.
I applaud, and κυδίζε, and clap you on the back for rowing:
row, box, fence, and walk with all possible sturdiness. Another
thing: I believe an idea prevails that it is necessary to ride
sometimes, to show yourself of equestrian rank. If you have
any mind this way, write to Franklin to send Stevens with your
horse; keep him a few weeks, and I will allow you a £5 note to
assert your equestrian dignity, now or at any other time. This
is a better style of thing than piaffing about on hired Oxford
cocky-horses, like Jacky Popkin, and all such half-measures.
The only objection to such doings is, that you certainly do see
a style of men always across a horse who are fit for nothing
else, and _non constat_ that they always know a hock from a
stifle-joint. But this is only _per accidens_. And if you have
a fancy for an occasional freak this way, remember I was bred
in the saddle, and, whatever my present opinions may be from
longer experience, can fully enter into your ideas.”
You will see by his answer how readily George entered into some of his
father’s ideas, though I don’t think he ever sent for his horse. A few
weeks later, in 1841, he writes:—
“Now to answer your last letters. I shall be delighted to
accept you as my prime minister for the next two years. Any
plan of reading which you chalk out for me I think I shall be
able to pursue—at least I am sure I will try to do so. Men
reading for honours now generally employ ‘a coach.’ If you will
condescend to be my coach, I will try to answer to the whip to
the best of my power.”
Your grandfather accepted the post with great pleasure; and there are a
number of his letters, full of hints and directions as to study, which
I hope you may all read some day, but which would make this memoir too
long. You will see later on how well satisfied he was with the general
result, though in one or two instances he had sad disappointments to
bear, as most fathers have who are anxious about their sons’ work.
The first of these happened this year. He was specially anxious that
George should write for the Latin Verse, which prize he himself had won.
Accordingly George wrote in his first year, but, instead of taking his
poem himself to the Proctor’s when he had finished it, left it with his
College tutor to send in. The consequence was, it was forgotten till
after the last day for delivery, and so could not be received. This was
a sad trial to your grandfather, both because he had been very sanguine
as to the result, and because here was another instance of George’s
carelessness about his own affairs, and want of punctuality in small
things. However, he wrote so kindly about it, that George was more
annoyed than if he had been very angry, and set to work on the poem for
the next year as soon as the subject was announced, which I remember was
“_Noachi Diluvium_.” You may be sure that now the poem went in in good
time, but in due course the Examiners announced that no prize would be
given for the year. I do not know that any reason was ever given for
this unusual course, which surprised everyone, as it was known that
several very good scholars, including, I believe, the late Head-master of
Marlborough, had been amongst the competitors. Your grandfather was very
much vexed. He submitted George’s poem to two of his old college friends,
Dean Milman and Bishop Lonsdale, both of whom had been Latin prizemen;
and, when they expressed an opinion that, in default of better copies
of verses, these should have been entitled to the prize, he had them
printed, with the following heading:—
“The refusal of the Official Committee of Examiners to award
any prize for the Oxford Latin verse of 1842, has naturally
led to a supposition that the scholarship and intelligence
of the competitors has fallen short of the usual standard.
Having, however, perused the following copy of verses, which
are probably a fair specimen of those sent in, I am inclined
to think, as a graduate and somewhat conversant with such
subjects, that this discouraging inference is unfounded, and
that the committee have been influenced in their discretion
by some unexplained reason, involving no reflection on the
candidates for the prize, as compared with those of former
years.”
The real fact I believe to have been, so far as George was concerned,
that there were two false quantities in his verses; and though these
were so palpable, as your grandfather remarked, “as to be obvious to any
fifth-form boy, and plainly due to carelessness in transcription, and
want of revision by a second person,” the Examiners were clearly not
bound to make allowances for such carelessness.
Many years after, in a letter to his sister, on some little success of
her boy at Rugby, George writes:—
“I congratulate you on Walter’s success. We are much more
interested for our brats than we were for ourselves. I remember
how miserable my poor father made himself once when I did not
get a Latin Verse prize at Oxford, and how much more sorry I
was for him than for myself. Anyhow, there is no pleasure equal
to seeing one’s children distinguish themselves—it makes one
young again.”
But I must return to his freshman’s year at Oxford.
I have told you already that this was our first separation of any length.
I did not see him from the day he went to Oxford in January until our
Rugby Eleven went up to Lords, at the end of the half-year, for the match
with the M.C.C. It was the first time I had ever played there, and of
course I was very full of it, and fancied the match the most important
event which was occurring in England the time. One of our Eleven did not
turn up, and George was allowed to play for us. He was, as usual, a tower
of strength in a boys’ Eleven, because you could rely on his nerve. When
the game was going badly, he was always put in to keep up his wicket, and
very seldom failed to do it. On this occasion we were in together, and he
made a long score, but, I thought, did not play quite in his usual style;
and on talking the matter over with him when we got home, I found that he
had not been playing at Oxford, but had taken to boating.
I expressed my sorrow at this, and spoke disparagingly of boating, of
which I knew nothing whatever. We certainly had a punt in the stream at
home, but it was too narrow for oars, and I scarcely knew a stretcher
from a rowlock. He declared that he was as fond of cricket as ever, but
that in the whole range of sport, even including hunting, there was no
excitement like a good neck-and-neck boat-race, and that I should come to
think so too.
At this time his boating career had only just begun, and rowing was
rather at a discount at Oxford. For several years Cambridge had had their
own way with the dark blues, notably in this very year of 1841. But a
radical reformer had just appeared at Oxford, whose influence has lasted
to the present day, and to whom the substitution of the long stroke
with sharp catch at the beginning (now universally accepted as the only
true form) for the short, digging “waterman’s” stroke, as it used to be
called, is chiefly due. This was Fletcher Menzies, then captain of the
University College boat. He had already begun to train a crew on his own
principles, in opposition to the regular University crew, and, amongst
others, had selected my brother, though a freshman, and had taken him
frequently down the river behind himself in a pair-oar. The first result
of this instruction was, that my brother won the University pair-oar
race, pulling stroke to another freshman of his own college.
In Michaelmas Term, 1841, it became clear to all judges of rowing that
the opposition was triumphant. F. Menzies was elected captain of the O.
U. B. C., and chose my brother as his No. 7, so that on my arrival at
Oxford in the spring of 1842, I found him training in the University
crew. The race with Cambridge was then rowed in the summer, and over the
six-mile course, between Westminster and Putney bridges. This year the
day selected was the 12th of June. I remember it well, for I was playing
at the same time in the Oxford and Cambridge match at Lord’s. The weather
was intensely hot, and we were getting badly beaten. So confident were
our opponents in the prowess of their University, that, at dinner in
the Pavilion, they were offering even bets that Cambridge would win all
three events—the cricket match, the race at Westminster, and the Henley
Cup, which was to be rowed for in the following week. This was too much
for us, and the bets were freely taken; I myself, for the first and last
time in my life, betting five pounds with the King’s man who sat next me.
Before our match was over the news came up from the river that Oxford had
won.
It was the last race ever rowed by the Universities over the long
six-mile course. To suit the tide, it was rowed down, from Putney to
Westminster Bridge. My brother unluckily lost his straw hat at the start,
and the intense heat on his head caused him terrible distress. The boats
were almost abreast down to the Battersea reach, where there were a
number of lighters moored in mid stream, waiting for the tide. This was
the crisis of the race. As the boats separated, each taking its own side,
Egan, the Cambridge coxswain, called on his crew: Shadwell, the Oxford
coxswain, heard him, and called on his own men, and when the boats came
in sight of each other again from behind the lighters, Oxford was well
ahead. But my brother was getting faint from the effects of the sun on
his head, when Shadwell reminded him of the slice of lemon which was
placed in each man’s thwart. He snatched it up, and at the same time F.
Menzies took off his own hat and gave it him; and, when the boat shot
under Westminster Bridge with a clear lead, he was quite himself again.
In our college boat—of which he was now stroke, and which he took with a
brilliant rush to the head of the river, bumping University, the leading
boat, to which his captain, F. Menzies, was still stroke, after two very
severe races—he always saw that every man had a small slice of lemon at
the start, in memory of the Battersea reach.
Next year (1843), owing to a dispute about the time, there was no
University race over the London course, but the crews were to meet at the
Henley Regatta. The meeting was looked forward to with more than ordinary
interest, as party feeling was running high between the Universities. In
the previous year, after their victory in London, the Oxford boat had
gone to Henley, but had withdrawn, in consequence of a decision of the
stewards, allowing a man to row in the Cambridge crew who had already
rowed in a previous heat, in another boat. So the cup remained in the
possession of the Cambridge Rooms, a London rowing club, composed of men
who had left college, and of the best oarsmen still at the University. If
the Cambridge Rooms could hold the challenge cup this year also, it would
become their property. But we had little fear of this, as Menzies’ crew
was in better form than ever. He had beaten Cambridge University in 1842,
and we were confident would do it again; and, as the Rooms were never so
strong as the University, we had no doubt as to the result of the final
heat also. I remember walking over from Oxford the night before the
regatta, with a friend, full of these hopes, and the consternation with
which we heard, on arriving at the town, that the Cambridge University
boat had withdrawn, so that the best men might be draughted from it into
the Rooms’ crew, the holders of the cup. Those only who have felt the
extraordinary interest which these contests excite can appreciate the
dismay with which this announcement filled us. Our boat would, by this
arrangement, have to contend with the picked oars of two first-class
crews; and we forgot that, after all, though the individual men were
better, the fact of their not having trained regularly together made
them really less formidable competitors. But far worse news came in the
morning. F. Menzies had been in the Schools in the previous month, and
the strain of his examination, combined with training for the race, had
been too much for him. He was down with a bad attack of fever. What was
to be done? It was settled at once that my brother should row stroke, and
a proposal was made that the vacant place in the boat should be filled
by one of Menzies’ college crew. The question went before the stewards,
who, after long deliberation, determined that this could not be allowed.
In consequence of the dispute in the previous year, they had decided,
that only those oarsmen whose names had been sent in could row in any
given race. I am not sure where the suggestion came from, I believe from
Menzies himself, that his crew should row the race with seven oars;
but I well remember the indignation and despair with which the final
announcement was received.
However, there was no help for it, and we ran down the bank to the
starting-place by the side of our crippled boat, with sad hearts,
cheering them to show our appreciation of their pluck, but without a
spark of hope as to the result. When they turned to take up their place
for the start, we turned also, and went a few hundred yards up the
towing-path, so as to get start enough to enable us to keep up with the
race. The signal-gun was fired, and we saw the oars flash in the water,
and began trotting up the bank with our heads turned over our shoulders.
First one, and then another, cried out that “we were holding our own,”
that “light blue was not gaining.” In another minute they were abreast of
us, close together, but the dark blue flag the least bit to the front. A
third of the course was over, and, as we rushed along and saw the lead
improved foot by foot, almost inch by inch, hope came back, and the
excitement made running painful. In another minute, as they turned the
corner and got into the straight reach, the crowd became too dense for
running. We could not keep up, and could only follow with our eyes and
shouts, as we pressed up towards the bridge. Before we could reach it the
gun fired, and the dark blue flag was run up, showing that Oxford had won.
Then followed one of the temporary fits of delirium which sometimes seize
Englishmen, the sight of which makes one slow to disbelieve any crazy
story which is told of the doings of other people in moments of intense
excitement. The crew had positively to fight their way into their hotel,
and barricade themselves there, to escape being carried round Henley on
our shoulders. The enthusiasm, frustrated in this direction, burst out
in all sorts of follies, of which you may take this as a specimen. The
heavy toll-gate was pulled down, and thrown over the bridge into the
river, by a mob of young Oxonians headed by a small, decorous, shy man in
spectacles, who had probably never pulled an oar in his life, but who had
gone temporarily mad with excitement, and I am confident would, at that
moment, have led his followers not only against the Henley constables,
but against a regiment with fixed bayonets. Fortunately, no harm came
of it but a few broken heads and black eyes, and the local authorities,
making allowances for the provocation, were lenient at the next petty
sessions.
The crew went up to London from Henley, to row for the Gold Cup, in
the Thames Regatta, which had just been established. Here they met
the Cambridge Rooms’ crew again, strengthened by a new No. 3 and a new
stroke, and the Leander, then in its glory, and won the cup after one of
the finest and closest races ever rowed. There has been much discussion
as to these two races ever since in the boating world, in which my
brother was on one occasion induced to take part. “The Oxford University
came in first,” was his account, “with a clear lead of the Leander, the
Cambridge crew overlapping the Leander. We were left behind at the start,
and had great difficulty in passing our opponents, not from want of pace,
but from want of room.” And, speaking of the Henley race, which was said
to have been won against a “scratch crew,” he adds: “A ‘scratch crew’
may mean anything short of a perfectly trained crew of good materials.
Anyone who cares about it will find the names of the Rooms’ crew at p.
100 of Mr. Macmichael’s book, and by consulting the index will be able
to form a judgment as to the quality of our opponents. _We_ had a very
great respect for them. I never attempted to exaggerate the importance
of the ‘seven oars’ race,’ and certainly never claimed to have beaten
a Cambridge University crew on that occasion.” It will always remain,
however, one of the most interesting of the heroic records of a noble
English sport.
He announced his own triumphs at home as follows, from the Golden Cross,
where the Oxford crew then stopped:—
“MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,—I should have been with you
yesterday, but was obliged to wait because they had not
finished the gold oars which we have won at Putney. We have
been as successful here as we were at Henley, and I hope
I shall bring home the cup to show you. I shall be home
to-morrow, and very glad to get to Donnington again. I don’t
feel the least unsettled by these proceedings, and am in an
excellent humour for reading.”
The two great cups came to Donnington, and remained for the year on your
grandfather’s sideboard, who could never quite make up his mind about
them; pride at his son’s extraordinary prowess being dashed with fears as
to the possible effects on him. George himself, at this time, certainly
had no idea that he was at all the worse for it, and maintained in his
letters that pulling “is not so severe exercise as boxing or fencing hard
for an hour.” “You may satisfy yourselves I shall not overdo it. I have
always felt the better for it as yet, but if I were to feel the least
inconvenience I should give it up at once.”
One effect the seven-oar race had on our generation at Oxford: it made
boating really popular, which it had not been till then. I, amongst
others, was quite converted to my brother’s opinion, and began to spend
all my spare time on the water. Our college entered for the University
four-oar races in the following November Term, and, to my intense
delight, I was selected for No. 2, my brother pulling stroke.
Our first heat was against Balliol, and through my awkwardness it proved
to be the hardest race my brother ever rowed. At the second stroke after
the start I caught a crab (to use boating phrase), and such a bad one
that the head of our boat was forced almost into the bank, and we lost
not a stroke or two, but at least a dozen, Balliol going away with a lead
of two boats’ lengths and more. Few strokes would have gone on in earnest
after this, and I am not sure that my brother would, but that it was my
first race for a University prize. As it was, he turned round, took a
look at Balliol, and just said, “Shove her head out! Now then,” and away
we went. Of course I was burning with shame, and longing to do more than
my utmost to make up for my clumsiness. The boat seemed to spring under
us, but I could feel it was no doing of mine. Just before the Gut we were
almost abreast of them, but, as they had the choice of water, we were
pushed out into mid stream, losing half a boat’s length, and having now
to pull up against the full current while Balliol went up on the Oxford
side under the willows. Our rivals happened also to be personal friends,
and I remember well becoming conscious as we struggled up the reach that
I was alongside, first of their stroke, the late Sir H. Lambert, then of
No. 3, W. Spottiswoode, and at last, as we came to the Cherwell, just
before the finish, of our old schoolfellow, T. Walrond, who was pulling
the bow oar. I felt that the race was won, for they had now to come
across to us; and won it was, but only by a few feet. I don’t think the
rest of us were much more distressed than we had been before in college
races. But my brother’s head drooped forward, and he could not speak for
several seconds. I should have learnt then, if I had needed to learn,
that it is the stroke who wins boat races.
Our next heat against University, the holders of the cup was a much
easier affair. We won by some lengths, and my brother had thus carried
off every honour which an oarsman can win at the University, except the
sculls, for which he had never been able to enter. I cannot remember any
race in which he pulled stroke and was beaten.
There are few pleasanter memories in my life than those of the
river-side, when we were training behind him in our college crew. He
was perhaps a thought too easy, and did not keep us quite so tightly
in hand as the captains of some of the other leading boats kept their
men. But the rules of training were then barbarous, and I think we were
all the better for not being strictly limited even in the matter of a
draught of cold water, or compelled to eat our meat half cooked. He was
most judicious in all the working part of training, and no man ever knew
better when to give his crew the long Abingdon reach, and when to be
content with Iffley or Sandford. At the half-hour’s rest at those places
he would generally sit quiet, and watch the skittles, wrestling, quoits,
or feats of strength which were going on all about. But if he did take
part in them, he almost always beat everyone else. I only remember one
occasion on which he was fairly foiled. In consequence of his intimacy
with F. Menzies, our crew were a great deal with that of University
College, and much friendly rivalry existed between us. One afternoon
one of their crew,[10] R. Mansfield, brother of George’s old vaulting
antagonist, rode down to Sandford, where, in the field near the inn,
there was always a furze hurdle for young gentlemen to leap over. In
answer to some chaffing remark, Mansfield turned round, and, sitting with
his face towards his horse’s tail, rode him over this hurdle. Several
of us tried it after him, George amongst the number, but we all failed;
and of course declared that it was all a trick, and that his horse was
trained to do it under him, and to refuse under anybody else.
[10] Author of “The Log of the Water Lily,” &c.
The four-oar race was the last of my brother’s boating triumphs. At the
end of the term he gave up rowing, as his last year was beginning, and he
was anxious to get more time for his preparation for the Schools. I am
not sure that he succeeded in this as, strong exercise of some kind being
a necessity to him, he took to playing an occasional game at cricket,
and was caught and put into the University Eleven. He pulled, however,
in one more great race, in the Thames Regatta of 1845, when he was still
resident as a bachelor, attending lectures. Number 6 in the Oxford boat
broke down, and his successor applied to him to fill the place, to which
he assented rather unwillingly. The following extract from a letter to
his father gives the result, and the close of his boating career:—
“You will have seen that Oxford was unsuccessful in London for
the Grand Cup, but I really think we should have won it had it
not been for that unlucky foul. I only consented to take an oar
in the boat because they said they could not row without me,
and found myself well up to the work.”
He always retained his love for rowing, and came up punctually every year
to take his place on the umpire’s boat at the University race, to which
he had a prescriptive claim as an old captain of the O.U.B.C. And this
chapter may fitly close with a boating song, the best of its kind that
I know of, which he wrote at my request. It appeared in Mr. Severn’s
“Almanac of English Sports,” published at Christmas 1868. I had rashly
promised the editor to give him some verses for March, on the University
race, and put it off till it was time to go to press. When my time was
limited by days, and I had to sit down to my task in the midst of other
work, I found that the knack of rhyming had left me, and turned naturally
to the brother who had helped me in many a copy of verses thirty years
back. I sent him down some dozen hobbling lines, and within a post or two
I received from him the following, on the March Boat Race:—
The wood sways and rocks in the fierce Equinox,
The old heathen war-god bears rule in the sky,
Aslant down the street drives the pitiless sleet,
At the height of the house-tops the cloud-rack spins by.
Old Boreas may bluster, but gaily we’ll muster,
And crowd every nook on bridge, steamboat, and shore,
With cheering to greet Cam and Isis, who meet
For the Derby of boating, our fête of the oar.
“Off jackets!”—each oarsman springs light to his seat,
And we veterans, while ever more fierce beats the rain,
Scan well the light form of each hardy athlete,
And live the bright days of our youth once again.
A fig for the weather! they’re off! swing together!
Tho’ lumpy the water and furious the wind,
Against a “dead noser”[11] our champions can row, Sir,
And leave the poor “Citizens” panting behind.
“Swing together!” The Crab-tree, Barnes, Chiswick are past;
Now Mortlake—and hark to the signaling gun!
While the victors, hard all, long and strong to the last,
Rush past Barker’s rails, and our Derby is won.
Our Derby, unsullied by fraud and chicane,
By thieves-Latin jargon, and leg’s howling din—
Our Derby, where “nobbling” and “roping” are vain,
Where all run their best, and the best men must win.
No dodges we own but strength, courage, and science;
Gold rules not the fate of our Isthmian games;
In brutes—tho’ the noblest—we place no reliance;
Our racers are men, and our turf is the Thames.
The sons of St. Dennis in praise of their tennis,
Of chases and volleys, may brag to their fill;
To the northward of Stirling, of golf, and of curling,
Let the chiels wi’ no trousers crack on as they will.
Cricket, football, and rackets—but hold, I’ll not preach,
Every man to his fancy:—I’m too old to mend—
So give _me_ a good stretch down the Abingdon reach,
Six miles every inch, and “hard all” to the end.
Then row, dear Etonians and Westminsters, row,
Row, hard-fisted craftsmen on Thames and on Tyne,
Labuan,[12] New Zealand, your chasubles[13] peel, and
In one spurt of hard work, and hard rowing, combine
Our maundering critics may prate as they please
Of glory departed and influence flown—
Row and work, boys of England, on rivers and seas,
And the old land shall hold, firm as ever, her own.
[11] “Dead noser,” the Tyne phrase for a wind in your teeth.
[12] The Bishops were famous oarsmen. Dr. Macdougal rowed bow oar in
Menzies’ boat, and was a dear friend of my brother’s.
[13] Query: Do Bishops wear “chasubles?”—G.E.H. [Note appended by my
brother to the original copy.]