At school was laid the foundation of two lifelong friendships; one with
Henry Edmondes, who afterwards was a barrister, and became deputy clerk
of the peace for Middlesex during Sergeant Adams’s chairmanship—another
with Hugh Worthington Statham, who proceeded to medicine, finally
occupying the mastership of the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries.
Edmondes was of short stature, with an intellect the better of which I
have never known. He had all the humour of Charles Dickens, and, had he
lived, might have proved a closer rival than Thackeray to that inimitable
writer. He had advantages that Dickens never acquired; he was a scholar,
well read in English, French, and Italian, as well as in classics, and
was free from that silly sentimentalism which at times placed Dickens
below par.
Statham, like myself, is still alive: never losing sight of the _literæ
humaniores_, he threw his excellent abilities into the healing art, and
touched the first place in his branch of the profession. Next to my
brother, he is my oldest friend. Our first meeting must have been seventy
years ago.[1]
I have not yet alluded to the King’s Ward, a sort of aristocratic
section of the school, in which the boys were trained for the navy.
Candidates were received into it at their own option. They formed a
society apart, not associating with the other boys; consequently their
deeds were traditional, relating to how in times past they had been in
revolt, defying their masters, escaping from the school, and, after being
retaken, how they were locked up in the prison cell and tamed on bread
and water.
Their studies were under a mathematical master, apart from the other
boys. They were distinguished by a metal badge with some emblem upon it,
which was worn by them on the left shoulder.
They were always considered a very “gallous” set, which, in the school
vocabulary, signified “daring.”
I preferred my solitary walks in the cloisters to joining in the games,
and this secluded habit sometimes raised a faction against me, and I
had only the choice left me of yielding or of being mobbed. There was a
game in which some hundreds held on to each other by the tails of their
coats, while the leader determined the direction they should take by
going himself the way which pleased him. I was always a candidate for
the leadership, and my plan was to drag the long chain of boys through
segments of circles to left and back to right; the effect of this was,
by a swift and sudden turn, to throw half the boys off their legs to the
ground, the hinder ones coming in for the fall as the impetus given by
the foremost reached them.
It appears remarkable, at first thought, that with so many hundreds one
should learn the name of every boy; but it is nothing compared with
what is achieved by study. Some forty years ago I had a conversation
with Professor Henslow, of Cambridge, on the subject of getting names
by heart. At that time there were sixty thousand plants classified. He
said that a botanist would by degrees fix all these names on his memory
without any effort.
A memorable group among us was that of three brothers named Leighton,
a family of such beauty as can only be rarely seen. Two of them were
Grecians. The eldest, James Leighton, was tall, with dark hair and
complexion, and of a graceful figure. He proceeded to the university
early in my time, so I saw little of him, but that little has lasted my
memory for seventy years. David Leighton came next; he was of a fair
complexion, with large grey eyes, with nose and lips exquisitely curved,
and a countenance expressive of talent and good nature.
The Grecians might reach their twentieth year at the school, and, as
men, had the advantage of their dress being made of fine cloth; it was
otherwise the same as that of the boys, except that they had broad red
girdles, stamped like those of the monitors. In such dress the Grecians
had a truly noble appearance; one might think of them as high officials
at the court of Edward the Sixth.
The youngest of the group was Frederick Leighton, my junior, and my
particular friend. He had dark and refined features, with curling hair.
I met David Leighton again at Baden Baden in 1832, among the fashionable
crowds from all nations. He was chaplain to the English residents of the
place. I have heard nothing more of this fine family from that time to
this.
I asked him what he had done at Cambridge. His answer was, that he had
disgusted his whole family.
Another contemporary, one who made some figure in professional life, was
Lawson Cape. As a boy he was the greediest of readers. His father brought
him historical works week after week, and he devoured their contents as
fast as they reached him. He was short, fair-haired, freckled, quick at
reading, quick at learning, quick at looking about him. It was difficult
to follow his movements, so excited were they on all occasions. I met him
again at Florence, during the carnival. I saw him abroad once more at
Baden Baden, after which he settled in London as an accoucheur, when I
came across him for the last time.
He was related to Sir Charles Locock, and through his influence acquired
an obstetric practice in town.
[1] He died at the beginning of 1892, after entering his eighty-fourth
year. He was two months my senior. I have later on made a distinction
between early friends and later ones, dwelling on the fact that what
happens to us before we have attained our full growth is nourished as
a part of us, and so becomes ingrained in our natures.