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.
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 exceedingly 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 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, 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 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 _Prælections 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 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 “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 “Ba_w_abbas was a
_w_obber.”
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.”
“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
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 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 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 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 mediæval 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 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 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. In simple truth
this is all _bosh_! though I can hardly expect a generation _in cute
curandâ plus æquo 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 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 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.