most ridiculous antics, to their great amusement. "The fun" was to be repeated the following night, and I with some others, who had not been present, went into the Hall, after locking up, to see what was proceeding. The boys plied the foolish fellow with mugs of the "swipes," and then hustled him about to accelerate the effects of his draughts. I had no hand whatever in the business. The result was that the boy was very sick, and the affair was repeated to Birch. The boy in his stupefied state was questioned, and he gave my name with those of the real delinquents. I was afterwards informed that my name was sent up to Dr. Inglis, on which I went to Birch to protest my innocence, and to offer testimony to the fact that my culpability was that of many others, viz. being present on the occasion. Birch very sternly repelled me, telling me I might explain to Dr. Inglis what I had to say. The præpostor the next day at lessons came for me, and I was conducted by him to the Doctor's School, where the condemned were. I assured the Doctor that I was free from any participation in the offence beyond being present. His answer was, "Macready, I am very sorry to see you here, but Mr. Birch has sent you up' (the term in use) and I must whip you." Returning to my form smarting with choking rage and indignation, where I had to encounter the compassion of some and the envious jeers of others, my passion broke out in the exclamation, “D—n old Birch! I wish he was in h—ll!”

I was now indeed criminal; but I felt as if I cared for nothing. William Birch, my tutor's son and my third cousin, was present, and would, I knew, report me to his father, which I fancy I almost wished. My anguish and the fury of my heart blinded me to everything else. It had been Birch's custom to have me every Sunday to "dine in the parlour," a very great indulgence; but this was only one among the many many proofs he gave me of his partiality to me. On the following Sunday as we took our places at dinner in the Hall, where Mrs. Birch superintended the distribution of the fare, the man-servant came to me with the usual message, "Macready, you are to dine in the parlour." I would not stir. He repeated his message three or four times, till I said, “I shall not go;" when Mrs. Birch took the word: "Let him alone, Thomas, if he doesn't choose." Thenceforward I felt indifferent what might befall me. I could not have gone

1793-1808.

RUGBY.

19

into the parlour after what I had been guilty of saying of my benefactor, and I joined with other boys in pranks that I should before have been careful to avoid. It is an evil sign in our nature, which I could not but perceive, that it was an evident satisfaction to some among them that I had fallen from my "pride of place." I learnt my lessons, because they were easy me, and in the course of a few weeks I was translated to the upper fourth, my cousin Birch's form.

to

He was the most severe, but the most liked of all the masters. His undeviating system was, if a boy, called up at lesson, made a mistake, to give him a light imposition; upon a second omission he increased the imposition; upon a third the inexorable words were, "Sit down, you need not do your punishments." The name was given to the præpostor of the form, and the incapable was flogged. I went with dread to take my place in his form. With stern rigour he blended encouragement, and each Saturday those boys who had acquitted themselves well during the week were "sent up for good." "To be sent up for good" was to receive through the præpostor of the form sixpence in the Lower School, and a shilling the Upper; and it became almost a regular income to me to receive two and three shillings a week as, charged in the bills, "merit money." He had never spoken to me since my disgrace, and it was with astonishment I learned from the præpostor on the first Saturday that I was sent up for good," and was the only one in the form so distinguished.

Some time after my father passed through Rugby, and of course went to see Birch. I was sent for into the parlour, and there my dear and good friend (for such he was to his dying day) related to my father with tears in his eyes my behaviour. I had been guiltless of the first offence, which the poor half-idiot lad had acknowledged afterwards; but the belief of Birch had been that the beer had been drugged, that tobacco had been put into it for the purpose of intoxicating the boy, without which the offence could scarcely have been considered a penal one, and in his anger, which was sometimes hasty, he would not pause for inquiry. I repeated the assurance of my innocence of the fault ascribed to me, and with an overcharged heart expressed my contrition for my ungrateful forgetfulness

of all his kindness to me. It was understood that he forgave me, and I returned to a better sense of my duty. I was afterwards occasionally, and not unfrequently, invited into the parlour, but the regular Sunday dinners, where I was as one of his family, were not resumed. I may say with one of Cumberland's characters, "My passions were my masters," and even in reaching the "years that bring the philosophic mind" I have had to continue the conflict with them.

It was in the lower fourth form an incident occurred which caused some amusement in the school. Upon some absurd pretence a very bullying boy, by name B--, affected to take umbrage at some words or action (I remember we could not divine the meaning of his irritation) alleged by him against myself and another of our house, Jeston, on which he sent us a challenge to fight us both together that evening. Being both of us of his own age and size, it seemed excessively ridiculous, and in accepting his cartel I told Jeston that I would fight him first, and if he thrashed me, he should then take his turn. We went after the last evening lesson to the ground appointed, but met no one. At night B sent me a note (we were all in the same boarding-house) to the effect that on reflection he withdrew the challenge of fighting both together, but that he would fight us one after the other after dinner the next day. My answer informed him that such had been my intention, and that we would give him the meeting in the field proposed. The next day, after I saw him with his second quit the dinner-table, I rose, and, nudging Jeston, who stuck to his mutton, followed with my second to Caldecot's Close. We took our ground; I was perfectly collected, and did not fear my adversary. Without the least injury to myself, in five rounds he was sufficiently beaten to give in, and the event made a roar among the boys at calling-over, when reported amongst them. It was an attempt to bully which met a proper check.

The year 1807 saw a change, in the appointment of Dr. Wooll, from Midhurst, to the headmastership. Dr. Inglis had not been popular, and the numbers, which had sunk considerably under his later years, received a very considerable accession soon after Wooll's inauguration. I was among the

1793-1808.

RUGBY SPEECHES.

21

few who regretted the departure of Inglis, and it is only justice to his memory to remark that the preparation for a lesson to be said to him tasked the diligence and ability of his scholars. Dr. Wooll was too indulgent, and with such impunity could we trifle with our work, that I have taken up my Sophocles with the leaves uncut. Seeing me cut the leaves in school, he called me up, and dismissed me with a reprimand. There was no longer the same pressure on my industry to which I had been accustomed under Inglis, and in time I became so sensible of my retrogression, that I set myself to work on half-holidays or in the evenings to make translations of Homer and Virgil with such notes and parallel passages as my boyish brain could furnish. Occasionally I would smother my fire with ashes under the grate, "ignes suppositos cineri doloso," to deceive the servant as he went his nightly round at ten o'clock, get into bed with my clothes on, and when the house was all asleep would get up, having hung up cloths to prevent the light being seen in my window, and with strong tea, which I made in my room, sit up to a late hour working at my Homer or ' Georgics.'

Dr. Wooll was a very agreeable, good-natured, amiable, pompous little man. I think of him with great regard; he was very kind to me, and greatly liked by the boys of gentlemanly character. But he was not a scholar, and the preference given to him by the Trustees in his competition with Dr. Butler, Master of Shrewsbury School, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield, spoke little for their judgment. Dr. Wooll varied our compositions by introducing English verses once every month; he gave prizes for compositions in Latin and English verse once a year, and to test the elocutionary powers of the fifth and sixth forms, gave also prizes for speaking. The latter were inconsiderable, but the novelty gave interest to them. One was allotted to me for the first scene of Hotspur in the first act of Shakespeare's 'King Henry IV.,' and I was selected out of my place to speak at the June meeting in addition to the twelve first boys. He gave me the closet scene in 'Hamlet,' with Skeeles as the Queen, and an imaginary ghost. I remonstrated with him upon the extreme difficulty of such a scene, and he silenced me by saying, "If I had not intended you to do something extraordinary, I should not have taken you out of your place." Robinson,

Master of the Temple, Lord Hatherton (né Walhouse), and the late Sir G. Ricketts were the best speakers.*

They were prominent in the plays, which we got up in a much more expensive style than in Dr. Inglis's time, and with great completeness. The Doctor chose to ignore our proceedings, and we even obtained permission to act them to audiences invited from the town and neighbourhood. Our first play was the Castle Spectre,' Robinson acting Earl Osmond, Walhouse Hassan, Ricketts Earl Percy, Dickens (not the great novelist) Angela, and myself Motley and Earl Reginald. My father furnished us with dresses; and the scenery, provided by subscriptions among ourselves, was very creditable to the artist powers of Walhouse and Ricketts, with assistants. Our play the next year, when Robinson and Ricketts had left for the Universities, was Dr. Young's Revenge,' with the farce of Two Strings to your Bow.' This was acted in the Doctor's School; as usual, first to the boys on the afternoon of a half-holiday, and a second time at night to a large invited assembly, among whom the masters took their places. Wal

*The following is a copy of one of the cards, held by an old gentleman present at the meeting, with his critical notices of the speakers: