WELLINGTON COLLEGE, BERKS. photograph by Hills and Saunders, Oxford.

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planted with large spruce firs, an avenue called by my father the "Eternal Calm" because on the windiest days it was peaceful there. The air of the whole place was always singularly fresh to his mind, "charged with ozone" and laden with the aromatic scent of the firs, and in summer blowing sweet over tracts of heather. When we returned from our holidays, I remember how he used to breathe the air and praise it.

To the North of the College there was a marsh, which was made into three lakes, and fitted for bathing purposes. The place was carefully laid out and planted; rhododendrons flourished greatly, and the main approach to the College was planted with huge beds of them, flanked by an avenue of Wellingtonias, a suggestion of Mr Menzies, the Deputy Ranger of Windsor Forest and a great friend of my father's. At one time these trees seemed doomed to failure from the inveterate habit of birds perching on the thin topmost spray. This my father obviated by having poles of slightly greater height fixed close to the trunks, and they are now fine grown trees.

The College originally consisted of two courts, in the Louis Quatorze style, of brick with stone facings, flanked by two high towers with lead roofs which gave a stately aspect to the whole. Professor Munro said that the place reminded him of a Spanish convent. One of the then unused dormitories was fitted up as a Chapel. The Master's Lodge was in the North front of the College, over, and on each side of, the principal entrance. It had a small walled garden to the East, with a rockery of broken carvings from the stoneyards, overlooked by a tall chimney vomiting smoke, very terrible to childish minds.

In the early days of the College the Prince Consort often came over to see it, and suggested numbers of little details both for use and ornament. One story I may

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perhaps mention. At the North-east corner of the College stands a group of poplars. The Prince Consort, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, then a boy, had driven over from Windsor; Prince Albert was walking about looking at the College: at the corner he stopped and said, “You want some tall trees there-poplars I think "—and dug his walking-stick into the ground five or six times. My father said to a workman who was with them, "Put some marks into those holes," which was done, and the poplars planted on the identical spots.

The College was opened in 1859 by the Queen in person; there were about eighty boys, Foundationers, sons of officers, "Heroum Filii" as the motto says. They wore an odd dark-green uniform, with brass buttons, plaid trousers, and a cap like a postman's with red lines and a gilt crown in front. This was a suggestion of the Prince Consort's, who disliked the Academic, or Ecclesiastical, dress that remained at certain English Schools, as being "a badge of their monastic origin." The uniform was soon given up, and the cap has since lost its peak, and is seldom worn. The death-blow was dealt to the uniform when Lord Sackville Cecil1 and the Hon. A. W. Charteris had tickets given up to them at the station.

The College was ornamented in a stately manner with bronze busts of famous soldiers, and at each end of the main wings, in external niches, stood life-sized figures of great generals such as Anglesey, Combermere, Hill, Murray, Blücher, and others, from whom the dormitories were named.

Dr Temple came from Rugby to see the start, and to render any assistance that he could. The grounds were still unformed, and all down the front drive where the rhododendrons now stand, the heather which had been cut

1 Died Jan. 1898.

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lay in great bundles tied up ready for removal. Temple, noticing that the boys were hanging about rather listlessly, started a kind of Steeplechase down among the bundles, and the two Headmasters, leading the way and jumping the piles of heather with coatskirts flying, were followed by the boys.

"Well," said

My father used often to tell the story of how Dr Temple, who came to help him to arrange the school in January, 1859, was perplexed where to place the first boy he called up, and examined as to his acquirements. Number I of the Heroum Filii was eleven years of age. Dr Temple, "come and tell us what you know." The boy had a fat oval face with ruddy cheeks and always spoke with a strong Scotch accent in a whining tone of voice. At this invitation he scented mischief, and, being canny, hung down his head and said nothing. "You've learned a little Greek, I daresay?" said Temple suggestively. "No, Sir, I don't think I've learned any Greek," he murmured. "Well, Latin, then-Latin Delectus, Latin Grammar?" "No," said the boy, emboldened by his success in disclaiming Greek, "I don't think I've learned any Latin!" "Did you ever do any Algebra or Euclid?" "Never, Sir, never heard of 'em!" "Well, Arithmetic, then?" "I'm not sure, Sir, that I know any Arithmetic." "But you know some History and Geography?" "No, Sir, I don't think I know either." "But you know something!" cried Temple, aghast. "You must have been taught something at your last school?" "I'm no sure, however," rejoined the boy, “that I know anything." "There is nothing for it," said Dr Temple, "the first of our Heroes' Sons must be placed in the lowest form, by whatever name it is to be called and however low its standard." And with this inauspicious commencement my father began his "seminary of sound learning and religious education."