not resist the temptation of making a digression to the times when we, as children, had no trials at all; and I do not believe there can be a greater contrast in life than was in those days felt and experienced by children male, in passing from the age of infancy to that of boyhood. You must have observed that mothers are much prouder of male than female infants. They stick a sort of rose in the cap, as a badge of dignity, that all the world may know what they are. And, I am sure, when they first begin to teach them to walk, and that is often much earlier than they should, they take great pains to show what they are. They shame us men out of all our proprieties, and make us turn away our modest faces. An infant male, then, is the greatest treasure and darling is really a little idol-a "dumb idol" at first-but he is soon taught to lord it with a loud voice, a practice which some never are able to get rid of, and which, with a just retribution, they often pay back upon that sex from whom they have acquired it in in. dulgence. And it is curious that when the child female is taken to as the better pet, the indulged pampered boy is at once rudely cast off, and told abruptly that

"Girls must have white bread, and nice sugar sops;

Boys must have brown bread, and good

hard knocks."

Neither you nor I, Eusebius, would venture to object to the doctrine, for rough discipline of some sort is necessary to those who have to go through a crooked perverse world; but the time of the announcement, and the previous idolatry, make the lesson a somewhat cruel one. Now, nothing could be greater than the contrast I suffered. I have a perfect recollection of myself in this idol state. I dare say I was a pretty, for all said I was a beautiful child. I remember my dress; and where will you find a finer idol, ready to step down from his pagoda-pedestal to walk the ground?-to walk it?-to. dignify it with the pressure of his footstep. I well remember strutting in the finest nankeen dress, with a long and broad blue sash, a beautifully crimped frill, and a white hat and feathers was taken up and kissed wherever I was met, and fondled, and talked to in a language that must have much retarded my learning real English. How do children acquire their language when NO. CCXCI. YOL, XLVII.

they are invariably addressed in a jargon? But they do-and I learned the vulgar tongue, and used it too; and then, when the pampered, idolized child grows towards boyhood, he is told to know himself-and how should he? -finery and flattery are no longer for him. The next stage of life is one of real hardship, for he has not only to learn but to unlearn. He is, or rather was, in our time, turned out of all favour. For kisses he had kicks; and, according to a vulgar saying, " more kicks than halfpence." The contrast was horrible-from a pet to an outcast. I am told all is altered now, and that the fine gentleman commences with the baby. As to myself, I was a little good-for-nothing; half my time in tatters, which nobody noticed; and even at the more advanced period, when my mother asked the question of my father, it was unquestionably time I should have new breeches of some sort or other. There never passed a fifth of November, from the age of seven, that a hole was not regularly squibbed through whatever I had a hole, do I say? - I should say many, if it was not that in a short time they all ran into one. I was, from that age, as unlike the sweet child in the nankeen dress, blue sash, and hat and feathers, as a dove is like a badger-not that I was as well clad as the latter. The first

feeling of the young cast-off was desolate enough. Oh, unfortunate age! when the little urchin can receive impressions, and make none. I do not mean to say the impressions I received were of a tender kind. I only wonder that I did not turn savage, and that I did not through life bear a dislike to women; for from them came my chief pain.

There was a little incident at this age of early abandonment and desertion of favour, that might have ruined in the bud the tenderness which, nevertheless, in after life came to mature blossom. Discarded by mother, sisters, cousins, and pushed from home by maid-servants, I one day sought solitary solace in a quarry, not far from a temporary residence my father had taken in the country. There I sat, as meditative as such an incipient boy could be, when a little girl, (a village tailor's daughter,) about my own age, came into the quarry, and sat by me for companionship. The spot was certainly retired; and, at another age, my situation might have been critical,

D

and liable to scandal but scandal I knew not then. How soon was I to know it! Could the babes in the wood be more innocent! And whence did the blow come?-from my father. It happened that, in one of his walks, with his book as usual in his hand, that he might, without interruption, give vent to his feelings, and repeat aloud a pathetic passage, into the quarry he walked. He was the most untheatrical man living in all his actions, a man of singular modesty, which, alas, I inherit! To spout a speech, or lift his arm in action to the words, knowingly, before man, woman, or child, would have been impossible;-but here he did it unwittingly. There was something to me so ludicrous in it, so unexpected, that, in the midst of his viva voce exclamations I could not suppress a titter. He heard it and saw his unfortunate son, and one Sukey Bowers, the tailor's daughter, sitting hand in hand, like Cupid and Psyche, his only admiring audience. I believe he was more shocked than I was. He had presence of mind to recover his propriety, and with a good-natured smile asked the little girl her name, and walked away; and when I returned home he had so completely passed his jokes over the whole house, that there was not one in it that did not banter me-and miserable I was for many a month on account of it. Day after day was I asked if I had seen "my Sukey Bowers." Heaven forgive me! I verily believe I hated her; and if I had heard her knell I might have been the happier. I cannot philosophize upon this antipathy of very young persons to the tender passion; it is, nevertheless, very curious. I was certainly as miserable because I did not love when I could not love, as ever I was when under the "amiable insanity."

But this is all a digression from my new breeches, and never will lead to them, and all this while the tall and robust Mr Flight is standing to take

in his pocket, I thought he carried that with him which should one day "give the world assurance of a man." Not that I then made the quotation from Shakspeare-I was not so learned but, as Mr Puff said, we both hit upon the same thought.

Of my acquirements and fitness for the college of St Mary Winton at that time, you shall determine, Eusebius, by the following translation which I made to my father, who took me in hand some time before, and from a private school. A private school! Oh! the indignity of going to a private school, as I afterwards proudly thought; but I have passed over preparatory schools, at many of which I served, I cannot say merui-detestable all. What with tossings in the blanket, putting forth my feet for peg-tops to aim at, and wiring the toe, according to the recipe of the then and ever-odious Latin grammar, fists, cane, and privations; and, I am sorry to add, meannesses of big and littleall I can say is, that it is a wonder a boy ever comes out of the ordeal with health, temper, learning, or morals.

But this is another digression, so now to the translation, by which you will discover that I did not add a knowledge of prosody to my acquirements and deficiencies in grammar.

My father gave me the following line out of Ovid; I do not know that I have read it since, but I well remember it, and where I hammered at it, with a little dictionary in two volumes, Entick's, on the ground; a little green patch, near a stile, with my back to the cow-house. The locus quo has, however, little to do with it. We are all garrulous, Eusebius-now for the line:

"Jam mihi deterior canis aspergitur ætas."

My father had laid down his book, seemingly not liking the interruption. The word was given, "construe," which I did thus. Jam, now; dete

latin, for a pair of new mouse-colour leathers, wherein I am to make my public entry upon life in the best manner I can. Naturally I put my best leg foremost, then the worst, out went one hip, then the other, and soon all my dimensions were noted upon parchment. The mysterious notches struck me with wonder, and when he put the important document

"The

tur, besprinkled; atas, age. deuce he did!" said my father, gravely, put his hand to his mouth, and walked out of the room. He seldom laughed, that is, rightly laughed; but I heard, as he ascended the stairs, tit, tit, tit, and a peculiar note he had, whether from his nose or the roof of his mouth, I cannot tell, when any thing moved him either to pleasure or displeasure. I stood like a deterior canis, a mongrel; but where my error was, for the life of me I could not then tell.

It was whimsical enough that age turning a man's hair grey should be metamorphosed into a mongrel, and so ill-bred a one; and such another metamorphosis, I will venture to assert, is not to be found in Ovid's famous books of that name.

While on this subject, my dear Eusebius, do let me boast of a little improvement within the year. It is not a proof of great scholarship, but there was an improvement in taking an ingenious shot at a passage. This was at Winchester. In the morning we had been reading Virgil, and when a boy was thrown out at prensos boves, and it came to my turn, I was prompted by another boy, and cried out boldly,

cot oxen.

"What do you mean?" said the

master.

"Oxen of the Cottage, sir," said I. "Oh, you sound-catcher!" said he; and all laughed.

To remedy this defeat, I took particular pains with my Livy-the evening lesson, in which was included the passage respecting the prodigies in the Roman camp. Now had it not been that a notable prodigy was to be described, I should not have blundered. The passage is "Namet lupus intraverat castra, laniatisque obviis, ipse intactus evaserat, et examen apum in arbore prætorio imminente considerat." Thus I translated it. Nam, for; et, and; lupus, a wolf; intraverat, entered; castra, the camps; laniatis obviis, to look for the sheep; que, and; ipse, he himself; evaserat, escaped; intactus, unhurt ; et, and; considerat, sat down upon; examen, a swarm; apum, of bees; in arborehere I was not allowed to go furthera general roar quite discomfited me. The master twisted his mouth, and curled his nose; but it would not do, and so he fairly laughed with the

rest.

"A very uncomfortable seat, Mr Wolf," said he, "and perhaps a tickler would make you construe better." For myself, I was in despair, and thought the field of literature was no field for my father's son, and in truth I thought he had enough for both. I soon found, however, that others were not much wiser; took courage, and have successfully encountered the

I

great and little Goes. But to the breeches, Eusebius; methinks I hear you say, will the boy never put them on? the new mouse-colour leathers. Have patience - they shall be on directly-no, that is impossible with leather breeches in those days. The evening before my departure, being booked to Winchester, behold the arrival of Mr Flight with his foreman and a bag-and in that bag, or rather out of that bag, were turned my new mouse-colour leather breeches. longed to try them on, and would have retired for that purpose, but was stopped by Mr Flight, with " No, young gentleman, I must get them on.' "You get them on?" said I, wishing to have the first wear myself. "Yes, said he, with a grin, " on you, I mean; they would hardly fit me." He was right; it was impossible: in my ideas of my own magnitude I had forgotten that; and to me even they were a tight fit, as you shall hear. First, Mr Flight's foreman took off his coat, and tucked up his shirt sleeves. Then Mr Flight took the breeches, and gave his shoulders a slight shake as if to try their strength-then told me to strip. It was evident they could not be put on over any thing else, so behold me in nubibus. Had I been to be initiated in "the great mysteries," Mr Flight could not have held forth the articles of initiation with more solemnity. For a moment I poised my right leg over them, supported bodily by the foreman. I thrust iny leg down; alas! it would not go far; then, by a lift of the foreman, I contrived to get in my other leg; then I felt myself suspended, and then came "the tug of war." Mr Flight took the waistband, and while he was shaking me into the new mouse-colours, the foreman was forcing my unwilling limbs into them by rubbing and smoothing, and tugging and pulling, and by more actions than there are words to express them; by jerking me, lifting me, dragging me, and tossing me all round the room, at least half an hour before I could make any substantial way whatever into my first real virile apparel. We were all forced to take a rest; and I could not help seeing, that whatever profit he got by them was got " with the sweat of his brow." After a little rest, at it we went again; "the Seconde Fitte," as it might be fairly called. But here I was helpless; I

could not move a knee; not a joint would bend. And there was 1 suspended by the waistband, the first edi. tion of my father's learning bound in leather-calf, but not lettered. That last finish came a long while afterwards. It certainly took a good hour and a half to get me in. The descent was not facilis; but to get out of them was worse. This was indeed a toil and labour. " Sed revocare gradum." " Hic labor, hoc opus est." It is painful to think of it even now; so before the final tug, we must have rest, and I will take advantage of it to make what apology I can for my mistranslation.

I had taken obviis for ovibus, and ovibus I knew were sheep, and laniatis I considered to be the adjective of lana, wool, and woolly sheep is mere tautology, and the dative case is, for; and really so many verbs are omitted in Latin, why might they not be here, and so I only supplied " to look," and I now gravely declare that many a learned commentator and expositor has supplied a great deal more out of his own head, and with as little probability of being right. And what is more natural than that a wolf should go out to look for the sheep; and where should he find them but out of the camp? And now, Eusebius, I have but to call all who think differently blockheads, dolts, idiots, and so forth; and you will find the above defence not a very unfair specimen of learned annotations, if you will only put it into tolerable Latin.

Now, then, it is time to extricate myself, if not out of this passage in Livy, at least to make a passage out of my new mouse-colour leather breeches. Mr Flight caught hold of meround the body, his foreman had hold of the breeches at the knees-I kicked, I plunged; they pulled: luckily my joints held my limbs together as well as the breeches -it was a frightful endeavour-but "nil arduum est mortalibus"-nothing is too hard for man, and that, by-the-by, was said of a Flight. Mr Flight was a man of courage, and his foreman scorned to be outdone-so at it again they went, "like master, like man;" " nothing is denied to well directed labour." I was at length free of my breeches, and they were free of And from that day there is nothing I more admire than the political axiom, that "free bottoms shall carry free goods." Mr Flight making his

exit, assured me all the difficulty was over, that a second trial was quite unnecessary, and that henceforth they would fit like a glove. A second trial I was not then equal to, and readily believed him.

I know, Eusebius, you delight to be a boy again; will you therefore go with me through the scene of my first entrance, not at a private school, indeed, but at that noble school - Winchester, whose walls are and ever will be dear to me, for to that excellent school do I owe all that I know worth knowing, and all I feel worth feeling? The generous highminded character of our public schools, I need not descant upon to you. I had known private, some ill conditioned from the masters, others from the boys; and with the latter generally is the error. I know not why it is, but there is a meanness among them totally unknown at public schools-perhaps I should say was. In my days, a petted, home-fed, pampered, indulged boy, first sent, at an early age, to a rough private school, like Lucian's private tutor, with a pot-belly that he could neither fill nor get rid of, was the most miserable of creatures on earth. The fact is, our public schools are the growth of ages, and laws have grown up with them that must not be infringed; and hence there is a government of law, not of caprice, and the boy feels himself, to a great degree, independent. The school does not take its character from a boy or two, but it is a character by time acquired, handed down, and must be maintained-and is maintained. And now, Eusebius, do you not think it is quite time for me to make my second appearance in my mouse-colour leathers? Not yet. Is it not the best time, before I put them on, to discuss a little scholastic discipline ? Do not think I mean to insinuate a disciplinal attitude. Only, that when once on, as I do not mean to take them off again in a hurry, I might as well not be too proud, and strut about gabbling my say, like the turkey, expanding my tail. Of discipline-why mince the word flogging ? - according to old dictionaries, you will find it a good and wholesome exercise for man and boy, (by man, meaning master.) It circulates the blood, and that not too violently; it sets the spirits free and the brain alert. We have scarcely had a poet since Milton, and he was the last that was flogged at the university. What a disgrace, says the prater of modern times and modern nonsense? Tell the boy at Eton, at Winchester, at Westminster, after he has suffered it, that he is dis disgraced, and your next prating, Mr Prater, will be in a half whistle without your teeth, and you will not see very clearly through your eyes. Disgraced, indeed! and by enduring just discipline by daring to obey! Do you think the noble captains that fought at Waterloo had never been flogged? ay, to their honour, they had and who will say our soldiers want bottom? "Nunquam ingenium idem ad res diversissimas, parendum atque imperandum, habilius fuit." That was the character of Hannibal and it is a true description of that acquired by the discipline of our public schools. When you are in danger, I only wish you may show half as fair a face to the enemy as they have. It is said that a man who marries has given bond to society for his good behaviour. A fine-spirited youth who submits to discipline for conscience-sake, who has been legitimately flogged, has given his bottomry bond, (as merchants call it,) both for his good behaviour and learning-I say who has been legitimately flogged_for here is a great distinction, very observable between the custom at private and public schools. At the latter there are no little, galling, tyrannical oppressions-nothing takes place as punishment but what is well understood upon entering, and by the custom; no greater disgrace than is deserved, if disgrace it can generally be called, is conveyed or implied by submission. And all is open and aboveboard-for the first thing you see on entering the noble building, the schoolroom, is a large painting at one end, a portrait of the rod, and this pithy admonition" Aut disce, aut discede, manet sors tertia, cæde. Even the rod is of a prescribed form and dimensions, and supplied by one of the officers of the schools-one of the boys. It is a turned handle, with four long twigsapple. And there is likewise a prescribed manner of inflicting punishment. The delinquent, without hesitation, kneels down to a block, and two boys, any that like the sport as it is terme

take him up; that is, standing in front of him on the other side of the block, which is, in fact, an immovable bench, the last of many in the row, on which

the boys sit while learning their lessons. The "taking up," is nothing more than the removal of the shirt between the waistband and the waistcoat, so that the space of back left open for punishment is very small, and the twigs of the rod so far apart, that often not one hits, and seldom, indeed, all; and then the master makes but three blows-and these, generally, very lightly, and the matter is over, and little harm done. It is only in case of very great offences another punishment is inflicted, and that is by six blows instead of three; and the boy is then taken upbytwo officers of the school boys on duty; and then, indeed, the space for punishment is somewhat larger. All this is, however, according to rule, by which the master is restricted; so that both are under it. For a master to punish in any other way is an unheardof thing; nor would it be submitted to. A cane, or a ferule, or any of the little uncertain tyranny of a private school, would not be borne a moment; a rebellion would break out. The boy that will be flogged will not be cuffed. His dignity would, indeed, be offended; for I will venture to say there cannot be collected a number of higherspirited, manly-minded youths, than are to be met with at our public schools; and there is nothing they show their superior manliness in so much as in their obedience to discipline. Custom gives rights, and rights reconcile to punishment. The master, even by adhering to custom, in some respects shows, by example, the beauty of obedience. They have themselves been educated at the school over which they preside; they know the youths under their care are to be passed to the universities, and thence into the world, to adorn it in every rank; and they take pains to inculcate generous sentiments. I was once discovered by the head-master out of bounds-a serious offence. A friend was with me, but I alone was known. We joined the rest just as the master, Dr Goddard, rode up. Не called me out, and asked me who was with me. I was silent. The youth who was with me did not give time for the question to be asked again, but boldly stepped forward and said, "I was." The Doctor turned his horse's head and rode away, and, I need not say, never punished either. Thanks, good Doctor, for all your kindness;