The English Spy Part 9

A list of _worthies_, learn'd and great

In every art and science, That n.o.ble youths should emulate,

To set laws at defiance: The church, the senate, and the bar,

By these in ethics grounded, Must prove a meteoric star,

Of brilliancy compounded.

Ye lights of Eton, rising suns,

Of all that's great and G.o.dly; The nation's hope, and dread of _duns_,

Let all your acts be _motley_.

Learn arts like these, ye oppidan,

If you'd astonish greatly The senate, or the great divan,

With cla.s.sics pure, and stately.

Give Greek and Latin to the wind,

Bid pedagogues defiance: These are the rules to grace the mind

With the true gems of science.

42 Tom New, a great cricketer.

43 Bill Fish, a waterman who attends the youngest boys in their excursions.

44 The b.u.mP, to run against each other in the race.

~76~~

APOLLO'S VISIT TO ETON.

~76~~ This whimsical production appeared originally in 1819, in an Eton miscellany ent.i.tled the College Magazine; the poetry of which was afterwards selected, and only fifty copies struck off: these have been carefully suppressed, princ.i.p.ally we believe on account of this article, as it contains nothing that we conceive can be deemed offensive, and has allusions to almost all the distinguished scholars of that period, besides including the princ.i.p.al contributors to the Etonian, a recent popular work: we have with some difficulty filled up the blanks with real names; and, at the suggestion of several old Etonians, incorporated it with the present work, as a fair criterion of the promising character of the school at this particular period.

The practice of thus distinguis.h.i.+ng the rising talents of Eton is somewhat ancient. We have before us a copy of verses dated 1620, in which Waller, the poet, and other celebrated characters of his time, are particularised. At a still more recent period, during the masters.h.i.+p of the celebrated Doctor Barnard, the present earl of Carlisle, whose cla.s.sical taste is universally admitted, distinguished himself not less than his compeers, by some very elegant lines: those on the late Right Hon. C. J. Fox we are induced to extract as a strong proof of the n.o.ble earl's early penetration and foresight.

"How will my Fox, alone, by strength of parts.

Shake the loud senate, animate the hearts Of fearful statesmen? while around you stand Both Peers and Commons listening your command.

~77~~

While _Tully's_ sense its weight to you affords, His nervous sweetness shall adorn your words.

What praise to Pitt,{1} to Townshend, e'er was due, In future times, my Pox, shall wait on you."

At a subsequent period, the leading characters of the school were spiritedly drawn in a periodical newspaper, called the World, then edited by Major Topham, and the Rev. Mr. East, who is still, I believe, living, and preaches occasionally at Whitehall. From that publication, now very scarce, I have selected the following as the most amusing, and relating to distinguished persons.

1 The great Earl of Chatham.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN OLD ETONIAN.

The Lords Littleton--father and son, formed two opposite characters in their times. The former had a distinguished turn for pastoral poetry, and wrote some things at Eton with all the enthusiasm of early years, and yet with all the judgment of advanced life. The latter showed there, in some traits of disposition, what was to be expected from him; but he too loved the Muses, and cultivated them.

He there too displayed the strange contraries of being an ardent admirer of the virtues of cla.s.sic times, while he was cheating at chuck and all-fours; and though he affected every species of irreligion, was, in fact, afraid of his own shadow.

The whole North Family have, in succession, adorned this school with their talents--which in the different branches were various, but all of mark and vivacity. To the younger part, Dampier was the tutor; who, having a little disagreement with Frank North on the hundred steps coming down from the terrace, at Windsor, they adjusted it, by Frank North's rolling his tutor very quickly down the whole of them. The tutor has since risen to some eminence in the church.

Lord Cholmondeley was early in life a boy of great parts, and they have continued so ever since, though not lively ones. Earl of Buckingham was a plain good scholar, but ~79~~ would have been better at any other school, for he was no poet, and verse is here one of the first requisites; besides, he had an impediment in his speech, which, in the hurry of repeating a lesson before a number of boys, was always increased. It was inculcated to him by his dame--that he must look upon himself as the reverse of a woman in every thing, and not hold--that whoever "_deliberates is lost_."

Lord Harrington was a boy of much natural spirit. In the great rebellion, under _Forster_, when all the boys threw their books into the Thames, and marched to Salt Hill, he was amongst the foremost. At that place each took an oath, or rather swore, he would be d------d if ever he returned to school again.

When, therefore, he came to London to the old Lord Harrington's, and sent up his name, his father would only speak to him at the door, insisting, at the same time, on his immediate return. "Sir," said the son, "consider I shall be d--d if I do!" "And I" answered the father, "will be d--d if you don't!"

"Yes, my lord," replied the son, "but you will be d--d together I do or no!"

The Storers. Anthony and Tom, for West Indians, were better scholars than usually fell to the share of those _children of the sun_, who were, in general, too gay to be great. The name of the elder stands to this day at the head of many good exercises; from which succeeding genius has stolen, and been praised for it.

Tom had an odd capability of running round a room on the edge of the wainscot, a strange power of holding by the foot: an art which, in lower life, might have been serviceable to him in the showing it. And Anthony, likewise, amongst better and more brilliant qualifications, had the reputation of being amongst the best dancers of the age. In a political line, perhaps, he did not _dance attendance_ to much purpose.

Harry Conway, brother to the present Marquis of ~80~~ Hertford, though younger in point of learning, was older than his brother, Lord Beauchamp; but he was not so forward as to show this preeminence: a somewhat of modesty, a consciousness of being younger, always kept him back from displaying it. In fact, they were perfectly unlike two Irish boys--the Wades, who followed them, and who, because the younger was taller, used to fight about which was the eldest.

Pepys. A name well known for Barnard's commendation of it, and for his exercises in the _Musae Etonenses_. He was amongst the best poets that Eton ever produced.

Kirkshaw, son to the late doctor, of Leeds, and since fellow of Trinity College. When his father would have taken him away, he made a singular request that he might stay a year longer, not wis.h.i.+ng to be made a man so early.

Many satiric Latin poems bear his name at Eton, and he continued that turn afterwards at Cambridge. He was remarkable for a very large head; but it should likewise be added, there was a good deal in it.

On this head, his father used to hold forth in the country. He was, without a figure, the head of the school, and was afterwards in the caput at the university.

Wyndham, under Barnard, distinguished himself very early as a scholar, and for a logical acuteness, which does not often fall to the share of a boy. He was distinguished too both by land and by water; for while he was amongst the most informed of his time, in school hours, in the playing fields, on the water, with the celebrated boatman, my guinea piper at cricket, or in rowing, he was always the foremost. He used to boast, that he should in time be as good a boxer as his father was, though he used to add, that never could be exactly known, as he could not decently have a _set-to_ with him.

~81~~ Fawkener, the major, was captain of the school; and in those days was famed for the "_suaviter in modo_," and for a turn for gallantry with the Windsor milliners, which he pursued up the hundred steps, and over the terrace there. As this turn frequently made him overrun the hours of absence, on his return he was found out, and flogged the next morning; but this abated not his zeal in the cause of gallantry, as he held it to be, like _Ovid_, whom he was always reading, suffering in a fair cause.

Fawkener, Everard, minor, with the same turn for pleasure as his brother, but more open and ingenuous in his manner, more unreserved in his behaviour, then manifested, what he has since been, the bon vivant of every society, and was then as since, the admired companion in every party.

Prideaux was remarkable for being the gravest boy of his time, and for having the longest chin. Had he followed the ancient "_Sapientem pascere Barbam_," there would in fact have been no end of it. With this turn, however, his time was not quite thrown away, nor his gravity. In conjunction with Dampier, Langley, and Serjeant, who were styled the learned Cons, he composed a very long English poem, in the same metre as the Bath Guide, and of which it was then held a favour to get a copy. He had so much of advanced life about him, that the masters always looked upon him as a man; and this serious manner followed him through his pastimes. He was fond of billiards; but he was so long in making his stroke, that no boy could bear to play with him: when the game, therefore, went against him, like Fabius-_Cunctando rest.i.tuit rem_; and they gave it up rather than beat him.

Hulse. Amongst the best tennis-players that Eton ever sent up to Windsor, where he always was. As a poet he distinguished himself greatly, by winning one of the medals given by Sir John Dalrymple. His ~82~~ exercise on this occasion was the subject of much praise to Doctor Forster, then master, and of much envy to his contemporaries in the sixth form, who said it was given to him because he was head boy.

These were his arts; besides which he had as many tricks as any boy ever had. He had nothing when praepositer, and of course ruling under boys, of dignity about him, or of what might enforce his authority. When he ought to have been angry, some monkey trick always came across him, and he would make a serious complaint against a little boy, in a hop, step, and a jump.

Montague. Having a great predecessor before him under the appellation of "_Mad Montague_" had always a consolatory comparison in this way in his favor. In truth, at times he wanted it, for he was what has been termed a genius: but he was likewise so in talent. He was an admirable poet, and had a neatness of expression seldom discoverable at such early years. In proof, may be brought a line from a Latin poem on Cricket: