coaching men for the Schools (of which there was much more before the introduction of Inter-Collegiate Lectures), made the prospect of continued residence at Oxford an agreeable one; but the offer of an Assistant-Mastership at Eton in 1858, from my old tutor, Dr. Goodford, who had now become Head Master, could not be put aside.

ETON

N 28th February, 1858, I had been ordained on

ON

my Fellowshipat Henley, by Bishop Wilberforce. Burgon, afterwards Dean of Chichester, preached the Ordination sermon, and in it I heard for the first time the words "ecclesiastical millinery." After the service he offered me a curacy under Chancellor Massingberd. Had I not been engaged on the tutorial staff at Lincoln College, it would have been a good opening in parochial life. I preached my first sermon in the College Chapel, and while staying up in College at the beginning of "the Long," I took some duty at Culham. Later on, I went for the first time to Switzerland. My companion was John William Irvine, my future brother-in-law, a cousin of my Irvine cousins, who had lately come from Charterhouse to Christ Church. We travelled via Antwerp, Cologne, Frankfort (where the old Judengasse had not yet been destroyed), Heidelberg, Basle, Lucerne, walked thence through part of the Bernese Oberland, on to the Riffel, back to the Rhone Valley and over the Simplon to the Italian Lakes, Milan and Venice. It was an ambitious tour of eight weeks, and we were inexperienced, but it was successful. Once we had a fright. While

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strolling under the mountain at Zermatt, a huge wooden water-trough above us got detached. I believe it was I who first took hold of it. We managed to get it over our heads and shoulders, but—to use the now hackneyed quotation-it gave us pause.

At Venice we saw an Archduke being rowed in a gondola in state, for the hated Austrian was then in possession.

At Paris I left Irvine, and went on to my Eton work, and buckled thereto.

The change from Oxford was great. "Your fixed salary is £44 apart from pupils, and you must not take more than forty." This was Dr. Goodford's first and sole instruction to me. I had one pupil, and not a very promising specimen, to start with. I had to board at a Dame's House, at a considerable expense. How I wished myself back at Lincoln, with the pleasant dinner in Hall, the conversation in Common Room, and then the tête-à-tête with a friend in one's rooms, or the quiet preparation of next day's lecture! I wrote an essay for the Arnold Prize, on Delphi. It was won by Bowen. What did he not win? Dean Stanley told me that I was third for it.

Every Assistant Master at Eton had to begin his Class-work at the bottom. I had the Lower Division of the Fourth Form, no separate room, but a portion of the Upper School, near the draughty old door. Things looked unpromising, but often and often have I said τέτλαθι δή, κραδίη—καὶ κύντερον ἄλλο ποτ' ἔτλης,

and the next schooltime I had about fifteen pupils, and was becoming reconciled to my position.

It must have been about this time that I sat next to Henry Crabb Robinson at a dinner-party at Mrs. Bayne's. He told me, on my speaking of some very old houses in Smithfield, how he had often met Shelley and Bonnycastle there. When he was fifteen years old he heard Wesley, four months before his death, preach at Colchester, two ministers holding him up to do so. This link with the past connects me with the very earliest years of the eighteenth century, for Wesley was born in 1703.

1859

This year was a very important one to me. During the Easter holidays I became engaged to Irvine's youngest sister, Louisa Katharine. Their father, the Rev. Andrew Irvine' (whom I never saw), had been Vicar of St. Margaret's, Leicester. Their mother was one of a large family of Rawlinsons. Her brother, Sir Christopher, who had just retired from a Judgeship at Madras, lent Mrs. Irvine in the summer a house he had taken near Newbury, and I spent part of the holidays with them. On my return to Eton, in September, the unexpected awaited me. The Rev. Wharton Booth Marriott had to remain at the Lakes from illness, and I was asked to take charge of his

1 His brother, Col. Irvine, C.B., married my first cousin, Mary Anne Shakespear, a sister of Sir Richmond.

House. There were thirty-eight boarders. Herbert Snow (afterwards Kynaston Canon of Durham and Professor of Greek) was tutor to half of them, as I could not give up my own pupils, and should otherwise have exceeded the number allowed. The work was extremely hard and incessant, and there was also a Confirmation,' for which I prepared several pupils. But it was a discipline for me, and though it was not a highly studious set of boys, there was a healthy tone about them. R. H. A. Mitchell was one of them, and the Captain, Welby, was a charming fellow.

On 4th November, my dear Aunt Henrietta Shakespear died, and I attended her funeral at Broxbourne, where she was buried near my parents' grave. I was very thankful to reach the end of this schooltime. My chief comfort during it had been Louisa Irvine's delightful letters, and when the holidays came, I went to spend most of them at her home in Thurloe Place."

On 17th November, 1859, I began to keep a diary, but there are many gaps in the earlier part of it, e.g., from 26th July, 1860, to August, 1862, there is no record, and again, from September, 1862, to January, 1866, and for the next three years, there are very few

1 The opportunity thus afforded for private intercourse with pupils was most valuable, and the work as a rule was, I think, not unfruitful.

2 The family at this time consisted of Mrs. Irvine, Isabella the eldest daughter, Louisa, and the twin brothers, John and Octavius. There had been others of the family, Charles and two Adas.