nesday in the summer months, we had a holiday and were taken out in carriages to points of interest in the neighbourhood. We were well looked after on the whole, but there was no great attempt at rapid progress, and arithmetic and French, if I remember right, were almost entirely neglected. Of the boys those I liked best were Lord Kintore, a "Parlour Boarder," Hugo Astley, who used to chaff me unmercifully but good-humouredly, as he did afterwards at Eton, and William Bliss, who has been for many years the representative of the English Record Office at Rome. His parents, who lived in Bath, sometimes asked me to spend a holiday with them.

In January, 1845, my mother took me to Eton. As we entered it by the Slough Road, she spoke of the great men brought up within its walls, and urged me to do my best. I was to have tried to get on the Foundation at the next election, but a cold drive from Cirencester to Cheltenham in March on the outside of a coach brought about a serious illness. I was laid up with a low fever, and unable to return after the Easter holidays. While in bed I copied out the whole of the "Ancient Mariner," which, together with the fact of my having once repeated the whole of Gray's "Elegy " when at Mr. Kilvert's, shows that I had some love of poetry, fostered, no doubt, by my mother, who was well read in the English Poets. Afterwards I went with her to Brighton to recover strength.

In the following year I was placed on the Indentures, but not being high on the list, I had to wait for sufficient vacancies to become a Colleger, which I did in the summer of 1847. It was in the next year, I think, that while the Chapel was closed for restoration, we attended service in a temporary wooden building which we called "The Tabernacle," not far from Barnes Pool. Plumptre, one of the Fellows, before preaching, used to lift his cushion for fear of any trick having been played, as the pulpit desk was within reach of the boys.

I pass lightly over my early time at Eton, and, indeed, considering its length-seven and a half years, over all my Eton career. On looking back, I do not seem, during much of it to have made any very appreciable progress. The fault was partly in myself, partly in the system. The work was far too monotonous and humdrum. It has been said that no essential change was made at Eton till 1864, since the Reformation. The chapel services were deplorably dull and unspiritual, those on the half-holiday afternoons having become a mere roll-call, hurriedly performed by a chaplain, devoid of all music, and unattended by any but the boys and the masters "in desk." I had one great advantage in having as my Tutor Mr. Goodford (afterwards Head Master and Provost), of whom I can never think without the profoundest respect for him as a most conscientious

and untiring teacher. Under him I read many classical authors not included in the School Course.

As a Colleger I breathed a much more studious atmosphere than I had done as an Oppidan. In my own year, William Green, Herbert Reynolds, and Edward Stone acted as a constant stimulus. Ridler, in the year above me, was an ardent scholar, and of those two years older than myself, I recall Henry Bradshaw and Ottiwell Waterfield, whom I admired for their thoughtfulness and culture. I was often in their rooms and enjoyed their sensible conversation. Other good friends were Henry Harper, now an Archdeacon in New Zealand, John Bent, Fred Whitting, William Wollaston, Harry Moody, Duncan Mathias, J. G. Evered, and William Wilberforce. The last three of this list are dead. With Mathias I used to punt and with Harper (who was my greatest friend afterwards at college, having rooms opposite to me at Merton in Mob quad), I shared a boat, in which we took long

rows.

My tutor constantly urged me to private reading. At his suggestion I attacked Thirlwall's "Greece," and Arnold's "Rome," but the political portions were beyond me, and I had not learnt how to skip. By myself I read several Greek plays, and was so much impressed by the "Oedipus Tyrannus" that I learnt by heart three of the long speeches and used to spout them while walking to the river Lea to fish, while I was staying as I used to do at times with my kind