to own. I doubt if any body else in the county could surpass them. But the school of schools in Belford, that which was pre-eminently called Belford School, of which the town was justly proud, and for which it was justly famous, was a foundation of a far higher class and character, but of nearly the same date with the endow ments for boys and girls which I have just mentioned. Belford School was one of those free grammar-schools which followed almost as a matter of course upon the Reformation, when education, hitherto left chiefly to the monks and monasteries, was taken out of their hands, and placed under the care of the secular clergy; the master, necessarily in orders, and provided with testimonials and degrees, being chosen by the corporation, who had also the power of sending a certain number of boys, the sons of poor townsmen, for gratuitous instruction, and the privilege of electing off a certain number of boys to scholarships and fellowships at various colleges in Oxford. The master's salary was, as usual, small, and his house large, so that the real remuneration of the gentlemen who conduct these grammar schools -one of which is to be found in almost every Although so thoroughly independent of any adventitious aid in his own collection, he is yet most kind and generous in the distribution of his own plants, as I can well testify. People are very kind to me in every way, and in nothing kinder than in supplying my lit tle garden with flowers: one kind friend sends me roses, another dahlias, a third heart's ease. Every body is kind to me, but Mr. Foster is kindest of all. Perhaps I may be permitted to transcribe here some trifling lines, accompanied by a still more trifling book, in which I endeavoured, not to repay, but to acknow. ledge, my obligation for his innumerable favoursfavours greatly enhanced by the circumstance of my being personally unknown to my kind and liberal friend. TO EDWARD FOSTER, ESQ. OF CLEWER LODGE, SEPT. 1832. Rich as the lustrous gems which line And bounteous of thy flowery store, great town in England, where the greater part of our professional men and country gentry have been educated, and from whence so many eminent persons have been sent forth-depends almost wholly upon the boarders and day-scholars not on the foundation, whilst the number of boarders is, of course, contingent on the character and learning of the master. And it was to the high character, the extensive learning, and the well-merited popularity of the late venerable master, that Belford School was indebted for being at one period next, perhaps, to Rugby in point of numbers, and second to none in reputation. The school was the first thing shown to strangers. Prints of the school hung up in the shops, and engravings and drawings of the same cherished spot might be met in many mansions far and near. East and west, north and south,-in London, in India, abroad and at home, were these pictures seen-frequently accompanied by a fine engraving of the master, whose virtues had endeared to his pupils those boyish recollections which, let poets talk as they will, are but too often recollections of needless privation, repulsed affection, and unrewarded toil. Belford school was in itself a pretty object -at least, I, who loved it almost as much as if I had been of the sex that learns Greek and Latin, thought it so. It was a spacious dwelling, standing in a nook of the pleasant green called the Forbury, and parted from the church-yard of St. Nicholas by a row of tall old houses, in two or three of which the under-masters lived, and, the Doctor's mansion being overflowing, received boarders, for the purpose of attending the school. There was a little court before the door with four fir-trees, and, at one end, a projecting bay-window, belonging to a very long room, or, rather, gallery, lined with a noble collection of books, several thousand volumes, rich, not merely in classical lore, but in the best editions of the best authors in almost every language. In the sort of recess formed by this window, the dear Doctor, (the Doctor par excel lence) generally sat out of school-hours. There he held his levees, or his drawing-rooms (for ladies were by no means excluded,)—finding time, as your very busy (or, in other words, your very active) people so often do, to keep up with all the topics of the day, from the gravest politics (and the good Doctor was a keen politician) to the lightest pleasantry. In that long room, too, which would almost have accommodated a mayor's feast, his frequent and numerous dinner-parties were generally held. It was the only apartment in that temple of hospitality large enough to satisfy his own open heart. The guests who had a general invitation to his table would almost have filled it. His person had an importance and stateliness which answered to the popular notion of a schoolmaster, and certainly contributed to the influence of his manner over his pupils. So most undoubtedly did his fine countenance. It must have been a real punishment to have disturbed the serenity of those pale placid features, or the sweetness of that benevolent smile. Benevolence was, after all, his prime characteristic. Full of knowledge, of wisdom, and of learning, an admirable schoolmaster, and exemplary in every relation of life, his singular kindness of heart was his most distinguishing quality. Nothing could ever warp his candour-that candour which is so often the wisest justice, or stifle his charity; and his pardon followed so immediately an offence, or an injury, that people began to think that there was no great merit in such placabilitythat it was an affair of temperament, and that he forgave because he could not help forgiving just as another man might have resented. His school was, of course, an unspeakable advantage to the town; but of all the benefits which he daily conferred upon his neighbours, his friends, his pupils, and his family, by very far the greatest was his example. If he were beloved by his pupils, his sweet and excellent wife was almost idolized. Lovelier in middle age than the lovely daughters (a wreath of living roses) by whom she was surrounded, pure, simple, kind, and true, no human being ever gathered around her more sincere and devoted affection than the charming lady of Belford School. Next to his own dear mother, every boy loved her; and her motherly feeling, her kindness, and her sympathy seemed inexhaustible; she had care and love for all. There is a portrait of her, too; but it does not do her justice. The pictures that are really like her, are the small Madonnas of Raphael, of which there are two or three in the Stafford Gallery: they have her open forehead, her divine expression, her simple grace. Raphael was one of the few even of the old masters who knew how to paint such women; who could unite such glowing beauty with such transparent purity! Perhaps, one of the times at which the Doc "He teacheth best who knoweth best.". -Cary's Pindar. + The following lines were written on the lamented death of this most charming and excellent woman :— Heavy each heart and clouded every eye, And meeting friends turn half away to sigh; For she is gone before whose soft control Sadness and sorrow fled the troubled soul, For she is gone, whose cheering smiles had power To speed on pleasure's wing the social hour; Long shall her thought with friendly greeting blend, For she is gone who was of all a friend! Such were her charms as Raphael loved to trace, Repeat, improve, in each Madonna's face: The broad fair forehead, the full modest eye, Cool cheeks, but of the damask rose's dye, And coral lips that breathed of purity. Such, but more lovely; far serenely bright Her sunny spirit shone with living light, tor was seen to most advantage was on a Sunday afternoon in his own school-room, where, surrounded by his lovely wife, his large and promising family, his pupils and servants, and occasionally by a chosen circle of friends and guests, he was accustomed to perform the evening service, two of the elder boys reading the lessons, and he himself preaching, with an impressiveness which none that ever heard him can forget, those doctrines of peace and good-will, of holiness, and of charity, of which his whole life was an illustration. It is, however, a scene of a different nature that I have undertaken to chronicle; and I must hasten to record, so far as an unlettered woman may achieve that presumptuous task, the triumphs of Sophocles and Euripides on the boards of Belford School. The foundation was subject to a triennial visitation of the Heads of some of the Houses at Oxford, for the purpose of examining the pupils, and receiving those elected to scholarships in their respective colleges; and the examination had been formerly accompanied, as is usual, by Greek and Latin recitations, prizepoems, speeches, &c.; but about thirty years back it occurred to the good Doctor, who had a strong love of the drama, knew Shakspeare nearly as well as he knew Homer, and would talk of the old actors, Garrick, Henderson,‡ Mrs. Yates, and Miss Farren, until you could fancy that you had seen them, that a Greek Far, far beyond the narrow bounds of art,- Henderson was his favourite. So, from MS.letters in my possession, I find him to have been, with Captain Jephson, the author of the "Count de Narbonne," the "Italian Lover," &c., and the friend both of Garrick and of John Kemble. Intellect seems to have been his remarkable characteristic, and that quality which results from intellect, but does not always belong to it-taste. What an artist must that man have been who played Hamlet and Falstaff on following nights, beating his young competitor, Kemble, in the one part, and his celebrated predecessor, Quin, in the other! His early death was, perhaps, the greatest loss that the stage ever sustained. drama, well got up, would improve the boys both in the theory and practice of elocution, and in the familiar and critical knowledge of the language; that it would fix their attention and stimulate their industry in a manner far beyond any common tasks or examinations; that it would interest their parents and amuse their friends; that the purity of the Greek tragedies rendered them (unlike the Latin comedies which time has sanctioned at Westminster) unexceptionable for such a purpose; and that a classical exhibition of so high an order would be worthy of his own name in the world of letters, and of the high reputation of his establishment. Hence arose the Greek plays of Belford School. Besides the excellence of the theatre, the audience, another main point in the drama, was crowded, intelligent and enthusiastic. The visiters from Oxford, and the Mayor and Corporation of Belford, (in their furred gowns, poor dear aldermen, I wonder they survived the heat!-but I suppose they did, for I never remember to have heard of any coroner's inquest at Belford, of which the verdict was "Died of the Greek plays,") these, the grandees of the University and the Borough, attended ex-officio; the parents and friends of the performers were drawn there by the pleasanter feelings of affection and pride, and the principal inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood crowded to the theatre for a double reason they liked it, and it was the fashion. Every thing conduced to the success of the Another most delighted part of the audience' experiment. It so happened that the old consisted of the former pupils of the school, school-room not then used for its original the Doctor's old scholars, who had formed destination, as the Doctor had built a spacious themselves into a sort of club, meeting in the apartment for that purpose, closer to his own winter in London, and in the autumn at one library was the very place that a manager of the principal inns at Belford, whither they would have desired for a theatre; being a very thronged from all parts of England, and where, long and large room, communicating at one especially at the time of the triennial plays, end with the school-house, and opening at the they often stayed days and weeks, to assist at other into the entrance to the Town-hall, un- rehearsals and partake of the social gaiety of der which it was built. The end next the that merry time. For weeks before the plays, house, excellently fitted up with scenery and the Doctor's ever-hospitable house was crowdproperties, and all the modern accessories of ed with visiters; his sons stealing a short the drama, formed the stage, whilst the rest absence from their several professions, with of the room held the audience; and a prettier sometimes a blushing bride (for, in imitation stage, whether for public or private theatricals, of their father, they married early and happihath seldom been seen. It was just the rightly); fair young friends of his fair daughters; size, just a proper frame for the fine tragic pictures it so often exhibited. If it had been larger, the illusion which gave the appearance of men and women to the young performers would have been destroyed, and the effect of the grouping much diminished by the comparative unimportance which space and vacancy give to the figures on the scene. That stage would be the very thing for the fashionable amusement of tableaux ;* but even then they would want the presiding genius of our great master, who, although he pretended to no skill in the art, must have had a painter's eye, for never did I see such grouping. "Oh for an historical painter!" was Mr. Bowles, the poet's, exclamation, both at the death and the unveiling of Alcestis; and I never saw any one of the performances in which a young artist would not have found a series of models for composition and expression. *The usual tableaux, mere copies of pictures by living people-a pretty retaliation on Art, who, it is to be presumed, herself copied from Nature -are, with all their gracefulness, rather insipid; but some fair young friends of mine, girls of great taste and talent, have been introducing a very pretty innovation on the original idea, by presenting, in dumb show, some of the most striking scenes of Scott's poems, "Marmion" and "The Lay," thus superadding the grace of motion to that of attitude, and forming a new and graceful amusement, half way between play and picture, for the affluent and the fair. distinguished foreigners; celebrated scholars; nephews, nieces, cousins, and friends, without count or end. It was one scene of bustle and gaiety; the gentle mistress smiling through it all, and seeming as if she had nothing to do but to make her innumerable guests as happy and as cheerful as she was herself. No one that entered the house could doubt her sincerity of welcome. However crowded the apartments might be, the gentle hostess had heartroom for all. A pleasant scene it was for weeks before the play, since of all pleasures, especially of theatrical pleasures, the preparation is the most delightful; and in these preparations there was a more than common portion of amusing contrasts and diverting difficulties. Perhaps the training of the female characters was the most fertile in fun. Fancy a quick and lively boy learning to tread mincingly, and carry himself demurely, and move gently, and curtsy modestly, and speak softly, and blush, and cast down his eyes, and look as like a girl as if he had all his life worn petticoats. Fancy the vain attempt, by cold cream and chicken-skin gloves to remove the stain of the summer's sun, and bring the coarse red paws into a semblance of feminine delicacy! Fancy the rebellion of the lad, and his hatred of stays, and his horror of paint, and the thousand droll incidents that, partly from acci dent and partly from design, were sure to hap-| pen at each rehearsal, (the rehearsal of an English tragedy at a real theatre is comical enough, Heaven knows!) and it will not be astonishing that, in spite of the labour required by the study of so many long speeches, the performers as well as the guests behind the scenes were delighted with the getting-up of the Greek plays. And in spite of their difficulties with the feminine costume, never did I see female characters more finely represented than by these boys. The lads of Shakspeare's days who played his Imogenes, and Constances, and Mirandas, could not have exceeded the Alcestises, and Electras, and Antigones of Belford School. And the male characters were almost equally perfect.. The masterpieces of the Greek stage were performed not only with a critical accuracy in the delivery of the text, but with an animation and fervour which marked all the shades of feeling, as if the young actors had been accustomed to think and to feel in Greek. The effect produced upon the audience was commensurate with the excellence of the performance. The principal scenes were felt as truly as if they had been given in English by some of our best actors. Even the most unlettered lady was sensible to that antique grace and pathos, and understood a beauty in the words, though not the words. Another attraction of these classical performances was the English prologue and epilogue by which they were preceded and followed. These were always written by old pupils of the school, and I cannot resist the temptation of transcribing one from the pen of the most remarkable person, the most learned, the most eloquent, and the most amiable which that school has ever produced-Mr. Serjeant Talfourd. It is a trifle, for a great lawyer has no time to dally with the Muse; but if one or two stray copies of these desultory volumes should chance to survive the present generation, they will derive a value not their own from possessing even the lightest memorial of a man whose genius and whose virtues can never be forgotten, whilst the writer will find her proudest ambition gratified in being allowed to claim the title of his friend. The radiant colours Iris wreathes in heaven 367 Thus if you chance, though fair in her regards, Nor need we here Imagination's aid PETER JENKINS, THE POULTERER. book, so it fell out: Mr. Stephen Lane beAs I prophesied in the beginning of this came parish-officer of Sunham. I did not, however, foresee that the matter would be so easily and so speedily settled; neither did he. Mr. Jacob Jones, the ex-ruler of that respectable hamlet, was a cleverer person than we took him for; and, instead of staying to be beaten, sagely preferred to "evacuate Flanders," and leave the enemy in undisputed possession of the field of battle. He did not even make his appearance at the vestry, nor did any of his partisans. Stephen had it all his own way; was appointed overseer, and found himself, to his great astonishment, carrying all his points, sweeping away, cutting down, turning out, retrenching, and reforming so as never reformer did before;-for in the good town of Belford, although eventually triumphant, and pretty generally successful in most of his operations, he had been accustomed to play the part, not of a minister who originates, but of a leader of opposition who demolishes measures; in short, he had been a sort of check, a balance-wheel in the borough machinery, and never dreamt of being turned into a main-spring; so that, when called upon to propose his own plans, his success disconcerted him not a little. It was so unexpected, and he himself so unprepared for a catastrophe which took from him his own dear fault-finding ground, and placed him in the situation of a reviewer who should. be required to write a better book than the one under dissection, in the place of cutting it up. Our good butcher was fairly posed, and, what was worse, his adversary knew it. Mr. Jacob Jones felt his advantage, returned with all his forces (consisting of three individuals, like "a three-tailed bashaw") to the field which he had abandoned, and commenced a series of skirmishing guerilla warfare-affairs of posts, as it were-which went near to make his ponderous, and hitherto victorious enemy, in spite of the weight of his artillery and the number and discipline of his troops, withdraw in his turn from the position which he found it so painful and so difficult to maintain. Mr. Jacob Jones was a great man at a quibble. He could not knock down like Stephen Lane, but he had a real talent for that sort of pulling to pieces which, to judge from the manner in which all children, before they are taught better, exercise their little mischievous fingers upon flowers, would seem to be instinctive in human nature. Never did a spoilt urchin of three years old demolish a carnation more completely than Mr. Jacob Jones picked te bits Mr. Lane's several propositions. On the broad question, the principle of the thing proposed, our good ex-butcher was pretty sure to be victorious; but in the detail, the clauses of the different measures, Mr. Jacob Jones, who had a wonderful turn for perplexing and puzzling whatever question he took in hand, a real genius for confusion, generally contrived (for the gentleman was a "word-catcher who lived on syllables") by expunging half a sentence in one place, and smuggling in two or three words in another- by alterations that were any thing but amendments, and amendments that overset all that had gone before, to produce such a mass of contradictions and nonsense, that the most intricate piece of special pleading that ever went before the Lord Chancellor, or the most addle-headed bill that ever passed through a Committee of the whole House, would have been common sense and plain English in the comparison. The man had eminent qualities for a debater, too, especially a debater of that order,-incor rigible pertness, intolerable pertinacity, and a noble contempt of right and wrong. Even in that matter which is most completely open to proof, a question of figures, he was wholly inaccessible to conviction; show him the fact fifty times over, and still he returned to the charge; still was his shrill squeaking treble heard above and between the deep sonorous bass of Stephen; still did his small narrow person whisk and flitter around the "huge rotundity" of that ponderous and excellent parishofficer, buzzing and stinging like some active hornet or slim dragon-fly about the head of one of his own oxen. There was no putting down Jacob Jones. Our good butcher fretted and fumed, and lifted his hat from his head, and smoothed down his shining hair, and wiped his honest face, and stormed, and thundered, and vowed vengeance against Jacob Jones; and finally threatened not only to secede with his whole party from the vestry, but to return to the Butts, and leave the management of Sunham, workhouse, poor-rates, high-ways, and all, to his nimble competitor. One of his most trusty adherents indeed, a certain wealthy yeoman of the name of Alsop, well acquainted with his character, suggested that a very little flattery on the part of Mr. Lane, or even a few well-directed bribes, would not fail to dulcify and even to silence the worthy in question; but Stephen had never flattered any body in his life-it is very doubtful if he knew how; and held bribery of any sort in a real honest abhorrence, very unusual for one who had had so much to do with contested elections;-and to bribe and flatter Jacob Jones! Jacob, whom the honest butcher came nearer to hating than ever he had to hating any body! His very soul revolted against it. So he appointed Farmer Alsop, who understood the manage ment of "the chap," as he was wont to call his small opponent, deputy overseer, and be took himself to his private concerns, in the conduct of his own grazing farm, in oversee ing the great shop in the Butts, in attending his old clubs, and mingling with his old associates in Belford; and, above all, in sitting in his sunny summer-house during the sultry evenings of July and August, enveloped in the fumes of his own pipe, and clouds of dust from the high-road, which was his manner of enjoying the pleasures of the country. Towards autumn, a new and a different interest presented itself to the mind of Stephen Lane, in the shape of the troubles of one of his most intimate friends and most faithful and loyal adherents in the loyal borough of Belford Regis. Peter Jenkins, the poulterer, his next-door neighbour in the Butts, formed exactly that sort of contrast in mind and body to the gi gantic and energetic butcher which we so often find amongst persons strongly attached to each other. Each was equally good and kind, and |