Part 27

And now, it may be reasonably asked, where I did learn anything if not at these establishments, which promise Universal Knowledge--extras included--and yet unaccountably produce so very few Admirable Crichtons?[4] It may plausibly be objected, that I did not duly avail myself of such overflowing opportunities to dabble, dip, duck in, and drink deeply of the Pierian spring, that I was an Idler, Lounger, Tatler, Rambler, Spectator, anything rather than a student. To which my reply must be, first, that the severest punishment ever inflicted on my shoulders was for a scholar-like offence, the being “fond of my book,” only it happened to be Robinson Crusoe; and secondly, that I did go ahead at another guess sort of academy, a reference to which will be little flattering to those Houses which claim Socrates, Aristotle, Alfred, and other _Learnedissimi Worthii_, as their Sponsors and Patron Saints. The school that really schooled me being comparatively of a very humble order--without sign--without prospectus--without ushers--without ample and commodious premises--in short, without pretension, and consequently, almost without custom.

The autumn of the year 1811, along with a most portentous comet, “with fear of change perplexing monarchs,” brought, alas! a melancholy revolution in my own position and prospects, by the untimely death of my father; and my elder brother shortly following him to the grave, my bereaved mother naturally drew the fragments of the family more closely around her, so that thenceforward her dearest care was to keep her “only son, myself, at home.” She did not, however, neglect my future interest, or persuade herself by any maternal vanity that a boy of twelve years old could have precociously finished his education; and accordingly the next spring found me at what might have been literally called a High School, in reference to its distance from the ground.

In a house, formerly a suburban seat of the unfortunate Earl of Essex--over a grocer’s shop--up two pair of stairs, there was a very select day-school, kept by a decayed Dominie, as he would have been called in his native land. In his better days, when my brother was his pupil, he had been master of one of those wholesale concerns in which so many ignorant men have made fortunes, by favour of high terms, low ushers, gullible parents, and victimised little boys. As our worthy Dominie, on the contrary, had failed to realise even a competence, it may be inferred, logically, that he had done better by his pupils than by himself; and my own experience certainly went to prove that he attended to the interests of his scholars, however he might have neglected his own. Indeed, he less resembled, even in externals, the modern worldly trading Schoolmaster, than the good, honest, earnest, olden Pedagogue--a pedant, perchance, but a learned one, with whom teaching was “a labour of love,” who had a proper sense of the dignity and importance of his calling, and was content to find a main portion of his reward in the honourable proficiency of his disciples. Small as was our College, its Principal maintained his state, and walked gowned and covered. His cap was of faded velvet, of black, or blue, or purple, or sad green, or as it seemed, of all together, with a _nuance_ of brown. His robe, of crimson damask, lined with the national tartan. A quaint, carved, highbacked, elbowed article, looking like an _émigré_, from a set that had been at home in an aristocratical drawing-room, under the _ancien régime_, was his Professional Chair, which with his desk was appropriately elevated on a dais, some inches above the common floor. From this moral and material eminence, he cast a vigilant yet kindly eye over some dozen of youngsters; for adversity, sharpened by habits of authority, had not soured him, or mingled a single tinge of bile with the peculiar red-streak complexion, so common to the healthier natives of the North. On one solitary occasion, within my memory, was he seriously yet characteristically discomposed, and that was by his own daughter, whom he accused of “forgetting all regard for common decorum;” because, forgetting that he was a Dominie as well as a Parent, she had heedlessly addressed him in public as “Father,” instead of “Papa.” The mere provoking contrariety of a dunce never stirred his spleen, but rather spurred his endeavour, in spite of the axiom, to make Nihil fit for anything. He loved teaching for teaching’s sake; his kill-horse happened to be his hobby: and doubtless, if he had met with a penniless boy on the road to learning, he would have given him a lift, like the charitable Waggoner to Dick Whittington--for love. I recall, therefore, with pleasure, the cheerful alacrity with which I used to step up to recite my lesson, constantly forewarned--for every true schoolmaster has his stock joke--not to “stand in my own light.” It was impossible not to take an interest in learning what he seemed so interested in teaching; and in a few months my education progressed infinitely farther than it had done in as many years under the listless superintendence of B. A., and L. L. D. and Assistants. I picked up _some_ Latin, was a tolerable English Grammarian, and so good a French scholar, that I earned a few guineas--my first literary fee--by revising a new edition of “Paul et Virginie” for the press. Moreover, as an accountant, I could work a _summum bonum_--i.e. a good sum.

In the mean time,--so generally unfortunate is the courtship of that bashful undertoned wooer, Modest Merit, to that loud, brazen masculine, worldly heiress, Success--the school did not prosper. The number of scholars diminished rather that increased. At least no new boys came--but one fine morning, about nine o’clock, a great “she gal,” of fifteen or sixteen, but so remarkably well grown that she might have been “any of our mothers,” made her unexpected appearance with bag and books. The sensation that she excited is not to be described! The apparition of a Governess, with a Proclamation of a Gynecocracy could not have been more astounding! Of course SHE instantly formed a class; and had any form SHE might prefer to herself:--the most of us being just old enough to resent what was considered as an affront on the corduroy sex, and just young enough to be beneath any gallantry to the silken one. The truth was, sub rosa, that there was a plan for translating us, and turning the unsuccessful Boys’ School into a Ladies’ Academy; to be conducted by the Dominie’s eldest daughter--but it had been thought prudent to be well on with the new set before being off with the old. A brief period only had elapsed, when, lo! a leash of female school _Fellows_--three sisters, like the Degrees of Comparison personified, Big, Bigger, and Biggest--made their unwelcome appearance, and threatened to push us from our stools. They were greeted, accordingly, with all the annoyances that juvenile malice could suggest. It is amusing, yet humiliating, to remember the nuisances the sex endured at the hands of those who were thereafter to honour the shadow of its shoe-tie--to groan, moan, sigh, and sicken for its smiles--to become poetical, prosaical, nonsensical, lack-a-daisical, and perhaps even melodramatical for its sake. Numberless were the desk-quakes, the ink-spouts, the book-bolts, the pea-showers, and other unregistered phenomena, which likened the studies of those four unlucky maidens to the “Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties,”--so that it glads me to reflect, that I was in a very small minority against the persecution; having already begun to read poetry, and even to write something which was egregiously mistaken for something of the same nature. The final result of the struggle in the academic nest--whether the hen-cuckoos succeeded in ousting the cock-sparrows, or vice versa--is beyond my record; seeing that I was just then removed from the scene of contest, to be introduced into that Universal School where, as in the preparatory ones, we have very unequal shares in the flogging, the fagging, the task-work, and the pocket-money; but the same breaking-up to expect, and the same eternity of happy holidays to hope for in the Grand Recess.

In brief, a friend of the family having taken a fancy to me, proposed to initiate me in those profitable mercantile mysteries which enabled Sir Thomas Gresham to gild his grasshopper; and like another Frank Osbaldestone, I found myself planted on a counting-house stool, which nevertheless served occasionally for a Pegasus, on three legs, every foot, of course, being a dactyl or a spondee. In commercial matters, the only lesson imprinted on my memory is the rule that when a ship’s crew from Archangel, come to receive their L. S. D., you must lock up your P. Y. C.

[4] In spite of hundreds of associates, it has never happened to me, amongst the very many distinguished names connected with science or literature, to recognise _one_ as belonging to a school-fellow.

SHOOTING PAINS.

“The charge is prepared.”--MACHEATH.

If I shoot any more I’ll be shot, For ill-luck seems determined to star me, I have march’d the whole day With a gun--for no pay-- Zounds, I’d better have been in the army!

What matters Sir Christopher’s leave? To his manor I’m sorry I came yet! With confidence fraught, My two pointers I brought, But we are not a point towards game yet!

And that gamekeeper too, with advice! Of my course he has been a nice chalker, Not far, were his words, I could go without birds: If my legs could cry out, they’d cry “Walker!”

Not Hawker could find out a flaw,-- My appointments are modern and Mantony, And I’ve brought my own man, To mark down all he can, But I can’t find a mark for my Antony!

The partridges,--where can they lie? I have promised a leash to Miss Jervas, As the least I could do; But without even two To brace me,--I’m getting quite nervous!

To the pheasants--how well they’re preserved! My sport’s not a jot more beholden, As the birds are so shy, For my friends I must buy, And so send “silver pheasants and golden.”

I have tried ev’ry form for a hare, Every patch, every furze that could shroud her, With toil unrelax’d, Till my patience is tax’d, But I cannot be taxed for hare-powder.

I’ve been roaming for hours in three flats In the hope of a snipe for a snap at; But still vainly I court The percussioning sport, I find nothing for “setting my cap at!”

A woodcock,--this month is the time,-- Right and left I’ve made ready my lock for, With well-loaded double, But spite of my trouble, Neither barrel can I find a cock for!

A rabbit I should not despise, But they lurk in their burrows so lowly; This day’s the eleventh, It is not the seventh, But they seem to be keeping it hole-y.

For a mallard I’ve waded the marsh, And haunted each pool, and each lake--oh! Mine is not the luck, To obtain thee, O Duck, Or to doom thee, O Drake, like a Draco!

For a field-fare I’ve fared far a-field, Large or small I am never to sack bird, Not a thrush is so kind As to fly, and I find I may whistle myself for a black-bird!

I am angry, I’m hungry, I’m dry, Disappointed, and sullen, and goaded, And so weary an elf, I am sick of myself, And with Number one seem overloaded.

As well one might beat round St. Paul’s, And look out for a cock or a hen there; I have search’d round and round All the Baronet’s ground, But Sir Christopher hasn’t a wren there!

Joyce may talk of his excellent caps, But for nightcaps they set me desiring, And it’s really too bad, Not a shot I have had With Hall’s Powder, renown’d for “quick firing.”

If this is what people call sport, Oh! of sporting I can’t have a high sense. And there still remains one More mischance on my gun-- “Fined for shooting without any license.”

THE SCHOOLMASTER’S MOTTO.

“The Admiral compelled them all to strike.”--LIFE OF NELSON.

Hush! silence in School--not a noise! You shall soon see there’s nothing to jeer at, Master Marsh, most audacious of boys! Come!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

So this morn in the midst of the Psalm, The Miss Siffkins’s school you must leer at, You’re complained of--Sir! hold out your palm,-- There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You wilful young rebel, and dunce! This offence all your sins shall appear at, You shall have a good caning at once-- There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You are backward, you know, in each verb, And your pronouns you are not more clear at, But you’re forward enough to disturb,-- There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You said Master Twigg stole the plums, When the orchard he never was near at, I’ll not punish wrong fingers or thumbs,-- There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You make Master Taylor your butt, And this morning his face you threw beer at, And you struck him--do _you_ like a cut? There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Little Biddle you likewise distress, You are always his hair, or his ear at,-- He’s my _Opt_, Sir, and you are my _Pess_: There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Then you had a pitcht fight with young Rous, An offence I am always severe at! You discredit to Cicero-House! There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You have made too a plot in the night, To run off from the school that you rear at! Come, your other hand, now, Sir,--the right, There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

I’ll teach you to draw, you young dog Such pictures as I’m looking here at! “Old Mounseer making soup of a frog,” There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You have run up a bill at a shop, That in paying you’ll be a whole year at,-- You’ve but twopence a week, Sir, to stop! There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Then at dinner you’re quite cock-a-hoop, And the soup you are certain to sneer at-- I have sipped it--it’s very good soup,-- There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

T’other day when I fell o’er the form, Was my tumble a thing, Sir, to cheer at? Well for you that my temper’s not warm,-- There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Why, you rascal! you insolent brat! All my talking you don’t shed a tear at, There--take that, Sir! and that! that! and that! There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

THE END OF VOL I.