it happens that most of the rowers in the Monarch are high up in the school. The Captain of the boats and sometimes the Captain of the Oppidans row in it.

If a boy learns nothing else at a public school, he usually learns to express himself in a direct and intelligible fashion. As I stood on the river bank one "Fourth", I asked an Eton boy who stood by me under the Railway Bridge what he thought of "the Monarch." "The rottenest boat on the river" was his explicit reply, as the august boatful went up stream. There is, however, one boat that takes part in that Procession that should rouse the enthusiasm of any school, and that is a boat entirely manned by sometime Captains of the Boats. In 1898, while H. C. Pilkington was captaining the Eleven in the Playing Fields, M. C. Pilkington was Stroke to the Old Captains of the Boats on the river. Last scene of all that closes this eventful day is the fireworks. It is the duty of the Captain of the Oppidans to buy the fireworks. He is responsible for the expenditure to his successor only. This is one of the many ways in which Eton boys are left to manage their own affairs without magisterial control.

Eton now possesses (like Winchester) two Quadrangles. Her Founder left the west and east ends of the first Quadrangle (called School Yard) open, so that the school buildings, as he left them, consisted of one Quadrangle with a Cloister at the east end. On the south side of the School Yard he built his Chapel, on the north the school and sleeping chamber ("Long Chamber") of his Scholars. In the centre of School Yard stands a statue of Henry VI., erected by Henry Godolphin, the brother of Lord Treasurer Godolphin. You now enter the second Quadrangle or Cloister Quadrangle, by a towered gateway, the work of Roger Lupton, and erected between 1517-20. There can be no question but that the Cloisters of Eton are not comparable in beauty to the Cloisters of Winchester. This is mainly due to the fact that the Cloisters at Wykeham's Foundation have never been used for any purpose but

2

1

1 Provost of Eton from 1695 to 1733.

? Provost from 1504 to 1535.

that of burial and contemplation, while the Cloisters of Eton have been utilized for Chambers. The addition of these has destroyed the symmetry of the Cloisters, and their appearance has been further injured by the third storey which was added in 1758. In fact the Cloisters at Eton are an illustration of the architectural truth that beauty and convenience are not only not the same, but often opposed. The Cloisters of Winchester might be used for the purposes for which all Cloisters were originally intended-viz., for burial. The Cloisters of Eton appear never to have been converted to that purpose. There was not the same practical need for this at Eton as at Winchester. The College Chapel was the Parish Church of Eton with a churchyard attached; while Wykeham's College Chapel was built for his Scholars only and had no churchyard attached. Cloisters Quadrangle is now utilized as the official residence of the Provost and Head Master, with Chambers for the Provost of Kings. The Head Masters of our two oldest Public Schools, Winchester and Eton, do not receive boarders.

On the south side of the Cloisters Quadrangle are the Hall and the College Library. The Hall was completed in 1450 and in spite of the Wars of the Roses was not left unfinished, as the west side of the Cloisters and the Chapel were. In a corner of the Hall is still to be found this inscription"Queen Elizabeth ad nos gave October X 2 loves in a mes 1569". My friend Mr. Sterry, in his delightful Annals, tells us that until recently the boys who sit at the table in this corner had a double allowance of bread given them at dinner. Along the top of the panelling on each side will be noticed a line of nails. From these used to hang the so-called "Bacchus" verses at Shrove-tide, which were composed at Eton down to the schooldays of the Marquis Wellesley. When Pepys visited the College in February 1665, the plague was in London, and the subject of the boys' verses was "De Peste". Pepys read "several, and very good they were; better I think than ever I made when I was a

1 The school customs of Eton and Winchester ran side by side far into the 17th century. This question is dealt with by Mr. J. S. Cotton in his most interesting letter to The Wykchamist of August 1899.

boy, and in rolls so long and longer than the whole Hall by much." Pepys found "all mighty fine" at the College; but, strangely enough, he has nothing to say about the Chapel. One Tom Rogers, a yeoman beadle, who had been a "schoolboy at Eton" during the plague, told Hearne, the antiquary, that he had never been so "whipped" in his life, as he was one morning for not smoking.

Portraits of famous Collegers hang in the Hall where as boys they dined and supped. The Collegers thus distinguished are Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chancellor Camden and the following Judges, Sir Vicary Gibbs, Patteson, Coleridge and Bosanquet; Stratford Canning, Archbishop Sumner, Dr. Hawtrey, Dr. Wilder and the following Bishops, Sumner, Durnford, Lonsdale and Luxmoore.

Pepys would have been delighted with the College Library, which was completed only in 1729. This is not the School Library, and its books are not taken out by either Collegers or Oppidans. It contains many treasures, notably three Caxtons, a Mazarine Bible, a unique volume containing Ralph Royster Doyster, and the first three folios of Shakespeare. The most interesting historical documents are perhaps two Bulls of Eugenius IV. In one he gives licence to the Provost of Eton for the time being and to confessors deputed by him to grant indulgences at the Feast of the Assumption. This is dated 1442. In the same year the same Pope gave Henry VI. licence to have all sacraments performed in his oratory and chapels. The library also possesses the miniatures and star of that most enthusiastic of her sons, the Marquis Wellesley. The world has a tendency to magnify the greatness of her great ones, and the custodian who showed me these treasures suggested that the Marquis must have been helped in his career by the Iron Duke. He was surprised when informed that the Marquis Wellesley was Governor-General of India, before his brother had even gathered the laurels of Assaye We might never have heard of Wellington had not a kind brother lent him money with which he purchased his lieutenantcolonelcy. In 1796 Col. Arthur Wellesley was sent with his

1 See Merchant Taylors' School.

regiment to India. In that country he acquired his minute. technical knowledge of the British Soldier. "Dear Sir, I beg to introduce to you Col. Wesley, who is a lieutenantcolonel of my regiment. He is a sensible man and a good officer." So wrote Lord Cornwallis to the Old Harrovian Sir John Shore, Governor-General of India, and the world has ever since been of Cornwallis's opinion!

The Gallery which runs round the first floor of the Cloister Quadrangle (called the Cloister Gallery) is hung with engravings of famous Etonians. You begin with Waynfletethe first Head Master, and end with W. E. Gladstone. No one can deny the variety as well as the quality of the Old Boys portrayed in this gallery. Every kind of man is represented there, except the historical scoundrel, such as Titus Oates and Lord Jeffreys.

The Raikes in this gallery is not Robert, the founder of Sunday Schools, but a forgotten dandy who kept a diary and knew every one about town when George IV. was King The philanthropist, Robert Raikes, the son of the printer and proprietor of the Gloucester Journal, was not at Eton, although my cicerone was under that impression. It is difficult for those who serve our public schools, to believe that there are a few great and good men who do not hail from their especial one.

In the Library there is a portrait of Charles Simeon and a bust of Keate, two very different men, but each an honour to the school that reared them. Simeon took the view of public schools current with Evangelicals at the close of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. We must not think Eton a wicked place or worse than other public schools because Simeon said he would be tempted to take the life of his son rather than let him see the vice he had seen at Eton. Simeon took Orders and remained in the Church to his death, but another famous Old Etonian, Rowland Hill, though ordained, was refused priest's Orders and left the Church. This Evangelical lived a life of Christian usefulness, and was buried beneath his own pulpit in Surrey Chapel.

CHAPTER V.

ETON-(continued).

You pass through the Cloisters to the Playing Fields, just as Pepys did 200 years ago. Behind you, as you approach the Fields, is Mr. Hexter's house, where Shelley boarded when he first went to Eton, but that is not Mr. Bethell's house (now pulled down) in which he reached the estate of a fifth-former and had fags of his own. Mary Shelley's tale, The Mourner, probably reflects the author's impressions rather than her husband's recollections of his old school. The hero of the story is the fag of a hard taskmaster. He suffers from a rule far worse than "the measured despotism of Jamaica" and runs away from Eton. It is curious, however, that when Shelley met Capt. Gronow in 1822, very shortly before his own death, Shelley's talk of Spier's brown bread and butter and of "the beautiful Martha", the Hebe of Spier's, were just the reminiscences you would expect from one who had been "a happy boy at Drury's." Gronow also tells a story of Shelley fighting at Eton, and while stalking round the ring reciting Homer. Professor Dowden quotes the story and apparently believes in its genuineness, but surely there is (to say the least) a grave improbability about it. The same story of spouting Homer while engaged in a "mill" is told of another Etonian, the late Earl of Mexborough, who accompanied Kinglake in his Eothen travels and who only died in 1899. Shelley was fag, or rather refused to fag, to Henry Matthews, the brother of Byron's friend, Charles Skinner Matthews. The connection was curious, as Byron always refers to his friend as an "atheist." Henry Matthews drove a tandem right through Eton and Windsor without being stopped. As a matter of fact there was far more in common between