I went there as a child, not eight years old, in 1822, and remained there till 1832-ten long dreary years-leaving when Russell did. In regard to Russell's system of Præpositi, I think the different statements of yourself and Drs. Saunders and Haig Brown may thus be reconciled. In my earliest years it was as you describe, promotion being given in the upper forms to successful teaching in the lower school. But soon after 1825, parents, I believe, in many instances objected to their sons teaching instead of being taught; and many of the cleverest boys, moreover, were bad teachers. Hence, the head boy in the class then became Præpositus. of my time the number of boys so decreased that the forms were amalgamated, and in nearly every case each had its own master. During the latter part I went much too young, and learnt nothing till I got under Russell; but, with one or two exceptions, the teaching power was below par-after your time there were two very able men, Churton and Boone. I was in Penny's house. Dobson and the two Venables, my seniors there, were talented fellows. Thackeray also was there; but, singularly enough, never gave any early indication of his after celebrity. The abolition of fagging by Russell brought about a far worse and cruel system of bullying, of which I, as once the youngest of nearly five hundred boys, have a keen recollection. The incident you mention in which young Howard lost his life was the 'calling out,' the peculiarity of which savagery was that annually all the lower school had the right to call on any unpopular upper boy to run the gauntlet between the two rows of under boys, from Cloisters' doors to a point near the Chapel; the latter were armed with implements of all kinds, from sticks to stones in stockings. Howard in the mêlée fell down the steps leading to Chapman's. You are right in saying that spite of its surroundings Charterhouse was wonderfully free from all epidemics. In my ten years measles was the only malady that I remember, and that only on one occasion. One reason for this I arrived at some years since, when passing over the Green I noticed the excavations then going on for Merchant Taylors' Buildings, the subsoil being some eighteen or twenty feet of clear bright golden THE SECOND EDITION. vii gravel. Again apologising for this infliction on your time and patience, Believe me, Dear Sir, The Rev. T. Mozley. Yours faithfully, W. W. WINGFIELD. As the plan of earning promotion in the upper part of the school by giving instruction in the lower was certainly a remarkable experiment, and appears to have begun and ended with my own stay at the school, I may as well quote the corroborative evidence of the Charterhouse Blue-book for Easter 1824-the only one I happen to possess. At that date Joseph Jones and J. L. Irwin, both of the Second Form, were teaching the Fourth. John Murray and Samuel Coates, both of the Second Form, were teaching the Fifth. W. H. Rooper and Mosley Smith, both of the second division of the Second, were teaching the Sixth. G. Wallace and R. N. Bennett, both of the second division of the Second, were teaching the Seventh. Passing over the teachers of four other Forms, I find F. A. Marriott and C. Marjoribanks, both of the Third Form, teaching respectively two little squads of five boys and of four, called the Twelfth Form. As to the rough Good Friday game, and the incident of poor Howard's death, my memory refuses to qualify itself, though I admit that Mr. Wingfield's account has a strong point of verisimilitude in the resemblance to the favourite Midland game of Prisoners' Base. In Vol. II. p. 338, I have mentioned a pretty picture, a great favourite in its day, containing a portrait of Mrs. Walter Blunt, wife of Pickford's curate-incharge at Cholderton. The Bishop of Colchester kindly writes : This picture is now in my possession, and I can supply a slight correction, and a little additional information. The picture is by Harlow, and the title is not 'Congratulation,' but 'The Proposal,' one of the young ladies being supposed to have received an offer of marriage by letter. One of the others with Mrs. Blunt (then Miss Pearce) is her sister, who became Lady Dymoke, and only died last year. The third is my mother, Mrs. Blomfield, then Miss Cox, cousin to the other ladies. The circumstance about the cast in the right eye is exactly what my mother always told us. During all the latter half of last year I was under great and increasing apprehension that I should not live to see the publication of these volumes, and should therefore have no opportunity of either correction or defence. I had a variety of threatening symptoms of which I am quite unable to give a scientific account. The feeling made me the more anxious to deliver myself to the full and say out what I had to say, and it eventually led to an earlier publication than I had intended, for my first idea had been to keep all the manuscripts in hand till the New Year, and I now found that I was exceeding my limits. One result has been that I have given a fuller and more documentary treatment to some matters not likely to interest all readers equally. I have ever thought my father's rescue of one of the THE SECOND EDITION. ix chief parish churches of Derby from private usurpation one of the noblest deeds in all my Church and public experience. But I cannot expect all fine gentlemen, ladies, and littérateurs of the present period to share my filial enthusiasm on the point. For their sake, had time allowed, I should have attempted a more sketchy and picturesque treatment. This would have involved the use of generalities. But a recent experience left it not improbable that some one, with at least the authority of years, might suddenly spring up and denounce the whole story as a fiction. In view of such a contingency I deemed it best to give as much fact and document as my space would allow, enough indeed to defend itself and to stand as a monument of my father, should I be no longer here to defend it. As to my reviewers, I thank them all very heartily. Some of them begin, very naturally, with drawing heavy groans at the length, the bulk, the incongruousness, the inconsecutiveness of the farrago they have to despatch, and digest, perhaps at a sitting; but they have almost invariably become pleasanter, not to say affectionate, as they find the labour coming to an end. Nobody can feel more than I do for those who have to extract the essence of two bulky volumes in a few hours. A word more. I am told that I ought not to have introduced such topics as those treated in the concluding chapters, in a work of so miscellaneous a character. My answer is, that I have no other opportunity. I can only appear in my own proper |