What follows also is from the life: Sadly at night I sat me down beside a stranger's hearth, One of my earliest extant poems (the Retrospect) describes this school, and a visit which I made to it, after it had ceased to be one, in the year 1793. You have it, as it was originally written at that time, in the volume which I published with Robert Lovell, and as corrected for preservation, in the collection of my Minor Poems. The house had been the mansion of some decayed family, whose history I should like to trace if Collinson's Somersetshire were to fall in my way. There were vestiges of former respectability and comfort about it, which, young as I was, impressed me in the same manner that such things would do now-walled gardens, summer-houses, gate-pillars, surmounted with huge stone balls, a paddock, a large orchard, walnut trees, yards, outhouses upon an opulent scale. I felt how mournful all this was in its fallen state, when the great walled garden was converted into a playground for the boys, the gateways broken, the summer-houses falling to ruin, and grass growing in the interstices of the lozenged pavement of the fore-court. The features within I do not so distinctly remember, not being so well able to understand their symbols of better days; only I recollect a black oaken staircase from the hall, and that the school-room was hung with faded tapestry, behind which we used to have our hoards of crabs. Here one year of my life was past with little profit, and with a good deal of suffering. There could not be a worse school in all respects. Thomas Flower, the master, was a remarkable man, worthy of a better station in life, but utterly unfit for that in which he was placed. His whole delight was in mathematics and astronomy, and he had constructed an orrery upon so large a scale that it filled a room. What a misery it must have been for such a man to teach a set of stupid boys, year after year, the rudiments of arithmetic. And a misery he seemed to feel it. When he came into his desk, even there he was thinking of the stars, and looked as if he were out of humour, not from ill-nature, but because his calculations were interrupted. But for the most part he left the school to the care of his son Charley, a person who was always called by that familiar diminutive, and whose consequence you may appreciate accordingly. Writing and arithmetic were all they professed to teach; but twice in the week a Frenchman came from Bristol to instruct in Latin the small number of boys who learnt it, of whom I was one. Duplanier was his name. He returned to France at the commencement of the Revolution, and a report obtained credit at Bristol, and got into the newspapers, that, having resumed his proper name, which for some reason or other he had thought fit to conceal in England, he went into the army, and became no less a personage than General Menou, of Egyptian notoriety. For Duplanier's sake, who was a very good. natured man, I am glad the story was disproved. That sort of ornamental penmanship which now I fear has wholly gone out of use, was taught there. The father, as well as Charley, excelled in it. They could adorn the heading of a rule in arithmetic in a cyphering-book, or the bottom of a page, not merely with common flourishing, but with an angel, a serpent, a fish, or a pen, formed with an ease and freedom of hand which was to me a great object of admiration ; but, unluckily, I was too young to acquire the art. I have seen, in the course of my life, two historical pieces produced in this manner; worthy of remembrance they are, as notable specimens of whimsical dexterity. One was David killing Goliah; it was in a broker's shop at Bristol, and I would have bought it if I could have afforded at that time to expend some ten shillings upon it. The other was a portrait of king Joam V. on horseback, in the bishop's palace at Beja. They taught the beautiful Italian, or lady's hand, used in the age of our parents; engrossing (which, I suppose, was devised to insure distinctness and legibility); and some varieties of German text, worthy for their square, massy, antique forms to have figured in an antiquarian's titlepage. Twice during the twelve months of my stay great interest was excited throughout the commonwealth by a grand spelling-match, for which poor Flower deserves some credit, if it was a device of his own to save himself trouble and amuse the boys. Two of the biggest boys chose their party, boy by boy alternately, till the whole school was divided between them. They then hunted the dictionary for words unusual enough in their orthography to puzzle illtaught lads; and having compared lists, that the same word might not be chosen by both, two words were delivered to every boy, and kept by him profoundly secret from all on the other side till the time of trial. On a day appointed we were drawn up in battle array, quite as anxious on the occasion as the members of a cricket-club for the result of a grand match against all England. Ambition, that "last infirmity of noble minds," had its full share in producing this anxiety; and to increase the excitement, each person had wagered a halfpenny upon the event. The words were given out in due succession on each side, from the biggest to the least; and for every one which was spelt rightly in its progress down the enemy's ranks, the enemy scored one; or one was scored on the other side, if the word ran the gauntlet safely. The party in which I was engaged lost one of these matches and won the other. I remember that my words for one of them were Chrystalization and Coterie, and that I was one of the most effective persons in the contest, which might easily be. Charley and his father frequently saved themselves some trouble, by putting me to teach bigger boys than myself. I got on with Latin here more by assisting others in their lessons than by my own, when the master came so seldom. This assistance was not voluntary on my part; it was a tax levied upon me by the law of the strongest, a law which prevails as much in schools as it did in the cabinets of Louis XIV. and the emperor Napoleon, and does in that of the United States of America; but the effect was, that I made as much progress as if my lessons had been daily. At Mr. Foote's I read Cordery and Erasmus, each with a translation in a parallel column, which was doubled down at lesson time. Here I got into Phædrus without a translation, but with the help of an ordo verborum, indicated by figures in the margin. But I am at the end of my paper and the slip beside me has items enough concerning Corston for another letter. LETTER VIII. RECOLLECTIONS OF CORSTON CONTINUED. December 28th, 1821. I REMEMBER poor Flower with compassion, and not without respect, as a man who, under more auspicious circumstances, might have passed his life happily for himself, and perhaps honourably as well as usefully for his country. His attainments and talents were, I have no doubt, very considerable in their kind; and I am sure that his temper and disposition were naturally good. I never saw so little punishment in any school. There was but one flogging during my stay there; it was for running away, which was considered the heaviest of all offences. The exhibition was then made as serious as possible; the instrument was a scourge of packthread instead of a rod. But though punishments in private schools were at that time, I believe, always much more severe than in public ones, I do not remember that this was remarkable for severity. We stood in awe and respect of him rather than fear. If there was nothing conciliating or indulgent about him, there was no rigour |