like what I should fancy a Red Indian’s war-whoop to be in the moments of highest excitement. Then there was a scuffle and a rush as of some ferocious animal bounding down-stairs—then my cap was torn off my head, and, as it were, a thunderbolt struck me. It was no thunderbolt, however, but Joe Day, a large beefy boy, dressed in a suit of bottle-green, which he had evidently out-grown some considerable time. For a while this young gentleman steadily devoted himself to the duty of punching my urchin’s head whilst he held up the fatal cap in derision, and requested to know who was my hatter. I could not give him a direct answer, for indeed the cap had not been purchased at any particular establishment, but was the result of much feminine tenderness and ingenuity at home. The possibility of the existence of such wild beasts as Joe Day had never entered into the imaginations of the gentle contrivers of that graceful head-gear. Not satisfied with knocking me about, the horrible boy first kicked my poor cap into the cellar below, and then following it up in person, committed it to the flames. I was not ten years of age at the time, and could as soon have attempted to do battle against Joe Day as against a rhinoceros—but such was my first introduction to public school life in England. Looking back at the transaction now through the long vista of years, I admit that it was an unwise proceeding to send me to a school with any article of dress upon me calculated to attract attention in any way, or to excite the slightest remark. Mothers and sisters, and aunts of England, when you are about to send any little urchin dear to you to a public school, be careful to ascertain the usual standard of dress amongst the boys. Think of Joe Day, and do not make the child too beautiful to mortal gaze, or he will surely be kicked, or possibly be made a target of for small hard balls.
In some way or other I managed to crawl up-stairs; but if it had not been for the awful beadle—who, as I imagined, would have put me to death in some swift and military way had I attempted to desist—I think I should have endeavoured to make my escape. However, there was no help for it; and in a few moments I found myself in the great school-room which was to be the scene of so much suffering to me, and, I am bound to add, of so much enjoyment.
There were four masters in St. Paul’s School in those days. I have heard since that they have got some new-fangled mathematical instructors, French teachers, and persons of that description; bat in my day all was pure Latin and Greek. The head master was a line old corpulent Greek scholar of majestic presence, much respected, if not actually beloved by the boys. The idea of attachment or affection from us little fellows towards so awful a personage as Dr. Sleath was out of the question. When he appeared, the school was dumb. We believed in that big man; and afterwards, when I came to years of scholastic discretion, and could appreciate his merits, I knew that he was excellent both as a schoolmaster and a man. He was not a king of boys of the Arnold type. So the lads did the work well, and did not make a noise, he was satisfied. He did not love to be diverted from his usual functions of educing the classical capabilities of the eighth and seventh forms (the eighth was the highest); and, indeed, whenever he was called in as a Deus ex machinâ, it was not for a pleasant purpose. It became occasionally his duty to cane a little boy in a very solemn way, which operation was effected in the following manner: The captain of the school was sent into the monitor’s study for a parcel of canes, out of which the old gentleman chose one, exhibiting considerable taste and discrimination in the selection. He next tucked his long silk divinity gown behind him with one hand, and holding his cane in the other, stalked in a majestic and imperial way to the end of the school-room, where there was a little raised platform, higher by two steps than the floor of the school. I had forgotten to say that this huge divine wore knee-breeches, black silk stockings, and shoes with silver buckles, after the fashion of older days. These little arrangements being made—while there was terror in the atmosphere, and amidst a dead silence—the small culprit was led up to him who was at the same time his judge and executioner. The Doctor then proclaimed, in a sonorous and emphatic way, the misdeeds of which the little boy had been guilty, hurling reproaches at him the while in a biting and soul-destroying manner. “Stubbs Minor wouldn’t do his verses, and had told a lie—yes, a lie! wouldn’t do his verses, and had told a lie! Stubbs Minor had told a lie—yes, a lie! Stubbs Minor hold out your hand!” Stubbs Minor had been placed on the first step, and held out his hand to receive the terrific blows which the doctor was ready to pour on him from above. The worst policy was to flinch, or withdraw the hand, for in that case the doctor was apt to overbalance himself, and stagger about on the platform in a ludicrous way, when he invariably lost his temper, and a real rage took the place of the simulated anger. Upon such occasions Stubbs Minor was likely enough to come in for a good thing. A caning from Sleath when his blood was up was no joke.
As a schoolmaster, however, he must have been deserving of much praise, for the pupils whom he sent up to Cambridge, carried off the highest classical honours of the university year after year. Fellows of Trinity, Pitt Scholars, Gold Medallists, &c., &c, were plants which Sleath knew how to grow to perfection. The old gentleman was well up in the Greek authors—I give the following little story as ludicrous if not complete and decided evidence of the fact. We had an idea that the Doctor knew Homer by heart. When I had attained such a position in the school as brought me immediately under his care, we were called upon to commit some forty or fifty lines of this author to memory twice in the week. Now, in our class there was a tall, gaunt boy with scarcely the vestige of a nose, who exceedingly disliked the trouble of learning his repetition; but either nature had endowed him with the faculty of emitting Homeric sounds, or he had carefully cultivated the power. Now, when this boy was called upon to perform, he would rise slowly and calmly from his seat—the two highest forms sat whilst they were under fire—and starting with a