—-Thomas Hood.
It was my good fortune some short time since to revisit that most educational of English towns, Bedford, and having many years ago had the extreme privilege of being a Bedford schoolboy, I was able to draw a comparison between then and now.
In the good old days these admirable schools were managed in the good old way—plenty of classics, plenty of swishing, plenty of cricket and boating, and plenty of holidays. We sometimes turned out boys who afterwards made their mark in the big world, and the School Registers are proud to contain the names of such men as Burnell, the Oriental scholar, who out-knowledged even Sir William Jones in this respect; Colonel Fred. Burnaby, brave soldier and attractive travel writer; Inverarity, the lion-hunter and crack shot; Sir Henry Hawkins, stern judge and brilliant wit, and many others of like degree. Nor must we forgot that John Bunyan here learnt sufficient reading and writing to enable him in after years to pen his marvellous Book during his imprisonment in Bedford Gaol, which was then situated midway on the bridge over the river Ouse.
In that wonderful monument to the courage and enterprise of Mr. George Smith (kindest of friends and best of publishers), "The National Dictionary of Biography," the record is frequent of men who owed their education and perhaps best chance in the life they afterwards made a success, to Bedford School, but,—
"Long hushed are the chords that my boyhood enchanted,
As when the smooth wave by the angel was stirred,
Yet still with their music is memory haunted,
And oft in my dreams are their melodies heard."