"Your ship could run like Charley's Aunt,
And you, demure as Penley,
Knew all the wiles that might enchant
The river nymphs at Henley.
No piles had yet marked out the way
Forbidding men to try on
The tricks that found round every bay
The short cuts to the 'Lion.'
"Each inch of bay you knew by heart,
You knew the slackest water;
All foes who faced you at the start,
You beat, and beat with slaughter.
To 'form' a stranger, yet your style
The kind that much endures was.
I never saw—forgive the smile—
A rounder back than yours was.
"But round or straight, when all dismayed
Your rivals lagged in trouble,
Still with a firm, unfaltering blade
You drove the swirling bubble.
With you to speed the hours along
No day was ere spent dully,
Our stalwart, cheerful, matchless, strong,
Our undefeated Gully."
As a matter of record it may be stated that Mr. Gulston won five Grand Challenge Cup medals and ten Stewards' Cup medals, Mr. A. de L. Long five Grand Challenge Cup medals and eight Stewards' Cup medals, and Mr. S. Le B. Smith four Grand Challenge Cup medals, and seven Stewards' Cup medals. No oarsman of the present day can boast of anything like such a record in these two events.
The art of four-oared rowing, then, was brought to perfection by the crews of the London Rowing Club many years ago; but there is no danger that it will be forgotten by oarsmen of the present day. Indeed, the rowing of the Leander Four that won the Stewards' Cup this year was about as good as four-oared rowing can be. They were absolutely together, they rowed with most perfect ease, and in the race they beat record time by seven seconds, and might have beaten it by still more, had they not easied a length or two from the finish. Their weights were as follows:—
| Bow. | C. W. N. Graham | 10 | st. | 2 | lbs. |
| 2. | J. A. Ford | 12 | st. | 1 | lb. |
| 3. | H. Willis | 11 | st. | 12 | lbs. |
| Guy Nickalls (stroke, and steers) | 12 | st. | 7 | lbs. |
From the above remarks it will be gathered that the great points to be insisted upon in four-oared rowing are uniformity, and again uniformity, and always uniformity. A coach should insist, if possible even more strenuously than he insists in an Eight, on bodies and slides moving with a faultless precision and perfectly together. Let him devote his energies to getting the finish and recovery locked up all through the crew, and let
him see to it that the movements of their bodies shall be slow and balanced on the forward swing, and strong and not jerky on the back swing. More it would be difficult to add.