The pupil room in which he sat has now ceased to serve that purpose; the old structure of the Christopher, having undergone further changes, is now used merely to accommodate masters, and has ceased to be an Eton house. The only external trace of the inn yard as it was, are some of the old balustrades of the ancient gallery facing the site of the livery stables which were swept away in 1901. Many will remember Charley Wise, the proprietor, who used to be such a familiar figure standing under the archway thirty years ago.
SHELLEY
The original sign of the Christopher, it should be added, hangs at the modern Christopher in the High Street. Shelley, when an Eton boy, one night stole the great gilded bunch of grapes from this, and hung it in front of the Headmaster’s door, so that the astounded pedagogue ran into it as he was hurrying into school in the morning. The whole character of Shelley was a mass of contradictions, and he seems to have been far from happy at school, where he seldom joined in any sports; according to some he never went on the river, but this is doubtful. The young poet’s favourite ramble was Stoke Park and the picturesque churchyard close by, rendered famous for all time by Gray’s Elegy, of which Shelley is said to have been very fond.
As was shown by the incident of the Christopher’s grapes, Shelley, though as a rule of a meditative disposition, was on occasion given to playing pranks. He once bought a large brass cannon at an auction in Windsor, and harnessed many Lower boys to draw it down into College. It was captured by one of the tutors and kept till the holidays at Hexter’s. He was fond of experimenting in science, and set fire to a tree in south meadow by laying a train of gunpowder to it; another time, by means of an electrical machine, he flung his tutor against the wall.
This tutor’s name was Bethell, and, according to all accounts, he was a somewhat unattractive character. Amongst the boys he was known as “Vox et praeterea nihil” and “Botch” Bethell, because he was supposed always to be making errors or botches in altering their verses. His favourite phrase, which he used to alter as it might be for a long or a short verse, was for the former “sibi vindicat ipse,” for the latter “vindicat ipse sibi,” in consequence of which an impudent boy in his house, being one day asked at meal-time what he would take, said, “Sir, I vindicate to myself a slice of mutton.” Towards the boys under his charge Bethell was harsh, and sometimes even brutal. Meeting a Lower boy one day coming in with a bowl full of sausages covered by his hat to keep them warm, Bethell sternly inquired, “What have you got there?” The boy, fearing trouble, whimpered, “Nothing, sir,” upon which Bethell jerked up the bowl with his hand and sent hat and sausages flying into the road.
In Shelley’s day, life at Eton had changed a good deal, compared with that led some twenty years before, when Arthur Wellesley was a shy, retiring Lower boy, in whom neither masters nor schoolfellows saw any germs of future greatness.
THE GREAT DUKE
He was about twelve years old when he went to Miss Naylor’s, and in spite of his shyness he is supposed to have taken part with his companions in several escapades. Traditions used to be current at Eton about his shooting expeditions up the river at unpermitted seasons and hours; and during the middle of the last century a tree standing near the site of his dame’s was known as “the Duke’s Tree,” because it was said that as a boy the old duke had been fond of climbing it. Arthur Wellesley was not very long at Eton, but nevertheless in after life he cherished a great love for the school to which in due course he sent his sons. One of his first acts on going down to visit them there was to take them to see the door at his old house where, when a boy, he had cut his own name. Though no great athlete himself, he fully appreciated the manly character induced by games and sport, and Creasy declares that not many years before his death he was passing by the playing fields, where numerous groups were happily busied at their games of cricket. Pointing to them, the old Field-Marshal said, “There grows the stuff that won Waterloo.”
The great Duke’s elder brother, Lord Mornington, afterwards Marquis of Wellesley, had, as is well known, a fanatical love for Eton, where, by his express wish, he was buried, his own beautiful Latin lines[3] recording the satisfaction with which he looked forward to resting there. According to a request which he left behind him, six weeping willows were planted in different parts of the playing fields, and a bench fixed at a particular spot which commanded his favourite view.