“I tell you what, sir,” said a talkative stud groom once, in charge of race horses for Russia, and travelling first class, “I’ve been in Petersburg, in Vienna, and in Berlin, and I lived ten years with the Earl of ----. For all the points of blood our aristocracy will beat any of these foreign princes, counts, and dukes, either for figure or for going; but it won’t do to look into their pedigree, for the crosses that would ruin a race of horses, are the making of the breed of English noblemen.”
Here our irregular imperfect guidance ceases. Perhaps, although deficient in minuteness of detail, this pot pourri of gossip, history, description, anecdote, suggestion, and opinion, may not only amuse the traveller by railway, but assist him in choosing routes leading to those scenes or those pursuits in which he feels an interest.
NOTES.
[{67}] The operation of this personal influence on the individual boys with whom he was brought into contact, was much assisted by the system which about this time began to prevail at public schools, of giving each boy a small room called “a study” of his own, in which he might keep his books, and where he could enjoy privacy. The writer, who was at a public school both when all the boys lived in one great school-room in which privacy was impossible and after the separate studies were introduced, would wish to record his earnest conviction of the advantage of the present plan of separate studies,—of the vital influence it has on the formation of character, no less than of habits of study in the young. He can well remember how every better impression or graver thought was effaced, often never to return, as the boy came out from the master’s room or from reading a letter from home, and was again immersed in the crowd and confusion of the one common school-room of such a school as Winchester. He would here venture to suggest that the plan of separate sleeping-rooms, like those in the model lodging-houses, would present equal advantage with that of separate studies, and might be introduced at little expense in public schools. It has already been introduced in the Roman Catholic College at Oscot.
[{71}] He appeared, in religious feeling, to approach the Evangelical party at more points than any other; pungently describing them, nevertheless, when he said—“A good Christian, with a low understanding, a bad education, and ignorance of the world, becomes an Evangelical.” He appears to have died before he came to the application of the rules of German criticism (in which he followed Niebuhr in history) to theological subjects. It is curious to speculate on what the result would have been in the mind of this ardent Anglo-Protestant and lover of truth.
[{81}] These letters, full of information and suggestion, are attributed to Charles Mackay, Esq., LL.D., the well-known poet and prose writer.
[{113}] We were happy to find, while these sheets were passing through the press, that the Birmingham Corporation have introduced a Bill for absorbing the petty commissionership of the suburbs, which, once distant villages, now form part of the borough; and that they seek for power to compel efficient drainage and ample supply of water. To do all this will be expensive, but not extravagant; nothing is so dear to a town as dirt, with its satellites, disease, drunkenness, and crime. We sincerely trust that the Corporation will succeed in obtaining such ample powers as will render thorough drainage compulsory, and cause clean water to be no longer a luxury. Some of the opposition call themselves Conservatives. In this instance it means of dirt, fees, and bills of costs.
[{125a}] 1 Eliz., c.15.
[{125b}] Edited by the Rev. Montgomery Maherne.
[{126}] “Touchinge an anvyle wch he did sett for a yere. The bargayne is witnessed by two persons, viz., John Wallis Clerke, minister of Porlocke, and John Bearde of Selworthye, who sayeth that about our Lady-day last past, R. H. did sell to heire the said anvyle to the said Thomas Sulley at a rent of iii.s. iiii.d. for the yere.”