What I Remember, Volume 1

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

There was a writing master—one Mr. Bower, Fungy Bower he was called, why, I know not—who sat at a certain low desk in the school during; school hours. I never received from him, or saw any one else receive from him, any instruction in writing. Nor did he, to the best of my knowledge and belief, form any part of William of Wykeham’s foundation. The only purpose his presence in school appeared to serve was to mend pens and make up the weekly account of marks received by each boy which regulated his place in the class.

The register containing the account of these marks was called the “classicus paper,” and was kept in this wise. All the members of each “class”—or “form” as it is called in other schools—continually changed places while proceeding with the lesson before the master, each, if able to answer a question which those above him could not answer, passing up above them. And part of the punishment for failing altogether in any lesson, for being as the phrase was “crippled in Virgil,” or “crippled in Homer,” was to go to the bottom of the class. Thus the order in which the class sat was continually changed. And the first business every morning was for the two boys at the head of the class to take the “classicus paper,” and mark 1. against the name of the boy at the bottom, 2. against the next, and so on; so that the mark assigned to him at the head was equal to the number in the class. And this record of the marks was handed every week to Fungy Bower to be made up, so as to indicate the place in the class held by each member of it. But though this was done weekly the account was carried on during the whole half year, so that a boy’s final place in the class was the accurate result of his diligence and success during the whole “half.”

Of course I was a cricketer—we all were, and were indeed obliged to be, whether willingly or not, until we became prefects, when, of course, those only who loved the game continued to practise it. I never was a great cricketer, but have been “long stop” quite often enough to know how great is the nonsense talked by those of the present generation, who maintain that all the elaborate precautions against being hurt which are so abundantly taken by the players of these latter days are necessitated by the greater force of the bowling as now practised. In simple truth this is all bosh! though I can hardly expect a generation in cute curandâ plus æquo operata to believe a very old batter and fielder when he tells them so!

My favourite game was fives. We had a splendid fives court, and the game was played in a manner altogether peculiar to Winchester; now I believe—like so much else—abandoned. We used a very small ball, hardly bigger than a good-sized walnut, and as hard as if made of wood, called a “snack.” And this was driven against the wall by a bat of quite peculiar construction. It was made, I think, of ash, and there were only two men, rivals, who could make it. It was about a yard long, the handle round, and somewhat less than an inch in diameter. It then became gradually thinner and wider, till at about the distance of six inches from the extremity it was perhaps an inch and a half wide, and not thicker than half-a-crown. Then it expanded and thickened again into a head somewhat of the shape of an ace of spades, some three inches across and half an inch thick. The thin part was kept continually well oiled—in such sort that it became so elastic, that the heavy head might almost be doubled back so as to touch the part nearer the hand. It will be understood both that the difficulty of striking a bounding ball with this instrument was considerable, and that the momentum imparted to the small hard ball by the blow was very great indeed. It is true that accidents occasionally, though very rarely, happened from a misdirected blow. But it does not seem necessary that the old bat should be abandoned, for our judicious grandsons might play with great comfort and safety in helmets!

Of course I, like most of my contemporaries, left Winchester—and indeed subsequently left Oxford—as ignorant of any modern language, save English, as of Chinese! And as for music—though Oxford and Cambridge are the only universities in Europe which give degrees in music—it is hardly an exaggeration to say that, with very rare exceptions, to have taught an undergraduate, or a boy at a public school, music, would have been thought much on a par with teaching him to hem a pocket-handkerchief. And here the present generation has the pull to a degree which it perhaps hardly sufficiently recognises!

It was during my last year at Winchester that I made my first attempt at authorship. Old Robbins, the grey-headed bookseller of College Street, who had been the college bookseller for many years, had recently taken a younger partner of the name of Wheeler, and this gentleman established a monthly magazine, called the Hampshire and West of England Magazine, to which I contributed three or four articles on matters Wiccamical. I have the volume before me now—perhaps the only extant copy of that long since forgotten publication. The Rev. E. Poulter, one of the prebendaries of Winchester, who had a somewhat wider than local reputation as a wit in those days, was the anonymous contributor of a poetical prologue of such unconscionable proportions that poor Wheeler was sadly puzzled what to do with it. It was impossible to refuse or neglect a reverend prebendary’s contribution, besides that the verses, often doggerel, had some good fun in them. So they were all printed by instalments in successive numbers, despite the title of prologue which their author gives them.

CHAPTER VII.

I came back from Winchester for the last time after the election of 1828, to find a great change at home. My father, pressed more and more by pecuniary difficulties, had quitted Harrow, and established himself at Harrow Weald, a hamlet of the large parish in the direction of Pinner. He had not given up his farm at Harrow. He would have been only too glad to do so, for it involved an annual loss undeviatingly; but that he could not do, for his lease tied him to the stake. But he took another farm at Harrow Weald, on which there was an old farm-house, which had once been a very good one, and, living there, carried on both farms. How far this speculation was a wise one I have no means of judging. Doubtless he took the Harrow Weald farm upon very largely more advantageous terms than those which he had accepted from Lord Northwick for the farm at Harrow; but having been absent all the time at Winchester, I knew so little about the matter that I do not now know even who his Harrow Weald landlord was. Possibly I did know but have forgotten. But I think I remember to have heard my father say that the Harrow Weald farm did in some decree alleviate the loss sustained by the larger farm at Harrow, and that, could he have got rid of the latter, the Harrow Weald farm might have paid its way. The excellent house he had built at Harrow was in the meantime let to Mr. Cunningham, the vicar.

The change from it to the old farm-house at Harrow Weald, as a home, was not a pleasant one; but a very far worse and more important change awaited my home coming, in the absence of my mother. She had gone to America.

Where, or under what circumstances, my parents had first become acquainted with General La Fayette I do not know. I myself never saw him; but I know that it was during a visit to La Grange, his estate in France, that my mother first met Miss Frances Wright, one of two sisters, his wards. I believe she became acquainted with Camilla Wright, the sister, at the same time.