“December 11th, 1836.—About our journey money; I do not think that Dr. Arnold gives us quite enough. I suppose he does not exactly know the distance we have to go. He only gives us 30s. each. I think you always give us 6l. (or 2l. apiece) to go there, which just takes us, including everything.”
We were always encouraged to bring our friends home, but how scrupulous he was about using the privilege the remainder of the letter just quoted will show you:—
“There is a boy who will go all the way home with us—G——. He is a præpostor. He is going as far as Newbury that day, where he is going to sleep, and go on in the Oxford coach to Winchester, where he stops. Would you think it any inconvenience to give him a bed? It is not, however, of the least consequence, only I think that being a stranger in those parts he would take it kindly, and be able to return the favour to Walter or Tom at Rugby. If you think it the least inconvenience pray tell me, for it does not signify one jot: I have not said a word to him on the subject yet. We begin to smell the approach of the holidays; the bills are being made up, the trunks brought down, the clothes cleaned, &c. &c. I shall take care to peep into the Museum on my road through Oxford, as I did not half satisfy my curiosity before. I am glad to hear that Dumple goes well in harness; also that the wild ducks “habitant in flumine nostro, quos ego, maxime gaudeo;” that Mr. Majendie has approved of my Lyric verses, which, however, I cannot think merit such commendation. There has been a great balloon mania in the school lately; everybody has been making a balloon. We set them off with spirits of wine lighted under them, and then run after them. They generally go about five miles, and we always recover them after a hard run. I have cut one out myself from tissue paper, and I will bring it home that I may have the pleasure of setting it off before Jenny. I think she would like to see it.”
But I am forgetting the scholarship.
“Rugby, March 16, 1836.
“I will now tell you what I was examined in for the scholarship; 1st, in composition, Latin theme; subject, ‘Est natura hominum novitatis avida,’ which, as you may imagine, was very easy; Latin verse, ‘The Battle of Thermopylæ;’ English theme, ‘Painting,’ also very easy. In the Latin verse I did seventeen verses in two hours, which was more than any other of the candidates, and I quite satisfied myself in the other two subjects. In Latin construing we had a passage from Virgil and Cæsar, and in Greek, Homer’s Odyssey. We were also examined in St. Paul, and, thanks to your abbreviation, I answered all the questions. We have yet to be examined in Mackintosh, French, and mathematics.
“I think now I have satisfied you with respect to the work of the scholarship.”
In his next of April 2nd, he communicates the result as follows, but not mentioning that six of his competitors were older than he, and in higher forms:—
“We are all quite well. I did not get the scholarship, but I was third. I have been promoted out of the lower into the middle fifth, and I am doing very well in it. We read Demosthenes, Thucydides, Cicero in Verrem, and the Antigone of Sophocles. The great examination at the end of the half is soon going to be set. The middle fifth and upper fifth are examined together, and if I do well in it I may be high up in the fifth at the end of the half.”