My Life as an Author | Page 8

in my first
series of Proverbial Philosophy, which long years after the celebrated
Dr. Binney of the Weigh-house in Thames Street issued with my leave
as a tractate useful to the present generation. And while there was so

much fuss made as to the criminality of a false quantity in Greek, or a
deficient acquaintance with those awkward verbs in "Mi," or above all
a false concord (every one of which derelictions in duty involved
severe punishment), let us remember that all this time Holywell Street
was suffered to infect Charterhouse with its poison (I speak of long ago,
before Lord Campbell's wholesome Act), and that our clerical tutors
and governors professionally recognised no sort of sins or
shortcomings but those committed in class! They practically ignored
everything out of school, much as a captain knows nothing of his
company off duty. It was the idle system of boys set to govern boys,
that the masters might have no damage. I think the system was called
Lancastrian.
One very noticeable trait in the parson-schoolmasters of those old days
(and perhaps it still survives) was the subserviency to rank and wealth
towards any pupils likely to give them livings, whereof more anon; at
present, an appropriate instance occurs to me. I was in my thirteenth
year monitor of the playground, when one Dillon, a scion of a titled
family, hunted and killed a stray dog there, and much to their credit for
humanity a number of other boys hunted and pelted him into a dry ditch
or vallum, dug for the leaping-pole under a Captain Clias who taught us
athletics. I was technically responsible for this open insult offered to
Hibernian nobility, however well disposed to look another way and let
lynch-law take its course. Accordingly, the Doctor had me up for
punishment, and he inflicted an almost impossible imposition, Book
Epsilon of the Iliad (the longest of all) to be translated word for word,
English and Greek, and to be given to him in MS. within a month (it
would have been work for a year), that or expulsion. Had Mr. Dillon
been a plebeian, no notice would have been taken of the matter, but he
was an honourable, so Russell must avenge his righteous punishment.
However, the result of this outrageous set-task was curious and worthy
of this its first and only record. All the seventy boys in Irvine's house
and others elsewhere, volunteered to do the whole imposition for me,
and within a week hundreds of pages closely written with Greek and
Latin, were sewn together, making a large quarto pamphlet, which was
duly handed by me to the wondering Doctor; who had, however, too
much shrewdness to care to inquire closely as to this popular outburst

of a general indignation, so he said nothing more about it.
For other playground reminiscences: I saw, even in those tame times
for cricket when overhand bowling was illegal, and the fierce artillery
of a Spofforth impossible, a poor lad killed in the field, one Honourable
Henry Howard; he was taken to the pump for recovery, as from a
swoon, but the ball had struck him behind the ear, stone-dead. Again as
to that pump; it was sometimes maliciously used for sousing
unfortunate day-boys, who were allowed two minutes law out of school
to enable them to escape pursuit after lessons, most unjustly, and
injuriously, seeing that old Sutton founded his Charterhouse mainly for
day-boys (John Leech was one in my time) and for pensioners ("old
Cods") whereof Colonel Newcome of Thackeray fame, was another;
but both of these charity classes were utterly despised and ignored by
the reverend brigands who kept all the loaves and fishes for themselves.
One remarkable playground experience was the fact that it helped to
develop in me antiquarian inclinations, and my own discovered
hunting-ground for Roman numismatics in the south of England, long
afterwards expanded in "Farley Heath" near Albury. At Charterhouse
there was a great slope or semi-mound which had in old times been
utilised as a wholesale grave for the victims of plague and other
epidemics. It strikes me now as most perilous, but we boys used to dig
and scratch among bones and other débris for on occasional coin or
lead token, whereof I found several; it is only a wonder that we did not
unearth pestilence, but mould is fortunately very antiseptic. Another
playground peculiarity was that after the hoop season, usually driven in
duplicate or triplicate, the hoops were "stored" or "shied" into the
branching elms, from which they were again brought down by
hockey-sticks flung at them; a great boon to the smaller boys who thus
gratuitously became possessed of valuable properties. And for all else,
there were fights behind the school, in those pugilistic days
scientifically conducted with seconds and