Vivian Grey | Page 3

severely cultivated,
and much experienced, cannot but produce a beneficial impression,
even upon a mind formed and upon principles developed: how
infinitely more powerful must the influence of such communion be
upon a youthful heart, ardent, innocent, and unpractised! As Vivian was
not to figure in the microcosm of a public school, a place for which,
from his temper, he was almost better fitted than any young genius
whom the playing fields of Eton or the hills of Winton can remember,
there was some difficulty in fixing upon his future Academus. Mr.
Grey's two axioms were, first, that no one so young as his son should
settle in the metropolis, and that Vivian must consequently not have a
private tutor; and, secondly, that all private schools were quite
worthless; and, therefore, there was every probability of Vivian not
receiving any education whatever.
At length, an exception to axiom second started up in the establishment
of Mr. Dallas. This gentleman was a clergyman, a profound Grecian,

and a poor man. He had edited the Alcestis, and married his laundress;
lost money by his edition, and his fellowship by his match. In a few
days the hall of Mr. Grey's London mansion was filled with all sorts of
portmanteaus, trunks, and travelling cases, directed in a boy's sprawling
hand to "Vivian Grey, Esquire, at the Reverend Everard Dallas,
Burnsley Vicarage, Hants."
"God bless you, my boy! write to your mother soon, and remember
your Journal."
CHAPTER III
The rumour of the arrival of "a new fellow" circulated with rapidity
through the inmates of Burnsley Vicarage, and about fifty young devils
were preparing to quiz the newcomer, when the school-room door
opened, and Mr. Dallas, accompanied by Vivian, entered.
"A dandy, by Jove!" whispered St. Leger Smith. "What a knowing set
out!" squeaked Johnson secundus. "Mammy-sick!" growled Barlow
primus. This last exclamation was, however, a scandalous libel, for
certainly no being ever stood in a pedagogue's presence with more
perfect sang froid, and with a bolder front, than did, at this moment,
Vivian Grey.
One principle in Mr. Dallas's system was always to introduce a
new-comer in school-hours. He was thus carried immediately in medias
res, and the curiosity of his co-mates being in a great degree satisfied at
the time when that curiosity could not personally annoy him, the
new-comer was, of course, much better prepared to make his way when
the absence of the ruler became a signal for some oral communication
with "the arrival."
However, in the present instance the young savages at Burnsley
Vicarage had caught a Tartar; and in a very few days Vivian Grey was
decidedly the most popular fellow in the school. He was "so dashing!
so devilish good-tempered! so completely up to everything!" The
magnates of the land were certainly rather jealous of his success, but
their very sneers bore witness to his popularity. "Cursed puppy,"

whispered St. Leger Smith. "Thinks himself knowing," squeaked
Johnson secundus. "Thinks himself witty," growled Barlow primus.
Notwithstanding this cabal, days rolled on at Burnsley Vicarage only to
witness the increase of Vivian's popularity. Although more deficient
than most of his own age in accurate classical attainments, he found
himself, in talents and various acquirements, immeasurably their
superior. And singular is it that at school distinction in such points is
ten thousand times more admired by the multitude than the most
profound knowledge of Greek Metres, or the most accurate
acquaintance with the value of Roman coins. Vivian Grey's English
verses and Vivian Grey's English themes were the subject of universal
commendation. Some young lads made copies of these productions, to
enrich, at the Christmas holidays, their sisters' albums; while the whole
school were scribbling embryo prize-poems, epics of twenty lines on
"the Ruins of Paestum" and "the Temple of Minerva;" "Agrigentum,"
and "the Cascade of Terni." Vivian's productions at this time would
probably have been rejected by the commonest twopenny publication
about town, yet they turned the brain of the whole school; while
fellows who were writing Latin Dissertations and Greek Odes, which
might have made the fortune of the Classical Journal, were looked on
by the multitude as as great dunderheads as themselves. Such is the
advantage which, even in this artificial world, everything that is
genuine has over everything that is false and forced. The dunderheads
who wrote "good Latin" and "Attic Greek" did it by a process by means
of which the youngest fellow in the school was conscious he could, if
he chose, attain the same perfection. Vivian Grey's verses were unlike
anything which had yet appeared in the literary Annals of Burnsley
Vicarage, and that which was quite novel was naturally thought quite
excellent.
There is no place in the world where greater homage is paid to talent
than an English school. At a public school,