Haud Immemor; Reminiscences of Legal and Social Life in Edinburgh and London, 1850-1900 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV Such book learning as I have acquired has been mainly at the hands of private tutors. For three or four years I studied, not quite ineffectively, under the roof and personal care of the Rev. Josiah Walker, Vicar of Wood Ditton, near Newmarket, in Cambridgeshire. Mr Walker was a fine scholar, a good man, and a gentleman. He took charge of some seven or eight boys only, and it was, I am sure, not his fault but his pupils', if they did not imbibe both learning and morality at his hands. My school companions at Wood Ditton were mostly Cambridgeshire boys, and with some of them I have enjoyed continuous friendship. Charles Peter Allix of Swaffham Prior, Herbert Eaton of Stetchworth Park, Sir John Rae Reid, Seymour Portman of Hare Park, Arthur Jackson of Wisbech, Johnnie (afterwards Sir John) Farquhar and his younger brothers (afterwards Sir Robert and Sir Horace), Arthur and Edward Hailstone of Bottisham, Stanley and Edward Hicks of Wilbrahara, and John Cotton, were those whom I best remember. Some of them have now joined the majority, and others are still pursuing their careers with more or less mundane success. In 1855 I went to Rugby, then under the Headmastership of Dr Goulburn, the successor of Tait, the predecessor of Temple. Goulburn was a man of great piety, and of good theological and classical attainments, but his selection as Headmaster, to follow Dr Arnold and Dr Tait, and to carry on their system, showed no great judgment on the part of the School Trustees. As a preacher at Quebec Chapel, as Dean of Norwich, as the author of devotional manuals, Dr Goulburn excelled; but as guide, philosopher, and friend to boys of from thirteen to eighteen years old, he was out of his element. He was "donnish" in the extreme, austere and unsympathetic i...