IS
 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 / 
 
 

 
 WITH THE PUBLISHERS' COMPLIMENTS. 
 
 ^ Jut yf^UcijL^ 1 1 NOV 1904
 
 THE WORKS OF 
 ARTHUR CLEMENT HILTON
 
 y^sk^ c M-i IGn
 
 THE WORKS OF 
 
 ARTHUR CLEMENT HILTON 
 
 (OF MARLBOROUGH &* CAMBRIDGE) 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE LIGHT GREEN" 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 HIS LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 - 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 MACMILLAN AND BOWES 
 
 1904
 
 GLASGOW : l'klNTED AT THE UNIVERSITY TRESS 
 BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
 
 r K 
 
 i 
 
 j 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The parodies published at Cambridge in 1872 
 under the name of the Light Green have long been 
 associated with the name of Arthur Clement Hilton. 
 r Although the Light Green has become widely known 
 amongst University men, and has given Arthur Hilton 
 ^a place amongst recognised English humorists, little 
 "has hitherto been known, save to his own small 
 ^circle of friends, of Arthur Hilton himself. In Mr. 
 George Russell's Collections and Recollections a cry 
 has gone out for a further knowledge of Hilton, 
 and in the hope of doing something towards pre- 
 senting a sketch of the Author of the Light Green, 
 #1 have put together in the following memoir, with 
 ,£the aid of his letters, a little outline of his short 
 but bright and noticeable life. 
 
 In addition to the letters, which are incorporated 
 in the memoir, a considerable number of other 
 writings by Arthur Hilton are now published for 
 the first time, as well as the parodies written by 
 him in the Light Green. Those who look upon 
 the Light Green as an old friend will find much 
 in this new material to afford them fresh enjoyment. 
 
 324G5G
 
 VI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I am greatly indebted to the Rev. A. D. Hilton 
 for leave to publish these additional writings of his 
 son's, to the Rev. E. Noel Smith and the Rev. 
 William D. Fenning for letters addressed to them 
 by Arthur Hilton, to Messrs. Chambers for leave to 
 republish " The Winds," to Messrs. Metcalfe of 
 Cambridge for leave to republish the Light Gree?i, 
 and to the Rev, J. M. Lupton of Marlborough 
 College for his kind assistance. 
 
 I am well aware of my own shortcomings as a 
 biographer of Arthur Clement Hilton. My only- 
 claim to attempt a memorial of him must be, that 
 we were great friends during the latter part of his 
 time at Cambridge; while to those who may be 
 inclined to criticise, the only apology I can offer is, 
 that no one else has come forward to tell the 
 story of his too short life, and that where his letters 
 sufficiently fill in the outline, I have left him to tell 
 his own story in his own words, and this is best, 
 
 For whosoever knows us truly, knows 
 That none can truly write his simple day, 
 And none can write it for him upon earth. 
 
 ROBERT P. EDGCUMBE.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Life and Letters (1851-1877) - 
 Horace Carm. II. 18 (1867) - 
 To John Sowerby (1868) - 
 From Beranger ( „ ) - 
 Tis the Voice of Old Hawkins (1868) 
 Sanatorium Maxim ( 
 
 Marlborough Charade ( 
 
 The Battle of Herrings ( 
 
 Mr. Bambridge's Concert ( 
 
 The Friend We Know at Home ( 
 To Edward Noel Smith (1869) 
 From Homer ( ,, ) 
 
 Mathematics ( ,, ) 
 
 My Aunt Eliza ( ,, ) 
 
 Dido (1870) 
 
 Jason ( ,, ) 
 
 Nonsense Verses (1870) 
 
 Letters for a Post Office at a Bazaar (1869). 
 To an Absent Wife - 
 To One of the Sterner Sex 
 To a Lady - 
 An Epigram 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 29 
 
 123 
 
 33 
 
 34 
 
 34 
 
 124 
 
 128 
 
 130 
 
 36 
 
 133 
 
 134 
 
 134 
 
 136 
 
 141 
 
 143 
 57 
 
 149 
 149 
 150 
 150
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Ballad of Sister May (1870) - - - - 151 
 
 To Anastasia (1871) 154 
 
 With a Pair of Gloves (1871) - - - - 154 
 
 Another ( ,, ) - - - - 154 
 
 The 'Light Green,' No. I. (1872)— 
 
 Introduction. By the Editor - - - 158 
 
 Octopus. By Algernon Charles Sin-burn - 159 
 
 Moll Marine. By "Weeder" - - - 161 
 
 Ding Dong. By Rosina Christetti - - 162 
 
 The Prattler in Cambridge. All by Himself 164 
 
 The Vulture and the Husbandman. By 
 
 Louisa Caroline 167 
 
 Cambridge Chit-Chat. By our own Penny- 
 
 A-LlNER I7I 
 
 The 'Light Green,' No. II. (1872)— 
 
 The May Exam. By Alfred Pennysong - 176 
 
 The Heathen Pass-ee. By Bred Hard - 182 
 
 Mrs. Brown at Cambridge. By Arthur 
 
 Sketchey 185 
 
 Nonsense Verses. By Edward Leary - - 190 
 
 They Went to Row in a Four. The Same 192 
 
 Cambridge Chit-Chat. By our own Penny- 
 
 a-Liner 193 
 
 Epigram on King's College. The Same - 196
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Nobody Knew (1873) 197 
 
 Our Parting ( ,, ) 199 
 
 Moonbeams ( ,, ) 200 
 
 Suspense ( ,, ) 201 
 
 The End of Hope (1873) 202 
 
 The Winds ( ,, ) 203 
 
 On Horace M. Moule (1873) 101 
 
 Christmas ( ,, ) 204 
 
 On a Portrait ( ,, ) 205 
 
 A Christmas Card ( ,, ) 206 
 
 On a certain Dean and Chapter (1873) - - 207 
 
 Dear old Wells ( ,, ) - - 210 
 
 The Archaeologist ( ,, ) - - 211 
 
 The (Hive-Shaped) Honey Pot (1874) - - - 212 
 
 Psalm CXXVII. ( „ ) - - - 213 
 
 Reply to an Invitation to Dinner (1876) - - 116 
 
 A Hymn (1876) 214 
 
 The Pilgrimage of Grace (1877) - 215 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Arthur Clement Hilton from a photograph 
 
 taken in 1872 Frontispiece 
 
 Arthur Clement Hilton, as 'Tilda (with a 
 
 scuttle) and J. W. Baines - - - To face p. 44
 
 THE LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 ARTHUR CLEMENT HILTON 
 
 1851-1877 
 
 By SIR ROBERT P. EDGCUMBE
 
 UXBRIDGE MOOR. 
 
 1851-1864. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith justly remarked, in the somewhat 
 set phraseology of his time, that " the life of a scholar 
 seldom abounds with adventure ; his fame is acquired 
 in solitude, and the historian, who only views him at 
 a distance, must be content with a dry detail of 
 actions by which he is scarce distinguished from the 
 rest of mankind ; but we are fond of talking of those 
 who have given us pleasure, not that we have any- 
 thing important to say, but because the subject is 
 pleasing." These words are peculiarly applicable 
 when we endeavour to picture, however imperfectly, 
 the brief life of Arthur Clement Hilton, begun and 
 ended within the short space of twenty-six years. 
 Yet, short as was the span of Arthur Hilton's life, it 
 was long enough to leave to those who were fortunate 
 enough to know him personally the fragrant memory 
 of one who was always bright, joyous, witty, and 
 
 A
 
 2 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 lovable, while to those who know him only as the 
 author of The Light Green, he has left the happy 
 memory of one who deftly penned many a humorous 
 stanza. 
 
 The first thirteen years of Arthur Hilton's life, as 
 child and boy, were passed under his father's roof, 
 where he learned his rudiments before entering Marl- 
 borough College. Five years at Marlborough, three 
 more at Cambridge, followed by one year's prepara- 
 tion for the ministry at Wells, and three years as 
 curate at Sandwich, round off his life. By good for- 
 tune, a sufficient number of his bright and cheery 
 letters have been preserved to enable this little 
 memoir to partake of autobiography, and, so far as 
 can be, the letters (forty-three) have been left to tell 
 their own tale. Simple, unaffected, increasing in 
 cleverness with his years, and with a ripple of humour 
 running through them, they bring us into direct 
 touch with his happy nature and open, winning 
 character. 
 
 First, a few words as to the progenitors of Arthur 
 Clement Hilton. Their pedigree runs back without 
 a break to the North Country family of Hilton of 
 Hilton Castle, near Sunderland (one of the baronial 
 families of the Palatinate barons of the bishopric of 
 Durham summoned to Parliament in 1295), through 
 one Thomas Hilton, who settled at Faversham, in 
 Kent, in the spacious days of great Elizabeth. A 
 century later one of Thomas Hilton's descendants,
 
 UXBRIDGE MOOR 3 
 
 also Thomas Hilton of Faversham, married Christian 
 Giles in 1678, an heiress, who brought him the estate 
 of " Lords," situated about a mile south of Sheldwich 
 Church, on the Ashford road leading out of Favers- 
 ham. " Lords " had come into the Giles family in 
 the reign of Richard II., and at " Lords " the de- 
 scendants of the last named Thomas Hilton dwelt 
 well into the early years of the nineteenth century, 
 John Hilton, the great-grandfather of Arthur Clement 
 Hilton — a noted hunting squire — and his son Giles 
 being the last of the Hilton family to reside there. 
 John Hilton's elder son, also named John, married, 
 in 1818, Mary Elizabeth Denne, the heiress of Sarre 
 Court, in the Isle of Thanet. He took orders, and 
 lived at his wife's ancestral home, and as " squire 
 parson," was for many years Vicar of St. Nicholas- 
 at-Wade, Thanet, in which parish Sarre Court is 
 situate. 
 
 Sarre Court, a fragment of the once ample 
 estates of the Uennes of Denne Hill, lies between 
 Canterbury and Ramsgate. As early as the time 
 of the Conquest, Ralph de Denne held a large 
 portion of the Romney Marsh. The best remem- 
 bered of this great Kent family — thanks to the 
 Ingoldsby Legends — is Sir Alured Denne, who, we 
 are told in The B/asphemer's Warning, married 
 Edith Ingoldsby, and losing his bride through 
 strong language and strong drink, built himself a 
 new mansion at Denne Hill, to escape from the
 
 4 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 visitations of the ghost of the fair and blameless 
 
 Edith : 
 
 " Never since then, 
 
 Had Sir Alured Denne 
 
 Let a word fall from his lip or his pen 
 
 That began with a D, or left off with an N." 
 
 But the Ingoldsby legend probably maligns Sir Alured 
 Denne, who seems to have been a man of much 
 learning, seneschal of the Priory of Canterbury, and 
 escheator of Kent. Sarre Court passed by descent 
 from John Hilton to his eldest son, Arthur Hilton's 
 eldest paternal uncle, the Rev. John Denne Hilton, 
 who died in 1853, leaving it to his eldest son, John 
 William Denne Hilton. 
 
 Arthur Denne Hilton, the fourth son of John 
 Hilton, the " Squire Parson " of Sarre Court, and 
 father of Arthur Clement Hilton, married, in 1849, 
 Mary, the second daughter of William Parker of 
 Hanthorpe House, Lincolnshire, High Sheriff for that 
 county in 1864. Of this marriage Arthur Clement 
 Hilton, the eldest child, was born on 1st March, 
 1 85 1, at Banbury in Oxfordshire. Mr. Hilton was 
 at that time curate at Banbury, and in the month 
 of October following the birth of his son Arthur he 
 was appointed by Bishop Blomfield to the benefice of 
 St. John's, Uxbridge Moor, which in 1904 he still 
 holds. 
 
 The parish of Uxbridge Moor, down to the year 
 1842, formed part of the parish of Hillingdon. In
 
 UXBRIDGE MOOR 5 
 
 that year it was detached, for ecclesiastical purposes, 
 from the mother parish, and entered upon a separate 
 existence, with a population of about iooo persons, 
 which in the space of some sixty years has doubled in 
 number. Half a century ago, when the present vicar 
 came to settle at Uxbridge Moor, the parish enjoyed 
 anything but a good reputation. It was, in fact, a 
 by-word for the rough and lawless ways of its in- 
 habitants. Situated on the western verge of Middle- 
 sex, and separated from Buckinghamshire only by the 
 narrow and shallow river Colne, which falls into the 
 Thames at Wragsbury (Wyrardisbury), it was a little 
 Alsatia for the lawless ; the re-backing of a warrant 
 by a Buckinghamshire magistrate, giving culprits a 
 convenient breathing time just when they wanted it, 
 in which to make themselves scarce. So lawless 
 were many of the dwellers at Uxbridge Moor in 
 those days, that it was not safe for any one to cross 
 the moor alone after dark, and even by day their 
 rough conduct was such that it was in contemplation 
 to erect a row of cottages where the vicarage now 
 stands, and provide the vicar with an extra-parochial 
 residence. But the new vicar did not hesitate to 
 take up his residence amongst those committed to 
 his charge, and, happily for the parish, the contem- 
 plated extra-parochial vicarage never came into being. 
 Faithful to his many duties through more than 
 half a century, Mr. Hilton has looked after the 
 interests of the parish not only ecclesiastically, but
 
 6 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 in a number of different ways — as member and 
 chairman of the Urban District Council, as member 
 and chairman of the Board of Guardians, of the 
 Assessment Committee, of the School Attendance 
 Committee, of the Joint Hospital Board, as Land 
 and Income Tax Commissioner, and so on — and 
 has given unflagging attention to every detail of the 
 manifold work and interests of the parish. Un- 
 sparing of his time and of his labour for the benefit 
 of the neighbourhood, and bringing a ripe judgment 
 and long experience to his many offices, the father 
 of Arthur Clement Hilton has, by his continuous 
 labours and useful life, become a real "father 
 amongst his people." 
 
 When Uxbridge Moor was separated in 1842 from 
 the mother parish of Hillingdon, the boundaries of 
 the daughter parish were deliberately laid down with 
 the intention of relieving the prosperous part of the 
 old parish of its rough and poor population. But 
 with the passage of time, better education, better 
 police, and a resident vicar's family, Uxbridge Moor 
 has greatly improved, though it still remains the 
 abode of the brick-maker, of the odd-job man, and of 
 an army of washerwomen, who pride themselves that 
 they are not as other washer-folk, for are they not the 
 washerwomen for " Downing Street," whose garments, 
 metaphorically washed now and again in many a 
 newspaper, are actually washed by the washerwomen 
 of Uxbridge Moor?
 
 UXBRIDGE MOOR 7 
 
 Though a mean little village in itself, owing to the 
 lack of a better-to-do class amongst its population, 
 Uxbridge Moor has really attractive country lying 
 round about it, and a short walk soon brings one into 
 pleasant surroundings and rural life. The vicarage, 
 a comfortable house, stands in a fairly spacious garden, 
 and on the further side of the high road which leads 
 past the church and the vicarage flows the little river 
 Colne, and beyond it the rich meadows of Bucking- 
 hamshire stretch away to the wooded Chiltern Hills. 
 
 Such were the surroundings of Arthur Hilton's 
 early life. Here he lived, the only boy of the family, 
 with four sisters younger than himself, the leader in 
 the little group of children. His father, in the midst 
 of p;jj:ish activities, yet found sufficient time to educate 
 his wile son without assistance, until the time came 
 for him to go to Marlborough. To his mother 
 also Hilton unquestionably owed much. A clever 
 and cultured lady, he learned from her, amongst 
 other things, the art of making out of cardboard 
 the most perfect little models of churches and old 
 manor houses faithfully coloured to represent the 
 originals. This led him to the study of architec- 
 ture, and in his father's well-stocked library he soon 
 made himself master of Parker's Glossary of Gothic 
 Architecture. The making of little architectural 
 models of surprising beauty and excellence led him 
 on to pen-and-ink drawings, most daintily and exqui- 
 sitely finished, and hardly larger in scale than the
 
 8 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 tail-pieces to Bewick's Book of Birds. The same 
 delicate pen which wrought these little sketches made 
 heraldic drawings with equal neatness and long pedi- 
 grees, written out with a regularity and minuteness 
 that would hold their own against the print of the 
 most diminutive of Pickering's duodecimo volumes. 
 
 As most boys do to whom the opportunity offers, 
 Arthur Hilton early took to butterfly-hunting in the 
 fields and country round about his home. By the 
 time he went to Marlborough he had his cabinets 
 already well filled, and he kept up his interest in this 
 pursuit for many years, constantly adding fresh speci- 
 mens throughout his subsequent school and college 
 life. His deft fingers and his methodical ways 
 enabled him to get together a cabinet so admir- 
 ably set and ordered, that when he parted with^t on 
 settling down to his curacy at Sandwich, he sold it 
 for quite a large sum. 
 
 There can be little doubt that where a boy has 
 sufficient natural industry to follow his own particular 
 bent, the somewhat desultory up-bringing of home life 
 tends more to develop latent power than the regulated 
 discipline of school life. Arthur Hilton, free till 
 thirteen years of age to follow his own bent at home, 
 profited by the comparative freedom he enjoyed as a 
 child, to read as he liked and to read much, to build 
 his diminutive houses and churches, to make his 
 pedigrees and sketches, to hunt butterflies, to spend 
 his money upon books of poetry and fairy tales, and
 
 UXBRIDGE MOOR 9 
 
 to drill his little sisters in the scenes and plays which 
 he so delighted in. Never robust, and always some- 
 what delicate, his busy mind seemed ever at work on 
 one pursuit or another, and from his earliest years he 
 was full of quips, insisting upon calling the " boots " 
 at the inn "shoes" when he went up in 1S64 to 
 Marlborough to try for an entrance scholarship. 
 
 Although absorbed in his various home pursuits, 
 he did not neglect his learning, and his father had the 
 satisfaction of seeing his little son's name marked 
 "proxime accessit" for an entrance scholarship, a good 
 proof that he had no lee-way to make up at school, 
 after the thirteen years of home life and home educa- 
 tion at Uxbridge Moor. This result spoke well for 
 both father and son, for as William Barnes, the 
 " Dorset poet," observed, after one of his pupils came 
 out at the top of the list in one of the examinations 
 for the Indian Civil Service, and anxious parents 
 deluged him with applications to teach their sons, " it 
 took two to do it."
 
 MARLBOROUGH. 
 
 1864-1869. 
 
 When Arthur Hilton went to Marlborough in August, 
 1864, he had, as has been mentioned, already gained 
 the distinction of a proxime accessit, which means, not 
 merely that he was " next best," but that the work he 
 had done in his scholarship examination fully justified 
 his holding a scholarship had there been an additional 
 one to give him. It should further be borne in mind, 
 that at that period, there were comparatively few 
 scholarships offered to boys entering Marlborough 
 College. The sons of clergymen were then taken at 
 a lower rate of payment than the sons of laymen, and 
 it was not until a later date that in lieu of a lower 
 charge seventy scholarships were provided for the 
 sons of clergymen. At the time Hilton competed, 
 these comparatively numerous scholarships had not 
 been created. 
 
 When Arthur Hilton entered the school in 1864, 
 Marlborough College had got over its early difficulties.
 
 MARLBOROUGH u 
 
 Mr. Bradley, the late Dean of Westminster, had suc- 
 ceeded in 1858, as third Head Master of the School, 
 Mr. Cotton, who had gone to the Bishopric of Cal- 
 cutta. Mr. Bradley possessed the special gift of 
 seeming to know a good deal about every boy, and 
 his influence throughout the school was immense, an 
 influence based on respect and affection, not untem- 
 pered with awe. Scholarships at the universities had 
 already begun to come thick and fast to Marlborough 
 boys, the new buildings were then nearly completed, 
 "house-feeling" was considerably developed, the early 
 pecuniary troubles of the school were nearly over, the 
 Marlburian (the school magazine) was on the eve of 
 being established (1865), the numbers of the school 
 were 450, shortly to rise to its fullest capacity of 500, 
 the railway was just opened into Marlborough (1864), 
 and the general tone of the school was exceptionally 
 high. 1 The school fare, always rather Spartan, was at 
 that time lacking in quality and quantity, which will 
 account for many petitions in Hilton's letters for well- 
 filled hampers from home. 
 
 Although only opened in 1843, Marlborough started 
 in one respect most happily. It stepped into the 
 splendid inheritance of the fine and spacious mansion 
 built by the Duke of Somerset in the reign of William 
 and Mary. Passing out of the family of the Duke of 
 Somerset in the middle of the eighteenth century, it 
 was converted in 1751 into the Castle Inn, and for 
 
 1 See History of Marlborough College, passim. Murray, 1893.
 
 12 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 the next ninety years the home of the Seymours did a 
 vast business as a house of call, and then the advent 
 of railways left it stranded without customers, like 
 many another ancient hostelry. With true instinct, 
 the founders of Marlborough secured it in 184c as the 
 local habitation of the new school. So vast was the 
 old mansion that, without any addition, it housed 
 over two hundred boys on the first day the school 
 was opened. No new foundation could have been 
 more fortunate, for there stood there not only the 
 ancient fabric, but within the domain, the old historic 
 Mound of Marlborough, stately gardens, terraced 
 walks, great yews wrought in the past into quaintly 
 clipped and fantastic shapes, velvety lawns, and lofty 
 trees with clanging rookeries. Beyond the precincts 
 of the school lay the little Wiltshire town, with its 
 broad main street, with gabled and pillared houses. 
 Away beyond the school grounds, above the green 
 valley of the winding Kennet, famous for its trout, 
 rose the soft green slope of White Horse Hill. Still 
 further afield spread the breezy open downs, free of 
 access and rich in plant and bird life, and the grand 
 old forest of Savernake, in which so many happy boys 
 have spent countless happy days. 
 
 How soothing sound the gentle airs that move 
 The innumerable leaves. 
 
 Within the gloom, 
 In partial sunshine white, some trunks appear 
 Studding the glens of fern : in solemn shade
 
 MARLBOROUGH 13 
 
 Some mingle their dark branches, but yet all, 
 All make a sad, sweet music, as they move ; 
 They seem to say, in accents audible : 
 Farewell to summer, and farewell the strains 
 Of many a blithe and feathered chorister, 
 That through the depth of these incumbent woods 
 Made the long summer gladsome. 
 
 Sad it is to say that those who selected so wisely, 
 built so badly, for the buildings which they added 
 to house the overflowing school — "A" house and 
 " B " house — are as unromantic in appearance as in 
 name. 
 
 Such was the school into which Arthur Hilton, 
 just turned thirteen years of age, was launched from 
 the quiet home life of the Vicarage of Uxbridge 
 Moor. For a young and delicate boy, this first 
 plunge into so large a school must have been a 
 trying ordeal, which he appears to have borne bravely. 
 Here for the next five years of his life he remained. 
 In those days there were not the three school terms 
 as now, which so much shorten the period of absence 
 from home. There were then but two halves, the 
 first beginning early in February and ending in 
 the middle of June ; the second beginning early 
 in August and ending just before Christmas. It 
 should be added that the fact of Hilton's being 
 proxime accessit in the scholarship examination, 
 enabled him to start at Marlborough in the satis- 
 factory position of an Upper School Boy.
 
 14 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 The following extracts from his school letters, all 
 of which are addressed to his mother, give a good 
 picture of a boy's life at a public school. The whole 
 of his boyish letters are uniformly well spelt and 
 neatly written : 
 
 wth September, 1864. 
 
 I find Herodotus rather difficult, but I get through it 
 somehow. The things that bother me most are the 
 Latin rules in the Grammar, and also that I can't write 
 quick enough, but I was speaking to a fellow to-day 
 who has been at Marlbro' some time, and he said that 
 he found the same difficulties when he first came here, 
 but after a time he got over them, so I suppose I shall. 
 I get on with the repetition. 
 
 I went to the Forest this morning with Bobby, and 
 tell Milly [Mildred, his third sister] I saw several 
 beautiful stags, with horns nearly as big as she is. I 
 stayed for Communion to-day with Hilliard. I should 
 think about 150 or 200 stayed. I find that I did not 
 bring back half enough grub, so I shall expect before 
 long a hamper containing two cakes, a pork pie, 6 pots 
 of jam, and a lot of those cheese-cayenne-pepper things 
 and sundry puffs, biscuits, pears, etc., etc. 
 
 Bobby, who is referred to many times in the 
 school letters, is Robert R. P. Hilton, now living 
 at Writtle in Essex, brother of John William Denne 
 Johnson, now of Sarre Court. 
 
 November, 1864. 
 
 I still get on very well with the fellows, and there 
 are some I like very much indeed, as, Godfrey, Dunstan,
 
 MARLBOROUGH 15 
 
 and Davies, who is a new fellow (at the quarter) and 
 in my dormitory. But although I am very jolly at 
 school, I look forward to the holidays more and more 
 every day. It is not so much the Christmas parties, as 
 the cosiness and comfort of home, the not getting 50 
 lines if you are late tea, or 500 if you miss call, the 
 being able to lie in bed until eight o'clock, instead of 
 being woke up at half-past six by that vile bell, and 
 then being all day with you and father and all the rest, 
 not forgetting dear little Ella [Eleanor, his fourth and 
 youngest sister], who must be getting quite a woman 
 now ; it is all this that makes me so long for the 20th of 
 December. 
 
 December, 1864. 
 
 There was a Fair here yesterday, and the Wild Beast 
 Show and the little fat girl both came : I went to the 
 former and saw the stuffed gorilla and the elephants 
 and all the rest, but I did not go to see the little fat girl. 
 
 I am actually third for the week, which far exceeds my 
 highest expectations. 
 
 The hamper was a very jolly one indeed ; the last pot 
 of jam was finished a day or two ago. Your visit, so far 
 from making me sad, seems to have made me able to do 
 my work better. I am beginning to think the holidays 
 very near now, and I can imagine so well coining home 
 at Christmas, and helping you to decorate the church, 
 and then all the skating, and the Christmas parties, etc. 
 
 Arthur Hilton on his first coming to .Marlborough 
 had been placed in the Upper Fourth, and on his 
 return to school after the Christmas holidays in
 
 16 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 February, 1865, he found to his delight that he had 
 been promoted from the Upper Fourth into the Shell. 
 
 i2//# February, 1865. 
 
 I have only time to write you a short letter, but I have 
 got good news. I have been promoted, and I have got 
 full for Lycidas, but I don't know how much for the other. 
 I was so astonished when Bradley read out the pro- 
 motions, but I am the last fellow promoted, so I must 
 expect to be very low in the Shell at first. 
 
 26//Z February, 1865. 
 I like Moule [his private tutor] very much, and I go to 
 him for an hour about three times a week. He gives me 
 some verses to do for him which I bring next time, and 
 then he corrects them, and jaws about them, and gives 
 us a corrected copy which we write in a book, and then he 
 construes an ode of Horace to us, so as to improve us in 
 that way as well as in verses. 
 
 Horace M. Moule, who was always beloved of boys, 
 and one of the most kindly and inspiring of masters, 
 is mentioned again later on. Mr. Charles W. Moule 
 (now the Vice-Master of Corpus Christi College, Cam- 
 bridge), a brother of Mr. Horace M. Moule, was also 
 a master at Marlborough at this time, and wrote this 
 year the Marlborough Carmen (on the lines of the 
 Winchester Duke Domum), now the established 
 patriotic anthem of the school. Mr. Charles W. 
 Moule left Marlborough at the end of this term, when
 
 MARLBOROUGH 17 
 
 his youngest brother, Mr. Handley C. G. Moule, now 
 Bishop of Durham, came in his place. 
 
 i2)id October, 1865. 
 
 I am promoted, to my great joy. I was fourth for 
 the quarter, and there were actually ten promoted. 
 
 When you send my box, will you please put in Dick 
 Diminy if you can find it in my bookshelf. I want to 
 know if I may have an egg for breakfast. I really seem 
 to want something in the morning besides bread and 
 butter, particularly as we have no supper. The way is 
 for you to write to Thomas [the Rev. J. S. Thomas, the 
 bursar] and say that you want me to have one, and 
 then we must go to Thomas and get him to sign a 
 leave, which we then give to the steward. Our dormi- 
 tory have agreed each to write home for is. to get an 
 alarm clock, as we have been very nearly late chapel 
 several times this half, and besides we often want to 
 wake early to learn Rep., etc. I hope the box will 
 come on Wednesday. I wish I had it to-day, for it is 
 so wet that there is nothing to do but sit over the fire ; 
 and then it is very nice to have a piece of cake or 
 something to eat. 
 
 It's very aristocratic being in the 5th. Prefects can- 
 not fag you, and you are allowed in your house 
 class-room as well as the form class-room. I shall like 
 to go to Sarre Court for a week, and I do not think 
 you will miss me much for that little time. 
 
 Steadily plodding along, Hilton thus got promo- 
 tion out of the Shell in the autumn of this year into 
 
 B
 
 18 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 the Lower Fifth, but he never really took to class- 
 work, the natural bent of his mind being rather for 
 poetry and general reading than for the routine of 
 school-work. We may here give a description of him 
 as a boy at Marlborough, written by a contemporary, 
 which appeared in the Marlburian of nth November, 
 1889 : " How well I remember him ! He was a little 
 fellow of delicate though not sickly organisation. He 
 seemed instinct with sensibility. He had soft light 
 brown curly hair, an oval face with neat and plastic 
 features, a smooth, white, and well-shaped forehead, 
 movable mouth, and brown eyes beaming with arch 
 and kindly humour. He had a singularly clear and 
 musical voice. His disposition was friendly. At 
 hall-dinner he had a gay and cheerful habit of pledg- 
 ing his friends at adjacent tables from his own place 
 at one of Sowerby's tables." 
 
 More letters of Arthur Hilton's, written in 1866, 
 have been by chance preserved than of those written 
 by him in any other year of his life. On the first 
 of March in this year he reached the age of fifteen. 
 His letters are immature of course, but they faith- 
 fully portray at first hand the daily round of school 
 life: 
 
 27 th May, 1866. 
 
 Thank you very much for the box. Tell Alice that 
 I have got for her a Greasy Fritillary, a Pearl-bordered 
 Fritillary, and a Grizzled Skipper, and I hope to be 
 able to get her some more besides, which she has not
 
 MARLBOROUGH 19 
 
 got. The other day Fenning and I were in the town 
 at 12 o'clock, when we heard the fire bell ring and 
 perceived a lot of imps rushing frantically about. We 
 asked what was up, and they told us that there was 
 a fire at Mildenhall, a village about a mile from 
 Marlborough. So we started off there as hard as we 
 could go, running through a forbidden part of the town, 
 by which we saved about half a mile, but we were too 
 excited to care about the risk of getting gated for three 
 days. However, there were no prefects about, and we 
 ran on, and got there almost as soon as the engines. 
 A cottage with a thatched roof was on fire and blazing 
 away furiously on one side. They saw it would not be 
 much use trying to save it, so they spread wet sheets on 
 the roof of the house on the other side of the road, 
 towards which the wind was blowing, and one of the 
 engines played up6n it, while the other tried to keep 
 down the flames from the burning house. We joined 
 in the line for passing buckets from a pump to the fire- 
 engine, and worked away most energetically. I got a 
 very little hole burnt in my cap by a piece of burning 
 stuff from the house, but we were not very close to it, 
 so we were out of any real danger. At last they pumped 
 the well dry, and then Fenning and I had to run back 
 to be in time for dinner. The people got everything 
 out of the house except the beds. I have not been to 
 the place since, but I believe no other house caught. 
 Tell father that next half I shall bring back my case of 
 foreign butterflies and moths to show at one of the 
 Natural History Society's meetings, as I want to be- 
 come a member, and the best way to get admitted is 
 to show things.
 
 20 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 The Reverend William Dunkin Fenning, after 
 leaving Marlborough, took a first class at Oxford 
 (University Coll.) in 1875, and since then has been 
 assistant master at Haileybury. He writes me in 
 reference to Hilton : " We always used to say that 
 our friendship began from a sense of the ridiculous. 
 A somewhat ludicrous elder boy, a connection of 
 mine, knew something of Hilton, and he solemnly 
 introduced us two brats to one another as if we had 
 been grown up. He meant it seriously, but the 
 absurdity of it struck us both, and the recollection 
 of it, and of each other's enjoyment of it, drew us 
 together." From this time onward Arthur Hilton and 
 W. D. Fenning maintained a close friendship to the 
 last. 
 
 iyf/1 June, 1866. 
 
 I am fagging my eyes out to get promoted, and I 
 expect I shall look more like a skeleton than anything 
 else when I come home. 
 
 If Alice has really got a Puss-moth, which she can 
 find out by comparing it with the one in the fifth drawer 
 of my cabinet, she had better get you to stuff" it with 
 cotton wool. I shall certainly bag it for my cabinet if 
 it is one, so I hope she has set it well. 
 
 I have got all the British butterflies now except 
 about a dozen, so I shall arrange them in their right 
 order, and leave spaces for those I have not got. At 
 present I have not got time to go out many butterfly 
 expeditions, because I have to fag so hard. The other 
 day Stainton, the great authority on entomological
 
 MARLBOROUGH 21 
 
 matters, came down here to help Preston arrange the 
 College cabinet. On Wednesday the Entomological 
 Section, of which I am a member, and which consists 
 of six or eight fellows, went to dinner with him in the 
 town. We had dinner at about 12.30, and then we went 
 out butterflying for the whole afternoon. 
 
 The other night I went to tea with Noggs [Mr. 
 Sowerby], and he gave me several butterflies which he 
 caught abroad last summer. Most of them are found 
 in England as well, and there are some of them I have 
 not got, but a great many are not set, and will want 
 steaming. I hope the camphor in my cabinet is all 
 right. 
 
 I shall leave Marlborough on Tuesday at 5.45 p.m., 
 and I shall expect to find you at the station. I can 
 already imagine myself stretching my head out of the 
 window as the train comes in, and trying to make you 
 out among the crowd. And then jumping out and 
 giving you such a jolly kiss. I hope you will have a 
 jolly hot dinner for Bobby and me when we come in, 
 as we shall be hungry enough, I expect, after twenty 
 weeks of privation. 
 
 The Rev. T. A. Preston was an assistant master, 
 who was president of the Natural History Society, 
 and had general charge of the College Museum. He 
 gave ungrudging help to boys, even setting their 
 small moths for them, though botany was his special 
 subject. Mr. John Sowerby, who is mentioned here 
 as "Noggs," was for many years a master at Marl- 
 borough, and greatly beloved by the boys. He is
 
 22 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 " the grey old ' Noggs,' loved, honoured, and revered " 
 of Hilton's lines, p. 123. 
 
 The statement that he was returning home "after 
 twenty weeks of privation," had a large substratum of 
 truth. There was in Hilton's time at Marlborough 
 only one meat meal in the whole day, that of dinner. 
 Breakfast at 8.15 a.m. and tea at 6.30 p.m. consisted 
 solely of bread and butter, the butter none too good, 
 with indifferent tea to wash it down, and occasionally 
 porridge for breakfast. For growing boys, hungry as 
 boys always are, this can hardly be regarded as 
 adequate, and most boys, being in receipt of no more 
 than sixpence or a shilling a week as pocket money, 
 were not in a pecuniary position to supplement 
 properly the meagre fare they had to subsist upon. 
 With work to do overnight after a frugal tea at 
 6.30 p.m., and with more work in the morning before 
 breakfast came at 8.15 a.m., there is little cause for 
 wonder that the cry constantly goes up for hampers 
 of provisions. This frugal fare led to hampers be- 
 coming a recognised institution. They were not in 
 the nature of superfluous luxuries, but essential to 
 the due sustenance of the boys, and part of their 
 necessary school outfit. 
 
 This brings us to the end of Arthur Hilton's first 
 two years of school life. He had the satisfaction 
 of ending up the half by taking home a prize for 
 English Composition, for which, true to his love for 
 poetry, he chose some volumes of Tennyson's poems.
 
 MARLBOROUGH 23 
 
 From this time forward his dramatic talent and literary 
 cleverness begin to be recognised, and the awakening 
 of the masters to his genius in this direction makes 
 school life much more pleasant for him as he 
 develops his powers. He spends a part of this 
 summer's holidays, as he generally did, at Hanthorpe, 
 his grandfather's place in Lincolnshire ; and on 
 returning to school in August, he learns to his dis- 
 gust that through the promotion of all the boys 
 above him he is left the top boy in his Form. His 
 irritation at the Head Master's having overlooked 
 his merits is natural enough : 
 
 19/// August, 1866. 
 
 Imagine my disgust when Bradley gave out yesterday 
 that promotions into the Middle Fifth were made down 
 to Smyth. Consequently, I am left top, which is one 
 of the most mortifying positions that a fellow can pos- 
 sibly be in. Moule says he is very sorry he raised up 
 any false hopes in me, but tries to console me by 
 assuring me that there will be large promotions at the 
 quarter. If I don't get out of this wretched form then 
 I shall go mad. I am awfully disgusted at not being 
 promoted. Moule has promised to take me again for 
 private tuition. I believe that the Lower Fifth is the 
 most stick-in-the-mud form in the school. 
 
 At the half term he got the promotion he was so 
 distressed at missing when the term commenced. 
 Moreover, he was shortly to be selected, to his infinite 
 delight, to act the part of "William Page" in the
 
 24 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, which some of the masters 
 were getting up amongst themselves, to act before 
 the school. The part, though a small one, was made 
 the most of by Arthur Hilton, who was in every way 
 qualified to do justice to it. This beginning, though 
 small, established his position in the school, and 
 enabled him to feel his feet amongst his school- 
 fellows, on ground which was peculiarly his own. 
 
 8/// October, 1866. 
 
 To-night some of the masters are going to act The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor in Hall. There is one 
 character, William Page, who only appears once, and 
 then for a very short time ; they did not quite know 
 who to choose for this, so Moule suggested me, as I 
 read pretty well at his Shakespeare Readings, and I was 
 asked whether I should like it. I accepted the offer, as 
 I have only a few words to say, and I shall, therefore, 
 appear on the stage, before the whole school, in the 
 character of William Page. I am going to wear a sort 
 of short riding-habit, coming down a little below the 
 knees, and red stockings, and white bands. I am awfully 
 excited about it, particularly as I have kept it quite secret 
 from every one except from Fenning, who has had to 
 hear me my part pretty often, as you may suppose. Five 
 fellows are also going to act in a farce called The 
 White-bait Dinner, which will precede the other. There 
 is going to be a dress rehearsal at five o'clock, so I 
 shall not go into school this afternoon. The quarter is 
 next Saturday, and then the holidays will soon be here. 
 The time for my rehearsal draws nigh, so no more now.
 
 MARLBOROUGH 25 
 
 2&th October, 1866. 
 
 My new master is Thompson, or, as he is commonly 
 called, Jick. I like him very much indeed, but he makes 
 us work terrifically hard, and gives us an immense lot of 
 things to do out of school. He is very amusing indeed 
 in form, and gets awfully excited sometimes. I am doing 
 as well as can be expected, I think, and he is always 
 very jolly to me ; in fact, since the theatricals, a great 
 many masters seem to have taken a fancy to me, which 
 I do not at all object to. 
 
 Fenning and I, and a friend of his named Vernon, 
 have such jolly little feeds in Fenning's study. Moreover, 
 we have a brew, i.e. coffee, about three times a day, 
 besides our regular grubs. 
 
 The study is six foot square and contains a small table 
 with a drawer, three chairs, two of them armchairs, a 
 cupboard, two bookshelves, and a sort of flap like the 
 leaf of a table, which lifts up, and does for grubbing on. 
 If you have any pretty little knick-knacks to spare, such 
 as brackets, statuettes, pictures, ornaments, etc., you 
 might send them. 
 
 Bobby and I have some very nice plans for the 
 Christmas holidays. The theatrical mania is strong 
 upon us again, and we intend to go up to London some 
 day, see the afternoon pantomime at some theatre, sleep 
 at the Prices or somewhere, and next day make purchases 
 at Hoxton for the li New Theatre Royal, Uxbridge 
 Moor," whose funds are, I hope, on the increase. 
 
 I got an exceedingly bad shin at football the other 
 day, which has made me rather lame. There has only 
 been one accident as yet, and that was not a serious 
 one.
 
 26 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 We must have a jolly Christmas party this year, all 
 the elite of the neighbourhood, recherche supper, carriages 
 ordered at half past two, etc., etc. 
 
 I wish I could get another copy for prose or verse 
 or something this half. I have got two and a half, and 
 I should like to have a third put down to my name 
 in the blue book, but we have such hard composition in 
 the Middle Fifth, that I am afraid there is not much 
 chance of it. 
 
 3rd November, 1866. 
 
 Mr. Gibbons came down here on Friday to see about 
 a house for Tommy, who is coming after midsummer. 
 He had me and two other fellows down to tea at the 
 Aylesbury, and tipped us each half a crown. We are 
 going to have a jolly sausage feast in our set of studies 
 some day next week. There are twelve of us altogether, 
 and we shall have about half a dozen each with lots 
 of potatoes, and bread and jam to wind up. We shall 
 have about eight coffee pots boiling, so we shall have 
 plenty to wash it down with. I expect the subscription 
 will be is. 6d. or 2S. each. 
 
 We must have a jolly party this year to celebrate my 
 birthday, which, I think, had better fall on the 1st of 
 January instead of the 1st of March. It is horrid always 
 being at school on one's birthday, although you send me 
 heaps of jolly presents. 
 
 12th December, 1866. 
 
 I am afraid there is not much news to tell you. In 
 
 the first place I beg to contradict a statement which 
 
 appeared in your last letter to the effect that " The 
 
 Theatre Royal, Uxbridge Moor," would not be opened
 
 MARLBOROUGH 27 
 
 to the public until a late period. I can assure you that a 
 play is in course of production from the skilful pen of that 
 talented dramatic composer, A. C. Hilton, which will 
 eclipse all previous efforts. 
 
 12th December, 1866. 
 
 We have just had a frantic French paper, which I 
 enclose for father's and Miss Rippon's inspection, hoping 
 it will stump them both. 
 
 The " sore throat " was only an excuse for the rapid 
 consumption of the Damson cheeses, which you told me 
 were to be used only as medicine. 
 
 yd June, 1867. 
 
 I and three other fellows managed to get a dogcart on 
 Thursday, but we had the most awful animal that ever 
 existed. It did not mind being whipped the least, and 
 hardly went out of a walk the whole way. We went 
 to Bowood, the Marquis of Lansdowne's place, which is 
 about fourteen miles from here. We were shown over 
 the hothouses, where there were the most delicious ripe 
 strawberries, grapes, peaches, and nectarines, which of 
 course we were not allowed to touch, much as we 
 hankered. We were most awfully fleeced at the inn, 
 where we dined, but we enjoyed ourselves immensely. 
 I picked up a small antler in the park, which I don't 
 mind giving to Alice in exchange for the eyed hawks, 
 which are much too good for her. Tell her that I yearn 
 for them and hope she has set them well. I have got a 
 lot of caterpillars, but I have not caught many butterflies 
 because of the weather, and because I have had to work 
 so hard.
 
 28 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 To-morrow and the next day are the days of the 
 Cheltenham match, the grand match of the year, and 
 the school is in a fever of excitement. In the evening 
 there will be theatricals, in which I am going to take 
 part. I am to act the part of "Julia" in a farce called 
 Ici on parte Francais. I wear a skirt and Garibaldi 
 of black silk, and a white cloth or merino sort of shawl, 
 with a black lace border, which are the property of Mrs. 
 Bright. I have had a bonnet made for me, an awfully 
 small white thing with flowers and cherry-coloured 
 ribbons. I am the wife of Major Regulus Rattan, 
 who is represented by Bolland, the head prefect. There 
 is also a play composed by the masters, the plot of which 
 is taken from Thackeray's fairy tale, The Rose and the 
 Ring. I remember having seen the book a long time 
 ago. It is a capital story. I might have taken a 
 character in that too, but so much to learn would 
 have interfered with my work. I get up at six every 
 morning now and go and work with Moule. I am 
 working ferociously. You told me in your last letter 
 not to sit up too late or turn out too early, but I 
 must do that to a certain extent, or else I should have 
 no time for exercise. 
 
 Hilton was now sixteen years of age, and the last 
 letter shows us that he had established his reputation 
 in the school as a capital actor, and that he was on 
 excellent terms with the various masters. It is 
 evident from his translation of an ode of Horace, 
 Carm. II., 18, that he already possessed the power of 
 rendering into spirited English a highly polished
 
 MARLBOROUGH 29 
 
 Latin lyric. It is sufficient to quote but one stanza, 
 This translation is dated August, 1867 : 
 
 nee potentem amicum 
 Largiora flagito, 
 
 Satis beatus unicis Sabinis, 
 Truditur dies die, 
 
 Novaeque pergunt interire Lunae. 
 
 What care I for kingly treasure? 
 
 O'er my Sabine farm I reign, 
 While the days roll out their measure, 
 
 While the pale moons wax and wane. 
 
 Never at the best of times physically strong, Hilton 
 had a nasty accident a month after his return to 
 school in August, from a broken jam pot carelessly 
 thrown by another boy striking him a severe blow on 
 the back of the head. This accident laid him up 
 for a considerable while, and its bad effect lasted for 
 quite a year, giving him headaches now and again, 
 considerably lessening his power of work, and for 
 a time more or less affecting his memory. 
 
 26th September, 1867. 
 
 Fenning is prefect now, which is convenient for me, 
 as he can take me into the master's garden, and up 
 to the Mound, and to various other places out of 
 bounds. 
 
 Last Tuesday I was hit on the head by a flying 
 jam pot which was being carelessly shied away. It 
 was quite dark, so I did not see it coming. On.
 
 3 o LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 Wednesday I came to the sick room, where I remained 
 until Sunday. I felt all right then, and went out, 
 but on Monday my head ached very badly, and I 
 had to come in again. I am afraid I have lost a 
 great deal of form work during this week, and I shall 
 not be able to work hard on first coming out for 
 fear of making my head bad again. 
 
 He suffered so much from this accident that it 
 became necessary for him to go home on sick leave 
 for the month of October, returning to school again 
 on 8th November. 
 
 \oth November, 1867. 
 
 I arrived all right on Friday evening, and soon 
 forgot my sorrows in a nice little supper at the 
 "Castle and Ball" with Hilliard. I took Flux out for 
 a walk to-day ; he is only eleven years old, and very 
 small. He says he is very happy, but I think he is 
 rather small for a public school. I was very glad to 
 get your letter this morning, and hear that you were 
 feeling festive again. As for me, I always feel jolly 
 when I meet such heaps of fellows I know, and talk 
 over all the usual school topics. 
 
 Arthur Hilton spent his Christmas holidays at 
 Uxbridge Moor. He was sufficiently well in health 
 to get up an entertainment in the village schoolroom 
 for the amusement of the parishioners. 
 
 The chief piece was Princess Bright Eyes (by 
 Sidney Daryl), in which he took the leading part, and 
 seemed none the worse for his efforts.
 
 MARLBOROUGH 31 
 
 \bth February, 1868. 
 
 I did not fall in with any particular friend till I 
 got to the College, and, as it was then rather late, 
 I did not visit the "Castle and Ball" till the follow- 
 ing morning, when I breakfasted there with Fenning, 
 Vernon, and Smith. I hope my next meal there will 
 be with you soon after Easter. Fenning is most 
 likely going to have a better study, a separate one, 
 not a horsebox, which will be much quieter and 
 nicer. I saw an ancient British millstone in a shop 
 the other day. It was about a foot and a half broad, 
 with a hole in the middle, but it was broken into 
 three pieces. It was found on the Downs by a 
 labourer, and I thought he might be willing to part 
 with it, so I sought him out, but he wanted 10s. for 
 it, so we did not agree. 
 
 Tell Edith I will answer her letter when I have 
 found out how high I can jump. The new gymnasium 
 is awfully jolly. There is a tremendous high swing, 
 about three times the height of ours, which is very 
 delightful to swing in. There is a man [Serjeant 
 Adams] who instructs us in various exercises. I forget 
 whether I told you in my last letter that there is an 
 exhibition of models in the town now. They are of 
 castles and abbeys, and there is a splendid one of 
 Windsor Castle. Some are done in cork, and some in 
 cardboard. 
 
 I have no good news for you about my place in 
 form. Thompson tells me that he has no complaint 
 to make of my work with him, but that I get shockingly 
 low marks for mathematics. I am aware that I do 
 get awfully bad marks for this subject, but I really
 
 32 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 do not believe I can get any more. I seem to dis- 
 like mathematics more and more every half year, and 
 in consequence get fewer and fewer marks. The other 
 day I got a half copy for English verse, which is a 
 satisfactory but not very profitable success. I think I 
 have only once missed getting a whole or half copy for 
 English verse whenever I have had it to do. 
 
 This last letter of Hilton's sets out his class troubles 
 very clearly. He had an unusual grasp of English 
 literature for a boy of his years. In classical work he 
 was above the average, but mathematics were un- 
 congenial to him and kept him back badly in his 
 schoolwork. Of course at this period we have to 
 take into account not only his want of robustness 
 of constitution, but the added check to active brain 
 work resulting from the blow on his head in the 
 previous September, from which he only wholly 
 recovered about the time of his leaving Marlborough 
 in the summer of 1869. But even apart from this, 
 he was evidently much disappointed at times about his 
 progress in class, feeling that he ranked in the school 
 list below other boys who were not in any way 
 intellectually his equals. Many boys at school, who 
 have a considerable knowledge of English literature 
 and a real taste for classics, but no turn for mathe- 
 matics, have found their position, as he did, a galling 
 one. For they are too often outstripped by others 
 who, from possessing mathematical power, are enabled 
 to get an easy grip of the formal grammatical rules
 
 MARLBOROUGH 33 
 
 of language, which carries them along without a spark 
 of real literary delicacy or touch, or any but the very 
 narrowest knowledge of good literature. Thus boys 
 of essentially mediocre attainments are able to get 
 ahead of those who are endowed with intellectual 
 powers of a quite different and superior character. 
 Euclid and arithmetic were not distasteful to Hilton, 
 but he could not grapple with algebra and the higher 
 mathematics. 
 
 From his worries over his lack of mathematical 
 understanding, he took refuge in his beloved poets, 
 and at the time he wrote the last letter expressing 
 his growing dislike of mathematics, he penned the 
 following graceful little transcript from Beranger : — 
 
 From Beranger. 
 
 " To Paris, young shepherd, to Paris ! " you cried, 
 " Consult your own wishes and come. 
 
 With riches around you and friends at your side 
 You will soon cease to think of your home." 
 
 And now like a spring flower, pining for rain, 
 Behold me changed, wearied, and worn, 
 
 How I long to return to my village again, 
 To the mountain hut where I was born ! 
 
 My passion is cooled and my blood courses slow, 
 
 I join in your revels with pain, 
 The dance and the song have no charms for me now, 
 
 I long for my old life again. 
 
 c
 
 34 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 In vain by the influence of learning and art 
 Have my manners more polished become, 
 
 The old village Sundays remain in my heart, 
 And the rural delights of my home. 
 
 In April of this term Arthur Hilton was laid up 
 with a heavy feverish cold and spent some days in 
 the Sanatorium. While he was there, Hawkins, the 
 school barber, came round to trim the boys' hair, 
 and Hilton, getting a closer cropping than he ap- 
 proved of, gave vent to his displeasure in the following 
 lines : 
 
 Tis the voice of old Hawkins, I hear him declare 
 " Hif there's hany young gent with superfluous 'air, 
 Let 'im put on 'is blanket, and sit hup in bed, 
 Hand I won't leave a 'air an hinch long on 'is 
 'ead." 
 
 At the same time he wrote the following, which 
 he headed " A Sanatorium Maxim " : 
 
 Eat what they give you, 
 
 Drink what you're bid, 
 Don't make a noise, 
 
 And you'll never be chid. 
 
 17//1 May, 1868. 
 
 I and a friend of mine called Swindells have been 
 having great fun lately with a velocipede. We casually 
 heard of the existence of one in an obscure part of the 
 town, and immediately went to inquire about it. It is
 
 MARLBOROUGH 35 
 
 one of the new " Bicycles," that is to say it has only 
 two wheels, one before the other, so that it will not 
 stand up by itself, unless it is running. I suppose it goes 
 on the same sort of principle as a hoop. We tried it 
 first in the street outside the shop, but an immense 
 crowd of imps collected, so we had to shut up. We 
 then made an appointment with a man to bring the 
 machine up into the Forest at a certain time, and meet 
 us there. So accordingly at the appointed time we 
 rushed up into the Forest and had an hour's practice 
 with the bicycle. As you may imagine, it is very tick- 
 lish work, but when the thing goes over on one side 
 you only have to stick your leg out, and that saves you 
 from going right down, so that there is no danger while 
 you are learning. We have only had two hours' practice 
 yet, and we have not the advantage of instruction, as 
 there is no one in Marlborough who can ride it, and, 
 as we have to pay is. an hour, and pay the man besides 
 for bringing the thing up, and helping us, it comes rather 
 expensive. Still it is a very wholesome and proper 
 way of spending money. No one else in the school 
 but ourselves knows of the existence of the thing, and 
 we hope to keep it dark till we can ride it, and then 
 come out and astonish the natives. At present we have 
 not succeeded in going more than 10 yards by ourselves, 
 but it is a great thing to be able to hang on at all. 
 
 The description Hilton gives in this letter of 
 his struggles with the newly-invented bicycle is in- 
 teresting, now that bicycles have come to olay so 
 important a part in daily life. It shows that he 
 and his friend Swindells were the first boys at
 
 36 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 Marlborough to learn the art of riding the new vehicle. 
 That he became an expert rider is evident from the 
 fact that in the ensuing summer holidays he rode 
 on a bicycle the whole way from his grandfather's 
 at Hanthorpe in Lincolnshire to Uxbridge Moor in 
 one day, a distance of seventy miles, no small effort 
 on a heavy rattling machine before the days of pneu- 
 matic tyres. 
 
 For the second school half in 1868 none of his 
 letters have been preserved. This school half is a 
 period marked by distinct development of his literary 
 power. His lines (p. 123) addressed to Mr. John 
 Sowerby, his house master, and The Battle of 
 Herrings (p. 128), show that the power of expres- 
 sion in verse was beginning to come readily to him. 
 During this term also he writes in the Marlburian 
 under the heading " Our Marlborough Friends," and 
 signed "Arcades Ambo." The "Arcades Ambo " 
 were Arthur Hilton and his friend Edward Noel 
 Smith. They wrote descriptions of different school 
 characters. The following sketch was written by 
 Arthur Hilton, 7 th October, 1868. 
 
 The Friend we knozv at Home. 
 
 " The Friend we know at home " is a small and 
 much-enduring individual, our acquaintance with 
 whom (we own it with shame), is not so intimate 
 as it ought to be. It was due, in the first instance,
 
 MARLBOROUGH 37 
 
 to an ancient but slight intimacy between our re- 
 spective grandfathers. Shortly before the end of 
 the holidays we received a touching epistle from 
 our little friend's maternal Aunt, wherein she en- 
 quired affectionately, but vaguely, after the welfare 
 of the members of our family. She informed us that 
 her nephew was not like other boys, that he wanted 
 particular attention, and although he had an abun- 
 dant but latent fund of talent, yet he could not 
 amuse nor take care of himself. Would we make 
 good the deficiency ? Our numerous occupations at 
 the end of the holidays prevented us from replying 
 to her missive, but about a week after we had re- 
 turned, remembering our shortcomings, we sought 
 out our little friend and found him munching the 
 last fragment of his cake under the arches. Having 
 charged him with a polite message to his Aunt, we 
 enquired what house he was in, and the name of 
 his form master, questions which he answered with 
 characteristic diffidence. This effected, we prided 
 ourselves on having done all in our power to make 
 him comfortable that could be expected. Since that 
 meeting, we have honoured our little friend with 
 an occasional nod, and have again asked him his 
 house and form, attentions which we have had 
 abundant opportunities of paying, inasmuch as the 
 youth appears to haunt us wherever we go ; when 
 we come out of hall we are sure to squash him un- 
 mercifully, but accidentally, against the door ; he 
 
 324856
 
 38 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 stumbles against us as we enter the half open portal 
 of the Upper School, and we elbow him at the 
 hospitable and crowded stall of Foster. Our attach- 
 ment to our friend is limited (like the length of his 
 trousers), because his person evinces a philosophical 
 contempt for the amenities of brushed hair and the 
 aid of his clothes-brush. 
 
 A new fellow this half, he has not played cricket 
 yet, being ignorant of the method whereby he can 
 get himself included in the game. He has a dim 
 idea of there being a forest near Marlborough, but 
 as yet he has not been able to get so far. Hear- 
 ing some big fellows the other day announcing their 
 intention of going to the Wilderness, he dogged them 
 till they descended some steps and entered a most 
 civilised and highly cultivated garden, where, perceiv- 
 ing no signs of a wild and primeval desert such as he 
 had expected, he left them and returned to the 
 arches, his favourite resort. His afternoons are 
 generally spent in the novel and exciting pursuit of 
 walking on the Bath Road, a route the advantage 
 of which is obvious, viz., that he does not stand 
 much chance of losing himself thereon. Two or 
 three half holidays, however, he has profitably 
 employed, reposing in a humid corner of the eleven, 
 and keeping the score in his note-book. Our friend 
 still feels the effects of his exertions in signing 
 twenty-five vouchers for books immediately on his 
 arrival here.
 
 MARLBOROUGH 39 
 
 Keen observers of human nature will detect a 
 hungry, pining expression on the features of our 
 young friend, the whole of whose money, even to 
 the uttermost farthing, was swallowed up by insatiable 
 school subscriptions, blandly demanded in accents 
 that will not be denied. 
 
 His house master has kindly had him to tea, but 
 our friend, it appears, did not understand that civi- 
 lisation requires little boys to appear at the hospi- 
 table board with smooth hair and cleanly visage and 
 hands. Rumour says, besides the above, that our 
 protege shows no aptitude for either A, B, or C 
 rules, and his normal position is at the wrong end 
 of his form. It is needless to say that on the 
 receipt of this horrifying report we felt ourselves 
 bound, henceforth, to discontinue all communications 
 with the " Friend we know at home." 
 
 Hilton spent his Christmas holidays as usual at 
 
 Uxbridge Moor, and early in January he organised 
 
 with great success an evening entertainment in the 
 
 village school-room, the chief feature of it being the 
 
 little play of Abon Hassan the Wag (by Sidney 
 
 Daryl), in which he took the part of Abon. He 
 
 returned to Marlborough early in February, 1869, 
 
 for his last school half. Falling behind with letters 
 
 home he writes : 
 
 14M March, 1869. 
 
 I expect you have been using shocking language about 
 me, and indeed my conduct has been rather scandalous
 
 4 o LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 in not writing for so long. However, I am very glad 
 that you did not write a letter in a great fright to find 
 out whether I had got the measles or been flogged, or 
 any similar catastrophe had happened. I am happy to 
 say I am all right and flourishing. 
 
 I went a long walk yesterday by way of getting fresh 
 air and preventing the infection of the measles. Several 
 fellows have got them this half, and as I have had 
 them twice, I suppose I am quite likely to have them 
 again. 
 
 Boz Smith sent me a very nice edition of Tom 
 
 Brown the other day for a birthday present. I miss 
 
 him awfully, but still I always pick up friends enough 
 
 somewhere. 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 "Boz" Smith was his great friend (Edward Noel 
 Smith), who had left at Christmas to go up to 
 Trinity College, Oxford. He inherited the sobriquet 
 of " Boz " from his elder brother, Reginald Bosworth 
 Smith, head prefect when Dr. Bradley entered upon 
 office as head master, subsequently for many years a 
 master at Harrow, and widely known as the biographer 
 of Lord Lawrence. For the last twenty years Edward 
 Noel Smith has had charge of and done excellent 
 service as head of the Tottenham Mission, founded 
 and supported by Marlburians new and old. Although 
 Hilton and his old school friend went to different 
 universities, their friendship was kept warm by the 
 frequent interchange of visits and letters until the 
 close of Arthur Hilton's life.
 
 MARLBOROUGH 41 
 
 i%th April, 1869. 
 
 A few days ago I went a splendid walk to a place 
 about nine miles from here, getting leave to be absent 
 from two till half-past eight. We came back quite in 
 the cool of the evening, which was very jolly. The 
 place we went to is called Liddington Castle, and is an 
 old Saxon camp with great earthen ramparts on the 
 top of a tremendously high hill. I took the telescope 
 which I got out of Edith, but there was such a tremen- 
 dous wind that we could not hold it steady, so it was not 
 much use. Then we went down into a village at the 
 foot of the hill, and went to the clergyman's house to 
 get the keys of the church, hoping that he would per- 
 haps give us some refreshment, but he was not at home. 
 We saw through the telescope a curious looking church 
 at the next village with a tower at the west end and a 
 spire in the middle, but we had not time to go to it. 
 I find a little knowledge of architecture gives one's 
 walks a good deal more interest than they would other- 
 wise have. It is a very rare thing to find anyone who 
 knows even the rudiments of architecture, and I may 
 safely say that if there was an architecture prize offered 
 for the school I should easily get it. 
 
 A fellow out of our dormitory ran away the other day. 
 He was an Irish fellow about seventeen years old, and 
 I think rather cracked. He used to talk politics to us 
 in dormitory, and rave about the Irish Church till he 
 sent us all to sleep. No one knows why he ran away, 
 but it is supposed that he had fallen into a despondent 
 state of mind because he did not get on with his Form 
 Master.
 
 42 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 30//Z May, 1869. 
 
 I hope you were pleased to hear of my great success 
 yesterday. I expect I was more surprised than you 
 were, as I know you had a sort of hope I should get 
 the prize. I had almost given up all thought of it. 
 The more I read over my poem the more firmly I 
 became convinced that it would never even be honour- 
 ably mentioned. I even made a bet with another fellow 
 that I should not get it, while he betted me that he 
 would not get the Geography prize. He thought I had 
 a very good chance of my prize, and I thought he was 
 quite safe of his, but I lost both bets. There were more 
 competitors than I at first supposed, but some of them 
 did not tell any one that they were going in. Tennyson, 
 the son of the Poet Laureate, ran me very close, I 
 believe. I would rather win that prize than any other 
 the school can offer. It is thought a great deal of, and 
 I am overwhelmed with congratulations on every side. 
 I expect I shall have to spout it to the assembled multi- 
 tudes on Prize Day, but I do not much like the idea, 
 being of a shy and modest disposition. I shall likewise 
 have the honour of having my name painted up on a 
 big board as the winner of the Plater Prize for the year 
 1869, besides getting some very handsome books. I 
 only hope they will give me some poetical books, and 
 not a great history, or anything of that sort. 
 
 The winning of the " Plater Prize " for the English 
 poem was a very happy ending to Hilton's school 
 life. Hallam Tennyson, to whom he refers as run- 
 ning him close, won it the succeeding year. He is
 
 MARLBOROUGH 43 
 
 now the second Lord Tennyson, lately Governor- 
 General of Australasia. " Westminster Abbey " was 
 the subject of Hilton's prize poem. It shows con- 
 siderable command of language and dexterity of 
 versification, above the usual run of such composi- 
 tions. The good news of his winning the Plater 
 Prize he sends home on Saturday, 29th May, and 
 the coming week was that of the Cheltenham match, 
 played this year at Marlborough. As usual at that 
 period at Marlborough, there was acting in the even- 
 ing after the match, and Hilton took an important 
 share in it. A contemporary of his, writing in the 
 Marlburian (9th May, 1877), thus describes the two 
 parts played by Hilton, which in each case was that 
 of a servant girl : 
 
 " What an actor he was ! On the evening of the 
 Cheltenham match, 1st June, 1S69, (which, by the way, 
 we won in an innings), two plays were acted in hall, 
 Deaf as a Post and Helping Hands. Hilton was a 
 servant girl in both — Sally Maggs in one, and 'Tilda 
 in the other. It is interesting to turn back to the 
 dramatis personae of that evening. The protagonist 
 was Hawes Turner ; M. H. Gould (cut non notus ?) ; 
 Hallam Tennyson ; Francis J. H. Jenkinson [now 
 Librarian to the University of Cambridge] ; W. Good- 
 child, author of many witty jeux d'esprit; and J. W. 
 Baines, most unflagging and roystering of light 
 comedians, who can doff his barrister's wig and still 
 keep the house in a roar. Many of these had talent :
 
 44 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 Turner, born an artist, played like an artist. But 
 Hilton had a touch of genius. Baines was William 
 Rufus alias Shockey, who is perfect, bragging of his 
 exploits and peccadilloes to his faithful 'Tilda. I 
 turn to the account that I then wrote, and find this : 
 ' Of 'Tilda and Shockey we must speak with un- 
 qualified praise.' And of Hilton as 'Tilda : ' His (I 
 can't tell how I wrote "his" and not "her") " O, 
 Shockey ! " summing up 'Tilda's intense faith in 
 William Rufus, delivered in a most telling treble, 
 when other language failed her, was quite a touch 
 of nature.' Yes, that ' O, Shockey ! ' of Hilton's 
 vibrates in my memory now." 
 
 Thus ends Hilton's five years at Marlborough. 
 To quote once more from the Marlburian : " He 
 was not one of those who derive their popularity in 
 the school world from their athletic prowess, nor did 
 he attain a very exalted position in work ; but he 
 was the possessor of an unfailing good humour, and 
 ever-ready wit, and a joyous geniality of tempera- 
 ment, which endeared him to all to whom he was 
 known." We have followed him briefly through his 
 school life, and seen how, in spite of his success 
 amongst his school fellows as an actor, and in spite 
 of his love of art, of architecture, of archaeology, of 
 reading, of poetry, and his ready wit, all of which 
 helped to fashion a really cultured mind, he yet left 
 Marlborough at the age of eighteen not higher in the 
 school than the Upper Fifth.
 
 MARLBOROUGH 45 
 
 It is something perhaps of a consolation that the 
 Marlburian, speaking of him some years later, seems 
 then to have an uneasy feeling that Hilton could not 
 himself be wholly responsible for failing to reach a 
 higher position in the school. Referring to his being 
 placed on his arrival in the Upper Fourth and leaving 
 the school no higher than he did, the Marlburian 
 observes with some contrition : " ' Nostra maxima 
 culpa ' {Nostra plural, not singular), for, as the Poet 
 Laureate once told us here, 'Schoolmasters never 
 see genius.' "
 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 1869 — 1872. 
 
 Arthur Hilton went up to St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, at the beginning of the October term, 
 1869. Cambridge was somewhat different then from 
 what it is to-day. At that time the railway station 
 stood almost out of the town, but since then houses 
 have sprung up fast in the neighbourhood of the 
 station, and even right away north of it to Mid- 
 summer Common. Parker's piece was very ill kept, 
 and the dreariness given to it by neglect was 
 intensified by the severe-looking prison which took 
 up the main part of the western side. But the 
 prison is now no more, and has made way for cheer- 
 ful-looking houses, which look out upon a well-kept 
 sward. 
 
 To the south and west, Cambridge has altered in an 
 even greater degree since the early 'seventies. Then 
 there were no houses southward on the Trumping- 
 ton Road beyond the Leys on the one side and
 
 CAMBRIDGE 47 
 
 the Botanic Gardens on the other. To the west of 
 Cambridge, beyond the College Backs, lay practically 
 open country, but since then Selwyn College, Ridley 
 Hall, and Newnham College, and numbers of resi- 
 dential houses, have been built in this direction, 
 happily too far afield to be detrimental to the beauty 
 of the long sweep of grandly-timbered college lawns 
 and river gardens from Queen's to St. John's, known 
 as the Backs. 
 
 The main thoroughfare of what may be termed 
 the collegiate portion of Cambridge, stretching from 
 Hobson's Conduit past the Fitzwilliam Museum, 
 with its imposing classic facade, Pembroke, Peter- 
 house, St. Catherine's, and Corpus, to the fine open 
 space of King's Parade, with its noble group of 
 University buildings, past Caius College, the new 
 buildings of which were then just completed, past the 
 grand Tudor Gateway, which marks the entrance to 
 Trinity College, only exceeded in beauty by the great 
 Gateway of St. John's itself, which stands a little 
 further on, all in effect remains the same as it was 
 when Hilton entered at St. John's College, save that 
 just opposite the great gate of St. John's a num- 
 ber of insignificant old-world houses have given 
 place to the University Divinity Schools. 
 
 Entering the grand red brick gateway of St. John's 
 College, mellow with age, richly decorated with the 
 arms of Lady Margaret Beaufort, with the Beaufort 
 antelopes as supporters, and with the daisy as her
 
 48 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 emblem freely introduced, we pass through three 
 courts and then over the bridge into the New 
 Court, where Arthur Hilton took up his abode at 
 the beginning of the Michaelmas term of 1870. In 
 the first court is the fine old dining hall, and the College 
 Chapel finished just before he went to Cambridge. 
 At a distance, especially from the river, the tower 
 of the chapel is most effective, but near at hand 
 the newness of the chapel jars, and its proportions 
 seem almost overpowering. Along the north side of 
 the second court is the Great Combination Room, 
 one of the most perfectly-proportioned and decorated 
 chambers in the world. Long, yet not too long, 
 the ancient wainscoting, the rich and effective ceiling, 
 the mullioned windows, and Tudor hearths, make up 
 an incomparable dwelling room. In the next court 
 the whole of the north side is occupied by the 
 splendid Jacobean Library, with its grand bookcases 
 and fine high pitched timber roof, where Hilton 
 was wont to spend many happy hours browsing 
 upon books to his heart's content. 
 
 " Your Halls, your ancient Colleges, 
 Your portals statued, with old Kings and Queens, 
 Your gardens, myriad-volumed libraries, 
 Wax-lighted chapels, and rich-carven screens ; 
 
 Your solemn organ pipes that blow, 
 Melodious thunders thro' your vacant courts, 
 At noon and eve."
 
 CAMBRIDGE 49 
 
 Cambridge is justly proud of the long roll of her 
 poets, from the early days of Spenser to the time 
 of Tennyson, and St. John's College has had her share 
 of them in Matthew Prior, Kirke White, who died 
 when twenty-two, and Wordsworth ; and as a master 
 of humorous verse, Arthur Hilton is entitled to a 
 little niche of his own in his old college of St. 
 John's. 
 
 As far as Hilton is concerned, there can be no 
 doubt that with a little labour he might have taken 
 a Third Class in Classical Honours, and that with 
 steady reading he might have got a Second Class, 
 for in pure classics he was a good scholar. But 
 even at that time, to obtain a first class in the 
 Classical Tripos needed more than pure scholarship, 
 for Philology, History, and Philosophy already formed 
 an important part of the examination, and pure 
 scholarship and literary skill would not go far in 
 dealing with papers on these correlated subjects. 
 In addition to this, there was the question to be 
 considered of nearly an extra year at Cambridge if 
 the Classical Tripos was to be the goal. The Ordi- 
 nary Degree could be taken in June, 1872, but his 
 entering for the Tripos meant his remaining up 
 until the end of the Lent term of 1873. So taking 
 a modest view of his own attainments, coupled with 
 the comparative freedom the Ordinary Degree 
 Examinations would give him to follow his literary 
 proclivities in his own way, he decided to be satis- 
 
 D
 
 50 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 fied with taking his degree as a Pass man in June, 
 1872. 
 
 This made Hilton's time at Cambridge, so far as 
 examinations went, a very easy one, for he came to 
 the University, as regards mental equipment, capable 
 of passing any of the examinations for the Ordinary 
 degree with a modicum of labour. In his case, no 
 doubt, the decision to take a Pass degree was a 
 wise one, for it left him free to work in his own 
 way, and he was not by nature an idler. Had he 
 spent his time preparing for the Classical Tripos, it 
 is doubtful whether we should have had from his 
 pen the Light Green, which has established his 
 reputation as a Cambridge wit. 
 
 When Hilton went up to Cambridge he had suf- 
 ficient Marlborough friends at the University to 
 prevent any feeling of loneliness, yet not so many 
 as to prevent him from forming several new friend- 
 ships. Those who go from school to the Univer- 
 sity and pass their university life mainly among the 
 friends of their schooldays, making but few new 
 friendships, do not benefit to the full by the change 
 of scene and life. Such was not the case with him. 
 Though warm-hearted and keeping up his old school 
 friendships, he made many new friends at Cambridge. 
 His close friends at Marlborough, Edward Noel 
 Smith and William D. Fenning, had gone to Oxford. 
 But amongst several others Reginald Wickham was 
 with him at St. John's College, and Hawes Turner,
 
 CAMBRIDGE 51 
 
 who had acted with him at school, was at Trinity 
 College, both of whom contributed to the Light 
 Green, the product of Hilton's last year at Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 It is customary at Cambridge, when a College is 
 unable to accommodate all its undergraduates within 
 the walls, for the newcomers to begin their university 
 life in lodgings and await their turn to get rooms 
 within the College. As St. John's College was full to 
 overflowing, Arthur Hilton took up his residence in 
 Jesus Lane, and there he remained for his first 
 three terms. There are extant but few of his letters 
 written during his three years at Cambridge. So 
 apart from such light as his writings during this 
 period throw upon his life and character, I am com- 
 pelled to draw upon recollections and diaries of my 
 own. And even then the record is somewhat slender, 
 as it was only at the close of his second year at 
 Cambridge that we met and became friends. 
 
 Arthur Hilton was evidently in a happy frame of 
 mind during his first term at Cambridge if we may 
 judge from his humorous lines, full of cheerful fun, 
 on My Aunt Eliza (p. 136). At Christmas he 
 went home to Uxbridge Moor, and as was his wont, 
 got up, with the aid of his sisters and a cousin, a 
 little play to entertain their friends and the village 
 folk. So in January two pieces were staged in the 
 village schoolroom Ici on park Frangais and Two 
 o'clock in the Morning. He gives his own account of
 
 52 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 these in the following letter to his cousin, Henry 
 Hilton, who had been at Marlborough with him, 
 and is now rector of Orlingbury, near Kettering, a 
 Hilton family living, previously held by his father, 
 the Rev. Henry Denne Hilton, uncle of Arthur 
 Hilton. 
 
 Uxbridge Moor, Jan. 13, 1870. 
 
 To Henry Moray Hilton. 
 
 What an immense time it is since I wrote to 
 you ! But I won't blow you up for it. Our party went off 
 very well indeed, beyond my most sanguinary — I mean 
 sanguine — anticipations. As I suppose you know, we 
 had it in the schoolroom, which was decorated and 
 curtained so as to look quite like a ballroom. The 
 schools are in f ] this sort of shape, the dotted 
 
 lines represent- ' j— 1 ing the stage and the strokes 
 
 the seats for the |^3 audience. We made a capital 
 scene by erecting a framework of poles and laths, and 
 covering it with cheap wall-paper. Then we got a towel- 
 horse, one flap of which covered with green baize made 
 a good door, and the other two flaps a window to open 
 and shut. We did not glaze the window, but we hung 
 a white sheet, with a strong light on it, behind the 
 stage to simulate daylight, which had a very good effect. 
 In Two in the Morning we hung up a thick black 
 rug which looked exactly like night. Some friends of 
 ours lent us a fire-place and mantelpiece made of wood, 
 painted, and we made a splendid fire by putting bulls'- 
 eye lanterns behind a piece of red flannel. At a few 
 yards distance it looked exactly like a lot of red-hot
 
 CAMBRIDGE 53 
 
 coals, especially in Two in the Morning, where the 
 
 scene was dark. This last piece is an awfully good one, 
 
 and took more than let, if anything. There are only 
 
 two characters. Newpenny is a fussy old bachelor, very 
 
 particular about his room, furniture, etc. At two in the 
 
 morning he is waked up by a stranger knocking at the 
 
 door of the house opposite, who knocks for about half- 
 
 an-hour without stopping. At last, to make him shut 
 
 up, he invites him up into his bedroom, where of course 
 
 he makes an awful row and won't let Newpenny go to 
 
 sleep — breaks his things, keeps opening the window, 
 
 etc., etc. It is a short piece, only lasting about twenty 
 
 minutes, but it made the people laugh till they nearly 
 
 died. Id went off very well indeed, and altogether 
 
 the whole affair was a brilliant success. We had a 
 
 good raised planked stage, which enabled the spectators 
 
 in the back row to see the actors very well indeed. 
 
 We cleared the whole apparatus away in fifteen minutes, 
 
 and then drew up the curtain and danced till 11.30. 
 
 Supper lasted about an hour, and then what was left 
 
 of us danced till past one, winding up of course with 
 
 "Sir Roger." 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 After the Christmas vacation he returned to Cam- 
 bridge for the Lent term. 
 
 There is generally a large gathering of under- 
 graduates in the Senate House at Cambridge on days 
 when degrees are given. A vast gallery runs round 
 three sides of the Senate House, and this gallery 
 has long been their special resort, where they have 
 the best possible view of all the proceedings, and
 
 54 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 are free to their hearts' content to banter their 
 friends as they proceed to their degrees. In the 
 mid-February degree day of this term (17th February, 
 1870), some honorary degrees were given, and one 
 of the recipients was the Greek Archbishop of Syros 
 and Tenos, a very dignified patriarchal benign-look- 
 ing man. Hilton was in a foremost place in the 
 gallery, interested in seeing some of his friends 
 given their degrees, and just when the Public Orator 
 was enlarging upon the character and qualifications 
 of the Greek Archbishop, the Archbishop happened 
 to drop his handkerchief, and stooped down to pick 
 it up. The current song of the day whistled by 
 every street urchin was called The Grecian Bend, 
 and Hilton seeing the Archbishop stooping down 
 shouted out, " The Grecian Bend." The whole 
 gallery-full of undergraduates fell at once to singing 
 The Grecia?i Bend. Someone on the dias below 
 explained to the Archbishop that the song was sung 
 in his honour, thereupon the Archbishop commenced 
 bowing to the undergraduates in the gallery ; and 
 these further Grecian bends were responded to by 
 the undergraduates singing the popular song with 
 increasing fervour, so that the roar of hilarious voices 
 in the gallery became tremendous. The dignitaries 
 on the dias below then had to pull up the Archbishop 
 and stiffen him, but it was a long while before any- 
 thing approaching quiet was restored.
 
 CAMBRIDGE 55 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 St. John's College, Cambridge, 
 March 21, 1870. 
 
 I have been enjoying myself very much this last 
 week. The last four days of the week were the days 
 of the boat races, in which I steered a very good boat. 
 We made our " bump " on three days out of the four, 
 which was very good indeed. The river is not broad 
 enough to race on in the ordinary way, so the boats 
 start one after the other in a long line, and if any boat 
 can bump the one in front of it, they change places 
 on the next day, so that we went up three places. The 
 steering is rather ticklish work, as you may imagine, 
 but I managed pretty well. We had a dinner on Satur- 
 day evening, and made a tremendous row, cheering and 
 singing. I believe we are going to be photographed 
 to-day ; I shall bring home a copy if we are. 
 
 I went to the Guillemards' Church yesterday evening. 
 It is a nice church, and has been lately restored. They 
 do things very nicely : a surpliced choir, but nothing 
 ultra-Ritualistic. 
 
 I do not think I have told you before that I belong 
 to a dramatic society called "The Flies." It is not the 
 " A.D.C." [Amateur Dramatic Club], of which you have 
 doubtless heard. I daresay I could have got into that, 
 only it is rather expensive. Our club is not got up in 
 opposition, but simply to give people an opportunity of 
 acting who cannot afford to belong to an expensive 
 club. We did not have a performance this term because 
 of Lent, but we had a kind of soiree, inviting a few 
 friends, and having first some music, and then a kind
 
 56 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 of charade, in which your son acted with his usual 
 excellence. 
 
 I believe you may expect to behold the light of my 
 countenance again in about a fortnight, but I cannot 
 tell for certain. 
 
 It is six years since I was at home at Easter, and I can 
 
 hardly imagine the place in anything but summer or 
 
 winter. The weather here has been quite warm one 
 
 day and a snowstorm the next. 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 Hilton being of a spare and light build was selected 
 to be coxswain of one of the second division boats 
 of the Lady Margaret Boat Club, as the St. John's 
 Boat Club is called. 
 
 Besides taking his part this term as coxswain in 
 the bumping races, and in the charade got up by 
 "The Flies," he wrote Dido (p. 141), and his 
 delightful little ballad of Sister Mary (p. 151). 
 
 At Easter he was at home again, very busily en- 
 gaged in helping to make a success of the bazaar 
 which was held to provide and raise funds for the 
 restoration of the Parish Church of Uxbridge. He 
 started a Post Office department in the bazaar, and 
 wrote a number of letters for young ladies in the 
 style of Edward Lear's nonsense verses, which were 
 delivered to applicants on making a small payment. 
 As they were of a topical character, they were much 
 appreciated. It is sufficient to quote three of these, 
 forerunners of others which he published later in 
 the Light Green. The Uxbridge Bazaar verses are
 
 CAMBRIDGE 57 
 
 in the earlier style of nonsense verses, constructed 
 to repeat at the end of the fifth line the last word 
 of the first line. This does not give such freshness 
 as when a new and unexpected word closes the 
 fifth line. In his nonsense verses in the Light 
 Green he adopts the later development, which gives 
 a threefold rhyme, and adds to their spirit. 
 
 Are you the young lady of Uxbridge, 
 Who foolishly built up a duck's bridge"! 
 Said mamma to her daughter 
 They can swim thro' the water, 
 Which vexed the young lady of Uxbridge. 
 
 Are you the young lady of Hillingdon, 
 Who, when she saw cooing and billing done, 
 
 Averting her face 
 
 Made quite a grimace ? 
 That prudish young lady of Hillingdon ? 
 
 Are you the young lady of Denham, 
 Who once had a spaniel of Blenheim, 
 
 To pet and caress 
 
 In fanciful dress ? 
 That crazy young lady of Denham? 
 
 Of Hilton's first May term at Cambridge I can 
 give no account. There is a gap in his letters at 
 this time which no one seems able to fill. 
 
 After a pleasant summer vacation, a portion of 
 it spent with his relatives at Hanthorpe in Lincoln- 
 shire, he returned with the October term to Cam- 
 bridge. With the new term he began residence in
 
 58 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 College, which is always delightful to all those who 
 really enjoy their university life. 
 
 " The Evangelist St. John my patron was : 
 Four Gothic courts are his, and in the last 
 Was my abiding place, a nook obscure." 
 
 These lines of Wordsworth's, slightly changed, 
 picture the abode of Arthur Hilton, his nook ob- 
 scure being a wretchedly dark little set of two rooms, 
 known as D 1 , on the ground floor of the florid and 
 ponderous " New Court," across the river, built by 
 Rickman in 1830, and approached from the old 
 courts by the well-known " Bridge of Sighs," which 
 leads from the older part of the College to the long 
 cloister the south side of the New Court adjoining. 
 Here Hilton spent his last two happy years at Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 At the end of this term came the "little-go," his 
 first University examination, and the letter which 
 follows refers to it. He took the examination 
 sufficiently seriously, and as a result passed in the 
 first class. This term he wrote his first little play, 
 called Princess Ida, which he staged in the Christ- 
 mas vacation at Uxbridge Moor. 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Cambridge, 25/// November, 1870. 
 
 I am afraid I have been keeping you waiting a 
 long time for a letter, but I am working very hard, 
 and have scarcely any time. Euclid and Paley are
 
 CAMBRIDGE 59 
 
 the two worst things ; I can't make them stick in 
 my head. Little-Go begins on the 5th December, 
 and lasts about a week. I shall come home immedi- 
 ately afterwards, but I shall not know for some days 
 whether I have passed or not. It is the most dis- 
 agreeable business I ever was in for. Most of my 
 friends are in a very despondent way. Henry is getting 
 on very well, and enjoys Cambridge life immensely. It 
 would be very nice if it were not for the examinations 
 and the bills. I have just refused an offer of a drive 
 over to Harston, where I went last term, because it 
 would interfere with my work, so I am basking in the 
 smiles of an approving conscience. — Ever your loving 
 son, A. C. H. 
 
 Returning to Cambridge for the Lent term in the 
 latter part of January, 1871, after the successful pro- 
 duction of his Princess Ida at the Uxbridge Theatre 
 Royal, as Hilton called it, he settled down to work 
 for his second University examination, called "the 
 General." This coming then only two terms after the 
 "little-go," did not leave much time in which to 
 idle. Letters are few and unimportant for this period, 
 indeed, right away from the beginning of the Lent 
 term 187 1 until he took his degree at the end of 
 the May term of 1872, but few have survived. 
 
 Cambridge men are of the opinion that their 
 second May term is the most enjoyable period 
 of Cambridge life. Cambridge is at its best in this 
 term, and undergraduates are then in the full tide 
 of their University career, without the worry of final.
 
 6o LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 examinations and the shadows of impending de- 
 parture to the realities of life which the last May 
 term brings. Hilton, no doubt, enjoyed his second 
 " May term " to the full, but it brought its drop of 
 bitterness, for the mathematical papers which he so 
 detested caused his failure to get through his General 
 Examination at the end of this term. To those 
 tolerably well up in mathematics the General Ex- 
 amination presents no serious difficulty, but to him 
 mathematics were hateful, and though his classical 
 and English papers were very good, under a system 
 of marking, which did not admit of excellence in 
 one set of papers making good deficiencies in others, 
 he failed to come up to the standard in algebra, and 
 accordingly had to go in for the examination again 
 in the following December, when he passed satis- 
 factorily. 
 
 At the end of the May term of 1871 he received 
 an invitation from Edward Noel Smith to pay a visit 
 to Stafford Rectory, in Dorset, and he thus made 
 reply : 
 
 To Edward Noel Smith. 
 
 Orlingbury, nth June, 1871. 
 Carissime, 
 
 Forgive this abominable ink, and more- 
 over excuse a brief epistle, as I am just going to 
 a picnic, and already the gelding paws the gravel in 
 front of the door. Many thanks for your invitation, but
 
 CAMBRIDGE 61 
 
 alas ! my stern sire has said, " My son, you have spent 
 too much coin at the University, and gaieties must be 
 curtailed to you in the vacation." 
 
 I am at present staying with an uncle in Northants, 
 and I am booked for our annual five weeks' migration 
 into Lincolnshire in July. I hear has been play- 
 ing the fool at Marlborough College, and got a whole 
 form into a row with some meek master. I should think 
 this sort of thing makes him vastly popular. — Ever thine, 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 However, the "stern sire" was not so stern as 
 Arthur Hilton at the moment of penning his letter 
 alliteratively depicted him, and within ten days he 
 was paying a visit at Stafford Rectory, where for the 
 first time he and I met, and we at once became friends. 
 West Stafford, is situated on the River Frome, about 
 three miles east of Dorchester. For more than half 
 a century Canon Reginald Southwell Smith was rector 
 of West Stafford, known far beyond the borders of 
 Dorset as one of the most devout, winning, and 
 beloved of the rural clergy, and Edward Noel Smith, 
 his youngest son, was, as we know, Hilton's closest 
 Marlborough friend. Smith and I had been friends 
 from the days when we were quite small children, 
 and on a gloriously fine day in the latter part of 
 June, 187 1, he brought Hilton in to see me at 
 Dorchester, where we then lived, and Smith having 
 some errands to do in the town, Hilton and I 
 went off together for a bathe. Away we went to 
 a well-known secluded hatch for a plunge in the
 
 62 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 Frome river. Delightfully festive was Hilton, and 
 Ave had plenty in common at once, both being 
 at Cambridge. I had then been up a year at 
 King's College, while he had been up two years; 
 but though I was a year junior to him at the 
 University, we were of the same age; indeed, both 
 born in the same "roaring moon of daffodil and 
 crocus." I well remember, as we trudged back with 
 our towels, repeating to him some lines written of 
 the hatch where we had just bathed by his old master 
 at Marlborough, Horace Moule, and how warmly he 
 spoke of him as always more a friend than a master. 
 "Say them again," said Arthur Hilton, and then I 
 found him repeating them to himself quite easily : 
 
 Floyer's Hatch. 
 
 How many and many a summer sun 
 
 Has seen a well-known batch 
 Of merry fellows on their way 
 
 To bathe in Floyer's Hatch. 
 
 Not one amongst them stops to fear 
 
 A cold that he may catch : 
 Fear is unknown to those who stem 
 
 The current at the Hatch. 
 
 The very youngest swimmer here 
 
 Comes boldly to the scratch ; 
 No flinching stays his forward plunge 
 
 Into the eddying Hatch.
 
 CAMBRIDGE 63 
 
 A few short years — and we shall see 
 
 A green and pleasant patch 
 Across the wilderness of life — 
 
 It will be— " Floyer's Hatch." 
 
 Say — will there be a welcome then, 
 
 A ready lifted latch, 
 To those who laugh'd so loud of old 
 
 And bathed in Floyer's Hatch. 
 
 Oh yes ! I ween, that, sink or swim, 
 
 There's nothing will detach 
 The ties that bind the swimmers bold 
 
 Who swam in Floyer's Hatch. 
 
 When we reached my father's house we were far 
 more like friends of old standing than new acquain- 
 tances. Our meeting was so pleasant, and we struck 
 up such a cordial friendship, that we forthwith 
 arranged for an expedition of the three of us the 
 next day to Abbotsbury and its Swannery. Hilton and 
 Smith accordingly came in from Stafford to Dor- 
 chester early next morning, and we drove through 
 Martin's Town, past Hardy's monument — the monu- 
 ment to Captain Hardy in whose arms Nelson died 
 — down the tremendous hill on the other side, lead- 
 ing the horse part of the way where the road is very 
 steep, to Abbotsbury, which we reached about noon. 
 We visited the Abbey ruins and the beautiful little 
 Early English chapel of St. Catherine's on the hill 
 overlooking the English Channel. Hilton, as I well
 
 64 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 remember, was greatly amused when I told him of 
 the litany supplicated each November at this shrine 
 by the spinsters of Abbotsbury : 
 
 "A husband, St. Catherine; 
 
 A handsome one, St. Catherine ; 
 
 A rich one, St. Catherine ; 
 
 A nice one, St. Catherine ; 
 
 And soon, St. Catherine." 
 
 "What a pity," said Hilton, with that slight hesita- 
 tion, not quite a stammer, which seemed always to 
 add point to his amusing remarks, "we can't use 
 so desirable a prayer." 
 
 We came home by an easier road through Por- 
 tisham, locally called "Possum," and Hilton was 
 much delighted with a couplet on one of the grave- 
 stones : 
 
 " She's gone and cannot come to we, 
 So we shall shortly go to she." 
 
 After this pleasant meeting Hilton and Smith went 
 for a visit to Mr. Digby's at Sherborne Castle, and 
 from there Hilton wrote the following letter : 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Sherborne Castle, 25^ June, 1871. 
 I am afraid you are getting alarmed about me, as I 
 have not written for so long. I am enjoying my visit 
 immensely. "Boz" Smith and I have been invited to 
 stay here for a night by Mr. Digby, who is a cousin of 
 his. We are here ostensibly for archaeological purposes. 
 You have no idea what a place it is, one of the finest
 
 CAMBRIDGE 65 
 
 in Dorset. We got here this afternoon, and first explored 
 Sherborne Abbey, which is a splendid old church, 
 beautifully restored by Mr. Digby. Then we walked up 
 to the castle, and, with perhaps some little bashfulness, 
 passed under an ancient gateway and across a sort of 
 courtyard. We rang a huge bell and were admitted. 
 The people were very festive, so we soon felt like one 
 of the family. There is a fair cousin of " Boz' " here, 
 who took us down to the lake. We rowed across it and 
 then visited the ruins of old Sherborne Castle, which 
 was destroyed by Cromwell. We also saw an arbour 
 where Pope used to compose, and a waterfall and various 
 other curiosities. We rowed back again across the lake 
 and had a game of croquet, after which came dinner, 
 which of course was exceedingly sumptuous, with half- 
 a-dozen red-plushed footmen. We are going away some 
 time to-morrow, and as you may imagine, I shall be 
 very sorry. I will not write any more now, as I shall 
 
 soon see vou all again. 
 
 A. C. HL 
 
 After foregathering with Hilton in the long vaca- 
 tion, I saw a good deal of him during the rest of 
 his time at the university. We met again on return- 
 ing to Cambridge early in October — he for his last 
 year and I for my second year. 
 
 Those were the days of compulsory daily chapels 
 at King's College. As chapel at seven a.m. on wintry 
 mornings, followed by lecture from eight to nine, with 
 no breakfast till well after nine o'clock, was not to my 
 liking, I did not generally get up until a little before 
 eight o'clock, just in time to get to the early lecture, 
 
 E
 
 66 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 and made my chapel attendance at five o'clock in the 
 evening. There was the compensation, though the 
 service was somewhat longer, of the music of our 
 King's choir. And many an evening, coming out of 
 chapel, in the dim light of the few wax candles which 
 served to light it, I found Hilton in the ante-chapel 
 listening to the music. 
 
 We heard once more in College fanes 
 The storm their high built organs make, 
 And thunder-music, rolling, shake 
 
 The prophets blazoned on the panes. 
 
 King's Chapel, " the fairest building in all my realm," 
 as Queen Elizabeth once spoke of it, had a great fascina- 
 tion for him. Silver, a boy who possessed a marvel- 
 lous treble voice, was just then singing at his best, 
 and in the dim twilight the effect of the boys' clear 
 voices trickling and re-echoing in the recesses of the 
 lofty stone roof was strikingly impressive. Meeting, 
 as we came out, he would turn into my rooms in the 
 Fellows' buildings, next door but one to the chapel, 
 and there he would sit and chat until it was time for 
 us to hurry off to dinner in our respective College 
 Halls. 
 
 The friendship that sprang up between us was a 
 curious one in some ways, for he was of a conservative 
 turn of mind, and I was not, and his ecclesiastical 
 views were somewhat high, and mine were not ; but 
 we both delighted in all that was artistic, and to both 
 of us Ruskin was as an apostle. We both were fond of
 
 CAMBRIDGE 67 
 
 drawing, and if Hilton had had real training with 
 his pencil, he would have undoubtedly produced 
 excellent work, as his little pen and ink sketches are 
 full of delicate finish, and real skill. Then we 
 were both fond of discursive reading in old world 
 books, and above all we delighted in humour. 
 
 Smallpox was rather bad about this time, and 
 vaccination was all the fashion. There were several 
 men in my rooms one evening, and an ingenuous 
 freshman asked, "Where does vaccine lymph come 
 from?" "Don't you know," said Arthur Hilton, 
 who was present, "7rarTaxou" (pronounced, pantacow — 
 Anglice, everywhere). 
 
 One day early in December he and I set out to go 
 to Ely by train, to see the " trial eights " row. The 
 "trial eights" are two boats of eight oars each of 
 picked men who have not rowed in the University 
 race, but from whom are chosen the best men to fill 
 vacant places in the inter-University contest. To our 
 disgust, when we got to the station the train for Ely 
 had just left, and the next passenger train would not 
 have reached Ely in time for the race, so we interviewed 
 the guard of a luggage train which was just starting for 
 Ely (sixteen miles) with a view to his letting us travel 
 in his van. He sententiously replied that it would be 
 as much as his place was worth to take us. Hilton, 
 with a twinkle in his eye, said, " What is your place 
 worth, is it worth five shillings ? " at the same time 
 turning in his fingers two comfortable looking half-
 
 68 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 crowns. Our sententious friend the guard capitulated 
 instanter, and we entered his van, arriving in excellent 
 time to see the race. About mid-December we all 
 went down as usual for the Christmas vacation. The 
 University man always goes " down " ; his locus standi 
 is the headquarters of earth, and everywhither "goes 
 down " from it. 
 
 Early in the new year (1872) Hilton was on a brief 
 visit at Stafford Rectory, and he and Edward Noel 
 Smith came to spend the day and dine with me. Our 
 afternoon's amusement, if such an expression can be 
 used, was to go and visit the county prison, which in 
 those days could always be seen by a visiting justice's 
 order. The prisoners then sat in pews, facing the 
 treadmill, waiting twenty minutes for their turn of 
 twenty minutes on the wheel, and in front of each 
 prisoner as he worked on the wheel, within a few 
 yards of him, and round about the walls, were 
 many Scripture texts of a very personal nature. 
 " The way of transgressors is hard " ; " Thy sin shall 
 find thee out " ; " Let him that stole, steal no more " ; 
 and so on. Hilton went up to the treadmill alongside 
 one of the prisoners to see how it felt, and observed 
 he shouldn't mind it very much were it not for the 
 Scriptural admonitions. 
 
 A few days later he came to us for a dance we 
 gave, and his vivacity and bright and pleasant ways 
 made a very appreciable difference, everyone wanting 
 to know who that cheerful, amusing fellow was.
 
 CAMBRIDGE 69 
 
 By the end of January we were back at Cambridge 
 again for the Lent term. Hilton was now in his last 
 term but one, and during these two last terms of his 
 he was very frequently in my rooms in King's, coming 
 in often when I was out, and making for the window 
 seat in my inner study. Here he would take up his 
 perch in the window seat, with one leg cocked up on 
 the cushion, and when tired of gazing on the pleasant 
 expanse of sward and grand old elms to the westward, 
 would take down a book and sit there reading. 
 Hawes Turner, then at Trinity (now Keeper and 
 Secretary of the National Gallery), was also often 
 in my rooms, and he and Hilton would quote and 
 discuss poetry by the hour, with side excursions into 
 their Marlboro' days. 
 
 On one occasion when three or four of us were 
 together, the conversation turned upon whether it 
 was any use for an undergraduate to be acquainted 
 with the master of his College. After some discussion, 
 one turned to Hilton and asked him if he knew the 
 master of John's. "Yes, I do," said he with dry 
 humour, " and I think it advisable, for you see the 
 master has considerable influence with the head 
 porter." On another occasion we were discussing 
 the use of the moral science tripos, which included, 
 amongst other subjects, an examination in Mill's 
 Logic and Political Economy, and some doubt was 
 expressed as to the tripos continuing to form part of 
 the University course. Hilton demurred to this, and
 
 70 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 said, " It will endure, if only for the girl graduate, 
 for does not the Scripture say that in the last day 
 there will be found two women grinding at a Mill ? " 
 The higher education of women, and the establish- 
 ment of ladies' colleges at Cambridge about this time, 
 led to innumerable jests, and Hilton used to put his 
 bon ?not about women's degrees almost better in con- 
 versation than he did in the second number of the 
 Light Green. His usual way of putting it was, 
 " When young women get their degrees they wont be 
 Bachelors, but Spinsters of Arts, and then after a 
 while they will proceed to the degree of MA-MA." 
 
 In one of his College examinations a divinity paper 
 was set, and in one of the questions some texts 
 were set out, which those examined were asked to 
 illustrate by others. One of their texts was, " Let 
 their way be dark and slippery." Hilton wrote on a 
 slip of paper, which went all round the hall, causing 
 much amusement, "A good illustration of this text 
 is Jonah in the whale's belly." 
 
 On one occasion someone was inveighing against 
 the Metropolitan Railway as a most detestable way of 
 getting about London. " Don't you like it ? " said 
 Hilton with well affected surprise; "I do immensely, 
 but then you see I am so fond of scenery." 
 
 About the middle of the Lent term (27th February, 
 1872) there were thanksgivings throughout the 
 country for the recovery of the Prince of Wales, 
 who had nearly died of typhoid fever. There were
 
 CAMBRIDGE 71 
 
 great doings at Cambridge with street decorations 
 and soldiers, the University volunteers taking their 
 part. But this was all much too quiet for the under- 
 graduate world, who pent up their feelings until the 
 evening, and then made a carnival on their own 
 account on Parker's Piece. With one consent they 
 all gathered there from every College, after eight 
 o'clock in the evening, without a cap or gown amongst 
 them, though the University authorities strictly enjoin 
 the wearing of cap and gown after dark, and fine 
 everyone caught without them. Every undergraduate 
 in King's to my knowledge turned out that night 
 without either, and hundreds from the other colleges 
 as well. Hilton met me on the way to Parker's 
 Piece, going, as he remarked, " to help to keep the 
 peace." Everyone seemed to have a supply of fire- 
 works. But the centre of attraction was the bonfire 
 that had been prepared. Of course, like all bonfires, 
 it soon began to burn out, and then the trouble 
 began. With one accord the hundreds of under- 
 graduates present went off in all directions, return- 
 ing in relays with everything they could lay hands 
 on that would burn within a radius of half a mile. 
 Hilton and I knew of some forms which were stand- 
 ing outside a house down a side street, and away we 
 went with a score of other undergraduates, and we 
 staggered up with our burden of forms, and the whole 
 of them went on the bonfire. How many shutters 
 were burnt that night I should not like to say, but the
 
 72 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 bonfire was well fed until long past eleven o'clock, 
 and only then began to fail because everything of a 
 combustible nature within a considerable distance had 
 either been put on the fire or conveyed out of our 
 reach by the owners. How the owners were com- 
 pensated I know not, or whether the University makes 
 good their losses when the undergraduate world gives 
 way to ebullitions of this nature. Possibly the dwellers 
 in Cambridge make a reserve fund to compensate 
 themselves for such occasional outbursts. Anyway no 
 one seemed particularly to mind, and the University 
 authorities from time to time console themselves when 
 these things occur by remarking that individually the 
 undergraduate is a delightful person, but that collec- 
 tively he is an ass. 
 
 Just before the end of this term, on 15th March, 
 Edward Noel Smith and W. D. Fenning, who were 
 both then at Oxford, came over on a visit to Hilton, 
 and the four of us were much together for the next 
 few days. On the Tuesday (19th March) we all 
 went over to Ely for the day, and then they came 
 and dined with me in King's College Hall, and 
 spent the evening in my rooms. Just about this 
 time King's College modified its rule requiring every 
 undergraduate to attend daily service in chapel, and 
 enacted that those who went to the Porter's Lodge 
 and signed their names on a slate between the hours 
 of seven and eight in the morning would be free 
 from attendance in chapel on week-days. But any
 
 CAMBRIDGE 73 
 
 one failing to sign the slate before eight o'clock, 
 and not attending morning chapel, was required to 
 attend the chapel service at five o'clock in the 
 afternoon. I was grumbling at having to make a 
 journey before eight o'clock to the Porter's Lodge, 
 and said I thought they might as well let us sign 
 in after midnight, as I did not see how they could 
 object to our being up early in the morning. To 
 this Hilton made comment in his usual slightly 
 hesitating way, " They should do so, but they have 
 selected eight o'clock in the morning as the time 
 when you are least likely to be about." The con- 
 versation turned upon his home at Uxbridge Moor, 
 and he mentioned that by his father's vicarage ran 
 the river Colne. I ventured on the observation that 
 I had never before heard of the Colne. " Not 
 heard of the Colne," said Hilton, with well-assumed 
 gravity, " Not heard of the river Colne ; why, it is 
 one of the finest rivers in England," and then, after 
 a slight pause, and in a subdued voice, " It is so 
 wide, it would take a rare good man to jump it." 
 
 Arthur Hilton was reading away quietly during 
 the Lent term now just over, and again during the 
 following May term for his final examination, but 
 this did not keep his wits from working in their 
 natural groove, and now it was that he put together 
 those brilliant jeux cCesprit which have been so long 
 associated with his name, published under the name 
 The Light Green.
 
 74 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 Shortly before this, a monthly magazine had been 
 issued, which had a brief existence, called The 
 Dark Blue. It affected to be, and at Cambridge 
 was supposed to be, the product of young Oxford. 
 It was a weak and poor production, so feeble, in- 
 deed, that it caused much amusement to those at 
 Cambridge who possessed themselves of it in order 
 to see what Oxford could write. The puerility 
 of The Dark Blue greatly amused Hilton, and after 
 writing a parody or two of some of its scarcely in- 
 telligible nonsense, the idea occurred to him of 
 publishing The Light Green, made up of parodies 
 only. So it came about that The Dark Blue was 
 the immediate cause of The Light Gree?i, though 
 The Light Green was more than a mere parody of 
 its prototype. It is sufficient to quote the following 
 lines from The Dark Blue, and refer the reader to 
 Hilton's parody, entitled " Ding Dong," p. 162. 
 
 Yet all your song 
 
 Is Ding Dong, 
 
 Summer is dead, 
 
 Spring is dead — 
 
 O my heart, and O my head ! 
 
 Go a-singing a silly song 
 All wrong, 
 For all is dead — 
 
 Ding Dong, 
 And I am dead ! 
 
 Dong ! 

 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 75 
 
 Thus accidentally Hilton was stimulated to write 
 some of the best parodies that Cambridge has pro- 
 duced. The Light Green, the little shapely pebble 
 which Arthur Hilton flung into the sea of literature 
 at the close of his undergraduate days, after the 
 lapse of thirty years, still spreads its ripples of bright 
 humour. The first number was published in May, 
 1872, just as he was going in for his Final Exami- 
 nation, and at that time he had no intention of 
 publishing any second number. It bore no imprint 
 of any number to indicate that it was to be followed 
 by another. But the immediate and complete suc- 
 cess, amongst the undergraduate world, of the first 
 number, induced him to publish a second in the 
 November following, after he had taken his degree 
 and gone down. The first number contained an 
 introduction, followed by eight parodies in prose and 
 verse, all written by Hilton, with the exception of 
 " The Tichborne Trial " (in prose), written by Hawes 
 Turner, and " The Bills " (a parody in verse of E. 
 A. Poe), by Reginald Wickham. The second num- 
 ber of The Light Green, contained six parodies, all 
 by Hilton, with the exception of "The Review of a 
 New Play " (a parody in prose of a Saturday Review 
 article) by Hawes Turner. 
 
 Of the contents of these two numbers, the best 
 known pieces amongst undergraduates, past and 
 present, are " The Vulture and the Husbandman " 
 (May number) and the "Heathen Pass-ee" (November
 
 •6 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 number) as they appeal more directly to the 
 examination troubles of the undergraduate world. 
 The " Heathen Pass-ee " occupies the somewhat 
 unusual position of being the successful parody of 
 a successful parody. The metre of Swinburne's 
 Hertha seems difficult enough to imitate, yet Bret 
 Harte used it with the greatest apparent ease in 
 the " Heathen Chinee," and then Hilton applied it 
 with equal ease and effect in his parody the 
 " Heathen Pass-ee." In an appreciative notice of 
 the second number of The Light Green, which ap- 
 peared in the Spectator of 18th January, 1872, the 
 reviewer wrote, "the gem of the whole is the 
 'Heathen Pass-ee.'" And after quoting several 
 stanzas ending with the lines — 
 
 "And we found in his palms which were hollow, 
 What are frequent in palms — that is dates." 
 
 the reviewer added, " no one can ever hope to beat 
 those two lines." 
 
 It has been well observed that to be a parodist 
 of the first order there must be mimicry of the 
 metre as well as burlesque of the original, other- 
 wise the humour of the parody will fall short. For 
 a perfect specimen of Hilton's craftmanship, " The 
 Octopus " (May number), his parody of Swinburne's 
 Dolores may be regarded as faultless. It flows with 
 easy grace, yet teems with originality and caustic 
 humour. Dolores is a long poem of fifty-five
 
 CAMBRIDGE 77 
 
 stanzas, and Hilton's parody consists of only five. 
 The mimicry of the original metre is admirable, and 
 the burlesque of the general spirit of Dolores is 
 equally good. Let me quote one stanza from 
 Dolores : 
 
 " O lips full of lust and of laughter, 
 
 Curled snakes that are fed from my breast, 
 Bite hard, lest remembrance come after 
 
 And press with new lips where you pressed. 
 For my heart too springs up at the pressure, 
 
 My eyelids too moisten and burn ; 
 Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure, 
 
 Ere pain come in turn." 
 
 and one from " The Octopus " : 
 
 " Ah thy red lips, lascivious and luscious, 
 
 With death in their amorous kiss ! 
 Cling round us, and clasp us and crush us, 
 
 With bitings of agonised bliss ; 
 We are sick with the poison of pleasure, 
 
 Dispense us the potion of pain ; 
 Ope thy mouth to its uttermost measure, 
 
 And bite us again ! " 
 
 Hilton finished the first number of The Light Green 
 early in the month of May, and the printers got it out 
 in about ten days. In my diary for the 9th May, 
 1872: "Went to Hilton's to play whist. He has 
 just put a jeu cFesprit into the hands of the printer 
 called The Light Green, a skit at The Dark Blue 
 magazine. It is full of very clever parodies." The
 
 78 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 Light Green was a success at Cambridge as soon as 
 it was published, but it shows only the lighter side 
 of Hilton as the sparkling jester. Like his favourite, 
 Hood, on whose books, as a boy, he spent some of 
 his earliest shillings, he had his serious side, and 
 could touch deeper issues. Turn to his ballad of 
 Sister May (p. 151): there is nothing of the jester 
 here, but poetry and a playful fancy. The music of 
 words was in his ears. 
 
 It was a great delight to Hilton's friends to find 
 the hearty commendation that The Light Green at 
 once met with from all who read it, and the many 
 kind things that were said of it no doubt helped to 
 make his last term at Cambridge a very happy one. 
 Here perhaps I may mention that Hilton at this 
 time became very much attached to a very charming 
 young lady who was at Cambridge on a visit, and 
 had been there the previous May term. He used 
 to pour out his heart to me, and I fear he thought 
 me somewhat callous when I gave him the most 
 excellent and the most paternal kind of advice as 
 to his being altogether too young to contemplate 
 matrimony. In my diary I note : " Hilton had a 
 long talk with me about his love affair, which amused 
 me and was a relief to his feelings." His great misery 
 at this time was that the young lady in question, who 
 was both pretty and clever, and certainly much 
 attracted by Hilton, as indeed anyone would have 
 been, was about to go to reside for two years abroad.
 
 CAMBRIDGE 79 
 
 Whether anything might have come of this attach- 
 ment later, had they both lived, no one can say, 
 but they both died young and unmarried. To this 
 charming lady, and to Arthur Hilton's love for her, 
 we are indebted for With a Pair of Gloves and the 
 sweet little poems Nobody Knew, Our Parting, and 
 Moon Beams (pp. 197-200). 
 
 The May races this term were more than ordinarily 
 interesting. J. H. D. Goldie, the great oarsman, a 
 Johnian as was Hilton, had stroked the Cambridge 
 boat to victory over Oxford in 1870, and he had 
 repeated his victory this following year. But to 
 Cambridge men, an even greater achievement was 
 his placing the Johnian boat at the head of the river 
 these May races by bumping First Trinity, which 
 had held the headship of the river for six years past. 
 There is no harder boat to bump than the head boat 
 of a division, for it has the double advantage of 
 the shortest course to row over to reach the winning 
 post, and unperturbed water all the way. No chance 
 of disturbance from the wash of a struggling crew in 
 front of them. To those who knew the make and 
 build of the respective crews of First Trinity and of 
 the Johnian boat, Goldie's feat in catching the First 
 Trinity boat was a wonderful instance of the com- 
 mand he had over material not quite the best, and 
 the enormous driving power of his individual oar, 
 which seemed to do, and probably did, the work 
 of three ordinary men. The races lasted as usual
 
 80 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 the week through, beginning on Monday, 20th May. 
 It was not until Wednesday night, 22nd, that John's 
 got dangerously near Trinity, and some of us thought 
 the Lady Margaret eight might possibly catch them 
 before the week was out. The following night 
 (Thursday) St. John's gained on Trinity, but did 
 not get as near as they had done the night before. 
 Goldie, apparently with good generalship, was giving 
 his crew a rest. Many were deceived by this, and 
 thought St. John's had rowed themselves out on the 
 Wednesday night. Others still thought they would 
 make a supreme effort on the Friday, and in this 
 belief Hilton and I posted ourselves by the Willows, 
 and we were well repaid, for the Lady Margaret boat 
 came leaping through the water and bumped First 
 Trinity a little more than half-way over the course. 
 Never have I seen a finer athlete than Goldie — his 
 build, though not in the least heavy, was perfect in 
 symmetry, and his power was, for the size of his 
 frame, colossal. Everyone felt that though St. John's 
 had won the coveted position, and had won well, it 
 was due to the generalship and astounding power of 
 the stroke oar. It was a great victory, and very 
 popular, both on account of Goldie's success as 
 stroke of the University boat, and on account of 
 the prolonged reign of Trinity at the head of the 
 river. Hilton and I shouted ourselves voiceless, and 
 when we got back to Cambridge, flags, tablecloths, 
 rugs, parti-coloured shirts, and anything that was
 
 CAMBRIDGE 81 
 
 conspicuous fluttered from window after window, 
 wherever an undergraduate was housed. Hilton's 
 mother and two of his sisters and a cousin were up 
 at this time, so they came in for the fun and fury 
 of the Johnian success. It was a great week, that 
 boat race week at Cambridge, the most exciting one 
 of my three Cambridge Mays. 
 
 "George Eliot" was present, and we undergraduates 
 were interested to know what she thought of it all. 
 When we learnt that the only observation she let 
 fall was, "all human joys are transient," she some- 
 what fell in our estimation. 
 
 It seems almost a pity that St. John's College does 
 not rechristen its boat club. The fact that it is 
 called the " Lady Margaret " (after their foundress, 
 Lady Margaret Beaufort, wife of Edward Tudor and 
 mother of Henry VII.), tends to perpetuate their 
 unfortunate nickname— greatly resented by Hilton — 
 of "pigs." The common abbreviation, as everyone 
 knows, of Margaret is Peggy, and Peggy being akin 
 to Piggy, Johnians for long years past have gone 
 by the name of " Pigs," varied as " Hogs," and their 
 College in consequence has been called "The Sty." 
 These taunting terms might have fallen into disuse 
 but for the name of the College boat club. With 
 the name of Margaret constantly upon their lips, 
 and so obviously convertible into " Piggy " and its 
 correlative terms, Johnians seem unable to outlive 
 their nickname, though other Colleges have outlived 
 
 F
 
 82 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 similar opprobrious designations. Hilton could not 
 endure these unhappy nicknames, and I well 
 remember his remarking of the Lady Margaret 
 Beaufort, "An excellent pious well-meaning old 
 lady, no doubt, that foundress of ours, but why in 
 the name of all that is execrable did her progenitors 
 christen her Peggy ! " 
 
 Arthur Hilton's Cambridge days were now draw- 
 ing rapidly to a close. With the boat-race week and 
 all the gaiety crowded into it, the term was well-nigh 
 spent. On the Monday following (27th May) the 
 Procession of Boats took place between the King's 
 and Clare bridges, one of the prettiest of Cambridge 
 sights, with throngs of brightly dressed ladies present, 
 mostly the visiting kinsfolk of the undergraduate 
 world. That brought to an end the festivities of 
 his last May term. Next day the many visitors were 
 betaking themselves homeward, and the following 
 Monday, 3rd June, Hilton was sitting in the Senate 
 House working through his papers in the final ex- 
 amination. He came through it all right, and his 
 name was duly published in the list on 13th June. 
 Two days later, on Saturday, 15th June, he took 
 his degree, and the following week packed up his 
 household goods and said good-bye to the university. 
 " It is like tearing one up by the roots," he remarked 
 to me afterwards, and he truthfully expressed what 
 most of us feel when our turn to leave comes. 
 
 Hilton and I made several boating excursions
 
 CAMBRIDGE 83 
 
 together this May term. When we had a free 
 afternoon, we used to get a couple of boats from 
 " Robinson Crusoe," and sail against each other 
 up the river through Paradise, and far on, some- 
 times to Byron's Pool, by Grantchester. Delightful 
 afternoons were those ; and how well I remember 
 one day in the second week of June, just after 
 he had been in for his final examination, and 
 was enjoying that restful state which comes after 
 the effort and worry of it — a state which to him 
 meant an extra effervescence of drollery — we went 
 in our two skiffs right up to Byron's Pool. Our 
 boats were close alongside most of the way, and 
 never further apart than talking distance. The day 
 was one of those perfect English early summer days, 
 warm and sweet smelling, with light breezes that 
 come as a foretaste of more to come. The birds 
 were all singing — the thrush, the reed warbler, and 
 now and again the nightingale piped out. It was 
 so lovely and so enjoyable that, although we both 
 intended to be back for Hall at 6.30, we abandoned 
 all idea of it, and just by Byron's Pool we found 
 a moorhen's nest with a dozen glistening speckled 
 eggs in it. Sometimes one seems to be able to re- 
 call every little detail of almost every hour of the 
 day just as it happened, and then comes a blank for 
 months, and perhaps years, in one's memory. That 
 day somehow I seem to remember as if it were 
 yesterday, and how we came back past eight o'clock,
 
 84 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 just after sundown, and how I sent to the College 
 kitchens, and they sent us in a little dinner, to which 
 we did full justice. Then two or three dropped in, 
 and about eleven Hilton went back to St. John's, 
 borrowing my cap and gown to protect him from the 
 challenge of a Proctor. 
 
 When Hilton left Cambridge in June, 1S72, he 
 had just entered upon his twenty-second year, and 
 as the canons of the Church of England lay down 
 that no one is eligible for ordination until twenty- 
 three years of age, he could not be ordained before 
 March, 1874, when he would be qualified as to age. 
 At first he thought of entering the Theological College 
 at Wells in the October Term of 1872, but on further 
 consideration he decided to take a good six months' 
 holiday and go to Wells after Christmas. 
 
 A pleasant feeling of contentment and restfulness 
 comes to almost every one when the stage is reached 
 which is marked by taking one's degree. This happy 
 period of existence was rendered more than ever 
 enjoyable to Hilton by the prospect of a visit to 
 Switzerland, to which he refers in the following letter : 
 
 To Edward Noel Smith. 
 
 Hanthorpe House, Aug. yd, 1872. 
 
 My Dear Boz, 
 
 Reptile ! why have you never written to me ? 
 I don't know whether you still desire to see me at 
 Stafford, but I regret to say that I should not be
 
 CAMBRIDGE 85 
 
 able to come if you did, as I am going to enlarge 
 my ideas by a "tower" on the Continent under the 
 surveillance of a benevolent uncle and aunt, who, from 
 long residence abroad, are conversant with the manners 
 and customs of the natives, and more especially with 
 the lingo, wherein my education was shamefully neglected 
 by the Rev. De Lisle. 1 I shall leave this place for home 
 in a day or two, and next Thursday we shall take ship 
 for Antwerp. Thence we shall proceed to Cologne, in 
 whose scented streams we shall disport ourselves for a 
 period. Then we shall glide up the storied Rhine, till 
 we come to the terminus at Switzerland. Here I shall 
 doubtless encounter the irrepressible John Sowerby. I 
 shall enjoy myself awfully, especially as I have never 
 yet set foot in "furrin parts." I wish you were coming 
 with me. Fancy mountains ! — Ever thine, 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 The above letter shows the happy frame of mind 
 in which he looked forward to his foreign tour, and 
 the following letter gives us a glimpse of his thorough 
 enjoyment. The " benevolent uncle " was Mr. 
 Marcus Synnot, who married the elder sister (Miss 
 Ann Parker of Hanthorpe House) of Arthur Hilton's 
 mother : 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Lucerne, 10^ September, 1872. 
 
 We came back to Lucerne yesterday, after spending 
 more than a week at Seelisberg. 
 
 There were a great many English there, and when 
 
 1 French master at Marlborough — a good violinist.
 
 86 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 one got to know them it was very festive indeed, and 
 we were quite a happy family. There was an old 
 schoolfellow of mine there, and also a man who was at 
 St. John's, though he gave up Cambridge after a year's 
 experience of it. I did not know him at Cambridge, 
 but of course I soon made his acquaintance. We had 
 a dance one night, and two or three concerts, in which 
 I did not take part. But the great joke was a theatrical 
 performance, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, which 
 we invented, rehearsed, and got up in two days. We 
 acted it like a charade, inventing the words as we went 
 on, except a few songs which were written for the occa- 
 sion, and which everyone forgot. Considering that there 
 was no shop or town within miles, the dresses were 
 very good. I was Aladdin, and I wore a pair of Turkish 
 trousers, made out of a striped petticoat, a lady's velveteen 
 jacket with gold stars pasted on to it, a gorgeous little 
 scarlet cape over my shoulders, and a turban made out 
 of my Astracan cap, with a Roman scarf tied round it, 
 and an ostrich feather at the top. The people applauded 
 very much, even the Germans, though they could not 
 understand the jokes. 
 
 I climbed up two mountains. They were not showy 
 ones, but they were a decent height, and took about 
 three hours to ascend. Three hours does not sound 
 much, but you see the path is very bad, and besides, 
 it is uphill all the way. One that I went up comes to 
 quite a sharp point, about as big as a table, and you 
 feel very grand when you stand on the top and see the 
 clouds floating about the sides of the mountain below 
 you. We leave Lucerne to-morrow morning. We are 
 going to drive to Geneva, which will take us two days,
 
 CAMBRIDGE 87 
 
 but it is a much pleasanter way of travelling than 
 by railway. Uncle Marcus and Aunt Annie won't hear 
 of my going just yet, but I think you may expect me 
 home about the end of this month. I hope I shall find 
 letters at Geneva, for I consider myself rather neglected, 
 especially as I have been such a model correspondent 
 myself. We have met some very nice people at dif- 
 ferent places, but perhaps they seem more agreeable 
 because one has not time to discover their bad qualities. 
 I have not seen many Germans that took my fancy at 
 all ; they talk so loud, and the women are fat, and dress 
 badly. The prettiest girls are sure to be English, which 
 is a blessing. 
 
 There are great numbers of Americans, and a few of 
 them are pleasant, when one can get over their pecu- 
 liarities. It is very amusing at a large hotel to watch 
 the manners and customs of the different nations, and 
 it is wonderfully easy to tell what country people belong 
 to after you have seen a few specimens. I don't think 
 much of the style of men who come out as English 
 chaplains. We have had some very funny services and 
 sermons. A. C. H. 
 
 Hilton could never be really idle, for his wits 
 were always at work, and the restful time he was 
 now enjoying afforded him leisure to write two 
 amusing little plays, Alonzo the Brave, and Hamlet, 
 or Not such a Fool as he Looks. In January, 1872, 
 no theatricals had taken place at Uxbridge Moor, 
 owing to the death of Hilton's aunt (Mrs. T. Denne 
 Hilton). But in January, 1873, the usual theatricals 
 were revived again, and Hamlet, which he had just
 
 88 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 completed, was played with great success. The re- 
 porter of the local paper waxed enthusiastic about 
 it, saying, " It is a play of great merit, and would 
 appear to be the work of a practised hand rather 
 than that of a young amateur. The dialogue sparkles 
 and abounds in puns and occasional flashes of wit, 
 the absence of which is often painfully felt in 
 burlesques of more pretension. The interest of the 
 spectators is maintained throughout. The make-up 
 of each character was good, and the acting in most 
 instances was far beyond that of amateur performers, 
 one or two of the actors displaying high dramatic 
 power. Long continued applause followed the falling 
 of the curtain."
 
 WELLS. 
 
 1873— 1874 
 
 In the latter part of January, 1873, Arthur Hilton 
 went to Wells and took up residence for rather 
 more than a year, in order to go through the course 
 of special preparation for the ministry which the 
 Wells Theological College provides. There he re- 
 mained until just before his ordination in Lent, 
 1874, when he removed to Sandwich upon his 
 appointment as curate to St. Clement's Church. 
 
 Wells is a delightful peaceful old town, lying in 
 a fertile valley at the foot of the Mendip Hills. 
 The fine old cathedral, with its grand western front, 
 and its many sculptured saints rising tier on tier, 
 simple, rugged and severe, dominates the little 
 Western City. Near by stands the ancient and 
 sombre Bishop's Palace, a castellated, moated strong- 
 hold of the troublous days that have long gone by, 
 with its drawbridge across the stream, which, rising 
 near at hand, has filled its dykes for long centuries past.
 
 9 o LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 To Hilton, coming from Cambridge with its abun- 
 dance of noble buildings, Wells, with all its 
 architectural charms, had not much wherewith to 
 captivate him, and the change to a humid atmos- 
 phere from the dry climate of the eastern counties 
 caused him to chafe somewhat. 
 
 To Edward Noel Smith. 
 
 Theological College, 
 Wells, February, 1873. 
 Dearly Beloved Brother, 
 
 The Scripture and various other causes have moved 
 me to take up my abode in the above-named excava- 
 tion, where a course of early chapels (8 a.m.!), afternoon 
 penances of anthems and long canticles in the cathedral 
 at 3 p.m., lectures 10-12, preceded and followed by prayer, 
 is making short work of my old Adam, and pruning 
 my prurient proclivities into perfect parsonic propriety. 
 This is the slowest of slow towns. " It seemeth always 
 Sunday afternoon," as Tennyson says. The country 
 around, however, is gorgeous, though modestly veiled 
 in mud at present. I think the atmosphere of piety, 
 and general odour of sanctity, and the xxxix. articles, 
 are doing me good. The shell of the Cambridge chry- 
 salis is cracking, and the full theological butterfly may 
 soon be expected to emerge and float gracefully through 
 an atmosphere of clericality, sipping the sweets of a 
 title with moderate stipend and no extreme views. O 
 monstrum horrendum, how faithless you were in the 
 vacation about that meeting in London's smoky town. 
 Three weeks I waited for you to write, after which I
 
 WELLS 91 
 
 was constrained to point out to my cousin L that 
 
 it would be an act of shameless indecency on her part 
 
 to present herself in society without a full knowledge of 
 
 the piece that everyone went to see, and that as I was 
 
 always ready to sacrifice her interests to my own, I 
 
 would throw up pressing engagements and escort her 
 
 to a morning performance of Charles the First. Which 
 
 also we did. 
 
 I fear I cannot join you on Dartmoor, but could not 
 
 you take me en route home ? I can give you a bed 
 
 and a bone, with the occasional privilege of my society. 
 
 I shall be here till Easter Monday, and I am quite on 
 
 your way. — Ever yours, 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 At Easter-time Hilton paid a visit to Dorset. I 
 
 was away from home, and failing to meet, he wrote 
 
 to me as follows : 
 
 Wells, 8th May, 1873. 
 
 I suppose you are getting near the end of your time. 
 Do you know this part of the world at all? It is awfully 
 dull, and theology has a depressing effect on the spirits. 
 I was down in Dorsetshire three weeks ago, and was 
 much disappointed not to see you. Edward Smith and 
 I had a nice walk along the coast. 
 
 I suppose you are enjoying yourself immensely at 
 Cambridge, and doing your best to " catch the blossom 
 of the flying term." I find that society at Wells is not 
 cjuite so open-armed as at Cambridge. However, one 
 can revel in the purer pleasures of a really beautiful 
 country, at least one could if it didn't rain every day. 
 I got wet through yesterday, and went into a pot-house 
 to dry.
 
 92 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 " Very wet," I observed to mine host. 
 
 " Yes, sir, beautiful rain, sir," said the brute. 
 
 Somersetshire people are most unfeeling. I have to 
 get up to 8 o'clock chapel every morning, wet or dry, 
 and if a snowstorm keeps me from lecture the Principal 
 foams at the mouth. — Ever yours, A. C. H. 
 
 To Edward Noel Smith. 
 
 Wells, a/7; May, 1S73. 
 
 I ought to have written to you before to express my 
 
 gratitude for my very pleasant week at Stafford. I 
 
 , assure you it quite picked me up, after the depressing 
 
 influence of Wells, and to this day I feel the beneficial 
 
 effects of our coast walk. 
 
 I had an awful journey to London after I left you. 
 We went a fine pace for a time, and nearly made up 
 for lost time ; but when we got within ten miles of 
 Paddington, the people waved flags and stopped us dead 
 for about a quarter of an hour, after which we crawled 
 in at the speed of a twopenny 'bus, and got in fifty 
 minutes late. I missed my dinner, and had to rush out 
 of the theatre between the acts, to eat cold beef at 
 a pot house. 
 
 Eugene Aram is very fine, though hardly equal, I 
 think, to his martyred majesty. The audience were 
 awfully enthusiastic. On my way back to Wells I went 
 to stay a day or two with a cousin who has taken a 
 house in Hampshire, and we were very festive. There 
 were various chaste pleasures to be enjoyed, and such 
 remarkable drink and cookery ; I have not enjoyed a 
 meal since. There were five of us in the house — two 
 males and three females — and no one older than twenty- 
 six, so that all was liberty, fraternity, and equality.
 
 WELLS 93 
 
 It has rained at Wells since eight o'clock last Monday 
 evening. How is the reading? "Good luck have thou 
 with thine honours " {Psalms). 
 
 I trust you put the shilling you received from me into 
 the poor-box. I have been curtailing my charities in 
 proportion ever since. A. C. H. 
 
 Sir Henry Irving was at this time playing Eugene 
 Aram and Charles I. 
 
 To Edward Noel Smith. 
 
 Wells, i%th May, 1873. 
 
 You appear to have come into unlawful possession of 
 ^15, but on what grounds you conceive me to have been 
 similarly fortunate or unprincipled, I cannot imagine. 
 I am tied by the leg here till October 6th. I arrove on 
 Saturday last, since which it has rained — a bad look-out 
 for the archaeologists to-morrow. Your recommendation 
 of me to Colonel Pinney was an act of true brotherly 
 love, for which I shall be extremely grateful, even if he 
 forgets all about it. The discipline of the College is to 
 be somewhat relaxed for the next day or two, so I hope 
 to hear one or two antiquarian discourses. 
 
 You appear to be having great sport. Don't forget 
 
 to come here and see me between this and October 6th. 
 
 When shall you be ordained ? What are Maclaghan's 
 
 [now Archbishop of York] views ? I do not mean to 
 
 begin work with any extreme man. I should like to see 
 
 you much and talk theology and scandal. 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 P.S. — I have seen the Shah ; at least, I saw him at 
 the Opera Comique, where he is a great deal more 
 natural than in real life.
 
 94 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 The reference to ,£15 is to the withdrawal of 
 " caution money " which undergraduates at Cam- 
 bridge and Oxford have to deposit on entering a 
 College. When they become graduates, they elect 
 to remain upon the books of their respective Colleges 
 and pay an additional sum, making up in all about 
 ^£40, whereupon they become members for life of 
 their Colleges, or determine to discontinue their 
 membership, in which case they receive back the 
 ^15 deposited on entrance as "caution money." 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 2ind June, 1S73. 
 
 You must have had a very enjoyable day at Welling- 
 ton. 
 
 I had an amusing adventure the other day, I was 
 out for a long walk, and I went to a little village 
 inn to get something to eat. A nice looking woman 
 appeared. "Can it be possible?" she said, clasping 
 her hands. "What?" said I. "You are my brother" 
 she cried, and nearly hugged me. It seemed she had 
 a brother in Africa whom she had not seen for six- 
 teen years, but the reason she thought I was the 
 man was because I was so like her father who was 
 dead. The curious thing was that though I stopped 
 there some time and had some eggs and bacon, yet 
 neither she nor her husband could get rid of the 
 notion that I was some relation of theirs, and up to 
 the last minute they seemed firmly convinced that I 
 was only pretending not to be her brother. More- 
 over, they called in the parish clerk and the school- 
 master, and they all perceived the "family likeness"
 
 WELLS 95 
 
 directly. I was of course highly flattered. It was as 
 much as I could do to persuade them to take any 
 money for what I had to eat, and they seemed quite 
 hurt that I would not stop all night. It was almost 
 as good as Tichborne. — Ever your affectionate Son, 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 Hawes Turner was at this time editing Words- 
 worth's Excursion for scholastic purposes, which will 
 explain, so far as it may need explanation, the refer- 
 ence in the following letter addressed to me : 
 
 25/h May, 1873. 
 Many thanks for your nice letter. It is pleasant to 
 find that one's friends have not forgotten one. I trust 
 the weather has been more salubrious at Cambridge 
 than here, or your people must have caught some colds. 
 I wish I were on the spot to exercise my hospitality on 
 them, as you did so profusely on mine last year. I have 
 not yet heard from Turner [Hawes Turner], but it is 
 satisfactory to be assured that he is in the flesh, and has 
 been usefully employed. He has done a great work if 
 he has made Wordsworth palatable to the general 
 reader. 
 
 " Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind 
 Turned inside out." 
 A "Mr. Cook" is sadly needed for that Excursion. 
 
 From the carefully guarded way in which you praise 
 The Light Blue, I should imagine you thought I had 
 been guilty of the whole of it. I have, however, no 
 connection with it beyond first strongly deprecating its 
 publication, and then, at Metcalfe's earnest request, 
 contributing a play written some time ago for private
 
 96 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 performance. The whole concern is, in my opinion, 
 abominable trash, and it was very weak of you not to 
 say so. 
 
 Metcalfe, distrusting his editor (who, I believe, is one 
 Chambers, an Architect and Surveyor), sent me some 
 of the proofs to look over. I told him that they were 
 unfit for publication, but soon afterwards they appeared 
 in all their virgin barbarism. A more grotesque mixture 
 of bad English, bad style, and bad taste than the account 
 of the boat race, for instance, it has seldom been my 
 lot to deplore. 
 
 You mention a Cambridge undergraduate's journal. 
 Is it the same as the Cantab? If it is, it coolly appro- 
 priated my name in a blue prospectus issued a month 
 or two ago, which announced that among the contributors 
 would be Jebb, Bonney, Professor Seeley, and the Editor 
 of The Light Green. My indignation was considerably 
 tempered at finding myself in such distinguished com- 
 pany, but still I thought it somewhat cool. I remember 
 Tennyson at Marlborough. He and I had a very close 
 race for a prize in my last half-year there. 
 
 I don't think I shall be out of my element in the 
 Church, and as a proof I enclose an ecclesiastical skit 
 which made some sensation here. No one guesses the 
 author, though the signature is an anagram on my name, 
 and perhaps it is as well they don't. You will probably 
 agree with the original letter more than with my reply- 
 to it, but it may amuse you, or irritate you, which is the 
 next best form of excitement. Send it back to me next 
 time you write, which I do not expect you to do yet, as 
 you are busy and I am idle. I enclose phiz, and should 
 like yours much. — Ever yours, A. C. H.
 
 WELLS 97 
 
 P.S. — Religious motives apart, the clerical profession 
 is a better look-out from a worldly point of view than 
 amateur scribbling, though neither prospect is bright. 
 
 The skit to which he refers was a letter to a 
 Wells local newspaper, but I have not been able to 
 recover it. 
 
 The first number of The Light Blue had just 
 appeared (May, 1873), and the place of honour was 
 allotted to Arthur Hilton's " Hamlet." We knew this 
 was his work, but whether he had had any hand in the 
 other portions, as editor or otherwise, I did not feel 
 sure, so I wrote to him diplomatically. His comments 
 on The Light Blue as a whole were entirely justified, 
 it was a miserably poor magazine, and unworthy of 
 publication. 
 
 The postscript to his letter, and his other reference 
 to his not being " out of his element in the Church," 
 was in consequence of my having urged him several 
 times to take up literature as his profession. He 
 writes as if I thought he would not succeed in clerical 
 life, but I had no doubt that he would make his 
 mark in any walk of life into which he put his heart. 
 The opinion I had formed was that with his strong 
 dramatic instinct, his artistic feeling, and his marked 
 literary skill, he would gradually strike out a line for 
 himself and secure a hearing in the press far wider 
 than that of the pulpit. Though there are lean 
 years to be bridged over, and the taste of the public 
 is uncertain, I considered that Hilton need have no 
 
 G
 
 98 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 fear of success if he made the venture. It was 
 from no idea that he was unsuited for a clerical 
 life, but from the thought that he might ultimately 
 do better work if he gave full scope to his natural 
 bent. 
 
 How Hilton's name came to be published in 
 connection with the Undergraduates' Journal I do 
 not know, as I had no connection with it at the 
 time the prospectus was issued. Hallam Tennyson 
 (now Lord Tennyson) was editor of it, and I gave 
 him some assistance by writing some articles and 
 getting others to write. In the October term I 
 wrote to ask Hilton to send us something, and his 
 reply to me was as follows : 
 
 Wells, 28M October, 1873. 
 
 I have just returned to Wells after a three weeks' 
 vacation. I did not get your letter till last Friday, 
 and have really had no time hitherto to answer it, 
 much less to write anything for the Undergraduates' 
 Journal. Moreover, I can't think of anything to write 
 about, and not being on the spot one cannot take 
 advantage of Cambridge jests and gossip. I do not 
 think Wells is a good place for fostering a literary 
 turn of mind, and I find it very difficult to keep my 
 composition from running into the style of theological 
 controversy. Still if I do have a happy inspiration, 
 I will send you the result, but I shall not expect you 
 to insert it, — in fact, my opinion of your editorial 
 faculty will be shaken if you do. 
 
 I was very sorry indeed to hear about poor Horace
 
 WELLS 99 
 
 Moule. He was one of the few Marlborough masters 
 who ever shewed me kindness or courtesy or — what 
 was rarer still — appreciation. 
 
 You will doubtless be pleased to hear that I have 
 satisfactorily passed the Archbishop of Canterbury's 
 preliminary examination, and shall probably be ordained 
 next March. I am becoming rather priggish and 
 opinionated, and am developing Anglican views. 
 
 How is Turner? He has owed me a letter for some 
 months, but all shall be forgiven if he will write now. 
 
 We may perchance meet if you are in town at Xmas. 
 
 — Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 Horace Moule has already been referred to (p. 
 1 6), as one of a band of brilliant brothers, whom 
 many of us thought the most brilliant of them all. 
 He, like Arthur Hilton, suffered, but in a much 
 more serious way, from the worry of mathematics. 
 Henry Moule, his father, for some sixty years the 
 vicar of Fordington in Dorset, during several years 
 of his life took pupils to educate with his own sons. 
 Under his father's tuition Horace Moule got all the 
 teaching he had, until he went up quite unknown to 
 Trinity College, Oxford, and beat for an open scholar- 
 ship G. J. Goschen (now Viscount Goschen), who had 
 come up from Rugby with a great school reputation 
 to compete for it. The old vicar of Fordington was 
 a Cambridge graduate, and whether it was owing to the 
 Oxford movement or some other cause, I cannot say, 
 but at the end of a year he decreed that his son
 
 ioo LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 Horace should go to Cambridge to finish his Uni- 
 versity course. At Cambridge Horace Moule was 
 at once recognised as a brilliant and versatile person 
 of most agreeable manners, and he was looked upon 
 as likely to come out senior in the Classical Tripos 
 of his year. But there was a lion in his path. In 
 those days, and for many years after, no one could 
 go in for the Classical Tripos unless he first secured 
 a place in the Mathematical Tripos. To Horace 
 Moule and to Arthur Hilton, and countless other 
 men of a classical turn of mind, the study of 
 mathematics was repellent. Horace Moule, though 
 he would have been a made man had he come 
 out as Senior Classic, was unable even to go in for 
 the Classical Tripos, for he failed as many others 
 had done, to take honours in mathematics. This 
 indefensible system of previous mathematical honours 
 being necessary for classical honours' men, prevented 
 him from entering for the Classical Tripos, and so 
 lost him all chance of a Fellowship. For a time he 
 became, as we have seen, a master at Marlborough, 
 then a leader writer for the Saturday Review, and 
 then, after literary work for several years, he obtained 
 an Inspectorship of Union Workhouses. But the 
 iron of disappointment had entered his soul, and 
 the prospect of a less anxious life came too late, and 
 a few weeks before I wrote to Arthur Hilton, Horace 
 Moule had died, sad to say, by his own hand. Under 
 these untoward circumstances the following lines,
 
 WELLS 101 
 
 written by Hilton's favourite Marlborough master, have 
 a special interest : 
 
 "As, whene'er a man departing 
 
 Leaves behind a well-known place, 
 And his friend, with tear-drops starting, 
 Claims the picture of his face ; 
 
 He, well loving, 
 Asks for truth and not for grace ; 
 
 Does not blame the painter's duty, 
 
 Nor to weak dispraise incline, 
 If with fainter marks of beauty 
 Ruder features intertwine, 
 
 Asking only 
 ' Draw my friend's face line by line.' " 
 
 — H. M. M. 
 
 Amongst Hilton's papers, written in pencil, is the 
 following memorial notice of Horace M. Moule, 
 written apparently for publication : 
 
 "School generations pass so quickly — the talk of 
 to-day is the tradition of to-morrow — the Balliol 
 scholar or the hero of the playing-field becomes the 
 undistinguished ' old fellow,' and teachers and taught 
 of the old days so soon pass out into a larger 
 world, that it is quite possible that at Marlborough 
 now the tidings of the death of Horace Moule 
 brings not a sense of severe loss. Probably it 
 was in College rooms, at regimental tables, in 
 London offices, in country curacies, that the short 
 newspaper paragraph stirred the most tender memories
 
 102 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 and awakened the most heartfelt regrets. I speak 
 not of the manner of his death — it is the old story ; 
 the keen intellect clouded, the sympathetic nature 
 jarred and unstrung by the very force of its own 
 delicate appreciation of the misery of others — but I 
 would dwell for a short time on my own recollec- 
 tions, recollections shared by many others, of the 
 kindness, gentleness, and loving influence of our 
 Marlborough master. I believe that amid all the 
 schoolboy affectation of indifference to courtesy and 
 independence of persuasion, there is yet a disposition 
 to welcome any attempt to soften the formalities of 
 intercourse between master and pupil, to unlock the 
 hard door of idle apathy with the golden key of 
 kindly encouragement, and to invest the sternness of 
 the study with the glamour of ambition and fame. 
 This was pre-eminently his method. He desired 
 and endeavoured to make his pupils follow him as 
 a friend rather than as a leader along the path of 
 knowledge. He would have them recognise their 
 own powers and believe in the development of their 
 own unripe faculties. He showed them that he 
 considered them not as a class of careless children, 
 but as individual embryo men, endowed with their 
 several talents, to be cast away and squandered or 
 cherished for their own and the world's profit, 
 according as they realized the value of their gifts. 
 Who so kindly as he to discover and praise the 
 smallest spark of boyish genius or the painful
 
 WELLS 103 
 
 endeavour to acquire by diligence what nature had 
 not bestowed ? who so careful to encourage the 
 earnest and stimulate the faint-hearted ? who so 
 quick to acknowledge the gleam of scholarship, the 
 happy translation, the neat verse, or even in more 
 social intercourse the original idea or the bright 
 schoolboy jest? Truly that genial nature did good 
 work amongst us. The ready smile, the willing 
 approval were not thrown away. Many warped minds 
 were restored to activity, many dull intellects quick- 
 ened to enthusiasm by the influence of his ready 
 friendship." 
 
 In the latter part of November, 1873, Hilton 
 journeyed from Wells to Sandwich, with a view to 
 taking the curacy of St. Clement's, and a title to 
 orders from the Rev. Arthur Manners Chichester. 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Deal, November, 1873. 
 
 I will tell you a little more about Sandwich. 
 Chichester is the vicar not of one, but of two 
 churches ; one has been restored, the other is being- 
 done now, and will be opened next spring. There 
 are about 900 people in each parish. Chichester is a 
 bachelor, about 30 — quiet man, rather shy, but quite the 
 gentleman, and very good-looking — a sort of saintly face. 
 He is quite devoted to his work, and has done an 
 immense deal in the town. I heard him preach yester- 
 day — fifteen minutes plain, earnest sermon. He calls 
 himself a moderate High Churchman, and has quite my 
 views on ritual, but is obliged to be very careful for
 
 104 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 fear of frightening his congregation. For this reason 
 he preaches in a black gown (!) as he says he doesn't 
 see the harm of it, and it has always been the custom 
 in the church where he preaches. I told him it was a 
 badge of party, and stipulated that I should wear a 
 surplice myself. He wears a cassock in church, not in 
 the streets. There is daily evensong at his churches 
 and the other one in the town in turns. He is well 
 known round about as a good Churchman and a model 
 priest. I sincerely hope he may make up his mind to 
 take me ; I can hardly imagine any man whom I would 
 rather choose as my vicar. Sandwich is not so very 
 bad after all, and it is healthy. — Ever your affectionate 
 son, A. C. H. 
 
 Hilton obtained his wish, and secured the curacy 
 of Sandwich. He refers to it in the following letter 
 addressed to me : 
 
 Uxbridge, 29th December, 1873. 
 
 Many thanks for your letter, which has been forwarded 
 to me here. I fear I must deny myself the pleasure 
 of coming to see you. My reasons are rather feeble, 
 you will think, but collectively they are too much for 
 my inclinations. In the first place, I am, as usual, 
 a pauper, and you live such a cruelly long way off; 
 in the second place, this is the last time I shall ever 
 be at home for any length of time, and I have already 
 promised to go to Henry Smith's wedding, and shall 
 probably have to go down into Kent besides ; in the 
 third place, I cherish the idea that I am doing some 
 reading in preparation for March 1st next, when I 
 hope to be ordained. I am sorry to miss the oppor-
 
 WELLS 105 
 
 tunity of seeing you again. Do you ever come down 
 into Kent, for that is to be my future abode? I have 
 obtained a curacy at Sandwich under one Chichester, 
 an exceedingly charming man, good churchman, but 
 not a Ritualist, so there will be nothing to frighten 
 you, if you are ever disposed to come and see me. 
 I begin to look forward to Holy Orders as the time 
 draws near. I am going to write to Edward [Noel 
 Smith] to-day to ask him how he gets on. I don't 
 think I could quite stand those London slums. 
 
 Please remember me to your people, and thanking 
 you again for your kind invitation, 
 Believe me, 
 
 Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 Hilton returned to Wells after Christmas, and on 
 the 1 st March, 1874, his twenty-third birthday, he 
 was ordained.
 
 SANDWICH. 
 
 1874-1877. 
 
 On Sunday, the 1st March, 1874, Arthur Hilton 
 was ordained deacon at St. Mark's Church, Kenning- 
 ton, at the Lent ordination, by Bishop Parry, suffragan 
 Bishop of Dover, and he entered next day upon his 
 duties as curate of the two churches of St. Clement, 
 and St. Mary, Sandwich. At this ordination, both 
 Crawford Tait, the only son of the late Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, and the present Archbishop of 
 Canterbury (Davidson) were also ordained Deacons. 
 
 Sandwich is one of the quaintest of English towns. 
 As seen from a little distance, standing in the waste 
 of marsh and pasture land with its red roofs and 
 square set church towers, it wears quite a foreign air. 
 It is one of the Cinque Ports, and has a long and 
 lively history. Though often harassed by the Danes, 
 and sacked and burnt again and again by the French, 
 its prosperity in the old times knew no real check. 
 Frequent onslaughts upon the town only seemed to
 
 SANDWICH 107 
 
 bring out the mettle of the dwellers at Sandwich, with 
 its 1500 mariners and its fifteen sail of armed vessels, 
 and heavier fortifications and greater wealth went 
 hand in hand. The fortifications of Edward IV. 
 made Sandwich such a stronghold that the harbour 
 and customs receipts rose to ^17,000 per annum and 
 the townsfolk owned well nigh 100 vessels of heavy 
 tonnage. All went well so long as the sea washed 
 the walls of Sandwich. But in the reign of Henry VII. 
 the sea began to recede rapidly as the marshy tracts 
 rose, and in the reign of Edward VI. the mouth of the 
 river Stour, which till then had given access to ships 
 from the sea, silted up, and the glory of the town 
 departed. The port being thereafter useless, save 
 for ships of small burden, the fortunes of Sandwich 
 went down. Petitions and commissions in the reign 
 of Anne, and of the early Georges, came to little, and 
 all that they effected was to maintain the width of the 
 Stour at one hundred feet, with a depth of twelve feet 
 at high water along the quay side. 
 
 Leland, writing in the reign of Henry VIII., said : 
 " Sandwich is neatly walled where the town standeth 
 most in jeopardy of enemies. The residue of the 
 town is ditched and mud-walled. There be in the 
 town four principal gates, and three parish churches." 
 The churches remain. A good portion of the walls 
 are still to be seen, and there is a delightful shady 
 walk on the southern and western side of the town, 
 between the old ramparts and the protecting fosse.
 
 108 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 Of the four "principal gates" but one remains, the 
 Fisher's Gate, at the bottom of Quay (now called 
 Key) Street. 
 
 There is an extraordinary charm about Sandwich. 
 It seems when one is there as if one had dropped into 
 a little backwater of medieval England. St. Clement's, 
 with its fine massive Norman tower, stands boldly out 
 above the little town rich in other buildings full of 
 interest, all specially delightful to Hilton with his 
 keen artistic temperament and wealth of architectural 
 knowledge. At every turn picturesque gables and 
 quaint old structures abound, adorned with bold and 
 grotesque carvings. And then but twelve miles to 
 the westward lies Canterbury with its centuries of 
 history and its vast ecclesiastical buildings. 
 
 In the old days when Sandwich was in its zenith, 
 Deal, Walmer, Ramsgate, Fordwich, Brightlingsea in 
 Essex, and Stonar and Sarre in the Isle of Thanet, 
 were "limbs" of the port of Sandwich. And Sarre 
 Court, as we know, was still, and had long been, the 
 possession of the Hilton family (p. 3). So here 
 was a touch of kinship between Arthur Hilton and 
 the little town of Sandwich, which was to be his 
 last home. 
 
 Another touch of kinship came through his second 
 baptismal name of Clement. Although known as 
 " Arthur," he had from quite a little boy generally 
 signed his name with the initials of both his Chris- 
 tian names, and after he went to Sandwich he almost
 
 SANDWICH 109 
 
 invariably signed his name in full, Arthur Clement 
 Hilton, to emphasize his love for St. Clement's, the 
 pre-eminent and grand old mother church of Sand- 
 wich. 
 
 Two Sundays had passed since his Ordination, 
 when he wrote the following letter : 
 
 To Henry Moray Hilton. 
 
 Cattle Market, 
 Sandwich, \ith March, 1874. 
 
 Thank you very much for your congratulatory letter. 
 
 This is an awfully queer place ; the grass grows 
 copiously in the most frequented streets — in the 
 bye-ways they keep sheep. There is not much going 
 on, but a brewer's cart comes once a week, and my 
 landlady remembers having seen a carriage and pair 
 drive through the town. The names of the streets are 
 peculiar. Tucksboat Street, Knightrider Street, Guild- 
 count Lane, Moat-Sofe, and so on. You can walk all 
 round the town in a quarter of an hour, but when you 
 get in it, it is a perfect labyrinth, and I lose my way 
 hopelessly every day. This I also do in the services, 
 where I have made frequent mistakes — generally in the 
 direction of brevity. Be sure you never try, on a Sun- 
 day morning, to turn to the east and say the Apostles' 
 Creed by heart, or you may forget, as I did, what comes 
 after " Pontius Pilate," and have to stop and turn round 
 to find the place. It is as well also to bear in mind 
 that after reading the Collect for the day, it is not ru- 
 brical to proceed at once to the Prayer of St. Chrysostom, 
 but that there are some six or eight minor petitions 
 which should precede it.
 
 no LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 Joking apart, I like my work, and hope that the time 
 has at last come for a change of life and steadiness of 
 purpose. Holy Orders — even the Diaconate— conveys a 
 fearful responsibility, and I only hope I may always 
 feel the weight of that responsibility as strongly as I 
 do now. 
 
 My vicar is very kind, and gives me every assistance 
 and encouragement. To-day I am going to take a class 
 of boys and give them elaborate instruction in the first 
 part of the Catechism. This, I find, involves much pre- 
 paration. I praught, i.e. preached (as taught for teached) 
 last Sunday, and my landlady said it was " very pro- 
 mising." — Ever your affectionate Cousin, 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 When you write to me please direct "Arthur Clement," 
 as I rather like the coincidence of the name with St. 
 Clement's Parish. There is a saint Clement here, and 
 a curate Clement. The only thing inclement is the 
 weather. 
 
 Thus we see him, full of quips as was his wont, 
 settling down to begin clerical life in earnest. But 
 as it turned out, to make a beginning only, though a 
 good beginning, for after three brief years, as a happy 
 and beloved curate at Sandwich he was called to 
 his rest. 
 
 Miss Edith Hilton, his junior in years, but the 
 eldest of his sisters, took up her home with him 
 about two months after he entered upon his work 
 at Sandwich, and remained with him to the last as 
 his constant companion and helpful co-worker in all
 
 SANDWICH 1 1 1 
 
 parish matters. " I had," she writes me, " the great 
 pleasure and blessing of living alone with my brother 
 during the three years of his clerical life. He was 
 very earnest and faithful in his work, and was for- 
 tunate in having as his vicar one whom he much 
 loved and respected." 
 
 To William U. Fenning. 
 
 Sandwich, March St/i, 1875. 
 My Dear Willie, 
 
 Many thanks for your long letter. You were 
 the only person, except my Mother, who testified any 
 consciousness of my birthday. That auspicious festival 
 becomes somewhat shorn of its fair proportions as years 
 advance, but I daresay you remember the time when I 
 considered it a high feast indeed, and it was so in more 
 senses than one. I have a distinct recollection of the 
 season of the year when your nativity recurs. It co- 
 incides providentially with apples, and the making of 
 jam. I think we have held wassail on that day round 
 a groaning box-lid in the ancient covered playground. 
 In fact, I trace my friendship for you to the unbridled 
 passion which once possessed me for your apple puffs. 
 Somehow those Marlborough days seem very far away 
 — further to me, I dare say, than to you. It is odd 
 how you and I have passed and repassed each other 
 in the procession of life. First, at Marlborough, I 
 was a form ahead of you, and patronised you accord- 
 ingly, the said patronage soon giving place to a cringing 
 servility as you became lord of a certain sumptuous 
 cupboard, yclept a new-court study, and after this state 
 of things had continued some years, I suddenly bios-
 
 ii2 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 somed into the glorious undergraduate, and left you the 
 grovelling school-boy. You have never quite caught me 
 up since. We were simultaneously hi statu piipillari, 
 but there you remain yet, while I am a graduate, and 
 a parson, and the head of a household. I fear you are 
 only biding your time, and that ere long you will " Come 
 with a rush " and " leave me standing still." Your pro- 
 longed education ought to be fitting you for great things, 
 and some day you will probably climb into the bishopric 
 by the usual pedagogic ladder thereunto. Joking apart, 
 I rather admire your good sense in not contemplating 
 ordination as a matter of course, like an M.A. degree. 
 There is no earthly reason, as you. say, why an earnest 
 man should not do God's work without taking the irre- 
 vocable step of " entering the Church " (my dear fellow, 
 do remember that you entered the Church at your 
 baptism), and it is a step that can be taken with at 
 least equal promise of success comparatively late in 
 life. 
 
 For my own part, I do not in the least regret my 
 somewhat early admission into the ministry, but I do 
 not think that anything short of a sense of sacred 
 obligation would ever have induced me to do any work 
 in the world at all. As it is, without having altogether 
 shaken off my predisposition to laziness, yet I get 
 through far more parochial work, and even private 
 reading (!) than I should ever have thought possible 
 in old days. I even find myself taking up Alford's 
 Greek Testament, and running through a chapter as if 
 I liked it. 
 
 I passed my examination for priest's orders the other 
 day, but my ordination will not be till Trinity Sunday,
 
 SANDWICH 113 
 
 the second Sunday in Lent this year not finding me 
 twenty-four. I shall probably be ordained privately with 
 one other man at one of our Sandwich churches, as the 
 Archbishop has no regular ordination till September. 
 Believing as I do most fully in the Prayer Book views 
 of the ordination of priests, you may imagine that the 
 occasion will be to me of no small solemnity. 
 
 Good luck to you in your examination. I wish you 
 could come and see us at Easter. We should be really 
 pleased to have you here. 
 
 You ask how my sermons are appreciated. I really 
 don't know. I aim at reaching the feelings of the 
 ignorant rather than of the learned. Of course, the 
 people are always telling me that my last discourse 
 was " beautiful," and so on, but they would say that to 
 any stick. 
 
 I have written no poetry to speak of for a long time, 
 which I consider a good sign — the receptive faculties, 
 I hope, developing instead of the productive. I am too 
 young really to write yet. — Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 Arthur Clement Hilton. 
 
 Arthur Hilton was ordained priest at St. Mary's 
 Church, Sandwich, on Trinity Sunday (May 23) 
 by Bishop Parry. 
 
 To William D. Fenning. 
 
 Sandwich, \th June, 1875. 
 My Dear Fenning, 
 
 If my Standard tells the truth, I number an 
 Oxford first-class man among my young friends and 
 pupils. 
 
 H
 
 ii4 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 How on earth did you manage it ? Were the ex- 
 aminers asleep, or did they show you the papers before- 
 hand ? 
 
 Seriously, I am very pleased with you, and will re- 
 commend you to the Corporation of Sandwich as a fit 
 candidate for the office of Town Crier or Scavenger, or 
 Deputy Harbour Master, or any other lucrative sinecure 
 you may consider yourself qualified for. 
 
 What are you going to do with yourself? Shall you 
 try for a fellowship, or wait at Oxford till they make 
 you Vice-Chancellor? 
 
 Write and let me know. — Ever yours, 
 
 Arthur Clement Hilton. 
 
 After this letter to congratulate his friend, there 
 is unfortunately another wide gap in his correspon- 
 dence. On the 2nd March, 1876, he writes a letter 
 to his mother, thanking her for her birthday letter 
 to him of the day before. 
 
 Sandwich, 2nd March, 1876. 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 Thank you very much for your kind letter and 
 present. The latter will make a very good nest egg for 
 the fund for a pocket communion service. I do not 
 mean to buy it till I can afford a good one. I had some 
 other presents — a nice prayer book from Edith, a bunch 
 of beautiful flowers from Miss Marsh, one of the district 
 visitors, and a basket of eggs from Mrs. Wood, by way 
 of Lenten fare. It is curious how often my birthday 
 comes on Ash Wednesday. I remember it always used 
 to when I was a small boy. It was a very dull day here 
 in spite of your prophecies of sunshine, and the services
 
 SANDWICH 115 
 
 in the churches were naturally not of a cheerful character. 
 I have a great deal to do now, more than I ever had 
 before. I am coaching some children from the school 
 to go in for a prayer-book prize. I am also announced 
 to give a course of plain addresses on the Lord's Prayer 
 every Friday evening at St. Clement's. These I intend 
 to deliver extempore, which will be rather a novelty. 
 
 I do not possess a copy of the little play you want, 
 except a very rough one in a note-book, Prince and 
 Page, written down as it was composed, and illegible 
 to anyone but the writer. I am afraid I have not time 
 to copy it out. Perhaps next Christmas I may get it 
 put into a magazine. — Ever your affectionate son, 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 To my lasting regret I saw Arthur Hilton but 
 once after he took up his cure of souls in Sandwich, 
 and that was in this spring of 1876, when he stayed 
 for a night with me in Chelsea, where I was then 
 living. He and I went to see Irving in Hamlet, the 
 first time that I had seen him in that part. When 
 we got back, I was so full of the play that I en- 
 deavoured to show C. H. Wilson, who then shared 
 my lodgings, how Irving flung himself into the King's 
 seat after the playing scene. I did it with such 
 dramatic fervour that I broke off the hind leg of 
 the large arm-chair which I had selected as my 
 temporary throne, and the armchair departing from 
 under me, I found myself pitched through the glass 
 of the low French window of our dwelling room into 
 the balcony without. Peals of laughter came from
 
 u6 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 C H. Wilson and from Arthur Hilton, the latter 
 asserting that my version of it had entirely eclipsed 
 the Lyceum actor's. Next morning Hilton left be- 
 times, and I promised to visit him shortly at Sand- 
 wich, and fully intended doing so. But in those 
 early years of life the thought of one so full of 
 vigour and brightness departing never seemed to 
 enter into one's calculations, and not hastening to 
 make my promised visit, I was too late. 
 
 Shortly before Michaelmas Day (1876) Hilton 
 received an invitation from a friend at Sandwich to 
 come to a goose dinner, to which he sent the 
 following reply : 
 
 Dear Mrs. Wood, 
 
 Your offer so good, 
 To accept I am sending this line off. 
 
 To be deaf to your letter, 
 
 Would prove me no better 
 Than the bird you intend me to dine off. 
 
 Two months later he went up to Cambridge for a 
 flying visit in order to take his MA. degree, which 
 was duly conferred on 23rd November. 
 
 Early in the following spring Arthur Clement 
 Hilton fell ill. Never at the best of times robust, 
 the March winds of that year, when, perhaps, his 
 strength was a little over-taxed, took hold of him ; 
 and then going about the parish too soon, he had 
 to take to his bed, suffering from congestion of the 
 lungs. But no one was alarmed about his condition
 
 SANDWICH 117 
 
 and he seemed to be making good progress when, 
 on 19th March, he wrote to his old friend W. D. 
 Fenning the following letter : 
 
 To W. D. Fenning. 
 
 Sandwich, igth March, 1877. 
 
 My Dear Willie, 
 
 I heard you had a plan of spending a few days 
 with us during the Easter holidays. 
 
 I wish with all my heart it could be carried out, but 
 unfortunately I have been laid up for the last five or 
 six weeks with congestion of the lungs. I am now 
 slowly recovering, and am able to get up and come down- 
 stairs for part of the day. Directly I am strong enough 
 I shall go to Uxbridge for change. This may be before 
 or after Easter, but anyhow I fear I must give up the 
 idea of entertaining you or anybody else. 
 
 This is the first day that I have written in ink instead 
 of pencil. Great improvement. I took violent exercise 
 this morning. I raised my arms above my head ten 
 times, struck out right and left ten times, and walked 
 up and down the room ten times. I had to sit down 
 after it, but I think it did me good, and gave me an 
 appetite. — Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 A. C. H. 
 
 This is his last letter. A day or two later he had 
 a relapse, and then after a brief struggle for life he 
 died on Easter Tuesday, 3rd April, 1877, only 
 twenty-six years of age. 
 
 What more is there to say ? The Corporation met
 
 n8 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 together and passed resolutions of condolence, obitu- 
 ary sermons were preached, and there was a touching 
 funeral service at the grave side, where he now rests 
 just without the chancel walls of his beloved church 
 of St. Clement. The parishioners erected in St. 
 Clement's Church a window to his memory, and 
 the love and respect shown for him in these last 
 solemn rites were such as is quite unusual in the 
 case of one so young. 
 
 Shortly before his death he had taken much 
 interest in preparing for the free use of the poorer 
 parishioners a new pall, as the one in use he had 
 thought unworthy. The new pall he designed him- 
 self in its minutest details, and his sister, Miss Edith 
 Hilton, who lived with him, worked it in accordance 
 with his instructions. The pall was finished just 
 before he died, and was first used at his own 
 funeral. 
 
 Two years later, Crauford Tait, the son of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, died, he too quite 
 young, and also an only son, and in the ministry 
 in the same diocese. In the Life of Catharine 
 and Crauford 7aif, the Archbishop makes men- 
 tion of Arthur Clement Hilton in the following 
 passage : "It is remarkable that another young 
 clergyman, ordained on the same day as himself 
 [i.e. Crauford Tait] equally given up to his Master's 
 service, Horsley, and another almost of the same 
 standing, Hilton, one of the most devoted and be-
 
 SANDWICH 119 
 
 loved curates of the diocese, have passed away like 
 him, their work scarcely begun. But God accepted 
 in all three the short service which he gave them 
 time to render. It is natural to say that such lives 
 cut short bear on them the mark of imperfectness ; 
 but in God's sight it is not so." 
 
 Arthur Clement Hilton's gentle, happy, genial 
 manner, his steady work amongst the poor and the 
 suffering, and the literary quality of his sermons, 
 combined with a striking and perfect delivery, justi- 
 fied the general opinion that the Church had lost a 
 minister of quite unusual promise. 
 
 As he said in his letter to his friend, W. I). 
 Fenning, he was writing little poetry. A Fragment, 
 Psalm CXXVII., and a little Hymn. And then just 
 before he died the more important Pilgrimage of Grace, 
 on his beloved Church of St. Clement. A slender 
 record — for his mind was running in fresh grooves, 
 and the time when he might have written freely 
 again was not to come. He was labouring indefatig- 
 ably in his parish work in Sandwich, and already 
 his growing power as a preacher was becoming 
 generally felt. Even the humblest folk were dis- 
 covering that he had something of interest for them 
 in his sermons. To quote the words used to me 
 some years later by the old barber of the place, 
 uttered with unwonted emphasis, " Ah, Mr. Hilton, 
 he were a preacher ; one in ten thousand beant like 
 he." For three years he worked hard and faithfully
 
 120 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 as curate of St. Clement's, and under the shadow 
 of the grand old Norman tower is his last resting 
 place on earth. 
 
 What the future might have had in store for him 
 had he been spared, it is useless to speculate upon. 
 Sufficient for us that in the few brief years that 
 were his, he plucked a few sprigs of bay and made 
 therewith his own little crown. 
 
 But count not theirs a darker fate. 
 Who somewhat earlier sleep. 

 
 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 1868-1877
 
 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 TO JOHN SOWERBY. 
 
 "It is better far 
 To rule by love than fear." 
 
 Oh, grey old " Noggs," loved, honoured, and revered, 
 
 My mental eye perceives thy hoary beard, 
 
 Thy ancient nose, thy silver-sandy hair, 
 
 Thy eyes that watch me with paternal care. 
 
 Long may'st thou grant me endless "leaves off school," 
 
 And pardon each transgression of a rule ! 
 
 Long may I hear thee in thine own strange way 
 
 Remark with curious fervour, "Oh, I s-a-y." 
 
 Once on a time, men say, in days of yore 
 A " booby trap " was set above the door ; 
 It was not meant for him — they deemed that he 
 Was seated at his solitary tea. 
 Some chance did animate his restless toe 
 Too early round the dormit'ries to go ; 
 Scarce had he crossed the threshold — on his crown 
 A mighty dictionary came thundering down,
 
 i2 4 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 While here and there the frightened culprits ran 
 Exclaiming breathlessly, " By Jove, the Man ! " 
 Did he rush at them with resistless might, 
 Or give them several hundred lines to write ? 
 By no means. Turning round as one amazed, 
 Grimly around the darkened room he gazed, 
 And, said, while picking up his battered cap, 
 "You people can't half set a booby-trap." 
 
 And when the poor delinquents on the morrow 
 Went to him to express their contrite sorrow, 
 He sniffed a kindly sniff, and scratched his head, 
 And then with mild benignity he said 
 " I might have had concussion of the brain, 
 But well — I hope it won't occur again ! " 
 
 October, 1868. 
 
 A MARLBOROUGH CHARADE. 
 (SNOWDROP.) 
 I. 
 "Tis a February morning, 
 
 Sullen is the atmosphere, 
 Nature's shining cold white mantle 
 Covers all things far and near. 
 
 Trackless is the dreary court-yard, 
 
 Save where early-rising Voss 
 Has been diligently sweeping 
 
 Sundry little paths across.
 
 A MARLBOROUGH CHARADE 125 
 
 Gleaming icicles hang pendant 
 From the stark and leafless trees, 
 
 While in Hall the tea and coffee 
 Has a tendency to freeze. 
 
 From beneath the sheltering Arches 
 
 Stept a Prefect, grim and great, 
 Walking over to his breakfast 
 
 With a slow majestic gait, 
 Little recked he of the future, 
 
 Little of impending fate, 
 He was thinking of a motion 
 
 For the next Sixth Form Debate 
 When he felt a sudden something 
 
 On his venerable pate. 
 
 And a clammy shudder thrilled him, 
 
 As behind his ear it burst, 
 And a passer-by informs us 
 
 That emphatically he cursed 
 The impertinence of — some one, 
 
 And the coldness of my first 
 
 II. 
 The goal post has taken the place of the wicket.. 
 
 And all things to Football must yield. 
 And faded and gone is the glory of Cricket, 
 And nimbly the ball flies as sturdy toes kick it 
 
 At "Punt about" up in the field.
 
 126 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 Let us seek the broad space where the battle is raging, 
 
 Where, fighting in equal array, 
 Two houses fierce mutual warfare are waging, 
 With th' essence of purest house-feeling engaging, 
 
 Each vowing to carry the day. 
 
 " Dulce est," declares Horace, " pro patria mori." 
 
 Far sweeter 'tis commonly reckoned, 
 To rescue the ball from the scrimmage so gory, 
 To make a long run, and then, covered with glory, 
 To kick a good goal with my second. 
 
 III. 
 
 The shades of night were falling fast 
 As through a Wiltshire village passed 
 Two youths who walked with rapid stride, 
 While ever and anon they cried, 
 
 '"Tis late! 'tis late!" 
 Sternly their glance shot forth below 
 The cap which crowned each noble brow ; 
 Then spake the elder, " We must cut 
 Like boots, or Mr. Voss will shut 
 
 That horrid gate." 
 
 t-> i 
 
 And as they went their weary way, 
 They passed a garden trim and gay, 
 Wherein 'mid other plants there grew 
 A floweret pleasing to the view, 
 Of snow-white hue.
 
 A MARLBOROUGH CHARADE 127 
 
 "Oh, stay," the younger said, "I'm blest 
 If this shan't deck my Sunday vest ; 
 They've many more than they can want, 
 So we will ask them if they can't 
 Spare us a few." 
 
 They tapped, and straight appeared a peasant, 
 Who made himself extremely pleasant. 
 He quickly granted their request, 
 And after they had culled his best 
 
 They turned to go; 
 "And now," he said, "young gents, I think 
 Your honours' health I'd like to drink." 
 But, ah ! poor man, he sadly erred. 
 They fled — far off he thought he heard, 
 
 " No ! would you though ? " 
 
 He turned and, when he long had mused, 
 Concluded that he'd been ill-used. 
 Reader, if thou would'st guess my riddle, 
 Wait till the tuneful bell for Middle 
 
 Chapel doth toll: 
 Before the service doth begin ; 
 Our friends will swagger slowly in, 
 Adorned in all their Sunday best — 
 Then haply on each manly breast 
 
 You'll spy my whole. 
 November, 1868.
 
 128 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 THE BATTLE OF HERRINGS. 
 
 The occasion of this poem was the county election. Marl- 
 borough was appointed a polling place, and the roughs in the 
 Town were very much enraged at the Conservative propensi- 
 ties of the College. A fishmonger named Harroway threw 
 down herrings to the crowd, to be used against the "Blues." 
 This was the occasion of the Battle of Herrings, which might 
 have become a serious row but for the interruption mentioned 
 in the poem. 
 
 Were I a poet (which I'm not) ! 
 Had I the pen of Walter Scott ! 
 That I might tell the tale of war, 
 And all the battle's fame declare, 
 That I might sing the deeds of might 
 And all the glory of the fight ; 
 How brutal force did skill assail, 
 How herrings hurtled, thick as hail ; 
 The air in that terrific hour 
 Was darkened by the fishy shower. 
 No more need inland rustics wish 
 To view the flight of flying fish, 
 For flying fish, though somewhat bigger, 
 Could not have flown with greater vigour. 
 
 Who was the brave, heroic man, 
 Who the fierce conflict first began? 
 Who was the man of great renown, 
 The gallant champion of the town?
 
 THE BATTLE OF HERRINGS 129 
 
 Nay, Harroway, thy name shall not 
 Unknown, unmentioned go to pot. 
 Thy actions on that awful day, 
 Unlike thy fish, shall not decay, 
 And every fishmonger shall see, 
 How great a fishmonger may be. 
 What though thy business does not do 
 So well as thou might'st wish it to ; 
 What though of thee men do not buy, 
 But get them other fish to fry, 
 Yet still thou may'st with pride reflect, 
 Thy missiles had some small effect, 
 And though thy herrings would not sell, 
 The eager mob employed them well; 
 Their pent-up spleen found ready vent, 
 In shying at each "College gent," 
 While Harroway beheld with pride 
 How excellently straight they shied, 
 And rubbed his hands with oily glee, 
 " Them Tories ain't no match for me." 
 
 The Tories though did not submit 
 To stand as butts for cads to hit, 
 And furiously with might and main 
 They flung the herrings back again. 
 The fishmonger looked on meanwhile 
 With stolid, self-complacent smile, 
 Until a providential shy 
 
 Ingeniously bunged up his eye. 
 
 1
 
 130 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 With sorely disconcerted mien 
 
 He quickly vanished from the scene, 
 
 And hoarsely muttered as he went, 
 
 " I'd like to ketch that there young gent." 
 
 And now the fight was waxing hot, 
 And fiercely flew the salted shot. 
 The ground was dark with heaps of dead, 
 And many a herring lost his head. 
 The many feared the gallant few, 
 The Yellow quailed before the Blue, 
 But as they bravely kept the street, 
 They heard the signal of retreat ; 
 It was a sound they knew full well, 
 The loudly pealing dinner bell. 
 Compelled to fly against their will, 
 They gave three cheers both loud and shrill, 
 And, firing one sharp parting volley, 
 Returned in time to eat their "bolly," 
 In time to tell their tale of glory, 
 And drink " Success to every Tory." 
 November, 1868. 
 
 MR. BAMBRIDGE'S CONCERT. 
 
 That first-rate establishment, Marlborough College, 
 That world-renowned temple of classical knowledge 
 Boasts many instructors of various degree, 
 Professors of learning, M.A. and M.D.,
 
 MR. BAMBRIDGE'S CONCERT 131 
 
 Many scholars and Fellows from Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, 
 
 And among them one, 
 
 Who is second to none 
 In perfection of musical skill, Mr. Bambridge. 
 
 Full many a time has this gentleman striven 
 By means of his talents the town to enliven, 
 And now, with this object in view, he has given 
 A concert, which Marlborough will ever remember, 
 On Tuesday, the twenty-fourth day of November. 
 
 'Twere a hope idiotic, and purely Quixotic, 
 To expect that a Muse, so exceedingly rough 
 As mine, should be able to praise half enough 
 The result of this gentleman's zeal patriotic. 
 
 Suffice it to say, 
 
 On that long-looked-for day, 
 'Mid the high and the low, 'mid the poor and the rich, 
 Excitement had reached an unparalleled pitch, 
 And the concert aroused a sensation, of which 
 The like was unknown to the far recollection 
 Of the oldest inhabitant. E'en the Election 
 Was thrown in the shade by this greater attraction. 
 Though certainly during the day party faction 
 
 Had run rather high, 
 
 And many a cry 
 Of applause or derision, defiant and loud, 
 Had been raised by a not very orderly crowd,
 
 132 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 Among which many voices denounced as a humbug 
 A person whose name they pronounced as "Old 
 Schumbug." 
 
 But now 'tis o'er, 
 
 We hear no more 
 That din and disturbance, that "mighty uproar," 
 And the roughs have bellowed their windpipes sore, 
 And every elector has been to the poll, 
 And the day has passed off very well on the whole, 
 And the crowd has dispersed and the tumult is 
 
 hushed, 
 And at last we arrive, not very much crushed, 
 And each take a seat in a very nice chair 
 In a very nice room, which is lent by the Mayor, 
 With the cordial kindness he always displays, 
 A kindness we cannot sufficiently praise; 
 In fact, 'twould by no means be easy to fix on 
 A worthier man than our Mayor, Mr. Dixon. 
 
 (The above was written before the concert. The details 
 of the performance were to have been added, after attendance, 
 but unfortunately, owing to Election disturbances, members 
 of the school were not allowed to go.) 
 
 November, 1868.
 
 TO EDWARD NOEL SMITH 133 
 
 VERSES ADDRESSED TO HIS FRIEND 
 EDWARD NOEL SMITH. 
 
 Cruel one, thou hast departed, 
 
 I am left to pine alone, 
 I am nearly broken hearted, 
 
 All my faculties have flown. 
 
 Yes, my medical adviser 
 
 Thinks that I am going cracked ; 
 
 His conjectures, I surmise, are 
 Soon to be confirmed by fact. 
 
 Oft together have we wended 
 
 Into school our weary way, 
 Often sleepily attended 
 
 Class-room prayers at close of day, 
 
 Or with aching feet have plodded 
 Up the steeps of Pewsey Hill, 
 
 And returning, sat and fodded 
 Jam enough to make us ill ; 
 
 And when orient Morn doth dapple 
 
 Cloud and hill with rosy ray, 
 Rushed together into chapel, 
 
 Dressing deftly on the way. 
 
 Marlborough, February, 1869.
 
 134 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 FROM HOMER. 
 
 The meeting of Odysseus with his mother in Hades. — Od. XL, 
 
 203-211. 
 
 So she spake ; and o'er my spirit came an anxious 
 
 doubting spell, 
 And I longed to clasp the vision that on earth I 
 
 loved so well. 
 Thrice I sprang towards her ; thrice my yearning 
 
 spirit urged me on; 
 Thrice she faded like a phantom, floating from me, 
 
 and was gone. 
 Then my heart was stung within me with a sharp 
 
 increasing pain, 
 And with winged words I called her to return to 
 
 me again. 
 "Oh, return to me, my mother, why thus cruel 
 
 hast thou fled? 
 Let us take our fill of mourning in the kingdom of 
 
 the dead." 
 
 Marlborough, 1869. 
 
 MATHEMATICS. 
 
 I've really had enough of sums, 
 I've done so very many, 
 
 That now instead of doing sum 
 I'd rather not do any.
 
 MATHEMATICS 135 
 
 I've toiled until my fingers are 
 
 With writing out of joint ; 
 And even now of Decimals 
 
 I cannot see the point. 
 
 Subtraction to my weary mind 
 
 Brings nothing but distraction, 
 And vulgar and improper I 
 
 Consider every fraction. 
 
 "Practice makes perfect," so they say. 
 
 It may be true. The fact is 
 That I unhappily am not 
 
 Yet perfect in my Practice. 
 
 Discount is counted troublesome 
 
 By my unlearned pate ; 
 For cubic root I entertain 
 
 A strongly rooted hate. 
 
 The heathen worship stocks and stones ; 
 
 My pious soul it shocks 
 To be instructed thus to take 
 
 An Liter est in Stocks. 
 
 Of Algebra I fear I have 
 
 A very vague impression ; 
 I study hard, but fail to make 
 
 Harmonical Progression.
 
 136 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 In Euclid too I always climb 
 The Asses' Bridge with pain ; 
 
 A superficies to me 
 Is anything but plane. 
 
 "Apply yourself," my master said, 
 When I my woes confided, 
 
 "And, when you multiply, bestow 
 Attention undivided." 
 
 Oh, if one master tries so hard 
 
 Tyrannical to be, 
 How out of all Proportion I 
 
 Should find a Pule of Three. 
 Cambridge, November, 1S69. 
 
 MY AUNT ELIZA. 
 
 Though prigs and prudes alike presume 
 
 To quiz their old relations — 
 Those more especially from whom 
 
 They have no expectations — 
 Perhaps I'm something more a fool 
 
 Than most, or something wiser, 
 For you I'm loth to ridicule, 
 
 My ancient aunt Eliza. 
 
 Those on the sunny side supplant 
 
 Their betters on the shady, 
 And pert Miss Jane "protests she can't 
 
 Endure a maiden lady."
 
 MY AUNT ELIZA 137 
 
 But till old Time has stilled my tongue, 
 Or made your ears too deaf, you 
 
 Shall hear your praises said or sung 
 By one admiring nephew. 
 
 Who once with such devotion strove 
 
 My young desires to pamper? 
 Who petrified all Peckham Grove 
 
 With that prodigious hamper? 
 Who sweetened life with timely tips, 
 
 Increasing in gradation, 
 Until they threatened to eclipse 
 
 E'en schoolboy expectation? 
 
 You have not changed in any way 
 
 As long as I remember; 
 My life began its New Year's Day 
 
 When yours had reached November; 
 Yet will I ne'er be found among 
 
 The ranks of saucy scoffers, 
 Who hint that you were never young, 
 
 Nor liable to offers. 
 
 Of course there must have been a time 
 
 When men pronounced you pretty, 
 When all your sayings seemed sublime, 
 
 And all your whispers witty. 
 A time when you were not above 
 
 Some interest in novels, 
 And thought the bliss of fondest love 
 
 Was best attained in hovels.
 
 138 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 Romance seemed then more true than rant 
 
 And love than filthy lucre, 
 Monk Lewis less abstruse than Kant, 
 
 And Hook less harsh than Hooker, 
 Minerva more a classic sham 
 
 Than Venus or Diana, 
 Ben Jonson preferable to Sam, 
 
 Tom Moore to graver Hannah. 
 
 And were you once a little Miss, 
 
 And thought it nowise shocking 
 To beg a keepsake, or a kiss, 
 
 Or show your mind, or stocking? 
 Nor ever dreamt of Cupid's dart, 
 
 Nor heeded fashion's folly, 
 Nor set to work to break your heart, 
 
 Save when you broke your dolly? 
 
 And then the doll lay on the shelf, 
 
 And school, which made you shelve it, 
 Taught you instead to " hold yourself," 
 
 And dance, and paint on velvet, 
 And read and write, and net and knit, 
 
 And work a sum or sampler, 
 While stockings vanished, bit by bit, 
 
 As skirts descended ampler. 
 
 And weren't you pleased at "coming out"? 
 
 And anything but sorry 
 To show yourself at ball and rout, 
 
 And dejeuner and soiree ?
 
 MY AUNT ELIZA 139 
 
 And did not beaux come thick as thieves, 
 
 And partners press in plenty, 
 And offers fall like autumn leaves 
 
 Between eighteen and twenty? 
 
 Did all the vanquished vow in vain? 
 
 No suitor suit precisely? 
 Or did you love some fickle swain 
 
 Too well and not too wisely ? 
 Or did you honestly prefer 
 
 To flourish singly blessed? 
 Or were you proud as Lucifer? 
 
 Or changeable as Cressid? 
 
 Or did you think that wedded wife 
 
 Was not your earthly calling? 
 Or did you weary of your life 
 
 And find its pleasures palling? 
 Find men grown too reserved and coy, 
 
 And girls too fast and flirty, — 
 Until with ill-dissembled joy 
 
 Your friends proclaimed you thirty? 
 
 And did you then still more despise 
 
 All folly and flirtation, 
 Regarding with disdainful eyes 
 
 The rising generation, 
 And, when you met at baths and spas 
 
 The world that worships waters, 
 Consorting more with staid mammas, 
 
 And less with flighty daughters?
 
 140 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 And did you take to Calvinism, 
 
 Or some persuasion primmer? 
 And comment on the Catechism, 
 
 And talk like Mrs. Trimmer? 
 And grow so prone to teach and preach 
 
 How all things nice were naughty, 
 That you were quite content to reach 
 
 The serious side of forty? 
 
 Were you resigned when locks and limbs 
 
 Alike grew somewhat thinner? 
 And did you take to singing hymns 
 
 With servants after dinner? 
 And lending out light works on Sin 
 
 In districts foul and slummy? 
 Or did you ask the parson in 
 
 To whist with double dummy? 
 
 And did you gradually eschew 
 
 The charms of male society ? 
 Till spinsters recognised in you 
 
 A pattern of propriety; 
 And married ladies slyly said 
 
 They wished they were as thrifty, 
 And so another decade fled 
 
 And left you lone at fifty. 
 
 Then Scotland sent you Mary Ann, 
 That nymph of claws and " carrots," 
 
 And then I doubt not first began 
 The reign of cats and parrots,
 
 1 869 
 
 MY AUNT ELIZA 141 
 
 Of mournful doves, of fish in globes, 
 
 Of dynasties of Fidos, 
 Whose maladies were worse than Job's, 
 
 And deaths more mourned than Dido's. 
 
 And then your gowns began perhaps 
 
 To cause a slight sensation, 
 And then arose those wondrous caps, 
 
 My childhood's consternation. 
 And so the rolling years became 
 
 Less rigorously reckoned ; 
 The sixtieth found you much the same 
 
 As now the ninety-second. 
 
 And still your smile is kind and bright, 
 
 Your heart devout, yet humble; 
 If life has not been all it might, 
 
 At least you never grumble. 
 The flower of woman's life has fled 
 
 Ere man's has spread its petals; 
 Some wither in the garden bed, 
 
 And some — amongst the nettles. 
 
 DIDO. 
 
 The sun had softly set ; no plash of oar 
 Ruffled the dusky level of the bay; 
 The wavelets smoothly kissed the calm grey 
 shore,
 
 142 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 And sunk to slumber, weary of their play ; 
 The light clouds faded with the fading day, 
 Catching the sunken sun's bright yellow flame 
 To bode a windy morn, and passed away ; 
 And then alone the queen of Carthage came. 
 And told the silent sea the story of her shame. 
 
 " Ah me, these waters which I know so well ! 
 Here did I stand and watch with anxious eyes 
 The slow approaching ships, nor could I tell 
 If they were steered by friends or enemies, 
 Whether 'twere peace or war or enterprise, 
 Or scathing tempest that had urged them here, 
 I knew not, yet a dim and sad surmise 
 Of coming danger filled my soul with fear. 
 Alas, there are worse foes than come with sword 
 and spear ! 
 
 " He came ; and ofttimes on the winding strand 
 Together did we quaff the strong sea air, 
 And all things, as in some enchanted land, 
 Put on a fresher hue, a form more fair. 
 His boy, his bright lulus, oft was there, 
 For ah, the child was ever true to me ! 
 I watched the sunlight on his golden hair, 
 I watched him sporting by the summer sea, 
 And fondly hoped for joys that never were to be. 
 
 " Again I stood upon the barren shore ; 
 And saw the cold white moon above me shine;
 
 DIDO 143 
 
 The sharp stroke of the cruel cutting oar 
 I heard far off across the bitter brine, 
 Far off, too far for any eyes but mine 
 I watched the black specks vanish, one by one, 
 I saw the last ship dot the dim sea line, 
 And then I knew that I was left alone, 
 To reap the evil fruit my evil love had sown. 
 
 " Ah me ! twice widowed ! Wherefore should I 
 live 
 A weary life, a life without repose? 
 No joys or cares that earth can ever give 
 Can wean me from the memory of my woes. 
 Were it not better done to follow those 
 Who seek their death, and pass with sudden 
 
 flight 
 To those dim kingdoms which no mortal knows? 
 There shall I find some new serene delight, 
 Or drink eternal sleep in realms of endless night." 
 Cambridge, February, 1870. 
 
 JASON 
 (A RESCUED RELIC). 
 To the Editor of the Marlburian. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 In looking through the note book of a 
 friend, left now for some time, I came upon the 
 following poem. His modesty or laziness, had pre- 
 vented him from sending it up to you when first
 
 i 4 4 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 written, and so I take the liberty of doing so now. 
 If it should meet his eye, I hope he will forgive 
 me for doing so. It is needless to say that our 
 poet is not a plagiarist from the other old Marl- 
 burian, Mr. Morris, who has written a Life and Death 
 of Jason. 
 
 i. 
 Poor Jason in his younger days 
 
 Was very hardly treated ; 
 Another king was on the throne 
 
 Where he should have been seated. 
 
 ii. 
 
 This gentleman, when Jason showed 
 
 Himself to be the heir, 
 Would touch his eye, and say " D'ye see 
 
 The emerald gleaming there." 
 
 in. 
 
 At last he said, " Since you won't give 
 
 A fellow any peace, 
 The throne I'll yield, if you can bring 
 
 To me the golden fleece." 
 
 IV. 
 
 So Jason fitted out a ship 
 
 And christened her the Argo, 
 And vowed that when he came back home 
 
 The fleece should be her cargo.
 
 JASON 145 
 
 v. 
 
 He took to help him in his voyage, 
 
 Companions nine and forty, 
 Says he, " You must behave yourselves, 
 
 Though men will call you NautcB." 
 
 VI. 
 
 Though we shall doubtless undergo 
 
 Some danger, risk, and pain, 
 Yet on the sea I hope to be 
 
 Successful in the main.'" 
 
 VII. 
 
 But soon a dreadful storm came on ; 
 
 They lost their masts and spars ; 
 The constant pitching of the ship 
 
 Alarmed the gallant tars. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 In fear they said, " Without a mast 
 
 The sea we cannot master ; 
 And though we now have fasted long 
 
 We don't go any faster. 
 
 IX. 
 
 " No land we see, not even Rhodes, 
 Though hard indeed we've rowed; 
 
 The stormy winds do fiercely btotv" 
 Says Jason, " You be b lowed." 
 
 K
 
 i 4 6 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 x. 
 
 At last their wearied eyes behold 
 Far off the wished-for shore ; 
 
 The oar has been their labour long ; 
 Their labour now is o'er. 
 
 XI. 
 
 A dragon watched :he golden fleece, 
 
 An ever wakeful beast ; 
 But Jason swore a solemn oath 
 
 The monster should be fleeced. 
 
 XII. 
 
 In Colchis dwelt a Sorceress, 
 
 Medea was her name ; 
 And charm and spell she knew full well; 
 
 She was a charming dame. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 With many curious ornaments 
 These charms of form enriching, 
 
 She came to Jason, and appeared 
 Uncommonly bewitching. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Says she, '"Ere long that horrid beast 
 
 Will make an end of you, 
 Your foes are many, and your friends"— 
 
 (Here Jason muttered u $ev"). [A/as].
 
 JASON 147 
 
 xv. 
 
 " I will subdue the brute to you 
 
 If you will but agree 
 That if you prove a match for him 
 
 You'll make a match with me." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " Make me your wife, or lose your life," 
 
 She said, " Determine which." 
 And echo in the hero's ear 
 
 Suggested promptly " Witch." 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Says he, " Since you consent such great 
 
 Assistance to impart, 
 Employ your art, and in exchange 
 
 I'll give to you my heart." 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The dragon reared his hideous head 
 
 With accent most terrific ; 
 Says she, " This dirty-looking beast 
 
 Must have a soapoxxhc." 
 
 XIX. 
 
 She drugged him till in drowsy sleep 
 
 He drooped his bristling tail ; 
 Each barbed scale was useless now, 
 
 For turned was Fortune's scale.
 
 148 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 xx. 
 
 When Jason thus had easily 
 
 Obtained the Golden Fleece, 
 He thought that, as he was an heir, 
 
 He'd better go to Greece. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 On board his gallant ship with him 
 
 He took his future bride, 
 And while the tide around them rolled 
 
 The nuptial knot was tied. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 On reaching Greece he brought the fleece, 
 " The throne is mine, sir, now." 
 
 But Pelias was a vulgar man, 
 He only answered " Oil" [No.] 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Says Jason, " I have brought the Fleece, 
 
 Your Majesty may see ; 
 To me the kingdom now belongs." 
 
 The tyrant answered " M//." [JVo.] 
 
 The poem goes no farther; probably the author 
 (who generally wrote in form), was put on constru- 
 ing, or the lesson and the mood ended. Perhaps 
 the sight of this will induce him to complete it. In 
 
 the meantime I remain, 
 
 Philoclemens. 
 
 30th November, 1870.
 
 TO AN ABSENT WIFE 149 
 
 LETTERS WRITTEN FOR A POST-OFFICE 
 AT A BAZAAR. 
 
 I. 
 
 (TO AN ABSENT WIFE.) 
 
 Away from you, my heart is sad, 
 
 Vague torments rack my brain ; 
 I count the moments as they pass, 
 
 And wish you back again. 
 It is not that I fear, my love, 
 
 That harm will come to you ; 
 It is not that I miss your face 
 
 (Although of course I do) ; 
 'Tis not so much the loneliness 
 
 That does my feelings hurt ; 
 But now there's no one left to sew 
 
 The buttons on my shirt. 
 
 II. 
 
 (TO ONE OF THE STERNER SEX.) 
 
 Put all your spare cash in your pocket, 
 
 And cram it as full as you can ; 
 Take your money-box down, and unlock it, 
 
 And come like a good-natured man. 
 To help us I'm sure you are willing, 
 
 Such an excellent person you are ! 
 If you won't give a pound, give a shilling 
 
 To the funds of the Uxbridge Bazaar.
 
 150 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 in. 
 
 (TO A LADY WHO HAD GIVEN A DANCE ON 
 THE PREVIOUS NIGHT.) 
 
 When the heart is still giddy with recent enjoyment, 
 With the whirl and excitement and mirth of the 
 ball, 
 
 Oh, 'tis hard to submit to this humdrum employment, 
 The monotonous duty of keeping a stall. 
 
 We have all tried our best, and should be most 
 delighted 
 
 To satisfy all, if we only knew how; 
 But the labour we've spent will be amply requited, 
 
 If our hostess last night be our customer now. 
 
 IV. 
 
 AN EPIGRAM FOR A LADY. 
 
 The rival Universities 
 
 Must sure be nothing loth 
 
 To find you kindly patronise 
 Not one of them, but both. 
 
 The veins within your forehead fair 
 Do show the Cambridge hue ; 
 
 I look into your eyes, and there 
 I see the Oxford blue.
 
 BALLAD OF SISTER MAY 151 
 
 THE BALLAD OF SISTER MAY. 
 
 "Why weep you, bonnie sister May? 
 
 What makes your eyes so red?" 
 "O brother mine, we two are alone, 
 
 Our mother lieth dead." 
 
 "And tell me pray, my sister May, 
 Why dings that dolesome bell?" 
 
 "The bell doth toll for the parted soul 
 Of the mother who loved us well." 
 
 She has ta'en him by his hand so small, 
 She has ta'en him down the stair, 
 
 The tapers burn in the silent hall, 
 A cold white corpse lies there. 
 
 "O, sister, bid my mother wake, 
 
 O bid her speak to me ! " 
 " Nay, brother, the sleep of the dead is deep ; 
 
 She will not wake for thee." 
 
 "But who will love me, sister May, 
 
 If my mother dear be gone?" 
 "Brother Hugh, thy sister will love thee more, 
 
 Since thou hast her alone."
 
 152 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 " But thou wilt grow a lady tall, 
 And marry a knight so free, 
 And I shall pine in the castle hall, 
 With none to play with me." 
 
 "O brother mine, no knight so fine 
 Shall take thy sister away ; 
 Though a king should woo, I tell thee true, 
 Yet would I say him nay." 
 
 Twelve summers have come in coats of green, 
 Twelve winters in robes of white ; 
 
 In the castle hall stands a lady tall, 
 And there comes an armed knight. 
 
 Then out and spake that gallant knight, 
 
 " I love thee more than life ; 
 Say me not nay, my lady May, 
 
 I prithee, be my wife." 
 
 " Now nay, now nay, it cannot be, 
 For Hugh would miss me sore. 
 Farewell, Sir Ralph, to words of love 
 'Twixt us for evermore." 
 
 He breathed one kiss on her snow-white hand, 
 Ere he rode his steed from the door. 
 
 He is gone to fight in a foreign land, 
 To die on a distant shore.
 
 BALLAD OF SISTER MAY 153 
 
 She has fled to her turret chamber's height, 
 
 And watched her true love go ; 
 She has flung her down on the bed so white. 
 
 And rocked her to and fro. 
 
 " Alack, alack, I loved him well ; 
 He might have been my own, 
 But Hugh, my brother, would grieve so sore 
 To dwell in his hall alone." 
 
 'Tis a merry voice on the turret stair, 
 Her brother is at her side. 
 " Be merry with me, my sister fair ; 
 I have won me a bonnie bride. 
 
 Fair Alice of Lea have I wooed and won ; 
 
 Rejoice with me, sister May, 
 And a velvet gown shall be thine own 
 
 To wear on the wedding day." 
 
 Nought he recked of her broken heart, 
 
 Nought of her wasted life. 
 A sister's love is soon forgot 
 
 In the love of a winsome wife. 
 
 She has decked her in the velvet gown, 
 
 She has seen her brother wed ; 
 But ere the bridal moon was gone 
 
 The Lady May was dead. 
 
 1870.
 
 154 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 TO ANASTASIA. 
 (A DOUBLE ACROSTIC.) 
 
 Knights for thy sake the lance may break, 
 
 Angelic Anastasia; 
 This child, no knight, doth more delight 
 Eccentric anagrams to write : 
 
 Lost loves are all dead leaves that fall 
 
 As flowers from frail Acacia ; 
 May-time will come, and brighter bloom 
 Burst forth and blossom on their tomb. 
 
 1871. 
 
 WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES. 
 
 Tis not designed to hide defects 
 
 Upon that faultless skin, 
 But rather, as a shell protects 
 
 The dainty pearl within, 
 So may it guard and keep from harm 
 That little hand so soft and warm. 
 
 ANOTHER. 
 
 Good luck go with thee, little Glove, 
 From fingers rough escape, 
 
 And on the slender hand I love 
 Attain a perfect shape.
 
 WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES 155 
 
 Endeavour unto neatest fit 
 
 Thy substance to expand, 
 Thrice happy if thou may'st transmit 
 
 The pressure of her hand. 
 
 But then thy rapture pray conceal, 
 
 Exalt not over much, 
 Or gloves, like hearts, may break to feel 
 
 The magic of her touch.
 
 * [" The Tichborne Trial" and " The Bills" are not 
 reprinted, as they were not written by Hilton, see 
 P- 7S-]
 
 THE 
 
 LIGHT GREEN. 
 
 Jl (Superior anb |pigh-(Elass $eriooical. 
 
 SUPPORTED ONLY 
 
 B Y WELL-KNO WN AND POPULAR WRITERS. 
 
 (Jlontertts : 
 
 Introduction. By the Editor. 
 
 Octopus. By Algernon Charles Sin-burn. 
 
 Moll Marine. By "Weeder." 
 
 The Tichborne Trial. By Thomas Carr Lisle.* 
 
 The Bills. By the late Edgar Allan Toe* 
 
 Ding Dong. By Rosina Christetti. 
 
 The Prattler in Cambridge. All by Himself. 
 
 The Vulture and the Husbandman. By Louisa Caro- 
 line. 
 
 Cambridge Chit-Chit. By our own Penny-a-Liner. 
 
 Cambridge. 
 [Price One Shilling.']
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The projectors of this Magazine have observed with 
 astonishment, not unmixed with envy, the success 
 of a periodical recently started in the sister Uni- 
 versity. They cannot but think that this success is 
 due, not so much to its intrinsic merit, as to the 
 partisanship of a certain section of society with the 
 University in question. To the majority of the pub- 
 lic, therefore, who are unfettered by this narrow- 
 minded prejudice, it is intended to administer similar, 
 but superior, intellectual pabulum in these pages. 
 For this purpose the services of some of the most 
 celebrated literary stars of the day have been engaged, 
 without regard to expense. A glance at the list of 
 names on the cover will convince intending pur- 
 chasers of the high character of the contributions. 
 
 The title has not been chosen without due con- 
 sideration. The Light Blue was the most obvious, 
 but was rejected on account of its having been 
 previously appropriated. As the nearest approach, 
 the present title was selected, green being a favourite 
 colour with the projectors, and, moreover, a neat 
 and appropriate hue. 

 
 OCTOPUS 159 
 
 OCTOPUS. 1 
 By Algernon Charles Sin-Burn. 
 
 Strange beauty, eight-limbed and eight-handed, 
 
 Whence earnest to dazzle our eyes? 
 With thy bosom bespangled and banded 
 
 With the hues of the seas and the skies , 
 Is thy home European or Asian, 
 
 O mystical monster marine ? 
 Part molluscous and partly crustacean, 
 
 Betwixt and between. 
 
 Wast thou born to the sound of sea trumpets ? 
 
 Hast thou eaten and drunk to excess 
 Of the sponges — thy muffins and crumpets, 
 
 Of the seaweed — thy mustard and cress? 
 Wast thou nurtured in caverns of coral, 
 
 Remote from reproof or restraint? 
 Art thou innocent, art thou immoral, 
 
 Sinburnian or Saint? 
 
 1 Written at the Crystal Palace Aquarium
 
 160 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 Lithe limbs, curling free, as a creeper 
 
 That creeps in a desolate place, 
 To enroll and envelop the sleeper 
 
 In a silent and stealthy embrace, 
 Cruel beak craning forward to bite us, 
 
 Our juices to drain and to drink, 
 Or to whelm us in waves of Cocytus, 
 
 Indelible ink ! 
 
 O breast, that 'twere rapture to writhe on ! 
 
 O arms 'twere delicious to feel 
 Clinging close with the crush of the Python, 
 
 When she maketh her murderous meal ! 
 In thy eight-fold embraces enfolden, 
 
 Let our empty existence escape, 
 Give us death that is glorious and golden, 
 
 Crushed all out of shape ! 
 
 Ah ! thy red lips, lascivious and luscious, 
 
 With death in their amorous kiss, 
 Cling round us, and clasp us, and crush us, 
 
 With bitings of agonised bliss ; 
 We are sick with the poison of pleasure, 
 
 Dispense us the potion of pain ; 
 Ope thy mouth to its uttermost measure 
 
 And bite us again !
 
 MOLL MARINE 161 
 
 MOLL MARINE. 
 By "Weeder." 
 
 Moll Marine ! A simple, touching name ! It had 
 been bestowed upon her by the rude country hinds 
 among whom she dwelt. It was all she received at 
 their hands besides blows and curses. Moll was a 
 common name in those parts, but none knew what 
 it meant, none discerned the hidden poetry in that 
 brief monosyllable. Moll Marine they called her, 
 because she came among them as a waif from the 
 wild waves, as a white foam fleck that the winds 
 toss on to the cold rocks to gleam a moment in 
 the setting sun, and then dissolve for ever into the 
 dews of night. 
 
 She was only fifteen, tall and graceful as a young 
 poplar, with a warm brown skin and a scented wealth 
 of amber hair. Everybody hated her. "It was 
 natural," she thought. They beat her, but she cared 
 not. She was like a lucifer ; they struck her, and 
 she blazed forth resplendent ; beautiful as the spotted 
 panther of the forest, as the shapely thistle that the 
 ass crops unheeding, as the beaming comet that 
 shakes out her golden tresses in the soft hush of 
 summer nights. 
 
 And she loved. Loved madly, passionately, hope- 
 lessly.
 
 162 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 He knew it. He knew that he had but to say, 
 "Come!" and she would follow him to disgrace or 
 death, to polar snows or deserts arid as Gehenna. 
 To him she was nothing. No more than the painted 
 fly he pinned in sport, than the yellow meadow 
 flowers that he crushed beneath his heel, than the 
 soft tender doves whose downy necks he wrung and 
 whose bodies he eat with cruel relish. 
 
 [We regret to say that the rest of this gifted authoress' 
 contribution is improper, and unfit for publication — Ed.] 
 
 DING DONG. 
 
 By Rosina Christetti. 
 
 Ding dong, Ding dong, 
 There goes the Gong, 
 Dick, come along, 
 
 'Tis time for dinner. 
 Wash your face, 
 Take your place. 
 Where's your grace, 
 
 You little sinner? 
 
 "Like an apple?" 
 " Yes I should. 
 
 Nice, nice, nicey ! 
 Good, good, good
 
 DING DONG 163 
 
 " Manners, miss, 
 Please behave. 
 Those who ask, 
 Shan't have." 
 
 "Those who don't, 
 
 Don't want. 
 I'll eat it, 
 
 You shan't." 
 
 Baby cry, 
 Wipe his eye. 
 Baby good, 
 Give him food. 
 Baby sleepy, 
 Go to bed. 
 Baby naughty, 
 Smack his head ! 
 
 Poor little thrush, 
 Found dead in a bush ! 
 When did he die? 
 He is rather high. 
 Bury him deep, 
 He won't keep. 
 Bury him well, 
 Or he'll smell. 
 
 What have horns? Cows and moons. 
 What have crests? Cocks and spoons.
 
 1 64 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 What are nice? Ducks and peas. 
 
 What are nasty? Bites of fleas. 
 
 What are fast? Tides and times. 
 
 What are slow ? Nursery rhymes. 
 
 THE PRATTLER IN CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 "So on he prattled like a babbling Brook." 
 
 C. S. C. 
 
 I was approaching the Completion of my Toilet 
 this Morning, having just inserted the large Safety 
 Pin which forms the Connecting Link, if I may so 
 speak, between my Neck Scarf and the Back of my 
 Shirt, when my Reveries were interrupted by my 
 Friend, Mr. Johnson's Boy, a smart Lad of some 
 eight Summers. He brought me two Epistles, which, 
 as I felt some Curiosity as to their Contents, I 
 resolved to open. Though, for my own Part, I 
 must confess that these Contents gave me some 
 Annoyance, yet I could not refrain from Cachin- 
 nation, when I reflected on the Oscillation evident 
 in the mental Pendula of my Correspondents, if I 
 may be allowed the Expression, between the Height 
 of Arrogance and the Depth of Stupidity, an Oscill- 
 ation which appeared to have entirely thrown them 
 off their Balance, and rendered them incapable of 
 a proper Use of any Perceptions, with which they
 
 THE PRATTLER 165 
 
 might have been endowed by Nature. I transcribe 
 the Epistles for the Benefit of my Courteous 
 Readers. 
 
 I. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 Is it necessary for the Success of your 
 Paper that the Initial Letters of all the Nouns 
 Substantive, and some Adjective, should be printed 
 in Capitals ? Besides the Inconvenience which it 
 must cause to the Compositor, the Effect is not 
 pleasing to the Eye, but is as though a Child's 
 Box of Capital Letters had been scattered at Hap 
 Hazard over the Page. Merit does not depend 
 upon Typography, and presuming your Essays to 
 possess the Former, why retain an obsolete Form 
 of the Latter, unless indeed it be the only Point 
 of Resemblance between your own Efforts and 
 those of your great Precursor? 
 
 I remain, Sir, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 X. Y. Z. 
 
 (Fellow of St. 's College). 
 
 II. 
 
 Dear Mr. Prattler, 
 
 Perhaps I may be a Fool, but the Fact 
 is that I have been trying for a long Time in vain 
 to see the Fun of your Publication. I suppose it 
 is my own Fault, but I fail to see the Point of
 
 1 66 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 your Jests or the Originality of your Remarks, 
 which seem to me a Mixture of the Milk of Mr. 
 Tupper with the Water of Mr. Hain Friswell. 
 Don't you think that you had better shut up? 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Undergraduate. 
 
 I will not so far presume on the Imbecility of 
 my Readers as to suppose that any of them would 
 agree with the Sentiments so offensively promulgated 
 in these two Effusions, but it is possible that there 
 may be some among my younger Subscribers who 
 may derive Edification from this Spectacle of Idiocy 
 combined with Impertinence, even as the Spartans 
 were wont to reduce their Slaves to a State of 
 Inebriety, that Children, observing their Ridiculous 
 Antics and Apish Conduct, might the better appre- 
 ciate the Evils of Drunkenness. 
 
 To the Gentleman, who I regret to find is a 
 Fellow of his College, who pours forth the Vials 
 of his Wrath upon my Head, for what he is 
 pleased to term my obsolete Form of Typography, 
 I would observe in the Words of Aristotle, " Let 
 those who are placed over the Youth of the City 
 have a Care lest they corrupt their Minds by their 
 evil Example and vain Babbling." 
 
 To my Critic, who is yet in Statu Pupillari, and 
 who, if I may so far express my Feelings, I trust 
 may never rise higher on the Academic Ladder, I
 
 THE PRATTLER 167 
 
 would address the following Advice after the Fashion 
 of good Hannah More of blessed Memory. Respect 
 to Superiors is a Young Man's first Duty. He 
 should never presume to offer an Opinion to his 
 Elders on Anything, unless consulted by them, in 
 which Case he should give the best Answer he has 
 at Command, provided, it be such as will please 
 his Questioner. He should also be an Early Riser, 
 wear Flannel next his Skin, eschew Smoking and 
 other Sins, and be careful not to eat poisonous 
 Berries or put them up his Nose. Finally, he 
 should mould his Life and Character according to 
 the Precepts and Philosophy of the Cambridge 
 Prattler. 
 
 THE VULTURE AND THE HUSBANDMAN. 
 By Louisa Caroline. 
 
 N.B. — A Vulture is a rapacious and obscene bird, which de- 
 stroys its prey by plucking it limb from limb with its powerful 
 beak and talons. 
 
 A Husbandman is a man in a low position of life, who supports 
 himself by the use of the plough. — (Johnson's Dictionary). 
 
 The rain was raining cheerfully, 
 
 As if it had been May ; 
 The Senate-House appeared inside 
 
 Unusually gay ; 
 And this was strange, because it was 
 
 A Viva- Voce day.
 
 168 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 The men were sitting sulkily, 
 Their paper work was done ; 
 
 They wanted much to go away 
 To ride or row or run ; 
 
 " It's very rude," they said, " to keep 
 Us here, and spoil our fun." 
 
 The papers they had finished lay- 
 In piles of blue and white. 
 
 They answered every thing they could, 
 And wrote with all their might, 
 
 But, though they wrote it all by rote, 
 They did not write it right. 
 
 The Vulture and the Husbandman 
 Beside these piles did stand, 
 
 They wept like anything to see 
 The work they had in hand. 
 
 "If this were only finished up," 
 Said they, "it would be grand!" 
 
 " If seven D's or seven C's 
 
 We give to all the crowd, 
 Do you suppose," the Vulture said, 
 
 " That we could get them ploughed ? " 
 " I think so," said the Husbandman, 
 
 " But pray don't talk so loud." 
 
 " O undergraduates, come up," 
 The Vulture did beseech,
 
 THE VULTURE 169 
 
 " And let us see if you can learn 
 
 As well as we can teach ; 
 We cannot do with more than two 
 
 To have a word with each." 
 
 Two Undergraduates came up, 
 
 And slowly took a seat, 
 They knit their brows, and bit their thumbs. 
 
 As if they found them sweet, 
 And this was odd, because you know 
 
 Thumbs are not good to eat. 
 
 "The time has come," the Vulture said, 
 
 "To talk of many things, 
 Of Accidence and Adjectives, 
 
 And names of Jewish kings, 
 How many notes a sackbut has, 
 
 And whether shawms have strings." 
 
 " Please, Sir," the Undergraduates said, 
 
 Turning a little blue, 
 " We did not know that was the sort 
 
 Of thing we had to do." 
 "We thank you much," the Vulture said, 
 
 " Send up another two." 
 
 Two more came up, and then two more,. 
 
 And more, and more and more ; 
 And some looked upwards at the roof, 
 
 Some down upon tbe floor,
 
 1 7 o THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 But none were any wiser than 
 The pair that went before. 
 
 " I weep for you," the Vulture said, 
 
 " I deeply sympathise ! " 
 With sobs and tears he gave them all 
 
 D's of the largest size, 
 While at the Husbandman he winked 
 
 One of his streaming eyes. 
 
 " I think," observed the Husbandman, 
 " We're getting on too quick. 
 
 Are we not putting down the D's 
 A little bit too thick?" 
 
 The Vulture said with much disgust 
 "Their answers make me sick." 
 
 " Now, Undergraduates," he cried, 
 
 Our fun is nearly done, 
 " Will anybody else come up ? " 
 
 But answer came there none; 
 And this was scarcely odd, because 
 
 They'd ploughed them every one !
 
 CAMBRIDGE CHIT-CHAT 171 
 
 CAMBRIDGE CHIT-CHAT. 
 
 By our own Penny-a-Liner. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Clifton gave a most successful 
 Concert the other evening at the Guildhall, under 
 the patronage of a select and genial body of Un- 
 dergraduates. A number of townsmen having been 
 forcibly ejected lest they should mar the harmony 
 and hilarity of the meeting, the performance com- 
 menced with three songs by Mr. Arthur Clifton, 
 which were unfortunately inaudible through the 
 thunders of applause which they excited. However, 
 his pantomime was very expressive, and the agility 
 which he showed in avoiding the missiles which 
 were aimed at him by the approving audience was 
 the subject of loud encomiums. Finally, however, 
 a handful of pence, tied up in the handkerchief of 
 an ardent admirer, taking him behind the ear, he 
 retired with a graceful bow, pursued by volleys of 
 applause and a few brickbats. Madlle. Semibreve, 
 the prima donna of the company, next stepped for- 
 ward. She was greeted enthusiastically with a round 
 of chairs, and at the conclusion of her song a perfect 
 avalanche of academical caps bore witness to the 
 sympathy she had excited. Bunches of keys, watches, 
 knives, buttons, and every elegant tribute that fancy 
 could suggest, fell thickly around the head of the
 
 172 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 fair songstress. She was, unfortunately so overcome 
 by her success that she was borne from the stage 
 in hysterics, the audience considerately drowning 
 her cries by singing the Marseillaise with wonderful 
 warmth and power. 
 
 On the entrance of the venerable and accom- 
 plished Herr Quaver, the enthusiasm rose to a pitch 
 of frenzy. He was barely permitted to sing half a 
 dozen words before a rush was made towards him, 
 and he was carried in triumph on the shoulders of 
 his admiring friends, his head being literally cut 
 open by their congratulatory blows. On Mr. Arthur 
 Clifton's reappearance with his head bandaged, the 
 delight of the company was expressed by rapturous 
 groans and hisses, and when he proceeded to play 
 the classical air, " It's naughty, but it's nice," the 
 excitement of his hearers knew no bounds. The 
 piano was dashed into a hundred fragments, and 
 the performer kicked in ecstasy round the room. 
 At this juncture the peace of the meeting was dis- 
 turbed by the arrival of the Proctors. The gas 
 was instantly turned out, and a few remaining articles 
 of furniture having been hastily thrown out of 
 window, the audience dispersed well satisfied with 
 the evening's entertainment. 
 
 The prize for the best poem on the destruction 
 of Chicago by fire, has been awarded to the gentle- 
 man who alone out of the two hundred and thirty-
 
 CAMBRIDGE CHIT-CHAT 173 
 
 nine competitors had sufficient ingenuity to avoid 
 all mention of a Phoenix. 
 
 We have observed with pleasure that a noted 
 wine merchant is in a position to offer for sale 
 sound Dinner Sherry at 9s. the dozen, and good 
 wholesome Claret — with bouquet — at 5s. 6d. We 
 recommend these wines to Freshmen next October, 
 especially as we are going down at the end of this 
 Term. 
 
 At a Meeting of Bedmakers it was unanimously 
 resolved that the fee, to be paid to them by every 
 gentleman on taking his degree, be raised from 
 one pound to two, owing to the increased price of 
 gin. 
 
 A subscription is on foot among the Undergraduates 
 to present one of the outgoing Proctors with a testi- 
 monial, to show their appreciation of his zeal and 
 assiduity. If sufficient funds are raised, the Reverend 
 gentleman is to be presented with a pocket note- 
 book, the cover to be embossed with his crest, a 
 hawk swoopant, on a pigeon vert. 
 
 An Undergraduate of Magdalene appeared in 
 Hall on the Two Thousand day. He was promptly 
 gated.
 
 i 7 4 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 A singularly prophetic piece of doggerel has been 
 discovered in the pages of ^Eschylus. 
 
 e£ ivkptov 7repU)v Kvvayerei. 
 
 — Prom. Vinci. 585. 
 
 Hints for Translation : 
 
 e£ kvkpwv. " From the infernal regions," 
 
 Trepwv. Probably a proper name. 
 
 Kvva.yerel. From Kwayereot "to hunt with dogs." 
 
 [The senior proctor was at this time the Rev. E. H. Pcrowne, 
 now ?naster of Corpus. The attendants of the proctor are a/ways 
 known at Cambridge as " bulldogs." — Ed.]
 
 THE 
 
 LIGHT GREEN. 
 
 Jt (Sttpmor ana Ipigh-CtaBs fjeriooical. 
 
 SUPPORTED ONLY 
 
 BY WELL-KNOWN AND POPULAR WRITERS, 
 
 No. II. 
 
 Cant cuts : 
 The May Exam. By Alfred Pennysong. 
 Review of a New Play. By the latterday Pooh- 
 
 POOH.* 
 
 The Heathen Pass-ee. By Bred Hard. 
 
 Mrs. Brown at Cambridge. By Arthur Sketchey. 
 
 Nonsense Verses. By Edward Leary. 
 
 Cambridge Chit-Chat. By OUR OWN Penny-a-liner. 
 
 dambtibge. 
 1872. 
 
 [Price One Shilling.'] 
 ' Not reprinted, see p. 75.
 
 176 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 THE MAY EXAM. 
 
 By Alfred Pennysong. 
 
 " Semper floreat 
 Poeta Laureat." — Horace. 
 
 You must wake and call me early, call me early, 
 Filcher dear, 
 
 To-morrow 'ill be a happy time for all the Freshman's 
 year; 
 
 For all the Freshman's year, Filcher, the most de- 
 lightful day, 
 
 For I shall be in for my May, Filcher, I shall be in 
 for my May. 
 
 There's many a hot, hot man, they say, but none 
 
 so hot as me ; 
 There's Meddlethwaite and Muggins, there's Kane 
 
 and Kersetjee; 
 But none so good as little Jones in all the lot, they 
 
 say, 
 So I'm to be first in the May, Filcher, I'm to be 
 
 first in the May. 
 
 I read so hard at night, Filcher, that I shall never 
 
 rise, 
 If you do not take a wettish sponge and dab it in 
 
 my eyes :
 
 THE MAY EXAM. 177 
 
 For I must prove the G.C.M., and substitute for a, 
 For I'm to be first in the May, Filcher, I'm to be 
 first in the May. 
 
 As I came through the College Backs, whom think 
 ye should I see 
 
 But the Junior Dean upon the bridge proceeding 
 out to tea? 
 
 He thought of that aegrotat, Filcher, I pleaded yester- 
 day,— 
 
 But I'm to be first in the May, Filcher, I'm to be 
 first in the May. 
 
 There are men that come and go, Filcher, who care 
 
 not for a class, 
 And their faces seem to brighten if they get a 
 
 common pass ; 
 They never do a stitch of work the whole of the 
 
 live-long day, — 
 But I'm to be first in the May, Filcher, I'm to be 
 
 first in the May. 
 
 All the College Hall, my Filcher, will be fresh and 
 
 clean and still, 
 And the tables will be dotted o'er with paper, ink, 
 
 and quill ; 
 And some will do their papers quick, and run away 
 
 to play, — 
 But I'm to be first in the May, Filcher, I'm to be 
 
 first in the May. 
 
 M
 
 178 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 So you must wake and call me early, call me early, 
 Filcher dear, 
 
 To-morrow 'ill be a happy time for all the Freshman's 
 year ; 
 
 For all the Freshman's year, Filcher, the most de- 
 lightful day, 
 
 For I shall be in for my May, Filcher, I shall be in 
 for my May. 
 
 NEW-YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 If you're waking call me early, call me early, Filcher 
 dear, 
 
 For I'll keep a morning chapel upon my last New- 
 Year 
 
 My last New- Year before I take my Bachelor's 
 Degree, 
 
 Then you may sell my crockery ware, and think no 
 more of me. 
 
 To-night I bade good-bye to Smith ; he went and 
 
 left behind 
 His good old rooms, those dear old rooms, where 
 
 oft I sweetly dined; 
 There's a new year coming up, Filcher, but I shall 
 
 never see 
 The Freshman's solid breakfast or the Freshman's 
 
 heavy tea.
 
 THE MAY EXAM. 179 
 
 Last May we went to Newmarket : we had a festive 
 
 day, 
 With a decentish cold luncheon in a tidy one-horse 
 
 shay. 
 With our lardy-dardy garments we were really "on 
 
 the spot," 
 And Charlie Vain came out so grand in a tall 
 
 white chimney-pot 
 
 There's not a man about the place but doleful 
 
 Questionists : 
 I only wish to live until the reading of the Lists. 
 I wish the hard Examiners would melt and place 
 
 me high. 
 I long to be a Wrangler, but I'm sure I don't 
 
 know why. 
 
 Upon this battered table, and within these rooms of 
 
 mine, 
 In the early, early morning there'll be many a 
 
 festive shine ; 
 And the Dean will come and comment on "this 
 
 most unseemly noise," 
 Saying, "Gentlemen, remember, pray, you're now 
 
 no longer boys." 
 
 When the men come up again, Filcher, and the 
 
 Term is at its height, 
 You'll never see me more in these long gay rooms 
 
 at night;
 
 180 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 When the old dry wines are circling and the claret- 
 cup flows cool, 
 And the loo is fast and furious with a fiver in the pool. 
 
 You'll pack my things up, Filcher, with Mrs. Tester's 
 
 aid, 
 You may keep the wine I leave behind, the tea, 
 
 and marmalade. 
 I shall not forget you, Filcher, I shall tip you when 
 
 I pass, 
 And I'll give you something handsome if I get a 
 
 second class. 
 
 Good-night, good-night, when I have passed my 
 
 tripos with success, 
 And you see me driving off to catch the one o'clock 
 
 express ; 
 Don't let Mrs. Tester hang about beside the porter's 
 
 lodge, 
 I aint a fool, you know, and I can penetrate that 
 
 dodge. 
 
 She'll find my books and papers lying all about 
 
 the floor : 
 Let her take 'em, they are hers, I shall never use 
 
 'em more ; 
 But tell her to console her, if she's mourning for 
 
 my loss, 
 That she's quite the dirtiest bed-maker I ever came 
 
 across.
 
 THE MAY EXAM. 181 
 
 Good-night; you need not call me till the bell for 
 
 service rings, 
 
 Through practice I am pretty quick at putting on 
 
 my things ; 
 But I would keep a Chapel upon my last New- Year, 
 So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, Filcher 
 
 dear. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 I thought to pass some time ago, but hang it, here 
 
 I am ; 
 Having "muckered" in a certain Mathematical 
 
 Exam. 
 I have been " excused the General," and my reverent 
 
 tutor thinks 
 I must take up Natural Science, which is commonly 
 
 called "Stinks." 
 
 O sweet is academic life within these ancient walls, 
 And sweet are Cambridge pleasures — boating, billiards, 
 
 breakfasts, balls ; 
 But sweeter far about this time than all these things 
 
 to me 
 Would be the acquisition of my Bachelor's Degree.
 
 182 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 THE HEATHEN PASS-EE. 
 
 Being the Story of a Pass Examination. 
 By Bred Hard. 
 
 Which I wish to remark, 
 
 And my language is plain, 
 That for plots that are dark 
 
 And not always in vain, 
 The heathen Pass-ee is peculiar, 
 
 And the same I would rise to explain. 
 
 I would also premise 
 
 That the term of Pass-ee 
 Most fitly applies, 
 
 As you probably see, 
 To one whose vacation is passing 
 
 The " ordinary B.A. degree." 
 
 Tom Crib was his name, 
 
 And I shall not deny 
 In regard to the same 
 
 What that name might imply, 
 But his face it was trustful and childlike, 
 
 And he had the most innocent eye. 
 
 Upon April the First 
 
 The Little-Go fell, 
 And that was the worst 
 
 Of the gentleman's sell,
 
 THE HEATHEN PASS-EE 183 
 
 For he fooled the Examining Body 
 In a way I'm reluctant to tell. 
 
 The candidates came 
 
 And Tom Crib soon appeared ; 
 It was Euclid. The same 
 
 Was "the subject he feared," 
 But he smiled as he sat by the table 
 
 With a smile that was wary and weird. 
 
 Yet he did what he could, 
 
 And the papers he showed 
 Were remarkably good, 
 
 And his countenance glowed 
 With pride when I met him soon after 
 
 As he walked down the Trumpington Road. 
 
 We did not find him out, 
 
 Which I bitterly grieve, 
 For I've not the least doubt 
 
 That he'd placed up his sleeve 
 Mr. Todhunter's excellent Euclid, 
 
 The same with intent to deceive, 
 
 But I shall not forget 
 
 How the next day at two 
 A stiff paper was set 
 
 By Examiner U . . . . 
 On Euripides' tragedy, Bacchae. 
 
 A subject Tom "partially knew."
 
 184 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 But the knowledge displayed 
 
 By that heathen Pass-ee, 
 And the answers he made 
 
 Were quite frightful to see, 
 For he rapidly floored the whole paper 
 
 By about twenty minutes to three. 
 
 Then I looked up at U ... . 
 
 And he gazed upon me. 
 I observed, "This won't do." 
 
 He replied, "Goodness me! 
 We are fooled by this artful young person," 
 
 And he sent for that heathen Pass-ee. 
 
 The scene that ensued 
 
 Was disgraceful to view, 
 For the floor it was strewed 
 
 With a tolerable few 
 Of the " tips " that Tom Crib had been hiding 
 
 For the "subject he partially knew." 
 
 On the cuff of his shirt 
 
 He had managed to get 
 What we hoped had been dirt, 
 
 But which proved, I regret, 
 To be notes on the rise of the Drama, 
 
 A question invariably set. 
 
 In his various coats 
 We proceeded to seek,
 
 THE HEATHEN PASS-EE 185 
 
 Where we found sundry notes 
 
 And — with sorrow I speak — 
 One of Bonn's publications, so useful 
 
 To the student of Latin or Greek. 
 
 In the crown of his cap 
 
 Were the Furies and Fates, 
 And a delicate map 
 
 Of the Dorian States, 
 And we found in his palms which were hollow, 
 
 What are frequent in palms, — that is dates, 
 
 Which is why I remark, 
 
 And my language is plain, 
 That for plots that are dark 
 
 And not always in vain, 
 The heathen Pass-ee is peculiar, 
 
 Which the same I am free to maintain. 
 
 MRS. BROWN AT CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 By Arthur Sketchey. 
 
 Of all the railroads as I ever came across that Great 
 Eastern is out and out the worst, thro' bein' that 
 tejus slow and the carridges a mask of dirt as you 
 might grow cabbidges on, as the sayin' is, and took 
 all the freshness out of my light blue pollynaise, as 
 I'd thought the kerrect thing at Cambridge, thro' 
 Mrs. Burgess a wearin' the same at the Boat-race,
 
 186 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 and some young Cambridge gents a-sayin' " Mum, 
 you've 'it the right colour this time and no mistake," 
 as pleased 'er no end, tho' all the time larfin' at 'er, 
 I've no doubt, thro' bein' a orkard rigger from a 
 child and not one to look well in a Joseph's coat of 
 many colours, as the sayin' is. 
 
 'Ow ever I met Mrs. Vagg on that everlastin' 
 endless platform I don't know, but I says to 'er, 
 "a pint of four ale I must ave," as I saw a re- 
 freshmint bar 'andy, but of all the stuck-up trollopin' 
 things that barmaid was the most orful, as 'ad dressed 
 'er 'air within a hinch of 'er life, as the sayin' is, 
 in four false plaits, and three young men a-hoglin' 
 of 'er across the slab, as might 'ave known better, 
 and took cheek from that gal, as I'd 'ave paid 'er 
 back, and let 'er know 'er place. 
 
 I never wish to swaller a better cup of tea than 
 Mrs. Vagg gave me that evenin' thro' 'er bein' a 
 Bed-maker, and in course tea a perkisite, as is only 
 fair with 'er a maid-of-all-work to seven gentlemen 
 and board and lodge 'erself, not but what 'er 'ouse 
 wasn't very nice, bein' in Regint Street with Wictor 
 Emmanivel's Collidge opposight, for all the world 
 like Clerkenwell jail, with bars to the winders and 
 all, mayhap thro' fear of burglars a-breakin' in and 
 a-carryin' off the Uniwersity chest, as I'm told would 
 only be poor pickins, and not worth the trouble. 
 
 Whether it was that cup of tea, or whether it was 
 talkin' over old times with Mrs. Vagg, as 'ad been
 
 MRS. BROWN AT CAMBRIDGE 187 
 
 in service with me as a gal, but nine o'clock struck 
 and took me all of a 'eap, thro' 'avin' promised 
 Brown as I'd send 'im a 'a-penny card just to say 
 I was all right. So I says "What time do the Post 
 go out?" 
 
 "Ten o'clock," says she, "but you're never goin' 
 out there to-night, and a Town and Gown row on 
 too, as is what no decent woman would face." 
 
 " Beggin' your parding, mum," says I, " there aint 
 no Town nor Gown neither, as shall stand in the 
 way of my duty to my lawful 'usband." 
 
 So seein' I was in earnest, she 'eld 'er tongue, 
 and 'elped me on with my shawl, and says " Turn 
 to the left and foller your nose, and that'll bring 
 you straight to the Post Office." 
 
 Well up the hairy steps I went, thro' 'er a-occypying 
 the ground floor, and a-letting the first, and the 
 very first thing as I sees were a roamin' candle 
 goin' off on Parky Peace as they call it, tho' a 
 poorish Park to me as knows Grinnidge, and as 
 for Peace, it's a-callin peace where there's no peace, 
 thro' bein' a mask of folk all a-'ustlin' and a-jeerin', 
 and a-letting off fireworks, as is things I don't 'old 
 with, thro' John Biggin as was my first cousin on 
 the mother's side bein' blinded with a rocket at 
 Vaux 'all, as were a piece of luck for Mrs. Biggin, 
 as no one would 'ave married with 'is eyes open 
 thro' 'er face bein' a puffect cullender from the 
 smallpox.
 
 1 88 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 What the rumpus was all about I don' know, 
 but the streets was full of young men as would 
 'ave been better in their beds, some on 'em a-walkin' 
 two and two and a-smokin' pipes, and some jinin' 
 arms, and marchin' up the streets singin' for all 
 the world like as if they was tipsy, and the pavemint 
 that narrer as I was shoved off the kerb, and into 
 a gutter, as was a foot deep and wetted me up to 
 my knees, and clean spilte a new petticut, as such 
 things shouldn't be allowed in the public streets, 
 and where's their Board of 'Ealth? 
 
 There was two young fellers a-walkin' be'ind me, 
 and says one, a-larfin', and a-pintin', " That's a good 
 make up," meanin' me, as turned round sharp on 
 'im, and told 'im to mind 'is own business and not 
 talk about makin' up to me as were old enough to 
 be 'is mother, let alone 'avin' twice 'is wits, as were 
 not much better than a fool, and looked only three 
 days in the week, as the sayin' is. But law bless 
 you, my lord only larfed, and just then I saw a 
 great rampagious mob a-tearin' up the street, as 
 looked the scum of the earth, and gave me that 
 turn as I thought swound away I must, and ketched 
 'old of 'is arm, and says, " 'Elp a lady in distress, 
 and conduc' me past them willains." 
 
 Says he, a-takin' off 'is 'at quite perlite, "With 
 pleasure, mum," and off he walked with me a 'angin' 
 on to 'is arm, and my 'eart a-thumpin' with pannikin' 
 fear as might 'ave been 'eard 'arf a mile away.
 
 MRS. BROWN AT CAMBRIDGE 189 
 
 Well I was just a-slipping my 'a-penny card into 
 the Post, when up comes an elderly gent a-stridin' 
 along and a-lookin' very big, with a gownd a-trailin' 
 in the mud, and the banns of marriage round 'is 
 neck, for all the world like a parson, as no doubt 
 was, and says to the young gent, " Which I must 
 trouble you for six and eightpence for not a-wearin' 
 of your hacademic dress," and pulls out a sort of 
 bettin'-book for to enter 'is name and Collidge. 
 
 Says the young gent, quite cool and brazen -like, 
 " Excuse me, sir, but I was a-escortin' of my mother 
 'ome, and didn't put on my gound for fear of the 
 cads." 
 
 This put my blood up, as never could abear any- 
 thing deceitful or under-'and, and I lets go of 'im, 
 and says, "You hartful young 'ypocrate, and me 
 never' avin set eyes on you before this evenin'," as 
 must 'ave took 'im aback like and serve 'im right, but 
 he didn't wait for no more, but ran off like a harrer 
 from a bow, as the sayin' is, and the old chap sets 
 a long-legged feller to run after 'im, as I 'ope didn't 
 ketch 'im, thro' bein' a kind-'earted young man spite 
 of 'is owdacious fibbin'. 
 
 By this time there was a reg'lar Punch and Judy 
 crowd round us, but I grabbed tight on to my 
 humbereller, and thinks I "'it me any of you who 
 dare," when the elderly gent says, " If so be as 
 you're a decent woman, you'll go 'ome." 
 
 Says I, "who says as Martha Brown aint a decent
 
 190 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 woman, you old vvaggerbone ! I aint a-goin' to stand 
 'ere to be hinsulted," and was bouncin' off feelin' 
 quite 'urt like, and the crowd a-cheerin' and a-sayin', 
 "Go it, old Fatchops," when if that old fool didn't 
 take and say as it were 'is duty to see me 'ome. 
 
 Says I, "Thank you for nothin', as would prefer 
 you did no such thing, thro' me not bein' known 
 'ere and people might make remarks," but law bless 
 you, words wasn't no good with 'im, as walked 
 along side of me all the way with the crowd a-follerin' 
 and a-hollerin and a-pokin their fun at 'im and me. 
 
 Right glad I was to stand on Mrs. Vagg's door- 
 step, and fainted clean away as soon as never I 
 got down to the kitchen, and you don't ketch me 
 a-goin' down that street after dark again, and, tho' 
 boys will be boys, yet I don't 'old with all their 
 squibbin' and fibbin', nor yet with helderly gents 
 as is paid to hinsult respectable fieldmales, as I 
 wish my 'usband 'ad been there, as would 'ave 
 broke hevery bone in 'is skin and serve 'im right. 
 
 NONSENSE VERSES. 
 By Edward Leary. 
 
 There was an old fellow of Peterhouse, 
 
 Who said, " You could not find a neater house 
 
 Than our new Combination-Room 
 
 For a mild dissipation room." 
 That abandoned old Fellow of Peterhouse.
 
 NONSENSE VERSES 191 
 
 There was a boat captain of Downing, 
 Whose crew were in danger of drowning, 
 
 But he cried, "Swim to shore, 
 
 For I'm sure that eight more 
 Could not be collected in Downing." 
 
 There was a young genius of Queens', 
 Who was fond of explosive machines, 
 
 He once blew up a door, 
 
 But he'll do it no more, 
 For it chanced that that door was the Dean's. 
 
 There was a young student of Caius, 
 Who collected black beetles and fleas, 
 
 He'd walk out in the wet 
 
 With his butterfly net, 
 And smile, and seem quite at his ease. 
 
 There was a young man of Sid. Sussex, 
 Who insisted that w + x 
 
 Was the same as xw ; 
 
 So they said, " Sir, we'll trouble you 
 To confine that idea to Sid. Sussex." 
 
 There was a young goicrmand of John's, 
 Who'd a notion of dining on swans, 
 
 To the Backs he took big nets 
 
 To capture the cygnets, 
 But was told they were kept for the Dons.
 
 192 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 There was an old Fellow of Trinity, 
 A Doctor well versed in Divinity, 
 But he took to free thinking 
 And then to deep drinking, 
 And so had to leave the vicinity. 
 
 They went to row in a Four, they did, 
 
 In a Four they went to row, 
 In spite of all their friends could say, 
 On a winter's morn, on a stormy day, 
 
 In a Four they went to row ! 
 And their oars dug deep, and their backs were 
 
 round, 
 And everyone said, " You'll all be drowned ! " 
 But they cried, " You may say that we ' bucket ' 
 
 or 'dig,' 
 We don't care a button, we don't care a fig ! 
 
 In a Four we mean to go." 
 
 They rowed away in their Four, they did, 
 
 They rowed away in their Four, 
 With only a boy from Jesus Locks, 
 Tied to the rudder by way of a cox, 
 
 Who had seldom steered before. 
 And everyone said who saw them go, 
 
 " Oh, won't they be soon upset, you know ! 
 For they can't ' get forward ' or ' keep it long,' 
 And happen what may, it's extremely wrong, 
 
 For Freshmen to row in a Four."
 
 NONSENSE VERSES 193 
 
 The water it soon came in, it did, 
 
 The water it soon came in ; 
 So to keep them dry they removed their feet 
 From the stretcher below to the opposite seat. 
 
 And they grinned a pleasant grin. 
 And each of them lit a mild cigar, 
 And they all exclaimed, " How wise we are ! 
 Though we ' bucket ' and ' dig ' and 'can't keep it long,' 
 Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong, 
 
 As on in our Four we spin." 
 
 But in twenty minutes they all came back, 
 
 In twenty minutes or less, 
 And everyone said, "They'll be feeling cool," 
 For they'd been upset in Barnwell Pool, 
 
 In turning the corner S. 
 And for fear their wetting should do them harm 
 They mixed them a glass of something warm, 
 And they all declared, "Till we've learnt to row 
 We never again in a Four will go 
 
 To the treacherous corner S." 
 
 CAMBRIDGE CHIT-CHAT. 
 
 By our own Penny-a-Liner. 
 
 The Vice-Chancellor requests us to give notice that, 
 following the example of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, he will be happy to receive six-and-eight- 
 
 N
 
 i 9 4 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 pence or more as " conscience money " from any 
 Undergraduate who may have escaped detection 
 while smoking in the streets, neglecting to wear 
 academic dress on Sundays, going to Newmarket 
 without leave, making false excuses to College 
 authorities, owing more than five pounds to any 
 vintner, licensed victualler, or livery-stable keeper, 
 without the cognizance of his College Tutor, availing 
 himself of extraneous assistance in any examination 
 in the Senate-House, or playing at marbles on the 
 steps of the same. All contributions will be acknow- 
 ledged in the Light Green, and will be devoted to 
 a fund for improving the breed of Bulldogs. 
 
 A Freshman of a studious turn purchased some 
 Reading Biscuits the other day, but returned them 
 on finding by the label that they were only manufac- 
 tured for " Brown College," whereas he was at 
 Trinity. 
 
 We hear that the students at Girton College will 
 not be allowed to boat, for fear they should learn 
 to "get forward." Their Spinster's Degree will be 
 conferred on them at the end of their College 
 course. Three years afterwards they will be entitled 
 to call themselves M.A. if single; if married, 
 MA. MA. 
 
 The Secretary of the Union wishes us to intimate 
 respectfully that the Tortoise belonging to that 
 Society has no place assigned to it in the Library, 
 and that therefore it is quite an act of mistaken
 
 CAMBRIDGE CHIT-CHAT 195 
 
 kindness for anyone to put it into the Box for 
 Books Returned. 
 
 We extract the following from a useful little work 
 entitled "Hints to Freshmen, by a Head of a 
 College." 
 
 Next to going out in the Third Class of the 
 Mathematical Tripos, the easiest way of obtaining a 
 Degree is to take an Aegrotat in Botany. Always 
 go in for the English Poem. Observe the success- 
 ful compositions of recent years. If there has been 
 a run on the Spenserian stanza, choose the Heroic 
 couplet, and vice versa. Show up your composition 
 printed. Poetry in manuscript is not much better 
 than prose. Frequent billiard-rooms as much as 
 possible; it is a good way of becoming acquainted 
 with the Fellows of your College. Be careful, how- 
 ever, how you make a friend of a viva voce Examiner. 
 He will ask you hard questions for conscience sake. 
 Avoid lectures, especially before an examination. 
 They take up much valuable time which might be 
 spent in getting up your subjects. Cultivate polite- 
 ness. You will find it pay with College Tutors, 
 College Porters, landladies, and duns. It is, however, 
 thrown away on Deans, dogsellers, cooks, Proctors, 
 bargees, and coxswains. 
 
 The following conversation was recently overheard 
 at the corner of Green Street. " Buy this one, sir ? 
 Byewtiful dawg for rats, sir. Kill anythink." "No, 
 no, my good man. You don't take me for a fresh-
 
 196 THE LIGHT GREEN 
 
 man?" "Sir, this is a dawg as I wouldn't sell to a 
 freshman." 
 
 St. Catharine's College have kindly offered to 
 surrender themselves bodily to King's College upon 
 condition of perfect incorporation, and that King's 
 should take the name of St. Catharine's. It is un- 
 certain whether the following epigram was composed 
 by the Provost of one College or the Master of the 
 other, but internal evidence would seem to point 
 to the former. 
 
 "Cats may look up at Kings," 
 The proverb says, but that's 
 
 By no means proof that King's 
 
 Should not look down on Cat's. 
 
 (The end of the Light Green.)
 
 POEMS AND PARODIES 197 
 
 NOBODY KNEW. 
 
 We met the first time by the side of the brook 
 
 Where the stepping-stones ripple the stream, 
 With never a token by word or by look 
 
 Of the love that should reign supreme. 
 So foolish we were that no warning we took 
 
 From the signs of the blossoming Spring, 
 For the Future to us was a sealed book, 
 
 And Love an undreamt of thing. 
 And nobody knew 
 How soon we two 
 Should love with a love so tender and true ! 
 
 We met yet again in the self same spot 
 
 On the day when our love we told, 
 We drank of the Summer serene and hot, 
 
 And remembered no more the cold; 
 For sunny and peaceful we deemed our lot 
 
 As the light of that August day, 
 In the passionate fullness of life we forgot 
 
 That the Summer could vanish away. 
 Ah, nobody knew 
 But I and you 
 How swiftly those moments of happiness flew !
 
 198 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 We met yet again 'neath Autumnal skies, 
 
 When we thought we should meet no more, 
 And gloomy seemed Life to our sorrowful eyes 
 
 As the Summer whose glories were o'er ; 
 The blasts of November made sport of our sighs, 
 
 And our weeping was mocked by the rain, 
 We could not believe that the Spring would arise 
 
 And bestow her sweet treasures again. 
 And nobody, knew, 
 But I and you, 
 The desolate grief of that last adieu. 
 
 And now where we parted in doubt and despair 
 
 We meet in the triumph of joy, 
 With content in which none but ourselves may have 
 share 
 But which none but ourselves can destroy. 
 The forget-me-nots blossom again, and the air 
 
 Is sweet with the song of the dove, 
 And our hearts have forgotten the tempest of care 
 In the sun of fulfilment of love. 
 And nobody knows 
 Our bliss, but those 
 Who live through love's labour to love's repose. 
 
 1873- 

 
 OUR PARTING 199 
 
 OUR PARTING. 
 
 It will not be where woodbirds are singing 
 
 Their madrigals tender and sweet, 
 It will not be where chestnuts are flinging 
 
 Their shade o'er a lover's retreat, 
 It will not be where moonlight's soft splendour 
 
 Lies white upon valleys and towers, 
 It will not be romantic or tender, 
 
 This parting of ours. 
 
 It will not be with talk of past blisses, 
 
 Or plannings of pleasures to be ; 
 There will not be caresses or kisses, 
 
 Or anything outward to see ; 
 Our tears will not trickle in torrents, 
 
 We shall not return sigh for sigh, 
 It will not be, " God bless you, sweet Florence ! " 
 
 But simply, " Good-bye." 
 
 We shall part with a smile on our faces, 
 
 Before an inquisitive crowd, 
 With a hand-shake, for lovers' embraces 
 
 Would naturally not be allowed ; 
 And no one will ever discover, 
 
 As I bid you my courteous adieu, 
 That I am a desperate lover — 
 
 A lover of you !
 
 200 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 The eyes of the keenest observer 
 
 Our secret will fail to detect, 
 Mrs. Grundy, the social Minerva, 
 
 Will think it extremely correct ; 
 None will notice what you did or I did, 
 
 None will know of our hopes or our fears, 
 Though the link of our lives be divided, 
 
 It may be for years. 
 
 SONG. 
 MOONBEAMS. 
 
 These hours, when Night, the Mother, takes 
 
 Her children on her knee, 
 And wilful Love alone awakes, — 
 
 I consecrate to thee. 
 For sweet it is to deem that thou, 
 
 Beneath a foreign sky, 
 Art yet perchance beholding now 
 
 The same bright moon as I. 
 
 A messenger of light attends 
 
 From her to hush my sighs, 
 A happier sister-beam descends 
 
 To die before thine eyes. 
 Those charms her rays illume, alas, 
 
 Are but for her to see,
 
 MOONBEAMS 201 
 
 Yet doth her brightness, as a glass, 
 Reflect them back to me. 
 
 Between the moon and me has strayed 
 
 A cloudlet light as foam, 
 Too near to cast an envious shade 
 
 Upon thy distant home, 
 So, let the ills of fate enshroud 
 
 My life in darkest night, 
 I would not that the faintest cloud 
 
 Should dim thy least delight. 
 
 I a.m., 30th Nov., 1873. 
 
 SUSPENSE. 
 
 My mind with maddening fears is racked, 
 Like one who strains a broken oar, 
 And hears above the tempest's roar 
 
 The thunder of the cataract ; 
 
 The wished-for shores beside him glide, 
 He nears the shores, the falls he nears, 
 His hopes still wrestle with his fears, 
 
 His arms still strive against the tide ; 
 
 His thoughts are quickening with his breath, 
 He thinks a thousand trivial things, 
 The while the awful balance swings, 
 
 Existence equipoised with Death.
 
 202 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 So with myself, nor less intense 
 
 The dread that dies because too great, 
 The hope too bright to contemplate, 
 
 Both merged in shuddering suspense. 
 
 The mad rebellion of the heart, 
 The numbness of a dull despair, 
 The sweet resort to secret prayer, 
 
 And silent communings apart. 
 
 All these by turns succeed, and still 
 I know not what will be the end ; 
 May God but give me grace to bend 
 
 In meekness to His mighty Will. 
 
 THE END OF HOPE. 
 
 I builded me a castle in a happy summer dream, 
 An abode of peace and pleasure, far from sorrow, 
 sin or strife; 
 And I founded it on golden sands beside a silver 
 stream ; 
 The stream, the Stream of Fancy, and the sands, 
 the Sands of Life. 
 
 And I said, "So this my mansion shall be glorious 
 above 
 All the many mighty mansions of the noble of 
 the land,
 
 THE END OF HOPE 203 
 
 For its chambers shall be radiant with the living 
 light of Love," — 
 And I knew not, or I cared not, that they 
 rested on the sand. 
 
 Woe is me, my ruined castle ! Woe is me, my 
 vanished dream ! 
 For there rose a mighty tempest on the borders 
 of the land, 
 And Death's black torrent thundered over Fancy's 
 silver stream, 
 And my castle bowed and crumbled, for 'twas 
 founded on the sand. 
 
 Then the Tempest-Spirit shouted as he rode upon 
 the gale, 
 " The sands of Life abandon, golden, glorious 
 though they be : 
 Build anew a brighter mansion which will neither 
 fade nor fail, 
 Founded on the Rock of Ages, firm to all 
 Eternity. 
 
 SONG: THE WINDS. 
 
 The South Wind sings of happy Springs 
 And Summers hastening on their way, 
 
 The South Wind smells of cowslip bells 
 And blossom-spangled meads of May ; —
 
 2o 4 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 But sweeter is her red red mouth 
 Than all the kisses of the South. 
 
 The West Wind breathes of russet heaths 
 And yellow pride of woods grown old, 
 
 The West Wind flies from Autumn skies 
 And sun clouds overlaid with gold ; — 
 
 But the golden locks I love the best 
 
 Outshine the glories of the West. 
 
 The North Wind sweeps from crystal deeps 
 And Arctic halls of endless night, 
 
 The North Wind blows o'er drifted snows 
 And mountains robed in virgin white ; — 
 
 But purer far her maiden's soul 
 
 Than all the snows that shroud the Pole. 
 
 The East Wind shrills o'er desert hills 
 And dreary coasts of barren sand, 
 
 The East Wind moans of sea-blanched bones 
 And ships that sink in sight of land; — 
 
 But the cold cold East may rave and moan, 
 
 For her soft warm heart is all my own. 
 1873. 
 
 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 Deck the ball room with branch and with berry, 
 
 And strike up a jovial strain, 
 Let us cast off our cares and be merry, 
 
 For Christmas is with us again.
 
 CHRISTMAS 205 
 
 But in vain 'mid the throng of the dancers 
 We look for the belle of the ball, 
 
 And we miss in the chain of the Lancers 
 The hand that pressed closest of all. 
 
 Oh 'tis hard that the sea should dissever 
 
 The touch of that hand from our own, 
 Are we destined to cherish for ever 
 
 The remembrance of joys that are flown ! 
 Or when next the Yule logs brightly burning 
 
 The mists of December dispel, 
 May we hope that from Rhineland returning 
 
 We may welcome our lost Isabel. 
 
 ON A PORTRAIT. 
 
 I used to deem this painted face 
 
 A libel on thy living grace ; 
 
 The thought of that brought deeper bliss 
 
 Than did the constant sight of this. 
 
 But now that in the lonely tomb 
 Decay has wrecked thy beauty's bloom, 
 Thy likeness meeting still my view 
 Seems the less mortal of the two. 
 
 A face designed in beauty's frame, 
 A painter's image of the same, 
 Each is but as a written scroll 
 To show the virtues of the soul :
 
 206 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 Art's colours if at first less fresh 
 Outlast the tinctures of the flesh ; 
 This picture's now as dear to me 
 As aught, except thyself, could be. 
 1873. 
 
 A CHRISTMAS CARD. 
 
 I confess to a vague recollection 
 
 That I promised at Christmas to send 
 A Card to a distant connection 
 
 Who permits me to call her my friend ; 
 Alas, it was only September 
 
 When we made our agreement, and yet 
 It is you who so kindly remember, 
 
 And I who so basely forget. 
 
 Accept as a small reparation 
 
 The trifle I send you to-day ; 
 Within is a representation 
 
 Of the beauties of Carlingford Bay; 
 As the hills of Omeath and Rostrevor 
 
 The emigrant's memory haunt, 
 So my heart's recollection will ever 
 
 Entwine and enshrine — my step-aunt. 
 3863. 

 
 ON A DEAN AND CHAPTER 207 
 
 ON A CERTAIN DEAN AND CHAPTER. 
 
 The Dean, a Protestant discreet, 
 
 All needless forms despising, 
 Is sorry when he leaves his seat 
 
 To see the people rising ; 
 The practice to his prudent eyes 
 
 Suggests the " Scarlet woman," 
 He really cannot sympathise, 
 
 With innovations Roman. 
 
 On vain idolatrous respect 
 
 He always puts a bridle, 
 But has he reason to suspect 
 
 Himself to be the idol ? 
 The " graven image " is at least, 
 
 We'd have the Dean remember, 
 The Church of which he is a Priest, 
 
 And, let us hope, a member. 
 
 But visitors who come to prayer 
 
 In our Cathedral splendid, 
 Though things are better than they were, 
 
 Think much remains unmended, 
 And some there are who might suppose 
 
 The congregation apter 
 To err in other ways than those 
 
 Which vex the Dean and Chapter.
 
 208 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 Familiarity, they say, 
 
 Is oft contempt's begetter, 
 If service were not twice a day 
 
 Behaviour might be better, 
 But tales are told which ought to make 
 
 The ears of hearers tingle, 
 Whether their line of faith they take 
 
 From Peter, Paul, or Zwingle. 
 
 One must, since sleep so oft entraps 
 
 Poor weary mortal creatures, 
 Concede, perhaps, Cathedral naps 
 
 To jaded priests and preachers. 
 No doubt the rest of forty winks 
 
 Their elocution braces, 
 But while they sleep, they ought, methinks, 
 
 To try to keep their places. 
 
 'Tis hard so long on things divine 
 
 For some Divines to ponder, 
 Cathedral beauties all combine 
 
 To make the senses wander; 
 But still perhaps 'tis less a sin 
 
 Admiringly to scan them 
 Than 'tis to smuggle pamphlets in 
 
 To while away the Anthem. 
 
 Sometimes one feels a fearful doubt 
 That elderly lay-vicars 

 
 ON A DEAN AND CHAPTER 209 
 
 Have recently been lunching out 
 And somewhat mixed their liquors, 
 
 Then books fall clattering from the shelves, 
 While boys who ape their betters 
 
 Have little jokes among themselves, 
 Or run about with letters! 
 
 Then see in spotless hoods attired 
 
 The young collegiate students, 
 Who have not all as yet acquired 
 
 Complete parsonic prudence, 
 For some appear to eye the girls 
 
 With smiling satisfaction, 
 As though they found in maiden's curls 
 
 Capillary attraction. 
 
 Though England long has cast away 
 
 The rags of Rome that wrapt her, 
 Yet Englishmen may still obey 
 
 A Church and not a Chapter. 
 And though from Superstition's chains 
 
 We claim long-standing severance, 
 Yet let us hope there still remains 
 
 A certain love for Reverence. 
 1873 
 
 o
 
 2io POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 "DEAR OLD WELLS." 
 
 Dear Kate, the Tribute of your muse 
 
 I welcome with delight, 
 But why demand the latest news? 
 
 Alas, there's none to write ; 
 For Truth invention's power repels 
 
 And bids my pen proclaim, 
 That everything at "Dear old Wells" 
 
 Is pretty much the same. 
 
 The College lectures still commence 
 
 And close with earnest prayer, 
 We feel the Bishop's influence 
 
 Exerted everywhere. 
 Our fellow students, one and all 
 
 Are everything that's nice, 
 And " Church " is still the Principal, 
 
 And "Grafton" is the Vice. 
 
 The Entries for the year gone by 
 
 Amount to just eighteen, 
 The numbers are about as high 
 
 As they have ever been, 
 And potent still are Study's spells 
 
 The sinning to reclaim ; 
 While daily sound Cathedral bells, 
 
 The Clock strikes just the same.
 
 "DEAR OLD WELLS" 211 
 
 Our " Church " exhorts the newly come 
 
 To show a little zeal, 
 And some the system like, and some 
 
 Their sentiments conceal. 
 Some who come up exceeding swells 
 
 Anon grow wondrous tame, 
 So everything at " Dear old Wells " 
 
 Is pretty much the same. 
 
 I fain would sing in stirring rhymes, 
 
 Of mighty actions done. 
 I fain would tell of lively times, 
 
 Of festive goings on, 
 But Truth such fictions still repels 
 
 And bids me to proclaim, 
 That everything at " Dear old Wells " 
 
 Is pretty much the same. 
 1873- 
 
 THE ARCHAEOLOGIST. 
 
 (On a circumstance connected with the visit of the Somerset- 
 shire Archaeological Society to Wells, August 1873.) 
 
 He has left the glare of the crowded room 
 
 Where his learned brethren meet 
 And wandered out — to the quiet gloom 
 
 That broods o'er the gabled street. 
 
 He threads the dark arch and a moment stands 
 
 To mark with an artist's eye 
 
 02
 
 212 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 The sister towers stretch pinnacled hands 
 Far up to the starlit sky. 
 
 Then he bends his way with a calm glad smile 
 
 To the lowly western door, 
 And he gazes awhile down the pillared aisle 
 
 And the shadow-traceried floor. 
 
 But it was not to watch St. Andrew's Cross 
 Rise white and distinct through the gloom, 
 
 It was not to muse on corbel or boss 
 That he left that crowded room. 
 
 It was not to list to the echoing tones 
 
 Of the watchful quarter-bell, 
 It was not to ponder on storied stones, 
 
 For he knew them all too well. 
 
 As he walked down the nave, he cried " Aha ! 
 
 They know not where I have hid " ; 
 For he'd gone out on purpose to smoke a cigar, 
 
 And smoke a cigar he did ! 
 August, 1873 
 
 THE (HIVE-SHAPED) HONEY-POT. 
 TO A LADY. 
 Fair maid, ere yet the days begin 
 
 When one shall call thee wife, 
 Accept this gift and read therein 
 An emblem of thy life.
 
 TO A LADY 213 
 
 I would not have thy fancy roam 
 
 On what the proverb tells, 
 That honey-moon like honey-comb 
 
 Is full of little sells. 
 
 But rather let this hive suggest, 
 
 What time shall shortly prove, 
 That honey combs, distilled and pressed, 
 
 Yield nought so sweet as love. 
 
 May bliss await thy wedded state 
 
 Secure from care's attacks, 
 And freer from the blows of fate 
 
 Than honey from its wax. 
 
 And if youth's pleasures, e'en from thee, 
 
 Should insect-like take wing, 
 I trust they never, as the bee, 
 
 May leave behind a sting. 
 
 But should young Love's enchanted cup 
 
 Grow vapid all too soon, 
 Behold, I send to stir it up 
 
 The necessary spoon. 
 
 1874. 
 
 PSALM CXXVII. 
 
 Except the Lord His temple build, 
 The builder's work is unfulfilled ; 
 Except the Lord the tower maintain 
 The watchman waketh but in vain.
 
 2i 4 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 In vain ye haste to rise, and spare 
 To rest, and eat the bread of care, 
 For surely His Beloved reap 
 His loving-kindness while they sleep. 
 
 Lo, they shall have for their reward 
 A gift that cometh of the Lord, 
 Fair children sent at His command, 
 Like arrows in the giant's hand. 
 
 O happy he who hath from hence 
 His quiver stored with such defence ; 
 They shall not fear the fierce debate 
 Of foemen midway in the gate. 
 
 EASTWARD. 
 
 (A Hymn)— 1876 
 
 As, when the sunbeams brightly burn 
 
 To light the close of day, 
 The evening shadows eastward turn 
 
 And lengthening glide away : 
 
 So may my soul in life's decline 
 
 A brighter dawn foresee, 
 Turn from the world to hopes divine 
 
 And pass in peace to Thee.
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE 215 
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE. 
 
 St. Clement's Church, Sandwich. 
 
 A certain travelling man, whose way 
 
 Through many lands and labours lay, 
 
 Must needs one morning pass before 
 
 An ancient Church. The western door 
 
 Stood open, and his wearied eye 
 
 Beheld afar the Altar high, 
 
 And so his journey here he stayed 
 
 And rested in the pleasant shade, 
 
 Not ill content to gaze awhile 
 
 On pictured pane and pillared aisle. 
 
 But, as he thought thereon, it seemed 
 To him as though a dream he dreamed 
 And heard a voice, "What dost thou see, 
 While here thou watchest wistfully ? " 
 
 To which he answered, " I behold 
 A building beautiful and old." 
 
 To whom the voice, " Oh eyes so blind, 
 To seek so long and not to find ! 
 What else?" 
 
 Said he "An open door, 
 An empty Church, and nothing more." 
 
 The voice replied, " Oh slow of heart 
 To read the signs of sacred art, 
 Deep lore these ancient stones can teach 
 To those who understand their speech.
 
 216 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 Attend, while I unfold to thee 
 This building's hidden mystery, 
 And how herein thine eyes may trace 
 The Christian Pilgrimage of Grace. 
 
 The Western Door doth represent 
 The great Baptismal Sacrament, 
 Which, giving us a Second Birth, 
 Admits us to the Church on Earth. 
 And, as the people day by day 
 Pass through the place of tombs to pray, 
 So must the sinner in his search, 
 For shelter in the Christian Church, 
 Promise and vow with ready mind 
 To shun the world, and leave behind 
 The whited sepulchres of sin, 
 Ere Christ will let him enter in. 
 
 Within the door our pilgrimage 
 Begins its first and earthly stage, 
 Wherein Saint Peter bids us mark 
 We stand like Noah in his Ark, 
 Since God by water doth us save, — - 
 So call we this our Ship or Nave. 
 To comfort us when tempest-tost 
 Our Lord has sent the Holy Ghost ; 
 The Windows seven that light the place 
 Denote his sevenfold gifts of grace 
 The Pillars, six on either hand, 
 The Holy Apostolic Band, 
 On whose foundation builded well
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE 217 
 
 The Church defies the gates of Hell. 
 
 Look upward. While we onward move, 
 God's angels watch us from above, 
 Yet not with harps or song of mirth, 
 Since we are militant on earth, 
 But each presents a golden shield 
 To show that faith must never yield. 
 
 See, Pilgrim, now before thy face 
 Three silent witnesses of grace ; 
 The lectern, desk, and pulpit tell 
 Of reading, praying, hearing well. 
 To these do thou betimes attend, 
 Since here thy path in life must end, 
 And thou must take thy journey where 
 Perchance God will not hear thy prayer. 
 
 So far the Church on earth is shown 
 In parables of wood and stone, 
 And now behold in like device 
 The Church unseen in Paradise. 
 For lo ! our road must run beneath 
 Two Arches, first the gate of Death, 
 And next, the end of toil and strife, 
 The Gate of Everlasting Life. 
 The space that lies 'twixt gate and gate 
 Is Hades, or the middle State, 
 The Valley of the Shade of Death, 
 Whence none his soul delivereth, 
 No window makes the darkness light, 
 And yet above, beyond our sight,
 
 2i 8 POEMS AND PARODIES 
 
 Arises, crowned with arches seven, 
 The Tower, to tell that God in Heaven 
 A Tower of Strength will ever be 
 Against our last great enemy. 
 
 Soon, Pilgrim, from the tower may toll 
 The bell to tell that thine own soul 
 Hath passed away at God's command 
 To that unseen mysterious land. 
 Then let us pray that thou and each 
 Departed Christian soul may reach 
 That Third Eternal Glorious State, 
 Beyond the Resurrection Gate. 
 
 Mark how the Chancel typifies 
 The Church triumphant in the skies ; 
 For here the Choir their anthems raise 
 Like Angels singing songs of praise. 
 Three Eastern Windows here unite 
 In one to pour their painted light, 
 An emblem of the Father, Son, 
 And Holy Spirit, Three in One. 
 And here the Altar stands to prove 
 A pattern of the things above, 
 Where, Priest and Victim, Jesus Christ, 
 The Lamb for sinners sacrificed, 
 Before His Father ever pleads 
 The wounds that cancel our misdeeds, 
 Five wounds — whose number here is shown 
 By crosses on the altar stone. 
 
 Now, Pilgrim, ere thou hence depart,
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE 219 
 
 Lay this last lesson to thine heart. 
 Let not these holy mysteries seem 
 Nought but the figures of a dream, 
 Let not this House of God appear 
 Only a sign of things not here, 
 A shadow, as the temple was, 
 Of what should one day come to pass ; 
 Remember those who truly pray 
 Are truly on their heavenly way, 
 And those who here receive the Word 
 Are truly joined to Christ the Lord, 
 The Lord who ne'er is found so near 
 As when we seek His presence here, 
 Since those who at His table feed, 
 There meet Him truly and indeed. 
 
 1877- 
 
 GLASGOW I TRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY 
 ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY MACMILLAN 
 AND BOWES, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 XTbe Worfes ot Hrtbur Clement Ibtlton (of 
 
 Marlborough and Cambridge), Author of "The Light Green." 
 Together with his Life and Letters. With 2 Portraits. Fcap. 
 8vo. $s. net. 
 
 ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.— " Messrs. Macmillan and Bowes, of Cam- 
 bridge, will publish, about the end of the month, "The Life, Letters, and 
 Remains of Arthur Clement Hilton," prepared for publication by Sir Robert 
 Edgcombe, Hilton's contemporary at Cambridge. Hilton may be said to be 
 known now, so far as he is known at all, only by bis brilliant parodies in ' The 
 Light Green.' These, together with some unpublished poems, are included in the 
 book. _ Hilton's parodies in ' The Light Green ' certainly give him a rightful 
 place in the brilliant company of Cambridge wits with Praed, Calverley, 
 J. K. S., Mr. Seaman, and Mr. Seaman's chief, Sir Francis Burnand." 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE.— 11 For a certain quality of sparkle, and an 
 almost Greek crispness of language, he may well be held worthy to rank with 
 the inimitable ' J. K. S.' and ' C. S. C ' " 
 
 Carmlna Epbemera, or Uvivial IFiumbers. 
 
 By E. E. Kellett, Author of "Jetsam," "The Passing of 
 Scyld," etc. Fcap. 8vo. $s. 6d. net. 
 
 GLASGO W HERALD.—' 1 The title of this book explains its character and 
 value. Yet there are things in it that the title does not exactly cover. It is 
 wonderfully clever, and sometimes Mr. Kellett touches a theme in a manner 
 which is much beyond the ephemeral and trivial." 
 
 CAMBRIDGE REVIEW— "The book deserves a place in the first class 
 of frivolous poetry, and that place not far from the top. Mr. Kellett's Muse has 
 not the formal perfection, of Mr. Seaman's or Mr. Godley's, but in fertility of 
 imagination he is hard to beat. Among many poems that are good it is not easy 
 to choose : we will mention only 'A Good Plucked One,' ' The Epic of Ladies ' 
 and ' Mendicancy.' But Mr. Kellett is never so happy as when he is poking 
 fun at Horace. Only Mr. Seaman has written criticism by parody so well." 
 
 SCOTSMAN. — "The book, in a word, is a clever and comical miscellany 
 well in the Calverley tradition, sure to be heartily enjoyed by academic youth 
 anywhere, and, indeed, by anyone in whose sensibility the strains of ' Gaudeamus 
 igitur ' can strike an answering chord of fun." 
 
 Xapsus Calami ano otber Derses. Second 
 
 complete Collected Edition. (1898.) By the late J. K. 
 Stephen. With a Biographical Introduction and Photo- 
 gravure Portrait after a Chalk Drawing by Mr. F. Miller. 
 Fcap. 8vo, cloth. $s. net. 
 
 TIMES.— " Many of the admirers of the late James Kenneth Stephen will 
 be glad to have in one volume Lapsus Calami and other Verses, a complete 
 edition of his verse. Messrs. Macmillan and Bowes, of Cambridge, have thrown 
 together the two volumes known as Lapsus Calami and Quo Musa Tendis ? and 
 these, with a short sketch of the author's life, and with the prose that is buried 
 in the pages of the dead 'Reflector,' must now represent for us one of the most 
 individual talents of our time."
 
 XapSUS Calami. By J. K. S. Third Edition on 
 large handmade paper. 150 copies printed, 1891, each signed 
 by the Author. 12s. 6d. net. 
 
 <&U0 /IDUSa UenMS ? By J. K. Stephen. 150 copies 
 printed on large handmade paper, 1891. 12s. 6d. net. 
 
 Ube :J6oofe of tbe Cambrioae IRevtew. Selec- 
 tions from 1879 to 1897. Fcap. 8vo. 5-f. net. 
 
 GRANTA.— "The whole appearance of the volume is simply admirable, 
 and the printing is good, the paper light, the binding tasteful. . . . The book is 
 readable from cover to cover." 
 
 A THENMUM.—" The Letters to Lecturers are decidedly good." 
 DAIL Y TELEGRAPH.—" There is much sprightly reading in its pages." 
 
 Horace at the University of Athens. 
 
 TTbe Xaoies in parliament, ano otber pieces. 
 
 By the Right Hon. Sir G. O. Tkevelyan. Crown 8vo, 
 
 cloth, gilt top, 2s. bd. net ; paper covers, is. net. 
 
 Contents : The Ladies in Parliament. Horace at the University 
 
 of Athens. The Cambridge Dionysia ; a Classic Dream. The 
 
 Dawk Bungalow; or, Is his appointment Pucka? A Holiday 
 
 amongst Old Friends. 
 
 " The pity of it is that Sir George Trevelyan has laid down the pen which 
 nearly thirty years ago flashed forth pointed, polished verse, that charmed 
 undergrads at Cambridge, and with some personal modifications, delighted the 
 dons. . . . He has never done anything better in their way than his ' Ladies in 
 Parliament,' his ' Horace at Athens,' and other verses written whilst he wore cap 
 and gown at Cambridge." 
 
 Stuoies in IRatnre ano Country Xife. By 
 
 Catherine D. Whetham and W. C. D. Whetham, M.A., 
 
 F.R.S., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. 
 
 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 Contents: Part I. Chapter I. Nature and Observation; II. 
 
 Earth ; III. Air ; IV. Water ; V. Heat ; VI. Sound ; VII. Light 
 
 and Colour ; VIII. The Weather. Part II. Chapter IX. The 
 
 Country and its Names ; X. Roads ; XI. Springs and Streams ; 
 
 XII. Soil : XIII. Fields and Hedgerows ; XIV. Trees and Woods ; 
 
 XV. Villages. 
 
 We wrote this book to help our children in days to come to look on the world 
 
 around them with observing eyes and understanding minds. We publish it in 
 
 the hope that it may help other people's children, and bring profit to our own. — 
 
 Authors' Preface. 
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 SPECTA TOR.—" This is a small but very admirable book, to be used by 
 the intelligent parent or teacher, directly or indirectly, or to be left accessible to 
 the inquiring mind. Any child who can take its knowledge and its story 
 separately will be charmed with the volume ; but in the next edition the first 
 chapter should be turned into a preface intended for the parent, which may se- 
 cure its reading by the child."
 
 TIMES. — "A useful little book, not quite like any other. It is to teach 
 children to look on nature with observation and understanding ; touching not so 
 much on fauna and flora, but giving chapters on ' Earth,' 'Heat,' 'The Weather,' 
 ' Roads,' ' Light and Colour,' ' Villages,' &c. 
 
 SCOTSMAN. -" It is a serious book about the observation of Nature, and 
 puts in a simple, interesting way elementary scientific ideas about the trees, the 
 weather, the air, and so on. It hasn't any pictures ; but, after all, Nature makes 
 her own pictures well enough, and the book should help any child who wants to 
 look at them with intelligence." 
 
 GLASGOW HERALD.—" It is a book that the older boys and girls will 
 enjoy. Those of the ' other people ' who feel that their children's interest in the 
 world about them might be ' helped ' by reading a few simply-put scientific truths 
 about the things they see may find a useful and acceptable gift for them in Mrs. 
 Whetham's little volume." 
 
 LIVERPOOL MERCURY.—" This work was undertaken by the authors 
 with the object of helping their children to look on the handiwork of nature with 
 discerning eyes and understanding minds, and the hope is expressed that it will 
 similarly influence other people's children. The story is simply but beautifully 
 told, and from it young and old may learn to know, understand, and appreciate 
 every-day occurrences that too frequently are entirely ignored." 
 
 Clare Colleoe Xetters ano ^Documents. Edited 
 
 with Notes by J. R. Wardale, M.A., Fellow of Clare Coll. 
 With Portrait of the Foundress in Photogravure, six other Por- 
 traits — Latimer, Tillotson, Bishop Gunning, Nicholas Ferrar, 
 Whiston, and Moore — and Facsimiles of Signatures. Crown 
 8vo. 5j-. net. 
 A few Copies of the Photogravure Portrait of the Foundress, 
 printed on Japanese paper for framing. Price 2s. 6d. net, or with 
 the Arms of the College painted by hand in Colours, Js. 6d. net. 
 
 SPECTA TOR. — "These documents refer, for the most part, to the seven- 
 teenth century, and throw, not unfrequently, a curious light on matters academi- 
 cal. There are, for instance, the repeated efforts to secure the election of Fellows 
 and Scholars on other grounds, it may be presumed, than competence. Arch- 
 bishop Tillotson was a frequent suitor for such favours. Again we find two 
 Bishops, Ely (Gunning) and Salisbury (Seth Ward), combining to push a candi 
 date at the request of their brother-Bishop of Chester (Pearson). Bishop 
 Gunning makes two other requests of the same kind. Elsewhere we find the 
 Vice-Chancellor giving some one leave to beg for money to ransom his son from 
 the Turks. He raised £1 ijs. In 1656 the undergraduates protest against the 
 College fare. The rolls, they complain, were small (although the price of corn 
 had fallen), the beer was very thin {tenuem admodum), the meat tasteless, high, 
 and badly cooked. They beg that the baker, butcher, and creatures of that sort 
 (Jiuiusmodi homunciones) may be hindered from imposing on them." 
 
 GLOBE. — "Some very interesting sidelights are thrown on history, and it is 
 hoped that the excellent example thus set will lead to further researches in Col- 
 lege Muniment rooms." 
 
 B Concise Gutoe to tbe Gown ano XHnt\>er* 
 
 sity of Cambridge. By J. Willis Clark, M.A., F.S.A., 
 Registrary of the University, is. net. 
 
 Cambrioae Gown ano THnfverstt£. a Concise 
 
 Guide. With Introduction. By J. Willis Clark, M.A., 
 F.S.A. Printed on India paper and bound in limp skytogen. 
 is. 6d. net. 
 
 The same book as the above, with a special Introduction.
 
 a Concise Ouioe to Els CatbeoraL By j. w. 
 
 Clark. 6d. 
 
 A supplementary chapter to the Concise Guide to Cambridge, 
 prepared for the visit of the British Association. 
 
 SPECTA TOR.— "Mr. Clark first gives the reader an ' Historical Introduc- 
 tion,' and then, by a skilful arrangement which preserves the chronological order 
 of what is seen and described, conducts him ' in one walk ' round the Cathedral. 
 It is rendering a real public service when so well qualified a person as Mr. Clark 
 undertakes the humble function of the cicerone." 
 
 Ube Gambrioae /RMssion to Soutb Xonoon. 
 
 A Twenty Years' Survey. Edited by A. Amos and W. W. 
 Hough. With Map and 17 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth. 
 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 " I wish with all my heart that I could enlist for this little volume the 
 interest and attention that it deserves, aud make vividly clear the reasons why 
 it deserves them. It should not be difficult to do this, if only for those who are 
 willing to find their ideals in drab and grey as well as in gold or tinsel. 
 
 # # * * * 
 
 " As for the reward, I ask whether, in times when there is much to alarm and 
 to depress, there does not ring throughout this book the note of a very different 
 temper, the temper of sober and experienced hopefulness? The workers at 
 least shew no defeat, no wavering, no apprehension ; they bring up to us the 
 witness of encouragement, and for themselves make acknowledgement in the 
 words of the old Caius Boat Club motto, Labor ipse voluptas, of what the work 
 has been to themselves." — Front the Bishop of Rochester's Prefatory Chapter. 
 
 DAILY NEWS. — "A work full of the elements of romance and new be- 
 ginnings is outlined in this little unpretentious volume, The Cambridge Mission 
 to South London, edited by A. Amos and W. W. Hough. It tells of the move- 
 ment, originated only twenty years ago, through which the colleges of the 
 University of Cambridge, becoming conscious of the needs of the enormous 
 populations of poverty in the great cities, deliberately set themselves to contri- 
 bute their assistance to the cause of reform. . . . Whatever happens in the future, 
 the work thus undertaken with enthusiasm and whole-hearted devotion will serve 
 as a lasting memorial of one of the most remarkable of modern developments of 
 Christian social activity." 
 
 RECORD. — " Now after a lapse of sixteen years we read this fascinatin 
 story of their successes and failures with the deepest interest, and warmly com- 
 mend it to all who are interested in South London." 
 
 SOUTH LONDON PRESS.— "This is an interesting record of modest 
 and merciful achievement carried on by the self-denying help of Christian men 
 and women." 
 
 CAMBRIDGE REVIEW.—" The story of each mission is clearly, vividly 
 told, but the book, as the Bishop of Rochester says in the preface, is not merely 
 ten or twelve parochial reports bound up together, but the record of one move- 
 ment, as the outline of a single momentous advance in Social and Christian 
 adaptation." 
 
 WESTMINSTER BUDGET.— "This is an account of the Cambridge 
 Mission to South London — an effort to reach the masses which has had a wonder- 
 ful success. The book is written by those who have an intimate knowledge of 
 the work done by the various Colleges." 
 
 MACMILLAN & BOWES, CAMBRIDGE.
 
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