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light at Rugby, and at which Miss Martineau assured us "the dissenters generally are amazed and shocked," as a disclosure of the sensual east of mind of the boys in a great public school."* These iniquities are still perpetrated, both at breakfast and tea, under the very nose (without any metaphor) of a clergyman of the Church of England, and with at least his tacit connivance. The old bread-and-cheeseand - beer supper at eight o'clock has been slightly modified by the substitution of butter, or the oldfashioned hot bread-and-milk, according to fancy; to obtain which latter delicacy, in "dame's" houses of an older generation, required strong personal influence with the matron. The comforts of the sick were always perfectly well attended to in earlier times, and indeed the sick-room, in bad weather or literary difficulties, was supposed to possess rather too much attraction; but the new Sanatorium, built about three years ago, has great advantages in cases of serious illness or infection. It is a pleasant quiet house, standing apart in its own grounds, but within easy reach of the boarding-houses, and has a first-rate resident nurse.

Rugby begins to stir about 6.30 in summer; that is to say, prayers begin at 7 to a second; and half an hour is not too much to dress and get into school. In winter, first lesson is at 8; and for a month before and a month after the Christmas holidays, break

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fast is taken before going into school, i. e. at 7.30. This has been found not only an effectual remedy for the old excuse of "staying-out" (going on the sick-list) on a cold wet morning, but a really useful sanitary precaution. Fortified with hot tea and rolls (and possible sausages), a boy is found to brave snow and sleet, and even the chance of a "floorer" at lesson, with comparative indifference. So, at least, say Rugby doctors, medical and scholastic; but some of the boys contend that it involves a hurried and unsatisfactory breakfast; that they scald their throats, upset their digestions, and are, in consequence, unable to construe when called up. Second lesson is from 9.15 to 11.15; an other from 12.30 to 1.30; then comes dinner; then third lesson and fourth (with no real interval) from 2.30 to 6. This is the work for whole school-days,-Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; the three alternate days are nominally half-holidays, when there is no lesson after 11.15. But the only real half-holiday is the Saturday; for the Tuesdays and Thursdays are cut up by the finishing and correcting the composition for the Middle and Lower Schoolsoccupying from half an hour to two and a half, according to proficiency; and upon both Tuesdays and Thursdays there is a composition lesson from 12 to 1.30. These hours only apply with accuracy to the upper forms, who prepare their work out of school, and therefore go up to

*Health, Husbandry, and Handicraft,' p. 20.

There is indeed a terrible bell which begins ten minutes only before school, and to this last moment a sleepy lower-boy (who is not an elaborate dresser) too often defers his getting up. The horrors of such a practice are so well set forth in the following parody that we here quote it as a warning :

THE SONG OF THE BELL.

With hair dishevelled and waste,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A fellow rises at early morn
From his warm and cosy bed.
Splash! splash! splash!

Through dirt and cows and mud,
And still he hears the dismal crash,
The bell's far-distant thud.

Dress! Dress! Dress!

While I listen to the chime.
Dress! Dress! Dress!

Four minutes to the time.

Vest and collar and coat,

Coat and collar and vest,

The stomach is faint, the hand is numbed,

But we cannot stay to rest.

New Rugbeian (School Magazine), vol. i. p. 85.

lesson an hour later; and besides these public lessons, every boy has to find three hours a-week out of his play-time for his private tutor. Every third Monday is also a halfholiday, called "Middle Week"modern Rugbeians say, "because it never was the middle of anything." Altogether, the school-work claims about five or six hours per diem, on an average, from a boy below "the Twenty;" in the higher forms, of course, the amount varies according to individual industry.

Still, young Rugby finds plenty of time for play. Cricket, though it has been a Rugby game from the earliest records, was late in assuming there its present scientific character. The "Public Schools" would only play matches with each other; and while they were distinguishing themselves at Lord's, Rugby was content with occasional victories over "the Town," or a Warwickshire Club. Dr Wooll brought with him some boys from Kent, and they seem to have been the first to raise the game to something of a science. True, we hear from Nimrod that in his day "cricket was in high repute;" and Rugbeians may cherish, if they will, the glorious names of Joseph Port, Harry Wise, and Ned Tomkinson, whom he hands down to fame, but it is only as "hard hitters." William Ayling, afterwards one of the best gentleman-players in England, astonished, and at first disgusted, his new schoolfellows by his newfangled notions of batting; he made clever "draws," and obtained runs faster than the established champions, whose only use of the bat was to "swipe." Loud were the protests against such "sneaking," as it was called; but in course of time science, as usual, carried the day, and Ayling was voted what would now be called "Captain of the Eleven." But it is only in very modern times that such names as Wynch and Sandford have made a cricket reputation for Rugby.

The Rugby game par excellence is the old English game of foot-bail, popular in this country for immemorial centuries, threatening to rival even archery in the days of Edward the Third, and still holding its place more or less in villages from which other sports have died out, but having its special temple and most imposing mysteries at Rugby. Less scientific and more energetically active than cricket, it is specially adapted to English schoolboy taste. King James, indeed, debarred it from his court as

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meeter for lameing than making able the users thereof;" but he was neither an Englishman nor an athlete. It has certainly served both purposes in a high degree at Rugby. The only complaint we hear is, that it is scarcely played so viciously" as in the generation just gone by; that it is assuming a somewhat more delicate and dilet tanti character. But it is a noble game still, and has more of the fierce and thrilling excitement of battle than any other national sport. For two months, or thereabouts, it continues to be the one absorbing subject of outdoor interest in the school. It is played, or rather fought, under somewhat different laws from those of other public schools, and the rival principles have formed of late important subjects of discussion. It would be utterly hopeless to explain its points to any one who does not know the game, and quite unnecessary for those who do. To drive a ball * in one direction against all the efforts of the opposite party who are driving it in the other, is the players' object, and to effect this, pretty nearly every species of bodily force is in turn called into requisition; kicking is the main principlewhether your adversary's shins, or the ball in preference, depends entirely upon circumstances. "Mauling "-which is also allowable in certain defined cases-is so expressive a word as to explain itself; but

Those who do not know what a real football is, should see Mr Gilbert's specimens in the Exhibition of 1852.

for the consolation of any tenderhearted reader (especially for horrified mammas, who see the death's head and cross-bones on the schoolhouse jerseys) who may consider football a very dangerous game, it is pleasing to be able to quote the following provisos from the last amended Rugby rules:-"1st, Though it is lawful to hold any player in a maul, this holding does not include attempts to throttle or strangle, which are totally opposed to all the principles of the game. 2d, No one wearing projecting nails or iron plates on the soles or heels of his boots or shoes shall be allowed to play."

There are few more lively sights than the school-close on the day of one of the great matches the "Sixth" against the rest of the school, or the "Old" against the " Present Rugbeians." Each side plays in jerseys and flannels, with velvet caps of distinctive colours, which old Rugbeians are disposed to regard as modern vanities, but which certainly add very much to the picturesque of the game, and no doubt increase its interest in the eyes of the ladies, who, since the late Queen Dowager set the example, crowd the ground on bright winter afternoons whenever a match of any special interest is to be played; sometimes, in their enthusiasm, venturing outside those mysterious posts which mark out the "line of touch," and thus occasionally getting mixed up with the combatants, to their own detriment and the general confusion. The scene has been already so well described by more than one enthusiastic writer -by Tom Brown, by William Arnold, in his 'Sixth-Form Match,' and by George Melly, in his Experiences of a Fag, that it would be mere repetition to do more than refer to those truthful pages any curious readers who may not prefer to halt a few hours at Rugby, some winter Saturday afternoon, and see a match played with their own eyes. For scientific play, for magnificent drops" and gallant runs in," we

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might recommend the Old Rugbeian match, usually played about October 1st, where the heroes of two or three generations of players meet in the field, and “maul" and "hack" each other for very love-vowing,like Arthur's knights, that "it doth them good to feel each other's might;" but for "vicious" play, perhaps the contest between the Sixth-thirty only in number, but a host in size and pluck-against the remaining 450 of the school-or the match in which the two champion houses are pitted against all the rest, had better be selected. Yet probably no struggle now is so fierce as that which used to take place when, in earlier times, the Upper Bench (the first twelve) of the Sixth used to challenge the whole school, and beat them. That match had to be stopped by royal proclamation of King Wooll, so little like "play" was it. Those were the days of the giants, when William Adey drove all foes before him like an Ajax; terrible in his strength and size, though not so great at "drops," it may be, as the more modern "White of Ansteys." But all this is caviare to the multitude.

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Hare and Hounds" has also had its sacred bard,* and needs not our weaker celebration. Only that

dealing as we have been more largely with the past than with the present-we may remark that there was a time when it was very differently conducted; when fags were hounds and præpostors huntsmen, and carried hunting-whips, as the hounds could testify; nay, that some enterprising spirits hired horses for the run, and the game was stopped for that reason for many years at the close of Dr Wooll's mastership, and during the early part of Dr Arnold's. At present it has become a mere foot steeplechase, a good test of wind and pluck; and the great object in life for an enthusiastic "hound" is to do the "great Crick run" (thirteen miles) in something less than eighty-four minutes; that, we be

* Vide 'Experiences of a Fag.'

lieve, being the shortest time at present on record.

An enthusiastic young friend, who reads what we have written, insists upon it that we have not said half enough. We feel relieved by his criticism,-we thought we had been terribly prosy. He reminds us that in the earliest classlist ever issued at Oxford, when there were but two Firsts, one was a Rugby man; that a Rugbeian first ascended Monte Rosa, and stood on Mont Blanc without a guide; and that their rifle marksmen beat Eton and Harrow for the Wimbledon Shield.* We offer to add, that in the three centuries

which have passed since the school's foundation, only one Rugbeian has ever been committed for highway robbery, and he was a baronet, and it was a very gentlemanly offence in his time; only one, so far as we are aware, was ever hung, and that was for high treason, which is always, to say the least, respectable; that of the many exhibitioners sent to both universities, one only was transported (only for seven years); and that no head-master has ever come upon the parish, though at one time such a result was very much feared. Still, he does not seem satisfied.-We can say no more. So, Floreat-et valeat—Rugbeia !

SENSATION

TEN years ago the world in general had come to a singular crisis in its existence. The age was lost in self-admiration. We had done so many things that nobody could have expected a century before-we were on the way to do so many more, if common report was to be trusted. We were about inaugurating the reign of universal peace in a world too deeply connected by links of universal interest ever to commit the folly of war again-we had invented everything that was most unlikely, and had nothing before us but to go on perfecting our inventions, and, securing all the powers of nature in harness, to do all manner of peaceable work for us like the giants in the children's story. What a wonderful difference in ten years! Instead of linking peaceful hands, and vowing to study war no more, we have turned Industry away from her vaunted work of putting a girdle round the world, and set her to forge thunderbolts in volcanic din and passion. In that momentous interval great wars have begun and ended, and fighting has come into fashion throughout the palpitating earth. We who once did,

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NOVELS.

and made, and declared ourselves masters of all things, have relapsed into the natural size of humanity before the great events which have given a new character to the age. Though we return with characteristic obstinacy and iteration to the grand display of wealth and skill which in 1851 was a Festival of Peace, we repeat the celebration with very different thoughts. It is a changed world in which we are now standing. If no distant sound of guns echoes across seas and continents upon our ears as we wander under the South Kensington domes, the lack of the familiar sound will be rather disappointing than satisfactory. That distant roar has come to form a thrilling accompaniment to the safe life we lead at home. On the other side of the Atlantic, a race blasée and lost in universal ennui has bethought itself of the grandest expedient for procuring a new.sensation; and albeit we follow at a humble distance, we too begin to feel the need of a supply of new shocks and wonders. Those fell Merrimacs and Monitors, stealing forth with a certain devilish invulnerability and composure upon

* He will not believe in "Mrs Harris" and her tripe; he protests that there was 'never any such person."

the human ships and men to be made fire and carnage of, are excitement too high pitched for comfort; but it is only natural that art and literature should, in an age which has turned to be one of events, attempt a kindred depth of effect and shock of incident. In the little reflected worlds of the novel and the drama the stimulant has acted strongly, and the result in both has been a significant and remarkable quickening of public interest. Shakespeare, even in the excitement of a new interpretation, has not crowded the waning playhouse, as has the sensation drama with its mock catastrophes; and Sir Walter himself never deprived his readers of their lawful rest to a greater extent with one novel than Mr Wilkie Collins has succeeded in doing with his Woman in White.' We will not attempt to decide whether the distance between the two novelists is less than that which separates the skirts of Shakespeare's regal mantle from the loftiest stretch of Mr Bourcicault. But it is a fact that the well-known old stories of readers sitting up all night over a novel had begun to grow faint in the public recollection. Domestic histories, however virtuous and charming, do not often attain that result-nor, indeed, would an occurrence so irregular and destructive of all domestic proprieties be at all a fitting homage to the virtuous chronicles which have lately furnished the larger part of our light literature. Now a new fashion has been set to English novel-writers. Whether it can be followed extensively, or whether it would be well if that were possible, are very distinct questions; but it cannot be denied that a most striking and original effort, sufficiently individual to be capable of originating a new school in fiction, has been made, and that the universal verdict has crowned it with success.

Mr Wilkie Collins is not the first man who has produced a sensation novel. By fierce expedients of crime and violence, by diablerie of divers kinds, and by the wild devices of a

romance which smiled at probabilities, the thing has been done before now. The higher class of American fiction, as represented by Hawthorne, attempts little else. In that strange hybrid between French excitement and New England homeliness, we recognise the influence of a social system which has paralysed all the wholesome wonders and nobler mysteries of human existence. Hectic rebellion against nature-frantic attempts by any kind of black art or mad psychology to get some grandeur and sacredness restored to life or if not sacredness and grandeur, at least horror and mystery, there being nothing better in earth or heaven; Mesmerism possibly for a make-shift, or Socialism, if perhaps it might be more worth while to turn ploughmen and milkmaids than ladies and gentlemen; or, if none of these would do, best to undermine life altogether, and find what creeping honours might be underground: here a Scarlet Letter and impish child of shame, there a snake-girl, horrible junction of reptile and woman. The result is no doubt a class of books abounding in sensation; but the effect is invariably attained by violent and illegitimate means, as fantastic in themselves as they are contradictory to actual life. The Master of English fiction, Sir E. B. Lytton, has accomplished the same end, by magic and supernaturalism, as in the wild and beautiful romance of 'Zanoni.' We will not attempt to discuss his last wonderful effort of this class, which is a species by itself, and to be judged only by special rules, which space debars us from considering. Of all the productions of the supernatural school, there is none more perfect in its power of sensation, or more entirely effective in its working out, than the short story of the Haunted House,' most thrilling of ghostly tales; but we cannot enter upon this school of fiction, which is distinct from our present subject. Mr Dickens rarely writes a book without an attempt at a similar effect by means of some utterly fant

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