Punch: Punch (39.1860)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[August 25, 1860.

COMPOSITION BY AN ENGLISH MASTER.

tit of all the curiosities
of advertising litera-
ture lew are much
more remarkable than
the subjoined adver-
tisement :—

YfANSION HOUSE
iv± SCHOOL, St. David's,
Exeter, will Re-open on
Thursday, 26th July. Mr.
Hyphen has a few vacan-
cies to supply the places
of Pupils leaving school.

This School educates
Boys for the Civil Service,
Military, and Oxford and
Cambridge Local Exami-
nations.

The instruction of the
whole School is prepara-
tory for these latter ex-
aminations, the highest
class going in for the
senior, and the next for
the junior branch of them.
At the Oxford Local Ex-
amination for 1859, Mr.
Hyphen passed more Can-
didates than any School in
England, and at the Cam-
bridge Examination for
the same year was second
only to the Liverpool Col-
legiate Institution.

Mr. Hyphen’s school
educates boys for the
“ Oxford and Cam-
bridge Local Examinations” as well as for “ the Civil Service” and the “Military.” That
is, perhaps, to say, that Mr. Hyphen does not educate them without assistance. If Mr.
Hyphen did “pass more candidates than any school in England” last year at the Oxford
Local Examination, and (in passing candidates) “was second only to the Liverpool Collegiate

Institution,” it must he presumed that he did
not educate them in all the branches of learning
wherein he contrived to pass them. Indeed it
is difficult to conceive in what department of
education he could possibly have instructed
them. Mr. Hyphen appears to be what is
called an English master, and to merit that
appellation by inability to write English. What
does he mean by saying that he “has a few
vacancies to supply the places of pupils leaving
school?” Grammatically this is nonsense; but
the sense which he would express, if he could,
probably is simply that he has a few vacancies for
pupils. Unless he keeps a staff of competent
ushers, doesn’t he wish he may get them ?

A Song about a Sheriff.

The penalty which Mr. Justice Blackburn
imposed the other day at Guildford on ’Squire
Evelyn, the respected High Sheriff of Surrey,
will long be remembered in that polite sphere
of society of which the affable and learned Judge
is so distinguished an ornameut. In moments
of postprandial conviviality, no doubt, Judge
Blackburn will often be called upon to oblige
the company with the song of “ The Fined Old
English Gentleman.”

MAKING GAME OF THE SPEAKER.

An enthusiastic partridge-shooter, who lias the
misfortune to be an M.P., and of course looks
forward with horror to the prolongation of the
Session into September, under the influence of his
partridge prepossessions, the other day addressed
the august occupant of the Chair of the House as-
“ Mr. Squeaker.”

OUR ROVING CORRESPONDENT.

“ My dear Punch,

“ When good Queen Bess, of pious memory, visited the
well-known College of Saint Ulric’s, Eastminster, the young gentlemen
who were educated at that establishment used to pass in review before
her.

“ Who has not heard the pretty jest (all jests were pretty in those
days) made by the scholar who, on one of these occasions was asked
by her Majesty, when he had last been flogged ? Quoting a celebrated
Epic poet, as he dropped on one knee, the arch hoy replied—

“ Infandum, regina jubes, renovare dolorem,”

and was immediately rewarded with a groat from the Privy Purse, or,
as some say, by a buss from the .Royal lips.

“ The anecdote was related to me as i pored over my Yirgil in the
fourth form at Eastminster, and I remember thinking the youth must
have been a prodigy of wit, and satire. Eor such a sally to so great a
Bess, fourpence. certainly seems an insignificant tip; but having my
groat, I don’t think I should have cared for the other portion of the
honorarium.

“ Grindley, whose fag I was at school, and who is now an under-
master at Eastminster, comes up to town for .the holidays, and at
breakfast with me one morning, suggested the above-mentioned subject
for a picture.

“ I don’t think it would make a had group. Eancy the maiden
Queen in her Royal robes and ruffles (carefully studied in the Post-
Peruginesque manner). Dr. Pedagogus, cap in hand, looking fat and
smiling (as every Head-master ought to look in the presence of his
Sovereign) and the chubby honest school-boy pointing to a flogging-
stool ‘ of the period.’

“ Eull of the idea, I went down last week to the scenes of my youth,
which I had not visited for many years. ‘ 0 Tempus eclax rerum ! ’ what
has become of the Tantivy coach, driven by Snafeler, ablest of whips,
by whose side I was so proud to sit, as the vehicle rolled up to the
College Arms ? The journey which once occupied a day, is now accom-
plished in a couple of hours. The Tantivy has gone the way of all
wood and varnish, and Snaffler—perhaps he too has driven off into
Hades.

“ There are moments in a man’s life subject to sensations which it is
impossible to define. What were mine on revisiting these Classic
regions? Was the retrospect pleasurable or otherwise? I vow I
cannot say. A host of old associations rise up to plead on either side,
and make the verdict doubtful. When the author of The Anatomy of

llelancholy felt unhappy, he rushed to the river-side, and listened to-
the bargemen’s merry chaff. For my part I prefer a moral homoeopathy,
and earnestly recommend stinging-nettles for ill-humour. Was Burton.
gloomy at sixteen ? 1 trow not. Schools never grow old. Schooiboys-
are always jolly—

“ O fortunatos nimium sua si bona nbiint ”

[yon see I am quoting from the Latin Grammar, with which I was once
tolerably familiar : don’t suppose, however, that I wish to set up for a-
scholar, or can construe so much as a line of Ovid without a dictionary.];

“ It is twelve o’clock, and the hoys come rushing down from prayers*,
which, in accordance with ancient precedent are always recited in the
heathen tongue. Two or three of the monitors in infinitesimal white
ties (in my day we exhibited a bow of gigantic proportions) stalk up*,
and, with a sort of bashful impudence, characteristic of our British
youth—inquire my business. * An old Oppidan, eh? ’ says one, ‘what
name? Easel? O yes—it’s up school in the fourth, along with
Jones and Tryaggen.’ (We all had our names painted up on ihe
walls in mediaeval characters by a High Church plumter who Imld
hereditary office, and so only charged us a guinea a-piece for the job)..
‘ I suppose you’d like to go over the old shop—and I say—come and
dine with us in Hall,’ added the Captain very graciously. ‘Senior
table you know—let me see—mutton to-day—here ! You feller. Brown ?
run to Mother Hardbake’s, and get me a pot of red-currant, jelly,
and—hi, stop a minute ! can’t you—say the last was mildewy, and she’d
better send it good this time—look sharp now, take it to Hall.’ And
here Mr. Brown, Jun., who in the holidays has a powdered retainer,
six feet high, with tremendous calves, to do his bidding, set off on his
errand without a murmur.

“ Yes, Mrs. B., your son is undergoing his probationary term as a
fag, as many a good fellow has done before him. Yery dreadful, is it
not ? gentle youths treated as menials. Confess now, didn’t yon
expect that in a community of gentlemen, ‘ & c. &c. &c.’ Gentlemen!
Lord bless you, Madam, if I kept Burke’s Peerage in my studio (I
mean to get a copy as soon as ever I can afford it—it looks so very
respectable)—I say if I had the Peerage or the Palace Register at
hand, I could point out a dozen titled personages who, in the capacity
of fags, have made coffee, brushed coats, and posted letters for Jack
Easel, Esq., and I, in my turn have done a hundred like kind offices
for Messrs. Bobtail and Tagge (the eminent button-manufacturers)
before those gentlemen assumed the toga virilis, or succeeded to their
parent’s business. And are we not all the better for the discipline ?
If you had brought up Master Brown at home on the Sandford and
Merton plan, or sent him to Pentonville Proprietary Academy, or to