Chat No. 9.

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"Then be contented. Thou hast got
The most of heaven in thy young lot;
There's sky-blue in thy cup!
Thou'lt find thy Manhood all too fast—-
Soon come, soon gone! and Age at last,
A sorry breaking-up."
—-Thomas Hood.
Letter I

It was my good fortune some short time since to revisit that most educational of English towns, Bedford, and having many years ago had the extreme privilege of being a Bedford schoolboy, I was able to draw a comparison between then and now.

In the good old days these admirable schools were managed in the good old way—plenty of classics, plenty of swishing, plenty of cricket and boating, and plenty of holidays. We sometimes turned out boys who afterwards made their mark in the big world, and the School Registers are proud to contain the names of such men as Burnell, the Oriental scholar, who out-knowledged even Sir William Jones in this respect; Colonel Fred. Burnaby, brave soldier and attractive travel writer; Inverarity, the lion-hunter and crack shot; Sir Henry Hawkins, stern judge and brilliant wit, and many others of like degree. Nor must we forgot that John Bunyan here learnt sufficient reading and writing to enable him in after years to pen his marvellous Book during his imprisonment in Bedford Gaol, which was then situated midway on the bridge over the river Ouse.

In that wonderful monument to the courage and enterprise of Mr. George Smith (kindest of friends and best of publishers), "The National Dictionary of Biography," the record is frequent of men who owed their education and perhaps best chance in the life they afterwards made a success, to Bedford School, but,—

"Long hushed are the chords that my boyhood enchanted,
As when the smooth wave by the angel was stirred,
Yet still with their music is memory haunted,
And oft in my dreams are their melodies heard."

But if the good old School was a success in those bygone days, what must be said for it now, when, under the Napoleon-like administration of its present chief, the school-house has been rebuilt in its own park, upon all the best and latest known principles of comfort and sanitation, where a boy can, besides going through the full round of usual study, follow the bent of his own peculiar taste, and find special training, whether it be in horse-shoeing or music, chemistry or wood-carving, ambulance work or drawing from the figure; whilst the beautiful river is covered with boats, the cricket-fields and football yards are crowded, and the bathing stations are a constant joy?

Truly the present generation of Bedford boys are much blessed in their surroundings; and whilst they remember with gratitude the pious founder, Sir William Harper, should strive to do credit to his name and memory by the exercise of their powers in the battle of after-life, having received so thorough and broad-minded a training in the happy and receptive days of their youth.

Bedford town is now one of the most strikingly attractive in England, with its fine river embankment, its grand old churches, its statues erected to the memory of the "inspired tinker," Bunyan, and the prison philanthropist, Howard, both of whom lived about a mile or so from the town, the former at Elstow, the latter at Cardington. It was very good and heart-restoring to revisit the hospitable old school with its pleasant surroundings and to find, as Robert Louis Stevenson says, that,—

"Home from the Indies, and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers they all shall come home;
Still they shall find the old mill-wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam."

Since printing our last little "Tour Round the Bookshelves," in which we ventured to include some capital lines by our evergreen and many-sided friend Rudolf Chambers Lehmann, he has again added to the interest of our Visitors' Book under the following circumstances. Guests and home-birds were all resting after the exhausting idleness of an Easter holiday when they were suddenly aroused from their day-dreams by loud cries of "Fire!" accompanied by the sound of horses and chariots approaching the house at full speed. On looking out, like Sister Anne or a pretty page, we were able to assuage our guests' natural alarm by explaining that the local fire brigade were practising upon our vile bodies and dwelling, and if fear existed, danger did not. On their ultimately retiring, satisfied with their mock efforts, and fortified by beer, our welcome guest wrote with his usual flying pen the following characteristic lines to commemorate their visit:—

"FIRE! FIRE!!"

(AN EASTER MONDAY INCIDENT.)

"A day of days, an April day;
Cool air without, and cloudless sun;
Within, upon the ordered tray,
Cakes, and the luscious Sally-Lunn.
Since Pym has walked, and Guthrie climbed
To rob some feathered songster's nest,
Their toil needs tea, the hour has chimed—
Pour, lady, pour, and let them rest.
But hark! what sound disturbs their tea,
And clatters up the carriage drive?
A dinner guest? it cannot be;
No, no, the hour is only five.
What sight is this the fates disclose,
That breaks upon our startled view?
Two horses, countless yards of hose,
Nine firemen, and an engine too.
Where burns the fire? Tush, 'tis but sport;
The horses stop, the men descend,
Take hoses long, and hoses short,
And fit them deftly end to end.
Attention! lo their chieftain calls—
They run, they answer to their names,
And hypothetic water falls
In streams upon imagined flames.
Well done, ye braves, 'twas nobly done;
Accept, the peril past, our thanks;
Though all your toil was only fun,
And air was all that filled your tanks:
No, not for nought you came and dared,
Return in peace, and drink your fill;
It was, as Mrs. Pym declared,
'A highly interesting drill.'"

April 3, 1893.

Another poet whose pen sometimes gilds our modest Record of Angels' Visits, is a well-beloved cousin, Harry Luxmoore by name, at Eton known so well. His Christmas greeting for 1890 shall here appear, and prove to him how deep is Foxwold's affectionate obligation for wishes so delightfully expressed:—

"Glooms overhead a frozen sky,
Rings underfoot a snow-ribbed earth,
Yet somewhere slumbering sunbeams lie,
And somewhere sleeps the coming birth.
Folded in root and grain is lying,
The bud, the bloom we soon may see,
And in the old year now a-dying
Is hid the new year that shall be.
O what if snows be deep? so shrouded
Matures the soil with promise rife
And sap, for all the skies be clouded,
Ripens at heart a lustier life.
Then welcome winter—while we shiver
Strength harbours deeper, and the blast
Of sounder, manlier force the giver
Strips off betimes our withered past.
Come bud and bloom, come fruit and flower,
Come weal, come woe, as best may be,
Still may the New Year's hidden dower
Be good for you and Horace, and all the little ones, and good for me."
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