Another says: "Frank set up a sort of amateur dispensary or hospital. He
had a patient or two. One man I remember, with a bad hand, who used to
come down to College Gate at twelve o'clock to consult him and be
experimented upon. In his toys (cupboard) he had various bottles and
specimens, one very highly treasured possession being a three-legged
chicken.
"His own natural disposition was of the sweetest and gentlest. I never
saw him in a passion, though he used to get a good deal teased at one
time for his untidiness. But he always had a bright smile amidst it all,
and was ready to do anything for anybody immediately after. One thing
used to strike me very much about him, and that was his exceeding love
for his mother. Boys are generally reticent upon this point, but Frank
seemed never tired of telling me about his, and how much he owed her....
"In school hours he was a painstaking and conscientious worker, never
leaving his lessons or preparing his task quicker or better than when he
had some pet, a dormouse or sometimes a snake, twisting and wriggling
inside his college waistcoat, which, having found its way out at his
boots, would be carefully replaced under the waistcoat, to go through
the same journey again."
While at Winchester, Frank determined to become a surgeon, and chose as
a parting gift from one of his tutors, instead of Goldsmith's poems,
"Graham's Domestic Medicine." At his request, his parents sent him a
lancet, with which he bled his college mates, if they were courageous
enough to submit to the operation, offering each one sixpence as an
inducement. Nevertheless, when, in vacation, he witnessed an amputation
at the Infirmary, he fainted.
When Frank left Winchester, Bishop Moberly said, "I always had the
utmost satisfaction in him as a school-boy; and I look back with very
great regard to his simple, earnest character, and his devotion to the
studies which have made him so well known. To me he was just what I
always found him, full of curious information, excellently kind-tempered
and affectionate."
In 1844, at the age of eighteen, Frank entered Christ Church, Oxford.
Here he turned the court between his college rooms and the canon's
gardens into a menagerie. He owned a young bear, Tiglath Pileser, Jacko
the monkey, an eagle, a jackal, besides marmots, guinea-pigs, squirrels,
and dormice, an adder and other snakes, tortoises, green frogs and a
chameleon. Skeletons and stuffed specimens were numerous.
Many of these pets strayed away. The marmot got into the chapter-house,
and the eagle stationed himself in the chapel doorway, and attacked
those who wished to enter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account