From time to time, of course, even in the days when irreverence was common, the boys were moved by some extraordinary service which impressed the most unthinking minds. One of these occasions was the funeral service of a boy named Grieve, son of the English physician to the Czar of Russia, at the commencement of the nineteenth century. On the 5th of November, then a day of much riot at Eton, poor Grieve had filled his pockets with what proved to him the instruments of death, in order to enjoy the frolics of the evening, which were suddenly ended when a young nobleman unluckily “squibbed,” as it was called, his unfortunate friend. Some of the fireworks which were in his pocket immediately ignited, which, communicating to the rest their deadly errand, exploded, and literally tore off a portion of flesh from his bones. The poor fellow’s screams were dreadful, and he died in four days’ time. This sad affair threw a gloom over the school for a long time, and games and sports were almost forgotten. When the day came for Grieve’s burial, its awe was strongly augmented by the solemnity with which the funeral service (that most beautiful and sublime selection of prayers) was read by the headmaster, Dr. Goodall; indeed, among the whole body of upwards of five hundred boys, not a dry eye was to be seen. One of these has left on record how to his dying day he could never forget the impression made on his mind, when, with a trembling anticipation of the approaching procession, he heard the first words, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and his poignant emotion as the funeral procession slowly wound into the chapel and the sky-blue coffin[2] broke upon his sight. An old Eton Sunday institution was “prose,” held in Upper School, where the Headmaster would read a few pithy moral sentences. As a rule it is to be feared these were pearls thrown before swine, and the swine-herd seemed to feel disgusted as he threw them. He then gave out the subjects of exercises for the ensuing week, and informed the boys what would be the amount of holidays in it. In the old days a number of the Eton masters were not the earnest men who are to be found in the school to-day. At a time when the aristocracy possessed great power, it was not extraordinary that young noblemen should have been treated with a great measure of leniency. A certain tutor, for instance, behaved with great philosophy when one of his pupils, belonging to a great family, rolled him down the hundred steps, and reaped the reward by afterwards rising to a position of high eminence in the Church. Not a few masters were shackled by hide-bound conservatism, whilst a certain type of eighteenth century pedagogue was quite unfitted to inculcate learning.