About this time a scribbling fever attacked the upper boys at Rugby. A year or two earlier the _Rugby Magazine_ had gained considerable repute, from the publication of some of Clough’s early poems, and contributions by others of the Stanley and Vaughan generation; and had thus furnished a healthy local outlet for the literary secretions of the sixth form. But that journal was now no more, so we were thrown back on the periodicals of the outside world. To get a copy of verses, or a short article, into one of these, was looked upon as an heroic feat, like making fifty runs in a school match. And of all the magazines, and they were much fewer in those days, Bentley’s was the favourite; chiefly, I think, because of the “Ingoldsby Legends,” which were then coming out in it. Mr. Barham was an old friend of your grandfather; and I believe it was through him that George had the pleasure of seeing himself in print for the first time. The editor accepted some translations of Anacreon, which he had done out of school-hours. Here are two specimens, and though I do not care to see any of you writing for magazines, I should be glad to think that you could render a classic so well at the age of seventeen:— ANACREON MADE EASY. η γη μελαινα πινει. The dark earth drinks the heaven’s refreshing rain; Trees drink the dew; the ocean drinks the air; The sun the ocean drinks; the moon again Drinks her soft radiance from the sun’s bright glare. Since all things drink, then—earth, and trees, and sea, And sun and moon are all on quaffing set, Why should you quarrel, my good friends, with me, Because I love a pot of heavy wet? Θελω λεγειν Ατρειδας I wished the two Atreidæs’ fame to sing, And woke my lyre to a bold martial strain, In vain, alas! for when I touched the string, The song to love and Cupid turned again. I changed my string, then my whole lyre, I vow Nought _would_ come out but sentiment and sighs, Till Cupid broke my numskull with his bow: “Learn your own place, presumptuous, and be wise. If you sport epic verses, for your pains Nought will you get, of that one fact I’m cartin. Leave to old Grinding Homer blood and brains, And stick to _me_, old boy, I’ll make your fortin.” When “Bentley” arrived at the school-house we were all in astonishment, and not a little uplifted at this feat, which seemed to link the school-house to the great world of literature. George took it very quietly, mentioning it thus in his next letter home:—