Prime Ministers and Some Others: A Book of ReminiscencesRussell, George William Erskine
History
Prime Ministers and Some Others: A Book of Reminiscences
Russell, George William Erskine
Great Britain -- Biography
"I steered the _Britannia_ and the _Victory_. I used to take long
walks with friends in Windsor Park, and used sometimes to go up to
the Castle, to ride with the present King.[3] I remember, in two
little plays which William Johnson wrote for his pupils, taking the
part of an Abbess in a Spanish Convent at the time of the Peninsular
War; and the part of the Confidante of the Queen of Cyprus, in
an historical in which Sir Archdale Palmer was the hero, and a
boy named Chafyn Grove, who went into the Guards, the heroine. In
Upper School, at Speeches on the 4th of June, I acted with Lyulph
Stanley in a French piece called _Femme à Vendre_. In 1857, I and
George Cadogan,[4] and Willy Gladstone, and Freddy Stanley[5] went
with the present King for a tour in the English Lakes; and in the
following August we went with the King to Koenigs-winter. I was in
'Pop' (the Eton Debating Society) at the end of my time at Eton,
and I won the 'Albert,' the Prince Consort's Prize for French."
[Footnote 3: Edward VII.] [Footnote 4: Afterwards Lord Cadogan.]
[Footnote 5: The late Lord Derby.]
A younger contemporary adds this pretty testimony:
"As you can imagine, he was very popular both among the boys and
the masters. One little instance remains with me. There was a custom
of a boy, when leaving, receiving what one called 'Leaving Books,'
from boys remaining in the school; these books were provided by
the parents, and were bound in calf, etc. The present Lord Eldon
went to Eton with me, and when Charles Wood left, in July, 1858,
he wanted to give him a book; but knowing nothing of the custom
of parents providing books, he went out and bought a half-crown
copy of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and sent it to C. Wood's room.
Two shillings and sixpence was a good deal to a Lower Boy at the end
of the half; and it was, I should think, an almost unique testimony
from a small boy to one at the top of the house."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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