In the superb expression of Shakspere, minted by himself, and drawn from his own aerial fancy, like a cloud it ›dislimned;‹ lost its lineaments by stealthy steps. Already the word ›parting‹ (for myself and my brother were under summons for Bath) hoisted the first signal for breaking up. Next, and not very long afterwards, came a mixed signal: alternate words of joy and grief – marriage and death severed the sisterly union amongst the young female servants. Then, thirdly, but many years later, vanished from earth, and from peace the deepest that can support itself on earth, summoned to a far deeper peace, the mistress of the household herself, together with her first-born child. Some years later, perhaps twenty from this time, as I stood sheltering myself from rain in a shop within the most public street of Manchester, the master of the establishment drew my attention to a gentleman on the opposite side of the street – roaming along in a reckless style of movement, and apparently insensible to the notice which he attracted. »That,« said the master of the shop, »was once a leading merchant in our town; but he met with great commercial embarrassments. There was no impeachment of his integrity, or (as I believe) of his discretion. But what with these commercial calamities, and deaths in his family, he lost all hope; and you see what sort of consolation it is that he seeks« – meaning to say that his style of walking argued intoxication. I did not think so. There was a settled misery in his eye, but complicated with that an expression of nervous distraction, that, if it should increase, would make life an intolerable burden. I never saw him again, and thought with horror of his being called in old age to face the fierce tragedies of life. For many reasons, I recoiled from forcing myself upon his notice: but I had ascertained, some time previously to this casual rencounter, that he and myself were, at that date, all that remained of the once joyous household. At present, and for many a year, I am myself the sole relic from that household sanctuary – sweet, solemn, profound – that concealed, as in some ark floating on solitary seas, eight persons, since called away, all except myself, one after one, to that rest which only could be deeper than ours was then.

When I left the K––s, I left Manchester; and during the next three years I was sent to two very different schools; first, to a public one – viz., the Bath Grammar School, then and since famous for its excellence – secondly, to a private school in Wiltshire. At the end of the three years, I found myself once again in Manchester. I was then fifteen years old, and a trifle more; and as it had come to the knowledge of Mr. G., a banker in Lincolnshire (whom hitherto I have omitted to notice amongst my guardians, as the one too generally prevented from interfering by his remoteness from the spot, but whom otherwise I should have recorded with honour, as by much the ablest amongst them), that some pecuniary advantages were attached to a residence at the Manchester Grammar School, whilst in other respects that school seemed as eligible as any other, he had counselled my mother to send me thither. In fact, a three years' residence at this school obtained an annual allowance for seven years of nearly (if not quite) £ 50; which sum, added to my own patrimonial income of £ 150, would have made up the annual £ 200 ordinarily considered the proper allowance for an Oxford under-graduate. No objection arising from any quarter, this plan was adopted, and soon afterwards carried into effect.

On a day, therefore, it was in the closing autumn (or rather in the opening winter) of 1800 that my first introduction took place to the Manchester Grammar School. The school-room showed already in its ample proportions some hint of its pretensions as an endowed school, or school of that class which I believe peculiar to England. To this limited extent had the architectural sense of power been timidly and parsimoniously invoked. Beyond that, nothing had been attempted; and the dreary expanse of whitewashed walls, that at so small a cost might have been embellished by plaster-of-Paris friezes and large medallions, illustrating to the eye of the youthful student the most memorable glorifications of literature – these were bare as the walls of a poor-house or a lazaretto; buildings whose functions, as thoroughly sad and gloomy, the mind recoils from drawing into relief by sculpture or painting. But this building was dedicated to purposes that were noble. The naked walls clamoured for decoration: and how easily might tablets have been moulded – exhibiting (as a first homage to literature) Athens, with the wisdom of Athens, in the person of Pisistratus, concentrating the general energies upon the revisal and the recasting of the »Iliad.« Or (second) the Athenian captives in Sicily, within the fifth century B. C., as winning noble mercy for themselves by some

 

»Repeated air

Of sad Electra's poet.«

 

Such, and so sudden, had been the oblivion of earthly passions wrought by the contemporary poet of Athens that in a moment the wrath of Sicily, with all its billows, ran down into a heavenly calm; and he that could plead for his redemption no closer relation to Euripides than the accident of recalling some scatterings from his divine verses, suddenly found his chains dropping to the ground; and himself, that in the morning had risen a despairing slave in a stone-quarry, translated at once as a favoured brother into a palace of Syracuse. Or, again, how easy to represent (third) ›the great Emathian conqueror,‹ that in the very opening of his career, whilst visiting Thebes with vengeance, nevertheless relented at the thought of literature, and

 

»Bade spare

The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower

Went to the ground.«

 

Alexander might have been represented amongst the colonnades of some Persian capital – Ecbatana or Babylon, Susa or Persepolis – in the act of receiving from Greece, as a nuzzur more awful than anything within the gift of the ›barbaric East,‹ a jewelled casket containing the »Iliad« and the »Odyssey;« creations that already have lived almost as long as the Pyramids.

Puritanically bald and odious therefore, in my eyes, was the hall up which my guardian and myself paced solemnly – though not Miltonically »riding up to the Soldan's chair,« yet, in fact, within a more limited kingdom, advancing to the chair of a more absolute despot. This potentate was the head-master, or archididascalus, of the Manchester Grammar School; and that school was variously distinguished. It was (1.) ancient, having in fact been founded by a bishop of Exeter in an early part of the sixteenth century, so as to be now, in 1856, more than 330 years old; (2.) it was rich, and was annually growing richer; and (3.) it was dignified by a beneficial relation to the magnificent University of Oxford.

The head-master at that time was Mr. Charles Lawson. In former editions of this work, I created him a doctor; my object being to evade too close an approach to the realities of the case, and consequently to personalities, which (though indifferent to myself) would have been in some cases displeasing to others. A doctor, however, Mr.