Complete works of samuel.., p.354
Complete Works of Samuel Butler, page 354
“The dedications are made either on the 15th or 30th.
“The name is corrupt.
“Note the Ionic form.
“This expression seems inserted in a more qualified sense in this than in the preceding. Their services are contingent to the deity, after the death of their mistresses; and the words μηθενι μηθεν προσήκουσας seem inserted to bar all other claims.
“The original has προσήκουσα.
“Observe the usual corruption of H for EL
“The original has εκατεροις and ποιονμει οι, and seems cut by a more ignorant artist than any of the preceding.
“8. Αρχοντας 2ωιλοι ταυ Ένανδρον μηνος... τω... ιοί... ραδιυν... υσιοί... σιμών και ΤΙαρθα α Αριστονικον αφιασι τψ ίδιαν δούλαν Έρμαιαν ελενΰεραν ιεραν τω 2αρατει παραμεινασαν ΐίαρθενα εως αν ζτ) ανεγκλητως μη προσηκονσαν μηθενι μηθεν την αναθεσιν, etc.
“αφιασι [Note unfinished. — ED.]
“ελευθεραν ιεραν The slave here seems manumitted, yet dedicated; but the priests, who were not slaves, were also dedicated to the god. But then παραμεινασαν? Can this mean that the manumission was not to take place at the death of Parthena, or that the dedication to the god was not to take place at that time?”
CHAPTER XI. EPIDEMIC OF TURBULENCE.
Disturbances within the School. — Dr. Butler’s two Circulars to Parents. — Correspondence, November 30th, 1818 — May 17th, 1819.
IN 1818 there was an epidemic of serious turbulence in almost all the leading schools of England, with (to quote Dr. Butler’s words in a letter dated April 3rd, 1819) “one real and one ostensible exception.” At Shrewsbury insubordination began by the boys eating more than they wanted, and then complaining that they had not had enough; they got up fights in the town; they very nearly killed a farmer’s pigs, in what they called a boar hunt, and intimidated the farmer himself so greatly that when brought into the school by Dr. Butler, and asked to identify the offenders, “he was either unwilling or afraid to do so”; an insulting placard was posted up in the hall threatening Dr. Butler with personal violence; the painted glass in the school library was broken by stones of considerable size, evidently thrown by big boys; the glass in the Doctor’s library had been also broken; other acts of insubordination occurred which made it necessary to expel three boys and dismiss a fourth. Dr. Butler therefore sent a circular to the parents of all his boys, desiring them to examine their sons and see whether they could find any reasonable ground of complaint, in which case they were to let him know. He concluded by saying: —
“You will hear your son’s account and give it what credit you think fit; but it is my particular request that no boy may return to me who is not duly sensible of what he owes to me and to his parents, and who will not promise to them and to me a cheerful submission to such rules as I may think necessary for the general improvement and discipline of the school.”
In a second circular, dated December 10th, 1818, and sent with every boy on his going home for the holidays, Dr. Butler writes: —
“I have also remarked this half-year that the boys have been in the habit of receiving baskets of game and poultry from their friends. This I consider a very pernicious indulgence. They have three plentiful meals here every day, at which they are under no limitation; and whenever any parents are so kind as to send me a basket of game, some is always sent to their sons, and frequently part is dressed for the other boys in their turn. Under these circumstances I cannot but consider supplies of game, or hams, or any similar provisions sent to the boys themselves, as highly prejudicial, tempting them to form junketing parties at low houses, and exciting to other irregularities. I have therefore to request that where such practices have begun they may be discontinued, and that nothing may be sent them beyond fruit or cakes.
“It has come to my knowledge that some of the upper boys, with whose turbulent conduct I have great reason to be dissatisfied, are diligently instilling insubordination into the minds of those younger boys whom they think likely to receive their instructions. I have resolved on removing every such upper boy whom I know of from my school this Christmas, though, for obvious reasons, I have never mentioned this to them; and I earnestly entreat every parent to whom I do not think it necessary to recommend his son’s removal, to examine him most closely upon this subject, and impress him with the great importance of regular and orderly conduct and subordination, and of the impossibility of my showing any lenity or indulgence to a contrary behaviour.”
This was much the most serious and protracted case of disaffection with which Dr. Butler had to cope during the whole term of his head-mastership, not excepting the better-known “beef row” of 1829.
CORRESPONDENCE, NOVEMBER 30TH, 1818 — MAY 17TH, 1819.
FROM DR. KEATE, ITEAD-MASTER OF ETON.
(Original at Eton.)
“ETON, November 20th, 1818.
“SIR, — I have received your letter of the 27th this morning, and am very sorry to perceive that the contagion of rebellion has reached your school also. I am sorry too to be thought to have sufficient experience to be referred to as an authority on these occasions. I beg leave, however, to assure you that I am very ready to give my opinion.
“The best answer I can return to your question, indeed the only one which I think I ought to give, is, that it has not been my practice either to rescind or to mitigate a sentence of expulsion. I was requested to do it upon one occasion some years ago, and I have been importuned in the same manner in six out of the seven late unfortunate instances, but I have uniformly resisted, thinking my public duty paramount to every consideration of private feeling.”
FROM DR. GABELL, HEAD-MASTER OF WINCHESTER.
(Original at Winchester.)
“December 1st, 1818.
“MY DEAR SIR, — You ask me if it is usual in cases of declared expulsion to change the sentence into dismission, or even revoke it altogether: I never heard of such a practice, nor do I recollect a single instance of it.
“You ask me also if the master is not bound to be inflexible, etc. This question I would rather not answer in general terms, but I recollect no case which justified in my opinion the reversal of such a sentence, when once passed. No man could be more importuned than I was on a similar occasion, after our unfortunate disturbance last spring, but I thought it my duty to resist all importunity.
“You have heard probably of the proceedings at Eton and at the Charterhouse, but perhaps you do not know that the Military College at Sandhurst has been in rebellion. The boys drew up in battle array against the professors.
“It is not unlikely that I shall be in Warwickshire during the Christmas vacation, and I hope we shall meet.”
FROM THE HON. CECIL JENKINSON, AFTERWARDS LORD LIVERPOOL.
“PITCHFORD HALL, December 5th, 1818.
“My DEAR SIR, — I am extremely flattered by your attention to my feelings, as expressed to my friend Mr. H. Owen and others, respecting the late disagreeable occurrences in your school, and very happy that what I said to them was sufficiently noted to be repeated to you. To say the truth, but that I always fear putting myself forward, I should have troubled you with a letter as soon as I had read the statement which, as parent to one of your pupils, you sent to Mr. Corfield.
“Believe me, sir, that no one sees with more anxiety than I do the conduct of those to whom public education in this country is entrusted; on it in a great measure depends the production of those talents which, fostered and matured in this soil of rational liberty, make England a beacon and example to every other nation of the civilised world.
“But that I fear and dislike to flatter you, I might say that your talents as head-master of a public school deserved a better field of exertion than Shrewsbury; but you have shown, even on this comparatively unproductive soil, how much these talents could effect, and it would, I conceive, be most unjust and illiberal on the part of those who from property and residence observe this, not to render every assistance in our power, or to pay every tribute which is due to them.
“Believe me, dear Sir, with these sentiments most sincerely “Your obedient humble servant, “CECIL JENKINSON.”
FROM THE REV. C. J. BLOMFIELD, AFTERWARDS ARCHDEACON OF COLCHESTER, AND BISHOP, FIRST OF CHESTER, AND THEN OF LONDON.
“CHESTERFORD, ESSEX, December 4th, 1818.
“MY DEAR SIR, — I have directed my publisher, Mr. Mawman, to send you a “copy of my Agamemnon, which is just published. I trust that, although I have often been compelled to dissent from your opinions, you will not find anything offensive. At the same time I am free to confess that, had an opportunity been afforded me, I should have expressed two or three things rather differently, but I beg you to bear in mind that the text and notes were printed a twelvemonth ago. In the preface I could not avoid alluding to the question about Casaubon and Stanley. I hope you will think that I have not done so in an improper manner.
My own opinion on the subject remains the same. I beg you will present my respects to Mrs. Butler and the young ladies, “And believe me, my dear Sir, “Yours very sincerely, “C. J. BLOMFIELD.
“P.S. — I entirely agree with you in your explanation of Hughes’s inscriptions, with one or two trifling exceptions. I have no doubt but that in the last HAPAMOXON is the name of the slave.”
The name appears in inscription No. 5, and not in “the last.”
TO THE REV. C. J. BLOMFIELD, CHESTERFORD.
“SHREWSBURY, December 6th, 1818.
“MY DEAR SIR, — Before I receive your kind present I cannot but wish to assure you that nothing which I may find in it can make any alteration in those sentiments of friendship and respect which I entertain for you. The past is past; ra p iv irporervai cauojiev, but I trust that each of us can add — 7rep, in one sense only, and that a different one from the meaning of Achilles — a sense of mutual regret that it ever took place.
“When I receive your Agamemnon I shall run over it as fast as ever I can, reserving a closer study of it for a more convenient opportunity. I have no doubt that you will often find occasion to differ from me, and that I shall often find occasion to differ from myself. I am glad to have the opportunity of telling you that the whole plan of my publication was devised contrary to my most strenuous exertions, by a literary friend now no more,* who had great theological and more than moderate classical attainments, but ho wanted judgement and taste. Hence arose those divisions and subdivisions which, having been adopted in the first volume, I could never afterwards get rid of. I was wrong to yield, and yet I can hardly blame myself. What could a young man not two-and-twenty, and wholly unused to the press, say against a ripe and practised scholar of nearly seventy — especially when he had a tender interest at stake? True, I became emancipated in the course of the work, but the first volume had given a fatal cast to the whole, and from the first I saw no remedy but a re-publication with my own text and selected notes. Whenever I undertake that work I shall, in the preface, say of your labours what, under any circumstances, I should have thought it justice to say.
“I have no copy of Hughes’s inscriptions, and could see them but cursorily, having been constantly interrupted while writing my few remarks upon them. I have not the least recollection of the passage, but think it highly probable you are right in the name. The verb irapap a’o), if I recollect, occurs so frequently in the inscriptions that I suppose in my hasty perusal of them I was misled by it. I cannot get at a single book till after Christmas, my library being yet unfinished. I have had a stirring half-year since I wrote to you. Luctantes ventos tempestatesque sonoras. I hope I chain them as well as their old master in Virgil. It has, however, completely put a stop to my book on metres, which must be delayed half a year.
“If you see Hughes, that aAA.07rpocraAA.os now at St.John’s, now at Trinity Hall, now at Emmanuel, and at present at some Cambridge fen curacy, you may ask him to show you a sketch of mine on Dodona.
“Last night I had a letter from Dr. Parr, in which he says he has heard from you again, from which I infer that you are iD correspondence with him. I wish more that you were in his company; you could and would appreciate him. There are many who cannot and many who will not understand him. I venerate him, and if you knew him as I do, I think you would feel as I do. Mrs. Butler and my daughters beg their kind remembrances.
“Believe me, my dear Sir, yours very sincerely, “S. BUTLER.”
So ended this long and bitter quarrel. The only breeze that ever afterwards occurred between the two men arose out of a little affair of which my kind and illustrious old friend the late Rev. Richard Shilleto told me as having happened when he was a boy at Shrewsbury School. Blomfield had then become Bishop of Chester and was paying a visit to Dr. Butler. He of course attended morning chapel with the boys, and was much scandalised at seeing Dr. Butler, towards the close of the service, begin to cut his penqil so as to be ready for marking and correcting exercises. Dr. Butler of course promised faithfully that he would never cut his pencil in chapel any more, and, let us hope, kept his promise.
FROM THE REV. S. TILLBROOK.
“December 7th, 1818.
“MY DEAR DOCTOR, — I hope by this time that Heaven is quiet, and that you have expelled the Titans and all their rebellious crew. I have spoken to our youth Smith on the bursting subject. He seems very ready to accept the situation, and on comparing his strength with that of your present assistant feels no great horror at the thoughts of treading in his shoes, though he would avoid his steps.
“I have seen your honest letter which has been circulated among the parents of your pupils. It seems to me that you have been too indulgent to the appetites of the young rogues. Who could ever hope to satisfy the real or fancied cravings of a hungry schoolboy? I remember a schoolfellow of mine who after dinner drew the wick of a mould candle through his teeth, and ate the cold tallow afterwards. Upon this he piled up eight raw turnips and twelve large cooking apples. Besides these, he cracked nuts during a walk of four miles from the wood where he had gathered them, and then at night ate toasted cheese, and drank a joram of treacle, or ate it so crumbed with bread that the spoon stood erect in it. What do you think of that Master Apicius?
“I must dish up this hasty pudding.”
TO A TRADESMAN IN SHREWSBURY.
“SCHOOLS, Monday, December 7th, 1818.
“SIR, — Great pains were taken by me to appreciate the damages among the boys. I publicly declared my intention of exempting Mr. Jeudwine’s boarders and the day scholars if they should be proved by their respective head boys to have no concern in the general mischief. No attempt to exculpate them was made that day. The next day the head boy of the day scholars said that only one was concerned. I then declared that only one should pay. Another was then named. I said that one, or two, or even three, should pay individually, but that as I knew many of my own boys and many of Mr. Jeudwine’s were equally innocent, and yet were included in the general estimate of damage (towards which even my own son contributed, though to my knowledge perfectly innocent), if more were concerned all should pay. I left the head boy of the boarders and the head boy of the day scholars to settle it, and they agreed that more were concerned.”
TO A PARENT.
“SHREWSBURY, December 9th, 1818.
“DEAR SIR, — When I sent you my first circular I think I told you that your son had been misled at first, but that he had subsequently behaved very well. I wish I could confirm that opinion, but I am persuaded that he has not a proper sense of his duty to me, nor of my unwearied exertions for the moral and intellectual improvement of all the boys under my care. As it is of great consequence that there should be a frank and cordial understanding between the master and the head boy, who is obliged on many occasions to be in official communication with him, and to possess his confidence in many things, I think it right to request that he may not return to me.
“I have the pleasure to send him to you a very elegant and accomplished scholar, and whether you send him to Trinity College at once or place him with a private tutor for the ensuing half-year it will make but little difference to him. I might perhaps in justice to myself have sent him to you a week ago, if not earlier, but I resolved that I would keep him if possible to the end of the half-year, that he may leave me, if not with all the satisfaction I hoped to have felt, at least without any mark of disgrace to himself. I heartily wish him well, and have little doubt that he will distinguish himself at college.”
FROM THE MASTER OF ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
(Original in Cambridge University Library.)
“ST. JOHN’S, December 18th, 1818, “MY DEAR DR. BUTLER, — Every member of the University interested in the support of discipline must feel thankful to you for the firmness with which you have resisted the turbulence and self-will of foolish and presumptuous boys. Children nowadays very early imbibe most pernicious notions, if not from their parents and relations, at least from the spirit of the times. I approve heartily of every point in your proceedings, and doubt not your school will stand as high in reputation for the due subordination and modesty of the scholars, as it does for their improvement in learning.
“I wish it may be consistent with your feelings either to give me the names of those whom you have advised to leave the school or to withhold the usual certificate of admission to St. John’s. We have a very numerous, and, I am happy to say, a most respectable and orderly set of young men. I could not knowingly introduce any sowers of sedition among them. They have no rights here, but are under obligation to submit to the statutes, and such regulations as the Master and seniors may see necessary.”
