4 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



Hodson's schoolfellow, Mr W. S. Seton-Karr, some- 

 time judge in the High Court of Calcutta, and 

 afterwards Foreign Secretary to the Government 

 of India in 1868-69 :— 



" Hodson, when he came to Rugby, was older 

 than any of his contemporaries of that year ; most 

 of them were of the age of twelve to fourteen. He 

 was placed in the Middle Fifth, and thus escaped 

 fagging altogether, and passing through the Fifth 

 Form and the ' Twenty,' as it was then termed, 

 reached the Sixth Form under Arnold during 1839 

 and 1840. Hodson was not a deep or brilliant 

 scholar, and he was no proficient in Latin verse, 

 on which Arnold, after some hesitation, had by 

 that time begun to set a high value, as may be 

 seen in Dean Stanley's Biography. But he had 

 read the best Greek and Latin authors, and his 

 construing was correct and even elegant ; while in 

 general knowledge of the world he always struck 

 us as superior to the average of clever scholars of 

 the same age. He had a store of anecdotes about 

 public men, the universities, and their Dons ; and 

 we used to look to him more than to other con- 

 temporaries for information and enlightenment on 

 matters beyond the reach and range of average 

 schoolboy life. 



" Hodson was no cricketer, and never even in 

 the Twenty-two ; but he was an excellent runner, 

 and led the others at hare -and -hounds, or paper 

 chases, which came off at least once a-week in the 

 winter and spring, when the claims of football 

 were not paramount. His wind and endurance in 

 the Crick and the Barby Hill runs were often 

 the admiration and envy of the school. 



