- GYMNASTIC ACHIEVEMENTS. 299 



finally bang himself upon the sloping ladder before the momentum 

 of his spring had passed away." 



Wood could do this work with apparent ease, and swing himself 

 from one end of the room to the other, as though he were a performer 

 in a circus. One of iny sketches in " Verdant Green " shows him 

 taking his aerial flight, and we used to compare him to one of the 

 " Bounding Bricks of Babylon," so amusingly delineated by Keeley 

 and Alfred Wigan in Albert Smith's burlesque extravaganza, The 

 Allianibra. Wood fairly revelled in these gymnastic feats, which he 

 performed with as much elegance as ease. 



Substituting for his name that of Mr. Bouncer, I spoke of him 

 as follows : " Mr. Bouncer, who could do most things with his 

 hands and feet, was a very distinguished pupil of Mr. MacLaren ; 

 for the little gentleman was as active as a monkey r and to quote 

 his own remarkably figurative expression was ' a great deal livelier 

 than the Bug and Butterfly' (which was a name given to Mr. Hope's 

 Entomological Museum). Mr. Bouncer, then, would go through the 

 full series of gymnastic performances, and, finally, pull himself up 

 the rounds of the ladder with the greatest apparent ease, much to- 

 the envy of Mr. Verdant Green, who, bathed in perspiration, and 

 nearly dislocating every bone in his body, would vainly struggle (in 

 attitudes like to those of 'the perspiring frog' of Count Smorltork) 

 to imitate his mercurial friend, and would finally drop exhausted on 

 the padded floor." 



These gymnastic attainments my father kept up to 

 some extent after leaving college, and, even after his 

 marriage, he more than once ascended a tolerably high 

 tree, in order to hang by his feet alone from one of the 

 loftiest branches. 



For cricket he did not much care. He played as a 

 boy (although the game was then comparatively in its 

 infancy), but met with a serious accident, breaking his 

 right leg and dislocating his ankle through a severe 

 fall. After this he seldom played, and, indeed, took 

 no special interest in the game, beyond studying the 



