FIRST FIGHT IN THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 203 



comprising scores of distinguished heroes, from Alfred 

 the Great to Bendigo, and all written, like Dr. 

 Johnson's Dictionary, with a single pen), but not a 

 hoy of us dare to bring home a posy. Any such pusil- 

 lanimous proceeding would infallibly have evoked from 

 our disgusted community those epithets, so awful to 

 the boyish soul, viz., "softy," "nincompoop," and 

 " mollycoddy." We trembled to remember those dark 

 ages when we had loved the wild rose and the honey- 

 suckle, when we had filled our small fists with violets, 

 made golden balls of the cowslip, decked ourselves 

 with daisy-chains, and when we were never weary of 

 the tiny garden which was called our own. 



Such was our schoolboy creed. Venus was wor- 

 shipped with so much devotion that twenty-six of us 

 were in love with the same young lady ; Diana was 

 worshipped, by reason of her hunting propensities ; 

 Minerva was reverenced ; Pomona was adored ; but 

 none brought sacrifice to Flora. She was heterodox 

 and excommunicated, a female Bishop Colenso. I 

 rejoice to know that it is no longer so. 1 rejoice to 

 see and to scent in the small studies at Eton, Harrow, 

 and elsewhere, abundant evidences of a taste which 

 adds so largely and so lastingly to the refinement and 

 happiness of life. I only regret that it was not so in 

 my time ; that it was not as evident to us as to our 

 sons that there is no incompatibility between a 

 mental and a muscular, an intellectual and a physical 

 excellence ; that the eye and hand which are occupied 

 in training and in tending some beautiful plant are 

 not disabled by that process from making a leg-hit for 

 four ; and that of all the capacities which distinguish 



