MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE. 131 



the last word could be shot down so far from its adjective without 

 the sacrifice of sense ? Those were the days of table-turning, and 

 on second thoughts, as the examiner probably would have resented 

 the tables being turned on him, I prudently reserved my questions 

 for a more convenient season, and contentedly retired. 



In Homer I had to translate that interesting domestic squabble 

 which ends with 



"Jove on his couch reclined his awful head. 

 And Juno slumbered on the golden bed." 



Although nearly thirty centuries have passed away since this 

 scene was first depicted by the great epic poet, scholars and school- 

 boys in each succeeding generation of the Arian race spread over 

 Europe, have chuckled at it ; the features of even the sternest 

 Dominie relax as he reads how the quarrel ceases on the production 

 of nectar, and he arrives at the two best known lines in Homer. 



"Vulcan with awkward grace his office plies, 

 • And unextinguished laughter shakes the skies." 



I have always thought the Odyssey spoilt the Iliad to a con- 

 siderable extent, and that it was a mistake to make the heroes 

 afraid of any earthly thing. Who would care to read Ivanhoe 

 again if Sir Walter had made the Black knight hang on to a ram 

 to escape from either man or monster ? However, I managed to 

 squeeze through the passage set me to construe, though the 

 examiner doubtless did not require a microscope to see that I 

 was no Greek scholar. 



In India I was often called on to play the role of examiner myself, 

 and I much preferred sitting on his side of the table to the other, 

 particularly when I had to examine the natives in their own 

 language, alongside the English poets ; for as happiness, however 

 attained, is the great aim and object of human life, my natural 

 sense of the ridiculous made these examinations a source of 

 considerable enjoyment. 



K2 



