CHILDHOOD. 17 



heard a second time, had never met with in any book, and 

 yet remembered so perfectly that I, happening to recollect 

 the source, begged him (in 1869) to write it down. He 

 did so literally as follows : — 



" With thilka force he hit him to the ground, 

 And was demaising how to take his life ; 

 When from behind he gat a treach'rous wound, 



Given by De Torcy with a stabbing knife. 

 O treach'rous Normans ! if such acts ye do, 

 The conquer'd may claim victory of you." 



The passage comes from the twenty-eighth stanza of 

 Chatterton's Battle of Hastings No. 1, and the divergencies 

 are so extremely slight and unimportant that they merely 

 add to the impression of the extraordinary tenacity of a 

 memory which could retain these words from childhood to 

 old age after only hearing them once recited. 



In a paper which has been printed since his death, 1 my 

 father has described the schooling which he enjoyed in 

 Poole. After having imbibed a slender stream of tuition 

 successively from Ma'am Sly, and from a slightly more 

 advanced Ma'am Drew, at the age of eight he joined his 

 elder brother at the school of one Charles Sells, whose 

 establishment was at that time the best day school in 

 Poole. While he was there, Mrs. Gosse " would sometimes, 

 for economy, keep us at home a quarter to carry on our 

 studies in the back garret by ourselves. We were indus- 

 trious, and mother was on the keen look-out, and we did 

 not miss much." It was before this, in 181 5, that Philip 

 began to form a friendship which lasted, with only one 

 momentary interruption, until adolescence and the un- 

 timely death of his friend. John Hammond Brown was 

 the nephew of a widow lady, a Mrs. Josiah Brown, who 



1 "A Country Day School Seventy Years Ago," in Longman's Magazine 

 for March, 1889. 



