45 



CHAPTER III. 



RUGBY DAYS. 



T is worthy of passing remark 

 that the two best sporting 

 writers of the present century 

 were both educated at Rugby 

 School. Very different, how- 

 ever, were the conditions and circumstances 

 which surrounded Charles James Apperley, 

 or " Nimrod," when he entered Rugby in 

 1790, from those which Henry Hall Dixon, 

 or " The Druid," encountered there when 

 first he passed under the arches of its Eliza- 

 bethan quadrangle in 1838. In the former 

 year Dr. James wielded, as head master, the 

 instrument from which Horatius Flaccus, the 

 Roman poet, suffered such torments at the 

 hands of " plagosus Orbilius ;" in the latter, 

 Dr. Arnold — the greatest and most high- 

 minded schoolmaster that England has ever 



