56 Life and Times of " The Druid." 



are enough to provoke widespread amaze- 

 ment, I doubt whether any of the three above 

 named champions would, as an eighteen-year- 

 old boy, have tackled " Dixon's gate " from 

 the Barby Road. A tradition still survives 

 at Rugby that from 1840 until 1880 no boy 

 ever attempted to jump that tremendous 

 obstacle. 



I subjoin the following " Random Recol- 

 lections," written by "The Druid" many 

 years after he had left Rugby. 



" Rugby : its Sporting and School 

 Recollections. 



" There is an innate love of sporting in the 

 breasts of all Englishmen, which first de- 

 velops itself in their desperate efforts as in- 

 fants to imitate the cry of every animal, and 

 makes them in after years 



" Gaze from Grand Stands with their hair silver gray, 

 And totter 'neath guns till their ankles give way. 



" When it is the good luck of boys to have 

 been begotten by a good sportsman, they are 

 often entered to hounds at a very early age, 



