DECEMBER 127 



I for Sandhurst. It was decided that we should go to a 

 great preparatory school of those days for the military 

 colleges of the Queen's and East India Company's ser- 

 vices, kept by Messrs. Stoton and Mayor at Wimbledon. 

 The school was a large one, and would be thought a 

 rough one now. The only washing place was a room 

 on the ground floor, with sinks and leaden basins in 

 them, to which we came down in the morning to wash 

 our hands and faces. There was very little taught but 

 mathematics for the army boys, and classics for those 

 destined for Haileybury, the East India Company's col- 

 lege for the Indian Civil Service. Copley Fielding 

 taught some boys drawing and water-colour painting. 

 There was also a French class, presided over by a poor 

 little old Frenchman, M. Dell. I never in my life met a 

 being to whom the term "master" was less applicable. 

 The French master at the schools of sixty years ago was 

 not a happy person. He was despised of all men and 

 boys, and his position was one of such inferiority that 

 no man of any power or spirit was likely to fill it. Sto- 

 ton allowed no prize for the French class, and it has 

 been one of the- most touching incidents of my life that 

 the poor old Frenchman gave me a little prize which he 

 paid for himself. It was a small edition of Florian's 

 fables. I had it with me for years, but where it has 

 gone to now I know not. It is perhaps buried some- 

 where among the increased belongings that inheritances 

 and a settled life have accumulated about me ; I wish I 

 could find it again. Augustus and I were probably the 

 only boys that had been in France, and certainly the 

 only ones with any pretension of speaking French, and 

 I think the good little man had a predilection for us 

 among the crowd of sneering John Bulls — hating him, 

 his language, and his country — that it was his hard 

 fate to teach. It would be a great delight if I could 



