THE

ETON MISCELLANY,

No. II.

INTRODUCTION.

ON returning to my literary labours, I cannot but see that the first duty incumbent on me is that of returning my thanks for past favours; the second, that of endeavouring to merit them for the time to come. I need not borrow from Atkinson's Bears' Grease, or Warren's Blacking, epithets to describe my feelings. When I recollect the indulgence which has pardoned my errors, and the munificence which has patronized my exertions-when I recollect that in Eton alone, within the space of three days, a hundred and eighty copies of my work were actually subscribed for, when nothing but the mere advertisement of my publication had appeared-when I recollect all this, I become painfully sensible how much gratitude my friends deserve, and how little I can give.

And not the least among the gratifications which I have experienced has been that of hearing, and of taking part in, the conjectures as to the individual who personates Bartholomew Bouverie. Often have I laughed in my sleeve, while listening to the timid conjectures of some, the bold assertions of others, and the "authentic accounts" of a third, and still more audacious, class of

D

my fellow-citizens: all, gentle reader, being equally destitute of foundation. Had all been true, I believe more than a moiety of the individuals in the school would have had a claim, perhaps an equal one, to the authorship of The Eton Miscellany.

I shall now proceed to bring before the public some

NEW MEMBERS OF THE CABINET.

Though my superscription is alarmingly political, I can assure my readers that the contagion has extended no further. I love, like some other people, to give to my proceedings an air of importance: and those whom I shall now mention are simply companions whom I have admitted into my Cabinet to aid me in conducting those weighty affairs in which I have been, am, and hope to continue, engaged.

I feel that I cannot make any better apology for this, my second, intrusion on the notice of the public, than by a simple introduction and a short description of one who was mainly instrumental in promoting my first. And I am the more induced to this proceeding, from a consciousness that he will be found by no means an unpleasant acquaintance; and that if his character should be found wanting in strength, vigour, or originality, it will be owing to inability on my part, and not to deficiency on his.

The friend and coadjutor, then, to whom I shall now endeavour to do justice, is a descendant of the old genuine and much-vituperated John Bull family. Nor does he at all weaken the force of the ancient maxim,

ἐξ ἀγαθῶν ἀγαθοὶ: he still retains the characteristics, and the merits of the true and original stock.

I do not think that I should be guilty of any disrespect to Mr. Martin Sterling, were I to place my coadjutor in the same rank with him, in point of steady principle and sound morality and I am sure that Mr. Sterling's sense of right would make him voluntarily yield the palm to him in point of humour and invention. But I should not act a candid part if I omitted to state, that with the sincerity, and the physical force, he retains some of the prejudices of his ancestors, the Bulls: he cannot conceive how the air of London can foster those plants which an University is formed to nourish. Smoke and dust, he says, will defile the groves of Parnassus; and no genuine votary of the Muses will deign to quaff his Heliconian beverage through the very dirty medium of a St. Giles's pump.

Neither is he at all behind his ancestors in his manly and uncompromising hatred of all that appertains to the Pope; the phantasms of former days are still present to his imagination: nor would he disdain to exercise his Stentorian lungs in sounding the war-cry of the cause. I do not suspect him of timidity, in one sense at least ; but I believe he would rather keep company with a hyena than with a Radical.

I mentioned his lungs to him, indeed, nature has given the

and I think I am not going too far, in saying, that I feel

confident he will make a noise in the world, perhaps in more senses than one.

Most fully am I convinced of his frankness and sincerity he would suffer no one whom he disliked, to remain long in intercourse with him, without an intimation of the feeling on his part; and he would be the last man whom I should suspect of either actively or passively injuring an absent friend, by slandering him himself, or by suffering him to be slandered by others. Indeed, with regard to the expression of his feelings as they actually exist, I am not sure whether he has learned the rule which ought here to be constantly and carefully observed: the rule never to deny, or utter what may be reasonably supposed to imply denial, but at the same time to reserve to one's self the privilege of choosing the period, the circumstances, and the method in which it may be right to put forth the plain and unadulterated dictates of the heart.

But when I have allowed that he seems to perceive no difference between concealing and suppressing, I must add, that few indeed are those who have in this been able to perceive and adhere to the just medium; and that if there must be an error, Bartholomew Bouverie will not seek for his admirers among that class of men who would not prefer this sincerity of disposition, even when carried so far as to overstep the bounds of propriety, to a mind, especially to a youthful mind, corrupted by the wiles of deceit, and seeking shelter amidst the resources of equivocation.

My coadjutor is moreover a steady friend and constant encourager of all those sports for which Eton has at all

times been so deservedly celebrated; but rememberingmany, I fear, do not remember-how well and how wisely it was said of old,

"Nec tua laudabis studia, aut aliena reprêndes,"

he does not join in the vulgar and inconsiderate clamour raised against the less popular pursuits of those whom taste, or associations, or peculiar circumstances, may have induced to adopt a different, though, I would fain hope, not necessarily an opposing line of conduct. And it may safely be affirmed that his merits in this particular have met with their reward; that he has been one of the few, who, in our little community, have been so happy as to attach to themselves the good-will of all classes alike of the higher powers, in the first instance, and of the various descriptions of his fellow-citizens, in the second.

Having now arrived at the conclusion of a long, but, I fear, imperfect account of the individual to whom I already owe so much, and to whom I hope to owe a great deal more, I beg to introduce him to the public by a nom de guerre which he has chosen himself, that of, Mr. Antony Heaviside.

The next person whom I shall venture to present to the public, is Mr. David ap Rice, a gentleman with an antediluvian pedigree, and a profound veneration for toasted cheese. He is a great stickler for the honour of his country, and the honour of his ancestors, and would offer to fight any one who should venture to speak against the sublimity of Snowdon, or the merits of Cadwallader.