ke Dibbins in _Basil the
Schoolboy_, who, discussing with a friend how to spend a whole holiday,
said, "Let us go to Dingley Dell and talk about Byron;" or manly boys
like Tom Tulliver, of whom it is excellently said that he was the kind
of boy who is commonly spoken of as being very fond of animals--that is,
very fond of throwing stones at them.

Whatever its type,

"I've seemed of late
To shrink from happy boyhood--boys
Have grown so noisy, and I hate
A noise.
They fright me when the beech is green,
By swarming up its stem for eggs;
They drive their horrid hoops between
My legs.
It's idle to repine, I know;
I'll tell you what I'll do instead:
I'll drink my arrowroot, and go
To bed."

But before I do so let me tell one boy-story, connected with the Eton
and Harrow match, which has always struck me as rather pleasing. In the
year 1866, when F.C. Cobden, who was afterwards so famous for his
bowling in the Cambridge Eleven, was playing for Harrow, an affable
father, by way of making conversation for a little Harrow boy at Lord's,
asked, "Is your Cobden any relation to the great Cobden?" "Why, he _is_
the great Cobden," was the simple and swift reply. This is the true
spirit of hero-worship.

XXXII.

LETTER-WRITING.

"Odd men write odd letters." This rather platitudinous sentence, from an
otherwise excellent essay of the late Bishop Thorold's, is abundantly
illustrated alike by my Collections and by my Recollections. I plunge at
random into my subject, and immediately encounter the following letter
from a Protestant clergyman in the north of Ireland, written in response
to a suggestion that he might with advantage study Mr. Gladstone's
magnificent speech on the Second Reading of the Affirmation Bill in
1883:--

"My dear Sir,--I have received your recommendation to read carefully the
speech of Mr. Gladstone in favour of admitting the infidel Bradlaugh
into Parliament, I did so when it was delivered, and I must say that the
strength of argument rests with the opposition. I fully expect in the
event of a dissolution the Government will lose between fifty and sixty
seats. Any conclusion can be arrived at, according to the premises laid
down. Mr. G. avoided the Scriptural lines and followed his own. All
parties knew the feeling of the country on the subject, and,
notwithstanding the bullying and majority of Gladstone, he was defeated.
Before the Irish Church