tion from home for a detested school; it is
real and wringing anguish, though, fortunately, like flayed eels, we
eventually become inured to it.

I now went through, for three years at a private school, the usual
routine of punishment and bullying preparatory for Eton; and as these
were of the ordinary kind, I will at once omit this epoch of my life,
and commence with my _debut_ at that great capital of England's
schools.

It may not be out of place to give here a slight and rapid sketch of
the scene to which these immediate pages are confined, as well as of
other matters connected with it.

Every one knows where Windsor is, and that Eton was separated from it
by the Thames, until united by Windsor Bridge. But, with regard to the
latter town, there may be some confusion, for it is divided into Eton,
and Eton proper. This last will hereafter be distinguished as
"College," and is situated about half a mile from the bridge, to which
it is connected by the town.

"College," I think, may be said to comprehend "the school-yard," the
suburbs, and "the playing fields."

"The school-yard" is a spacious and respectable quadrangle; the upper
school, the church, the cloisters, and long chamber, each respectively
forming a side of it. In the centre is placed the statue of the
founder, Henry VI.

"The upper school" is placed over an arched cloister, and an
ominous-looking region, in which, I suspect, is the magazine of birch.
The school is nothing more than an extensive room, with its floor
lined with fixed forms, and the wainscot with sculptured names
innumerable. One is guilty of a sad omission should he quit Eton
without giving a crown to Cartland to perpetuate his name on the
immortal oak. Perhaps the loss of few olden records would be more
deplored than its destruction, for here are registered many of Eton's
worthiest sons; C.I. FOX, as in after life, is here pre-eminent.
Adjoining the upper end is another room, called "the library," in
which there is not a book, but there is "the block," which speaks
volumes; and as a library may, by a little forcing, be defined to be a
chamber set apart for the acquirement of learning, this room is not,
perhaps, misnamed.

This block is a very simple machine--merely a couple of steps. The
victim places his knees on the lower, and his elbows on the upper
step; but if the reader will thus place himself in his imagination,
he will enter more immediately into the spirit of the thing.