hree years of his residence at Ushaw.

He himself gives a valid explanation for the reasons of his ignorance on
many subjects. His memories, he says, "of early Roman history were
cloudy, because the Republic did not interest him; but his conceptions
of the Augustan era remained extremely vivid; and great was his delight
in those writers who related how Hadrian almost realised that impossible
dream of modern aesthetics, the 'Resurrection of Greek Art.'

"Of modern Germany and Scandinavia he knew nothing; but the Eddas, and
the Sagas, and the Chronicles of the Heimskringla, and the age of the
Vikings and Berserks, he had at his finger ends, because they were
mighty and awesomely grand."

Ornamental education, he declared, when writing to Mr. Watkin from Kobe,
in 1896, was a wicked, farcical waste of time. "It left me incapacitated
to do anything; and still I feel the sorrow and the sin of having
dissipated ten years in Latin and Greek stuff, when a knowledge of some
one practical thing, and of a modern language or two, would have been of
so much service. As it is, I am only self taught; for everything I
learned at school I have since had to unlearn. You helped me with some
of the unlearning, dear old Dad!..."

In answer to a letter of inquiry, Canon D----, one of those in his class
at the time, writes: "Poor Paddy Hearn! I cannot tell you much about
him, but what little I can, I will now give you. I remember him as a boy
about 14 or 15 very well. I can see his face now, beaming with delight
at some of his many mischievous plots with which he disturbed the
College and usually was flogged for. He was some two or three classes,
or more, below my own, hence never on familiar terms. But he was always
considered 'wild as a March hare,' full of escapades, and the terror of
his masters, but always most kind and good-natured, and I fancy very
popular with his school-mates. He never did harm to anybody, but he
loved to torment the authorities. He had one eye either gone or of
glass. There was a wildish boy called 'St. Ronite,'[4] who was one of
his companions in mischief. He laughed at his many whippings, wrote
poetry about them and the birch, etc., and was, in fact, quite
irresponsible."

[4] I give this name as it is written in Canon D----'s letter.

Monsignor Corbishly (during the latter years of his life head of Ushaw
College) gives the following information about Lafcadio:--

"He came here from Redhill, Surrey, a few mo