This Bobus was the schoolfellow at Eton of Canning and Frere; and with
John Smith and those two youths, wrote the 'Microcosm.' Sydney, on the
other hand, was placed on the Foundation, at Winchester, which was then
a stern place of instruction for a gay, spirited, hungry boy. Courtenay,
his younger brother, went with him, but ran away twice. To owe one's
education to charity was, in those days, to be half starved. Never was
there enough, even of the coarsest food, to satisfy the boys, and the
urchins, fresh from home, were left to fare as they might. 'Neglect,
abuse, and vice were,' Sydney used to say, 'the pervading evils of
Winchester; and the system of teaching, if one may so call it, savoured
of the old monastic narrowness.... I believe, when a boy at school, I
made above ten thousand Latin verses, and no man in his senses would
dream of ever making another in after-life. So much for life and time
wasted.' The verse-inciting process is, nevertheless, remorselessly
carried on during three years more at Oxford and is much oftener the
test of patient stupidity than of aspiring talent, Yet of what
stupendous importance it is in the attainment of scholarships and
prizes; and how zealous, how tenacious, are dons and 'coaches' in
holding to that which far higher classics, the Germans, regard with
contempt!

Sydney's proficiency promoted him to be captain of the school, and he
left Winchester for New College, Oxford---one of the noblest and most
abused institutions then of that grand university. Having obtained a
scholarship, as a matter of course, and afterwards a fellowship, he
remarked that the usual bumpers of port wine at college were as much the
order of the day among the Fellows as Latin verses among the
undergraduates. We may not, however, picture to ourselves Sydney as
partaking of the festivities of the common room; with more probability
let us imagine him wandering with steady gait, even _after_ Hall--a