all. More boys are to be found in it, who issue from a greater variety
of ranks, than in any other school in the kingdom and as it is the
most various, so it is the largest, of all the free schools. Nobility
do not go there except as boarders. Now and then a boy of a noble
family may be met with, and he is reckoned an interloper, and against
the charter; but the sons of poor gentry and London citizens abound;
and with them, an equal share is given to the sons of tradesmen of the
very humblest description, not omitting servants. I would not take
my oath, but I have a strong recollection that in my time there were
two boys, one of whom went up into the drawing-room to his father,
the master of the house; and the other, down into the kitchen to his
father, the coachman. One thing, however, I know to be certain, and it
is the noblest of all; namely, that the boys themselves (at least it
was so in my time) had no sort of feeling of the difference of one
another's ranks out of doors. The cleverest boy was the noblest, let
his father be who he might.

* * * * *

AN INTENSE YOUTHFUL FRIENDSHIP.--If I had reaped no other benefit
from Christ Hospital, the school would be ever dear to me from the
recollection of the friendships I formed in it, and of the first
heavenly taste it gave me of that most spiritual of the affections.
I use the word "heavenly" advisedly; and I call friendship the most
spiritual of the affections, because even one's kindred, in partaking
of our flesh and blood, become, in a manner, mixed up with our
entire being. Not that I would disparage any other form of affection,
worshiping, as I do, all forms of it, love in particular, which, in
its highest state, is friendship and something more. But if ever I
tasted a disembodied transport on earth, it was in those friendships