my life. Dr. Collingwood Bruce, the father, by the way, of Mr. Justice
Bruce, was then and long afterwards the most famous school master in the
North of England, and under him I received that small fraction of my
education which a man usually obtains during pupilage. Percy Street
Academy, Newcastle, has long since disappeared, after having counted no
inconsiderable proportion of the best-known residents among its pupils.
It occupied a series of rambling buildings with an imposing house at the
end of the row, in which lived "The Doctor," the assistant masters, and
the boarders. But though the school is gone, my old schoolmaster died but
recently, enjoying to the last the respect of his fellow citizens and the
repose of a happy old age. He is known to fame as the author of the
leading work on the Roman Wall, and as an antiquary of high repute. I
have a grateful recollection of many of his acts during my school career;
and, looking back, there are none I now esteem more highly than the
attempts he constantly made to interest his pupils in the general affairs
of the world outside the school-gates.

How well, for example, do I remember the school being summoned one
morning in November, 1854, to the large writing room! Here the Doctor was
standing at his desk awaiting us, armed with a copy of the _Times_.
It had just arrived, and it contained W. H. Russell's brilliant account
of the battle of Inkermann. In a few well-chosen words, the Doctor--who
was an excellent public speaker--explained that he had called us from our
tasks in order that we might listen to the story of a great deed done for
England of which every Englishman ought to be proud; and then he read the
whole story of the battle as it is told in Russell's graphic narrative,
whilst we boys cheered each deed of English valour and groaned at the
Russians as lustily as though we had been ourselves spectators of the
fight. It was a wise act on the part of Dr. Bruce, and many others
besides myself must have been grateful to him for having thus made us