the foremost of us in his studies; but the idea that learning had
anything to do with the matter was derided, and as time went on,
there was vexation and displeasure at his progress not being
commensurate with his abilities. It would have been treason to
schoolboy honour to let the elders know that though a strong, high-
spirited popular boy like 'Win' might venture to excel big bullying
dunces, such fair game as poor 'Slow' could be terrified into not
only keeping below them, but into doing their work for them. To him
Cowper's 'Tirocinium' had only too much sad truth.

As to his old failing, there were no special complaints, but in
those pre-Arnoldian times no lofty code of honour was even ideal
among schoolboys, or expected of them by masters; shuffling was
thought natural, and allowances made for faults in indolent despair.

My mother thought the Navy the proper element of boyhood, and her
uncle the Admiral promised a nomination,--a simple affair in those
happy days, involving neither examination nor competition. Griffith
was, however, one of those independent boys who take an aversion to
whatever is forced on them as their fate. He was ready and
successful with his studies, a hero among his comrades, and
preferred continuing at school to what he pronounced, on the
authority of the nautical tales freely thrown in our way, to be the
life of a dog, only fit for the fool of the family; besides, he had
once been out in a boat, tasted of sea-sickness, and been laughed
at. My father was gratified, thinking his brains too good for a
midshipman, and pleased that he should wish to tread in his own
steps at Harrow and Oxford, and thus my mother could not openly
regret his degeneracy when all the rest of us were crazy over Tom
Cringle's Log, and ready to envy Clarence when the offer was passed