with the place is over now, and I hope they have got a more efficient under master.

Jack Birch (Rev. J. Birch, of St. Neot's Hall, Oxford,) is partner with his father the Doctor, and takes some of the classes. About his Greek I can't say much; but I will construe him in Latin any day. A more supercilious little prig, (giving himself airs, too, about his cousin, Miss Raby, who lives with the Doctor,) a more empty pompous little coxcomb I never saw. His white neckcloth looked as if it choked him. He used to try and look over that starch upon me and Prince the assistant, as if we were a couple of footmen. He didn't do much business in the school; but occupied his time in writing sanctified letters to the boys' parents, and in composing dreary sermons to preach to them.

The real master of the school is Prince; an Oxford man too; shy, haughty, and learned; crammed with Greek and a quantity of useless learning; uncommonly kind to the small boys; pitiless with the fools and the braggarts: respected of all for his honesty, his learning, his bravery, (for he hit out once in a row-boat in a way which astonished the boys and the bargemen,) and for a latent power about him, which all saw and confessed somehow. Jack Birch could never look him in the face. Old Miss Z. dared not put off any of her airs upon him. Miss Rosa made him the lowest of curtsies. Miss Raby said she was afraid of him. Good old

Prince many a pleasant night we have smoked in the Doctor's harness-room, whither we retired when our boys were gone to bed, and our cares and canes put by.

After Jack Birch had taken his degree at Oxford-a process which he effected with great difficulty-this place which used to be called "Birch's," "Dr. Birch's Academy," and what not, became suddenly "Archbishop Wigsby's College of Rodwell Regis." They took down the old blue board with the gold letters, which has been used to mend the pig-stye since. Birch had a large school-room run up in the Gothic taste, with statuettes, and a little belfry, and a bust of Archbishop Wigsby in the middle of the school. He put the six senior boys into caps and gowns, which had rather a good effect as the lads sauntered down the street of the town, but which certainly provoked the contempt and hostility of the bargemen; and so great was his rage for academic costumes and ordinances, that he would have put me myself into a lay gown, with red knots and fringes, but that I flatly resisted, and said that a writing-master had no business with such paraphernalia.

By the way, I have forgotten to mention the Doctor himself. And what shall I say of him? Well, he has a very crisp gown and bands, a solemn air, a tremendous loud voice, and a grand and solemn air with the boys' parents, whom he receives in a study covered round with the best bound books, which imposes upon

many-upon the women especially-and makes them fancy that this is a Doctor indeed. But, Law bless you! He never reads the books; or opens one of them, except that in which he keeps his bands—and a Dugdale's Monasticon, which looks like a book, but is in reality a cupboard, where he has his almond cakes, and decanter of port wine. He gets up his classics with translations, or what the boys call cribs. They pass wicked tricks upon him when he hears the forms. The elder wags go to his study, and ask him to help them in hard bits of Herodotus or Thucydides he says he will look over the passage, and flies for refuge to Mr. Prince, or to the crib.

He keeps the flogging department in his own hands; finding that his son was too savage. He has awful brows and a big voice. But his roar frightens nobody. It is only a lion's skin, or, so to say, a muff.

Little Mordant made a picture of him with large ears, like a well-known domestic animal, and had his own justly boxed for the caricature. The Doctor discovered him in the fact, and was in a flaming rage, and threatened whipping at first; but in the course of the day an opportune basket of game arriving from Mordant's father, the Doctor became mollified, and has burnt the picture with the ears. However I have one wafered up in my desk by the hand of the same little rascal: and the frontispiece of this very book is drawn from it.

THE COCK OF THE SCHOOL.

I AM growing an old fellow-and have seen many great folks in the course of my travels and time-Louis Philippe coming out of the Tuileries, His Majesty the King of Prussia and the Reichsverweser accolading each other, at Cologne, at my elbow; Admiral Sir Charles Napier (in an omnibus once), the Duke of Wellington, the immortal Goethe at Weimar, the late benevolent Pope Gregory XVI., and a score more of the famous in this world -the whom, whenever one looks at, one has a mild shock of awe and tremor. I like this feeling and decent fear and trembling with which a modest spirit salutes a GREAT MAN.

Well, I have seen Generals capering on horseback at the head of their crimson battalions; Bishops sailing down cathedral aisles, with downcast eyes, pressing their trencher caps to their hearts with their fat white hands; College heads when her Majesty is on a visit; the Doctor in all his glory at the head of his school on Speech-day, a great sight,—and all great men

these. I have never met the late Mr. Thomas Cribb, but I have no doubt should have regarded him with the same feeling of awe with which I look every day at George Champion, the cock of Dr. Birch's school.

When, I say, I reflect as I go up and set him a sum, that he could whop me in two minutes, double up Prince and the other assistant, and pitch the Doctor out of window, I can't but think how great, how generous, how magnanimous a creature this is, that sits quite quiet and good-natured, and works his equation, and ponders through his Greek play. He might take the schoolroom pillars and pull the house down if he liked. He might close the door, and demolish every one of us like Antar, the lover of Ibla; but he lets us live. He never thrashes anybody without a cause, when woe betide the tyrant or the sneak!

I think that to be strong, and able to whop everybody,―(not to do it, mind you, but to feel that you were able to do it,)— would be the greatest of all gifts. There is a serene good humour which plays about George Champion's broad face, which shows the consciousness of this power, and lights up his honest blue eyes with a magnanimous calm.

He is invictus. Even when a cub there was no beating this lion. Six years ago the undaunted little warrior actually stood up to Frank Davison, (the Indian officer now-poor little Charley's brother, whom Miss Raby nursed so affectionately,)