The English Spy: An Original Work Characteristic, Satirical, And Humorous. C. M. Westmacott

Etona's holiday. Oxford and Cambridge, too, lend their classic aid, and many a grateful son of Alma Mater returns to acknowledge his obligations to his early tutors and swell the number of the mirthful host. Here may be seen, concentrated in the quadrangle, the costume of every nation, in all the gay variety that fancy can devise: the Persian spangled robe, and the embroidered Greek vest; the graceful Spanish, and the picturesque Italian, the Roman toga and the tunic, and the rich old English suit. Pages in red frocks, and marshals in their satin doublets; white wands and splendid turbans, plumes, and velvet hats, all hastening with a ready zeal to obey the call of the muster-roll. The captain with his retinue retires to pay his court to the provost; while, in the doctor's study, may be seen, gathered around the dignitary, a few of those great names who honor Eton and owe their honor to her classic tutors. Twelve o'clock strikes, and the procession is now marshalled in the quadrangle in sight of the privileged circle, princes, dukes, peers, and doctors with their ladies. Here does the ensign first display his skill in public, and the Montem banner is flourished in horizontal revolutions about the head and waist with every grace of elegance and ease which the result of three months' practice and no little strength can accomplish.

      Twelve o'clock strikes, and the procession moves forward to the playing fields on its route to Salt-Hill. Now look the venerable spires and antique towers of Eton like to some chieftain's baronial castle in the feudal times, and the proud captain represents the hero marching forth at the head of his parti-coloured vassals!

      The gallant display of rank and fashion and beauty follow in their splendid equipages by slow progressive movement, like the delightful lingering, inch by inch approach to St. James's palace on a full court-day. The place itself is calculated to impress the mind with sentiments of veneration and of heart-moving reminiscences; seated in the bosom of one of the richest landscapes in the kingdom, where on the height majestic Windsor lifts its royal brow; calmly magnificent, over-looking, from his round tower, the surrounding country, and waving his kingly banner in the air: 'tis the high court of English chivalry, the birth-place, the residence, and the mausoleum of her kings, and "i' the olden time," the prison of her captured monarchs. "At once, the sovereign's and the muses' seat," rich beyond almost any other district in palaces, and fanes, and villas, in all the "pomp of patriarchal forests," and gently-swelling hills, and noble streams, and waving harvests; there Denham wrote, and Pope breathed the soft note of pastoral inspiration; and there too the immortal bard of Avon chose the scene in which to wind the snares of love around his fat-encumbered knight. Who can visit the spot without thinking of Datchet mead and the buck-basket of sweet Anne Page and Master Slender, and mine host of the Garter, and all the rest of that merry, intriguing crew? And now having reached the foot of the mount and old druidical barrow, the flag is again waved amid the cheers of the surrounding thousands who line its sides, and in their carriages environ its ancient base.{2} Now the salt-bearers and the pages bank their collections in one common stock, and the juvenile band partake of the captain's banquet, and drink success to his future prospects in Botham's port. Then, too, old Herbertus Stockhore—he must not be forgotten; I have already introduced him to your notice in p. 59, and my friend Bob Transit has illustrated the sketch with his portrait; yet here he demands notice in his official character, and perhaps I cannot do better than quote the humorous account given of him by the elegant pen of an old Etonian {3}

      "Who is that buffoon that travesties the travesty? Who is that old cripple alighted from his donkey-cart, who dispenses doggrel and grimaces in all the glory of plush and printed calico?"

      "That, my most noble cynic, is a prodigious personage. Shall birth-days and coronations be recorded in immortal odes, and Montem not have its minstrel 1 He, sir, is Herbertus Stockhore; who first called upon his muse in the good old days of Paul Whitehead—

      2 See plate of the Montem, sketched on the spot.

       3 See Knight's Quarterly Magazine, No. II.

       run a race with Pye through all the sublimities of lyres and fires—and is now hobbling to his grave, after having sung fourteen Montems, the only existing example of a legitimate laureate.

      "He ascended his heaven of invention, before the vulgar arts of reading and writing, which are banishing all poetry from the world, could clip his wings. He was an adventurous soldier in his boyhood; but, having addicted himself to matrimony and the muses, settled as a bricklayer's labourer at Windsor. His meditations on the house-tops soon grew into form and substance; and, about the year 1780, he aspired, with all the impudence of Shad well, and a little of the pride of Petrarch, to the laurel-crown of Eton. From that day he has worn his honors on his 'Cibberian forehead' without a rival."

      "And what is his style of composition?"

      "Vastly naïve and original;—though the character of the age is sometimes impressed upon his productions. For the first three odes, ere the school of Pope was extinct, he was a compiler of regular couplets such as—

      'Ye dames of honor and lords of high renown,

       Who come to visit us at Eton town.'"

      During the next nine years, when the remembrance of Collins and Gray was working a glorious change in the popular mind, he ascended to Pindarics, and closed his lyrics with some such pious invocation as this:—

      'And now we'll sing

       God save the king,

       And send him long to reign,

       That he may come

       To have some fun

       At Montem once again. '

      During the first twelve years of the present century, the influence of the Lake school was visible in his productions. In my great work I shall give an elaborate dissertation on his imitations of the high-priests of that worship; but I must now content myself with a single illustration:—

      'There's ensign Ronnell, tall and proud,

       Doth stand upon the hill,

       And waves the flag to all the crowd,

       Who much admire his skill.

       And here I sit upon my ass,

       Who lops his shaggy ears;

       Mild thing! he lets the gentry pass,

       Nor heeds the carriages and peel's.'

      He was once infected (but it was a venial sin) by the heresies of the cockney school; and was betrayed, by the contagion of evil example, into the following conceits:

      'Behold admiral Keato of the terrestrial crew, Who teaches Greek, Latin, and likewise Hebrew; He has taught Captain Dampier, the first in the race, Swirling his hat with a feathery grace, Cookson the marshal, and Willoughby, of size, Making minor serjeant-majors in looking-glass eyes.'

      But he at length returned to his own pure and original style; and, like the dying swan, he sings the sweeter as he is approaching the land where the voice of his minstrelsy shall no more be heard. There is a calm melancholy in the close of his present ode which is very pathetic, and almost Shakspearian:—

      'Farewell you gay and happy throng!

       Farewell my muse! farewell my song!

       Farewell Salt-hill! farewell brave captain.'

      Yet, may it be long before he goes hence and is no more seen! May he limp, like his rhymes, for at least a dozen years; for National schools have utterly annihilated our hopes of a successor!"

      "I will not attempt to reason with you," said the inquirer, "about the pleasures of Montem;—but to an Etonian it is enough that it brings pure and ennobling recollections—calls up associations of hope and happiness—and makes even the wise feel that there is something better than wisdom, and the great that there is something nobler than greatness. And then the faces that come about us at such a time, with their tales of old friendships or generous rivalries. I have seen to-day fifty fellows of whom I remember only the nick-names;—they are now degenerated into scheming M.P.'s, or clever lawyers, or portly doctors; -but at Montera they leave the plodding world of reality for one day, and regain the dignities of sixth-form Etonians." {4}

      4 To enumerate all the distinguished