having been previously drilled in Latin verse-making, he never distinguished himself at the school. While there, a paper was started called "The Flagellant." In consequence of an attack on corporal punishment, in the ninth number, furnished by Southey, written in a strain of jocularity rather than invective, Dr. Vincent, the head master, commenced an action for libel against the publisher, and dismissed its contributor from the school; a hard punishment, it seems, for so trivial a delinquency, and unwise to give such consideration to the foolish productions of boys. The circumstance reminds us of a similar event, of recent occurrence, which was treated with much more temper and judgment. In a metropolitan educational establishment, some youthful reformers undertook to criticise the doings of their masters. A periodical was started, bearing a formidable title, which was to make the oppressors pale with fear. The Principal, without manifesting the slightest perturbation, summoned the ferocious editor, thanked him for his flattering allusion to himself, and mildly strangled "The Autocrat," at its birth.
The fame of "The Flagellant," preceded the discomfited writer to Oxford, and on his presenting himself at Christ Church, the Dean, Cyril Jackson, most unreasonably declined to receive him. Long years afterwards, the University, amid unbounded acclamations, conferred its highest honours on the man she once could treat thus harshly. When will it be discovered that the justest and the soundest policy for that body to pursue, is to throw open their college doors as widely as possible? If full permission to grant or refuse admittance to a great public institution be unreservedly entrusted to an individual, common justice requires that such a functionary should preserve himself pure from all prejudicial bias, and hold his important privilege, not as a private appanage, but as a trust, solely for the public good.
