* * * * *

  “Genius and love will uplift thee; not yet;
    Walk through some passionless years by my side,
  Chasing the silly sheep, snapping the lily-stalk,
  Drawing my secrets forth, witching my soul with talk. 
  When the sap stays, and the blossom is set,
    Others will take the fruit; I shall have died.”

Surely no teacher ever uttered a more beautiful eulogy on a favourite pupil; and happily the poet lived long enough to see his prophecy fulfilled.

The principal charm of a Public School lies in its friendships; so here let me record the names of those who are recalled by contemporaries as having been Charles Wood’s closest friends, at Eton—­Edward Denison, Sackville Stopford, George Palmer, George Lane-Fox, Walter Campion, Lyulph Stanley,[1] and Augustus Legge.[2] With Palmer, now Sir George, he “messed,” and with Stopford, now Stopford-Sackville, he shared a private boat.  As regards his pursuits I may quote his own words: 

[Footnote 1:  Now (1918) Lord Sheffield.]

[Footnote 2:  Afterwards Bishop of Lichfield.]

“I steered the Britannia and the Victory.  I used to take long walks with friends in Windsor Park, and used sometimes to go up to the Castle, to ride with the present King.[3] I remember, in two little plays which William Johnson wrote for his pupils, taking the part of an Abbess in a Spanish Convent at the time of the Peninsular War; and the part of the Confidante of the Queen of Cyprus, in an historical in which Sir Archdale Palmer was the hero, and a boy named Chafyn Grove, who went into the Guards, the heroine.  In Upper School, at Speeches on the 4th of June, I acted with Lyulph Stanley in a French piece called Femme a Vendre.  In 1857, I and George Cadogan,[4] and Willy Gladstone, and Freddy Stanley[5] went with the present King for a tour in the English Lakes; and in the following August we went with the King to Koenigs-winter.  I was in ‘Pop’ (the Eton Debating Society) at the end of my time at Eton, and I won the ‘Albert,’ the Prince Consort’s Prize for French.”

[Footnote 3:  Edward VII.] [Footnote 4:  Afterwards Lord Cadogan.] [Footnote 5:  The late Lord Derby.]

A younger contemporary adds this pretty testimony: 

“As you can imagine, he was very popular both among the boys and the masters.  One little instance remains with me.  There was a custom of a boy, when leaving, receiving what one called ‘Leaving Books,’ from boys remaining in the school; these books were provided by the parents, and were bound in calf, etc.  The present Lord Eldon went to Eton with me, and when Charles Wood left, in July, 1858, he wanted to give him a book; but knowing nothing of the custom of parents providing books, he went out and bought a half-crown copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress, and sent it to C. Wood’s room.  Two shillings and sixpence was a good deal to a Lower Boy at the end of the half; and it was, I should think, an almost unique testimony from a small boy to one at the top of the house.”