UPPINGHAM BY THE SEA.

A Narrative of the Year at Borth.

By
J. H. S.

[Greek text].

London: 
Macmillan and Co.

1878. [All Rights reserved.]

Charles Dickens and Evans,
Crystal Palace press.

Eduardo Thring,

SCHOLAE UPPINGHAMIENSIS CONDITORI ALTERI, OB CIVES SERVATOS: 

ET

MAGISTRIS ADJUTORIBUS,
qui,
salute COMMUNI in ULTIMUM ADDUCTA DISCRIMEN,
de re publica
non DESPERAVERUNT.

PREFACE.

In the spring of 1876 and of 1877, letters under the heading “Uppingham by the Sea” were published in The Times newspaper, and were read with interest by friends of the school.  We have thought the following narrative would be best introduced to those readers under a name already pleasantly familiar to them, and have borrowed, with the writer’s permission, the title of his sketches for our own more detailed account of the same events.

The readers whom we have in view will demand no apology for the attempt to supply a circumstantial record of so memorable an episode in the school’s history.  It deserves indeed an abler historian; but one qualification at any rate may be claimed by the present writer:  an eye-witness from first to last, but a minor actor only in the scenes he chronicles, he enjoyed good opportunities of watching the play, and risks no personal modesty in relating what he saw.

The best purpose of the narrative will have been served if any Uppingham boy, as he reads these pages, finds in them a new reason for loyalty to the society whose name he bears.

June 27th, 1878,
Founder’s day.

CHAPTER I.—­EXILES, OLD AND NEW.

   “O what have we ta’en?” said the fisher-prince,
      “What have we ta’en this morning’s tide?
   Get thee down to the wave, my carl,
      And row me the net to the meadow’s-side.”

   In he waded, the fisher-carl,
      And “Here,” quoth he, “is a wondrous thing!
   A cradle, prince, and a fair man-child,
      Goodly to see as the son of a king!”

   The fisher-prince he caught the word,
      And “Hail,” he cried, “to the king to be!
   Stranger he comes from the storm and the night;
   But his fame shall wax, and his name be bright,
      While the hills look down on the Cymry sea.”

   FINDING OF TALIESIN.