My father had been a Wykamist and a fellow of New
College, and Winchester was the destination of my brothers and
myself; but as he had friends among the masters at Harrow, and as
the school offered an education almost gratuitous to children living
in the parish, he, with a certain aptitude to do things differently
from others, which accompanied him throughout his life, determined
to use that august seminary as "t'other school" for Winchester, and
sent three of us there, one after the other, at the age of seven.
My father at this time was a Chancery barrister practising in
London, occupying dingy, almost suicidal chambers, at No. 23 Old
Square, Lincoln's Inn,--chambers which on one melancholy occasion
did become absolutely suicidal. [Footnote: A pupil of his destroyed
himself in the rooms.] He was, as I have been informed by those
quite competent to know, an excellent and most conscientious lawyer,
but plagued with so bad a temper, that he drove the attorneys from
him. In his early days he was a man of some small fortune and of
higher hopes. These stood so high at the time of my birth, that
he was felt to be entitled to a country house, as well as to that
in Keppel Street; and in order that he might build such a residence,
he took the farm. This place he called Julians, and the land runs
up to the foot of the hill on which the school and the church
stand,--on the side towards London.
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