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. Things there went much against

him; the farm was ruinous, and I remember that we all regarded the

Lord Northwick of those days as a cormorant who was eating us up.

My father's clients deserted him. He purchased various dark gloomy

chambers in and about Chancery Lane, and his purchases always went

wrong. Then, as a final crushing blow, and old uncle, whose heir he

was to have been, married and had a family! The house in London was

let; and also the house he built at Harrow, from which he descended

to a farmhouse on the land, which I have endeavoured to make known

to some readers under the name of Orley Farm. This place, just as it