Somewhat pre-Victorian, but today I came across the following in the “Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith”. Speaking of Robert Smith, Sydney’s brother:
From Eton he went to King’s College, Cambridge, where (says a sketch of him written, I believe, by his friend Lord Carlisle, after his death,) “he added materially to the reputation for scholarship and classical composition which he had established at school; and if the most fastidious critics of our day would diligently peruse the three triposes which he composed in Lucretian rhythm, on the three systems of Plato, Descartes, and Newton, we believe that we should not run the least risk of incurring the charge of exaggeration, in declaring that these compositions in Latin verse have not been excelled sin Latin was a living language. Be this said with the peace of Milton and Cowley, with the peace of his fellow-Etonians, Grey and Lord Wellesley.”
Sydney, however, went to Winchester:
From thence he was sent, with his youngest brother, Courtenay, to the foundation at Winchester;–a rough and dangerous apprenticeship to the world for one so young; from which Courtenay ran away twice, unable to bear it. My father suffered here many years of misery and positive starvation. There never was enough provided, even of the coarsest food, for the whole school, and the little boys were of course left to fare as they could. Even in old-age he used to shudder at the recollections of Winchester, and I have heard him speak with horror of the wretchedness of the years he spent there: the whole system was then, my father used to say, one of abuse, neglect, and vice. It has since, I believe, partaken of the general improvement of education. However, in spite of hunger and neglect, he rose in due time to be Captain of the school, and, whilst there, received, together with his brother Courtenay, a most flattering but involuntary compliment from his schoolfellows, who signed a round-robin,* “refusing to try for the College prizes if the Smiths were allowed to contend for them, as they always gained them.” He used to say, “I believe, whilst a boy at school, I made above ten thousand Latin verses, and no man in his senses would dream in after-life of ever making another. So much for life and time wasted!”
- To Dr. Warton, then Head Master or Warden of Winchester.
Notice the quote at the end about the ten thousand Latin verses in school.
I’ve also now come across the chapter about cribs in Tom Brown (bedtime reading lately for the girls) and I expect that the Dr. Arnold quotes about them (and much else in it) are real. But I’ll make a separate thread for some extracts there.