Page:A History of Horncastle from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.djvu/118

Rh and made money, whereby he acquired considerable house property there and elsewhere. He was devoted to archæological pursuits, and published a learned paper (of 16 pp.) on "The early connection between the County Palatine of Chester and the Principality of Wales," which he read before the County Antiquarian Society. After many years' residence in Chester, he retired on a competency to Epsom, in Surrey, where his mother, brother and sister resided with him; and where he acted as Chaplain to the Union, until his decease, about 1880.

The last Assistant Master, under Dr. Smith, whom we may name was John Burton, born of humble parents in Peterborough. He was appointed about 1848, and served Dr. Smith faithfully about three years. He was not, however, a strong man, either physically or mentally. His weakness of character was shewn in an incident which might have had a tragic termination. Having formed an attachment for a young lady, living near the schoolhouse, and being rejected, he declared that he would commit suicide; and he fired off a pistol under her window at night, taking care, however, not to wound himself. On leaving the school he entered at Jesus College, Cambridge, and graduated in 1853, dying soon afterwards.

On the appointment of the Rev. Samuel Lodge, to the Head Mastership in 1854, Thomas White, a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge, became Under Master. He had taken classical honours, and was an efficient teacher, and rather strict disciplinarian. He was the first Under Master allowed to take private pupils as boarders. He continued at his post six years, taking Holy Orders, and in 1860 was presented by the Bishop of Lincoln to the Vicarage of Scamblesby, which he held until his death in 1891.

It may be of interest if we here give some of the customs of the school at this period, as samples of a state of things which is now past and gone. The morality of some of them might be questioned in these days of advanced ideas on civilization, but, under the guidance of a man of Dr. Smith's mental calibre, their effect was the rearing of a generation of manly youths, capable of much intellectual, as well as physical, activity and endurance.

The Head Master was himself a remarkable instance of this. Punctually at 7.30, without fail, he was every morning in his desk at the school, to open proceedings with prayer, it being frequently a race between himself and his boarder pupils, as to who should arrive first, his residence being some quarter mile from the school. When he closed the school, with "abire licet," in the afternoon, he as regularly went for his "constitutional" walk. Furious indeed must be the weather if Dr. Smith was not to be seen on Langton Hill, summer and winter, rain or fair; if the former he would brave the elements, wrapt in a large blue cloth cloak, waterproof as his leather gaiters. If the latter, he would often saunter slowly, rapt in meditation, or composing verses, an occupation of which he was very fond, leaving behind him at his death several vols. of MS. poetry.