1848] LYXCOMBE 207
In August it was decided to send me away to a private tutor's, and my mother and Uncle Julius went with me to Lyncombe, near Bath. My tutor was the Rev. H. S. R., son of a well-known evangelical writer, but by no means of the same spiritual grace: indeed I never could discover that he had any grace whatever- neither had he any mental acquirements, or the slightest power of teaching. He was "un homme absolument mil/' and though paid a very large salary, he grossly and systematically neglected all his duties as a tutor. Uncle Julius must have been perfectly aware how inefficient the education at Lyncombe would be, but he was probably not to blame for sending me there. Because I did not "get on" (really because I was never taught), he regarded me as the slave of indolence — " putrescent indolence " he would have called it, like Mr. Carlyle. He considered me, however, to be harmless, though fit for nothing, and therefore one to be sent where I should probably get no harm, though certainly no good either. It was the system he went upon with my brothers also, and in their case he had all the responsibility, being their guardian. But, indeed, Uncle Julius's view was always much that of Rogers —" God sends sons, but the devil sends nephews," and he shunted them accordingly.
" Les grands esprits, d'ailleurs tres estimables, Ont trfes pen de talent pour former leurs semblables."
I went to Lyncombe with the utmost curiosity. The house was a large villa, oddly built upon archeses of the Piazza S. Claudio.h my mother to Jevington in the Downs, or to Wilmington with its old ruin and yew-brandy in. it was provided instead of meat forwhat I disliked; buttely he forgot about that." lii.iHV