When the celebrated Porson was a Colleger, one of his contemporaries was Charles Simeon, known as “Snowball” Simeon, the ugliest boy in College, who afterwards became an earnest Evangelical preacher. In after life he looked back upon the doings in Long Chamber and its lawless rowdyism with horror, and once told a friend that he would be tempted even to murder his own son sooner than let him see in College the sights he had seen.
Under such circumstances it is not surprising that small Collegers, if they were sensitive boys, occasionally made determined attempts to run away. One did so more than thirteen times, and became so well known on the road that he was almost sure to be stopped before he got far. Nevertheless he once got up to town in a very curious manner. He slunk early, before morning school, into the yard of the Christopher; the London coach was standing outside, and no one by, so he was able unobserved to creep into the boot, trusting to luck, which befriended him, for there chanced to be that morning no passengers, and consequently no luggage to be stowed away. The runaway was therefore driven without disturbance in his uneasy berth, which he only vacated on the arrival of the coach at the White Horse cellars in Piccadilly.
The general tone in College was somewhat rough and irreverent, as may be judged from the following. Every Sunday morning at nine o’clock the Collegers assembled in Lower School for prayers, the headmaster sitting in the desk, and a praepostor standing up repeating the Confession and a prayer or two out of the Winchester Prayer-Book. All joined in the 100th Psalm, which sometimes, more especially towards the end of the Half, was made the occasion of a not very seemly demonstration. During the last Sunday the order went round that every one was to sing his loudest, and on one occasion the noise was so terrific that it could almost be heard in the playing fields. Keate, who was at that time in the desk, did not, however, take any notice of this irreverent outburst. He had been a youthful Colleger himself, and probably considered that the whole thing was merely a too enthusiastic performance of an old Eton tradition, which in his eyes excused a good deal.