"Men who, 'mid noise and dirt, and play and prate, Could calmly mend the pen, and wash the slate."
Punishments were rare; indeed, flogging was absolutely prohibited; and the setting an imposition would have been equally against the _genius loci_, had lesson-books existed out of which to hear it afterwards. A short imprisonment in an unfurnished room--a not very formidable black-hole--with the loss of a _goutte_, now and then, and at very long intervals, formed the mild summary of the penal "code Pestalozzi."
It was Saturday, and a half holiday, when we arrived at Yverdun, and oh the confusion of tongues which there prevailed! All Bedlam and Parnassus let loose to rave together, could not have come up to that diapason of discords with which the high corridors were ringing, as, passing through the throng, we were conducted to the venerable head of the establishment in his private apartments beyond. In this gallery of mixed portraits might be seen long-haired, highborn, and high-cheek-boned Germans; a scantling of French _gamins_ much better dressed; some dark-eyed Italians; Greeks in most foreign attire; here and there a fair ingenuous Russian face; several swart sinister-looking Spaniards, models only for their own Carravagio; some dirty specimens of the universal Pole; one or two unmistakeable English, ready to shake hands with a compatriot; and Swiss from every canton of the Helvetic confederacy. To this promiscuous multitude we were shortly introduced, the kind old man himself taking us by the hand, and acting as master of the ceremonies. When the whole school had crowded round to stare at the new importation, "Here," said he, "are four English boys come from their distant home, to be naturalised in this establishment, and made members of our family. Boys, receive them kindly, and remember they are henceforth your brothers." A shout from the crowd proclaiming its ready assent and cordial participation in the adoption, nothing remained but to shake hands _à l'Anglaise_, and to fraternise without loss of time. The next day being Sunday, our skulls were craniologically studied by Herr Schmidt, the head usher; and whatever various bumps or depressions phrenology might have discovered thereon were all duly registered in a large book. After this examination was concluded, a week's furlough was allowed, in order that Herr Schmidt might have an opportunity afforded him of seeing how far our real character squared with phrenological observation and measurement, entering this also into the same ledger as a note. What a contrast were we unavoidably drawing all this time between Yverdun and Westminster, and how enjoyable was the change to us! The reader will please to imagine as well as he can, the sensations of a lately pent up chrysalis, on first finding himself a butterfly, or the not less agreeable surprise of some newly metamorphosed tadpole, when, leaving his associates in the mud and green slime, he floats at liberty on the surface of the pool, endowed with lungs and a voice,--if he would at all enter into the exultation of our feelings on changing the penitential air of Millbank for the fresh mountain breezes of the Pays de Vaud. It seemed as if we had--nay, we had actually entered upon a new existence, so thoroughly had all the elements of the old been altered and improved. If we looked back, and compared past and present experiences, there, at the wrong end of the mental telescope, stood that small dingy house, in that little mis-yclept Great Smith Street, with its tiny cocoon of a bedroom, whilom our close and airless prison; here, at the other end, and in immediate contact with the eye, a noble chateau, full of roomy rooms, enough and to spare. Another retrospective peep, and _there_ was Tothill Fields, and its seedy cricket ground; and _here_, again, a level equally perfect, but carpeted with fine turf, and extending to the margin of a broad living lake, instead of terminating in a nauseous duck-pond; while the cold clammy cloisters adjoining Dean's Yard were not less favourably replaced by a large open airy play-ground, intersected by two clear trout-streams--and a sky as unlike that above Bird-Cage Walk as the interposed atmosphere was different; whilst, in place of the startling, discordant _Keleusmata_ of bargees, joined to the creaking, stunning noise of commerce in a great city, few out-of-door sounds to meet our ear, and these few, with the exception of our own, all quiet, pastoral, and soothing, such as, later in life, make
