Some such
boys, alas! there will be in every school; upon them Dr Skinner's hand
was very properly a heavy one. His hand was against them, and theirs
against him during the whole time of the connection between them. They
not only disliked him, but they hated all that he more especially
embodied, and throughout their lives disliked all that reminded them of
him. Such boys, however, were in a minority, the spirit of the place
being decidedly Skinnerian.
I once had the honour of playing a game of chess with this great man. It
was during the Christmas holidays, and I had come down to Roughborough
for a few days to see Alethea Pontifex (who was then living there) on
business. It was very gracious of him to take notice of me, for if I was
a light of literature at all it was of the very lightest kind.
It is true that in the intervals of business I had written a good deal,
but my works had been almost exclusively for the stage, and for those
theatres that devoted themselves to extravaganza and burlesque. I had
written many pieces of this description, full of puns and comic songs,
and they had had a fair success, but my best piece had been a treatment
of English history during the Reformation period, in the course of which
I had introduced Cranmer, Sir Thomas More, Henry the Eighth, Catherine of
Arragon, and Thomas Cromwell (in his youth better known as the _Malleus
Monachorum_), and had made them dance a break-down.
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