Rambles Author:William Allingham General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1873 Original Publisher: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1873. Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.c... more »om where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. AT WINCHESTER. St. Giles's Hill -- College -- Cathedral -- Destruction of Old Things- Saint Swithin -- Keats -- Key. Thomas Warton -- Culture. From St. Giles's Hill one looks down on the famous old city. Its cathedral among lofty trees, Wykeham's College with the lads at cricket, the water-meadows leading to Saint Cross, the swelling green downs with one grove, a 'peculiar coronet,' on St. Catherine's Hill, show fair in the May sunlight. Methinks a flagstaff would stand well at one angle of the low cathedral tower. Brisk and clear runs the shallow river below, by small gray and red houses and their gardens, mill- sluices, the quaint little flint-built church of St. Peter's Chesil, and a vine-clad remnant of the city wall. I pass under the college archway and courts gray with time, green with new foliage, and see, with a natural sigh, the fine lads strolling careless in cap and gown. But, surely, regrets for the past, if natural, are vain -- if vain, not to be dwelt on; if dwelt on, foolish. Are these boys all happy, too ? Many a ' fag ' (the fagging is severe, and often cruel) is longing for manSCHOOLBOYS. 49 hood and freedom. Even in play hours he must submit to the will and caprice of an oldster. ' Good for him on the whole -- prepares him for the battle of life.' Perhaps so ; but perhaps (along with ' cram,' chapel, and other things) it prepares him to make life a battle -- a scene of fierce unscrupulous rivalry, instead of peaceful effort and mutual help. Life must have its battles, to be well fought out when each crisis comes; b...« less