[fragment? it was unusual for Charles Henry not to sign his letters]
Harrow <1>
Thursday even.
My dear Papa
As I have got a very tolerable allowance of spare time to night, I thought I would write you a line or two Just to explain to you about our form. Our Master by rights is Mr Benzamin Drury, <2> vulgarly called Ben Drury, and as I remember your telling me how lazy Harrow Harry Drury was I dont wonder at his sons being lazy also. Last quarter he got a person of the name of Millar who had anciently been a monitor here to take his form. But Mr Millar made a mess of it & it is now a most unruly form. Last quarter as the master of the fourth shell was obliged to absent himself, Mr Brown took the fourth shell, & this quarter he takes our form, the 2nd fifth. He seems to make a very good sort of a master, Of course he is not down on the bill book – but I suspect, although I havent much ground that Mr Brown will continue to take the 2nd fifth as a substitute for Mr Drury who will pay him & remain nominal master. All our exercises & Maps are taken to Mr Drury to be looked over.
We do Latin We have as yet done 6 stanzas of original alcaics or the return of the Resolute & I got 16 for them out of 24. My marks were thus 20/24 − 4 = 16/24. The Merit marks of the verses were 20/24 but they take of 2 for each false quantity & I had 2 which made − 4. so that in the end I had 16.
We have also had some 24 Hexameters to make on from one of Gays poems but I have not got my marks for them yet. We are doing in School Horace Virgil Euripides Greek history & grammar & in Geography we have just done China. I have got a nice new Atleas. The Harrow Modern atlas, the ancient one is not yet finished.
For private reading we continue to do Euripides Ion. <3> In french some fables de la Fontaine: La cigale et le fourmi et and Le corbeau et le renard. To night as I said before I have had a good deal spare time & have had 3 games of Chess with Steel <4> of which I lost the 1st gained the 2 next and the 4th is undecided. The Chessmen are just the sought of thing.
Poor Eyre <5> didn’t get his remove only Stowe & Gillespie <6> did. I wish the weather would get warmer for last Tuesday was a dreadful day for football.
Notes:
1. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811–1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
2. Rev Benjamin Heath Drury (b.1818), Assistant Master at Harrow 1840–1863.
3. Euripides, Ion, written 414–412 BC.
4. Herbert Greenwood Steel, solicitor in London and India and son of Rev Thomas Henry Steel, a mathematics Master at Harrow.
5. George Brampton Eyre, son Charles Eyre, Welford Park, Newbury. He was a High Sheriff, and assumed name of Archer-Houblon in 1891.
6. Robert William Gillespie, son of Sir R. Gillespie, Springhill, Lanark. In 1873, he assumed additional name of Stainton.