His published lectures on rhetoric and oratory, now almost wholly forgotten, remind one of Matthew Arnold in their delicate and discriminating touch.

He had a face and figure something like that of Punch in the frontispiece of that magazine.

His method was to take the themes which the boys handed in one week, look them over himself, then, a week after, meet the class, call the boys in succession to sit down in a chair by the side of his table, read out passages from the theme, and ridicule them before the others.

It was a terrible ordeal for a bashful or awkward boy.

Those of a more robust nature, or whose performance had nothing ridiculous in it, profited by the discipline.