sobs, the shuffling
of feet ceased, those who had colds refrained from blowing their noses;
and, after one boy was flogged for coughing, he thus delivered
himself:--

"Young gentlemen, it has been customary--customary it has been, I say--
for you to have permission to make a bonfire in the lower field, and
display your fireworks, on this anniversary of the fifth of November.
Little boys, take your dictionaries, and look out for the word
`anniversary.'"

A bustle for the books, while Mr Root plumes himself, and struts up and
down. Two boys fight for the same dictionary; one of them gets a plunge
on the nose, which makes him cry out--he is immediately horsed, and
flogged for speaking; and, rod in hand, Mr Root continues:--

"Young gentlemen, you know my method--my method is well known to you, I
say,--to join amusement with instruction. Now, young gentlemen, the
great conflagration--tenth, ninth, and eighth forms, look out the word
`conflagration'--the great conflagration, I say, made by this
pyrotechnic display--seventh, sixth, and fifth forms, turn up the word
`pyrotechnic.' Mr Reynolds (the head classical master,) you will
particularly oblige me by not taking snuff in that violent way whilst I
am speaking, the sniffling is abominable."

"Turn up the word `sniffling,'" cries a voice from the lower end of the
school. A great confusion--the culprit remains undiscovered, and some
forty, at two suspected desks, are fined three-halfpence apiece. Mr
Root continues, with a good deal of indignation:--"I sha'n't allow the
bonfire no more--no, not at all; nor the fireworks neither--no, nothing
of no kind of the sort." All this in his natural voice: then, swelling
in dignity and in diction, "but, for the accumulated pile of
combustibles, I say--for the combustible pile that you have accumulated,
that you may not be deprived of the merit of doing a good action, the
materials of which it is composed, that is to say, the logs of wood, and
the bavins of furze, with the pole and tar-barrel, shall be sold, and
the money put in the poor-box next Sunday, which I, as one of the
churchwardens shall hold at the church-porch; for a charity sermon will,
on that day, be preached by the Reverend Father in God, the Lord Bishop
of Bristol. It is our duty, as Christians, to give eleemosynary aid to
the poor;--let all classes but the first and second look out the word
`eleemosynary.' I say, to the poor eleemosynary aid should be given.