or of the beadle, who came twice a week to call him
out to receive his periodical chastisement, which was almost welcome,
because it separated him for a brief interval from solitude:--and here
he was shut up by himself _by nights_, out of the reach of any sound,
to suffer whatever horrors the weak nerves, and superstition incident
to his time of life, might subject him to.[8] This was the penalty for
the second offence.--Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what became of
him in the next degree?

[Footnote 8: One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide,
accordingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of this
part of the sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits was
dispensed with.--This fancy of dungeons for children was a sprout of
Howard's brain; for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul),
methinks, I could willingly spit upon his statue.]

The culprit, who had been a third time an offender, and whose
expulsion was at this time deemed irreversible, was brought forth, as
at some solemn _auto da fe_, arrayed in uncouth and most appalling
attire--all trace of his late "watchet weeds" carefully effaced, he
was exposed in a jacket, resembling those which London lamplighters
formerly delighted in, with a cap of the same. The effect of this
divestiture was such as the ingenious devisers of it could have
anticipated. With his pale and frighted features, it was as if some of
those disfigurements in Dante had seized upon him. In this
disguisement he was brought into the hall (_L.'s favourite
state-room_), where awaited him the whole number of his schoolfellows,
whose joint lessons and sports he was thenceforward to share no more;
the awful presence of the steward, to be seen for the last time; of
the executioner beadle, clad in his state robe for the occasion; and
of two faces more, of direr import, because never but in these
extremities visible. These were governors; two of whom, by choice, or
charter, were always accustomed to officiate at these _Ultima
Supplicia_; not to mitigate (so at least we understood it), but to
enforce the uttermost stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter Aubert,
I remember, were colleagues on one occasion, when the beadle turning
rather pale, a glass of brandy was ordered to prepare him for the
mysteries. The scourging was, after the old Roman fashion, long and
stately. The lictor accompanied the criminal quite round the hall. We
were generally too faint with att