I shall ask leave to say, regarding the juvenile
biography of Mr. Clive Newcome, of whose history I am the chronicler,
only so much as is sufficient to account for some peculiarities of his
character, and for his subsequent career in the world.
Although we were schoolfellows, my acquaintance with young Newcome at the
seat of learning where we first met was very brief and casual. He had the
advantage of being six years the junior of his present biographer, and
such a difference of age between lads at a public school puts intimacy
out of the question--a junior ensign being no more familiar with the
Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, or a barrister on his first
circuit with my Lord Chief Justice on the bench, than the newly breeched
infant in the Petties with a senior boy in a tailed coat. As we "knew
each other at home," as our school phrase was, and our families being
somewhat acquainted, Newcome's maternal uncle, the Rev. Charles Honeyman
(the highly gifted preacher, and incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's Chapel,
Denmark Street, Mayfair), when he brought the child, after the Christmas
vacation of 182-, to the Grey Friars' school, recommended him in a neat
complimentary speech to my superintendence and protection.
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