"MY DAME'S."* THE history of the House of Evans as
written by Major Parry is in some measure the history of Eton during the greater part of the last century, and therefore the record of the early days of a multitude of men who afterwards served the public with dis- tinction. We can well believe that few public schools can claim a boarding-house which has been carried on by two generations of the same family for nearly seventy years, thus spanning an interval between the days when Miss Angelo (a noted " Dame" and a beauty in her day) used to appear in patch and powder riding to church in a sedan-chair, and the years when motor- cars race through the streets of Eton at incredible speed. Surely, too, within that time no other Eton house—however often it may have changed hands—has ushered into the greater world of affairs a more distinguished company of men than Evans's. We suspect that most old Etonians will admit this proposition, albeit reluctantly, for the volume under review renders it singularly difficult to disprove.
The author has adopted a most ingenious method which serves alike to praise his subject and to interest the public. With laudable industry and discrimination, he has gleaned from those who boarded at old William Evans', or Miss Jane Evans', house in Keate's Lane early impres- sions of their youthful friends and matured appreciations of their " Dame." Thus we learn much of the boyhood of such men as the Fremantles, and Chittys, and Lytteltons, &c., and something of many others whose subsequent lives have been worthy of the school from which they issued. Even to the non-Etonian it is interesting to know that General Lyttelton, the present Chief of the Staff, was the first Captain Commandant of the Eton Volunteers in 1860; that Sir Edward Hamilton, whose loss the Treasury deplores, was a brilliant football player, and one of the founders of the school Musical Society; that Sir Hubert Parry, another ferocious footballer, took his musical degree before leaving Eton at the age of eighteen ; that Lord Grim- thorpe (better known to the House of Commons as Ernest Beckett) was the originator of the first House Debating Society at Eton in 1872. In this last connexion we note that the first discussion in that distinguished assembly con- cerned the advisability of continuing " Tap "—a refreshing institution still dear to Etonians—and resulted in a decision in its favour; the last debate, in 1906, was on the Irish * Annals of an Eton House. By Gambier Parry. London : J. Murray. [I5s. net.]
question, and a division showed a majority in favour of Home-rule.
Best of all, however, is the character of Miss Jane Evans as written by scores of her pupils and published in these annals. She was "the guide, philosopher, and friend" of a generation of Etonians; " bible and book " to them all. Mr. Sargent painted her portrait, as only he could paint it, at the end of her life, and his impression of this gentle lady is recorded: " how surprised he was with the honesty, directness, and power of her personality." But the multitude of grateful witnesses who bear testimony in this volume to "My Dame" leave a memory of sympathy and grace, of deep religious feeling and consummate worldly wisdom, which her de- scendants may well treasure, and of which her old pupils must be proud. "Dames" in the literal sense ceased at Eton when she died ; but what of that ? Even the laudator temporis acti will take comfort from her familiar quotation : " God buries His workmen, but carries on His work."
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