human
I think I told you that Symons was the _second_ secretary; but I now doubt whether the second was not Rev.---- Bulteel, of Exeter College, then an evangelical preacher of St. Ebb's Church in Oxford, much attended by Edmund Hall men. The after vote rescinding my brother's secretaryship was proposed by Benjamin Newton, a young Fellow of Exeter College, if this is of any importance.... The affair of the three tutors against Dr. Hawkins was told me exactly as I had it from my brother's lips; but the whole must have been strictly public. The other tutors were Robert Isaac Wilberforce (since Archdeacon and Roman Catholic), Richard Hurrell Froude, known by his _Remains_; and a much older man, Dornford, now a rector in Devonshire, who adhered to Hawkins. This took place in 1830, when my brother was only twenty-nine, Wilberforce his junior, and Hurrell Froude _my_ junior in the University; probably my equal in age, i.e. then twenty-five; so it was _young_ Oxford versus old. When the three tutors resigned (whose youth was a result of the Oriel Fellows going off so quick), Hawkins brought into the tutorship young Coplestone, as he was called--a nephew of the Bishop;... I almost think that for a time he resumed lecturing himself: but it will not do to say so.... I have here found out (after more than ten years' cessation) that I can swim as well as ever, and without discomfort to my heart. I am becoming quite zealous for my daily swim, even when (as to-day) the south-west gives us rather too much sea, to the chagrin of the bathing men. Perhaps you have seen various letters in _The Times_, etc., on the indecency of promiscuous bathing, etc. I cannot understand why they all direct their attack to the wrong point, and insist on driving people into solitudes and separations very inconvenient, instead of demanding that, as on the Continent, both sexes be clad in the water. Last year I saw an article that expressed disgust at ladies bathing within reach of _telescopes_! There is here such a colony of foreigners, that I hope they may teach this lesson. Besides the Pulszkys, who are a family of twelve persons, there are seven of Kossuth's household, a large family of Marras (Italian), three of Janza (Viennese), two or more Piatti's (Italian), who keep company together, and very many of whom bathe statedly. Mrs. Pulszky is not well this year for swimming; but last year she swam daily, with her husband and an intimate male friend at her side. He will not let her swim in the sea without him, and is amazed at English husbands consenting to abandon their wives as they do. Mrs. Walter, her mother, is a devoted bather, and whenever the breakers are formidable has the aid of one or other male friend. It is a new fact to me, that the Viennese ladies, as a thing of course, are taught to swim in the Danube. There are regular teachers of swimming for both sexes, and a sort of diploma is granted to those who swim well enough to be at home in the water.