| Description | "Demur as to his being allowed to stand for the Scholarship. Objections urged by the several masters, and wishing for my opinion for his conduct." (Misdated 2 May.)
Eton. Friday, May 2nd. 1838.
My dear Papa,
I write to ask your advice about whether I ought to go up for the scholarship under the following circumstances: Allies an old pupil of my tutors, who got the scholarship formerly, & took a first class at Oxford, was staying with him in the holidays, & offered to read with any pupils that he liked for the scholarship; My tutor accepted his offer, & accordingly had myself, Coleridge, & Cotton to read with him occasionally in the evening. The other masters did not hear of this till about a week ago but when they did they considered it very unfair, & have had several meetings about it, & written letters to my tutor. If it had been any other tutor, I daresay very little would have been said, but there has always been so much jealousy of anything against him. Of course by the tutors making such a noise about it, a great deal of envy has got about in the school, & some boys have told their tutors, that if any of us three were to get the scholarship, they would protest against it. Although all the objections are very foolish, for we did not read more than 9 hours altogether with Allies, yet in such a case it would be extremely disagreable to stand for the scholarship, for whichever way it turned out whether it did badly or well, it would be equally bad. If we do not go up, we shall stop the envy against ourselves, & the clamour against my tutor. Mr. Coleridge himself thinks it would be the best course, but he did not like to do anything till he knew your opinion.—The thaw is at last broken up, & the floods are rising very fast. Mansfield is put into the 6th form so that I am captain of the 5th. Jones, Mr Atwoods old pupil came here a few days ago, he boards at Mr. Luxmoores.—Pray give my love to all, & believe me to remain,
Your affectionate son
M. P. W. Boulton
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