The Wykehamist.
£680 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd
The two volumes cover most of Johnson’s school career and all his contributions to the magazine. Johnson entered Winchester on a scholarship in 1880 but is not mentioned in The Wykehamist until No. 172 (December 1882), when he delivered before the Debate Society “a most eloquent harangue on the general worthlessness of our landed aristocracy.“ Thereafter, he is mentioned as a participating member of the Debate Society and Shakspere Society. Oddly, Johnson opposed a resolution put forth by the Debate Society opposing the execution of Charles I., arguing that Charles had ‚“Broken every principle of the constitution,“ and ‚“that the execution had served as a wholesome warning to later kings“ (p. 115). Some time in 1884, Johnson became editor, and his unsigned editorials clearly express his interests and values, which were not shared by the vast majority of his classmates. The aesthete takes it to the hearties. In his unsigned lead editorial in No. 189 (October 1884), Johnson alludes in passing to the first title published by Bradley and Cooper under the pseudonym “Michael Field,“ a book which few other Wykehamists can be assumed to have read: “We print elsewhere a letter from a correspondent, who evidently feels what is beyond reasonable doubt a real want. The art of dancing, in whatever light we view it, is emphatically not one unworthy of being classed with other arts. A relic of solemn enthusiasm, which according to the authoress of Callirhoe (sic) is the ‘sap of the tree of
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