Edward Balston---the man in love with Eton College

It’s bad enough to learn that nineteen British prime Ministers attended Eton College without learning recently, as I did, that one Eton man was so enamoured of the benefits of a classical education that he seriously suggested that Latin and Greek were the only subjects that should be taught in the classroom.That man was not, incidentally, Boris Johnson, but Edward Balston.

Balston—the son of William, that famous papermaker familiar to all students of palaeography—attended Eton in the 1820s and early 30s and then entered  King’s College, Cambridge in 1836. Awarded the Browne Medal for Latin verse every year from 1836 to 1839, he was unusually elected Fellow of King’s in 1839, two years before he  graduated, though why it took him five years to gain his B.A. is not adequately explained. In 1842 he became a priest.

Balston loved Eton so much that he couldn’t wait to return

Phaedo 'Ersatz' Thessaloniki 1953

Slim volume of poetry from Francis King archive.

Ersatz. (Phaedo) Privately Printed, Greece, 1953.Large 8vo. Wraps. pp 30 (unpaginated). Greek and English texts. Possibly anonymous or the author's name is there in Greek (which is Greek to me.) Presentation copy: 'To Francis King with thoughts/ Phaedo. Thessaloniki 12-5-1953 A. D.' The last 10 pages have the author's slightly angst ridden but amusing poems in English. 300 copies. Signed again on second page. From the library of Francis King (4 March 1923 - 3 July 2011), acclaimed novelist, poet, critic and editor. President Emeritus of International PEN and appointed  CBE in 1985. He came out in the 1970s and wrote the novel 'Yesterday Came Suddenly' in 1993, after the death of his long-term partner.


Two poems from 'Phaedo'


I Knew an Honest Man

I knew an honest man once
With brown eyes you could look deep in
Not read his thoughts
Or know his mind
But see his clean soul
Touch and love it

Honesty of course
Being something highly disturbing
When not kept within the limits
Of spoken words
He used to wear sunglasses

Yet when we were together
He used to take them off



P.S.

You know my friend
What is terrible about the dead
Is not that they are dead
It is the infinite times we failed
them - while they were alive