One of Lanfranc's admirers was Ingulphus, the Abbot of Croyland he is remarkable as the first upon record who, having laid the foundation of his learning at Westminster, proceeded for its further cultivation to Oxford. He was born of English parents, and a native of the city of London. Whilst a school-boy at Westminster, he was so fortunate as to interest in his behalf Egitha, the daughter of Earl Godwin, and queen of Edward the Confessor-a young person of great beauty and learning, modest, and of a sweet disposition. "I have often seen her in my childhood," says the Abbot Ingulphus, "when I went to visit my father, who was employed in the King's palace. If she met me on my return from school, she interrogated me upon my grammar, poetry, or even logic, in which she was well versed; and when she had entangled me in the meshes of some subtle argument, she never failed to bestow upon me three or four crowns, by her servant, and to send me to have refreshment in the buttery." Egitha was mild and kind to all who approached her; those who disliked the somewhat savage pride of her father and brother, praised her for not resembling them, as is poetically expressed in a Latin verse, then much esteemed: "Sicut spina rosam, genuit Godwinus Editham."—"As the thorn produces the rose, Godwin produces Editha.”

"It is possible" (says the Rev. Mr. Tyler, in his Henry of Monmouth) "that many of our fair countrywomen, in the highest ranks now, are not aware that, more than 800 years ago, their fair and noble predecessors could play with a Westminster scholar in grammar, verses, and logic." Ingulphus tells how he made proficiency beyond many of his equals in mastering the doctrines. of Aristotle, and covered himself to the very ankles in Cicero's Rhetoric!

In his History of the Abbey of Croyland, which he governed, he minutely describes its buildings, its various fortunes, possessions, and immunities, its treasures, its monks, its occupations, and its statutes. No distinct period seems to have been allotted to study; though it is related that, on one occasion, a present of forty large original volumes of divers doctrines, and of more than one hundred smaller copies of books of various subjects, was made to the common library. Sometimes also the names are mentioned of men said to have been "deeply versed in every branch of literature." In the story of the abbot Turketul, we read that as the convent was rich, he relieved the indigent, solaced the unhappy, and provided succor for all in distress. In the neighborhood, such children were educated as were designed for the monastic life. These the abbot visited once every day, watching, with parental solicitude, their progress in their several

tasks; rewarding their diligence with such little presents (which a servant carried with him) as children love; and animating all by exhortation, or, when necessary, compelling them by chastisement, to the discharge of their duties.

Of Croyland Abbey, standing upon the south border of Lincolnshire, there remain considerable portions of its church, of Norman, Early English, and Perpendicular architecture; and, as the lover of our national antiquities stands upon the adjoining triangular bridge of the 14th century (supposed to have been designed as a symbol of the Holy Trinity), he may reflect that within the hallowed convent walls dwelt some of the earliest promoters of education; and as from these picturesque ruins over the neighboring fens the eye ranges, it may rest upon some nobly built churches, yet it would not unwillingly exchange the view of the monastic ruins for many an uninjured abiding home of the Reformed faith.

WILLIAM II.-HENRY I.-STEPHEN.

Of the education of WILLIAM II., the third son, and the successor of the Conqueror, we have few details. He was born about 1060, and was placed by his father under Lanfranc, who superintended his education, and conferred on the prince the honor of knighthood, agreeably to the manners of the time.

HENRY I., born in 1068, at Selby, in Yorkshire, the only son of the Conqueror who was an Englishman by birth, was surnamed Beauclerc, or the scholar, having received a more literary education than was then usually given either to the sons of kings or to laymen of any rank: this advantage was seconded by natural abilities of a superior order; and in his after-life, in the midst of his profligacy and unscrupulous ambition, Henry cherished a love of letters, and in his leisure was fond of the society of learned

men.

The early years of instruction Henry passed in liberal arts, and so thoroughly imbibed the sweets of learning, that no warlike commotions, no pressure of business, could ever erase them from his noble mind; although he neither read much openly, nor displayed his attainments except sparingly. His learning, however, to speak the truth, though obtained by snatches, assisted him much in the science of governing; according to that saying of Plato, "Happy would be the commonwealth, if philosophers governed, or kings would be philosophers." Not slightly tinctured by philosophy, then, by degrees, in process of time, he learned how to restrain the people with lenity; nor did he ever suffer his soldiers to engage but where he saw a pressing emergency. In this manner, by learning, he trained his early years to the hope of the kingdom; and often in his father's hearing made use of the proverb, that "An illiterate king is a crowned ass." They relate, too, that his father, observing his disposition, never omitted any means of cherishing his lively prudence; and that once when he had been ill-used by one of his brothers, and was in tears, he spirited him up, by saying, "Weep not, my boy; you too will be a king."-William of Malmesbury.

Henry was sent by his father to the abbey of Abingdon, where he was initiated in the sciences under the care of the Abbot

Grymbald, and Farice, a physician of Oxford. Robert d'Oilly, constable of Oxford Castle, was ordered to pay for the board of the young prince in the convent, which the Conqueror himself frequently visited. Henry was also well educated in France: his talents were great, and under such a prince, pre-eminently entitled to be styled Beauclerc, the arts of peace prospered; the seminaries of learning were protected; teachers abounded; the convents furnished an undisturbed retreat to the studious; and, in short, letters were generally patronized and cultivated.

STEPHEN, born about 1096, was brought up at the court of his uncle, Henry I., and received many benefits from him.

HENRY THE SECOND, HIS LOVE OF LETTERS-SPORTS OF THE LONDON SCHOLARS.

Henry II., born at Mans, in Maine, in 1133, was brought to England in his tenth year, by his uncle, Robert Earl of Gloucester, who being distinguished for his scholarship and love of letters, superintended the education of the young prince, while he remained for five years shut up for safety in the strong castle of Bristol. From his excellent uncle Henry imbibed a greater degree of literary culture than was then usual among princes: his faculties received a learned training, and to the end of his days he preserved an attachment to literature and to the conversation of scholars, and he drew around him many of the chief lights of the time. His reign has, however, according to a very common but incorrect mode of speaking, been called a Dark Age; for an age cannot possibly be dark which had such men living in it as John of Salisbury, Peter of Blois, Thomas à Becket, and many others, especially historians, whose writings show the great extent of their reading and intellectual power. John was well acquainted with the Latin and Greek writers; he had some knowledge of Hebrew; he was skilled in the mathematics, natural philosophy, theology, and morals; he was an elegant orator and an eminent poet; and he was amiable and cheerful, innocent and good. His letters are delightful reading: his style was best adapted to this species of composition, and his correspondents were among the first personages of the age. Peter of Blois was invited by Henry into England, became his secretary, and enjoyed high ecclesiastical dignities: his writings are chiefly theological, but his letters are now alone read: like the letters of John of Salisbury they abound in quotations from Scripture, and from ecclesiastical and profane writers, but Peter's own writing is encumbered by forced antitheses and a constant play upon words. Thomas à Becket was born in London, and educated at Oxford, but was sent to France, while young, to lose the English accent,

the hateful vulgarity of which would have rendered his association with respectable people impossible. He returned from his travels fully accomplished. Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, made him his deacon, and the King made him his chancellor; he was also intrusted with the education of the King's eldest son, and he subsequently became archbishop of Canterbury.

From Fitzstephen's life-like description of London in this reign we obtain a picture of the hardy sports which then formed an important portion of the education of the people, as it did of the early Britons. To the north of the City were pasture-lands, with mill-streams; and beyond was an immense forest, with dense thickets, where stags, fallow-deer, and wild bulls had their coverts; and through this district the citizens, by the Charter of Henry I., had liberty to hunt. This great hunting-ground is now a surburb of the metropolis; and as the Londoner strolls over the picturesque locality of "Hamstead Heath," he may encounter many an aged thorn-the lingering indications of a forest-and in the beautiful domain of Caen Wood, he may carry his mind'seye back to these Anglo-Norman sports of seven centuries since. Hawking was also among their free recreations. Football was their favorite game; the boys of the schools, and the various guilds of craftmen, having each their ball. In summer the youths exercised themselves in leaping, archery, wrestling, stonethrowing, slinging javelins, and fighting with bucklers. In winter, when "the great fen or moor" which washed the city walls on the north was frozen over, sliding, sledging, and skating were the sports of crowds, who had also their sham fights on the ice, which latter had their advantages; for, as Fitzstephen says, "Youth is an age eager for glory and desirous of victory, and so young men engage in counterfeit battles, that they may conduct themselves more valiantly in real ones.” We are even told how the young Londoners, by placing the leg-bones of animals under their feet, and tying them around their ankles, by aid of an ironshod pole, pushed themselves forward with great velocity along the ice of the frozen moor; and one of these bone-skates, found in digging Moorfields, may now be seen in the British Museum.

The Latinity of the writers during this reign was more pure than in many of the following ones. It has been presumed that the monks of these times were ignorant of classical learning, from Caxton speaking in one of his prefaces of Virgil's Æneis as a story then hardly known, and without any commendation of the poetry; but it appears by Fitzstephen that in the schools of his time, the scholars daily torquent enthymemata, an expression which shows that he was well versed in Juvenal. John of Salisbury was as well versed and as ready in citing the Latin classics as the men who have been most eminent for this knowledge

in modern times. The Saxons also seem to have made a distinction between the Latin which was spoken by some of the clergy, and what was to be found in classical books.

RISE OF ANGLO-NORMAN SCHOOLS.

Schools and other seminaries of learning were zealously established in connection with the cathedrals and monasteries in all parts of the kingdom. In 1179 was ordered by the council of Lateran, that in every cathedral should be maintained a head teacher, or sholastic, as was the title given to him, who, besides keeping a school of his own, should have authority over all the other schoolmasters of the diocese, and the sole right of granting licences, without which no one would be entitled to teach; and this office was filled in many cases by the most learned persons of the time. Besides the cathedral schools, there were others established in the religious houses; and it is reckoned that of religious houses of all kinds there were found no fewer than five hundred and fifty-seven, between the Conquest and the death of King John and besides these there still existed many others that had been found in the Saxon times. All these schools, however, appear to have been intended exclusively for the instruction of persons proposing to make the church their profession; but mention is made of others established in many of the principal cities, and even in villages, which would seem to have been open to the community at large; for the laity, though generally excluded from the benefits of learning, it is presumed were not left wholly without elementary education.

Fitzstephen has left the following animated picture of the disputations of the schools of London at this period :

On festival days, the masters assemble their pupils at those churches where the feast of the patron is solemnized, and there the scholars dispute, some in the demonstrative way, and others logically; some again write enthymemes, while others use the most perfect syllogism. Some, to show their abilities, engage in such disputation as is practiced among persons contending for victory alone; others dispute upon a truth, which is the grace of perfection. The sophisters, who argue upon feigned topics, are deemed clever according to their fluency of speech and command of language. Others endeavor to impose by false conclusions. Sometimes certain orators in their rhetorical harangues employ all the powers of persuasion, taking care to observe the precepts of the art, and to omit nothing opposite to the subject. The boys of the different schools wrangle with each other in verse, and contend about the principles of grammar, or the rules of the perfect and future tenses. There are some who in epigrams, rhymes, and verses, use that trivial raillery so much practiced amongst the ancients, frequently attacking their companions with Fescenine* license, but suppressing the names, discharging their scoffs and sarcasms against them, touching with Socratic wit the feelings of their school-fellows, or perhaps of greater personages, or biting them more freely with a Theonine† tooth. The audience,

Well disposed to laugh,

With curling nose double the quivering peals.‡

* Fescennina carmina, (derived from Fescenina, a town of Etruria,) rude jesting dialogue, in extempore verse, full of good-tempered raillery and coarse humor. · Maclean's Notes on Horace.

† From Theon, a malignant wit, and a poor freedman of Rome, in Horace's time. The last line is imitated from one of the Satires of Persius:

"Ingeminant tremulos naso crispante cachinnos."-Sat. iii. v. 87.