tion than his versification; is equally spirited and equally harmonious."

PHILIP HENRY AT WESTMINSTER.

Philip Henry was born on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1631, at Whitehall, where his father was keeper of the orchard, and page of the back-stairs: in these situations he was much respected by Charles I., who remembered him in his sad hour of affliction, and on the way to his trial took an affecting leave of his old servant. Philip had for his sponsors the Earls of Pembroke and Carlisle, and the Countess of Salisbury; he became the playfellow of the young princes, and was kindly noticed by Laud, for whom, when he came to the palace, Philip used to open the water-gate. He was sent, first, to St. Martin's School; then to a school at Battersea; at 12 years old he was removed to Westminster, and placed in the fourth form; and was in due time admitted "Head into college." Busby soon took a great liking to the boy, and employed him, with other favorite scholars, in collecting materials for his Greek Grammar. Philip was early imbued with Puritanical principles by his mother, and with her used to attend all the lectures, which lasted sometimes from eight in the morning till four in the afternoon. Lord Pembroke still continued his patronage to him, and at his election gave him the means of defraying his first expenses at the University. Philip Henry ever retained a great affection for the University, as well as for the school in which he had been first taught; and was wont to allege as an excuse for having been less studious than he should have been, that, "coming from Westminster School, his attainments in school learning were beyond what others generally had that came from other schools, so that he was tempted to think there was no need to keep pace with others."

SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN AT WESTMINSTER AND OXFORD.

Thousands of the indwellers of the capital which Sir Christopher Wren has adorned with no fewer than forty public buildings, are, probably, unacquainted with the extent and variety of the abilities and acquirements of this great architect and excellent man. Seldom has the promise of youth been so well redeemed as in Wren. He was born in 1632, at East Knoyle, in Wiltshire, of which parish his father was then rector. He was a small and weakly child, whose rearing required much care. He was educated at home by his father and a private tutor, until he was placed under the special care of Dr. Busby, at Westminster School, having at the same time Dr. Holder as a mathematical tutor. Aubrey describes young Wren as "a youth of prodigious

inventive wit," of whom Holder "was as tender as if he had been his own child, who gave him his first introductions into Geometry and Arithmetic; and when he was a young scholar at the University of Oxford, was a very necessary and kind friend." The first-fruits of young Wren's inventive faculty was put forth in 1645, in his thirteenth year, by the production of a new astronomical instrument, which he dedicated to his father, with a dutiful Latin address, and eighteen hexameter verses. This invention was followed up by an exercise in physics, on the origin of rivers, and by the invention of a pneumatic engine, and a peculiar instrument in gnomonics. His mind ripened early into maturity and strength; he loved the classics; but mathematics and astronomy were from the first his favorite pursuits.

In his fourteenth year, Wren was admitted as a gentlemancommoner at Wadham College, Oxford, where, by his acquirements and inventions, he gained the friendship of Dr. Wilkins, Seth Ward (Bishop of Salisbury), Hooke, whom he assisted in his Micrographia, and other eminent scientific men, whose meetings laid the foundation of the Royal Society. In his fifteenth year, he translated Oughtred's Geometrical Dialing into Latin; and about this time he made a reflecting dial for the ceiling of a room, embellished with figures representing astronomy and geometry, with their attributes, tastefully drawn with a pen. He next took out a patent for an instrument to write with two pens at the same time; and he invented a weather-clock, and an instrument wherewith to write in the dark.

In 1654, Evelyn visited Oxford, and went to All-Souls, where he says, "I saw that miracle of a youth, Christopher Wren." He ranked high in his knowledge of anatomical science; he made the drawings for Dr. Wilkins's Treatise on the Brain; and he was the originator of the physiological experiment of injecting various liquors into the veins of living animals. In 1653, he was elected a Fellow of All-Souls; and by the time that he had attained his twenty-fourth year, his name had gone over Europe, and he was considered as one of that band of eminent men whose discoveries were raising the fame of English science. In 1657, he was appointed Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College; three years later, Savilian Professor at Oxford; and received the degree of D.C.L. in 1661. It was after delivering his lecture on Astronomy at Gresham College, on Nov. 28, 1660, that the foundation of the Royal Society was discussed; and its archives bear the amplest testimony to his knowledge and industry, as exhibited in his commentaries on almost every subject connected with science and art. His

inventions and discoveries alone are said to amount to fiftythree.

Wren's scientific reputation probably led to his being, in 1661, appointed assistant to Sir John Denham, the Surveyor-General; and in 1663, he was commissioned to survey and report upon St. Paul's Cathedral, with a view to its restoration, or rather, the rebuilding of the body of the fabric. The Great Fire decided the long-debated question whether there should be a new cathedral. He was the worst paid architect of whom we have any record: his salary as architect of St. Paul's was only 2007. a year; his pay for rebuilding the churches in the city was only 1007. a year; and it is related that on his completion of the beautiful church of St. Stephen, Walbrook, the parishoners presented his wife with 20 guineas!

With all these architectural pursuits, Wren found time to preside at the Royal Society, and take part in experiments: many great men have shed luster upon its chair; few to a greater degree than Sir Christopher Wren.*

DR. SOUTH AT WESTMINSTER.

This celebrated wit and eminent preacher, who has been aptly denominated "the scourge of fanaticism," was born at Hackney in 1633, and was sent early to Westminster School. Here his master, Busby, said of him, with his characteristic penetration, "I see great talents in that sulky boy, and I shall endeavor to bring them out;" a work which he accomplished by severe discipline. When reader of the Latin prayers for the morning, South publicly prayed for King Charles the First by name "but an hour or two at most before his sacred head was cut off."

In his Sermon "prepared for delivery at a solemn meeting of his school-fellows in the Abbey," South, with pride and satisfaction, paid this tribute to his place of early education :

Westminster is a school which neither disposes men to division in Church, nor sedition in State, a school so untaintedly loyal that I can truly and knowingly aver that, in the worst of times (in which it was my lot to be a member of it) we really were King's Scholars, as well as called so. And this loyal genius always continued amongst us, and grew up with us, which made that noted Coryphæus (D. J. Owen) often say, that it would never be well with the nation until this school was suppressed."

After South's election to Christchurch, Oxford, he distinguished himself by his classical attainments, and composed an elegant Latin poem addressed to Cromwell, on the conclusion of the Dutch war: for this he was strongly censured, but he, probably, regarded his verses as a college exercise. He was ordained in 1659; and in 1661, was made chaplain to the great

*Weld's History of the Royal Society, vol. i.

Lord Clarendon, whose notice he had attracted by a speech delivered at his investiture as Chancellor of the University.

The sermons of this great man are the most enduring monuments of his wit and learning. Their effect is abundantly evidenced in No. 125 (by Addison) of the Guardian, and No. 205 (by Fuller) of the Tatler; and in No 6 (by Steele) of the latter, allusion is made to his virtuous life, and constant attendance on public worship.

South died in 1716, aged 82. His remains lay for four days in the Jerusalem Chamber, and were carried thence into the College Hall; they were attended to his grave in the Abbey by the prebendaries, masters, and scholars, and all in any way connected with the royal foundation.

When South's remains lay in the College Hall, Barber, then Captain of the School, spoke a Latin oration over the body before it was interred in Westminster Abbey. This was the oration, for the unlicensed printing of which Curll received his well-known castigation from the Westminster boys, thus related in a letter of the time:-"Being fortunately nabbed within the limits of Dean's Yard by the king's scholars, there he met with a college salutation: for he was first presented with the ceremony of the blanket, in which, when the skeleton had been well shook, he was carried in triumph to the school; and before receiving a grammatical correction for his false concords, he was reconducted to Dean's Yard, and on his knees asking pardon of the aforesaid Mr. Barber for his offense, he was kicked out of the Yard, and left to the. huzzas of the rabble."

There is a print, in three compartments, representing the three separate punishments which Curll underwent.

BISHOP KEN AT WINCHESTER.

When the Wykehamists held their 450th anniversary of the opening of Winchester College in 1846, Ken was commemorated in the following lines:

"In these cloisters holy Ken strengthened with deeper prayer

His own and his dear scholars' souls to what pure souls should dare;

Bold to rebuke enthroned sin, with calm undazzled faith,

Whether amid the pomp of courts, or on the bed of death;
Firm against kingly terror in his free country's cause,
Faithful to God's anointed against a world's applause."

Thomas Ken, son of an attorney of Furnival's Inn, Holborn, was born at Little Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, in the year 1637. Where he received his first education is not known; nor by whose recommendation he became a scholar on William of Wykeham's college at Winchester. Ken had a musical voice, which had no small recommendation for admission to all ancient

ecclesiastical establishments, from their foundation; for, in after life, it is known that no day passed without his singing to his lute his evening and morning hymn, the origin of those beautiful morning and evening hymns sung at this day by the children of every parish. The Rev. W. Lisle Bowles thus sketches his fellow-Wykehamite at Winchester:

At the age of thirteen, the scholastic novitiate at Winchester is probably placed in the form called Junior part of Fifth; and is become, with a band, and black dangling gown, a Junior of Fifth or Sixth Chamber.

As junior, he is up before the other boys of the same chamber. In the glimmering and cold wintry mornings, he would perhaps repeat to himself-watching the slow morning through the grated window-one of the beautiful ancient hymns composed for the scholars on the foundation:

Jam lucis ordo sydere

Deum precemur supplices,
Ut in diurnis actibus,

Nos servet a nocentibus.

Now the star of morning light
Rises on the rear of night;
Suppliant to our God we pray,

From ills to guard us through this day.

Rising before the others, he had little to do except to apply a candle to a large fagot, in winter, which had been already laid.

On the fifth or sixth day, our junior is at ease among his companions of the same age; he is found, for the first time, attempting to wield a cricket-bat; and when his hour of play is over, he plies at his scob,* the labors of his silent lesson, or sits scanning his nonsense" verses, which, nonsense as they have been called, have led the way to form the most accurate and elegant scholars, however such rudiments may be derided.

Here cares are soon at an end; the holidays are approaching; and who more blithely than Ken, with his musical voice, can sing the old Wykehamical canticle, Dulce Domum, from its style judged to have been written before the Reformation. Now every boy pants for Whitsuntide, when is sung in choral glee

Musa, libros mitte, fessa,
Mitte, pensa dura.

Till that day arrives, after the "pensa dura" of four days, the whole train of youthful scholars is seen streaming twice a week, by the side of the station, toward Catharine-hill, a large, round, conical hill, front in the Downs; a scene, since the foundation of the school, dedicated to youthful recreation and short oblivion of school cares.

Ken left Winchester College for Oxford a super-annuate between eighteen and nineteen years of age, 1655–6. As there was no vacancy at New College, he was entered at Hart-hall, afterward Hertford College; but in 1657, he was admitted Probationer Fellow of New College. The Puritans were then in full sway, and Ken did not take his first degree of Bachelor of Arts till 1661; he soon after entered into Orders; and at the proper age commencing Master of Arts, may have employed his time as tutor of the younger members of the college, where, to this day, is pointed out the room in which Ken read and wrote, and accompanied his morning and evening hymn with his lute.

In 1666, Ken being elected Fellow of Winchester, returned

*An oaken box, which contains his few books. On each side are places for pens and ink. The outer cover is placed open. The depository of books has another cover, on which the young scholar writes his task, or reads his lesson.