piety, we owe, however, the noble foundations of Eton and King's College, Cambridge,worthy monuments which still call upon us to respect the memory of the most meek and most unfortunate of king's.-Knight s Popular History of England.

Meanwhile, the scholastic training of the young King was intrusted to bis great uncle, the Bishop of Winchester, better known as Cardinal Beaufort; and under his tuition, Henry became an accomplished scholar in all the learning of the age; the truest Christian gentleman that ever sat upon a

as well as 66

throne."

The statutes of St. Mary's College, Oxford, in this reign, show how great must have been the inconveniences and impediments to study in those days from the scarcity of books: "Let no scholar occupy a book in the library over one hour, or two hours at most, so that others shall be hindered from the use of the same." Still there was a great number of books at an early period of the Church, when one book was given out by the librarian to each of a religious fraternity at the beginning of Lent, to be read diligently during the year, and to be returned the following Lent. Books were first kept in chests, and next chained to the desks, lest their rarity and value might tempt those who used them; and it was a very common thing to write in the first leaf of a book, "Cursed be he who shall steal or tear out the leaves, or in any way injure this book ;" an anathema which, in a modified form, we have seen written in books of the present day.

HENRY THE SIXTH FOUNDS ETON COLLEGE, AND KING'S

COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

Hall, the chronicler, when speaking of the causes which led Henry VI. to found Eton College, and King's College, Cambridge, says of him: "he was of a most liberal mind, and especially to such as loved good learning; and those whom he saw profiting in any virtuous science, he heartily forwarded and embraced." An ingenious writer of our own time has, however, more correctly characterized the young King's motive: "still stronger in Henry's mind was the desire of marking his gratitude to God by founding and endowing some place of pious instruction and Christian worship."* Henry seems principally to have followed the magnificent foundations of William of Wykeham at Winchester and Oxford; resolving that the school which he founded should be connected with a college in one of the Universities, whither the best of the foundation scholars of his school should proceed to complete their education, and where a permanent provision should be made for them. Standing upon the north terrace of Windsor Castle, near Wykeham's tower, and

* Memoirs of Eminent Etonians. By E. S. Creasy, M.A.

looking toward the village of Eton, upon the opposite bank of the silver-winding Thames, we can imagine the association to have first prompted the devout King's design-in the words of the Charter, "to found, erect, and establish, to endure in all future time,

A College consisting of and of the number of one provost and ten priests, four clerks and six chorister boys, who are to serve daily there in the celebration of divine worship, and of twenty-five poor and indigent scholars who are to learn grammar; and also of twenty-five poor and infirm men, whose duty it shall be to pray there continually for our health and welfare so long as we live, and for our soul when we shall have departed this life, and for the souls of the illustrious Prince, Henry our father, late King of England and France; also of the Lady Katherine of most noble memory, late his wife, our mother; and for the souls of all our ancestors and of all the faithful who are dead: (consisting) also of one master or teacher in granimar, whose duty it shall be to instruct in the rudiments of grammar the said indigent scholars and all others whatsoever who may come together from any part of our Kingdom of England to the said College, gratuitously and without the exaction of money or any other thing."

The works were commenced in 1441, with the chapel of the College; and to expedite the building, workmen were "pressed” from every part of the realm. The freemasons received 3s. a week each, the stone-masons and carpenters 3s. ; plumbers, sawyers, tilers, etc., 6d. a day, and common laborers 4d. The grant of arms expresses this right royal sentiment: "If men are ennobled on account of ancient hereditary wealth, much more is he to be preferred and styled truly noble, who is rich in the treasures of the sciences and wisdom, and is also found diligent in his duty towards God." Henry appointed Waynflete first provost, who, with five fellows of Winchester, and thirty-five of the scholars of that College, became the primitive body of Etonians, in 1443. The works of the Chapel were not completed for many years; and the other parts of the College were unfinished until the commencement of Henry the Eighth's reign.

Eton, in its founder's time, was resorted to as a place of education by the youth of the higher orders, as well as by the class for whose immediate advantage the benefits of the foundation were primarily designed. Those students not on the foundation were lodged at their relations' expense in the town (oppidum) of Eton, and thence called Oppidans. The scholars on the foundation (since called Colle-gers) were lodged and boarded in the College-buildings, and at the College expense. There are two quadrangles, built chiefly of red brick: in one are the school and the chapel, with the lodgings for the scholars; the other contains the library, the provost's house, and apartments for the Fellows. The chapel is a stately stone structure, and externally very handsome. The architecture is Late Perpendicular, and a good specimen of the style of Henry the Seventh's reign. In the center of the first quadrangle is a bronze statue of Henry VI.; and in the chapel another statue, of marble, by John Ba

con.

The foundation scholars seem to have been first placed in two large chambers on the ground floor, three of the upper boys in each; they had authority over the others, and were responsible for good conduct being maintained in the dormitory. Subsequently was added "the Long Chamber" as the common dormitory of all the scholars. Dinner and supper were provided daily for all the members of the College; and every scholar received yearly a stated quantity of coarse cloth, probably first made up into clothing, but it has long ceased to be so used.

The King's Scholars or Collegers are distinguished from oppidans by a black cloth gown. The boys dined at eleven, and supped at seven; there being only two usual meals.

King Henry is recorded to have expressed much anxiety for his young incipient Alumni. One of his chaplains relates that

When King Henry met some of the students in Windsor Castle, whither they sometimes used to go to visit the King's servants, whom they knew, on ascertaining who they were, he admonished them to follow the path of virtue, and besides his words, would give them money to win over their good-will, saying, "Be good boys; be gentle and docile, and servants of the Lord." (Sitis boni pueri, mites et docibiles, et servi Domini.

The progress of the buildings was greatly checked by the troubles toward the close of the reign of Henry VI.; and his successor, Edward IV., not only deprived Eton of large portions of its endowments, but obtained a bull from Pope Pius II. for disposing of the College, and merging it in the College of St. George at Windsor; but Provost Westbury publicly and solemnly protested against this injustice, the bull was revoked, and many of the endowments were restored, though the College suffered severely. The number on the foundation consisted of a provost and a vice-provost, 6 fellows, 2 chaplains, 10 choristers, the upper and lower master, and the 70 scholars. The buildings were continued during the reign of Henry VII., and the early years of Henry the Eighth, whose death saved Parliament from extinguishing Eton, which was then confirmed to Edward VI.

Among the Paston Letters is one written in 1467, by "Master Willam Paston at Eton, to his Worshipful Brother, John Paston, acknowledging the receipt of 8d in a letter, to buy a pair of slippers; 13s. 4d. to pay for his board, and thanking him for 121b. of Figgs and 81b. of Raisins which he was expecting by the first barge; he then narrates how he had fallen in love with a young gentlewoman to whom he had been introduced by his hostess, or dame; and he concludes with a specimen of his skill in Latin versification.

A. MS document in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, shows the general system of the school, the discipline kept up, and the books read in the various forms, about the year 1560. The holidays and customs are also enumerated; great encouragement was then shown to Latin versification (always the pride of Eton), and occasionally to English, among the students; care was taken to teach the younger boys to write a good hand. The boys rose at five to the loud call of "Surgite;" they repeated a prayer in alternate verses, as they dressed themselves, and made their beds, and each swept the part of the chamber close to his bed. They then went in a row to wash, and then to school, where the under-master read prayers at six; then the præpositor noted absentees, and one examined the students' faces and hands, and reported any boys that came unwashed. At seven, the tuition began : great attention was paid to Latin composition in prose and verse, and the boys conversed in Latin. Friday seems to have been flogging day. Among the books read by the boys in the

two highest forms are mentioned Cæsar's Commentaries, Cicero De Officiis and De Amicitia, Virgil, Lucian, and, what is remarkable, the Greek Grammar; a knowledge of Greek at this period being a rare accomplishment even at our universities. Its study was, however, gaining ground in Elizabeth's reign; and in a book published in 1586, it is stated that at Eton, Winchester, and Westminster, boys were then "well entered in the Latin and Greek tongues and rules of versifying." Throughout this MS. record is shown the antiquity of making the upper boys responsible for the good conduct of the lower, which has ever been the ruling principle at Eton-in the schools, at meal-times, in the chapel, in the playing-fields, and in the dormitory; and there was a præpositor to look after dirty and slovenly boys.*

Of scholars' expenses at Eton early in the reign of Elizabeth, we find a record in the accounts of the sons of Sir William Cavendish, of Chatsworth. Among the items, a breast of mutton is charged tenpence; a small chicken, fourpence; a week's board five shillings each, besides the wood burned in their chamber; to an old woman for sweeping and cleaning the chamber, twopence; mending a shoe, one penny; three candles, ninepenee; a book, Esop's Fables, fourpence; two pair of shoes, sixteenpence; two bunches of wax-lights, one penny; the sum total of the payments, including board paid to the bursars of Eton College, living expenses for the two boys and their man, clothes, books, washing, etc., amount to 12. 12s. 7d. The expense of a scholar at the University in 1514 was but five pounds annually, affording as much accommodation as would now cost sixty pounds, though the accommodation would be far short of that now customary. At Eton, in 1857, the number of sholars exceeded 700.

The College buildings have been from time to time re-edified and enlarged. The Library, besides a curious and valuable collection of books, is rich in Oriental and Egyptian manuscripts, and beautifully illustrated missals. The Upper School Room in the principal court, with its stone arcade beneath, and the apartments attached to it, were built by Sir Christopher Wren, at the expense of Dr. Allstree, provost in the reign of Charles II.

The College Hall interior has been almost entirely rebuilt through the munificence of the Rev. John Wilder, one of the Fellows, and was reopened in October, 1857: these improvements include a new open-timber roof, a louver, windows east and west, a gothic oak canopy, and a carved oak gallery over the space dividing the hall from the buttery. The oak paneling around the room is cut all over with the names of Etonians of several generations.

Among the Eton festivals was the Montem, formerly celebrated every third year on Whit-Tuesday, and believed to have been a corruption of the Popish ceremony of the Boy Bishop. It consisted of a theatrical procession of pupils wearing costumes of various periods, for the purpose of collecting money, or "salt," for the captain of Eton, about to retire to King's College, Cambridge. To each contributor was given a small portion of salt, at an eminence named therefrom Salt-Hill; the ceremony concluding with the waving of a flag upon this hill or Montem.† Boating and cricket are the leading recreations at Eton: the

* Condensed from Mr. Creasy's Memoirs of Eminent Etonians.

The last Montem was celebrated at Whitsuntide, 1844. The abolition of the custom had long been pressed upon the College authorities, and they at length yielded to the growing condemnation of the ceremony as an exhibition unworthy of the present enlightened age. A memorial of the last celebration is preserved in that picturesque chronicle of events, the Illustrated London News, June 1, 1844.

College walks or playing-fields, extend to the banks of the Thames, and the whole scene is celebrated by Gray, the accomplished Etonian, in his well-known Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, commencing

"Ye distant spires, ye antique towers

That crown the watery glade."

Waynflete was the first provost of Eton. Among the eminent scholars are Archbishop Rotherham, and Bishop West; Croke. the celebrated Helenist, one of the first who taught the Greek language publicly in any university north of the Alps; Bishop Aldrich, the friend of Erasmus; Hall, the chronicler; Bishop Foxe; Thomas Sutton, founder of the Charterhouse; Sir Thomas Smith, and Sir Henry Savile, provosts; Admiral Sir Humphrey Gilbert; Oughtred, the mathematician; Tusser, the useful old rhymer; Phineas and Giles Fletcher, the poets; the martyrs, Fuller, Glover, Saunders, and Hullier; Sir Henry Wotton, provost; Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex; Waller, the poet; Robert Boyle; Henry More, the Platonist; Bishops Pearson and Sherlock; the ever-memorable John Hales, "the Walking Library;" Bishops Barrow and Fleetwood; Lord Camden; the poets Gray, Broome, and West; Fielding, the novelist; Dr. Arne, the musical composer; Horace Walpole; the Marquis of Cranby; Sir William Draper; Sir Joseph Banks; Marquis Cornwallis; Lord Howe; Richard Porson, the Greek Emperor; the poets Shelley, Praed, and Milman; Hallam, the historian; and W. E. Gladstone, the statesman.

The Premiers of England during the last century and a half were mostly educated at Eton. Thus, Lord Bolingbroke, Sir William Wyndham, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Townshend, Lord Lyttleton, Lord Chatham, the elder Fox, Lord North, Charles James Fox, Mr. Wyndham, the Marquis Wellesley, Lord Grenville, Canning, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Grey, and the Earl of Derby-were all Etonians.

Among the celebrities of the College should not be forgotten the periodical work entitled The Etonian, the contributors to which were Eton scholars, and the author-publisher was the Etonian Charles Knight-a name long to be remembered in the commonwealth of English literature.

King's College, which Henry founded in 1441, at Cambridge, to be recruited from Eton, is the richest endowed collegiate foundation in that University. The Statutes declare that there shall be a provost and 70 poor scholars.† The Reformation and the changes brought about by three centuries, have, however, rendered obedience to the Statutes impossible, and they are now virtually the Statutes of William of Wykeham, which he had framed for New College. The Civil Wars of the Houses of York and Lancaster, and the violent death of the royal founder, left the College buildings unfinished; while Edward IV. impoverished its revenues, and even dissolved the College. Henry VII., in whose reign the College petitioned Parliament, on account of its straitened resources, contributed to the completion of the

* Wotton is described as "a person that was not only a fine gentleman himself, but very skilled in the art of making others so."

Unquestionably Colleges were eleemosynary foundations, but their sole object was not, like that of an almshouse, to relieve indigence. They were intended, no doubt, to maintain scholars who were poor; and in an age when learning was regarded as ignoble by the great, and when nearly all but the great were poor, persons willing to enter the University as students could hardly be found, except among the poor. If, in modern days, those who impart or seek education in the Universities are not indigent, it must not be thought, therefore, that the poor have been robbed of their birthright. Rather the Universities, among other agencies, have so raised the condition of society, and mental cultivation is now so differently regarded, that persons intended for the learned professions are at present found only among the comparatively wealthy. Such persons, if elected for their merit to Fellowships and Scholarships, would faithfully fulfill the main objects of founders, namely, the promotion of religion and learning.-Report of the Oxford University Commission, pp. 39-40.