could get nothing to answer, he began to drink, and change the conversation to other things. And thus I was freed from the disputing of this mad fellow,-which I was dreadfully afraid would have lasted a long time, not by Apollo, like Horace was from his babbler, but by Bacchus.

On the general subject it should be noted that Fleta mentions nothing about boarders or apprentices in his account of household economy; nor does the Liber Contrarotulatoris Garderoba Edw. Imi mention any young noblemen as part of the King's household. That among tradesmen in later times, putting out their children in other houses, and apprenticeships, were the rule, we know from many statements and allusions in our literature, and "The Italian Relation of England" (temp. Hen. VII.) mentions that the Duke of Suffolk was boarded out to a rich old widow, who persuaded him to marry her (p. 27). It also says

The want of affection in the English is strongly manifested towards their children; for after having kept them at home till they arrive at the age of 7 or 9 years at the utmost, they put them out, both males and females, to hard service in the houses of other people, binding them generally for another 7 or 9 years. And these are called apprentices, and during that time they perform all the most menial offices; and few are born who are exempted from this fate, for every one, however rich he may be, sends away his children into the houses of others, whilst he, in return, receives those of strangers into his own. And on inquiring their reason for this severity, they answered that they did it in order that their children might learn better manners. But I, for my part, believe that they do it because they like to enjoy all their comforts themselves, and that they are better served by strangers than they would be by their own children. Besides which, the English being great epicures, and very avaricious by nature, indulge in the most delicate fare themselves and give their household the coarsest bread, and beer, and cold meat baked on Sunday for the week, which, however, they allow them in great abundance. That if they had their own children at home, they would be obliged to give them the same food they made use of for themselves. That if the English sent their children away from home to learn virtue and good manners, and took them back again when their apprenticeship was over, they might, perhaps, be excused; but they never return, for the girls are settled by their patrons, and the boys make the best marriages they can, and, assisted by their patrons, not by their fathers, they also open a house and strive diligently by this means to make some fortune for themselves; whence it proceeds that, having no hope of their paternal inheritance, that all become so

greedy of gain that they feel no shame in asking, almost "for the love of God," for the smallest sums of money; and to this it may be attributed, that there is no injury that can be committed against the lower orders of the English, that may not be atoned for by money.— A Relation of the Island of England (Camden Society, 1847), pp.

24-6.

"This evidently refers to tradesmen.' The note by the Editor2 however says it was the case with the children of the first nobility, and gives the terms for the Duke of Buckingham's children with Mrs Hexstall. The document only shows that Mrs Hexstall boarded them by contract during the time of absence of my Lord and my Ladie.""

The Earl of Essex says in a letter to Lord Burleigh, 1576, printed in Murdin's State Papers, p. 301-2.

"Neverthelesse, uppon the assured Confidence, that your love to me shall dissend to my Childrenne, and that your Lordship will declare yourself a Frend to me, both alive and dead, I have willed Mr Waterhouse to shew unto you how you may with Honor and Equity do good to my Sonne Hereford, and how to bind him with perpetual Frendship to you and your House. And to the Ende I wold have his Love towardes those which are dissended from you spring up and increase with his Yeares, I have wished his Education to be in your Household, though the same had not bene allotted to your Lordship as Master of the Wardes; and that the whole Tyme, which he shold spend in England in his Minority, might be devided in Attendance uppon my Lord Chamberlayne and you, to the End, that as he might frame himself to the Example of my Lord of Sussex in all the Actions of his Life, tending either to the Warres, or to the Institution of a Nobleman, so that he might also reverence your Lordship for your Wisdome and Gravyty, and lay up your Counsells and Advises in the Treasory of his Hart."

That girls, as well as boys, were sent out to noblemen's houses for their education, is evident from Margaret Paston's letter of the 3rd of April, 1469, to Sir John Paston, "Also I would ye should purvey for your sister [? Margery] to be with my Lady of Oxford, or with my Lady of Bedford, or in some other worshipful place whereas ye think best, and I will help to her finding, for we be either of us weary of other." Alice Crane's Letter, in the Paston Letters, v. i. p.

¡1As to agricultural labourers and their children A.D. 1388-1406, see below, p. xlvi. 2 Readers will find it advisable to verify for themselves some of the statements in this Editor's notes, &c.

35, ed. 1840, also supports this view, as does Sir John Heveningham's to Margaret Paston, asking her to take his cousin Anneys Loveday for some time as a boarder till a mistress could be found for her. "If that it please you to have her with you to into the time that a mistress may be purveyed for her, I pray you thereof, and I shall content you for her board that ye shall be well pleased." Similarly Anne Boleyn and her sister were sent to Margaret of Savoy, aunt of Charles V., who lived at Brussels, to learn courtesy, &c., says Prof. Brewer. Sir Roger Twysden says that Anne was "Not above seven yeares of age, Anno 1514," when she went abroad. He adds :

"It should seeme by some that she served three in France successively; Mary of England maryed to Lewis the twelfth, an. 1514, with whome she went out of England, but Lewis dying the first of January following, and that Queene (being) to returne home, sooner than either Sir Thomas Bullen or some other of her frendes liked she should, she was preferred to Clauda, daughter to Lewis XII. and wife to Francis I. then Queene (it is likely upon the commendation of Mary the Dowager), who not long after dying, an. 1524, not yet weary of France she went to live with Marguerite, Dutchess of Alançon and Berry, a Lady much commended for her favor towards good letters, but never enough for the Protestant religion then in the infancy-from her, if I am not deceived, she first learnt the grounds of the Protestant religion; so that England may seem to owe some part of her happyness derived from that Lady." (Twysden's Notes quoted by Singer in his ed. of Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, 1825, p. 57.)

As Henry VIII. fell in love with his wife's maid of honour,"began to kindle the brand of amours" at the light of Anne Boleyn's beauty, "her excellent gesture and behaviour," so we find in later times rich young men became enamoured of poor young women staying in the same house with them. Mr Bruce sends me an instance:

"the young lady was niece, you will perceive, to a well-beneficed clergyman, and a thriving gentleman well-advanced in the public service. She had lost her mother, and her father was in debt and difficulties. She was therefore placed by the influence of her uncles in a well-known family in Wiltshire.'

State Papers. Dom. Car. I. Vol. ccclii. No. 29. Dr Matthew Nicholas, afterwards Dean of St Paul's, to Edward Nicholas, Clerk of the Council, and afterwards Secretary of State. Dated, West Dean, April 4, 1637.

"I have spoken with Miss Evelyn since I wrote last unto you, and enquired of her the cause which moued her to displace my coson

Hunton. She told me much accordinge to what she had sayd unto my coson Hunton, with this addition, that she had respect in it as well unto her good as her owne convenience, for hauinge nowe noe employment for her but her needle, she founde that sittinge still at her worke made her sickly, and therefore thought she might doe better in another seruice where she might haue the orderinge of an huswifely charge, for which (she told me) she had made her very able. I expressed myselfe tender of the disgrace which would lay uppon my coson in beinge displaced in such a manner by warninge giuen, wherof whatsoeuer were the cause, it would be imagined by all that knowe it not, to be in her ill carriage, and wished she had done me that fauour as to haue acquainted me with her intents in such time as I might haue taken some course to haue disposed of her before it had bin knowne that she was to leaue her: she slubbered it ouer with a slight excuse that she had acquainted my wife.... but for my satisfaction she told me that she would be as mindfull of her when God should call her as if she were with her, and in testimony of her good likinge of her seruice she would allowe her forty shillings yearly towarde her maintainance as longe as herself should liue. I am soe well acquainted with what she hath as yet disposed to her by will, and soe little value forty shillings to my coson Hunton's credit, as I gaue her noe thankes. Mr Downes (I heare) is sent for home by his father with an intent to keepe him with him, but I doe imagine that when my coson Hunton shall be other where disposed off, he shall returne; for my conceit is stronge that the feare of his beinge match'd to his disadvantage, who was placed with Mr Evelyn a youth to be bred for his preferment, hath caused this alteration; howsoever there be noe wordes made of it. I confess that when I have bin told of the good will that was obserued betweene my coson Hunton and Mr Downes, I did put it by with my coson Huntons protestation to the contrary, and was willinge by that neglect to have suffered it to have come to pass (if it mought have bin) because I thought it would haue bin to her aduantage, but nowe that the busines is come to this issue (as whatsoeuer be pretended I am confident this is the cause of my cosons partinge) I begin to quæstion my discretion.... Good brother, let me haue your aduise what to do."

2. Home and Private Education. Of these, more or less must have been going on all over England, by private tutors at home, or in the houses of the latter. "In five years (after my baptism) I was handed over by my father to Siward, a noble priest, to be trained in letters, to whose mastery I was subdued during five years learning the first rudiments. But in the eleventh year of my age I was given up by my own father for the love of God, and destined to enter the service of the eternal King."-Orderic, vol. ii. p. 301, ed. Prevost.

с

From Adam de Marisco's Letters, 53, we find that Henry and Almeric, the eldest and youngest sons of the Earl of Montfort, were put under Grosseteste for tuition, he being then a Bishop. At Paris, John of Salisbury (who died in 1180) gained a living by teaching the sons of noblemen,-(instruendos susceperam, took them in to board). -Metalogicus, lib. 11, c. 10.

Henry of Huntingdon says, "Richard, the king's (Henry I.'s) bastard son, was honourably brought up (festive nutritus) by our Bishop Robert (Blote of Lincoln), and duly reverenced by me and others in the same household I lived in."-Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. p. 696. Giraldus Cambrensis speaks of beating his coætanei et conscolares terræ suæ, of being reproved for idleness by his uncle, the Bishop of St David's, and of being constantly chaffed by two of his uncle's chaplains, who used to decline durus and stultus to him. Also he alludes to the rod. Probably there was some sort of school at either Pembroke or St David's.-De Rebus a se Gestis, lib. 1, c. 2.1

The Statutes of a Gild of young Scholars formed to burn lights in honour of some saint or other, and to help one another in sickness, old age, and to burial, will be printed for us by Mr Toulmin Smith in the Early English Text Society's books this year.

Under this head of Private Tuition we may class the houses of Abbots, where boys of good birth were educated. In his History of English Poetry, section 36, vol. iii. p. 9, ed. 1840, Warton says:

"It appears to have been customary for the governors of the most considerable convents, especially those that were honoured with the mitre, to receive into their own private lodgings the sons of the principal families of the neighbourhood for education. About the year 1450, Thomas Bromele, abbot of the mitred monastery of Hyde near Winchester, entertained in his own abbatial house within that monastery eight young gentlemen, or gentiles pueri, who were placed there for the purpose of literary instruction, and constantly dined at the abbot's table. I will not scruple to give the original words, which are more particular and expressive, of the obscure record which preserves this curious anecdote of monastic life. 'Pro octo gentilibus pueris apud dominum abbatem studii causa perhendinantibus, et ad mensam domini victitantibus, cum garcionibus suis ipsos comitantibus, hoc anno, xviil. ixs. Capiendo pro2..." This, by the way,

1 The foregoing three extracts are sent me by a friend.

2 From a fragment of the Computus Camerarii Abbat. Hidens. in Archiv. Wulves. apud Winton. ut supr. (? Hist. Reg. Angl. edit. Hearne, p. 74.)