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was more extraordinary, as William of Wykeham's celebrated seminary was so near. And this seems to have been an established practice of the abbot of Glastonbury, "whose apartment in the abbey was a kind of well-disciplined court, where the sons of noblemen and young gentlemen were wont to be sent for virtuous education, who returned thence home excellently accomplished." Richard Whiting, the last abbot of Glastonbury, who was cruelly executed by the king, during the course of his government educated near three hundred ingenuous youths, who constituted a part of his family; beside many others whom he liberally supported at the universities.2 Whitgift, the most excellent and learned archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was educated under Robert Whitgift his uncle, abbot of the Augustine monastery of black canons at Wellhow in Lincolnshire, "who," says Strype "had several other young gentlemen under his care for education." (Strype's Whitgift, v. i. ch. i. p. 3.)

Of Lydgate about 1420-30 A.D. I suppose-Prof. Morley says in his English Writers, vol. ii. Pt. I. p. 423:

"After studying at Oxford, Paris, and Padua, and after mastering with special delight the writings of such poets as Dante, Boccaccio, and Alain Chartier, Lydgate opened at his monastery of Bury St Edmund's a school of rhetoric in which he taught young nobles literature and the art of versifying!"

Richard Pace says in his De Fructu, 1517:

"Now the learning of music too demands its place, especially from me whom it distinguished when a boy amongst boys. For Thomas Langton, bishop of Winchester (the predecessor of him who is now living), whose secretary I was, when he had marked that I was making a proficiency in music far beyond my age (as himself-perchance from his too great affection for me-would point out and repeatedly say), The talent of this lad,' he said, 'is born for greater things,' and a few days afterwards he sent me, to pursue the study of literature, into Italy, to the school at Padua, which then was at its greatest prime, and benevolently supplied the annual expenses, as he showed wonderful favour to all men of letters, and in his day played the part of a second Mecanas, well remembering (as he ofttimes said) that he had been advanced to the episcopal dignity on account of his learning. For he had gained, with the highest commendation, the distinctions of each law (as they say now-a-days). Also he so highly prized the study of Humanity that he had boys and youths

4

1 Hist. and Antiq. of Glastonbury. Oxon. 1722, 8vo, p. 98.

2 Reyner, Apostolat. Benedict. Tract. 1, sect. ii. p. 224. Sanders de Schism.

Fage 176.

3 utriusque juris, Canon and Civil.

4 Lit. humaniores. Latin is still called so in Scotch, and French (I think), universities. J. W. Hales.

instructed in it at a school in his house; And he was vastly delighted to hear the scholars repeat to him at night the lessons given them by the teacher during the day. In this competition he who had borne himself notably went away with a present of something suitable to his character, and with commendation expressed in the most refined language; for that excellent governor had ever in his mouth the maxim that merit grows with praise."

ניי.

Palsgrave in 1530 speaks of "maister Petrus Vallensys, scole maister to his [Charles, Duke of Suffolk's] excellent yong sonne the Erle of Lyncolne."

Roger Ascham, author of the Scholemaster, &c., born in 1515,

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was received at a very youthful age into the family of Sir Antony Wingfield, who furnished money for his education, and placed Roger, together with his own sons, under a tutor whose name was Bond. The boy had by nature a taste for books, and showed his good taste by reading English in preference to Latin, with wonderful eagerness. This was the more remarkable from the fact that Latin was still the language of literature, and it is not likely that the few English books written at that time were at all largely spread abroad in places far away from the Universities and Cathedral towns. In or about the year 1530, Mr Bond the domestic tutor resigned the charge of young Roger, who was now about fifteen years old, and by the advice and pecuniary aid of his kind patron Sir Antony, he was enabled to enter St John's College, Cambridge, at that time the most famous seminary of learning in all England . . he took his bachelor's degree in 1531, Feb. 18, in the 18th year of his age ["being a boy, new bachelor of art," he says himself,] a time of life at which it is now more common to enter the University than to take a degree, but which, according to the modes of education

1 (Pace de Fructu, p. 27.) Exigit iam suum musica quoque doctrina locum, a me præsertim, quem puerum inter pueros illustravit. Nam Thomas Langton Vyntoniensis episcopus, decessor huius qui nunc [1517 A.D.] uiuit, cui eram a manu minister, quum notasset me longe supra ætatem (ut ipse nimis fortasse amans mei iudicabat, & dictitabat) in musicis proficere, Huius, inquit, pueri ingenium ad maiora natum est. & paucos post dies in Italiam ad Patauinum gymnasium, quod tunc florentissimum erat, ad bonas literas discendas me misit, annuasque impensas benigne suppeditauit, ut omnibus literatis mirifice fauebat, & ætate sua alterum Mecenatem agebat, probe memor (ut frequenter dictitabat) sese doctrinæ causa ad episcopalem dignitatem prouectum. Adeptus enim fuerat per summam laudem, utriusque iuris (ut nunc loquuntur) insignia. Item humaniores literas tanti æstimabat, ut domestica schola pueros & iuuenes illis erudiendos curarit. Et summopere oblectabatur audire scholasticos dictata interdiu a præceptore, sibi nocta reddere. In quo certamine qui præclare se gesserat, is aliqua re personæ suæ accommodata, donatus abibat, & humanissimis uerbis laudatus. Habebet enim semper in ore ille optimus Præsul, uirtutem laudatam crescere.

then in use, was not thought premature. On the 23rd of March following, he was elected fellow of the College." Giles's Life of Ascham, Works, vol. i. p. xi-xiv.

Dr Clement and his wife were brought up in Sir T. More's house. Clement was taken from St Paul's school, London, appointed tutor to More's children, and afterwards to his daughter Margaret, p. 402,

col. 1.

be

What a young nobleman learnt in Henry the Eighth's time may gathered from the following extracts (partly given by Mr Froude, Hist., v. i. p. 39-40) from the letters of young Gregory Cromwell's tutor, to his father, the Earl of Essex, the King's Chief Secretary.

"The order of his studie, as the houres lymyted for the Frenche tongue, writinge, plaienge att weapons, castinge of accomptes, pastimes of instruments, and suche others, hath bene devised and directed by the prudent wisdome of Mr Southwell; who with a ffatherly zeale and amitie muche desiringe to have hime a sonne worthy suche parents, ceasseth not aswell concerninge all other things for hime mete and necessary, as also in lerninge, t'expresse his tendre love and affection towardes hime, serchinge by all meanes possible howe he may moste proffitte, dailie heringe hime to rede sumwhatt in thenglishe tongue, and advertisenge hime of the naturell and true kynde of pronuntiacon therof, expoundinge also and declaringe the etimologie and native signification of suche wordes as we have borowed of the Latines or Frenche menne, not evyn so comonly used in our quotidiene speche. Mr Cheney and Mr Charles in lyke wise endevoireth and emploieth themselves, accompanienge Mr Gregory in lerninge, amonge whome ther is a perpetuall contention, strife, and conflicte, and in maner of an honest envie who shall do beste, not oonlie in the ffrenche tongue (wherin Mr Vallence after a wonderesly compendious, facile, prompte, and redy waye, nott withoute painfull delegence and laborious industrie doth enstructe them) but also in writynge, playenge at weapons, and all other theire exercises, so that if continuance in this bihalf may take place, whereas the laste Diana, this shall (I truste) be consecrated to Apollo and the Muses, to theire no small profecte and your good contentation and pleasure. And thus I beseche the Lord to have you in his moste gratious tuition.

At Reisinge in Norfffolk] the last daie of Aprill.
Your faithfull and most bounden servaunte

HENRY DOWES.

To his right honorable maister Mr Thomas Crumwell chief Secretary vnto the King's Maiestie."

Ellis, Original Letters. Series I. vol. i. p. 341-3.

The next Letter gives further details of Gregory's studies

xxii

STUDIES OF YOUTHS, TEMP. HEN. VIII. AND ELIZABETH.

"But forcause somer was spente in the servyce of the wylde goddes, it is so moche to be regarded after what fashion yeouth is educate and browght upp, in whiche tyme that that is lerned (for the moste parte) will nott all holelie be forgotten in the older yeres, I thinke it my dutie to asserteyne yor Maistershippe how he spendith his tyme. . . . . . And firste, after he hath herde Masse he taketh a lecture of a Diologe of Erasmus Colloquium, called Pietas Puerilis, whereinne is described a veray picture of oone that sholde be vertuouselie brought upp; and forcause it is so necessary for hime, I do not onelie cause him to rede it over, but also to practise the preceptes of the same, and I have also translated it into Englishe, so that he may conferre theime both to-githers, whereof (as lerned men affirme) cometh no smalle profecte.. after that, he exerciseth his hande in writing one or two houres, and redith uppon Fabian's Chronicle as longe; the residue of the day he doth spende uppon the lute and virginalls. When he rideth (as he doth very ofte) I tell hime by the way some historie of the Romanes or the Greekes, whiche I cause him to reherse agayn in a tale. For his recreation he useth to hawke and hunte, and shote in his long bowe, which frameth and succedeth so well with hime that he semeth to be therunto given by nature."

Ellis, i. 343-4.

Of the course of study of well-bred youths' in the early years of Elizabeth's reign we have an interesting account by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, father of the great Bacon, in a Paper by Mr J. Payne Collier in the Archeologia, vol. 36, Part 2, p. 339, Article xxxi. "Before he became Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon had been Attorney of that Court" [the Court of Wards and Liveries] “ a most lucrative appointment; and on the 27th May, 1561, he addressed a letter to Sir William Cecil, then recently (Jan., 1561) made Master of the Wards, followed by a paper thus entitled:-' Articles devised for the bringing up in vertue and learning of the Queenes Majesties Wardes, being heires males, and whose landes, descending in possession and coming to the Queenes Majestie, shall amount to the cleere yearly value of c. markes, or above."" Sir Nicholas asks the new Master of Wards to reform what he justly calls most " preposterous" abuses in the department:-"That the proceeding hath bin preposterous, appeareth by this: the chicfe thinge, and most of price, in wardeship, is the wardes mynde; the next to that, his bodie; the

1 Ascham praises most the practice of double translation, from Latin into English, and then back from English into Latin.-Scholemaster, p. 90, 178, ed. Giles. 2 Mr Wm. Chappell gives me the reference, and part of the extract.

last and meanest, his land. Nowe, hitherto the chiefe care of governaunce hath bin to the land, being the meaneste; and to the bodie, being the better, very small; but to the mynde, being the best, none at all, which methinkes is playnely to sett the carte before the horse" (p. 343). Mr Collier then summarises Bacon's Articles for the bringing up of the Wards thus: "The wards are to attend divine service at six in the morning: nothing is said about breakfast,' but they are to study Latin until eleven; to dine between 11 and 12; to study with the music-master from 12 till 2; from 2 to 3 they are to be with the French master; and from 3 to 5 with the Latin and Greek masters. At 5 they are to go to evening prayers; then they are to sup; to be allowed honest pastimes till 8; and, last of all, before they go to bed at 9, they are again to apply themselves to music under the instruction of the master. At and after the age of 16 they were to attend lectures upon temporal and civil law, as well as de disciplina militari. It is not necessary to insert farther

details; youths of that period were usually brought up, and how disgracefully the duty of education as regards wards was neglected... It may appear singular that in these articles drawn up by Sir Nicholas, so much stress is laid upon instruction in music2; but it only serves to confirm the notion that the science was then most industriously cultivated by nearly every class of society." Pace in 1517 requires that every one should study it, but should join with it some other study, as Astrology or Astronomy. He says also that the greatest part of the art had perished by men's negligence; "For all that our musicians do now-a-days, is almost trivial if compared with what the

but what I have stated will serve to show how well-bred

old ones

(antiqui) did, so that now hardly one or two (unus aut alter) can be found who know what harmony is, though the word is always on their tongue." (De Fructu, p. 54-5.) Ascham, while lamenting in 1545 (Toxophilus, p. 29) 'that the laudable custom of

When did breakfast get its name,

do not

and its first notice as a regular meal? I

in the early part of Household Ordinances,

or any other work earlier than the Northumberland Household Book.

Music constituted

2 On Musical Education, see the early pages of Mr Chappell's Popular Music, and the note in Archæol., vol. xx, p. 60-1, with its references. a part of the quadrivium, a branch of their system of education.'

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