No More Learning

Again, Arthur Hildesham, in 1635, in the
puritan concentrative manner, gave 152 lectures on Psalm li.
Anthony Burgess, in 1656, delivered 145 expository sermons
on the seventeenth chapter of St John, and wrote an expository
commentary on the first chapter of 2 Corinthians, filling a folio of
657 pages. Gataker's Annotations on the Bible (1659) occupied
a folio volume; but that is small in bulk in comparison with some
other performances. Jeremiah Burroughs filled four volumes in
a commentary which failed to finish 13 chapters of Hosea. William
Greenhill required nearly 3000 quarto pages for Ezekiel, whilst,
for Job, Caryl was not content with less than 4690 folio pages.
- Thomas Haak, in 1657, published, in two folio volumes, a transla-
tion of the Dutch Annotations on the Bible, an outcome of the
synod of Dort, in 1618, but this large work includes a translation
of the Bible. The English Annotations, in two folio volumes,
represents the best English exegetical work of the period, in-
cluding amongst its writers Ley, William Gouge, Meric Casaubon,
Francis Taylor and, once more, the encyclopaedic scholar, Thomas
Gataker. As a work of systematic compilation, English effort
in this direction was crowned by Matthew Poole’s Synopsis
Criticorum Bibliorum (in Latin), in five folio volumes, taking in
its survey all available criticisms and annotations hitherto produced.
Poole was at work on this gigantic task 1660—76? By means
1 A Latin commentary, still larger though not so laboured, Critici Sacri, was
published in London in 1660, in nine folio volumes. The latter contains 9679, and
Poole's Synopsis 5109, double-columned pages.


## p. 323 (#339) ############################################

Summary
323
<
of compendia, abridgments, epitomes of all kinds, scripture histories,
geographies, concordances, expository lectures and sermons, the
vast accretion of Scripture learning was disseminated throughout
the land by the 10,000 clergy, not to count leaders of sectaries and
voluntary preachers.
Collections of systematic divinity in ‘marrows,' 'bodies' and
'sums' were extremely numerous and supplemented Scripture
knowledge in all directions. On the subject of church govern-
ment, innumerable treatises were written, but none approached in
solid intellectual power Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, of the
Elizabethan period, or Richard Field's Of the Church (finished
1610). In doctrinal exposition, bishop Pearson's Exposition of
the Creed (1659) must be regarded as a masterpiece of the
period.
Some of the characteristics of the time, emerging from the
whole of these manifestations of learning in patristic, classical,
oriental and Biblical culture must be briefly noted. The
medieval conception of the authority of Aristotle and scholasticism
was shattered. It was transferred in all its ingrained strength
and with infinitely increased brooding awe to the Bible. Science,
even, could not yet make effective claim to detachment and self-
contained aims. But Bacon's view of antiquitas saeculi juventus
mundi was elaborated in a learned work (1627) by George
Hakewill, a vindication of the superior culture and progress of
the modern, as against the ancient, world. A spirit of optimism
favoured both literary and scientific research, for the age realised
its control over the methods and instruments of enquiry. The
Greeks and Romans could not retain the absolute allegiance even of
scholars, for, after all, they were heathens, and the new light shed
on the Bible, and the grand vision of a theocracy on earth, made
attractive to the whole nation, learned and unlearned, a willingness
to pay the price of knowledge, within the restricted sphere of
Biblical studies. Hence, we notice psychologically, there were
developed enormous industry in learning, endurance in listening
to preachers and teachers, tenacious memory and the power of
visualising and concentrating the thoughts on Bible heroes, Bible
stories, Bible language and Bible aspirations. Scripture students
were indefatigable workers. Bishop Morton was at his studies
before four o'clock in the morning, even after he was 80 years
Matthew Poole rose at three or four o'clock, ate a
raw egg at eight or nine, another at twelve and continued his studies
till late in the afternoon. Sir Matthew Hale, for many years,
of age.
21-2


## p. 324 (#340) ############################################

324 Scholars and Scholarship, 1600—60
studied sixteen hours a day. For several years John Owen
did not allow himself more than four hours' sleep. Feats of
memory are as remarkable for their frequency as for their com-
prehensiveness, and were practised from early childhood in the
repeating of sermons, in the learning of Latin grammar and in
almost every academic discipline. Moreover, the number of
references to memory testifies to the conscious cultivation of
the art. The exercise of visualisation of the Old Testament
histories was heightened by stories of martyrs; and the family
tradition and household culture that made these events 'real as
life' in puritan homes supplied the mental basis for justifying
doctrine and precept. In short, the scholarship and learning of
this period, by their direct bearing upon the Bible, permeated
and transfigured the national life in a rare degree, giving it, in
spite of all its excesses and deficiencies, a strenuousness, sobriety,
and, on the whole, a sincerity, probably never so largely sustained,
by book learning, in any age, and rarely in any country. And
yet, of the highest and purest scholarship, it is true, as Mark
Pattison says, in reference to Casaubon :
To search antiquity with a polemical object is destructive of that equilibrium
of the reason, the imagination and the taste, that even temper of philosophical
calm, that singleness of purpose, which are required in order that a past time
may mirror itself on the mind in true outline and proportions 1.
1 Isaac Casaubon, p. 466.


## p. 325 (#341) ############################################

CHAPTER XIV
ENGLISH GRAMMAR SCHOOLS
It was but slowly, and long after the reformation had been
carried into effect in England, that the transition from the
scholastic to the humanistic theory of education began to be
perceptible among the grammar schools of the country. An
endeavour has, indeed, been made in recent years to show that the
tendencies at work during the reign of Edward VI were essenti-
ally reactionary, and that nothing of much importance resulted
from the liberal and enlightened policy of Somerset. Such a
theory, however, is very far from being borne out by the evidence,
which proves that, not only were important new foundations
established under his auspices, and subsequently, by Northumber-
land, but that the views which found expression in their organisa-
tion and discipline were virtually identical with those which after-
wards obtained under Elizabeth. The great queen, although
holding the memory of Somerset in aversion, had always cherished
a sisterly regard for the youthful monarch, whose remarkable
precocity of intellect, love of learning and strong religious
convictions (harmonising, to a great extent, with her own) had
commanded the admiration and respect alike of scholars and
of politicians during his lifetime. The influences that pre-
dominated during the reign of Mary, on the other hand, had
been reactionary, and became yet more so under the joint
rule of the queen and her consort. But, so soon as Elizabeth
found herself 'supreme governor' of the church, the Edwardian
policy in relation to education was, forthwith, adopted by her as
her own-much as the Prayer Book of 1552 was again prescribed,
with but slight alterations, for use in the English ritual; and it is to
be borne in mind that Burghley had been the personal friend of
Somerset, under whom he served as an officer of the crown. Ас-
cordingly, it is in the reforms advocated during the reign of Edward,
that the subsequent designs of our most discerning legislators are
rightly to be regarded as taking their initiative, however much
they might be baffled or delayed, for a time, by the selfish aims


## p. 326 (#342) ############################################

326
English Grammar Schools
of courtiers intent on little else save their personal enrichment
and that of their families and dependents. In the rapacity of
those who should have been foremost in setting an example of
self-abnegation, the young king and his adviser encountered,
indeed, a resistance which they were but very partially able to
overcome.
The latest researches in the history of our public schools
exhibit Winchester and Eton, the two most ancient of their
number, as designed to enjoy peculiar advantages and an excep-
tional independence, while, at the same time, occupying the position
of training institutions in relation to centres of more advanced
education—the former to New college, Oxford, the latter to King's
college, Cambridge? As Winchester college had now been in
existence somewhat more, and Eton college but a little less, than
two centuries, it becomes interesting to compare the progress of
the one with the other, and that of both, in turn, with the
development of other great public schools which were subsequently
founded—that is to say, with St Paul's, Christ's Hospital and
Harrow, with Westminster and Merchant Taylors', with Shrews-
bury and Rugby: all of which, with the exception of the first-named,
represent the original design of Edward VI, as carried into effect
after Somerset's death by Northumberland and, subsequently, by
Mary and Elizabeth.
Winchester, the most ancient and conservative of all, was still
governed mainly by the statutes of William of Wykeham. It had
been distinctly menaced with dissolution by the Chantries act of
1547; but the actual result of the royal injunctions was little
more, in the direction of reform, than to make the Latin or English
version optional in the study of the text of the New Testament,
although prescribing the use of the vernacular by the scholars at
grace and at their devotions. The school continued to be recruited
mainly from the diocese of Winchester and from the midland
counties; it had educated Chicheley, Chandler (afterwards dean of
Hereford), Warham and Grocyn; its loyalty never swerved. When
king Edward visited the city in 1552, commoners and scholars had
alike composed congratulatory verses; they did the same when
the marriage of Mary and Philip was celebrated in their ancient
cathedral; and, again, when Elizabeth visited the college in 1570.
But, in 1560, the college petitioned successfully, along with Eton,
1 See ante, vol. 11, pp. 357—8.
· The features of resemblance and of direct imitation between Winchester and
Eton have already been referred to in vol. II, chap. xv.


## p. 327 (#343) ############################################

Winchester and Eton
327
>
6
to be allowed the use of the Latin Prayer Book; while the number
and importance of its converts to Rome, in the latter part of the
century, was a symptom that could not be disregarded. During
James's reign, more than one visitation, together with a series of
injunctions issued by archbishop Bancroft, clearly indicate abuses,
both in management and discipline, which betray the fact that the
financial administration by the master and fellows was conceived
on principles not a whit more disinterested than those of the
commissioners of Edward VI. Eton, on the other hand, now begins
to enter on a career of marked improvement, after a series of
depressing experiences. It had seen the lilies tremble on the
college shield, and ultimately disappear, altogether, from the shield
of the foundation at Cambridge. But the wise supervision exercised
by Waynflete, as provost, continued to operate after his promotion
to the see of Winchester, and was continued, with equal ability, by
his successor, William Westbury, promoted from the headmaster-
ship. It is scarcely an exaggeration, indeed, to assert that the
rule of the latter, which extended over a whole generation, was
the salvation of the college, for it was by Westbury's courage and
tact that the designs of Edward IV—to whom, far more justly
than to the sixth of the name, the epithet of despoiler' might
have been applied—were ultimately frustrated. Had the fourth
Edward been able to accomplish his purpose, the entire foundation
of Eton college would have become merged in that of the dean
and chapter at Windsor, and the name of Henry VI would have
disappeared as that of a founder? As it was, the progress of the
college was materially checked, for many years after; and, not
until about the time that the college on the banks of the Cam
was beginning to acquire new lustre by the completion of its noble
chapel, did something of a like prestige begin to gather round the
college on the banks of the Isis. The revenues of Eton, however,
continued to decline; although, in 1536, along with Winchester, it
succeeded in obtaining exemption from payment of tithes; and it
was only with the accession of Edward VI that any appreciable
change for the better took place. The interest shown by that
monarch in Eton affairs is probably attributable, in part, to the
fact that Richard Cox, who had preceded Udall in the headmaster-
ship (1528—34), was both the young king's tutor and almoner;
while the increase in the number of oppidans, noticeable after the
dissolution of the monasteries, may be explained by the fact that
they brought with them (although contrary to the founder's designs)
i See Maxwell Lyte, Hist. of Eton College, chap. iv.


## p. 328 (#344) ############################################

328
English Grammar Schools
a
a certain augmentation of their teachers' scanty incomes. In the
first year of Edward's reign, the college acquired certain advowsons
and estates which had before been held by the suppressed orders.
Cox's successor, Udall-described by Walter Haddon as the best
schoolmaster and the greatest beater' of his time can hardly be
said to have raised the reputation either of the Winchester where
he had been educated or of the college which he was called upon
to rule, although he so far outlived the obloquy which he encountered
as to die master of the school at Westminster. But the precarious
condition of affairs throughout the country, which menaced
every institution and every office, is also to be recognised in
the fact that the headmastership of Eton was held by no less
than twenty-one individuals during the sixteenth century. The
function of the provost was to exercise a general superin-
tendence over the financial administration and also to ensure a
due performance of the duties attaching to each subordinate
office-not excepting that of the headmaster himself. The
appointment of Henry Savile to the provostship was wrung
from the queen only by his own repeated solicitations, and, more-
over, it was a direct infringement of the college statute, which
enjoined that a candidate should be in holy orders, and vested the
election itself in the provost and fellows of King's; but, notwith-
standing, the royal intervention proved eminently beneficial in the
sequel, and Savile's claims were indisputable. He had travelled
much; he was a savant and a collector of manuscripts; and it was
chiefly through the influence of Burghley (no undiscerning patron)
that, some ten years before, he had been promoted to the warden-
ship of Merton college an office which he continued to hold, in
conjunction with the provostship, down to the day of his death.
His fine presence, great powers of work and genuine attainments
eminently fitted him, indeed, for the discharge of official duties,
and, although not free from the reproach of excessive eagerness in
the accumulation of wealth, it might be urged in extenuation that
he showed almost equal readiness to part with it again, in promoting
worthy objects. On succeeding to office, he made it one of his first
cares to restore and augment the library, the fabric of which, at
that time, was in a ruinous condition, while the collection itself had
remained very much what it was at the death of Edward VI. As a
master, however, Savile inspired awe rather than affection; with
the King's men, he was distinctly unpopular, owing to his obvious
partiality for promising 'aliens. ' The oft-cited story, preserved by
1 Lipscombe, G. , Hist. and Ant, of the County of Buckingham, 1v, 474.


## p. 329 (#345) ############################################

Sedbergh
329
John Aubrey, recording his antipathy against 'wits,' is hardly to be
taken seriously, and was probably little more than a sarcasm,
designed to convey his majestic contempt for those artifices where-
with the ingenious schoolboy, from time immemorial, has sought to
produce upon a master the impression of a painful studiousness
which has no actual existence. The men whom he promoted
to fellowships at Merton-to name only Henry Cuffe, afterwards
regius professor of Greek, Francis Mason (author of Vindex
Ecclesiae Anglicanae), Edward Reynolds and John Earle, after-
wards bishops of Norwich and Worcester respectively-together
with his discerning patronage of the then struggling study of
mathematics in Merton, certainly suggest something more than a
stolid preference for mere plodding industry over original power
and special aptitudes.
In the meantime, not a few of the newly founded grammar
schools, as they saw the endowments intended for their benefit
intercepted by the despoiler, must have heard with envy how
Winchester and Eton had escaped a like fate comparatively intact.
Of this, Sedbergh affords a noteworthy illustration. Roger
Lupton, a native of the town, and afterwards provost of Eton, had
already founded there, in 1528, a chantry, 'to pray for his sowle
and kepe a free schole. ' As, however, he saw his foundation
menaced with destruction, and, at the same time, noted the advan-
tages which had resulted from the affiliation of the above colleges
to New and King's respectively, he resolved on the institution of a
grammar school (on the site of his chantry) which should stand
in similar relation to St John's college, Cambridge. Among those
who had enriched themselves from the spoils of the dissolved
monasteries was Sir Anthony Denny, an old 'Pauline,' and also a
member of St John's; and, possibly, it was some misgiving with
respect to the sources of much of his acquired wealth that
led him, in his later years, to contemplate an act of reparation
and establish Sedbergh school on a firm foundation. St John's
still preserves the letter (1549), composed by Roger Ascham, in
which the college authorities thank the knight for his services, and,
after observing that Sedbergh has always sent up excellent
scholars, represent themselves as still by no means free from
anxiety with regard to its fate. It was not, indeed, until after
1 The sense in which the term wit' is used by Aubrey (Lives, II, ii, 525) differs,
probably, from that in which it is en ployed by Hacket (see post, p. 334), who
belonged to an earlier generation, and it may be questioned whether Savile himself
used the word. It was not until after the restoration that it came to denote ingenuity
of contrivance rather than intellectual capacity.
>


## p. 330 (#346) ############################################

330
English Grammar Schools
a
Lupton and Sir Anthony had both been dead, the former eleven
years, the latter about two, that, in February 1551, the royal grant
was issued for the establishment of a free grammar school, to which
St John's college was to nominate the master on condition that it
appropriated two fellowships and eight scholarships for ‘scollers of
Sedberg'L-an item of evidence which serves to show that, side by
side with the process of confiscation which went on during the
reign of Edward, there were other forces in operation, some of
which, at least, served not only to stay the hand of the despoiler,
but, also, to call into existence a succession of new foundations.
That the main impulse in connection with this latter movement
proceeded from the young king himself hardly admits of reasonable
doubt. In the language of Freeman, 'it was the one act' in
Edward's reign 'in which the public good was at all thought of,'
and the king, ‘of his own act, applied a part of the revenues of the
suppressed colleges and chantries to the foundation of that great
system of grammar schools which bear his name. ' The preamble
of the royal charter given to the school at Louth (the town where
the Lincolnshire rising in 1534 first broke out), in the fifth year
of his reign, may be cited as an illustration of the convictions by
which Edward, throughout, was actuated :
"We have,' says this document, 'always coveted, with a most exceeding,
vehement, and ardent desire, that good literature and discipline might be
diffused and propagated throughout all parts of our Kingdom, as wherein
the best government and administration of affairs consists; and therefore,
with no small earnestness, have we been intent on the liberal institution of
Youth, that it may be brought up to science, in places of our Kingdom most
proper and suitable for such functions, it being, as it were, the foundation
and growth of our Commonwealth2. '
In some cases, indeed, as, for example, at Bedford and at Morpeth
(both 1552) and at St Albans (1553), the initiative proceeded from the
mayor and burgesses of the community. In others, a like design was
carried into effect only through private benevolence, as at Whit-
church (1550) and at Leeds (1552); while, in not a few cases, the
,
endowment was altogether inadequate and eventually died out, and
the school with it. But, after due allowance for such deductions,
it remains undeniable that, in this, the twentieth century, the
foundations at Bath, Birmingham, Bradford, Bury St Edmund's,
Chelmsford, Crediton, Grantham, Lichfield, Ludlow (in Shropshire),
Norwich, Sherborne, Skipton, Tonbridge, Wisbech, are to be seen as
not merely existing, but, for the most part, flourishing, institutions,
1 Baker's Hist. of St John's College (ed. Mayor), 1. 374.
2 Carlisle, N. , Endowed Grammar Schools, I, 822.


## p. 331 (#347) ############################################

Schools of Edward VI .
а
331
standing in direct connection with the universities, and dignified
by the names of a long succession of distinguished men whom,
in the course of the three centuries and a half that have elapsed
since their creation or re-endowment by the youthful Edward,
they have educated within their walls. The endeavour that has
been made to represent Edward himself as a mere tool in the
hands of his ministers, and the numerous endowments that still bear
his name as having been so largely absorbed by the cupidity of
his courtiers as altogether to nullify their legitimate application,
is, indeed, substantially rebutted by the above enumeration.
During the reign of Mary, there followed a marked diminution
in the number of new foundations; but the grammar schools at
Oundle (1556), Repton (1557) and Brentwood (1557) received their
charters, these being the most noteworthy examples, and the two
latter having been endowed by private benefactors. Soon after
the accession of Elizabeth, however, the movement acquired fresh
force under the influence of Burghley and archbishop Parker, and
upwards of one hundred and thirty free grammar schools trace
back their beginning to her reign. With the accession of James,
his able minister Salisbury might plausibly have urged, amid the
financial disorder with which he had to contend, that, so much having
recently been done, the further endowment of new centres might
be left to a more convenient season. This course, however, the
evidence shows, neither he nor his successor was inclined to pursue;
and, although the monarch himself had no more notion of economy
than Edward, and his reign lasted only half as long as that of his
immediate predecessor, the number of schools founded during the
period was, proportionably, greater. But, inasmuch as, in the
.
southern and eastern counties, the want had already, to a great
extent, been supplied, it was chiefly in the west, the midlands and
the north, that the new foundations rose, and these, again, for the
most part, where neither monastery nor chantry had previously
existed-although at Repton it had been the design of the founder,
Sir John Port, to found a chantry school.
In the meantime, in the capital itself there had risen up those
great schools which, alike in their conception and administration,
presented a singular contrast to the exclusiveness and immobility
of Eton and Winchester. Erasmus had given it as his opinion
that there was no better guardian of such institutions than the
married citizen, the cives conjugati, a point with respect to which
his varied experience of seats of learning, both abroad and in
England, certainly entitled him to be heard, and a view to which
V
TE
po
1.


## p. 332 (#348) ############################################

332 English Grammar Schools
subsequent history lends considerable support. The civic founder
assumed, indeed, in relation to education, an attitude in singular
contrast to that of the courtly despoiler. ‘Like as a father pitieth
his children,' so the wealthy merchants of London, roused, it
may be, in the first instance, to a sense of their duty by appeals
from divines and philanthropists, proved equal to a great
occasion, and gave liberally of their substance to the institution
and maintenance of those historic foundations which have en-
titled the memories of John Colet, Sir Thomas White and Thomas
Sutton, to take rank with those of the noblest benefactors of
their country. The school founded (1509) by dean Colet, with
William Lily for its master, still used the Aeditio, or accidence,
compiled by the former and the Latin Syntax of the latter? (both
in 1509 and in English), as well as the less elementary Syntax
written by Lily in Latin (1513), compilations which may, indeed,
be regarded as the original of all the sixteenth and seventeenth
century Latin grammars in use in the schools of England; while
Nowell's Catechism, either in its longer or its abbreviated form-
the choice between the Latin and the English version being left to
the discretion of the master-may be said to have been the cor-
responding manual of religious instruction for nearly the same
period, its use, in one form or the other, being made imperative on
all schoolmasters by the canons issued under Bancroft's auspices
in 1604. Meanwhile, St Paul's school had continued to prosper until
it became the pride and admiration of London. Its catholicity-
its doors being open 'to the children of all nations and countries
indifferently'—the discernment manifest in every detail alike of
its curriculum and of its discipline, together with the sound sense
and scientific insight which had guided the construction and arrange-
ment of its new buildings, had won for the school an almost un-
rivalled reputation, which was further enhanced when Richard
Mulcaster? was appointed to the office of highmaster. His suc-
cessor, Alexander Gill the elder, numbered John Milton among his
pupils, and deserves mention here as one who, in his Logonomia
Anglica, showed that he was well read in the poets of his day.
Under the same auspices, and with the same governors, had been
founded (1541) the Mercers' school, which rose on the site of the
ancient hospital of St Thomas of Accon, one of the once famous order
1 For an account of these two manuals, see Foster Watson's English Grammar
Schools to 1660, chap. xv. See, also, ante, vol. II, pp. 427-430, as to the curriculum
in English schools.
2 As to Mulcaster, see ante, vol. III, pp. 435, 436.


## p. 333 (#349) ############################################

Westminster
333
pi
ac
33
2
of the Knights Hospitallers. The house of that order had been closed
in 1538; but, three years later, it was opened as a free grammar
school, and already reckoned Colet, Sir Thomas Gresham and
Davenant (afterwards bishop of Salisbury) among its alumni;
while, to quote the language of Carlisle, it subsequently 'vied, both
in number and eminence with the greatest schools in London and
in the disputations of scholars on festival days? . '
At Westminster, the existence of the school might be traced
back to the fourteenth century, the roll of the treasury of queen
Eleanor's manors recording, in the year 1386—7, a payment to
the master of grammar and 22 boys; but Henry VIII first
established it on a definite basis. During the reign of Elizabeth,
the school had been brought into direct relation with Trinity
college, Cambridge; and, in 1575, Gabriel Goodman, dean of
Westminster, had succeeded in introducing some novel provisions
in the regulations laid down by his predecessor, among them
that relating to the admission of scholars, whereby it was now
enacted that no boy should be admitted under the age of eight
or allowed to stay after eighteen-limitations rendered necessary
by the fact that parents would sometimes send their children
when scarcely over five. Gabriel Goodman, notable as having
been a member of three Cambridge colleges in succession, and
a benefactor of the university, was, throughout his life, an active
promoter of education and learning. In his capacity of dean, he
may, indeed, seem somewhat dwarfed in comparison with his two
successors—bishop Andrewes, and the last of the ecclesiastical
lord chancellors, John Williams. But, both the latter had some
cause to be grateful to their predecessor for his thoughtful
bequest of that pleasant college retreat at Chiswick, where the
elms which he had planted afforded to subsequent generations
grateful shade in summer and 'a retiring place' from infection
when the plague visited the capital. Of Andrewes, Hacket tells us
that he never walked to Chiswick for his recreation without a
brace of the young fry; and, in that way-faring leisure had a
singular dexterity to fill those narrow vessels with a funnel; while,
at the college itself, he often
sent for the uppermost scholars to his lodgings at night, and kept them with
him from eight till eleven, unfolding to them the best rudiments of the Greek
tongue, and the elements of the Hebrew Grammar, and all this he did to
boys without any compulsion of correction; nay, I never heard him utter so
much as a word of austerity among us.
efilet
1 Endowed Grammar Schools, II, 42.


## p. 334 (#350) ############################################

334
English Grammar Schools
Of Williams himself, his biographer tells us that
he was assiduous in the school, and miss'd not sometimes every week, if he
were resident in the College, both to dictate lectures to the several classes,
and to take account of them. The choicest wits had never such encourage-
ment for praise, and reward 1.
Under Williams's successor Laud, further regulations were intro-
duced, among which the most noteworthy was that whereby
the best scholars in the seventh forme were appointed as Tutors to reade and
expound places of Homer, Virgil, Horace, and Euripides, etc. . . . at those times
wherein the scholars were in the schole, in expectation of the Master
The Merchant Taylors' school, founded in 1561, was a no less
conspicuous example of civic liberality and generosity of spirit
than was St Paul's—its statutes, indeed, being little more than a
transcript of those given by Colet to the earlier foundation, and its
scholars, in like manner, being admissible from 'all nations and
countries. ' Within five years of the time when the school was
first opened, on a site between Cannon street and the Thames, it
had already acquired additional importance by the fact that Sir
Thomas White, a member of the company's court, having recently
founded the college of St John the Baptist at Oxford, proceeded,
on drawing up certain additional statutes for the society, to enact
that forty-three scholarships on the foundation should be restricted
to scholars from Merchant Taylors', such scholars to be 'assigned
and named by continual succession,' while, at the same time, he
retained the nominations in his own hands. This measure
suggested, obviously, by the example of the founders of Winchester
and Eton—was at once productive of a considerable increase in
the numbers. In certain additional statutes for his college, the
founder had also directed that, in elections to scholarships, poverty
should weigh in favour of a candidate, and 'Tobie Matthew,' the
president of St John's, had, consequently, sought to evade the
obligation to elect forty-three scholars entirely from a school
in which a lower class element was, at first, undoubtedly large.
He grounded his defence on the plea that the college itself was
depressed by straitened resources. Fortunately, however, sundry
bequests for the specified purpose of aiding poor students after-
6
1 Hacket, Life of Williams, 1, 45.
2 See the account of the daily routine of a Westminster schoolboy's life
(c. 1610—20), printed, from a transcript preserved in the State Paper office, in G. F
Russell Barker's Memoir of Richard Busby (1895), pp. 77–82. The transcript is said
to be in the handwriting of Laud, who was a prebendary of Westminster from 1621
to 1628.


## p. 335 (#351) ############################################

Merchant Taylors'
335
wards fell in, and served, to some extent, to alleviate the pressure;
while the institution of examinations, to be held three times in the
course of the year, did much to raise the school in public estima-
tion; and the company itself, assembled in court, was able to
declare that Merchant Taylors' was 'a schoole for liberty most free,
being open expressly for poore men's children, as well of all
nations as for the merchaunt tailors themselves? ' In 1607, a
banquet, honoured by the presence of the king, when prince Charles
was admitted a freeman of the company and Ben Jonson composed
an interlude for the occasion, seems to have ushered in a period of
growing prosperity, which lasted unbroken until the destruction of
the school buildings in the great fire of 1666. It was not all
parents, however, who could contemplate with equanimity the
prospect of their offspring being educated along with those of the
poor; and when, within a few years after the above banquet,
Thomas Farnaby, a former postmaster of Merton college, well
acquainted with the educational system of the Jesuits, opened a
school in Goldsmiths' alley, it was soon sufficiently obvious that he
had ministered to a genuine want. He had boarders as well as
day scholars; his class-rooms formed an imposing structure and his
whole premises were palatial; his ushers were well drilled in their
special work. His numbers, consequently,soon rose to three hundred,
of whom the great majority were the sons of titled families. He
was himself an excellent classical scholar with a European reputa-
tion. At the royal request, he compiled a new Latin grammar
avowedly designed to supersede the labours of Lily, and also brought
out, in 1612, an annotated text of Juvenal and Persius which went
through numerous editions, and was followed by other classical
authors. It was about the same time, that John Brinsley, at
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, propounded, in his Ludus Literarius, a new
mode of translation, and invested the teaching of grammar with
unprecedented importance by his elaboration of methods. His
austere, though not harsh, discipline inspired parents with more
than usual confidence; but, unfortunately, his puritan sympathies
brought his flourishing school under the episcopal ban, and he was
fain to retire to London.
The majority of the grammar schools throughout the country
1 Staunton, Great Schools of England (ed. 1869), p. 177.
• See Autobiography of Sir John Bramston, the younger (himself one of Farnaby's
pupils), Camden Soc. Pub. (1845), p. 101.
• Foster Watson, in his English Grammar Schools (pp. 262—7), has supplied us
with a detailed comparison of Brinsley's method with that of Roger Ascham.


## p. 336 (#352) ############################################

336
English Grammar Schools
continued to recruit their numbers from a certain definite area,
represented by the parish or the county in which they had been
founded, according to the conditions prescribed in their respective
charters. Generally speaking, the free school-by which we must
understand 'a school in which learning is given without pay'L
was open to the sons of all freemen within the specified limits. A
public school, on the other hand, was open to the whole kingdom,
and, in some cases, to scholars of other nationalities, and thus,
almost necessarily, involved payment, at least for maintenance or
board. Of the gradual change of the former into the latter, the
foundation of John Lyon, a yeoman of Harrow, affords a remark-
able illustration. In the year 1571, he had procured a charter for
a free grammar school in the village of Harrow-upon-the-Hill, at
which children of the village were to receive gratuitous instruction.
In 1590, having duly endowed the same, he appointed six governors
and created four exhibitions, two at Oxford and two at Cambridge,
of the value of five pounds each. But it was not until the middle
of the seventeenth century that this modest beginning expanded
into a project for attracting the sons of well-to-do parents to a
centre which, by virtue of its healthiness, proximity to the capital
and excellent system of instruction, offered an unprecedented
combination of advantages; while its unrestricted extension was
facilitated by the full discretion originally conferred on the
governors to modify the statutes as they thought fit.
The free school founded at Rugby, in 1567, by Laurence Sheriff,
'citizen and grocer of London,' remained, for a long time, in like
manner, comparatively obscure, being much hampered by the
founder's revocation of a money grant, and deriving, for many years,
but a slender revenue from that 'Conduit Close,' on the outskirts
of London, which afterwards developed into an El Dorado.
1. It has been denied that this was the meaning of “free (grammar) school,” Lat.
libera schola grammaticalis, as the official designation of many schools founded under
Edward VI,' but see Murray's Dictionary, s. v. ' Free,' 32 b, for the evidence in favour
of the affirmative. We have also to bear in mind how largely, in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, teachers, even at the universities, taught gratis, and, more
especially, the Jesuits. A passage cited by Leach, A. F. , in his English Schools at the
Reformation, p. 82, shows clearly, however, the sense in which the term was accepted
in the year 1548, a chantry priest being there described as licensed 'to kepe & gramer
scoole half-free, that ys to saye, taking of scolers lerning gramer 8d. the quarter, and
of others lerning to rede 4d. the quarter,' that is to say, receiving payment of only &
moiety.
? See Letter from Samuel Butler, D. D. , to Henry Brougham, Esq. , M. P. , 1821, in
which the writer, himself master of Shrewsbury, assumes the correctness of the above
definition. Printed in Baker's History of St John's College (ed. Mayor), 11, 933—4.


## p. 337 (#353) ############################################

Shrewsbury and Christ's Hospital 337
6
The annals of Shrewsbury present us with a complete contrast.
Endowed by Edward VI, at the joint petition of the burgesses of
the town and the gentlemen of the county, its charter remained
in abeyance throughout the reign of Mary; and it first rose into
repute under the rule of Thomas Ashton, fellow of St John's
college, Cambridge, in the reign of Elizabeth. Ashton was himself
entrusted with the compilation of the statutes, wherein it was
enjoined that, in all admissions, the 'godliest, poorest, and best
learned' should be preferred. Shrewsbury, moreover, had the
whole of Shropshire at its back, and the first register of admissions
(1562), containing two hundred and eighty-nine names, among them
sons of knights and esquires, showed the proportion of 'strangers'
to 'townsmen’ to be unusually large. In 1564, Philip Sidney
and Fulke Greville were admitted on the same day; and, under
John Meighen, a layman, who filled the office of headmaster more
than half a century (1583—1635), the numbers rose rapidly, so
that Camden, in 1586, could venture to declare that Shrewsbury
was 'the best filled school of all England. ' The relations main-
tained by Shrewsbury school with St John's college help us to follow
its subsequent history; and, from the correspondence that went on
between the two foundations, we learn that the fortunes of the
school, in the reign of James I, passed through a period of decline:
so much so, indeed, that, in 1627, the bailiffs report that the masters
are resigning, “to the generall grief of the Towne,' and that the
school is 'in very great decay. '
Of the five schools which rose within the city walls of the
capital, none appealed more strongly to civic sympathy than that
of Christ's Hospital, especially designed for ‘young fatherless
children,' who were to be admitted to receive both maintenance
and education in the ancient buildings which had formerly given
shelter to the suppressed community of the Grey Friars. The
foundation, along with the other royal hospitals, had been
marked out for endowment both by Henry VIII and by his son,
and it was only eleven days before the death of the latter
that the young king signed the charter whereby the governors
were to be allowed to receive land in mortmain or to acquire it
to the value of 'foure thousand marks by the yeare. But, to
quote the words of its historian, Christ's Hospital owed its
start, as it has owed its steady continuance in well-doing, to
the generosity of the citizens of London'; and the pressing
needs of the poorer London population may be discerned in the
1 Annals of Christ's Hospital (ed. 1908), p. 31.
22
E. L. VII.
CH, XIV.


## p. 338 (#354) ############################################

338
English Grammar Schools
fact, that all that was requisite for admission was a certificate, that
'the child was above four years of age and born in wedlock,' and
that its father was a freeman. Unfortunately, there had been no
definite apportionment of the original endowment among the
ent hospitals, and, amid the conflicting claims of these institu-
tions, those of the school were passed over. Had it not been for
the liberality of its own governors, indeed, the new foundation
would, probably, have been either dissolved, or compelled to send
adrift a large proportion of the four hundred children to which,
towards the close of the sixteenth century, it gave shelter and
instruction. At the critical juncture, however, permanent relief
was afforded by dame Ramsey (widow of a former lord mayor),
through whose munificence the school came into possession of
estates then producing four hundred pounds a year, together with
a fund for the maintenance of four scholars at the university, as
well as the advowsons of five livings. In the time of William
Camden, the historian-himself an alumnus of the school, and,
subsequently, headmaster (1593) of Westminster school - the
numbers had reached six hundred.
In the fabric which had been the house of another sup-
pressed religious order, the same that traced back its origin to
the Grande Chartreuse in southern France, Charterhouse began
its existence in 1611. Its founder, Thomas Sutton, a native of
Lincoln, was a successful government official, whose views had
been enlarged by travel, who was conversant with several modern
languages and who had also gained considerable military experience
as an officer in the regular forces under Elizabeth. But his chief
aim, throughout life, was the acquisition of wealth; and, at the age
of fifty, he further augmented what was already a large fortune by
marriage with a wealthy widow. His wife, however, bore him no
children; and, having settled in London, he formed the resolve
of devoting his vast means (he was supposed to be the wealthiest
commoner in England) to the foundation of a hospital and free
school within the precincts of an ancient mansion, which, since the
dissolution of the Carthusian order, had been the residence of
successive members of the nobility, and was now purchased by
Sutton from Thomas, earl of Suffolk, for £13,000. The premises of
Howard house, as it had before been designated, included, not
only divers courts, a wilderness, orchards, walks and gardens,' but,
also, certain 'mesuages' adjoining, and, consequently, afforded ample
accommodation for both hospital and school. The orders relating
to the latter-first promulgated in 1627—are noteworthy as marking


## p. 339 (#355) ############################################

Charterhouse
339
6
6
>
a distinctive advance in the conception of the public school. It
was required, with respect to each of the forty scholars on the
foundation, that he should come 'sufficiently provided with good
apparel,' that he should be of 'modest and mannerly behaviour,'
'be orderly and seasonably dieted, cleanly and wholesomely lodged. '
None was to be admitted under the age of ten or above fourteen.
The masters were not only enjoined to be moderate in correction,'
but, also, “to observe the nature and ingeny [sic] of their scholars
and instruct them accordingly. ' Latin prayers and collects were
to usher in, and to end, the studies of each day; while the upper
form were to be provided with Greek Testaments for their use in
chapel.
Other foundations, standing in close connection with the capital,
were those of St Saviour's in Southwark (1562) and St Olave's
(1570), both of which represented the voluntary principle, as
originating in the spontaneous action of the inhabitants and being
designed for the free education of sons of parishioners exclusively.
That of Stratford-le-Bow (1617) was founded for the parishes of
Stratford, Bow and Bromley-St-Leonard, by Sir John Jolles, to
afford instruction in 'grammar and Latin. ' ‘Alleyn's College of
God's Gift in Dulwich' (1619), instituted along with certain
almshouses, was opened with a formal ceremony, at which lord
chancellor Bacon presided. Few similar foundations, however,
have offered a more melancholy example of the frustration of
the designs of the founder. It was not until 1858 that the existing
college was established by act of parliament, and put in possession
of ample revenues which, for more than two centuries, had been
misappropriated.
We may here mention that, within the period covered by the
present chapter, was born in Southwark, near by London Bridge,
John Harvard (1607), who, after graduating at Cambridge, where
he was a member of Emmanuel college, set sail for New
England, and left half his estate in endowment of a school or
college devoted to the education of the English and Indian
youth of this country in knowledge and godlynes,' a school which
has developed into the Cambridge of the New world.
With the advance of the seventeenth century, and the growing
influence of puritanism, the position and relations of provincial
grammar schools became, for a time, considerably modified.
Hitherto, the close connection with the universities of most of those
which possessed any endowment—the necessary result of their
scholars being eligible to scholarships or exhibitions at one or
22_2


## p. 340 (#356) ############################################

340
English Grammar Schools
other of the colleges, while the master was generally a graduate
of Oxford or of Cambridge—had led to the education they imparted
being strictly classical in character and modelled on the require-
ments of a university curriculum. In Rutland, for example, the
statutes and ordinances given by Robert Johnson (archdeacon of
Leicester, 1599-1625), for the free grammar schools which he
founded at Oakham and Uppingbam, and drawn up in the first
year of the reign of Charles I, were strictly on the traditional
lines—the twenty-four governors being required to be chiefly
'parsons, including the bishop, dean and archdeacon of the diocese,
a‘knight, esquire, or gentleman' being only occasionally admissible;
the master was to be a ‘master of arts, and diligent in his place,
painful in the educating of children in good learning and religion,
such as can make a Greek and Latin verse,'—the usher 'a godly,
learned, and discreet man, one that can make true Latin, both in
prose and verse,' and bound ‘not to disgrace the Schoolmaster or
animate the scholars in undutifulness towards him. ' Such were
the conditions prescribed even by one who was the close friend of
Laurence Chaderton, master of Emmanuel college, Cambridge
(under whom that society assumed its especially puritan character),
and who sent his son, Abraham Johnson, to be educated there, with
the express sanction of the founder, Sir Walter Mildmay. In fact,
the influence of the local clergy, in the earlier part of the century,
made it difficult for a founder, desirous of introducing any innova-
tions with respect either to subjects taught or methods of in-
struction, to open a school, that claimed to be preparatory to the
universities, with reasonable prospect of success.
In the course of another ten years, however, the ascendency
gained by presbyterians and independents, first in the West-
minster assembly and, subsequently, in parliament, began to
operate, eventually culminating in the expulsion of the Anglican
clergy from both Oxford and Cambridge; and, however much such
a revolution in the character and composition of those bodies might
be deprecated, it could hardly be maintained that their condition
during the reigns of James I and his son was on a level with the
requirements of the times. In each, the course of studies was too
narrow, the discipline lax and the cost of living, for the ordinary
student, holding neither scholarship nor exhibition, a serious
obstacle. Among puritans and members of the church of England
alike, accordingly, those parents who attached importance to the
religious element in the education of their sons, and who could
afford to retain the services of a private tutor, often preferred to


## p. 341 (#357) ############################################

Summary
341
cam
keep them at home; but, if unable to do this, they would send
them to a 'private grammar school,' where Latin, Greek and,
sometimes, Hebrew, would be taught, although rather with reference
to Scriptural studies than the acquirement of a classical knowledge
of those languages. With families of the upper class, again, it was
a common practice for the eldest son, as soon as he reached the
age when he would otherwise have gone to the university, to be
sent to travel abroad with his tutor; and, with that experience,
the period of tutelage was supposed to reach its consummation. At
the larger public schools, however, it now became not uncommon
for pupils to remain until they had reached the age of nineteen,
or even twenty-at Eton and Westminster this was especially the
case and the maintenance of discipline became somewhat mor
complicated. It is with reference to such conditions as these that
John Locke, who, educated at Westminster under Busby and,
afterwards, as senior student and lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford
had had ample opportunities for forming an opinion, summed up
the comparative advantages of home and public school education
in the following words:
Being abroad [i. e. at a public school], 'tis true, will make your son bolder
and better able to bustle and shift among boys of his own age; and the
emulation of school fellows often puts life and industry into young lads. But
till you can find a school, wherein it is possible for the master to look after
the manners of his scholars, and can show as great effects of his care of
forming their minds to virtue, and their carriage to good breeding, as of
forming their tongues to the learned languages, you must confess that you
have a strange value for words, when, preferring the languages of the ancient
Greeks and Romans to that which made 'em such brave men,-you think it
worth while to hazard your son's innocence and virtue for a little Greek and
Latini,
In other words, it was the aim of John Locke to place the
emphasis on education rather than on instruction ; and, throughout
the period with which we are concerned, there appears to have
been a desire on the part of founders to give the schoolmaster
a somewhat larger discretion. At Ashford in Kent, it is true,
Sir Norton Knatchbull and his nephew, although both of them
distinguished as scholars and patrons of learning, had retained
the limitation of the school which the former had founded (1632),
allowing it to remain as that of 'a free school for the instruction
of children of the inhabitants in Latin and Greek’; but, at Audlem
in Cheshire, founded by two citizens of London some ten years
later, their design is described as being the free instruction of the
youth of the parish, ‘in such authors of the English, Latin, and
ht
>
rating
1 Locke, Thoughts concerning Education (ed. Quick, R. H. ), p. 46.
>


## p. 342 (#358) ############################################

342
English Grammar Schools
Greek tongues as are usually read in such schools'; while Robert
Lever, in 1641, founded his school at Bolton-le-Moors in Lancashire,
for like instruction, not only in grammar and classical learning, but,
also, 'in writing, arithmetic, geography, navigation, mathematics,
and modern languages. ' Other founders preferred to use less
definite terms; and, in Huntingdonshire, the new school at Ramsey
(recently redeemed from the fenland) was, by mutual agreement
(1656), designated as 'for the education of the youth in the best
ways of religion and learning'-for which a precedent had been
set at Kidderminster, where, in 1634 (long prior to the association
of the school with Worcester college, Oxford), the words used were,
‘in good literature and learning'; while, at Bradford, incorporated
in 1662, we find ‘for the better bringing up of children and youth
in grammar and other good learning and literature. '
Generally speaking, the profession of a schoolmaster, at this
period, was only too truly described by a high authority, namely
archdeacon Plume (fellow of Christ's college, Cambridge, and
founder of the Plumian professorship in that university), as being
'in most places’ ‘so slightly provided for, that it was undertaken
out of necessity, and only as a step to other preferment''; while, in
1654, we find the preacher of the funeral sermon for Thomas Comber,
master of Trinity college in the same university, describing him,
when an usher at Horsham, as 'not like those now a days who
make their scholars to hate the Muses by presenting them in the
shapes of fiends and furies? ' This severity, not to say brutality,
in enforcing discipline, appears to have increased, rather than
diminished, subsequently to the restoration, and Plume insists
on the superiority, in this respect, of the schools attached to
cathedral and collegiate churches' over other grammar schools
throughout the country, where, he goes on to say,
schoolmasters are of late years so fanciful, inducing new methods and com-
pendiums of teaching which tend to nothing but loss of time and ignorance 3.
1 Account of Hacket, prefixed to his Century of Sermons, by Thomas Plume, D. D.
(1675), p. iv.
* Sermon at the Funerall of Dr Comber, by R[obert] B[oreman), B. D. (1654), p. 4.
3 Account of Hacket (u. s. ), p. xix.


## p. 343 (#359) ############################################

CHAPTER XV
THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH JOURNALISM
In its origin, journalism was not the child of the printing press.
The germ of it is to be found in the circular letters sent round
after Agincourt and other medieval battles; and the profession of
a writer of 'letters of news' or 'of intelligence' dates from the
establishment of regular postal services.
Long before this, however, statesmen had found it necessary to
have a constant supply of news. In the days of queen Elizabeth,
Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, founded a staff of clerks in order
to provide himself with news. His establishment for this purpose
vied with that of the government itself. His clerks, Anthony
Bacon, Sir Henry Wotton, Cuffe, Reynolds and Temple, so plentifully
supplied him with intelligence that they were one of the sources
of his power. But these were not journalists writing for the public;
they were simply retainers of a great noble, members of a class of
whom the cultured and intelligent John Chamberlain, corre-
spondent of James I's ambassador, Dudley Carleton, is the chief.
Chamberlain's letters are numerous, and give graphic pictures of
life in London at the court of James I 1.
A long time elapsed before English journalism could call the
printing press to its aid. The royal prerogative in the circulation
of news, the vexatious licensing system, the regulations of the Star
,
chamber, together with the religious strife of the times, all com-
bined to prevent the publication of any sort of periodical until
1622, and all journals of domestic news until 1641, when the great
rebellion was about to begin.
of ,
[Printing] bath been a pestilent midwife to those accursed brats, Error in
the Church and Sedition in the State. Nor indeed, if a man may dare to
speak it, are the governors themselves wholly blameless for such incon-
veniences. For Printing being ever accounted among the Regalia of every
1 As to 'intelligencers,' cf. ante, chap. vin.


## p. 344 (#360) ############################################

344 The Beginnings of English Journalism
>
government, as well as coining etc. , it should be looked on with such a jealous
and strict eye, there should be such a circumspect care of prevention, and
such painful pursuance of misdemeanours as would be required against the
most dangerous crimes 1.
Thus wrote a pamphleteer, in defence of Oliver Cromwell
during the great press persecution of 1653, and the statement may
be taken as fairly representing the mind of all parties throughout
the seventeenth century.
The first traces of journalism in the printing press were in the
broadside ballads about battles and tragical events of the day. To
these were soon added isolated pamphlets usually termed Relations
of news; but pamphlets of this nature, describing domestic events,
were rare before 1640. In the meantime, periodical pamphlets had
sprung into existence on the continent; and these constituted the
bulk of the sources from which the English Relations were taken.
One of these books of news,'a chronicle of the wars in Germany, pub-
lished half yearly at Cologne', was written in Latin and had a large
circulation in England. This was the model upon which subsequent
English periodicals based themselves. Nevertheless, it evidently
dealt too much with affairs of state to allow it to be regularly
translated.
After the marriage in 1613 of princess Elizabeth with the
elector palatine, and the subsequent German wars, an English
periodical could not long be delayed. In May 1622, Thomas
Archer and Nicholas Bourne were authorised to issue periodically
pamphlets dealing with foreign wars. These periodicals usually
appeared at intervals of five days or a week, were not at first
numbered and never at any time had a regular running title.
This last device, properly characterised as a 'catchword,' did not
come into being until the year 1642, when it was occasioned by
competition. Other stationers, of whom Nathaniel Butter was
chief, joined Archer and Bourne as publishers, and, in 1625, Archer
alone appears to have published a periodical in competition with
Butter and Bourne. He made the first attempt at a 'catchword'
on the title of his periodical by styling himself (not the pamphlet)
'Mercurius Britannicus'-evidently modelling himself in this on
‘Mercurius Gallobelgicus. ' The headings of these pamphlets
usually varied according to their themes; but they were generally
* Sedition Scourg'd, or a View of that Rascally and Venemous Paper entituled; a
charge of High Treason exhibited against Oliver Cromwell Esq. , etc. , printed 20 October
1653, and probably written by John Hall.
2 The first number appeared in March 1594 and was written by Michael Jansen, of
Doccum in West Friesland, under the pseudonym Mercurius Gallobelgicus'; other
writers succeeded him.
6
- : ;
.
i 1! ona


## p. 345 (#361) ############################################

Gainsford and the Corantos
345
6
spoken of as the Coranto or current' of news that is, a
'relation' which ran on, instead of being confined to one pamphlet.
Sometimes, another Italian word, Novella, was also applied to the
Relations. For example, Joseph Mead wrote to a friend on
8 November 1623, 'I send you to-day besides the Corranto, a
double novella to the ordinary intelligence'—the Relation, in that
case, being the story of the fall of a building in which a number of
Catholics were listening to a sermon. Nevertheless, all Corantos
dealt exclusively with foreign news, down to the year 1641.
These Corantos were the subject of much ridicule, particularly
at the hands of Ben Jonson. Indeed, so strong a vein of personal
animosity towards captain Francis Gainsford, who, probably, wrote
the earlier Corantos, and towards Chamberlain, his probable pro-
tector, is to be noticed in Jonson’s masques and in his Staple of
Newes, that it may be surmised that, at some time or other, Jonson's
conduct in the wars in the Low Countries had been unfavourably
described by Gainsford. Be that as it may, the ill repute which
Jonson contrived to fasten upon the profession of the author of a
newsbook survived, and survived unjustly, for many years.
On 17 October 1632, the Star chamber finally prohibited the
printing of all Gazettes and news from foreign parts, as well
Butter and Bournes as others,' and, thenceforward, until 20
December 1638, no Corantos appeared. On the last date,
Butter and Bourne, by royal letters patent, were granted the
monopoly of printing foreign news: ‘they paying yearly towards
the repair of St. Pauls the sum of £10. ' No. 1 of the new 'news-
book’ was dated the same day, with the title An abstract of some
speciall forreigne occurrences brought down to the weekly newes of
the 20 of December. Anthony à Wood tells us that William Watts of
Caius college, who was also an Oxford doctor of divinity, wrote more
than 40 of these newsbooks,"containing the occurrences done in the
wars between the King of Sweden and the Germans. There was a
total absence of considered editorial comment in these newsbooks,
nothing but bare translations being permitted. The preface to the
first number is a very good example of the terminology in use :
6
The Currantiers to the Readers. Gentle Reader. This intelligencer, the
Curranto, having been long silenced and now permitted by authority to
speake again, presents you here at first with such things as passed some
months since; not because we conceive that they are absolutely Novels unto
you; but first, because there is fraud in generalities, we thought fit to
acquaint you with each particular: and, secondly, that by these antecedente
you may better understand the consequents which we shall now publish weekly
as heretofore.


## p. 346 (#362) ############################################

346 The Beginnings of English Journalism
Difficulties with the licenser soon followed; the Corantos were
again suppressed, reappeared and, finally, vanished altogether
among the shoals of pamphlets pouring from the press in 1641
and 1642. With the passing of the Coranto, came the 'news-
book' or Diurnall of domestic news,
In abolishing the Star chamber (5 July 1641), the last thing
which the Long parliament had in view was to grant liberty
to the press. Preparations for a censorship were at once
taken in hand, the delay until June 1643 in carrying them into
effect being occasioned solely by the struggle with the king. In
November 1641, parliament encroached upon the royal prerogative
by permitting Diurnalls of its proceedings (to which other news
was added) to be published under the imprimatur of its clerks.
There was but one post a week from London at this time, on
Tuesday, and the result of the permission was that, in a week or
two, as many as fifteen Diurnalls, undistinguishable save by their
contents and (occasionally) by the printers' or booksellers' names
attached, appeared every Monday, to the ruin of the scriveners,
who had been in the habit of sending out letters of news every
week. Copyright (at the time not supposed to exist at common
law) had been endangered by the abolition of the Star chamber's
licensers; and, if we bear in mind the scurrility which had previously
characterised political and religious pamphleteers and broadside
writers, it is not surprising to find that the crowd of counterfeit
Diurnalls and even more numerous Relations were dishonest pro-
ductions. Throughout the year 1642, both Houses were extremely
busy in punishing writers and printers, particularly of Relations;
a process only terminated in 1643 by the appointment of a
licenser-Henry Walley, clerk to the company of stationers
recognition of the 'catchword' or newspaper title, protection
of copyright and the wholesale stamping out of the forging,
counterfeiting and, occasionally, blasphemous writers of Relations.
Henceforward, journalists were a recognised body, their periodicals
became easily distinguishable and the Relations accompanying
them can be marked off and identified.
Of the vast, unique and practically complete Thomason
collection of tracts of the times, extending over the period
from 1641 to 1660, at least one third consists of newsbooks, and,
when to this are added the Relations and other tracts allied to
* A catalogue of this, in chronological order (each piece having been dated by
Thomason on the day he purchased it), was printed in 1908. The dates are nearly
always the days of publication and have been accepted in the text.


## p. 347 (#363) ############################################

wale
347
Huth
Pecke's Perfect Diurnall
bai
Det
12
the newsbooks, more than one half the total collection of over
22,000 pieces is to be ascribed directly or indirectly to journalists
of the day and to their associates.
To identify the writers and describe their work critically is, to
a great extent, the task of the student of history rather than that
of the student of literature ; for it is in their political and religious
significance that the greatest interest lies. Nevertheless, all the
main features of the modern newspaper were attained for a time;
the work of the descriptive reporter, the war correspondent and
considered editorial comment continually cropped up in the most
unexpected manner, and, occasionally, from the most unexpected
persons. These newsbooks were usually sold at a penny (about
four times the value of our modern penny) and, when there was
any repression of their number or their news, they were largely
supplemented by the uncensored letters of news posted with
them. Quantities of these newsletters are to be found among
the Clarke papers at Worcester college, Oxford. At their best,
the newsbooks, as they were called, consisted of two sheets, i. e.
16 pages quarto, and, whatever their size, were invariably called
books. ' A sheet was a pamphlet and nothing else. Throughout
the Stationers' registers, the term 'table’ is uniformly used for a
'broadside': 'news-sheet' and 'newspaper' were never used.
The first of the patriarchs of English journalism—the man who
first wrote purely English news—was Samuel Pecke, a scrivener
with a little stall in Westminster hall. A presbyterian enemy,
while attacking his moral character, admits that he did at
first labour for the best intelligence. Since he did not excite
'
much animosity in his opponents, the remark may be taken to be
correct. Even Sheppard says that Pecke tried to be impartial.
His Diurnall Occurrences of 1641 and 1642, printed first for
William Cook and, afterwards, for John Okes, Francis Leach and
Francis Coles, were soon followed by A Perfect Diurnall. Pre-
vious to June 1643, there were many counterfeits of this journal,
which lasted to October 1649, and was followed by another
Perfect Diurnall. This last began in December 1649 and ended
in 1655, and, at first, Pecke was only 'sub-author' of it. His
career then ended, and nothing more is known of him. Other
periodicals written by him are A Continuation of Certain Speciall
and Remarkable Passages, published by Leach and Coles in 1642,
and, again, in 1644–5; and a Mercurius Candidus in 1647. He
was twice imprisoned by parliament; once in 1642, for some error in
his intelligence, and, again, in 1646, for publishing the Scots papers.
28
ste
T
6
to
elite


## p. 348 (#364) ############################################

348 The Beginnings of English Journalism
Pecke was a somewhat illiterate writer, and, in his reply to
Cleiveland's Character of a London Diurnall, quotes Hebrew
under the impression that he is citing Greek. Except that he was
the first in the field, and that his news is more reliable than that
of others, there is very little to be said of his work; none of the
later developments, such as the leading article, advertisements
and so forth, originated with him.
Sir John Berkenhead began his Mercurius Aulicus at Oxford
in January 1643, and the appearance of this, the only royalist
periodical for some years, with its contemptuous ridicule of the
dishonest and illiterate parliamentary press, was an important
factor in deciding the two Houses to set on foot their wholly
beneficial licensing regulations in June. Sir John Denham's
Western Wonder has recorded the untruthful manner in which
Hopton's victorious hunting of Chudleigh from Launceston was
described in the Relations, and how an ambuscade on Sourton
down, on 25 April 1643, was magnified into a special intervention
of the Almighty by fire from heaven:
Do you not know not a fortnight ago
How they bragg‘d of a Western Wonder
When a hundred and ten slew five thousand men
With the help of lightning and thunder?
There Hopton was slain again and again
Or else my author did lye
With a new Thanksgiving for the dead who are living
To God and His servant Chidleigh.
A few months later, Mercurius Aulicus was secretly reprinted
in London. The Oxford and the London edition do not invariably
.
contain the same matter; but, apart from this, and from a differ-
ence in size of the two editions (the Oxford one being the smaller),
there is little to mark one from the other.
As a general rule, it may be stated that this periodical,
throughout the year 1643, and, indeed, until the royal fortunes
turned, is trustworthy, and markedly superior in every way to all
its opponents. Mockery was one of Berkenhead's most effective
weapons against his enemies; but (as will be shown) he was not
long to remain unopposed in the exercise of this weapon.
Mercurius Aulicus ended in September 1645; it was succeeded
in the same year by Mercurius Academicus, which lasted until
1646 ; and, until the autumn of 1647, these were the only royalist
periodicals which appeared. It will thus be seen that, save chiefly
in the years 1647 to 1650, there was practically no royalist press


## p. 349 (#365) ############################################

John Dillingham
349
Red
at all. Sir John Berkenhead was, also, the writer of the royalist
Mercurius Bellicus, which appeared for a short time in 1647 and,
again, in 1648. He became licenser of all books under the royal
prerogative at the restoration, before the passing of the licensing
act of 1662, but, except as licenser and friend of Henry Muddiman,
the privileged journalist of the restoration, he had nothing further
to do with journalism.
In spite of the vast number of titles of journals which
appeared between 1643 and the second and final suppression of
the press by Cromwell in 1655, the journalists of the rebellion
were but a small band.