livery in cloth" (now represented by an annual present of an academic gown), and at the same time to render their account to the "Master, Wardens, and Assistants of the Fellowship." The governors appear to have, or at any rate claim they possess, powers of altering, amending, and dispensing with the Ordinances. However, they say they are enjoined by the founder's ordinances to do so only under the advice of "good lettered and learned men."

The most singular statute is that in which he bound all St. Paul's children " every Childermas daye to come to Paule's church and hear the Childe Bishop sermon; and after that be at the Hygh Masse, and each of them offer a penny to the Childe Bishop, and with them the Maisters and Surveyors of the Scole." Regarding this engrafted paganism, for its curious ceremonial bears a close resemblance to the old Roman Saturnalia, Strype, the antiquary, gives the following interesting comments :

Because the way of celebrating St. Nicholas's day (or Childermas day) is odd and strange, let me here add a word or two. The memory of this saint and bishop, Nicholas" is bound up "with the Popish festival which tells us that while he lay in his cradle he fasted Wednesdays and Fridays, sucking but once a day on those days; this meekness and simplicity, the proper virtues of children, he maintained from his childhood as long as he lived; and therefore, says the festival, children do worship him before all other saints. The boy bishop was one of the choristers chosen by the rest. From St. Nicholas's day to Innocents' day at night, this boy bore the name of a bishop, and the state habit too, wearing the mitre and the pastoral staff, and the rest of the Pontifical attire ; nay, and reading the holy offices.'

If he (the boy-bishop) died in the interval, he was buried in the habit, or represented in it, as at Salisbury. The very curious "reasons" given for this anachronistic survival are that "it gave a spirit to the children, and that it excited them to seek by diligent study to qualify for the real mitre."

Walking one day in Erasmus's garden, Erasmus, at

Colet's request, promised to undertake the writing of a school book for St. Paul's, for a reward of fifteen angels. Erasmus, accordingly, wrote his De Copia Verborum, and in a letter to Colet said (1512); "You have erected a most beautiful and noble School, where, with the most elect and proved masters, the British youth may imbibe at once both Christ and learning." The dean delighted in pithy and sententious inscriptions of a religious cast, which he set up all over his school, and which were standing there at the time of the Fire of London. At the upper end of the school facing the door was placed the high-master's Cathedra, or chair, to sit enthroned in state in class time, and over that was a "lovely Effigy, of exquisite Art, of the head of Dr. Colet, cut as it seemed either in Stone or Wood, with an inscription over the head." After the Great Fire of London "a curious Man and Searcher into the City Antiquities, found it in the Rubbish, and observed that it was cast and hollow by a curious art now Lost.”

According to his statutes, an autograph copy of which he delivered to his friend Lilly, the grammarian, Colet ordained that a certain number (two) of specially appointed governors of the Mercers' Company, to have all the charge, care and rules of the school, were

once in the year to give up their Accounts to the Master, Warden, and Assistants, and that to be about Candlemas, three days before and three days after. Then a little dinner to be made, and to call to Account the receiving of all the Estate of the School. And the Master and Warden to receive a Noble, the two other Wardens five shillings, the surveyor two shillings, and for their riding to visit the Lands IIS., the Clerk of the Mercery 3s. 4d., with some other gifts. That which was shared that Day in Rewards and Charges to be put into the Treasury of the School. What remained to be given to the Fellowship of the Mercery to the maintaining and repairing all belonging to the School from Time to Time. The surplusage, above Repairs and Casualties, to be put into a Coffer of Iron, given by Colet, standing in their Hall. And there, from Year to Year, to remain apart by itself that it might

appear how the School of itself maintained itself. And, at length, over and above the whole Livelihood, if the said School grow to any further charge to the Mercery that then also it might appear, to the Laud, and Praise and Mercy of the said Fellowship."

Lastly, that he left it to the said Company to add and diminish to and from this his Book, and to supply it in every default, and also to declare in it, as Time, Place and just Occasion should require."

Old Thomas Fuller said of Colet " .. it is hard to say whether he left better Laws for the government, or Lands for maintenance thereof. . . . For my own part I behold Collet's act herein, not onely prudential, but something Propheticall, as foreseeing the ruine of Church lands, and fearing that this his school, if made an Ecclesiastical Appendent might in the fall of Church lands get a bruise, if not lose a limb, thereby."

Of the barbarous discipline pursued in, and much in vogue at, the contemporary English public schools, Erasmus, who had suffered terribly from such at Bois-leDuc monastery and in the Low Countries, relates an anecdote which is believed by some to refer to Colet and the two masters of St. Paul's. There is uncertainty as to the applicability of this denunciation to Colet, but as the thing is of general interest we have translated it in full from the original Latin. Erasmus writes :

"I know a certain theologian, indeed at home of the greatest name, to the Soul of whom no cruelty towards pupils was satisfying, although he might have masters actively inflicting blows. This same man held singular opinions with regard to the subdual of the natural courage and disposition, and to the gaining of dominion over the playfulness of youth. Never does he think of entertainment in the presence of his pupils, unless in what manner they may expire in the comedy's joyful catastrophe; so, after food had been taken, one or other would be dragged forth, thought deserving to be lacerated with rods, and notwithstanding undeserved punishment he would bear himself courageously. Truly [this was] in order that they might be accustomed to the chastisement with rods. Once, I myself was standing near, when, out of caprice, there was summoned

from dinner a boy ten years old (I think). But recently had he come fresh from his mother into that flock. Let it be said beforehand, that his mother was a pious woman in an especial degree by whom the boy had been earnestly recommended to the master's care. Soon, in order that he may have an opportunity of beating him, he begins to upbraid him with I know not what harshness, because just before this the boy has not behaved himself well. He gives a nod to the prefect of the college in order that he should punish him upon whom he [the theologian] has compassion. So this fellow immediately punished the dejected boy as though (one might say) he had committed sacrilege. Twice the theologian interposed: Satis est! Satis est! (Enough! Enough!); but that deaf public gaol executioner performed with fervour the torture until the boy was on the point of fainting. Thereupon, the theologian turned to us: Nothing has he been guilty of,' says he, but he deserved to be humbled.' For, in a few words, it is the custom. Who ever freed a slave from the bondage of ignorance in that way? Yea, who is, indeed, the real, stupid ass?" De pueris instituendis. Erasmus.

Even this account, however, is quite eclipsed by the description by one Ravisius Textor, Rector of the University of Paris in the sixteenth century, of the barbarities practised by pedagogues upon helpless boys. Two schoolmasters appear before Rhadamanthus, judge in the Halls of the Dead. He enquires of one :

"

"What crimes formerly did this man commit ? Lachesis (the accusing Fate): "Dreadful to relate, he struck bodies with cruel lashes. This man mutilated youths' shoulders and bones with whips, out of their shoulders he drew forth streams of blood. Neither has he been afraid to trample with his feet upon tender boys, nor to tug with his hands their long yellow hair." Rhad.: as the pedagogue implores mercy : Thou scoundrel, shalt thou listen seeking favours? Begone, wretched man! Thou shalt be hidden in the furnace shut in the gloomy infernal regions, the poison-bearing serpent shall drag apart thy foul limbs. O Persephone, thou mayest bear off this torturer, and with fire mayest thou consume him; the whips he has used upon boys, he shall himself endure !"

The original of the above is in a Latin dialogue of Textor's, but it may be said that to such an extreme were

these barbarous punishments carried that sometimes they killed the suffering pupil. Indeed, Royal pupils were commonly provided with "whipping-boys," in whom, for any offence, they were flogged by proxy! Surely, the acme of servility and a logical consequence of the horrible doctrine of the Atonement !

It should be said that Colet was particularly generous in assigning £35 to his high-master; a sum computed to have been a quarter of the contemporary Lord Chancellor's income.

In 1602, a change was made in the disposition of the surplus income derived from the "Coletine" endowments and estates, which income, instead of being placed, according to the founder's direction, in a "coffur of iren," is henceforth to be "employed either in exhibitions to poor scholars proceeding from Paul's School to the Universities, or to be lent out to poor young men of the said Company of Mercers, upon good security."