At Westminster, where little poets strive To set a distich upon six and five, Where discipline helps opening buds of sense, And makes his pupils proud with silver pence, I was a poet too.--Cowper.

Among the most eminent of

Old Westminsters

Here, too, was educated Dr. Hinchcliffe, afterwards head-master of the school, and eventually Bishop of Peterborough. Bishop Cary and Dean Liddell were likewise formerly head-masters here.

can show a goodly list of scholars against its rival public schools, as will be seen when we mention the names of Cowley, Dryden, George Herbert, William Cartwright, Nathaniel Lee, Prior, Cowley, Rowe, Giles Fletcher, Jasper Mayne, Churchill, Dyer, Cowper, Southey, and Richard Cumberland, in the world of letters; Sir Harry Vane; the Marquis of Lansdowne, Sir James Graham, the Lord Colchester, and Earl Russell, among statesmen; Sir Christopher Wren; the eloquent and witty preacher, Dr. South; Bishop Atterbury; the celebrated divine and geographer, Hackluyt; the historians Gibbon, Camden, and Froude; the elder Colman; John Locke, the philosopher; Bunbury, whose prints of the early part of George III.'s reign are now so much in demand; John Horne Tooke; Brown Willis, the antiquary; Montagu, Earl of Halifax; Pulteney, Earl of Bath; Murray, Earl of Mansfield; Chief Justice Eardley Wilmot; Archdeacon Nares; Sir George Rose, the wit; and last not least, the Governor-General of India, Warren Hastings. To come to more recent times, the Lord Combermere and the Marquis of Anglesey-both Field-Marshals in the army--were brought up at School: so also were the Marquis of , Dr. Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. T. V. Short, Bishop of St. Asaph, and Dr. G. E. L. Cotton, some time Master of Marlborough College, and afterwards Bishop of Calcutta.

It is well known that Ben Jonson was a scholar here; but it is not equally known that he was sent there by the friendship of Camden, at that time master or usher.

The obligation,

was never forgotten by Jonson, who retained to the end of his life the most affectionate regard for his early benefactor and instructor.

Camden! most reverend head, to whom I owe

All that I am in arts, all that I know.

Here Ben Jonson

wrote all his verses,

Biographiana,

first

in prose, as his master taught him to do; saying that verses stood by sense without either colours or accent

As will be seen by the names mentioned above, School has been particularly rich in poets. Cowper was a pupil here, in the same boarding-house, as he informs us, with Richard Cumberland the author. In explanation of the motto from Cowper which heads this chapter, it should be said that, in the school-days of that poet, it was customary to receive a silver groat for a good exercise of Latin verses. An extraordinarily good set of verses sometimes had the further honour of being sent round the school to be read.

The other day,

I sent my imagination upon a trip

thirty

years behind me. She was very obedient, and at last set me down on the

sixth

form at

Westminster

. Accordingly I

Dr. Busby.

was a schoolboy in high favour with the master, received a silver groat for my exercise, and had the pleasure of seeing it sent from form to form for the admiration of all who were able to understand it.

sweet remuneration was still dispensed in silver pence,

first

literary profits were thus obtained

Glorious

Life of Dryden,

honoured sir.

Lacrymae Musarum.

Cowley's memory is connected with in quite another way; for he was precocious enough to publish a volume of poems whilst a boy at the school.

Hackluyt, the divine and geographer, expressly tells us in the dedication of his great work to Walsingham how much he owed to his early training at Westminstero He tells us that his love of maritime discovery and the researches of naval science displayed itself when he was a Queen's Scholar in

that fruitful nurserie,

whatsoever printed or written discoveries and voyages he found extant either in Greeke, Latine, Italian, Spanish, Portugall, French, or Englishe languages.

We may also name among the scholars here, Drs. Fell and Cyril Jackson, both Deans of ; Philip Henry, the Nonconformist; and the eccentric Edward Wortley Montagu. Of Montagu the story is told that he ran away from the school, and served for more than a year as apprentice to a fisherman at ; then went back to , but ran away again, this time effecting his escape to Oporto. He was M.P. in after life for Huntingdonshire and for Bossiney; he died in .

Sir Francis Burdett, the future popular member for the City of , was educated at School, and used to tell in after life how he too had run away from it in company with another youngster of his own age; it is, however, on record that he was sent away for taking part in a rebellion against the head-master, Dr. Smith. Such is the goodly roll of those poets, theologians, scholars, warriors and statesmen who, when young, were here qualified to serve God and their country, in Church and in State.

We have mentioned above, amongst the more celebrated scholars educated here, the name of [extra_illustrations.3.476.1] , the able, energetic, and successful Governor-General of India, whose impeachment before the in Hall occupied years, and ended in a virtual acquittal. He went into college as head of his election in . At he became a great friend of the future Lord Mansfield, whose friendship lasted though life. On leaving he was destined at for Oxford; but the offer of a writership in Bengal coming at the moment turned his ambition in another channel, and his splendid Indian career was the result. If any of our readers desire to form a general opinion on the vexed question of Warren Hastings' conduct in India, they had better read Lord Thurlow's summing up of the evidence brought forward against him: it will be found in the Lords' Debates for February, March, and .

It may not be out of place here to allude to the famous

Warren Hastings' Cup,

Alumnis Regiis Scholae Westmin. ipsi plerique Alumni d. d. d. Warren Hastings, Elijah Impey, George Templer,

Of the celebrated Dr. Busby, head-master here in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., many anecdotes are told. Amongst others it is said that when the king day came to see the school, he persisted in keeping his hat on his head in the royal presence. of the lords or gentlemen in waiting remonstrated with him on this breach of courtly etiquette; but the worthy doctor replied that he had done it on purpose, for

it would never do for his boys to think that there was anybody superior to himself.

Dr. Busby was a great man! he whipped my grandfather, a very great man! I should have gone to him myself, if

I had not been a blockhead; a very great man!

A wonderful fruitbearing rod was that of Busby's,

The Rev. Mr. Mason, in of his letters to Horace Walpole, tells an anecdote which shows to how great an extent School was regarded during the last century as a school for dignitaries of the Church. He says,

There was a bishop--I think it was Sprat--who thanked God that he became a bishop, though he was

not

educated at

Westminster

.

I, on the contrary, would not have been educated there for the best pair of lawn sleeves in the kingdom. But

de gustibus non disputandum.

The list of boys admitted into the College, as far as is known, goes no further back than .

In the , published in , is the following advertisement, put in without note or comment, but clearly a

skit

This is to give notice to all noblemen with large families and small estates, decay'd gentlemen, gamesters and others, that in the great school in

Westminster

boys are thoroughly instructed in all parts of useful learning. The said school is furnish'd with a master and

one

usher, who does all the business himself, and keeps his scholars in such order that the master never attends till upon some great occasion. This school is of a more excellent foundation than any that are yet known; for the scholars, instead of paying for their learning, are rewarded by every lesson that the usher gives them, provided they are perfect in it, and have it at their fingers' ends. N.B. This is no free school.

Like Harrow and Eton of the present day, School would seem formerly to have had a publication of its own, for we find that the , a new

periodical miscellany by Timothy Touchstone, of

St. Peter's

College,

Westminster

,

Thanks to the liberality of Sir David Dundas and Mr. C. W. Williams-Wynn, the college is in possession of a fine collection of ancient and modern coins, which has been further increased by purchases from the duplicates of the .

That as a school is proud of its royal foundress may be inferred from the fact that a club of old men was established in the year , called the

Elizabethan,

In , the Crimean Memorial in the having become somewhat dilapidated, a sum of towards its repair was voted by the Elizabethan Club.

The boys of College have enjoyed or special privileges on account of their close connection with the Abbey and Palace of , and of being a royal foundation. For instance, they have the right of being present with a member's order to hear the debates in the House of Commons--a privilege, as we know, highly valued by such men as Lord John Russell and Sir James Graham-and also that of having seats in the Abbey at the coronation of the sovereign. Thus in an elaborate

Account of the Ceremonies observed in the Coronation of King James II. and his Consort,

when the Queen entered the choir, the King's Scholars of

Westminster

School, in number

forty

, all in surplices, being placed in a gallery adjoining to the great organ, entertained her Majesty with this short prayer or salutation, Vivat Regina (naming her Majesty's name); which they continued to sing until his Majesty entered the choir, whom they entertained in like manner with this prayer or salutation, Vivat Rex (naming his Majesty's name); which they continued to sing until his Majesty ascended the throne.

We have alluded in the previous chapter to the bar of iron which still divides the

upper

lower

throwing the pancake

hid it in his clothes, as the Spartan boy hid the fox, and courageously retained it in spite of the fierce assaults of which he was the object. He conveyed it at last to the head-master's house, where the learned doctor, no doubt, was sitting in full canonicals and in breathless anxiety to await the issue of the cook's performance. Mr. Hwas, however, refused payment of the guinea, on the plea that the cook had not thrown the pancake over the bar, and the affair was therefore null and void. Quick as had been Mr. H--'s movements, it would seem that those of the master were not less so, for that gentleman, with a laudable regard for the economical distribution of the Abbey funds, had dispatched a trusty messenger intimating that, in consequence of the cook's misfortune, the guinea might be saved.

The bar above mentioned originally had attached to it a curtain whereby

hangs a tale,

Although situated in the metropolis, the School affords every opportunity for athletic sports. Racquets, football, and cricket have each their own ground assigned to them--the in ; the last in the large enclosure in , consisting of or acres, originally an open common forming part of what were called

Tothill Fields

.

It would be, of course, beyond our province to tell of the honours once won by boys as oarsmen, or at football; but to their prowess in the stern art of war the column in the , facing the entrance to , amply testifies; and the late Duke of Wellington always affirmed that the best officers on his staff had been public school boys.

In former days, when the river at was pure, the boys were able to practise rowing at their will; and so great was their aquatic prowess that at Oxford about the year the

Old Westminsters

Annual Report of the Elizabethan Club for

1871

.

As an instance of the strange origin of the slang which is handed down by tradition from

sky,

Volsci.

town and gown

Romans,

Volscians.

Volsci

sci

sky

It may be added that in of the volumes of the

British Essayists

The ordinary public entrance to is under a Gothic archway, which opens into the . This archway is in the centre of a lofty range of stone-built mansions, of modern construction, but erected in a mediaeval style of architecture, from the designs of Sir G. Gilbert Scott, in keeping with the venerable Abbey close by. The (the name of which commemorates the right of sanctuary, of which we shall have more to say in our next chapter) adjoins the Jerusalem Chamber on the west, and forms the north side of . The alterations and transformations that have been effected in this locality in recent years have been so great that, as a writer in the of , says,

when passing into the north-west angle of

Dean's Yard

,

one

finds his ingenuity somewhat taxed in attempting to identify the old with the present site.

Here, in former years, the time-worn mouldings of a broad arch, filled in with rubble and brickwork, indicated a remnant of the Gate House Prison, memorable as having been that from which the gallant Sir Walter Raleigh was taken to execution. Beside this prison, and in its rear, ran a small narrow lane leading down to the , with a hatch and wicket-gate on the left leading into . On the right was a stonemason's yard, several small, but neatly-built tenements, in which quiet lodgings for gentlemen were advertised by the small card in the window; and these, with a public-house, terminated the length of , and occupied the ground on which now stand the modern medieval block of buildings above mentioned.

It was,

a retired and quiet nook, the silence of which was only broken by the clink on the anvil of the neighbouring forge, and the noise of the mason's saw.

Immediately before us, in the angle made by and Little , stood the quaint old tart-shop so well known to

Westminsters

Mother Beakley's,

It was a little square tower of timber, lath, and plaster, pierced with several lights of leaden casements; but the lower, or shop window, was a curiosity of stout cross-beam and upright framing, the superficial contents of which more than equalled that of the yellow time-stained and discoloured glass which filled the spaces.

Here the morning draught of milk was vended to the early scholar, for it was partly dairy, partly early breakfast-house, a place whence messages were taken, or to which they were brought, and parcels delivered. The descent to this primitive Temple of Diana was by several stone steps, for the pavement of the street was about level with the window-sill, and the paved kitchen presented a heterogeneous assemblage of caps, straps of books, hockey-sticks, rolls, cricket-balls, and milkcans, the presiding genius over which attended to the minor domestic requirements of the Westminster boy.

Many a generation must have passed away during the existence of this relic, which had probably formed some portion of the eleemosynary buildings, and must have been a familiar object with the earliest scholars of the foundation. The primitive club-room must have been known to every boy that filled a place in Westminster School, from the days of Dr. Busby to those of Dr. Goodenough.

But as great a change has taken place in the habits and manners of the boys as in the locality, and the regulations in connection with them are now considerably improved. What Old Westminster boy but would re, member the battles of the Scholars' Green?

In the old days there existed but a post and rail fence around it, and a short cut across it was frequently a temptation to the pedestrian; but woe to the trespasser if the boys were there. At that time, when the noble art of self-defence was fashionable, the Westminster boy was proud of displaying his prowess on any such occasion. There were no police then, and the population of the town could not have been one-half if a third of the present. A street-keeper or Bow-Street officer generally contrived to keep out of the way, and so the fight went on uninterruptedly until satisfaction had been obtained.

On some such occasions an obstinate coaly has been known to exercise the active muscular powers of a King's Scholar for a hour or more. If Greek met not Greek, he nevertheless objected neither to coaly, baker, dustman, sweep, nor other if trespasser, without further fear of the disgrace save that of being worsted in the encounter.

A considerable amount of Vandalism mingled itself with what then passed for manly independent spirit. Within a quarter of a mile of the spot there existed a cock-pit, at which matches were fought at frequent intervals; and many a green coat and tops, whilst betting on the barbarous sport of the time, would remember the locality in Entrance To Westminster School. associations of his boyhood with his college experiences of the immediate neighbourhood.

In passing through the Dean's Yard toward the cloisters you seem shut away from the noise and bustle of the world, and the Scholars' playground, so frequently the scene of dispute, is surrounded by an iron railing. Latterly, in the summer of each year the specimens of the window gardening in the neighbourhood are exhibited here, and prizes are awarded to the successful competitors in this humble but painstaking horticulture.

The old watchman's box under the College wall has disappeared, and his lanthorn long since been extinguished. The street-keeper has been supplanted by the helmeted policeman, in whose belted tunic we trace no resemblance to the square and long-tailed skirts and chimney-pot hat of his antecedent brother in 1832.

If many of our old relics have disappeared, much of coarseness and rudeness of manners has been swept away with them; and in the recollection of an old site and comparing it with the present we feel that there has been a slow but vast change in the habits, feelings, and manners of the population; . . but, as in the human constitution the too rapid or the too slow circulation will be found equally detrimental to health, we can only desire that the boon of progress may never disturb the good which lies at the bottom of many of our institutions, although much of the rubbish which has accumulated in and about them may with advantage be got rid of.

That was the chief playground of the boys before they obtained their acres in , is evident from a

Declamation

Lusus Westmonasterienses.

Has aedes juxta nostris patet area ludis, Ulmorumque vetus protegit umbra locum. Hic pueri, quoties Musae gravis interruptum, Haud indignanti Pallade, pendet opus, Se fundunt apibus similes, quas vere Calymne Nascenti multo pascit odora thymo: Hic ludunt, volucrum ritu.

During the progress of certain improvements

carried out in

1815

,

some very ancient architectural remains were discovered in

Dean's Yard

, portions, according to long tradition, of an old granary converted into a dormitory; at right angles to it were the brewhouse and bakehouse.

kept a Welsh servant, to improve him in that language, for the understanding of our antiquities.

According to Alexander Nowell, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of Richard I., lived in a house opposite the school. Here, in , was born Joseph Wilcocks, Dean of , and successively Bishop of Gloucester and Rochester, whom Pope Clement VIII. called

the blessed heretic.

becoming a Christian.

What?

Mr. Wesley, what a hypocrite you must be! we believed you to be a Christian years ago.

possessed,

a remarkable talent of uttering the most striking truths with simplicity and brevity.

In these hymns,

there is no doggerel, no botches, nothing put in to patch up the rhyme; no feeble expletives. Here are (allow me to say) both the purity, the strength, and the elegance of the English language, and at the same time the utmost simplicity and plainness, suited to every capacity.

Great alteration has been made in the appearance of within the last half century, particularly on the north and west sides; and the central space, which, as above stated, formerly served as the playground for the boys, and is now known as

The Elms,

No. in is the office of Queen Anne's Bounty. This institution, which is not, perhaps, a charity in the ordinary sense of the word, was established by Act of Parliament in , for the augmentation of poor livings. The name

Queen Anne's Bounty,

The

first

-fruits

Chambers's Encyclopaedia

the

first

whole year's profit of all spiritual preferments,

tenths

one

-

tenth

of their annual profits, both chargeable according to the ancient declared value of the benefice; but the poorer livings are now exempted from the tax.

The Governors of the Bounty of Queen Anne, for the Augmentation of the Maintenance of the Poor Clergy,

In a house, now demolished, between and the , lived and died, in ,

To Arms!

Britons, Strike Home!

The Rev. Joseph Nightingale, in the volume of the

Beauties of England and Wales,

Dean's Yard

is certainly an odd mixture of decayed grandeur, modern ruins, strong old flinty walls, and crumbling new bricks. Even the very trees nod in unison with falling structures and broken rails, and the earth, in many a rise and fall, shows some remote effects of Henry VIII.'s dissolution of monasteries. There is a silent monastic air in the small court from which is the entrance to the Jerusalem Chamber, now extremely different from its ancient state, having undergone various alterations from the Reformation to the present time.

[extra_illustrations.3.476.1] Warren Hastings