A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



apparently an accession of boarders to fill these 

 upper chambers and the school increased. For 

 next year Johnson proposed to find two ushers 

 at 30 a year between them, which proposal 

 was accepted by the Corporation. John Peake, 

 who had been admitted a sizar of St. John's 

 College, Cambridge, on 29 June 1706, and, 

 though he came from Newcastle-under-Lyne, 

 was probably a relation of John Peake, mayor 

 of Nottingham in 1702 and 1709, was one of 

 them. He apparently did not graduate. 



Johnson had already published A Treatise of 

 Genders (1703) and Grammatical Commentaries 

 (1706) before being appointed to Nottingham, 

 and he now, in 1707, put forth a Defence of the 

 latter. The books were an attack on Lilly's, 

 or the authorized, grammar, which the more 

 advanced educationalists, as Milton had done in 

 his English Latin Grammar, oddly called Accidence 

 commenced Grammar, were beginning to criticize 

 and endeavour to supersede by something more 

 scientific. In 1709 he published a Latin poem 

 on Nottingham races, entitled Cursus equestris 

 Nottinghamiensis, Carmen Hexametrum, written in 

 Virgilian style and treating the young lords, who 

 in those happy days rode their own horses, as 

 Aeneid heroes. In 1714 he published Nodes 

 Nottinghamiae, discussions on grammatical points 

 after the manner of Aulus Gellius' Nodes Atticae. 

 In 1 7 1 7 he issued from the Nottingham printing- 

 house of William Ayscough, in Bridlesmith 

 Gate, Aristarchus Anti-Bentk'ianus. This was a 

 furious attack on Bentley, in which he purported 

 ' to show 46 mistakes of Bentley, some occurring 

 close together and such that he ought to blush 

 for them, in his commentary on the First Book 

 of Horace's Odes, as well as 90 most disgraceful 

 slips in Latinity in the notes to the whole work.' 

 He sought to obtain a market for this in Germany 

 by sending a copy to James Gronovius, of 

 Leyden, whom Bentley had ' gnawed with his 

 savage wit,' and asking him to get the book- 

 sellers to take unbound copies at 2s. apiece. But 

 Gronovius died before the letter reached him. 

 Johnson makes some points against Bentley, 

 though not of any great importance, and the 

 book is so disfigured by abuse and exaggerations, 

 making mountains out of molehills, that it seems 

 probable the author's mind was already giving 

 way. 



In 1718 Johnson published Additions and 

 Emendations to Grammatical Commentaries. In 

 June the Town Council resolved that, as he had 

 neglected his duties as master and had been for 

 three months and upwards delirious and nan compos 

 mentis, ' he was unfit to hold office,' and should be 

 displaced and a new master appointed in his 

 room. 



Mr. William Smeaton, of Queens' College, 

 Cambridge, B.A. 1711, who had just taken his 

 Master's degree (1718), was appointed and duly 

 certified to the Archbishop of York for his 



licence. Johnson, however, contested his dis- 

 missal and an action of ejectment was brought 

 against him. Dr. Dixon quotes from Gilbert 

 Wakefield's Memoirs : ' The advocate of the 

 Corporation, after much personal reflection and 

 unblushing rudeness, said : " In short, Mr. John- 

 son, that has happened to you which Felix 

 imputed to St. Paul ' Much learning hath made 

 thee mad.'" To this Johnson replied, that 

 whatever might be the case with himself, he was 

 persuaded that the excellent judge upon the 

 bench and the honourable court would agree 

 with him . . . that the gentleman who made 

 this remark would never be mad from the same 



cause. 



This, and the production of a testimonial 

 to his qualifications, given by the Corporation 

 themselves, to enable him to procure another 

 place, was the case for Johnson. In December 

 1719, however, he executed a deed of resigna- 

 tion in consideration of a pension, and received 

 j4O down and 20 for costs. Two years later 

 he was found lying with his head downwards in a 

 shallow stream, outside the town, and the register 

 of St. Nicholas records : ' 1721, Mr. Richard 

 Johnson, clerk, author of ye Gramat. Comment, 

 burd. Oct. 26.' So that there is little doubt 

 that counsel was right, and that Johnson was 

 mad, whether from much learning or from other 

 causes, and committed suicide while of unsound 

 mind. 



Before the legal proceedings were over, Smea- 

 ton had gone, and Mr. William Saunders, of 

 Trinity Hall, Cambridge, M.A. 1714, had been 

 appointed in his place. On his resignation, Mr. 

 Miles was appointed and certified to the arch- 

 bishop, but, before entering on office, retired. 

 A Mr. Hardy was master in 1731, when a pupil 

 of his entered at St. John's College, Cambridge. 

 John Womack, of Corpus Christi College, 

 Cambridge, took his place, to be succeeded with- 

 in the year by John Swale or Swaile. A pupil 

 of Swale entered St. John's College, Cambridge, 

 on 20 February 17334. He proved a more 

 permanent official. One of his first acts was to 

 procure the erection of a fireplace in the school, 

 which had apparently till then been unwarmed. 

 This is no particular reflection on Nottingham, 

 as there is a striking passage in a poetical account 

 of Winchester School about 1650 (which used 

 to be attributed to 1560) as to how the school 

 faced the sun, and the boys warmed themselves 

 in the breath of his mouth, there being no fire- 

 place until the present school was built in 1689. 

 It was not till after the Restoration that we find 

 anywhere fireplaces in schools. At the same 

 time the salary of the head master and usher 

 the latter being George Bettison was increased. 

 Mr. Swale restored the fortunes of the school, 

 as we find sons of a parson at Southwell and of 

 an esquire at Shenton, who had been at the school 

 under him, admitted at St. John's College, Cam- 



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