A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



the account book of the year. 1 Johnson was a humorist, and in his 

 humorous way in this first theme condoles with ' the exiles from 

 Winchester' on the discomforts to which they are subjected. 'Not the 

 least is that through lack of water, you have to draw it from a very deep 

 well, and are yoked like oxen to drag it to the top of a hill.' ' Having 

 no breakfast especially when getting a bigger dinner in consequence, the 

 lack of rods, often playing in a meadow, and not less often hunting in 

 the wood, all these are the sort of discomforts which you bear methinks 

 after the fashion of the poet, " What can't be cured must be endured." ' 

 Their exile was consoled with the performance of a play, 2 probably 

 a dress rehearsal of one being prepared for Christmas. Johnson tells the 

 boys that though much annoyed at their having collected a crowd for it, 

 he had determined to abstain from their persons, especially as he had 

 indulged in strong language, which illustrated in real life some of the 

 characters in the play. A little while after their return to college, 

 apparently at Christmas, he congratulates them on the performance of 

 the previous day, and says that they will be able to boast in their old age 

 of having shared a glory which their ancestors never knew a Greek 

 play. 3 Unhappily the name of the play is not given. The next year 

 Johnson enlarged 4 on the Christmas play which they had lately exhibited, 

 and its educational value in teaching oratory, pronunciation and action, 

 and in raising and lowering the voice ' as you shewed cleverly enough.' 

 These plays were continued long after Johnson's day. Thus there are 

 entries in the .accounts for i 574 ' for putting up a stage and taking up 

 and down, 'domunculos ' or stage houses ' in Hall,' for a ship, i.e. a lamp 

 in that shape, for ' seven ly links ' and a dozen candles ' to light it and 

 for carrying the organ from Chapel to Hall and back for the plays of 

 comedy and tragedy for three nights.' Similar charges of 3 %s. lod. 

 for erecting scenes for comedies in I583, 6 and of 13^. 6d. to two 

 carpenters for making a theatre in 1590, show that the college authori- 

 ties fully appreciated the value of the drama. At least on one occasion, 6 

 apparently on Shrove Tuesday, 1565, Johnson himself wrote the play 

 that was performed, which was of the character of the old Moralities, as he 

 speaks of ' Chastity the daughter of Abstinence, whom I introduced into 

 the comedy,' who was to be admired and followed ' as much as Gluttony, 

 whose daughter Lechery was to be avoided.' But though Abstinence 

 was admirable, the Lenten fast was remitted to the two Universities and 

 to Winchester College, and the boys were invited to render musical 



1 Mackenzie Walcott, p. 255. 'For 1200 short boards for the asylum in the time of the 

 plague,' 1564. 



* Add. MS. 4379, f. 20 (b). 



Tractasse recordor 



Me puero, quse Graeca forent, hie actor et ille 

 Pars aliqua ipse fui, dicetis, et haec erit ilia 

 Quae nunquam proavos decoravit gloria vestros. 



4 f. 88. ' Ludicis istis scenicis, quos publice spectandos nos exhibuimus.' This seems to negative 

 the inference drawn from the entries in the accounts of repairs to the hall that there was a riot and no play. 

 Annals, p. 257. 



6 Benefactions Book under date, Walcott, p. 205. Add. MS. 4379, f. 100. 



312 



