A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



debarred of any farther promotion, because not 

 well looked on by Mr. Rouse and Mr. Lockier, 

 the late pretended Provosts,' had been already 

 admitted. 



This promoted usher was an Etonian, who 

 had headed the roll to King's in 1632, so that 

 he was quite old for those days, being forty 

 before he became master. He held office for 

 eleven years, retiring on a fellowship in 1671. 

 His first usher was John Price (King's 1645). 

 The next was William Home (King's 1656), 

 son of Thomas Home, the master. He after- 

 wards became head master of Harrow, to which 

 school from this time Eton stood in much the 

 same position of foster-mother as Winchester had 

 done to Eton. It is to its Etonian masters 

 modelling it on Eton that Harrow is indebted 

 for its later greatness. 



Anthony Wood has preserved U2 some interest- 

 ing notes on the school at this date : 



At Eaton the Mr came in at 7 & took themes, read- 

 ing the good & bad, commending the one & shameing 

 the other, together with punishing it. He went from 

 one forme to another till 9, then they went to break- 

 fast and at 10 to prayers & so came no more to school 

 at morning, but after dinner were obliged to goe to 

 exercise in the fields at skittles, etc., till one a clock. 



Also an hour after, the Mr came in & staid till 

 three, then the schollars went to their beaver till 4 & 

 then came to school till 5. They had theme & verse 

 every night. They translated out of verse into prose 

 & i contra, & out of latine in to Greek. Some time 

 translated an oracion into English. 



At first they began with the parts of a theme, then 

 threw them off. 



They repeated all their verse without book at 

 week's end & construed & parsed exactly every lesson, 

 but learnt al[l] their prose without book. They learnt 

 nomenclaturae at breakings up. 



At Eaton they read Demosthenes, Homer, Zeno- 

 phon (lie), Tull[y's] Tusculane Questions, Terence, 

 Juvenal, Persius. They acted Andria. They read 

 Janua Knguarum in theii private studyes. They 

 make verses at 3 in the even and make 30 to 40 lines 

 of Theme by next morning. They make nonsense 

 verses at first. 



They had collections which the master allowed 

 time to peruse. 



He gave them an English Curtius, and he held 

 the Latine one in his hand, & then shewed them 

 their faults. 



They used Winchester phrases. Mr. Montague, 

 the schoolmaster, said Virgil words may serve for 

 prose ; they are so natural and good Latine. 



At the elec[c]ion they have a theme given them over 

 night which they shewed next morning. And then 

 new Themes given them whereupon in half a quarter 

 of an houre they are to turne to a window & make 



2 or 4 Latine verses, & [are] examind to construe 

 some of the Greek and Latin authors they read. 



'Tis easy getting in schollars because there are so 

 many void yearly. 



At Kings Colledge they dispute every other day for 



3 weeks & have declamations on Thursdayes. 



141 Bodl. Rawl. MS. D. 191, fol. 4-6, c. 1670. 



Mr. Davies wrote to Wood : 



Westminster, Winchester and Eaton schollers think 

 none schollers but themselves. 



Discipline seems to have been slack at this 

 time, as in 1665 Provost Meredith found it 

 necessary to provide that ' the publique dores of 

 the Schoole and Longe Chamber shalbe secured by 

 new locks, and the keys . . . taken every night 

 immediately after prayers, and that those schollers 

 whoe shall goe out of the schoole or college any 

 evening, without leave of the Provost, or Vice- 

 Provost shalbe admonished and registered for the 

 first fault ; severely punished for the second, and 

 the third expelled.' Four boys, for going to the 

 ' Christopher,' the celebrated inn which for cen- 

 turies proved a snare to Eton morals, had to read 

 ' a form of repentance ' in school. A few weeks 

 later one of them, Curwin, and another boy, 

 Baker, ' were admonished and whipt and regis- 

 tered for going out of their bounds to Datchet 

 ale-houses and beating the fishermen.' Curwin 

 was, notwithstanding, elected to King's the same 

 year. 



On Meredith's death, Richard Allestree, an 

 old Westminster boy and student of Christ 

 Church, who had fought at Edgehill for the king, 

 had been ejected from Christ Church by the Par- 

 liamentary visitors, and subsequently imprisoned 

 during the Protectorate as a suspected royalist 

 spy, was nominated provost. He was then 

 Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and as 

 such continued to reside at Oxford during the 

 sixteen years of his provostry, only going to Eton 

 for audits and election:.. 



On Mountague's retirement from the master- 

 ship in 1671, another 'alien,' John Rosewell, 

 was elected. He matriculated at Magdalen Hall, 

 Oxford, in 1652, and subsequently became fellow 

 of Corpus Christ! College. He took his B.A. 

 degree in 1655, his M.A. in 1659, and hisB.D. 

 in 1667. His reign is distinguished by the first 

 Eton School list, preserved among the Rawlinson 

 MSS. at the Bodleian, Dr. Rawlinson having in 

 1710 designed a history of the colleges of Win- 

 chester and Eton. It is for the year 1678, and 

 no other list is forthcoming for forty years after. 

 It is written, not printed, on a half sheet of 

 parchment. The school numbered 207, includ- 

 ing nine who were probably choristers. The 

 Vllth form had now disappeared. In the Vlth 

 form there were only eight boys, all collegers, in 

 the Vth form 19 collegers and 19 oppidans. 

 Form I had disappeared, and form II was already 

 disappearing, consisting only of nine collegers and 

 25 oppidans. The Biblers' Seat, if indeed it 

 be intended for a form, consisted of one boy. 

 Oddly enough the collegers numbered 78. But 

 perhaps the eight boys in the Vlth had already 

 been, or were on the point of being, elected for 

 King's. It is remarkable that only one lord, and 

 that a Scotch one, the son of the Earl of Stirling, 



198 



