sure, behold that trusty vessel which carried Sir Francis Drake about the world? "Hitherto our discourse hath proceeded of the carriage of masters toward free covenant-servants, not intermedling with their behaviour towards slaves and vassals, whereof we onely report this passage: when Charles the Fifth, Emperour, returning with his fleet from Algier, was extremely beaten with a tempest, and their ships overloaden, he caused them to cast their best horses into the sea, to save the life of many slaves, which, according to the market price, were not so much worth. Are there not many, that, in such a case, had rather save Jack the horse, then Jocky the keeper? And yet those who first called England the purgatory of servants, sure did us much wrong purgatory, itself, being as false in the application to us, as in the doctrine thereof; servants, with us, living generally in as good conditions as in any other countrey. And well may masters consider how easie a transposition it had been for God, to have made him to mount into the saddle that holds the stirrup, and him to sit down at the table who stands by with a trencher." The following character of the good School Master is admirable for its justness and good sense. Fuller seems to have set a proper value on the labours of this estimable class of men. "The good School Master. "There is scarce any profession in the common-wealth more necessary, which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to be these: first, young scholars make this calling their refuge, yea, perchance, before they have taken any degree in the university, commence school masters in the country, as if nothing else were required to set up this profession but only a rod and a ferula. Secondly, others who are able use it onely as a passage to better preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. Thirdly, they are disheartned from doing their best with the miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to their children and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown rich they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the proxie of the usher. But see how well our school master behaves himself. "His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some men had as lieve be school boyes as school masters, to be tyed to the school, as Cooper's Dictionary and Scapula's Lexicon are chained to the desk therein; and though great scholars, and skilful in other arts, are bunglers in this: but God of his goodness hath fitted several men for several callings, that the necessity of church and state, in all conditions, may be provided for. So that he who beholds the fabrick thereof, may say, God hewed out the stone, and appointed it to lie in this very place, for it would fit none other so well, and here it doth most excellent. And thus God mouldeth some for a school master's life, undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it with dexterity and happy success. "He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their books; and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And though it may seem difficult for him in a great school to descend to all particulars, yet experienced school masters may quickly make a grammar of boyes' natures, and reduce them all (saving some few exceptions) to these general rules. "1. Those that are ingenious and industrious. The conjunction of two such planets in a youth presage much good unto him. To such a lad a frown may be a whipping, and a whipping a death; yea, where their master whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Such natures he useth with all gentleness. "2. Those that are ingenious and idle. These think with the hare in the fable, that running with snails (so they count the rest of their school-fellows) they shall come soon enough to the post, though sleeping a good while before their starting. Oh, a good rod would finely take them napping. "3. Those that are dull and diligent. Wines the stronger they be, the more lees they have when they are new. Many boys are muddy-headed till they be clarified with age, and such afterwards prove the best. Bristol diamonds are both bright, and squared, and pointed by nature, and yet are soft and worthless; whereas orient ones in India are rough and rugged naturally. Hard, rugged, and dull natures of youth acquit themselves afterwards the jewells of the countrey, and, therefore, their dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That school master deserves to be beaten himself, who beats nature in a boy for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can make their parts which are naturally sluggish, rise one minute before the hour nature hath appointed. "4. Those that are invincibly dull, and negligent also. Correction may reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the world can never set a rasour's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such boyes he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and boat-makers will choose those crooked pieces of timber which other carpenters refuse. Those may make excellent merchants and mechanicks which will not serve for scholars. "He is able, diligent, and methodical, in his teaching; not leading them rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his schollars may go along with him. "He is and will be known to be an absolute monarch in his school, If cockering mothers proffer him money to purchase their son's exemption from his rod, (to live, as it were, in a peculiar, out of their master's jurisdiction) with disdain he refuseth it, and scorns the late custome in some places of commuting whipping into money, and ransoming boyes from the rod at a set price. If he hath a stubborn youth, correctionproof, he debaseth not his authority by contesting with him, but fairly, if he can, puts him away before his obstinacy hath infected others. "He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a school master better answereth the name παιδολείβης than παιδαγωγός, rather tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than giving them good education. No wonder if his scholars hate the muses, being presented unto them in the shapes of fiends and furies. Junius complains "de insolenti carnificina" of his school master, by whom "conscindebatur flagris septies aut octies in dies singulos." Yea hear the lamentable verses of poor Tusser in his own life: 'From Paul's I went, to Eaton sent, To learn straightwaies the Latine phrase, For fault but small, or none at all, "Such an Orbilius marres more schollars than he makes: their tyranny hath caused many tongues to stammer which spake plain by nature, and whose stuttering at first was nothing else but fears quavering on their speech at their master's presence. And whose mauling them about their heads hath dulled those who in quickness exceeded their master. "He makes his school free to him who sues to him in forma pauperis. And surely learning is the greatest alms that can be given. But he is a beast, who, because the poor scholar cannot pay him his wages, payes the scholar in his whipping. Rather are diligent lads to be encouraged with all excitements to learning. This minds me of what I have heard concerning Mr. Bust, that worthy late school master of Eaton, who would never suffer any wandring begging scholar (such as justly the statute hath ranked in the fore-front of rogues) to come into his school, but would thrust him out with earnestness (however privately charitable unto him) lest his school boyes should be disheartned from their books, by seeing some scholars after their studying in the university preferred to beggery. "He spoils not a good school to make thereof a bad colledge, therein to teach his scholars logick. For besides that logick may have an action of trespess against grammer for encroaching on her liberties, syllogismes are solecismes taught in the school, and oftentimes they are forced afterwards in the university to unlearn the fumbling skill they had before. "Out of his school he is no whit pedantical in carriage or discourse; contenting himself to be rich in Latine, though he doth not gingle with it in every company wherein he comes. "To conclude, let this amongst other motives make school masters careful in their place, that the eminences of their scholars have commended the memories of their schoolmasters to posterity, Nich. Udal, school-master of Eaton, in the reign of King Henry the Eighth. who otherwise in obscurity had altogether been forgotten. Who had ever heard of R. Bond, in Lancashire, but for the breeding of learned Ascham, his scholar? or of Hartgrave, in Brundly school, in the same county, but because he was the first did teach worthy Doctor Whitaker. Nor do I honour the memory of Mulcaster for any thing so much as his scholar, that gulf of learning, Bishop Andrews. This made the Athenians, the day before the great feast of Theseus their founder, to sacrifice a ram to the memory of Conidas, his school master, that first instructed him." Nor is the next character inferior to either of the foregoing. "The general Artist. "I know the general cavil against general learning is this, that aliquis in omnibus est nullus in singulis. He that sips of many arts, drinkes of none. However we must know, that all learning, which is but one grand science, hath so homogeneal a body, that the parts thereof do with a mutuall service relate to, and communicate strength and lustre each to other. Our artist, knowing language to be the key of learning, thus begins. "His tongue being but one by nature, he gets cloven by art and industry. Before the confusion of Babel, all the world was one continent in language; since divided into severall tongues, as several ilands. Grammer is the ship, by benefit whereof we pass from one to another, in the learned languages generally spoken in no countrey. His mother-tongue was like the dull musick of a monochord, which, by study, he turns into the harmony of severall instruments. "He first gaineth skill in the Latine and Greek tongues. On the credit of the former alone he may trade in discourse over all Christendome: but the Greek, though not so generally spoken, is known with no less profit and more pleasure. The joynts of her compounded words are so naturally oyled, that they run nimbly on the tongue; which makes them, though long, never tedious, because significant. Besides, it is full and stately in sound: onely it pities our artist to see the vowels therein rackt in pronouncing them, hanging oftentimes one way by their native force, and haled another by their accents which countermand them. "Hence he proceeds to the Hebrew, the mother-tongue of the world. More pains than quickness of wit is required to get it, and with daily exercise he continues it. Apostacy herein is usual, to fall totally from the language by a little neglect. As for the Arabick, and other oriental languages, he rather makes sallies and incursions into them, than any solemn sitting before them. "Then he applies his study to logick and ethicks. The latter makes a man's soul mannerly and wise; but as for logick, that is the armory of reason, furnisht with all offensive and defensive weapons. There are syllogismes, long swords; enthymems, short daggers; dilemmas, two-edged swords that cut on both sides; sorites, chainshot: and for the defensive, distinctions, which are shields; retortions, which are targets with a pike in the middest of them, both to defend and oppose. From hence he raiseth his studies to the knowledge of physics, the great hall of nature, and metaphysicks the closet thereof; and is carefull not to wade therein so farre, till by subtill distinguishing of notions he confounds himself. "He is skilful in rhetorick, which gives a speech colour, as logick doth favour, and both together beauty. Though some condemne rhetorick as the mother of lies, speaking more than the truth in hyperboles, less in her miosis, otherwise in her metaphors, contrary in her ironies; yet is there excellent use of all these, when disposed of with judgement. Nor is he a stranger to poetry, which is musick in words; nor to musick, which is poetry in sound: both excellent sauce, but they have lived and died poor, that made them their meat. "Mathematicks he moderately studieth to his great contentment. Using it as ballast for his soul, yet to fix it not to stall it; nor suffers he it to be so unmannerly as to justle out other arts. As for judicial astrology (which hath the least judgement in it) this vagrant hath been out of all learned corporations. If our artist lodgeth her in the outrooms of his soul for a night or two, it is rather to hear than believe her relations. "Hence he makes his progress into the study of history. Nestor, who lived three ages, was accounted the wisest man in the world. But the historian may make himself wise, by living as many ages as have past since the beginning of the world. His books enable him to maintain discourse, who, besides the stock of his own experience, may spend on the common purse of his reading. This directs him, in his life, so that he makes the shipwracks of other sea-marks to himself; yea, accidents, which other start from for their strangeness, he welcomes as his wonted acquaintance, having found precedents for them formerly. Without history a man's soul is purblinde, seeing onely the things which almost touch his eyes. "He is well seen in chronology, without which history is but an heap of tales. If, by the laws of the land, he is counted a natural, who hath not wit enough to tell twenty, or to tell his age; he shall not pass with me for wise in learning, who cannot tell the age of the world, and count hundreds of years: I mean not so critically as to solve all doubts arising thence; but that he may be able to give some tolerable account thereof. He is, also, acquainted with cosmography, treating of the world in whole joynts; with chorography, shredding it into countries; and with topography, mincing it into particnlar places. "Thus taking these sciences in their general latitude, he hath finished the round circle or golden ring of the arts; onely he keeps a place for the diamond to be set in, I mean for that predominant profession of law, physick, divinity, or state-policie, which he intends for his principal calling hereafter. In the biographical portion of the book, we meet with lives of Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk, Lord Burleigh, Cambden, Sir Francis Drake, Edward the Black Prince, Queen Elizabeth, Lady Jane Grey, Sir John Markham, Dr. Metcalf, Perkins, Bishop Ridley, Cardinal Wolsey, and Dr. William Whitaker.— They are all good, some of them excellent.-Our limits, unfor |