and happiness of commonwealths, he wisely per ceived, consisted in the training up of children to good letters and true religion; for which noble purpose he laid out an immense sum, and would admit no person to bear a share in the expense."

This noble seminary the judicious founder has not clogged with any statute, which might prevent it from being generally useful to the world. Children born in any part of the kingdom, even foreigners of all nations and countries, are capacitated to partake of it's privileges: and he also farther evinced his judgement in giving liberty to declare the sense of his statutes in general,* and to alter or correct, enlarge or diminish them, as should in future times be thought most advantageous for the better government of the school.

These statutes were drawn up by the Dean himself in English, in such a grave and pious strain, that they seem to have been written by one, who was not of the communion of the Romish church. In the prologue he says, that "desiring nothyng more thanne education and bringing uppe children in good manners and literature, in the yere of our Lorde a M. fyve hundred and twelfe, he bylded a scole the estende of Paulis churche, of CLIII. to be taught fre in the same. And ordained there a maister, and a surmaister, and a chapelyn, with sufficient and perpetual stipendes ever to endure; and set

*While he was forming his regulations, says Mr. Dibdin, " he did not fail to keep the presses of Wynkyn de Worde and Pynson pretty constantly at work, by publishing the grammatical Treatises of Grocyn, Linacre, Stanbridge, Lilye, Holte, Whittington, and others for the benefit, as well of the public, as of his own particular circle." (Biblioman. 289.)

patrones and defenders, governours and rulers of that same scole, the most honest and faithful fellowshipe of the mercers of London.” *

As he had been the pious founder of the school, so likewise he laboured to be the perpetual teacher and instructor of the scholars, by drawing up some rudiments of grammar with an abridgement of the principles of religion, and publishing them for the use of the new seminary. This was called Paul's Accidence,' and dedicated to William Lilly, the first master, in an elegant Latin epistle dated August 1, 1513. It contained several excellent rules for the admission and continuance of boys in his school, which were to be read over to the parents, when they first brought their children, for their assent, as the express conditions of their deriving any benefit from the institution. He persuaded Erasmus also to trans

This school More, in one of his letters, compares with the Trojan horse, whence many illustrious men issued to overthrow ignorance and barbarism. Among the eminent persons there educated, are the following: Leland, Camden, Milton, and Cumberland Bishop of Peterborough. John Churchill, afterward Duke of Marlborough, was also a scholar upon this foundation : but he probably did not remain there a sufficient time to make any considerable proficiency in classical literature.

+ His other tracts were the Constitution of the Eight Parts of Speech,' which with alterations and additions forms the Syntax in Lilly's Grammar; Daily Devotions, or the Christian's Morning and Evening Sacrifice;' and Monition to a Godly Life,' supposed by Wood to be the same with A right fruitful Admonition concerning the Order of a good Christian Man's Life;' &c.

Of the custom of the times relating to the education of boys, these statutes furnish a curious picture: "The children shall come into the school in the morning at seven of the clock, both winter and summer, and tarry there until eleven; and re

late from the English The Institution of a Christian Man' (as a catechism) into short and simple Latin verse, for the easy apprehension and recollection of the boys; with many other good essays, both in poetry and in prose, toward directing and securing their principles and morals: and Erasmus upon this occasion dedicated to him his two books, De Copia Verborum ac Rerum,' commending his piety and judgement in having thus consulted the good of his country. To these he added Lactantius, Prudentius, Juvencus, Proba, Sedulius, and Baptista Mantuanus, and such other (he remarks) " as shall be thought convenient, and most to purpose, unto the true Latin speech: all barbary, all corruption, all Latin adulterate, which ignorant blind fools brought into this world, and with the same hath distained and poisoned the old Latin speech, and the veray Roman tongue, which in the time of Tully, and Sallust, and Virgil, and Terence, was used-I say, that filthiness and all such abusion, which the later blind world brought in, which more rather may be called Bloterature' than Literature,' I utterly banish and exclude out of this school."

6

The troubles in which the Dean had involved

turn again at one of the clock, and depart at five, &c. In the school, no time in the year, they shall use tallow-candle in no wise, but only wax-candle at the costs of their friends. Also I will they bring no meat, nor drink, nor bottle; nor use in the school no breakfasts, nor drinkings, in the time of learning, in no wise, &c. I will they use no cock-fighting, nor riding about of victory, nor disputing at St. Bartholomew, which is but foolish babbling and loss of time." The master is then restricted, under the penalty of forty shillings, from granting the boys a holiday, or remedy' (play-day) as it is here called, "except the King, an Archbishop, or a Bishop, present in his own person in the school, desire it."

himself, in the time of Henry VII., by his zeal for the Scriptures, and his attempts to produce a reformation in the lives of the clergy, did not diminish his fortitude and public spirit during the following reign. There is on record indeed a remarkable instance of his manly intrepidity, and of the high esteem in which he stood with Henry VIII.; a prince, whose inclinations it was usually not very safe to oppose. When that monarch was preparing for war against France, Dr. Colet was appointed to preach before him at court. In the discharge of this duty, he inveighed so strongly against the impiety of war in general, that it was thought he would have been either sent to prison, or perhaps subjected to still heavier punishment. But laying aside his ordinary vehemence, the King sent for him, and took so much pains to convince him of the necessity of this particular contest, that the Dean, in a second sermon upon the same subject, enlarged upon the lawfulness and the expediency of going to war for the service of our country. For this discourse the King cordially thanked the preacher, saying to his nobles who attended him; "Well, let every one choose his own doctor, but this shall be mine." then drank graciously to his health, dismissed him with every mark of affection, and promised him any favour which he should ask for himself or for his friends.

He

Beside the dignities and preferment already mentioned, Colet was also rector of the fraternity or guild of Jesus in St. Paul's Church, for which he procured new statutes; one of the chaplains and preachers in ordinary to Henry VIII.; and, if Erasmus is not mistaken, of his privy council. When he was about fifty years of age however, weary of the world, he determined to sequester himself in some

monastery, and there pass the remainder of his days ' in peace and privacy:' and for this purpose he built a convenient house within the precinct of the CharterHouse, near the palace of Sheen or Richmond in Surry, whither he intended, when unable any longer to discharge the duties of his function, to retire. But death prevented him; for, after twice recovering from the sweating-sickness, he had a relapse which carried him off, September 16, 1519, in the fiftythird year of his age. One of his physicians judged his disease to be the dropsy: but upon opening his body no extraordinary symptoms appeared, except some pustulary eruptions upon the capillary vessels of the liver. His corpse was carried from Sheen to London, and by the care of his mother interred in his own cathedral with an humble monument, and the simple inscription (designed by himself) Jo. COLETVS. The company of Mercers however, anxious to show how much they valued him, erected another to his memory with his effigies;* but it was destroyed by the great fire in 1666.

That he seldom appeared as an English author, Erasmus with great probability ascribes to a conscious want of accuracy in his stile, from a too frequent inattention to the rules of grammar. His Latin convocation-sermon, preached in 1511, was printed by Pynson, and Dr. Knight has reprinted it in the Appendix to his Life of Colet, with an old English translation of it supposed to have been made by the Dean himself. It contains a manly, sensible, and spirited attack upon the corruptions of

See the description of it in Sir William Dugdale's History of St. Paul's cathedral.

+ From the version published in the second volume of The Phoenix' an Extract is given, p. 20.