And on our mill-horses swift will we ride, With pillowes and pannells, as we shall provide." In this most statelye sort, rode they unto the court; The merry old miller with hands on his side; The king and his nobles, that heard of their coming, And so is the squire of courage soe free." Quoth Dicke, "A bots on you! do you know mee?" The king and the courtiers laugh at this heartily, While the king taketh them both by the hand; With the court dames and maids, like to the queen of spades, The millers wife did soe orderly stand, A milk-maids courtesye at every word; And downe all the folkes were set to the board. There the king royally, in princelye majestye, Quoth Sir John Cockle, "I'll pledge you a pottle, "Why art thou angry?" quoth our king merrilye; I thought thou wouldst pledge me in ale and wine heartily." Quoth Dicke, "You are like to stay till I have dined: You feed us with twatling dishes soe small; Thus in great merriment was the time wholly spent, Here with the ladyes such sport they did make, Then Sir John Cockle the king called unto him, And of merry Sherwood made him o'erseer, And gave him out of hand three hundred pound yearlye: And once a quarter let's here have your view; THOMAS FULLER. Dr. Thomas Fuller was born in 1608, was educated at Cambridge, and by his extraordinary talents attained to great eminence as a preacher and author. His memory was prodigious; he was familiar with local traditions, and fond of gathering quaint anecdotes and homely traits of character. His wit was exhaustless, sometimes leading him into unworthy conceits, but lending a constant charm to his vigorous sentences. Of his works the best known is The Worthies of England, a magazine of useful, curious and trivial matters. He espoused the cause of the king during the civil war, but returned at the close to his clerical duties in London. He died in 1661. THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER. THERE is scarce any profession in the commonwealth 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 schoolmasters 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 only 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 disheartened from doing their best with the miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to their children and slaves to their parents. Fourth ly, being grown rich, they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the proxy of the usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself. His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some. men had as well be schoolboys as schoolmasters, to be tied 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 fabric 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 schoolmaster'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 schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar of boys' natures, and reduce them all-saving some few exceptions - to these general rules : — I. 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. These think with the hare so they count the rest of soon enough to the post, 2. Those that are ingenious and idle. in the fable, that running with snails their schoolfellows - they shall come though sleeping a good while before their starting. O, a good rod would finely take them napping. 3. Those that are dull and dilligent. 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 jewels of the country, and therefore their dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That schoolmaster 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 razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such boys 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 mechanics 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 scholars 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 sons' 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 custom in some places of commuting whipping into money, and ransoming boys from the rod at a set price. If he hath a stubborn youth, correction-proof, 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 schoolmaster better answereth the name paidotribes1 than paidagogos, rather tearing his scholar's 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. Such an Orbilius mars more scholars 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. 1 Boy-bruiser. 2 An instructor; literally, a boy's guide. SAMUEL BUTLER. Samuel Butler was born in 1612. It is doubtful whether he ever received any higher education than that of the grammar school in Worcester, near his birthplace. He lived for some time in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's officers, and being a person of lively disposition, took an extreme dislike to the sad manners and severe discipline of the household. In 1663 he published the first part of Hudibras, in which the austerities of the Puritan leaders are ridiculed with a brilliant and merciless wit. Two other parts appeared subsequently, but the poem was never finished. One would think that a work which turned the whole current of popular feeling in favor of the restored monarch would have met with a reward, but Butler is only one of the many servants of the selfish profligate left to languish in poverty. He died in 1680. His remains were followed to the grave by a few persons only, and the funeral expenses were paid by a friend. The lapse of time has somewhat dulled the edge of Butler's satire, but many of his couplets are embedded in our speech as in mosaic ; and certainly, until the publication of The Biglow Papers in our own day, no burlesque poera has appeared at all comparable to Hudibras. HUDIBRAS. CANTO I. WHEN civil dudgeon first grew high, And made them fight, like mad or drunk, With long-eared rout, to battle sounded; And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, Was beat with fist instead of a stick; Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling, And out he rode a colonelling. We grant, although he had much wit, He was very shy of using it, As men their best apparel do. Beside 'tis known he could speak Greek |