"He had, as antique stories tell,
A daughter cleaped Dowsabell,
A mayden fayre and free:
And, for she was her father's heire,
Full well she was y-cond the leyre
Of mickle curtesie.

The silke well couth she twist and twine,
And make the fine March pine,*

And with the needle werke:
And she couth helpe the priest to say
His mattins on a holyday,

And sing a psaline in kirke.

She ware a frock of frolicke greene,
Might well beseeme a mayden queene,
Which seemly was to see;

A hood to that so neat and fine,
In colour like the columbine,
Y-wrought full featously.

Her features all as fresh above,
As is the grasse that growes by Dove;
And lyth as lasse of Kent.

Her skin as soft as Lem'ster wooll,
As white as snow on peakish hull,†
Or swanne that swims in Trent.

This mayden in a morne betime

Went forth, when May was in her prime,

To get sweete cetywall,‡

The honey-suckle, the harlocke,

The lilly, and the lady smocke,

To deck her summer hall."

From Percy's Reliques of old English Poetry.

However, the motto from Lady Mary Wortley Montague is too close a description of what the education really was, as far as books were concerned. The rest was really practical.

Hollingshed says, in his time "the females knit or net the nets for sportsmen.

"Fine ferne stitch, finny stitch, new stitch, and chain stitch,

Brave broad stitch, fischer stitch, Irish stitch, and queen's stitch,
The Spanish stitch, rosemary stitch, and mowse stitch,

All these are good, and these we must allow,

And these are everywhere in practice now."

A writer of the days of Queen Bess thus describes a wealthy person's house and the management: "He inhabits a large

*March pine, or March pane, according to Richardson, was a confection of almonds, pistachio nuts, sugar, and rose water. Steevens declares our macaroons to be only debased and diminutive March panes.

† A high hill,

Herb valerian.

building, half castle and half house, crowded with servants, many of whom were only serviceable as fillers up of the blank spaces in the mansion; but as they had been born in his service, so they would of course live and die in it. The family rose at daybreak and assembled at prayers, which were read by the family chaplain. Then came breakfast; after which the master of the household and his sons got on the saddle, went a hunting, followed by some score of mounted attendants; while the lady and her daughters superintended the buttery, prescribed the day's task for the spinning-wheels, dispensed the medicines. to the ailing, concocted all sorts of simples for the sick and infirm, and dealt out bread, meat, and beer to the poor at the gate; then making confections and preserves, spinning and brewing, or embroidering some battle or hunting piece. At noon, to dinner in the great hall; after dinner, some exciting amusements in-door, if weather would not permit gardening or fishing; after supper, the amusing and enlivening madrigals filled up the time till bed-time, at sunset." This writer gives an account of rather a larger library than the one described on pages 114 and 116.

He speaks of six or eight large volumes of Wynken de Worde: this was their miscellaneous reading. "Their religion from the Bible and 'The Practice of Piety;' their Protestantism and horror of Catholicism from Fox's Book of Martyrs ;' their chivalrous lore from Froissart's Chronicles' and the 'Merrye Gests of Robin Hood;' their morality and sentiment from The Seven Wise Masters' or 'The Seven Champions of Christendom.'”

Of the country ladies, those who had not learned the fashions and frivolities of London, we may judge of from what Lord Clarendon tells us in his Life; that his grandfather, in James I.'s time, had never been in London after the death of Elizabeth, though he lived thirty years afterward; and his wife, to whom he had been married forty years, had never once visited the metropolis, of which fact he makes this interesting and important observation : "The wisdom and frugality of that time being such that few gentlemen made journeys to London, or any other expensive journey, but upon important business, and their wives never; by which providence they enjoyed and improved their estates in the country, and kept hospitality, brought up their children well, and were beloved by their neighbours." A lady of this description was chiefly represented as a notable character" (no bad designation) and a quiet drudge. And if she did not become a politician, as those figuring in the London circles generally did, she most commonly settled down into the amiable character of a Lady Bountiful, and occupied herself

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in supplying the poor of the village with money, the industrious with work, the idle and vicious with good counsel and proper rebuke, and the sick with medicines and cordials. In this last department many of them became so presumptuous that no ailment was too hard for them, from a toothache to a pestilence, from the stroke of a cudgel to that of a thunderbolt.

Their remedies for the most part were those of the verriest quackery. One of their favourite remedies for consumption was that which they called snail pottage. This was a whole peck of garden snails washed in small beer, and fried, shells and all, in a frying-pan, with a quantity of earth-worms, mingled with abundance of herbs, spices, and drugs. This curious compound must have been invented by those who believed that “that which will not poison will fatten." In others of their vile preparation there were as much of cruelty as of loathsomeness and absurdity. For instance; to make oil of swallows, some ten or twelve swallows were pounded alive in a mortar, with many other queer ingredients: in making what was called c-k water, the bird had to be plucked alive. Sometimes also the planets were necessary to make the charm successful; as, for instance, one of their medicines into which the tips of crabs' claws entered largely, the rule was, they should be gathered when the sun enters cancer.* Many of the possets and restoratives-in short, the whole which filled this receipt book, would require the nerves as well as the cauldron of the weird sisters to prepare them. The practices in question were chiefly confined to staid elderly ladies, the wife of the nobleman, squire, or vicar, some well-doweried widow or considerate spinster, who, with abundance of means and inclination, had unfortunately, as is too often the case with poor frail mortals, stumbled upon the wrong path. But it ought to admonish us not to interfere in matters which we do not understand; for, though we may be inclined to interfere with the pure motive of good intentions, it should be recollected there is an old maxim, that "the naughty place is said to be paved with good intentions;" if so, good intentions are but a poor excuse.

One of these ladies bound upon such a visit, surrounded, as she was, with much impatience, from her age, her station in life, and benevolent conduct-followed by her loaded abigail, panting and perspiring under the cartel of medicinal benevolences, must have been a formidable, no less than an exhilarating, spectacle. We may conceive the deep and low-muttered curses of the village doctor, whose office was thus reduced to a starving, and perhaps a bloodless, sinecure; the shudder of her patients when her footsteps were heard upon the honey* "The Queen's Closet Opened."

suckle decorated cottage threshold, or when her nostrums were unpacked, to be gulped down under her own eye; and the annoyances she must have inflicted upon those whose cases were considered hopeless, until they must be glad to escape from such unbounded and unfounded benevolences in good earnest.

From Ker's" English Rhymes and Nursery Phrases,' (1834,) it appears that many of the old childish songs and nursery sayings are of Dutch origin. App. xvi.

MALE EDUCATION.

"His eye was meek and gentle, and a smile
Play'd on his lips; and in his speech were heard
Paternal sweetness, dignity, and love.

Learning grew,

Beneath his care, a thriving, vig'rous plant:

The mind was informed, the passions held

Subordinate, and diligence was choice." Cowper.

THERE were plenty of schools wherein both Greek and Latin were taught: indeed they were so numerous that Lord Bacon wished some repressed.

Ascham describes school-masters as badly paid: he says they " pay more for taking care of a horse than educating their children," which drew forth from him this reflection, "that they took more pleasure in their horses than their children.”

"Hierom (epistle lib. 1, Læta de institut filiæ) gives a most especial charge to all parents, and many good cautions about bringing up of children, that they be not committed to undiscreet, bedlam tutors, light, giddy-headed, or covetous persons; and spare for no costs, that they may be well nurtured and taught, it being a matter of so great consequence. For such parents as do otherwise Plutarch esteems like them that are more careful of their shoes than of their feet, that rate their wealth above their children. And he (saith Cardan) that leaves his son to a covetous scholar to be informed, or to a close abby to fast and learn wisdom together, doth no other than that he be a learned fool or a sickly wise man.

The school-master was often combined with the reputation of a conjurer. Ben Jonson says: "I would have ne'ere a cunning school-master in Englande; I meane a cunning man that is a conjurer." According to both Ascham and Peacham, they were both ignorant and tyrannical. "It is a general plague and

* Butler's "Anatomy of Melancholy."

complaint of the whole lande; for, for one discreet and able teacher, you shall finde twentie ignorant and carelesse, and where they make one scholar they marre ten."* My motto, therefore, finely expresses what they should have been, rather than what they were; and the next quotation, from Butler, will explain one part, and that the real part, of their conduct that cannot be sufficiently reprobated:

Whipping, that's Virtue's governess,
Tut'ress of arts and sciences;

That mends the gross mistakes of nature,
And puts new life into dull matter."

This cruel writer does not perceive that one great cause of children's falsehoods, the crime of lying, proceeds from the severity of their teachers; as children do commit errors, and knowing they will be both severely and perhaps unjustly punished, they are induced to tell a lie to save their carcass. The judicious Ensor observes: "Jewish ordinances, aided by the penances imposed by religion on its priests, caused the ferula and rod to be the Catholic means of education. The inflictions of the cloisters were easily transferred to the school-room by those who were the directors of both."

To this charge of undue severity may be added the accusation of frequent immorality and buffoonery, which, for obvious reasons, I shall omit quoting; there can be no need of ingrafting ancient crimes upon the modern stock, which are sufficiently productive. But

"It lawful was of old, and still will be,

To speak of vice, but let the name go free."

"At Trinity College I knew one who would, on a cold morning in winter, whip his boys once over, for no other purpose than getting himself a sweate; another would beat them for swearing, and all the while would sweare himselfe most terrible oathes."†

The substance of a finished education was a little Latin and less Greek beaten into him at one of the public establishments, or by the thwackum of some martinett of a domestic school

room.

When the youth had been whipped through the parts of speech, interjections, and all, and driven through a few fragmental portions of the classics, and was able to construct a few nonsense verses upon his fingers, he was then qualified to shine equally in the senate or at a masquerade.

* Complete Gentleman. + Hollingshed.

A strict disciplinarian.