as an orator, and the first writer of prose which is still intelligible. In the reign of Henry VIII. we meet with many shining examples of the progress of education, besides that of More. Henry himself had when a boy been removed by his father from public business, and occupied with the pursuits of literature; and, after his accession to the throne, we find him filling up the intervals of his festivities with music and literature, "which were his favourite pursuits, and were well adapted to his genius." Hume says: "he made such proficiency in the former art, as even to compose some pieces of church-music, which were sung in his chapel. He was initiated in the elegant learning of the ancients. And though he was so unfortunate as to be seduced into a study of the barren controversies of the schools, which were then fashionable, he still discovered a capacity fitted for more useful and entertaining knowledge." Henry, as he possessed himself some talent for letters, was an encourager of them in others. He founded Trinity College, at Cambridge, and gave it ample endowments; and the countenance given to letters by the king and his ministers contributed to render learning fashionable in England. The sovereign's accomplishments are highly rated by a Venetian minister, who was in London ten years after his accession. He writes: "His majesty is an excellent musician and composer, an admirable horseman and wrestler, and possesses a good knowledge of the French, Latin, and Spanish languages." Cardinal Wolsey was considered as learned; his manners had acquired the polish of the society to which he was raised; his elocution was fluent and agreeable; and one of his means of pleasing the capricious Henry was to converse with him on favourite topics of literature. Cavendish, who was gentleman usher to Wolsey, and wrote his life, tells us that "his sentences and witty persuasions in the council chamber were always so pithy, that they, as occasion moved them, continually assigned him for his filed tongue and excellent eloquence to be expositor unto the king in all their proceedings." Wolsey, it appears, received a grammatical education at Ipswich, whence he was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, and was subsequently appointed master of a grammarschool dependent on the same college. Part of his ill acquired wealth, later in life, he expended in laudable munificence for the advancement of learning. At Oxford he erected the celebrated college of Christchurch; he founded several lectures, and the first chair for teaching Greek: he also intended to have enriched his college with copies of all the manuscripts that were in the Vatican, (or Palace of the Pope,) at Rome. He likewise founded a collegiate school at Ipswich. The scarcity of schools before the Reformation, (or the change in religion from the Catholic to the Protestant, in the reign of Henry VIII.) is here worthy of notice. Cranmer received his early education from a parish-clerk. This may seem singular, for he was of gentle blood, and was entered at Cambridge, amongst “the better sort of students." But probably such shifts were not unusual before the Reformation. The monasteries indeed had schools attached to them in many instances. In Elizabeth's time, a complaint was made in parliament, that the number of such places of education had been reduced by one hundred, in consequence of the suppression of the religious houses. Still, it must have often happened, (thickly scattered as the monasteries were,) that the child lived at an inconvenient distance from any one of them; bably little was learned there after all. the want of schools in London, that induced Dean Colet to establish that of St. Paul's, in 1512, which, under the fostering care of Lilly, the first master, not only became so distinguished in itself, but set the example, and prepared the way, by its rules and its grammar, for so many others that followed its establishment*. Edward VI., with the natural feeling of a boy, fond of know and pro It was * Cardinal Wolsey is said to have written the preface to Lilly's Grammar: but this is doubtful: if it were, indeed, Wolsey's writing, it would be far more creditable to his abilities and sound judgment than any other proof which remains of them. In that preface, some of the clearest principles of tuition are clearly laid down. "Nothing," it is there said, " can surely be ended, whose beginning is either feeble or faulty; and no building be perfect whenever the foundation and groundwork is ready to fall, and unable to uphold the burden of the frame." The necessity of making the scholar learn thoroughly what he is taught step by step, is fully stated and enforced. ledge, and himself a proficient for his years, was aware of the evil, and projected its remedy, in the foundation of Christ's Hospital, or, as it is commonly termed, the Blue-coat School*. It was not, however, till the reign of Elizabeth, that the evil was at all adequately met. The dignitaries and more wealthy ecclesiastics of the reformed church bestirred themselves and founded some schools. Many tradesmen, who had accumulated fortunes in London, retired, in their later years, to the country-town which had given them birth, and gratefully provided for the better education of their neighbours, by furnishing it with a grammar-school. In such cases application was usually made to the queen for a charter, which was granted with or without assistance by money on her own part; and whoever will examine the dates of our foundationschools, free-schools, or grammar-schools, will find a great proportion of them erected in that glorious reign. * Dr. Ridley, bishop of London, had the enviable felicity of suggesting before the king in a sermon preached at Westminster, the imperious demands of poverty upon the attention and commiseration of the powerful and rich. A general report was made to the king on the state and condition of the poor, and the best means of relief and reform; they were divided into three classesthe poor by impotency, by casualty, and by idleness. For the innocent and fatherless was provided Christ's Hospital; for the wounded and diseased, the hospitals of St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew; and for the idle and vagabond, Bridewell, where they might be chastised and compelled to labour. We have now conducted the reader to the period at which the foundation of grammarschools became general throughout England. Their great number will, of course, prevent our describing them; but a brief notice of two or three of these establishments will explain the general plan of all of them. One of the best examples that we can select for this purpose is the celebrated grammar-school at Bedford, which, though it has been established upwards of two hundred and seventy years, is now in the most flourishing condition. Edward VI. founded a grammar-school at Bedford, as well as in other places; but Sir William Harpur, a native of Bedford, and Lord Mayor of London, endowed the school with thirteen acres of land, "for the instruction of children of the town in grammar and good manners." This land is in the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and since Harpur gave it, there have been built upon the same Bedford Row, Featherstone Buildings, Red Lion, and Lamb's Conduit Streets, &c. the rents of which amount, at this time, to ten thousand pounds per annum. The consequence is, that there are superabundant means for education at Bedford, free of all cost. There is a grammarschool, an English school, a large preparatory school, and an infant school; thus including the whole of the young population of all classes; and there is no school in Bedford at which parents have occasion to pay the master. These schools, from their founders not only building |