religion, (for then there were so many, that he knew not which to profess,) nor for the laws, but to re-establish the King on his throne; and therefore seeing that the time was not yet come, he desired to be discharged, that he might leave the country; which was granted him. After the death of King Charles the First, he was sent by King Charles the Second, then an exile, Ambassador to the Emperor of Persia, upon hopes of great assistance of money from that Court, in consideration of great services done to the Persians by English ships at Ormus; but, being overtaken in his travels in that country by a whirlwind, was choked by the sands. He died a Roman Catholic, leaving behind him a widow, not so rich, but upon her petition after the Restoration, she was relieved by King's College, and two daughters, who were of his religion, one of which was afterwards the mistress of Prince Rupert."

The same work thus records the fate of ANTHONY ASCHAM, who left Eton for King's in 1643 :-" He was a favourer of the Parliament, by whose authority he was appointed tutor to James, Duke of York, afterwards James the Second. In 1648 he published "A Discourse, wherein is examined what is particularly lawful during the concussions and revolutions of Government," &c. He was appointed Resident to Spain in the latter end of the year 1649, and arriving at Madrid in June following, had an apartment in the palace, where he was murdered. Six English gentlemen went to his chambers, and two of them staying at the bottom of the stairs, and two at the top, the other two entered the room, one of which advanced to the table, where Ascham and his interpreter were sitting, and pulling off his hat, said, "Gentlemen, I kiss your hands; pray, which is the Resident?" Upon which the Resident rising, the other took him by the hair, and with a dagger gave him five stabs, of which he died. As the interpreter in confusion was retreating, the other four despatched him. One of them suffered capital punishment for the crime, the rest were either pardoned or escaped. According to the account in Thurloe, Ascham was murdered at an inn, before the orders came for his removal into the palace.

I have mentioned the first English ambassador to Russia in speaking of Dr. Fletcher in the last chapter. I may now name another Etonian and Kingsman who visited and described that country. This was SAMUEL COLLINS, who left Eton for King's in 1634. He studied medicine, and was a Member of the College of

Physicians in London. Afterwards, by the favour of the visitors of the university, he was admitted into New College, Oxford, and incorporated A. M. in that university in 1650. He afterwards travelled abroad, and resided at the Great Czar's Court of Moscow for the space of nine years, and wrote "The History of the Present State of Russia, in a Letter written to a Friend in London. Lond. 1671."

The great additions made to the College buildings by Provost Allestree have been already noticed. Provost Godolphin, uncle to the celebrated minister of that name, was also a great benefactor to the College. The flourishing condition of Eton in Sir Henry Wotton's time has been alluded to in the memoir of Sir Henry and in that of Boyle. During the latter part of this century the school fully recovered from its temporary depression during the time of the civil troubles. There is an amusing account in Pepys's Diary of a visit which that delightful old gossip paid to Eton. He had been with a friend and his wife to Windsor, and thence they went to Eton.

"At Eton," says Pepys, "I left my wife in the coach, and he and I to the College, and there find all mighty fine. The school good, and the custom pretty of boys cutting their names in the shuts of the window when they go to Cambridge, by which many a one hath lived to see himself a Provost and Fellow, that hath his name in the window standing. To the hall, and there find the boys verses, 'De Peste;' it being their custom to make verses at Shrovetide. I read several, and very good they were better, I think, than ever I made when I was a boy, and in rolls as long and longer than the whole hall by much. Here is a picture of Venice hung up, and a monument made of Sir H. Wotton's giving it to the College. Thence to the porter's, and in the absence of the butler, and did drink of the College beer, which is very good : and went into the back fields to see the scholars play. And to the chapel, and there saw, among other things, Sir H. Wotton's stone, with this epitaph-"

Pepys then quotes the inscription on Sir Henry's tomb, (mentioned above,) and concludes with criticising the stonecutter's orthography.

The Provosts of this century, besides those whose memoirs have been given, were THOMAS MURRAY, a layman, who had been tutor to Charles the First. RICHARD STEWARD, who was Commoner of

P

Magdalen Hall in 1608, Fellow of All Souls' in 1613, Prebendary of Worcester Cathedral in 1628, Dean of Chichester in 1634, Clerk of the Closet, and Prebendary of Westminster, in 1638, Dean of St. Paul's in 1641, and of the Chapel Royal; afterwards Dean of Lincoln, and Prolocutor of the Lower House of Convocation. He was a Commissioner for Ecclesiastical matters at the treaty of Uxbridge in January 1644. He was deprived of all his preferments by the Parliament, and retired to Paris, where Charles the Second visited him, after his escape from the battle of Worcester. He died there Nov. 14, 1651.

NICHOLAS LOCKYER, of New Inn Hall, Oxford; Fellow of Eton, Jan. 21, 1649. Elected Provost, Jan. 14, 1658; of which he was deprived soon after the Restoration. He had been chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and often preached before the Parliament. died in 1684.

He

JOHN MEREDITH, of All Souls' College, Oxford, and Fellow there. Fellow of Eton, April 22, 1648. Rector of Stamford Rivers, county of Essex; Master of Wigston's Hospital at Leicester. After the Restoration, he was elected Warden of All Souls'. Died July 16, 1665. Buried in All Souls' College chapel.

ZACHARY CRADOCK, of Queen's College, Cambridge. Chaplain in Ordinary to the King; Canon Residentiary of Chichester in 1669; Fellow of Eton, Dec. 2, 1671. Died Oct. 1695.

HENRY GODOLPHIN, Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford; Fellow of Eton, April 14, 1677; Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's; Dean of St. Paul's in 1707. Died Jan. 29, 1732.

CHAPTER IV.

Lord Chatham-Lord Camden-Lord Lyttelton-Lord Holland-Sir C. H. WilliamsFielding-Gray-Broome-West - Jacob Bryant - Horace Walpole -Marquis of Granby Sir W. Draper-Charles James Fox-Lord North-Lord Sandwich-Sir Joseph Bankes-Lord Cornwallis-Marquis of Wellesley-Lord Howe-Canning -Windham-Whitbread-Anstey-Steevens-Porson-Sir J. Mansfield-Sir Vicary Gibbs-Lord Grey Lord Grenville-Lord Holland-Archbishop Tenison-Bishop Lloyd-Simeon, &c., &c.

LORD CHATHAM.

WILLIAM PITT, first Earl of Chatham, was born on the 15th November, 1708, in the parish of St. James's, Westminster. He was the second son of Robert Pitt, Esq., of Boconnoc, near Lostwithiel, in Cornwall, by Harriet Villiers, sister of the Earl of Grandison (an Irish peer), and the grandson of Thomas Pitt, governor of Madras, the possessor of the celebrated Pitt diamond, which, according to an account published by himself, he bought in India for 24,000l., and sold to the French king for 135,000.

Pitt was sent to Eton at an early age, and was educated there till his eighteenth year. Dr. Bland was then head-master, and is said to have discerned and highly valued the high qualities of young Pitt. He was there eminent among a group, every member of which, in manhood, acquired celebrity. George (afterwards Lord) Lyttelton, Henry Fox (afterwards Lord Holland), Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, Henry Fielding, Charles Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden), were among Pitt's young friends and competitors at Eton. His biographer, Thackeray, justly remarks, that "among the many recommendations which will always attach to a public system of education, the value of early emulation, the force of example, the abandonment of sulky and selfish habits, and the acquirement of generous, manly dispositions, are not to be overlooked. All these I believe to have had weight in forming the character of Lord Chatham." He was admitted a gentleman commoner at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1726.

Pitt was attacked, even in boyhood, by hereditary gout; and being thus often debarred from sharing in the ordinary sports and exercises of his age, he devoted those periods of compulsory inaction to regular and earnest reading, and thus made his physical weakness minister to his intellectual strength. He had the advantage of an able and attentive guide to his studies in his father, during his school vacations; and Lord Mahon informs us that it may be stated, on the authority of the present Lord Stanhope, that "Pitt, being asked to what he principally ascribed the two qualities for which his eloquence was most conspicuous, namely, the lucid order of his reasonings, and the ready choice of his words, answered, that he believed he owed the former to an early study of the Aristotelian logic, and the latter to his father's practice in making him every day, after reading over to himself some passages in the classics, translate it aloud and continuously into English prose."

Pitt must also have diligently and successfully cultivated, while a boy, the art of Latin versification. This is evident from the copy of Latin hexameters on the death of George the First, written by him in the first year after he went to Oxford. They may be seen in Thackeray's Life of Pitt, near the beginning of the first volume. I am persuaded that the continued exercise of composition in Latin verse is one of the most valuable for forming an accurate taste, and for giving an artistic skill in the arrangement of ideas, and in the selection of phraseology, that can possibly be pursued. To write Latin verse elegantly and correctly, implies that the writer has not only read, but that he is perfectly familiar with the best models of the Augustan age. To acquire eminence in this exercise, the best parts of Virgil, Homer, and Ovid must be known by heart-the memory and the feeling must be so imbued with their letter and their spirit, that the noble and beautiful thoughts, and the melodious lines of these great poets will suggest themselves to our recollection at the least hint, though long years may have passed away since we last read them. It is the best possible discipline for giving the imagination and the judgment that tone and temper which the epithet "classical" perfectly describes, and which no other word or phrase can express. Whether our modern Latin verses have original poetical worth or not, is quite another matter, though it is the sole test by which many people most absurdly try the utility of the exercise. Latin versification