wherein he bequeathed several other considerable benefactions; after which, his fever, still increasing, put a period to his life, on the 12th of December following, in the seventy-ninth year of his age."

The excellence of the Carthusian foundation, which consists of a Master, a Preacher, a Schoolmaster, and Usher, forty scholars, and eighty pensioners, and various officers, is well known; and there have been few among the merchant princes of England who have acquired their wealth more honourably, or who have employed it more charitably and patriotically than Sir Thomas Sutton. (Biog. Brit.-Ackerman's Hist. of the Charterhouse.)

WALTER HADDON, an eminent scholar of this period, was born in Buckinghamshire, in the year 1516. He was educated first at Eton, under Dr. Cox; and in 1533 was elected scholar of King's College, Cambridge. He stood high among the university men of his time for the purity of his Latin style. His fame as a scholar was not confined to Cambridge; and it is said Queen Elizabeth was once asked which she preferred, Buchanan or Haddon; on which her reply was, " Buchannum omnibus antepono ; Haddonum nemini postpono."

Haddon's chief pursuit was civil law, in which he took his degree, and was made public lecturer. He held also the professorship of rhetoric and oratory. During the short reign of Edward the Sixth, he was made Master of Trinity College, in the room of Bishop Gardiner. The office of Vice-Chancellor was conferred upon him in 1550; and in two years after, though not qualified for the office according to the statutes, he was chosen President of Magdalen College, Oxford. On the succession of Queen Mary, he withdrew from his public offices, and retired into private life. He escaped in safety during that troubled time, by keeping himself in strict privacy; but on the death of Queen Mary he again appeared, under the sanction of Royal favour, and became distinguished under the patronage of Elizabeth. By her he was made Master of Requests; and was appointed, by Archbishop Parker, Judge of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. He was also employed, by the Queen, on several embassies, and was made a Commissioner at the Royal Visitation of the University of Cambridge. In 1565 and 1566 he was appointed, with Dr. Walton, agent at Bruges, for restoring the ancient commerce between England and the Netherlands. He was also the principal compiler

1

and translator into Latin of the code of ecclesiastical law, entitled "Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum," edited by John Fox, in 1571. He died in 1572, aged 56. (Cunningham's Biography.Alumni Etonenses.)

In 1547, SIR THOMAS SMITH succeeded Bishop Aldridge as Provost of Eton. This learned man was educated at Queen's College, in Cambridge: where he became so eminent for learning, that King Henry the Eighth chose him one of his scholars; and, for his encouragement and better maintenance, allowed him a yearly pension, as was then customary. In 1531, he was chosen Fellow of his College; about which time, it is said that "he closely applied himself to the reading of the best authors, such as Plato, Demosthenes, and Aristotle. By his great diligence he acquired, in about two years time, a perfect skill in Greek, and was appointed, in 1535, to read the public Greek Lecture in the University. Besides his public Lecture, he also read privately in his College upon Homer's Odyssey. In 1536, he was made University Orator, which place he filled with great applause."

According to Fuller he then, at the King's express desire, visited the principal universities on the Continent, in order to perfect himself as far as possible in classical learning. Smith availed himself of this opportunity to acquire an extensive and scientific knowledge of modern as well as ancient languages. On his return to Cambridge in 1542, he was made Regius Professor of the Civil Law.

Smith was a zealous co-operator with Sir John Cheke, in enforcing at Cambridge that which Erasmus and the best scholars considered to be the true pronunciation of Greek. Hallam says:"The early students of that language, receiving their instructions from natives, had acquired the vicious uniformity of sounds belonging to the corrupted dialect. Reuchlin's school, of which Melanchthon was one, adhered to this, and were called Itacists, from the continual recurrence of the sound of Iota in modern Greek, being thus distinguished from the Etists of Erasmus's party. Smith and Cheke proved by testimonies of antiquity, that the latter were right; and by this revived pronunciation,' says Strype, was displayed the flower and plentifulness of that language, the variety of vowels, the grandeur of diphthongs, the majesty of long letters, and the grace of distinct speech."

Smith also attempted to amend the orthography of the English

language, but he found this a far more difficult task than correcting the orthoepy of the Greek. Smith published a treatise, "De recta et emendatâ Linguæ Anglica Scriptione." In this Smith's censures and theories were true enough, as one of his Biographers states" He maintained that the manner of Writing many of our English words was both absurd and improper. As, for instance, in these words, Please, Sonne, Moone, To, Toe, Meane, he said those sounds are not comprehended which we would express; and in some of them the syllables are stuffed with needless letters, which letters by themselves have their certain natures, as he observed, and being joined after that manner, have not that force which they ought to have. And again, in other words, he took notice we had no letters that expressed what we spake, and therefore he thought it necessary to have more letters. So he framed twentynine letters, whereof nineteen were Roman, four Greek, and six English or Saxon. The five vowels he augmented to ten, by distinguishing them into long and short, and making certain accents over, or on the side of, those that were to be pronounced long. He allowed no diphthongs nor double consonants, nor any E's at the end of words not being sounded. He was for throwing out entirely, and banishing from the alphabet, the letter Q as useless; Ku expressing the full power of Qu, for, without the vowel U, the letter Q is never written. And the same uselessness he found to be in the letter C, for it is always expressed either by K or S, but he retained it in his alphabet to serve instead of Ch. Mr. Strype caused this alphabet to be engraved on a copper-plate, and placed it in the Appendix to Sir Thomas's Life."

Many learned Philologists since Smith's time have been offended with the same mischievous absurdities in our system of spelling that roused his indignation. Many also have proposed excellent systems to supersede the existing chaos. It is indeed only within the last few weeks that the "FONETIC NUZ " has been withdrawn from circulation. But

Usus,

Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi,"

aye, and of scribendi also, has prevailed over every theorist; and our children's children will probably have to learn to spell on a system, which makes the task a hundredfold more difficult than it would be if our pens traced the alphabetical symbols as our lips pronounce the alphabetical sounds.

On the accession of King Edward the Sixth, Smith's known zeal for the cause of the Reformation, and his high reputation for learning and ability, caused him to be taken into office by the Lord Protector Somerset, who made him one of his Masters of Requests. It was at this time that he obtained the Provostship of Eton, and was also made Steward of the Stannaries in Cornwall; an office to which he was recommended by his credit as an excellent metallist and chemist.

In 1548, he was advanced to the high office of Secretary of State, and knighted. He was repeatedly employed on important embassies to the Emperor's Court and to the Court of France, and throughout Edward's reign he enjoyed the highest favour and prosperity.

On Queen Mary's accession, he was deprived of all his offices, including his Provostship: but through the intercession and care of many powerful personal friends, his life and liberty were not assailed. On Queen Elizabeth coming to the throne, Sir Thomas was restored to royal favour, and trusted with many high employments.

In 1572, "whilst he was abroad, the Queen conferred upon him the place of Chancellor of the Order of the Garter; and the 24th of June following, he was constituted Secretary of State, in the room of William Lord Burghley, made Lord High-Treasurer. Having obtained the year before a grant of a rich parcel of land called the Ardes in Ireland, he sent a colony thither in 1572, and endeavoured to settle it at the expense of several thousand pounds. The next, and indeed the last, memorable action of his was in 1575, when he procured an Act of Parliament for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the two Colleges of Eaton and Winchester, importing that in all college leases, a third part at least of the old rent should be reserved and paid in corn; that is to say, in good wheat at the rate of six shillings and eight-pence the quarter, or under, and good malt at the rate of five shillings the quarter, or under."

Blackstone has made some remarks on this statute, which in these days of Californian diggings are not undeserving of attention. He says

"There is yet another restriction with regard to college leases, by statute 18 Eliz. c. 6, which directs, that one third of the old rent, then paid, should for the future be reserved in wheat or

malt, reserving a quarter of wheat for each 6s. 8d. or a quarter of malt for every 5s.; or that the lessee should pay for the same according to the price that wheat and malt should be sold for, in the market next adjoining to the respective colleges, on the marketday before the rent becomes due. This is said to have been an invention of Lord Treasurer Burleigh, and Sir Thomas Smith, then principal Secretary of State; who, observing how greatly the value of money had sunk, and the price of all provisions risen, by the quantity of bullion imported from the new-found Indies, which effects were likely to increase to a greater degree, devised this method for upholding the revenues of colleges. Their foresight and penetration have in this respect been very apparent; for, though the rent so reserved in corn was at first but one-third of the old rent, or half what was still reserved in money, yet now the proportion is nearly inverted; and the money arising from corn rents is, communibus annis, almost double to the rents reserved in money."

Sir Thomas Smith died in 1577, in the sixty-third year of his age. (Biog. Brit.)

SIR HENRY SAVILE.

IN May 1596, Eton received as her Provost HENRY SAVILE. This distinguished scholar had been a member first of Brasenose College, Oxford, and afterwards of Merton College, where he was elected a Fellow in 1578, being at that time of the age of twentyone years. When he took the degree of Master of Arts in 1570, he read as his public exercise for that degree a dissertation on the Almagest of Ptolemy, which at once raised his reputation to the highest pitch in the university both for mathematical and classical learning. In 1578 he travelled on the Continent, where he formed friendships with many learned men, and obtained many important manuscripts, some of which were original, while some, though copies, were copies of great value in England. He was not only a most learned but a most accomplished man, which must greatly have facilitated his introduction on his return at the Court of Queen Elizabeth, who read Greek and mathematics with him, and held him in the highest esteem. In 1585 he was made Warden of Merton, and eleven years afterwards was chosen Provost of Eton. Savile exerted himself greatly to increase the fame of the College,