if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned and to show himself amorous of any good art.... The scorn and ordinary disgrace offered unto poets at these days is cause why few gentlemen do delight in the art. ANON (The Arte of English Poesie) 1589. Ignorance the Muses doth oppress... That poesy thus embraced in all other places should only find in our time a hard welcome in England, I think the very earth laments it. Idle England which now can scarce endure the pain of a pen. .... Poor poetry.... is fallen to be the laughing stock of children. .... PHILIP SIDNEY (Defense of Poetry) 1580?-1595. .... Time was when men would learn and study good things Now letters only make men vile. He is upbraidingly called a poet as if it were a contemptible nickname. BEN JONSON (Discoveries) 1620-1641 Though Philosophy in this our age be left as though in second childishness to youths I had almost said to children yet, do I surely hold it to be of all matters next to religion the weightiest and the most worthy of human nature. BACON (INTRO : Wisdom of the Ancients) 1609. So thick and dark an ignorance as now almost covers the age. BEN JONSON (DEDI: Catiline) 1611. The more than Cymmerian darkness which hath possessed the world. COTTON (Concordance, INTRO :) 1635. I purpose (God willing) to proceed in abridging the remaining history of the world if this ignorant age dishearten me not. A. ROSS (History of World, INTRO :) 1650. Virtue is well neere banished, vice hath almost gotten the upper hand, Wisdom is derided of fooles. "F. B." (DEDI to Palladis Palatium) 1604. Knowledge (how little soever esteemed in this our age) DIODATI (PREFACE to Annotations on Bible) It being so rare in this age to meet with one noble name that, in fear to be censured for levity and weakness, dares express himself a friend or patron to contemned poetry. MASSINGER (DEDI: Emperor of East) Me and my despised studies. 1631-1632. Ibid (DEDI: Maid of Honour) 1631-1632. SHIRLEY (The Example) 1634-1637. Unbefriended poesy. This deboshed age. BACON (?) (Advice to RUTLAND) 1595. This besotted age. FORD This iron and malicious age of ours. ANON (Arte of English Poesie) 1589. These unhappy times disfurnished wholly of heroical spirits. PEELE (Order of Garter) 1593 Macbeth V 1 In these unhappy times wherein we live.... we find men generally so vicious that virtue is almost extirpate and not a few become so monstrously brutish that no philosophy can sweeten and allay their extreme bitterness. ANON (INTRO : to A Discourse of Friendship) 1676. It is irrational to sweep aside all such and similar testimony of the inhuman dearth of noble natures as mere babblement and motions, and to assert that, in reality, London was pulsing with moral and intellectual fervour. From almost everywhere we apply, the answer is the same, that Learning and Religion were in extremis and that our land was submerged under a flood of brute ignorance. The dissolution of the Monasteries and the deflexion into the royal Exchequer of revenues hitherto applied to charitable and educational purposes, practically extinguished the glimmering lamp of knowledge. As a sop to public opinion, some small portion of the appropriated revenues was devoted to the foundation of Grammar Schools, so termed from their intent of teaching the Latin accidence. As to the standard of education at these schools, opinions differ. Some authorities maintain that it was rude and primitive; others assume an advanced and enlightened curriculum. Schoolmasters must, however, have imbibed their education and training at the Universities; and as streams do not rise higher than their source, it will avoid futile enquiry if we turn at once to conditions prevailing at Oxford and Cambridge. contemporary preacher, ✓ "decays. Men will not send their children to the schools. Look upon the wells of the realm -Oxford and Cambridge- they are almost dried "Learning," says a "1 up." Peter Martyr writing in 1559, describes the Universities as being both "in a most deplorable state and wanting alike in loyalty, in faith, in teachers and even in any hope for learning." When, during one of her progresses, Queen Elizabeth paid a State visit to Cambridge, on the cavalcade moving out of the town, we are told that the Duke of Norfolk was induced to turn back and note for himself the melancholy aspect of the unfinished buildings and the pervading air of destitution. He bestowed a largesse and passed on. Strype in his Annals, mentions that Archbishop Parker was a benefactor to Cambridge University, repairing the Common Schools, "greatly fallen then into decay and wanting both lead, timber and roofing." In the beginning of the seventeenth century outward conditions underwent a change for the better, but Learning seems to have been sapped by corruption. In 1597 we find complaint to Parliament of the misbehaviour of Masters of Colleges, who, the petitioners allege, "convert the College profits, given and ordained to the advancement of learning, to the preferment of themselves, their wives and children." It is surprising to learn that it was the exception rather than the rule for the better classes to give their sons a college education. "It was thought enough," says a contemporary 3 "for a nobleman's son to wind their horn, carry their hawk fair and leave study and learning to mean I Bernard Gilpin, quoted in Social England. Traill vol. 3, p. 265. 2 History of Cambridge University: Mullinger vol. 2, p. 170. 3 Quoted in Goadby's England of Shakespeare. people;" a statement endorsed by the fact that the great majority of college students were "ragged clerks," labourers' sons, and such like base mechanical persons. Mr. Bass Mullinger states that : "Intermingling with a certain small minority of scions of noble houses and country squires we find the sons of poor parsons, yeomen, husbandmen, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, innkeepers, tallow chandlers, bakers, vintners, blacksmiths, curriers, ostlers, labourers and others whose humble origin may be inferred from the fact that they are described merely as 'plebeians'. "1 This assertion awakes a vague questioning as to whether, what Ben Jonson terms, "the green and soggy multitude" must not have been in reality a highly educated and a cultured class. How grim and emphatic a negative is returned by History remains to be seen. As a matter of fact, instead of being elevated by the bathing which they received at Wisdom's font, the rabble, by which the Universities were swamped, seem to have run riot and to have dragged down Learning to their own melancholy level. Brawls and disturbances between the authorities and the students were of frequent occur rence. Mullinger leads one to suppose that it was a traditional custom at the University of Cambridge for students to ignore study. "It was only when some lecturer of more than ordinary reputation, like Albericus, appeared, that his fame, and perhaps the novelty of the subject, attracted more I History of Cambridge University. Mullinger, Vol. 2, p. 399 Lyly appears in the Oxford Registers as plebeii filius. |