The College.
We enter the first court, and look with veneration at the kneeling figure of Wykeham. Here was impressed by a master-mind the prototype of our public schools. The prelate chose the site outside the walls of Winchester, in the Soke, which extended round the south-east of the city, so that the College might be entirely in the Bishop of Winchester’s jurisdiction. As early as 1373, he engaged a schoolmaster at Winchester, and three years later had a warden and seventy scholars.
Chamber Court.
The buildings we see, with the exception of the Chantry Chapel and schoolroom and tower, are those erected by Wykeham. In March, 1393, the warden, fellows, and scholars, took possession of their new magnificent abode, marching in a triumphal procession, headed by a cross-bearer, and chanting songs of praise. Nevertheless, the accommodation would not have seemed liberal in our days. Three fellows had only one room; the seventy scholars had six chambers, and those below fourteen years slept two in a bed. These were in the inner quadrangle. The outer quadrangle must then have formed a somewhat unpoetical entrance to the abode of the muses, although the warden and head-master lived in it. In the front of it, built partly for defence, were the brewery, bakehouse, and malt-rooms; on the west side, the stables; and on the east, the slaughter-houses.
Cloisters.
The Cloisters.
The Cloisters were built by Wykeham’s steward; and I should like to have walked their “studious pale” at my leisure, and to have spent some time in musing over the past. These arches, this pavement, and this clean roof of chestnut or Irish oak, have been present to the mind and eye of many a learned man as he here mused upon the great master works of the Greeks and Romans. And after his ambition had been kindled, and his breast inspired for a brief period, he had laid him down to rest, and left nothing to inform us that he ever lived, except a tablet on these silent walls. I can conjure up the pensive figure of Henry VI., who was often here, and attended the chapel services. He presented the College with a chalice, cruets, and tabernacle, all of gold, and gave the little boys some pocket-money, which, no doubt, was more valued by them.[57]
Here are brasses to some of the fellows who died in the sixteenth century. We see that John Watts (Watto), reached the patriarchal age of a hundred years. Some are commemorated in Latin verses—the solemnity of death could not prevent a poetaster from punning on the name of Lark, and one John Clerk, who on earth “distilled rosy liquors,” is now “rejoicing in living waters.” But we are also reminded of younger and gayer scenes, of spirits full of hope looking forward joyously to years of expected happiness. The walls are scored with the names of these aspirants, most of them afterwards unknown—for studious boys rarely mark themselves upon wood and stone—but we see here “Thos. Ken, 1646,” the celebrated bishop, whose glorious hymns, “Awake, my soul,” and “Glory to Thee, my God, this night,” first appeared in a Manual of Prayers he composed for Winchester College.