FOOTNOTES:
[64] A certain modern Latin Author, whose name I have forgot, has written a Treatise on the antiquity of the practice so much recommended above, of whipping boys at School. Had I been so happy as to have seen his Book, I would have been enabled to make, in this place, learned remarks on the subject; but as I have not had that advantage, I find myself unable to make any, and can only refer the Reader to the discovery of Uncle Thomas, as well as to the few other critical annotations that are contained in [p. 76, 77, 78], of this Work.
I could have likewise wished much to be able to add the names of some of those illustrious Characters who have distinguished themselves in the practice of flagellating School-boys, to those of the respectable Thwackum, and the plagosus Orbilius, mentioned in the above place; but though the History of great Schools, in this and other Countries, supplies numbers of such names, yet I have not been able to discover any of sufficient eminence to deserve a place in this Book; except indeed that of the great Doctor Tempête, who is mentioned by Rabelais as a celebrated flagellator of School-boys in the College of Montaigu, in Paris, and which I therefore insert in this place.
Neither should we neglect to mention here, the name of Buchanan, his pupil having afterwards been a King; and the more so, as he used, it seems, to make the flagellations bestowed by him on his royal disciple (the Anointed of the Lord) the subject of his jokes with the Ladies at Court[65].
The justice which is due to the Reverend Fathers Jesuits, also requires that we should, in a Book like this, give an account of the laudable regularity with which they used to inflict flagellations upon the young Men who pursued their studies in their Schools, as well as upon such Strangers as were occasionally recommended to them for that purpose. Among the different facts which may serve to prove both the spirit of justice that has constantly directed the actions of the Society, and the punctuality of their flagellations, the following is not the least remarkable.
It was, the Reader ought to know, an established custom in their Schools, to give prizes every year to such Scholars as had made the best Latin verses upon proposed subjects. One year it happened that the subject which had been fixed upon, was the Society of the Jesuits itself; and a Scholar took that opportunity, only by quibbling on the names of the two principal Schools belonging to the Fathers, to give them a smart stroke of satire. The name of the one of these two Schools, was the School of the Bow (le Collège de l’Arc), which was situated at Dôle, in Franche-Comté; and the other happened to be called, the School of the Arrow (la Flêche), it being situated near the Town of that name in Anjou, and was originally a Royal mansion which was given by the Crown to the Society, in the reign of King Henry the Fourth. The import of the distich made by the School-boy (or perhaps by somebody else for him) was this: “Dôle gave the Bow to the Fathers, mother France gave them the Arrow; who shall give them the String which they have deserved?” The following are the Latin verses themselves, which indeed are very beautiful.
Arcum Dôla dedit Patribus, dedit alma Sagittam
Gallia; quis funem quem meruere dabit?