Ascham had endeavoured, by every argument and mode of persuasion in his power, to check the severe and indiscriminate discipline which prevailed among the teachers in his time; it would seem in vain; for Peacham, about the year 1620, found it necessary to recommend lenity in equally strenuous terms, and has given a minute and we have no doubt a faithful picture of the various cruelties to which scholars were then subjected; a summary of the result of this conduct may be drawn, indeed, from his own words, where he says, "Masters for the most part so behave themselves, that their very name is hatefull to the scholler, who trembleth at their comming in, rejoyceth at their absence, and looketh his master (returned) in the the face, as his deadly enemy."[97:B]
To the charges of undue severity and defective literature, we must add, I am afraid, the infinitely more weighty accusation of frequent immorality and buffoonery. Ludovicus Vives, who wrote just before the age of Shakspeare, asserts, that "some schoolmasters taught Ovid's books of love to their scholars, and some made expositions, and expounded the vices[97:C];" and Peacham, at the close of the era we are considering, censures in the strongest terms their too common levity and misconduct: "the diseases whereunto some of them are very subject, are humour and folly (that I may say nothing of the grosse ignorance and insufficiency of many) whereby they become ridiculous and contemptible both in the schoole and abroad. Hence
it comes to passe, that in many places, especially in Italy, of all professions that of pedanteria is held in basest repute: the schoole-master almost in every comedy being brought upon the stage, to paralell the Zani or Pantaloun. He made us good sport in that excellent comedy of Pedantius, acted in our Trinity Colledge in Cambridge, and if I be not deceived, in Priscianus Vapulans, and many of our English plays.
"I knew one, who in winter would ordinarily in a cold morning, whip his boyes over for no other purpose than to get himselfe a heat: another beat them for swearing, and all the while he sweares himself with horrible oathes, he would forgive any fault saving that.
"I had I remember myselfe (neere S. Albanes in Hertfordshire, where I was borne) a master, who by no entreaty would teach any scholler he had, farther than his father had learned before him; as, if he had onely learned but to reade English, the sonne, though he went with him seven yeeres, should goe no further: his reason was, they would then proove saucy rogues, and controule their fathers; yet these are they that oftentimes have our hopefull gentry under their charge and tuition, to bring them in science and civility."[98:A]
We must, I apprehend, from these representations, be induced to conclude, that ignorance, despotism, and self-sufficiency were leading features in the composition of the country-schoolmaster, during this period of our annals; it would not be just, however, to infer from these premises that the larger schools were equally unfortunate in their conductors; on the contrary, most of the public seminaries of the capital, and many in the large provincial towns, were under the regulation of masters highly respectable for their erudition, men, indeed, to whom neither Erasmus nor Joseph Scaliger would have refused the title of ripe and good scholars.
We shall now pass forward, in the series of our rural characters, to the delineation of one of great importance in a national point of view, that of the substantial Farmer or Yeoman, of whom Harrison has left us the following interesting definition:—"This sort of people have a
certaine preheminence, and more estimation than labourers and the common sort of artificers, and these commonlie live wealthilie, kéepe good houses, and travell to get riches. They are also for the most part farmers to gentlemen, or at the leastwise artificers, and with grazing, frequenting of markets, and kéeping of servants (not idle servants, as the gentlemen doo, but such as get both their owne and part of their masters living) do come to great welth, in somuch that manie of them are able and doo buie the lands of unthriftie gentlemen, and often setting their sonnes to the schooles, to the universities, and to the Ins of the court; or otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereupon they may live without labour, doo make them by those meanes to become gentlemen: these were they that in times past made all France afraid. And albeit they be not called master, as gentlemen are, or sir as to knights apperteineth, but onelie John and Thomas, &c.: yet have they beene found to have doone verie good service: and the kings of England in foughten battels, were woont to remaine among them (who were their footmen) as the French kings did amongst their horssemen: the prince thereby shewing where his chiefe strength did consist."[99:A]
After this description of the rank which the farmer held in society, we shall proceed to state the mode in which he commonly lived in the age of Elizabeth; and in doing this we have chosen, as usual, to adopt at considerable length the language of our old writers; a practice to which we shall in future adhere, while detailing the manners, customs, &c. of our ancestors, a practice which has indeed peculiar advantages; for the authenticity of the source is at once apparent, the diction possesses a peculiar charm from its antique cast, and the expression has a raciness and force of colouring, which owes its origin to actual inspection, and which, consequently, it is in vain to expect, on such subjects, from modern composition.
The houses or cottages of the farmer were built, in places abounding in wood, in a very strong and substantial manner, with not more