Non in quibuslibet viris magnis nec in brevem aliquam hominum ætatem
Sed in omne tempus et in perpetua serie virorum ad horum exemplar
Sub his penetralibus ad omnia bona fortia fidelia enutriendorum
STARE REM WICCAMICAM.
The hours of worship (now, I believe, somewhat altered) used to be as follows:—At six A.M. in summer, at a quarter before seven in winter, at eight and at half-past ten A.M., and at five P.M., on Sundays,[6] Saints’-days, and Founder’s Anniversaries. On Fridays at eleven A.M., and on Saturdays at five P.M. the boys might be seen trooping across the quadrangle on their way to Chapel—on Sundays and on Saints’-days clad in white surplices. Besides this, every evening at nine prayers used to be read by the junior Præfect in Antechapel, who stood on the top of the steps leading up to one of the curtained and barred pews reserved for ladies, one of which was placed on each side of Antechapel; the fair occupants, not being allowed to enter the body of the chapel, were obliged to content themselves with looking and listening through the grating.
Once a year all the boys who had passed the age of fifteen, (and who had not previously gone through the same ceremony,) were marshalled into Chapel, and, under the inspection of “Semper Testis,” (the legal aide-de-camp of the College authorities,) went through the form of taking an oath. I have no distinct recollection of the form of the proceeding, (it is now abolished,) but I think the official above-mentioned read out a Latin document, and we were supposed to say Amen. I believe the gist of it was that we were to defend and befriend the college to the best of our ability, and never tell anybody what went on within its walls. I am sure I should require no compulsion to carry out the former obligation, should the occasion occur, and I had any possible means of fulfilling my duty, and if I have done no more harm in writing this little sketch of our proceedings at Winchester than infringing the latter, my conscience will not be much troubled. Although the making a number of thoughtless boys go through a ceremony of this kind may seem objectionable, yet it is not the part of a Wykehamist to exclaim against it, as, according to well authenticated tradition, Cromwell would have destroyed the College, had he not yielded to the urgent representations of one of his officers, who was a Wykehamist, and, mindful of his oath, succeeded in saving the noble establishment from its impending fate.
I must not take leave of Chapel without noticing the beautiful Cloisters, with a little gem of a chapel standing in the middle, surrounded by smooth green turf. It is now used as the Fellows’ library. I think it a pity that the Cloisters are so little seen, as they are very beautiful. The Fellows, in general, do not reside at Winchester, and I do not imagine that those who do spend any very great part of their time in such absorbing study that the movements of the Præfects in Cloisters on week days, and of the others on Sundays, would disturb them very much; to such an extent I think the boys might be admitted without danger of their injuring the building or the tablets on the walls. At present the extreme stillness of the place is somewhat overpowering.
