science, ignorant of Hebrew, a mere smatterer in Greek, and possessed of as much Latin as enabled him in after life to use it with reckless facility." If this description be true of the education of a Baxter, what must have been the grammar-school education of the average boy when Bacon wrote his Advice.

Bacon speaks of "the principal readers" (i.e., masters) as "but men of superficial learning." The discovery has been made since Bacon wrote, that a man may not be as learned as many a sixth-form boy, and yet prove an excellent master. He may be thorough and accurate so far as he goes, and be able to convey his knowledge better than a far more erudite scholar. Depth is not everything in a teacher, provided he be apt to teach. Out of Sutton's estate Bacon would have endowed the Universities with well-paid professorial Chairs, but Charterhouse I venture to say has done more good and for a greater number than any Professorial Chair at Oxford or Cambridge. Bacon's arguments have more cogency when he speaks of the Hospital, for Sutton's intent was "a triple good, an hospital and a school, and maintaining a preacher." In attacking the system of almshouses Bacon showed himself in advance of his time. Two hundred and fifty years after his Advice, an Act of Parliament (Public Schools Act, 1868) separated what should never have been joined—the Asylum for aged men and the school for the education of boys. Lookers on, who are supposed to see more of the game, may well think that Sutton's Hospital has proved a grave stumbling block to Sutton's School. "Failure of plans, disappointment of hopes, loss of fortune, are generally the passport to Sutton's Hospital." Since Dr. Haig Brown wrote those words, he has become the Master of the Charterhouse, and with the other Governors has done his best to make deserving misfortune "the passport to Sutton's Hospital." One hundred years ago this was rarely the case. Thackeray in The Newcomes has popularized the idea that the "Codds" "

1 Dr. Haig Brown's Charterhouse (1879 edition), p. 163.

2

2 "Codds" is the term applied by Carthusians to the Poor Brethren of Charterhouse.

were old boys. Few beliefs could be further from the truth. Among the present Codds it is believed that there are only two public-school men-one a Carthusian "gown-boy" and the other a Wykehamist Colleger. The Public School Commissioners of 1864 saved themselves much trouble by finding that the Hospital did not come within the scope of their enquiry, but a Codd is far too interesting a figure and too closely bound up with old Charterhouse for us to follow their example.

In the constitution of Eton College, as sketched out by its Royal Founder, there were to be 25 poor and infirm men as well as the same number of poor and indigent scholars. Henry VI., like Thomas Sutton, intended to found an almshouse for poor men as well as a school for boys, but he changed his plans and himself suppressed the almshouse. The Poor Brother of the Charterhouse has survived to this day.

A general regulation, sanctioned by Charles I., directed that candidates for Sutton's Hospital should not be qualified unless they be "gentlemen by descent and in poverty; soldiers that have borne arms by sea or land; merchants decayed by piracy or shipwreck." This regulation was rescinded in 1642 as limiting too much the privileges of the Governors. Bacon's picture of Sutton's Hospital is painted in too gloomy colours to apply to the Poor Brethren or the majority of them of to-day. Of "gentlemen by descent and in poverty" there are more to-day in Sutton's Hospital than at any earlier period. It so happened that when William Makepeace Thackeray was writing The Newcomes, there was a Major among the Pensioners who was known to the boys as "Codd Gentleman." No doubt it was this Poor Brother that suggested "Codd Colonell" to the novelist. Dr. Haig Brown, only names three pensioners who can be said to have gained admission distinctly on their merits. These three are Elkanah Settle,' who (thanks to his Whig politics) beat John Dryden for the City Laureateship, Stephen Grey, who was elected an

An Old Westminster, like Dryden, but some seventeen years his junior.

F.R.S. while in the Charterhouse, and Zachariah Williams, the father of the blind Miss Williams whom Dr. Johnson's humanity made an inmate of his home. To this list may be added the names of Maddison Morton (the author of Box and Cox), John Bagford and Wm. Thomas Moncrieff. John Bagford, the collector of the Bagford Ballads and of title pages, was a shoe-maker as well as a book destroyer. The Queen made Wm. T. Moncrieff, the author of Tom and Jerry, or Life in London, a Brother. Moncrieff, after a life of literary toil, had become totally blind, and must have entered a workhouse had it not been for Her Majesty's kindness. He was the author of upwards of 170 dramatic pieces, one at least of which, Tom and Jerry, had a phenomenal run. A former Lord Mayor of London found a refuge in the Charterhouse; this happened only some fifty years ago. Even this quiet haven of rest did not quite escape the storm which swept the Stuarts finally and for ever from the throne. Compton, Bishop of London, as one of the Governors of Charterhouse, refused to admit into the Hospital a Roman Catholic named Andrew Popham, and withstood Lord Chancellor Jeffreys to the face.

The reader will ask what is the derivation of the word "Codd." The origin of the word is lost in obscurity. The derivation given by Carthusians is the Latin word caudex or codex-the trunk of a tree. The pensioners were supposed to sit on stumps, and therefore they were called "Codds." Terence uses the word "caudex" as a term of reproach—a blockhead. It is just possible that some unkind scholar coined "Codd" in the Terentian sense, and the word being a monosyllable stuck in the boys' memories, while its original meaning was forgotten.

There used to be eighty pensioners; there are now to-day (Founder's Day 1900), owing to agricultural depression, only fifty-five. The curfew bell rings as many strokes as there are Codds alive. In former times the gown-boy (i.e., Foundation Scholar) at his work or his play would count the strokes, and when the bell rang only seventy-nine times, would call out-"A Codd dead!" The gown-boys

1 Ter. Heaut. 5, 1, 4.

no longer inhabit the Charterhouse, but the Codds are still there and still the curfew bell tolls. The pensioners of Charterhouse are the only subjects of Her Majesty who still obey a curfew bell which rings at eight every evening. All have to be in their rooms by then, though lights and fires are not put out. The only place in which the gownboys used to see the Codds, was the school Chapel. The gown-boys attended service there only on Sundays and Saint days: the Codds have to attend in Chapel twice every day throughout the year. Their daily attendance is still compulsory. As for their feeding, the Codds can have no reasonable ground of complaint; it is plentiful and nourishing. While the Codds had their meals in the noble banqueting hall, in a side-room the gown-boys dined on "resurrection pie," as they thoughtlessly dubbed it. As regards clothing, a gown-boy had the best of it. The gown-boy was supplied with everything down to his boots, while the Codd got nothing but his Chapel gown. There was something incongruous in a gown-boy, possibly the nephew of a Governor, being clothed as well as fed and taught at the Founder's expense, while the Poor Brother had to pay for his own clothes, but such was the custom. The room of a Codd is 14 feet square; he is allowed candles, two tons of coal, and firewood, is well fed and receives £36 a year or about two shillings a day pocket-money. He has not only a Preacher to look after his spiritual, but a "Manciple" and a physician to look after his physical welfare. Were it possible for man to live in the present, a Codd would be happy.

When a Codd died in former times, he was buried within the walls of the Charterhouse. This burial-ground has long been closed. The obliterated tombstones, overlooked by the upper windows of Wilderness Row, scarcely remind you of Keats' burial-ground at Rome. It is not, like that, a place to make you "fall in love with death." Yet it has a certain charm of its own. It is encircled by that vast City in which these Poor Brothers struggled and failed, but now mid its busy hum they sleep well.

CHAPTER II.

CHARTERHOUSE-(continued).

1

If the Hospital was a dubious benefit to the School, the Master has proved an undoubted advantage to it. It must be borne in mind that the Hospital and the school were under the same body of Governors and that they both derived support from the same trust funds in the hands of the Governors. The link between the Hospital and the School was the Master, who must not be confounded with the Head Master of the School. He was the only Governor who was also an officer of the Institution; he alone had a voice in making the regulations and the responsibility for carrying them out. What the Provost is to Eton, that the Master was to Charterhouse; but the statutory qualifications for the Provost are much stricter than those for the Master. The field of choice at Eton is also more narrow, at least in theory, than at Charterhouse, and at Sutton's Foundation the Governors have never elected a person nominated by the Crown as is the case at Eton College. The only instance in which the election of a Master was not made by the Governors of the Hospital was that of Francis Beaumont who was appointed by the King (James I). The Master's office has become at both Foundations the honorable place of retirement for one who has served the School faithfully. No layman has been elected Master since the death of Nicholas Mann in 1753.

Sir H. Wotton and Sir H. Savile, perhaps the most distinguished in the whole list of Eton's Provosts, were laymen. The same remark cannot be made about the eight

Under the new Statutes the Master is no longer a Governor of the School ex officio, yet one cannot imagine the Governors not electing the Master a member of their body.