I had my opinion asked over and over again, if I thought that such a levity was so perfectly harmless, and such another liberty was the soul of innocence? In a word, madam, I enjoyed the privilege, very rarely accorded to a husband I fancy, to sit in judgment over his own wife, and say what he thought of her conduct."

"Was there no one to tell these gentlemen to whom they were speaking?" said she, with a subdued quiet tone.

"No; I came in late and took my place amongst men all strangers to me. I assure you I profited largely by the incident. It is so seldom one gets public opinion in its undiluted form, it's quite refreshing to taste it neat. Of course they were not always correct. I could have set them right on many points. They had got a totally wrong version of what they called the Agra row,' though one of the party said he was Beresford's cousin."

She grasped the table convulsively to steady herself, and in so doing threw it down and the whole tea equipage with it.

"Yes," continued he, as though responding to this evidence of emotion on her part-"yes; it pushed one's patience pretty hard to be obliged to sit under such criticism."

"And what obliged you, sir? was it fear?"

"Yes, madam, you have guessed it. I was afraid-terribly afraid to own I was your husband."

A low faint groan was all she uttered, as she covered her face with her hands. "I had next," continued he, "to listen to a dispute as to whether Trafford had ever seriously offered to run away with you or not. It was almost put to the vote. Faith, I believe my casting voice might have carried the thing either way, if I had only known how to give it." She murmured something too low to be heard correctly, but he caught at

part of it and said, "Well, that was pretty much what I suspected. The debate was, however, adjourned; and as Cave called me by my name at the moment, the confidences came to an abrupt conclusion. As I foresaw that these youngsters, ignorant of life and manners as they were, would be at once for making apologetic speeches and suchlike, I stole away and came home, more domestico, to ruminate over my enjoyments at my own fireside."

"I trust, sir, they were strangers to your own delinquencies. I hope they had no unpleasant reminders to give you of yourself."

"Pardon, madam. They related several of what you pleasantly call my delinquencies, but they only came in on the by-play of the scene where you were the great character. We figured as brigands. It was you always who stunned the victim; I only rifled his pockets-fact, I assure you. I'm sorry that china is smashed. It was Saxe-wasn't it?"

She nodded.

He

"And a present of Trafford's, too! What a pity! I declare I believe we shall not have a single relic of the dear fellow, except it be a protested bill or two." paused a moment or so, and then said, "Do you know it just strikes me that if they saw how ill-how shamefully you played your cards in this Trafford affair, they'd actually absolve you of all the Circe gifts the world ascribes to you."

She fixed her eyes steadfastly on him, and as her clasped hands dropped on her knees, she leaned forward and said, "What do you mean by it? What do you want by this? If these men, whose insolent taunts you had not courage to arrest or to resent, say truly, whose the fault? Ay, sir, whose the fault? Answer me, if you dare, and say, was not my shame incurred to cover and conceal yours?"

"Your tragedy-queen airs have no effect upon me. I've been too long behind the scenes to be frightened by stage thunder. What is past is past. You married a gambler; and if you shared his goodluck, you oughtn't to grumble at partaking his bad fortune. If you had been tired of the yoke, I take it you'd have thrown it behind you many a day ago."

"If I have not done so, you know well why," said she, fiercely. "The old story, I suppose-the dear darlings up-stairs. Well, I can't discuss what I know nothing about. I can only promise you that such ties would never bind me."

"I ask you once again what you mean by this?" cried she, as her lips trembled and her pale cheeks shook with agitation. "What does it point to? What am I to do? What am I to be?"

"That's the puzzle," said he, with an insolent levity; "and I'll be shot if I can solve it! Sometimes I think we'd do better to renounce

the partnership, and try what we could do alone; and sometimes I suspect-it sounds odd, doesn't it? but I suspect that we need each other."

She had by this time buried her face between her hands, and by the convulsive motion of her shoulders showed she was weeping bitterly.

"One thing is certainly clear," said he, rising, and standing with his back to the fire-" if we decide to part company, we haven't the means. If either of us would desert the ship, there's no boat left to do it with."

She arose feebly from her chair, but sank down again, weak and

overcome.

"Shall I give you my arm?" asked he.

"No, send Jane to me," said she, in a voice barely above a whisper.

He rang the bell, and said, "Tell Jane her mistress wants her;" and with this he searched for a book on the table, found it, and strolled off to his room, humming an air as he

went.

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STANDING on the border-land of England and Wales, few places have been of more account in British history than the "pleasant" town of Shrewsbury—Mwythig, as the Welshmen call it to this day. As the modern stranger wanders up and down, admiring those picturesque timbered mansions in which once the knights and merchants of Powys-land kept their state, and reads the quaint names written up in modern print upon its thoroughfares Mardol, and Wyle Cop, and Dogpole, and the like he feels that every yard of the old town has a story to tell him, if he could catechise it. Quite true-not all the stories, but that there are many to tell. It is not true, for instance, that the present Shrewsbury clock" is the same by which Sir John Falstaff fought his "long hour," though an enthusiastic Shrewsbury guide will tell you so. It is not so certain that St Winifred carried her head about here in her hands after it was cut off, as that Richard III.'s Duke of Buckingham lost his head here once for all. The most devout medievalist may be allowed to doubt whether the devil really appeared in St Mary's Church, ran up the ropes into the bell-tower, thence to the top of the steeple, where he vanished "with a great noise and smell;" though it is certain that an unfortunate exhibitor broke his neck in trying to come down by a flying rope from that perilous elevation into the "Gay" meadow. Yet both exploits are avouched by very credible wit

nesses.

Shrewsbury, however, was the rallying ground of English civilisation in the Marches of Wales. The advisers of Edward VI. would have been wise in their generation if, when in 1548 they issued in his name their grand commission for

public education, they had fixed at once upon the capital of the Welsh border as the natural centre for one of their new foundations. But it is to the credit of the Shrewsbury citizens that the movement came from within. Hugh Edwards, a London mercer, but unquestionably a Shrewsbury man, and then living in the town, and Richard Whitaker, one of the then bailiffs, presented to the young King a humble petition, in the name not only of the burgesses and inhabitants of the town and county of Salop, but of the whole neighbouring country, that a grammar school might be there established. There were two collegiate churches, they said, which had recently been dissolved - St Mary's and St Chad's-and no better disposition could be made of some part of their revenues. The King granted the prayer, and letters patent (bearing date February 10, 1551) conveyed a charter for the school and a grant of certain prebendal tithes amounting in the whole to £20 per annum— which had belonged to the collegiate bodies aforesaid. It was provided that there should be the usual head-master and usher, to be chosen by the bailiffs and burgesses with the advice of the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry.

The school is called in the charter "Libera Schola Grammaticalis Regis Edvardi Sexti" — words which any small Shrewsbury boy would translate off-hand, for nonintelligent readers, as "The Free Grammar School of King Edward the Sixth"-and there, it might have been thought, would be an end of it. Not at all. Libera means "free," no doubt; but "free" in what sense?-as implying a "gratuitous" education, or as "exempt from control"? The translation of this single Latin word has given occasion to a pamphlet by

one of the first scholars of the day, has roused the ire of a very respectable Recorder, and has fairly bothered Her Majesty's Public School Commissioners, who, with a modest reticence which may be variously appreciated, decline to give their own decision. It would be very presumptuous, and perhaps not very entertaining, to give judgment on such a vexed question here. It will be enough to say that all argument from the use of the word in classical and medieval Latin is in favour of the interpretation maintained by Dr Kennedy "free from the jurisdiction of a superior corporation." Public educational foundations had been hitherto more or less dependent upon ecclesiastical bodies. chapters, or colleges, or conventual houses; and from such dependence and control it was a main object with Edward and his Council that their schools should be "free."

The charter was obtained; but there were many obstacles in the way of the school's taking actual shape. The sweating-sickness-a visitation hitherto unknown, "that most terrible of all English diseases"-had just broken out in the town, and the bailiffs must have had enough to do. The corporation could not as yet get possession of the tithes (which were under lease to individuals), but only of the reserved rents, which were but a poor provision. And in the midst of all this King Edward died, and it may be guessed how far his "free" school was likely to be encouraged by Queen Mary. The burgesses did something, however. They had hired a master, and got up a school somewhere. There appears in their accounts about this time a payment of twelve pence "to the master of the free school, Sir Morys." Sir Morys disappears, and then we have an entry

of 6s. 8d. paid "on account to John Eyton, hired to keep the free grammar school." Mr Eyton was even less satisfactory to his employers than Sir Morys might have been; for very soon, under date October ult. 1556, occurs the following :

"Agreed, that yf Mr Bayliffs can heare of an honest and able person which will serve the office of head scholemaster of the Free Schole of the towne, and that shall be thought mecte-that then Mr Bayliffs shall avoide the said John Eyton, now scholemaster, giving him one half-year's warning. And the said John Eyton to have for his wages from St Michs. last past £14 by year and not above."+

Whether John Eyton was "avoided," whether he was content with his wages, or what became of him, no known records inform us. With Elizabeth came the time and the man for Shrewsbury School, when Thomas Ashton, M.A. of St John's, Cambridge, was appointed headmaster in 1662. He must have possessed remarkable ability, not only as a teacher, but as a man of business. It was agreed by the burgesses that he should have a patent for life of all the tithes which formed the school endowment, on condition of his maintaining a third master. He begins his school register in December of this year, with Thomas Wylton and Richard Atkys as his under-masters; and it would appear that he entered at once 256 boys; but this number probably includes those whom he found already under some instruction. In the seven years of his mastership he admitted no less than 875 scholars. Of these only 238 lived in the town (oppidani), the rest were strangers (alieni) from the best families in Shropshire and the neighbouring counties. Salusburys, Mackworths, Whitakers, Corbets, Myttons, Egertons, Montgomerys, Devereux, Hoptons, Eytons,

1962.

Mainwarings, Herberts, Wrottesleys, Oatleys, Wycherleys-there is scarcely a family of any note in the north-west of England that had not at least a cadet of the house under Ashton and his immediate successors. No school ever started at once into such vigorous life. It needs only a glance at the names in the original register (which, or rather an early transcript of it, has been happily preserved) to understand the ground upon which Camden calls it "the best filled in all England"-a testimony the more emphatic, as coming from one who had himself been head-master of Westminster. On the most moderate computation, there could not have been less than four hundred scholars, on the average, in these earlier years—a number which neither Eton nor Westminster reached until some generations afterwards.

66

A house and land had been already bought for twenty pounds, of John Proude; a timber building, to which some additions were probably made to provide accommodation for the three masters. Here Ashton taught for seven years, with undiminished reputation; a right good man," as Camden justly calls him, in favour alike with the courtiers of Elizabeth and with his humbler fellow-townsmen. Among the many scholars of ancient families whom he had under his charge, two who came to school together on the same day, in the third year of his mastership, and continued fast friends through life, are names never surpassed in honour by any gentlemen of England. Sir Henry Sidney of Penshurst (the bosom friend of King Edward, who had died in his arms) was at this time Lord President of the Welsh Marches, and residing officially in the Castle at Ludlow. The near neighbourhood of the school, his connection with the founder, and Mr Ashton's reputation, were sufficient reason for his placing there his eldest son, Philip, a boy of eight years old, and may explain why

his young cousin, Fulke Gryvell (or Greville), heir of Sir Fulke Gryvell of Beauchamp's Court in Warwickshire, should have come to the same school on the same day. The son of a wise and excellent father, Philip Sidney profited well by Ashton's teaching. Two letters from the boy, written in Latin and in French in his twelfth year, drew from Sir Henry that remarkable letter, too often reprinted (would one could hope too well known!) for insertion here, but which, even to this day, continues a model for an English father's advice to his son. What public-school boy would not be the better for bearing in mind some of his noble words! There is no need to keep the antique spelling-the thoughts and language are not limited to any date :

Let your first action be the lifting up of your mind to Almighty God by hearty prayer; and feelingly digest the words you speak, with continual meditation and thinking of Him to whom you pray. Be humble and obedient to your master; for unless you frame yourself to obey others, yea, and feel in yourself what obedience is, you shall never be able to teach others to obey you. Be courteous of gesture, and affable to all men, with diversity of reverence according to the dignity of the person. There is nothing that winneth so much with so little cost. Give yourself to be merry, but let your mirth be ever void of all scurrility and biting words to any man. Be you rather a hearer and bearer away of other men's talk, than a beginner or procurer of speech. Let never oath be heard to come out of your mouth, nor word of ribaldry; detest it in others, so shall custom make to yourself a law against it in your own self. Above all things tell no untruth, no, not in trifles; for there cannot be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be accounted a liar.

No wonder that his mother, in the fond postscript to her "lyttel Philip," which she wrote "in the skirts of my Lord President's letter," felt she could add nothing to that complete and perfect manual for the English schoolboy. Philip