Note 84 — APPENDIX.

Our information is very scanty. H. B. Wilson, the historian of Merchant Taylors’ School, a very painstaking writer, says that Mulcaster was “Surmaster of St. Paul’s, 1586; Vicar of Cranbrook, in Kent, 1st April, 1590; Prebendary of Sarum, 29th April, 1594; Rector of Stanford Rivers, in Essex, 1598; died 15th April, 1611.” Did Mulcaster go first as “Surmaster” to St. Paul’s? Knight, in his “Life of Colet,” says Mulcaster “came in upper master in 1596,” which is consistent with his being “surmaster” previously. But after his reign of twenty-six years at Merchant Taylors’ he would not be likely to accept any mastership where he would be a subordinate. Mr. Lupton tells me that in Gardiner’s “Registers of St. Paul’s School,” Richard Smith is put down as “surmaster” from 1586 to 1599, when he was pensioned, “being fallen into decay of his eyesight and impotency;” but a note speaks of these dates as probable, not certain. From Fuller we should suppose that Mulcaster left St. Paul’s before he was seventy-seven years old; but it seems certain that he was “high-master” till 1608. He must therefore have been for some years non-resident, either in his school or in his parish. Fuller inaccurately puts him down as a Westmorland worthy; but as Fuller got information from hearers of Mulcaster the following passage is valuable:——“In the morning he (Mulcaster) would exactly and plainly construe and parse the lessons to his scholars; which done, he slept his hour (custom made him critical to apportion it) in his desk in the school; but woe be to the scholar that slept the while! Awaking, he heard them accurately; and Atropos might be persuaded to pity as soon as he to pardon where he found just fault. The prayers of cockering mothers prevailed with him as much as the requests of indulgent fathers, rather increasing than mitigating his severity on their offending child. In a word he was plagosus Orbilius, though it may truly be said (and safely for one out of his school) that others have taught as much learning with fewer lashes. Yet his sharpness was the better endured because unpartial, and many excellent scholars were bred under him; whereof Bishop Andrews was the most remarkable. Then quitting that place (St. Paul’s School) he was presented to the rich parsonage of Stanford Rivers, in Essex. I have heard from those who have heard him preach, that his sermons were not excellent; which to me seems no wonder, partly because there is a different discipline in teaching Children and Men; partly because such who make divinity (not the choice of their youth but) the refuge of their age seldom attain to eminency therein.” (Fuller’s “Worthies,” edited by John Nichols (2 vols., 1811), vol. ii, p. 431.)