looks upon the days of Queen Elizabeth as an affair of yesterday. The cathedral, a shapeless mass without, but with an interior rival. ing the stateliest edifices of Europe, dates back from the days of the Confessor, and contains a whole history in its mere architecture. From its doors was repelled the corpse of the infamous Rufus. Within its choir are preserved the cysts wherein once reposed the bones of Saxon monarchs. In the nave stands the chantrytomb of the saintly bishop, still unmutilated in the midst of the havoc wrought by the zealous believers in the gospel of blasphemy and destruction, having owed its preservation to the interference of a Cromwellian soldier who had gained his education from the munificence of Wykeham.

At the top of the High street, the single great street of the town, is the ancient city gate; near the bottom, just at the entrance of the Cathedral Close, stands the beautiful Market cross, as in old Catholic times. On the side of the Close, remote from the street, lies the Deanery garden, a charming spot, with thickly foliaged trees shading delicious grass, and a pellucid trout-stream running through their midst. Within the precincts are the houses of the canons, the leaders of Wintonian society: a society, it may be remarked, preëminently aristocratic, provincial and connubio-ecclesiastical. The dean of our day was a very old man and a widower; the bishop (with an official income of any number of thousands) lived in his palace some twenty miles off, and never dreamed of occupying his throne in the cathedral; so the canons had it all their own way, and a very dignified little way it was. Eloquence was their strongest point, especially in exposing the errors of "popery," and of denouncing those miserable men who turn Reason (with a big R) into Rebellion (with another big R), and Faith into Faction" (capital letters again). Never shall we forget the thrill of horror which flooded our innocent souls, and the torrent of ecclesiastical invective that poured scathingly forth, when his late Holiness committed that terrible act of Papal aggression that restored the Catholic hierarchy of England. That a foreign ecclesiastic should dare to preach the Gospel in a way not by law established, and even repugnant to Act of Parliament, was bad enough; though, so long as merely spiritual matters were concerned, it might, perhaps, be borne; but that an Italian bishop should venture to confer titles upon English subjects, and those titles actually higher than the canons themselves; this, indeed, was an aggression which called forth the powers of offended majesty.

Leaving now the Cathedral Close, we come to an archway supporting the quaint and diminutive Church of S. Swithin, another celebrated (and canonized) bishop of Winchester, who, to the amazement of his clergy, insisted upon being buried under a water

spout, and after his death caused unceasing rain to descend until the recalcitrant canons submitted to his will, and permitted his body to remain in the spot he had, through humility, chosen. Hence the saying still runs in Winchester, that if there be rain on S. Swithin's day, there will be rain for forty days after. Passing under the archway, and turning sharply to the left, we enter the short street leading down to the college where, facing the road, at the corner, stands the Porters' Lodge, or outer building of the structure. There were always two porters belonging to the college; and upon the lower of these, by one of the incomprehensible practices common to the school, was bestowed the name of one of the minor prophets conferred in reverse order. Joel was the title of the under-porter during our time; at what author of Scripture they may now have arrived, we are not aware. The head porter, who was also the principal carver at the boys' dinner, was a tall, somewhat saturnine personage; but he is recorded once to have been guilty of a smile. One of the college boys, finding the leg of mutton belonging to his own mess to be considerably reduced, ventured to ask the porter, Mr. Poole, for a cut off another. "Where's your own leg?" cried Mr. Poole, not over-graciously. "Here it is, Poole," said

the boy, patting his own leg complacently, "but it isn't roasted quite enough." Then the grim features relaxed, and the cut of mutton quickly appeared. Jokes, however mild, were not plentiful at Winchester.

Within the gate was a kind of paved court, having on the left the warden's house, a fine old mansion with a beautiful garden behind, watered by the same stream as ran through the deanery grounds, and on the right a number of outbuildings, the chief of which was devoted to the blacking of shoes, and thence entitled Edom, because "over Edom will I cast out my shoe." In the same way the washing-place was called Moab, because "Moab is my washpot," and a small ruler a Benjamin, because "there is little Benjamin, their ruler." If we had had as much scripture in our morals as we had in our mouths, there would have been less repugnance between the design and the reality of the foundation.

Crossing the yard, we come to another gateway, called Middle Gate, with a chamber built over it, where the principal examinations of the year were conducted, and the election-rolls made out both for Winchester and for New College, of which the proper title was the College of B. Mary of Winchester near Oxford. Through Middle Gate we enter Middle or Chamber Court, where stood the chief buildings of the college. Around three sides were the boys' dormitories or "chambers," containing from eight to ten beds each. On the further side of the court was the chapel, a fine structure, though of rather a debased style of architecture, and with windows

of rich painted glass, having beneath each of them a scroll containing the neglected entreaty: "Orate pro anima Gulielmi de Wykeham." On the arch of Middle Gate, opposite the chapel, was a large effigy of our Blessed Lady, the patron of the college, with the archangel kneeling to her on one side, and the founder on the other. From time immemorial no boy, of whatever standing, had been permitted to have his head covered when crossing this court, even during the hours when the dormitories were open, or when we passed through on our way to the cathedral; but this was ingeniously attributed not to respect for the Mother of God, which would have been scandalous in Christian youth, but for the sacred Master's window, which overlooked the court, and we were, of course, too well trained in the extraordinary tenets of our creed not to be duly grieved by the shocking example of reverence set to us by the founder and the archangel.

Behind the chapel was the college burial-ground, surrounded by the cloisters, a secluded spot forbidden to the boys, because it was said the celebrated non-juror Ken had in his student days so often cut his name there, and scarcely ever entered by anyone (the library of the Fellows was situated in the centre of it), but presenting a lovely appearance on a moonlight night, when the tracery was thrown out on the floor in silvery arches. At the corner of Chamber Court, over the seventh or largest Chamber, was the dining hall, a fine building about 100 feet long and 40 feet high, rarely filled except for the great banquets at election time. All round the walls were pictures of Wykehamist prelates, some in the splendid vestments of Catholic divines, the founder himself amongst them, and some in that wonderful arrangement of bedgown and balloon surmounted by a bigwig, which Anglican bishops appear to have adopted with a view to connecting the idea of episcopacy with an utterly anomalous and irresistibly ridiculous image.

Considering the smallness of our body, the organization of the college was not a little elaborate. At the head was the warden or custos," with an income of about $10,000 a year, derived from the college revenues, and nothing whatever apparently to do for it except to create "prefects" and to ask boys to dinner on leaveout days. Personally our old warden was one of the most kindhearted and generous of men, always seeking and constantly finding occasion for doing some kindness to his neighbors; and his mere presence was like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; but, unluckily, we boys had little or nothing to do with him in school affairs. Next to him came ten fellows (socii), receiving each about $2500 a year from the college chest for the term of their natural lives, married or unmarried, beneficed or at large, and

having positively no duties to perform in return, not even that of visiting the college once or twice in the course of a dozen years. Of the officials whom the glorious "Reformation" had not converted into sinecurists, the principal was the head-master, or informator, and under him the second master, or ostiarius. Then came ourselves, the seventy scholars, gratuitously boarded, lodged and taught out of the resources, though not, alas! according to the principles, of the munificent William of Wykeham. Three chaplains, who performed service about three times a year on an average (the daily service being conducted by the hardly-worked headmaster), an organist of much celebrity and brilliant execution, and a choir of sixteen country boys with the most execrable voices conceivable and a corresponding vocalization, completed the staff of the college. For about a century or so back, however, it had been the custom for the head-master to receive pupils not belonging to the college, but paying a handsome sum (about $500 per annum) for the privilege of being educated at the famous school. These boys were called Commensales or Commoners, and associated with the collegians only during school hours. Their introduction necessitated an increase in the teaching staff, and various subordinate masters, or professors, as they would be called here, were paid accordingly out of the private speculation of the head

master.

Princely as was the institution of the college-and imitated afterwards by Henry VI. in his foundation of Eton-it formed by no means the whole, scarcely even the half of the munificence of the open-handed founder. A sister college at Oxford, consisting of a warden and seventy fellows (each drawing about $1500 a year), was annually recruited, as vacancies fell, by a few of the senior boys from Winchester, who were thus not only enabled to prosecute their studies as far as studies in those days could well be prosecuted, but also became endowed with a competence for the remainder of their days, which could only be taken away from them either by their accepting a college benefice or taking to themselves a wife or having the good fortune to be converted to the faith of the founder. And all these enormous expenses were defrayed by the revenues of the vast landed estates secured to the two incorporated colleges by the will of William of Wykeham. Truly has it been said of that most cheerful giver:

"Hic fundat dextrâ, fundat collegia lævâ;

Nemo unam illius vicit utra que manu."

Of which distich we venture to offer the following attempt at translation:

Left hand and right, the founder's work is done;

Let others use both hands, they'll not surpass his one.

These advantages being the privilege, and for most the easily obtainable privilege of such as are fortunate enough to secure admission into Winchester College at an early age (for to Commoners New College was as much closed as to the rest of the world), it will be easily understood that to get a boy on the foundation at Winchester was not by any means a matter for every one to attain. Every summer, at the close of the academic or old ecclesiastical year, an examination was held by a committee of six electors, consisting of the two wardens and four other members of the two colleges chosen in rotation. This committee drew up the rolls of admission for the ensuing year, both for Winchester and for New College. In the former each elector possesses the right of nominating candidates according to seniority; while for the latter the examination was ostensibly competitive amongst the eighteen senior boys in the college, though their order was in reality rarely varied. As, therefore, admission to New College with all its privileges was ultimately to be obtained only through Winchester, and as at the very least education and board for several years were thereby obtained gratuitously, nominations for Winchester were highly valued, and frequently sought and obtained before the candidates were even born. That the gift and acceptance of these nominations was a scandal and abuse, that a charity so noble and a machinery so complex could never have been established simply for the purpose of relieving the friends of the members from the expense of educating some of their children, and for providing certain lucky individuals with the means of remaining idle bachelors for life, never occurred for a moment to parent or to pupil. And yet though we heard it not, the stone cried out from the wall, and the beam from the timber gave answer. New College was designed by the holy founder to be a community of learned priests and Winchester to be the seminary subserving it; and stifle it as they would, the irrepressible voice cried out. In our ordinary dress, the split cassock or college gown; in our surplices on Sundays when we formed what was virtually the white choir at High Mass; in the peal which woke us of a morning and summoned us to night prayers of an evening, and which was none other than the Angelus, although we recognized it not; in the name and dedication of the college itself; in the images already mentioned of Our Blessed Lady and her servants; in the hymns and versicles preserved from the Breviary and in countless details little observed at the time, but gathering strength by accumulation, the spirit of the founder enforced an unconscious hearing. But of all the voices which spoke so silently, yet so powerfully, to the ear once opened to receive them, none, we think, penetrated more deeply than that expressed in the collect on the day of commemoration.