354 SINGULAR PROCESSION. and the Royal Family. Till the time of Doctor Barnard, the procession of the Montem was every two years, and on the first or second Tuesday in February. 66 It consisted (says Mr. Hakewill) of something of a MILITARY ARRAY. The boys in the remove, fourth and inferior forms, marched in a long file of two and two, with white poles in their hands, while the sixth and fifth form boys walked on their flanks as officers, and habited in all the variety of dress which Monmouth Street could furnish, each of them having a boy of the inferior forms, smartly dressed, attending upon him as a footman. The second boy in the school led the procession, in a military dress, with a truncheon in his hand, and bore for the day the title of Marshal'; and then followed the Captain, supported by the CHAPLAIN, the head scholar of the fifth form, dressed in a suit of black, with a large bushy wig and a broad beaver, decorated with a twisted silk hatband and rose, the fashionable distinction of the dignified elergy of that day. It was his office to read certain Latin prayers on the Mount at Salt Hill. The third boy of the school brought up the rear as Lieutenant. One of the higher classes, whose qualification was his activity, was chosen Ensign, and carried the colours, which were emblazoned with the College arms and the motto Pro More et Monte. This flag, before the procession left the College, he flourished in the school-yard with great dexterity, as displayed sometimes at Astley's and places of similar exhibition. The same ceremony was repeated after prayers on the Mount. The whole regiment dined in the inns at SALT HILL, and then returned to the College, and its dismission in the school-yard was announced by the universal drawing of all the swords!" These absurdities are now retrenched. The origin of the ceremony is doubtful, some referring it to the Bairn or Boy Bishop of Salisbury, or to an annual mass in the times of popery." ETON COLLEGE consists of two quadrangles: in the first are schools, the chapel and lodgings for the upper masters and scholars; the second is occupied by the library, the provosts' lodgings and the apartments of the fellows. The CHAPEL is a very handsome Gothic structure, resembling, as to its exterior but not as to its interior, the so much admired King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Two or three statues of the founder, HENRY THE SIXTH, decorate this seminary. Many eminent persons lie buried in the chapel. In the cemetery belonging to the College is interred the learned and (as he is commonly termed) ever memorable JOHN HALES. This great and good man, born at Bath, 1584, was a fine Greek scholar, and of uncommon modesty. He was the friend of Chillingworth, and possessing a soul incapable of bigotry, wished to have the religion of CHRIST freed from every corruption, by reducing it to its primitive candour and simplicity. He was fellow of Eton College and canon of Windsor. In the tumultuous times of Cromwell he was ejected and suffered by his numerous privations a kind of martyrdom. He was obliged to sell the finest library that was ever in the possession of a private man, to procure the necessaries of life! With the profound learning of the scholar, he mingled the politeness of the man of wit, so that when The KING and COURT were at Windsor, they delighted much in his company. His friend Farringdon dining with him in a very plain manner, not long before his death, he then took him into the CHURCH-YARD. When there, Hales said to his friend, "When I DIE, which I hope is not far off, for I am weary of this uncharitable world, I desire you to see me buried in yonder spot." "But why not in the CHURCH," said Farringdon, "with the Provost, Sir Henry Savile, Sir Henry Wotton, and the rest of your friends and predecessors ?" "Because," said he, "I am neither the founder of it, nor have I been a benefactor to it, nor shall ever now be able to be so !" HALES died May 19, 1656, aged 72, and the day after was, as he requested, buried in Eton College Church-yard. His WORKS were published in 1659, entitled, Golden Remains of the ever memorable John Hales: they are impregnated with the liberal and enlarged spirit of Christianity * * See SEQUEL to the SKETCH of the Denominations of the Christian World, fifth edition, by J. Evans, containing one hundred testimonies in behalf of CANDOUR and UNANIMITY. With the LIBRARY of Eton College I was much pleased: the books are well chosen, and arranged with an unusual neatness and regularity, Come, CHILD of care! to make thy soul serene, Ages remote and NATIONS yet to rise! CRABBE. The Elysium of a man of learning is his LIBRARY, and yet, comparatively speaking, few private collections of books are made with judgment. There is a fashionable rage for gathering together books to please the eye, and to impart an air of respectability to their possessor. But this is far preferable to the affectation of gross and brutal ignorance. Going over a certain Lord's mansion, I asked for the LIBRARY, 358 DESCRIPTION OF A LIBRARY. when, being introduced into a small room, a little closet was pointed out to me: upon opening the door, I found that a few volumes of the Racing Calendar and Peter Pindar's Works, made up the whole collection! To this meagre exhibition, however, could not be applied the following satirical description of a common library— Lo! ALL in silence, ALL in order stand, And mighty folios first a lordly band, Then quartos their well-ordered ranks maintain, And light octavos fill a spacious plain. See yonder rang'd in more frequented rows,' An humbler band of duodecimos; CRABBE. The Walks or playing fields adjoining the College of Eton are pleasant, terminated by the banks of the winding Thames; these I paced along, recollecting the interrogatory exclamation of the poet on this very spot→→→ |