Exhibitions, each of the value of £50 a year, tenable for four years, by a student from Stamford school, at Oxford, Cambridge, or Durham.

LOUTH.

THE FREE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL.

FOUNDED 1552, A.D.

THE free Grammar-school of Louth was founded by letters patent f King Edward VI. in the fifth year of his reign; the preamble {which states, that :-"Whereas we have always coveted, with a 1ost exceeding, vehement, and ardent desire, that good literature ad discipline might be diffused and propagated through all parts of ur kingdom, as wherein the best government and administration of ffairs consists; and therefore, with no small earnestness, have we been ptent on the liberal institution of youth, that it may be brought up science, in places of our kingdom most proper and suitable for uch functions; it being as it were the foundation and growth of our ommonwealth." His majesty, at the humble petition of Richard Gooderick, Esq. attorney of the Court of Augmentations and Revenues of the Crown, and of the inhabitants of Louth, granted and ordained that "hereafter there may and shall be one grammar-school in the said town of Louth, which shall be called the Free Grammarschool of King Edward the Sixth, for the education, institution, and instruction of boys and youth in the grammar, to endure for ever."

King Edward endowed the school with property of some ancient guilds in the town of Louth, consisting of about 260 acres of land, with the tolls of markets and fairs. The present income from the property is about £700 a year. A decree was issued in 1702 under a commission of charitable uses, for the correction of certain irregularities and misapplications of the trust, and it was ordered that one half of the revenues should be assigned to the master, one fourth to the usher, and one fourth to twelve poor persons; which mode of distribution appears to have been intended by the original charter.

1718. Mr Charles Humphry founded a Scholarship at Jesus College for a scholar from the grammar-school of Caistor, Louth, or Alford. (See p. 289.)

1855. The sum of about £150 has been accumulated towards an exhibition fund for scholars from Louth school entering either at Oxford or Cambridge.

ALFORD.

THE FREE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL.

FOUNDED 1565, A. D.

THIS School was founded and endowed by Mr Francis Spa of that town, merchant. Its revenues have been considerably mented by later benefactions. By a charter obtained in 1576, it made a royal foundation, to be called "The Free Grammar-scho Queen Elizabeth.”

The rules and orders of the school were made in the year and in them it is directed that "If the schoolmaster shall per such untowardness in any child that he cannot learn the rudimen grammar, either wilfulness and negligence that he will not learn, then it shall be lawful for the schoolmaster (his friends being certified thereof) to refuse him, as one unworthy to bear the name scholar, spending his time in idleness."

"If the scholar be found apt to learning, his friends shall remove him to any other, before he hath attained competent lear to his own profit, his friends' comfort, and the good commendation his teacher."

1594. Mr Spendluffe founded one Fellowship and two Scho ships in Magdalene College, Cambridge, for students from Al school. (See p. 331.)

1718. Mr Charles Humphry gave a rent-charge of £6.8s. per annum for a scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge, from the gra mar-school of Caistor, Louth, or Alford. (See p. 289.)

BOSTON.

THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL.

FOUNDED 1554, A.D.

THIS school was both founded and endowed by Queen Mary the instruction of boys and youth in grammar. The school-building were erected by the mayor and burgesses of the town in 1567.

There are two Exhibitions for students from this school proceedin to Cambridge or Oxford, each of the value of £40 a year, but at pr sent they are in abeyance.

BUTTERWICK.

THE FREE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL.

FOUNDED 1665, A.D.

THIS school was founded and endowed by Anthony Pinchbeck of Butterwick, yeoman, "for the love and good will which he beareth to the inhabitants of Butterwick and within the hundred of the same, and for the better educating and instructing in learning all the children and youth, at all times hereafter inhabiting in Butterwick aforesaid, and the hundred thereof."

Mr Pinchbeck provided that one Exhibition, now about £20 a rear, should be given to a scholar of this school of his own name and scended from his family, and be tenable either at Oxford or Camridge for four years.

CAISTOR.

THE FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.

FOUNDED 1630, A.D.

THIS school was founded in pursuance of the will of Francis Rawlinson, clerk, rector of St Nicholas in South Kelsey.

The head mastership is endowed with the great tythes of the parish of Bilsby, near Alford, which have been commuted for the annual rent charge of £225, and with six acres of land in the same parish. The usher is paid from the rents of an estate at Cumberworth, near Alford, which is let on lease at £50 per annum.

1718. Mr Charles Humphry gave a rent-charge for a scholar from this school at Jesus College, Cambridge. (See p. 289.)

COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX.

LONDON.

WESTMINSTER SCHOOL.

FOUNDED 1561, A.D.

ST PETER'S COLLEGE, Westminster, or as it is more commonly called, "Westminster School," owes its foundation as it now exists to Queen Elizabeth.

It would appear, however, that there was a school attached to the abbey of Westminster, long anterior to the period of Queen Elizabeth,

and it is more than probable that the abbey always possessed a of considerable repute as a part of its establishment. It appears Ingulphus' history of Croyland Abbey, that there was a scho this place in the time of Edward the Confessor, for he mentions he was born in the city of London and sent to the school at minster. He also states, "I have seen how often when being boy, I came to see my father, dwelling in the king's court, and coming from school, when I met the queen, she would appos touching my learning and lesson. And falling from gramma logic, wherein she had some knowledge, she would subtilly con an argument with me, and by her handmaiden give me three or pieces of money, and send me unto the palace, where I should re some victual, and then be dismissed." And Widmore states the authority of the archives of Westminster Abbey, that from latter part of the reign of King Edward III. down to the dissolu of the abbey, a salary was paid to a schoolmaster styled "Mag Scholarium pro eruditione grammaticorum," who was distingui from the person who taught the children of the choir to sing. On surrender of the monastery to King Henry VIII. that monarch Icluded the school in his draft of the new establishment for the se Westminster, which he erected by letters patent in 1540 into a ca dral with an establishment to consist of a bishop, a dean, and twe prebendaries, together with an upper master of the school, an un master, and forty grammar-scholars, which have continued with alteration to the present time.

The preamble of the act of Henry VIII. for founding the cathedrals, (which is still preserved in Henry's own handwriting) cites, that they were established, "To the intente that god's wor myght the better be sett forthe, cyldren broght up in lernynge, cler nuryshyd in the universities, olde s'vantes decayed to have lyfin allmes housys for pour folke to be sustayned in, reders of grece, ebre and latyne, to have good stypende, dayly almes to be mynistra mending of hyght wayse and exhy bision for mynisters of the chyrche

The earnest design of Henry VIII. not to discourage learning al appears from his saying: "I love not learning so ill, that I w impair the revenues of anye house by a penie, whereby it may be u holden." According to Mr Widmore, there is in the archives of th church a draught of the instrument for the establishment of Henr VIII. by which it appears that a school was settled here by his ma jesty under the same form which it now bears, and with the regulation

that now govern it. The patent for the endowment of the Dean and Chapter was not granted till the 5th August, 1542, when lands were assigned for this purpose from the estate of the late monastery, to the sanual amount then of £2164, and from other abbeys to the yearly value of £434. At the same time the Dean and Chapter were charged with the annual payment of £400 to ten readers or Professors of Divinity, Law, Physic, Hebrew, and Greek, five in each of the Universities; and likewise with the stipends of twenty students in those Universities amounting to the sum of £166. 13s. 4d.

In the year 1544 the abbey church consented to give up lands to the annual amount of £167 at that time, to be discharged from paying the stipends of the king's University students. And in 1546 they surrendered certain additional estates of the then yearly value of £400 to be released from the salaries of the professors. A part of the latter sum was given to Trinity College, Cambridge, and the rest to Christ Church, Oxford.

In 1550, the third year of Edward VI. the see was suppressed by royal letters patent. Queen Mary on her accession restored the cathedral church to its monastic character; but in 1560 Westminster Abbey was converted into the form of a collegiate church by Queen Elizabeth.

It would seem that Queen Elizabeth did little more than continue her royal father's appointment. Her majesty, however, caused a statute to be made, for the purpose of regulating the manner in which scholars were to be elected upon the foundation in this school, and from thence to colleges in Oxford and Cambridge, as well as the number to be removed annually to the Universities.

The school of Westminster was continued during the troublous times of the Commonwealth, and on the Restoration in 1660, the dean was restored to the collegiate church, and from that period the establishment has not undergone any special alteration. Westminster College is not endowed with lands and possessions specifically appropriated to its own maintenance, but is attached to the general foundation of the collegiate church, as far as relates to the support of the forty scholars. The school is under the care of the dean and chapter, conjointly with the dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the master of Trinity College, Cambridge, respecting the election of scholars to their several colleges. In the third year of her reign Queen Elizabeth issued letters patent to the master and fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, expressing a wish, that in remembrance of her father's bountiful endow

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