About Winchester College

Abstract

THAT a boy should have been moved to write an account of his school, in which he enumerates the warden, masters, chaplains, clerks and organist, the seventy “children,” the sixteen “quiristers,” their gowns and other garments, the servants and their several offices, the hours of rising, meals, and lessons, and tO1 describe the food, the games and other occupations, is difficult of explanation. That Robert Mathew's 286 hexameter lines should have been preserved is most remarkable. His picture of life at Winchester in 1647—it is a machine drawing rather than a picture—can have had no interest for his contemporaries. They were too familiar with the details which he sets forth with the pedantic accuracy of a valuer's inventory. He had no prevision of their interest to posterity. Documents of this kind are extremely rare. Students of sociology may search in vain such famous chronicles as the Mahawanso, in which a long succession of Buddhist priests recorded, from year to year, the current history of the Sinhalese from the first establishment of their kingdom, for evidence of the ways and occupations of the people. Does the Times describe a man's evening dress? The uniform and obvious calls for no description.

About Winchester College.

A. K. Cook. To which is prefixed De Collegio Wintoniensi, by R. Mathew. Pp. xvii + 583. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1917.) Price 18s. net.