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at this strait, I gathered all my wits together (as we say) and listened the more carefully to my fellowes that construed before me; and having also some easie word to my lot for parsing, I made hard shift to escape for that time. And when I observed my adversaries displeasure to continue against me, so as I could have no helpe from my prompters, I doubled my diligence and attention to our masters construing our next lesson to us, and observing carefully how in construction one word followed and depended upon another; which, with heedfull observing two or three lessons more, opened the way to shew me how one word was governed of another in the parsing; so as I needed no prompter, but became able to bee a prompter my selfe: and so the evill intended to mee by my fellow scholler, turned to my great good.'
As does sometimes occur, we happen to be able to supplement the facts here given into a fairly definite picture. Under Queen Mary, the school had difficulty in procuring teachers. As Leach puts it,
For the next three years no master could be got to stay. . . At last, at the end of the Marian persecution, came Hugh Walker, and was paid for 1557-8, as `scholemaister or teacher of the Gramer Schole for the whole yere, £io.' He proved a permanence and stayed till 1575-6. His successor, Gregory Downes, as he is called in 1576-7, and Donwhall in 1577-8, appears in Alumni Oxonien res as both Downhall and Downall. He was of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and a B. A. there, but on coming to Gloucester took an ad eundem degree at Oxford in February, 1577. He was regarded as a catch, as he received double the salary of his predecessor, £2o a year. He is called in the accounts `Schoolemaster of Crysts.' After a short two years he went off to the then more lucrative profession of the law, and became a master in Chancery.*
So the town had finally procured in 1557 Hugh Walker, "an an-dent Citizen of no great learning," to become master at £1o a year-poor pay, poor teacher. Walker had taught till 1576, when Willis was about twelve. Then Downhall had polished Willis off in the next two years to such an extent that he rose to what he considered high pre-ferment with only this grammar school training which he had attained by the usual age of probably fourteen. Shakspere had much better educational advantages at Stratford. He was never exposed to the untender mercies of "an ancient Citizen of no great learning," and his masters were all men of as good training as Downhall. The methods of the ancient citizen, Hugh Walker, are interesting, since he followed the regular system of construing and parsing, only he appears to have lectured in the afternoon and to have examined the next morning, instead of the usual morning lecture and afternoon
¹ Furnivall, F. J., Harrison's Description of England in Shaksperes Youth, Part IV, pp. 353-355. 4 V. C. H., Gloucestershire, Vol. II, p. 346.
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