Let us look at some examples of the class from which Cambridge was recruited through the xvi and xvii centuries. Hugh Latimer (_b._ 1491) was the son of a yeoman farmer; Sir Thomas Wyatt (_b._ 1503) was the son of a knight. The father of Matthew Parker (_b._ 1504) was a Norwich merchant; Bacon (_b._ 1561) and his brother, fellow-commoners of Trinity, were sons of the Lord Keeper and nephews of Burleigh. Fletcher (_b._ 1579) the dramatist, was the son of the Bishop of London, and his cousins the poets were sons of Elizabeth’s Master of the Requests and ambassador to Russia.[375] In the xvii century Herrick the poet (_b._ 1591) was the son of a goldsmith established in London; Waller (_b._ 1605) a nephew of Hampden’s, a man of large private fortune; Cowley (_b._ 1618) was [Illustration: UNIVERSITY BOAT-HOUSES ON THE CAM--SUNSET This view is taken near Stourbridge Common and the bend of the river known as Barnwell Pool, looking towards the town.] [Sidenote: xviii c.] son to a city grocer; Marvell (_b._ 1620) son to a Yorkshire clergyman; while Temple was the son of an Irish Master of the Rolls. In the latter half of the xvii century we still hear of “the farmer’s son newly come from the university”[376]--Bentley was one of them--and at the same time we hear that Tuckney, Whichcote’s tutor, “had many persons of rank and quality” under him at Emmanuel College. In the xviii century, Pepys’ (_b._ 1703) father was a tailor, the Wordsworths were sons of a north country attorney, Sir William Browne (_b._ 1692) was the son of a physician. [Sidenote: Recruiting schools.] Men of low origin were sent up, and have always been sent up, to the universities through the beneficence of patrons, and the poor tailor Stow was enabled to write his history owing to the patronage of Archbishop Parker who sent him to Oxford. Through the xv and early xvi centuries the monastic and other convent schools supplied university students. Bale (_b._ 1495) had been educated by the Norwich Carmelites, Coverdale (_b._ 1487) had been an Austinfriar at Cambridge. At the present day the big grammar schools, and in especial the Norwich grammar school which educated Nelson, send every year a contingent of students, as they have done since the reign of Edward VI. If we take the sporting representatives sent from the two universities the year before last, 23 from Oxford and 21 from Cambridge, we shall find that one third of the Cambridge men hailed from the greater public schools, Eton, Charterhouse, and Rugby.[377] Our colonies are also a recruiting ground, and with them Cambridge is favourite university.[378]