The old public schools of England,--whose glory it is to unite Christian instruction with classical learning--were ecclesiastical foundations; and these, under the rule of Parliament, and during the reign of the Protector, met with little interruption and sustained no real injury. Eton, after a temporary suspension of its statutes, had, in the year 1645, its former usages restored; and the election of scholars then recommenced "in manner as had theretofore been accustomed."[293] Francis Rouse--who translated the Psalter into English verse, who was one of the Protector's Council, who became Speaker of the Little Parliament, and who obtained a seat in Cromwell's House of Lords--had been Provost of the College from the time of the ejection of Dr. Stewart in the year 1644. Rouse died in 1658, and was buried at Eton with much pomp. Upon the consequent occurrence of a vacancy, Whitelocke, then Constable of Windsor Castle, by the advice of his friends, endeavoured to secure the vacant office--which he described as "a thing of good value, quiet and honourable, and fit for a scholar;" but on applying to his Highness, the candidate found the place reserved as "a bait for some others."[294] Nicholas Lockyer, an Oxford man, one of Oliver's chaplains, received the appointment. [Sidenote: _Public Schools._] The election of scholars at Westminster had, in the year 1645, been vested in Commissioners, and also in the Master of the school, the Master of Trinity, Cambridge, and the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford--if "the said Dean were not a delinquent." The ordinance would give to Dr. Owen, when he presided over Christ Church, the rights with regard to the school which had been exercised by such dignitaries of old. In the Act of April, 1649, for the sale of ecclesiastical property, the foundations of Westminster, Winchester, and Eton were expressly excepted from its operation.[295] The old Westminster school-room, with its chesnut roof--which once covered the dormitory of the monks of St. Peter--had its rows of boys (Puritans amongst the rest), under the tuition of Puritan teachers, occupying the forms and studying their Latin primers, as in days of yore. The then Head Master, appointed about 1639, was no other than the famous Richard Bushy, whose portrait--reminding one a little of the spare-looking but keen-eyed Richard Baxter--still adorns the Deanery. There he wielded his ferule for fifty-seven years, not sparing the rod lest he should spoil the child.[296] One of his under-masters was the once well-known but now forgotten Edward Bagshawe, an Oxford student, who had shewn himself a turbulent and domineering person, not only in his college, but in the University--where he disturbed the Vice-Chancellor "with interposed speeches without formalities, and with his hat cocked," in which guise he was wont to read his catechetical lecture. But Master Richard Busby would not allow in office such a "pragmatical and ungrateful"