Matthias Prideaux, of Exeter College, Oxford, and A. Lane, M.A., were at the outset of their careers retainers of this kind in the great Devonshire family of Reynell. The former signalised himself by the _Introduction to History_, which, whatever our verdict upon it may be, was a highly successful venture, and, after serving its original purpose as a class-book for his private pupils, the sons of Sir Thomas Reynell, was printed and held the market for many years. Lane, who was a man of ability and intelligence, makes his patron, Sir Richard Reynell, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, share with him the credit of his _Rational and Speedy Method of attaining to the Latin Tongue_, 1695, which he had been encouraged by Sir Richard to pursue with young Reynell, a boy of eight, and which formed, no doubt, the basis of his system when he embarked on tuition as a career. He presided at first over the free school at Leominster, but subsequently set up for himself at Mile End Green, where he would be at fuller liberty to follow his own bent. Lane desires us to believe that the progress made by his young pupil, while he was under his charge, was little less than miraculous; but an earlier writer, Christopher Syms, in his _Introduction to the Art of Teaching the Latin Speech_, 1634, gives hope to the dullest boy that, by the use of his method, he may acquire it in four years. From the sixteenth century downward, there seems to have been a succession of competitors to public favour and support in this, as in every other, department of activity; and among the whole crowd of aspirants there was not one who succeeded in discovering the true principles of the art till our own time. IV. The absence of newspapers or other ready means of communication necessitated a resort to a system of advertising educational establishments through the medium of broadsides, in which were set forth the advantages of particular institutions and the branches of knowledge in which instruction was to be had there. As early as 1562, Humphrey Baker, of London, published an arithmetical work entitled _The Wellspring of Sciences_, which was frequently reprinted both in his lifetime and after his decease; but he was a teacher of the art, as well as a writer upon it, and there is a printed sheet announcing his arrangements for receiving pupils, and giving lessons in that and various other subjects. For, as the terms of the document, herewith annexed, shew, Baker had in his employment other gentlemen, who assisted him in his scholastic labours:--