... "the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school;" and in _Romeo and Juliet_ (ii. 1. 156) the significant similes:-- "Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, But love from love, toward school with heavy looks." Gremio, in _The Taming of the Shrew_ (iii. 2. 149), when asked if he has come from the church, replies: "As willingly as e'er I came from school." SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. Sooth to say, the schoolmasters of that time were not likely to be remembered with much favor by their pupils in after years. There is abundant testimony to the severity of their discipline in Ascham, Peacham, and other writers of the 16th century. Thomas Tusser tells of his youthful experiences at Eton in verses that have been often quoted: "From Paul's I went, to Eton sent, To learn straightways the Latin phrase, When fifty-three stripes given to me At once I had: For fault but small or none at all It came to pass, thus beat I was. See, Udall, see the mercy of thee To me, poor lad!" Nicholas Udall was the master of Eton at the time. Peacham tells of one pedagogue who used to whip his boys of a cold morning "for no other purpose than to get himself a heat." No doubt it warmed the boys too, but it is not recorded that they liked the method. Some of the grammars of the period have on the title-page the significant woodcut of "an awful man sitting on a high chair, pointing to a book with his right hand, but with a mighty rod in his left." Lilly's Grammar, on the other hand, has the picture of a huge fruit-tree, with little boys in its branches picking the abundant fruit. I hope the urchins did not find this more suggestive of stealing apples than of gathering the rich fruit of the tree of knowledge. Mr. Sidney Lee remarks: "A repulsive picture of the terrors which the schoolhouse had for a nervous child is drawn in a 'pretie and merry new interlude' entitled 'The Disobedient Child, compiled by Thomas Ingeland, late student in Cambridge,' about 1560. A boy who implores his father not to force him to go to school tells of his companions' sufferings there--how "'Their tender bodies both night and day Are whipped and scourged, and beat like a stone, That from top to toe the skin is away;' and a story is repeated of how a scholar was tormented to death by 'his bloody master.' Other accounts show that the playwright has not gone far beyond the fact." We will try to believe, however, that Master Hunt of Stratford was of a milder disposition. Holofernes seems well disposed towards his pupils, and is invited to dine with the father of one of them; and Sir Hugh Evans, in his examination of William Page, has a very kindly manner. It is to be noted, indeed, that in few of Shakespeare's references to school life is there any mention of whipping as a punishment.