e Latin, and
he prohibited them from studying the later writers, after Sallust and
Cicero. Ernst found that there were very few holidays at the school,
Dean Colet holding that keeping the Saints' days, as had been the
custom, was a great cause of idleness and dissipation. He remarked that
those countries where the Saints were thus honoured were the poorest,
and most immoral in Christendom. The students were, however, allowed to
act plays, interludes, and moralities, and were trained by the head
master and others to speak their parts with correctness and grace;
indeed, so perfect did they become, that they at times exhibited their
talents before their Sovereign.

Ernst's days were not altogether pleasant ones. He was jeered at by the
other boys on account of his foreign tongue. The discipline too of the
school was very strict. The ferule and the birch were constantly
employed. If he was perchance late at school, either in the morning or
afternoon, he had additional tasks and impositions, not that he often
suffered on that account. He attended with great assiduity to his
studies, anxious to improve himself, and to show that he was worthy of
the kind patronage of Master Gresham. He soon made himself acquainted
with Paul's _Accidents_, written by Dean Colet for the use of his
scholars, and consisting of the rudiments of grammar, with an abridgment
of the principles of religion.

Ernst had mixed so little with other boys, that he was unaccustomed to
defend himself against the attacks of his companions. Thus at first
even very small boys dared to assail him, he looking upon them with
pity, or it may have been with contempt, just as a large mastiff, when
little dogs are barking at his heels, refrains from retaliating. This
gave them courage to continue their persecutions. One day, however,
several of the bigger boys thought fit to unite with them, mimicking
Ernst, and inquiring what had become of his parents, that they allowed
him thus to be sent to a foreign land.

"They were burnt for their religion," answered Ernst at last; "because
they would not bow down to idols, or attend the Popish mass."

"Oh! oh! young master, heretics were they!" exclaimed some of the boys;
for at this time, although the principles of the school existed as
before, Romanism was apparently in the ascendant. "Then you are a
heretic, I doubt not, and will some day come to the stake."

A big boy was standing by whom Ernst had often seen