most interesting for us, however, of all the thirteen Fellows are Meade, Chappell, and Tovey.

Apart from his casual relation to Milton as one of the senior Fellows of Christ's College, Joseph Meade (otherwise Mede or Mead) was a remarkable man. Born in 1586, in Essex, he had been sent to Christ's College in the year 1602. After passing through the regular course with much distinction, he commenced M. A. in 1610, and was at the same time elected a Fellow of his College. In 1618 he graduated B. D. During his College in par

course he had been much troubled by skeptical doubts ticular, as to whether rò Tâv, or the universal frame of things, was not a mere phantasy of the mind. These doubts, however, had vanished; and by the time he was a Fellow, he was known in the University as "an acute Logician, an accurate Philosopher, a skilful Mathematician, an excellent Anatomist (being usually sent for when they had any anatomy in Caius College,) a great Philologer, a master of many languages, and a good proficient in the studies of History and Chronology." To these accomplishments, enumerated by one biographer, Fuller adds that he was "an exact text-man, happy in making Scripture expound itself by parallel places." He was also a man of singularly meek disposition conspicuously charitable in his judgments, yet communicative and even facetious among his friends. "His body was of a comely proportion, rather of a tall than low stature. In his younger years (as he would say) he was but slender and spare of body; but afterwards, when he was full-grown, he became more fat and portly, yet not to any excess. His eye was full, quick, and sparkling. His complexion was a little swarthy, as if somewhat overtinctured with melancholy." With all these advantages, Meade had one unfortunate defect-an imperfection in his speech. The letter R, says Fuller, "was Shibboleth to him, which he could not easily pronounce; so that a set speech cost him double the pains to another man, being to fit words as well to his mouth as his matter. Yet by his industry and observation he so conquered his imperfection, that, though in private discourse he sometimes smiled out his stammering into silence, yet, choosing his words, he made many an excellent sermon without any considerable hesitation." The consciousness of this defect, combined with his natural love of quiet, led him to refuse all offers of preferment -including that of the Provostship of Trinity College, Dublin, made to him through Archbishop Usher in 1626, and again in 1630 and to bound his wishes for life within the limits of his Fellowship and his College. Nominally, indeed, at a later period,

he was chaplain to Archbishop Laud; but neither duty nor emolument was attached to the office. His life was passed almost wholly in his "cell," as he called his chambers which he had chosen on the ground-floor, under the College-library, as being free from noise, but with his bed-room window to the street. This window he used to keep open all night in summer, so that sometimes tricks were played upon him. His sole physical recreation was walking about Cambridge, or in the "backs" of the Colleges and the fields near; and on these occasions be used to botanize or discourse with any one who was with him on herbs and their virtues. Within doors, however, he was fond of having his brother Fellows with him to converse on serious topics or chat away the time. As a tutor, his method was somewhat peculiar. "After he had by daily lectures well grounded his pupils in Humanity, Logic, and Philosophy, and by frequent conversation understood to what particular studies their parts might be most profitably applied, he gave them his advice accordingly; and, when they were able to go alone, he chose rather to set every one his daily task than constantly to confine himself and them to precise hours for lectures. In the evening they all came to his chamber, to satisfy him that they had performed the task he had set them. The first question which he used then to propound to every one in his order was Quid dubitas?' 'What doubts have you met in your studies to-day?' (for he supposed that to doubt nothing and to understand nothing were verifiable alike). Their doubts being propounded, he resolved their quæres, and so set them upon clear ground to proceed more distinctly; and then, having by prayer commended them and their studies to God's protection and blessing, he dismissed them to their lodgings." The ample time which Meade thus procured for himself, he devoted in great part to studies in Greek and Hebrew, and readings in Mathematics and History. His special fascination, however, was for abstruse studies in the Biblical prophecies, and for cognate speculations of a mystical character in Chronology and Astronomy. He was a believer in a modified Astrology; thinking that the celestial arrangements had some effect on the puois or nature of men, though the influence did not amount to a destruction of free agency. As a theologian all his learning was brought to bear on the dark parts of Scripture; and the great work of his life -the Clavis Apocalyptica, or "Key to the interpretation of the

1 I was able to identify Meade's rooms in the College in May 1857. They were then turned into a part of the library - the old

library above not affording room enough. The little window to the street is still as it

Was.

Apocalypse," is still a standard book in a special department of English theological literature. Meade's views, derived from his Apocalyptic researches, were subtantially those of the Chiliasts or Millenarians, who expect a personal reign of Christ as the close of the present era of the world; and these and similar views break out in his letters to theological contemporaries. He used often to insist on the text (Judges iii. 30), "And the land had rest fourscore years," as being a historical generalization of the past, on the faith of which, as regarded England, one might predict the near approach at that time of a great crisis in Church and State. He was also an advocate for union among all Protestant Churches, and, with a view to this end, pressed the constant development by all of their points of agreement rather than their points of difference. Only towards the Church of Rome could he be called inimical. Yet he was hardly so to the extent that others were. Whenever he heard the Roman Catholic taunt to Protestants quoted, "Where was your church before Luther?" he had the answer ready, "Where was the fine flour when the wheat went to the mill?" Singularly enough, however, with all Meade's interest in the far-off events of the Apocalyptic future nay, partly, as he himself thought, on account of that interest he took more interest than any other man in Cambridge in the current events of his own day. He was an indefatigable collector of news; and he even spent regularly a part of his income in getting authentic and speedy intelligence sent to him by correspondents at Court and abroad. "I am neither Dean nor Bishop," he used to say, "but thus much I am willing to set apart to know how the world goes." Nor was Meade a miser of the information he procured. He had correspondents in various parts of England - and especially one Sir Martin Stuteville, in Suffolk-to whom he regularly communicated by letter the freshest news that were going; and these remaining letters of Meade's, some now printed, and others still in MS., are among the most graphic accounts we have of men and things during the reigns of James I. and Charles I. In all Cambridge there was no such place for hearing the latest gossip as the Fellows' table at Christ's, where Meade helped to carve. When to all these recommendations we add that Meade was a very benevolent man, with a kind word for all the young scholars, not even excepting the dandy Fellow-commoners, whom he called "University-tulips," it will be understood how popular he was, and what a blank was caused in Cambridge by his death. This event took place rather suddenly, in his fifty-third year,

on the 1st of October, 1638, or six years after Milton had left College. His bones still rest in the Chapel of the College which he loved so well, and to which he left part of his small fortune.1 William Chappell was a more important man in the College than any of the other Fellows except Meade. He was four years Meade's senior, having been born at Lexington in Nottinghamshire in the year 1582. Having been sent early to Christ's College, he distinguished himself there by his gravity of deportment and industry as a student; and in 1607 he became Fellow of the College

- three years before Meade was elected to the same rank. "He was remarkable," says Fuller, "for the strictness of his conversation: no one tutor in our memory bred more or better pupils, so exact his care in their education. He was a most subtle disputant." In this last character, his reputation was quite extraordinary. Hardly a man in the University was a match for Chappell of Christ's in a Latin logomachy. On the second visit of King James to Cambridge in the spring of 1615, he had been appointed one of the opponents in a public Act of disputation to be held before the King on certain points of controversy between Protestantism and the Papacy, the respondent in the Act being Mr. Roberts of Trinity, afterwards Bishop of Bangor. On this occasion, says one of Chappell's biographers, he pushed Roberts so hard "that he fainted." Upon this King James, who valued himself much for his skill in such matters, undertook to maintain the question, but with no better fortune; for Chappell was so much his superior at these logical weapons that his Majesty "openly professed his joy to find a man of so great talents so good a subject." Living on the credit of this triumph, Chappell continued for many years a Fellow of Christ's. Meade and he were on particularly intimate terms. "The chief delight," says Meade's biographer already quoted, "which he (Meade) took in company, was to discourse with learned friends; particularly for several years he set apart some of his hours to spend in the conversation of his worthy friend Mr. William Chappell, who was justly esteemed a rich magazine of rational learning." There were not wanting some, however, who charged Mr. Chappell with Arminianism. "Lately there sprung up, says a writer some thirty years afterwards, "a new brood of such as did assist Arminianism, as Dutch Tompson of Clare Hall, and Mr. William Chappell, Fellow of Christ's College; as the many pupils that were arminianized under his tuition show." These suspicions, existing perhaps as

1 Life of Meade by Worthington, prefixed to the collected folio edition of Meade's works in 1672; also Fuller's Worthies, Essex;

and Sir Henry Ellis's Original Letters illustrative of English Hist first series, 1824.

As

early as 1625, were confirmed by Chappell's subsequent career. we shall meet with him again in the course of that career, we need not anticipate it here. Suffice it to say that, through Laud's interest, he was transferred from his Fellowship at Cambridge in 1633 (the year after Milton left Cambridge) to the Deanery of Cashel in Ireland; that, being found very efficient there in carrying out Laud's views of uniformity, he was promoted to the Provostship 'of Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1638, to the Bishopric of Cork, Cloyne and Ross; that, had Laud's power lasted much longer, he would probably have had an English Bishopric; but that, involved in Laud's ruin, he left Ireland in 1641, came over to England, and, after undergoing a short imprisonment and otherwise suffering during the civil war, died at Derby in 1649. As specimens of his authorship, there remain a little treatise entitled "The Preacher, or the Art and Method of Preaching," published originally in Latin in 1648 and afterwards in English in 1656, and another treatise, first published in 1653, entitled "The Use of Holy Scripture gravely and methodically discoursed;" in addition to which the authorship of the well-known "Whole Duty of Man" has been claimed for him. I have looked over his " Art of Preaching;" and the impression which it has left is that, though not a common-place man and probably an accurate tutor, he must have been a man of dry and meagre nature, not so genial by half as his friend Meade.1

Respecting Nathaniel Tovey, our information is more scanty than respecting Chappell. He was born at Coventry, the son of a Mr. Tovey, Master of the Grammar School there, who had been tutor to Lord Harrington of Exton. Left an orphan when quite young, he had been taken in charge by Lucy, Countess of Bedford, the only daughter of Lord Harrington; who, after maintaining him for some time in her household, had sent him to Christ's College in Cambridge, in order that "the excellent talent which she saw in him might not be wasted away in the idleness of a Court-life." Here, after graduating in Arts, he obtained a Fellowship. In 1621 he held the Logic Lectureship in the College. He subsequently took the degree of B. D.; which was his academic degree during or about the time when Milton was at Christ's. He gave up his

1 The foregoing particulars concerning Chappell have been derived from the British Biography, vol. IV. pp. 448-9, from Cole's MS. Athena Cantab.; from Fuller's Worthies -Nottingham, and from Cooper's Annals of Cambridge. The last-named work corrects Fome errors in the account in the British Biography. There the disputation in which

Chappell gained such a triumph is said to have occurred during the King's last visit to Cambridge, in 1624. Documents quoted by Mr. Cooper show that it was during the King's second visit in 1615. In these documents, also, it is not Roberts the Respondent, but Cecil the Moderator of the Act that faints.