We are shut out from all insight into ancestry, parentage, and child- hood, and ' boy ' surroundings of our Worthy — whether he were of' blue blood' descent, or of a 'godly' or worldly fatherhood and motherhood, whether ' in populous city pent,' or blown upon by the freshening influ- ences of rural life. We do not know his ' School,' ' Schoolmasters/ or ' Schoolmates.' The whole ' make ' of the man — as it is expressed in his Writings — warrants us in assuming that his ' home' was a ' church in the house,' and his training the grave, serious, yet not morose but blithesome one, of the Puritans. By his ' 17th ' year — at latest — the one University ' date ' that survives through the heedlessness of that scion of the immortal Smiths rebuked by Fuller — he was at College, at ' Emmanuel,' Cambridge. This was the Puritan College par excel- lence: the illustrious Founder of it — Sir Walter Mildmay — having been flouted by Elizabeth for his ' Puritan foundation/2 So that we
1 For this we are indebted to the ever open stores of our good friend Joshua Wilson, Esq., of Nevil Park, Tunbridge Wells.
a Fuller tells the story pungently : ' Coming to Court after he had founded his College, the Queen told him, " Sir Walter, I hear you have erected a Puritan foundation." " No, Madam," saith ho; "far be from me to countenance anything contrary to your estab- lished laws ; but 1 have set an acorn which, when it becomes an oak, God alone knows
MEMOIR OF THOMAS BROOKS. XXV
can scarcely err in finding in this choice confirmation of Puritan- parentage. The entry is as follows : '
' Thomas Brooks : matriculated as pensioner of Emanuel, July 7th 1625/
' Pensioner' must not be misunderstood as indicating narrow circum- stances, much less poverty. John Milton was entered as ' pensioner/ only a few months previously, at a sister-college. There were four grades, the 'greater pensioner/ the 'lesser pensioner,' ' sizars/ and ' scholars.' These distinctions designate differing rank. All the first three lived as now we are accustomed to say on the Continent, en pension, id est, paid for their board and education, and in this respect were distinct from the scholars properly so called, who belonged to the foundation. The ' greater pensioners' or ' fellow commoners ' paid most. They were (as they still are) the sons of noble or ' gentle ' families, and had the privilege of dining at the upper table in the common hall along with the fellows. The ' sizars,' on the other hand, were poorer students ; they paid least ; and, though receiving the same education with the others, held a lower rank and had inferior accommodation. Intermediate between the 'greater pensioners' and the ' sizars ' were the ' lower pen- sioners ;' and it was (as it is still) to this class that the bulk of the students in all the colleges at Cambridge belonged.2 By ' pensioner ' after Brooks's name we are no doubt to understand ' lesser pensioner ;' so that, as with the scrivener-father of the bard of ' Paradise Lost,' his parents were in good circumstances. When we know that Jeremy Taylor entered &s pauper scholaris, and Sibbes as a 'sizar/ it had needed no vindication had Master Thomas Brooks taken his posi- tion* in either class ; but the matter-of-fact is as stated, and it is but right to state it. He must have been well born, and born as a ' gentleman/
Brooks, in 'entering' Emanuel College on July 7th 1625, as above,
what will be the fruit thereof." ' And the historian adds, ' Sure I am, at this day, it hath overshadowed all the University — more than a moiety of the present Masters of Colleges being bred therein.' As before, pp. 205, 206. For Full details on Sir Walter Mildmay, see Cooper's Athence Cantabrigienses, Vol. ii. pp. 51-55, 544. I cannot give this reference without paying a tribute of heartfelt regard to the just deceased senior author of this inestimable work, who, within a few days of his lamented death, dictated and even signed a letter bearing on my researches. Erudite, laborious, finely enthu- siastic, ungrudging in communicating from his ample resources, all our Memoirs have been indebted to him. See finely touched estimate of him by Mr Mayor, reprinted from 'The Cambridge Papers of March 24.1866,' in ' Notes and Queries,' March 31. 1866, pp. 253-54.
1 Rev. J. E. B. Mayor, M.A., Librarian to the University of Cambridge, and the late Charles H. Cooper, Esq., to myself. Moreover, this one entry is all that the industry of Cole provides : Cole MSS. in British Museum, under * Emanuel.'
2 On all this cf. Masson's ' Life of Milton in Connection with the History of His Time,' particularly vol. i. pp. 88, 89. No one who seeks information on the period covered by the ' Life' of Milton, will fail to consult this treasure-house of materials.
XXVI MEMOIR OF THOMAS BROOKS.