Sent to Bury ' Free School' (visiting which I looked up at the time- stained bust of its youthful royal founder with interest for Sibbes's sake, who, pcrcliance, practised his first Latin in spelling out the not over-elegant or accurate inscription beneath), there would, no doubt, be rapid advancement. But the ' child' had become a ' lad,' and again there was threatened interruption to his school-learning. I
* ' Six Weeks' Tour tlirougli tlio Soulbern Counties of England and Wales.' 2d ed. 17G0. Pp. 88, 89.
MEJIOIE OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D. XXXIU
find an objurgation rising to my lips against this so ' unwilling' father ; but it is silenced by the recollection of the vicar's testi- moiiy : ' He was a skilful and painful workman, and a good, sound- hearted Christian.' Master Catlm, I suspect thy sweet-nurtured charity was blind to Master Paul Sibs's penuriousness ! It may have been, again let us say, ))ressure of circumstances, many mouths to be fed, multiplied 'work' demanding another pair of hands. Still it is not altogether what we should like, to find Master Richard again hindered. ' His father,' continues our vicar, ' at length gretv weary of his exj^enses for books and learning, took him from school, bought him an axe and some other tools, and set him to his own trade, to the great discontent of the youth, whose genius wholly carried him another way.' So Master Paul Sibs proposed, but Another disposed. The lad was destined to work for his generation — and many generations — with other tools than these.
CHAPTER III.
STUDENT AND PREACHER AT CAMBRIDGE.
Leaves Bury St Ednmnds for ' St Jolm's College,' Cambridge — Greaves — Knewstub — Eushbrook — Enters as ' sub-sizar ' — Jeremy Taylor 'pauper scholaris ' — Pro- gress—Degrees— B. A. — ' Fellow ' — M. A. — ' Taxer ' — B.D.— Paul Bayne — ' Conversion ' — A 'Preacher ' — Lectureship of' Trinity,' Cambridge — Memorial — ' Hobson ' — Accepts — Results — Samuel Clarke — Thomas Cawtou — John Cotton — ' Word in season ' to Thomas Goodwin — Prevalent ' preaching.'
Once more vigilant friends stepped in. They saw the 'youth' set utterly against the grain, at the wheel- wright's bench. ' Where- upon,' approvingly, with the faintest touch of rebuke, chronicles good Zachary Catlin : ' Mr Greaves, then minister of Thurston, and Mr Rushbrook, an attorney there, knowing the disposition and fit- ness of the lad, sent him, witliout his father's consent, to some of the Fellows of St John's College of their acquaintance, with their letters of recommendation ; where, upon examination, he was so well approved of, that he was presently entertained as a sub-sizar, shortly after chosen scholar of the house, and at length came to be Fellow of the College, and one of the taskers of the university ; his father being hardly brought to allow him twenty nobles a year to- wards his maintenance in Cambridge, to which some good friends in the country, Mr Greaves, Mr Knewstub, and some others, made some addition, for a time, as need required.' I am sure all my readers will wish that we knew more of those ' ffood friends.' All
XXXIV MEMOIR OF RICHARD SIBBES, D.D.
honour to the memory of ' Mr Greaves and Mr Rushbrook.' Of ' Mr Knewstub,' the scholarly, the pious, the brave-hearted, no ad- mirer of the Puritans needs to be informed. His is truly a historic clarum et venerabile nomen. His letter of recommendation to St John's College would have the greater weight, in tliat he was one of its greatest lights, and, subsequently, its benefactor. One is pleased, nevertheless, to learn that it was ' upon examination,' not mere ' recommendation,' the youth was received. He was then in his eighteenth year. Entered as a sub-sizar, which is even beneath a sizar, young Sibbes must have been placed at a disadvantage. Jeremy Taylor, however, was entered as 'pauper scholaris,' lower still. That has transfigured, if not ennobled, the lowly ' sizar.' Cer- tainly the more honour is due to those who, starting with the meanest, have won for themselves the highest places. How many who entered among the highest are forgotten, while the lapse of time only brightens the lustre of our ' sub-sizar' and the * pauper scholaris.'
The career of Sibbes at the university was singularly successful, and indicates in the son of the wheel-wright of Tostock and Thurston, no common energy and devotion to study. It is probable that his 'school-learning' at Pakenham and Bury St Edmunds, alike, was frequently interrupted and hindered. Nevertheless, he seems to have at once placed himself abreast of the most favoured students. The records and registers of St John's College, shew that he passed B.A. in 1598-9 ; was admitted ' Fellow' 3d April 1601, commenced M.A. in 1602, taxer (the ' tasker' of Catlin) in 1608, was elected 'College Preacher' feast of 1st March 1609, and graduated B.D. in 1610.
We must return upon these dates. When Sibbes, in 1595, pro- ceeded to Cambridge, ' without the consent of his father,' but with kind words of cheer and something more from Mr Greaves, Mr Knew- stub, and Mr Rushbrook, it does not appear that he had any specific intentions in regard to the future. An academic life was evidently his ambition ; but to what profession, whether divinity, law, or medicine, he was ultimately to devote himself, was probably left undetermined. An event, or more accurately, the one great event and ' change' in every man — his conversion (I like and therefore use the good old puritan, because Biblical, word), in all likelihood led him to decide to serve God in the ministry of the gospel of his Son. Paul Bayne, sometimes Baine and Baines, one of the most remarkable of the earlier ' Doctrinal Puritans' (that name of stigma imposed by Laud), whose ' Letters,' second only to those of Samuel Rutherford, and other minor books, were long the chosen fireside reading of every