parents to let him have the lad," with the intent, without doubt, of placing him at the school in which he was so deeply interested. He certainly did not need to adopt the lad, for he already had twelve children of his own; nor did he need to bestow pecuniary assistance, for the parents of the lad were in affluent circumstances, and moreover the Chief Justice was noted at this time for being penurious and extravagantly fond of riches. So at least his biographer, Lord Campbell, states. Mrs. Sadlier, in her correspondence now preserved in the Library of Trinity College, thus writes: "This Roger Williams when he was a youth, would in a short-hand take sermons and speeches in the Star Chamber, and present them to my dear father. He, seeing so hopeful a youth, took such a liking to him that he sent him to Sutton's Hospital, and he was the second that was placed there." If he was born at "Roseworthy Manor," Cornwall, England, on the 21 December, 1602, as there is abundant evidence to prove, he was now in his twelfth year. He was placed at the school in 1614 as an ordinary pupil, without doubt. Had he been received as a "Foundation Scholar," the Charterhouse records would indicate it. The only name of Roger Williams entered upon the records is the one to whom reference has already been made, who was elected a Foundation Scholar on the 25th June, 1621. If this refers to the Roger Williams of St. Albans, who was baptized August 3, 1607, he would be at the time of his election thirteen years, eleven months and eighteen days old, dating from his baptism. The record adds that he was ordered to be sent to the University being a good scholar on the 9th July, 1624, when the founder of Rhode Island had just completed his first year at Pembroke College. He probably entered either the University at Oxford or Cambridge, in the month of October following, at the beginning of the first or Michaelmas term; and if he was graduated Bachelor of Arts, it must have been four years later, that is in 1628. The founder of Rhode Island,

on the contrary, entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, as the records show, at the beginning of the second, or Lent term, in January, 1624; and he was graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1627.

A note from Mr. Wright, dated "Charterhouse, E. C., June 26, 1886," reads as follows:

"REUBEN A. GUILD, Esq.

DEAR SIR:

Re Roger Williams.

The following is an extract of what I have accidentally discovered on our books under date 1629. (New style 1630.)

6

Roger Williams, who hath Exhibition, and so for about five years past, hath forsaken the University and is become a discontinuer of his studies there. His Exhibition was therefore suspended.'

Yours faithfully,

HARRY WRIGHT.

For the Master."

It thus clearly appears, from the Charterhouse records, that the only Roger Williams of this early period whose name appears upon the books as a Foundation Scholar was sent to the University in July, 1624, having what is termed an Exhibition, equivalent to eighty pounds or four hundred dollars a year, and that after five years, or in the summer of 1629, this Exhibition was suspended, the recipient having become, in the quaint language of the records, "a discontinuer of his studies." The founder of Rhode Island, on the contrary, had no Exhibition. He entered college as a Pensioner, or gentleman's son, and he paid his own bills, so the Registrar, the Rev. Dr. H. R. Luard, writes me under date of September 25, 1886.

But there was a Roger Williams who came over from England in the Mary and John, May 30, 1630, who settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, who requested admission as a Freeman on the 19th October, 1630, and who took the oath

He

as such on the 18th May following. He was a prominent and useful man, and he filled many offices of trust. served on a jury September 28, 1630, to inquire into the cause of the death of Austin Bratcher; he had charge with another person of the goods of Christopher Ollyver, having been appointed to this trust November 7, 1634; he was one of the arbitrators about the ship Thunder in the summer of 1635; and he was one of the Selectmen of Dorchester the same year. In 1636 or 7 he removed to Windsor, Connecticut, and he was there in good repute. Savage states in brief, that he served on a jury in 1642, 3, and 4, and that his wife died on the 10th of December, 1645. In 1647, or the year following, he sold his house and land to Capt. Benj. Newberry and returned to Dorchester. In 1649, or before, he married for his second wife, Lydia, daughter of James Bates. In 1650 he calls himself of Boston, when he sold land in Dorchester to Thomas Thaxter. But little more is told of him. In 1647 he joined the "Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company."

From all that has now been stated it may I think fairly. be inferred, that the Roger Williams of Massachusetts, whose admission as a Freeman has been strangely ascribed to the Founder of Rhode Island, was the son of Mr. Lewis Williams of St. Albans, was a "Foundation Scholar" at the Charterhouse, and a graduate of a college either at Cambridge or at Oxford.

THE ROXBURY LATIN SCHOOL.

[The following note has been received by the Committee of Publication, in reference to the remarks of Mr. Haynes on pages 7 and 8 of this number:-]

I HAVE no doubt that several schools were begun in New England before that in Roxbury, and I did not mean to be. understood to say that the Roxbury Latin School was the third institution of learning established in the United States. What I did say, and what I meant, was that this is "the third in age of the institutions of learning in the United States," meaning, of course, existing institutions.

Since Mr. Haynes has called my attention, and yours, to my statement, I must admit that it is inaccurate. I should have said, and do say now, that it is the second in age of the institutions of learning in the United States, allowing the seniority of Harvard College only.

By this, I mean that these institutions, founded in 1638 and 1645, respectively, have preserved their identity as distinct and individual institutions from that day to this, while the Boston Latin School, to which I had inaccurately allowed precedence, and the other schools, of whose early foundation Mr. Haynes has offered ample proof, long ago lost their individuality, ceasing to have, in those cases in which they ever had, a distinct corporate existence, becoming parts of the school systems of the towns in which they were established. The Grammar School in the easterly part of the town of Roxbury, or the Roxbury Latin School, as it is popularly called, never became one of the town schools of Roxbury, but is now, as it has been for two hundred and forty-two years, a distinct and independent insti

tution of learning, supported by its own funds and managed by its own trustees. If there is another institution of learning of equal or greater age in the United States, except Harvard College, of which that can be said, I do not know where to look for it. It is certainly not the Boston Latin School, or any of the schools of early foundation, to which Mr. Haynes has referred us.

J. EVARTS GREENE.