THE MONTEM AT ETON. "But weak the harp now tuned to praise, When greedy thousands eager gaze, "When triumph hails aloud the joy Poems by Henry Rowe, 1796, i. 11. I HAVE just shown that the ceremony of the boy-bishop was called down by a proclamation under the reign of Henry the Eighth, and that, with its parent Popery, it revived under that of Queen Mary as also, that on the accession of Queen Elizabeth it would most probably be again put down. Indeed, such a mockery of episcopal dignity was incompatible with the principles of a Protestant establishment. The loss of a holiday, however, has always been considered, even with "children of a larger growth," as a matter of some serious moment; much more with the tyros of a school, that of an anniversary that promised to a young mind, in the cessation from study, and the enjoyment of mirth and pleasure, every negative as well as every positive good. Invention then would be racked to find out some means of retaining, under one shape, the festivities that had been annually forbidden under another. By substituting for a religious, a military appearance, the Etonians happily hit upon a method of eluding every possibility of giving offence. The Lilliputian see having been thus dissolved, and the puny bishop "unfrocked," the crozier was extended into an ensign, and, under the title of captain, the chieftain of the same sprightly band conducted his followers to a scene of action in the open air, where no consecrated walls were in danger of being profaned, and where the gay striplings could, at least, exhibit their wonted pleasantries with more propriety of character. The exacting of money from the spectators and passengers, for the use of the principal remained exactly the same as in the days of Popery; but it seems no evidence has been transmitted whether the deacons then, as the salt-bearers do at present, made an offer of a little salt in return when they demanded the annual subsidy. I have been so fortunate, however, as to discover, in some degree, a similar use of salt, that is, an emblematical one, among the scholars of a foreign university, at the well-known celebrity of " Deposition," in a publication dated at Strasburgh so late as 1666.1 The consideration of every other emblem used on the above occasion, and explained in that work, being foreign to my purpose, I shall confine myself to that of the salt2 alone, which one of the heads of the college explains thus to the young academicians : "With regard to the ceremony of Salt," says he, "the sentiments and opinions both of divines and philosophers concur in making salt the emblem of wisdom or learning; and that not only on account of what it is composed of, but also with respect to the several uses to which it is applied. As to its component parts, as it consists of the purest matter, so ought wisdom to be pure, sound, immaculate, and incorruptible: and similar to the effects which salt produces upon bodies ought to be those of wisdom and learning upon the mind." In another 1 It was formerly the custom on the foundation of Westminster School for the senior boys, on the day of the admission of a new junior election, to address the last of them at supper-time, accompanying the first three words of the formula with their appropriate actions: " Salsandus, calcandus, inspuendus; denique non credendus; abi junior." This custom has for many years been obsolete. To these indignities also at initiation (or rather to compromise to prevent them) I am desirous to refer the custom of exacting Garnish money at the first admission of debtors into prison, concerning which I find the following in the Gent. Mag. for May, 1752, vol. xxii. p. 239 "The sheriffs of London have ordered that no debtor, in going into any of the gaols of London and Middlesex, shall, for the future, pay any garnish, it having been found for many years a great oppression." : 2 There are twenty plates illustrating the several strange ceremonies of the "Depositio." The last represents the giving of the Salt, which a person is holding on a plate in his left hand, and with his right hand about to put a pinch of it upon the tongue of each Beanus or Freshman. A glass, holding wine (I suppose), is standing near him. Underneath is the following couplet, which is much to our purpose; for even the use of wine also is not altogether unknown at present at our Montem procession at Eton : "Sal Sophiæ gustate, bibatis vinaque læta, part of the oration he tells them, "This rite of salt is a pledge or earnest which you give that you will most strenuously apply yourselves to the study of good arts, and as earnestly devote yourselves to the several duties of your vocation." How obvious is it then, to make the same application of the use of salt in the present ceremony at Eton! May we not, therefore, without any forced construction, understand the salt-bearers, when, on demanding of the several spectators or passengers their respective contributions, they laconically cry, Salt, salt,' as addressing them to the following purport: "Ladies and Gentlemen, your subsidy money for the captain of the Eton scholars! By this salt, which we give as an earnest, we pledge ourselves to become proficients in the learning we are sent hither to acquire, the well-known emblem of which we now present you with in return.” The text is so metaphorically concise, that it cannot otherwise be explained but by a diffuse paraphrase, or what, in the language of scholars, is called " a liberal translation." The Montem is said by some to have been an old monkish institution, observed yearly for the purpose of raising money by the sale of salt, absolutions, or any other articles, to produce a fund that might enable the college to purchase lands: and the mount now called Salt-hill, with other land contiguous, is said to belong to the college: which idea, upon the authority of the late provost, Dr. Roberts, I can assert has no foundation in truth. In one of the Public Advertisers,' in 1778, is given an account of the montem, which was then biennial. This is the oldest printed account of the ceremony I have been able to find. "On Tuesday, being Whit Tuesday, the gentlemen of Eton school went, as usual, in military procession to Salt-hill. This custom of walking to the hill returns every second year, and generally collects together a great deal of company of all ranks. The king and queen, in their phaeton, met the procession on Arbor-hill, in Slough-road. When they halted the flag was flourished by the ensign. The boys went, according to custom, round the mill, &c. The parson and clerk were then called, and there these temporary ecclesiastics went through the usual Latin service, which was not interrupted, though delayed for some time by the laughter that was excited by the antiquated appearance of the clerk, who had dressed himself according to the ton of 1745, and acted his part with as minute a consistency as he had dressed the character. The procession began at half-past twelve from Eton. The collection was an extraordinary good one, as their majesties gave, each of them, fifty guineas. By six o'clock the boys had put off the finery of the day, and appeared at Absence in their common dress." It is said to have been formerly one of the pleasantries of the salt-bearers to fill any boorish-looking countryman's mouth with it, if, after he has given them a trifle, he asks for anything in return, to the no small entertainment of the spectators. An old Etonian informed me, in 1794, that, in his time, the salt-bearers and scouts carried each of them salt in a handkerchief, and made every person take a pinch of it out before they gave their contributions. The following lines from the Favourites, a Simile, in the Tunbridge Miscellany, for 1712, p. 29, allude to this practice : "When boys at Eton, once a year, In military pomp appear; A dozen officers of state. His little legion all assail, Arrest without release or bail: Each passing traveller must halt, Must pay the tax, and eat the salt. You don't love salt, you say: and storm- I should conjecture that Salt Hill was the central place where anciently all the festivities used on this occasion were annually displayed, and here only, it should seem, the salt was originally distributed, from which circumstance it has undoubtedly had its name. From hence, no doubt, the ancient boy-bishop made some ridiculous oration, similar, perhaps, to the following, which was the undoubted exordium to a sermon given in the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth to the scholars of Oxford in St. Mary's, by Richard Taverner, of WoodEaton, high sheriff for the county of Oxford; and that too with his gold chain about his neck, and his sword at his side: "Arriving at the Mount of St. Maries, in the stony stage, where I now stand, I have brought you some fine biskette baked in the oven of charity, and carefully conserved for the chickens of the Church, the sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet swallows of Salvation." See Sir John Cheek's Preface to his book called The true Subject to the Rebel,' and Liber Niger, ed. 1728, ii. 572. The following extract from Dugdale's Origines 'Juridiciales' I do not think foreign to our purpose. Speaking of the “Orders and Exercises of the Inner Temple"-title "Gentlemen of the Clerks Commons"-he says (p. 158): "When the clerks commons exercise in the vacation beginneth, the abbot, or antientest of them, comes up to the barr-table at the end of dinner, and acquainteth them that the gentlemen of the clerks commons have a case to put their masterships; and after, during the whole exercise of that vacation, upon Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, there are clerks common cases to be argued. The gentleman that is to bring it in, as soon as the tables in the hall be covered, and salt-cellars set upon the clerks commons table, and that the horn hath blown to dinner, he that is to put the case layeth a case fair written in paper upon the salt, giving thereby notice of the case to be argued after dinner which case, so laid upon the salt, if any one gentleman of the house do take up and read, he, by order of the house, is to be suspended commons, and to be amerc'd." In Vaughan's Golden Grove, 1608, it is said: "In Prester John's country salt goes for money. وو The sum collected at the Montem on Whit-Tuesday, 1790, was full £500. This sum goes to the captain, who is the senior of the collegers at the time of the ceremony. The motto for that year was, "Pro More et Monte." Their Majesties presented each a purse of fifty guineas. The fancy dresses of the Salt-bearers and their deputies, who are called scouts, are usually of differently coloured silks, and very expensive. Formerly, the dresses used in this procession were obtained from the theatres. The mottos on the Montem tickets are different in different years: the words were in 1773, "Ad Montem." In 1781 and 1787, "Mos pro Lege est." In 1790, 1796, 1808, and 1812, "Pro More et Monte." In 1799 and 1805, "Mos pro Lege." The following most curious passage from a MS. which I have frequently had occasion to quote in the course of the present work, the Status Scholæ Etonensis, confirms my deriva |