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 Baxter whom drank themselves to beggary. At the age of ten he was removed from his maternal grandfather's care to Eaton-Constantine. There one of the curates of 'Sir' William Rogers, who was discovered to have officiated under forged orders, became his principal schoolmaster. The man had been an attorney's clerk, ruined himself by hard drinking, and turned curate for 'a piece of bread.' He only preached once while Baxter was being taught by him, and then was drunk. In his 'Apology for the Nonconformist Ministry' (p. 58) Baxter speaks favourably of the ability and moral character of his next teacher. He tells us he was 'a grave and eminent man, and expected to be made a bishop.' But he also disappointed him; for over two years he never taught him one hour at a time. He was a severe railer against the 'factious puritans.'

Subsequently Baxter was transferred to the free school at Wroxeter, with Mr. John Owen for master. Here he had for schoolfellows two sons of Sir Richard Newport (afterwards Lord Newport) and a lad, Richard Allestree [q. v.], who came to be known as provost of Eton College, and regius professor of Greek at Oxford.

On his education as thus conducted Sir James Stephen pronounces: 'The three remaining years of his pupilage. . . were spent at the endowed school at Wroxeter, which he quitted at the age of nineteen [eighteenth year], destitute of all mathematical and physical science, ignorant of Hebrew, a mere smatterer in Greek, and possessed of as much Latin as enabled him in after-life to use it with reckless facility' (Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography).

Richard Baxter through life deplored his lack of academic training and literary furniture. In 'Reliquiæ Baxterianæ,' and in his autobiographical poems (see below), he makes humble and passionate lamentation over his neglect of scholarship in youth. Even more pathetically dignified is his answer to Anthony à Wood's inquiry whether he were an Oxonian. 'As to myself,' he wrote, 'my faults are no disgrace to any university; for I was of none. I have little but what I had out of books, and inconsiderable helps of country tutors. Weakness and pain helped me to study how to die; that set me on studying how to live; and that on studying the doctrine from which I must fetch my motives and comforts. Beginning with necessities I proceeded by degrees, and now am going to see that for which I have lived and studied' ( Athenæ).

When he was fitted to go to Oxford, his teacher, John Owen, rather recommended that instead of doing so he should place himself under the tuition of Mr. Richard Wickstead, chaplain to the council at Ludlow, who was allowed by the king to have a single pupil. He assented, under the natural expectation that, as being his tutor's 'one scholar,' he should be thoroughly taught. The trust was falsified. Wickstead all but absolutely neglected his pupil. The only advantage gained in Ludlow Castle was that Baxter was left very much to himself in a great library. Whilst Wickstead was paying court to his superiors, and plotting for preferment, his one scholar was enriching his strenuous and agile intellect with all manner of miscellaneous reading. Only once was he tempted from his beloved books and recluse studies. He was on this occasion nearly bitten with gaming, having won gold too easily; but he escaped by resolute obedience to his accusing conscience (Reliq. Baxt.)

Baxter dwells tenderly on the instruction in divine things, and the example given him by his father, as that father in turn told Dr. Bates how very early the son became grave and serious when religious conversation was going on (, Funeral Sermon for Baxter). He himself modifies the paternal laudation, acknowledging that his fondness for apples and pears led him not unwillingly to join his companions in robbing orchards and other boyish frivolities. In his fourteenth year he had been greatly 'hindered' and chilled by the formal fashion in which he and other boys were admitted to confirmation by Bishop Morton. 'He asked no questions,' says he, 'required no certificate, and hastily said, as he passed, three or four words of a prayer which I did not understand' (Third Defence of Nonconformists, p. 40). In spite of this, he was frequently much troubled about his soul's salvation. He also tells us how in his fifteenth year an 'old torn book,' lent by a poor man to his father, 'powerfully affected him.' The book was an adapted Roman catholic one, entitled 'Bunny's Resolution' (, Against Revolt to a Foreign Jurisdiction, p. 540). To this succeeded Dr. Richard Sibbes's 'Bruised Reed;' and later, other practical puritan books deepened first impressions, as Perkins 'On Repentance,' 'On Living and Dying Well,' 'On the Government of the Tongue,' and Culverwell 'On Faith,' and the like.

On leaving Ludlow Castle in 1633, his tutor urged him to give up any intention he might have had of studying for the ministry. Wickstead painted to his vivid imagination the gay life of the court, and argued that