Havergal College - Magazine Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Havergal College Magazine Parts, which must be confessed to have been in him, to evil ends .... usurping his Majesties Government, he might have been worthy of eminent Place and Dignity in it. As the extracts show, Sir Richard ' s style is not quite modern, but it is not so old-fashioned as to be irksome. Usually, when he is merely recording the history, he is simple and straight- forward. When he adds his own comments and illustrations his style becomes more elaborate, and he writes in the manner that was fashionable in his youth, created by Lyly, and known to us as the Euphuistic style. Speaking of the children of Edward I., he says: His greatest unfortunateness was in his greatest blessings, for of four sons which he had, three of them died in his own life time who were worthy to have outlived him : And the fourth outlived him, who was worthy never to have been born. Traces of Euphuism may be seen not only in the symmetry and antithesis of his sentences, but in some of his curious comparisons. Surely never before or since has such a simile as the following been used for AVilliam Rufus : He was never less dejected than when in most extremity, being like a Cube, that which way soever he fell he was still upon the bottom. The new school of historians at the end of the eighteenth century judged Sir Richard Baker ' s Chronicle harshly and some- what unfairly. He certainly is uncritical and inexact, but no man can walk by a light that does not shine in his own day. His History was as good as any other History written in the Jacobean period, and was a standard work for nearly a century. Even in the twentieth century we can read it with plea sure and with a kindly feeling towards the old historian, who in a debtor ' s prison compiled his entertaining record. DER STERNE TROST. Sterne, die am Himmel gluh ' n, Hat Gott daroben euch gestellt Urn zu bewachen unsre Welt Wenn Menschen ruh ' n. Ihr seid so wunderbar gelind, Wir fuhlen, sehend eure Pracht, Dass Mann, mit aller seinen Macht 1st doch ein Kind. Wenn Erde kalt und dunkel liegt, Ich stromt hinab das schonste Licht, Sinnbild dass Gott vergisst uns nicht Wenn Freude fliegt. 23

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Havergal College Magazine at the historian ' s hands. However, he seemed to think that greater than all his conquests and his laws is the fact that from him we begin the Computation of our Kings of England. His end is recorded in a sentence which is quite beautiful: And thus he who was Conqueror of men, was conquered himself by death, the ninth day of September. It would be unjust to Sir Richard not to quote at least one of the Casualties which he so carefully recorded. In John ' s reign a great marvel was seen. In Suffolk was taken a fish in form like to a man, and was kept six months upon land with raw flesh and fish ; and then, for that they could have no speech of it, they cast it into the sea again. Richard III. is altogether condemned and the record of his reign concludes with these words: Of men of note for wickedness and villainy, enough hath been men- tioned in the body of the story : of men of valour and learning they will fitter be placed in a better King ' s reign. The History becomes more and more detailed as it draws nearer the historian ' s own time. One half of the whole volume is occupied with the affairs from 1558-1679. The plots and intrigues of Elizabeth ' s reign are given with much circumstance, and it is plain that Sir Richard admired his sovereign very much. The list of the men of note is, of course, a long one, but the order is at first surprising. Robert, Earl of Leicester, comes first: an exquisite statesman for his own ends. Then follow other statesmen, seamen, writers, divines, the actors Richard Burbidge and Edward Allen, and at the very end the names we should have put among the first. In writers of plays and such as had been Players themselves William Shakspere and Benjamin Jonson have specially left their names recommended to Posterity. Verily, a prophet hath no honour in his own country. We should expect Sir Richard Baker to be Royalist in his sympathies, so we are not surprised at the very flatter- ing estimate of the character of James I., which concludes : He was a Prince after Plato ' s own heart for his Learning, and what is infinitely more worth, after God ' s own heart for his religiousness and Piety. We do not know what he thought of Charles for he died in 1645, and so was spared the pain of seeing the Royalist cause fail, and Charles I. die on the scaffold. But the History was continued by another hand into the reign of Charles II. Except for the fact that the whole of the Com- monwealth period is counted as part of the reign of Charles II., there is little to show the sympathies of the writer. Indeed, he is extraordinarily just to Cromwell. But it must be remem- bered that it was Edward Philipps who carried on the story; he was the nephew of Milton, and possibly leaned towards the Puritan side. From his uncle too he must have learned to admire the great soldier and ruler, and his final verdict on his character is this: Had he not employed that Policy and Sagacity of 27

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Havergal College Magazine ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND. On a rocky plateau in a beautiful bay on the coast of Fife- shire, stands St. Andrews, the old gray town by the sea. As we enter the little station on a bright July morning, we are amazed at the busy, happy and interesting crowd that awaits the train. Some ha ve just arrived from their morning game of golf and display the weapons with which they chase the little bay ' for the golf links of St. Andrews are perhaps the greatest attrac- tion to visitors and are of world-wide renown. The minute we step out of the station, we catch our first glimpse of the many delightful pictures that St. Andrews affords — the wide azure-coloured bay with its foaming sea-horses, beat- ing against the rugged cliffs, and away towards the west the undulating links. There is little doubt that there was a settlement here in early prehistoric times. The Monkish legend assigned its eccle- siastical origin to St. Regulus or Rule, Avho, warned in a dream, brought certain bones of St. Andrew from Patras in the 4th century, and was wrecked at Muckros, afterwards called Kil- rimont and now St. Andrews. In Queen Margaret ' s time it became the seat of the high bishop of the Scots. The cathedral, now only a ruin, was founded about 1160, in presence of Malcolm IV., and consecrated in 1318 in presence of Robert Bruce. At the beginning of Queen Elizabeth ' s reign it was stripped of its beautiful ornaments and images. The castle old and ivy-decked with only a rim of crumbling walls, was built in 1200 and since then has been rebuilt many times, but now a mere skeleton stands as a monument of its past greatness. George Wishart and other martyrs of the Re- formation period were confined in its bottle-dungeon and Cardinal Beaton, a little later was slain within its massive walls, by the Reformers. St. Andrews has been famous since 1120 for its schools, and its University was founded in 1411. From October till May the scarlet-gowned student may be seen walking to or from his classes, or meandering over the links and sands from which in the twilight he can see the mists coming o ' er the college towers. The old harbour too is picturesque and, tho ' small, suffices for the few coasting vessels that frequent it. It is no wonder then that the student who has gone down visits and revisits his Alma Mater and lingers o ' er the scenes that once inspired his soul to great things. The waves roar ' neath thy battlements Breaking in glistening spray, As if they mocked thy shattered walls, Relics of a bye-gone day. 29