Letters to Headmaster Busby

102 sional mendicants’’ by presenting scenes in which ‘‘the poor person’s desperate situation is apparent to the benefactor even before she knows she will need it.’’ The examples include Tom Jones’s help of the highwayman Anderson (after Anderson has tried to rob him!), Cecelia Beverley’s help of Harriet Belfield, and Evelina’s help (after she saves him from suicide) of McCartney. Remarkably, this essay proceeds without any reference to the Christian charity that Fielding recommends in Joseph Andrews. Mr. Walker’s careful collection of definitions—from Mrs. Towwouse ’s ‘‘Common Charity a f---t’’ to Peter Pounce’s focus upon ‘‘disposition ’’ rather than the act itself—reveals his confidence that charity can be defined , if only by what it is not. Letters to Headmaster Busby Greg Clingham Richard Busby’s (1606–1695) fame as headmaster of Westminster School rests on two factors. One is the extraordinary longevity of his tenure—he was headmaster from 1638 until his death in 1695—spanning the political upheavals of the reigns of Charles I, Charles II, James II, William and Mary, as well as the Civil War and the Interregnum all the while maintaining a pedagogy and personal politics devoted to Royalist causes. The other basis of his fame is the extraordinary loyalty, admiration, and love he generated among his pupils, including such eminent people as Cowley, Dryden, Prior, Locke, Wren, Hooke, Atterbury, Robert South, Henry King, Philip Henry, George Hooper, and Anthony à Wood.1 A series of eighteen letters to Dr. Busby from Dr. Robert Creighton, in the Muniments Room of Westminster Abbey, exemplify the particular reverence and affection Busby inspired in his pupils. Robert Creighton (1639–1734) was Precentor of Wells Cathedral when he wrote.2 Creighton’s father, Robert (1593–1672), and son, also Robert (1674–1732), were pupils at Westminster, and while Creighton’s letters deal with private and public life, they all exhibit his great respect for Busby’s paternalistic role over several generations. All are addressed in the same way: ‘‘To ye R.v.r.nd Dr Richard Busby at his house neer Westminster Abby Westminster,’’ and show the seal of Bath and Wells. On August 21, 1652, the older Creighton writes from Bruges about his son, the future Precentor of Wells, registering his ‘‘intimate acqaintance,’’ ‘‘familiariti and friendshipp’’ with Busby: ‘‘you have not only profest great kyndness to me, but shown very great to my Childe your Schollar for my sake.’’ In February 1681, Creighton recommends Mr. Dowthwaite, the accountant at Wells, to Busby, reasoning as follows: ‘‘We have been long convinced yt to do right to you is to promote ye comon interest of the church; yett I presume to say, most of resolve to serve you, not so much for ye churches sake, as because we think our selves obliged to be just, especialy to one whom we so much honour.’’ On June 18, 1684 Creighton writes a letter of recommendation from Wells: 103 We have known his conversation, he having been some time since entertain ’d heer by his unkle ye Late Archdeacon of Wells: And our opinion of him heer is, that he is a very honest, sober, discreet, Loyal man, & of good sound Learning & of solid judgement. This, Sr , I write not byassed by affection, or to gratify ye importunity of friends, but to do him right, to be just to him, rather than kind: as also to comply wth my duty to my master, to whom it becomes me to give my impartial thoughts in such cases wherein I apprehend his honour may be concerned . Creighton’s letters all register an acute sense of Busby’s stature as headmaster and a highly developed recognition of his personal and moral obligations to him. These obligations sometimes feel fated: I shall submitt to fate, or (I should have sayd) to ye unalterable inviolable laws of your good nature, you ever prevent my thanks by laying on me still new obligations, & you are kind in such methods yt you seem to prompt me to believe you will neither be asked nor thanked. (Letter of September 26, 1687) But Creighton’s obligation to and reverence for Busby revolve most pointedly around the memory of...