St. John's College at Oxford is ascribed to training given by old
Mulcaster at the Merchant Taylors' school.

But no one of the great English public schools has enjoyed so long
a fame in this regard as Westminster. According to Staunton, in his
_Great schools of England_, Elizabeth desired to have plays acted
by the boys, "Quo juventus turn actioni tum pronunciationi decenti
melius se assuescat," that the youth might be better trained in proper
bearing and pronunciation. The noted Bishop Atterbury wrote to a
friend, Trelawney, Bishop of Winchester, concerning a performance here
of Trelawney's son: "I had written to your lordship again on Saturday,
but that I spent the evening in seeing _Phormio_ acted in the
college chamber, where, in good truth, my lord, Mr. Trelawney played
Antipho extremely well, and some parts he performed admirably."
In 1695, Dryden's play of Cleomens was acted. Archbishop Markham,
head-master one hundred years ago, gave a set of scenes designed by
Garrick. In our own day, Dr. Williamson, head-master in 1828, drew
attention in a pamphlet to the proper costuming of the performers; and
when, in 1847, there was a talk of abolishing the plays, a memorial
signed by six hundred old "Westminsters" was sent in, stating it
as their "firm and deliberate belief, founded on experience and
reflection, that the abolition of the Westminster play cannot fail to
prove prejudicial to the interests and prosperity of the school." At
the present time the best plays of Plautus and Terence are performed
at Christmas in the school dormitory.

It all became excessive, and in Cromwell's time, with the accession
of the Puritans to power, like a hundred other brilliant traits of the
old English life from whose abuse had grown riot, it was purged away.
Ben Jonson, in _The Staple of Newes_, puts into the mouth of a