Launceston.
_Zachary Pearce not a Pupil of Busby._--The birth[1] of Zachary
(afterwards Bishop) Pearce was prior to the death[2] of the famous
Master of Westminster, which took place at the _short_ interval of five
years: consequently, it was impossible that the relation of teacher and
pupil should exist between them.
[Footnote 1: 1690.]
[Footnote 2: 1695.]
In the Memoir of this prelate, which goes before his _Commentary on the
Gospels_, it is expressly stated that he was removed to Westminster
School in Feb. 1704. At the same time, his biographer speaks of his
being elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, after he had spent six
years at Westminster, and "endured the constraint of a grammar school to
the twentieth year of his age." Then follows the sentence, "Why his
removal was so long delayed, no other reason can be given, than that Dr.
Busby used to detain those boys longest under his discipline of whose
future eminence he had most expectation; considering the fundamental
knowledge which grammar schools inculcate, as that which is least likely
to be supplied by future diligence, if the student be sent deficient to
the university."
Bishop Pearce's biographer was the Rev. John Derby, his chaplain, who
could not well be mistaken as to a plain and palpable matter of fact. It
is perfectly conceivable, however, that the future prelate was long
detained at Westminster School in consequence of a regulation _first_
laid down by Busby, and regularly acted upon by that eminent man. This
circumstance will sufficiently explain the apparent incongruity.
If I am right in this conjecture, Bishop Pearce must have entered under
Knipe.[3]
[Footnote 3: Noble's Continuation of _Granger_, Vol. iii. p. 119, &c.]