The whole draught of the Invention moves upon
two principall Hinges:
- 1. The maine Plot, or το εργον.
- 2. The Counter-plot, το παρεργον.
The first designes forth the Orders of the
Place in point of Government; the other, the
Didacticall part, in way of Method, thus, in order following.
1. The Maine Plot represents the Fundamentall discipline
in ordine ad Regimen usitatum Loci: and is wrapt up in the first
part of the Title, (Princeps Rhetoricus) In relation to the Authority
of the Schoole Prince, his five Seniors, and twelve Sub-seniors
or Keepers, throughout the whole yeere, and consisteth of two
Dramaticall parts:
-
1. Citement.
-
2. Inditement.
The Citement summons the Officers, Seniors, Sub-seniors, and
Juniors in the five first Classes, at the Instalment of their Prince.
The Inditement belongs to the Fresh-men and Sub-juniors of the
fift and sixt Forme, according as they stand severally charged by
their Seniors.
2. The Counter-plot layes forth (παρεργως) our Methodicall
Exercise, alternis diebus, three dayes a week, i. e. Grammatically
and Rhetorically on Tuesday; Poetically on Thursday; Logically
on Saturday, viz. upon some Thema simplex, some one word Problematically
given forth upon Munday morning: As Cubus,
Æra, Sphæra, Annus, severall weeks, severall words, canvased
Philologically through the Grammarians, Lexicons, Glossaries,
Nomenclators, Criticks, Historians, quasi opus Philologicum:
and also hunted through the Arithmeticians and Cosmographers
quasi Exercitium Mathematicum: and forthwith out of the
present Result the Declamers come forth, quasi Praxis Rhetorica:
this for Tuesday perennitèr: the Books being laid by the Librarie
keepers præ manibus in ordine ad Classes; and the Exercise recorded
in three severall Books, and kept by χαρτοφυλαξ,, the keeper
of the weekly Papers.
Now the Thesis or Controversall word for the present was
Pileum, a Cap, being the garbe of the place. But occasionally at
this time è re natâ; For a negligent young Student of the House
had lost his Colledge Bonnet, whose name, together with his losse,
renewed the old Schoole-game, The Parson has lost his Cap, and
so fell in accidentally to be the Basis of the Counter-plot, and
gave the Title Φιλομαχια. The subject of the second, third, fourth
Acts, debated Academically. And thus the two Plots interweave
all the yeare Scholasticè, Methodi gratiâ. And to day Dramaticè,
Compendii causa, ut mundus in Tabellula, The Essay of a Fortnights
study. And thus much for the Argument at large.
