Nevertheless, the Wakes are still disgraced by sad scenes of intoxication and other excesses: the agencies of education and religion are not working in vain in the district; let us hope that the progress, though slow, may be sure.
[61] We quote the above from a contribution to the _Birmingham Daily Post_. The details are of value, from their being furnished by an eye-witness.
Alexander Neckam, from whose Treatise the following curious things are derived, was a learned man of the twelfth century: his work, which is written in Latin, has been translated by Mr. Thomas Wright, and published under the direction of the Master of the Polls. Of Neckam's birth we learn the date from a chronicle formerly existing among the MSS. of the Earl of Arundel, which inform us that "in the month of September, 1157, there was born to the King at Windsor a son named Richard; and the same night was born Alexander Neckam at St. Alban's, whose mother gave suck to Richard with her right breast, and to Alexander with her left breast." Thus was Alexander the foster-brother of the future Coeur de Lion, who was celebrated for his own love of literature and learning; and the position which the circumstance here related by the chronicler gave to Neckam in regard to such a Prince goes far to explain the honourable position he gained in after-life.
Neckam was born and passed his boyhood at St. Alban's: he received his earlier education in the Abbey School there; and such a rapid advance did he make in learning, that whilst still very young, the direction of the school at Dunstable, a dependency of the Abbey of St. Alban's, was entrusted to him. But he soon, of his own accord, sought a larger field for his mental activities, and proceeded to the then celebrated University of Paris, where he was a distinguished professor as early as the year 1180, when he can have been no more than twenty-three years of age.
He did not long adhere to the scholastic learning of the University, but in 1186 returned to England, and resumed his old post at Dunstable. He subsequently became one of the Augustinian monks of Cirencester, and in 1213 was elected Abbot of Cirencester. He died at Kempsey, near Worcester, in 1217, and was buried in Worcester Cathedral.