BURY  GRAMMAR  SCHOOL

WHERE    EDWARD   FITZGERALD    WAS    A    SCHOLAR


BURY   ST.   EDMUNDS  263

and  Dr.  Symonds,  both  of  whom  occupied  the  chair  of
Modern  History  at  Cambridge  ;  and  Butts  and  Thurlow,
bishops  respectively  of  Ely  and  Durham.  During  the
earlier  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  school's
reputation  was  well  maintained,  especially  under  the
headmastership  of  Dr.  B.  H.  Malkin  and  the  famous
Dr.  J.  W.  Donaldson,  author  of  "  Theatre  of  the  Greeks."
Then  it  was  that  those  firm  friends  and  variously  gifted
men,  J.  M.  Kemble,  the  historian  of  the  Anglo-Saxons ;
James  Spedding,  the  editor  of  Bacon  ;  William  Bodham
Donne,  the  licenser  of  plays  ;  and  Edward  FitzGerald,  of
"  Omar  Khayyam  "  fame,  were  boys  together  at  the  old
Bury  school,  as  was  also  FitzGerald's  brother  Peter,
who  chiefly  distinguished  himself  by  driving  the  Bury
coach  and,  on  one  occasion,  a  hearse  with  four  horses.
Dr.  Malkin,  to  whom  there  is  a  monument  in  St.  James's
Church,  is  not  so  well  remembered,  perhaps,  as  his  sons,
Frederick,  the  historian  of  Greece,  and  Sir  Benjamin
Heath  Malkin,  the  friend  of  Macaulay ;  but  the  name
of  Dr.  Donaldson  is  even  now  frequently  on  the  tongue
of  certain  Bury  folk,  who,  pointing  to  some  memorial
inscriptions  on  the  ruins  in  one  of  the  churchyards,  love
to  tell  that  tale  of  him  which  is  told  in  the  "  Life  "  of
Henry  Crabb  Robinson.  The  tale  is  to  the  effect  that
there  were  in  Bury  three  brothers  of  the  name  of  Creed,
and  they  were  commonly  known  as  "  the  three  Creeds."
Crabb  Robinson  was  strolling  with  Donaldson  in  the
town  one  day,  when  one  of  the  brothers  was  seen  walk-
ing in  front  of  them  with  his  hands  behind  his  back.
