The office of whipping-boy doomed its unfortunate
occupant to undergo all the corporeal punishment which the Lord's
Anointed, whose proper person was of course sacred, might chance to
incur, in the course of travelling through his grammar and prosody.
Under the stern rule, indeed, of George Buchanan, who did not approve
of the vicarious mode of punishment, James bore the penance of his own
faults, and Mungo Malagrowther enjoyed a sinecure; but James's other
pedagogue, Master Patrick Young, went more ceremoniously to work, and
appalled the very soul of the youthful king by the floggings which he
bestowed on the whipping-boy, when the royal task was not suitably
performed. And be it told to Sir Mungo's praise, that there were
points about him in the highest respect suited to his official
situation. He had even in youth a naturally irregular and grotesque
set of features, which, when distorted by fear, pain, and anger,
looked like one of the whimsical faces which present themselves in a
Gothic cornice. His voice also was high-pitched and querulous, so
that, when smarting under Master Peter Young's unsparing inflictions,
the expression of his grotesque physiognomy, and the superhuman yells
which he uttered, were well suited to produce all the effects on the
Monarch who deserved the lash, that could possibly be produced by
seeing another and an innocent individual suffering for his delict.
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