subs. (Winchester: obsolete).—A Latin epigram: four or six lines long. Hence VULGUS-BOOK = a CRIB (q.v.). [See FARMER, Public School Word-Book.]
1856. T. HUGHES, Tom Brown’s School-days, II. iii. The VULGUS (commonly supposed to have been established by William of Wykeham at Winchester, and imported to Rugby by Arnold, more for the sake of the lines which were learnt by heart with it than for its own intrinsic value, as I’ve always understood) … is a short exercise in Greek or Latin verse, on a given subject, the minimum number of lines being fixed for each form.
1883. A. TROLLOPE, What I Remember, v. The mention of a ‘VULGUS’ requires some explanation. Every ‘inferior,’ i.e., non-prefect, in the school was required every night to produce a copy of verses of from two to six lines on a given theme; four or six lines for the upper classes, two for the lowest. This was independent of a weekly ‘verse task’ of greater length, and was called a ‘VULGUS,’ I suppose, because everybody—the VULGUS—had to do it.
