burn a forest; and on that account was beheld by the ignorant with much veneration. Now, at the Dissolution of abbeys, it was brought up to London, and burned at the gallows in Smithfield, with friar Forrest, executed for a traitor.

A prophecy was current in the abbey of Glastonbury, that a whiting should swim on the top of the Torr thereof, which is a steep hill hard by; and the credulous country people understood it of an eruption of the sea, which they suspected accordingly. It happened that abbot Whiting (the last of Glastonbury) was hanged thereon for his recusancy to surrender the abbey, and denying the king's supremacy; so swimming in air, and not water, and waved with the wind in the place.

14. Prophetical Mottoes inscribed in Gloucester Church. We will close all with the prophetical mottoes (at leastwise as men since have expounded them) of the three last successive abbots of Gloucester, because much of modesty, and something of piety, contained therein.

(1.) ABBOT BOULERS: Memento, memento; that is, as some will have it, "Remember, remember, this abbey must be dissolved."

(2.) ABBOT SEBRUCK: Fiat coluntas Domini; that is, " If it must be dissolved, the will of the Lord be done!"

(3.) ABBOT MAUBORN: Mersos reatu suscita ; "Raise up those who are drowned in guiltiness." Which some say was accomplished, when this abbey found that favour from king Henry VIII. to be raised into a bishopric. But I like the text better than the comment; and there is more humility in their mottoes, than soliditv in the interpretations.

III. THAT MANY PRECIOUS BOOKS WERE EMBEZZLED AT THE DISSOLUTION OF ABBEYS, TO THE IRREPARABLE LOSS OF LEARNING.

1. English Libraries excellently furnished.

THE English monks were bookish of themselves, and much inclined to hoard up monuments of learning. Britain, we know, is styled "another world;" and, in this contradistinction, though incomparably less in quantity, acquits itself well in proportion of famous writers, producing almost as many classical Schoolmen for her natives, as all Europe besides. Other excellent books of foreign authors were brought hither, purchased at dear rates; if we consider that the press, which now runs so incredibly fast, was in that age in her infancy, newly able to go alone; there being then few printed books, in comparison of the many manuscripts. These, if carefully collected and methodically compiled, would have amounted to a library exceeding that of Ptolemy's for plenty, or many Vaticans for choiceness and rarity. Yea, had they been transported beyond the seas, sent over, and sold entire to such who knew their value and would preserve them, England's loss had been Europe's gain, and the detriment the less to learning in general. Yea, many years after, the English might have repurchased for pounds what their grandfathers sold for fewer pence into foreign parts.

2. The miserable Martyrdom of innocent Books.

But alas! those abbeys were now sold to such chapmen, in whom it was questionable whether their ignorance or avarice were greater ; and they made havoc and destruction of all. As brokers in Longlane, when they buy an old suit, buy the linings together with the outside; so it was conceived meet that such as purchased the buildings of monasteries should, in the same grant, have the libraries (the stuffing thereof) conveyed unto them. And now these ignorant owners, so long as they might keep a ledger-book or terrier, by direction thereof to find such straggling acres as belonged unto them, they cared not to preserve any other monuments. The covers of books, with curious brass bosses and clasps, intended to protect, proved to betray them, being the baits of covetousness. And so, many excellent authors, stripped out of their cases, were left naked, to be burned or thrown away. Thus Esop's cock, casually lighting on a pearl, preferred a grain before it; yet he left it as he found it; and as he reaped no profit by the pearl, it received no damage by him. Whereas these cruel cormorants, with their barbarous beaks and greedy claws, rent, tore, and tattered these inestimable pieces of antiquity. Who would think, that the Fathers should be condemned to such servile employment, as to be scavengers, to make clean the foulest sink in men's bodies? Yea, which is worse, many an ancient manuscript Bible cut in pieces, to cover filthy pamphlets! So that a case of diamond hath been made to keep dirt within it; yea, "the Wise Men of Gotham," bound up in "the Wisdom of Solomon."

3. John Bale lamentably bemoaneth this Massacre. But hear how John Bale, a man sufficiently averse from the least shadow of popery, hating all monkery with a perfect hatred, complained hereof to king Edward VI. :

"Covetousness was at that time so busy about private commodity, that public wealth, in that [age] most necessary and of respect, was not any where regarded. A number of them, which purchased those superstitious mansions, reserved of those library-books, some to serve their jakes, some to scour their candlesticks, and some to rub their boots; some they sold to the grocers and soap-sellers, and some they sent over sea to the bookbinders, not in small number, but at times whole ships full. Yea, the universities of this realm are not all clear in this detestable fact. But cursed is that belly, which seeketh to be fed with so ungodly gains, and so deeply shameth his natural country; I know a merchant-man who shall at this time be nameless, that bought the contents of two noble libraries for forty shillings' price: a shame it is to be spoken ! This stuff hath he occupied instead of gray paper, by the space of more than these ten years; and yet he hath store enough for as many years to come. A prodigious example is this, and to be abhorred of all men, who love their nations as they should do. Yea, what may bring our realm to more shame and rebuke, than to have it noised abroad, that we are despisers of learning? I judge this to be true, and utter it with heaviness, that neither the Britons under the Romans and Saxons, nor yet the English people under the Danes and Normans, had ever such damage of their learned monuments, as we have seen in our time. Our posterity may well curse this wicked fact of our age, this unreasonable spoil of England's most noble antiquities."*

4. Learning receiveth an incurable Wound by the Loss of Books.

What soul can be so frozen, as not to melt into anger hereat? What heart, having the least spark of ingenuity, is not hot at this indignity offered to literature? I deny not, but that in this heap of books there was much rubbish; legions of lying legends, good for nothing but fuel, whose keeping would have caused the loss of much precious time in reading them. I confess also, there were many volumes full fraught with superstition, which, notwithstanding, might be useful to learned men; except any will deny apothecaries the privilege of keeping poison in their shops, when they can make antidotes of them. But beside these, what beautiful Bibles, rare Fathers, subtile Schoolmen, useful Historians, ancient, middle, modern; what painful comments were here amongst them! What monuments of mathematics all massacred together! seeing every book with a cross was condemned for popish; with circles, for conjuring. Yea, I may say, that then holy divinity was profaned, physic itself hurt, and a trespass, yea, a riot, committed on the law itself. And, more particularly, the history of former times then

• In his Declaration upon Leland's Journal, anno 1549.

and there received a dangerous wound, whereof it halts at this day, and, without hope of a perfect cure, must go a cripple to the grave.

5, 6. No Anabaptistical Humour, but downright Ignorance, the Cause thereof. Sullen Dispositions causelessly aggrieved. Some would persuade us, that in all this there was a smack or taste of Anabaptistical fury, which about this time began in Germany, where they destroyed the stately libraries of Munster and Osnaburgh. Indeed, as the wicked tenants in the gospel thought themselves not safe in and sure of the vineyard, till they had killed the heir, that so the inheritance might be their own; so the Anabaptists conceived themselves not in quiet possession of their anarchy, and sufficiently established therein, whilst any learning did survive, which in process of time might recover its right against them; and, therefore, they bent their brains to the final extirpation thereof. But I am more charitably inclined to conceive, that simple ignorance, not fretted and embossed with malice, or affected hatred to learning, caused that desolation of libraries in England; though, perchance, some there were, who conceived these books, as "the garment spotted with sin," Jude 23, had contracted such a guilt, being so long in the possession of superstitious owners, that they deserved, as an anathema, to be consigned to a perpetual destruction.

Some will say, that herein I discover an hankering after the onions and flesh-pots of Egypt; and that the bemoaning the loss of these monuments, is no better than Lot's wife's looking back, with a farewell-glance, to the filthy city of Sodom. To such, I protest myself not to have the least inclination to the favour of monkery. But, enough: for, I know, some back-friends of learning there be, that take it ill that we have jogged them in this discourse; and, therefore, we will let them alone to be settled quietly on the lees of their own ignorance, praying to God, that never good library may lie at the mercy of their disposal; lest, having the same advantage, they play the like prank, to the prejudice of learning and religion.

IV. MANY GOOD BARGAINS, OR RATHER CHEAP PENNY. WORTHS, BOUGHT OF ABBEY-LANDS.

1, 2. The profuse Gifts and Grants of King Henry. King Henry's Engagement to Liberality.

IF ever the poet's fiction of a golden shower rained into Danaë's lap found a moral or real performance, it was now, at the dissipation of abbey-lands. And, though we will not give hearing or belief in full latitude of his slanderous pen, that reports how king Henry (when ancient and diseased, choleric and curious in trifles) was wont to reward such as ordered his skrine or chair in a convenient distance from the fire so as to please him, with the church of some abbey, or lead of some church :* yet it is certain, that, in this age, small merits of courtiers met with a prodigious recompence for their service. Not only all the cooks, but the meanest turn-broach in the king's kitchen, did lick his fingers. Yea, the king's servants, to the third and fourth degree, tasted of his liberality; it being but proportionable, that, where the master got the manor in fee, his man under him should obtain some long lease of a farm of considerable value.

Indeed, king Henry, beside his own disposition to munificence, was doubly concerned to be bountiful herein. First. In honour; for, seeing the parliament with one breath had blown so much profit unto him, and had with their suffrage conferred the harvest of abbey-lands on the crown; it was fitting that some, especially the principal advancers of the business, should, with Ruth, "glean amongst the sheaves," Ruth ii. 15. Secondly. In policy; to make many and great men effectually sensible of the profit of this Dissolution, and so engaged to defend it. Wherefore, as he took the greater flowers to garnish his own crown; so he bestowed the less buds to beautify his noblemen's coronets. But, beside these, he passed abbey-lands in a fourfold nature to persons of meaner quality.

3-6. How Mr. Champernoun got the Priory of St. Germain. How Sir Miles Partridge got Jesus's Bells. Glaucus and Diomedes's Exchange. Unconscionable Undersale of AbbeyLands.

First. By free gift. Herein take one story of many: Master John Champernoun,† son and heir-apparent of sir Philip Champernoun, of Modbury in Devon, followed the court; and by his pleasant conceits won good grace with the king. It happened, two or three gentlemen, the king's servants, and Mr. Champernoun's acquaintance, waited at a door where the king was to pass forth, with purpose to beg of his Highness a large parcel of abbey-lands, specified in their petition. Champernoun was very inquisitive to know their suit, but they would not impart the nature thereof. This while out comes the king; they kneel down, so doth Mr. Champernoun, being assured by an implicit faith, that courtiers