1 Printed in FOXE, vol. iv. p. 659, Townsend's edition.

2 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 4.

3 Bishop Latimer, in a sermon at Paul's Cross, suggested another purpose which this act might answer. One of his audience, writing to the Mayor of Plymouth, after describing the exceedingly disrespectful language in which he spoke of the high church dignitaries, continues, "The king," quoth he, "made a marvellous good act of parliament that certain men should sow every of them two acres of hemp; but it were all too little were it so much more to hang the thieves that be in England."—Suppression of the Monasteries, Camden Society's publications, p. 38.

4 32 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

5 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

6 Antiquities of Hengrave, by Sir T. GAGE.

7 See especially 2 Hen. VII. capp. 16 and 19.

8 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 9.

9 See especially the 4th of the 5th of Elizabeth.

10 10 Ed. III. cap. 3.

11 Statutes of the Realm, vol. i. (edit. 1817), pp. 227-8.

12 "The artificers and husbandmen make most account of such meat as they may soonest come by and have it quickliest ready. Their food consisteth principally in beef, and such meat as the butcher selleth, that is to say, mutton, veal, lamb, pork, whereof the one findeth great store in the markets adjoining; besides souse, brawn, bacon, fruit, pies of fruit, fowls of sundry sorts, as the other wanteth it not at home by his own provision, which is at the best hand and commonly least charge. In feasting, this latter sort—I mean the husbandmen—do exceed after their manner, especially at bridals and such odd meetings, where it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent."—HARRISON'S Description of England, p. 282.

The Spanish nobles who came into England with Philip were astonished at the diet which they found among the poor.

"These English," said one of them, "have their houses made of sticks and dirt, but they fare commonly so well as the king."—Ibid. p. 313.

13 State Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. ii. p. 10.

14 HALL, p. 646.

15 25 Ed. III. cap. I.

16 Statutes of the Realm, vol. i. p. 199.

17 3 Ed. IV. cap. 2.

18 10 Hen. VI. cap. 2.

19 STOW'S Chronicle.

20 Statutes of Philip and Mary.

21 From 1565 to 1575 there was a rapid and violent rise in the prices of all kinds of grain. Wheat stood at four and five times its earlier rates; and in 1576, when Harrison wrote, was entirely beyond the reach of the labouring classes. "The poor in some shires," he says, "are enforced to content themselves with rye or barley, yea, and in time of dearth many with bread made either of peas, beans, or oats, or of all together and some acorns among, of which scourge the poorest do soonest taste, sith they are least able to provide themselves of better. I will not say that this extremity is oft so well seen in time of plenty as of dearth, but if I should I could easily bring my trial. For, albeit that there be much more ground eared now almost in every place than hath been of late years, yet such a price of corn continues in each town and market, that the artificer and poor labouring man is not able to reach to it, but is driven to content himself with beans, peas, oats, tares, and lentils."—HARRISON, p. 283. The condition of the labourer was at this period deteriorating rapidly. The causes will be described in the progress of this history.

22 Chronicle, p.568.

23 33 Hen. VIII. cap. II. The change in the prices of such articles commenced in the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., and continued till the close of the century. A discussion upon the subject, written in 1581 by Mr. Edward Stafford, and containing the clearest detailed account of the alteration, is printed in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. ix. p.139, etc.

24 Leland, Itin., vol. vi. p.17. In large households beef used to be salted in great quantities for winter consumption. The art of fatting cattle in the stall was imperfectly understood, and the loss of substance in the destruction of fibre by salt was less than in the falling off of flesh on the failure of fresh grass. The Northumberland Household Book describes the storing of salted provision for the earl's establishment at Michaelmas; and men now living can remember the array of salting tubs in old-fashioned country houses. So long as pigs, poultry, and other articles of food, however, remained cheap and abundant, the salt diet could not, as Hume imagines, have been carried to an extent injurious to health; and fresh meat, beef as well as mutton, was undoubtedly sold in all markets the whole year round in the reign of Henry VIII., and sold at a uniform price, which it could not have been if there had been so much difficulty in procuring it. Latimer (Letters, p.412), writing to Cromwell on Christmas Eve, 1538, speaks of his winter stock of "beeves" and muttons as a thing of course.

25 STAFFORD'S Discourse on the State of the Realm. It is to be understood, however, that these rates applied only to articles of ordinary consumption. Capons fatted for the dinners of the London companies were sometimes provided at a shilling apiece. Fresh fish was also extravagantly dear, and when two days a week were observed strictly as fasting days, it becomes a curious question to know how the supply was kept up. The inland counties were dependent entirely on ponds and rivers. London was provided either from the Thames or from the coast of Sussex. An officer of the Fishmongers' Company resided at each of the Cinque Ports whose business it was to buy the fish wholesale from the boats and to forward it on horseback. Three hundred horses were kept for this service at Rye alone. And when an adventurous fisherman, taking advantage of a fair wind, sailed up the Thames with his catch and sold it first hand at London Bridge, the innovation was considered dangerous, and the Mayor of Rye petitioned against it.

Salmon, sturgeon, porpoise, roach, dace, flounders, eels, etc., were caught in considerable quantities in the Thames, below London Bridge, and further up, pike and trout. The fishermen had great nets that stretched all across Limehouse-reach four fathoms deep.

Fresh fish, however, remained the luxury of the rich, and the poor were left to the salt cod, ling, and herring brought in annually by the Iceland fleet.

Fresh herrings sold for five or six a penny in the time of Henry VIII., and were never cheaper. Fresh salmon five and six shillings apiece. Roach, dace, and flounders from two to four shillings a hundred. Pike and barbel varied with their length. The barbel a foot long sold for five-pence, and twopence was added for each additional inch: a pike a foot long sold for sixteen pence, and increased a penny an inch.—Guildhall MSS. Journals 12, 13, 14, 15.

26 "When the brewer buyeth a quarter of malt for two shillings, then he shall sell a gallon of the best ale for two farthings; when he buyeth a quarter malt for four shillings, the gallon shall be four farthings, and so forth... and that he sell a quart of ale upon his table for a farthing."— Assize of Brewers: from a MS. in Balliol College, Oxford.

By an order of the Lord Mayor and Council of the City of London, in September, 1529, the price of a kilderkin of single beer was fixed at a shilling, the kilderkin of double beer at two shillings; but this included the cask; and the London brewers replied with a remonstrance, saying that the casks were often destroyed or made away with, and that an allowance had to be made for bad debts. "Your beseechers," they said, "have many city debtors, for many of them which have taken much beer into their houses suddenly goeth to the sanctuary, some keep their houses—some purchase the king's protection, and some, when they die, be reckoned poor, and of no value, and many of your said beseechers be for the most part against such debtors remediless and suffer great losses."

They offered to supply then: customers with sixteen gallon casks of single beer for eleven pence, and the same quantity of double beer for a shilling, the cask included. And this offer was accepted.

The corporation, however, returned two years after to their original order. Guildhall Records, MS. Journal 13, pp. 210, 236.

27 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 14.

The prices assessed, being a maximum, applied to the best wines of each class. In 1531, the mayor and corporation "did straitly charge and command that all such persons as sold wines by retail within the city and liberties of the same, should from henceforth sell two gallons of the best red wine for eightpence, and not above; the gallon of the best white wine for eightpence, and not above; the pottle, quart, and pint after the same rate, upon pain of imprisonment."

The quality of the wine sold was looked into from time to time, and when found tainted, or unwholesome, "according to the antient customs of the city," the heads of the vessels were broken up, and the wines in them put forth open into the kennels, in example of all other offenders. Guildhall MS. Journals 12 and 13.

28 Sermons, p.101.

29 See HARRISON, p. 318. At the beginning of the century farms let for four pounds a year, which in 1576 had been raised to forty, fifty, or a hundred. The price of produce kept pace with the rent. The large farmers prospered; the poor forfeited their tenures.

30 The wages were fixed at a maximum, showing that labour was scarce, and that its natural tendency was towards a higher rate of remuneration. Persons not possessed of other means of subsistence were punishable if they refused to work at the statutable rate of payment; and a clause in the act of Hen. VIII. directed that where the practice had been to give lower wages, lower wages should be taken. This provision was owing to a difference in the value of money in different parts of England. The price of bread at Stratford, for instance, was permanently twenty-five per cent. below the price in London. (Assize of Bread in England: Balliol MS.) The statute, therefore, may be taken as a guide sufficiently conclusive as to the practical scale. It is of course uncertain how far work was constant. The ascending tendency of wages is an evidence, so far as it goes, in the labourer's favour; and the proportion between the wages of the household farm servant and those of the day labourer, which furnishes a further guide, was much the same as at present. By the same statute of Henry VIII. the common servant of husbandry, who was boarded and lodged at his master's house, received 16s. 8d. a year in money, with 4s. for his clothes; while the wages of the out-door labourer, supposing his work constant, would have been £5 a year. Among ourselves, on an average of different counties, the labourer's wages are £25 to £30 a year, supposing his work constant. The farm servant, unless in the neighbourhood of large towns, receives about £6, or from that to £8.

Where meat and drink was allowed it was calculated at 2d. a day, or 1s. 2d. a week. In the household of the Earl of Northumberland the allowance was 2½d. Here, again, we observe an approach to modern proportions. The estimated cost of the board and lodging of a man servant in an English gentleman's family is now about £25 a year.

31 Mowers, for instance, were paid 8d. a day.—Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII.

32 In 1581 the agricultural labourer, as he now exists, was only beginning to appear. "There be such in the realm," says Stafford, "as live only by the labour of their hands and the profit which they can make upon the commons."—STAFFORD'S Discourse. This novel class had been called into being by the general raising of rents, and the wholesale evictions of the smaller tenantry which followed the Reformation. The progress of the causes which led to the change can be traced from the beginning of the century. Harrison says he knew old men who, comparing things present with things past, spoke of two things grown to be very grievous—to wit, "the enhancing of rents, and the daily oppression of copyholders, whose lords seek to bring their poor tenants almost into plain servitude and misery, daily devising new means, and seeking up all the old, how to cut them shorter and shorter; doubling, trebling, and now and then seven times increasing their fines; driving them also for every trifle to lose and forfeit their tenures, by whom the greatest part of the realm doth stand and is maintained, to the end they may fleece them yet more: which is a lamentable hearing."—Description of England, p.318.

33 HALL, p. 581. Nor was the act in fact observed even in London itself, or towards workmen employed by the Government. In 1538, the Corporation of London, "for certain reasonable and necessary considerations," assessed the wages of common labourers at 7d. and 8d. the day, classing them with carpenters and masons.—Guildhall MSS. Journal 14, fol. 10. Labourers employed on Government works in the reign of Hen. VIII. never received less than 6d. a day, and frequently more.—Chronicle of Calais, p. 197, etc. Sixpence a day is the usual sum entered as the wages of a day's labour in the innumerable lists of accounts in the Record Office. And 6d. a day again was the lowest pay of the common soldier, not only on exceptional service in the field, but when regularly employed in garrison duty. Those who doubt whether this was really the practice, may easily satisfy themselves by referring to the accounts of the expenses of Berwick, or of Dover, Deal, or Walmer Castles, to be found in the Record Office in great numbers. The daily wages of the soldier are among the very best criteria for determining the average value of the unskilled labourer's work. No government gives higher wages than it is compelled to give by the market rate.

34 The wages of the day labourer in London, under this act of Elizabeth, were fixed at 9d. the day, and this, after the restoration of the depreciated currency.—Guildhall MSS. Journal 18, fol. 157, etc.

35 4 Hen. VII. cap. 16. By the same parliament these provisions were extended to the rest of England. 4 Hen. VII. cap. 19.

36 HALL, p. 863.

37 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 22.

38 There is a cause of difficulty "peculiar to England, the increase of pasture, by which sheep may be now said to devour men and unpeople not only villages but towns. For wherever it is found that the sheep yield a softer and richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry, and even those holy men the abbots, not contented with the old rents which their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture.... One shepherd can look after a flock which will stock an extent of ground that would require many hands if it were ploughed and reaped. And this likewise in many places raises the price of corn. The price of wool is also risen ... since, though sheep cannot be called a monopoly, because they are not engrossed by one person; yet they are in so few hands, and these are so rich, that as they are not prest to sell them sooner than they have a mind to it, so they never do it till they have raised the price as high as possible."—Sir THOMAS MORE'S Utopia, Burnet's Translation, pp. 17-19.

39 I find scattered among the State Papers many loose memoranda, apparently of privy councillors, written on the backs of letters, or on such loose scraps as might be at hand. The following fragment on the present subject is curious. I do not recognise the hand:—

"Mem. That an act may be made that merchants shall employ their goods continually in the traffic of merchandise, and not in the purchasing of lands; and that craftsmen, also, shall continually use their crafts in cities and towns, and not leave the same and take farms in the country; and that no merchant shall hereafter purchase above £40 lands by the year."—Cotton MS. Titus, b. i. 160.

40 When the enclosing system was carried on with greatest activity and provoked insurrection. In expressing a sympathy with the social policy of the Tudor government, I have exposed myself to a charge of opposing the received and ascertained conclusions of political economy. I disclaim entirely an intention so foolish; but I believe that the science of political economy came into being with the state of things to which alone it is applicable. It ought to be evident that principles which answer admirably when a manufacturing system capable of indefinite expansion multiplies employment at home—when the soil of England is but a fraction of its empire, and the sea is a highway to emigration—would have produced far different effects, in a condition of things which habit had petrified into form, when manufactures could not provide work for one additional hand, when the first colony was yet unthought of, and where those who were thrown out of the occupation to which they had been bred could find no other. The tenants evicted, the labourers thrown out of employ, when the tillage lands were converted into pastures, had scarcely an alternative offered them except to beg, to rob, or to starve.

41 Lansdowne MS. No. I. fol. 26.

42 GIUSTINIANI'S Letters from the Court of Henry VIII.

43 Ibid.

44 22 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

45 Under Hen. VI. the household expenses were £23,000 a year—Cf. Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, vol. vi. p. 35. The particulars of the expenses of the household of Hen. VIII. are in an MS. in the Rolls House. They cover the entire outlay except the personal expenditure of the king, and the sum total amounts to £14,365 10s. 7d. This would leave above £5000 a year for the privy purse, not, perhaps, sufficient to cover Henry's gambling extravagances in his early life. Curious particulars of his excesses in this matter will be found in a publication wrongly called The Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the Eighth. It is a diary of general payments, as much for purposes of state as for the king himself. The high play was confined for the most part to Christmas or other times of festivity, when the statutes against unlawful games were dispensed with for all classes.

46 18 Hen. VI. cap. 11.

47 4 Hen. VII. cap. 12.

48 During the quarter sessions time they were allowed 4s. a day.—Ric. II. xii. 10.

49 The rudeness of the furniture in English country houses has been dwelt upon with much emphasis by Hume and others. An authentic inventory of the goods and chattels in a parsonage in Kent proves that there has been much exaggeration in this matter. It is from an MS. in the Rolls House.

The Inventory of the Goods and Catales of Richd. Master, Clerk, Parson of Aldington, being in his Parsonage on the 20th Day of April, in the 25th Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King Henry VIII.

50 Two hundred poor were fed daily at the house of Tomas Cromwell. This fact is perfectly authenticated. Stowe the historian, who did not like Cromwell, lived in an adjoining house, and reports it as an eye witness.—See STOWE'S Survey of London.

51 HARRISON'S Description of Britain.

52 The Earl and Countess of Northumberland breakfasted together alone at seven. The meal consisted of a quart of ale, a quart of wine, and a chine of beef: a loaf of bread is not mentioned, but we hope it may be presumed. On fast days the beef was exchanged for a dish of sprats or herrings, fresh or salt.—Northumberland Household Book, quoted by Hume.

53 Some notice of the style of living sometimes witnessed in England in the old times may be gathered from the details of a feast given at the installation of George Neville, brother of Warwick the King Maker, when made Archbishop of York.

The number of persons present including servants was about 3500.

The provisions were as follow—

54 LATIMER'S Sermons, p. 64.

55 Statutes of the Realm, 1 Ed. VI. cap. 12.

56 HOOKER'S Life of Sir Peter Carew.

57 In a subsequent letter he is described as learning French, etymology, casting of accounts, playing at weapons, and other such exercises.—ELLIS, third series, vol. i. p. 342-3.

58 It has been objected that inasmuch as the Statute Book gives evidence of extensive practices of adulteration, the guild system was useless, nay, it has been even said that it was the cause of the evil. Cessante causâ cessat effectus;—when the companies lost their authority, the adulteration ought to have ceased, which in the face of recent exposures will be scarcely maintained. It would be as reasonable to say that the police are useless because we have still burglars and pickpockets among us.

59 Throughout the old legislation, morality went along with politics and economics, and formed the life and spirit of them. The fruiterers in the streets were prohibited from selling plums and apples, because the apprentices played dice with them for their wares, or because the temptation induced children and servants to steal money to buy. When Parliament came to be held regularly in London, an order of Council fixed the rates which the hotel-keeper might charge for dinners. Messes were served for four at twopence per head; the bill of fare providing bread, fish, salt and fresh, two courses of meat, ale, with fire and candles. And the care of the Government did not cease with their meals, and in an anxiety that neither the burgesses nor their servants should be led into sin, stringent orders were issued against street-walkers coming near their quarters.—Guildhall MSS. Journals 12 and 15.

The sanitary regulations for the city are peculiarly interesting. The scavengers, constables and officers of the wards were ordered, "on pain of death," to see all streets and yards kept clear of dung and rubbish and all other filthy and corrupt things. Carts went round every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, to carry off the litter from the houses, and on each of those days twelve buckets of water were drawn for "every person," and used in cleaning their rooms and passages.

Particular pains were taken to keep the Thames clean, and at the mouth of every sewer or watercourse there was a strong iron grating two feet deep.—Guildhall MSS. Journal 15.

60 And not in England alone, but throughout Europe.

61 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 25.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid.

64 22 Hen. VIII. cap. 4; 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 5.

65 Statut. Winton. 13 Edw. I. cap. 6.

66 12 Rich. II. cap. 6: 11 Hen. IV. cap. 4.

67 ELLIS'S Original Letters, first series, vol. i. p. 226.

68 It has been stated again and again that the policy of Henry the Eighth was to make the crown despotic by destroying the remnants of the feudal power of the nobility. How is such a theory to be reconciled with statutes the only object of which was the arming and training of the country population, whose natural leaders were the peers, knights, and gentlemen? We have heard too much of this random declamation.

69 33 Hen. VIII. cap. 9.

70 From my experience of modern archery I found difficulty in believing that these figures were accurately given. Few living men could send the lightest arrow 220 yards, even with the greatest elevation, and for effective use it must be delivered nearly point blank. A passage in HOLINSHED'S Description of Britain, however, prevents me from doubting that the words of the statute are correct. In his own time, he says that the strength of the English archers had so notoriously declined that the French soldiers were in the habit of disrespectfully turning their backs, at long range, "bidding them shoot," whereas, says Holinshed, "had the archers been what they were wont to be, these fellows would have had their breeches nailed unto their buttocks." In an order for bowstaves, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, I find this direction: "Each bowstave ought to be three fingers thick and squared, and seven feet long: to be got up well polished and without knots."—Butler to Bullinger: Zurich Letters.

71 Page 735, quarto edition.

72 The Personages, Dresses, and Properties of a Mystery Play, acted at Greenwich, by command of Henry VIII. Rolls House MS.

73 Hall says "collar of the garter of St. Michael," which, however, I venture to correct.

74 Rich. II. 12, cap. 7, 8, 9; Rich. II. 15, cap. 6.

75 Lansdowne MSS. 1, fol. 26.

76 Injunctions to the Monasteries: BURNET'S Collect. pp. 77-8.

77 Letter of Thomas Dorset to the Mayor of Plymouth: Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 36.

78 "Divers of your noble predecessors, kings of this realm, have given lands to monasteries, to give a certain sum of money yearly to the poor people, whereof for the ancienty of the time they never give one penny. Wherefore, if your Grace will build to your poor bedemen a sure hospital that shall never fail, take from them these things.... Tie the holy idle thieves to the cart to be whipped, naked, till they fall to labour, that they, by their importunate begging take not away the alms that the good charitable people would give unto us sore, impotent, miserable people, your bedemen."—FISH'S Supplication: FOXE, vol. iv. p. 664.

79 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 25.

80 Roads, harbours, embankments, fortifications at Dover and at Berwick, etc.—STRYPE's Memorials, vol. 1. p. 326 and 419.

81 It is to be remembered that the criminal law was checked on one side by the sanctuary system, on the other by the practice of benefit of clergy. Habit was too strong for legislation, and these privileges continued to protect criminals long after they were abolished by statute. There is abundant evidence that the execution of justice was as lax in practice as it was severe in theory.

82 27 Ed. III. stat. 1; 38 Ed. III. stat. 2; 16 Rich. cap. 5.

83 25 Ed. III. stat. 4; stat. 5, cap. 22; 13 Rich. II. stat. 2, cap. 2; 2 Hen. IV. cap. 3; 9 Hen. IV. cap. 8.

84 See p. 42.

85 Lansdowne MS. 1, fol. 26; STOW'S Chron. ed. 1630, p. 338.

86 2 Hen. IV. cap. 3; 9 Hen. IV. cap. 8.

87 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15.

88 Hen. VII. cap. 4. Among the miscellaneous publications of the Record Commission, there is a complaint presented during this reign, by the gentlemen and the farmers of Carnarvonshire, accusing the clergy of systematic seduction of their wives and daughters.

89 Hen. IV. cap. 15.

90 MORTON'S Register, MS. Lambeth. See vol. ii. cap. 10, of the second edition of this work for the results of Morton's investigation.

91 MORTON'S Register; and see WILKINS'S Concilia, vol. iii. pp. 618-621.

92 Quibus Dominus intimavit qualis infamia super illos in dictâ civitate crescit quod complures eorundem tabernas pandoxatorias, sive caupones indies exerceant ibidem expectando fere per totum diem. Quare Dominus consuluit et monuit eosdem quod in posterum talia dimittant, et quod dimittant suos longos crines et induantur togis non per totum apertis.

93 The expression is remarkable. They were not to dwell on the offences of their brethren coram laicis qui semper clericis sunt infesti.—WILKINS, vol. iii. p. 618.

94 Johannes permissione divinâ Cantuar. episcop. totius Angliæ primas cum in præsenti convocatione pie et salubriter consideratum fuit quod nonnulli sacerdotes et alii clerici ejusdem nostræ provinciæ in sacris ordinibus constituti honestatem clericalem in tantum abjecerint ac in comâ tonsurâque et superindumentis suis quæ in anteriori sui parte totaliter aperta existere dignoscuntur, sic sunt dissoluti et adeo insolescant quod inter eos et alios laicos et sæculares viros nulla vel modica comæ vel habituum sive vestimentorum distinctio esse videatur quo fiet in brevi ut a multis verisimiliter formidatur quod sicut populus ita et sacerdos erit, et nisi celeriori remedio tantæ lasciviæ ecclesiasticarum personarum quanto ocyus obviemus et clericorum mores hujusmodi maturius compescamus, Ecclesia Anglicana quæ superioribus diebus vitâ famâ et compositis moribus floruisse dignoscitur nostris temporibus quod Deus avertat, præcipitanter ruet;

Desiring, therefore, to find some remedy for these disorders, lest the blood of those committed to him should be required at his hands, the archbishop decrees and ordains,—

Ne aliquis sacerdos vel clericus in sacris ordinibus constitutus togam gerat nisi clausam a parte anteriori et non totaliter apertam neque utatur ense nec sicâ nec zonâ aut marcipio deaurato vel auri ornatum habente. Incedent etiam omnes et singuli presbyteri et clerici ejusdem nostræ provinciæ coronas et tonsuras gerentes aures patentes ostendendo juxta canonicas sanctiones.—WILKINS, vol. iii. p. 619.

95 See WARHAM'S Register, MS. Lambeth.

96 21 Hen. VIII. cap. 13.

97 ROY'S Satire against the Clergy, written about 1528, is so plain-spoken, and goes so directly to the point of the matter, that it is difficult to find a presentable extract. The following lines on the bishops are among the most moderate in the poem:—