spring, which is now converted into a cold bath, and made private property-and not one drop of the element left for a thirsty traveller-nay, more, the marble tablet, fixed to the front of a house in, I think, Ormondstreet, or near it, removed. Can any of your Correspondents inform me whence the Committee of City Lands obtained the power of depriving the Publick of the inestimable blessing of Lamb's kind bequest?

Yours, &c. A WATER DRINKER.

MR. URBAN,

THE

Aug. 29. HE specimen of the writing of Junius laid before the publick bears a strong resemblance to the Italian hand, much used on the Continent. How far this idea may favour the pretensions of De Lolme, I leave for your better judgment.

An intimate friend of the late Lord Rochford was invited to spend an evening with his Lordship at his house in town; on his arrival at the appointed time, he was informed his Lordship had been called from home on particular business. On his return, which was at a late hour, he apologized to his friend, stating, it was an affair of the utmost importance that occasioned his absence; adding, that he would hear no more of Junius; and from that period no more of those Letters were published.

The Gentleman lived some years ago at St.Osyth, and lately at Witham, in Essex.

Mr. URBAN,

As

T. B.

Aug. 16.

S I have been accustomed to recreate myself with an annual journey, I passed, this summer, into a distant county, and had the satisfaction to receive, as well as communicate, some hints upon important subjects. Every man's studies have some peculiar advantages, and mine generally direct me to the most learned man in the parish. My reverence for Antiquity always sends me out to the churches of the district which I visit; and I assure you, that I always find my knowledge enlarged, my heart affected, and my principles confirmed, in this delightful meditation. Whilst I was observing the arms which inwreathed an urn before the Reformation, the Clergyman of the parish happened to pass by, and, seeing me and the object of my care,

began a conversation upon the structure of his church, and the variety of its monuments, some venerable, some curious, and some elegant. He also informed me, to use his own words, that he had entered into the labours of others, for that almost all the spiritual and temporal wants of his parishioners were supplied by the judicious liberality of his predecessors, and the powerful co-operation of the laity so that, upon his arrival, last year, he found he had little to do, but to keep the different institutions. in their original purity. A Catechetical lecture a school upon the Madras system-a benefit society, male and female, with an honorary subscription,- -a saving bank, suggested by the late Sir Frederick Eden's observations, and a dispensary.

Could I, said the Reverend narrator, augment such a stock of comfort to the souls and bodies of men? Yes, Sir, he rejoined, in this my first year, I have endeavoured it, by the distribution of Bibles and Prayerbooks. Finding both landlords and tenants retrenching their expences from the infelicity of the times, I have laid no further burthen upon them and myself, than the purchase of twelve Bibles and twelve Prayerbooks, of such a print as may be used in middle-life; and have had the satisfaction of seeing them deposited in the Vestry, from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. It is a provision for six boys and girls, selected by a Committee, in reward of merit. Every month, a boy or girl is presented (after the Second Lesson of the Evening Service) by a father, mother, or guardian, previous to apprenticeship, or other establishmeat, for examination in the Church Catechism, with Lewis's Exposition, which latter is not to be repeated by heart, but held open, to recur to it as occasion requires, to prevent that confident air, which public recitation is apt to produce among the inexperienced. Thus, said the Vicar, twelve young persons, the future founders of families, are supplied with Bibles and Prayer-books; and I hope to live to see that number greatly increased, in more favourable times.

Cedant arma toga. Blazonry has yielded to an ecclesiastical lecture. I intend, however, to send you a description of the storied urn. MILES.

1

almost every page motives for confirming our report of the laudable Its merits

exertions of the Author. are of the highest order.

Mr. Surtees has evidently taken no small pains to condense his ample stores of information into as few words as possible; and, in the mechanical arrangemert of the letterpress, has avoided all unnecessary blank spaces; a practice worthy of imitation, not only in works of this nature, but by Authors of every de scription.

The General History of the County is amply and satisfactorily detailed whilst recording the lives and actions of its eminent Prelates, which are arranged under the following heads: 1. Of the early State of the Province of Durham, the Foundation of the See of Lindisfarne, and the Succession of Prelates to the Period of the Norman Conquest.-2. Of the Establishment of the Palatinate Franchise, and the Succession of Prelates from the Norman Conquest till the Resumption of the Royalties under Henry VIII. and the Deprivation and Death of Cuthbert Tunstall.-3. The General History, and Succession of Prelates from the Reformation to the present time.

We shall extract, as specimens from this portion of the Work, the memoirs of two Bishops, both of whom were fated to live in tempestuous times; the effects of which, so far as they operated on the See of Durham, are most ably delineated in the following pages:

"Bishop Tunstall is generally said to have been the illegitimate son of Sir Richard Tunstall, K. G. of Thurland Castle in Lancashire. He was rather perhaps the son of Thos. Tunstall, brother and heir of Sir Richard, and was consequently brother of Sir Brian Tunstall, who fell at Floddon. Tunstall was admitted a Student of Baliol College in Oxford in 1491, but the plague breaking out there, he removed to King's Hall in Cambridge, and afterwards prosecuted GENT. MAG. September, 1816.

his studies in the University of Padua, where he took the degree of Doctor in Laws. On his return to England, about

1508, he was presented the Reabout

of Stanhope, in the County of Durham (which he resigned in 1520), being yet only Sub-Deacon. In 1514 he was or

dained Priest, and made Chancellor of the Church of Canterbury; Archdeacon of Chester 1515, and Rector of Harrow on the Hill 1516. The same year he was made Master of the Rolls (an office then chiefly supplied by Churchmen), and was joined with Sir Thomas More in an Embassy to the Emperor Charles V. at Brussels. He there gained the acquaintance and friendship of Erasmus, and lodged with him under the same roof. On his return in 1519 he was made Dean of Sarum, and in the same year went again abroad, on an Embassy to the Diet of the Empire at Worms. In 1522 his services were rewarded with the Bishopric of London, and he was soon after made Keeper of the Great Seal. In 1525 he was sent with Sir Richard Wingfield into Spain, to solicit the release of Francis King of France, captured at Pavia. In 1527 he accompanied Wolsey on his magnificent embassy to France, and in 1529 was again one of the Embassadors from England at the conclusion of the Treaty of Cambray. In 1529 Bishop Tunstall was translated from the See of London to that of Dur ham, and received restitution of the temporalties on the 25th of March following.-Descended from a line of warriors, Tunstall seems to have inherited little of the hot and haughty spirit of his ancestors. His disposition, naturally mild and ingenuous, had been still further softened by an early attachment to the pursuits of literature; and he lived amidst the intrigues of a stormy Court, a singular exception to the factious violence of the age, respected even by his adversaries, and without a private or personal enemy. Half disposed to admit the arguments of the Reformers, and not denying the abuses of the Church of Rome, yet afraid of the consequences of innovation, and repressed by the weight of antient and received authority, Tunstall seems to have long hovered in opinion betwixt the Reformers and their opponents; and it is not wonderful if, at a period when the minds of the best and wisest men were perplexed and divided, he sometimes betrayed a degree of weakness and irreso

Jution,

lution, which forms almost the only shade in his character. Yet if Tunstall wanted the firmness and constancy of a martyr, he possessed qualities scarcely less rare or valuable. With mild and scholar-like scepticism, he refused to persecute others for opinions on which he had himself felt doubt and indecision; and during the heat of the Marian persecution not a single victim bled within the limits of the Church of Durham *. It exceeds the limits of these pages to trace even an outline of the momentous train of events which crowded the reign of Henry, and by which, amidst the agency of human vice and passion, Divine Providence was gradually laying the firm foundation of that purer Church which has stood the palladium of sound doctrine, and the bulwark of religious liberty. In 1534 the King openly attacked the power of Rome, forbad the introduction of Papal Bulls, Licenses, and Dispensations, and, in defiance of the Pontiff, assumed the title of Supreme Head of the English Church. Of the whole Bench of Bishops, Fisher, of Rochester, who united to the most blameless life the firmest attachment to the tenets of the religion in which he had been educated, stood alone in fearless opposition, and soon after sealed his faith with his blood. Tunstall hesitated, argued, and submitted; and soon after publicly defended the King's su premacy from the pulpit. In 1535 he acted as one of the Commissioners for valuing all Ecclesiastical benefices, and settling the first fruits and tenths on the Crown. Feeling that his subjects either did not or durst not resent his attacks on the Papal authority, Henry proceeded to bolder measures. After the destruction of the Observant Friars, the precedent once established for the King's interference in the internal discipline of the Monasteries, was rapidly followed up by an Act empowering the King to visit, by his Commissioners, all the Religious houses within his realm,

*Tunstall's conduct as to the divorce of Catharine of Arragon is variously represented by different Authors; see Pits, Burnet, &c. It seems most probable that he was led against his better mind to acknowledge the legality of the transaction, and even to prostitute his pen in its defence, and that he afterwards bitterly lamented his share in the transaction. He was certainly one of the Messengers from the King who waited on Catharine at Bugden, and in vain persuaded the unhappy Princess to relinquish her royal title, and acknowledge the justice of her sentence."

Sir

and to reform all errors and abuses. The Commissioners did their work according to the spirit of their instructions, with a view to ruin rather than reformation. A black and exaggerated catalogue of the most scandalous offences was exhibited to the people as the result of the inquiry, and by one sweeping Act 376 Religious houses of all Orders (all such as possessed a less annual income than 2007.) were utterly dissolved, and their landed revenues, plate, jewels, and universal possessions, vested in the Crown. The Cathedral Church of Durham remained inviolate, nor was the Palatine franchise as yet infringed; but the old religion remained deeply seated in the breasts of the Northern people, and the monastics of both sexes, expelled from their habitations, and seeking food and shelter through the country, were objects well calculated to excite the popular indignation. In the autumn of 1536 a general insurrection broke out in Lancashire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Durham, Richmondshire, and Craven, under the conduct of Robert Aske, a gentleman of antient family and large estate in Yorkshire. The rebels were joined by Lord Scroop of Bolton, Lord Latimer, Sir George Lumley, Thomas Percy, and Sir John Bulmer. After reinstating the Monks of Hexham and other dissolved houses, the chief power of the rebels marched Southward, preceded by some of the wandering Priests with crosses, and displaying on their banners the crucifix, the five wounds of the Saviour, and the chalice. They styled their enterprize the Pilgrimage of Grace, and professed its object to be the preservation of the King's person, the purifying of the nobility, and expulsing all villain blood and evil counsellors, the restitution of the Church, and the suppression of heretics and their opinions. After reducing York and Hull, and being baffled before Scarborough by Sir Ralph Eure, who defended the castle for twenty days with only his own household servants, the main body of the insurgents were dispersed at Doncaster, by the policy of the Duke of Norfolk, who offered the King's free pardon to all who would immediately disband and return home. But. the flame was repressed, not extinguished; the Clergy of the North in general wholly opposing the King's reformation, kept the rebellion still on foot, though outwardly smothered for a while.' And to this powerful influence was added another very prevalent motive, a distrust of the King's intentions, and a dread of severe punishment for the late transactions. In the following year several of

the

the leaders or partizans of the former insurrection broke out into partial and ill combined acts of rebellion, which terminated in the severe punishment of the principal offenders, and the complete establishment of the King's authority. The people of the Bishoprick had been deeply engaged in the late unhallowed pilgrimage; there was, perhaps, no place where the superstitions of the antient Church had shed a deeper gloom, or where the first pale and struggling ray of the Reformation broke with more unwelcome lustre. The extraordinary powers which surrounded the Palatine throne of Durham might, under a Prelate of a different character from the mild and moderate Tunstall, be exerted with dangerous efficacy in support of the popular feeling; and Henry, fearless of opposition, and unchecked even by remonstrance, proceeded at one blow to sweep away the antient honours and peculiar privileges which a succession of Monarchs, during six centuries, had lavished on the See of Durham. By the Act 27 Henry VIII. the Bishop was by the first clause deprived of the privilege of pardoning treason, murder, manslaughter, felony, or reversing_outlawries within the Palatinate. 2. The appointment of the Justices of the Peace and of Assize was taken from the Bishop, and vested in the Crown. 3-4. All writs were directed to run in the name of the King; and the antient form of indictment, Contra pacem Episcopi,' was altered to the usual one of 'Against the King's Peace.' 5. The Crown was to receive all fines and forfeitures of Bailiffs, Stewards, or Officers of Franchises, within the Bishoprick, for nonexecution or insufficient returns of writs and processes. The 9th, 10th, and 11th clauses relate to the privileges of the King's Purveyors. 12, 14, 15, All Sheriffs, Bailiffs, and other Officers, were rendered amenable to the general Laws of the realm. And the 16th and 17th clauses give authority to the King's Justices within the franchise. The Bishop had the complimentary right reserved to him of attesting all processes within the franchise, and it was directed that the Bishop and his Temporal Chancellor should be always, ipse facto, two of the Justices of the Peace. Bishop Tunstall bowed to the storm in silence, and preserved, during the remainder of Henry's reign, a considerable degree of personal favour and influence. The dissolution of the greater Abbeys, which still stood inviolate, followed soon after the resumption of the Palatine franchise: betwixt threats, gifts, persuasions, pro mises, and whatever might render man

6

obnoxious,' surrenders were extorted from the greater part of the Monasteries, the few who resisted were proceeded against by forfeiture, and Parliament completed the work by vesting the whole of the Abbey lands in the King and his successors, where, however, they did not long remain, but were, before the end of the century, dissipated in various channels by grant, lease, or exchange, and absorbed in the general mass of lay property. In 1545 the last sweepings of the religious lands, the chantries, free chapels, hospitals, and guilds, were settled on the Crown; and had not Henry's death followed soon after, it is probable that scarce any species of Church property would have remained inviolate. In 1537 Tunstall undertook, by the King's order, to answer the Divines who were sent from the Protestant Princes of Germany to press a further reformation; and in 1541 he appears, in conjunction with Heath, Bishop of Rochester, as the Editor of a new English version of the Scriptures. In 1542 Tunstall was actively employed in the Border service, and repaired and garrisoned the Castle of Norham. On the accession of Edward VI. the Reformers completely gained the ascendant. Not entirely hostile to their principles, yet dreading the consequences of innovation, Tunstall clung to the ruins of the antient Church, and, with a mild and measured opposition, constantly voted against the progressive changes proposed by the Protestant party; but his efforts were confined to the legitimate exercise of his Parliamentary privilege, and when once these propositions had been carried into a Law, he conceived himself justified in bowing to an authority which he could not controul, and submitted, with scrupulous exactness, to all the injunctions of the Legislature. His cautious, yet open conduct, seems for some time to have saved him from ruin: he had been dismissed from the Council Board in 1548, but suffered no other molestation during the first years of the new reign. In 1550 the daring and profligate Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, rose to absolute power on the ruins of his milder rival the Protector, Somerset. The ascendancy of the Reformed interest had only turned the eourse of church plunder into new channels, and the ample landed endowment of the See of Durham, which seemed a convenient support for the new title of Northumberland, was probably the real reason which impelled the Duke to hasten the ruin of the mild and unof

fending Tunstall. In May 1551, the Bishop was suddenly seized, examined before the Council, and committed to

ward

ward on a dark and ill defined accusation of misprision of treason, committed by corresponding with Ninian Menvill, a gentleman of the Bishoprick, who was afterwards, under Queen Mary, outlawed and attainted for participating in Northumberland's own treasons. After the Bishop had suffered half a year's restraint, a letter, which had been before mislaid, was said to have been found in a casket of the Duke of Somerset. The Bishop readily owned his hand-writing, and on the 28th a Bill passed the House of Lords for his attainder, with the opposition only of the virtuous Cranmer. The Commons, however, with a somewhat unusual degree of spirit, refused to pass the Bill without seeing the accusers face to face. With this request Northumberland found it imprudent or impossible to comply; and, abandoning his plan of Parliamentary attainder, procured a Commission, directed to seven of his own creatures, before whom the Bishop was summoned, tried, and deprived, and immediately sent to the Tower. The subsequent proceedings of the prevailing party shew that the personal ruin or punishment of Tunstall was not all that was aimed at. Tunstall's deprivation was pronounced on the 14th of August 1552, and on the 21st of March following a Bill was read for the suppressing of the Bishoprick of Durham, and for the better preaching of God's Holy Word in those parts which, for lack of good preaching and learning, were grown wild and barbarous.' It was proposed that two Bishopricks should be endowed in that Diocese, the one at Durham, with a revenue of 2000 marks, and the other at Newcastle, with a revenue of 1000 marks, together with the establishment at the latter place of a Cathedral Church, with a Dean and Chapter. Meanwhile the Duke of Northumberland was rapidly maturing his plans for secularising the whole temporalties of the Bishoprick, with some mean provision for the Ministers.' The ill-fated marriage of Lord Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey was celebrated at Durham House, of which he had already taken possession, on May 21, 1553; and by a Patent dated in the same month, Northumberland was appointed Steward of all the remaining revenues of the Bishoprick. The death of the young King defeated these projects, and the ambition of the House of Dudley split on the firm and ill-rewarded constancy with which the Nation adhered to the hereditary claims of the Prin cess Mary. Amongst other consequences of Mary's accession, Tunstall was released from the Tower, and the Bishop

rick of Durham was restored by Act of Parliament, which declared all the proceedings of the late reign, ipso facto, null and void, and the Bishop restored to such state and possessions as he held on the 13th of September 1552. In 1555 the Queen granted to Tunstall and his successors, Patronage of the Prebends of the Cathedral, which was before vested in the Crown There is no need to stain these pages with the bloody annals of the Marian persecution. Tunstall's name stands joined in commission with Bouner and Gardiner for the deprivation of the married Bishops, and, possibly, in other ecclesiastical commissions; but he appears to have been, during the whole reign of Mary, almost constantly resident in his Bishoprick, where his influence was successfully exerted in screening the unhappy victims of persecution, and if he be blamed for a tacit consent to horrors which he probably could not prevent, it has been al ready stated, that at least his own extended Diocese was not stained with the blood of one religious martyr. During the heat of the persecution, Russell, a Reformed Preacher, was brought before the Bishop at Auckland, charged with opinions which, if acknowledged, must have proved fatal to him, and which Tunstall knew he would not deny :

Hitherto,' said the Bishop, we have had a good report among our neighbours; I pray you bring not this man's blood upon my head,'-and immediately dismissed him unexamined. On the ac cession of Elizabeth hopes were earnestly entertained, founded on Tunstall's known mildness and moderation, that he wouldnot refuse taking the oath of supremacy. Without, however, expressing any hostile feeling either to the Queen or to the Reformers, he declined in his old age again changing his religious creed. 'On the 20th of June the old Bishop of Durham came riding on horseback to London, with about threescore horse, and so to Southwark, unto one Dolman's house, where he remained.' On the 5th of July he refused the oath of supremacy, and was deprived on the 29th of September, the last of the ejected Bishops. The short remainder of his days were spent under an easy restraint at Lambeth, under the roof of Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, where he died on the 18th of November after his deprivation, and was honourably buried at the Archbishop's charge, in the Chancel of Lambeth Church:

"Anglia Cuthbertum Tunstallum mæsta requirit,

Cujus summa domi laus erat atque foris.

Rhetor,