that public wealth, in that 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 which 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, which 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 School-men, 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 * In his Declaration upon Leland's Journal, anno 1549.

itself. And, more particularly, the history of former times then 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 abbeys-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 Abbey-Lands.

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 would beg nothing hurtful to themselves; they prefer their petition,

SANDERS De Schismate Anglicano. + CAREW'S "Survey of Cornwall," fol. 109.

the king grants it; they render him humble thanks, and so doth Mr. Champernoun. Afterwards he requires his share, they deny it; he appeals to the king, the king avows his equal meaning in the largess. Whereupon, his companions were fain to allot this gentleman the priory of St. Germain's, in Cornwall, (valued at two hundred forty-three pounds and eight shillings of yearly rent ;* since, by him or his heirs, sold to Mr. Eliot,) for his partage. Here a dumb beggar met with a blind giver; the one as little knowing what he asked, as the other what he granted. Thus king Henry made cursory charters, and in transitu transacted abbeylands. I could add how he gave a religious House of some value to Mistress for presenting him with a dish of puddings, which pleased his palate.

Secondly. By play.-Whereat he lost many a thousand pounds per annum. Once, being at dice, he played with Sir Miles Partridge, (staking an hundred pounds against them,) for Jesus's bells,† hanging in a steeple not far from St. Paul's in London, and as great and tunable as any in the city, and lost them at a cast. I will not (with some) heighten the guilt of this act, equal to that which “cast lots on Christ's garments;" but, sure, it is no sin to say, that such things deserved more serious and deliberate disposal.

Thirdly. By exchange. To make these chops, none were frighted with the king's power, but flattered into them by the apprehension of their own profit. For, many lands of subjects, either naturally bald, or newly shaven of their woods, were commuted for granges of abbeys, which, like satyrs or savages, were all overgrown with trees and timber; beside other disadvantages, both for quantity and quality of ground, as enhanced for old rent. O! here was the Royal Exchange!

Lastly. By sale at under-rates.-Indeed, it is beneath a prince, (enough to break his state, to stoop to each virgate and rod of ground,) pedlar-like, to higgle for a toy by retail; and all tenants and chapmen, which contract with kings, expect good bargains. Yet officers, entrusted to manage the revenue of the crown, ought not to behold it abused out of all distance, in such under-valuations. Except any will say," He is not deceived who would be deceived, and king Henry, for the reason aforesaid, connived at such bargains; wherein rich meadow was sold for barren heath; great oaks, for fuel; and farms for revenue passed for cottages in reputation." But, for farther instruction, we remit the reader to that information, presented to queen Elizabeth,‡ by a man in authority, (though nameless,) of the

SPEED. But query-Whether he had all the land, or only the site of the priory? STOW'S "Survey of London" in Faringdon-Ward Within.

"Funeral Monuments," page 125.

WEAVER'S

several frauds and receipts offered the crown in this kind. But the motion rather drew odium on the author, than brought advantage to the crown; partly, because of the number and quality of persons concerned therein; and partly because, after thirty years, the owners of abbeys were often altered. And, though the chamber be the same, yet, if the guests be a new company, it is hard for the host from them to recover his old arrearages. Yea, by this time, when the aforesaid information was given in, the present possessors of much abbeyland were as little allied to those to whom king Henry granted them, as they to whom the king first passed them were of kin to the first founders of those monasteries.

V. OF THE ACTIONS OF POLICY, PIETY, CHARITY, AND JUSTICE, DONE BY KING HENRY VIII. OUT OF THE REVENUES OF DISSOLVED ABBEYS.

1-4. Good, as well as bad, must be observed in mixed Actions. King Henry augmented the Crown-Revenues; founded five new Bishoprics. Monks' Places turned into Prebends.

WE would not willingly be accounted like those called the μwμoσxómo amongst the Jews, whose office it was only to take notice of the blots or blemishes, the defects and deformities, in sacrifices. We would not weed king Henry's actions in his dissolving of abbeys, so as only to mark the miscarriages and misdemeanours therein. Come we to consider what commendable deeds this king did raise on the ruins of monasteries.

First. He politicly increased the revenues of the crown, and duchy of Lancaster, (on which he bestowed the rich abbey of Fourness in that county,) with annexing much land thereto, and erecting the Court of Augmentations (whereof largely hereafter) for the more methodical managing thereof; though, alas! what the crown possessed of abbey-land was nothing to what he passed away. Surely, had the revenues of monasteries been entirely kept, and paid into the exchequer, there to make an ærarium sacrum, or public treasury, it is questionable, whether the same had been more for the ease of the subject, or use and honour of the sovereign.

Secondly. He piously founded five bishoprics de novo, (beside one at Westminster, which continued not,) where none had been before. For, though anciently there had been a bishop's seat at Chester for a short time, yet it was then no better than the summerhouse of the bishop of Lichfield, only during the life of one Peter