The Iland changeth Skin.

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weed them out; and peradventure the crop, with its darnel and rank fumiter too, fhall grow together awhile yet.

And now Bishops were plucked out of their thrones, and Abbats thrust out o' their monasteries, and Priests and Monks and Nuns fent forth to beg their bread for bare charity; and the church groaned very grievously, for the folk were as sheep without a fhepherd, and those who should have comforted them were themselves very comfortless. And in King Edward's time there were fanatics let loose upon the people. Wolves in woollen. Some who for Hope would bid them take Faith; who for a gospel promise would put them off with a threat; who would tell them their sufferings here were but the beginnings of forrows that should last through eternity. Strangers and hirelings, they whose voice the sheep knew not! Certain it is, when Queen Mary was proclaimed there was more rejoicing in Ireland than in all the world befide!

And now how ftands it fince her Grace hath had matters ordered after the pattern of her Royal father's reformation? A while agone was Bale, Bishop of Offory, fhewing his stage-plays in Kilkenny. The young men in the forenoon playing a tragedy of God's promises in the

Old law at the Market Crofs, with organ playings and fongs,

very aptly; in the afternoon a Comedy of S. John Baptist's preachings, of Christ's baptifings, and of his temptation in the Wilderness, to the fmall contentation of the Priests and others, he Bale preaching at intervals against the Romish Tyranny and fuch enormities. This was but a vulgar matter. Now have we in the Diocefs of Cork, one never a clerk, but of a Sea Captain made a Bishop by her Grace's fovereign will. T'other day one John, faid to be a fitting perfon, was fent for to be confecrate, whom, when the Deputy could not catch (he being allowed to escape with a "nolo "), James, an unmeritous priest, was injected into the See in 's room! Then is there the Drunken Bishop of Galway, who for twopence will confirm, and for a groat ordain, whomsoever. On him profanely played they the trick of a dead Hogg wrapped in a furplice, which for a little drink and a rosenoble he would have anointed. And these be matched with other mifdoings in the Church: for you shall have what living you lift in fome parts, so you make all fecret with him you would fimoniously deal withal.

How fhall a man teach that he knoweth not? And

who are they to whom her Grace hath given in charge the

instruction of her people? Old Romish Priests who have stayed on through all changes; themselves making as little change as might be, and even that with a falvo well underftood of their congregation. And another fort there are, and increasing too in number. These be cut after the Genevan pattern; men no Bishop would allow i' th' churches at home, yet her Grace giveth free paffage hither. Thefe, their cold and ill educate Saxon brains becoming inflamed by contact with the imaginative Celt, now become preachers (fave the mark!) fuch as no rabble at Paul's Crofs would fuffer, but for the humour of it! Such rhetorick-fuch tropes and metaphors and figures! and withal fuch emptinefs of matter, the tinkling brafs and founding cymbal! Vox et preteria nihil! Such a thumping o' the desk too—and fuch gefture! Lo! a fcrap of a funeral fermon, "He leaped into the arms of Death; making his hollow jaws echo with eternal Hallelujahs !” Is not that fine? Yet what doth it mean? Can'ft tell? Again, for a mixed metaphor, how doth this fmack, "Death, his quiver full of arrows, mowed them down with the befom of destruction?" You fhall take your choice, now, whether 'tis a dart or a fythe or a broom that ends you!

Yet 'tis all one; the preacher is eloquent; he hath stirred you, he hath spoken-you have heard; what more? "Totus mundus agit hiftrionem." Oh! 'tis to be doubted whether they believe in the beauty of those naked truths they fo overdaub and bedizen with their paint and tawdry! Then as to the matter. Not to be cenforious nor overly curious, have you not heard commonly of the brazen Serpent and the Gaoler of Philippi—the fimile and the example! Pray, are you much the wifer that you have fat there time out o' mind? Is thy household yet faved by thy vicarious faith-eh? Then, have you not been told once a quarter or fo, that there awaits you nothing less than the blackness o’ darkness and despair for ever-eh? Art the better, then, for that picture-doth it quicken your devotion, trow'st?

Surely if these things be tedious to the Anglo-Irish, fome of whose stomachs be strong enough to disgest even Sternhold and Hopkins fung to lewd tunes-they must be utterly intolerable to the mere Native. You fhall exafperate : but you shall not convert him. Nay, you shall preach him stupid, or ever convince him you have any message who bring it in fo unpalatable a kind. Ay, though you mix it up with the broken meat of temporal

him

advantage.

Old Ways, Sir-Old Ways.

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Go to! An you would draw the poor heathen to the paths of peace, you must whisper to him words of brotherly love, not spout out your affection on platform: you must walk hand in hand with him, not tell of his odd humours fo as to catch the coin of the religious world. When you have gained his heart you shall guide his will. He fhall admit your's the better faith when you have fhewn it to be fuch, even the more charitable. But

if fnatch from him all objects of fenfe, every memory,

you

you can but make of him a poor Sadducee. If the form be but the rhind, as you fay, note that the rhind protects the core; and, if the rhind be diseased, the potatoe will fail. So do not you strip the skin to keep the body warm! Your Genevan recipe will scarcely cure the Roman disease.

And all these things were ripe and rank at this time: for the changes in Harry's, and Edward's, and Mary's, and her Grace's rule, had stirred and manured the foil; and the tares were choking the wheat in the church, and the violence was every where making head throughout the length and breadth of the land. And to this blessed garden of the Hefperides Sir Robert Cecyl wills to fend my Lord

the Earl of Effex, her Majesty's Lord Deputy of the king

VOL. III.

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