him; and his mouth could drop sentences as easily as an ordinary man's could speak sense." Such was the condensation, so to say, of this good man's study; one, of whom it might be said, as Selden said of Archbishop Ussher, “ Vir summâ pietate, judicio singulari, usque ad miraculum doctus, et literis severioribus promovendis natus." As regards the extracts on particular subjects, I may notice those on Memoirs and Travels, from which so little is given, for want of space. It will be seen, however, how multifarious was Southey's reading, by such a sample as Brasbridge's Memoirs, and Hodgskin's North of Germany. No wheat escaped him, and he bolted it as clean as he could, after he had thrown out the chaff. By figuring of pages before me, I am inclined to think that few books of travels, subsequent to 1794, but underwent the winnowing of his judgment. One asked-x ó Tux avǹo-How could a man of Southey's intellect have given up time to such extracts as are contained in these volumes? The answer is, that, combined with his super-eminent talent, this reading and these extracts gave him that super-eminence of information which has rarely been surpassed since Aristotle's time, whom Hooker calls "the Mentor of human wisdom," and "the Patriarch of Heathen Philosophers." He that reads indifferent books may winnow the chaff from the wheat; but, as Jeremy Taylor said, "He that perpetually reads good books, if his parts be answerable, will have a huge stock of knowledge." Probably since the collection of the Two Zuingers,-Theodore and James-no volume has contained more condensed information than the present. It is in itself a smaller Theatrum Humanæ Vitæ. I have to request the Reader will judge candidly the faults of mine which he may find. I have bestowed no little pains in the examination of the several works; but I am well aware of my own ignorance and deficiencies. I regret also to observe more foot-notes than I was aware of -he will please to consider them as a mark rather of my small knowledge than of his. JOHN WOOD WARTER. WEST TARRING VICARAGE, SUSSEX, June 21st, 1850. UNIV. OF Southey's Common-place Book. ENGLISH HISTORY, ANALYTICAL READINGS IN, AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF. APGRAVE (Vit. S. Alban, ff. 8. 6.) and Hospinian (de Origine Monochatus, 1. 4, c. 3.) attribute the introduction of Monachism into Britain to Pelagius the heresiarch, circiter 1000.-DR. SAYERS, p. 217. Monasteries. THE tenants paid to the Abbot of Furness certain wheat, barley, oats, lambs and sterke, for the rent of their tenements. Certain bread, ale, and beer was delivered and allowed weekly out of the said monastery, unto certain of the tenants that paid provisions and certain iron was delivered and allowed yearly by the said late abbot unto the same tenants,—and the same bread, beer, ale and iron was in part of recompence of the said provisions, so by the said tenants paid,—by force of some composition and agreement, and not of benevolence nor devotion. The beer or ale was in barrels or firkins containing ten or twelve gallons apiece, or thereabouts, and worth about ten pence or twelve pence a barrel or firkin at that time, -i.e. just before the dissolution. Some had better beer or ale, and some worse, as their duty was, and some was worth a penny a gallon, and some worse. With each barrel a dozen of loaves of bread was delivered, every dozen worth at that time six pence. They were supplied with manure also,worth two pence the load, or fudder.1 The iron was for the maintenance of their ploughs and husbandry. The abbey distributed yearly among its tenants eleven or twelve bands of the said livery-iron, every band weighing fourteen stone, every stone fourteen pound, and at that time worth eight pence a stone. The tenants which paid provisions, paid only when they were admitted tenants, one penny, called a God's penny, and no other fine. And thereupon they were sworn to be true to the king and to the monastery. The children of the said tenants and their servants have come from the plough or other work to the abbey, where they had dinner or supper, and so went to their work again. They were suffered to come to school and learning within the monastery. In the North this means "the load of a two horse cart." It is a pure Anglo-Saxon word, and is used by Chaucer. Commonly it is only applied to lead.-J W. W. TIMIA OL The tenants had wood and timber in the woods thereabouts, for the sufficient reparation of their houses, and other necessaries, which was allowed and livered to them, at the sight of the officers or sworn men appointed for that purpose. One witness deposed that the tenants, their families, and children, did weekly have and receive at and out of the said monastery, of charity and devotion, over and besides the relief and commodity afore rehearsed, to the value of forty shillings weekly. | into Parliament for that purpose, it would have been more regularly and justly conducted than in an after reign; that by this would all have reverted to the parish churches, and the clergy would have gained as much by it as the government. This appears from the sequel, that when the king, instead of the English monasteries, had only the alien priories given him, he seized on no part of the tythes, but on the lands and tenements that were before of lay fee, and might justly return into lay hands. These too he intended to have employed for breeding up a more learned cler They had also hedge boote, hay boote, plowe boote, and other necessaries, and li-gy, declaring it was his design to found a berty to get whins and brakes (fern) to their own use. (Ferns are much used in baking oatmeal cakes, and heating the ovens. The smoke of dry fern is no way offensive, and does not stain the bread, "therefore it continues to be in great request in Furness.") The children had meat and drink for one meal a day, at the monastery, whenever they came to school. The sustentation, relief, and commodity which the tenants received for their children weekly" of charity and devotion" from the monastery, was estimated as worth thirty or forty shillings a week at least. At the dissolution the domestical provisions were rated and set down to a certain yearly rent, and the king, and his heirs and successors, were discharged of all sustentation, reliefs, and commodities that the tenants before that time received and enjoyed. They paid also after the dissolution, for every fine on admission, double their rent. This appears from the Interrogatories on the cause between John Boograve, Esq. Attorney Gen. for the Duchy of Lancaster, and the tenants of Low Furness, 25 Eliz. 1582.-WEST'S Antiq. of Furness. Appendix, No. viii. "HAD the Monasteries been dissolved in Henry V.'s reign, when the Bill was brought college of divines and artists, and to settle upon the said college the lands of the alien priories dissolved, if he had not been prevented by death."-KENNET'S Case of Impropriations, p. 109. "IN the first act of dissolution there was a saving to the interest of strangers, travellers, and poor, by binding the new possessors of any site or precinct of the religious houses, to keep or cause to be kept, an honest continual house and household in the same site or precinct."—Ibid. p. 123. "In a preamble written by the king's own hands to another act, it was declared to be an intent that the endowments of monasteries might be turned to better use, God's word better set forth, children brought up in learning, clerks nourished in the Universities, and exhibition for ministers of the Church. Divers of the visitors themselves did petition the king to leave some of the religious houses for the benefit of the country, and Latimer moved that two or three might be left in every shire for pious uses. I have seen an original letter from Latimer to the Lord Cromwell (Cleopatra, E. IV. fol. 264), to intercede with the king that Malvern Abbey might be left standing, for the better performance of the duties of preaching, praying, and keeping hospitality."-Ibid. p. 126. |