equipage for a plain and private burial. Wherefore, when Hall tells us, that the soldiers attending his execution could not get spades to make his grave therewith, but were fain with halberds (in the north side of the church of All Hallows, Barking,) to dig a hole wherein they cast his naked corpse;' I listen to the relation as inflamed by the reporter's passion. Be it here remembered, that Fisher, in his life-time, made himself a tomb on the north side of the chapel in St. John's College, intending there to be buried, but was therein disappointed. This Fisher was he who had a Cardinal's hat sent him, which (stopped at Calais) never came on his head; and a monument made for him, wherein his body was never deposited.

"Our author reporteth also, how Queen Anne Boleyn gave order that his head should be brought unto her (before it was set up on London bridge) that she might please herself at the sight thereof, and like another Herodias,* insult over the head of this John, her professed enemy. Nor was she content alone to revile his ghost with taunting terms, but out

* The tale is sufficiently confuted by its servile imitation of that of Herodias; though, as he that steals a sheep, even if he forgot to obliterate the true master's mark, makes a new nick in the ear, that he may claim it for his own; so the perverters and copiers of truth generally add some little circumstance, more or less cleverly imagined, for a difference, as the heralds say, for instance, the tooth-mark in Anne Boleyn's hand. The wrath of the Catholic writers against poor Anne breaks out in still more improbable accusations than this. Not content to charge her with cruelty, treachery, and incontinence, they make her positively ugly, -blear-eyed, wry-necked, sallow-complexioned, like Envy personified. Yet these descriptions were printed and published at a time when many persons living must have

of spite, or sport, or both, struck her hand against the mouth of this dead head brought unto her; and it happened that one of Fisher's teeth, more prominent than the rest, struck into her hand, and not only pained her for the present, but made so deep an impression therein, that she carried the mark thereof to the grave. It seems this was contrary to the proverb, Mortui non mordent; but enough, yea, too much, of such damnable falsehoods."

Thus was a faithful shepherd of Christ's flock destroyed. But he would not have lived many years longer. His work was done. He neither flung away his life madly, nor preserved it basely. He was a martyr, if not to the truth that is recorded in the authentic Book of Heaven, yet to that copy of it which he thought authentic, which was written on his heart in the antique characters of authoritative age. Those who think him right, justly hold him a martyr to the Faith; and we, who think him mistaken, must still allow him to have been the martyr of Honesty.

Bishop Fisher was a tall and robust man in his youth, but excessively emaciated in his later years. He practised fasting and watching even to supererogation, and was too prone to the opinion that the reason requires to be mortified as well as the body. Most unjustly has he been accused of avarice, whereas he was a wise and liberal economist, desiring his brother Robert, who was his steward, that the revenues of his bishopric might be regularly expended every year, but not exceeded; and whatever was beyond the frugal provision of his household

seen and remembered Anne Boleyn. But writers who intend their works solely for the perusal of some particular sect or party, are never deterred from falsehood by the fear of contradiction.

went in alms. After his own slender meal (he took but one in the four and twenty hours), he would stand at a window, to see the poor fed at his gate, with a sort of vicarious voluptuousness. He was a man of more acquired learning than natural genius, and is said to have had the best library in England. His works are pretty numerous, but consist entirely of sermons and controversial treatises, mostly against the doctrines of Luther. One of them bears a very uncharitable title, "Pro Damnatione Lutheri."

The following may be regarded as a tolerably complete list of the Bishop's writings :

1. A Sermon on Psalm 116, at the funeral of King Henry VII.

2. A Funeral Sermon on the moneth mind* of Margaret, Countess of Richmond. Printed by Wynkin de Worde, and republished in 1708, by Thomas Baker, D.D., with a learned preface.

3. A Commentary on the seven penitential Psalms. Written at the desire of the Countess of Richmond. Printed at London, 1509, 4to.; 1555, 8vo.

4. A Sermon on the Passion of our Saviour.

5. A Sermon concerning the Righteousness of the Pharisees.

6. The Method of arriving at the highest Perfection in Religion. These four last were translated into Latin by John Fenne.

7. A Sermon preached at London on the day in which

* i.e. Month's mind. The funeral obsequies of the Countess were not performed till a month after her death. Here we see the origin of a proverbial saying, "to have a month's mind to a thing;" but how the phrase came to be transferred from the monthly anniversary (Hibernicè) of a person's death, to signify a strong desire, we are unable to explain.

the writings of Martin Luther were publicly burnt, on John xv. 26. Cambridge, 1521. Translated into Latin by John Pace.

8. Assertionum Martini Lutheri Confutatio. A confutation of Luther's assertions, in forty-one articles.

9. Defensio Assertionis Henrici VIII. de septem Sacramentis contra Lutheri "Captivitatem Babylonicam." A Defence of Henry VIII. his Apology for the seven Sacraments against Luther's "Babylonish Captivity."

10. Epistola reponsoria, Epistolæ Lutheri. An Epistle in Answer to Luther.

11. Sacerdotii Defensio contra Lutherum. Defence of the Priesthood against Luther.

12. Pro Damuatione Lutheri. For the condemnation of Luther.

13. De Veritate Corporis et Sanguinis Christi in Eucharistiâ. Of the real presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist. Against Oecolampadius.

14. De Unicâ Magdalen: contra Clichtoveum et Jac. Fabrum Scapulensem. That there was only one Mary Magdalen. Did you ever hear of more?

15. Sanctum Petrum Romæ fuisse, contra Ulricum Velenum. That St. Peter was at Rome, against Ulric Veleno.

16. Several other small tracts:-On the Benefits of Prayer. The Necessity of Prayer. The Lord's Prayer. A Letter on Christian Charity, to Hermolaus Lectatius, Dean of Utrecht. A Treatise on Purgatory, &c.

Most of the forementioned pieces were published separately in England, and were printed collectively at Wurtzburg, in one volume folio, 1595.

Of his book on the King's marriage, printed at Alcala, we have already spoken. There is another tract of Fisher's on the same subject, in the collection of records at the end of Collier's Ecclesiastical History.

No doubt these works were many of them composed with intense thought, labour, and learning, after preparation of fervent prayer; and yet, who is there living that has read a page of any of them, excepting the Lady Margaret's funeral sermon? It is to the cruelty of his Sovereign that Fisher owes his ransom from oblivion.

THE REVEREND WILLIAM MASON.

So happy a life as Mason's, though exceedingly agreeable to think of, is neither easy to write, nor very interesting when written. Even when such favoured mortals have chosen, like the excellent Lindley Murray, to be their own biographers, though their reflections and observations are most valuable, their actions exemplary, and their tranquillity and thankfulness truly edifying, more good people will be found to recommend their work than to peruse it. Yet Mason was not a man to be forgotten. He was the friend and biographer of Gray, and he was the most considerable poet that Yorkshire has produced since Marvel.

As a man, as a poet, as a politician, and as a divine, he was highly respectable, and he that is thoroughly respectable, and nothing more, has the best possible. chance of earthly happiness. A few squabbles with managers and critics, were all that he had to convince him that "man is born to mourn." He had the good fortune too to be born in one of those "vacant interlunar" periods of literature, when a little poetic talent goes a great way, and in an age when a clergyman, if not negligent of his professional duties, was allowed to cultivate his talents in any innocent way he thought proper. His character was deservedly esteemed by many who were themselves estimable,