Rig-veda Sanhitá : a Collection of Ancient

Hindu Hymns. Translated by [the late]

H. H. Wilson. - Vol. V. Edited by Prof.

Cowell and W. F. Webster, M.A.

Vol. VI. Edited by W. F. Webster. (Trübner & Co.)

AFTER an interval of twenty-two years the publication of the only English version of the whole of the Rigveda, the oldest sacred book of our Aryan race, has been resumed and completed. Prof. H. Η. Wilson commenced in 1850 a translation of this text according to the commentary of Sayana. Of this three volumes appeared within seven years, and a fourth was published in 1866, under the able editorship of the greatest of the translator's pupils, Prof. E. B. Cowell. There is thus a certain symmetry in the arrangement by which we find the first of the present volumes completed, and the editorship of the final portion entirely carried out, by a pupil of the last editor, thus realizing by modern analogy the guru-paramparā, or due "succession" of teacher and duly authorized pupil, existing

in the old Vedic schools.

Prof. Cowell rightly insists in his preface to vol. v. on the importance to criticism of the possession of a reproduction of the traditional interpretation of the Veda, and we may add that a considerable number of even well-instructed students seem to ignore or be unaware of their real indebtedness to Sayana. One often reads

of

"solar myths and the like in Vedic

criticism, written as if under the impression that the interpretation from the powers of nature of the figurative language of the hymns originated in modern Oxford rather than ancient or medieval India. In a point of interpretation of the Rigveda we had ourselves (Athen., No. 3136, December 3rd, 1887) recently occasion to note that so promising a scholar as the late Mr. H. W. Wallis gave an explanation really due to Sayana on the authority of Prof. Ludwig, and to this or a similar case Mr. Webster refers in his preface to vol. vi. This being so, it would have been acceptable if the editors had given even oftener than they have done in their notes the points of difference between Wilson's interpretation and that of the great exponent of ancient tradition, whom a contemporary critic has amusingly described as "a scholiast or commentator named Sayana." The task of completing the literary work of another must generally be an ungrateful one (though this is not the first time Prof. Cowell, with characteristic

unselfishness, has engaged in it), and in the present instance this must have been intensified by the extraordinary literary style into which Wilson thought fit to translate the hymns.

The hand that so deftly wrought in that now too much neglected book 'The Theatre of the Hindus' seems here to have quite lost its cunning, and we may safely say that

a lecturer on translating the Vedas after the manner of Matthew Arnold on Homer might well take Wilson's English as an example of what a rendering of these hymns should not be. Gifted as was the late Boden Professor as a Sanskritist, and successful as a translator of the later literature, he seems to have been possessed by an erroneous

diction more than Johnsonian. As a matter

notion that the archaic simplicity and at times even the seer-like dignity to be found in the hymns was naturally rendered not by Biblical English, but by a high-flown of taste one may wonder why the Somajuice must be always "effused" and never "poured out"; but when we come to a passage p. 31), where Yama, the Indian Pluto, is called "the aggregation of mankind," the use of the Latin-derived word becomes misleading, as the original (sangamanam) has nothing to do with an "aggregate," but simply conveys the "gathering together" of erring mortals. In the same hymn, verse 8, Wilson's deviation from Sayana in the word ishta, "wishes," might have been stated in the note.

sage like Rigveda, X. xiv. 1 (vol. vi.

To speak of the Rigveda itself the present is hardly the place. We may, however, reproduce Wilson's version of one short hymn (X. clxviii.) addressed to Vayu, the god of the wind (vata), both as a favour able specimen of the translation and of early Aryan nature-worship :

car

"1. I proclaim the greatness of the impetuous Vayu; his voice spreads thundering around; he moves along sweeping the sky, tinting purple the quarters of the horizon, he advances, raising the dust of the earth. 2. Solid masses advance to meet the wind; the masses come to him as to battle; associated with them and in the same the divinity proceeds, the sovereign of all 3. Traversing the firmament by its paths, Vayu rests not for a single day; the friend of the waters, the first-born, the utterer of truth - where has he been generated, whence was he manifested? 4. The soul of the gods, the germ of the world, this divinity moves according to his pleasure; his voices are heard, his form is not seen; let us worship that Vata with oblations."

this world.

The first part of verse 2 is unsatisfactory. Wilson has deserted Sāyana in his text, and not represented him fully in his note. But the commentator's general notion (about the exact meaning of vishtās, rendered "masses," he was probably as much at a loss as the moderns appear to be) is that fixed masses, even such as mountains, seem to bend before the hurricane; other masses like trees and thickets really bend before the wind-god, and thus meet him as amorous women meet the embraces of a lover. Surely this was Sayana's real thought, though perhaps he somewhat veiled his meaning. There is no real authority for rendering Sāyana's kāminyah by "timid women," as Wilson does in his optional rendering, and none at all for yoshah, the word of the text, in this sense.

to point out the defects of a posthumous It may seem somewhat ungracious thus

work of a really distinguished man, but Oriental literature has suffered so much in public estimation from the poverty in many cases of its English presentment that it has seemed a matter of duty to add here a further word of caution beyond that contained in Mr. Webster's pithy and judicious preface on the question of style.

At any rate, no admirer of the late professor will have reason to complain of the admirable care with which the work has been edited. So excellent, indeed, is this part of the book that for once one could wish to have more of the editors, and less of the edited; or, better still, that Messrs. Cowell and Webster had themselves undertaken

the translation of this or some ot skrit work. We trust that we ar this last hope realized.

The Earlier Life and the Chief Eart of Daniel Defoe. Edited by Heary! LL.D. (Routledge & Sons.) | THERE is little exception to be ta editor's selection of Defoe's works volume of the "Carisbrooke Libr contains some of the most intere best known of the seventy or eigh tions of Defoe which had appear the end of 1705, and the 'Relatin Veal's Apparition,' published in the year. We should be glad if spe have been found for the accou famous storm in 1703; and bibl may perhaps complain that as face given of the title-pages of the D Projects' and of other pamphle was no reason to omit that of the

Way with the Dissenters,' a work the first and only separate edit rarely to be met with. These o of no great consequence; but there serious faults in the Earlier Life

Defoe' which the editor has cott the volume. Mr. Morley, though in terms of praise of Mr. Lee's Defoe, can hardly have appreciated tents; and he appears to be ura with Mr. Leslie Stephen's expeler graph in the 'Dictionary

graphy.'

of Nic

On the polemical subjects die biography Mr. Morley writa moderation, though with a mis which we make no complaint; anxious to smooth over the app sistencies of Defoe's writings relating to religion, and he strong feeling which these raised Defoe's Nonconformist brethren. any allusion is made to the biter which Defoe gave to his co-religioci attack on occasional nonconformity by the 'Shortest Way with the Dise in 1702, and by other pamphlets, w Nonconformists must have consider only as insulting, but as hig judicial to their interests. Mr. is too wise to represent Defoe hims martyr to Dissent, but the wr tribulations of the Dissenters are at unnecessary length. The first t the 'Earlier Life' describes Defoe: from 1661 to 1689. It consists pages, and four of these are devote

against Nonconformists, and a list of seventeenth century enh the well-known Presbyterian mi Rev. Samuel Annesley. No one present time would deny that these acts were a disgrace to our statute that Dr. Annesley, the spiritual inst Defoe's early life, the father-in-law Dunton (Mr. Morley does not ment latter circumstance), and the gra of John Wesley, was treated by the t ment with harshness and ingratitude the notice of Dr. Annesley and the at

tions of

mu

his brethren take up too m in a short sketch of Defoe intended

general public.

The narrative portion of the Life' is written in Mr. Morley's

tu manner; but even here the work is rely satisfactory. Several of the incicorded as undoubted facts rest on Sr authority than a casual allusion in own writings. Of course we find story of his grandfather farming his Late in Northamptonshire, and keeppack of hounds. The elder Daniel generally supposed to have been a eoman, and it is possible that he be identified with a Capt. Vaux name we have seen in the lists of valist officers during the great Civil Further on Mr. Morley informs us with solemnity that Defoe was able "to As well as read Latin, to read Greek, k French fluently, and to translate ak Italian and Spanish. He obtained me knowledge of Dutch." For this ent there may be independent authowhich we are unaware, but until it is

ed we shall remain doubtful of Defoe's tic attainments, of which, moreover, tings contain little internal evidence. rue that he challenged Tutchin "to ste with him any Latin, French, or author, and after that to retranslate crosswise for twenty pounds each ; but Defoe knew that he was pretty making such an offer, and the chalwas about as futile as Blondin's when red to jump off the Monument against an in England. We are, again, into be sceptical when we read that in "he [Defoe] rode west to join the *of James, Duke of Monmouth." We of no proofs beyond his own word Defoe took an active part in that unhate rising, and we entirely agree with his biographers, Mr. Chadwick, that proceeding was highly improbable. foe had many great qualities. In his ercial affairs he showed unusual inte; he gave many proofs of high courage; Intellect was versatile and singularly and comprehensive; his mind was open Pimpartial; he was at heart an ardent cate of freedom and liberty of conce; on many subjects his views were in ince of those of his contemporaries; but are passages in his career which canDe considered without regret. He was otless placed in circumstances of great culty, and according to his own admishe allowed himself "to bow in the ise of Rimmon," and to be mixed up in nalistic affairs with persons whom his

abhorred."

During the latter part of William's life oe had rendered literary assistance to Government, and he was, according to own admission, rewarded by the king vond his "capacity of deserving." In the gn of Queen Anne, after his release from son through the intervention of Harley August, 1704, Defoe was employed by at statesman in "several honourable ough secret services"; and we learn from a first letter to Lord Halifax (quoted by . Lee from the British Museum MSS.), 1705, that he was receiving "Dictates" to his articles in the Review; and in other letter to the same nobleman he knowledges the receipt of an "Exceeding bunty" from a "yet Unknown Benector." It is just possible that up to that me there may have been nothing dis

with the Government, whether compromising or not, is entirely ignored in the memoir before us.

The Nonconformists are naturally proud of Defoe, and are willing to forget certain disagreeable incidents in his career. Up to a certain point this is harmless enough, but it is in vain for a biographer to ignore facts which are a mere common

place of literature. A curious instance of this desire to consider Defoe as a faultless character occurred last year at a trial relating to the "Defoe Presbyterian Church" at Tooting. In the course of the proceedings counsel read to the Court a document, dated December 11th, 1881, which contained the following passage, "That the church [at Tooting] was founded about the period of the Revolution by Daniel Defoe, the celebrated Presbyterian journalist, patriot, politician, and author of the Memoirs of the Church of Scotland from the Reformation to the Union." The presiding judge asked if that was a complete list of Defoe's works; and counsel was obliged to confess that the author of the 'Memoirs of the Church of Scotland' had written other works of which some were not so edifying as that mentioned.

Some of the shortcomings of Mr. Morley's writings may probably be accounted for by the brief time he allows himself for their preparation. What excellent work he is capable of doing is shown in this memoir by his description of the origin and causes of the war of the Spanish succession. The account of this episode, though short, is admirably lucid and complete, and if the other portions of the biography were equally

well done it would be a most valuable produc

tion. As it is, the 'Earlier Life of Daniel

Defoe,' notwithstanding the attractions of its literary style, can, we fear, be considered neither a useful guide for students nor an important addition to the literature of the subject.

"Hæ tibi erunt

LONG ago we used as a nation to believe
with childlike faith that Britannia ruled
the waves; and that though other nations-
the French more particularly-might excel
us in some points (in dancing, perhaps, or
fiddling, or eating frogs), in navigation, in
seamanship, and in the maintenance of a
navy we were unequalled.
artes" was the charter of our existence and
of our greatness. Latterly, however, there
have not been wanting those who have im-
pressed on us with painful iteration that
"they manage these things better in France";
that our naval strength is non-existent; that
our weakness is appalling; that we have
neither ships nor guns, and that we no
longer know how to make the one or build
the other; that our administration is parsi-
monious where it ought to be lavish, and
extravagant where it ought to be economical;
and that whether the naval estimates are
large or small the country gets very indif-
ferent value for its money. It is pleasant
to picture the perturbation of mind with
which writers or speakers of this class will
read M. Bourde's little volume, which

nourable in his conduct, but his connexion | through 287 pages asserts, contends, and

proves not only that they do not manage these things better in France, but that they manage them a great deal worse; that the French navy is not only relatively, but absolutely more costly than the English; that its money is recklessly wasted; that it is eaten up by officialism; that its ships are not built, or that when, after extreme delay, they are built, they are far from satisfying either the official estimate or the public expectation. This, M. Bourde maintains, has been the rule, at least since iron ship building came into vogue; but, not to go back too far, he begins with the report on the naval estimates "le budget de la marine" for 1879. "In that year," he says,

"France had at sea 89 ships of an aggregate displacement of 170,000 tons; England had 130, with a displacement of 255,000; the French fleet was thus as nearly as possible two-thirds of the English; but in all the details of maintenance, the expenditure of the weaker fleet was

larger than that of the stronger. In ships' stores alone the French fleet cost 8,560,000 francs as against the English 3,200,000."

This is a broad and unsupported statement which it is impossible either to verify or to contradict without a clearer know

ledge of what the author includes under the rather vague expression "rien qu'en matières," and also of the particular circumstances which ruled the expenditure. When he comes to more exact details it is easier to follow him. He says:

"Whilst in England 1,256 clerks were sufficient for the adminstration, the accounts, and the control, including the Admiralty itself, in France, without counting the central administration, there were no fewer than 2,406. In England the dockyards were safely guarded by 309 police, who

were also firemen; in France 1,930, or six times

the number, were employed. In the English dockyards 16,000 workmen were found to be sufficient; in France, with a fleet less by twofifths than the English, the complaints were incessant that 21,000 could not do the work. The number of combatants was overshadowed by the number of accessories: there were 38,000 men on shore for 39,000 on board ship, and 3,000 officials as against 1,800 officers. It follows, of course, that the money devoured by this parasitical growth is not available for construction. And not only that; in England the policy has been to diminish the number of establishments, in France the number has been kept up as it was in the old days of sailing ships, increased by the engine factories; and the expense of five dockyards, viz., Toulon, Rochefort, Lorient, Brest, and Cherbourg, and two factories, Indret and Guérigny, is enormous. In England the value of the machinery, stores, and buildings- of the dockyard plant - was estimated at 400,000,000 francs, and of the fleet at 800,000,000. In France this was reversed; the plant was valued at 800,000,000, and the fleet at 400,000,000."

All this is, we believe, a fairly correct statement of the case; but M. Bourde seems, while examining the arithmetic of his facts, to lose sight of the inner meaning of them. Not only now, but from the earliest ages, the English navy has been accustomed to rely largely on the private industry of the country; in France the navy has rested on the Government. The English fleet which conquered at Sluys consisted mainly, if not entirely, of private ships; the French fleet which, forty years afterwards, harried our coasts sprang from the Government arsenals. So through last century: a very great propor

ton of our ships of the line was turned off Le private slips in Southampton Water or the Thames. Of eighty 74-gun ships named by Charnock as added to the navy between 1775 and 1800, thirteen were captured from Le enemy. twenty-two were built in GovernLent yards, and forty-five on private slips. The same policy, which for some unaccountble reason was allowed to fall into com[arative disuse, is now again fully followed; and for the last few years a large and proi ably an increasing number of our capital ships has been and is being built in private yards. In France this has not been the case; for one reason. perhaps, that private yards on any commensurate scale have been non-existent. Nor can it be otherwise so long as the private tonnage in France is so limited. Government contracts are a valu

ble support to the shipbuilding industry,

but it is the merchant service which calls it

into being and on which it must be mainly dependent. The same may be said of the more modern demand for marine engines. | When the factories of Indret and Guérigny were originally started, there was not in France, we believe, any workshop capable of turning out the engines required by the Government. In recent years the industry has received a large development, and there are now several private yards and factories which might well prove, in time of need, extremely valuable as supplemental to the national establishments; but they do not seem as yet to have won the full confidence of the Government, which continues to rely almost solely on its own yards and workshops, and to insist on keeping them up on a scale that may be equal to any possible demands. It is this essential difference between the countries, from a maritime point of view, which makes-and, so long as France aims at being a great naval power, must continue to make the French expenditure, in some departments, enormously greater than the English. M. Bourde, however, points out other sources of this greater expenditure which cannot be thus explained, and which appear surprising.

Some four or five years ago great com

plaints were made in England of the waste of money caused by the undue length of time spent in building a ship of war and by

the consequent changes in her design. This was especially one of those things which they

4-100ths of her had been built. Why an ironclad should be laid down to be built at the rate

of 4-100ths in four years does not appear it was not in the interest of the fleet, for the ship

Admiral Aube,

was not built; nor in the interest of the dockyard, for she was not worked at. being a disbeliever in armoured ships, put a total stop to her progress. M. Barbey ordered it to be resumed. Then this difficulty presented itself: in six years the design had become obsolete; should it be stuck to in order not! to lose the 745,730 francs, or should the 745730 francs be sacrificed, and the vessel started anew? This last was the course followed as clearly the most prudent; but the 745 730 francs were lost."

Here is another striking case which M. Bourde adduces :

"In 1882 the administration ordered the simultaneous construction of four armoured

gun-vessels of a new type: the Achéron, Cocyte,

Styx, Phlégéton. The Acheron was the first ready for trial, and was found to be a bad sea boat; the others were, therefore, partly pulled to pieces in order to rebuild them. These vessels might have been finished off in eighteen months; they have now been on hand for six years, during which time this pulling to pieces and rebuilding have been going on in order to correct the initial blunders, and the cost has been increased out of all proportion. The original estimate for each hull was 1,600,000 francs; the actual cost has

mounted to 3613,000 francs, or a supplement of 6,000,000 francs totally lost; that is to say, the value of one of those cruisers which we are in such want of."

Here is another instance :

without having made any sufficient trial, the "Between June, 1885, and February, 1886, administration gave out contracts to five private companies for fifty-one torpedo boats, to be built according to a design which had just then caught their fancy. By the stipulations these boats were to be built after the given design, and to

have a speed of twenty knots. The companies

carried out the design, but the boats on their

trial did not go twenty knots. Who is responsible? The companies say, 'We have carried out the design. The administration replies, 'But you were to give them a speed of twenty knots.' Judgment is still pending; but meanwhile more than 8,500,000 francs have been incon

siderately staked."

The wild dreams of Admiral Aube and M. Gabriel Charmes were mainly respon sible for this fiasco; and from such, at any rate, we in England are preserved by the

vis inertia of the Admiralty, the constitution of which has often been severely criticized.

have, perhaps, been often
a degree of perfection whi
not attained. But to one
alike by our home critis
Bourde, we may call attention

possible to conduct the attairs: navy on what they are fond of as "sound commercial principe these the organization of a ra essence antagonistic. Ships built and armed and equip much with a view to their being the hope that they may never bee the realization of that hope m largely on the extent and q armament got together and main cost which defies the consideratin mercial economy.

Bench and Bar: Reminiscences of Last of an Ancient Race. By M: Robinson. (Hurst & Blacket: SERJEANT ROBINSON's book is a ca men of the lighter sort of memin fesses neither to serve as an all ¡torian nor to be a self-conscious pr it is merely what many more p works affect to be, a record of eve incidents, which has been written

an amusement to the author. Fr the book practically reviews itsel rience of the world, natural ga cheerful disposition, and a rie humour have furnished the wr that is wanted to make an volume. He has known exact avoid, and a good memory and ception have enabled him to excellent new stories, and to tell Writing in his seventy-eighth still by no means too anxious to perfection must be looked for and his apology for his book, sogtár made, both at its commencement close, like all good apologies, ma seem unnecessary. In the same way hoped an apology may be safely author for quoting freely from b He gives an amusing account of of admission to one of the inns of his younger days. The examina mere form, and the examiner wasi to the answer, if any, that might be

"I now is

heard of any man being plucked in the liminary 'little-go.' If I had, I shon the next intelligence I got of him wo

Magenta, begun at Toulon in 1880, and not

;

1880, and completed to 73-100ths by Janu

one of the ships which weighed so

parisons of five years ago :

"In 1882 the naval administration laid down

be reversed. But, in fact, we

are each better situated for detecting our own weak points. We in England take

have much preferred that his weat should be openly paraded than thy name should altogether omitted inc

called the Brennus. In the following four years

that account boasting of his intimacy with member

a time when the work could not have been half completed. And it was probably no exaggerated estimate which he reports that, when persons dependent on the monasteries were taken into consideration as well as the monks and nuns themselves, over 20,000 persons were thus made homeless wanderers, who knew not where to find the means of living.

A few of these monks and nuns were, no doubt, pensioned, especially those who consented readily to change their habits, and could not well be otherwise disposed of. For the credit of humanity it is also a satisfaction to know that pensions were granted in several cases to infirm and aged brethren

and sisters. But even these seem to have been disposed of otherwise when they could be quartered on their friends. And wherever there was anything like resistance to the king's will, or a case of constructive treason could be made out against the head of a religious house, even though none of the other brethren was involved in the charge, a new method was put in force of bringing monastic property into the king's hands. Dissolution by Act of Parliament had, at least, the semblance of legality. Dissolution by attainder was a new and manifest injustice, which punished a whole community for the offence of a single member.

But we cannot afford to dwell upon all the manifold forms of tyranny exposed in these volumes. After the dissolution of the smaller monasteries and the suppression of one or two larger houses by attainder, mainly in consequence of the Northern Rebellion, there was a pause in the proceedings, or at least comparative tranquillity, for about a couple of years. Then the remaining monasteries surrendered one by one in consequence of the pressure put upon them, or were confiscated by attainder, after what kind of legal process against the abbot it is often extremely difficult to say. Abbots who had signed the acknowledgment of the king's supremacy, who had borne the fairest character before the world, and of whose offence there is scarcely any record whatever, were by a summary process tried, convicted, and hanged, like Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury, in the neighbourhood of their own monasteries. Of Abbot Whiting even the visitor Layton had reported favourably until he was reprimanded for so doing by Cromwell, on which he at once apologized for his mistake, and confessed that the abbot "appeared not, neither then nor now, to have known God nor his prince, nor any part of a good Christian man's religion." To think of one of Cromwell's visitors bestowing praise where blame was the thing expected!

One of the most touching stories is that of Robert Hobbes, Abbot of Woburn, a man who had no mind to be a martyr, but was anxious to do his duty if he could with safety to himself, and vainly sought to persuade himself that some mode might be found by which he and his brethren might pass unscathed through time of fiery trial. In the days before the monasteries generally were threatened, when as yet the spirit of persecution had found victims only in More and Fisher and a few Carthusians, the abbot called his monks together, and said to them:

a

Ye hear how good men do suffer death. Brethren, this is undoubted for our offences...... Therefore, good Christian brethren, for the reverence of God, every one of you devoutly pray and say this psalm, Deus venerunt gentes, through, and

say this versicle, Exsurgat Deus et dissipentur inimici- this foresaid psalm to be said every Friday immediately after the litany, prostrate, when ye lie before the high altar, and undoubtedly God will cease this extreme storm."

Then came the Act for the dissolution of the smaller monasteries, and the abbot exhorted them to sing every day after lauds Salvator mundi, salva nos omnes-which "we murmured at," said some of his recalcitrant brethren in their depositions afterwards in order to show their loyalty to the king, " and so we did omit it divers times; for which the abbot came unto the chapter and did in manner rebuke us, and said we were bound to obey his commands by our profession. And so he did command us to sing it again with versicles: Exsurgat Deus, &c., and enjoined us to say at every mass that every priest did sing a collect: Deus qui contritorum, &c. And he said if we did thus with good and pure devotion, God would handle the matter so that it should be to the comfort of all England, and to show us mercy as he showed unto the children of Israel. And surely, brethren, he said, there will come over us a good man that will re-edify these monasteries again that are now suppressed, 'quia potens est Deus de lapidibus istis suscitare filios Abrahæ.'" In this eagerly cherished hope that it was but a passing tyranny they had to meet the abbot gave up all his bulls from Rome at the royal visitation to Dr. Petre, and erased the Pope's name out of their calendars and service books, but took care to have the bulls carefully transcribed beforehand in order that when the quarrel between the king and the Pope was settled he might be able to claim his old privileges once more. Unhappily within the monastery were some of the "new world," who won favour of Cromwell by informing against their head and others of their brethren, and he was obliged to make a full confession of this attempt to evade the royal injunctions, as well as of a good many other things still more indicative of disaffection. He had, in fact, likened Henry to Nebuchadnezzar who took away the sacred vessels of the Temple. He admitted that he had always looked upon royal supremacy as a usurpation, and had "stood stiffly" in maintaining the authority of "the Bishop of Rome." He had found fault with the new English translation of the Bible as "not well interpreted in many places," and he had said he wished himself to have died with More and Fisher and the Carthusians "for holding with the Pope." But while making the most ample confession in these matters he admits that he may have been mistaken after all, and humbly prays for the king's pardon. The prayer met with no response, and he was hanged before the gate of his monastery.

The story of the suppression of the friars differs materially in many respects from that of the dissolution of the monasteries. Here, for one thing, the spoils were not so abundant. In some of the orders, though the inmates were bound to poverty, their buildings were fine, and their plate and vestments rich. But on the whole even these did not offer an amount of booty to compare with that of the rich monasteries, and they were

pression of the smaller monasteries, whose revenues did not amount to 2001. a year each. For in the first place, possessing no landed property at all, they had always got leave to manage their own affairs without the inter ference of the Crown in their elections, and secondly, they were so highly popular and influential that it would probably have been dangerous to deal with them all at once by measures of a most sweeping character.

But their very popularity stood in the king's way. It was in vain that Dr. Curwit was put in the pulpit by the king to destroy the effect of Friar Peto's sermon, when Friar Elstow followed and denounced both Dr. Curwin's preaching and the king's ow morality next Sunday. It was clear tha among the Observant Order, at least, there were men quite willing to risk their necks in order to speak the truth and do their duty. The Observant Order was therefore suppressed before all the others. If they were fearless they were comparatively few, and as the royal visitors sent to them could "bring them to no better frame" than that they meant to abide by the rule that they had professed, the king determined on putting them down altogether. The Observants were a stricter branch of the Franciscans or Grey Friars, and had but seven houses in Eng land. The inmates of these were expelled, and, for the most part, imprisoned in other monasteries. Some were mercifully or acei dentally allowed to escape abroad. Their houses were delivered over to Augustinian Friars, and Dr. George Browne, an Augustinian and a willing instrument of the king. was made General over all the Mendicant Orders, aided by a worthy colleague, John Hilsey, a Black Friar, who afterwards succeeded the martyred Fisher in the see of Rochester.

This was two years before any even of the smaller houses of monks were suppressed And it seems that, warned by the fate of the Observants, the Dominicans took alarm and fled in large numbers to Ireland, Scotland, and Flanders. A curious letter is preserved from the prior of that order (the Black Friars) at Newcastle, addressed to the convent on his taking flight, in which, after declaring seven causes why he cannot conscientiously conform to the royal supre macy, he confesses that he has not the courage to remain and be a martyr, and therefore desires them to elect another prior.

Four years later, one Observant Friar emerges from obscurity and passes to the stake, having doubtless been imprisoned in the interval. This was the celebrated Friar Forest, at whose burning Latimer preached a very shameful sermon. Mr. Gasquet is just a trifle too eager to repel the charge of duplicity against this friar so as to make him a martyr of the most heroic order. The imputation, no doubt, comes from a prejudiced source that is to say, Hall's chro nicle, a painstaking and accurate work in the main, but still largely tinged wit Puritanism. But Hall, though evidently anxious to fix upon a genuine martyr an imputation of jesuitical dishonesty, onl shows that he was guilty of a lit human weakness. Forest, there seems reason to doubt, had taken the oath C supremacy at one time. Even if Hall ha not said so we might have inferred as much from the fact that he was allowed to hes