from the following pages, to have enjoyed that retirement with all the placid dignity of Milton's pensive man, who wished that he might in his

Find out some peaceful hermitage."

And when he speaks of the events of his past life, it is in a calm and happy strain, not unlike that uttered by one of the best and most exalted of our living Poets, with whose beautiful words this Introduction shall be terminated.

"It is pleasant then to sit and talk
Of days that are no more,

When in his own dear home
The traveller rests at last,

And tells how often in his wanderings
The thought of those far off
Hath made his eyes o'erflow
With no unmanly tears;

Delighted he recalls

Through what fair scenes his lingering feet have trod ;

But ever, when he tells of perils past,

And troubles, now no more,

His eyes most sparkle, and a readier joy
Flows thankful from his heart."

THE LAST

OF THE

PLANTAGENETS.

CHAPTER I.

A LEAF FROM THE VOLUME OF CHILDHOOD.

The great increase of Religious Houses very much increased the number of Seminaries of learning, as there was a School more or less famous in every Convent. Many persons of rank and fortune were educated in these Conventual Schools.

HENRY'S HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

FINDING myself, Our Lord be thanked, in most goodly estate and comfort, after many rude tempests overpast; gladdened by the fair resting-place now given to me on earth, and full merry in the hope of

B

Heaven,-I, RICHARD PLANTAGENET, would fain employ my latter days in recording the events of those which have long since passed away, into the great sea which Time is ever rapidly rolling onward to Eternity.

And this will I do, in the strength of God, without fear or favour, or unmeet inclining to either hand: So that they whose eyes shall look upon this narrative, when mine shall be closed for ever, may assuredly regard it as the true and lively similitude of those things belonging unto the story of my strange and troubled, though inglorious, life. For, since the next race may perchance desire to know what the past hath been, and seeing that old age loveth to discourse of it's youth-hood, I have, as it were, delineated the scenes wherein I have acted, in vivid portraiture, as they even yet remain impressed upon my memory; and have here set down the speech, the semblance, and the very habits, of those with whom I conversed, who "were honourable in their generations," but who now exist no longer. This, therefore, have I done to the extent of my poor skill, though, as one saith,

"I must write plain, colours I have none to paint;"* but would I not, because I am now fallen into years, idly bask me in the warm sunshine which is to me

* Prologue to Cavendish's Poetical History of the Cardinal of York.

fast setting, but still assay what remaineth to me of wit and vigour, to "do that which my hand yet findeth to perform," and with all my little power, as 'monisheth the holy text; for, in truth I am now "going unto the dead, who have neither work, counsel, knowledge, nor wisdom." Nor do I forget, also, what that very learned Knight, Sir Thomas More, albeit for divers reasons I like not his memory, -hath so wittily said on the importance of engaging us in such employment as we are best able to encounter, in those choice moral verses which he writ in his youth:

"Wyse men alway

Affyrme and say

That best is for a man,

Dylygently

For to apply

The business that he can."

As to my story, sorrows have been mine, such as those of the common sort, with whom it was my lot often to sojourn, do rarely know; but to these bright hopes and joyous thoughts have at length succeeded. For I have found, that of a truth sadness and merriment do in this world evermore follow each other, as the day doth the night, himself anon to be pursued and eftsoons overtaken.

I was yet in my green years, nothing improving to-day, and nothing recollecting of yesterday, though ever vainly anxious about to-morrow, when I remember me being one of the Pupils who were in

structed with the six Novices in the Monastery of St. Mary, in the Isle of Ely; what time that godly man, Roger Walkelyn of Westminster, was Prior thereof. It so chanced that my fellows went to their homes about the merry Feast of St. John, when the sun shines fiercest and fairest, the skies be brightest, the birds blithest, and the fields and flowers look the loveliest and greenest. Much did I repine at their going to their fond friends and tender parents whilst I was still left with Father Austin, the venerable and learned Master of the Novices, who still continued to instruct me in fair and beautiful writing, with enlumining of manuscripts; in the Grammar of Donatus, the Logic and Philosophy of Aristoteles, and the plain-song of our Church-service, with the art of playing it upon the deep-toned organ. As it is but all too likely, that in the strange convulsions of our later time this scene of my youth may full soon be despoiled and ruined, I cannot here omit to set down that the school of Ely Monastery was a fair wainscoted room, near the Treasury in the Western cloister; having an oaken stall, curiously carved, for our preceptor, and desks and forms stretching all across the room for his pupils. In divers other carrés or square pews, also, in the cloister, were chained sundry parchment books, fairly copied in our Scriptorium, or Writing-chamber, wherein the Novices and Students might read a good plain lesson of godliness, or of honest human wisdom: such being the divine Psalter, the Proverbia of Salo