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beginneth "Quod si quis Deus mihi largiatur,' which in our tongue, as I applied it unto myself, standeth thus.--Should it please God to give unto me a grant again to begin my life from my very cradle, and once more to run over the course of my years, yet would not I in any wise accept thereof. Nor would I, having now in a manner finished my race, run it over again from the starting-place unto the goal; for what pleasure hath my life had in it? Nay, rather, what pain had it not? though, were there none, there would questionless have been much weariness and trouble therein. Yet am I not now for bewailing my past life, as many, even wise men, have done; nor do I repent me that I have lived, because God hath led me to live so, that I am assured my days have not been given in vain so that when I quit this life, I leave it but as an inn, and not as mine established dwelling; the bodies which nature hath given us, being but as a hostel wherein to lodge for a brief season, and not to abide in. Oh! how goodly and glorious, therefore, will that day be, when I shall leave for ever the rabble-rout and defilements of this world behind me, and go unto God and the fellowship of the world of spirits above!

It so chanced, then, that in the hot season of summer, when the workmen were resting from their labours at noontide, I retired me into one of the chambers of the mansion, and was pondering over the almost heavenly philosophy of this divine Roman, and mine own present condition; whereupon I fell into a deep musing, with mine hand pointing unto the words I have recounted, albeit I was all forgetful of that which was around me.

On a sudden, the sound of a voice near me recalled my wandering senses, whereupon I started up, but my book was gone, though presently I saw it in the hands of a grave and full-aged man, of tall stature and noble air, richly habited in black, who was reading the passage whereto I had pointed, with a benign and tranquil visage, yet with somewhat of amaze; as if he had been one who knew and felt it for himself, albeit he wondered how it should be understood or chosen by a common workman such as I did appear. When, therefore, he noted that mine attention was fixed upon him, he addressed me with gentle speech, saying that he meant not to disturb my reading or repose, albeit curiosity had led him to look on that which I seemed to have been studying, and that he much marvelled to find it Latin. This led me to relate unto him mine early instruction therein, and other discourse followed, whereby I found the good Sir Thomas Moyle, for it was no other than that noble knight himself, who now talked with me,-to be of so generous and charitable a soul, that I disclosed unto him somewhat more of my story; the which, whilst he greatly wondered at, he not only promised should be kept secret, but he did at once assure me of his protection and favour for the remainder of my days, wherein he said I should labour no more. That excellent person, indeed,

would fain have received into his own household the aged form of the last of the Plantagenets, yet did he afterward consent to make me happy according to mine own desire, by giving me a little spot of ground near his mansion, whereon I might

rear me my last retreat from the tempests of the -world.

This dwelling, therefore, was edified about 1546; and here, in this fair and solitary Eastwell, have I now lived nearly four years, in full security and free from care. Nor do I lack for either company or converse, for beside that the noble knight and his gentle consort do often come unto my cottage, to discourse with me upon the passages of former days, I do also sometimes receive their two fair daughters and their stately spouses; the Lady Catherine married unto Sir Thomas Finch, and the Lady Anne unto Sir Thomas Kempe. Nay, farther, when that there is holyday at Eastwell Palace by all the noble family being assembled there, the fair and promising offspring of those knights and dames do love to gather them around the aged Fitz-Richard, and court him to tell them the tales of his own youth: the brave boys asking him to speak of the fights of Bosworthfield, of Stoke, the battles of France and Burgundy, of the royal King Richard, the stout Sir Gilbert de Mountford, and the good and valourous Lord Lovel; whereupon I can well mark how the striplings' eyes fire, their hearts beat, and their feet plant them more firmly at the recital. The fairhaired girls, too, will often ask me of the Dutchess of Burgundy, the good Queen Elizabeth and her daughters, and specially of the Lady Bride, over whose memory they have blended their sweet tears with mine. And thus do I continually, as it were, live my life again, without the pain or labour which I felt when I first assayed it; and by thus often recurring unto the scenes thereof, they

are ever present with me, beside that I have some few passages of it written: and, moreover, the memory of an old man is ever best for the past, seeing that he regards but little either the present or the future. This, then, hath enabled me to pleasure my noble patron by recording my story, as he hath willed me, so exactly as it is here written; yet, natheless, have I done it with much toil, and many sad thoughts and remembrances, both for myself and the world wherein I have lived.

For, when I do look backward, my life doth sometimes appear nought but sorrow, doubt, and disappointment; and though such, I question not will often be found in the course of many of full high estate, whom the ill-judging world deems to be the happiest of men,-yet have I sometimes known moments of sorrow, wherein I have almost sunken under very weariness of spirit, whilst pondering over mine hapless condition and pilgrimage. It was not mine to be borne up by those inspiring hopes which are full often to be found woven into the very fabric of the lives of others; but, with a heart well-attuned unto kind fellowship with all, I have been doomed unto solitude and danger, and sternly, as I have sometimes thought it, cut off from the friendship and love of mankind.

And from that mournful, memorable day which saw the sun of Plantagenet set in blood, when I beheld my royal father dying upon the battle-field, sorrow hath ever been familiar unto me, and joy little less than a stranger: for mine was a youth of doubt and peril, the hazards whereof ended not even when it had passed into manhood. For this

cause, I ever stood alone in the crowd of those with whom at divers times I consorted, and have never ceased to feel myself as a link severed from the great chain of living men; since but few have mourned with me in my sorrows, and joys have I had none to share with any and albeit I have suffered much from the cruelty of man, never have I been soothed by the tender cares of woman. Yet, natheless, have I flattered me with the thought, that there was in truth one gentle creature, who sometimes beamed upon my darkened path, who would have been contented to have shared my lot, had God so willed it :-but it was not to be; the unreal vision charmed my senses but for a few brief hours, and then I awoke from the pleasant dream, only again to encounter substantial and lasting sorrow.

Yes! she hath fled the Lady Bride hath reached her eternal home, and thus escaped more years of suffering upon earth; though truly she also knew enough of this world's sorrow, ere her gentle spirit was released. It was hers to behold her widowed mother, the consort of the victorious Edward, taught by dire adversity how hollow, false, and worthless, were the gaudy things of time which she had once so fondly courted; and it was hers to feel that the throne and coronal, which made that queen so envied of all her sex, were no armour of proof to shield her from hazard and oppression. The Lady Bride beheld, too, how the good Elizabeth, although herself a queen and the mother of a queen, was left so destitute in her last moments, that not a relique of her greatness remained unto her, and she wanted VOL. II.-S