they were baptized. Many murders have been discovered among them, and they are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants, (if they give not bread, or some kind of provision to, perhaps, forty such villains on one day, are sure to be insulted by them,) but they rob many poor people who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. In years of plenty many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days; and at country weddings, markets, burials, and other the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together."

Fletcher was a lover of liberty, and a sincere one; yet he seriously proposed, as a remedy for this evil, the re-establishment of domestic slavery, drawing arguments from the example, of his favourite republics. A system of parochial education was shortly afterwards established in Scotland, and the result was, that Scotland, then one of the most barbarous countries in Christendom, became the most orderly. Provision had been intended for securing a like advantage to the people of England by Edward VI. whose life, short as it was, is honourable to human nature; and whose accession ought to have been made a red-letter day in the English calendar, and set apart for pious and grateful commemoration, as long as the blessings which we have derived from it shall endure. Monstrificus puellus Cardan calls him for his attainments; and a protestant, without superstition, may be allowed to call him "blessed King Edward," for his virtues. This spotless prince enumerates, among the remedies for the sores of the commonwealth, good education as the first in dignity and degree, and declared his purpose of "showing his device therein." "This," he said, "shall well ease and remedy the deceitful working of things, disobedience of the lower sort, casting of seditious bills, and will clearly take away the idleness of people."

Edward's early death was probably the greatest misfortune that England ever sustained: Elizabeth effected the work of reformation, rather in the spirit of a politician, than with that sincere, and conscientious, and enlightened piety which directed and sanctified his conduct. The provision which was made for the religious education of the people was less extensive and less complete than he would have made it; and such as it was, the greater part of the parochial clergy were not qualified to give it effect. This was one of the evils which arose from the Reformation: from the commencement of that great revolution, divinity became a perilous profession: those studies which formerly led to honourable ease, benefices and dignities, led then to exile, imprisonment, and martyrdom; and thus, while the issue of the struggle was doubtful, the supply of students was materially diminished. The robberies (for they deserve no better name) which were committed upon church property tended to the same effect.

"It would pity a man's heart," says Latimer, "to hear that I hear of the state of Cambridge. What it is in Oxford I cannot tell. There be few that study divinity, but so many as of necessity must furnish the colleges, for their livings be so small, and victuals so dear, that they tarry not there, but go every where to seek livings, and so they go about. It will come to pass, that we shall have nothing but a little English divinity, that will bring the realm into a very barbarousness, and utter decay of learning. It is not that, I wiss, that will keep out the supremacy of the Pope of Rome. There be none now but great men's sons in colleges, and their fathers look not to have them preachers-so every way the office of preaching is pinched at.”

There are few books which throw so much light upon the manners and morals of the times, and the state of society, as Latimer's Sermons; they may be ranked among the most curious and amusing specimens of our early literature.

"My lords and masters," says he, "I say that all such proceedings, as far as I can perceive, do intend plainly to make the yeomanry slavery, and the clergy shavery. We of the clergy had too much, but this is taken away, and now we have too little. But for my own part, I have no cause to complain, for I thank God and the king I have sufficient, and God is my judge I come not to crave of any man any thing; but I know them that have too little. There lieth a great matter by these appropriations: great reformation is to be had in them. I know where there is a great market town, with divers hamlets and inhabitants, where do rise yearly of their labours to the value of 50 pound: and the vicar that serveth (being so great a cure) hath but 12 or 14 marks by year; so that of this pension he is not able to buy him books, nor give his neighbours drink; and all the great gain goeth another way." "What an unreasonable devil is this!" exclaims the honest old bishop, on another occasion, making use of Satan in his*

*The reader will not, perhaps, be displeased to see a specimen of Latimer's peculiar vein. It occurs in his Sermon of the Plough, preached in the shroudes at St. Paules church, in London, the xvii day of January, 1548. He is touching upon the unfitness of giving secular employment to the bishops. "A prelate hath a charge and cure otherwyse, and therefore he cannot discharge his dutie, and be a lord presilent too. For a presidentship requireth a whole man, and a byshop cannot be two men. A byshop bath his office, a flocke to teach, to look unto; and, therefore, he cannot meddle with another office, which alone requireth a whole man. Let the priest preach, and the noble man handle the temporal matters. Moses was a marvellous man, a good man; Moses was a wonderful fellow, and did his dutie, being a marryed man: we lacke such as Moses was. Well, I would all men would look to their dutie, as God hath called them, and then we should have a flourishing christian common weale. And now I would aske a strange question. Who is the most diligentest bishop and prelate in all England, that passeth all the rest in doing his office? I can tell, for I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think I see you stening and harkening that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the sther, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all Englande. And will ye know who it is? I will tell you. It is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all other; he is never out of his dyocese; he is never from his cure; ye shall never fade him unoccupyed; he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times; je shall never find him out of the way; call for him when you will, he is ever at

favourite way. “What an unreasonable devil is this! He provides a great while beforehand for the time that is to come; he hath brought up now of late the most monstrous kind of covetousness that ever was heard of; he hath invented a fee-farming of benefices, and all to delay the office of preaching; insomuch that when any man hereafter shall have a benefice, he may go where he will for any house he shall have to dwell upon, or any glebe land to keep hospitality withall; but he must take up a chamber in an alehouse, and there sit and play at the tables all day." "The devil hath caused also there this monstrous kind of covetousness, patrons to sell their benefices; yea more, he gets himself to the university, and causeth great men and esquires to send their sons thither, and put out poor scholars, that should be divines; for their parents intend not that they should be preachers, but that they may have a shew of learning."

The consequence of this state of things was, that the parochial clergy, in the first ages of the Reformation, were scandalously

home, the diligentest preacher in all the realme; he is ever at his plough; no lording or loytering can hynder him; he is ever applying his busyness; ye shall never fynd him idle I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to mayntaine supersticion, to set up idolatry, to teach all kynde of popery. He is ready as can be wished for to set forth his plough, to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory. Where the devill is resident and hath his plough going, there away with books and up with candles! away with bibles and up with beads! away with the light of the gospel and up with the light of candles, yea, at noon dayes. Where the devill is resident that he may prevayle, up with all supersticion and idolatry, sensing, paynting of images, candles, palmes, ashes, holy water, and new service of men's inventing, as though man could invent a better way to honour God with, than God himself hath appoynted. Down with Christ's cross, up with purgatory pick-purse, up with him, the popish purgatory I mean. Away with clothing the naked, the poor and impotent; up with decking of images, and gay garnishing of stocks and stones. Up with man's traditions and his lawes, down with God's traditions and his most holy word. But here some man will say to me, What, sir, are ye so privy of the devill's counsell that ye know all this to be true? Truely, I know him too well, and have obeyed him a little too much in condescending to some follyes. And I know him as other meu do; yea, that he is ever occupyed and ever busy in following his plough. I know by S. Peter, which sayth of him, sicut leo rugiens circuit quærens quem devoret, he goeth about like a roaring lyon secking whom he may devour. I would have this text well viewed and examined every word of it. Circuit, he goeth about in every corner of his dyocese. He goeth on visitation daily. He leaveth no place of his cure unvisited. He walketh round about from place to place, and ceaseth not. Sicut leo, as a lyon; that is, strongly, boldly and proudly, stately and fiercely, with haute looks, with his proude countenances, with his stately bragginges. Rugiens, roaring; for he letteth not slip any occasion to speake, or to roare out when he seeth his tyme. Quærens, he goeth about seeking, and not sleeping as our bishops doe, but he seeketh diligently, he searcheth diligently all corners, whereas he may have his prey. He roveth abroad in every place of his dyocese, he standeth not still, he is never at rest, but ever in hand with his plough that it may go forward. But there was never such a preacher in England as he is. Who is able to tell his diligent preaching? In the meane tyme the prelates take their pleasures. They are lords and no labourers, but the devill is diligent at his plough. He is no unpreaching prelate. He is no lordly loyterer from his cure, but a busy plough-man; so that among all the prelates and all the pack of them that have cure, the devill shall go for my money. For he still applyeth his busyness. Therefore, ye unpreaching prelates, learne of the devill to be diligent in doing of your office. Learne of the devill. An if you will not learne of God, nor good men, for shame learne of the devill. Ad erubescentiam vestram dico. I speake it for your shame. If you will not learne of God, nor good men, to be diligent in your office, learne of the devill."

ignorant, and their lives but too often as little edifying as their doctrines. "Sad the times, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth," says Fuller,*"when, by her majesty's injunctions, the clergy were commanded to read the chapters over once or twice by themselves, that so they might be the better enabled to read them distinctly in the congregation." Augustin Bernhers, the editor of Latimer's Sermons, draws a melancholy picture of their condition.

"I will not," he says, "speak now of them that being not content with lands and rents, do select into their hands spiritual livings, as parsonages and such like, and that under the pretence to make provision for their houses. What hurt and damage this realm of England doth sustain by that devilish kind of provision for gentlemen's houses, knights' and lords' houses, they can tell best that do travel in the countries, and see with their eyes great parishes and market towns, with innumerable others, to be utterly destitute of God's word; and that because that these greedy men have spoiled the livings, and gotten them into their hands, and instead of a faithful and painful teacher they have a Sir John, who hath better skill at playing at tables, or in keeping of a garden, than in God's word, and he for a trifle doth serve the cure, and so help to bring the people of God in danger of their souls."

Latimer himself dwells upon this theme.

"It is a great charge," he says, "a great burthen before God to be a patron; for every patron, when he doth not diligently endeavour himself to place a good and godly man in his benefice which is in his hands, but is slothful, and careth not what manner of man he taketh; or else is covetous and will have it himself, and hire a Sir John Lack Latin which shall say service, so that the people shall be nothing edified-no doubt that patron shall make answer before God for not doing of his duty."

This evil continued till the struggle between episcopacy and presbytery produced the same effect as the Reformation itself had done, of deterring men from a profession which was again become precarious and perilous. Baxter, in one of his works, where he very ably explains the causes of the increase of popery, in his days, observes that most of our ministers were "unable to deal with a cunning Jesuit or priest," which, he adds, "is not to be wondered at, considering how many of them are very young men, put in of late in the necessity of the churches." With the restoration this evil ended; but that was not an age in which any means were likely to be taken for the moral and religious instruction of the people. The subsequent danger of the protestant establishment under James produced nothing but good to the church as

* Triple Reconciler, p. 82.

well as to the state; it occasioned a demand among the clergy for learning and talent, which was abundantly supplied: being forced into the field of controversy, they learnt the use of their weapons, and remained masters of it. From that time to the present the character of the parochial clergy has continued to improve, and it has probably never been so respectable in any age, or in any country, as it is in England at this day.

But the want of a general system of parochial education has never been supplied. The funds with which it should have been established were scandalously dissipated at the beginning, when men were literally bribed to support the new establishment by the plunder of the old. A warfare of opinions, and a state of religious anarchy for a hundred and thirty years, was the price which we paid for a religious revolution; the evil has been abundantly overbalanced, but its effects have not yet ceased: the attachment of the peasantry to their roods and puppetries was broken, but no wiser attachment was substituted for it. The Romanists impressed their imaginations; the reformed clergy failed to impress their understandings. They plucked up the tares, but they were not equally diligent in sowing the good seed. There is a difference between the two churches which strikingly exemplifies the superior policy of the one and the truth of the other. In Catholic countries, the people are passionately attached to the faith of their fathers, while the higher classes, if they have any degree of knowledge, are either unbelievers, or at least indifferents. In England there is a great spirit of religion in the higher ranks, but the body of the people care little for the national church, and are easily won over from it.

The character of the lower orders underwent very little change from the Reformation till within the last forty years. In their religious feelings they had been weaned from popery-not won from it; the breasts at which they had sucked in superstition were withdrawn; but no provision had been made, as in Scotland, for rearing them upon salubrious food. In other respects they remained much the same as they had been two centuries ago; reading and writing were but little more common among them; their habitations, their dress, their hours, their habits of life, were unaltered; the only difference was what the cultivation of the potato occasioned, and the use of tea, about that time beginning to become general. But during the last forty years, a tremendous change has been going on; it has affected all classes, few for the better, the lowest and most numerous much for the worse.

One chief cause of this great moral revolution, for such it may truly be called, is to be found in the improvement of machinery, and the consequent rapid increase of manufactures. The manufacturing system has been carried among us to an extent unheard of