LETTER OF ARCHBISHOP

CHICHELE TO.

HENRY THE FIFTH.

Mss. Cotton. vesp. f. xiii. fol. 29. Ellis's Letters, vol. 1.

From this letter it will appear that the piety of Henry the Fifth was scarcely less ardent than his love of war. Two circumstances noticed in it, the siege of Falaise, and the death of the King's confessor, fix its date to the beginning of the year 1418.

The Confessor, says Mr. Ellis, was Stephen. Patrington, a Carmelite, whom Walsingham calls, "vir eruditus in trivio et quadrivio." He became bishop of St. David's in 1415. In December 1417 he was appointed to the see of Chichester, but died before his translation could be perfected and Mr. Ellis adds that, some of the Sermons which he preached before the King in the quality of confessor, are still extant in manuscript.

Sovereyn Lord, after moost humble recom"mendacion with hele bothe of body and of "sowle, as zour selfe and alle zour liege men de"sire, lyke zow to wyte that the firsts Soneday "of Lenton the dwk of Excester zour huncle sent "for me to the Frer Prechours, wer I fond with "him zour preest and bedeman Thomas Fysh

"born, and ther he tok to me zour Lettre wry"ten with zour owne hond in zour hoost be fore

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zour town of Faleys, be the wich I undirstood, "as I have at alle tymes, blessed be Almyzty "God, understonde, that a mong alle zour moost "wordly occupacions that any Prince may have "in herthe, ze desire principaly vertuous lyvyng "and zour sowle heele; and for as myche as

my brother of Seint David as was zour confes

sour is in his best tyme go to God, ze desire "that I shold be the avys of your uncle a forseyd "send zou in his stede a gode man and a clerk " of divinite to occupie that offis til zour comyng "into zour lond of ynglond. And whan I hadde "red zour honurable letter zour uncle a forseyd "seyd to me that he hadde communyd with Sir "Thomas Fyschborn a forseyd be zour comaun"dement of this same matier, and whow it "semed to hym, if it lyked me, that Thomas Dyss a frer prechour, mayster of divinite of the

'scole of Caumbrygge, wer a good man and a "sufficient ther to, and whow thei hadde com"munid with him ther offe and al so with frere "John Tylle the provincial of the same ordre "ther offe; and considereng his good name and "fame as wel in good and honest lyvyng as in "clergie, I assentyd in to the same persone, and "so communed with himther offe, and toold

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"him owre comun avis; and he hath ziven his "assent ther to and ordeyneth hym in alle hast "to come to zour presence, so that I hop he "schal be with zou at the same tyme that zour chapel schal come: and be the grace of God "ze schol fynde hym a good man and a spirituel, "and pleyn to zu with owte feyntese. Forther"more towchyng that ze dosire to have licence "to chese zou a confessor &c. I send zu a letter "ther offe a seelyd undir my seel, with sufficient power to do in that caas al that I myzt do my "self in zour roial presence. Towchyng al ordr "things, I wot wel my lord your brother sendyth

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to zu pleynlych: and ther fore undir zour "Grace it seemeth to me no more to vexe zour "Hygnesse with myche redyng: praying ever

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almyzty God suych speed to graunt zou on "zour moest ryal Journe that may be to his ple"saunce, and hasty perfourmeng of zour blessud "entent, and pees to cristen pepul. Amen. Wryten at Lambyth xvj day of Febr. 1418. zour preest bedeman

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H. C."

NOLO EPISCOPARI.

We believe it to be a vulgar error, that every bishop before he accepts a bishopric which is offered him, affects a maiden coyishness, and answers nolo episcopari.

HUNTING DON.

When Mr. Hunt, from a collier, became, as he expresses it, "a vessel of the Lord, he instantly lengthened his name to Huntingdon, and so signed it, with the adjunct of S. S. (Sinner Saved!)

RUM RELIGION.

Dr. Johnson, in his Tour to the Hebrides, gives the following instance of compulsory conversion-we wish that none were ever more violent. "The inhabitants of the isle of Rum, "in the Highlands," says he, "are fifty-eight "families, who continued papists for some time "after the laird became a protestant. Their "adherence to their old religion was strengthen"ed by the countenance of the laird's sister, a "zealous Romanist; till one Sunday, as they

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were going to mass under the conduct of their

patroness, Maclean, the laird, met them on "the way, gave one of them a blow on the head "with a yellow stick, I suppose a cane, and "drove them to the kirk, from which they "had never since departed. Since the use of "this method of conversion, the inhabitants of

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Egg and Canna, who continue papists, call "the protestantism of Rum, the religion of the "yellow stick." After this, we may note, some

favourers of toleration will tell you, that the command, "Compel them to come in" should be executed in a literal sense; as if the only safe and infallible way of saving heretics, was to make them go to the protestant church, or to mass, with a cudgel in ones hand.

PIOUS PUNNING.

Bishop Andrews, a divine of the seventeenth century was a punster; Oldmixon, in the dedication to his "Arts of Logic and Rhetoric," says that Bishop Andrews, and the most eminent divines at the beginning of the last century, reduced preaching to punning, and the eloquence of the chair to the buffoonery of the stage. speaks of him thus:

The reverend prelate who St. Swithen's chair
So fairly filled, would pun you out a prayer!
At visitation he'd instruct his sons

In sermons made of nothing else but puns:
The court itself so tickled with his chimes,
Called him the ablest preacher of his times.

He

RELIGION AND THE FINE ARTS.

Mr. Northcote tells us, that a clergyman, a friend of Mr. Opie's, declared to him, that he