184 SOME REMARKS ON THE 



parted with a charm of simplicity, which is rarely to be found 

 among the attractions of adorned writers ; while the Latin style of 

 some of these chroniclers, for instance, that of John of Salisbury, 

 Peter of Blois, Joseph of Exeter, and William of Malmsbury, fre- 

 quently discloses all the nice and more delicate shades of that noble 

 language. We must not also forget to observe, that several abbots 

 and priors deserve the utmost praise for their encouragement of the 

 fine arts, which, though they do not in themselves constitute virtue, 

 yet greatly tend to promote it by shutting out idleness, the prepara- 

 tive for almost every vice. We read of the monks pursuing " paint- 

 ing, carving, graving, and the like exercises/'* with that degree of 

 interest as if they had quite a passion for some of these objects. 



It has been often said, that the monks had earned the hatred of 

 the people by their avarice : but it is worthy of remark, that so 

 long as the great monastic corporation existed, no legal provision for 

 the sustentation of the poor was enforced,t and that not many years 

 after the forfeiture of its revenues, the celebrated statute of the 5th 

 of Elizabeth was passed. By satirists} and censurers, the monks 

 have been represented as not allowing an income to the incumbents 

 of their livings, adequate to the purposes of existence ; yet no law 

 was deemed necessary for preventing the dilapidation of parsonages 

 till the 13th of the same reign. Now, it must be conceded, that the 

 monks were incredibly expensive in their passion for decorating their 

 chapels to the occasional detriment of their country churches. Their 

 immoderate love for the most elaborate ornaments of the chisel and 

 the pencil in them may be acknowledged indefensible, and almost in- 

 curable. Still with no sort of truth or justice can it be said that they 



* Lord Herbert's Life and Tte'vjn of King Henry VIII., p. 186. 



-f- The Lincolnshire Remonstrance (apud Speed, 1033), in reference to the 

 evils resulting from the abolition of the monastic houses, notices that of the 

 " poreality of the realm being thereby unrelieved." But though the compul- 

 sary system of parochial relief was established in Elizabeth's reign, yet the 

 first act for the relief of the indigent poor was passed in 1535, (27, H. VIII., 

 c. 25). According to Spelman, the bill for giving the king and his heirs all 

 monastic establishments was not at all relished by the Commons, who were 

 very backward in passing it till the imperious despotism of Henry was 

 shown in the threat of striking off some of their heads if there was not a 

 prompt obedience to the royal will.— See Hist, and Fate of Sacrilege, p. 183. 

 Many in the House of Commons thought, naturally enough, that the for- 

 feited revenues, instead of being appropriated to the benefit of the Crown, 

 should revert to the representatives of the original founders. 



X Piers Plowman is one of the satirists who attacks the monks on that 

 score,—" of them, they have no pitie." 



