177 



SOME REMARKS ON THE DISSOLUTION OF THE 

 MONASTERIES. 



Bishop Burnett in his phillipic against the Monasteries, as the 

 nestling places of indolence, sensuality and irreligion,* — in short, as 

 stained with every vice, — has rather overshot the mark. His sweep- 

 ing accusations in this respect must be taken with certain limita- 

 tions. In the first place he forgets the well authenticated fact, how, 

 by their sudden abolition, towns and provinces were converted into 

 nurseries of ignorance. If our historian had been less exempt upon 

 this subject from prejudices — we might write passions — he would 

 have acknowledged that another evil consequence of the monastic 

 revolution was the check given to the intellectual progress of the 

 country by the destruction of many a valuable library. Had not, 

 indeed, these old catholic establishments been as odious to him as 

 the leprosy, he would have been constrained by the mastery of truth 

 and candour to admit that even the rarities of intellect were con- 

 signed to the flames, solely because they were found in popish re- 

 positories. It was enough that they should be brought out to the 

 market place and there burnt, " if guilty of no other superstition 

 but red letters in their fronts or titles." We may judge of the ex- 

 tent to which this vandalic war was waged against literature, from 

 this single statement of Collier. " Another misfortune," says he, 

 " consequent upon the suppression of the abbeys was an ignorant 

 destruction of a great many valuable books. The books instead of 

 being removed to royal libraries, to those of cathedrals, or the 

 universities, were frequently thrown to the grantees as things of 

 slender consideration. Their avarice was sometimes so mean, and 

 their ignorance so undistinguishing, that when the covers were 

 somewhat rich and would yield a little, they pulled them off, threw 

 away the books, or turned them to waste paper." 



Leland, it is true, succeeded in some measure in stopping this 

 literary devastation by receiving a commission from Henry which 

 fully impowered him to preserve a vast number of records and ma- 

 nuscripts. But how inefficient after all was the protection by the 

 king of these learned treasures, notwithstanding " his solely sove- 

 reign sway," may be collected from the following indignant evi- 

 dence of Bale, afterwards Bishop of Ossory. " I know," proceeds 



* See Hint, of the Reformation, vol. i., p. 290, 3G4. 



VOL. V. NO. XVIII. Z 



