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The conduct of the religious had now for some time been 

 generally bad. Many of the monastic societies, being very 

 opulent, were become voluptuous and licentious, and had 

 deviated entirely from their original institutions. The laity 

 saw with indignation the wealth and possessions of their pious 

 ancestors perverted to the service of sensuality and indul- 

 gence, and spent in gratifications highly unbecoming the 

 purposes for which they were given. A total disregard to 

 their respective rules and discipline drew on the monks and 

 canons a heavy load of popular odium. Some good men 

 there were who endeavored to oppose the general delin- 

 quency ; but their efforts were too feeble to stem the torrent 

 of monastic luxury. As far back as the year 1381, Wyclif's 

 principles and doctrines had made some progress, were well 

 received by men who wished for a reformation, and were 

 defended and maintained by them as long as they dared, till 

 the bishops and clergy began to be so greatly alarmed, that 

 they procured an act to be passed by which the secular arm 

 was empowered to support the corrupt doctrines of the 

 Church; but the first Lollard was not burnt until the year 

 1401. 



The wits also of those times did not spare the gross morals 

 of the clergy, but boldly ridiculed their ignorance and prof- 

 ligacy. The most remarkable of these were Chaucer, and 

 his contemporary Robert Langelande, better known by the 

 name of Piers Plowman. The laughable tales of the former 

 are familiar to almost every reader ; while the visions of the 

 latter are but in few hands. With a quotation from the 

 " Passus Decimus "of this writer I shall conclude my letter ; 

 not only on account of the remarkable prediction therein 

 contained, which carries with it somewhat of the air of a 

 prophecy, but also as it seems to have been a striking picture 

 of monastic insolence and dissipation, and a specimen of one 

 of the keenest pieces of satire now perhaps subsisting in any 

 language, ancient or modern. 



11 Now is religion a rider, a romer by streate ; 

 A leader of love-days, and a loud beggar ; 

 A pricker on a palfrey from maner to maner, 

 A heape of hounds at his arse, as he a lord were. 



