III.] POOR MAN'S FRIEND. 51 



he had, in addition, been told, that, even in the midst 

 of all this suffering, we should still have the ingrati- 

 tude and the baseness to cry " No Popery," and the 

 injustice and the cruelty to persecute those English- 

 men and Irishmen, who adhered to the faith of their 

 pious, moral, brave, free and happy fathers, he would 

 have said, " God's will be done : let them suffer." 

 But, it may be said, that it was not, then, the Cath- 

 olic Church, but the Laws, that made the English so 

 happy ; for, the French had that Church as well as 

 the English. Aye! But, in England, the Church 

 was the very basis of the laws. The very first clause 

 of MAGNA CHARTA provided for the stability of its 

 property and rights. ..4 provision for the indigent, an 

 effectual provision, was made by the laws that related 

 to the Church and its property; and this was not the 

 case in France ; and never was the case in any coun- 

 try but this : so that the English people lost more by 

 a " Reformation" than any other people could have 

 lost. Fortescue's authority would, of itself, be enough; 

 but, I am not to stop with it. WHITE, the late Rector 

 of SELBOURNE, in Hampshire, gives, in his History 

 of that once-famous village, an extract from a record, 

 stating that for disorderly conduct, men were pun- 

 ished by being "compelled to fast a fortnight on bread 

 and beer!" This was about the year 1380, in the 

 rei^n of RICHARD II. Oh ! miserable " dark ages!" 

 This fact must be true. WHITE had no purpose to 

 answer. His mention of the fact, or rather his tran- 

 script from the record, is purely incidental; and 

 trifling as the fact is, it is conclusive as to the gen- 

 eral mode of living in those happy days. Go, tell the 

 harnessed gravel-drawers, in Hampshire, to cry " No 

 Popery;" for, that, if the Pope be not put down, he 

 may, in time, compel them to fast on bread and beer, 

 instead of suffering them to continue to regale them- 

 selves on nice potatoes and pure water. But, let us 

 come to Acts of Parliament, and, first, to the Act 

 above mentioned of King EDWARD III. That Act 

 fixes the price of meat. After naming the four sorts 

 of meat, beef, pork, mutton^ and veal, the preamble 

 18* 



