24 



COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



story of the immortal Vicar. Perhaps at his children's 

 request, he sang them a song, or perchance a ballad, 

 according to prescription, though I am not quite sure 

 whether one was extant at the time — probably it wasn't. 

 At any rate, the Vicar alone would make a subject for 

 an afternoon drive. There are few characters in English 

 history that I admire more than the soft-hearted Simon 



Aleyn. This genial 

 churchman had 

 seen some martyrs 

 burnt ; he thought 

 the game was not 

 worth the candle, 

 and at the same 

 time discovered in 

 himself no particu- 

 lar penchant for 

 martyrdom. The 

 result was that he 

 was a papist in 

 Henry the Eighth's 

 time, a Protestant 

 in Edward the 

 Sixth's time, a 

 papist in Mary's, 

 and in Elizabeth's a 

 Protestant again. I 

 cannot sufficiently 

 admire the genial 

 adroitness of this 

 bending to circum- 

 stance, or weary of considering what seas of precious 

 blood might have been saved to England if Simon 

 Aleyn's contemporaries could have added a leaven of 

 his circumspection to the fury of their faith. But I do 

 not think that his contemporaries thought very highly 

 of poor Simon — though from all I can read, he made as 

 good a vicar as many of them, and a better one than 





The Jack of Newbury. 



