OF SELBORNE. 579 



the view of securing greater efficiency in the discharge 

 of the duties, and in order that he might have ready an 

 unsuspected witness respecting him, in the event of any 

 scandal or imputation being cast upon him by malice.] 



Item 29th. He here again, but with less earnestness, 

 forbids them foppish ornaments, and the affectation of 

 appearing like beaux with garments edged with costly 

 furs, with fringed gloves, and silken girdles trimmed 

 with gold and silver. It is remarkable that no punish- 

 ment is annexed to this injunction. 



[Item 30th. The bishop appears to have believed 

 in the vulgar adage that what is every body's business 

 is nobody's business; and probably attributed to this 

 cause much of the disorder that prevailed. He here 

 remarks, that as each office ought to be committed to a 

 special officer, he requires that to be done for the future: 

 such officers to be elected according to the custom of 

 the Priory. The penalty for disobedience in this case 

 is no less than excommunication.] 



Item 31st. He here singly and severally forbids each 

 canon not admitted to a cure of souls to administer 

 extreme unction, or the sacrament, to clergy or laity; 

 or to perform the service of matrimony, till he has taken 

 out the license of the parish priest. 



Item 32nd. The bishop says in this item that he 

 had observed and found, in his several visitations, that 

 the sacramental plate and cloths of the altar, surplices, 

 &c. were sometimes left in such an uncleanly and dis- 

 gusting condition as to make the beholders shudder with 

 horror; "quod aliquibus sunt horrori 12 ;" he therefore 



12 "Men abhorred the offering of the Lord." 1 Sam. chap. ii. v. 17. 

 Strange as this account may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when 

 first in orders, twice met with similar circumstances attending the sacra- 

 ment at two churches belonging to two obscure villages. In the first he 

 found the inside of the chalice covered with birds' dung ; and in the 

 other the communion-cloth soiled with cabbage and the greasy drippings 

 of a gammon of bacon. The good dame at the great farm-house, who 

 was to furnish the cloth, being a notable woman, thought it best to save 

 her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had covered her own table 

 for two or three Sundays before. 



