288 THE ANTIQUITIES 



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. 



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

 " A leader of love-days, and a loud begger ; 

 " A pricker on a palfrey from maner to maner, 

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

 " And but if his knave kneel, that shall his cope bring, 

 " He loureth at him, and asketh him who taught him curtesie. 

 " Little had lords to done, to give lands from her heirs, 

 " To religious that have no ruth if it rain on her altars. 

 " In many places ther they persons be, by himself at ease : 

 " Of the poor have they no pity, and that is her charitie ; 

 " And they letten hem as lords, her lands lie so broad. 

 " And there shal come a king, 1 and confess you religious ; 

 " And beate you, as the bible telleth, for breaking your rule, 

 " And amend monials, and monks, and chanons, 

 " And put hem to her penaunce ad pristinum statum ire." 



LETTER XVIII. 



WILLIAM of Waynflete became bishop of Winchester in the year 

 1447, and seems to have pursued the generous plan of Wykeham 

 in endeavouring to reform the Priory of Selbome. 



When Waynflete came to the see he found prior Stype, alias 

 Stepe, still living, who had been elected as long ago as the year 

 1411. 



Among my documents I find a curious paper of the things put 

 into the custody of Peter Bernes the sacrist, and especially some 

 relics : the title of this evidence is " N 50, Indentura prioris de 

 " Selborne quorundam tradit. Petro Bernes sacristae, ibidem, ann. 



1 F. i. a. "This prediction, although a probable conclusion concerning a king 

 " who after a time would suppress the religious houses, is remarkable. I imagined 

 " it might have been foisted into the copies in the reign of king Henry VIII. but it 

 " is to be found in MSS. of this poem, older than the year 1400." fol. 1. a. b. 



"Again, where he, Piers Plowman, alludes to the Knights Templars, lately 

 suppressed, he says, 



" Men of holie kirk 



1 ' Shall turn as Templars did ; the tyme approacheth nere. ' ' 

 " This, I suppose, was a favourite doctrine in Wickliffe"^ discourses." 



Warton's Hist, of English Poetry, Vol. I. p. 282. 



