240 



ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



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,* 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" 



IRON KEY OF ANCIENT CONSTRUCTION. 



STEEL HINGE WITH GRIFFIN ON IT. 



LETTEB XVIII. 



WILLIAM of Waynflete became bishop of Winchester in the year 1447, 

 and seems to have pursued the generous plan of Wykeham in endeavour- 

 ing to reform the priory of Selborne. 



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. 



* F. 1. 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 hi MSS. of this poem, older than the year 1400." fol. 1. a. b. 



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

 sup pressed, he says 



" Menofholiekirk 



Shall turn as Templars did ; the tyme approacheth nere. " 



" This I suppose, was a favourite doctrine in Wickliffe's discourses." WARTON'S 

 Hist, of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 282. 



