Anniversary Address. 9 



get hold of it, it would only tend to assure him what an 

 excoedingly august body the Corporation of B(,'rwiek is. 

 The end of lus preface is worth quoting, if only to show that 

 the proceedings of Corporate bodies in those days were no 

 less open to criticism than some of them, and I may say 

 higher assemblies also, are now. He says " I wish that the 

 reading of these may conduce to the public good, and be a 

 means to compose the rude multitude of young burgesses, 

 who are strangers to these old practices, and so from con- 

 sideration of their proceedings to reduce them to more 

 sobriety, and to follow their footsteps in their convocations 

 and assemblies together ; for I must say it (though with 

 great unwillingness) that the burgesses, by ignorance of the 

 way that they should proceed in Guilds, do observe no order 

 or method at all, but all do speak and talk at once, and do 

 more i-esemble a stage play than anything else, and these do 

 cast reflections upon each other, contrary to ancient rules 

 and orders, as you will afterwards perceive ; and they meet 

 and talk and dispute of things at Guilds, and will have this 

 and the other ordered, and do nothing to purpose, and when 

 they are once departed out of the Guild, the things that they 

 have been about are never spoken of till the next Guild 

 again. Such rudeness made that wise man, Mr Webb, say 

 in Guild, ' Gentlemen, I would motion but this one thing, 

 and that is, make but an order that no order at all shall be 

 observed; and I durst engage that it will be better obeyed 

 than any other order you make.' " He goes on to compare 

 the giave and methodical way in which the Guilds used to 

 be held, and begs the rude multitude of young burgesses to 

 take better example from their predecessors. That the 

 Guild was anxious to guard against, and if necessary, 

 punish disorderly conduct in their proceedings, is evident 

 from the various orders they passed on the subject. We 

 find the very first order extracted is one made in 1506, that 

 " whosoever of the burgesses misuses or misbeliaveth himself 

 towards the Mayor or Aldermen, either in Guild or out of 

 Guild, shall for the first fault pay Gs 8d, for the second 

 l*3s 4d, and for the third offence be disfranchised, sans re- 



