46 Malmesbury Abbey in its Best Bays. 



compulsory, levied much alter the fashion of the courteous highway- 

 man who says, with dubious playfulness, I shall be obliged to you to 

 hand out your money : for if you don't I shall be obliged — to make 

 you. The monasteries were sure game, so much so, that after King 

 Henry had dissolved them, the Emperor Charles, when he heard of 

 the fate of the abbies and into what channel the revenues were 

 turned, is reported to have said, that "the King had killed the hen 

 that laid the golden eggs." 



2. In another respect, the monasteries were, in earlier days, of 

 considerable public utility. Just as at the present time, in many 

 parts of the East, there are no inns to be found, but travellers, 

 especially of a better class, are received and lodged in the mon- 

 asteries, so used it to be in England. Travelling then was 

 travelling indeed ; great folks went on horseback with a numerous 

 suite, and when such visitors wanted to stop for the night, they 

 were safe to find at the abbey " good accommodation for man and 

 beast/'' Even the famous Cardinal, the very man who was among 

 the first to lay hands on the smaller monasteries, was glad enough 

 when he drew towards his end, to take shelter in a large one : — 



" At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester ; 

 Lodged in the abbey ; where the reverend abbot 

 With all his convent, honourably receiv'd him." * 



There were, in fact, in all the large monasteries, rooms set apart 

 for the reception of strangers, and a regular officer of the establish- 

 ment whose duty it was to attend to them. 



3. Again ; the monasteries had schools : not of course for all the 

 children in a parish, that which is now called education not being 

 then in vogue ; but instruction was certainly given to the young : 

 and in some of the largest, young people of the very highest class 

 were received as boarders. A Mr. Lloyd, a learned antiquary in 

 Wales, two hundred years ago, wrote thus : " Before the Reforma- 

 tion every man almost of any fashion, could speak Latin; they 

 learned it at the monasteries where they were obliged to speak it." 



* Shakspeare, Hen. VIII., Act IV. 



