kins, "such abuses had crept into the choral service, which had departed from its primitive simplicity and dignity, that not only the council of Trent passed a decree against curious and artificial singing, but the thirty-two commissioners in the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, expressed their disapprobation of it in very strong terms. Queen Mary, who loved musick, and played on several instruments, laboured to support it, and in her reign the formulary In Usum Sarum was republished. At the accession of Elizabeth to the crown, the clergy were divided in their opinions about the use of church musick. The first statutes of uniformity seemed to consider it as a thing indifferent; but the queen by her injunctions made it a part of cathedral worship."

On the fourth charge, respecting Tithes, William denied having preached against them-but it plainly appears that both he and Wickliffe thought the priest had no claim to them, except as voluntary alms from the people. Respecting swearing also he denied that he had preached, but alledged that no man should swear unless obliged, and then he should swear by God, and not by any creature; and he still refused to lay his hand on a book in token of oath, because it was "all one to touch a book, and to swear by a book."

Of the next accusation the prisoner had to answer, he says, "The clerk asked me-why on Friday that last was, counselledst thou a man of my, lord's that he should not shrive him to no man, but only to God. And with this asking I was abashed. And then by and by I knew that I was subtilly betrayed of a man that came to me in prison on the Friday before, communing with me in this matter of confession. And certain by his words I thought that this man came to me of full fervent and charitable will; but now I know that he came to tempt me and to accuse me; God forgive him if it be his will.”

Much more accusation and argument ensued-the prelate gained nothing upon the firmness of the prisoner, who seemed rather to grow bolder as he proceeded,

"Then a clerk said to the archbishop, Sir, it is far days, and ye have far to ride to-night; therefore make an end with him, for he will none make: but the more, Sir, that ye busy you for to draw him toward you, the more contumacious he is made and the further from you." And then Malveren said to me, "William, kneel down and pray my lord of grace, and leave all thy fantasies, and become a child of holy church." And I said, "Sir, I have prayed the archbishop oft, and yet I pray him for the love of Christ, that he will leave his indignation that he hath against me; and that he will suffer me after my cunning and power, for to do mine office of priesthood, as I am charged of God to do it. For I covet nought else but to serve my God to his pleasing in the state that I stand in, and have taken me to." Another Another very full exposition of scriptural doctrine here ensued, to which the prelate assented, but still required that he should submit to the ordinances of church without reserves, while Thorpe continued to stand upon his own explanations.

"Then Malveren and another clerk came nearer me, and they spake to me many words full pleasantly: and another while they menaced me, and counseled full busily to submit me, or else they said, I should not escape punishing over measure: for they said I should be degraded, cursed, and burned, and so then damned." All was vain to move the heretic to recantation-the prelate lost all patience and swore, saying, "Thou shalt go thither where Nicolas Hertford and Thomas Purvey were harbored. And I undertake, or this day eight days, thou shalt be right glad for to do what thing that ever I bid thee to do. And, Losell, I shall essay if I can make thee there as sorrowful as it was told me thou wast glad of my last going out of England. By St. Thomas, I shall turn thy joy into sorrow. And I said; Sir, there can nobody prove lawfully that I joyed ever of the manner of your going out of this land. But Sir, to say the truth, I was glad when you were gone: for the bishop of London, in whose prison ye left me, found

in me no cause for to hold me longer in his prison, but at the request of my friends, he delivered me to them, asking of me no manner of submitting." By this it appears that this was not William's first imprisonment. "Then the archbishop answered, Wherefore that I yede out of England, is unknown to thee; but be this thing well known to thee, that God, as I wot well, hath called me again, and brought me into this land, for to destroy thee and the false sect that thou art of: as by God, I shall pursue you so narrowly, that I shall not leave a slip of you in this land." "And I said to the archbishop, Sir, the holy prophet Jeremy said to the false prophet Anany, When the word, that is, the prophesy of a prophet is known or fulfilled, then it shall be known that the Lord sent the prophet in truth."

After some farther parley, and the summoning of the constable and others, William concludes, "And then I was rebuked, scorned, and menaced on every side: and yet after this, divers persons cried upon me to kneel down and submit me; but I stood still, and spake no word: And then there were spoken of me, and to me, many great words, and I stood and heard them menace, curse, and scorn me; but I said nothing. Then awhile after, the archbishop said to me, Wilt thou not submit thee to the ordinance of holy church? And I said, Sir, I will full gladly submit me so as I have shewed you before. And then he bade the constable to have me forth thence in haste. And so then I was led forth, and brought into a foul, unhonest prison, where I came never before. But thanked be God, when all men were gone forth then from me, and had sparred fast the prison door after them, by and by after, I therein, by myself, busied me to think on God, and to thank him for his goodness. And I was then greatly comforted in all my wits, not. only for that I was then delivered from the sight, from the hearing, from the presence, from the scorning, and from the menacing of mine enemies; but much more I rejoiced in the Lord, because that through his grace he

kept me so, both among the flattery specially, and among the menacing of my enemies, that without heaviness and anguish of my conscience, I passed away from them. For as a tree laid upon another tree overthwart or cross-wise, so was the archbishop and his three clerks always contrary to me, and I to them. Now, good God, for thine holy name, make us one together, if it be thy will, (by authority of thy word that is true and perfect charity), and else not. And that it may thus be, all that this writing read or hear, pray heartily to the Lord God, that he for his great goodness that cannot be with tongue expressed, grant to us, and to all other which in the same wise, and for the same cause specially, or for any other cause be at distance, to be knit and made one in true faith, in stedfast hope, and in perfect charity. Amen."

To this beautiful account of himself, written most probably at the commencement of this imprisonment, William Thorpe's early biographer adds, "What was the end of this good man and blessed servant of God, William Thorpe, I find as yet in no story specified. By all conjectures, it is to be thought, that the archbishop Thomas Arundel, being so hard an adversary against those men, would not let him go. Much less it is to be supposed, that he would ever retract his sentence and opinion, which he so valiantly maintained before the bishop: neither doth it seem that he had any such recanting spirit. Again, neither is it found that he was burned. Wherefore it remaineth most likely to be true, that he being committed to some strait prison, according as the archbishop in his examination before did threaten him, there, as Thorpe confesseth himself, was so straitly kept, that either he was secretly made away, or else there he died by sickness.

156

CONVERSATIONS ON GEOLOGY.

CONVERSATION XV.

Coal-Vegetable Fossils.

MRS. L.-To resume the subject of Coal. You asked me respecting the sort of vegetables of which the Coal has been formed. This of course can only be conjectured by the organic remains still subsisting among it in their original form of vegetables. "Their examination of the various fossil vegetables which accompany the Coal, has determined that they belong to the grasses, reeds, the cryptogamous, and the succulent plants, and point out the kind of vegetables which most abound, and perhaps to the exclusion of trees and arborescent plants, at that period when the land first escaped from the dominion of the waters. It is true that an exact agreement between the forms and markings of these fossil remains, and those of the succulent plants which are offered to our observation in the present day, is not observable; but it should be considered that analogy will not authorise the expectation of an exact agreement, since it is very rarely to be found between the fossil remains and the animals now existing, owing to 'the extinction of whole tribes from which those fossil remains have proceeded. Besides, considerable differences must result from the greater size observable in the fossil vegetables, especially in those of the succulent tribe, and which may be corroborated by observing how much the succulent plants of Italy differ in size and form from those of South America, and of other regions in the warmer climes."

MAT. Have no trees, then, been found amongst these beds?

MRS. L.-It rather appears not-for though reports of such discoveries have been made, it has not appeared