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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."

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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 spposed, 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.

66

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

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