no care, and who were like the reft of England's fons-merry. From the earliest of our national ballads, to the latest jovial fong, "I am a Friar of Orders Grey," unbroken teftimony is borne to the merry life and substantial cheer of the inmates of Bolton and other abbeys. The eafy life, and exceedingly "well-to-do" condition of the merry abbot of Canterbury, forms the fubject of one humorous old ballad: I'll tell you a story-a story so merry, An hundred men, the king did hear say, How now! Father Abbot, I hear it of thee, My liege, quoth the abbot, I would it were known, I never spend nothing but what is my own; Yes, yes,-quoth he,-Abbot, thy fault is high, At first, quo' the king,-when I'm in this stead, Among all my liegemen of noble birth, Thou must tell me, to one penny, what I am worth. Secondly, tell me, without any doubt, How soon I may ride the world about; And at the third question thou must not shrink, But tell me here truly, what I do think. O, these are hard questions for my shallow wit, I'll do my endeavour to answer your grace. And our fathers loved to hear how the great abbot, forely diftreffed to answer these queries, was affifted out of his difficulty by his poor fhepherd, who, personating the abbot, appeared before the king, and having answered two of the questions, was told by his majesty, Now from the third question thou must not shrink, And the merry answer was, Yea that shall I do, and make your grace merry; But I'm his poor shepherd, as plain you may see, And "the merry King John," as the story goes, wanted to make the fhepherd a "lord abbot;" but as the witty fellow could neither read nor write, the monarch rewarded the merry jeft with a penfion of "four nobles a week," and a pardon for the old abbot. The good things of this life were not only enjoyed by the jovial churchmen at Canterbury and elsewhere, but prelates and abbots loved to engage in manly sports and pastimes; and it is probable that Chaucer was not far wrong in his estimate of their qualifications, when he hints on more than one occafion that they were more skilled in riding and hunting than in divinity. The Archdeacon of Richmond, we are told, on his initiation to the priory of Bridlington, in Yorkshire, in 1216, came attended by ninety-seven horses, twenty-one dogs, and three hawks. In 1256, Walter de Suffield, Bishop of Norwich, bequeathed by will his pack of hounds to the king; whilft the abbot of Tavistock, who had also a pack, was commanded by his bishop in 1348 to break it up. A famous hunter, contemporary with Chaucer, was William de Clowne, abbot of Leicester, who died in 1377. His reputation for skill in the sport of hare-hunting was fo great, that the king himself, his fon Edward, and certain noblemen, paid him an annual penfion that they might hunt with him. Peace to their afhes! Those fine old abbeys, and rare old monks, we shall never look upon the like again! LORIOUS were the barons of England! they live in fong and ftory, and their heroic deeds are recorded on the brightest pages of our hiftory! They were bold men, and from their caftle homes they defied the tyranny which fought to enslave a brave people; or, iffuing from their fortreffes, they upheld in the battle-field the honour of their country; but when the stern demands of war, or the promptings of chivalrous ardour, did not summon them to the tented plain, their lordly caftles were the fcene of feftive mirth, and profufe hofpitality, rude perhaps in display, but genuine, high-fouled, and hearty in their character. In foreign lands, as on England's foil, the barons of England won victory from powerful hands : Witness the field of Cressy, on that day When volleying thunders roll'd unheard on high, Broken, confused, and scatter'd in dismay, France had ears only for the conqueror's cry, "St. George, St. George for England! St. George and victory!" Bear witness, Poictiers! where again the foe And many a hopeful heart in onset brave; Their courage in the shock of battle quail'd, Bear witness, Agincourt, where once again "St. George, St. George for England! St. George and victory!" Pleasant indeed are the feelings with which, when travelling over the plains and valleys of our dear old England, we see amid the charming varieties of English landscape some noble tower and battlements "bofom'd high in tufted trees." They are the picturesque ruins of the old caftles of the barons-there was a time when there were eleven hundred of these homes of feudal lords in England. Those crumbling walls are the filent chroniclers of bygone years: R |