it would be easier to make a new church somewhere else than to pull down the old one there.'

The abbot then goes on to other topics, and incidentally mentions that the funeral of the Black Prince is to be at Michaelmas. The letter is dated June 30.

The cardinal had passed away before these letters reached Avignon. As he sat in his chair after his morning meal, listening to the reading of the Scriptures or some devotional book,' he had a paralytic stroke and lost his power of speech. He lingered three or four days, and died on the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, July 22, 1376. The news would reach Westminster at the end of August. No time was to be lost: letters were obtained from the King, and Richard Merston, the prior, was despatched to Avignon. He arrived in the afternoon of Saturday, October 11, after a rapid journey from Bruges in fourteen days. The next day he saw the Cardinal of Pampilona, the principal executor, and got his leave to take all the personal property that was bequeathed to the Abbey. On account of the great perils of the way, it was decided to arrange with the merchants of Lucca to be responsible for all risks as far as Bruges. The books, vestments, and plate were all separately valued, and five per cent. was the cost of their insurance. Some of the plate was sold on the spot to meet necessary expenses. This we learn from a letter of the prior to the abbot on October 14. Some further particulars were written on November 6 by John Bokenhull. The goods were packed in twelve cases, and were to be delivered in Bruges within three months from October 17. He and the prior were about to start for Rome on further business of the convent. From this journey the prior never returned.

1

According to the directions of his will the cardinal

Appendix to Chronicon Angliae in Rolls Series, p. 399: 'Cardinalis Angliae, dum sedit in collatione sua post prandium, subito paralysi percussus loquelam omnino amisit.' Collatio is sometimes used of the refreshment which followed the evening reading in the monastery. But the interpretation given above is the more natural. Simon Langham died as a good Benedictine might wish.

was at first buried at Bonpas, near Avignon, in the new church which he had built for the Carthusians, and afterwards removed to the Abbey of Westminster. In the treasurers' roll for 1387-8, two years after abbot Litlyngton's death, we find payments entered for three monks coming from Oxford for the funeral of the cardinal, and the expenses connected with this reinterment are given as 967. 15s. 51d. Most of this large sum was doubtless spent on transit; his monument did not come till later. There remains an acquittance, dated November 26, 1394, from Henry Yevele and Stephen Lote, citizens and masons of London, for 20l., being part payment of a sum agreed on for making the tomb. Henry Yevele was the famous master-mason who was engaged upon the nave; and both he and Stephen Lote were employed in the following year to make the stonework of the tomb which King Richard II. was erecting for his late queen and himself.

The cardinal's tomb, which forms the north side of St. Benedict's Chapel, is surmounted by a beautiful effigy in alabaster. Above it was a canopy-Keepe says of stone, Dart says of wood. Whichever it may have been, it was much broken at the coronation of King George I., and it has since disappeared entirely. That others besides the monks revered his memory is shewn by the fact that a certain William de Reliquiis' caused to be made an image of St. Mary Magdalen '-on whose testival he had died' at the feet of the cardinal's tomb, for ten shillings: and Louis de Bretailx caused the same image to be repainted in the time of King Edward IV.'

The sum total of the cardinal's benefactions to the Abbey was reckoned at 10,800l. Of this more than 3000l. had been given in his lifetime. The inventory made at Avignon contains an interesting list, probably unique of its kind, of more than a hundred of his books, with the value assigned to each for the purpose of insurance. They were worth about 170l., though, strangely enough, Flete, who appears to depend on the same inventory, reckons them at 830l. 15s. 1od. His mitre alone was worth more than a hundred pounds-at least 1500l. of our money. In

the inventory taken for King Henry VIII. at the dissolution of the monastery it is thus described :

The best Myter of gold garnysshed with perleys and precious stonys, lackyng a floure and a stone therein and a lytle leaf of gold on the rybe thereof, and haveyng ij labels perteynyng to the same, garnysshyd with viij gret stonys and perles and viij pendant bells of gold.'

This corresponds with the description of the first of two mitres given by the cardinal in the inventory of 1388, which further tells us that it had in utraque summitate unum Saphirum.

It has often been asked, What was the source of the wealth which our cardinal bestowed with such wise generosity? It is generally thought that he must have inherited wealth from his father; but of this we have no indication, and, if we carefully examine the statements regarding his earlier benefactions, we are led to believe that he husbanded the abbot's resources and lived more frugally than his predecessors. In this way he was able to pay off large debts of the convent during his rule of twelve years. When he became Treasurer of England and afterwards Chancellor, he probably found himself the recipient of a considerable income. We may suppose, indeed, that his brief tenure of the archbishopric brought him more loss than gain. But the receipts of a cardinal for eight years at the Roman court might well enable him not only to build a church for the Carthusians, but also to leave seven or eight thousand pounds when his effects came to be realized. It was a time when riches easily followed greatness, and, if our cardinal was the prudent and abstinent man we have good reason for thinking him to have been, he may have been open handed for every good cause in his life, and worth 150,000l.' (as we might say to-day) at his death.

So we take leave of an able and good man-vir magni consilii et sapientiae, excellenter tenacis memoriae, et eloquentis facundiae, as Flete describes him. He was true to his Church and true to his King. He was a reformer who

could conciliate while he reformed. He was a princely benefactor who insisted on a splendid purpose in his generosity. He was the good servant of two good Popes, in an age when good Popes were uncommon and had few to serve them well. He died a year before his master the King, and two years before his master the Pope; and so he was spared the return to Rome, the terrors of the conclave which elected Urban VI., and perhaps the gruesome fate of the cardinals who afterwards endeavoured to curb his fury; he was spared the misery of the Great Schismfelix opportunitate mortis. If we have reckoned his virtues too highly or failed to discover their defects, the fault must lie chiefly with his contemporaries who were so deeply impressed with his worth. Those who have knowledge of the times in which he lived will appreciate the record of so nearly blameless a life.

J. ARMITAGE ROBINSON.

ART. V. THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE.

1. Synthetical Chemistry in its Relation to Biology. By Professor EMIL FISCHER, F.R.S. The 'Faraday Lecture' delivered before the Chemical Society of London. 'Chemical Society's Transactions' 1907, Vol. XCI. pp. 1749-1765.

2. Untersuchungen über Proteine. VON EMIL FISCHER. (Berlin J. Springer, 1906.)

3. Organic Chemistry for Medical Students. By Prof. G. von BUNGE. Translated by R. H. ADERS Plimmer. (London: Longmans, 1907.)

4. Two Oxford Physiologists, Richard Lower (1631-1691) and John Mayow (1643-1679). By F. GOTCH, F.R.S. (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1908.)

CHEMISTRY is a science which deals with the properties of matter. By analysis the chemist ascertains the nature of the substances which build up matter, and the manner in which they are united together. Matter, as a rule, is exceedingly complex, and analysis resolves it into simpler

materials. When the chemist reaches substances which he can no longer split up into anything simpler, he labels them elements; and about fifty elements are now known to science. Of these oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, and the metals are the most familiar. By combinations and permutations of two or more of these elements, all the varied substances which make up the material portion of the universe are compounded. It was one of the old dreams of the alchemists to discover the single element out of which all matter is ultimately composed. Modern chemistry appears to be on the eve of discovering that this idea was not a mere dream; but as the theories which prevail on this aspect of transcendental chemistry are in an extremely nebulous condition owing to the paucity of ascertained facts, it is a portion of the subject which it is not proposed to treat in this article. The doctrine which at present underlies the teachings of chemistry considered from a more practical point of view is that which is called the atomic theory: that is to say, each element is regarded as composed of infinitesimally small particles which cannot be further subdivided, and these are called atoms; each atom has definite properties and a constant weight which varies with each individual element; an atom * of oxygen, for instance, weighs sixteen times as much as an atom of hydrogen. Substances which are composed of more than one element are spoken of as compounds, and compounds are also made up of extremely small particles, which are termed molecules. The molecules in their turn are built of atoms; thus common salt is technically called sodium chloride, each of its molecules consisting of an atom of the metal sodium united to an atom of chlorine; water is composed of molecules, each containing an atom of oxygen linked to two atoms of hydrogen; carbonic-acid gas similarly contains in each of its molecules one atom of carbon and two of oxygen; and ammonia molecules contain one atom of nitrogen bound to three of hydrogen.

A chemist, however, is not a mere iconoclast taking matter to pieces and examining its ruins. The complementary operation to analysis is synthesis: that is, the building together once again of the elements into compounds. Know