violence of party, may have preferred against this prelate in his life, impartial posterity has regarded him with the highest admiration; almost superior to the age in which he lived, he possessed all the noble qualities that distinguished it, and seems to have been exempt from its defects.

TILLOTSON.

It appears, from the series of portraits preserved in the great dining room at Lambeth palace, that Archbishop Tillotson was the first to wear a wig which however, resembled his natural hair, and was worn without powder. It has been said of Dr. Barrow that he wrote longer sermons than any man of his time; of Archbishop Tillotson, it may be said that he wrote a greater number. The latter was appointed Clerk of the closet to king William, in 1689, and afterwards dean of St. Pauls. There is a curious letter of his, to Lady Russell, in which he says "After I had kissed the king's hand for "the deanery of St. Pauls, I gave his majesty

my most humble thanks, and told him, that 66 now he had set me at ease for the remainder "of my life. He replied, 'no such matter, I

assure you,' and spoke plainly about a great

place, which I dread to think of, and said it

was necessary for his service, and he must

"charge it on my conscience. Just as he said "this, he was called to supper, and I had only "time to say that when his majesty was at lei“sure, I did believe I could satisfy him that it would be most for his service that I should continue in the station in which he had now

placed me. This hath brought me into a real "difficulty. For on the one hand it is hard to "decline his majesty's commands, and much "harder yet to stand out against so much good

ness as his majesty is pleased to hold towards "me. This I owe to the bishop of Salisbury, "one of the best and worst friends I know: best "for his singular good opinion of me, and the "worst for desiring the king to this method, "which I knew he did; as if I and his lordship

had concerted the matter, how to finish this "foolish piece of dissimulation in running away "from a bishopric to catch an archbishopric." He was nominated to the see of Canterbury, April 15, 1691.

RICHARD KEDERMINSTER,

This amiable aud learned man was the last abbot but one, who presided over the monastery of Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire, to which office he was elected in 1488. His wise government, and the protection he afforded to virtue

and literature, rendered this society so flourishing, that it was equal to a little university. In the year 1500, he travelled to Rome, and became afterwards a celebrated preacher. On the privileges of the clergy being attacked in 1515 he preached a remarkable sermon to prove that it was against the law of God, who, by his prophet David, says, "touch not mine anointed, "and do my prophets no harm." He wrote a valuable history of the foundation of his monastery, and another of the lives of the abbots, beginning with Germanus, in the seventh year of king Edgar, A. D. 988, and continued it to his own times. These important documents, after the dissolution of religious houses, fell into the hands of Judge Moreton, and were consumed by the fire of London, at his house in Serjeant's Inn. A fair copy of them is however, said to have been in the possession of bishop Fell about 1630. It is possible that this may have been preserved, and it would he highly gratifying to know where records so valuable are deposited. Pennant mentions several other registers of this house, which probably exist to this day. Richard Kederminster beautified the abbey church, and inclosed it with a wall towards the town, and there he was buried in 1531.

LETTER OF ARCHBISHOP

CHICHELE TO

HENRY THE FIFTH.

Mss. Cotton. vesp. f. xiii. fol. 29. Ellis's Letters, vol. 1. From this letter it will appear that the piety of Henry the Fifth was scarcely less ardent than his love of war. Two circumstances noticed in it, the siege of Falaise, and the death of the King's confessor, fix its date to the beginning of the year 1418.

The Confessor, says Mr. Ellis, was Stephen Patrington, a Carmelite, whom Walsingham calls, "vir eruditus in trivio et quadrivio." He became bishop of St. David's in 1415. In December 1417 he was appointed to the see of Chichester, but died before his translation could be perfected and Mr. Ellis adds that, some of the Sermons which he preached before the King in the quality of confessor, are still extant in manuscript.

Sovereyn Lord, after moost humble recom "mendacion with hele bothe of body and of "sowle, as zour selfe and alle zour liege men de"sire, lyke zow to wyte that the firsts Soneday "of Lenton the dwk of Excester zour huncle sent "for me to the Frer Prechours, wer I fond with "him zour preest and bedeman Thomas Fysh

1

"born, and ther he tok to me zour Lettre wry"ten with zour owne hond in zour hoost be fore

66

zour town of Faleys, be the wich I undirstood, "as I have at alle tymes, blessed be Almyzty "God, understonde, that a mong alle zour moost "wordly occupacions that any Prince may have "in herthe, ze desire principaly vertuous lyvyng "and zour sowle heele; and for as myche as my brother of Seint David as was zour confes

sour is in his best tyme go to God, ze desire "that I shold be the avys of your uncle a forseyd "send zou in his stede a gode man and a clerk "of divinite to occupie that offis til zour comyng "into zour lond of ynglond. And whan I hadde "red zour honurable letter zour uncle a forseyd "seyd to me that he hadde communyd with Sir "Thomas Fyschborn a forseyd be zour comaun"dement of this same matier, and whow it "semed to hym, if it lyked me, that Thomas "Dyss a frer prechour, mayster of divinite of the 'scole of Caumbrygge, wer a good man and a "sufficient ther to, and whow thei hadde com"munid with him ther offe and al so with frere "John Tylle the provincial of the same ordre "ther offe; and considereng his good name and "fame as wel in good and honest lyvyng as in "clergie, l'assentyd in to the same persone, and so communed with himther offe, and toold