night, concealing myself, least any man should descry me in those suspected places, and betray me to the papists. Can any man imagine that I should come with the pope's consent, that made so serious a work against the pope? (too boldly I now confess) and that a work! of so many years' study and labour? or can any man say that I made that book but for a cloak of my other purposes, being a book so exact, and so full of authorities and arguments of all sorts? Therefore let no man think that I was of one mind when I came out of Italy, and of another now: for I keep one and the same mind still without any change; and continue in the same resolutions which I had at my first coming hither. Only I have much increased my knowledge about the differences of religion, and have attained to know many things be longing to controversed points of doctrine, which I never knew before. For I never found exactly on whom the schism lay till within these few months, after many disputations. I have also learned to know: how many things are absurdly objected by our papists against the protestants, from which they are most free: and I likewise perceived that the protestants also do reprehend many in the church of Rome, which might be easily either defended or excused, which were too long in this short treatise to write."

With the answers the archbishop enclosed several letters from Italy, which he had received on the subject of his departure. All which being presented to his majesty," says the Bishop of Durham, "he was not so satisfied but that he gave farther direction for certain other interrogatories to be offered unto the archbishop." The new interrogatories related chiefly to the intercourse which De Dominis was said to have had with the pope, and demanded of him whether the king had not always been ready to provide for his welfare. Many passages were also picked out of his works; and it was required to know whether he still remained of the same opinion. We shall extract De Dominis's account of the bounty he received at the hands of his majesty, and his motives for returning.

"If I knew that I should any way do (I will not say the least true wrong), but even the least shadow of wrong to his majesty, I would” wish rather to lose my life than to be injurious to so great and so good a prince. In the second year after my coming hither, I received from his majesty, in ecclesiastical revenues, not much abovedfour hundred pounds, of year's revenue: yet some that were not well willers unto me told his majesty that I had above a thousand pounds per annum, and this report grew current amongst courtiers; yet I thought it no little shame to me to become a daily and importunate suitor, and thereby to be observed and noted for an insatiable mand I know it is a saying that well fits God and the king, non amas et deseris, you leave me because you love me not; yet I take God to witness that I never dealt, either with the pope or any other prince, about any promotion or provision for me. There was an offer made to me of a rich church in general, but not of any one in particular:

neither did I give any ear to that offer. I never proceeded to contract for any, or to receive any certain notice of any. I never stood much upon preferment, nor pressed it far. Nay, during all this treaty and motion, I did never trouble my mind with any temporal respects. I desired security only above all things, that I might return home to my friends freely and safely, and lead my old age quietly amongst them, after I had now finished and set forth my advices for the public good: and withal, that I might hold up and settle my house, which in my own country is a family of great rank and account amongst noble families, and of great ancestry, and now is like to come to ruin, almost by reason of my absence especially. And lastly, that I may procure safety to my nephews and nieces, children of my brother lately slain by his enemies, who are left without mother, and without government, being now marriageable. I will add one thing further that I cannot but accuse myself of great stupidity, in that I conceive not how it can be anyways injurious to his majesty, if a foreigner, that is not his native subject, and hath not sold his liberty out-right (although he were even hired by his majesty with a set stipend, for some service to be performed about him) be enticed away from his service, either by love of his country, or by proffers of eightfold better entertainment with his own, or some other prince, so be it he humbly crave licence to depart, and go not to another prince before he procure to be dismissed with good leave. In which case, that I may use a fit example, shall an outlandish physician, that serveth his majesty, be censured to do an injury to his majesty, if (at some other prince's invitation of him, with promise of a much greater stipend), he shall ask his majesty's good leave to depart from him? What do captains every day? Do they not go from one prince to another, without infamy to themselves or injury to others, according as he may be preferred to higher offices and greater stipends? Wherefore I am not anyway guilty to myself of doing his majesty wrong herein, the doing whereof I would utterly abhor."

His majesty still was not satisfied. It was thought fit to require him " to express himself more fully in the point of schism." Dr. Goad was sent to visit him, and "to fall into speech concerning thereof." Dr. Goad made a report, but still the king was not satisfied: several more interrogatories were put to him, and he answered them by a letter to the Dean of Winchester. He was then applied to for an acknowledgment of the books he was the author of, in writing, and an attempt was made to get the original MS. of his work de Republica Ecclesiastica. Spalato, in his answer, simply states, that the MSS. he had printed remained with the printer, that they were nothing but confused and mangled schedules; and he acknowledged the book de Republica Ecclesiastica to be his work.

Here it appeared the king was wearied, and the Bishop of Durham lauds him for the "constant course held with this man to clear his majesty's honour and integrity, and to lay such a Versipelles in his true colours open to view." Others may

rationally maintain that his majesty's honour was not concerned, that it was unworthy of a king to carry on such an inquisition, and that it would have been a much worthier course to permit the man to go as he came.

The conclusion of the matter was this: Spalato was called before his majesty's commissioners, who held a court at Lambeth. By them he was admonished" of his evil carriage to"of wards his majesty, and ordered to quit the kingdom within twenty days, and never to return." In the " act sped at Lambeth," the whole proceedings are summarily repeated, and De Dominis's recognition required of the whole of them. He was told by the Archbishop of Canterbury that he had called the church of Rome Babylon; of which expression Spalato made an apologetical defence, saying, that the case was altered somewhat, that Gregory XV. was a very good man. The archbishop retorted, "belike Babylon has become Sion." He had then his dismission given him. "So," says the Bishop of Durham, "you have this his present scene and act, who put forth himself on the stage with great reputation, and is gone off with reproach."

De Dominis had in one of his own writings said, "things are brought to such a pass in these times, that ecclesiastical controversies are now no longer committed unto divines or counsellors; but are to be defended at Rome, or from Rome, by hangmen, and tormentors, and executioners, and bloody-minded men, and parricides." The poor archbishop proved the truth of his own words: he was committed to the castle of St. Angelo by Pope Urban, where he died in 1625, in his sixty-fourth year, the third year after he left this country, not without suspicion of poison. The last words of the Bishop of Durham's book are, may not he prove a true prophet, that in the beginning of this rumour of his intended return to Rome wrote thus of him and it. That either an halter, or fire, or poison will be the end. Now, Lord bless the man." He did prove a true prophet. Some time after his death, his bones were taken up, and burnt with his writings, by order of the inquisition.

66

It ought to be added to every notice of this unfortunate prelate, that, besides his theological writings, he was the author of a treatise on optics: "De radiis visus, et lucis in nitris perspectivis, et Iride Tractatus," in which we have the high authority of Sir Isaac Newton for saying were first explained, on just principles, the phænomena of the colour of the rainbow.

No work of man has changed its character and the aspect of its outward form, during the lapse of years, so frequently as cities, in their origin, their meridian, and decay,

In our own country, the increase of cities from small begin nings to their eventual prosperity, as having been patronized by church establishments, or enriched by commerce, have employed the industrious investigations of many a local antiquary, and with satisfaction to those who are content with their general history. There is no deficiency in the number of these topogra→ phical publications, which abound in evidence of past transac tions, dates of buildings, and accurate lists of civic functionaries; yet they frequently record insulated facts, disjoined from each other by a long interval of time.

Nor has the imagination been excluded from some instances, where, upon the foundation of matters of fact, a portrait of the domestic habits and character of our forefathers has been happily attempted from such documents. But we do not consider these fictions as of equal value with truth; and, under that impression, we, the more willingly present to our readers a view of BRISTOL, or rather Bristow, as it really and truly existed, as to its exterior form, its buildings, its churches and streets, with their principal inhabitants, at the close of the fifteenth century. Excluding therefore from our recollection and mind what had preceded in former, or has passed in subsequent ages, we shall confine ourselves to a descriptive panorama of that particular period. If from such a delineation our readers can walk about the old streets to survey buildings, some just then completed, and others the very sites of which are now barely known; and by a strong illusion seem to be present with the venerable aldermen in the reigns of Henry and Edward, they will be fain to participate in the interest which these subjects may create.

VOL. II.-PART III.

GG

It is necessary, in the first place, to advert to the sources of information from which the authenticity of this sketch will be derived. They are principally two: the actual survey made by William Wyrcestre, between the years 1470 and 1480, for the architectural and local description of the town; and extracts from the wills of several chief citizens in that day, for personal furniture, and their habits of living.

To the first mentioned an introduction is necessary; not that William Wyrcestre is unknown to antiquaries, though his private history and his literary pretensions have hitherto been partially examined. He was, in fact, one of the minor1 stars in the dark hemisphere of learning in the fifteenth century; but as an indefatigable transcriber, and topographical investigator, his active perseverance deserves exclusive praise.

Among numerous MSS. which he had selected and transcribed from others, and which are still extant, that which is original, containing topographical memoranda of Bristol, is under present consideration. It is preserved in the library of Benet College, Cambridge, and was published as the second part of the volume, by Dr. Nasmith, which contains the itinerary of Fitz-Simeon, noticed in our last number.

Full of repetitions and desultory notices, which he committed to paper at the time of their being made, merely to refresh his memory, Wyrcestre is yet, when unravelled, an interesting topographer. He is much more minute and copious than Leland, who succeeded him; and in that respect more valuable. It might not be a task of much difficulty to lay down a map from

His contemporary natives of Bristol were WILLIAM GROCYN, and JOHN PHREAS or FREE, vicar of Radcliffe, and originally a Carmelite friar in Bristol. They have the merit of having first introduced the study of the Greek language into England. Free, having received information from the Italian merchants trading to Bristol, that multitudes of strangers were crowding to their universities to acquire the learned languages, passed over to Ferrara, where he became a fellow student with Walter Grey (afterward Bishop of Ely), by whose patronage and assistance his studies were supported. He induced W. Grocyn, then fellow of New College, to pursue the same studies under Demetrius Chalcondylas, and other learned Greeks. His very elegant epigram on a girl having pelted him with snow is well known.

"Me nive candenti petiit mea Julia-rebar
Igne carere nivem, nix tamen ignis erat,
Sola potes nostras extinguere Julia flammas

Non nive, non glacie, at tu potes igne pari."

Wyrcestre contributed a MS. of Free to Baliol College library.

"Johannis Phræi

de Cosmographia ex dono venerabilis viri W. Wyrcester." See Warton's Hist, Poct. vol. ii. p. 423. Bale et Leland de Scriptor. Anglicis.

2 Ex cod. autographo autoris in Bibliotheca Coll. Corp. Christi Cantab.

N. 210. 1. Itinerarium W. W. de Bristolliâ.

2. W. W. de civitatibus, monasteriis, et abbatiis, deque longitudine et latitudine corum; rebusque memorabilibus.