If thou art a PRIEST, and especially a curate, live thou holily, surpassing other men in holy prayer, desire, and thinking, in holy speaking, counselling, and true teaching. And that God's commands, his gospel, and virtues, be ever in thy mouth; and ever despise sin to draw men. therefrom; and that thy deeds be so rightful that no man shall blame them with reason, but that thy open deeds be a true book to all subjects and unlearned men, to serve God and do his commands thereby. For example of good life, open and lasting, more stirreth rude men than true preaching by word only. And waste not thy goods in great feasts of rich men, but live a humble life, of poor men's alms and goods, both in meat, and drink, and clothes, and the remainder give truly to poor men that have not of their own, and may not labour for feebleness or sickness, and thus thou shalt be a true priest both to God and man.

If thou art a LORD, look that thou live a rightful life in thine own person, both in respect to God and man, keeping the commands of God, doing the works of mercy, ruling well thy five senses, and doing reason and equity, and good conscience to all men. In the second place, govern well thy wife, thy children, and thy household attendants in God's law, and suffer no sin among them, neither in word nor in deed, that they may be examples of holiness and righteousness to all others; for thou shalt be condemned for their evil life and their evil example, unless thou amend it according to thy might. In the third place, govern well thy tenants, and maintain them in right and reason, and be merciful to them in their rents and worldly mercements, and suffer not thine officers to do them wrong nor be extortionate to them. And chastise in good manner them that are rebels against God's commands and virtuous life, more than for rebellion against thine own

cause; or else for that thou lovest more thine own cause than God's, and thyself more than God Almighty, thou wert then a false traitor to God. And love, reward, praise, and cherish the true and virtuous of life more than if thou sought only thine own profit. And reverence and maintain truly, according to thy skill and might, God's law and true preachers thereof, and God's servants, in rest and peace. For thereby thou holdest the lordship of God, and if thou failest of this thou misdoest against God, and all thy lordship, in body and in soul. And principally if thou maintainest antichrist's disciples in their errors against Christ's life and his teaching, for blindness, covetousness, and worldly friendship; and helpest to slander and pursue true men that teach Christ's gospel and his life, and warn the people of their great sins, and of false prophets and hypocrites that deceive Christian men in faith, virtuous life, and worldly goods.

If thou art a LABOURER, live in meekness, and truly and willingly do thy labour, that thy lord or thy master if he be a heathen man, by thy meekness, willing and true service, may not have to grudge against thee, nor slander thy God, nor thy Christian profession; but rather be stirred to come to Christianity. And serve not Christian lords with grudgings; not only in their presence, but truly and willingly, and in absence. Not only for worldly dread, or worldly reward, but for dread of God and conscience, and for reward in heaven. For God that putteth thee in such service knoweth what state is best for thee, and will reward thee more than all earthly lords may, if thou dost it truly and willingly for his ordinance. And in all things beware of grudging against God and his visitation, in great labour, and long or great sickness, and other adversities. And beware of wrath, of cursing, of speaking evil, of banning man or beast; and ever keep

patience, meekness, and charity, both to God and man. And thus each man in the three states ought to live, to save himself, and to help others; and thus should good life, rest, peace, and love, be among Christian men, and they be saved, and heathen men soon converted, and God magnified greatly in all nations and sects that now despise him and his law, for the false living of wicked Christian

men.

WILLIAM DE LA POLE

(A. D.-1450.)

WILLIAM DE LA POLE, Earl and afterwards Duke of Suffolk, was the chief counsellor and minister, for a time, of the unfortunate King Henry VI., of England. He negotiated the marriage of the young king to Margaret of Anjou, with the hope that it might be influential in bringing about peace with France. The marriage was hateful to English feeling, and seems to have started against Suffolk the host of enemies by whom he was soon pursued. But the time was one of fierce and selfish factions, when no special provocation was needed for savage hostility to an influential public man. How far, if at all, Suffolk deserved the hatred with which he was hunted to death is not likely to be ever made clear. After five or six years of supremacy in the king's councils, he was impeached in Parliament and ordered into banishment by Henry (1450). Escaping with difficulty from a furious London mob, he got on board a ship sailing · to Flanders; but was pursued by assassins, overtaken and murdered at sea.

This bare story of his career does not greatly recommend William de la Pole to our confidence; but one can hardly read the subjoined letter of admonition, which he wrote to his son a short time before he came to his tragical end, without wishing that his memory might be cleared of all the doubts that rest upon it. The epistle appears (No. 26) in Fenn's edition of the Paston Letters. His wife, of whom he speaks so lovingly to their son, was a grand-daughter of Chaucer, the poet.

LETTER OF THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK TO HIS SON.

(From the Paston Letters.)

My dear and only well-beloved son, I beseech our Lord in Heaven, the Maker of all the World, to bless you, and to send you ever grace to love him, and to dread him, to the which, as far as a father may charge his child, I both charge you, and pray you to set all your spirits and wits to do, and to know his holy laws and commandments, by the which ye shall, with his great mercy, pass all the great tempests and troubles of this wretched world.

And that also, weetingly, ye do nothing for love nor dread of any earthly creature that should displease him. And there as (whenever) any frailty maketh you to fall, beseech his mercy soon to call you to him again with repentance, satisfaction, and contrition of your heart, never more in will to offend him.

Secondly, next him above all earthly things, to be true liegeman in heart, in will, in thought, in deed, unto the king our aldermost (greatest) high and dread sovereign lord, to whom both ye and I be so much bound to; charging you as father can and may, rather to die than to be the contrary, or to know anything that were against the welfare or prosperity of his most royal person, but that as far as your body and life may stretch ye live and die to defend it, and to let his highness have knowledge thereof in all the haste ye can.

Thirdly, in the same wise, I charge you, my dear son, alway as ye be bounden by the commandment of God to do, to love, to worship, your lady and mother; and also that ye obey alway her commandments, and to believe her counsels and advices in all your works, the which dread not but shall be best and truest to you. And if any other