praying that God would endue his tender and lately-born little flock in Oxford with heavenly strength by his Holy Spirit, that quietly to their own salvation, with all Godly patience, they might bear Christ's heavy cross, which I now saw was presently to be laid on their young and weak backs, unable to bear so huge a burden without the great help of His Holy Spirit.'

This done, Dalaber laid aside his book, folded up Garret's gown and hood, and went out towards Frideswide, or Christchurch, to speak about the matter with Master Clark. On the way,' says he, 'I met by chance a brother of ours, one Master Eden, Fellow of Magdalen, who, as soon as he saw me, said we were all undone, for Master Garret was returned, and was in prison. I said it was not so; he said it was. I heard, quoth he, our proctor, Master Cole, say and declare the same this day.' Then Dalaber told him what was done; and so made haste to Frideswide to find Clark, thinking that he and others would be in great sorrow.

'Evensong was begun,' says he; 'the dean and the canons were there in their gray amices; they were almost at Magnificat before I came thither. I stood in the choir door and heard Master Taverner play, and others of the chapel there sing, with and among whom I myself was wont to sing also; but now my singing and music were into sighing and musing turned. As I there stood, in cometh Doctor Cottisford, the commissary, as fast as ever he could go, bare-headed, as pale as ashes (I knew his grief well enough), and to the dean he goeth into the choir, where he was sitting in his stall, and talked with him, very sorrowfully-what, I know not; but whereof I might and did truly guess. I went aside from the choirdoor to see and hear more. The commissary and dean came out of the choir wonderfully troubled, as it seemed. About the middle of the church, met them Doctor London, puffing, blustering, and blowing like a hungry and greedy lion seeking his prey. They talked together awhile; but the commissary was much blamed by them, insomuch that he wept for sorrow.

'The doctors departed, and sent abroad their servants and spies everywhere. Master Clark, about the middle of the Compline (the last prayer), came forth of the choir. I followed him to his chamber, and declared what had happened that afternoon of Master Garret's escape. Then he sent for one Master Sumner and Master Bets, fellows and canons there. In the meantime he gave me a very godly exhortation, praying God to give us all the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of doves, for we should shortly have much need thereof. When Master Sumner and Master Bets came, he caused me to declare the whole matter to them two. Then desiring them to tell our brethren in that college, I went to Corpus Christi College, to comfort our brethren there. knew the matter before by Master Eden.

They all

So I tarried there

and supped with them, where they had provided meat and drink for us before my coming; and when we had ended, Fitzjames (one of the brethren), would needs have me to lie that night with him in my old lodging at Alban's Hall. But small rest and little sleep took we there that night.'

The next day, which was Sunday, Dalaber rose at five o'clock, and hastened off, as soon as he could, to his rooms in Gloucester College. The night had been wet and stormy, and his shoes and stockings were covered with mud from his early walk. The college gates, when he reached them, were still closed, an unusual thing at that hour; and he walked up and down in the dull morning till the clock struck seven, 'much disquieted, his head full of forecasting cares,' he says, but resolved, like a brave man, that, come what would, he would accuse no one, and declare nothing but what he saw was already known. When the gates were at last opened, he went to his rooms, and there found everything in confusion; his bed tossed and tumbled, his study door open, and his clothes strewed about the floor. A monk who occupied the rooms opposite, hearing him return, came and informed him that the commissary and the two proctors had been there looking for Garret. Bills and swords had been thrust through the bed-straw, and every closet and corner of the apartment searched for him. Finding nothing, they had left orders that Dalaber, as soon as he returned, should appear before the students' prior. This so troubled me,' he says, that I forgot to make clean my hose and shoes, and to shift me into another gown; and all bedirted as I was, I went to the said prior's chamber.'

At

'Where,' asked the prior, did you sleep last night? Alban's Hall,' answered the young man, with my old bed-fellow, Fitzjames.' The prior said he did not believe him, and went on to inquire if Garret had been in his room the day before. Dalaber replied that he had. Whither had he gone, then?' the prior asked, and where was he at that time? I answered,' says Dalaber, 'that I knew not, unless he was gone to Woodstock. He told me that he would go there, because one of the keepers had promised him a piece of venison to make merry with at Shrovetide.' This tale he deemed meetest for the occasion, though he confesses it was not the truth. It would seem a strange thing to say, that there are circumstances in which a man may be justified in telling lies; yet the untruth here in question cannot reasonably be classed in the category of ordinary falsehoods. The act of a man who kills another in self-defence, or in defence of a friend's life, is not accounted murder; by all divine and human laws, it is reckoned justifiable homicide. May not, then, a man in cases of great emergency say what is not the fact, when, by so doing, there appears to be a chance of saving a good man from a cruel death, such as was

impending over Garret? We do not say he may; but if the first be permissible, one is unable to see why the second should be a sin. It is precisely what Rahab of Jericho did, in concealing the Hebrew spies, and it was accounted to her for righteousness. Let us not, then, be too hasty in condemning this little unveracity in poor Dalaber, since, in diverging from the truth, he plainly did so to prevent a greater crime.

Enter now, however, the university beadle, with two of the commissary's servants, bringing a message to the prior that he should repair at once to Lincoln College, taking Dalaber with him. I was brought into the chapel,' he continues, and there I found Dr. Cottisford, Commissary; Dr. Higdon, Dean of Cardinal's College; and Dr. London, Warden of New College; standing together at the altar. They called for chairs and sate down, and then [ordered] me to come to them. They then asked me what my name was, how long I had been at the university, what I studied, with various other inquiries: the clerk of the university, meanwhile, bringing pens, ink, and paper, and arranging a table with a few loose boards upon tressels.' A mass book was then placed before him, and he was commanded to lay his hand upon it, and swear that he would answer truly such questions as should be asked him. At first he refused; but afterwards, being persuaded, 'partly by fair words, and partly by great threats,' he promised to do as they would have him; though in his heart, he says, 'I meant nothing so to do.' So he took the oath in the manner that was prescribed to him. They made great courtesy between them,' says he, who should examine me; at last, the rankest Pharisee of them all took upon him to do it.'

6

He was again asked where Master Garret was, and whither he had conveyed him. He said he had not conveyed him, 'nor yet wist where he was, nor whither he was gone, except he were gone to Woodstock,' as had been said before. So here again he tells a lie, trusting thereby to save his friend. The examiners did not readily accept his statement. Surely,' they said, you brought him some whither this morning?'-' for,' they added, they might well perceive by my foul shoes and dirty hosen that I had travelled with him the most part of the night.' I answered plainly,' says Dalaber, 'that I lay at Alban's Hall with Sir Fitzjames, that I had good witness thereof. They asked me where I was at evensong. I told them at Frideswide, and that I saw, first, Master Commissary, and then Master Doctor London, come thither to Master Dean. Doctor London and the Dean threatened me that if I would not tell the truth I should surely be sent to the Tower of London, and there be racked, and put into Little Ease.' This 'Little Ease,' as perhaps the reader may call to mind, was a cell in the Tower very convenient for purposes of torture.

'At last,' he goes on, when they could get nothing out of me whereby to hurt or accuse any man, or to know anything of that which they sought, they all three together brought me up a long stairs, into a great chamber, over Master Commissary's chamber, where stood a great pair of very high stocks. Then Master Commissary asked me for my purse and girdle, and took away my money and my knives; and then they put my legs into the stocks, and so locked me fast in them, in which I sate, my feet being almost as high as my head; and so they departed, locking fast the door and leaving me alone.'

O, Anthony Dalaber! thou art verily come into sad straits now. Were it now well, thinkest thou, to have regard to thine own safety, and by telling what thou knowest, purchase the favour and forgiveness of thy persecutors? Not so, thought Anthony; this, for conscience sake, I must not do. For he called to mind what Clark had said to him when he first desired to become his scholar :- Though now my preaching be sweet and pleasant to you, because there is no persecution laid on you for it, yet the time will come, and that, peradventure, shortly, if ye continue to live godly therein, that God will lay on you the cross of persecution, to try you whether you can, as pure gold, abide the fire. You shall be called and judged a heretic; you shall be abhorred of the world; your own friends and kinsfolk will forsake you, and also hate you; you shall be cast into prison, and none shall dare to help you; you shall be accused before bishops, to your reproach and shame, to the great sorrow of all your friends and kinsfolk. Then will ye wish ye had never known this doctrine. And Dalaber had answered him that, with God's grace, he trusted he was prepared and willing to face all this-and now the time for doing it was come! In meditations on this matter, the long Sunday morning wore away; and then, a little before noon, the Commissary came again, to see if his prisoner was more amenable. Finding him, however, still obstinate, he offered him some dinner, and went his way, to consult, probably, with his associates as to what should afterwards be done. At this point, Dalaber's narrative breaks off, leaving uncompleted what has been justly called 'the most vivid picture which remains to us of a fraction of English life in the reign of Henry VIII.'

Dalaber breaks off on Sunday at noon, but we learn from other sources something of what further happened to him. The same day, or early the following morning, he was submitted once more to examination: this time for the discovery of his own offences, and to induce him to give up his confederates. With respect to the latter, he proved marvellous obstinate.' 'All that was gotten of him was with much difficulty;' nor would he confess to any names as connected with heresy except that of Clark, which was already known. About himself, he was more open. He wrote his 'book of

heresy,' or confession of heresy,' with his own hand '—his evenings' occupation, it is supposed, while in the stocks at the Rector of Lincoln's house; and the next day he was transferred to prison. This much is learned from a letter which Dr. London wrote to Archbishop Warham, and which is still preserved among the Rolls House manuscripts.

A rapid search was now set on foot for books in all suspected quarters. It was the fear of the authorities that the 'infect persons would flee,' and convey their poison away with them.' The officials, once on the scent, were skilful in running down their game. No time was lost, and by Monday evening many of the brethren ' had been arrested, their rooms examined, and their forbidden treasures borne away. Dalaber's store was found hid with marvellous secrecy,' and in one student's desk a duplicate of Garret's list-the titles of the volumes with which the first 'Religious Tract Society' set themselves to convert England.

In the next and concluding section, we shall relate the escape of Garret, trace his wanderings, and pursue his story up to the point when he was captured, adding such other particulars as may be necessary to complete the narrative.

ON THE POETRY OF TENNYSON.

THIRD PAPER.

It is

THE most difficult and delicate part of my task remains. unquestionable that to many of the finest and most influential minds of our age, Mr. Tennyson has been a great religious teacher. The function may not have been deliberately assumed. It is impossible to believe that, either at first or at last, the poet has aimed to inculcate a doctrine. He has but uttered his deepest thoughts concerning God, Self, and Immortality, as he has spoken of external Nature, and of human Love, from the very fulness of his heart. We have, therefore, no more right to search in his writings. for a creed than for a metaphysical system or a scheme of natural science. Yet, certain it is, that he has given a tone and colouring to the theological views of many; while for the deeper religious sentiments characteristic of our day, no writings furnish so apt and complete an expression. Mr. Maurice dedicates his Theological Essays' to the poet, in these words :- I have maintained in these Essays that a Theology which does not correspond to the deepest thoughts and feelings of human beings cannot be a true Theology. Your writings have taught me to enter into many of those thoughts and feelings. Will you forgive me the presumption of offering you

TOL. III.-NEW SERIES.

11