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be proportionable. William de Edyngdon, Bishop of Winchester, died 8th October, 1366, and, upon the king's earnest recommendation, Wykeham was immediately and unanimously elected by the Prior and convent to succeed him, but from a variety of obstacles which interposed, a whole year elapsed before he could get into full possession of his new dignity." The cause of this delay has been ascribed to the backwardness of the Pope to appoint a man so deficient in scholastic learning; but this could not well be; his Holiness, in a Bull constituting him Administrator of the Spiritualities and Temporalities of the vacant see, speaks of Wykeham, as recommended to him by the testimony of many persons worthy of credit for his knowledge of letters, his probity of life and manners, and his prudence and circumspection in affairs both spiritual and temporal." There is no reason, therefore, to suppose that Wykeham was personally disagreeable to the Pope; but the pontiff and the monarch had the point of etiquette to settle between them concerning the right of nomination, and his Holiness was inflexible, till the Duke of Bourbon, one of the hostages for the King of France, at Edward's urgent request, interposed. The Pope then, as a matter of grace and favour rather than of right, complied with the wishes of the monarch, and on the 9th of July, 1368, Wykeham was enthroned in the cathedral church of Winchester. In the same year he was constituted Chancellor of England, and, resigning several minor appointments, secured himself against future impeachment by obtaining a full acquittance and discharge from the King.

Wykeham was now forty-four years old-his judgment was ripe, his capacity extensive, and his application to the duties of his many dignified offices incessant. But the church shared deeper in his affections than the state. He took his seat, it is true, at the council-board-made some clear and business-like speeches on the affairs of the nation and the monarch, and carried his high fortunes with much meekness and good-will to all. But his mind was with his diocese-he considered with deep regret the dilapidations which hospitals endowed for the poor had suffered--the dilapidated condition of many religious houses, and the grasping spirit of many of the incumbents. He resolved that all these things should in due season be amended, and the first symptom of this reformation appeared in his commanding the executors of Edyngdon to repair the episcopal buildings, amounting to twelve different castles, manorhouses, or palaces of residence belonging to the cathedral, which had been allowed to become almost too ruinous to be habitable. The executors were intimidated and complied, and at the same time delivered over to his care the standing stock of the bishoprick, namely, 127 draught horses, 1556 head of black cattle, 3876 wethers, 4777 ewes, 3521 lambs, and for dilapidations in cattle, corn, and other goods, 16627. 10s. Having done justice to himself, he determined to obtain it for others, and visited all the Religious Houses throughout his diocese, informing himself of the state and condition of each, and of the particular abuses which required reformation. He resolved to restore them in the spirit of their original foundations,

and drew up rules and injunctions for that purpose, "many of which," says Lowth, "are still extant, and are evident monuments of the care and attention with which he discharged this part of his episcopal duty."

In those days the wealth of the Church was immense, for she drew at will upon the fear and superstition of the earth; and her spirit was as great as her power. For centuries her treasures were for the most part wisely and munificently expended, and the noble buildings she erected and the good deeds she performed cannot be contemplated, even now, without admiration. She opened her gates to the poor, spread a table to the hungry, gave lodging to the houseless, welcomed the wanderer; and high and low-learned and illiterate -alike received shelter and hospitality. Under her roof the scholar completed his education, the chronicler sought and found materials for history, the minstrel chaunted lays of piety and chivalry for his loaf and his raiment, the sculptor carved in wood or cast in silver some popular saint, and the painter conferred on some new legend what was at least meant to be the immortality of his colours. To institutions so charitable and useful, the rich and the powerful devised both money and lands abundantly; an opulent sinner was glad to pacify the clamours of the Church and the whisperings of his own conscience, by bequeathing wealth which he could no longer enjoy; and chauntries were added to churches, and hospitals erected and endowed, where the saints were solicited in favour of the departed donor's soul, and the poor and the hungry were clothed and fed. All this wealth,

however, was not appropriated to masses and acts of kindness and mercy. One Archbishop of Canterbury, on a visit to Rome, purchased from the Pope an arm of St. Augustine for six thousand pounds weight of silver and sixty pounds weight of gold-at least, so says William of Malmesbury. To support such expensive purchases, many scenes of fraud and rapine occurred; the rich were cheated in their bequests, and the poor robbed of their right.

The Hospital of The Holy Cross, near Winchester, cost Wykeham six years of anxious remonstrance and litigation, before he could restore it according to the intention of the founder, Henry de Blois. The institution requires "that thirteen poor men, so decayed and past their strength, that without charitable assistance they cannot maintain themselves, shall abide continually in the hospital, who shall be provided with proper clothing and beds suitable to their infirmities; and shall have an allowance daily of good wheat bread, good beer, three messes each for dinner and one for supper. That beside these thirteen poor, a hundred other poor, of modest behaviour and the most indigent that can be found, shall be received daily at dinner time, and shall have each a loaf of coarser bread; one mess, and a proper allowance of beer, with leave to carry away with them whatever remains of their meat and drink after dinner." Now it happened that the revenues assigned for the annual fulfilment of the founder's wishes had increased in value, and the masters and brethren of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, who were

guardians and administrators, seized the surplus and put it into their own pockets. The canonical jurisdiction of Wykeham enabled him to interfere; he determined that the whole revenue of the hospital should be dedicated to the poor, as was the intention of the founder, and having in vain tried admonition and remonstrance, summoned the Four Masters to appear before him and answer for their stewardship. They were bold enough to set Wykeham at defiance, and availed themselves of all the subtilties of the law, and of all manner of evasion, by appeal and otherwise, to thwart and throw him. The upright bishop persisted-he called them to the severest account-had them fined, and, till they made restitution, excommunicated and finally restored the whole endowment to its primitive purpose. Wykeham himself afterwards made a great addition to St. Cross ;- -a further endowment for the maintenance of two priests, thirty-five brethren and three sisters, besides those of the ancient foundation. "The hospital," says Lowth, though much diminished in its revenues, by what means I cannot say, yet still subsists upon the remains of both endowments ;" and, it may be added, that the old, and in parts very beautiful quadrangle of St. Cross, presents at this day a more perfect picture of monastic life than is elsewhere to be met with in England.

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Having restored the hospital of the charitable de Blois, and made his diocese a pattern for all others, Wykeham now began to meditate the noble scheme which has immortalized his memory in England. Being somewhat deficient in classic lore himself, and feeling probably the want of it,