cruelty and consummate hypocrisy, there is a striking resemblance between his character and that of Aurungzeeb.

II. ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.

Walter de Merton.

DIED A. D. 1277.

Of the personal history of this excellent bishop little is known. He was the son of William de Merton, archdeacon of Berks, and was born at Merton in Surrey, where also he obtained the rudiments of education in a monastical establishment. In the year 1239, he appears to have been in possession of the family estate, and also of one inherited from his mother, both his parents being now dead. In 1259, he held a prebend in Exeter cathedral, and Browne Willis says, that he was vicar of Potton, in Bedfordshire, at the time of his promotion to the see of Rochester. Other accounts say, that he was first canon of Salisbury, and afterwards rector of Stratton. The custom of the times permitted of his devoting his attention to the profession of the law, although in holy orders, and he appears to have exercised at one and the same time the functions of a divine, a lawyer, and a financier, and that with high credit and reputation. In the court of chancery he became king's clerk, and subsequently protonotary; and, in 1258, he was appointed to the highest judicial office in the kingdom. The barons, indeed, deprived him of the chancellorship in the same year in which it had been conferred on him, but he was restored to office in 1261, and held the seals again in 1274, before his consecration to the bishopric of Rochester. Throughout rather a long life, this prelate distinguished himself by the benevolence of his disposition, and the liberal patronage which he was ever ready to extend to men of letters. In 1261, he founded the hospital of St John for poor and infirm clergy; and soon afterwards he laid the foundation of the college which still bears his name in the university of Oxford. With regard to the latter institution, Wood and others state that the bishop confined his first attention to the erection and endowment of a school at Malden, which was to form a sort of nursery for the university; and that although he made provision for the support of the Malden scholars while attending Oxford, the establishment itself was not removed from Malden to Oxford until the year 1274, when its third and last charter was obtained. The successive charters of this establishment are still preserved in the library, and were consulted as precedents in the founding of Peterhouse, the earliest college of the sister-university. His preference of Oxford is explained by the fact of his having studied some time among the canons regular of Osseney, in the neighbourhood of Oxford. Merton died on the 27th of October, 1277. His death was occasioned by a fall from his horse in fording a river in his diocese. He was interred

in Rochester cathedral, where a beautiful alabaster monument was erected to his memory by the society of Merton college.

Archbishop Peckham.

BORN CIRC. A. D. 1240.-DIED A. D. 1292.

JOHN PECKHAM, archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of Edward I., was born in the county of Sussex about the year 1240. He received he rudiments of instruction in a monastery at Lewes, whence he was sent to Oxford, where his name occurs in the registers of Merton college. He was created doctor in divinity at this university, and read public lectures: Pitt says he was professor of divinity. He appears to have visited Paris twice, and to have read lectures in that city also with great applause. From Paris he journeyed to Lyons, where he was presented with a canonry in the cathedral of Lyons, which was held by the archbishops of Canterbury for two centuries after. He then went to Rome, where the pope appointed him palatine lecturer or reader.' In 1278, his holiness consecrated him archbishop of Canterbury, on his agreeing to pay 4,000 marks for the appointment. Peckham had nearly forgot his pledge in this instance, but the holy father failed not to remind him of it, and to accompany his message with a gentle hint at excommunication in the event of further delay or non-compliance. Edward, who had not yet determined on breaking his peace with the court of Rome, received the new primate in peace, and, though he thwarted him at first in some things, seems to have at last reposed considerable confidence in him, for in 1282 he was sent in person to effect a reconciliation between the king and the prince of Wales, then at Snowdon, and threatening to concur with the oppressed Welsh in the defence of public liberty. Peckham was a man of cor siderable vigour and independence of mind; shortly after his appoint ment to the primacy, he held a provincial synod at Reading, in which several canons for the better regulation of the church, and especially for securing effect to its sentences of excommunication, were promulgated. In 1281, he held another council at Lambeth, in which several canons were enacted touching the administration of the eucharist. In the same year, he addressed a spirited remonstrance to the king in support of the rights and privileges of the clergy. In this document he complains that the church was grievously injured and oppressed by the civil power, contrary to the decrees of the popes, the canons of councils, and the authority of the orthodox fathers; "in which," says he, there is the supreme authority, the supreme truth, and the supreme sanctity, and no end may be put to disputation unless we submit ourselves to these three great laws." He then goes on to protest, that no oaths which may ever be extorted from him shall constrain him to do. any thing against the privileges and rights of the church, and offers to absolve the king from any oath he may have taken that can anywise incite him against the church. Edward, though he paid no heed to the primate's expostulations, allowed him to remain unmolested. In 1286

ed within its walls upwards of thirty thousand students. But this mighty army had been reduced to six thousand by the misconduct of the monks. "These religious," says Gilpin, "from the time of their first settlement in Oxford-which was in the year 1230-had been very troublesome neighbours to the university. They set up a different interest, aimed at a distinct jurisdiction, fomented feuds between the scholars and their superiors, and in many respects became such offensive inmates, that the university was obliged to curb their licentiousness by severe statutes. This insolent behaviour on one side, and the opposition it met with on the other, laid the foundation of an endless quarrel. The friars appealed to the pope, the scholars to the civil power; and sometimes one party and sometimes the other prevailed. Thus, the cause became general; and an opposition to the friars was looked upon as the test of a young fellow's affection to the university. It happened, while things were in this situation, that the friars had got among them a notion of which they were exceedingly fond; that Christ was a common beggar; that his disciples were beggars also; and that begging, by their example, was of gospel institution. This notion they propagated with great zeal from all the pulpits, both in Oxford and the neighbourhood to which they had access. Wickliffe-who had long held these religious in great contempt for the laziness of their livesthought he had now found a fair occasion to expose them. He drew up, therefore, and presently published a treatise 'Against able beggary,' in which he first showed the difference between the poverty of Christ and that of the friars, and the obligations which all Christians lay under to labour in some way for the good of society. He then lashed the friars with great acrimony, proving them to be an infamous and useless set of men, wallowing in luxury, and so far from being objects of charity, that they were a reproach not only to religion but even to human society. This piece was calculated for the many, on whom it made a great impression; at the same time it increased his reputation with the learned, all men of sense and freedom admiring the work, and applauding the spirit of the author. From this time, the university began to consider him as one of her first champions; and in consequence of the reputation he had gained, he was Soon afterwards promoted to the mastership of Baliol college." Archbishop Islip subsequently conferred the wardenship of Canterbury hall upon Wickliffe, styling him in his letters of institution, a person in whose fidelity, circumspection, and industry, he very much confided." The succession of Simon Langham to the archiepiscopal dignity, led to the ejection of Wickliffe, in 1367, from his wardenship; but such was the attachment of the secular scholars to him, that they refused to obey his successor in office, and were only reduced to silence by a bull from Rome.

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Wickliffe's next appearance as a controversialist was on behalf of his sovereign Edward III., against the claims put forth by the papal chair. Urban had threatened to cite the king of England before his court at Rome, for non-payment of the tribute which his predecessor, John, had bound himself to pay the holy see. Edward had laid the matter before his parliament, and that assembly had unanimously declared that King John could not, of his own power and authority, subject his kingdom to a foreign power, and that consequently they would support their