No. XI.

Chanteries and Free Chapels, what?

A CHANTERY was, in the days of yore, understood to be a little Church, Chapel, or particular Altar in some Cathedral, Collegiate, Abbatial, &c. Church, endowed with lands or other revenues, for the maintenance of one or more Priests, daily to sing Mass, and perform Divine Service for the benefit of the founders, or such as they appointed.

Mr. Fuller reckons up 47 Chanteries in S. Paul's Church only; and a modern writer gives us the following intelligence relative to York Minster. "It appears," says he, (6 by a catalogue of all the Chanteries within this Cathe dral, as they were certified into the Court of Augmentation, anno 37 Hen. VIII. that there were above forty Altars erected in different parts of it." Drake's Antiquities of York, B. II. p. 519, 520. Where, after this general account of his own, our Author subjoins (from Dodsworth) a particular Catalogue, wherein the number of Chanteries in the Cathedral of York alone, amount to 44.

Free Chapels were so called, because they were independent on any Church, and endowed with lands, &c. for much the same purposes as the former.

The whole number of Chanteries and Free Chapels in England, before their total suppression, are computed to be about 2375; besides 110 Hospitals and 90 Colleges; which were all promiscuously involved in the same common ruin.

No. XII.

A Blot, they say, is no Blot till it is hit: but whether we have not hit upon a Blot in the boasted Work of a late Ecclesiastical Historian, we leave the candid Reader to judge and determine, after he has carefully compared the following genuine Words of Mr. Collier, with Mr. D —'s disingenuous Quotation of them.

Mr. Collier says:

By the evidence of records, there were more righte ous Monasteries in England, than righteous men in Sodom.

Q

Yet this overballance of merit could not divert, &c."Collier's Eccl. Hist. Vol. II. Book III. p. 161.

Mr. D says:

"By the evidence of records, there were many more righteous in the Monasteries, than righteous men in Sodom."-D's Eccl. Hist. Part I. Book I. Pp. 118.

Now, admitting this to be true, it cannot, however, be allowed to be a true quotation for there is, most certainly, a wide difference between Monasteries and men: between righteous Monasteries, and righteous in the Monasteries. But let us sift this author's meaning.

He tells us, "There were many more righteous in the Monasteries, than righteous men in Sodom." Were there

so?

And how many more does he think there might be? Were the righteous monastics twice as many more than the righteous men in Sodom? And is this the meaning of his many more? If it is, he makes but a bad compliment to all the religious in all the monasteries of both sexes in England. But supposing there were a thousand more (and this, to be sure, may be accounted many more) righteous in the monasteries, than righteous men in Sodom, what is all this to the purpose? Still our Author stands guilty of a flagrant misquotation: for he ought not to have compared men with men, but Monasteries with men; as Mr. Collier does. He ought not to have suppressed Mr. Collier's righteous Monasteries in England, and much less to have supplied their places with his righteous in the Monasteries. What can exeuse such a false step as this? If it was made by mistake, it is (in a quotation) scarce excuseable: if by design, it cannot be too severely censured.

As for Mr. Collier, to give him his due, he treats the religious with much more complaisance, good manners, and respect, than this comes to. He generously throws into the scales 66 more righteous Monasteries in England, than righteous Men in Sodom; which makes the over ballance of merit extremely visible and conspicuous on the part of the Religious Houses.

What could induce or tempt Mr. D not only to alter Mr. Collier's words, but also to pervert the sense of them, we cannot pretend to say. But sure we are, that by such unguarded steps as these, the credit and reputation of an author will always stagger, if it does not fall to the ground.

Were it worth our while, we could point out and detect several other considerable flaws and blemishes in Mr.

D's Ecclesiastical Performance. But this (besides

that it is a disagreeable task) is quite foreign to our present purpose. Neither indeed should we have taken notice of the abovementioned notable specimen of that Gentleman's legerdemain, had it not happened to fall so unluckily across our way, that there was no possibility of getting over it, without a remark.

See the second Part of these Memoirs, where Mr. Collier makes good his assertion, and actually enumerates "more righteous Monasteries in England, than righteous men in Sodom ;" and this from the evidence of records.

No. XIII.

An Instance of Stephen Marshall's frantic Zeal for the Good Old Cause.

AFTER

FTER the fight at Brentford, where the royalists came off victorious, "the King took about five hundred prisoners, for a taste of his mercy. For knowing well how miserably they had been misguided, he spared their lives, and gave them liberty, on no other conditions, but only the taking of their oaths not to serve against him. But the Houses of Parliament being loth to lose so many good men, appointed Mr. Stephen Marshall (a principal zealot at that time in the cause of Presbytery) to call them together, and to absolve them from that oath which he performed with much confidence and authority."-D. Heylin's Hist. of the Presbyterians, L. 13, p. 448.

The confidence of this man (or indeed of any other enthusiastical bigot like himself) is not much to be wondered at; but from whence he had his authority to absolve the King's subjects (taken in actual rebellion) from the obligation of a solemn oath, we profess we cannot easily comprehend.

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No. XIV.

Smectymnuus explained.

THIS HIS ridiculous cant-word made its first appearance in public in the time of the grand rebellion. It comprehends a club of five Parliamentary Holdersforth, viz. Stephen Mar

shall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcommen, and William Spurstow; the initial letters of whose names and surnames being put together, compose the senseless word Smectymnuus.

This famous club of modern saints published a book against Episcopacy and the Common Prayer in the year 1641, to which they subscribed their names in capital letters, S. M. E. C. T. Y. M. N. U. U. S.-Not content with this, they afterwards published (by order of the Parliament) a scurrilous libel, entitled The King's Cabinet Unlocked; wherein all the tender and endearing expressions in the letters that passed between King Charles the First and his Royal Consort were most scandalously ridiculed, and basely burlesqued.

If the Reader should be desirous to know, by what mischance or accident the King's Cabinet happened to fall into the hands of the rebels, we can inform him, from good authority, that that misfortune was the unhappy consequence of the loss of the fatal battle of Naisby, where "the King's army being put to an absolute rout, the rebels made themselves masters of his camp, carriage, and cannon, and, amongst other things, of his Majesty's cabinet, in which they found many of his letters, most of them written to the Queen, which afterwards were published by command of the Houses, to their great dishonour. For whereas the Athenians, on the like success, had intercepted a packet of letters from Philip, King of Macedon, their most bitter enemy, unto several friends, they met with one to his Queen Olympias. The rest being all broke open before the Council, that they might be advertised of the King's purposes, the letter to the Queen was returned untouched; the whole senate thinking it a shameful and dishonest act, to pry into the conjugal secrets betwixt man and wife. A modesty for which those of Athens stand as much commended by Hilladius Bisantinus, an ancient writer, as the chief leading men of the Houses of Parliament, are like to stand condemned for want of it, in succeeding stories."-D. Heylin's Hist. of the Presbyterians, L. XIII. p. 471.

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No. XV.

A Copy of King Henry the Eighth's last Will and Testament, as far as it regards Religious Matters.

..

IN IN the name of God, and of the glorious and Blessed Virgin our Lady S. Mary, and of all the holy company of heaven, We Henry, by the grace of God King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and in earth, immediately under God, the supreme Head of the Church of England, and also of Ireland, of that name the Eighth ; calling to our remembrance the great gifts and benefits of Almighty God, given to Us in this transitory life, do give unto him our most lowly and humble thanks, acknowleding ourselves insufficient in any part, to deserve or recompense the same. But for fear that we have not worthily received the same; and considering further also, that We be (as all mankind are) mortal, and born in sin; believing nevertheless, and hoping, that every Christian creature, living here in this transitory world under God, dying in stedfast and perfect faith, and endeavouring and exercising himself to execute in his lifetime, if he hath leisure, such good deeds and charitable works as the Scripture commendeth, and as may be to the honour and pleasure of God, is ordained, by Christ's Passion, to be saved, and attain eternal life: of which number We verily trust, by his grace, to be one.

"And that every creature, the more high that he is in estate, honour, and authority in this world, the more he is bound to love, serve, and thank God, and the more dili gently to endeavour himself to do good and charitable works, to the laud, honour, and praise of Almighty God, and the profit of his soul. We also, calling to remembrance the dignity, estate, honour, rule, and government, that Almighty God hath called Us unto in this world, and that neither We, nor any other creature-mortal, knoweth the time or place, when or where, it shall please Almighty God to call him out of this transitory world; willing, therefore, and minding, with God's grace, before our passage out of the same, to dispose and order our later mind, will, and testament, in that sort, as We trust it shall be acceptable 'unto Almighty God, our only Saviour Jesus Christ, and all the holy company of heaven, and the due satisfaction of all godly brethren in earth, have now, being of whole and perfect mind, adhering wholly to the right faith of Christ,