servants, &c. with great spirit, should, with wonderous inconsistency, petition the crown that it would direct the lords to examine into a false return for Rutland, and punish the offenders.-Rot. Subsid.

In 1406, Richard Clithero, knight of the shire for Kent, being ordered to sea as 'admiral of the south and west,' the Kentishmen petitioned parliament that Robert Clifford, the other knight, might appear in both their names, as if both were actually present." And this odd request was granted.-Rot. Parli, apud Carte.

In 1408, archbishop Arundel declared, in a preface to his canons, that the pope was vicegerent of heaven.' · Extraordinary language,' says Dr. Henry, to be used just at a time when the two existing popes were consigning each other to Satan, and were both declared, by the Council of Pisa, contumacious heretics.'

In the same year we find, to the credit of English sculptors, that Thomas Colyn, Thomas Holewell, and Thomas Poppe, carried over to Bretagne an alabaster monument, which they had executed for Duke John IV., and erected it in the cathedral of Nantes.-Rym. Fad.

Death of Chaucer.

ABOUT this period (1408) died Geoffry Chaucer, whom we call the first English poet. In 1539 he became page to Edward III., married Philippa, the

daughter of Catherine Swynford, (the future wife of John of Gaunt,) and is said to have had a very large income. As, however, he took a warm part on the side of the reformer Wickliffe, he suffered when the Lollards were persecuted; and in, or about 1382, he was obliged to return to the continent, whence, venturing back to England to raise money, he was seized and imprisoned. The end of his life, however, was spent in ease and plenty, at Donnington Castle, Berks, where he composed (as tradition says) some of his finest poems. John of Gaunt was then in power. Chaucer, as we find in Rymer's Fadera, received a pitcher of wine every day from the cellars of Edward III. He had like-.wise from Richard II. a grant of a hogshead of wine every year; and this was continued by Henry IV. So well were the English kings convinced of the truth of Horace :

Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possunt,

Quæ scribuntur aquæ potoribus.

It was in or about 1410, that a Lord Beauchamp, travelling through the East, was hospitably received at Jerusalem by the Soldan's lieutenant, who, hearing that he was descended from the famous Guy, earl of Warwick, whose story they had read in books written in their own language, invited him to his palace, and, royally feasting him, presented him with three precious stones of great value, besides divers clothes of silk and gold given to his servants.'-Rous apud Dugdale.

In 1412, an act was passed giving the certificate

of a justice of the peace, in case of riots, the same force as the presentment. The first instance of extraordinary power granted to this respectable class of magistrates.—Barrington.

The Title of Esquire.

IN 1413, Dr. Fuller remarks that John Golope was the first person who assumed the title of Esquire; and that until the end of Henry the Sixth's reign, such distinctions were not used, except in law proceedings. Yet Ordoericus Vitalis, as early as A. D. 1124, speaks of the earl of Mellent, who, endeavouring to escape from the troops of Henry Beauclerc, and being seized by a countryman, bribed him to set him free, and to shave him, ' in the guise of an esquire'-Instar Armigeri, by which means he eluded his pursuers.

Dearth of Surgeons.

1417. It appears, from Rymer's Fœdera, that Henry authorized John Morstede, to press as many surgeons as he thought necessary for the French expedition, together with persons to make their instruments.' It is also true, and appears in the same book of records, that with the army which won the day at Agincourt, there had landed only one surgeon, the same John Morstede, who indeed did engage to find fifteen more for the army, three of whom, however, were to act as archers!! With such a professional scarcity, what must have been the state of the wounded on the day of battle?

In the same year the king, convinced that Holbourn 'Alta via regia in Holbourn,' was a deep and perilous road, ordered two ships to be laden with stones at his own cost, each twenty tons in burthen, in order to repair it. This seems to have been the first paving in London.—Rym, Fœd.

In 1418, iron balls were not used for cannon, since we find an order for making, at Maidstone, in Kent, 7000 stone bullets for the king's ordnance.Ibid.

In 1421, loud complaints having been made by the inferior clergy as to the inequality of their stipends, it was ordained, by the superior convocation, that each bishop's family-barber should shave each priest who held his orders from their bishop, without payment.-Wilkins' Consilia.

Cows, in 1425, were valued at about sixteen modern shillings each.-Maddox, form. Angl.

The Parliament of Bats.

1426. The parliament which met in February was called the "Parliament of Bats," since the senators, being ordered to wear no swords, attended arms with clubs or bats. Their meeting too was held at Leicester, to avoid the tumult of a London mob.

Qualifications of Voters for Knights of the Shires. 1429. An important change was made as to the qualifications of the voters for knights of the shires. These were now obliged to prove themselves worth

forty shillings per annum. Before this every freeholder might vote, and the vast concourse of elections brought on riots and murders. Seventy pounds would in modern days be barely an equivalent for our ancestors' forty shillings. The freeholders were at the same time directed to chuse two of the fittest and most discreet knights resident in their county; or, if none could be found,' notable esquires, gentlemen by birth, and qualified to be made knights, but no yeomen, or persons of inferior rank.-Henry, from the Statutes.

In 1431, Holingshed relates a melancholy tale of an ungrateful Breton, who murdered his kind hostess, near Aldgate. Falling, however, into the hands of the women in the neighbourhood, 'they so bethwacked him with stones, staves, kennel'doong, and other things,' says our chronicler, that they laid him astretching, and rid him of life.'

The Monk of Bury.

1431, Nearly about this time flourished John Lydgate, "The Monk of Bury." He was avowedly a scholar and imitator of Chaucer, for whom he always expressed a most awful reverence. He spent his life in the profession of a tutor, travelled to France and Italy with improvement, and was much esteemed as a scholar and poet. If he had not the fire of Chaucer, he exceeded him in smoothness of language; and the extreme humility of the following lines must speak in favour of the modern poet :