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Dover, and Hadlam, and other desmesnes and manors. To him, Windsor owes principally its present grandeur. The wily courtiers longed to lessen his influence, and to rise upon the ruined fortunes of the rival favourite. Upon one of the towers, Wykeham engraved the inscription, "This made Wykeham.' This was of course quoted as an instance of the architect's vanity, and desire to rob the king of his just pride in rearing those noble works, which were then nearly completed. The honesty of Wykeham was the best and true answer to the malicious rumour :Nay, sire," said he, "your bounty and generosity in permitting me to be your craftsman, has made Wykeham what he is." His talent and genius promoted him still higher. As public notary and counsellor, he took a prominent part in the famous treaty of Bretigny, accompanying his master to Calais. Honours flowed in fast upon him from that time. Dean of the Royal Chapel, Keeper of the Privy Seal, Prelate of the Most Honourable Order of the Garter, Secretary to the King, Chief Speaker in the Great Council of the nation-in each office he shone, as he whom "the king delighted to honour." His early patron, the good Bishop of Winchester, had passed from this life to that which is for ever; and Wykeham left the rectory of Pelham, in Norfolk, to succeed to his throne and see. Twice after this time he became Lord High Chancellor of England. But there was an inheritance more enduring, a coronet brighter than his mitre, a temple more glorious than his cathedral, that the good bishop desired to see. He would fain build up a spiritual building to Him who had blessed him, and raised him to sit among princes. Many a castle, and palace, and his own costly church, were the witnesses of his munificence and genius. Often were these words pondered over, "Feed my lambs,” “Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven;" "Whoso receiveth one such little one in My name, receiveth Me," and then that promised blessing. "They who turn many to righteousness, shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." In sorrow and persecution, when the wicked Duke of Lancaster unjustly became his enemy, and afflicted him with cruel fines and banishment from the court, the good bishop was unchanged as in the sunshine of his greatest prosperity. It is pleasant to turn

from the stormy turbulence of anarchy and rebellion that laid waste England, to the holy designs of Wykeham. All his wealth he determined to bestow in benevolence. After much deliberation, and devout invocation of the aid of God, when he thought how the clergy had been diminished by the frequent wars and incursions of the French, and successive pestilence, he sought to repair the loss, and establish "two Colleges of Students, for the honour of God, and increase of his woship, for the support of the Christian faith, and for the improvement of the liberal Arts and Sciences." The fruits of thirty years' anxious care, and bountiful gifts, are the two fair sisters-the one at Oxford, the other at Winchester-where, day by day, Wykeham's scholars praise God, "for the benefits delivered unto them, whereby they are brought up to goodliness, and the studies of good learning."

Thus was the seed sown in faith, and God has given the increase.

Full of years and honour, Wykeham departed, at South Waltham, Sept 27, 1404.

From those cloisters have gone forth Chicheley, the founder of All Souls' College; Wainfleet, the founder of the College of St Mary Magdalene; and Ken; and many a one of England's greatest worthies. Those statutes which Wykeham wrote, a king borrowed for the kindred foundation of Eton, and King's College, in Cambridge. Dear is the tie of brotherhood that binds all Wykehamists in one. In that dark time, when a martyred monarch bled, Wykeham's scholar, at his peril, defended his founders tomb against the sacrilegious hands of Cromwell's soldiery. Wykeham's best shrine is in the hearts of his thousand sons. And ever, long as those hallowed walls remain, whereon the spirit of him who reared them seems to rest, year by year, with pealing organ, and voice of joy, and songs of the white-robed choir, shall ascend the holy chaunt.

"The just shall be had in everlasting remembrance;
The souls of the just are in the hand of God."

Walcott.

ALDHELM, BISHOP OF SHERBORNE.

ALDHELM was one of the royal family of Wessex, afterwards Abbot of Malmesbury and Bishop of Sherborne, a man who conferred great benefits upon his countrymen, the West Saxons, and whose memory was honoured in a life of him written by the great King Alfred.

Aldhelm was indeed a man who deserved this honour; and it is a great pity we have not his life by Alfred now remaining to us, instead of such accounts as the monks of later ages have mixed up with too many legendary tales. He was the founder of the Abbey of Malmesbury, and of the town adjoining; for many of our old English towns arose like this, from the neighbourhood of the monastery. His own wealth and interest enabled him to endow it with a good estate, so large, that it is said it would take a man a good part of the day, if he set out early in the morning, to go round the borders. Here he built two Churches, one within the monastery, one without its walls, for the villagers, or townspeople; and at different periods of his life he built other Churches in Wessex, particularly at Dorchester, Dorset. At this period the organ is said to have been first used in churches by Vitalian, the Pope whom we have seen engaging himself in the mission of Theodore; and the first organ used in England seems to have been built under the directions of Aldhelm; who has left in his writings a description of it in verse, as "a mighty instrument with innumerable tones, blown with bellows, and enclosed in a gilded case." The instrument, however, which was most in use among the Saxons was the harp, as it was also the instrument of the ancient Britons and Irish, and of the Danes and other tribes of the north. The kings thought it a part of their state to entertain harpers at their court; and before the introduction of Christianity and letters, those who sung to the harp, called scalds or minstrels, were the only historians of the past, singing songs of the warlike deeds of their forefathers. It was still, after the Gospel was known, considered almost a necessary accomplishment of the educated in the middle ranks of society, to be ready to sing a song at an entertainment, when the harp was passed round. This custom and practice Aldhelm endeavoured to reform,

or to adapt to the service of religion. When he resided as Abbot at Malmesbury, finding that the half-barbarous country people who came to hear divine service were in a great hurry to return home, without paying much attention to the sermon, he used to go and take his seat, with harp in hand, on the bridge over the Avon, and offer to teach the art of singing. Here a crowd soon gathered round him; and after he had indulged the common taste by singing some trifling song, by degrees he drew them on to more serious matter, and succeeded at last in making them sing David's Psalms to David's strings.

The good service of Aldhelm in this particular is now placed beyond a doubt, by the late discovery of a Saxon version of the Psalms, which seems to have been preserved in an old French monastery, founded by John, Duke of Berri, at Bourges, A.D. 1405. This prince, who was brother to Charles V. king of France, gave the book with many others to his monastery, where it remained without being of much use to the French monks, who thought the old English letters were Hebrew. But some

how or other, it has escaped all the French revolutions since, and is now in the French king's library at Paris; from which a copy has lately been taken, and printed by the University of Oxford, A.D. 1835.

The writer who made this copy of the Saxon Psalter was an Englishman, who seems to have lived about A D. 1000. The first fifty of the Psalms are in prose, and the rest in verse. It is likely that the version is altogether Aldhelm's; at least, there is no reason to doubt that the metrical part is his. In one or two places he seems to speak as if he aimed to suit the meaning of the Psalm to the way of worship and customs observed in the monasteries. Thus, in the eighty-fourth Psalm, his version in modern English is nearly this:

Lord, to me Thy minsters are
Courts of honour passing fair:
And my spirit deems it well
There to be, and there to dwell:
Heart and flesh would fain be there,
Lord, Thy life, Thy love to share.

There the sparrow speeds her home,
And in time the turtles come,

Safe their nestling young they rear,
Lord of Hosts, Thine altars near;
Dear to them Thy peace-but more
To the souls who there adore.

Again in the sixty-eighth :

God the word of wisdom gave;

Preachers, who His voice have heard,
Taught by Him, in meekness brave,
Speed the message of that word.
Mighty King, with beauty crowned!
In His house the world's proud spoil,
Oft in alms-deeds dealt around,
Cheers the poor wayfarer's toil.

If among His clerks you rest,
Silver plumes shall you enfold,
Fairer than the culver's breast,
Brighter than her back of gold.

(Ver. 1—5.)

(Ver. 11-13.)

When Aldhelm wrote, there were no copies of the Hebrew Psalter in England, and in the last of these verses he seems to have mistaken a word in the Greek or Latin version of the Psalms; but in many places, where the meaning is more plain, his verse is both true and full of good poetry, and it is every where marked by a spirit of devotion, breaking forth into words of thankful wonder and praise; and the mistakes which here and there occur in the sense, are not such as to have taught any false doctrine. The version of the Psalms, therefore, into their own language, and adapted to their own national melody to accompany the harp, was a most valuable gift to the Saxons. The words in the last verse seem here to invite the hearer to take up his abode among God's clerks in a monastery; and in the second to speak of the alms or doles of food and clothing, which the charity of Christians in those days gave away at the gates of religious houses. The words were prompted by the state of religious society at that time.

Again, in some of the Psalms he speaks of the peacestool, or stone seat, which was placed near the altar in some old English churches, as a place of refuge, to which, by King Alfred's laws, if an accused person fled, he was not to be disturbed for seven days. The intention of the law was to give a culprit opportunity to confess his crime to the bishop or clergyman, in which case the fine

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