sentence of confiscation. The
hospitality for which the owners of these places had been, and were
then, eminently distinguished; but more especially the yet higher
consideration of their property having been left with them only as a
sacred pledge to be handed down, unimpaired, to their successors--these
things,[310] one would think, might have infused some little mercy
and moderation into Henry's decrees!

[Footnote 310: There are two points, concerning the
subversion of monasteries, upon which all sensible Roman
Catholics make a rest, and upon which they naturally indulge
a too well-founded grief. The dispersion of books or
interruption of study; and the breaking up of ancient
hospitality. Let us hear Collier upon the subject: "The
advantages accruing to the public from these religious
houses were considerable, upon several accounts. To mention
some of them: The temporal nobility and gentry had a
creditable way of providing for their younger children.
Those who were disposed to withdraw from the world, or not
likely to make their fortunes in it, had a handsome retreat
to the cloister. Here they were furnished with conveniences
for life and study, with opportunities for thought and
recollection; and, over and above, passed their time in a
condition not unbecoming their quality."--"The abbies were
very serviceable places for the education of young people:
every convent had one person or more assigned for this
business. Thus the children of the neighbourhood were taught
grammar and music without any charge to their parents. And,
in the nunneries, those of the other sex learned to work and
read English, with some advances into Latin," &c.--"Farther,
it is to the abbies we are obliged for most of our
historians, both of church and state: these places of
retirement had both most learning and leisure for such
undertakings: neither did they want information for such
employment," _Ecclesiastical History_, vol. ii., 165. A host
of Protestant authors, with Lord Herbert at the head of
them, might be brought forward to corroborate these sensible
remarks of Collier. The hospitality of the monastic life has
been on all sides admitted; and, according to Lord Coke, one
of the articles of impeachment against Cardinal Wolsey was
that he had caused "this hospitality and re