biographers affirm that he was the son of a butcher.

[2] "Northern Tour." The same author observes, that "the death of
Wolsey would make a fine moral picture, if the hand of any master
could give the pallid features of the dying statesman, that
chagrin, that remorse, those pangs of anguish, which, in the last
bitter moments of his life, possessed him. The point might be
taken when the monks are administering the comforts of religion,
which the despairing prelate cannot feel. The subject requires a
gloomy apartment, which a ray through a Gothic window might just
enlighten, throwing its force chiefly on the principal figure,
and dying away on the rest. The appendages of the piece need only
be few and simple; little more than the crozier and red hat to
mark the cardinal and tell the story."

[3] Stow's "Annals," p. 557, edit. 1615.

[4] Shakspeare introduces this memorable saying of the cardinal into
his play of "Henry the Eighth:"--

--"O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal
I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies."

[5] Stow's "Annals."

[6] Holinshed's "Chronicle," vol. iii. p. 765, edit. 1808.

[7] "Collectanea," vol i. p. 70.

[8] Tanner.

S.I.B.

* * * * *

ANCIENT OATHS.

(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.)

It will be recollected, that in a former volume I gave you the form of
the oath taken by the appellee in the ancient manner of trial by battle.
The appellee, when appealed of felony, pleads _not guilty_ and throws
down his glove, and declares he will defend the same by his body; the
appellant takes up the glove, and replies that he is ready to make good
the appeal body for body; and thereupon the appellee, taking the book in
his right hand, makes oath as before mentioned. To which the appellant
replies, holding the Bible and his antagonist's hand in the same manner
as the other, "Hear this, O man, whom I hold by the hand, who callest
thyself _Thomas_ by the name of baptism, that thou art perjured; and
therefore perjured, because that thou feloniously didst murder my
father, _William_ by name. So help me God and the Saints, and this I
will prove against thee by my body, as this court shall award." And then
the combat proceeds.

The