s by inactivity, and he trusted to
provide himself with a refuge against all contingencies by waiting upon
time. Even when at length he was compelled to act, and to act in a distinct
direction, his plausibility long enabled him to explain away his conduct;
and, honest in the excess of his dishonesty, he wore his falsehood with so
easy a grace that it assumed the character of truth. He was false,
deceitful, treacherous; yet he had the virtue of not pretending to be
virtuous. He was a real man, though but an indifferent one; and we can
refuse to no one, however grave his faults, a certain ambiguous sympathy,
when in his perplexities he shows us features so truly human in their
weakness as those of Clement VII.

* * * * *

NOTES.

[1] Printed in FOXE, vol. iv. p. 659, Townsend's edition.

[2] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 4.

[3] Bishop Latimer, in a sermon at Paul's Cross, suggested another purpose
which this act might answer. One of his audience, writing to the Mayor of
Plymouth, after describing the exceedingly disrespectful language in which
he spoke of the high church dignitaries, continues, "The king," quoth he,
"made a marvellous good act of parliament that certain men should sow every
of them two acres of hemp; but it were all too little were it so much more
to hang the thieves that be in England."--_Suppression of the Monasteries_,
Camden Society's publications, p. 38.

[4] 32 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

[5] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

[6] _Antiquities of Hengrave_, by Sir T. GAGE.

[7] See especially 2 Hen. VII. capp. 16 and 19.

[8] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 9.

[9] See especially the 4th of the 5th of Elizabeth.

[10] 10 Ed. III. cap. 3.

[11] Statutes of the Realm, vol. i. (edit. 1817), pp. 227-8.

[12] "The artificers and husbandmen make most account of such meat as they
may soonest come by and have it quickliest ready. Their food consisteth
principally in beef, and such meat as the butcher selleth, that is to say,
mutton, veal, lamb, pork, whereof the one findeth great store in the
markets adjoining; besides souse, brawn, bacon, fruit, pies of fruit, fowls
of sundry sorts, as the other wanteth it not at home by his own provision,
which is at the best hand and commonly least charge. In feasting, this
latter sort--I mean the husbandmen--do exceed after their manner,
especially at bridals and such odd meetings, where it is incredible to tell
what meat is consumed and spent."--HARRISON'S _Desc