is obliged to say for himself that, wherever
he has been fortunate enough to discover authentic
explanations of English historical difficulties, it is rare
indeed that he has found any conjecture, either of his
own or of any other modern writer, confirmed. The
true motive has almost invariably been of a kind which
no modern experience could have suggested.

Thoughts such as these form a hesitating prelude to
an expression of opinion on a controverted question.
They will serve, however, to indicate the limits within
which the said opinion is supposed to be hazarded.
And in fact, neither in this nor in any historical
subject is the conclusion so clear that it can be
enunciated in a definite form. The utmost which can
be safely hazarded with history is to relate honestly
ascertained facts, with only such indications of a judicial
sentence upon them as may be suggested in the form in
which the story is arranged.

Whether the monastic bodies of England, at the time
of their dissolution, were really in that condition of moral
corruption which is laid to their charge in the Act of
Parliament by which they were dissolved, is a point
which it seems hopeless to argue. Roman Catholic,
and indeed almost all English, writers who are not
committed to an unfavourable opinion by the ultra-
Protestantism of their doctrines--seem to have agreed
of late years that the accusations, if not false, were
enormously exaggerated. The dissolution, we are told,
was a predetermined act of violence and rapacity; and
when the reports and the letters of the visitors are
quoted in justification of the Government, the discussion
is closed with the dismissal of every unfavourable
witness from the court, as venal, corrupt, calumnious--
in fact, as a suborned liar. Upon these terms the
argument is easily disposed of; and if it were not that
truth is in all matters better than falsehood, it would
be idle to reopen a question which cannot be justly
dealt with. No evidence can affect convictions which
have been arrived at without evidence--and why should
we attempt a task which it is hopeless to accomplish?
It seems necessary, however, to reassert the actual state
of the surviving testimony from time to time, if it be
only to sustain the links of the old traditions; and the
present paper will contain one or two pictures of a
peculiar kind, exhibiting the life and habits of those
institutions, which have been lately met with chiefly
among the unpri