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lege, amounted to 4001. per annum a very large sum in those days. But the executors were soon compelled to resign all the lands to the rapacity of the king; and the society must have been again dissolved, or at least much reduced its establishment, if Fischer had not luckily found some trifling compensation in the revenues of a small dissolved house at Ospring, in Kent. These amounted, indeed, to no more than 70l. a year; but which, with a few other inconsiderable helps, proved sufficient, under good management, to continue the college on its original plan.

come.

Collegians of the present day will wonder how so large a society, consisting chiefly of fellows, (for at first there were few scholars,) could be supported upon such a slender inBut when they are told that only twelve pence per week was allowed in commons to a fellow, and but seven pence to a scholar; that 1201. was enough to found a fellowship; and that 61. per annum sufficed for the maintenance of a fellow-their astonishment will cease. Its revenues were soon greatly improved by the assiduous attention and prudent management of Robert Shoreton, the first master. This college distinguished itself for its zeal and spirit during

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the reformation; and more ministers were ejected from it than from any other society in the university-an effect very different from what the foundress and her good confessor had designed to produce.

The following lines, composed probably by a monk of Westminster, were found deposited among other documents, in the foundress's chest at St. John's College; and as they contain an accurate, though succinct account of her foundations, it may be worth while to give them a place :

Carmen Phalecium Hendecasyllabum.

Hic illa est sita Margareta Gnato
Henrico inclyta septimo, nepote
(Comitissa Richmondæ

Octavo Comes alta Richmondæ

Richmondiana Rectrix.

Censum contulit annuum duobus
Qui docti sophiam sacram explicarent
Ille Oxonibus, ille Cantabrigis;
His Collegia bina struxit, ambo

Quæ * centum foveant decemq; alumnos.
Doctorem instituit rudi popello,

Qui Christum sine fine buccinetur.

*

Sixty at Christ's College, and fifty at St. John's.

Roynborni ære suo, novam tenellæ
Pubi, grammatices scholam paravit.
Demum* hîc tres monachos alit benigna,
His ac talibus illa viva factis,
Fortunam superavit eminentem.

I conceive that these few particulars relative to the foundations of the lady Margaret, are not misplaced, since they are obviously connected with the learning of the period, and with the biography of bishop Fischer, without whose wise direction, the good intentions of that lady might have evaporated in a selfish piety, or at best in a vague benevolence. The reader may now judge of the validity of his title to be ranked among the first and most active restorers of ancient learning in England.

At Westminster.

†This account is abstracted from the preface to his sermon, at lady Margaret's funeral; and which was compiled by the editor from original documents reposited among the archives of St. John's College, Cambridge. The book, I apprehend, is scarce; I met with it by accident, after having searched for it in vain,

SIR THOMAS MORE,

Chancellor of England,

BORN in London in 1480, was son of sir John More, knight, one of the judges of King's Bench. He received the first part of his education at St. Anthony's, Threadneedle-street, and was afterwards admitted into the family of cardinal Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, who was accustomed to say of him to his guests" This boy who waits at table, whoever lives to see it, will prove a marvellous man." In 1497, he entered at Oxford, where he continued two years, and then, being designed for the law, removed to New Inn, London; and soon af ter, to Lincoln's Inn, of which his father was a member.

About the age of twenty, he became disgusted with the law, and shut himself up, during four years, in the Charter-house, devoting

himself exclusively to the services of religion. At this period he was so bigotted to monkish superstitions, and monkish discipline, that, like lady Margaret, he wore a hair-shirt next his skin, (which he is said never afterwards to have wholly laid aside,) fasted often, and not unfrequently slept on a bare plank. He had a strong inclination to take orders, and even to turn Franciscan; but was over-ruled by his father, whose authority was moreover reinforced by the amorous propensities of the son, which were not to be subdued even by the austerities of the cloister. Accordingly he married Jane, eldest daughter of John Colt, esq. of New-hall, Essex. About this period, too, he was appointed law reader at Furnival's Inn, which he held for three years; and besides, read a public lecture in the church of St. Laurence, Old Jewry, upon St, Austin's treatise De Civitate Dei.

At the age of two and twenty, he was elected member of the parliament called by Henry VII. in 1503, to demand a subsidy and nine fifteenths, for the marriage of Margaret, his eldest daughter, to James, king of Scotland. More opposed this demand with such force of argument, that it was finally rejected by the

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