matist, who flourished chiefly in the reign of Henry VIII. was the intimate friend of Sir Thomas More, with whom he seems to have had a congenial spirit, and died abroad, in consequence of his devotion to the Roman Catholic cause, about the year 1565. His zeal, however, on this head, does not seem to have blinded his judgment, or to have prevented him from using the utmost freedom and severity in lashing the abuses of Popery, at which he seems to have looked" with the malice of a friend." The Four P's bears the date of 1547. It is very curious, as an evidence both of the wit, the manners, and opinions of the time. Each of the parties in the dialogue gives an account of the boasted advantages of his own particular calling, that is, of the frauds which he practises on credulity and ignorance, and is laughed at by the others in turn. In fact, they all of them strive to outbrave each other, till the contest becomes a jest, and it ends in a wager, who shall tell the greatest lie? when the prize is adjudged to him, who says, that he had found a patient woman*. The common superstitions (here recorded) in civil and religious matters, are almost incredible; and the chopped logic, which was the fashion of the time, and which comes in aid of

* Or never known one otherwise than patient.

;

the author's shrewd and pleasant sallies to expose them, is highly entertaining. Thus the Pardoner, scorning the Palmer's long pilgrimages and circuitous road to Heaven, flouts him to his face, and vaunts his own superior pretensions.

"Pard. By the first part of this last tale,
It seemeth you came of late from the ale:
For reason on your side so far doth fail,
That you leave reasoning, and begin to rail.
Wherein you forget your own part clearly,
For you be as untrue as I:

But in one point you are beyond me,
For you may lie by authority,

And all that have wandered so far,
That no man can be their controller.

And where you esteem your labour so much,

I say yet again, my pardons are such,

That if there were a thousand souls on a heap,
I would bring them all to heaven as good sheep,
As you have brought yourself on pilgrimage,
In the last quarter of your voyage,

Which is far a this side heaven, by God:

There your labour and pardon is odd.
With small cost without any pain,

These pardons bring them to heaven plain :
Give me but a penny or two-pence,
And as soon as the soul departeth hence,
In half an hour, or three quarters at the most,
The soul is in heaven with the Holy Ghost."

The Poticary does not approve of this arrogance of the Friar, and undertakes, in mood and

figure, to prove them both "false knaves." It is he, he says, who sends most souls to heaven, and who ought, therefore, to have the credit of it.

"No soul, ye know, entereth heaven-gate,
"Till from the body he be separate:
And whom have ye known die honestly,
Without help of the Poticary?

Nay, all that cometh to our handling,
Except ye hap to come to hanging.
Since of our souls the multitude

I send to heaven, when all is view'd
Who should but I then altogether

Have thank of all their coming thither?"

The Pardoner here interrupts him captiously

"If

ye

kill'd a thousand in an hour's space,

When come they to heaven, dying out of grace?"

But the Poticary not so baffled, retorts

"If a thousand pardons about your necks were tied ; When come they to heaven, if they never died?

The Pedlar finds out the weak side of his new companions, and tells them very bluntly, on their referring their dispute to him, a piece of his mind.

"Now have I found one mastery,

That ye can do indifferently;

And it is neither selling nor buying,
But even only very lying."

At this

game of imposture, the cunning dealer in pins and laces undertakes to judge their merits; and they accordingly set to work like regular graduates. The Pardoner takes the lead, with an account of the virtues of his relics; and here we may find a plentiful mixture of Popish superstition and indecency. The bigotry of any age is by no means a test of its piety, or even sincerity. Men seemed to make themselves amends for the enormity of their faith by levity of feeling, as well as by laxity of principle; and in the indifference or ridicule with which they treated the wilful absurdities and extravagances to which they hood-winked their understandings, almost resembled children playing at blindman's buff, who grope their way in the dark, and make blunders on purpose to laugh at their own idleness and folly. The sort of mummery at which Popish bigotry used to play at the time when this old comedy was written, was not quite so harmless as blind-man's buff: what was sport to her, was death to others. She laughed at her own mockeries of common sense and true religion, and murdered while she laughed. The tragic farce was no longer to be borne, and it was partly put

an end to. At present, though her eyes are blindfolded, her hands are tied fast behind her, like the false Duessa's. The sturdy genius of modern philosophy has got her in much the same situation that Count Fathom has the old woman that he lashes before him from the robbers' cave in the forest. In the following dialogue of this lively satire, the most sacred mysteries of the Catholic faith are mixed up with its idlest legends by old Heywood, who was a martyr to his religious zeal, without the slightest sense of impropriety. The Pardoner cries out in one place (like a lusty Friar John, or a trusty Friar Onion)—

"Lo, here be pardons, half a dozen,
For ghostly riches they have no cousin;
And moreover, to me they bring
Sufficient succour for my living.
And here be relics of such a kind,

As in this world no man can find.

Kneel down all three, and when ye leave kissing,

Who list to offer shall have my blessing.

Friends, here shall ye see even anon,'
Of All-Hallows the blessed jaw-bone.

Mark well this, this relic here is a whipper;
My friends unfeigned, here is a slipper

Of one of the seven sleepers, be sure.

Here is an eye-tooth of the great Turk :
Whose eyes be once set on this piece of work,
May happily lose part of his eye-sight,