DEED OF A FOUNDATION

OF AN ADDITIONAL COLLEGE AT WESTBURY.

To all christian people to whom this indented writing shall come, Thomas Rotherham, under God and the holy Father of the Church, Bishop of the see of Rochester; John Carpenter, Bishop of the see of Worcester; John Booth, Bishop, of the see of Exeter; Sir William Canynge, Dean of St. George's college at Westbury upon Trim, and Knight Templar of St. John of Jerusalem: and John Iscam, chauntry priest. Now KNOW YE, that we, the aforesaid Thomas, John, William, and Thomas, having assembled the third day after the feast of Easter, at Westbury, in the house of the said bishop of Worcester, having maturely considered all the circumstances attending such a design, and estimated the expence, have, for the love we bear unto holy Church and all things thereunto belonging, resolved to build a new College to be adjoining to the left wing of the college lately founded by the late John of Worcester and Sir William.-The lands proposed for the said buildings, its gardens, cloisters, and other outlets, being four acres square, and belonging to Thomas of Rochester, is by him the said Thomas, hereby given to Sir William and Sir Thomas Rowley, intended builders and endowers of the said additional college.

The said Thomas of Rochester, John of Worcester, and John of Exeter, do absolve Wm. Canynge, father, and Robert Canynge, brother to the said Sir William, from all sins by them committed during their life, as by power of the Holy Father of the Church they are enabled so to do. They, the said Sir William and Sir Thomas do give to the building

From a MS. in Chatterton's hand-writing in the British Museum.

thereof 2000 marks in equal portions, to be paid by William or his heir apparent to the master builders and carpenters employed in the same: and we shall superintend the whole. John of Worcester, testified by his seal ecclesiastic hereunto set, gives the master or principal for the time being, the priests dues upon the holy offerings made in the Easter of the churches of St. Martin and the chancels of Saint Gregory, Saint Mary, and Saint Elphage, in the city of Worcester.

John of Exeter gives the master, witnessed by seal ecclesiastical, the offerings of three chancels at Teignmouth, three at Exmouth, and two at Exeter, at the choice of the master. John Iscam to be master of the college when finished, and to instruct the brethren in grammar, philosophy, and architecture: and for that purpose purchase MSS. relating to the said sciences, at the expence of Thomas Rowley, who will adorn the Boc-hord or library with gilt wood. Also at the expence of T. Rowley, an instrument of the new invented art of marking letters, to be made and set up there.

The brethren, being 20 in number, shall be advanced in degrees as they advance in learning, and incorporated with the college of 30 brethren founded by John of Worcester and Sir Thomas, under the same laws enacted, be by the same master, John Iscam, governed, who shall receive an additional stipend of 40 marks per annum.

The badge of the College to be a cross, gules, on a field argent; and the brethren, being free-masons, to observe the rules of Canynge's Red Lodge. After the death of Thomas Rowley, his estate, now computed 5000 marks, to devolve to the College, to the further emoluments of 40 of the most learned brethren. The estates to be purchased with it to lie in Somersetshire. And John Iscam, for himself and his successors, doth promise that the said T. Rowley shall be buried in the isle near the canon's seat in the church of West

bury, with a fair ruby ring on his finger, and over his head a portraiture of his arms. Argent on a chief, or, a spear rowel gules. Sir William Canynge gives at his death 400 marks for the further emoluments of the remaining 10 unlearned brethren.

If the settling the new brethren exceed 2000 marks, Sir Thomas Rowley doth hereby covenant to make up the deficiency, and also to furnish the chapel with palls, and the house and refectory with furniture. The master, after the decease of Iscam, to be chosen by the brethren, although not considered as master till their choice is ratified by the Bishop of Worcester for the time being.

In witness of the truth of the above we have all of us hereunto set our public or private scals, as the law in this case requires, in the 8th year of the reign of King Edward. Endowed,

Hereunto is fastened the ground-plot view, elevation, and section of the intended college.

1468

FRAGMENT OF A SERMON,

BY ROWLEY.*

Havynge whylomme ynn dyscourse provedd, orr soughte toe proove, the deitie of Chryste bie hys workes, names, and attributes, I shalle in nexte place seeke to proove the deeitie of Holye Spryte. Manne moste bee supplyedd wythe Holye Spryte toe have communyonn ryghtfullye of thynges whyche bee of Godde. Seyncte Paulle prayethe the Holye

This Fragment was printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1782, with this note annexed. "The following fragment has been produced as a transcript from a sermon by Thomas Rowley, Priest, of the fifteenth century. There being little reason, however, to suppose that Chatterton, who apparently forged all the other pieces attributed to this occult personage, could be the immediate author of such a performance, to learn from whence the ground-work of it was borrowed is the object of the present insertion. If any person who has leisure and opportunity should happen, in the course of his researches after things of greater moment, to make such a discovery, and will communicate satisfactory proof of it through the channel of this Magazine; as a small acknowledgment for his trouble, a set of books chosen by himself, and of three guineas value, shall be at the service of the earliest satisfactory communicator."

The words ascribed to Cyprian are supposed not to belong to that Father. They are taken from a tract, De Cardinalibus Christi Operibus, formerly imagined to be Cyprian's, but long since rejected by the best critics, and attributed by Bishop Fell to Arnold of Chartres, Abbot of Beauval, a contemporary and friend of St. Bernard, A.D. 1160. See the citation of Arnold's Works, as printed in the Appendix to Fell's edition of Cyprian, p. 60, De Spiritu Sanctot.

In the number of the same Magazine for the following month there appeared this solution of the difficulty:

MR. URBAN,

"Wrexham, May 14.

"I will not be confident that I have discovered the groundwork of the fragment enquired after, p. 177; but, if your correspondent consults the latter of two sermons on the Deity of the Son and Holy Spirit,' by the Rev. Caleb Evans of Bristol, printed for Buckland, 1766, he will find the beginning very similar to the fragment; and also, upon reading the former, that Mr. Evans's proof of the Deity of Christ is agreeable to Rowley's reference. If, too, he reads p. 72 of the above sermon, Mr. Evans quotes Herman Witsius, a Dutch divine; the quotation is from his Exercitationes in Symbolum. Now, whether Chatterton's inquisitive genius did (as he easily might) understand so much Latin as to dip into Witsius, or might get it translated, it is certain that the very address to the Spirit, said to be from St. Cyprian, is in the beginning of Exercit. xxIII., and is introduced in almost the same words as in Rowley's fragment. I observe, further, that Witsius has,

Spryte toe assyste hys flocke ynn these wordes, The Holye Sprytes communyonn bee wythe you. Lette us dhere desyerr of hymm to ayde us, I ynne unplyteynge and you ynn understandynge hys deeite: lette us saye wythe Seyncte Cyprian, Adesto, Sancte Spiritus, & paraclesin tuam expectantibus illabere cælitus; sanctifica templum corporis nostri, & consecra inhabitaculum tuum. Seyncte Paulle sayethe yee are the temple of Godde; forr the Spryte of Godde dwellethe ynn you. Gyff yee are the temple of Godde alleyne bie the dwellynge of the Spryte, wote yee notte that the Spryte ys Godde, ande playne proofe of the personne and glorye of the thryrde personne. The personne, gyftes, operatyonns, glorye, and deeitie, are all ynn Holye Spryte, as bee prooved fromm diffraunt textes of Scrypture: beeynge, as Seyncte Peter sayethe, of the same essentyall matterr as the Fadre ande Sonne, whoe are Goddes, the Holye Spryte moste undisputably bee Godde. The Spryte orr dyvyne will of Godde moovedd uponn the waterrs att the creatyonn of the worlde: thys meanethe the Deeitie. I sayde, ynn mie laste discourse, the promyse of Chryste, whoe wy the Godde the Fadre wolde dwelle ynn the soughle of his decyples; howe coulde heie soe but bie myssyonn of Holye Spryte? Thys methynkethe prooveth ne alleyne the personallitie of Holye Spryte, but the verrie foundatyonne and grounde wurch of the Trinitie

Sect. XXXII., Rowley's argument, "Seyncte Paulle sayeth yee are the temple of Godde," &c., and speaks of the "personne, giftes, operatyonns, &c. of the Holy Spryte," all which Chatterton might acquire by a very shallow acquaintance with Latin, and indeed most of them by only reading the table prefixed to the Exercitation. I will not say where he got the curious notion, that it will be the peculiar office of the Holy Spirit to "destroye" the "worlde" (perhaps it was Mr. Chatterton's own), nor yet whence he had the extract from St Gregory; but your correspondent will be struck with the similarity, I was going to say, sameness, of the supposed Rowley's reasoning, that "the Holy Spryte cannot bee the goode thynges and vyrtues of a man's mynde" with that of Mr. Evans, p. 57-60. Is not the expression, Deity of the Spirit, more modern than the fifteenth century? But it is in the beginning of Mr. Evans' Sermon. "Your's, &c.

"AN ENQUIRER."