hanging storeys, and every rich adornment of carved wood and florid plaster-the visitant must draw upon his imagination. Instead of these, he will find only buildings constructed with the most mathematical precision and of the reddest of red brick. Lutterworth is, in short, a quiet, well-to-dolooking town, exhibiting everywhere modern neatness and respectability, but totally unlike what it must have been in 1350; when, with more picturesqueness, it must have contained much squalid poverty, wretched ventilation, and deplorable agriculture. On the whole, though with some restiveness, we prefer the place as it is.

But Lutterworth contains one building worth all the rest; having, it is true, little about it likely to prove attractive to a stranger, but full of interest when one is aware that this is the ancient church of John Wiclif. (The name of the reformer was spelt in many different ways, like those of Shakespear, Rawleigh, and others, and perhaps was not written uniformly even by its possessor. We choose the form in which the name appears when the reformer was appointed papal delegate, in 1374.)

entrance.

A grave, quiet sanctity, renders the old church at Lutterworth attractive and even imposing. The walls are rent, patched, and buttressed. The windows, dim with age, admit a struggling and murky light. The old porch seems to have been constructed for the days when marriages were not yet celebrated within ecclesiastical edifices, but at their On the rectory side of the building, a low portal, which seems specially appropriated to the officiating clergyman, receives interest from the thought that by it, probably, Wiclif passed to the performance of his sacred duties. Though close to the town, the graveyard is quiet and secluded; and when, towards evening, the overhanging trees are casting their thick shadows over the venerable pile, the gloom and silence answer well to the dusky memories of the period which renders the scene memorable.

The exterior of the church is, however, its greatest

attraction; the interior is scarcely worthy of its associations. A slovenly, semi-Grecian, but altogether barbaric hand has been busy at the processes of restoration,— removing, repairing, and enlarging Wiclif's pulpit, and leaving the interior of the church in a state of miserable and most unmeaning transformation. But the vestry still retains the table on which the reformer was once wont to dispense a primitive hospitality-a fine piece of old oak; and the vestment which he wore when officiating at the altar, is still preserved, embroidered with angels, and now

shut up in a glass case like some relics of saints in conti

nental churches. The first view of this popish habiliment is somewhat startling; for the world has learned almost to regard Wiclif as a protestant, (which he was in fact, but not then in name); and as one looks upon the time-worn garment, it becomes invested with very peculiar associations -reminding us of him who has grown too large for his system, but is still obliged to keep within its narrow limits, and compelling us to pity the contest-the terrible contest-going on still, in many a mind, conscientious as Wiclif's was, between the claims of position on the one hand, and of convictions on the other. Those dingy rafters, too, overhead, look as if they might once have echoed to the reformer's voice. But this is rendered somewhat doubtful by the fact that, in 1703, a violent storm blew down the ancient spire (a tapering and very lofty cone, surmounted by a ball) into the nave, leaving it to be replaced by a structure bearing no kind of resemblance to the original erection. Though somewhat out of place, it may illustrate one peculiarity of a state church-its want of ready adjustment to circumstances as they arise-to observe that the necessary repairs consequent on this accident, involved the then existing rector-the Rev. H. Meriton-in a prolonged Chancery suit. He had collected money by brief, for the purpose of repairing the edifice, which the high wind had nearly destroyed. But, though personally above suspicion,

he had applied part of that money to the repairing of the church; a condition "not in the bond." The troubles incident on this litigation shortened the poor man's life.*

To this living of Lutterworth, John de Wiclif, so called from the place of his birth, on the banks of the Tees, Yorkshire, was presented by the crown in the year 1375, when about fifty years of age. He held the rectory about ten years. The services which led to his appointment may be briefly told.

Wiclif, one of the best scholars of his time, had attained great distinction as the most advanced man in the University of Oxford (which has not always been in arrear of the age). He had signalized himself by the offensive war he had carried on, in behalf of that university, against the mendicant friars. The fashion of monkery, which had been extremely popular during the reigns of the Anglo-Norman kings, had been for some time on the wane; and the disgust excited by the venality and licentiousness of the religious houses had called into existence the begging orders, who, abjuring monastic establishments, professed poverty, and, as wandering priests, subsisted on the alms of the devout. Yielding in their turn, however, to the temptations of the times, these wandering friars soon began to wallow in the mire of corruption which had swallowed up their predecessors. These friars were divided into four principal orders, and indeed were, by the constitutions of Pope Gregory X., limited to that number: the Dominicans, established by St. Dominic, founder of the Inquisition; the Franciscan or Grey friars, established by St. Francis of Assisa, called also Cordeliers from the knotted cord which they wore suspended from their girdles; the Carmelites or White friars, and the Augustinian or Austin friars. Many cities were divided and mapped out among these four orders, each of which was licensed to beg within a given district; whence the mendicants were called "limitours." The doctrine of these friars was, that the *Nichols' Hist. and Ant. of Leicestershire.

Founder of the Christian religion was himself a beggar, and that mendicancy was a gospel ordinance. Every reader of Milton is familiar with the passage which Bentley would fain have expunged as an interpolation—

Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars
White, black and grey, with all their trumpery.
Then might ye see

*

*

Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers toss'd
And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,

The sport of winds: all these, upwhirl'd aloft,
Fly o'er the backside of the world far off,
Into a limbo large and broad, since called
The paradise of fools."-Par. Lost, III.

Such was the popularity of these mendicants, that the confessionals of the ordinary clergy were at one time almost forsaken, whilst penitents of all classes crowded for absolution to these religious drones. Chaucer has thus painted one of them :—

Therefore, instead of weeping and prayers,
Men might give money to the poor friars."
Prol. to Cant. Tales.

The powers and privileges claimed by some of these orders were enormous. Salvation, they said, was certain to those who died invested with the scapulary of their order. It was usual for persons of infirm health, or at the point of death, to seek admission among the mendicants, and to desire that their bodies might be interred in the old

* Plenty of provisions.

garments of the friars, or at least near some of the order, that thus they might be safe at last. St. Eloy gave the following advice to his parishioners :-" Redeem your souls from destruction while you have the means in your power -offer presents and titles to churchmen; come more frequently to church; humbly implore the patronage of the saints; for if you do these things, you may come with security in the day of retribution to the tribunal of the Eternal Judge, and say, Give to us, O Lord, for we have given to Thee."*

Among the mendicant friars, the Franciscans surpassed all others in the privileges they claimed; holding their powers independently of the bishops, and possessing unlimited authority to grant indulgences as a compensation for their vows of poverty. Their authority was principally appealed to in all questions affecting the see of Rome. But each of these orders waged incessant warfare with the rest, and the contests between the Franciscans and Dominicans were most exasperated. Nor were the members of the same fraternity at peace among themselves. In the mean time, however, they all lived by continual benevolences, and often by gross exactions. Chaucer's lines may be accepted as a general portrait of the class :