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36

THE LADY MARY.

"I saw in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years-
Those of my own life."

MRS. BROWNING.

THE Lady Mary sits alone in sable robes arrayed,

Within a tapestried chamber veiled beneath the cedar shade;
The twilight hour is waning, and the crescent moon's pale light
Streams o'er the harp, whose chords are hushed throughout the
silent night.

Musing o'er the days by-gone,
The Lady Mary sits alone.

The evening hours as ages roll, have glided past like these-
The setting sun behind the hills-the moon above the trees;
Departed eyes of youth and age have gazed upon the scene,
From that same oriel window which for centuries hath been.
With sad thoughts' fantastic wiles,
The Lady Mary time beguiles.

Thence she hath gazed in youth's brave hours, and yearned to fly away
Over the waving forest trees, to sport amidst the gay;

And she hath deemed those wooded hills stern barriers to be past,
Hiding life's pleasures spread beyond without a cloud o'ercast.
To youth's bright summer memory,

The Lady Mary breathes a sigh.

And now within her native halls a refuge she hath sought

Hath joy or sorrow traced her path-by dear experience bought? Where are the friends, the loves, the hopes, of those sweet summer years?

Speak, lonely hours-speak, wasted form-speak, sorrow's silent tears.
Hope its promise rarely keeps.
The Lady Mary mutely weeps.

Down from the green hills sweet scents come as they were wont of old-
There is the garden-there the lake-mysterious, still, and cold:
But where's the hand that gaily trained the favourite eglantine?
And the voice that pleaded evermore the joys of Love Divine ?
From earthly scenes, to weep and pray,
The Lady Mary turns away.

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37

Biography.

RICHARD FOX.

TOWARDS the close of the reign of Henry VI., at Pullock's Manor, in the little village of Ropley, near Grantham, in Lincolnshire, was born of poor parentage, Richard, the son of Thomas and Helena, Fox; the imitator of Wykeham, Chichley, and Waynflete, the founder of a college in Oxford; and, like the two latter, brought up in the school of the princely Wykeham. In Boston he was first reared in learning; in due time he was entered as a Demy of Magdalene College, Oxford; but owing to a fearful plague that raged in the University, removed to Pembroke Hall in Cambridge; the Society, of which he became Master in 1507, and so continued until 1518. So highly was he esteemed, that in 1500 he was elected Chancellor. Having entered the Holy Order of the Priesthood, he passed over to Paris, where he took his degree of Doctor in both faculties of divinity and Canon law. Morton, Bishop of Ely, was then in exile there, and, in later years, introduced the young clerk to Henry, Earl of Richmond, afterwards King of England. Faithful and full of genius, he was found worthy by that Prince, then anxious to forward his intended descent on England, to be intrusted with the difficult task of conducting negotiations at the Court of Paris for supplies of men and money. The battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 was fought and won; the royal crown was set on the head of Henry, who called him to sit in his Privy Coun cil, and bestowed upon him two Prebends in the Cathedral Church of Sarum. In 1487 he set out as an am⚫bassador to King James III. of Scotland to prolong a,

truce before the year was at an end, he was consecrated Bishop of Exeter, nominated Apostolical Legate, and raised to be Principal Secretary of State, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and Master of the Hospital of S. Cross, near Winchester. At this period he was a benefactor to Glastonbury Abbey, and the new nave of S. Mary's Church, in Oxford. His patron, Morton, became Archbishop of Canterbury. Through his influence Fox was employed on missions of State to France and Scotland. In 1492 he was translated to the See of Bath and Wells, and in two years after, on December 7th, 1494, to the Palatinate Bishopric of Durham. Here he displayed his princely temper in noble works, which still attest his architectural taste and knowledge, in improving the episcopal palace, strengthening the castle, and in repairs of the Cathedral Church.

The charge of the Scottish border and northern marches was intrusted to Fox, and almost his first act was to meet the Scotch Commissioners at Coldstream, for the mutual reparation of the injury done by invasion and reprisal. By firmness and prudence he reclaimed the neighbouring freebooters, and prevented many of the horrors of the raids by securing property and withdrawing the cattle within the walls of the strongholds. In 1497, like an heroic patriot, he defended his baronial castle of Norham against the armies of King James IV. of Scotland in person, and after a gallant defence of sixteen days turned back from the shattered fortress the discomfited enemy, with the assistance of the brave Earl of Surrey, who had marched to his relief.

September 30th, 1497, he signed the truce of seven years between the two rival kingdoms. On January 24th, 1502, he negociated the marriage between his old foe and Margaret, the eldest daughter of his so

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vereign, whom he entertained with splendid banquets on her journey through Durham. By that alliance the House of Stuart and the family of Brunswick succeeded to the throne of the united realms. On October 6th, 1501, he was removed from the rugged north to the milder climate and more civilized south, to Winchester, in order to be nearer to his loving master.

There still remain the imperishable memorials of his piety, the bones of the dead Saxon kings arranged in chests around the solemn sanctuary, and the superb sepulchral chapel on the south side, the crowning work of human art. In the beautiful ruins of Netley Abbey, the house of the "Fair Place," in the south transept, may be seen even now traces of his munificence.

In 1507-8 he was negotiating at Calais a marriage between the King's third daughter, Mary, and the illustrious Archduke, afterwards the Emperor Charles the Fifth. In 1509-10 he was once more in France, concluding a treaty of alliance with Louis the Twelth. In 1513 he was present at the capture of Terouenne; and in the next October signed the treaty with the Emperor Maximilian to arm against France. He was a witness in 1514 to the treaty that brought peace to the feud of the opposed nations; and the alliance between Henry VIII. and the Princess Mary; and in 1515 to the alliance between England and Francis I. To the last hour of his reign Henry was his friend; named him as his executor, and commended him to the favour of his child, to whom Fox had stood as godfather at the font. While his taste was eminent in the arrangement of pageant and the propriety of ceremonials, as in the glorious show that was prepared to grace the bridal of Prince Arthur and Catharine of Arragon, his heart was with his See. He held the Privy Seal and

still had a seat in the Council; but Howard, and Wolseywho owed his fortunes to him, assumed the chief place in the regards of the youthful sovereign. Fox and Warham retired together from the court of kings in 1515. Frequent in preaching, unwearied in entreaty and exhortation to his clergy to toil in GoD's vineyard, rich in alms, and unbounded in charity to the poor; his was: a wise and temperate hospitality; in his palace of Wolsey two hundred and twenty people dined daily beneath its roof.

In the year 1516 he determined to found a nursery for the novices of his Cathedral Church, like the Hostels of Durham and Canterbury. His prudent friend, Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, intreated him to alter his plan, and receive secular students. "My Lord," said his counsellor, "shall we build houses and provide livelihoods for monks, whose fall we ourselves shall see? Let us make provision for the spread of learning; and those who, therein taught, shall do good to Church and State." The wise prelate heard and followed this judicious advice. He invited all comers to his new institution; Ludovicus Vivez, the divine, Nicholas Crucher, the mathematician, Clement Edwards, and Nicholas Utten, the Greek scholars, Thomas Lupset, Richard Pace, and Reginald Pole, all men of note, were drawn to his college. Fox braved the narrow spirit of his age, by thus giving the highest encouragement to classical literature, by appointing lectures in Greek and Latin, free to all students desirous of attending them.

The fame of his institution shortly spread over Europe; and the study of the ancient languages proved no slight instrument in promoting the Reformation. He endowed his college not with ecclesiastical property, but with secular estates. He quaintly in his statutes calls it his " college of bees," "his bee-hive," from the fact of a

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