Prone from those heights pellucid fountains On which the sun, beyond th' horizon shined, flow low. O'er pearly meads, through emerald vales be- Piled on a hundred arches, ridge by ridge, No lovelier pageant moves beneath the sky! The slow creation of six thousand years, Amidst immensity it towers sublime,— Winter's eternal palace, built by Time. On the south side of the ancient pas- he calculated would so materially imsage leading from the street to the churchyard of St. Nicholas, was formerly situated the commodious house of Thomas Wolsey, a substantial butcher and grazier, of the town of Ipswich, in the sixteenth century. This Thomas Wolsey was one of those persons with whom the acquisition of wealth appears to be the sole purpose of existence. It was his boast "that he had thrice trebled the patrimony he had derived from his father," from whom he had inherited his flourishing business, besides some personal property. Acting in direct contradiction to that injunction of the royal psalmist, "If riches increase, set not your heart upon them," his very soul appeared to dwell in his money bags, his well attended shambles, or the pleasant, lowland pastures where the numerous flocks and herds grazed, the profits on which prove his store. He made no show, no figure among his fellow townsmen ; never exchanging his long blue linen gown, leathern girdle, and coarse brown hose, for any other apparel, except on a Sunday, when he wore a plain substantial suit of sad coloured cloth, garnished with silver buttons, and the polished steel and huge sheath knife, which he usually wore at his side, were exchanged for a silver-hilted dagger and an antique rosary and crucifix. Satisfied with the conviction that he was one of the wealthiest tradesmen in Ipswich, he saw no reason for exciting the envy of the poor or the ill will of the rich, by any outward demonstrations of the fact, but continued to live in the same snug plain manner to which he had been accustomed in his early days, making it the chief desire of his heart that his only son, Thomas, should tread in his steps, and succeed him in his prosperous and well-established business, with the same economical habits and an equally laudable care for the main chance. The maternal pride of his wife, Joan, who was the descendant of a family that could boast of gentle blood, prompted the secret hope that the ready wit and studious habits, together with the clerkly skill and learned lore which the boy had already acquired at the grammar school, might qualify him for something better than the greasy craft of a butcher, and perhaps one day elevate him to the situation of port reeve or town clerk. But for the boy himself, his youthful ambition pointed at higher marks than the golden speculations of trade or the attainment of lucrative offices and civic honours in his native town. From the first moment he entered the grammar school, and took his place on the lowest seat there, he determined to occupy the highest, and to this, in an almost incredibly brief period of time, he had rapidly ascended; and though only just entering his twelfth year, he was the head boy in the school, and, in the opinion of his unlearned father, "knew more than was good for him." As soon, indeed, as his son Thomas had learned to write a "fair clerkly hand, to cast accounts, and construe a page in the Breviary," he considered his education complete, and was desirous of saving the expense of keeping him longer at school; but here he was overruled by his more liberal-minded wife Joan, who, out of the savings of her own privy purse, paid the quarterly sum of eight-pence to the master of the school, for the further instruction of her hopeful boy Thomas, whose abilities she regarded as little less than miraculous. Persons better qualified than the good wife, Joan Wolsey, to judge of the natural talents and precocious acquirements of her son, had also spoken in high terms of his progress in the learned languages, and predicted great things of him. These were personages of no less importance than the head master of the Ipswich grammar school, and the parish priest of St. Nicholas, the latter of whom was a frequent visitor at the hospitable messuage of master Thomas Wolsey the elder, on the ostensible business of chopping Latin with young Thomas, and correcting his Greek exercises for him; but no doubt the spiced tankards of flowing ale, and the smoking beef steaks, cut from the very choicest part of the ox, and temptingly cooked by the wellskilled hands of that accomplished housewife, Joan Wolsey, to reward him for his good report of her darling boy's proficiency, had some influence in drawing father Boniface thither so often. The bishop of the diocese himself had condescended to bestow unqualified praise on the graceful and eloquent manner in which, when he visited the school, young Wolsey had delivered the complimentary Latin oration, on that occasion. The good natured prelate had even condescended to pat his curly along of your folly, mistress, in keeping head on the conclusion of the address, the boy loitering away his time and and to say, "Spoken like a cardinal, my learning all manner of evil habits at the little man!" grammar school, when he ought to have been bound apprentice to me, and learning our honest craft, for the last two years," muttered the malcontent butcher, throwing himself into his large arm chair, lined with sheep-skins. From that moment young Wolsey had made up his mind as to his future destiny. It was to no purpose that his father tried the alternate eloquence of entreaties, reasoning, promises and threats, to detach him from his engrossing studies, and induce him to turn his attention to the lucrative business of a butcher and grazier. The idea of such servilely earned pelf was revolting to the excited imagination of the youthful student, whose mind was full of classic imagery, and intent on the attainment of academic honours, the steps by which he projected to ascend to the more elevated objects of his ambition. The church was, in those days, the only avenue through which talented per sons of obscure birth might hope to arrive at greatness, and young Wolsey replied to all his father's exordiums urging him to attend to the cattle market, the slaughter house, or the shambles, by announcing his intention of becoming an ecclesiastic. The flush of anger with which this unwelcome declaration had clouded the brow of the elder Wolsey was perfectly perceptible when he returned home after the fatigues of the day to take his evening meal, which his wife, Joan, was busily engaged in preparing for him over the fire with her own hands. EL "What a coil the woman keeps up with her frying pan," continued he peevishly, on perceiving that the discreet Joan appeared disposed to drown the ebullitions of his wrath in the hissing and bubbling of the fat in her pan, as she artfully redoubled her assiduity in shaking it over the blazing hearth. "Why, Joan," pursued he, "one cannot hear oneself speak for the noise you make." "The noise is all of your own making, I trow, master," replied Joan, continuing to stir her hissing sputtering pan briskly as she spoke. "I say, leave off that frizzling with the fat in that odious pan," vociferated he. "So I will, master, if you wish to have burnt collops for your supper tonight," replied Joan meekly. "I don't care whether I have any supper at all," replied the butcher testily; "I am vexed, mistress." "Good lack what should happen to vex you, master?" responded his wife. "I am sure the world always seems to wag the way you'd have it go; but los "I knew how it would turn out all ses and crosses in business will chance even to the most prosperous, at times. Is one of your fat beasts dead?" the beloved volume from being sprayed by the fat which the frying pan, in falling, had scattered in all directions. "No!" "Some of your best sheep been sto- "That lad, on whom you bestow such len ?" "No!" Ay, master; but that is a trial we have never had the sorrow of knowing since our only son, Thomas, albeit I say it who ought not, is the most dutiful, diligent, and loving lad, that ever blessed a parent's heart," said the fond mother, melting into tears of tenderness as she spoke. "Hold thy peace, dame," cried the indignant husband, darting a look of angry reproach on the offending youth, who had been comfortably reposing himself on an oaken settle by the fire side, reading Virgil's Eneid by the light of the blazing embers, during the whole of the discussion, without concerning him self about any thing, save to preserve foolish commendations," pursued old Wolsey; "that lad, whatever might have been his former virtuous inclinations, hath now disappointed all my hopes, for he hath turned an errant scape-grace, and refuseth to become a butcher, though the shambles he would inherit from me are the largest, the mos: commodious, and the best frequented with ready-penny customers, of any on the market hill. Moreover, it is a business in which his grandfather got money, and I, following in his good steps, with still better success, have become― I scorn to boast, but the truth may be spoken without blame-one of the wealthiest tradesmen in the borough." "Then the less need, my master, of enforcing such a clever lad as our Thomas to follow a craft which is so unsuitable for a scholar," observed Joan. "There," groaned the butcher, "was the folly of making him one, which hath been the means of teaching him to slight the main chance, and to turn his head with pagan poesies or monkish lore. Would you believe it, mistress Joan, he hath had the audacity to profess his desire of becoming a student at the university of Oxenford ?" "And why should he not, master Wolsey, since he promiseth to become a learned clerk ?" asked the proud mother. "Indeed!" ejaculated his father with which I doubt our simple son, Thomas, an air of incredulity. will find insurmountable." Yes, sir, it was Nicholas Brekespeare, afterwards Pope Adrian the Fourth, the only Englishman who ever filled the papal chair, but perhaps not the last whom learning, combined with persevering enterprise, may conduct to that eminence." "Ho! ho! ho!" cried the butcher, bursting into a loud laugh; "I wist not of the high mark at which your ambition aimeth, son Thomas! Well, if enabling you to become a servitor in Magdalen College will advance your holiness one step towards the possession of St. Peter's keys, I will not withhold my assistance and my blessing, though much I doubt whether it will carry thee into the Vatican, or whatever you call it, of which you and father Boniface are always talking." "I shall, at least, lose nothing in mak ing the attempt," observed young Wolsey. "There is your mistake, boy; you will lose something very considerable," replied his father. "Dear father, what can that be for which the learning I shall acquire will not make me ample amends ?" "The most flourishing butchery in Ipswich, simpleton! which, if once lost through your inconsiderate folly, you may study till doomsday, and acquire all the learning in popedom and heathenesse into the bargain, without being able to re-establish it in its present pros perity," returned the mortified father with a groan. A smile which the younger Wolsey strove in vain to repress, played over his features at these words. "Ay, scorn and slight the substantial |