122 TIIE HISTOBY OF TIIE OEDEE OF [book iv.

many of the order’s privileges being broken by thePapacy; particularly in giving away dignities thatought to go to the impoverished knights, who hadfaced death with such surpassing gallantry, andendured such fearful wounds, for the defence ofChristendom—and this return ensued before theperspiration was well rubbed from their blood-stained fronts, or their wounds were entirely closed . 1

In some brief dream of hope, or momentaryresurrection of the English Language—how, is notquite apparent—but a Sir Richard Shelley is some-what suddenly mentioned by Bosio as Prior ofEngland ; 2 though it be decidedly affirmed, thatWeston was the last of our priors up to the disso-lution of the monasteries.

The English Language fell then of inanition;and though some melancholy bystanders, and evendoctors, retouched its pulse, and considering lifenot wholly gone, may have essayed a palliative,yet has it ever really lifted up its head since?Parties notwithstanding, in this all Englishmenwill perhaps agree that it was not quite generousto hurl destruction on a body that had for agesbeen a glory to their country, and to whom allChristendom ‘owed so much. If all be innocent

1 Bosio: par. iii., lib. xxxviii. 815.