we are told he was verbose, and we have it on the authority of Chalmers that a sermon once preached by him at St. Mary's Church, Cambridge, extended to the extraordinary length of three hours. He was not only a considerable writer, but an excellent architect, and was appointed Comptroller of the Royal Works under Henry VII.,* who, as a further mark of esteem, appointed him one of the executors of his will (along with his learned townsman Bishop Fisher), and bequeathed him a legacy of £100.†

Dallaway, in his "Anecdotes of Arts in England,” speaks of Alcock and Sir Reginald Bray as being "the two greatest amateur architects of their age." As a proof of his skill in architecture, he has been accredited by several writers with the honor of designing Henry VII.'s chapel at Westminster. As, however, that chapel was not begun until two years after his decease, this is probably incorrect. Neal and Brayley, in their "History and Antiquities of Westminster Abbey," are of opinion that the Prior of St. Bartholomew's was himself the architect.

Alcock's knowledge of this science and his zeal for the cause of religion, were jointly displayed in the many noble foundations which he built and instituted. He erected an episcopal palace at Downham, in Cambridgeshire,‡ and the spacious hall belonging to the episcopal palace at Ely was also his work. § He

* Bentham's "Hist. Ely Cathedral."

+ Testam. Vetust. vol. i., p. 26.

Britton Arch. Ant., vol. v.

§ Chalmer's Biog. Dict.

founded Jesus College, Cambridge, for a master, six fellows, and as many scholars. This house was formerly a nunnery dedicated to Saint Radigund, and Godwin says that the buildings being greatly decayed and the revenues reduced almost to nothing, the nuns had all forsaken it except two. Whereupon Bishop Alcock procured a grant from the crown and converted it into a College-a work alone sufficient to endear his memory to posterity. He founded a chantry and built a chapel for the souls of his parents, and is supposed to have designed St. Mary's or the University Church at Cambridge.*

According to De la Pryme's Diary, in 1484, "he founded and built a little chapell upon the south side of St. Trinity Church, in Hull, joining upon the great porch and dedicated it to the Holy Trinity, erecting two altars therein, one to Christ and the other to St. John the Evangelist, and therein and thereat fixed a perpetual chantery and chantor to chant psalms and prayers every day for the souls of King Edward IV., his own, his parents, and for all Christian souls, which he endowed with £14. 6s. 4d. a year, issuing out of houses and lands in Hull, Keilby, and Bigby. About fourteen years after this, awhile before his death, at the earnest request of Alderman Dalton-who married one of his sisters-he founded a great free school in the sayd town, and endowed it with £20. a year, out of which the master was bound to pay forty shillings a year to the clerk of Trinity.

* Dallaway Obs. on Eng. Archit. p. 193.

Church to teach boys to sing, and to give yearly to ten of the best scholars in the school 6s. 8. apiece if the revenues and other exigencies would allow of the same, and all children coming to the sayd school were to be taught gratis. All which charities were ruined and lost in Edward VI.'s days, and the school and school house pulled down and sold." The revenues of the Grammar School were however afterwards restored upon the petition of the inhabitants of the town. According to Lord Campbell, in his "Lives of the Lord Chancellors," our prelate built a chapel at Beverley. Of this, however, we can find no mention elsewhere.

We are told that Dr. Alcock was fond of punning upon his name. His device was a cock, and he placed the figure of that bird with moral sentences on scrolls in almost every part of the many public buildings which he erected. One of his publications in the library of Earl Spencer has a print of the bishop preaching to his clergy, with a cock on each side, facing the title page and another cock on the first page of the book. In the guise and character of this bird Alcock is lavishly praised by the author of the "Ship of Fools" in a eulogy addressed to him.*

We will conclude with the following quaint remarks made by Fuller in his "Worthies of England," upon this prelate: "His prudence appeared in that he was preferred Lord Chancellor of England by King Henry

a prince of an excellent palate to taste men's

* Warton's Hist. Poetry.

abilities, and a dunce was no dish for his diet. His piety is praised by the pen of J. Bale, which (though generally bitter) drops nothing but honey on Alcock's memory, commending him for a most mortified man; 'given to learning and piety from his childhood, growing from grace to grace, so that in his age none in England was higher for holiness.'

JOHN FISHER, D.D.,

CARDINAL-BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.

1459-1535.

YOWARDS the close of the fifteenth century the town of Beverley was beginning to decline from the zenith of its prosperity, and its mer

chants and shipping were removing to Hull, on the Humber, which presented greater facilities for trade. Not long before it had held a position third or fourth in rank amongst the mercantile towns of England, having a population of 4,000 at a time when York, the capital of the north, numbered only 11,000, and London not more than 85,000. Although in its decadence, it was still a rich and prosperous town, the capital of the East Riding, an important ecclesiastical centre, and the abode of many wealthy merchants. It was a fine and picturesque old town, with its gabled and cross-timbered houses of overhanging stories, built not regularly in line, but sometimes at diverging angles, with here and there projections upon the footway or recessed frontages; mixed up with them were several monastic houses, three churches, including the beautiful St. Mary's, then completely restored after the fall of a grea n; and crowning the whole, the noble col