he was of the universitie, as a scholler of that tyme hath told me, and it was this:-There had been a very sharp frost, (such as have bene many this yeare,) and a sudden rayne or sleete falling with it from the south-east, had as it were candyed all that side of the steeple at Christ Church, with an ice mixed with snow, which with the warmth of the sunne soon after ten of the clock began to resolve, and Doctor Westphaling being in the middle of his sermon, it fell down altogither upon the leads of the church, with such a noyse, as if indeed it would have thrown down the whole church. The people (as in sudden terrors is usuall) fill'd all with tumult, and each man hasted to be gone so fast, that they hinderd one another. He first kneeling down, and recommending himself to God, (as in the apprehension of a sodaine danger,) straight rose againe, and with so cheerfull both voice and countenance incouraged them, as they all returned, and he quietlie finished his sermon.

But his chief praise I reserve for the last, which was this:-for all such benefices as either were in his owne guift, or fell into his hand by lapse, which were not few, and some of great

valew; he neither respected letters nor commendacions of lords or knights, nor wife, nor frends, in preferment of anie man, but only their sufficiencie and their good conversation; so as to sue for a benefice unto him, was rather a means to misse it then to attayn it.

DOCTOR [ROBERT] BENNET.9

THIS bishop was preferr'd to this place since my author wrate his catalogue, so as he is not therein specified; yet must not I do him that wrong to omit him in this relacion. This is he (if your Highnes do remember it) of whom his Majesty said, "if he were to chuse a bishop by the aspect, he would chuse him of all the men he had seene, for a grave, reverent, and pleasing countenance;" concurring herein, in a sort, though by contraries, with the judgement of Henry the fourth Emperor, who coming from hunting one daie, (as Malmsbury wryteth) went for devotion sake into a church, where a verie ill-favoured faced priest was at service.The Emperor thinking his vertues suted his visage, said to himself, "How can God like of so ugly a fellow's service?" But it fortuned at that instant, the priests boy was mumbling of that versicle in the hundred psalm, ipse nos fecit, et non ipsi nos; and because he pronounced it

9 Dean of Windsor: succeeded Dr. Westphaling as Bishop of Hereford in Feb. 1601-2.

not plainly, the priest reproved him, and repeated it againe alowd, ipse nos fecit, et non ipsi nos which the Emperor applying to his own cogitacion, thought the priest to have some propheticall spirit, and from that tyme forward esteemed him greatly, and made him a bishop. Thus that bishop, though he could not sett so good a face of it, yet he gat perhaps as good a bishoprick.

But to come to our bishop, whom my self knew in Cambridge a Master of Art, and a proper active man, and playd well at tennis; and after that, when he came to be a Batcheler of Divinitie, he would tosse an argument in the schooles better than a ball in the tennis-court.

A

grave doctor yet lyving, and his auntient, alluding to his name in their disputacion, called him Erudite Benedicte, and gave him, for his outward as well as inward ornaments, great commendacion. He became, after, chaplen to the Lord Threasurer Burleigh, who was verie curious, and no lesse fortunate in the choyce of his chaplens, and they no less happy in the choyce of their patron, as Mr. Day, after bishop of Winchester; the bishop I now speak of; Doctor Neale, now deane of Westminster ; and dyvers others.

[OF THE

BISHOPS OF] CHICHESTER.

I

FINDE in former ages many unlearned and unfit men, by favour recommended to bishoppricks, but of a man recommended by the king, and refused by the cleargie, only for his want of learning, I think there is but one example, and that was one Robert Paslew, in the tyme of Hen. 3. which Prince is no lesse to be commended for admitting the refusall, then they for refusing. But yet in speaking of learned bishops, this churche may say their last have bene their best. Doctor' Watson your Highnes can remember his Majestie's almoner, he was a verie good preacher, preferred by the Queene, first to the deanry of Bristow, where he was wel beloved; and after to Chichester, where he was more honoured, if not beloved, for the course of his life, and cause of his deathe. I

2

Anthony Watson, Bishop of Chichester, from 1596 to

1605.