The author gives some very interesting instructions about churchyards, which show that they were sometimes treated with shameful irreverence. It was not for want of good instructions that our ancestors, in the days of the Plantagenets, played at rustic games, and that the gentry held their manorial courts, over the sleeping-places of the dead. Of witchcraft we hear surprisingly little. Myrk's words are such that one might almost think he had some sceptical doubts on the subject. Not so with usury: the taking interest for money, or lending anything to get profit thereby, is, we are shown, "a synne full grevus." After these and several more general instructions of a similar character, the author gives a very good commentary on the Creed, the Sacraments, the Commandments, and the deadly sins. The little tract ends with a few words of instruction to priests as to the "manner of saying mass, and of giving Holy Communion to the sick." On several subjects the author gives very detailed instructions and advice as to the best way of dealing with people, and his counsels are so right and sensible, that they might well be read now, not out of mere curiosity, but for profit. Here is his conclusion, as a specimen of the English and versification:-- "Hyt ys I-made hem[282] to schonne That have no bokes of here[283] owne, And other that beth of mene lore That wolde fayn conne[284] more, And those that here-in learnest most, Thonke yerne the Holy Gost, That geveth wyt to eche mon To do the gode that he con, And by hys travayle and hys dede Geveth hym heven to hys mede; The mede and the joye of heven lyht God us graunte for hys myht. Amen." That these instructions were not thrown away upon the mediæval parish priests we may infer from Chaucer's beautiful description of the poor parson of a town, who was one of his immortal band of Canterbury Pilgrims, which we here give as a fitting conclusion of this first part of our subject:--