Coaching days and coaching ways . am not quite surewhether one was extant at the time—probably it any rate, the Vicar alone would make a subject foran afternoon drive. There are few characters in Englishhistory that I admire more than the soft-hearted Simon Aleyn. This genialchurchman hadseen some martyrsburnt; he thoughtthe game was notworth the candle,and at the sametime discovered inhimself no particu-lar penchant formartyrdom. Theresult was that hewas a papist inHenry the Eighthstime, a Protestantin Edward theSixths time, apapist in Marys,and in Elizabeths aProtestant again. Icann
Coaching days and coaching ways . am not quite surewhether one was extant at the time—probably it any rate, the Vicar alone would make a subject foran afternoon drive. There are few characters in Englishhistory that I admire more than the soft-hearted Simon Aleyn. This genialchurchman hadseen some martyrsburnt; he thoughtthe game was notworth the candle,and at the sametime discovered inhimself no particu-lar penchant formartyrdom. Theresult was that hewas a papist inHenry the Eighthstime, a Protestantin Edward theSixths time, apapist in Marys,and in Elizabeths aProtestant again. Icannot sufficientlyadmire the genialadroitness of thisbending to circum-stance, or weary of considering what seas of preciousblood might have been saved to England if SimonAleyns contemporaries could have added a leaven ofhis circumspection to the fury of their faith. But I donot think that his contemporaries thought very highlyof poor Simon—though from all I can read, he made asgood a vicar as many of them, and a better one than. The Jack of Newbury. THE BATH ROAD most. No ! they lav low for him inmanner, and asked him at the end of hisif he was not a turncoat, he was notchangeling ? But Simon, the cruellestlife, whether,inconstant an though he must have been about a hundred, was ready for them. Not so, saidhe, for I have always kept my principle. Upon thisthe wicked desired him to go to, when he went toin the following fashion. My principle, he said, isthis: to live and die the Vicar of Bray. Then hisquestioners went too,and the good Simon diedaccording to his prin-ciples in 1588. His genial presencemust have passed up anddown the London Roadmany times during hislife, for the purpose oftaking fresh oaths undervarying conditions, sign-recantations andimport-ant commissions, and hisjolly ghost should hauntit still if ghosts were notlike stage coaches—sohideouslv out of fashion ;and Simon would be in good company too if he would walk, for the Bath Roadis haunted, and by two of
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