Algrind

of Spenser, is meant for Grindal, Bishop of London in the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign. He was a Marian exile, and not a very cordial co-operator with Bishop Parker.

“The hills where dwellêd holy saints

I reverence and adore;

Not for themselves, but for the saints,

Which had been dead of yore.

And now they been to heaven for went.

Their good is with them go;

Their sample to us only lent,

That als we mought do so.

“Shepherds they weren of the best,

And lived in lowly leas,

And sith their souls be now at rest,

Why done we them disease?

Such one he was (as I have heard)

Old Algrind often saine,

That whilome was the first shepherd,

And lived with little gain.”

Eclogue vii.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.