Or with a brotherhede to be withold;
But dwelt at home and kepte wel his fold,
So that the wolfe ne made it not miscarie.
He was a shepherd, and no mercenarie,
And though he holy were, and virtuous
He was to sinful men not dispitous,1
Ne of his speche dangerous, ne digne,2
But in his teaching discrete and benigne.
To drawen folk to heven, with faireness,
By good ensample was his besinesse:
But if were any person obstinat,

What so he were of high or low estat,
Him wolde he snibben sharply for his nones.
A better preest, I trow, that no wher non is.
He waited aftir ne no pompe ne reverence,
He maked him no spiced conscience,3

But Christe's love, and his apostles twelve,
He taught, but first he folwed it himselve."

Even enthusiasm itself would not expect to find such a Pastor in every town. It is easy to conceive that a roving order of friars, combining preaching and mendicancy, may have frequently mingled tyranny with their religion, and have sown confusion instead of peace. A writer, at the close of the 16th century, complained that they compelled 2 Disdainful, or proud.

1 Angry to excess.

s Tyrwhit, in a former note upon the Canterbury Tales, confessed his inability to explain a spiced conscience: but in his glossary he offers a satisfactory interpretation of this singular phrase, which he illustrates from a passage in Beaumont and Fletcher, where the epithet spiced, applied to the conscience, appears to signify scrupulous, or particularly tender. Thus, Cean the offering the purse to the priestess, who is unwilling to receive it, reasons with her in this manner— "Take it; it is yours;

Be not so spiced: it is good gold;

And goodness is no gall to the conscience."

the parishes to pay for their discourses, and that an address at a christening, a wedding, or a burial, was only to be purchased at a charge of an angel or a noble.1 These grievances were naturally resented; and the evil seems gradually to have reached to a magnitude so dangerous as to awaken the interference of the legislature. In a proclamation, issued in the twenty-eighth year of Henry VIII., against erroneous writings and books, "divers sundry and light persons called pardoners" are especially denounced.2 The dissolution of the monasteries checked the itinerancy of the friars. But if any immediate benefit followed their suppression, it was chiefly negative; if a corrupted doctrine flowed from their lips, in many places no religious word, of any kind, was proclaimed after their departure. Some of the northern churches, according to Gilpin, had not four sermons in sixteen years. Even in the new system, many evils of the old, instead of being erased, appear to have been copied and retained. "The limitor's place, when supplied at all, was filled by some licensed preacher resident in the neighbourhood, who, from party or pious motives, advocated the old or new opinions; and the great learned man, a king's or bishop's chaplain, an archdeacon, or a dean, took the position of the pardoner."3

1 Stubbs' Anatomy of Abuses.

2 Collier, Hist. Dram. Poetry, ii. 386.

3 Haweis' Sketches of the Reformation, taken from the Contemporary Pulpit, i. 66.

CHAPTER II.

Early Preachers;-Fisher, a patron of Erasmus; specimen of his eloquence; affecting incident at his execution. II. Colet, the founder of the New School; his study of Chaucer; Longland, called by Sir Thomas More, "another Colet." III. Latimer, his intrepidity and zeal; singular comprehensiveness of his discourses; his style, contrasted with that of Menôt in France; some of its peculiarities. traced to the influence of Miracle-plays upon the popular mind. - IV. Cranmer and Jewell. V. Dering and Sandys; their sermons characterised.-VI. Paul's Cross; its history and associations.

ISHER, Bishop of Rochester, was the last, as he

FIS

was assuredly the most learned and eloquent preacher of the Old School. The portrait which Erasmus has left us, is one of rare interest and expression. He records the spotless integrity of his life, his deep and recondite erudition, and what he calls the incredible sweetness of his manner to persons of every capacity and degree. Erasmus followed Fisher, after an interval of about seven years, in the Lady Margaret Professorship at Cambridge, and he would of course remember with feelings of grateful regard the early kindness and support that Fisher had bestowed upon him, in conjunction with Linacre, Colet, and More. There is, however, no reason for supposing his praise to have been un

fairly tinged by personal esteem. Sir Thomas More proclaimed Fisher to be one of the most illustrious persons of his age. Splendid in his munificent encouragement of learning, every stone of St. John's and Christ's Colleges recals his name to the beholder. The love of knowledge, which he fanned in others, glowed in his own breast. Long after the season of active exertion had gone by, he applied his mind, with industrious zeal, to the study of Greek, and even requested Erasmus to obtain for him the instruction of Latymer in that language. His death exhibits him to the eye in the attitude of melancholy grandeur, which always distinguishes a sacrifice to principle. Honours had no power to dazzle his clear and earnest spirit. When the Pope's intention of making him a cardinal was communicated to him, he replied, "If the red cap. were lying at my feet, I would not stoop to pick it up." Like his friend More, he seems to have been a person of infinite sprightliness and gaiety of spirit, furnishing another illustration of the joyous and sunshiny temperament of our olden scholars and divines.

A Romanist, and encircled by obscuring mists. of superstition, he had, nevertheless, from the heights of contemplation to which his inquiring spirit was accustomed to climb, caught many bright glimpses of gospel purity and truth. Haweis remarks, that he was acquainted with every doctrine which the Reformers recovered from neglect; certainly with Luther's criterion; "and as far as it

was justly so described, believed it, and reposed upon it." One most important omission, however, is pointed out in the practical theology of Fisher; and that is, the absence of any frequent and direct reference to the atonement of Jesus Christ as the source of human salvation. Haweis admits that the goodness and forbearance of the Saviour are sufficiently recognised and set forth; but the manner in which the mediatorial sacrifice is made to bear upon the sins of mankind he considers to be insufficiently, if at all, indicated. Fisher certainly dwells with great frequency and affection upon the subordinate doctrines of his church; yet, if his writings be carefully examined, it will be found that the sanctity and omnipotence of the Cross are acknowledged and revered. The following passage occurs in his sermon on Henry VII.:1"Our Saviour Jesus is justus, for he is innocent and guiltless; and therefore he is a convenient means, a sufficient advocate for us, before the face of his Father; according to the words of St. John,-If any of us have sinned, let us not despair, for we have an advocate for us before God, our Saviour, which is just and without sin; and he shall be a mean for our sin; not for ours only, but for all the world." We might perhaps be allowed to explain the comparative silence of many of our elder preachers respecting the doctrine of the sacrifice of Christ, as Paley has accounted for

1 Wynkin de Worde, 1509.