character, regarding them as the best specimens. of a style not yet lost in Italy, coming home to the bosoms and feelings of the multitude, "animated, effective, picturesque, intelligible, but too unsparing both of ludicrous association and common-place invective."1 His intrepidity of utterance rendered him a formidable censor of manners, and even elevated him into the dignity of an avenger of the wronged, and an upholder of the weak. The lethargy of the church and the corruption of the law were alike lashed by his indignant eloquence. In his fourth sermon before Edward VI., he expressed a wish that Satan would give to a man the same view of the terrors of hell which he once gave to Christ of the glories of the earth. On one side, he would see nothing but unpreaching prelates: "He might look as far as Calais, I warrant you." The judges are handled with equal severity: "And then, if we would go on the other side, and show where the bribing judges are, I think we should see so many, that there were scarce room for any other." This hardihood of reproof was one of the perilous virtues of Latimer. Cranmer, when he obtained his appointment to a court-preachership, admonished him to give his reproofs a general, not a particular application. He seems to have frequently reached the terrified conscience of the powerful or opulent sinner, and to have forced a recompence for property plundered, or injuries in

1 Introduction to Literature, i. 518.

flicted. Latimer stands out from his contemporaries, a distinct character. He incidentally refers to this peculiarity: "When I was in trouble, it was objected unto me, that I was singular, that no man thought as I thought; that I loved singularity in all that I did."1 The remark was true, though not in the sense in which it was uttered. He was singular, indeed, in his courage and candour. I remember no writings of that age at once so fearless and forcible, except some of the Adages of Erasmus.

Every thoughtful reader of our old sermons must have been often struck by the singular topics that are continually introduced, not only without any immediate relation to the text, but sometimes in direct contrast with it. The pages of Latimer supply copious illustrations. How startling is such a passage as the following, suddenly encountered:-"I hear say Master Malancthon, that great clerk, should come hither; I would wish him, and such as he is, two hundred pounds a year. The king would never want it in his coffers at the year's end. There is yet among us two great learned men, Petrus Martyr and Bernard Ochin, which have an hundred marks a-piece. I would the king would bestow a thousand pounds on that sort."2 This was certainly one of the singularities of the preacher. In the time of Elizabeth, some delicate suggestion in a Court Masque, or under the second Charles, a flattering couplet in a panegyric, would have been the mode 1 Sermon preached before Edward VI., March 22nd, 1549. 2 Third sermon before the king.

adopted to recommend a deserving scholar to the patronage of royalty. In the reign of Anne, a word from Swift or Pope opened the national purse in the hand of Oxford; while in modern days, the pen of the minister-if impelled by a continued impulse from without-inserts a fortunate name in the pension-list. But the Pulpit was the Press of the Reformation.

Latimer has incurred some ridicule through the forgetfulness of his critics, that many of his sermons were composed with a reference to the capacity and feelings of the child-king, before whom they were preached. Edward was only in his ninth year. Cranmer cautioned his friend not "to stand longer in the pulpit than an hour and a half at most." The present appearance of his discourses would suggest that he kept within the limit of the injunction. He possessed, however, in a very unusual measure, the art of awaking and detaining the attention of his hearers. His manner must have been, in the strictest sincerity of the term, natural. His emotion possessed the charm required by Longinus of impressing the spectator with its unpremeditated truth.1

Much that now offends the critical eye in his style and imagery, was in accordance, not only with the temper, but with the amusements and habits of the times. In France, a similar fashion of pulpit rhetoric prevailed, presenting all the eccentric rude

1 De Sublim. cap. 18.

ness, without the forcible sense, and the unaffected yet ennobling piety of Latimer. Menôt and Maillard are apt illustrations; the former dying in 1518, the latter in 1502. They were accordingly contemporaries of the English bishop. Menôt, the most celebrated preacher of France in the beginning of the 16th century, belonged to the order of Franciscans, and for some time taught theology in the establishment of the Cordeliers at Paris. His life embraced many picturesque pages of French history during the reigns of Louis XI., Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I. His sermons were printed in 1519, thus preceding the publication of Latimer by twenty-nine years. popularity is shown in the title bestowed upon him -langue d'or. Yet this Chrysostom of the middle ages presented no feature of resemblance to his forerunner in Antioch. It would, indeed, be impossible to comprehend his style, without considering the condition of the national mind in which it was formed. The Scripture-play had not lost its charm. The company of actors, known as the Confrairie de la Passion de N. S., which had been established in Paris at the close of the 14th century, continued to perform religious dramas until the suppression of their theatre in 1547. These ap

His

pear to have surpassed our English Mysteries in pomp of scenical display. The theatrical machinery was of the most extraordinary description. In one of the Parisian Mysteries, St. Barbara, after being suspended by the heels upon the stage, "is

torn with pincers and scorched with lamps" in the presence of the audience. The decorations were in a similar vein of grotesque conception.2 Heaven and hell were represented by a scaffolding at the back of the stage, one towering above the other ; while between the two appeared the world, with a particular development of the region where the scene of the story was laid. In Germany, invention assumed a wilder aspect. Bouterweck mentions an enormous dragon, with eyes of polished steel, ascending with awful savageness out of the darkness of an emblematical pit. This spectacle was exhibited at Metz in 1437. In such an atmosphere the intellect of the preacher grew up. He imbibed the spirit and adopted the phraseology of these Miracle-plays. The interpretation of the parable of the Prodigal Son3 displays with remarkable vividness the manner of Menôt. He represents him going to his father, and reminding him that he had arrived at a period of life which authorized him to manage his own affairs. His mother being dead,* he demands an assignment of that portion of property to which he is entitled. Having obtained it, he is in some difficulty as to the easiest way of converting it into money: he accordingly exchanges it for silver, which he carefully folds up in a bag. His humble costume next attracts his attention, and

1 Hallam, i. 298.

3 L'Enfant prodigue.

2 Ibid. 299.

Mater mea defuncta est, reliquit nobis bona; facite mi partem meam.