By a comparison of Wood's Annals of the University of Oxford, with his Athenæ Oxoniensis, and Foxe's Acts and Monuments, we find the following names among those selected from 1523 to December 1525.

Of those selected in OXFORD, we can only specify Thomas Canner, Peter Garsius, a foreigner, John Tooker, Richard Champion, John Pierson, Leighton; and from Boston, Richard Taverner; but from CAMBRIDGE, Robert Sherton, Thomas Curthope, Richard Cox, John Clarke, John Fryer, Godfrey Harman, Henry Sumner, William Betts, JOHN FRYTH, William Baily, Goodman, Radley, Michael Drumm, and Thomas Lawney.37

If the eminence to which most of these students rose in future life be observed, it affords a convincing proof that the Cardinal had made no mistake as to talent; but it will be observed, that we have printed most of their names in italic; the reason is, that these men will appear again, and before long, all in one group; though in a character very different indeed, from that which was contemplated by the founder of Cardinal College.

As this brief survey of the political world is not unimportant in itself, so, in the result, it will appear to be not unconnected with the introduction of the Sacred Scriptures into our native land. It has shown that the character of their grand opponent, and who seemed to possess power quite sufficient to have excluded them, had sustained a severe shock abroad, which it never recovered. His perfidy had sunk him in the estimation not only of the Regent of the Low Countries, but in that of her subjects, from whence the English Scriptures were to be imported. At home, among a people exasperated, who now hated him, less regard would be paid to his thundering anathemas; and as for his favourite school of learning, of which he had intimated at Oxford, through Longland, while Tyndale was yet in London,-" that as he had begun, so he would found a College for two hundred Students, and seven Lecturers, and endow them with honest and comfortable salaries, and make their University the most glorious in the universe," we have yet to see whether it hindered or advanced the cause of divine truth, which Tyndale, all alone upon the Continent, had so much at heart.

37 It may be observed, that double the number of canons now named were Cambridge men. Fourteen were brought from Cambridge, Tyndale's last residence, to Oxford, where he had expounded Scripture to the students and fellows of Magdalen College; or the College where Wolsey himself had formerly studied, and where, as a Master, he had been teacher of Magdalen Grammar School; associating, at that time, with Erasmus.

SECTION III.

MEMORABLE INTRODUCTION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT INTO ENGLAND-THE TWO FIRST EDITIONS—THE FIRST ALARM IN LONDON, OXFORD, CAMBRIDGE -THE FIRST BURNING OF BOOKS-NEW TESTAMENT DENOUNCED BY THE KING AND WOLSEY- THEN BY TUNSTAL AND WARHAM· THE THIRD EDITION-VIOLENT CONTENTION RESPECTING IT-BURNING IT ABROAD AND AT HOME-BUT IN VAIN.

THAT interesting period when the Word of God, printed in our native tongue, was first found in England, had now arrived. It was in January 1526. On the banks of the Rhine, Tyndale had finished his New Testaments at the press, but how was it possible for them ever to be conveyed into our country? Had not Rincke and Cochlæus warned the Cardinal himself, the King, and the Bishop of Rochester, that they might “with the greatest diligence take care" lest one of them should come into any port in all England? They certainly had, and in good time, so that it is no fault of theirs, if all opposing parties were not now on the alert. Yet here are the dreaded books, and upon English ground, and not only in the metropolis, but in both universities, to say nothing, at this moment, of the country at large !

It is natural, however, first to enquire whether there were any circumstances, at the moment, favourable to their introduction. Of all other men, the two most able and most likely to have prevented their arrival, or immediately suppressed them, were Wolsey and Tunstal, the Bishop of London. But the former was now completely engrossed by affairs of state policy, both abroad and at home-abroad he was urging, nay, rousing the French Cabinet to renewed war with the Emperor; at home, he was concluding peace with Scotland, and also busily engaged in reforming his master's household, or framing what were called "the Statutes of Eltham." The Bishop of London was not in the country, having been happily removed out of the way eight months before; he was still ambassador in Spain, and not to return till August or September; so that his name never should have been associated, as it has generally been, with the first reception of Tyndale's New Testament. More than this, the winter was peculiarly unhealthy, and

such was the alarm created by great mortality, that the courts had been adjourned-the authorities were out of the way—the King was keeping his Christmas at Eltham, in private, with a few friends, "for in the King's house," says Halle, "this was called the still Christmas"-and Wolsey, after carousing at Richmond for a few days, had to attend His Majesty on business at Eltham, from the 8th to the 22d of January.

Such a conjunction of circumstances but seldom occurred, and, without straining a point, they may surely be regarded as providential; for they afforded certain opportunities, which, we shall find, had been most busily improved. So easily can the Divine Being "scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts," when he is about to "exalt them of low degree." The country had been first long harassed by oppressive and vexatious exactions, to carry on expensive foreign wars, and now it is assailed by disease and death! Such was the period chosen by Infinite Wisdom to introduce the Word of Life, that sovereign balm for every wound!" England's surest hope, the true secret of all her future stability, and the only security for it still.

"

The earliest importations of these precious volumes would furnish a very curious subject of enquiry. The various methods adopted for several years in order to secure their entrance into this country, can never now, indeed, be fully detailed; but the conveyance of Tyndale's New Testaments into England and Scotland, with other books illustrative of the Sacred Volume, could only the half be told, would form one of the most graphic stories in English history. No siege, by sapping and mining, which Britain has ever since achieved, could furnish the tenth part of the incident, or evince half the courage, by which she was herself assailed. But the materials have never yet been examined and compared, with that regard to accuracy as to names, and succession as to events, which would have brought out some of the finest specimens of faith and fortitude and persevering zeal.

From what particular port on the Continent the first copies were sent, and to what port in England they came, may remain for ever a secret. The probability is, that some came from Antwerp, while others were sent from Worms down the Rhine through Holland, and so from different places. Be this as it may, we know for certain of two gentlemen, who engaged

t

in very early, if not the first, active measures as to the importation itself; namely, Simon Fysh, of Gray's Inn, London, and George Herman, a citizen of Antwerp, and merchant in the English house there; while, during this month of January 1526, we shall find that not a few of the most learned young men in England were eagerly perusing Tyndale's first productions. Nothing then, however, could have been more unlikely, than that London and both the Universities should be in a ferment the very first week after that month had expired. It was on the 2d of February, that an insignificant incident gave birth to the first great alarm. It well deserves, therefore, to be noticed. Simon Fysh, already mentioned, a native of Kent, after receiving his education at Oxford, had taken up his residence as a lawyer in Gray's Inn, London. A play, or tragedy, as Foxe calls it, composed by a Mr. Roo or Row, of the same Inn, in one part of which Wolsey thought himself deeply impugned, was about to be acted in private; and this part, after others through fear had declined, Fysh undertook to perform. He did so once, but never could a second time, for the same night that this tragedy was played," Fysh was compelled to leave his own house, and finally escape to the Continent. How often did the Cardinal, with all his sagacity, put forth his hand to his own downfall? Though, confessedly, a deep politician, he was far from understanding the policy of non-interference. This attempt at apprehension must have occurred before the end of 1523, if it be correct, as Foxe affirms, that “the next year following" he composed the tract entitled "the Supplication of Beggars."1 Mr. Fysh is stated to have been with Tyndale abroad, and if so, "the little treatise" which Munmouth depones that Tyndale "sent to him from Hamburgh in 1524, when he sent for his money," may have been this publication, if it was not the gospel of Matthew. But, whether the one or the other, the "Supplication" must have been in existence in 1525, from what we know of its history. In the shape of a "Supplication," addressed" to the King

I w Scripsit," says Tanner, "ad regem Henr. VIII. A. MDXXIV." "Compyled by Symon Fyshe, anno MCCCCCXXIV.," is printed on the title of the " Supplication of the poor Commons, 1546."-Herbert's Ames, iii. p. 1537. John Foxe, with all his assiduity, was no chronologist. The substance of his narrative often furnishes a certain key to the precise year, but a few years here or there he often treats in his own quaint style. Thus, in the narrative respecting Fyshe, which is after all confused, he says, "the missing of a few years in this matter breaketh no great square in our story, though it be now entered here, which should have come in six years before."

our Sovereign Lord," it conveyed the most wholesome and astounding advice to Henry VIII., and the parties interested were so very fortunate as to reach his ear through one of his confidential servants or footmen, whom Foxe calls Edmund Moddis. This man had read the book himself, and told his Majesty, that “if he would pardon him, and such men as he would bring to his grace, he should see such a book as was marvel to hear of." The King fixed a time, and thus two merchants, George Eliot, and George Robinson, were favoured with a private audience. His Majesty, whose curiosity had been excited by the representation of his confidential servant, patiently listened to every line, as it was read to him by Eliot.2

This powerful tract, for it was nothing more, written in a popular style, contained an unmeasured attack on the whole fraternity of Monks and Friars, Pardoners and Sumners," into whose hands an immense proportion of the nation's wealth had already passed. Their growing power, already impairing and threatening to destroy that of the Crown itself, was denounced in the strongest terms. "This is the great scab," said Fysh, "why they will not let the New Testament go abroad in your mother tongue, lest men should espy that they, by their cloaked hypocrisy, do translate, thus fast, your kingdom into their hands.”"

At the close of its being read, and after a long pause, the King is reported to have said, "if a man should pull down an old stone wall, and begin at the lower part, the upper part thereof might chance to fall on his head;" then taking the book, he put it in his desk, commanding the men on their allegiance, that they should not disclose to any one that he had seen it.

Copies of this tract must have been possessed by not a few, when the King's own servant knew its contents so thoroughly. This, however, would not suffice, and so it had been determined that the people at large should read it for themselves; and, also, that no doubt should remain, whether the King had seen it. John Foxe, therefore, thus describes it-" A Libel or Book entitled, the Supplication of Beggars, thrown and scattered at the procession in Westminster, on Candlemas day, before

1

2 George Eliot or Elyot, a man well known afterwards both to George Constantyne and Lord Crumwell; and referred to by the former, under 1539.