enjoyed by them in trust for the benefit of the people, and was disposable at the discretion of the secular government.

So long as Wiclif confined himself to the expression of these opinions, though he ensured the hatred of the hierarchy, he might reckon on a powerful party both at the Court and among the people. The objects for which he contended were at least manifest, and his arguments generally intelligible. But he was not content with this limited field. In his solicitude to assail all the holds of papacy, and denounce all its pernicious errors, he entered, in the year 1381, into a controversy respecting the nature of the Eucharist. His opinion on this mysterious question seems to have approached very nearly to that of Luther. He admitted a real presence; but though he did not presume to determine the manner, he rejected the doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Roman Catholic sense. This was ground sufficient for a new clamour, louder and more dangerous than all that had preceded it: not that there was stronger argument on the side of his opponents, but because the subject, being more obscure, was more involved in prejudice; it was more closely connected with the religious feelings and deepest impressions of his hearers; it affected, not their respect for a sensual and avaricious hierarchy, but their faith in what they had been taught to consider a vital doctrine essential to salvation. And thus it proved, not perhaps that his enemies became more violent, but that his friends began to waver in their support of him. The lower classes, who had listened with delight to his anti-sacerdotal declamations, trembled when he began to tread the consecrated ground of their belief. His noble patrons, if they were not thus sensibly shocked, perceived at least the impolicy of contending in that field; and John of Lancaster especially commanded him to retire from it.

With the sincerity of a zealot he persisted, and in the course of May, 1382, a Synod was held by Courtney, who had been just promoted to the primacy, and the heresies of Wiclif became, for the third time, the subject of ecclesiastical consultation. We have no space to pursue the details of these proceedings. The result was, that he was summoned to answer, before the Convocation at Oxford, respecting certain erroneous doctrines, the most prominent of which was that regarding the Eucharist. He prepared to defend them. And it was then that the Duke of Lancaster, who had been his faithful protector throughout all his previous troubles-whether it was that he sincerely differed with Wiclif on that particular question, or whether he was unwilling to engage in a struggle with the whole hierarchy, supported by much popular prejudice, for the sake of an abstract opinion, which might appear to him entirely void of any practical advantage

resources.

withdrew his support, and abandoned the Reformer to his own Yet not then was his resolution shaken. In two Confessions of Faith, which he then produced, he asserted his adherence to his expressed doctrines. And though one of them is so perplexed with scholastic sophistry, as to have led some to imagine that it was intended to convey a sort of retractation, yet it was not so interpreted by his adversaries, six of whom immediately entered the lists against it. Neither did it persuade his judges of his innocence. He. was condemned-but not, as the annals of that age would have led us to expect, to death. And whether the praise of this moderation be due to the Prelates who forbore so far to press their enmity, or to the State, which might have refused to sanction the vengeance of the Prelates, Wiclif was merely condemned to banishment from the University of Oxford. He retired in peace to his rectory at Lutterworth, and there spent the two remaining years of his life in the pursuit of his theological studies and the discharge of his pastoral duties.

The greater part of the opinions by which he was distinguished were so entirely at variance with the principles and prejudices of his age, that our wonder is not at their imperfect success, but at their escape from immediate extinction. Having thus escaped, however, and taken root in no inconsiderable portion of the community, they were such as to secure by their own strength and boldness their own progress and maturity. Neither was their author neglectful of the methods proper to ensure their dissemination. For in the first place, by his translation of the Sacred Book on which he supposed them to rest, he increased the means of ascertaining their truth, or at least the spuriousness of the system which they opposed. In the next, he sent forth numerous missionaries, whom he called his "Poor Priests," for the express purpose of propagating his doctrines; and thus they acquired some footing even in his own generation. In succeeding years, the sect of Lollards, in a great measure composed of his disciples, professed and perpetuated his tenets; and by their undeviating hostility to the abuses of Rome, prepared the path for the Reformation.

Nor were the fruits of his exertions confined to his native country. It is certain that his works found their way, at a very early period, into Bohemia, and kindled there the first sparks of resistance to the established despotism. The venerable Huss proclaimed his adherence to the principles, and his reverence for the person, of the English Reformer; and he was wont in his public discourses to pray, that on his departure from this life, he might be received into those regions whither the soul of Wiclif had gone; since he doubted not that he was a good and holy man, and worthy of a heavenly habita

66

tion." The memory of Huss is associated by another incident with that of his master. The same savage Council which consigned the former to the flames, offered to the other that empty insult, which we may receive as an expression of malignant regret that he had been permitted to die in peace. It published an edict, "That the bones and body of Wiclif should be taken from the ground, and thrown far away from the burial of any church." After a long interval of hesitation, this edict was obeyed. Thirty years after his death, his grave was violated, and his ashes contemptuously cast into a neighbouring brook. On this indignity, Fuller makes the following memorable reflection :-"The brook did convey his ashes in Avon; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow seas; they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblems of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."

The date of Wiclif's death renders the authenticity of his portraits in some degree uncertain, and we are not able to trace the history of any which exist. But that some memorials were preserved in his features, in illuminations or otherwise, we may conclude from the general resemblance which is to be traced in two different pictures of him-that from which our print is engraved, and that at King's College, Cambridge, engraved in Rolt's Lives of the Reformers,' and Verheiden, Præstantium Theologorum Effigies, &c.,' 1602.

PERHAPS no great revolution has ever been effected by means apparently so inadequate to the end proposed, as in the first establishment of the Spanish monarchy on the continent of America. The immense importance of that revolution, and its intimate connexion with the history of geographical discovery, warrant us in assigning a place in our Gallery to a representative of the rude and daring men by whom the mighty conquest was effected. Of these, Fernando Cortez claims the first place. It is proper to mention, in explanation of what might seem a capital omission in our work, that no authentic likeness is known to exist of Columbus: a man raised above those who followed him across the Atlantic, no less by the purity of his motives, than by the originality of his daring career.

Columbus, however, did not colonize the American continent: his settlement was in Hispaniola. But the Spaniards soon took possession of other islands in the group of the Antilles. In 1511 Diego Velasquez annexed the most important of them, Cuba, to the Spanish crown, and was rewarded with the appointment of Governor. Eager to gain fresh wealth and honour, he equipped a squadron of discovery, in 1518, which tracked the southern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and brought home so inviting a report, that he determined to attempt the conquest of the country. But he was greatly embarrassed in the choice of a commanding officer. To conduct the enterprise himself was no part of his scheme: at the same time he was very desirous to appropriate to himself the advantages likely to accrue from its successful issue. It was no easy matter to find a person qualified by talent and courage to assume the command of such an enterprise; yet so humble in rank, or so devoid of ambition, as to give no umbrage