sity; which, he says, were about twenty in number, and amply furnished with the books of antiquity. Among these he found numerous manuscripts of Proclus on Plato, many of which he was easily permitted to carry abroad by the governors of the colleges, who did not know the value of these treasures. In the year 1535, the king ordered lectures in humanity, institutions which have their use for a time, and while the novelty lasts, to be founded in those colleges of the university, where they were yet wanting: and these injunctions were so warmly approved by the scholars in the largest societies, that they seized on the venerable volumes of Duns Scotus and other irrefragable logicians, in which they had so long toiled without the attainment of knowledge, and tearing them in pieces, dispersed them in great triumph about their quadrangles, or gave them away as useless lumber. The king himself also established some public lectures with large endowments. Notwithstanding, the number of students at Oxford daily decreased; insomuch, that in 1546, not because a general cultivation of the new species of literature was increased, there were only ten inceptors in arts, and three in theology and jurisprudence'. As all novelties are pursued to excess, and the most beneficial improvements often introduce new inconveniencies, so this universal attention to polite literature destroyed philosophy. The old philosophy was abolished, but a new one was not adopted in its stead. At Cambridge we now however find the antient scientific learning in some degree reformed, by the admission of better systems. In the injunctions given by Henry to that university in the year 1535, for the reformation of study, the dialectics of Rodolphus Agricola, the great favourite of Erasmus, and the genuine logic of Aristotle, are prescribed to be taught, instead of the barren problems of Scotus and Burlaeus. By the same edict, theology and casuistry were freed from many of their old incumbrances and perplexities: degrees in the canon law were forbidden; and heavy penalties were imposed on those academics, who relinquished the sacred text, to explain the tedious and unedifying commentaries on Peter Lombard's scholastic cyclopede of divinity, called the SENTENCES, which alone were sufficient to constitute a moderate library. Classical lectures were also directed, the study of words was enforced, and the books of Melancthon, and other solid and elegant writers of the reformed party, recommended. The politer studies, soon afterwards, seem to have risen into a flourishing state at Cambridge. Bishop Latimer complains, that there were now but few During his abode in England, having largely experienced the bounty and advice of sir Thomas More, he returned home, fraught with materials which he had long sought in vain, and published his Plato, viz. "Platonis Opera, cum commentariis Procli in Timæum et Politica, Basil. 1534." fol. See the Epistle Dedi catory to sir Thomas More. He there mentions other pieces of Proclus, which he saw at Oxford. d See Dr. Layton's letter to Cromwell. Strype's Eccl. Mem. i. 210. Wood, Hist. Univ. Oxon. i. 26. ii. 36. f Wood, ibid. sub anno. Collier, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 110. who studied divinity in that university h. But this is no proof of a decline of learning in that seminary. Other pursuits were now gaining ground there; and such as in fact were subservient to theological truth, and to the propagation of the reformed religion. Latimer himself, whose discourses from the royal pulpit appear to be barbarous beyond their age, in style, manner, and argument, is an example of the necessity of the ornamental studies to a writer in divinity. The Greek language was now making considerable advances at Cambridge, under the instruction of Cheke and Smith'; notwithstanding the interruptions and opposition of bishop Gardiner, the chancellor of the university, who loved learning but hated novelties, about the proprieties of pronunciation. But the controversy which was agitated on both sides with much erudition, and produced letters between Cheke and Gardiner equal to large treatises, had the good effect of more fully illustrating the point in debate, and of drawing the general attention to the subject of the Greek literature'. Perhaps bishop Gardiner's intolerance in this respect was like his persecuting spirit in religion, which only made more heretics. Ascham observes, with no small degree of triumph, that instead of Plautus, Cicero, Terence, and Livy, almost the only classics hitherto known at Cambridge, a more extensive field was opened; and that Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Xenophon, and Isocrates, were universally and critically studied. But Cheke being soon called away to the court, his auditors relapsed into dissertations on the doctrines of original sin and predestination; and it was debated with great obstinacy and acrimony, whether those topics had been most successfully handled by some modern German divines or saint Austin'. Ascham observes, that at Oxford, a decline of taste in both languages was indicated, by a preference of Lucian, Plutarch, and Herodian, in Greek, and of Seneca, Gellius, and Apuleius, in Latin, to the more pure, antient and original writers of Greece and Rome". At length, both universities seem to have been reduced to the same deplorable condition of indigence and illiteracy. It is generally believed, that the reformation of religion in England, the most happy and important event of our annals, was immediately succeeded by a flourishing state of letters. But this was by no means the case. For a long time afterwards an effect quite contrary was produced. The reformation in England was completed under the reign of Sermons, &c. p. 63. Lond. 1584. 4to. Sermon before Edward the Sixth, in the year 1550. His words are, "It would pitty a man's heart to hear that I hear of the state of Cambridge: what it is in Oxford I cannot tell. There be few that study divinity but so many as of necessitie must furnish the colledges." i Ascham. Epistol. ut modo infr. p. 65 a. Ascham calls Gardiner, "omnibus literarum, prudentiæ, consilii, authoritatis, præ sidiis ornatissimus, absque hac una re esset Strype's Cranmer, p. 170. Ascham. Epistol. lib. i. p. 18 b. Dat. 1550. edit. 1581. the most excellent modern philological treatises then in vogue, such as the ELEGANCIES of Laurentius Valla, and the MISCELLANIES of Politian, or any other approved critical tract on oratory or versification". In the mean time, the founder permits it to the discretion of the lecturer, occasionally to substitute Greek authors in the place of these. He moreover requires, that the candidates for admission into the college be completely skilled in Latin poetry; and in writing Epistles, then a favourite mode of composition, and on which Erasmus, and Conradus Celtes the restorer of letters in Germany, had each recently published a distinct systematical work. He injoins, that the students shall be exercised every day, in the intervals of vacation, in composing declamations, and Latin verses both lyric and heroicd: and in his prefatory statute, where he describes the nature and design of his foundation, he declares, that he destines the younger part of his establishment, not only to dialectics and philosophy, but to the more polite literature. The statutes of this college were submitted to the inspection of cardinal Pole, one of the chief protectors of the revival of polite letters in England, as appears from a curious passage in a letter written by the founder, now remaining; which not only displays the cardinal's ideas of the new erudition, but shows the state of the Greek language at this period. "My lord Cardinalls grace has had the overseeinge of my statutes. He muche lykes well, that I have therein ordered the Latin tonge [Latin classics] to be redde to my schollers. But he advyses me to order the Greeke to be more taught there than I have provyded. This purpose I well lyke: but I fear the tymes will not bear it now. I remember when I was a young scholler at Eton', the Greeke tonge was growing apace; the studie of which is now alate much decaid "." Queen Mary was herself eminently learned. But her accomplishments in letters were darkened or impeded by religious prejudices. At the desire of queen Catharine Parr, she translated in her youth Erasmus's paraphrase on saint John. The preface is written by Udall, master of Eton school: in which he much extols her distinguished pro y Statut. Coll. Trin. Oxon. cap. xv. A modern writer in dialectics, Rodolphus Agricola, is also recommended to be explained by the reader in philosophy, together with Aristotle. Ibid. cap. xv. It may be also observed here, that the philosophy reader is not only ordered to explain Aristotle, but Plato. Ibid. cap. xv. It appears by implication in the close of this statute, that the public lectures of the university were now growing useless, and dwindling into mere matters of form, viz. "Ad hunc modum Domi meos LECTIONIBUS erudiri cupiens, eos a publicis in Academia lectionibus avocare nolui.-Verum, si temporis tractu, et magistratuum incuria, adeo a primario instituto degenerent Magistrorum regentium Lectiones ordinariæ, ut inde nulla, aut admodum exigua, auditoribus accedat utilitas," &c. Ibid. cap. xv. Ibid. cap. vii. b De Ratione conscribendi Epistolas. About the year 1500. At Basil, 1522. It was reprinted at Cambridge by Siberch, and dedicated to bishop Fisher, 1521. 4to. d Ibid. cap. xv. Every day after dinner "Aliquis scholarium, a Præsidente aut Lectore Rhetorico jussus, de themate quodam proposito, ad edendum ingenii ac profectus sui specimen, diligenter, ornate, ac breviter dicat," &c. Ibid. cap. x. "Cæteri autem, scholares nuncupati, POLITIORIBUs Literis," &c. Ibid. cap. i. f About the year 1520. Dated 1556. See Life of Sir Thomas Pope, p. 226. ficience in literature. It would have been fortunate, if Mary's attention to this work had softened her temper, and enlightened her understanding. She frequently spoke in public with propriety, and always with prudence and dignity. In the beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth, which soon followed, when the return of protestantism might have been expected to produce a speedy change for the better, puritanism began to prevail; and, as the first fervours of a new sect are always violent, retarded for some time the progress of ingenuous and useful knowledge. The scriptures being translated into English, and every man assuming a right to dictate in matters of faith, and to choose his own principles, weak heads drew false conclusions, and erected an infinite variety of petty religions. Such is the abuse which attends the best designs, that the meanest reader of the New Testament thought he had a full comprehension of the most mysterious metaphysical doctrines in the christian faith; and scorned to acquiesce in the sober and rational expositions of such difficult subjects, which he might have received from a competent and intelligent teacher, whom it was his duty to follow. The bulk of the people, who now possessed the means of discussing all theological topics, from their situation and circumstances in life, were naturally averse to the splendor, the dominion, and the opulence of an hierarchy, and disclaimed the yoke of episcopal jurisdiction. The new deliverance from the numerous and burthensome superstitions of the papal communion drove many pious reformers into the contrary extreme, and the rage of opposition ended in a devotion entirely spiritual and abstracted. External forms were abolished, as impediments to the visionary reveries of a mental intercourse with heaven; and because the church of Rome had carried ceremonies to an absurd excess, the use of any ceremonies was deemed unlawful. The love of new doctrines and a new worship, the triumph of gaining proselytes, and the persecutions which accompanied these licentious zealots, all contributed to fan the flame of enthusiasm. The genius of this refined and false species of religion, which defied the salutary checks of all human authority, when operating in its full force, was attended with consequences not less pernicious to society, although less likely to last, than those which flowed from the establishment of the antient superstitions. During this unsettled state of things, the English reformed clergy who had fled into Germany from the menaces of queen Mary, returned home in great numbers: and in consideration of their sufferings and learning, and their abilities to vindicate the principles of a national church erected in opposition to that of Rome, many of them were preferred to bishopricks, and other eminent ecclesiastical stations divines brought back with them into England those narrow principles concerning church-government and ceremonies, which they had imbibed in the petty states and republics abroad, where the Calvinistic dis Thes e cipline was adopted, and where they had lived like a society of philosophers; but which were totally inconsistent with the nature of a more extended church, established in a great and magnificent nation, and requiring an uniform system of policy, a regular subordination of officers, a solemnity of public worship, and an observance of exterior institutions. They were, however, in the present circumstances, thought to be the most proper instruments to be employed at the head of ecclesiastical affairs; not only for the purpose of vindicating the new establishment by argument and authority, but of eradicating every trace of the papal corruptions by their practice and example, and of effectually fixing the reformation embraced by the church of England on a durable basis. But, unfortunately, this measure, specious and expedient as it appeared at first, tended to destroy that constitution which it was designed to support, and to counteract those principles which had been implanted by Cranmer in the reformed system of our religion. Their reluctance or refusal to conform, in a variety of instances, to the established ceremonies, and their refinements in theological discipline, filled the church with the most violent divisions; and introduced endless intricate disputations, not on fundamental doctrines of solid importance to the real interests of christianity, but on positive points of idle and empty speculation, which admitting no elegance of composition, and calling forth no vigour of abilities, exercised the learning of the clergy in the most barbarous and barren field of controversial divinity, and obstructed every pursuit of polite or manly erudition. Even the conforming clergy, from their want of penetration, and from their attachment to authorities, contributed to protract these frivolous and unbecoming controversies for if, in their vindication of the sacerdotal vestments, and of the cross of baptism, instead of arguing from the jews, the primitive christians, the fathers, councils, and customs, they had only appealed to common sense and the nature of things, the propriety and expediency of those formalities would have been much more easily and more clearly demonstrated. To these inconveniencies we must add, that the common ecclesiastical preferments were so much diminished by the seizure and alienation of impropriations, in the late depredations of the church, and which continued to be carried on with the same spirit of rapacity in the reign of Elizabeth, that few persons were regularly bred to the church, or, in other words, received a learned education. Hence, almost any that offered themselves were, without distinction or examination, admitted to the sacred function. Insomuch that in the year 1560, an injunction was directed to the bishop of London from his metropolitan, requiring him to forbear ordaining any more artificers and other illiterate persons who exercised secular occupations. But as the evil was unavoidable, this caution took but little effect. About the year 1563, i Strype's Grindal, B. i. ch. iv. b. 40. Numerous illuminated artificers began early to preach and write in defence of the reformed religion. The first mechanic who left his lawful calling to vindicate the cause of the catholics, was one Miles Hoggard, |