may, we know for certain of two gentlemen, who engaged 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 2nd 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 Hamburg 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.

"Com

"Scripsit," says Tanner, "ad regem Henr. VIII. A. MDXXIV." pyled by Symon Fyshe, anno MCCCCCXXIV.," is printed on the title of the Supplication of the poor Commons, 1546."- Herbert's Ames, iii. p. 1537.

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In the shape of a "Supplication" addressed "to the King 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.

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 King Henry the Eighth, for him to read and peruse." This was on

Friday the 2nd of February, 1526. Many copies might be thus disposed of, but, by another account, they had been scattered about the streets by night.

This very trivial

The moment of alarm had now come. incident had excited the greatest fear and dread! Wolsey immediately went to his Majesty, complaining of "divers seditious persons having scattered abroad books containing manifest errors, desiring his Grace to beware of them;" but what must have been his mortification, when the King, putting his hand into his bosom, and taking out one of these very books, delivered it into his hands! At this period Henry was not a little gratified by any information which he could procure, independently of his domineering Prime Minister.

Wolsey, once roused, became fully awake to the importance of his intentions in the year 1523. Engrossed as he had been with political affairs, some of these intentions had remained unfulfilled. But now there was to be "the secret search," and in divers places at one time, and a sermon to be preached, by Fisher, the very man whom Henry had then named. It was resolved to strike terror into the heart of the enemy, and give one vital stab to all that was now run down under the nickname of Lutheranism; for Divine truth had been slowly gaining its way, and was now to spread, as it had done, independently of Luther. The fact is, that the crusade, under which our country long groaned and bled, was about to begin; and as the authorities of the day were now going to treat the people of God after the primitive fashion, when they first put them in bear skins, and then baited them, a word of terror was wanting. Lollard had been the term for above a hundred years, as it especially was under Longland, in 1521; but Lutheran was now a far more effectual, because opprobrious, epithet; involving all those who either read the Scriptures, or appealed to them as authority.

Before, however, we can rightly understand the course of events, the evidence afforded by original manuscripts, by Foxe and Strype, Bishop Tanner and Anthony Wood, as well as two or three other authorities, must be carefully compared. After this, when we look at London, Oxford, and Cambridge, as well as the country at large, a scene, full of the deepest interest, opens to view.

Not a day was now to be lost. London, though far from its present size, was large enough even then to be favourable to secrecy; but London, Cambridge, and Oxford, must all be searched at one time, and Cardinal College, too, must not be overlooked. Wolsey could not have been with the King sooner than next day, Saturday the 3rd. The simultaneous orders for both Universities must have been the same day, as the Sergeantsat-Arms had arrived at both by Monday or Tuesday.

In London they commenced immediately. Among the very first places where the "secret search" began, was a narrow lane in Cheapside, nearly opposite to Bow Church. In a church there," All Hallows in Honey Lane," Robert Forman, S. T. P., was Rector, and Mr. Thomas Garret, Curate. Strong suspicions rested on the latter, as being at once a receiver and distributor of books. The first of the Articles finally objected against him furnishes an important link in the following narrative.

"First, for bringing divers and many books, treatises, and works of Martin Luther and his sect, as also for dispersing abroad of the said books to divers and many persons within this realm, as well Students in the University of Oxford and Cambridge, as other spiritual, temporal, and religious men, to the intent to have advanced the said sects and opinions. Item, for having the said books in his custody-for reading them secretly in privy places and suspect company, declaring and teaching here, lies and errors contained in them.'

Such were some of the charges formally brought against Mr. Garret, and not without reason; but among all the books imported, in Latin and in English, we have now to inquire whether there was not one, infinitely above them all in value, though at the first unknown to the authorities, namely, Tyndale's New Testament.

During part of January, Garret must have been busy in the City and Diocese of London, but in the beginning or first week of February, when sought for at his own abode, he could not be found. He was then “searched for through all London," when the Cardinal ascertained that "he had a great number of those books, and was gone to Oxford to make sale of them there, to such as he knew to be lovers of the Gospel." The truth is, that this future martyr had been for some time in the habit of conveying books to both Universities, and of visiting Oxford personally. He was down there at the preceding Christmas, and, with regard to the present occasion,-"About the year 1526,"

says Foxe, "Master Garret, Curate of Honey Lane in London, came unto Oxford, and brought with him sundry books in Latin, treating of the Scripture, with the first part of Unio disidentium,' and Tyndale's first translation of the New Testament in English, the which books he sold to divers scholars in Oxford." "After he had been there a while, and despatched those books, news came that he was searched for through all London, to be apprehended and taken as a heretic, and to be imprisoned for selling those heretical books, as they termed them." Not finding him in London, "they had determined forthwith to apprehend and imprison him, and to burn all and every his foresaid books, and him too, if they could, so burning hot was their zeal." By the time, however, that the Sergeant-at-Arms had arrived, Cole of Magdalen College, who was afterwards cross-bearer to the Cardinal, but an acquaintance of Garret's, gave him warning. So in the morning of "Wednesday before Shrovetide," on the 7th of February, he left Oxford, but returning again, he changed his dress as far as he could, and disappeared on Friday night. There is a beautifully graphic account of this, part of which we must quote; for which we are indebted to Anthony Delaber, one of the students, devotedly attached to Mr. Garret.

"When he was gone down the stairs from my chamber," says he, "I straightways did shut my chamber door, and went into my study, and took the New Testament in my hands, kneeled down on my knees, and with many a deep sigh and salt tear, I did, with much deliberation, read over the tenth chapter of Saint Matthew his gospel : and when I had so done, with fervent prayer I did commit unto God, that our dearly beloved brother Garret, earnestly beseeching him, in and for Jesus Christ's sake, his only begotten Son, our Lord, that he would vouchsafe not only safely to conduct and keep our said dear brother from the hands of all his enemies; but also that he would endue his tender and lately born little flock in Oxford, with heavenly strength by his Holy Spirit, that they might be able thereby valiantly to withstand to his glory all their fierce enemies, and also might quietly to their own salvation, with all godly patience, bear Christ's heavy cross; which I now saw was presently to be laid on their young and weak backs, unable to bear so huge a burden, without the great help of his Holy Spirit. This done, I laid aside my book, safe."

In this first attempt to escape, however, Garret had, most unwisely, yielded to worldly policy, in consequence of his friends thinking it best that he should change his name, and then engage himself as Curate to a brother of Delaber's, Parson of Stalbridge in Dorsetshire, (though known to be a decided