Fryth In The Stocks.
Fryth, as we have said, had entered Reading. His strange air and his look as of a foreigner arriving from a distant country attracted attention, and he was taken up for a vagabond. ‘Who are you?’ asked the magistrate. Fryth, suspecting that he was in the hands of enemies of the Gospel, refused to give his name, which increased the suspicion, and the poor young man was set in the stocks. As they gave him but little to eat, with the intent of forcing him to tell his name, his hunger soon became insupportable.[[295]] Knowing the name of the master of the grammar-school, he asked to speak with him. Leonard Coxe had scarcely entered the prison, when the pretended vagabond all in rags addressed him in correct latinity, and began to deplore his miserable captivity. Never had words more noble been uttered in a dungeon so vile. The head-master, astonished at so much eloquence, compassionately drew near the unhappy man and inquired how it came to pass that such a learned scholar was in such profound wretchedness. Presently he sat down, and the two men began to talk in Greek about the universities and languages. Coxe could not make it out: it was no longer simple pity that he felt, but love, which turned to admiration when he heard the prisoner recite with the purest accent those noble lines of the Iliad which were so applicable to his own case:
‘Sing, O Muse,
The vengeance deep and deadly; whence to Greece
Unnumbered ills arose; which many a soul
Of mighty warriors to the viewless shades
Untimely sent.’[[296]]
Filled with respect, Coxe hurried off to the mayor, complained bitterly of the wrong done to so remarkable a man, and obtained his liberation. Homer saved the life of a reformer.
Fryth departed for London and hastened to join the worshippers who were accustomed to meet in Bow Lane. He conversed with them and exclaimed: ‘Oh! what consolation to see such a great number of believers walking in the way of the Lord!’[[297]] These Christians asked him to expound the Scriptures to them, and, delighted with his exhortations, they exclaimed in their turn: ‘If the rule of St. Paul were followed, this man would certainly make a better bishop than many of those who wear the mitre.’[[298]] Instead of the crosier he was to bear the cross.
Fryth’s Eloquence.