“Here lyes one conquered, who hath conquered kings;
Subdued large territories and done things
Which to the world impossible will seem
But that the Truth is held in more esteem,...
Or shall I tell of his adventures since,
Done in Virginia, that large Continente?
How that he subdued kings unto his yoke,
And made those Heathen flee as wind doth smoke,
And made their land, being of so large a Station,
An habitation for our Christian nation.”...
The above-mentioned “kings” were doubtless Indian sachems. The Anglo-Saxon satisfaction at the way the heathen were made to flee like smoke, and make room for a Christian nation, as shown by the writer of this effusion, indicates that the white Christian of Smith’s day was not unlike his posterity three centuries later in the time of Cecil Rhodes and of Philippine campaigns.
John Rogers, the Smithfield martyr, was vicar of this church. During his residence in Antwerp, he had made the acquaintance of Tyndale, the translator of the Bible, and continued Tyndale’s work after his death. Dean Milman tells us: “There is no doubt that the first complete English Bible came from Antwerp under his superintendence and auspices. It bore then and still bears the name of Matthews’s Bible. Of Matthews, however, no trace has ever been discovered. There is every reason for believing the untraceable Matthews was John Rogers. If so, Rogers was not only the protomartyr of the English Church, but, with due respect for Tyndale, the protomartyr of the English Bible.”
Among the most eminent men buried at St. Sepulchre’s was Roger Ascham, in 1568. Doubtless Milton, before writing his own remarkable treatise on education, must have studied the progressive theories of this man who taught Latin and Greek to Queen Elizabeth.
CHAPTER XII.
CHARTERHOUSE.—ST. JOHN’S GATE.—ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S.—SMITHFIELD
hen Milton was a lad at St. Paul’s School, it is more than likely that he sometimes visited the boys of Charterhouse. Let us imagine him on some holiday taking a stroll outside the city wall through Newgate, over Holborn Bridge, that arched the Hole Bourne or Fleet, which flowed southward to the Thames, at Blackfriars; then up Holborn Hill and to the right to Charterhouse Square. It is still a quiet square of green shut in by pleasant residences, which replace the handsome palaces, such as Rutland House, which stood here during the Stuarts’ reign.