[311] "This Robert Wakefield was the prime linguist of his time, having obtained beyond the seas the Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac tongues. In one thing he is to be commended, and that is this, that he carefully preserved divers books of Greek and Hebrew at the dissolution of religious houses, and especially some of those in the library of Ramsey abbey, composed by Laurence Holbecke, monk of that place, in the reign of Henry IV. He died at London 8th October, 1537, leaving behind him the name of Polypus, as Leland is pleased to style him, noting that he was of a witty and crafty behaviour." Wood's Hist. of Colleges and Halls, p. 429, Gutch's edit.
Phil. There is no occasion to be extremely laconic. The evening has hardly yet given way to night. The horizon, I dare say, yet faintly glows with the setting-sun-beams. But proceed as you will.
Lysand. The commotions which ensued from the arbitrary measures of Henry were great;[312] but such as were naturally to be expected. At length Henry died, and a young and amiable prince reigned for a few months. Mary next ascended the throne; and the storm took an opposite direction. Then an attempt was made to restore chalices, crucifixes, and missals. But the short period of her sovereignty making way for the long and illustrious one of her sister Elizabeth, the Cecils and Walsinghams[313] united their great talents with the equally vigorous ones of the Queen and her favourite archbishop Parker, in establishing that form of religion which, by partaking in a reasonable degree of the solemnity of the Romish church, and by being tempered with great simplicity and piety in its prayers, won its way to the hearts of the generality of the people. Our Great English Bibles[314] were now restored to their conspicuous situations; and the Bibliomania, in consequence, began to spread more widely and effectively.
[312] Fuller has devoted one sentence only, and that not written with his usual force, to the havoc and consternation which ensued on the devastation of the monasteries. Ch. Hist., b. vi., p. 314. Burnet is a little more moving: Hist. of the Reformation; vol. i., p. 223. But, from the foregoing premises, the reader may probably be disposed to admit the conclusion of a virulent Roman Catholic writer, even in its fullest extent: namely, that there were "subverted monasteries, overthrown abbies, broken churches, torn castles, rent towers, overturned walls of towns and fortresses, with the confused heaps of all ruined monuments." Treatise of Treasons, 1572, 8vo., fol. 148, rev.
[313] There are few bibliographers at all versed in English literature and history, who have not heard, by some side wind or other, of the last mentioned work; concerning which Herbert is somewhat interesting in his notes: Typographical Antiquities, vol. iii., p. 1630. The reader is here presented with a copious extract from this curious and scarce book—not for the sake of adding to these ponderous notes relating to the Reformation—(a subject, upon which, from a professional feeling, I thought it my duty to say something!)—but for the sake of showing how dexterously the most important events and palpable truths may be described and perverted by an artful and headstrong disputant. The work was written expressly to defame Elizabeth, Cecil, and Bacon, and to introduce the Romish religion upon the ruins of the Protestant. The author thus gravely talks
"Of Queen Mary and her Predecessors.
"She (Mary) found also the whole face of the commonwealth settled and acquieted in the ancient religion; in which, and by which, all kings and queens of that realm (from as long almost before the conquest as that conquest was before that time) had lived, reigned, and maintained their states; and the terrible correction of those few that swerved from it notorious, as no man could be ignorant of it. As King John, without error in religion, for contempt only of the See Apostolic, plagued with the loss of his state, till he reconciled himself, and acknowledged to hold his crown of the Pope. King Henry VIII., likewise, with finding no end of heading and hanging, till (with the note of tyranny for wasting his nobility) he had headed him also that procured him to it. Fol. 85, 86.
"Libellous Character of Cecil.
"In which stem and trunk (being rotten at heart, hollow within, and without sound substance) hath our spiteful pullet (Cecil) laid her ungracious eggs, mo than a few: and there hath hatched sundry of them, and brought forth chickens of her own feather, I warrant you. A hen I call him, as well for his cackling, ready and smooth tongue, wherein he giveth place to none, as for his deep and subtle art in hiding his serpentine eggs from common men's sight: chiefly for his hennish heart and courage, which twice already hath been well proved to be as base and deject at the sight of any storm of adverse fortune, as ever was hen's heart at the sight of a fox. And, had he not been by his confederate, as with a dunghill cock, trodden as it were and gotten with egg, I doubt whether ever his hennish heart, joined to his shrewd wit, would have served him, so soon to put the Q.'s green and tender state in so manifest peril and adventure. Fol. 88, rect.
"Libellous Characters of Cecil and N. Bacon.