—The author of these lines was Robert Barker, as is ascertained from a MS. in the Ashmolean Museum, quoted in Halliwell's Life of Shakspeare, p. 207., where they are entitled, "Certayne verses wrighten by Mr. Robert Barker, his Majestis printer, under his Majestis picture." This is quite confirmatory of, and is confirmed by, MARGARET GATTY'S communication.
R.
[A. GRAYAN, who refers us to Dibdin's Ames, vol. ii. p. 1090., for the foregoing information, adds, that the last line in the MS. reads—
"That knowledge makes the Kinge most like his Maker.">[
Hell paved with the Skulls of Priests (Vol. iv., p. 484.).
—The French priest referred to in this Query had most probably quoted, at second or third hand, and with rhetorical embellishment—certainly not from the original direct—an expression of St. Chrysostom, in his third homily on the Acts of the Apostles:
"οὐκ οἶμαι εἶναι πολλοὺς ἐν τοῖς ἱερεῦσι τοὺς σωζομένους, ἀλλὰ πολλῷ πλείους τοὺς ἀπολλυμένους."
"I know not if there be many in the priesthood who are saved, but I know that many more perish."
Gibbon has also quoted this passage at second hand (v. 399. note z.), for he says:
"Chrysostom declares his free opinion (tom. ix. hom. iii. in Act. Apostol. p. 29.) that the number of bishops who might be saved, bore a very small proportion to those who would be damned."