who know such a suspicion to be ill-founded, he stands exposed to the full force of the accusation, that he purposely shunned details, lest he should be obliged to make his hero "a hissing and a curse," not being quite prepared to affirm, with the sycophant of old, that every act of a ruler must be just.'

The great intellect of his fellow prisoner and sufferer, Sir Thomas More, the public and conspicuous part which he had so long and early acted,t have helped to obscure the fame of Fisher, although several distinguished Protestant‡ writers have cited him as an example of sanctity, purity, and charity, and extolled him for his warm devotion to the cause of letters. Admirably well does he deserve their commendation in both respects. His appointment to the see of Rochester originated from a feeling on the part of Henry VII., shared, if we are to believe their biographers, by sovereigns of a later period, though not keeping a sufficiently firm hold upon their minds to urge them, like that monarch, to atone for the mischievous effects which have resulted from preferring the unworthy to the worthy. In writing to his mother, the Countess of Richmond, the king confesses that he had "promoted many a man unadvisedly; and I wolde now," he proceeds, "make some recompencon to promote some good and vertuouse men;" and he, therefore, desires to appoint her confessor, Master Fisher, "for none other cause but for the grate and singular virtue that I know and se in him as well in conyng and natural wisdome, and specially for his good and vertuouse lyving."§

This striking fact alone ought to have painted the Bishop of Rochester, in Burnett's eyes, as one of those truly pious Roman catholics deserving of the reverence of posterity. It would also have been a safe duty to have shewn, in strong colours, Fisher's love and encou

Παν το πραχθεν ύπο του χρατούντος δικαιον.-Plut. Opera, Franc., 1599, ν. 1., p. 639. Such was the language with which Anaxarchus consoled Alexander for the murder of Clytus.

+ Even when "a bearded boy," as Wolsey styled him, his eloquence was so commanding as a public speaker, that he prevailed on the House of Commons to withhold a grant of money to the crown. See the history of his brilliant life, by Roper, his son-in-law; Singer's edit, p. 12.

See Fuller, Strype, Wharton, Collier, Hume, &c. &c. All," say the authors of the Biographia Britannica, "acknowledge that he was a sober man, pious, temperate, charitable, and an encourager of letters."

§ See the letter in the Appendix to the Funeral Sermon of Margaret Countess of Richmond, edit. 1708, p. 41. Mr. Butler, therefore, is evidently mistaken when he says, that Henry VIII. raised him to the see of Rochester. Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics, v. i., p. 169.

ragement of letters, so splendidly illustrated by his patronage of Erasmus, and by his effectual persuasions to the "venerable Margaret," as Gray styles hert, to found Christ and St. John's Colleges at Cambridge, together with a professorship of divinity in each of the universities, and other scholastic endowments. As a further proof of Fisher's literary tastes and predilections, it may be mentioned that, in his sixtieth year or upwards, according to Erasmus,§ he entered upon the difficult study of the Greek language then revived in England; for we learn from venerable Bede that it had been introduced into England, half a century before his own time, by Theodore, whom Pope Vitalian had appointed archbishop over the infant Anglo-Saxon churches. Fisher also, in his noble ardour for the promotion of classical or ancient literature, sent down, in his capacity of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Richard Croke, to become there the successor of Erasmus as instructor in the Greek tongue ;|| while we have another instance of his natural

* Erasmi Epist., London, 1642., p. 353; and Butler's Life of Erasmus, pp. 65, 118.

+ See his Ode for Music. But Margaret was not only a zealous patroness of literature, but an authoress herself. In Ballard's Memoirs of several Ladies of Great Britain, who have been celebrated for their Writings, the compositions of the mother of Henry are enumerated: while so great was her religious enthusiasm, that she declared if the princes of Christendom would unite together for the purpose of marching against their common enemy, the Turks, she would willingly follow them in the humble capacity of laundress to the camp. See Camden's Remains, edit. 1665, p. 271.

"His whole study," observes Dodd, "was to put her upon such undertakings as became her exalted station and his own character. By his persuasion, she founded the noble colleges of Christ and St. John, in Cambridge, and Fisher greatly contributed to the expence of enlarging and completing the latter. According to a statement, which is not so well known as it deserves to be, the Master and Fellows of the latter college transmitted to him a letter in the darkest hour of his troubles; which, regardless of its drawing upon their heads the vengeance of Henry, attests, in the most undisguised manner, the affection and reverence with which they still looked to this single-hearted benefactor of letters. One passage in it reflects everlasting honour upon that college, while it forcibly points out for our instruction, that wealth well spent is sure, one way or other, to reap its due reward "Tuum est eritque quicquid possumus. Tui omnes scimus erimusque toti. Tu nostrum es decus et presidium tu nostrum es caput ut necessario quæcunque te mala attingant ea nobis veluti membris subjectis acerbitatem inferant."-Harl. M.S., No. 7030, p. 230.

§ Erasmi Epist., 522, 526.

See Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe, in the eighteenth, seventeenth, and sixteenth centuries, p. 120.

propensity for the interests of learning in his forming one of the best libraries in the kingdom. Of this repository of knowledge there is so interesting a notice, by a biographer of the Bishop, that we shall give it in his own words. "He had the notablest library of bookes in all England, two long galleries full; the bookes were sorted in stalls, and a register of the names of every body at the end of every stall. All these his bookes, and all his hangings, plate, and vessels for hall, chamber, buttery, and kitchen, he gave, long before his death, to St. John's College, by a deed of gift, and put them in possession thereof, and then, by indenture, did borrow all the said bookes and stuff, to have the use of them during his life; but at his apprehension the Lord Cromwell caused all to be confiscated, which he gave to Moryson Plankney, of Chester, and other that were about him, and so the college was defrauded of this noble gift.”*

The writings of the Bishop against the Lutherans† display the powers of his extensive learning and his acuteness as a polemical divine, while his pulpit discourses, however devoid of attraction now, were considered as models of eloquence by his cotemporaries, and to have done honour to his age. Had all his works come down to us, for he was a most voluminous writer, we might conclude, from the vehement admiration expressed of them by one of those cotemporaries, that each of his productions approximated so closely to excellence as to challenge the homage of posterity. But though the specimens left will not justify this sanguine augury of his eulogist, yet, from the following curious reference to his literary labours, he seems, from the fullness of the mind or the desire of instructing mankind, never to have been happy without his untiring pen. "In his lifetime he wrote many famous and learned treatises with great diligence, whereof none came to light, because he lived not to finish them. But myself have seen diverse of them, and some other I have heard of by report of good and credible persons. And it was once told me by a reverend father that was Dean of Rochester many years together, named Mr. Phillips, that on a time in the days of Edward

* Harl. MS., 7047, p. 17.

+ Those writings of his which are extant, were published separately in England, and printed collectively at Wurtzburg in one volume folio, 1593. Upon the title of one of them, Pro damnatione Lutheri, charity, justice, and impartiality must all combine in actuating us to set a mark of reprobation, however much Fisher might deem it a sacred duty to promulgate and record his detestation of opinions considered by the Romish communion as heretical.

4

VI., when certain commissioners were coming toward him to search his house for books, he for fear brent a large volume which this holy Bishop had compiled, containing in it the whole story and matter of the divorce, which volume he gave him with his own hand a little before his troubles; for the loss whereof the Dean would many times after lament, and wish the book whole again, upon condition that he had not one grote to live on. Many other of his works were consumed by the heretickes, which, shortly after his death, swarmed thick in every place and grew into great authority, doing thereby what themselves listed. And it has been reported by a good old priest called Mr. Buddle, who, in his youth, wrote many of his books for him, there came to him on a certain time in the aforesaid King Edward's days, a minister, by authority of him that then occupied the See of Rochester, and took from him as many written books and papers of this holy man's labors and travell as loaded a horse, and carried them to His Majestie; they were all afterward brent, as he heard say by the maister minister and the mann. This Mr. Buddell was then parson of Cockston, in Kent, not far from Rochester, where he yet liveth, a very old man, and declareth many notable things of the austere life and vertue of this holy man.'

Enough, however, of his writings remain to prove him one of the ablest controversialists of his day. But the general reader, we suspect, will prefer the following extract from his funeral sermon on the noble Princess Margaret to any we might select out of those erudite tomes, not merely because it affords the best specimen of his English style, but as proving how well the memory of his royal benefactress is entitled to the respect of the wise and good of succeeding ages. Speaking, indeed, with reference to this eulogy as a composition, we are almost inclined to compare it, from the modern turn and structure of some of its sentences, to the good English which is conspicuous in his fellow martyr's Life of Edward V. "She was bounteous and lyberal to every person of her knowledge or acquaintance. Avarice and covetyse she most hated, and sorrowed it full moche in all persons, but specially in ony that belonged unto her. She was of syngular easyness to be spoken unto, and full curtayse answere she would make to all that came unto her. Of mervayllous gentyleness she was unto all folks, but specially unto her owne, whom she trustede and loved ryghte tenderly. Unkynde she wolde not be unto no creature, ne forgetfull of ony

* Harl MS., 7047.

kyndness or servyce done to her before, which is no lytel part of veray nobleness. She was not vengeable ne cruell, but redy anone to forgete and to forgive injuryes done unto her, at the least desyre or mocyon made unto her for the same. Mercyfull also and pyteous she was unto such as was grevyed and wrongfully troubled, and to them that were in poverty or sekeness, or any other mysery. She had, in a manner, all that was praysable in a woman, either in soul or body."*

Fisher passed through the extremes of fortune, he stood the test of dangers, temptations, and sacrifices, with the same heroic constancy as More; he manifested that temper of concentrated resolution in prison, at the tribunal, and on the scaffold, which marked the bearing of those whose names are most conspicuous in the annals of the Reformation; and there was that composed dignity in his character which rendered him equally indifferent with More to the plaudits of his countrymen. It is, then, a subject of censure that Burnett should have evinced such reluctance to give this martyr of the Romish church,† of whom, from his saint-like qualities, she may be justly proud, his due rank among the ancient worthies of the realm, especially as there was not an atom of that lust of selfaggrandisement or power which is so emphatically called, in the History of his own Times, the besetting sin of the churchman. For when offered, by Henry VIII., at one time the see of Ely, and at another that of Lincoln, each of which was treble in value to his his memorable answer was, own, "Others may have a larger income, as for me I shall not change my little old wife, to whom I have been so long wedded, for a wealthier ;"‡ and upon being told that Paul III.,§ in testimony of his great merits, and of his follow

There is a reprint of this interesting discourse, in 1708, by Baker, the Cambridge antiquary.

+ Fuller has been styled "a man of praises;" but the quaint old historian was not so imbued with the fashionable liberality of this generation, as to bestow them upon an individual whose religious faith differed in several respects so widely from his own, unless the whole life of such a person was, in his opinion, a copy to be admired. Speaking then of Fisher, he says, "He was generally pitied for his age, honoured for his learning, admired for his holy conversation. Besides it was not worth while," he adds, "to take away his life, who was not only mortalis, as all men, and mortificatus, as all good men, but also moriturus, as old men, being past seventy-six years of age.”— Church Hist., b. v., sect. 3.

See Fuller, 201, 203.

§ In following Burnett, a late respectable Historian is evidently mistaken when he says "that Clement VII. bestowed that honour upon him."-See