have been delivered later than 1380, and not earlier than 1378, Wiclif could not have been more than from fiftyfour to fifty-six years of age, if the common date of his birth is correct. All these indications make it appear probable, in our view, that when Wiclif died he must have been considerably older than is usually supposed. He must, in that case, have been born at least several years earlier than 1324; but we have no positive data for fixing with precision that earlier date.

SECTION II.-Wiclif's Course of Study.

WE have as little historical information on the subject of Wiclif's earliest education as on that of his birth-year; and it would answer no good purpose to fill up this blank with the suggestions of our own fancy. But so much is implied in the nature of the case, that in the years of his childhood and early youth, he grew up vigorously into the old Saxon pith of the family stem to which he belonged, and of the whole people among whom he was brought up. No doubt, also, the historical recollections and folk traditions which lived among the population of Yorkshire, especially in their connection with. certain localities, had very early made a deep impression on the susceptible soul of the boy, and become all his own. For I find the writings of Wiclif so full of allusions and reminiscences of the early times of his fatherland, as to justify the assumption that from his youth up he had been familiar with patriotic scenes and pictures. The boy, no doubt, received the first elements of instruction at the hand of some member of the clergy. Probably the parish priest of Wycliffe was his first teacher, and taught him the

rudiments of Latin grammar; and doubtless, too, the youth, who must from childhood have had a lively and inquisitive genius, spent his whole time at home till he removed to Oxford. For as yet there were no schools in existence to prepare youth for the universities, except the cloister and cathedral schools. The universities themselves had rather the character of Latin schools and gymnasia than universities proper; at least a multitude, not only of growing young men, but even of mere boys, were to be found in Oxford and Cambridge, and that not as the pupils of schools collateral to the university, but as proper members of the university itself. We know, e.g., from the loud complaints of Richard Fitzralph, archbishop of Armagh, that many young people under fourteen years of age were already considered to be members of the university. The importance of the universities in the middle ages was a great deal more comprehensive than in modern times. While the universities of the present day, at least on the Continent, are essentially of use only to young men above eighteen in acquiring for several years the higher education, whereas grown-up men ordinarily belong to the academic body only as teachers or officials, and in comparatively small numbers, the medieval universities included in their structure an additional storey, so to speak, both above and below-an upper storey, what we might call an academy in the narrow sense-and a lower storey, a species of grammar school and gymnasium. As to the former, the number of grown-up men who belonged to the medieval universities, not exclusively as teachers of the student youth, but in the general character of men of learning, and as full members of the self-governing corporation (Magistri Regentes) was very large and important. The English uni

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versities are now the only ones in Europe which have preserved this feature to a great degree unimpaired, in the fellows of colleges, whose numbers are considerable. On the other hand, in the lower storey, the mediaval universities. included a multitude of young people who were not as yet out of boyhood, and who for the present could only enjoy the benefit of a preparatory learned training. This latter circumstance must especially be kept in view, when we meet occasionally with statistical notices of the attendance at universities like Oxford, which astonish us by their enormous figures.

In view of this last fact, it would be in itself quite conceivable that Wiclif might have gone to Oxford even as a boy. But it is not probable, notwithstanding. For his home, close on the northern boundary of Yorkshire, was so far distant from the University that the journey, in the fourteenth century, must have been an affair of no inconsiderable time and fatigue and even danger. Prudent and conscientious parents would hardly be able to bring themselves to the resolution of sending a son upon such a journey before his fourteenth or sixteenth year; indeed, to let him pass away for ever (for this was necessarily involved in it) from their parental oversight." It is more probable. that Wiclif was already a youth at least from fourteen to sixteen years old when he went to Oxford. Positive testimonies as to the exact date are wholly wanting, but assuming that he was born in 1320, and that he did not repair to the University before his fifteenth year, we would be brought to 1335 as the approximate year.

At that time, of the twenty colleges and more which exist to-day in Oxford, there were five already founded, viz., Merton, founded in 1274; Balliol, 1260-82; Exeter,

1314; Oriel, 1324; and University College, 1332. These foundations were originally designed purely for the support of poor scholars, who lived under the oversight of a President, according to a domestic order fixed by the Statutes of the Founders. It was only at a later period that they became, in addition to this, boarding-houses for students in good circumstances. Queen's College was not erected before 1340. It took its name from the circumstance hat Philippa, Queen of Edward III., contributed towards its foundation. The proper founder, however, was Sir Robert Egglesfield one of her court chaplains. It has been commonly accepted as a fact that when Wiclif went to Oxford he was immediately entered at Queen's College. This he could only have done on the supposition that he did not come up to the University till the year 1340. But we have already shown that an earlier date for that incident is more probable. Apart from this chronological consideration, there is a want of all sure grounds for the assumption that Wiclif entered into any conection with Queen's College at so early a date. The oldest records of the College go no farther back than the year 1347; and the name of Wiclif does not occur in them earlier than 1363; and even then he appears not properly as a member of the College, but only as a renter of some chambers in its buildings;18 a relation to it which appears to have continued for nearly twenty years-down to the time when Wiclif's connection with the University as a corporation entirely ceased.

If the question thus recurs, into what college Wiclif was received when he first came to Oxford, we must fairly confess it is one to which, in the absence of all documentary evidence we are unable to supply any distinct or confident

answer. We know that in the course of years he became a member, and sometimes head of several colleges or halls. Merton and Balliol, in particular, are named in this connection, to say nothing at present of a third hall of which we shall have to speak hereafter. But all the notices we have of this kind relate to a later period-not to Wiclif as a young scholar, but to his mature years. If mere conjectures might be allowed, nothing would appear to us more probable than that he must have been entered at Balliol on his first coming to the University. For this college owed its foundation (1260-82) to the noble family of Balliol of Barnard Castle, on the left bank of the Tees, not more than five miles from Spresswell, Wiclif's birth-place; and that there existed a connection of some kind between the Wiclif family and Balliol College, appears from the circumstance that two men, who were presented to the parish of Wycliffe, by John Wycliffe of Wycliffe, as patron, in 1361 and 1369, were members of Balliol College-the one William Wycliffe, a fellow, and the other John Hugate, then Master of the college.19

But here we must confess we are only hinting at a possibility which, however, will be raised to a probability in an investigation which we shall have to enter into at a subsequent stage.

But if the college into which Wiclif entered as a scholar, does not admit of being determined with certainty, there is none the less certainty, on the other hand, in regard to the "nation" in the University, to which from the first he belonged. It is well known that all the universities of the middle ages divided themselves into "nations," according to the countries and provinces, sometimes even the races, to which their members belonged. Thus, in the University of Paris, from a very early period, there were four nations—