glad and joyous to hear of this your notable foundation and College, speaking great honor of the same." 31

We need now no farther explanation. The curtain has been withdrawn ; we have seen into the interior, and as far as the Professor's chairs. The Bishop has exultingly poured out all his incense, and the sequel will more fully prove, that we have had before us, no other than a grand systematic attempt, under the guise of learning, to retain the human mind in bondage; to prevent, if possible, the entrance of divine truth into England, and thus so far retard its progress in Europe. Here, it will be found, was, in embryo, what may be styled the first Jesuit College; projected, too, in the very year when Ignatius Loyala was no farther than Rome, imploring the benediction of the Pontiff, and seven years before he came begging into England. Well might Lord Herbert say, that the Cardinal thought, " since printing could not be put down, it were best to set up learning against learning, and by introducing able persons to dispute, suspend the laity betwixt fear and controversy-as this, at the worst, would yet make them attentive to their superiors and teachers!" The remark will force itself upon us again, but was this then a "benefactor of the human mind?" On the contrary, others will see here nothing else than a splendid but vain project to perplex the understanding, nay, to blind the minds of them that believed not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

It ought, however, to be here observed, that all the dark purposes, divulged in this memorable letter, were literally fulfilled. There was the secret search, and at one time; there was the sermon delivered, and by Fisher, the man pointed out, and the books were burnt; but then, it is a most remarkable fact, that all these we shall see deferred-nay, deferred for exactly three years, or till immediately after Tyndale's New Testaments had arrived in the country! Wolsey, it is true, will have quite enough to divert him all the time, but it was just as if Providence had intended that the writings of no human being should have the precedence, but that His own Word, being so treated, should thus enjoy the distinction of exciting the general commotion of 1526. The burning of the New Testament was to be the head and front of their offending.

We have now done with Tyndale upon English ground; and, disappointed of employment, he also was done with "marking the pomp of our Prelates," or hearing the whole fraternity" boast of their high authority." But certainly

31 MS. Cotton Vitell, B. v. p. 8. Nor must the character of the writer of this letter be forgotten. No wonder than he wrote, as he evidently did, con amore. This was the same man who, in 1521, not two years before, had tormented his whole diocese; burning all such as had relapsed, and severely punishing those who were convicted of reading certain parts of the Sacred Scriptures, in English manuscript, or of even possessing the ten commandments! After he had written this letter, he was down at Oxford preparing for the Cardinal's buildings; and while Tyndale was busy at the press in 1525, Longland was preaching, on the foundation stone of Cardinal College being laid. Wood's Annals, by Gutch, ii. p. 24. Wood's Athenæ, by Bliss, i. p. 164.

when he was to be seen walking up Fleet Street, from the hospitable abode of Mr. Humphrie Munmouth, to preach at St. Dunstan's in the West, nothing in this world could have been more improbable, thau that in a short time he was so to agitate the whole hierarchy of England, and the city which he was now about to leave for ever!

Here, then, and before he embarks, let us pause for a moment. The copies of the Sacred Scriptures in the English tongue, now far exceed in number, not only that of every other nation, but they have been supposed to surpass the number in all other languages when put together! With us they are familiarly enumerated by millions, and myriads of our countrymen have lived in peace, and died in joy, full of the genuine consolation thus imparted! As far, therefore, as human agency was employed, it becomes a sacred duty to trace this, the highest favour of Heaven, up to its source; and certainly it is not a little singular, at the distance of nearly three hundred and twenty years, that we should be able to contemplate the origin of the whole, within the bosom of one disappointed and neglected, if not despised individual ! There was, indeed, one young man, his own convert, with whom he may have communed on the subject, John Fryth, whether in London, which is most probable, or at Cambridge, but he was not to accompany him; no, nor even an amanuensis. Solitary and alone he went out as far as we yet. know, and, with the exception of the port to which he sailed, like the patriarch of old, "not knowing whither he went." By faith, it may be truly said, he left his native country, not unmindful of it, but, on the contrary, loaded with a sense of genuine pity for its inhabitants, from the king downward.

SECTION II.

THE NEW TESTAMENT IN ENGLISH PREPARING BY TYNDALE, FOR CIRCULATION IN HIS NATIVE LAND; AND IN TWO EDITIONS FROM THE PRESS BY THE CLOSE OF 1525.-STATE OF ENGLAND IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THEIR

RECEPTION.

We are now entering upon a war of opinion, and one of paramount importance to this kingdom, which, as far as our first

translator of the Sacred Volume was concerned, lasted, without one moment's interruption, for twelve years. It must appear singular, that no detail of such a contest, ending as it did, has ever been written. Such, however, being the fact, and such the variety of character, as well as the strange incidents involved in the struggle, without keeping rigidly to our narrative, year by year, as the subject never has been, so it never can be understood.

Tyndale, though strongly attached to his native country, having now fully resolved on going abroad, Munmouth "helped him over the sea." We know that he sailed direct for Hamburgh, and the question is, whether he did not there remain for more than a year. At all events, a period of about fifteen months, or rather two years, has to be accounted for, from January 1524; but so much obscurity has rested upon it, owing to the mere affirmations, both of friends and foes, that it becomes necessary to call for proof, and to proceed no farther than it will carry us.

Two general assertions have been hazarded, and too long received. One is, that, upon leaving his native land, Tyndale went directly to Luther, and completed his translation in confederacy with him. The other is, that he dwelt at Wittenberg while thus engaged.

This idea of Tyndale's immediate and intimate confederacy with Luther, and his dependence upon him, originally imported from abroad, through men who were, at the moment, under the torture of examination in England, has been repeated from Sir Thomas More and John Cochlæus, two determined enemies, not to say John Foxe, a decided friend, down to Herbert Marsh in our own day; but it is more than time that it should be exploded. Considering that these are nothing more than assertions, it is strange that they should have prevailed with any, after Tyndale's own language to Sir Thomas More.

"It is to be considered," said More, "that at the time of this translation, Hychens (that is Tyndale) was with Luther in Wittenberg, and set certain glosses in the margin, (alluding to the edition in quarto,) framed for the setting forth of that ungracious sect ;" and again-" The confederacy between Luther and him, is a thing well known, and plainly confessed by such as have been taken, and convicted here of heresy, coming from them."

The poor men who fell into More's hands, and on whose

testimony he rests his assertions, were no doubt willing, nay glad, to confess anything, which might please him, and favour their escape. But what says Tyndale himself to all this, in his "Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue?" After stating that he had already answered the whole of his Eighth Chapter, Third Book, with one exception, he emphatically adds, "And when he saith Tyndale was confederate with Luther, that is not truth;" though as a man traduced, and then persecuted, he would give his adversary no farther positive information.

But even independently of this pointed denial, was he even resident in Wittenberg, nay, in any part of Saxony, during this period? If not, then both assertions fall to the ground.

That he saw and conversed with Luther at some period, may be supposed, though we have not a shadow of proof; but that he had done either, or even set his foot in Saxony, before the publication of his New Testament, will very soon appear to have been impossible, in the nature of things. On the contrary, if we are to depend on the distinctly recorded testimony of the generous man with whom he resided in London; delivered, too, in very peculiar—because responsible -circumstances, and involving pecuniary transactions with Tyndale himself, which account for his support, a different place of residence must be assigned to him.

On the 14th of May 1528, Munmouth being sent for by Sir T. More, was the same day committed to the Tower. His petition for release, on the 19th, is addressed to Wolsey and the King's Council. Now, in this we have the following evidence, both as to time and place of residence, throughout 1524.

"Upon four years and a half and more, I heard the foresaid Sir William Tyndale preach two or three sermons at St. Dunstan's in the West in London.” Tyndale, he then relates, applied to the Bishop of London, and was refused; "so I took him into my house half a year. I did promise him ten pounds sterling, to pray for my father and mother's souls, and all christian souls. I did pay it him when he made his exchange to Hamburgh. Afterwards he got of some other men, ten pounds sterling more, the which he left with me; and within a year after, he sent for his ten pounds to me from Hamburgh, and thither I sent it to him, by one Hans Collenbeke, a Merchant of the Stilyard.”1

1 Harleian MS., Foxe, and copied by Strype.-It is worthy of notice, that Tyndale had left with his generous host, two copies of the Enchiridion of Erasmus, which he had translated at Sodbury, copies of the sermons he had preached in London, besides other papers, but Munmouth became intimidated, and after Tunstal's denunciation of the New Testament, he not only delivered it up, but all the treatises and letters that Tyndale had sent or left he destroyed! "I did burn them in my house, for fear of the translator, more than for any ill that I knew by them." But the fact is, that Munmouth was now in very great fear of himself, and this must be borne in

Thus, in the summer of 1523, Munmouth heard Tyndale preach; he dwelt six months in his house, and probably more, as our translator himself has told us, that in London he "abode almost a year;" in the beginning of 1524 he made his "exchange" for Hamburgh; nearly a year elapses before he sends, from Hamburgh still, for his second ten pounds, and he there remains till he received it. That he had never left the spot, will presently appear still more evident.

Until, therefore, other evidence to the contrary can be produced, we have accounted not only for Tyndale's residence in Hamburgh throughout 1524, but also for what is more gratifying, the expense of his support for even a longer period. It is some consolation to find him not thrown entirely on the hospitality of foreigners, if indeed in any degree; as the sums allotted to him, when put together, were equal to fifteen times the amount in our day, or about £300 sterling.2

We presume it will now be admitted, that the residence of Tyndale at Wittenberg, has been nothing more than an assumption, serving powerfully, at the moment, the purpose of Sir Thomas More, his calumniator. The evidence, as yet, is distinctly in favour of Hamburgh, and as for "confederacy with Luther," that has been pointedly denied. More had affirmed that Tyndale "was with Luther in Wittenberg;" and Tyndale replies, "that is not truth." Indeed, these words are his emphatic answer to all that his opponent had either of malicious purpose, or by mistake, asserted in both of his sentences, already quoted.

We, however, now know the movements of Luther better than did Sir Thomas More; and it may be worth while to enquire how he was engaged at the moment, and throughout the greater part of this year. Most unfortunately he had

mind when reading his confession. That he gave the ten pounds to Tyndale, to pray for his father and mother's souls, was the cant language of the day, now employed, under intimidation, to justify his having lent him assistance. By this time Tyndale had no faith in such prayers, and it is even questionable whether Munmouth himself had-but certainly not when he made his will in 1537, commending his soul" unto Christ Jesus, my Maker and Redeemer, in whom, and by the merits of whose blessed passion, is all my whole trust of clean remission and forgiveness of my sins. He ordered his body to be buried, “without any dirige to be sung or said." 2 Munmouth mentions far larger sums that he had given away, though ten pounds was then a princely donation. "Henry VIII. rewarded Roger Ascham with a pension of ten pounds annually, a sum so small, that it may appear unworthy of enquiry what could be its value; but it must be enquired what twenty shillings could then perform." After doing so, the author adds “His pension, therefore, may be estimated at more than a hundred pounds a year.' —Johnson's Life of Ascham.—The Doctor's calculation was nearly eleven times, but we abide by fifteen, as more correct.