and the most part, are fond, foolish, wanton flibbergibs, tattlers, triflers, wavering, witless, without counsel, feeble, careless, rash, proud, dainty, nice, tale-bearers, eves-droppers, rumour-raisers, evil-tongued, worse minded, and in every respect doltified with the dregs of the devil's dunghill." After all, let Elmer live in the single commendation of Jane Grey, for he has won a better memorial by teaching one little girl Greek, than by shepherding the souls of the first city in the world.

As Alexander Nowell was a Lancashire worthy, not of sufficient importance to furnish a distinct article, we may as well give the few heads of his life in connexion with that of Ascham, whose last hours he witnessed, and whose eulogy he pronounced from the pulpit.

Alexander Nowell was born at Read, in Lancashire, in 1511; was of Brasenose College, in Oxford, M.A. and Fellow, 1540. Kept a school in Westminster in the reign of Edward VI. Was returned for a Cornish borough in the first parliament of Mary, but declared "not duly elected," as being a Prebendary of Westminster, and therefore a member of the Lower House of Convocation. Whence it appears that holy orders did not of themselves disqualify him for sitting in the House of Commons.* When the persecution commenced he was marked out as a victim, but was saved by the contrivance of Mr. Francis Bowyer, afterwards Sheriff of London, A.D. 1577, and escaped beyond sea to which service Fuller gratefully recurs in his dedication of the 2nd section of the 8th book of his "Church History" to Thomas, grandson of the aforesaid Francis Bowyer. Nowell was the first of the Protestant exiles that returned to hail the accession of Elizabeth, and was a prosperous man ever after. He took a rational view of the dispute between the High Church and the Puritans respecting vestments, affirm

* Worth noting: a comment on the distinction between the National Church, "Enclesia," and the Church of Christ, "Ecclesia."-S. T. C. See "Church and State," p. 48.

ing them to be lawful, but not expedient. He died in 1602, aged 90, the founder of the Free School at Middleton, in Lancashire, and a benefactor to the College of Brasenose and the School of St. Paul's.

[The English works of Roger Ascham were first published, together with "Notes and Observations, and the Author's Life," by J. Bennet, in 4to, London, 1761. A new edition, with the life, by Dr. Johnson, was published in London, in 8vo, 1815. A comparison of the several biographies will show in how very different a way the same materials may be treated.

The "Familiar Epistles" were published in Latin, with the Funeral Oration of Grant, so often alluded to, in 8vo, London, 1590. Subjoined to these are several specimens of Ascham's talent as a Latin versifier. One of these pieces is addressed

to a certain William Bill. The opening line sounds somewhat oddly to vernacular ears :—

"O Bille, belle, xaige, mi bellissime!"-D. C.

JOHN FISHER,

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.

THE character of this good prelate has been variously represented, his actions related with diversity of circumstance, and his death described by some as the reward of treason, by others as the testimony of martyrdom. Certainly he was a martyr to his own creed, no less by the voluntary mortifications of his whole life, than by the enforced sufferings of his latter end. Of himself, we shall speak the language of his friends rather than his revilers: his opinions we shall endeavour to explain, but shall neither condemn nor justify; simply presuming that of all errors the most venial is a disinterested adherence to the errors of antiquity, especially when worse novelties are proposed to be substituted.

estate had

John Fisher was born at Beverley, A.D. 1459. His father, a respectable merchant of that town, died before he or his brother orphan, Robert, could compute their loss; yet left them not unprovided, for Fuller says he was a wealthy man, and that John's paternal bottom. His mother, a worthy and pious woman, though she took a second husband, did not neglect the children of the first, but committed them to the charge of a priest of the collegiate church of Beverley as soon as they were deemed capable of initiation into grammar learning. John Fisher

VOL. II.

M

He

showing a great aptitude for study, it was determined to train him for the Church's service. Accordingly, in 1484, when he was about twenty-five, he was entered of Michael-house, then a rich foundation,* afterwards dissolved along with King's Hall, the best landed in Cambridge, by Henry VIII., in 1546, and its revenues swallowed up in his new foundation of Trinity College. From the unusually late age at which he commenced his University education, it is probable that his studies were interrupted by some secular occupation, of which we have not read. proceeded Bachelor of Arts in 1488, and Master in 1491; was elected Fellow, served the office of Proctor in 1495, and in the same year, on the promotion of William de Melton, heretofore his tutor, to the Chancellorship of the Cathedral of York, was chosen head of his house. Having now devoted himself to the study of theology, he took orders, and became a distinguished divine, famous in all acts and disputations. He appeared to great advantage in the public exercises, when in 1501 he proceeded D.D. Shortly after he was appointed Vice-Chancellor, and held the office two years successively. It is said that about this time he assisted the studies of the young Prince Henry, afterwards Henry VIII., whose proficiency in scholastic divinity was such, that some thought his father intended to make him a churchman, had not his elder brother died. Had this intention taken effect, what more likely than that he who proved the most formidable adversary of the Popedom might have been Pope himself?

But it is more certain that the fame of Dr. Fisher

* According to Fuller (History of the University of Cambridge, page 12, 1655), the yearly rents of Michael-house, at old and easy rates, amounted to 1441. 3s. 1d., a very large sum in those days.

reached the ears of Margaret of Lancaster, the mother of Henry VII., and that by her solicitation he quitted Cambridge, to become her confessor, almoner, and spiritual director. This preference he probably owed not so much to his skill in the application of Aristotle's logic to the doctrines of the Church of Rome, or even to his mastery over those casuistical subtleties which were the professional knowledge of a confessor, as to his fervent and indefatigable devotion, his ascetic mortifications, his frequent fasts and continual abstinence, his whips and hair shirts, his zeal for good works, and his eminence in that sort of charity which was then accounted most acceptable to Heaven. He became a member of the Lady Margaret's family, wherein he directed all things with the regularity, if not the severity, of a monastic establishment, when monasteries were really the abodes of prayer, penance, and contemplation. Never forgetting the interest of his University, and of religious learning, he encouraged her to those magnificent foundations by which she continues to be remembered; not as she purposed, with prayers and masses, but in thanksgivings and college festivals. On the 8th of September, 1502, she instituted two perpetual lectures in divinity, one at Oxford and the other at Cambridge. Fisher was the first Margaret's Professor at Cambridge.

From 1502 to 1504 we have nothing to record of him, though, doubtless, he did much good in that interval; but in 1504 he was suddenly, and it is said unexpectedly called to the see of Rochester, upon the translation of Richard Fitz-James to the London. This promotion was naturally enough attributed to the Lady Margaret's influence with her It were well if bishops had always been made on such good recommendation; or rather, if the

son.

see of