called of Oaks ;* and indeed our William was all heart of oak, as soon will appear.

He was first bred under John Scotus; and afterwards served him as Aristotle did his master Plato, disproving his principles, and first setting on foot a new sort of sophistry. Then it was hard to hear any thing in the schools for the high railing betwixt the Reals, headed by John Duns Scotus; Nominals, fighting under their General Ockham; neither of them conducing much to the advance of religion.

Our Ockham, flushed with success against John Scotus, undertook another John, of higher power and place, even Pope John the Three-and-twentieth, and gave a mortal wound to his temporal power over princes. He got a good guardian, viz. Lewis of Bavaria the emperor, whose court was his sanctuary; so that we may call him a schoolman courtier. But he was excommunicated by the Pope, and the masters of Paris condemned him for a heretic, and burnt his books. This, I conceive, was the cause why Luther was so versed in his works, which he had at his fingers' ends, being the sole schoolman in his library whom he esteemed.

However, at last the Pope took wit in his anger, finding it no policy to enrage so sharp a pen; and though I find no recantation or public submission of Ockham, yet he was restored to his state, and the repute of an acute schoolman. Now because he is generally complained of, for his soul of opposition (gainsaying whatever Scotus said) it will serve to close his epitaph, what was made on a great paradox-monger, possessed with the like contradicting spirit:

Sed jam est mortuus, ut apparet,

Quod si viveret id negaret.

"But now he's dead, as plainly doth appear;
Yet would deny it, were he living here."

He flourished under king Edward the Third; and, dying 1330, was buried at Monchen in Bavaria.t

JOHN HOLBROOK was (as Leland states) a profound philosopher and mathematician, much esteemed with the English nobility for his rare accomplishments; and yet is his short character blemished in Bale with a double ut fertur: one, relating to the place of his birth, yet so, as Surrey is assigned most probable: the other, to the time wherein he flourished.‡ The last is a wonder to me, that so exact a critic, who had with great pains reduced the tables of Alphonsus most artificially to months, days, and hours, should have his own memory left at such a loss as to the timeing thereof, that authors

(hopeless to hit the mark of the year) aim at the butt of the age, and conjecture him to have been eminent in the fourteenth century.

GEORGE RIPLY was born, saith my author, at Ripley in this county. But, on the serious debate thereof, he clearly appeareth a native of Yorkshire; and therefore we remit the reader to that county, where he shall find his large character.

SINCE THE REFORMATION.

HENRY HAMMOND, D.D. was born at Chertsey in this county, his father being doctor of physic, and physician to king James. He was bred in Eton school, where judicious Mr. Bust (so skilful in reading other boys) could not spell his nature; but, being posed with the riddle of his portentous wit, at last even left him to himself, which proved the best. Hence he became fellow of Magdalen College in Oxford, till preferred canon of Christ-church and orator of the university.

He may be called an angelical doctor, as justly as he who is generally so styled. First, for his countenance and complexion, white and ruddy; resembling the common portraitures of cherubims. Secondly, his sanctity, spending his life in devotion. His eating and drinking were next to nothing, so exemplary his abstinence; and he always embraced a single life. Thirdly, meekness. "Michael durst not (the valour of an arch-angel is frighted at a sin) bring a railing accusation against Satan."+ Herein only our doctor was a coward; he feared to revile any of an opposite judgment. Fourthly, his charity; he was the tutelar angel, to keep many a poor royalist from famishing; it being verily believed, that he yearly gave away more than two hundred pounds.

Lastly, for his knowledge; such the latitude of his learning and languages. As distillers extract aqua vite, or living water, from the dregs of dead beer; so he, from the rotten writings of the Rabbins, drew many observations to the advance of Christianity.

He could turn his plough-shares and pruning-hooks into swords and spears in his Controversial Treatises; and could again at pleasure convert his swords and spears into ploughshares and pruning-hooks in his Comments and Practical Catechisms.

He was well versed in all modern pamphlets touching church discipline. When some of the royal disputants (in the treaty at Uxbridge) in some sort did overshoot their adversaries, this doctor could lay his arguments level against them, and discourse with the parliament divines in their own dialect.

But, alas! he was an angelical man, no angel; witness his death of the student's disease, the stone. He died at West

* Camden's Britannia, in this county.

+ Jude 9.

wood in Worcestershire, at the house of the lady Packington; his PELLA, where he peaceably reposed himself whilst all our English Jerusalem was in combustion. One thousand pounds well nigh were due unto him at his death; yet there appeared neither specialty, nor any man's hand amongst his writings; so confident he was that his conscientious debtors would faithfully pay what was freely lent them. By his will he empowered Dr. Humphrey Henchman (since bishop of Sarum) his sole executor, to expend according to his discretion, in the relief of poor people, not exceeding two hundred pounds. Let this his short character be pitched up like a tent for a time, to be taken down when a firmer fabric (which, as I am informed, a more able pen is about) shall be erected to his memory.* He died anno Domini 1659.

ROMISH EXILE WRITERS.

NICHOLAS SANDERS was born at Charlewood in this county (where his family still continueth worshipful); bred bachelor of the laws in New College.† Going over beyond the seas he was made D.D. at Rome, and afterwards king's professor thereof at Louvain.

Pity it was he had not more honesty, or less learning, being master of art in malice; not hoping the whole body of his lies should be believed, but, being confident the least finger thereof finding credit could prove heavy enough to crush any innocence with posterity; presuming the rather to write passages without truth, because on a subject beyond memory.

He thought it would much advantage his cause to call the church of England schismatic first in that his libellous treatise. But what said St. Augustine in a dispute with one of the Donatists?"Utrum schismatici nos simus an vos, non ego nec tu,. sed Christus interrogetur, ut judicet ecclesiam suam."

Indeed the controversy consisting much in matter of fact, let records and histories be perused; and it will appear that our English kings, after many intolerable provocations, and entrenchments on their crown from the church of Rome, at last (without the least invading of others) conserved their own right; partly as supreme princes calling together their clergy, by their advice to reform the errors therein; partly to protect their subjects from being ruined by the canons and constitutions of a foreign power.

But this subject hath lately been so handled by that learned baronet Sir Roger Twysden, that, as he hath exceeded former, he hath saved all future pains therein. To return to Sanders, it is observable, that he who surfeited with falsehoods was

*This was performed in 1662, by Dr. John Fell, afterwards bishop of Oxford.-ED.

Register of New College, anno 1548.

Contra Literas Tetiliani, lib. 2. cap. 8. tom. vii.

BENEFACTORS-MEMORABLE PERSONS.

217

famished for lack of food in Ireland. We must be sensible, but may not be censorious, on such actions; such deserving to forfeit the eyes of their souls, who will not mark so remarkable a judgment, which happened anno Domini 1580,

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC.

I meet with none besides bishop Merton (of whom I have spoken) eminent before the Reformation. Since it we find,

HENRY SMITH, who was born at Wandsworth in this county.* Now, reader, before I go any further, give me leave to premise and apply a passage in my apprehension not improper in this place.

Luther, commenting on those words, "and God created great whales," rendereth this reason why the creation of whales is specified by name: "ne, territi magnitudine, crederemus ea spectra esse:" (lest, affrighted with their greatness, we should believe them to be only visions or fancies.) Indeed many simple people who lived (where Luther did) in an inland country, three hundred miles from the sea, might suspect that whales (as reported with such vast dimensions) were rather fables than realities. In like manner, being now to relate the bounty of this worthy person, I am afraid that our infidel age will not give credit thereunto, as conceiving it rather a romance or fiction than a thing really performed, because of the prodigious greatness thereof. The best is, there are thousands in this county can attest the truth herein. And such good deeds publicly done are a pregnant proof to convince all deniers and

doubters thereof.

This Henry Smith, Esq. and alderman of London, gave, to buy lands for a perpetuity for the relief and setting the poor to work,-in Croydon, one thousand pounds; in Kingston, one thousand pounds; in Guildford, one thousand pounds; in Dorking, one thousand pounds; in Farnham, one thousand pounds; in Ryegate, one thousand pounds; in Wandsworth, to the poor, five hundred pounds. Besides many other great and liberal legacies bequeathed to pious uses, which I hope by his executors are as conscionably employed, as by him they were charitably intended.

He departed this life the 13th of January 1627, in the seventy-ninth year of his age; and lieth buried in the chancel to Wandsworth.

MEMORABLE PERSONS.

[REM.] ELIZABETH WESTON.--We must gain by degrees what knowledge we can get of this eminent woman; who no doubt was: 1. Of gentle extraction, because her parents bestowed

So testifieth his monument in the upper end of the chancel of Wandsworth. † Genesis i. 21.

on her so liberal and costly education; 2. A virgin, because she wrote a book of poetry, called Parthenicon; 3. A great scholar, because commended by two grand critics; 4. She must flourish, by proportion of time, about 1600.

Hear what Janus Dousa saith of her,

66

Angla vel Angelica es, vel prorsus es Angelus; immo

Si sexus vetat hoc, Angelus est animus."

Joseph Scaliger praiseth her in no less prose: "Parthenicon Elizabethæ Westoniæ, virginis nobilissimæ, poetriæ florentissimæ, linguarum plurimarum peritissimæ." And again, speaking to her, "Penè priùs mihi contigit admirari ingenium tuum quàm nôsse."

It seems her fame was more known in foreign parts than at home. And I am ashamed that, for the honour of her sex and our nation, I can give no better account of her. However, that her memory may not be harbourless, I have lodged her in this county (where I find an ancient and worshipful family of the Westons flourishing at Sutton) ready to remove her at the first information of the certain place of her nativity.

Here we may see how capable the weaker sex is of learning, if instructed therein. Indeed, when a learned maid was presented to king James for an English rarity, because she could speak and write pure Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the king returned, "But can she spin?" However, in persons of birth and quality, learning hath ever been beheld as a rare and commendable accomplishment.

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY,

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH, A.D. 1433.

Henry (Beaufort), bishop of Winchester, cardinal of England; and Robert de Ponyges, chevalier ;--Joh. Fereby (one of the knights of the shire) ;--Commissioners to take the oaths.