greatly in a pecuniary sense, and be happy that they did not lose all. But there was also an intellectual languor, caused by the suppression of the monasteries; moreover, in other quarters the most distracting influences were at work, to blight the plants which in the first half of the reign of Henry VIII. promised so fine a harvest. Without meaning to explain every thing by one single event, we yet cannot but recognize that Wolsey's fall marks the era of decline. How was it possible, in the midst of universal and increasing insecurity; when the violence and evil passions of the King broke out more and more immoderately; when all free religious movement, all free inquiry into the basis of religious belief, dwindled more and more away; when the burning pile was lit for Papist, Protestant, and Enthusiast;* when the University of Cambridge saw two of its Chancellors, Fisher and Cromwell, perish on the scaffold; when, with the noble head of Thomas More, Virtue,† Religion, Wisdom and Learning appeared all together to perish; while the most contemptible and hateful passions not only had free play, but, by help of most impudent hypocrisy, obtained legal validity and form;-how was it *Luther's Theses and other writings were condemned and burnt in Oxford and Cambridge in the year 1520. +I do not know whether the virtutem ipsam exscindere of Tacitus has been applied by other writers to More; and, at all events, I commit no conscious plagiarism. The application is so evident, that it would be surprising if it has never been made before. possible, we ask, for any freedom, peace, and liberty of the spirit to prevail, without which there can be no successful intellectual activity at the Universities?* How could the cheerful Muses of Athens and Rome find room in the midst of such disorders, especially when the Universities themselves were directly involved in all these doings of the times? Within their precincts, less than any where else was any voice left for free scientific inquiry, upon points bearing the least reference to the contested questions of the Church: nay, the pedantry of fanaticism, or of that still more disgusting fawning servility, which so often assumed its mask, contrived to force the most unessential or most extraneous matters into that same path. The Six Articles which the King (of his own full authority) put forth as the only scale of faith, were hardly in a greater degree the objects of the academic police and jurisdiction, than was the Reuchliniant pronunciation of the Greek. The curse with which narrow spirits, when they attain power, destroy all life,-hating life, because it bears in itself * Violent pestilences also at different times fell upon the University students, and interrupted all scientific progress for weeks and months; thus contributing to fix on that time a most unsatisfactory character. [Reuchlin advocated the method of sounding Greek according to the written accents, as the modern Greeks do. This beyond a doubt is the only correct way. But as the modern Greeks have naturally lost the nice appreciation of quantity, which their forefathers had, (who were used to sing poetry, not to read it,) Erasmus fancied that they were also wrong in their accentuation: and he has persuaded Northern Europe to pronounce Greek according to Latin rules of accent.] the necessity of opposition and of contest;- the curse, (that is,) of anexterior and compulsory conformity, with which such spirits vainly think they have done and won every thing, whilst the smooth rind conceals only rottenness or paralysis beneath; -this curse, we say, began at that time to weigh heavily upon the English Universities. A remarkable proof of the above was given in the conduct pursued by Bishop Gardiner, when Chancellor of Cambridge, in the dispute respecting the Greek and Latin languages.-Gardiner was in fact, one of those characters, which in such times prevail the surest, by their strange mixture of the apparently irreconcileable qualities of the remorseless party-leader, and the strict anxious rigorist; the tender man of feeling, and the dry calculator; the religious enthusiast, and the pliant courtier. This last quality indeed, upon occasions, amalgamates all the others into one unbounded devotion to the service and pay of the Sovereign, and even of all the mighty in the land. Similar instances are to be found, here and there, in our times: and it is most especially through the flattery of such servants, that the master finds it impossible to recognise what is truth and life, what mere dead form and word.-Soon after the publication of the Six Articles, Gardiner wrote to the Vice-Chancellor -after a serious admonition respecting the neglect of fasts the following;-"Last year by consens of the whole University I made an ordre concerning the pronounciation of the Greeke tongue, appointing paynes to the transgressors, and finally to the Vice-Chancellor, if he saw them not executed: wherein I praye you be persuaded that I wyll not be deluded nor contempned, I did it seriously and will maintaine it, &c. The King's gracious Majesty hath by inspyracyon of the Holy Ghost composed all maters of Religion: whiche uniformitie I pray God, it may in that and all other maters and things execute unto us and forgettinge all that is past goo forthe in agreement as thowghe there hadde been no suche matter. But I will withstande fansyes even in pronounciation and fight wythe the enemie of quiet at the firste entree."* In an earlier letter he says [in Latin] among other things: "In short: spend not your philosophy about sounds; but take what is set forth to you." We shall see that the Reformation afterwards found neither the will nor the means of getting rid of these evils, which the Schism had bequeathed to it, and, on the contrary, that all parties sought, by hateful means, which the basest personal interests made more hateful, to enforce their own views in the sphere of Thought, especially at the Universities. Finally, it must not be overlooked that the worst aspects and results of the Schism belong also to the Reformation, in the form which it assumed in England. * Ellis's Letters illustrative of English History, 2nd Series, ii. 20. CHAPTER VIII. THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES DURING THE ELIZABETH'S REIGN. 139. Comparison of the religious innovations of Henry VIII. with those of the reign of Edward VI. THE schismatic measures of Henry VIII. could not so easily have been carried, had not antiRomish feelings already made much progress in the national mind. But there was another circumstance which precluded all serious and general opposition, viz., that the Catholic dogmas were to so great an extent retained in the new system. Yet quite as much as either of these causes, the thorough selfishness of the Lords, spiritual and temporal, favored the change: for as long as the King had earthly goods to bestow, noble hands and eminent talents would never have been wanting to him, even for the foulest work. The blood of Evangelical Martyrs shed by him, witnesses that this earlier |