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and holy, without original sin; and how they ought to call to her for help, whom they with special terms do call," the way of mercy; the mother of grace; the lover of piety; the comforter of mankind; the continual intercessor for the salvation of the faithful; and an advocate to the king her son, which never ceaseth, &c. Verba papa Sexti in decret." And although the greatest number of the school doctors were of the contrary faction, as Peter Lombardas, Thomas Aquine, Bernardus, Bonaventura, and other; yet these new papists shifted off their objections with frivolous distinctions and blind evasions.

Pope Sixtus (as I said) by the authority apostoliçal, after he had decreed the conception day of the virgin perpetually to be sanctified, and also with his terrible bull, had condemned for heretics all them which withstood the same; the Dominic friars, with authority oppressed, were driven to two inconveniences. The one was, to keep silence; the other was, to give place to their adversaries the Franciscans. Albeit, where the mouth durst not speak, yet the heart would work; and though their tongues were tied, yet their good will was ready by all means possible to maintain their quarrel and estimation.

Whereupon it happened the same year of our Lord, 1509, after this dissention between the Domi

nic friars and the Franciscans, that certain of the Dominics, thinking by subtle sleight to work in the people's heads that which they durst not achieve with open preaching, devised a certain image of the virgin so artificially wrought, that the friars, by privy gins, made it to stir, and to make gestures, to lament, to complain, to weep, to groan, and to give answers to them that asked. Insomuch that the people therewith were brought in a marvellous persuasion; till at length the fraud being espied, the friars were taken, condemned, and burned at Berne, the year above-mentioned, 1509.

This frivolous dispute was agitated with great violence, during several years, and engaged the attention of the whole christian world. The above narrative presents a favourable specimen of Fox's ability as an historian for, in general, he is a weak and prejudiced writer. It was objected by his adversaries, to the first edition of his "Acts and Monuments," that it contained several accounts of martyrdoms of persons, who' were found to be living some years after its publication; and the objection, it should seem, was not wholly without foundation.

Several other works of inferior note were likewise published by Fox; among which ought to be mentioned "The Four Evangelists, in the Old Saxon tongue, with the English thereunto adjoined," 1571, 4to.

HOLINSHED.

RAPHAEL HOLINSHED, famous for the Chro nicles which go under his name, was descended of a family which lived at Bosely, in Cheshire; but both the place and time of his birth, as well as most other circumstances of his life, are unknown. According to some accounts he was a clergyman; while others make him steward to Thomas Burdett, of Bromcote, in the county of Warwick, esq. Of the time of his death we are also ignorant; but it appears from his will, prefixed by Hearne to his edition of Camden's Annals, that it happened between 1578, and 1582.

In the compilement of his Chronicles, Holinshed had several coadjutors. Of these, Harrison was bred at Westminster school, whence he was removed to Oxford, and subse

quently became chaplain to sir William Brooke, by whom he was preferred. He died in 1593.

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Another contributor was Hooker, (uncle to the celebrated author of Ecclesiastical Polity,) who was born at Exeter, about 1524, was educated at Oxford, afterwards travelled into Germany, and at Cologne took a degree in law. He next went to Strasburg, where he studied divinity under the famous Peter Martyr. his return to England, he settled in his native place, where he became a citizen of consideration, and was returned member for the parliament held at Westminster, in 1571. He died in 1601; and was the author of several works, in addition to his contributions to the Chronicle in question.

Of Boteville, another of his coadjutors, we know nothing, except that Hearne stiles him→ "a man of great learning and judgment, and a wonderful lover of antiquities." Several others lent their aid, as R. Stanihurst, Abraham Flemming, John Stow, &c.

These Chronicles were first published at London, 1577, in two volumes, folio; and afterwards, 1587, in three; though the two first are commonly bound together. In this second edition, several sheets in the second and third

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