tween the virgin marie and some favourite faint here on earth; for the truth of which we are obliged intirely to depend upon the bare word of the faint himself, and when we hear of an houfe, that travelled from palestine to italie, do we not imme diately think of asking who saw it upon its journey. and, if not fuch voucher can be produced, we are furely at libertie, either to divert ourselves with the ridiculous abfurditie of the conceit, or to ftand aftonished at the impudence of the lie.'

df the popifh miracles in general are of this ridiculous kind, and that they are fo is inconteftible, no formal confutation of them is neceffary.

Upon the whole in these Difcourfes the learned and judicious author has carefully pointed out the feveral circumstances cattending the gofpel miracles; because these, as he obferves, afford a strong prefumption in favour of their truth and reality. By attending to fuch circumftances we plainly discern them. not to be random operations, not capricious or merely occafional exertions, either of power or of goodness; but to carry in them a regular and close connection with one uniform and tdeterminate end, which accounts for their extraordinary nature exhibiting at the fame time an exact resemblance to the ufual operations and established order of a divine and all-directing providence.

V. The Life of Sir Thomas Pope, Founder of Trinity-College, Oxford, chiefly compiled from original Evidences. With an Appendix of Papers never before printed. By Thomas Warton, B. D. Fellow of Trinity College, and of the Society of Antiquaries. 8vo. 6s. Boards. Davies.

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OUR ingenious author, in a very fenfible Preface, gives the following hiftory of his work.

Biographers, in the purfuit of information, are naturally betrayed into minute researches. The curiofity of the reader is feldom proportioned to that of the writer in this fpecies of compofition. Every incident, relating to a favourite character which the mind has long contemplated with attention, acquires importance. On these principles we may venture to found a plaufible - excufe, for the many trifling difcoveries, and intricate difcuffions of infignificant circumftances, with which perfonal history so much abounds.

To this apology, which every biographer has a right to plead, the writer of the following memoirs prefumes he poffeffes a pecu liar claim, arifing from his fituation and connections. He defcribes the life of a perfon, whom the ftrongest principles of gratitude, implanted in early years, have habitually taught him to regard with united veneration and affection. Under thefe circumftances, the lighteft events appear interefting; and the most frivolous anecdotes of fuch a life are inveftigated with a pleafing enthusiasm.

In

In the mean time, a want of materials might have juftly been here alledged, in extenuation of an objection to constantly urged against works of this kind. It will readily be granted, that to record the lives of men who have adorned their country by monuments of munificence, is a tribute indifpenfably due to public merit, and which cannot without public injuftice be witheld. But to discharge this duty even imperfectly, and by thofe means, however inadequate, which the utmost exertions of diligent enquiry can afford, is lefs unpardonable than to neglect it entirely. When we cannot recover a perfect portrait of our friend and our benefactor, we must be contented with a few faint outlines. Abundance only implies rejection; and where but little can be collected, it is necellary to retain every thing. We muft acquiefce in anecdotes of inconfiderable confequence, while thofe of more importance cannot be procured.

Thefe inconveniencies might have eafily been prevented. But our ancestors had no regard for futurity. They trusted the remembrances of their heroes to chance and tradition; or rather, to the laborious investigation of a diftant pofterity. For it is the task of modern times to commemorate, if they cannot imitate, the confpicuous examples of antiquity; and to compofe the panegyric of thofe virtues which exift no more. Inquititive leifure is not the lot of earlier eras. Ages of action are fucceeded by ages of enquiry.

But that fpecics of enquiry which properly belongs to the biographer, feems, in point of time, to be pofteriour to that which forms the province of the hiftorian. It does not grow fafhionable till late it begins to be the favourite amusement of cul tivated nations at their most polished periods. When the more important and extenfive ftores of hiftorical information have been exhaufted, the growing fpirit of curiofity, which increases in proportion as it is gratified, fill demands new gratifications; it deicends to particularities, and delights to develope circumftances of a fubordinate nature. After many general hiftories have been written, inquifitive minds are eager to explore the parts of what they have hitherto furveyed at large. The ardour of research, which gathers strength from contraction, is exerted on diftinct periods; and at length perfonal hiftory commences. Characters be fore only reprefented in the grofs, and but incidentally exhibited or fuperficially difplayed, now become the fubject of critical difqui fition, and a feparate examination. Occurrences neglected or omitted by the hiftorian, form materials for the biographer: and men of fuperiour eminence are felected from the common mafs of public tranfactions in which they were indiftinctly grouped, and delineated as detached figures in a fingle point of view.

Nor was it till late after the restoration of literature, that biography affumed its proper form, and appeared in its genuine character. The lives which were compiled at fome diftance after that period, are extremely jejune and defective performances. The firft which approached to perfection were thofe of Peter Gaffendus, by Peireskius, and of Camerarius, by Melanthon. It was long, before the perfeverance of inveftigation connected with precifion, the patient toil of tracing evidences, authenticating facts, and digefting fcattered notices, grew into a fcience: in a word, before the accuracy of the antiquarian was engrafted on the researches of the biographer The masterly Life of William of Wykeham will best explain and illuftrate thefe reflections: a work which I chufe

to

to produce as an example on this occafion, not only because it is here produced as an example with a peculiar degree of propriety, but because it is a pattern of that excellence in this mode of writing, which I mean to characterise and recommend.

As Sir Thomas Pope bore fome share in the national transactions of his time, to relieve the drynefs of perfonal and local incidents, I have endeavoured to render thefe pages in fome measure interesting to general readers, by dilating this part of my performance, and by fometimes introducing hiftorical digreffions, yet refulting immediately from the tenour of my fubject. Amongst these, I flatter myself that my relation of the perfecutions of the princess Elizabeth may merit fome attention of which I have thrown together a more uniform and circumftantial detail than has yet appeared, with the addition of feveral anecdotes refpecting that tranfaction not hitherto published. On the whole I may venture to affirm, that I have at least attempted to make my work as entertaining as poffible. My materials have not always been of the most brilliant kind; but they are fuch, as have often enabled me to enliven and embellish my narrative by presenting pictures of antient manners, which are ever striking to the imagination.'

Mr. Warton's account of the perfecutions of the princess Elizabeth is extremely curious, and contains many anecdotes entirely new and unknown to our hiftorians. But, as a fpecimen of his digreffions, we chufe rather to give his sketch of the state of literature in England, particularly at Oxford, about the period of the Reformation, an enquiry naturally refulting from his fubject.

About the year 1480, a taste for polite letters, under the pa tronage of Pope Julius the fecond, began to be revived in Italy. But the liberal Pontiff did not confider at the fame time, that he was undermining the papal intereft, and bringing on the Reformation. This event is commonly called the Restoration of Learn. ing; but it fhould rather be ftyled the restoration of good fenfe and useful knowledge. Learning there had been before, but barbarifm ftill remained. The most acute efforts of human wit and penetration had been exerted for fome centuries, in the differtations of logicians and theologifts; yet Europe ftill remained in a state of fuperftition and ignorance. What philofophy could not perform, was referved to be completed by claffical literature, by the poets and orators of Greece and Rome, who alone could enlarge the mind, and polish the manners. Tafte and propriety, and a rectitude of thinking and judging, derived from these fources, gave a new turn to the general fyftem of ftudy: mankind was civilized, and religion was reformed. The effects of this happy revolution by degrees reached England. We find at Oxford, in the latter end of the fifteenth century, that the univerfity was filled with the jargon and difputes of the Scotifts and Thomifts; and if at that time there were any fcholars of better note, these were chiefly the followers of Wicliffe, and were confequently discountenanced and perfecuted. The Latin ftyle then only known in the univerfity, was the technical language of the fchoolmen, of cafuifts, and metaphyficians. At Cambridge, about 1485, nothing was taught but Alexander's Parva Logicalia, the trite axioms of Ariftotle, which were never rationally explained, and the profound questions of

John

L

John Scotus. At length fome of our countrymen, the principa. of which were Grocyn, Latymer, Lillye, Linacer, Tunstall, Pace, and Sir Thomas More, ventured to break through the narrow bounds of fcholaftic erudition, and went over into Italy with a defign of acquiring a knowledge in the greek and latin languages. The Greek, in particular, was taught there with much perfection and purity, by many learned Greeks who had been driven from Conftantinople. In 1488, Grocyn and Linacer left Oxford, and ftudied Greek at Florence under the instruction of Demetrius Chalcondylas, and Politian; and at Rome under Hermolaus Barbarus. Grocyn returned an accomplished mafter in the Greek, and became the first lecturer of that language at Oxford, but without any fettled endowment. Elegance of ftyle began now to be cultivated, and the study of the most approved antient writers became fashionable. In 1496, Alcock bishop of Ely, founded Jesus college in Cambridge, partly for a certain number of fcholars to be educated in grammar. Degrees in grammar, or rhetoric, had been early established at Oxford. But the pupils of this clafs ftudied only fyftems of grammar and rhetoric, filled with empty defi nitions and unneceffary diftinctions, instead of the real models. In 1509, Lillye, the famous grammarian, who had learned Greek at Rhodes, and afterwards improved himself in Latin at Rome under Johanes Sulpitius and Pomponius Sabinus, was the first teacher of Greek at any public school in England. This was at faint Paul's fchool in London then newly established, and of which Lillye was the first Mafter. And that antient prejudices were fubfiding a pace, and a national tafte for critical studies and the graces of composition began to be diffufed, appears from this circumftance alone; that from the year 1502, to the reformation, within the fpace of thirty years, there were more grammar fchools founded and endowed in England than had been for three hundred years before. Near twenty grammar fchools were inftituted within this period; before which most of our youth were educated at the monafteries. In 1517, that wife prelate and bountiful patron, Richard Fox, founded his college at Oxford, in which he conftituted, with competent falaries, two lectures for the latin and greek languages. This was a new and noble departure from the narrow plan of academical education. The course of the latin lecturer was not confined to the college, but open to the ftudents of Oxford in general. He is exprefsly directed to drive barbarifm from the new college. And at the fame time it is to be remarked, that Fox does not appoint a philofophy-lecturer in his college, as had been the practice in most of the previous foundations; perhaps thinking, that fuch an inftitution would not have coincided with his new fyftem of doctrine, and that it would be encouraging that species of fcience which had hitherto blinded mens understandings, and kept them fo long in ignorance of more useful knowledge. The greek lecturer is ordered to explain the best greek claffics; and thofe which the judicious founder, who feems to have confulted the moft capital fcholars of his age, prefcribes on this occafion, are the pureft, and fuch as are molt esteemed at this day. Thefe happy beginnings were feconded by the munificence of cardinal Wolfey. About the year 1519, he founded a public chair, at Oxford for rhetoric and humanity; and foon afterwards another for the greek tongue: en. dowing both with ample ftipends. But thefe innovations in the plan of ftudy were greatly difcouraged and opposed by the scholaftic bigots, who called the greek language herefy. Even bishop Fox

when

when he founded the greek lecture above-mentioned, was obliged to cover his excellent inftitution under the venerable mantle of. the authority of the church, left he should feem to countenance a dangerous novelty. For he gives it as a reason, or rather as an apology, for this new lectureship, that the facred canons had commanded, that a knowledge of the greek tongue fhould not be wanting in public feminaries of education. The university of Oxford was rent into factions on account of these attempts; and the defenders of the new erudition, from difputations, often proceeded to blows with the rigid champions of the schools. But thefe animofities were foon pacified by the perfuafion and example of Erafmus, who was about this time a ftudent in faint Mary's college at Oxford, oppofite to New Inn. At Cambridge however, which, in imitation of Oxford, had adopted greek, he found greater difficulties. He tells us himself, that at Cambridge he read the greek grammar of Chryfoloras to the bare walls and that having tranflated Lucian's dialogue called Icaro-menippus, he could find no perfon in the univerfity able to transcribe the greek with the latin. His edition of the greek teftament was entirely profcribed there; and a decree was iffued in one of the moft confiderable colleges, ordering that if any of the fociety, was detected in bringing that impious and fantastic book into the college, he fhould be feverely fined. One Henry Standish, a doctor in divinity, and a mendicant frier, afterwards bishop of faint Afaph, was a vehement opponent of Erafmus in this heretical literature; calling him in a declamation, by way of reproach, Græculus ifte, which afterwards became a fynonymous term for an heretic. But neither was Oxford, and for the fame reasons, entirely free from these contracted notions. In 1519, a preacher at faint Mary's church harangued with much violence against thefe pernicious teachers, and his arguments occafioned no fmall ferment among the ftudents. But Henry the eighth, who was luckily a favourer of these improvements, being then refident at the neighbouring royal manor of Woodstock, and having received a jutt ftate of the cafe from Pace and More, immediately tranfmitted his royal mandate to the univerfity, ordering that thefe ftudies fhould not only be permitted but encouraged. Soon afterwards one of the king's chaplains preaching at court, took an opportunity to cenfure the new, but genuine, interpretations of fcripture, which the Grecian learning had introduced. The king, when the fermon was ended, which he heard with a fmile of contempt, ordered a folemn difputation to be held, in the prefence of himself, at which the preacher oppofed, and fir Thomas More defended, the use and excellence of the greek tongue. The divine, instead of answering to the purpofe, fell upon his knees, and begged pardon for having given any offence in the pulpit. After fome little altercation, the preacher, by way of decent fubmiffion, declared that he was now better reconciled to the greek tongue, because it was derived from the hebrew. The king, amazed at his ignorance, dismissed him, with a charge that he fhould never again prefume to preach at court. In the grammar-fchools established in all the new cathedral foundations of this king, a mafter was appointed with a competent kill not only in the latin, but likewife in the greek language. This was an uncommon qualification in a fchool-mafter. At length ancient abfurdities univerfally gave way to thefe encourage. ments: and at Oxford in particular, thefe united efforts for eftaBlishing a new fyftem of rational and manly learning were finally

con