the attention of all the leading characters, and Wickliff was permitted to pass the short remainder of his days without interruption from the hand of violence. He had also a constant patroness in Anne of Bohemia, queen of Richard II., who was eminent for her piety and blameless conduct. For two years previously to his decease, Wickliff was paralytic, and had the assistance of a curate named Purvey, who partook of his master's sentiments, but he continued himself to officiate. It is said that he was engaged in distributing the bread of the Lord's supper, when seized with the last and fatal attack of paralysis. He was at once deprived of consciousness and the power of speech. After a brief struggle, his spirit left the earth, and found a joyful refuge in another and a better world. He was taken ill on the 29th, and died on the 31st of December, 1384.

Wickliff was buried in peace, but in the year 1415 the council of Constance ordered his remains to be disinterred, and cast forth from consecrated ground. This was not enforced till 1428, when by command of the pope, forty-four years after his interment, his bones were digged up, and burnt to ashes, which were then cast into the brook hard by. Fox observes, " And so was he resolved into three elements, earth, fire, and water; they thinking thereby to abolish both the name and doctrine of Wickliff for ever. Not much unlike to the example of the old pharisees and sepulchre knights, who when they had brought the Lord to the grave, thought to make him sure never to rise again. But these and all others must know, that as there is no council against the Lord; so there is no keeping down of verity, but it will spring and come out of dust and ashes, as appeared right well in this man. For though they digged up his body, burned his bones, and drowned his ashes, yet the word of God and truth of his doctrine, with the fruit and success thereof they could not burn, which yet TO THIS DAY, for the most part of his articles, do remain, notwithstanding the transitory body and bones of the man was thus consumed and dispersed."

Some further observations on this treatment of the remains of this illustrious reformer, with a brief account of his principal disciples, and a sketch of the measures progressively adopted for the suppression of the truths he had advocated, will be found in another part of the present volume. His writings and the doctrines he taught now claim our attention.

Writings of Wickliff.

Soon after the decease of Wickliff, an English prelate stated that the writings of the reformer were as voluminous as those of Augustine. Those which are still extant, would make several large volumes, and embrace a great variety of subjects. Bale,

who wrote a century and a half subsequent to Wickliff's death, states that he had seen more than a hundred and fifty of his works, partly in Latin and partly in English, and that he had ascertained the titles of more than a hundred others. Many of the latter, however, most probably, were only different names for pieces which Bale had seen; for amongst the manuscripts yet existing, the same piece is sometimes designated by more than one title. Lewis has transcribed Bale's catalogue, noticing the pieces he was acquainted with, and adding others which increased the list to nearly three hundred. The catalogue given by Baber is more correct; it is drawn up with much care from a personal examination of many of the works of Wickliff, and contains about one hundred and eighty articles.

But the list of Wickliff's writings most useful to the general reader, has been compiled by Vaughan, who with much personal labour examined the writings of the reformer yet in existence, and made himself better acquainted with their contents than any other person appears to have done during the last four centuries. It is not difficult to ascertain that the principal works attributed to Wickliff are his genuine productions. Many are expressly men tioned in the public documents intended to suppress his opinions, while others possess sufficient internal evidence.

Printing had not then been discovered, copies could only be increased by the slow process of writing, while his enemies were indefatigable in their endeavours to destroy them, yet the copies were so numerous, and so much valued, that nearly the whole of his writings are still extant-a sufficient proof, if any were wanting, that the doctrines he taught were widely diffused and highly esteemed. Nor was this confined to England; copies are also found in public libraries on the continent. Subinco Lepus, bishop of Prague, burned more than two hundred volumes, many of which were richly adorned, the property of persons of the higher classes in Bohemia. It also appears that the greater part of the writings of Wickliff that have not come down to us, treated of philosophical or scholastic subjects, which would be little prized except by the students of that period, while the copies of Wickliff's writings which remain, seem to have been preserved by the laity. Many of these are large volumes which could not have been written without much labour and cost. We may suppose they were prepared under the direction of some of his powerful supporters, while their plain appearance, contrasted with that of many of the highly adorned volumes written at that period, shows that the contents formed the chief value in the estimation of their possessors, nor do they seem to have been the workmanship of the religious establishments of that day. In one of Wickliff's homilies, he complains of the endeavours of the clergy to prevent the circulation of the English scriptures, and adds, “But one comfort is of knights, that they savour (esteem) much the gospel, and have will to read in English the gospel of Christ's life.' Another, and even more interesting class of the

Wickliff manuscripts, are the little books written with much less elegance, but which evidently were designed for the solace and instruction of souls, thirsting in secret for the waters of life. The tattered and well used appearance of many of these small volumes, is an indisputable testimony to the correctness of the allegations in the bishop's registers of the next two centuries, as to the manner in which these " pestilent books" were read by the followers of the truth, till, by the invention of printing, copious supplies of other religious tracts were brought forward.

Wickliff's principal work, the translation of the scriptures, has been already noticed. Copies of the whole or of detached portions are found in several public, and in some private libraries. A very beautiful and perfect specimen is preserved in the royal library in the British Museum, (Bib. Reg. I. c. viii.) The new testament has been printed, in 1731 and 1810, but being a literal reprint, in the original orthography, it is only calculated for libraries. Specimens of his version will be found at p. 45. As a work for popular use, Wickliff's bible now is of course wholly superseded by later translations.*

The Trialogus is the work next in importance. It contains a series of dialogues between three persons, characterised as Alethia, or Truth, Pseudis, or Falsehood, and Phronesis, or Wisdom. Truth represents a sound divine, and states questions; Falsehood urges the objections of an unbeliever; Wisdom decides as a subtle theologian. This work probably contains the substance of Wickliff's divinity lectures, with considerable additions. It embraces almost every doctrine connected with the theology of that day, treated however in the scholastic form then universal. Although very unattractive to modern readers, it was doubtless a useful and important work. As Turner observes. "It was the respected academician, reasoning with the ideas of the reformer." It is evident that Wickliff wrote this work under a decided impression that his efforts for the truth were likely to be crowned with martyrdom. It was printed in 1524. Copies are rare, for this work was actively sought for by the Romanists, and destroyed. A specimen will be found in a subsequent page. The following remark of Baber is but too applicable to the method in which this work is written. "The scholastic theology which was taught at this period, was a species of divinity which obscured the excellence and perverted the utility of that sacred science. By the introduction of this jargon of the schoolmen, philosophical abstraction and subtilty had superseded that unaffected simplicity and engaging plainness, with which the primitive teachers of christianity explained the doctrines of salvation." Thus, although Wickliff in the Trialogus vanquished the opponents of the truth with their own weapons, it was not calculated to be a work of general utility like his more popular tracts in the English lan

* A prospectus for the printing of Wickliff's version of the old tes tament has been issued. (1830.)

guage. A good summary of the contents of the Trialogus is given by Vaughan.

Only one other of Wickliff's writings appears to have been printed at the period of the reformation-his Wicket, a small treatise on the Lord's supper, which will be found in the present collection. This was among the most influential of his works, as appears from the frequent mention of it in those records of persecution, the bishops' registers.

His treatise, Of the Truth of Scripture, is a very valuable performance. It is in Latin: only two manuscript copies are known to exist; one in the Bodleian library at Oxford, the other at Trinity College, Dublin. The latter is the preferable copy, and is described as containing two hundred and forty-four large double columned pages, of nearly a thousand words in a page. It would therefore be equal in contents to a common octavo of more than seven hundred pages. It abounds in contractions, but is fairly and legibly written. Fox the martyrologist possessed a copy which he intended to translate and print. Vaughan describes this work as embodying almost every sentiment peculiar to the reformer. James made considerable use of its contents in his apology for Wickliff, but it was neglected by Lewis. An accurate reprint, with a correct translation, would be exceedingly valuable. The extent of this piece wholly precluded insertion in the present collection, even in an abridged form.

Another useful and popular work in its day, was the Poor Caitiff. This is a collection of English tracts, which were widely circulated. Several copies of the whole, or of detached portions are in existence, but only a few sentences from its pages have hitherto been printed. This neglect has probably arisen from the little reference it contains to the controversies in which Wickliff was constantly engaged, and to which perhaps an undue prominence has been given by Lewis, and other early biographers. This valuable memorial of, the reformation will be found in the present volume.

Many of Wickliff's homilies or postills have been preserved; they appear rather to have been written down by his hearers, than to be finished copies prepared by himself. (See p. 24.)

Wickliff's other writings need not here be mentioned minutely. His Memorial to the King and Parliament, and Objections of Friars, were printed by James. Some of his small tracts have been printed by Lewis and Vaughan, to whose lists of the reformer's writings, particularly the latter, the reader may be referred.*

Most of these smaller pieces are in the British Museum, in the libraries of Trinity college, Dublin, and Trinity college, Cambridge. In the library of Corpus Christi college in the latter university, among the valuable collection of manuscripts the gift of archbishop Parker, is a volume containing many of the con* One of Wickliff's tracts, Why poor priests have no benefices, is printed in the History of the Church of Christ, vol. iv.

troversial pieces. The following note is prefixed: "In this book are gathered together all the sharp treatises concerning the errors and defaults which John Wickliff did find in his time, specially in the clergy and religious, and in other estates of the world.***

At the period when Wickliff wrote, the English language had begun to recover from the disuse into which it had fallen. From the time of the Conquest many French and other foreign words and phrases were introduced by the higher ranks, who chiefly used the French language, but the lower orders adhered more closely to the Saxon phraseology. Mr. Baber observes, "Those of the works of Wickliff, written by him in his vernacular tongue, will be perused with interest and admiration by every one curious in the history of the English language, for Wickliff's English will, I apprehend, be found upon strict examination to be more pure than that of contemporary writers. Wickliff, when he wrote in his native tongue, did it not for the benefit of courtiers and scholars, but for the instruction of the less learned portion of the people. He therefore, as much as possible, rejected all strange English,' and was studious to express himself in a diction simple and unadorned; at the same time avoiding the charge of a barbarous and familiar phraseology." The use of English instead of barbarous Latin, in so large a portion of his writings, gave much efficacy to his exertions for the spiritual welfare of his countrymen.

un

A specimen of Wickliff's writings in their original orthography, will be found in two extracts from his version of the old testament in the following pages. At first they will appear hardly intelligible to the reader unaccustomed to the writings of that day. But on closer examination, it will be found that if the Saxon terminations, expletives, and a few peculiar words are removed, the language is, as it has been well characterised, defiled English; in fact, very similar to the language of our rural districts at the present day. To have printed Wickliff's tracts exactly in the form in which they were written, would have rendered them useless for the purposes of the present collection. It was necessary to remove some of the peculiarities just adverted to, but further the editor had no wish to proceed; and he felt the necessity of retaining the precise words of the original, wherever they would convey the meaning of the reformer to the general reader. How far the attempt has been successful, it is for those to say who may compare the present edition with the original manuscripts; he will only add that it was not an easy task, from the labour and the responsibility incurred.

The pieces included in this volume, which have not hitherto been printed, were copied from the originals expressly for the

* Dr. Lamb, the master of Corpus Christi college, Cambridge, very kindly permitted several of these pieces to be transcribed for the present selection.