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fhort compafs fhews Becket's private ideas concerning the bigottries and fuperftitious abfurdities of his religion. The writer gives an account of a dinner in Becket's palace; at which was prefent, among many other prelates, a Cistercian abbot. This abbot engroffed almost the whole conversation, in relating the miracles performed by Robert, the founder of his order. Becket heard him for fome time with a patient contempt; and at length could not help breaking out with no fmall degree of indignation, And these are your miracles!

We must however view the liberal ideas of these enlightened dignitaries of the twelfth century under fome reftrictions. It must be acknowledged, that their literature was clogged with pedantry, and depreffed by the narrow notions of the times. Their writings fhew, that they knew not how to imitate the beauties of the antient claffics. Exulting in an exclufive privilege, the certainly did not see the solid and popular use of these studies: at least they did not chufe, or would not venture, to communicate them to the people, who on the other hand were not prepared to receive them. Any attempts of that kind, for want of affiftances which did not then exist, must have been premature; and these lights were too feeble to diffipate the universal darkness. The writers who firft appeared after Rome was ravaged by the Goths, fuch as Boethius, Prudentius, Orofius, Fortunatius, and Sedulius, and who naturally, from that circumftance, and because they were Chriftians, came into vogue at that period, ftill continued in the hands of common readers, and fuperfeded the great originals. In the early ages of Chriftianity a ftrange opinion prevailed, in conformity to which Arnobius compofed his celebrated book against the gentile fuperftitions, that pagan authors were calculated to corrupt the pure theology of the gospel. The prejudice however remained, when even the fufpicions of the danger were removed. But I return to the progress of modern letters in the fifteenth century.

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SE C T. XVIII.

ON after the year 1500, Lillye, the famous grammarian, who had learned Greek at Rhodes, and had afterwards acquired a polished Latinity at Rome, under Johannes Sulpicius and Pomponius Sabinus, became the first teacher of Greek at any public fchool in England. This was at faint Paul's fchool in London, then newly established by dean Colet, and celebrated by Erafmus; and of which Lillye, as one of the most exact and accomplished scholars of his age, was appointed the first master. And that antient prejudices were now gradually wearing off, and a national taste for critical ftudies and the graces of compofition began to be diffused, appears from this circumstance alone that from the year one thousand five hundred and three to the reformation, there were more grammar fchools, most of which at prefent are perhaps of little use and importance, founded and endowed in England, than had been for three hundred years before. The practice of educating our youth in the monafteries growing into difufe, near twenty new grammar schools were established within this period: and among thefe, Wolfey's fchool at Ipfwich, which foon fell a facrifice to the refentment or the avarice of Henry the eighth, deferves particular notice, as it rivalled those of Winchester and Eton. To give fplendor to the institution,

h Knight, LIFE of Colet, p. 19. Pace, abovementioned, in the Epifle dedicatory to Colet, before his Treatife De fructu qui ex Dorina percipitur, thus compliments Lillye, edit. Bafil. ut fupr. 1517. P. 13. Ut politiorem Latinitatem, et ipfam "Romanam linguam, in Britanniam no"ftram introduxiffe videatur.-Tama [ei]

Vol. II.

"eruditio, ut extrufa barbarie, in qua "noftri adolefcentes folebant fere ætatem "confumere, &c." Erafmus fays, in 1514, that he had taught a youth, in three years, more Latin than he could have acquired in any fchool in England, ne Liliana quidam excepta, not even Lillye's excepted. EPISTOL. 165. p. 140. tom. jii.

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beside the scholars, it confifted of a dean, twelve canons, and a numerous choir'. So attached was Wolfey to the new modes of instruction, that he did not think it inconsistent with his high office and rank, to publish a general address to the schoolmasters of England, in which he orders them to institute their youth in the most elegant literature *. It is to be wifhed that all his edicts had been employed to fo liberal and useful a purpose. There is an anecdote on record, which ftrongly marks Wolfey's character in this point of view. Notwithstanding his habits of pomp, he once condescended to be a spectator of a Latin tragedy of DiDo, from Virgil, acted by the scholars of saint Paul's school, and written by John Rightwife, the master, an eminent grammarian'. But Wolfey might have pleaded the authority of pope Leo the tenth, who more than once had been prefent at one of thefe claffical fpectacles.

It does not however appear, that the cardinal's liberal fentiments were in general adopted by his brother prelates. At the foundation of faint Paul's fchool above-mentioned, one of the bifhops, eminent for his wifdom and gravity, at a public affembly, feverely cenfured Colet the founder for fuffering the Latin poets to be taught in the new structure, which he therefore ftyled a houfe of pagan idolatry".

In the year 1517, Fox, bishop of Winchester, founded a college at Oxford, in which he conftituted, with competent ftipends, two profeffors for the Greek and Latin languages ". Although fome flight idea of a claffical lecture had already appeared at Cambridge in the fystem of collegiate discipline,

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"Epifcopum quendam, et eum qui ar habetur a SAPIENTIORIBUS, in magno hominum Conventu, noftram fcholam blafphemaffe, dixiffeque, me erexiffe rem

" inutilem, imo malam, imo etiam, ut "illius verbis utar, DomumIdololatriæ, &c." [Coletus Erafmo. Lond. 1517.] Knight's LIFE OF COLET, P. 319.

R STATUT. C. C. Č. Oxon. dat. Jun. 20. 1517. CAP. xx. fol. 51. Bibl. Bodl. MSS LAUD. I. 56.

At Chrift's college in Cambridge, where, in the statutes given in 1506, a lec

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this philological establishment may justly be looked upon, as the first confpicuous inftance of an attempt to depart from the narrow plan of education, which had hitherto been held facred in the universities of England. The course of the Latin profeffor, who is expreffly directed to extirpate BAR→ BARISM from the new fociety', is not confined to the private limits of the college, but open to the students of Oxford in general. The Greek lecturer is ordered to explain the best Greek claffics; and the poets, hiftorians, and orators, in that language, which the judicious founder, who seems of have confulted the most intelligent scholars of the times, recommends by name on this occafion, are the purest, and such as are most esteemed even in the present improved state of antient learning. And it is at the fame time worthy of remark, that this liberal prelate, in forming his plan of study, does not appoint a philofophy-lecturer in his college, as had been the conftant practice in most of the previous foundations: perhaps fufpecting, that fuch an endowment would not have coincided with his new course of erudition, and would have only ferved to encourage that species of doctrine, which had fo long choaked the paths of science, and obftructed the progrefs of useful knowledge

These happy beginnings in favour of new and a rational fystem of academical education, were feconded by the aufpicious munificence of cardinal Wolfey. About the year 1519, he founded a public chair at Oxford, for rhetoric and humanity, and foon afterwards another for teaching the Greek language; endowing both with ample falaries'. About

turer is established; who, together with logic and philofophy is ordered to read, "vel ex poetarum, vel ex oratorum ope"ribus.” Cap. xxxvii. In the ftatutes of King's at Cambridge, and New college at Oxford, both much more antient, an inftructour is appointed with the general name of INFORMATOR only, who taught all the learning then in vogue. ROTUL. COM

PUT. vet. Coll. Nov. Oxon. "Solut. "Informatoribus fociorum et fcolarium, ivl. xiis. ii d."

"Lector feu profeffor artium huma"niorum... BARBARIEM a nostro al"veario exftirpet." STATUT. ut fupr.

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Wood, HIST. Univ. Oxon. i. 245. 246. But fee Fiddes's WOLSEY, p. 197. the

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the year 1524, king Henry the eighth, who deftroyed or advanced literary inftitutions from caprice, called Robert Wakefield, "originally a student of Cambridge, but now a professor of humanity at Tubingen in Germany, into England, that one of his own subjects, a linguift of so much celebrity, might no longer teach the Greek and oriental languages abroad: and when Wakefield appeared before the king, his majefty lamented, in the strongest expreflions of concern, the total ignorance of his clergy and the univerfities in the learned tongues; and immediately affigned him a competent stipend for opening a lecture at Cambridge, in this neceffary and neglected department of letters'. Wakefield was afterwards a preserver of many copies of the Greek claffics, in the havock of the religious houses. It is recorded by Fox, the martyrologift, as a memorable occurrence*, and very deservedly, that about the fame time, Robert Barnes, prior of the Augustines at Cambridge, and educated at Louvain, with the affiftance of his fcholar Thomas Parnell, explained within the walls of his own monaftery, Plautus, Terence, and Cicero, to thofe academics who faw the utility of philology, and were defirous of deserting the Gothic philofophy. It may feem at first surprising, that Fox, a weak and prejudiced writer, fhould allow any merit to a catholic: but Barnes afterwards appears to have been one of Fox's martyrs, and was executed at the stake in Smithfield for a defence of Lutheranifm.

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But thefe innovations in the fyftem of study were greatly difcouraged and oppofed by the friends of the old fcholaftic circle of fciences, and the bigotted partifans of the catholic communion, who ftigmatifed the Greek language by the name of herefy. Even bishop Fox, when he founded the

Wakefield's ORATIO DE LAUDIBUS TRIUM LINGUARUM, &c. Dated at Cambridge, 1524. Printed for W. de Worde, 4to. Signat. C. ii. See also FAST.

Acad. Lovan. by Val. Andreas, p. 284. edit. 1650.

ACT. MON. fol. 1192. edit. 1583.

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