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have her tooth drawn: Bishop Elmer being by, to encourage her Majesty, sat down in a chair (which no man could have done unbidden in Bessy's presence without a sound box on the ear), and calling the tooth-drawer, "Come," said he, 'though I am an old man, and have few teeth to spare (he must have lost his Dentes Sapientia), draw me this;" which was accordingly done, and then the Queen had hers drawn too. So goes the tale, which is a servile imitation of what is related about Nero's desiring somebody to set him an example of suicide. Another story is rather less improbable, but not quite so reputable, considering that St. Paul requires a Bishop to be "no striker,"-1 Tim. iii. 3. One of his daughters was married to a swaggering parson called Squire, who made a very bad husband, not only neglecting and abusing his wife, but, with a baseness of which none but a cassocked profligate would have been capable, justifying himself by casting aspersions on her character. The Bishop according to rumour, vindicated his daugher's honour effectually with a cudgel, or, as Martin Mar-Prelate styles it, "he went to buffets with his son-in-law for a bloody nose." We have no hesitation in rejecting this and similar anecdotes, which the enemies of Elmer imposed upon the gaping admiration of his partisans. It is evident that he made himself extremely obnoxious to all dissidents, without gaining the general confidence of his brethren of the Church. He had a violent temper, the common infirmity of short stature, and did not always preserve that dignity of language which became his age and station. The particular instances may be false, but still they testify to the general habit. His playing at bowls on the sabbath gave great offence to the stricter religionists, so that they gave ready credence to Martin Mar-Prelate, when he asserted, that "the Bishop would cry rub, rub, rub, to his bowl, and when 'twas gone too far, 'the devil go with it,' and then," quoth Martin, "the Bishop would follow." That he could call names, the following passage, taken from a work in defence of the fair sex, will fully evince. "Women are of two sorts; some of them are wiser, better learned, discreeter, and more constant, than a number of men. But another and a worse sort of them,

and the most part, are fond, foolish, wanton flibbergibs, tattlers, triflers, wavering, witless, without counsel, feeble, careless, rash, proud, dainty, nice, tale-bearers, eves-droppers, rumour-raisers, evil-tongued, worse minded, and in every respect doltified with the dregs of the devil's dunghill." After all, let Ælmer live in the single commendation of Jane Grey, for he has won a better memorial by teaching one little girl Greek, than by shepherding the souls of the first city in the world.

As Alexander Nowell was a Lancashire worthy, not of sufficient importance to furnish a distinct article, we may as well give the few heads of his life in connexion with that of Ascham, whose last hours he witnessed, and whose eulogy he pronounced from the pulpit.

Alexander Nowell was born at Read, in Lancashire, in 1511; was of Brasenose College, in Oxford, M.A. and Fellow, 1540. Kept a school in Westminster in the reign of Edward VI. Was returned for a Cornish borough in the first parliament of Mary, but declared "not duly elected," as being a Prebendary of Westminster, and therefore a member of the Lower House of Convocation. Whence it appears that holy orders did not of themselves disqualify him for sitting in the House of Commons.* When the persecution commenced he was marked out as a victim, but was saved by the contrivance of Mr. Francis Bowyer, afterwards Sheriff of London, A.D. 1577, and escaped beyond sea: to which service Fuller gratefully recurs in his dedication of the 2nd section of the 8th book of his "Church History" to Thomas, grandson of the aforesaid Francis Bowyer. Nowell was the first of the Protestant exiles that returned to hail the accession of Elizabeth, and was a prosperous man ever after. He took a rational view of the dispute between the High Church and the Puritans respecting vestments, affirm

* Worth noting: a comment on the distinction between the National Church, "Enclesia," and the Church of Christ, "Ecclesia."-S. T. C. See "Church and State," p. 48.

ing them to be lawful, but not expedient. He died in 1602, aged 90, the founder of the Free School at Middleton, in Lancashire, and a benefactor to the College of Brasenose and the School of St. Paul's.

[The English works of Roger Ascham were first published, together with "Notes and Observations, and the Author's Life," by J. Bennet, in 4to, London, 1761. A new edition, with the life, by Dr. Johnson, was published in London, in 8vo, 1815. A comparison of the several biographies will show in how very different a way the same materials may be treated.

The "Familiar Epistles" were published in Latin, with the Funeral Oration of Grant, so often alluded to, in 8vo, London, 1590. Subjoined to these are several specimens of Ascham's talent as a Latin versifier. One of these pieces is addressed to a certain William Bill. The opening line sounds some

what oddly to vernacular ears:—

"O Bille, belle, zaige, mi bellissime!"-D. C.

JOHN FISHER,

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.

THE character of this good prelate has been variously represented, his actions related with diversity of cir cumstance, and his death described by some as the reward of treason, by others as the testimony of martyrdom. Certainly he was a martyr to his own creed, no less by the voluntary mortifications of his whole life, than by the enforced sufferings of his latter end. Of himself, we shall speak the language of his friends rather than his revilers: his opinions we shall endeavour to explain, but shall neither condemn nor justify; simply presuming that of all errors the most venial is a disinterested adherence to the errors of antiquity, especially when worse novelties are proposed to be substituted.

John Fisher was born at Beverley, A.D. 1459. His father, a respectable merchant of that town, died before he or his brother orphan, Robert, could compute their loss; yet left them not unprovided, for Fuller says he was a wealthy man, and that John's estate had a paternal bottom. His mother, a worthy and pious woman, though she took a second husband, did not neglect the children of the first, but committed them to the charge of a priest of the collegiate church of Beverley as soon as they were deemed capable of initiation into grammar learning. John Fisher

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showing a great aptitude for study, it was determined to train him for the Church's service. Accordingly, in 1484, when he was about twenty-five, he was entered of Michael-house, then a rich foundation,* afterwards dissolved along with King's Hall, the best landed in Cambridge, by Henry VIII., in 1546, and its revenues swallowed up in his new foundation of Trinity College. From the unusually late age at which he commenced his University education, it is probable that his studies were interrupted by some secular occupation, of which we have not read. He proceeded Bachelor of Arts in 1488, and Master in 1491; was elected Fellow, served the office of Proctor in 1495, and in the same year, on the promotion of William de Melton, heretofore his tutor, to the Chancellorship of the Cathedral of York, was chosen head of his house. Having now devoted himself to the study of theology, he took orders, and became a distinguished divine, famous in all acts and disputations. He appeared to great advantage in the public exercises, when in 1501 he proceeded D.D. Shortly after he was appointed Vice-Chancellor, and held the office two years successively. It is said that about this time he assisted the studies of the young Prince Henry, afterwards Henry VIII., whose proficiency in scholastic divinity was such, that some thought his father intended to make him a churchman, had not his elder brother died. Had this intention taken effect, what more likely than that he who proved the most formidable adversary of the Popedom might have been Pope himself?

But it is more certain that the fame of Dr. Fisher

* According to Fuller (History of the University of Cambridge, page 12, 1655), the yearly rents of Michael-house, at old and easy rates, amounted to 1447. 3s. 1d., a very large sum in those days.

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