Christi College, and slept in his old quarters at Alban Hall. He rose early in the morning and went to Gloucester College, where he was surprised to find the gates shut, contrary

to custom.

"Then," says he, "did I walk up and down by the wall there, a whole hour before the gates were opened. In the meanwhile my musing head being full of forecasting cares, and my sorrowful heart flowing with doleful sighs, I fully determined in my conscience before God, that if I should chance to be taken and be examined, I would accuse no man, nor declare any thing further than I did already perceive was manifestly known before."

In short, he found that his rooms had been broken open and searched; he was taken, and was examined by Anthony Dunstan, a monk of Westminster, who was prior of the students.

"He asked me," says Delabar, "if Master Garret were with me yesterday? I told him 'Yea.' Then he would know where he was, and wherefore he came unto me. I told him, I knew not where he was, except he were at Woodstock. For so (said I) he had showed me that he would go thither, because one of the keepers there, his friend, had promised him a piece of venison to make merry withal the Shrovetide; and that he would have borrowered a hat and a pair of high shoes of me, but I had none indeed to lend him. tale I thought meetest, though it were nothing so."

This

After some further discourse the chief beadle came to summon Dalaber to attend the Commissary, whom he found with the dean of Cardinal's College, and the warden of New College, at the altar of Lincoln College chapel. After they had asked him a good many questions, chiefly respecting himself,

"one came," he says, "unto them who was sent for, with pen, ink, and paper. I trow it was the clerk of the University. As soon as he was come, there was a board and tressels, with a form for him to sit on, set between the doctors and me, and a great mass-book laid before me; and I was commanded to lay my right hand on it, and to swear that I should truly answer unto such articles and interrogatories as I should be by them examined upon. I made danger of it awhile at first, but afterwards being persuaded by them, partly by fair words, and partly by great threats, I promised to do as they would have me; but in my heart nothing so meant to do. So I laid my hand on the book, and one of them gave me my oath, and that done commanded me to kiss the book."

On being afterwards examined by Dr. London, he repeated the fabrication about Woodstock and the venison, and to that, notwithstanding their threats and promises, he

adhered. "Then," he adds, "was he that brought Master 'Garret unto my chamber brought before me, and caused to 'declare what Master Garret said unto me at his coming to 'my chamber; but I said plainly, I heard him say no such 'thing; for I thought my nay to be as good as his yea, 'seeing it was to rid and deliver my godly brother out of 'trouble and peril of his life."

These stories do not appear to me to require much comment; and it will be more to the purpose,-at all events, should be a prior business,-to show, by the production of others like them, that these are not singular cases.

ESSAY II.

PURITAN VERACITY. No. II.

THOMAS GREENE-JOHN CARELESS.

"UNE chose des plus embarrassantes qui s'y trouve," said Pascal's Mentor, "est d'éviter le mensonge, et surtout quand on voudroit bien faire accroire une chose fausse;" and then, after giving him some light on the "doctrine des equivoques,” he proceeded to explain what must be done in cases where equivocation would not do, and quoted the doctrine of Sanchez concerning "la doctrine des restrictions mentales”— "On peut jurer, dit-il, qu'on n'a pas fait une chose, quoiqu'on 'l'ait faite effectivement, en entendant en soi-même qu'on ne 'l'a pas faite un certain jour, ou avant qu'on fût né, ou en 'sous-entendant quelque autre circonstance pareille, sans que les paroles dont on se sert aient aucun sens qui le 'puisse faire connoître. Et cela est fort commode en beau'coup de rencontres, et est toujours très juste quand cela 'est nécessire ou utile pour la santé, l'honneur, ou le bien."

There is certainly something very natural in the pupil's question, "Comment! mon père, et n'est-ce pas là un mensonge, et même un parjure?" and he must have been relieved by the answer: "Non, dit le père: Sanchez le prouve au même lieu, et notre père Filiutius aussi, tr. 25, chap. xi., n. 331; parce, dit-il, que c'est l'intention que

'règle la qualité de l'action.' Et il y donne encore, n. 328, 'un autre moyen plus sûr d'éviter le mensonge. C'est 'qu'après avoir dit tout haut, 'Je jure que je n'ai point fait 'cela,' on ajoute tout bas, 'aujourd'hui:' ou qu'après avoir 'dit tout haut 'Je jure' on dise tout bas, 'que je dis,' et 'que l'on continue ensuite tout haut 'que je n'ai point fait 'cela.' Vous voyez bien que c'est dire la vérité1."

Had it then existed, one might have supposed Anthony Dalaber to have been brought up in this school, and to have profited therein greatly, if one had known the facts of the case, and been present when he was called on to swear that he would tell the truth, and when, as he himself states, "I 'promised to do as they would have me; but in my heart 'meant nothing so to do. So I laid my hand on the book, 'and one of them gave me my oath, and that done, com'manded me to kiss the book."

It is not, however, my purpose to discuss the facts stated in the preceding number: and therefore, on the cases of George Joye and Anthony Dalaber, I will here offer only a single remark, which has respect to the use which we are authorized to make of them as testimonies of puritan doctrine. George Joye was his own historian, apparently his own publisher, and perhaps even his own printer; and therefore did what he did, and wrote what he wrote, so far as we have any evidence, without the concurrence of any other person. And therefore, when he says, "I was so bold to make the scribe a lye," and explains to us that he did it on a general principle, "for I never trusted Scribes nor Pharisees," we have only his personal opinion and practice as to the matter of truth-telling. Of course such an opinion from such a man, so openly and gratuitously stated, such a fact related by him after all danger was past, in a manner which savours of anything but shame or compunction-is very weighty and important. Such I doubt not the reader will consider it.

As to Dalaber's case, however, he is indeed his own historian, so far forth as to give the story all the interest and all the authority of autobiography; but for its publication we are indebted to another hand. I am not aware that Fox any where states how the memoir came into his

1 Les Provinciales, Lett. IX. tom. i. p. 163.

posses

sion; but as he informs us that Dalaber lived until the year 1562, it is very possible that he may have received it immediately from the author. Under most circumstances it might be too much to assume that the editor, or publisher, of Dalaber's story approved of his conduct; but when we consider the whole case, it is perhaps natural to suppose that if Fox had disapproved of that conduct, or had expected it to be blamed by his party, he would have omitted or qualified, or at least given some intimation of his disapproval.

But we shall get rid of the necessity for such speculations if we take one or two stories related by Fox respecting his own contemporaries. Thomas Greene has furnished a curious piece of autobiography, which Fox introduces thus::

"Next, after these two above specified [Richard Wilmot and Thomas Fayrefaxe], followeth the beating of one Thomas Greene, who in the time of Queene Mary, was caused likewise to be scourged and beaten by Dr. Story. What the cause was, heere followeth in story and examination to be seene, which he penned with his owne hand, as the thing itselfe will declare to the reader. The copy and words of the same as he wrote them, heere follow. Wherein, as thou mayst note (gentle reader) the simplicitie of the one, so I pray thee, marke the cruelty of the other part."-Edit. 1596, p. 1868.

Let us then look a little at the "simplicity" of Thomas Greene. It seems that he was the prentice of John Wayland, a well-known printer, who brought him before Dr. Story on account of a certain book called "Antichrist," which had been clandestinely put in circulation, (or, as Thomas Greene himself expresses it, "distributed to certain honest men,") to the great annoyance of the government, who were actively engaged in searching after the persons by whom these inflammatory and seditious libels were brought into the country, and dispersed.

As to the book, however, thus incidentally mentioned, I do not wish to say much at present; because it belongs to another part of the subject. But things will not always wait until they are wanted; and, indeed, considering the false colouring which has been given to such stories, (by which it has come to pass that people take it almost for granted that whoever was punished by a papist was a true lover of the gospel,) it is necessary to the understanding of Thomas Greene's story, to observe that the work which

he was accused of clandestinely distributing was not one of merely practical piety, or polemical divinity, or even one abusing the pope and all popery; but one of a large class of books, the object (or to speak with the utmost stretch of charity, the tendency) of which was to set the commons against the nobility, and produce a revolution in the government.

It may be difficult, in the present day of licentious freedom, to form any idea of what is meant by a seditious libel, and we may think it very hard that men should be punished for printing and publishing any thing whatsoever that comes into their heads, or will put pence in their pockets. Into these questions I do not here enter, but merely state the fact that, in the days of Queen Mary, (to say nothing of her father, brother, or sister,) the government did punish the fomenters of sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion, and that to call this persecution for the gospel's sake is, in my mind, by no means proper. I hope to say something of both the politics and the provocations of the puritan party, in which this may be established and illustrated; but in the mean time I would observe, that owing to our having received almost all that is popularly known of things and persons belonging to the period of the Reformation from puritan sources either from those who actually belonged to the sect when it was a struggling sect, or those who subsequently held them in great admiration, and gave them implicit credit -we are, of course, liable so far to adopt their views, as that we are prepared to allow much more liberty to one side than the other. It is very natural that Fox, rejoicing in Elizabethan protestantism, should laugh in his sleeve while he told how "wily Winchester" or "bloody Bonner" was prettily nipped" by some ignorant protestant or saucy mechanic; and it is not perhaps to be wondered at, that good Mr. Strype, reposing in the shades of Low Layton, with the most perfect confidence that all the puritan party were truly striving for the gospel, should tell us, with a quaint smile, how somebody "laid it close in " to the nobility and gentry, and what clever things "were smartly thrown in their teeth by the best sort."

But, as far as I can judge, even by the "best sort," men of rank, and persons high in authority, either in church or state, do not like to be "prettily nipped," or to have things

B