elaboration of his design, has been drawn into some degree of exaggeration or over-refinement; and he has probably also softened the more repulsive features in Henry's moral character, as much as he has unduly exalted his intellectual endowments. But the difficult position which he occupied, and the success with which he maintained himself in it, vindicate the title of this sovereign to be regarded as at least one of the greatest masters of king-craft that figure in history. Bacon compares him, justly enough, to Louis XI. of France and Ferdinand of Spain, designating the three as "the tres magi of kings of those ages." The age in which Henry lived was that of the birth of modern policy, and that in which the foundations were laid of the still enduring system of the European states. Nothing that was then established has been greatly shaken since; all the changes that have since taken place have been little more than the growth and development of the arrangements that were then made and the principles that were called into action. This reign therefore may be considered as the beginning of the modern history of England.

THE life of Dean Colet was neither a long nor an eventful one, and an outline of its course may be given in small space. His father was Sir Henry Colet, knight, a distinguished citizen of London, and member of the Mercers' Company, who twice held the office of lordmayor, first in 1486, and again in 1495; his mother's name was Christian Knevet; and John was the eldest of twenty-two children, eleven boys and as many girls-of all of whom he appears to have been the only survivor at the death of his father, in 1510. As for his mother, she outlived himself, and reached a great age.

Colet was born at his father's house in the parish of St. Anthonine's, now commonly called St. Antholine's, London, in 1466. He received the rudiments of his classical education at what was then the most eminent school in London, that called St. Anthony's, which was in Threadneedle Street, near where the French church lately stood, and where the Hall of Commerce is now

built-a spot of ancient eminence, having probably been the site of a building of distinction in the Roman time, as the beautiful tessellated pavement discovered when the church was taken down a few years ago would seem to attest. About the year 1483 he was sent to Oxford, it is supposed to Magdalen College, and there he spent seven years in the study of logic, philosophy, and mathematics. Meanwhile, having been intended for the ecclesiastical profession, he had, after the irregular custom that then prevailed, been presented by his relation Sir William Knevet to the rectory of Denington in Suffolk, so early as the year 1485, while he was still under age, and before he had taken holy orders; and five years after he was presented by his father to another rectory, that of Thyrning in Huntingdonshire. The latter preferment he appears to have soon after resigned; the former he retained to his dying day. It is supposed to have been in 1493 that he left England to improve himself by travel on the Continent; he visited both France and Italy, and did not return home till 1497. In Italy he made the acquaintance of Lilly, Linacer, Latimer, and others of his countrymen who were then studying Greek there under the learned exiles from Constantinople, or their pupils and successors; and he also himself acquired a knowledge of that language, of which little or nothing was as yet understood at Oxford. While he was abroad, he had been presented to a prebend in the church of York, and to another in that of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and also to a canonry in the latter church. Yet his ordination even as a deacon did not take place till after his return. He now retired to Oxford, and he appears to have read lectures in divinity there for the next four or five years. It was at Oxford that, in the latter part of the year 1497, he first met Erasmus, with whom he continued in the most intimate friendship from this time till his death, and to whose notices of him in his letters and other writings we are indebted for the most interesting particulars of Colet that have been handed down to us. In 1502 he obtained a prebend in the church of Salisbury, on which he resigned the one he held in that of St. Mar

tin's-le-Grand; but he was shortly after instituted to another in St. Paul's Cathedral. It appears, too, that along with his rectory of Denington he had up to this time held the vicarage of Stepney; for he is stated to have resigned that living on being made dean of St. Paul's, to which eminent dignity he was raised in 1505. He had taken his degree of doctor in divinity the preceding year. He was also, in his capacity of dean, rector of the Guild of Jesus in St. Paul's church; and he was one of the preachers in ordinary to the king, Henry VIII.

With all these church livings Colet was of course very well off; and, when he came into the inheritance of all his father's property on the death of Sir Henry in 1510, he must have been a person of considerable wealth. He appears to have formed the design which has principally immortalized his name, the founding of a classical school in his native city, some years before his father's death; but it was not fully carried into effect till then; and the foundation of St. Paul's school is properly dated in the year 1510.

Some years after this date, finding his strength decaying, though he was still not in advanced life, he became anxious to find some monastery or other place of religious retirement, in which he might close his days in quiet and solitude. But, before he could determine upon his retreat, he was attacked by the disease then called the sweating sickness, the repeated visitations of which proved so destructive in England, and also in other countries, in the latter part of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century; and, after several recoveries and relapses, he sunk under it, at a house which he had built for himself near the royal palace of Richmond, on the 16th of September, 1519.

Colet presents himself to us in various capacities: as a man; as a clergyman, preacher, and divine; as a scholar; and as a great public benefactor, to whom posterity has been indebted in every age that has elapsed since that in which he lived. His personal appearance has been preserved both in description, and in picture and sculpture.

From a drawing representing him in his ecclesiastical attire, in a manuscript of the two first Gospels which had belonged to him, and which is now in the public library at Cambridge, he seems to have been eminently handsome. Erasmus also describes him as both comely and tall. The same friend reports, that Colet declared himself to be by natural disposition inclined to indulge in all the ordinary ways of the world; but he had subdued these tendencies by the most determined selfdiscipline. "He conquered, and then commanded himself," says his modern biographer, Dr. Knight, abstracting in English the account given by Erasmus, "and brought his high spirit to be subject to reason; so that he would bear a reproof even from his own servant. His disposition to sleep and luxury he restrained by a continual abstinence from suppers, a strict sobriety, a close application to his studies, and by serious and religious conversation. And yet, whenever oppor

tunities offered themselves, either of jesting with facetious persons, or talking familiarly with the female sex, or of appearing at feasts and great entertainments, there nature would break forth, and you might see some little signs and tokens of it. For which reason he very much forbore acquaintance with laymen, and especially all public entertainments, where, if necessity brought him, he picked out some learned friend and talked Latin with him to avoid the profane discourse of the table, and in the mean time he would eat but of one dish, and take but one or two draughts of beer, refraining commonly from wine, which yet he relished with delight if very good, but drank it in the most sparing manner. Being always jealous of himself, he would therefore be constantly upon his guard, and cautious to the last degree of offending anybody; and he so behaved himself in all the minute circumstances of human life as if he well knew the eyes of all people were fixed upon him. There never was a more flowing wit; which, for that reason, delighted in the like society; but even then he chose rather to divert to such discourse as savoured most of religion and eternal life. And if ever he indulged him