internal tranquillity of England during the forty years of his effective reign. It was the natural consequence of so long and watchful a pursuit of popularity, that most grievances were redressed as soon as felt, that parliamentary authority was yearly strengthened by exercise, and that the minds of the turbulent barons were exclusively turned towards a share in their sovereign's glory. Quiet at home was partly the fruit of fame abroad."

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BEYOND that of most of our great men, has the fame of Wiclif undergone fierce dispute within the last few years. From regarding him with reverence as the Morning Star of the Reformation," it has come to be more than questioned whether he was a reformer at all, or whether a certain superior craft was not the motive that incited him throughout his career. It will be convenient to leave the consideration of this matter till we have looked at the leading events of his life, when we shall be better prepared to estimate his character. To assume a controversial tone-as it would be scarcely possible to avoid doing if we entered into the discussion of the various views and statements that have been put forth respecting him-is not at all our intention. We

*There are about twenty variations of the mode of spelling the name. Wiclif, Wicliffe, and Wycliffe are the most common modes. In strict propriety we ought to write De Wiclif.

have examined the several statements; we shall be content with expressing our own opinions.

There is some uncertainty about both the year and the place of John Wiclif's birth: the place which seems most probable, however, is a little village pleasantly situated near the junction of the rivers Greta and Tees, about six miles from Richmond in Yorkshire; the year 1324. What is known of his life commences with the year 1340, when he entered as a commoner at Queen's College, Oxford, then newly founded; his name is in the list of the first scholars. From Queen's he soon removed to Merton College, at that time highest in repute at the University; where he greatly distinguished himself. The theology taught at this period was that of the schoolmen, who, as Bacon afterwards said of them, "did, out of no great quantity of matter, spin out those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books. . . admirable indeed for the fineness of the thread, but of no substance or profit." In this scholastic discipline Wiclif became so deeply versed, that his contem porary Knighton, a bitter enemy and a competent judge, declared he was without an equal (in scholasticis disciplinis incomparabilis.) Nor was he skilled in this alone; he appears to have pursued, with almost equal success, the whole round of moral, philosophical, and legal studies as then taught. According to the standard of his time he was an eminently learned man.

The earliest of Wiclif's publications, so far as is known, was written in 1356; it was first printed in 1840. The work itself does not occupy more than fourteen small pages, and is of little value on its own account, but deserving attention, as Wiclif's first work, written when he was thirty-two years old, a period in a man's life when his character is fixed and his tone of thought determined, and when consequently the opinions he has formed will almost certainly colour the actions of the remainder of his life. We may therefore spend a few minutes in looking at this production and at the circumstances which called it forth. In 1349 a fearful pestilence occurred in England. It had marched slowly from the east,