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"Too Shuker (i. e. B.A.) of Corpus christie college in Oxforde, the XXVIIIth of Aprell 1575. vs.” 1

When Richard Hooker had spent five years at the University, and was now in his nineteenth year, two pupils were placed under his care, George Cranmer and Edwin Sandys: the former then being seven or eight years of age, and the latter eleven or twelve. George Cranmer, as we have said, was a relative of Archbishop Cranmer, whilst Edwin Sandys was a son of Edwin Sandys sometime Bishop of London (1570), and later Archbishop of York (1577). The latter, during Queen Mary's reign had become an exile in Germany, where he became the close friend of Bishop Jewel, Hooker's patron. To quote Isaac Walton: "A little before Bishop Jewel's death (A.D. 1571) the two bishops meeting, Jewel began a story of his Richard Hooker, and in it gave such a character of his learning and manners, that though Bishop Sandys was educated in Cambridge, where he had obliged and had many friends; yet his resolution was, that his son Edwin, should be sent to Corpus

1 Fowler, Hist. of Corpus Christi Coll., Clarendon Press, 1893, pp. 149, 150.

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View from Back Gate of Christ Church, Oxford. From old print engraved by Harris.

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Christi College, in Oxford, and by all means be pupil to Mr. Hooker, though his son Edwin was not much younger than Mr. Hooker then was: for, the bishop said, 'I will have a tutor for my son, that shall teach him learning by instruction, and virtue by example; and my greatest care shall be of the last; and (God willing) this Richard Hooker shall be the man into whose hands I will commit my Edwin.' And the bishop did so about twelve months, or not much longer, after this resolution." 1

Isaac Walton describes Hooker's fitness and capacity to act as tutor to these two boys so delightfully, that we again quote his

words

"And doubtless as to these two a better choice could not be made; for Mr. Hooker was now in the nineteenth year of his age; had spent five in the university; and had by a constant unwearied diligence attained unto a perfection in all the learned languages; by the help of which, an excellent tutor, and his unremitted studies, he had made the subtilty of all the arts easy and familiar to him, and useful for the discovery of such learning as lay hid from common searchers; so that by these added to his great reason, and his industry added to both, he did not only know more of 1 Walton's Life of Hooker, p. 14.

causes and effects; but what he knew, he knew better than other men. And with this knowledge he had a most blessed and clear method of demonstrating what he knew, to the great advantage of his pupils (which in time were many), but especially to his two first, his dear Edwin Sandys, and his as dear George Cranmer." 1

Of

Between Richard Hooker and his two pupils a sacred and lifelong friendship sprang up, cemented by religious principles, studies, and recreations shared in common at Oxford. these youths it may be said, they "took sweet counsel together, and walked in the house of God as friends." 2 "By which means, they improved this friendship to such a degree of holy amity as bordered upon heaven: a friendship so sacred, that when it ended in this world, it began in that next, where it shall have no end," as the venerable biographer quite beautifully says.3 Both Sandys and Cranmer later became distinguished men, and they continued to be Hooker's chief friends throughout his life: it was to their criticism that he submitted his works.

There is in Walton's Life of Hooker a passage dealing with his college career, which

1 Walton's Life, p. 14.

3 Walton's Life, p. 18.

2 Psalm lv. 15.

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