such a condition, the unquietness of my conscience would not suffer me to profit in study at all.

I am here at this present, I thank God, very well placed for study among a company of learned men, joining to the friars minors, having free access at all times to a notable library among the friars, men both well learned and studious. I have entered acquaintance with divers of the best learned in the town; and for my part was never more desirous to learn in all my life than at this present. Wherefore I am bold, knowing your lordship's singular good will towards me, to open my mind thus rudely and plainly unto your goodness, most humbly beseeching you to suffer me to live without charge, that I may study quietly.

And whereas I know well your lordship is careful how I should live if God should call your lordship, being now aged, I desire you let not that care trouble you: for, if I had no other shift, I could get a lectureship, I know, shortly, either in this university, or at least in some abbey hereby; where I should not lose my time and this kind of life, if God be pleased, I desire before any benefice. And thus I pray Christ always to have your lordship in his blessed keeping. By your lordship's humble scholar and chaplain,

Louvain, Nov. 22, 1554.

BERNARD GILPIN.

JOHN KNOX TO JOHN FOX, THE MARTYR-
OLOGIST.

DEARLY BELOVED BROTHER,

ALBEIT at the departure of this our brother, from whom I received your loving and friendly letter, myself could write nothing by reason of the ill disposition of my body; yet because I could not suffer him to depart without some remembrance of my duty to you, I used the help of my left hand, that is, of my wife, in scribbling these few lines unto you. As touching my purpose and mind in the publishing the first Blast of the Trumpet: when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that shall be known, which now by many cannot be persuaded, to wit, that therein I neither have sought myself, neither yet the vain praise of men. My rude vehemency, and inconsidered affirmations, which may appear rather to proceed from choler, than of zeal and reason, I do not excuse: but to have used any other title more plausible, thereby to have allured the world by any art, as I never purposed, so do I not yet purpose. To me it is enough to say, that black is not white and man's tyranny is not God's perfect ordinance: which thing I do not so much to correct commonwealths, as to deliver my own conscience, and to instruct the consciences of some who yet I fear be ignorant in that matter: but farther of this I delay to better opportunity. Salute your wife and daughter heartily in my name. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ rest

From Geneva, the 18th Your brother to power,

with you now and ever. of May, 1558.

JOHN KNOX.

I, your sister, the writer hereof, saluteth you and your wife, most heartily, thanking her of her loving tokens, which my mother and I received from Mrs. Kent.

THE REV. RICHARD HOOKER TO ARCHBISHOP

SANDYS.

1590.

MY LORD, WHEN I lost the freedom of my cell, which was my college, yet I found some degree of it in my quiet country parsonage. But I am weary of

the noise and oppositions of this place; and, indeed, God and nature did not intend me for contentions, but for study and quietness. And, my lord, my particular contests here* with Mr. Travers have proved the more unpleasant to me, because I believe him to be a good man; and that belief hath occasioned me to examine mine own conscience concerning his opinions. And to satisfy that, I have consulted the Holy Scripture, and other laws, both human and divine, whether the conscience of him, and others of his judgment, ought to be so far complied with by us, as to alter our frame of church government, our manner of God's worship, our praising and praying to him, and our established ceremonies, as often as their tender consciences shall require

* At the Temple, of which Hooker was Master.

us. And in this examination, I have not only satisfied myself, but have begun a treatise, in which I intend a justification of the laws of our ecclesiastical polity. In which design God and his holy angels shall at the last great day bear me that witness, which my conscience now does, that my meaning is not to provoke any, but rather to satisfy all tender consciences. And I shall never be able to do this, but where I may study, and pray for God's blessing upon my endeavours, and keep myself in peace and privacy, and behold God's blessings spring out of my mother earth; and eat my own bread without opposition; and, therefore, if your grace can judge me worthy of such a favour, let me beg it, that I may perfect what I have begun.

WILLIAM CECIL, LORD BURGHLEY, TO HIS SON. SON ROBERT,

THE virtuous inclinations of thy matchless mother, by whose tender and godly care thy infancy was governed, together with thy education under so zealous and excellent a tutor, puts me in rather assurance than hope, that thou art not ignorant of that summum bonum, which is only able to make thee happy in thy death as life; I mean the true knowledge and worship of thy Creator and Redeemer, without which all other things are vain and miserable. So that, thy youth being guided by so sufficient a teacher, I make no doubt but he will furnish thy life with divine and moral

documents. Yet, that I may not cast off the care beseeming a parent towards his child, or that thou shouldest have cause to derive thy whole felicity and welfare rather from others than from whence thou receivedst thy breath and being; I think it fit and agreeable to the affection I bear thee, to help thee with such rules and advertisements for the squaring of thy life, as are rather gained by experience than by much reading: to the end that, entering into this exorbitant age, thou mayest be the better prepared to shun those scandalous courses, whereunto the world and the lack of experience may easily draw thee. And, because I will not confound thy memory, I have reduced them into Ten Precepts; and next unto Moses' tables, if thou imprint them in thy mind, thou shalt reap the benefit and I the content. And they are these following :

I. When it shall please God to bring thee to man's estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife. For from thence will spring all thy future good, or evil. And it is an action of life, like unto a stratagem of war; wherein a man can err but once. If thy estate be good, match near home, and at leisure; if weak, far off, and quickly. Inquire diligently of her disposition, and how her parents have been inclined in their youth. Let her not be poor, how generous, well-born, soever. For a

man can buy nothing in the market with gentility. Nor choose a base and uncomely creature altogether for wealth; for it will cause contempt in others, and loathing in thee. Neither make

choice of a dwarf or a fool for by the one thou