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N our laft Number, we had the pleasure of recording fome confiderable improvements with regard to the state of knowledge, literature, and tafte, in Great Britain. Wickliffe had boldly advanced to an uncommon enlargement of thinking in religious matters, and Chaucer had difplayed a vein of poetry rich and new in this country. From fuch beginnings important confequences might have been expected; and the writings of thefe eminent men must have had no fmall effect on the minds of many individuals. The opinions of Wickliffe appear to have been embraced by a larger number of perfons than dared to avow them; and the admirers of Chaucer could not avoid having their understandings and their tafte improved by a perufal of his various works.

Still, however, the progrefs of knowledge was far inferior to what, from aufpices fo favourable to the cultivation and refinement of the human faculties, might ration

ally

ally have been predicted. In fact, the period we are now treating of, is one of the most difgraceful, with respect to the fubject before us, that can be found in the history of England. It affords but few literary facts and characters on which we can expatiate with much fatisfaction. Several circumstances contributed to the neglect of learning; the chief of which undoubtedly was the confufion of the times, arifing from the civil wars that were occafioned by the long contefts between the two rival houfes of York and Lancaster. In the perpetual tumult and din of arms, and amidst the defolations that were spread through the kingdom, little opportunity was afforded for the purfuits of fcience, and the culture of the polite arts. Ignorance and barbarity obtained new triumphs over the minds of our

countrymen.

But previously to thefe contefts, knowledge and literature had begun to decline. Henry the Fourth, at his acceffion to the crown, was understood to be friendly to the fentiments of Wickliffe. But the confcience of this monarch, like that of moft other princes, was not of that obftinate kind which refufed to bend itself to political views. When he confidered the ftate of parties, he was convinced that nothing could fo effectually ftrengthen his claims as the fupport of the clergy; and, therefore, he determined to comply with the requifitions of the great ecclefiaftics, however hoftile thefe requifitions might be to the cause of reformation. The fevereft treatment of the advocates for religious improvements was the price of the church's favour; and it was a price to the payment of which Henry the Fourth readily fubmitted.

Through the influence of Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, whofe character was deformed by fuperftition and cruelty, a law was obtained against the Lollards, by which the bithops were authorifed to imprifon all perfons fufpected of herefy, and to try them in the fpiritual court. If thefe difciples of Wickliffe proved either obftinate or relapfed heretics, the ecclefiaftical judge was to call the theriff of the county, or the chief civil officer of the town, to be prefent when the fentence of condemnation was pronounced;

nounced; upon which the condemned perfon was immediately to be delivered to the fecular magiftrate, who was to caufe him to be burnt to death, in fome elevated place, in the fight of all the people. This ftatute, which is fo reproachful to the principles and manners of the times, was not merely an act of denunciation, but was inftantly carried into effect. Upon the ftrength of it, fir William Sawtre, rector of St. Ofwyth, London, was brought to trial before the convocation of the province of Canterbury, at St. Paul's, and received fentence of condemnation. It was an honour to himself, but a difgrace to his country, that he was the first perfon in England who was burned to death for the adoption of fentiments the truth of which is now admitted by every liberal mind. To another clergyman, William Thorp, whofe learning alone would have entitled him to a place in this work, archbishop Arundel did not carry his cruelty quite fo far. He committed him, however, to a loathfome prifon, the horrors of which probably shortened, as well as embittered his days.

Henry the Fifth, brightly as his name fhines on other accounts, was in the fame difgraceful fituation with that of his father. Indeed, the fcheme he had formed with regard to the conquest of France, laid him under a greater neceffity of courting the clergy than Henry the Fourth had ever experienced; and the bishops knew how to avail theinfelves of a crifis which could be converted to the farther establishment of their own power, and to the fuppreffion of a free enquiry into the doctrines of Christianity. Secure in the protection of the crown, perfecution now took a bolder flight, and made an attack upon fir John Oldcastle, lord Cobham, the most illuftrious of the followers of Wickliffe. This nobleman, not to mention his other eminent qualities, was diftinguifhed by the vigour and extent of his intellectual powers. To his natural parts he joined all the acquifitions of knowledge and learning which the times he lived in could adminifter. In religion he attained to a dignity of fentiment which would not be a difhonour to the prefent age. The man who could fay, that his faith was, That God will afk no more of a Chriftian in this life

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