1.] DEATH FROM PARALYSIS. 41 mentally present, though the elements of bread and wine remain unchanged. At length, after being arraigned several times, his doctrines were formally condemned, and the Reformer, who had experienced the fickleness of princes, for his patron, John of Gaunt,1 had deserted him in the crisis, felt it necessary to withdraw finally from Oxford to his parish of Lutterworth, where he spent the last two years of his life. Though, according to Dr. Gascoigne,2 his health had already been broken by incipient paralysis, his literary industry was still incessant, and many of his works, including his noted Trialogus, were published during this interval. But his fertile brain sunk at length under the intense and continuous pressure. On the 29th of December, 1384, as he was officiating at mass, he was struck with palsy, and he died on the last day of the year.3 The literary works of Wycliffe-the longer ones in Latin which spoke to the educated mind of Europe, and the shorter ones in English-are very numerous; and Professor Shirley's 1 At his trial in St. Paul's, before Courtenay, then Bishop of London, he was befriended, with some bravado, by John of Gaunt, and the Earl Marshal Lord Percy, the father of Hotspur. The further procedure of another trial at Lambeth was forbidden by Sir Lewis Clifford, in name of the Dowager Princess of Wales, granddaughter of Edward I, and now widow of the Black Prince and mother of the reigning king. Her first husband had been the Earl of Kent, and the eldest brother of Courtenay had married her sister. Courtenay himself was the fourth son of the Earl of Devon, his mother, Margaret de Bohun, also being a grand-daughter of Edward I. 2 Cotton MSS., Otho 14, British H. C. Hingeston, Rolls ed., 1858. Museum. He had declined on account of physical debility to obey a summons from Urban VI to appear at Rome. 3 "In the ninth yere of this kyng, John Wiclif, the orgon of the devel, the enmy of the Cherch, the confusion of men, the ydol of heresie, the meroure of ypocrisie, the norischer of scisme, be the rithful dome of God, was smet with a horibil paralsie threwoute his body." Walsingham, Hist. Angl., p. 119, ed. by Henry F. Riley, Rolls ed. According to Capgrave, this "rightful doom of God" was very visible, for he was smitten on the day of St. Thomas (Becket), and he died on that of St. Silvester, and both saints he had treated with unbelieving scorn. Chronicle, p. 240, edited by catalogue, of more than sixty octavo pages, does not contain nearly the whole of them. There are many copies in the British Museum, in the University Libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, in the library of Lambeth Palace, in the Chapter Library at Prague, and very many in the Imperial Library of Vienna. Many productions have been wrongly ascribed to him; and the genuineness of what is called his first work, "The Last Age of the Church," is liable to very grave suspicions. The extreme form in which he expressed some of his opinions might tend to mislead the unwary, who might not trace his own fences, or follow out his own distinctions. Though he was the most popular writer in Europe, he was often obliged to explain himself. "Many lewd opinions or misconceptions were fathered upon him," while men like Melanchthon misunderstood both his politics and his theology.1 But our immediate concern is not with Wycliffe's general works, nor with the harmony of his views, nor the consistency of his own acting with his avowed opinions. These things belong to a history of the period. Collier, Milner, Lewis, Le Bas, Lingard, Gilpin, Massingberd, Vaughan, and Lechler will be found to differ widely in their estimate of the Reformer's deeds and doctrines. Three epochs may be noted in Wycliffe's life-the first during which he published logical, physical, and philosophical treatises. The second is marked by his works as a reformer, given more to destruction than re-organization. The third is distinguished by productions specially polemical; and, indeed, in the preface to the "De Dominio Divino" he indicates his intention of devoting the rest of his time and labour to theology. Professor Shirley says, "This preface seems to me the true epoch of the beginning of the English Reformation," Wycliffe translated many verses and clauses for his 1 Luther refers to him as spitzigen Wycleff; and after admitting Inspexi Wiglephum tantum, Melanchthon accuses him of not believing or holding the righteousness of faith. Milner virtually accepts the accusa tion, and insinuates that “it is not to be wondered at that he who maintained that tithes were mere alms" should be accused of supporting Tyler and Straw. Church Hist., vol. v, pp. 120-130. 1.] WYCLIFFE AND CHAUCER. 43 "English Tracts"; and such renderings made by him for an immediate end differ often from his formal translation. Others, to serve a similar purpose, must have done the same-translated for themselves. Thus Chaucer, in his "Parson's Tale," rendered for himself; and the majority of more than ninety of his quotations bear no resemblance to Wycliffe's version, though a few have the unavoidable similitude of two versions of the same easy Latin. 1 It is one of the charges of Polydore Vergil against him that, not content with writing Latin tracts, he wrote English ones also. "Commentarios patria lingua conscriptos fecit." Hist. Anglia, lib. 19. CHAPTER II. WYCLIFFE had always valued Scripture far above tradition and ecclesiastical authority. He had been in alliance with it during all his public career, as he had found in it the basis of his arguments and the edge and power of his rebukes. He had written several works on the Gospels, and he had expounded other sections of the New Testament, especially the Apocalypse, a book which sounded like a trumpet peal in those days of plague, when Death on the pale horse seemed to be careering through the land. His prelections, sermons, and tracts had ever brought him into connection with Scripture, which heas we have just said-translated on quoting it. At length, from these perpetual fractional renderings, there naturally rose up before his mind the project of preparing a full translation, and if the project were challenged, he had but to reply, Why should not every man's guide be in every man's hand? Before 1378, he does not distinctly dwell on the duty of giving to his age an English Bible, but after that year there are in his writings allusions which imply that the idea was growing to be a fixed and familiar one. About the period of his retirement from Oxford in 1381, the enterprise involving issues so momentous had been begun, the portions translated being put into immediate circulation. A review of his past services, with . their difficulties, dangers, and obstacles; a survey of the civil and ecclesiastical condition of the country; and a prophetic anticipation of the benefits to be derived from an unfettered national Bible, strengthened him in his purpose, and enabled him to carry it through before his death. The mind of Wycliffe was thus drawn by many concurrent influences to the work of translation; and his translated Scriptures met, and were intended to meet, the great want of his time.1 And, first, several forms of agitation and conflict were tending to unsettle old traditional opinions and beliefs, and many inquirers were longing for the possession of the written Verity in the language of their own day. For the age of Wycliffe was one of great excitement; and the papal supremacy as a foreign usurpation had begun to encounter stout resistance. From the days of the weak King John, and during the long reign of his son, Henry III, whom Dante has put into his purgatory as an idiot or simpleton, the Popes had been trafficking largely in English benefices. Strangers held rich livings and did no duty, as they were either ignorant of the language or were absentees, so that, besides the payment of Peter's pence, large sums were sent abroad to papal courtiers and dependents, who plundered the country with unwearying and unsatisfied rapacity. In wantonness of power, Pope Innocent IV had commanded Grosseteste,2 Bishop of Lincoln, to induct his nephew, Di Lavagna, into one of his canonries, "any statute of the church notwithstanding." Pope Honorius asked a living to be given to a man who was deacon of Thessalonica, and insisted that two prebends in every cathedral should be held in perpetuity by his nominees. The deanery of Salisbury was held by the Cardinal of St. Prassede, that of Lichfield by the Cardinal of St. Sabina, and that of York by the Cardinal of St. Angelo, as if "God had given his sheep not to be pastured, but to be shaven and shorn." These are but samples of the papal love of gold and power, taken from a return presented to the crown of benefices held by aliens. But, in 1366, Edward III and his parliament had refused to pay the Italian Pontiff, Urban V, the annual 1 It is notable that at this time various attempts toward a translation were made by different parties. Forshall & Madden's preface, pp. xi-xiv. The letter of the Pope, making the request, and Grosseteste's "bitter pistle" of refusal may be seen in Grosseteste's Epistolæ, p. 432, Rolls |