any expression of chagrin, resigned the great seal to his successor, Sir Robert de Thorp. He still, however, continued the principal adviser and confidant of the king; and his influence was so generally understood, that Gregory XI. wrote to him to facilitate an accommodation between Edward and the king of France.

Soon after his being settled in the bishopric of Winchester, he began to gratify his architectural taste in the repairing of his cathedral, the whole expense of which was defrayed by himself. The care he bestowed in other parts of his episcopal duty, in reforming abuses, and establishing discipline, was equally exemplary, and involved him in a series of disputes with the idle and refractory clergy, in which he conducted himself with admirable firmness, judgment, and integrity. The foundation of a college, or of some institution for the promotion of learning and the instruction of youth, appears to have been, from an early period, a favourite design of Wykeham's. About two years after his entrance on the bishopric, he began to make purchases in the city of Oxford with that view, and he connected with his plans there the design of another college at Winchester, which should be a nursery for that of Oxford. "The plan he conceived," as stated by Lowth, "was no less than to provide for the perpetual maintenance and instruction of two hundred scholars, to afford them a liberal support, and to lead them through an entire course of education from the first elements of letters through the whole circle of the sciences, from the lowest class of grammatical learning to the highest degrees in the several faculties. It consisted of two parts, rightly forming two establishments, the one subordinate to the other. The design of the one was to lay the foundation, that of the other to raise and complete the superstructure; the former was to supply the latter with proper subjects, and the latter was to improve the advantages received in the former." The regulations by which the new institution at Oxford was to be governed, afford some useful information on the studies of the university, and on the mode in which they were classed. The establishment, according to Wood, consisted of a warden, seventy clerical scholars, ten chaplains, three clerks, and sixteen choristers. Ten of the scholars were to study the civil, and ten the canon law, while the remaining fifty were to study divinity, general philosophy, and the arts, two of the number being allowed to study medicine, and two astronomy. The building was ready for the reception of the society early in the spring of 1986, and the feelings of the time are shown by the account given of the solemnities which attended the entry of the warden and fellows into the college. On the 14th of April, and at three o'clock in the morning, they pro ceeded in procession to the gates chaunting the litanies, and offering up the most devout prayers to God that he would bless them and their studies. "Thus," says the historian, "was this noble work finished and completed by the bounty of the thrice worthy and never too much to be admired prelate; not so much for the eternizing of his own name, but chiefly for the public good, that the holy writ and all other sciences might the freer be dilated; that Christ might be preached, and the true worship of him augmented and sustained; that the number of clerks might be increased, which were before swept away by pestilences and other miseries of the world." There is reason to

1 Vol. iii. 183.

believe that some portion of the good which the bishop is thus supposed to have had in view by the foundation of his establishments, resulted from his benevolence, and we may regard the imitation of his example by several persons of rank in subsequent years, as one of the most important aids which learning at this period received. The importance of the part which the universities of Oxford and Cambridge took in those times will be the better appreciated when it is considered that during the reigns of both Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth, learning required all the protection they could afford it, and that without the strong barrier they opposed to the political evils which were on the point of overwhelming the land that had been won from the waste, truth and genius would have again ceased their labours in despair.

The influence of the duke of Lancaster and of Alice Perrers, was successfully excited against Wykeham during Henry's dotage, and exposed him to many troubles; but on the accession of Richard III Wykeham was again intrusted with the great seal, and by his prudent conduct amid the multiplied embarrassments of that reign, secured to himself the confidence not only of his royal master, but of the commons also. His foresight and caution, however, induced him to make a voluntary surrender of the seals in 1391, and to retire as completely as possible from political life. From this period he confined his attention almost exclusively to the affairs of his bishopric, and his favourite foundation at Oxford. He died on the 27th of September, 1404, and was interred in his own beautiful chauntry in Winchester cathedral.

John Wickliffe.

BORN A. D. 1324.-DIED A. D. 1384.

JOHN WICKLIFFE was born about the year 1324, in a village on the banks of the Tees, near Richmond, in Yorkshire. Of his parentage and earlier years little is known. History first presents him to us as a student in Queen's college, Oxford, and subsequently in Merton college, where, by the hard exercise of considerable talents, he became a respectable scholar. Having mastered Aristotle, he applied himself vigorously to the study of the scholastic theology of the day, and soon attained unrivalled skill in the puzzling jargon and subtle casuistry of the schoolmen, a circumstance which eminently qualified him for the part he was afterwards to act against the errors and subtleties of Romanism. He then applied himself with equal assiduity to the study of the civil and canon law and the Latin fathers; and finally betook himself to the diligent investigation of the fountains of sacred truths in the holy scriptures themselves. So profound and splendid were his varied acquirements soon esteemed to be, that his contemporaries bestowed on him the honourable appellation of 'the Gospel-doctor.'

It was not till the year 1360, that Wickliffe was called to exhibit either his talents or his tenets, both of which were now displayed in defence of his university against the encroachments of the mendicant monks. Oxford in its earlier days, is reported to have often number