GORHAM'S REFORMATION GLEANINGS.

Gleanings of a Few Scattered Ears during the period of the Reformation in England, &c. By GEORGE Č. GORHAM, B.D.

DURING the prosecution of the suit with which Mr. Gorham's name is unhappily connected, he made a collection of such documents as bear upon that side of the controversy in which he was enlisted. These, after the more immediate matter which they were supposed to elucidate had been in a measure set at rest, he prepared for the press, though he did not live to publish. We are thankful for every fresh clue, however slight, through the thorny mazes of the religious perplexities of the sixteenth century, and therefore welcome this volume as contributing to our too scanty store of knowledge respecting this period. The volume bears upon it the evident tokens of the editor's industry and love of research; and his wanderings into the field of pure archæology in the shape of dissertations on the seals of Archbishops Cranmer and Parker, will be acceptable to those whose tastes lead them to find pleasure in the gossip of heralds and ecclesiologists. The book itself supplies us with a useful supplement to the collection of letters published by the Parker Society; indeed, it is indispensable to a right comprehension of much of the correspondence in the "Zurich" and "Reformation Letters." Of the hundred and eighty letters now published, nearly one-third are for the first time printed, and the remainder collected and translated from books which the indifference of the present day has caused to be forgotten. Amongst the original letters, those of Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich, are full of such news as gossiping letters usually contain. And though these have no bearing upon the graver subjects which occupied Mr. Gorham's attention, yet they present to us very valuable, because casual and incidental, information as to the state of Church discipline and popular feeling in the time of Elizabeth, mingled with remarks on the weather and the prices of provisions. Thus we find that the unwonted mildness of the present winter is paralleled by that of 1567-8, and the correspondent of the Times in the current year will find that "the most beautiful roses bloomed in the garden" of the episcopal palace at Norwich "last December," (p. 436), though it may be hoped that we are not to be visited with the same destructive and "furious westerly gales" which succeeded this unusual Christmas weather.

The references to the state of the Church during the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth, reveal the existence of similar practical abuses as existed before the Reformation. That event seems to have

had but little effect for some time in correcting those evils which the long and uniform neglect of discipline had necessarily entailed. It was long before laymen could be restrained from farming the profits of benefices, or patrons from making corrupt bargains with expectant incumbents. One of the incidental blessings indeed which the success of Cromwell and the Parliament brought with it, was the severance of the succession of evil which without some such violent revolution perhaps might never have been effected. A thunder storm strikes terror, but the atmosphere may not be cleared without it, and revolutions are the necessary and salutary thunder storms of the political and social heavens.

The greater part of Mr. Gorham's volume consists however of letters scarce and not easily accessible, though for the most part not original, on the disputes and divisions of the continental reformers with reference to the Presence of our Blessed LORD in the sacrament of the Altar. We find little to learn and less to edify from the opinions of Bucer and John à Lasco of Harenberg, and Peter Martyr at various times of their lives. One fact, however, as might have been expected, stands out prominently from the war of words and the wearying and not very reverential controversy on this solemn subject, namely the little real influence exercised by the foreign reformers upon the course of the English Reformation. Two matters seem almost wholly withdrawn from the possibility of alien influence. As we have lately had occasion to remark, national civilization is beyond its scope, and we are reminded by what we meet with in this book, that it is difficult, if not impossible, for such an influence to control or even to guide religious opinion.

During the feeble reign of Edward the Sixth, the distractions in the kingdom caused by the rival claimants for the Protectorship, or rather the governance of the young king, enabled the foreign reformers to interfere in ecclesiastical matters with some prospect of success, but even then this influence was never so great as many of us imagine; for instance, it has been supposed that Peter Martyr had some considerable share in the alteration made in the first Book of Edward the Sixth, and the publication of the second, but, in a letter now published for the first time, writing to Bucer he says, 66 Concerning the reformation of rituals, I cannot write any thing else as to what will be done, except that the Bishops have agreed among themselves on many emendations and corrections in the published book. Indeed I have seen the alterations on which they have decided, noted in their places; but as I am ignorant of English, and could not understand them, so I am unable to give you any certain information about them." (P. 232.)

Such amount of influence, however, as was exerted during this short reign was wholly stayed on the accession of Mary, and was never again exerted. Elizabeth, with that rare sagacity which made her reign a marvel of political wisdom and of domestic pro

gress, steadily refused all overtures of the Continental Protestants. Calvin's letter, in which he hastened to congratulate Cecil on the accession of the Queen, and to proffer advice, was never even acknowledged; and his offer to dedicate to her his commentary on Isaiah was declined by Elizabeth. Mr. Gorham imagines that this arose from the offence which had been given to the young Queen by Knox's book, entitled, "The First Blast against the monstrous Regiment and Empire of Women," with the publication of which she might suppose Calvin to have been concerned. But it is evident that Elizabeth had deeper and larger grounds of objection than this she distrusted, and so far as she could discouraged, all interference of the foreign refugees in English affairs. One by one those who came to England hoping for countenance, and expecting to be consulted, retired with disgust at the coldness of their reception. Bullinger, presuming on his position amongst the German reformers, wrote to Elizabeth; but he soon felt "a modest scruple as to addressing the Queen" again, "because he once wrote perhaps somewhat imprudently, and he rather doubted whether this was pleasing to her Royal Majesty:" it was not therefore without reason that he "refrained from writing a second time." (P. 410.) The Tudor blood was wont to boil when provoked by any such impertinent interference, and so Bullinger and Calvin ceased to counsel, and at length desisted from the useless task of even attempting to interfere. So far did Elizabeth carry this politic dislike to the foreign divines, that her most trusted advisers in ecclesiastical matters were always selected from those who had never visited Zurich or Geneva; and Matthew Parker seems to have been chosen to succeed Pole, rather from the fact that he had remained in England during the persecutions of Mary's reign, than from his having been chaplain to Anne Boleyn, though the present volume (p. 450) shows us that the Queen was not, as commonly stated, so indifferent to her mother's memory as to neglect her servants.

All such collections of letters as these, which Mr. Gorham had printed before his death, and which his son has now published, are valuable for the light which they throw on that public event which has so stirred all the deepest feelings of our nature, and which received its strongest impulse from the keen sense of those practical abuses in morals, which are open to the observation of the most illiterate as well as the most learned. It may be safe for those who are ignorant of the condition of the whole of Europe before the sixteenth century, to talk of the evils and the shortcomings of the Reformation, because they usually appeal to those who are equally ignorant but to estimate it fairly, and to pronounce with authority, requires more calm industry and opportunities than the majority of even well-informed persons possess. It is because we are conscious of this that we welcome every volume which adds to our store of knowledge, and can recommend this book to those of our

readers who are inclined to listen to the artless revelations which are made by private, and, as we have said, gossiping letters. Onesided indeed it is, as from the occasion which led to the collection we might reasonably expect. We do not quarrel with this. Truth in history is only gathered from the examination of two one-sided statements, and that which is objectively false may yet be valuable from its subjective truth, and the light it throws on the temper and constitution of its author.

We regret for this reason that such abundant stores remain buried in the sepulchres of our public libraries, and in the muniment rooms of our nobility and gentry. From this cause the knowledge of the history of our Church and country is still, and must needs be, very imperfect. We know literally almost nothing of the cause and the course, the benefits and remediable evils of the Reformation. We can form no judgment, we can pronounce no opinion upon it. Scores of manuscript volumes which contain its real history remain up to the present time in our public depositories, the Rolls, the State Paper Office, the Chapter-house, the Tower, in our colleges, or at the Hermitage in S. Petersburg,1 uncatalogued, and altogether unused. The recommencement of the publication of our old chroniclers is a hopeful sign of a reviving interest in historical science. This series, however, will close with the end of the reign of Henry VII. The secular papers of Henry VIII.'s time have been before the world for some time; but the heap of 'domestic correspondence' and of ecclesiastical documents, calculated as they are to throw so strong a light on the real history of the sixteenth century, await the time when we can rise above compendiums and abridgments, but, above all, when our rich university presses shall have given to the world, or have choked the cellars of Oxford with all that can be republished of the safe but unsaleable rubbish of the last century. In Bodley's magnificent library, and in the libraries of our colleges, the most precious materials for history are suffered to decay, while the delegates of the press are busied upon the cumbrous and unreadable sermons of Smallridge and Fleetwood. A few years since one of the most accomplished of our modern historians visited Oxford, to examine the manuscript, which its author has entitled a "Theological Dictionary," but which is in fact almost the only cotemporary record we have of the religious disputes and history of the days of Wyclif. The manuscript is safe in the hands of the fellows of Lincoln College. Bale had used it, and Lewis perhaps at second hand had quoted it. Its very existence was unknown to its guardians. Persevering notwithstanding in his search, our historian was at length rewarded by finding it at the bottom of an old chest. It has been from time to time promised to the world by one or other of the book societies which are engaged in the pub1 Carried to France by James II., and, upon the niggardly refusal of the British government to purchase the papers, sold to the Emperor of Russia.

lication of such documents. It is however still in manuscript. Surely some of the money wasted on Carte's collection of Ormond papers, and Burnet's Lives of the Dukes of Hamilton,-neither of them books so scarce and important as to merit republication at the Clarendon press,-would allow of the University issuing a series of volumes which should enable the student of English Church history to depend less upon the hasty and incorrect views to be obtained from Collier or Fuller. We think that we can afford to smile at the ignorance and supine indifference which the monks of Mount Athos manifested towards their literary treasures. We believe that it was Sir Francis Palgrave who, on reading Mr. Curzon's travels, turned to the late member for Oxford, and knowing full well the scandalous indifference of the authorities in his own University, asked, "Do you think, Sir Robert Inglis, that the monks of Mount Athos are worse than the fellows of Oxford? I, for one, know they are not." Whether Oxford ought or can afford to despise the opinions of literary men of such eminence, may well be questioned; but if the University is to do what is expected from it with such large resources at its command, it must be by the publication of books more valuable and better edited than those which have lately disgraced our ancient University.

THE WHITE CITY.

Winchester, the White City, a symbolical Essay. By AUGUSTA R. ROBINSON. J. Pamplin, Winchester.

WE are giving greater publicity to this, which we believe to be the first effort of the author's pen, than she at all expected. At all events, it was by mere accident that we became acquainted with her essay, which despite its brief compass and modest form, opens up with much cleverness a comprehensive subject, and one which especially requires ventilation in this utilitarian age. It is a natural result of the tendency to materialism, which is daily becoming more largely developed among us, that men have lost sight of that hidden meaning which pervades all things in nature, and the hidden life which underlies all things in religion. But it is a significant fact that the Christian faith was taught almost exclusively by symbolism long after those earlier times when secresy and concealment were necessary for the preservation of that truth against which the world and its prince rebelled. It was designed in those days, as S. John Damascene says, to teach a lesson to the ignorant, and a sermon to