the enumeration of a series of provincial councils, the records of which were destroyed at the reformation, with the libraries in which they had been deposited, or carried into foreign countries. These councils appear to have been generally held at Perth. It is supposed, from the circumstance that one of them is called "the annual council of the clergy," that they were annually celebrated; but the list of councils extant is far from showing one a year. As regards the loss of the records there is not much cause for regret, as the canons of all the national churches at this period were counterparts of each other. In its character, indeed, the Church of Scotland was the same as that of England, and of all the other countries of christendom. Its general condition has thus been described by Pinkerton:-"The privileges of the Church seem to have been an exemption from tribute and war, and from the sentence of a temporal judge; a judicial authority of the spiritual causes of tithes, testaments, matrimonial, and heretical affairs; freedom to let lands and tithes; submission to no foreign Church, but to the Pope alone; a power of holding provincial councils for the regulation of the national Church. In benefices, the Pope had only the right of confirmation and deprivation, and the purchase of any benefice at Rome was strictly prohibited. The bishops were elected by the chapter, and the royal recommendation seems seldom to have intervened. Abbots were chosen by the monks alone: the secular clergy were named by the proprietors of the lands. These clergy were either rectors or vicars. Many were in the appointment of the bishops, and of collegiate bodies, whose chapters they formed. Hence the lay patronage was much confined. Many sees and abbeys were opulent; but James III. seems to have been the first monarch who seized and made a traffic of the nomination." If a see was vacant, James II. claimed a right to present to all the livings while the temporalities were in his hands; and the clergy, in convocation at Perth, A.D. 1459, confirmed that right, which appears to have been the ancient custom, although it had been set aside during the long period of the regency, when the rights of the crown were almost annihilated.

Down to the year 1472 there had been no primate in Scotland. The bishop of St. Andrew's had probably the precedence of all other prelates, but they were not his suffragans. Patrick Graham, nephew of James I., had, A.D. 1466, succeeded the best of all the prelates of the fifteenth century-Kennedy-in that see, but as he was obnoxious to the Boyds, then the favourites of James III., he had many difficulties to encounter. To avoid their displeasure, and to obtain the confirmation of his election, he went to Rome, where he spent several years in a species of exile. While the Boyds were supreme he dared not return to Scotland; but on their downfal he came back to his native country. And he returned, not as a simple bishop, but as a primate; for while at Rome Pope Sixtus IV. had erected the see of St. Andrew's into an archbishopric, and had constituted Graham and his successors primate of all Scotland: thus sweeping away the claim of the archbishops of York now renewed to that high dignity. The new primate was also appointed the Pope's legate, and with such dig

nities, and enjoying the favour of the sovereign pontiff, he naturally expected that he would be received with favour, both by the king and the prelates of Scotland. But his new honours proved his ruin. The Scottish prelates were envious of his dignities, and his powers as legate were dreaded by both them and the nobles. His most inveterate enemy was William Shevez, who stood high in the favour of the king, chiefly, it would appear, from his skill in the doubtful science of astrology, in which James III. was a devout believer. Shevez had studied astrology in the university of Louvain under the famous Spiricus, and James presented him with the archdeaconry of St. Andrew's. Graham, however, who had a sovereign contempt for the science and its professors, refused to admit him to that office, and enraged at his refusal, Shevez banded with others to effect his ruin. He was committed to prison, where he died, A.D. 1478. Shevez succeeded him in his primacy; which dignity he enjoyed till his death, A.D. 1496. In all countries during this dark era the spirit of popery was the same. Soon after the new doctrines made their appearance in the south, they were promulgated in the northern part of the island. They appear to have been first made known by some of those who fled from the persecution promoted by the primate Arundel. But the Lollards found no sure refuge in Scotland. There was the same spirit of persecution abroad there as in England. Thus, in the year 1407, John Risby, an English priest, was apprehended as a Wycliffite, and was burnt at the stake at Perth. He was charged with maintaining forty erroneous opinions, the most offensive of which appears to have been, that he held the Pope was not Christ's vicar, and that if he was a man of wicked life he was not a Pope at all. The fate of Risby, like that of Sautree in England, appears to have struck terror into the minds of the Lollards in Scotland, for a second martyrdom did not take place till A.D. 1433, when a Bohemian physician, named Crawar, perished at the stake at St. Andrew's. That Lollardism early obtained an extensive diffusion in Scotland is clear, from the accounts of the trial of Crawar, who is spoken of as an emissary from Bohemia to a numerous body who maintained the same doctrines as himself. It is also evidenced by a statute passed for its suppression by parliament immediately after James I. returned from England, A.D. 1421, in which every bishop was enjoined to search out all Lollards in their respective dioceses, that they might be punished according to the laws of the Church. But, notwithstanding the efforts made to suppress the new opinions, they still spread, and there was at the close of this period in Scotland, as there were in England, many who secretly cherished them in their hearts, if they dared not openly avow their faith. It was in vain that the civil power aided the ecclesiastical in rooting out the doctrines of these early reformers: the good seed they sowed had therein a vital power, which no persecution, however bitter and deadly in its operations, could destroy. Watered, indeed, by the blood of the martyrs, it only flourished the more abundantly, until it grew into a wide-spreading tree of Christian liberty.

THE present period was one peculiarly unfavourable to the progress of literature and learning, not only in England, but throughout Europe. It was an age of the sword, not of the pen. The unsettled state of England, France, and other European countries, which were kept in continual agitation by war and revolution, could not but prove adverse to the progress of literature and learning. For the wars of those times were not carried on, as at the present day, by standing armies, while the great body of the people pursue their various occupations in tranquillity. Persons of all ranks were then called into the field, not excepting even the clergy. The very universities and seats of learning were frequently scenes of the most violent discord, which sometimes ended in appeals to the sword. It is no wonder, therefore, that the popular veneration for learning, which had characterised more or less every preceding age since the Norman Conquest, greatly declined. Learning, in truth, was very little esteemed or honoured. It was not even necessary for procuring preferment in the Church, as it hitherto had been. According to Anthony Wood, the most illiterate, if they had friends or wealth, were loaded with dignities and benefices, while the best scholars in the kingdom were left to languish in indigence and obscurity, and were sometimes driven to the necessity of begging their bread from door to door, recommended to charity by the chancellors of the universities in which they had studied and of which they were the ornaments.

How learning was esteemed by the ignorant nobles of the period may be imagined from a story related by Wood, the historian of the university of Oxford. He says that two of these licensed begging students one day presented themselves at a baronial castle, and sought an introduction to the lord by the exhibition of their academical credentials. They were described in these credentials as having a talent for poetry. But the baron did not appreciate such an acquirement. In mockery of it, he ordered the students to be suspended over a draw-well, and dipped alternately into the water until each should procure a couplet of verses on his bucket. Down they went into the water, first one and then the other, while the baron and his menials stood laughing by; nor were they released from their awkward situation before they had completed the poetical task assigned them. It is probable, however, that this may have been one of only a few instances in which men of literary tastes or acquirements became the objects of ridicule and mockery by men of rank and wealth; for it is difficult to believe that so soon after learning had become popular it should have fallen into universal contempt.

That there was still a love of knowledge in existence there are abundant proofs; for in the course of this

century between thirty and forty new universities were founded in the different countries of Europe. It was not owing to the want of schools, colleges, and universities in England that learning declined. Three colleges were founded during this period in each of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which require particular notice. The first of these in order is Lincoln College, in Oxford, which was founded by Richard Fleming, bishop of Lincoln, A.D. 1430; but which was finally completed by his successor, Thomas Scott, of Rotherham, A.D. 1475. Fleming had been an admirer of Wycliffe and a zealous advocate of his opinions; but on becoming a bishop he changed his principles, and his college was founded for a rector and seven scholars, who were to make controversial divinity their especial study, that they might be able to defend the Church against the Lollards by their writings and disputations. In the year 1437, Chicheley, archbishop of Canterbury, founded the college of All Souls' in Oxford for a widely-different purpose. His college consisted of a warden and forty fellows, who were appointed to put up incessant prayers for the souls of those who had fallen in the French wars and for the souls of all the faithful departed; whence it derived the name by which it is now known. The third college founded at Oxford was dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. It owes its origin to William Pattyn, bishop of Winchester and lord chancellor of England. The foundation of this fabric was laid A.D. 1458, and it was finally completed A.D. 1479. The members of Magdalene College, which soon became one of the richest in Europe, originally consisted of a president, thirty scholars, four presbyters, eight singing clerks, and sixteen choristers, and its object appears to have been more to promote learning than bigotry, like that of Lincoln, or superstition, like that of All Souls'. King's College, at Cambridge, was founded by Henry VI. A.D. 1443; who also established about the same time the celebrated school of Eton, to be a nursery for his college. King's College was founded on a scale of great liberality and magnificence, and its original members were, one provost, seventy fellows and scholars, three chaplains, six clerks, sixteen choristers, with a master, and others of a subordinate character. Five years later Henry's consort, Margaret, founded Queen's College, in Cambridge; which, although it was involved in the misfortunes of its foundress, and in danger of being left incomplete, became fully established by the care and diligence of its first president, Andrew Duckett. The third college founded in Cambridge, Catherine Hall, owes its origin to Robert Woodlark, the third provost of King's College, which, although small at its commencement, consisting of only a master and three fellows, finally became one of the greatest importance.

thirty-one shillings and fourpence. Books, therefore, of any size were costly articles. They were given with all the formality of deeds or bequests, by will, and the right of perusal was often reserved to the donors or their nominees. Even after the art of printing came into use, the price of books was for a considerable time as excessive as ever; especially of those which still continued in manuscript. Every considerable library, indeed, chiefly consisted of manuscripts, for it was only a few most in request that were first issued from Caxton's press: religious books

and romances forming the two largest divisions in his list. Concerning the libraries of the fifteenth century, reference to that which Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, gave to the university of Oxford, about the year 1440, will afford an illustration. That library contained six hundred volumes, one hundred and twenty of which alone were valued at one thousand pounds. Warton says, "They were the most splendid and costly copies that could be procured, finely written on vellum, and elegantly embellished with miniatures and illuminations. Among the rest was a translation into French of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Only a single specimen of these valuable volumes was suffered to remain; it is a beautiful manuscript, in folio, of Valerius Maximus, enriched with the most elegant decorations, and written in Duke Humphrey's age, evidently with a design of being placed in this sumptuous collection. All the rest of the books which, like | this, being highly ornamented, looked like missals,

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and conveyed ideas of popish superstition, were destroyed or removed by the pious visitors of the university, in the reign of Edward VI., whose zeal was only equalled by their ignorance, or perhaps by their avarice." According to Warton, the duke of Gloucester was one of the most distinguished patrons of learning in this century, for he says that his patronage was not confined to English scholars; and that the most celebrated writers of France and Italy solicited his favour, and shared his bounty. Duke Humphrey also employed several learned foreigners in transcribing, and in making translations of Greek works into Latin; and if he did not write a small tract on astronomy, which has been ascribed to him, it was compiled at his instance, after tables which he had constructed.

From the scarcity and high price of books, libraries were chiefly confined to palaces, universities, and monasteries; and many even of those most noted were not distinguished for any great number of volumes, or as regards literary merit, for the value of their contents. Thus, the royal library of France, which had been collected by Charles V., VI., and VII., and which was purchased by the duke of Bedford in 1425, for twelve hundred livres, contained only about nine hundred volumes; and from a catalogue of that library, still extant, it appears to have been chiefly composed of legends, histories, romances, and books on astrology, geomancy, and chiromancy. Kings, it would appear, were often borrowers of books, which sometimes they forgot to return. Henry V., for instance, borrowed several which were claimed by their owners after his death, and which they had some trouble in getting back again. Thus, in the year 1424, the countess of Westmoreland presented a petition to the privy council, representing that the king had borrowed from her the Chronicles of Jerusalem, and the Expedition of Godfrey of Boulogne,' and praying that an order might be given under the privy seal for the restoration of the said book, which was granted with great formality. Henry had also borrowed the works of St. Gregory of John, the prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, who presented a similar petition to the privy council; and when the prior of Shene, to whom the king appears to have sub-lent it, refused to give it up, he was required by a precept under the privy seal forthwith to restore it, or to appear before the council to give the reason of his refusal. The faculty of medicine at Paris were wiser than the countess and prior, for when Louis XI. wished to borrow a copy of the works of the Arabian physician, Rhasis, for the purpose of transcription, the loan was sternly refused until he had deposited in pledge for it a considerable quantity of valuable plate, and had procured a nobleman to join with him as surety in a deed by which he bound himself to return it uninjured, under a considerable forfeiture. Pledges were, indeed, frequently required as securities for books lent to be restored to their owners; thus at once proving their scarcity, and the great value set upon them. scarce were they, that in some establishments it was a rule that no scholar should occupy a book more than one or two hours, that others might not be hindered from consulting its pages.

During the fifteenth century, the Latin language

was still generally used by divines, lawyers, philosophers, historians, physicians, and poets; but the knowledge of that language appears to have greatly declined. With but few exceptions, the Latin style of all writers of this period was barbarous; and even the style of those few who did write so as not to offend good taste, cannot be considered classical. As regards Greek, though it was cultivated with assiduity and success in Italy, it was almost unknown both in England and France. Lectures on rhetoric were read in the universities of England; but as the learned languages were so little understood, and the modern languages were imperfect, the science was in a semibarbarous condition. As regards scholastic philosophy and theology, few or none made any distinguished figure therein, although it still reigned supreme in all the seats of learning. The schoolmen were still occupied in vain and profitless discussions, spending their time in solemnly arguing such questions as those with which Thomas Aquinas furnished the learned; as, for example, how an angel passed from one place to another; and whether God could annihilate matter? questions which no human intellect, however acute, could solve. Through the enlarged intercourse with the East, the sciences made some progress, which in the end swept away the barbarisms of the Aristotelian philosophy; but, as yet these important results were only "coming events casting their shadows before."

The two leading studies of the period were astrology and alchemy. All who turned their attention either to mathematical or natural philosophy bewildered themselves in these worse than useless sciences. So much was astrology studied by mathematicians, that mathematician and astrologer became synonymous terms. There was, however, now a difference of opinions with regard to the mysterious pursuits of astrology and alchemy, not indeed as regards their marvellous pretensions, for all believed in them; but the great question was, whether they were or were not forbidden by the law of God. It was thought by some that skill in them was an inspiration from the prince of darkness rather than light from heaven. Some have supposed that the first monarch of this period entertained such an opinion, inasmuch as he by an act of parliament made it felony to practise the transmutation of metals; but it is more probable that his prohibition was suggested by an apprehension that the operations of the alche mists would affect the value of the king's coin. But notwithstanding this, the art did not fall into disrepute. On the contrary, Henry VI. encouraged it more than any other art or science. It was held that alchemy could not only change the baser metals into the purest gold, but could also produce a sovereign remedy for all diseases. To preserve so precious an art, therefore, Henry granted protection to different alchemists to secure them from the penalty which his grandfather had awarded them. In one of these protections granted to three "famous men" in the science-John Fauceby, John Kirkeby, and John Rayny-the object of their researches is described to be "a certain most precious medicine which some philosophers have named the mother and queen of medicines, some the inestimable glory, others the quintessence, others the philosopher's stone, and others

the elixir of life. The virtue of this medicine," the document goes on to say, "is so admirable and efficacious, that it cures all curable diseases with ease, prolongs human life to its utmost term, and wonderfully preserves man in health and strength of body, and in the full possession of his memory, and of all the powers and faculties of his mind. It heals all curable wounds without difficulty, is a most sovereign antidote against all poisons, and is capable of procuring to us and our kingdom other great advantages, such as the transmutation of other metals into real and fine gold and silver." Henry not only granted these three famous Johns protection in their operations, but he aided them with money that they might "attain to the true method of making this most glorious medicine," which he acknowledges had not yet really been discovered. And that they did not discover it is clear, for in the year 1483, after twentyseven years' experiments-for the protection was granted and confirmed by parliament in 1456-there was a sweating sickness in London, which carried off two mayors, five aldermen, and a great number of persons of all rank, which no medicine could cure. The royal "liberty-power, warrant, and authority," given to these pretended alchemists to inquire, investigate, begin, prosecute, and perfect the foresaid medicine," and to "transubstantiate other metals into true gold and silver," proved abortive.

Although medicine was now studied in every university, the knowledge of it made but little if any progress during this period. Almost the only work on medicine that appeared in England was written by Dr. Gilbert Kymer, physician to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and also to Henry VI., which is simply a dietary for the preservation of health, and not a manual on diseases and their cure. This work, which consists of twenty-six chapters, was dedicated to Duke Humphrey, and is still extant, but for sanitary purposes is valueless. Kymer was a clergyman, holding among other promotions the offices of dean of Salisbury and chancellor of the university of Oxford, from which example it may be concluded that the practice of medicine was still to some extent in the hands of the clergy. Dr. John Fauceby is elsewhere described physician to Henry VI.; but it is probable that he received the appointment simply as an alche mist, who professed to be able to discover the "elixir of life," which would enable the weak-minded monarch to "prolong life, health, and strength of body, and vigour of mind to the greatest possible extent of time." As regards surgery in this period, it was in as rude a state as ever. The warriors of that period were not attended to as they are in modern times. It is recorded that in the army of Henry V., which wor the battle of Agincourt, only one surgeon-Thomas Morstede-was present, so that many must have lost their lives for want of surgical assistance. Morstede was to have had fifteen assistants; but they had not landed, and if they had, five of them were to have acted as archers. The surgeon himself was a man-atarms, so that he can scarcely be supposed to have possessed much skill in the art of surgery. That it was in a rude state, a mere species of mechanical handicraft, there can be no question, for at that period there was very little known of the anatomy of