of cathedrals, which he had been permitted to use, lest they should convict him of negligence or fraud; and this not upon investigation of the fact, but simply, “he presuming it,” as though a charge so serious was to be an affair of presumption only;[22] or, lastly, he comments upon his author in so fiendish a temper of mind, as would be in itself enough to satisfy every calm and dispassionate judge that he spoke not of truth or a love for it, but of mere malice; as where, after debasing the circumstances of Rowland Taylor’s story throughout, he concludes with a repetition of his joke about the worms in Hadley churchyard, as given in Fox, and subjoins “this noteth Fox in the margin for a goodly apophthegm of Dr. Taylor, martyr; and with this, he saith, he went to the fire; where we must leave him eternally as I fear;"[23] and in a similar vein he has the heart to write of Latimer and Ridley, “they were burned together, each of them taking gunpowder to despatch himself quickly, as by Fox is seen, which yet is not read to have been practised by old martyrs, and it seemeth that these men would have the fame of martyrdom without the pain; and now they have incurred the everlasting pain, if by their end we may judge."[24] The man who could write thus can scarcely lay claim to our credence; for his prejudice has evidently stifled in him every sense by which a regard for truth can be guaranteed.

It is not thought out of place to introduce here this brief vindication of a book, which, so far as it is a contemporary history, has been, both of old, and of late, an object of unfair depreciation, but from which no right-hearted Protestant can rise, without being at once a sadder and a better man;—­a book out of which we shall now fearlessly draw our information, whilst we offer to our readers a few examples of those terrible sufferings which it is at once humiliating to think that man could inflict, and animating to think that man could so nobly bear.—­Family Library, vol. xxvi.

[15] Strype’s Annals, pp. 239,240,241.  Strype’s Life of Grindal,
pp. 11, 17, 22, fol., where will be found much information as
to the manner in which Fox’s book was composed.

[16] Compare p. 444 of the first edition (very scarce) with
subsequent editions.

[17] This incident has been made the subject of much criticism to
the disparagement of Fox.  He, however, gives it as hearsay only,
and, though the circumstantial details might not have been
reported to him correctly, the substantial fact may be true
nevertheless.  Fox, too, was personally connected with the family
of the Duke of Norfolk (at whose house the scene is said to have
occurred), being once tutor in it.—­Strype’s Annals, pp 110, 368.

[18] Strype’s Annals, p. 242.

[19] Fox, iii. 459.

[20] Three Conversions, ii. 215.

[21] Id. 230.

[22] Id. ii.81, and Strype’s Annals, p. 240.