And in this year of 1577, he was so happy as to be admitted Fellow of the College; happy also in being the contemporary and friend of that Dr. John Reynolds, of whom I have lately spoken, and of Dr. Spencer; both which were after and successively made Presidents of Corpus Christi College:  men of great learning and merit, and famous in their generations.

[Sidenote:  Sandys and Cranmer]

Nor was Mr. Hooker more happy in his contemporaries of his time and College, than in the pupilage and friendship of his Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer; of whom my Reader may note, that this Edwin Sandys was after Sir Edwin Sandys, and as famous for his “Speculum Europae,” as his brother George for making posterity beholden to his pen by a learned relation and comment on his dangerous and remarkable Travels; and for his harmonious translation of the Psalms of David, the Book of Job, and other poetical parts of Holy Writ, into most high and elegant verse.  And for Cranmer, his other pupil, I shall refer my Reader to the printed testimonies of our learned Mr. Camden, of Fynes Moryson[11] and others.

“This Cranmer,” says Mr. Camden in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth,—­“whose Christian name was George, was a gentleman of singular hopes, the eldest son of Thomas Cranmer, son of Edmund Cranmer, the Archbishop’s brother:  he spent much of his youth in Corpus Christi College in Oxford, where he continued Master of Arts for some time before he removed, and then betook himself to travel, accompanying that worthy gentleman Sir Edwin Sandys into France, Germany, and Italy, for the space of three years; and after their happy return, he betook himself to an employment under Secretary Davison, a Privy Councillor of note, who, for an unhappy undertaking, became clouded and pitied:  after whose fall, he went in place of Secretary with Sir Henry Killegrew in his Embassage into France:  and after his death he was sought after by the most noble Lord Mountjoy, with whom he went into Ireland, where he remained, until in a battle against the rebels near Carlingford, an unfortunate wound put an end both to his life, and the great hopes that were conceived of him, he being then but in the thirty-sixth year of his age.”

[Sidenote:  “A sacred friendship”]

Betwixt Mr. Hooker and these his two Pupils, there was a sacred friendship; a friendship made up of religious principles, which increased daily by a similitude of inclinations to the same recreations and studies; a friendship elemented in youth, and in an university, free from self-ends, which the friendships of age usually are not.  And in this sweet, this blessed, this spiritual amity, they went on for many years:  and as the holy Prophet saith, “so they took sweet counsel together, and walked in the house of God as friends.”  By which means they improved this friendship to such a degree of holy amity, as bordered upon heaven:  a friendship so sacred, that when it ended in this world, it began in that next, where it shall have no end.