BOOKS.

* Linn of the Archbishops of Canterbury. By Walter Farcighar Hook, D.D., F.Ft S., Dean of Chichester. Vol. L, New Series Reformation Period. London Bentley. 18GS. DR. HOOK'S ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY.* IT is not always easy to give Dr. Hook his due. In social life faults of manner often make us unjust to great virtues. It is hard to believe that some valuable qualifications of a his- torian may be found in a writer who can be so forgetful of his dignity, whose opinions are sometimes so crude, and expressed with so little sense of relevancy and fitness. The subject-matter of the present volumes includes some of the most difficult of questions, questions which are intimately connected with great controversies of our own day, and which specially demand a calm and judicial tem- per in the man who would deal with them. How is it possible to trust the taste and judgment of an author who can write in this style, " When godless mobs are inebriated by concealed fanatics to attack unpopular churches, when parliamentary senility invokes . authority to treat mstheticism as a crime, we are inclined to think that an absence of persecution is to be attributed to want of power, rather than want of will " ? The allusion intended by the words parliamentary senility is obvious enough. The expression is not very felicitous, but it might pass in its place; nor should we be con-

cerned to defend its object, but it is a gross impropriety where it stands. But the reader who should be led by any such unlucky phrases and allusions which he might meet with to form a wholly unfavourable estimate of the book would, we think, be falling into a great error.

We are inclined to set very little value on Dr. Hook's opinion on ethical and philosophical questions, and not the more because he obtrudes them upon us unnecessarily. It would be impossible, to take an instance suggested by the quotation given above, to exaggerate the confusion of mind in which he seems to be on the subject of persecution. He does not even know what persecution means. He bonfounds it with what is really one of the insepa- rable accidents of freedom, with the bitterness of literary, of scien- tific, and of political controversy. Anger is intolerance, and intoler- ance is, in spirit at least, persecution, is the simple sorites from which he deduces this conclusion. More than this, we ourselves, at this moment, however moderate our tone, are persecuting Dr. Hook. Anonymous literary criticism, he takes care to tell us, is worthless. With that expression of opinion we can put up, but it grieves us to be told that it is malignant. Of persecution, in the sense in which the word is more generally understood, Dr. Hook does not fail to speak with proper horror, but he is evidently at a loss for reasons to justify his dislike. He does not see how to escape the cogency of Thomas Aquinas's argument, that " if false coiners are punished with death, much more is such a doom deserved by heretics, forasmuch as a corruption of faith, whereby the soul has its life, is far worse than a falsification of money." Upon this subject he subjoins a note, which we must quote at length :- "Upon this subject we shall never probably be consistent until capital punishment for any offence be abolished. How far it may be considered possible, with a due regard to life and property, to abolish capital punishment, I am not concerned to say. But if you slay the man who attacks your property or life, you are undoubtedly open to the retort that you only condemn those who would inflict a similar punish- ment on the propagators of heresy, because you value life and property, but do not value the human soul. Because we value the human soul, instead of condemning the criminal, under any circumstances, to death, Ought we not to give him time for repentance ?"

The consideration set forth in the last sentence appears wholly irrelevant to the issue, but we cannot help expressing our regret that Dr. Hook should have given the weight of his name to any- thing so feeble and, as it seems to us, so essentially irreligious. Human justice must execute its penalties without regard to a question of which it is incapable of taking cognizance. If it is expedient for society that a criminal should die, are we to keep him alive, to protect him—for it comes to that—from the divine vengeance? But, apart from this, Dr. Hook's main argument obviously extends beyond the extreme instance to which he would limit it. To be thoroughly consistent, we must abolish all punish- ments whatsoever. As long as we inflict any penalty on ordinary offenders, while we allow the heretic to go free, we are open to the retort that we value life and property more than we value the human soul. Did it never occur to Dr. Hook that we show " our value of the human soul " by following that course which a long experience has taught to be best for it, by giving it that freedom of thought which in the end best serves the interests of truth?

He is more trustworthy when he descends to practical matters. In the main proposition, which he lays down in his introductory chapter, " the perpetuity and continuity of the English Church," we heartily agree. As he, or, as we should rather conjecture, his publisher, has thought fit to make these volumes the beginning of a new series, he has found it the more necessary to assert that there is no real interruption in his work ; that when he is telling the story of Cranmer, he is speaking of the genuine successor of Dunstan, of Becket, and of Chichele. We could wish, how- ever, that he had founded his argument upon broader and more satisfactory grounds. The succession which depends upon a spiritual genealogy lies open to endless cavils ; and those who attach supreme importance to a faultless pedigree of Bishops will always be attracted by the more demonstrative evidence which Rome can produce. We would rather see in our Church the continuous expression of a national faith, to which changes of doctrine and discipline have given a different aspect, but which they have not interrupted. It seems monstrous to declare that German Lutheranism is nothing but a sect because it failed to secure

conforming Prelates who might hand on the mysterious virtue which alone constitutes a church, an absurdity which is pushed to an extreme when the purist advocates of the doctrine of succession

deny this title wren to the episcopally governed communities of Scandinavia.

The question of the Royal Supremacy Dr. Hook discusses with

considerable ability. From one point of view he is unquestionably correct when he states that Henry VIII. claimed a right which had theoretically belonged to all his predecessors, and which some of them had practically asserted. But it is another question whether that claim did not implicitly contain far wider consequences,— whether, in fact, it did not set up as the principle of the English Church, a theory wholly different from any which the most vigor- our assertors of Anglicanism in that or in any age had held. Dr. Hook quotes Mr. Gladstone's treatise on the Relations of Church and State with a hearty approval, which that gentleman in his present position must feel embarrassing as well as complimentary. The principles laid down in that work may be true ; the acts of the statesmen of the Reformation may have been intended to assert them, but history seems likely to interpret the real meaning of those acts in a very different way.

We come next to the subject of the dissolution of the monas- teries, which Dr. Hook judiciously prefers to treat as an inde- pendent topic rather than as a digression from his biographies. A generous leaning to fallen causes disposes him to think that the evidence on which they were condemned is not satisfactory. It is certainly, as we have it, incomplete. The " Report of the Visitation," Dr. Hook tells us, " has not been pre- served." It would be more correct to say that it was destroyed, destroyed by the friends of the accused. One thing is certain, that the effect which the evidence produced upon the minds of those who heard it on its first production was overwhelming. " When their enormities were first read in the Parliament House, they were so great and abominable that there was nothing but ' Down with them !' " So Latimer declares. We scarcely hear of a voice raised to represent that more favourable opinion which has sprung up in after times from sentiment, or partizanship, or a patriotic unwillingness to believe that any body of Englishmen could have been so vile. The fact is that literary culture, which has always been the great preserving influence of Western asceticism, had for the most part migrated from the monasteries to other abodes. The larger houses, in which the atmosphere was naturally more healthy, were often respectably conducted, but what even a house so famous as St. Alban's might, become the reader may learn from the accusations brought by Cardinal Morton against the Abbot of that place. St. Alban's is a suggestive instance, because in better days it had been the home of Matthew Paris and Rishanger, and the seat of a very consider- able literary activity. Before we quit this subject, which, indeed, does not invite us to linger, we must point out an instance of great carelessness in the use of authorities on the part of Dr. Hook. Anxious to discredit the evidence brought against the religious houses, he tells us how some of it was procured. Men, he says, were sent down to corrupt the inmates of the nunneries. These creatures gave information of their own villanies, and, what is, if possible, still worse, sometimes boasted of a success which they did not obtain. This we are told was Cromwell's device. " His mode of acting was diabolical, and our authority for saying so is not Sanders or any Romish partizan, but an honest, blunt partizan, who would never willingly deceive, however much he might be deceived himself. Fuller speaks strongly, and like a true-hearted Christian, when he denounces as a devilish, damnable act," &c. (Vol. I., p. 115). Now, any one would suppose from this that Fuller told these stories as undoubtedly true, and not only this, but that he attributes these abominable proceedings to the direct suggestion of Cromwell. But Fuller says nothing more than that the stories in question were commonly believed by the Eng- lish Romanists of his time. He declines, for want of proof, to receive them himself ; and as for the worse of the two, he hints pretty plainly that he considers it apocryphal. And nothing, certainly, would be further from his thoughts than to consider Cromwell, whose character he estimates very highly, to have been responsible for such abominable proceedings. Dr. Hook's portrait of this statesman, the malleus,—or, as he prefers to call him, the diabolus monachorum, is drawn in the darkest colours, and we must add, in the coarsest style. No good qualities are attributed to him except a certain generosity which made him not unmindful of benefits received, and a selfish good- nature which, however, did not prevent him from being ex- ceedingly cruel. He is credited with no ability except cunning, with no motive higher than avarice, and with no belief beyond a superstition which occasionally interfered with an habitual in- fidelity. It is not out of such stuff as this that are made the men

who guide the affairs of nations in the midst of revolution, and who leave behind them work so durable as Cromwell's. Like most statesmen of his day, he was unscrupulous and careless of suffering. It is very probable that his hands were not clean of private gain. But he had a great end in view, which was not selfish. It is idle to talk as if he carried out the dissolution of the monasteries merely to fill his own coffers, or those of the King. Does any one suppose that the liberty of the English Church could have been secured while these outposts of the Roman dominion were still standing ? It is no less idle to charge him with cruelty because he ordered and even witnessed the infliction of torture. In that age almost every man believed torture to be the best means of extracting the truth, just as he believed persecution to be the best means of supporting it. His religious belief we may well leave to a wiser judgment than ours. He was not above the average of a nation which may be said to have changed its faith thrice within twenty years. Romanists have claimed him on the strength of his last speech ; Protestants on the strength of his last prayer. Dr. Hook cuts the knot by pronouncing both to be spurious. His will, pro- viding for masses for his soul, makes it certain that the old faith had not lost its hold upon him. It is equally certain that he had some leanings to the new. Whatever may be obscure in the

circumstances of his fall, it is clear that he was a victim to a Romanist reaction. The articles of his attainder charged him

with holding the new doctrines, and with favouring the escape of others who held them. But anything like a discussion of these questions would require a volume. We can deal only with one matter, in which Dr. Hook seems to us to have made an inaccu- rate, if not an uucandid, use of his authorities. He says (Vol. I., p. 129) :—

" Shakespeare represents the reluctant Cromwell exhorted by Wolsey to provide for his own safety by seeking service under the King. But, according to Cavendish, Cromwell required no prompting. The scheme of passing from the service of the Cardinal to that of the King was entirely his own. He had been preparing the way. He com- plained to Cavendish, I never had promotion by my lord to the increase of my living,' and he added, Thus much will I say to you, that I in- tend, God willing, this afternoon, when may lord bath dined, to ride to London, and so to the Court, where I will either make or mar ere I come again.' The next day Cromwell had passed from Wolsey's service ; he

had been accepted as the servant of the King With the one exception of his being the bearer to the Cardinal of the thousand pounds which the King had granted him to pay his expenses to York- shire, the name of Cromwell is no longer connected with that of Wolsey."

The impression left by this passage is that Cromwell was dis- contented with his treatment by Wolsey, that he had resolved to look to his own interests, and that he gave his old master no help. Let us see what Cavendish really says. We compress the passage, giving, when it seems necessary, the actual words. The reader should be aware that the scene described below followed immediately on the speech quoted by Dr. Hook. The disgraced Cardinal is in the greatest poverty. Cromwell recommends him to acknowledge the services of the gentlemen and yeomen of his house- hold. Wolsey thinks that words without deeds are little accounted of, and he has no money to give. Then Cromwell advises him to call upon his chaplains, on whom he had bestowed great prefer- ment, for help. Shortly the whole household are assembled. After an apology from the Cardinal, Cromwell speaks, in the same words which seem so offensive in the former context, " Although I have not received of your grace's gift one penny towards the in- crease of my yearly living, yet will I depart with you this towards the despatch of your servants," and gave him five pounds in gold. The chaplains follow the example, and the household receives its wages. Wolsey bemoaning himself, "Master Cromwell comforted him the best he could, and desired my lord to give him leave to go to London, where he would either make or mar, or he came again, which was always his common saying." So he departs, gets into Parliament in the strangest way, " meeting with one Sir Thomas Rush, Knight, a special friend of his, whose son was appointed to be one of the burgesses of that Parliament, of whom he obtained his room, and by that means put his foot into the Parliament House." In a day or two he comes again to Asher, " with a pleasanter countenance than he had at his departure." The same night, after long conference with Wolsey, he returns to London. And the end of it was that "There could nothing be spoken against my lord in the Parliament House, but he would answer it incontinent, or else take until the next day, against which time he would resort to my lord, to know what answer be should make in hits behalf, insomuch there was no matter alleged against my lord, but that he was ever ready, furnished with sufficient answer, so that at length, for his honest behaviour in his master's cause, he grew into such estimation in every man's opinion, that he was esteemed to be the most faithfullest servant to his master of all other, wherein he was of all men greatly commended." (Caven- dish's Life of Wavy, I., p. 194-208, Singer's Edition.)

After all, Shakespeare seems a preferable authority to Dr. Hook. William Warham, though his Primacy (1503-1532) coin- cides with the earlier period of the Reformation, person- ally belonged to the order that was passing away. The archbishops of the fifteenth century, though decorous enough,

had lost the saintly character of earlier times. They were lawyers and statesmen rather than ecclesiastics, and Warham was of the same type. He was absent on an embassy when he was elected to the See of London. He held the Great Seal during the first twelve years of his Primacy. When, ou the rise of Wolsey, he retired, riot unwillingly, from these absorbing occupa- tions, it was with learning rather than with theology that he occupied his leisure. He was educated at Winchester and New College, and spent his early manhood at the University. It was not till 1488 (he was born about 1450) that he removed to London. Five years afterwards he seems to have taken orders. Preferments, ecclesiastical and civil, were accumulated upon him. A rectory in Lincolnshire and another in Hertfordshire, the Pre- ceutorship of Wells, the Archdeaconry of Huntingdon, and the Headship of an Oxford Hall, were held together, with the office of Master of the Rolls, to which he was appointed iu 1494. He had previously been employed on a mission to the Duke of Bur- gundy, whose mother, Margaret, was the great patroness of Perkin Warbeck. His speech on this occasion gave great satis- faction to his master, if not to the prince to whom it was addressed, who must have been astonished to hear his mother spoken of in this fashion. " It is the strangest thing in the world that she, now stricken in years, should bring forth two such monsters [Lambert Simnel and Warbeck], being not a birth of nine or ten months, but of many years. And whereas other natural mothers bring forth children weak, and not able to help themselves, she bringeth forth tall striplings, able, soon after their coming into the world, to give battle tr" ghty kings." Other employment of the same kind was foLowed in 1501 by his advancement to the Bishopric of London, from which, two years afterwards, he was translated to Canterbury. During the remainder of Henry VIL's reign he continued to take a chief part in public affairs, though he never incurred the odium which fell upon the other Ministers of the King. With the new reign commenced a new order of things, with which he was not in harmony. In 1515 he retired from the Chan- cellorship ; when, shortly afterwards, Wolsey became a Car- dinal and a Papal legate, he ceased to be the first personage in the English Church. Thenceforward his part in history was little more than the official appearances which his high rank made necessary. His retirement from power had been caused by poli- tical change, by the more commanding position which European complications and the ability of Henry VIII. had given to England, but his churchmanship was as obsolete as his statesmanship.' He was ready to make such reforms as he understood, to cleanse away the corruptions of the Ecclesiastical Courts, or to make the Uni- versity of Oxford more efficient. But he did not comprehend the new ideas, nor had he the strong dogmatic faith which was wanted for a champion of the old. Happily for him, his time was finished. He passed away in extreme old age before the conflict had reached its height. It is, however, through his relations with a man in whom the new ideas were partly dominant that he is most interesting to us. Erasmus found in Warham the most constant and munificent of his patrons. The first meeting of the two- hardly augured such a result. A version of the Hecuba which had been used before more than once for a similar purpose, was placed in the hands of the Archbishop, and the doubtful compli- ment was acknowledged by the very smallest possible fee. The scholar, who had probably miscalculated the amount of the- great man's learning, made handsome amends for his error, and was in return presented to the Rectory of Aiding- ton, in Kent. Erasmus refused the living, which would have bound him to residence in England, but accepted a pen- sion of twenty pounds out of its revenues, and the Arch- bishop added out of his private purse an allowance of equal amount. From that time the generosity of the patron and the gratitude of the scholar suffered no interruption. " Of those who are kind to me," he says, " I place, in the first place, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. What genius! what copiousness ! what vivacity ! what facility in the most complicated discussions ! what erudition ! what politeness ! From Warham none ever parted in sorrow." Such praise, in an age of patronage and dedications, was often venal, and Erasmus was not always above selling his compliments. But he continued to speak of the dead as he had spoken of the living ; and his letters to his great friend seem to show something of a genuine affection. They give us a pleasing picture of Warham's private life. Whether or no he was, as Dr. Hook pronounces him to have been, " deeply

religious," he was a genial, honest, large-hearted man, splendid as became his station, but of simple personal tastes, and liberal in thought, at least beyond the generation which he outlived. What Erasmus described suits the shrewd but kindly face which Holbein painted. Between the two we get a vivid idea of his personality. It is a curious fact that Erasmus alludes in one passage to Warham's wife (conjugalis) and children. Dr. Hook conjectures that the secret of this marriage accounts for something like servility in Warham's conduct to Wolsey. There is, possibly, some significance in the use of conjugalis rather than the obvious conjux. The lady was everything that a wife should be, but could not be safely described by that title. But the fact of her existence, whatever her precise relation to the Archbishop may have been, was a very significant proof that the old ecclesiastical bonds were growing looser.

We hope, on some future occasion, to discuss the larger and more important portion of these volumes, the Life of Cranmer.