.A Forgotten Great Englishman. By James Baker. (R.T.S.) — This "forgotten
great Englishman" is Peter Payne, a follower
of Wyclif. He was Principal of St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, early in the fifteenth century. In the year 1417 " he was re- ceived," Mr. Baker tells us, "among the Professors of Prague University." For many years after that time he was a leader among the Hussites, both in peace and war. He is supposed to have lived on till the year 1455, and so to have ended his days in peace. At that time he must have been in extreme old age. In Bohemia he is still remembered : in his own country he seems to be quite forgotten, though his name is found among the Principals of St. Edmund's Hall. Mr. Baker gives an interesting account of his search for some further memorials of the man, in his native village of Hough-on-the-Hill, and at Oxford. Every one seems to have been anxious to help, with the one exception of the person who most certainly had the most leisure of all. It is curious to contrast the prompt assistance given by such busy men as Professor Freeman and Bodley's Librarian with the indif- ference of the country parson who was too busy to answer a letter, or give a few uninterrupted minutes to an obviously dis- interested inquirer. All that Mr. Baker could discover at Hough was that the Payne family lived there as well-to-do squires some way into the last century. The heiress married into the Brownlow family.
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