licly burnt more than 200 volumes of them, adorned with costly covers and gold bosses. About the same time many of his books were likewise burnt at Oxford. But the works of Wicliffe were so multiplied, that all these attempts of bigotted malice were impotent to annihilate perhaps any one of his numerous compositions. Bishop Bale, who flourished in the 16th century, affirmed that he had seen about 150 treatises of Dr. Wicliffe, some of them in Latin, and others in English, besides many translations of several books. Many of his tracts were first published in Latin, and afterward in English. To give even a catalogue of his works, would far exceed the bounds proper to allot to this article; but the curious reader is referred to the 9th chapter of Lewis's Life of of Wicliffe, from which work this account has chiefly been drawn. The fullest catalogue, however, of his writings, is that of bishop Tanner, in his Bibliotheca Hibernica.

It has been already observed, that the first objects of his religious censures, were the mendicant friars, whose numbers and encroachments had increased at this period to an alarming degree. That the uninformed reader may form a more correct idea of the justice of these

censures, I shall extract the following brief account of these orders of friars from Mr. Ellis:

"In consequence of the many abuses which had gradually perverted the monastic institutions, it became necessary, about the beginning of the thirteenth century, to establish a new class of friars, who, possessing no regular revenues, and relying for a subsistence on the general reverence which they should attract by superior talent, or severer sanctity of manners, should become the effectual and permanent support of the papal authority against those heresies which were beginning to infect the church, as well as against the jealousy of the civil power. The new institution consisted of four mendicant orders: the Franciscans, who were also called friars-minors, or minorities, or grey-friars the Augustine, or Austin-friars: the Dominicans, or friars-preachers, or blackfriars and the Carmelites, or white-friars.

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For the purpose of quickening their zeal, the popes bestowed on them many new and uncommon privileges; the right of travelling where they pleased, of conversing with persons of all descriptions, of instructing youth, and of hearing confessions, and bestowing absolution without reserve: and as these advantages na

turally attracted to the privileged orders all the novices who were distinguised by zeal or talent, excited their emulation, and ensured the respect of the people, they quickly eclipsed all their rivals, and realised the most sanguine hopes that had been entertained from their esta blishment.

"The mendicant orders of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but particularly the Dominicans, very nearly resembled the Jesuits of modern times. In these orders were found the most learned men, and the most popular preachers of the age. The almost exclusive charge of the national education enabled them to direct the public taste and opinions; the confessional chair placed the consciences of their penitents at their disposal; and their leading members, having discovered that an association in which individual talents are systematically directed to some general purpose is nearly irresistible, soon insinuated themselves into the most important offices of church and state, and guided at their will the religion and politics of Europe. But prosperity, as usual, made them indolent and impudent. They had long been envied and hated, and the progress of general civilization raised up numberless ri

vals, possessing equal learning, ambition, and versatility of manners, with superior activity and caution. They quarrelled among themselves, and thus lost the favour and reverence of the people; and they were at last gradually sinking into insignificance, when they were swallowed up in the general wreck of monastic institutions.

"The magnificence of their edifices, which excited universal envy, was the frequent topic of Wicliffe's invective."

Wicliffe thus exposes their practice of inveigling the youth of the University into their

convents:

Freres, (says he) draweth children from Christ's religion, into their private order, by hypocrisy, lesings, and stealing. For they tellen that their order is more holy than any other, and that they shoulden have higher degree in the bliss of heaven than other men 'that bin not therein, and seyn that men of their order should never come to hell, but should dome other men with Christ at doomsday. And so they stealen children fro fader and moder, sometime such as ben unable to the order, and sometime such as shoulden sustain their fader and moder, by the commandment 2 lying.

1 Friars.

of God; and thus they ben blasphemers taking upon full counsel in doubty1 things that ben not expressly commanded ne forbidden in holy writ; sith such councel is appropred to the Holy Ghost, and thus they ben therefore cursed of God as the Pharisees were of Christ.

The number of scholars in the two Universities in the thirteenth century was prodigious. The famous Richard Fitz-Ralph, archbishop of Armagh, in an oration against the mendicant friars, pronounced before the pope and cardinals in 1357, declares that in his time, the number of students had diminished from 30,000 to 6000, in the University of Oxford. This astonishing diminution he attributed to the arts of those friars, who enticed so many young men into their monasteries, that parents were afraid to send their sons to the University.

Of the ignorance of the clergy of his time, he assures us;

That there were many unable curates that kunnen not the ten commandments, ne read their sauter, ne understond a verse of it. Nay, that it was then no3 knew.

1 doubtful.

* appropriated.