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Cabinet Portrait Gallery of British Worthies
Cabinet Portrait Gallery of British Worthies Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Beyond that of most of our great men, has the fame of Wiclif undergone fierce dispute within the last few years. From regarding him with reverence as "the ... more »Morning Star of the Reformation," it has come to be more than questioned whether he was a reformer at all, or whether a certain superior craft was not the motive that incited him throughout his career. It will be convenient to leave the consideration of this matter till we have looked at the leading events of his life, when we shall be better prepared to estimate his character. To assume a controversial tone—as it would be scarcely possible to avoid doing if we entered into the discussion of the various views and statements that have been put forth respecting him—is not at all our intention. We There are about twenty variations of the mode of spelling the.name. Wiclif, Wicliffe, and Wycliffe are the most common modes. In strict propriety we ought to -write De Wiclif. have examined the several statements ; we shall be content with expressing'our own opinions. There us some uncertainty .about both Lthe year and the place of John WicliPs birth: the place which seems most probable, however, is a little village pleasantly situated near the junction of the rivers Greta and Tees, about six miles from Richmond in Yorkshire ; the year 1324. What is known of his life commences with the year 1340, when he entered as a commoner at Queen's College, Oxford, then newly founded ; his name is in the list of the first scholars. From Queen's he soon removed to Merton College, at that time highest in repute at the University ; where he greatly distinguished Limself. The theology taught at this period was that of the schoolmen, who, as Bacon afterwards said of them, " did, out of no great quantity of matter, spin out those laborious ...« less