tion all the machinery at their command in order to apprehend or discover the whereabouts of the miscreant or miscreants who had exploded the alarming shell, another explosion took place. This was the appearance of the Epitome which had been promised in the Epistle.

Martin, chuckling, as it were, in his hiding-place, begins by bantering the bishops: "Why my cleargie masters, is it euen so with your terriblenes? May not a pore gentleman signifie his good will vnto you by a Letter, but presently you must put your selues to the paines and charges of calling foure Bishops together, Iohn Canterburie, Iohn London, Thomas Winchester, William of Lincolne, and posting ouer citie and countrie for poore Martin? Why, his meaning in writing vnto you was not that you should take the paines to seeke for him. Did you thinke that he did not know where he was himselfe ? Or did you thinke him to haue bene cleane lost, that you sought so diligently for him? I thanke you, brethren, I can be well though you do not send to knowe how I do. My mind towards you, you shal from time to time vnderstand by my pistles. I haue been entertayned at the Court. Euerye man talks of my worship. Many would gladly receiue my books if they could tell where to find them."

The four bishops were John Whitgift, John Aylmer, Thomas Cooper, and William Wickham, and for none of them has Martin a good word to spare. The first two were specially obnoxious. "Of all the bishops that ever were in that place, I meane in the see of Canterbury,

none did neuer so much hurt vnto the Church of God as he hath done since his coming."

The Bishops on their defence. The answer of the bishops to the Epistle-not to the Epitome, for beyond a mere general reference there was no answer to that— was issued in a quarto book of 252 pages, with the title, An Admonition to the People of England: wherein are ansrvered, not onely the slaunderous untruethes, reprochfully vttered by Martin the Libeller, but also many other Crimes by some of his broode, obiected generally against all Bishops, and the chiefe of the Cleargie, purposely to deface and discredite the present state of the Church, etc.

The preface was signed by "T. C.," bishop of Winchester. If the bishops had been anxious to do all in their power to write up Martin Marprelate, and confer notoriety on his tracts, they could not have had recourse to tactics more admirably adapted for this purpose. Where one bought and read "the solemn and apologetic Admonition," scores eagerly purchased the Epistle and Epitome, and gave willing credence to what they contained.

The fourth of these rattling pasquinades (we pass over the third) was a reply to the Admonition of Bishop Cooper. It opened with a lively appropriation of words used as one of the street cries of London

Hay any worke for Cooper: or a briefe Pistle, etc..., wherein worthy Martin quits himselfe like a man, I warrant you, in the modest defence of his selfe and his learned Pistles, and makes the Coopers hoopes to flye off, and the Bishops' Tubs to leake out of all crye [out of all estimation, i.e.

excessively]. Penned and Compiled by Martin the Metropolitane. Printed in Europe, not farre from some of the Bounsing Priestes.

It was while printing this tract that the printing press of Martin Marprelate was seized at Manchester. But the effect in the way of arresting his surprising activity was only momentary. The dragon-teeth had been sown, and there sprang from them an unfailing progeny. Within a fortnight's time another press was at work, and another tract appeared, entitled, The Protestatyon of Martin Marprelat, wherein notwithstanding the surprizing of the printer, he maketh it known into the world that he feareth neither proud priest, Antichristian pope, tiranous prellate, nor godlesse catercap [four-cornered cap, hence, university student], etc.

The ridicule of the

By this time, however, others besides the bishops had taken up the cudgels, not so much, however, on their behalf as with the intention of retaliating upon Martin, and giving him as good as he gave. stage was called into requisition, and pamphlets as scurrilous, if not quite as clever, as Martin's began to appear upon the other side. These were Pappe with an Hatchet1 and An Almond for a Parrot, a rhyming tract of seven pages, entitled, A Whip for an Ape, etc. They were supposed to have been written by Thomas Nash, John Lyly, etc.

1

The Puritans renounce Martin and his works.—

Pappe with an Hatchet is as characteristic as any, and may be read in Elizabethan and Jacobean Pamphlets, edited by George Saintsbury, London (Percival & Co.), where it is attributed to John Lyly.

It must not be supposed for a moment that in this series of pamphlets Martin was the acknowledged spokesman of the Puritans. The "sturdy Puritans, who were supposed to fight behind the shield of this visored knight," were, on the contrary, displeased with this rattling and abusive attack upon the authorities of Church and State.1

"The Puritans are angrie with me, I mean the puritane preachers. And why? Because I am to[o] open Because I iest. I did thinke that Martin shoulde not haue beene blamed of the puritans for telling the trueth openly."-Epitome.

It is not to be wondered at that Cartwright and many like-minded Puritans disapproved of the Martinist publications as a "kind of disorderly doings," and were at pains to disown all sympathy with them. They naturally wished that Presbyterianism should be seen in its sobersuited apparel; the motley garb of Martin Marprelate did not at all accord with their sense of the fitness of things, and, besides this, it tended to prejudice the discipline (so they thought) in the eyes of the people of England.

1 Another proof of Mr. Maskell's temper as a controversialist is furnished by his affecting to doubt that they were disapproved at the time by the Puritan leaders. "It is not enough that they should disclaim him [Martin] after, before the council-board, with the terrors in the distance of the Tower and the rack, or before the Court of High Commission; it is not enough that Neal, their professed historian in after years, and their apologist, should speak of Martin in terms of reprobation, and (which proves either his utter ignorance or wilful lying) class him and his opponents in the same style as equally obnoxious to the members of the Government."Maskell's Martin Marprelate, p. 102. See Mr. Hunt's comment on this, History of Religious Thought, vol. i. p. 105.

Martin Marprelate defended. He who would play the rôle of apologist for the Martinist tracts would seem to need an unusual measure of courage, not to say effrontery, in view of the strictures and objurgations that have been cast upon them, not only by Anglican but by Puritan writers, and also by writers whose judgment runs no risk, apparently, of being deflected by ecclesiastical sympathies. They are "coarse, scurrilous, and indecent pasquinades," never surpassed in scurrility and malignity.

It is impossible," says Canon Curteis, "to give any extracts from these abominable and filthy lampoons." Had the Rev. Canon done what he says is impossible, this swearing at large might have been curbed, and his readers might have been left to judge for themselves (supposing the extracts had been at all copious and representative) how far they answer to the description he gives of them.

Well may Dr. Dexter say that English literature perhaps contains no clearer illustration than is furnished by this controversy of the tendency to speak strongly on scant or insufficient knowledge. Let us hear Mr. Arber, who, in the interest of historic truth, and with no bias other than the desire to unfold the real meaning of it, has made an independent and special study of this controversy. "Hitherto," he says, "the Martinists have been largely vilified, their works considered blasphemous, and their purposes treasonable. There is neither blasphemy nor treason to be found in their writings. Their authors, confessedly men of irreproachable moral character, merely adopted the 'extemporising' style of Richard Tarleton, the actor,