Excerpt from Illustrations of English Literature: First Year Course

It has very often come into my mind what wise men there formerly were throughout England, belonging both to sacred and secular orders, llld how happy were the times then throughout England; and how the kings who had power over the people in those days obeyed God and his ministers; and how they preserved both their peace and their morals and their rule at home, and also enlarged their country and how they sped both in war and wisdom; and also how eager the ecclesiastical orders were both in teaching and learning, and in all the services they had to perform to God and how wisdom and learning were sought in this land from without, and how we should have to obtain them now front abroad if we had to acquire them. So com pletely had learning fallen away in England that there were very few on this side of Humber who could understand their church services in English, or indeed translate a letter from Latin into English and I think there were not many beyond Humber. So few of them were there that I cannot bethink me of a single one south of the Thames when I came to the throne. God be thanked that we have any supply of teachers now. When I remembered this, then I wondered very, very much at the good and wise men who formerly lived throughout England and had learned all books thoroughly, because they did not desire to translate any part of them into their own tongue. But then I soon answered myself and said, They did not think that men would ever be so careless in teaching, and learning so decayed; of set purpose they neglected to do so, and desired that there might be more wisdom in the land, the more languages we knew.

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