To  put  the  case  in  other  words  : — while  the  classi
cal  importations  from  Italy  ought  to  have  their  full
share  of  credit  for  opening  the  eyes  of  the  early
Reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century,  while  we  cannot
but  observe  how  the  next  generation  were  influenced
by  the  contemplation  of  the  furious  struggle  going  on
in  Germany,  while  we  cannot  refuse  to  perceive  the
great  part  played  by  the  personal  character  of  Henry
the  Eighth,  we  are  also  called  upon  to  give  its  full
weight  to  the  gradual  education  of  the  English  people,
which  had  been  steadily  proceeding  beneath  the  sur
face  of  society  ever  since  Wiclif 's  time.  It  is  not  too
much  to  say  that  it  saved  the  English  Reformation
from  the  extravagances  and  errors  which  naturally
sprang  from  the  comparative  suddenness  of  the  change
elsewhere.  We  are  all,  in  short,  familiar  enough  with
the  fact  that  it  was  through  the  powerful  impulse
given  by  Wiclif 's  works  that  the  principles  of  the  Re
formation  made  their  way  in  Bohemia,  from  thence

*  See  the  Preface  of  Forshall  and  Madden,  p.  xxxiv.,  and  Mr.
Babington's  Introduction  to  the  Represser.
SECRET  GROWTH  OF  REFORMATION.      25

(through  the  foul  proceedings  of  the  Council  of  Con
stance)  to  all  Europe,  and  becoming  transplanted  into
the  German  mind,  that  they  assisted  Luther  in  bringing
about  the  Reformation  with  which  we  associate  his
name.  But  the  circumstances  we  have  reviewed  have
contributed  to  obscure  the  equally  certain  fact  of  the
irrepressible  growth  and  steady  development  of  these
principles  for  generations,  through  Wiclif's  works,  in
England  itself;  and  the  history  of  the  English  Re
formation  is  unintelligible  without  it.
