This bishop my author professes to reverence for his name's sake, and his predecessor's sake; and I much more for his own sake, and his virtues' sake. About the year 1570, he was vice-provost of Eton,<307> and (as the manner was in the schoolmaster's absence) would teach the school himself, and direct the boys for their exercises, (of which myself was one) of whom he showed as fatherly a care, as if he had been a second tutor to me. He was reputed there a very mild and good natured man, and esteemed a very good preacher, and free from that which St. Paul calleth idolatry, I mean covetousness; so that one may say probably, that as the first William Wykeham was one of the richest prelates that had been in Winchester in long time, and bestowed it well; so this was one of the poorest, and endured it well. He preached before the Queen at a parliament, I think the last time that ever he preached before her; and indeed it was cygnea vox, a "swan's song," sweetest, being nearest his end, which if I could set down as he delivered, were well worth the remembering. But the effect was this; that the temporalities of bishoprics, and lands of colleges, and such like, were from their beginning for the most part the graces, and gifts, and alms of princes, her Majesty's progenitors, that for some excesses and abuses of some of them, they had been and lawfully might be, some quite taken away, some altered, some diminished; and that accordingly they were now reduced to a good mediocrity; for though there were some far greater bishoprics in France, Spain, and Germany, yet there were some also less, and meaner, even in Italy. But yet he most humbly besought her Majesty to make stay of them at least in this mediocrity; for if they should decay so fast in 30 year to come, as they had for 30 year past, there would hardly be a cathedral church found in good repair within England; which inconvenience (he said) would soon spread from the clergy to the temporality, that would have cause with Hippocrates' twins, to laugh and weep together. This, as he spoke zealously, so the Q. gave ear to it graciously; and some good effect was supposed to follow it, for which they both now feel their reward: and thus much of Wickham.

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