tions, is mounted on a green horse. It was in this same year, that Tyndale was treacherously betrayed and imprisoned. 1534, Sir Thomas More, in the examination of persons accused of heresy, especially such as had come from Flanders or Germany, questioned them minutely as to their knowledge of Tyndale. He had thus obtained a description of his person, dress, habits, friends, and places of resort. He now lodged in the English house or factory, which was kept by a merchant, Thomas Pointz. Henry VIII. and his council suborned and employed one Henry Phillips, the son of a custom-house officer at Poole, of gentlemanly appearance, who, with a valet, came to Antwerp: having made acquaintance with some of the merchants, he met Tyndale, and he, without suspicion, placed a fatal confidence in him, and invited him to his apartments. Pointz, having some suspicion, asked Tyndale how they became acquainted; to which he replied, that he was an honest man and handsomely learned ; and Pointz, finding that he had made so favourable an impression on his learned friend, desisted from further inquiry. Phillips, after having for some time dined at his table and partaken of his hospitality, went to Brussels, and with great pains and expense obtained a warrant to apprehend Tyndale for heresy. To execute it, he brought back with him the procurer-general and his officials, not daring to trust the officers of Antwerp, where his victim was so much beloved. Having detained these persons at Antwerp until Pointz had left that city on business, he then called at the house of Pointz, and Tyndale invited him to go and dine with him at the house of one of his friends, assuring him of a hearty welcome. The villain then, under a pretence of having lost his purse, borrowed of his unsuspecting victim all his money. In passing through the narrow entry of the hotel, Phillips, with apparent courtesy, insisted on Tyndale going first; and, as his victim was much shorter than himself, when they came to the door, he pointed down on Tyndale: immediately the officers whom he had placed there, seized him together with all his books and papers. He was in this pennyless condition conveyed to the prison at Vilvoord, a village at the ford between Brussels and Malines, on the road to Antwerp. If ever there was seen the perfection of unprincipled villany, to the utter disgrace of human nature, it was in this diabolical agent to the Roman Catholic party in England, -Phillips. Every effort which the most affectionate regard and veneration for Tyndale could prompt, was made by Pointz and the British merchants at Antwerp, to obtain the liberation of their beloved pastor; but it was in vain. Letters were immediately dispatched to Lord Cromwell and others in England; and favourable answers having arrived, Pointz, at the request of the body of English merchants, went with the communications to the Lord of Barowe, following him post to Maestricht, that he might deliver them in person, and with great difficulty he obtained his answer. With this he hastened to Brussels. The imperial council gave him a letter to Lord Cromwell, and Pointz undertook to carry it in person to London with all possible speed. Here he was detained for a month, but, by perseverance and interest, he obtained favourable letters, with which he went direct to Brussels. His zeal for the pious preacher nearly cost him his life; for Phillips, finding that these powerful efforts were likely to succeed, managed, by the aid of the Roman Catholic priests at Louvain, to have Pointz arrested on suspicion of heresy, and committed to prison. Within one week he was examined upon more than a hundred articles. He was prohibited from intercourse with his friends, unless his letters were written in the Dutch language and sent through the medium of his persecutors. Finding that his life was in imminent danger, he broke out of his prison by night, and made his escape. Still, although under such perilous circumstances, he persevered in his efforts to save the life of Tyndale. On the 25th of August, 1535, he wrote to his brother in London a letter honourable to his pious and affectionate regard for his friend and pastor.* "It was said that the King had written in favour of William Tyndall, now in prison, and like to suffer death, and it is feared that these letters have been intercepted. This letter is preserved in the Cottonian MSS. The spelling is in some instances altered, to render it easily intelligible. This man lodged with me three quarters of a yere.-I know that the King has never a treuer hearted subject this day living. He knows that he is bound by the law of God to obey his prince; and I know well that he would not do the contrary to be made lorde of the worlde. The death of this man will be a great hindraunce to the Gospel; and to the enemies of it, one of the highest pleasures. I fear that he will be shortly condemned, for two English men at Louvain apply it sore, taking great pains to translate out of English into Latin, those things that may make against him, so that the clergy here may understand it and condemn him, as they have done all others, for keeping apenyonys contrary to their business, the which they call the order of holy church. Brother, the knowledge that I have of this man causes me to write as my conscience binds me. For the king's grace should esteem him at this day as a greater treasure than any one man living." Pointz was a wealthy and highly respectable man, who, in a few years after these melancholy transactions, returned to England, and obtained an act of parliament to naturalize his children. The character which he gave Tyndale, and his efforts, at the imminent risk of his own life, to save him, show the high estimation in which this pious, talented, and amiable man was held by those who enjoyed his society. The British merchants who constantly associated with him, knew his worth, and esteemed him accordingly. The letter of Pointz, sent to Lord Cromwell, is preserved among the state papers in the British Museum. Tyndale's imprisonment lasted nearly two years, during which time he was incessantly employed in the great object of extending the genial influence of pure religion. His amiable and pious conduct obtained for him every indulgence that could be allowed to a prisoner, which enabled him to carry on a sharp controversy with the professors at the neighbouring university of Louvain. In his imprisonment, he redeemed his pledge given to the priest in Gloucestershire many years before, that the ploughboys should have the New Testament to read. In 1535, was printed a very curious edition of Tyndale's version. In this he imitated the plan of Luther, who published the New Testament in three different [G] dialects of Germany. Following this plan, he printed the revised version of the preceding year in a provincial orthography, probably that of his native county; peculiarly adapted to agricultural labourers. From a copy in my library, late the property of Dr. Adam Clarke, I extract the following specimen :-holly cite, for holy city; saeyde, aengels, wayghthyer, foete, behoelde, broether, faether, moether, tacken, agaeynst, theacheth, graece, cloocke for cloke, maester, saefe, shaeke, &c. &c. To this book was added the heads of chapters, as far as I have been able to discover, for the first time. The termination of his invaluable life, and of all his sufferings, now drew nigh. His anticipations of release from sin and sorrow, and an exaltation to the bliss of angels, his desires to join the bright and glorious company of heaven, were about to be realized. He who said, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul," most eminently comforted and supported his servant. Having exhorted others to constancy, he was now to practise the fiery lesson. The formalities of a trial were gone through, and he was condemned by virtue of a decree made at Augsburg against what was called heresy. In September, 1536, he suffered the dreadful sentence. In a moment so appalling, he exhibited that calm firmness and patient resignation which arose from a sure hope of immediate enjoyments indescribable and full of the eternal weight of glory. While he calmly viewed the dread preparations to deprive him of life, and burn his body, his heart mourned over England. His last thoughts were for the eternal welfare of his country, and his dying voice called for mercy on his unrelenting persecutor. He cried out at the stake, "LORD, OPEN THE King of England's eyes." He was then strangled; and long ere his body was reduced to ashes, his soul had commenced the glorious anthems of the redeemed of God, who had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. "Rome thundred death, but Tyndale's dauntless eye Looked in death's face and smiled, death standing by. Many times have I stood upon the spot, a rising ground near the prison at Vilvoord, where these awful cruelties were inflicted; and my soul has felt humbled at the recollection of the atrocious deeds of my fellow men. Here, during the revolution at Brussels in 1830, I was taken prisoner by a detachment of Dutch troops, and for about two hours was detained in the prison built on the ruins of the castle where the immortal Tyndale was confined. Inquiries which I had formerly made of an aged jailor, were renewed to the one who had taken his place. For a moment, the sickening horrors of war, the sound of the artillery, the wretchedness of the fugitives, the wounded and the dying, were effaced by these eager inquiries; but no vestige of the martyr remained. Several times I have searched the archives at Brussels; but, although most kindly assisted by a friend high in the establishment, |