son of John Cox, of the city of Monmouth. His mother's name was Elizabeth Willey. He was educated at Cambridge, where he took his bachelor's degree in arts, but at what college is not known. In 1528 he went to Oxford, and was incorporated in the same degree in February 1529. He supplicated also for the degree of M. A. but it does not appear that he was admitted to it. About this time he became master of Reading school; and was living there, in great esteem, at the time when Fryth, the martyr, was first persecuted by being set in the stocks. Cox, who soon discovered his merit by his conversation, relieved his wants, and out of regard to his learning, procured his release. In 1532 he published "The art or craft of Rhetoryke," inscribed to Hugh Farington, abbot of Reading, in which he divides his subject into four parts, invention, judgment, disposition, and eloquence in speaking; but the present treatise is confined to the first. In 1540 he published "Commentaries on William Lilly's construction of the eight parts of speech," which are mentioned in Dr. Ward's edition of Lilly's grammar; and, according to Wood, he translated from Greek into Latin, "Marcus Eremita de lege et spiritu;" and from Latin into English, "The paraphrase of St. Paul's Epistle to Titus," by Erasmus, with whom he was well acquainted. These, Wood says, were published in 1540, but by a MS note of Mr. Baker, we are told, that the paraphrase of Erasmus was published in 1549, at which time, the author says, "he was then in hand" with Eremita, who had written "on the law and the spirit," and "of them that thynke to be justyfyed by their works."

In 1541, Henry VIII. granted him, by patent, the office of master of the grammar-school of Reading, with a certain tenement called "a scole-house," with a stipend of ten pounds, issuing out of the manor of Cholsey, belonging to the late dissolved monastery of Reading. A few years after he had obtained this patent, which he appears to have had the power of assigning during his life, he quitted Reading, and travelled over great part of the continent, teaching the learned languages. Leland, in some Latin verses, among his "Encomia," addressed to Cox, speaks of his visiting the universities of Prague, Paris, and Cracow, and that he was known to Melancthon, who was Greek professor at Wittemberg. In the latter part of his life he kept a school at Caer-leon, and is said to have sur

vived until the reign of Edward VI. Bale says that he was instructed in all the liberal arts, that he was a grammarian, a rhetorician, and a poet; a sound divine, and a diligent preacher of God's word. It is needless after this to add that he was of the reformed religion. In Edward VIth's time, he was one of the licensed preachers.1

COX (RICHARD), a learned English bishop, was born at Whaddon in Buckinghamshire, of mean parentage, in the year 1499. He had probably his first education in the small priory of Snelshall, in the parish of Whaddon; but being afterwards sent to Eton-school, he was elected into a scholarship at King's college in Cambridge, of which he became fellow in the year 1519. Having the same year taken his bachelor of arts degree, and being eminent for his piety and learning, he was invited to Oxford by cardinal Wolsey, to fill up his new foundation. He was accordingly preferred to be one of the junior canons of Cardinal college; and on the 7th of December, 1525, was incorporated bachelor of arts at Oxford, as he stood at Cambridge. Soon after, having performed his exercises, he took the degree of M. A. July 2, 1526, and at this time was reputed one of the greatest scholars of his age; and even his poetical compositions were in great esteem. His piety and virtue were not inferior to his learning, and commanded the respect of all impartial persons. But shewing himself averse to many of the popish superstitions, and declaring freely for some of Luther's opinions, he incurred the displeasure of his superiors, who stripped him of his preferment, and threw him into prison on suspicion of heresy. When he was released from his confinement, he left Oxford; and, some time after, was chosen master of Eton-school, which flourished under his care. In 1537, he commenced doctor in divinity at Cambridge, and December 4, 1540, was made archdeacon of Ely; as he was also appointed in 1541, the first prebendary in the first stall of the same cathedral, upon its being new founded by king Henry VIII. September 10, 1541. He was likewise, June 3, 1542, presented by the same king to the prebend of Sutton with Buckingham in the church of Lincoln, and installed the 11th of that month, but this he surrendered up in 1547. In the year 1543, he supplicated the univer

1 Ath. Ox. vol. I-Coates's Hist. of Reading.-Warton's Hist. of Poetry, vol. II, 446, III. 33t.-Jortin's Life of Erasmus.

sity of Oxford, that he might take place among the doctors of divinity there, which was unusual, because he was not then incorporated in that degree, but this took place in June 1545. When a design was formed, of converting the collegiate church of Southwell into a bishopric, Dr. Cox was nominated bishop of it. On the 8th of January, 1543-4, he was made the second dean of the new-erected cathedral of Osney near Oxford; and in 1546, when that see was translated to Christ church, he was also made dean there. These promotions he obtained by the interest of archbishop Cranmer and bishop Goodrich, to the last of whom he had been chaplain; and, by their recommendation, he was chosen tutor to the young prince Edward, whom he instructed with great care in the true principles of religion, and formed his tender mind to an early sense of his duty, both as a Christian and a king. On that prince's accession to the throne, he became a great favourite at court, and was made a privy-counsellor, and the king's almoner. The 21st of May, 1547, he was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford; installed July 16, 1548, canon of Windsor; and the next year made dean of Westminster. About the same time he was appointed one of the commissioners to visit the university of Oxford, in which he and his brother commissioners destroyed some of the most valuable treasures in the libraries, from a notion that they encouraged popery and conjuration *. In 1550, he was ordered to go down into Sussex, and endeavour by his learned and affecting sermons, to quiet the minds of the people, who had been disturbed by the factious preaching of Day bishop of Chichester, a violent papist: and when the noble design of reforming the canon law was in agitation, he was appointed one of the commissioners. Both in this and the former reign, when an act passed for giving all chantries,

Importantly as the reformation contributed to the interests of literature, it is impossible to withhold the deepest regret from the shocking havoc made at this time in the public libraries. Nor was this a matter reserved to be felt in the present age, when we suffer so much from the want of the valuable helps to history, &c. with which these repositories abouuded. The evil was deplored at the time it took place, not only by the popish party, but by some of the most zealous among the reformed. See in particular, bishop Bale, in,

the preface to his "Declarations on Leland's journey and search for England's Antiquities." Life of Leland, 1772, 8vo. He mentions, of his own knowledge, a merchant who bought the contents of two libraries for forty shillings, and used them for ten years as waste-paper. Cox, we lament to say, countenanced these enormities, although Wood, in his History of the University, allows that he took other measures which were highly beneficial to the interests of the church and universities.

colleges, &c. to the king, through Dr. Cox's powerful intercession, the colleges in both universities were excepted out of that act. In November 1552, he resigned the office of chancellor of Oxford; and soon after queen Mary's accession to the crown, he was stripped of his preferments; and on the 15th of August, 1553, committed to the Marshalsea. He was indeed soon discharged from this confinement; but foreseeing the inhuman persecution likely to ensue, he resolved to quit the realm, and withdraw to some place where he might enjoy the free exercise of his religion, according to the form established in the reign of king Edward. With this view he went first to Strasburgh in Germany, where he heard with great concern of some English exiles at Francfort having thrown aside the English Liturgy, and set up a form of their own, framed after the French and Geneva models. On the 13th of March 1555, he came to Francfort in order to oppose this innovation, and to have the Common-Prayer-Book settled among the English congregation there, which he had the satisfaction to accomplish. Then he returned to Strasburgh for the sake of conversing with Peter Martyr, with whom he had contracted an intimate friendship at Oxford, and whom he loved and honoured for his great learning and moderation. After the death of queen Mary he returned to England; and was one of those divines who were appointed to revise the Liturgy. When a disputation was to be held at Westminster between eight papists and eight of the reformed clergy, he was the chief champion on the protestants' side. He preached often before queen Elizabeth in Lent; and, in his sermon at the opening of her first parliament, exhorted them in most affecting terms to restore religion to its primitive purity, and banish all the popish innovations and corruptions. These excellent discourses, and the great zeal he had shewn in support of the English liturgy at Francfort, so effectually recommended him to the queen's esteem, that in June 1559, she nominated him to the bishopric of Norwich; but altering her mind, preferred him to the see of Ely in July 1559, in the room of Dr. Thirlby, who was deprived. Before his consecration (Dec. 19) he joined with Dr. Parker, elect archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishops elect of London, Chichester, and Hereford, in a petition to the queen, against an act lately passed for the alienating and exchanging the lands and revenues of the bishops; and sent

her several arguments from scripture and reason against the lawfulness of it; observing withal, the many evils and inconveniencies both to church and state that would thence arise. In 1559 we find him again appointed one of the visitors of the university of Oxford, but this visitation was conducted so moderately as to obtain a letter of thanks to queen Elizabeth for the services of the commissioners. He enjoyed the episcopal dignity about twenty-one years and seven months, and was justly considered one of the chief pillars and ornaments of the church of England, having powerfully co-operated with archbishop Parker, and his successor Grindal, in restoring our church in the same beauty and good order it had enjoyed in king Edward's reign. He indeed gave some offence to the queen by his zealous opposition to her retaining the crucifix and lights on the altar of the Chapel Royal, and his strenuous defence of the lawfulness of the marriage of the clergy, to which the queen was always an enemy. He was a liberal patron to all learned men whom he found well affected to the church; and shewed a singular esteem for Dr. Whitgift, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, made him his chaplain, and gave him the rectory of Teversham in Cambridgeshire, and a prebend of Ely. He did his utmost to get a body of ecclesiastical laws established by authority of parliament; but through the opposition of some of the chief courtiers, this design miscarried a third time. As he had, in his exile at Francfort, been the chief champion against the innovations of the puritans, he still continued, with some vigour and resolution, to oppose their attempts against the discipline and ceremonies of the established church. At first he tried to reclaim them by gentle means; but finding that they grew more audacious, and reviled both church and bishops in scurrilous libels, he wrote to archbishop Parker, to go on vigorously in reclaiming or punishing them, and not be disheartened at the frowns of those court-favourites who protected them; assuring him that he might expect the blessing of God on his pious labours to free the church from their dangerous

This was the book entitled "Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum," compiled by order of king Henry VIII. and Edward VI. out of the canon and civil law. Thirty-two persons were commissioned for that work, but archbishop Cranmer was the principal, and

it was translated into elegant Latin by sir John Cheke, and Dr. Haddon, regius professor of the civil law in the university of Cambridge. It was first published in 1571, and again in 1640, 4to.