OP FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 51 



who know sucla a suspicion to be ill-founded, he stands exposed to 

 the full force of the accusation, that he purposely shunned details, 

 lest he should be obliged to make his hero *^ a hissing and a curse," 

 not being quite prepared to affirm, with the sycophant of old, that 

 *' every act of a ruler must be just."* 



The great intellect of his fellow prisoner and sufferer. Sir Thomas 

 More, the public and conspicuous part which he had so long and 

 early acted,t have helped to obscure the fame of Fisher, although 

 several distinguished ProtestantJ writers have cited him as an ex- 

 ample of sanctity, purity, and charity, and extolled him for his 

 warm devotion to the cause of letters. Admirably well does he de- 

 serve their commendation in both respects. His appointment to 

 the see of Rochester originated from a feeling on the part of Henry 

 VII., shared, if we are to believe their biographers, by sovereigns 

 of a later period, though not keeping a sufficiently firm hold upon 

 their minds to urge them, like that monarch, to atong for the mis- 

 chievous effects which have resulted from preferring the unworthy 

 to the worthy. In writing to his mother, the Countess of Rich- 

 mond, the king confesses that he had ^' promoted many a man un- 

 advisedly ; and I wolde now," he proceeds, " make some recom- 

 pencon to promote some good and vertuouse men ;" and he, there- 

 fore, desires to appoint her confessor. Master Fisher, " for none 

 other cause but for the grate and singular virtue that I know and 

 se in him as well in conyng and natural wisdome, and specially for 

 his good and vertuouse lyving."§ 



This striking fact alone ought to have painted the Bishop of Ro- 

 chester, in Burnett's eyes, as one of those truly pious Roman catho- 

 lics deserving of the reverence of posterity. It would also have been 

 a safe duty to have shewn, in strong colours, Fisher's love and encou- 



* na» TO -r^ux^iv hi-o rov Xi^ctrouvroi 5/»a/ov. — Plut. Opera., Franc, 1599, v. i., 

 p. 039. Such was the langua^with which Anaxarchus consoled Alexander 

 for the murder of Cljtus. 



f Even when " a bearded boy," as Wolsey styled him, his eloquence was 

 so commanding as a public speaker, that he prevailed on the House of Com- 

 mons to withhold a grant of money to the crown. See the history of his 

 brilliant life, by Roper, his son-in-law ; Singer's edit, p. 12. 



% See Fuller, Strype, Wharton, Collier, Hume, &c. &c. " All," say the 

 authors of the Biographia Britannica, " acknowledge that he was a sober 

 man, pious, temperate, charitable, and an encourager of letters." 



§ See the letter in the Appendix to the Funeral Sermon of Margaret 

 Countess of Richmond, edit. 1708, p. 41. Mr. Butler, therefore, is evidently 

 mistaken when he says, that Henry VIII. raised him to the see of Roches- 

 ter — Historical Memoirs of Oie English Catholics, v. i., p. 169. 



