Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/147

 the first hopes of eager and earnest reformers been doomed to extinction—and how often in the long run has the original failure been the groundwork of eventual success!

No section of Wyclifs public life stands in greater need of elucidation than the eight years from 1366 to 1374. One would gladly know the terms of the intimacy, the nature of the understanding, between him and the young Duke of Lancaster. Where, in what circumstances, and how often did they meet? In what vein did they discuss the tendencies of the time and the chances of an effective Reformation? How far did their mutual obligations lead them in a common course of action? The historical romancer might paint for us their interviews and report their conversation. By some happy instinct he might hit upon their several motives and policies, and show us the grave, acute, strong-minded, and feeble-bodied priest, advising and restraining the impatient prince, who at this time would have been little more than half his age, and whose headstrong vehemence must now and again have filled the more prudent Reformer (himself no mincer of speech) with uneasy qualms. But imagination will not fill the gap which is left by facts. In the absence of such personal details as we could only learn from an autobiography, or from the narrative of a friendly contemporary, or from letters written at the time,—and no one can say that we have yet put our hands upon all the important manuscripts bearing on this age—we must be content to take the measure of the conditions by which Wyclif was surrounded,