Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/42

 More than a century later, Dr. Shirley edited the Fasciculi for the Rolls Series, adding an introduction and notes which have stood the test of further research with conspicuous and exceptional success. From that time forward it has no longer been possible to reproach English historians and biographers with ignoring or neglecting the importance of Wyclif in the annals of his country, and especially of the English national Church.

Much has been done within the past few years, and especially since the five-hundredth anniversary of Wyclif's death, to re-illumine his darkened record, and to ensure a wider circulation for his principal works. The disinterested labours of the Wyclif Society, and of a considerable number of English and German scholars, have gone far to atone for a long neglect. The time has almost come when John Wyclif may find a worthy and competent biographer, who will be able to set forth the story of his life with a reasonable approach to finality. Meanwhile, it may not be unserviceable to cast that story in a connected and popular form, and at any rate to attempt an estimate of Wyclifs true position in history. Such, indeed, has been the aim of the present writer, who has sought to collect into a focus all that has been accurately ascertained or felicitously surmised concerning one of the most attractive characters in the later Middle Age.

It is impossible to feel at all confident that the true features and character of John Wyclif are presented in any of the portraits which have been