m;[17] and taking journeys in
order to confront witnesses and sift evidence when his facts chanced to
be called in question;[18] such was his industry. But, independently
of all knowledge of this, his pains-taking, the internal evidence of
the book is enough to establish its general good faith. There is a
simplicity in the narrative, particularly in many of its minute details,
which is beyond all fiction; a homely pathos in the stories which art
could not reach. Sometimes an expression casually drops out which
suffices to prove the testimony to be that of an eye-witness; thus,
where the terrible death of Ridley is described, the martyrologist
speaks in general in his own person; yet we read, that "after the legs
of the sufferer were consumed by reason of his struggling through
the pain, he showed that side toward _us_ clean, shirt and all
untouched with flame," as though the informant (whose words the
historian had here neglected to accommodate) had been himself the
spectator. Sometimes there is a frank confession of ignorance, where
a less scrupulous writer would have been under a great temptation to
supply the defect of information by conjecture; thus, in the details of
the same execution of Ridley and Latimer, it is observed, that after
they rose from their knees the one talked with the other a little while,
but what they said, adds Fox, "I can learn of no man." Above all,
there is such candour in the developement even of his most favourite
characters, their failings as well as their virtues so fairly told, that
it is plain they have not been packed. Thus it is by him we are taught
that Cranmer moved the King to the execution of Joan of Kent, though
Cranmer's general disposition would seem repugnant to such an office,
and though no mention is made in Edward's Journal of any such
interference, or, indeed, of any reluctance on his own part which should
render it needful: thus of Latimer, he does not conceal that he probably
subscribed on one occasion certain articles which the bishops presented
to him, of fear rather than of conscience;[19] and of Hooper, his
favourite, if he had one among the martyrs, that he disputed too
pertinaciously, and to the breach of mutual charity, with his opponents
on the subject of the episcopal habits, and that the prospect of their
approaching death for the common cause, and nothing less, could effect
the cordial union of the parties. Neither does he suppress any instance
of kindness by w