, so much like other
days, would remain the _dies nefasti_, accursed in the memory of mankind
for ever. Nothing is terrible, nothing is sublime in human things, so long
as they are before our eyes. The great man has so much in common with men
in general, the routine of daily life, in periods the most remarkable in
history, contains so much that is unvarying, that it is only when time has
done its work; and all which was unimportant has ceased to be remembered,
that such men and such times stand out in their true significance. It might
have been thought that to a person like Cranmer, the court at Dunstable,
the coronation of the new queen, the past out of which these things had
risen, and the future which they threatened to involve, would have seemed
at least serious; and that engaged as he had been as a chief actor, in a
matter which, if it had done nothing else, had broken the heart of a
high-born lady whom once he had honoured as his queen, he would have been
either silent about his exploits, or if he had spoken of them, would have
spoken not without some show of emotion. We look for a symptom of feeling,
but we do not find it. When the coronation festivities were concluded he
wrote to his friend an account of what had been done by himself and others
in the light gossiping tone of easiest content; as if he were describing
the common incidents of a common day. It is disappointing, and not wholly
to be approved of. Still less can we approve of the passage with which he
concludes his letter.

"Other news we have none notable, but that one Frith, which was in the
Tower in prison,[446] was appointed by the King's Grace to be examined
before me, my Lord of London, my Lord of Winchester, my Lord of Suffolk, my
Lord Chancellor, and my Lord of Wiltshire; whose opinion was so notably
erroneous that we could not dispatch him, but were fain to leave him to the
determination of his ordinary, which is the Bishop of London. His said
opinion is of such nature, that he thought it not necessary to be believed
as an article of our faith that there is the very corporeal presence of
Christ within the host and sacrament of the altar; and holdeth on this
point much after the opinion of Oecolampadius.

"And surely I myself sent for him three or four times to persuade him to
leave that imagination. But for all that we could do therein, he would not
apply to any counsel. Notwithstanding now he is at a final end with all
examinations; for my Lo