preferments
above mentioned, he was rector of the gild of Jesus at St Paul's and
chaplain to Henry VIII.

Colet, though never dreaming of a formal breach with the Roman Church,
was a keen reformer, who disapproved of auricular confession, and of the
celibacy of the clergy. Though no great scholar or writer, he was a
powerful force in the England of his day, and helped materially to
disintegrate the medieval conditions still obtaining, and to introduce
the humanist movement. Among his works, which were first collectively
published in 1867-1876, are _Absolutissimus de octo orationis partium
constructione libellus_ (Antwerp, 1530), _Rudimenta Grammatices_
(London, 1539), _Daily Devotions_, _Monition to a Godly Life_,
_Epistolae ad Erasmum_, and commentaries on different parts of the
Bible.

See F. Seebohm, _The Oxford Reformers_; J. H. Lupton, _Life of John
Colet_ (1887); art. in _The Times_, July 7, 1909.

COLET, LOUISE (1810-1876), French poet and novelist, was born at Aix of
a Provencal family named Revoil, on the 15th of September 1810. In 1835
she came to Paris with her husband Hippolyte Colet (1808-1851), a
composer of music and professor of harmony and counterpoint at the
conservatoire. In 1836 appeared her _Fleurs du Midi_, a volume of verse,
of liberal tendency, followed by _Penserosa_ (1839), a second volume of
verse; by _La Jeunesse de Goethe_ (1839), a one-act comedy; by _Les
Coeurs brises_ (1843), a novel; _Les Funerailles de Napoleon_ (1840),
a poem, and _La Jeunesse de Mirabeau_ (1841), a novel. Her works were
crowned five or six times by the Institute, a distinction which she
owed, however, to the influence of Victor Cousin rather than to the
quality of her work. The criticisms on her books and on the prizes
conferred on her by the Academy exasperated her; and in 1841 Paris was
diverted by her attempted reprisals on Alphonse Karr for certain notices
in _Les Guepes_. In 1849 she had to defend an action brought against her
by the heirs of Madame Recamier, whose correspondence with Benjamin
Constant she had published in the columns of the _Presse_. She produced
a host of writings in prose and verse, but she is perhaps best known for
her intimate connexion with some of her famous contemporaries, Abel
Villemain, Gustave Flaubert and Victor Cousin. Only one of her books is
now of interest--_Lui: roman contemporain_ (1859), the novel in which
she told the story of her life. She died on the 8th of Mar