learned men know that in English literature there is a short treatise bearing the title “The Dead Man’s Right?”[43] It is time that they should study it, and give to it such effect as only the men of Oxford can give, in relation to the memory of the man who asserted and maintained, in perilous and most hazardous times, the rights of Oxford University against those who would reduce that noble institution, that renowned seat of learning, to the level of one of the outhouses of the Vatican Palace or of the Pope’s privy chamber, at Avignon or at Rome. From the lists or catalogues of Wycliffe’s works, it is evident that his writing was like his mind—steadily, splendidly progressive. To the earlier period of his life belong the works on logic, psychology, metaphysics, and generally what may be called his philosophical writings. To the second period of his life belong his applied philosophy in the form of his treatises on politico-ecclesiastical questions. To the third period belong his works on scientific theology; and to the fourth and concluding period belong his works on applied theology, or practical and pastoral divinity. “The earliest work to which, so far as I know, a tolerably exact date can be assigned, is the fragment “De dominio,” printed by Lewis, and which belongs to the year 1366 or 1367. We may confidently place the whole of the philosophical works, properly so called, before this date. About the year 1367 was published the “De Dominio Divino,” preluding to the great “Summa Theologiæ,”—the first book of which, “De Mandatis,” appears to have been written in 1369; the seventh, the “De Ecclesia,” in 1378; the remainder at uncertain intervals during the next five years. The “Trialogus” and its supplement belong probably to the last year of the Reformer’s life.”[44] In a letter of Archbishop Arundel, addressed to Pope John XXIII. in 1412, it is said of Wycliffe that, “In order to fulfil the measure of his wickedness, he _invented_ the translation of the Bible into the mother tongue.” Of this, the great and crowning work of Wycliffe’s life, Knighton says:— “Christ delivered his Gospel to the clergy and doctors of the Church, but this Master John Wycliffe translated it out of Latin into English, and thus laid it out more open to the laity, and to women who could read, than it had formerly been to the most learned of the clergy, even to those of them that had the best understanding. In this way the Gospel-pearl is cast abroad, and trodden under foot of swine, and that which was before precious both to clergy and laity, is rendered, as it were, to the common jest of both. The jewel of the Church is turned into the sport of the people, and what had hitherto been the choice gift of the clergy and of divines, is made for ever common to the laity.”[45]