The space alloted to this work will not be wide enough to embrace the gradual progress of Wolsey to that greatness which he attained. The object in view was to show that he was anything but a mean man in his birth, though had that been to, it would have been no disgrace, and that he was brought up in his youth with an early love of everything that was generous and praiseworthy. It was not until his youthful disappointment had left him nothing but the pursuit of his own gratification in the fields of ambition and vain-glory, that Wolsey's character changed from a lover of truth, virtue, and humility, to become an aspiring, time-serving politician. It is strange that a man who had assumed the priesthood, at that time the vehicle of letters in some few, but of enormous bigotry and superstition in the mass, should bury his love of truth in the vast vortex of worldly ambition. He left truth to shine in his native place, whilst he pursued the phantom of idolatry through all the labyrinths of expedient invention. His love of literature he could not abandon. It was part and parcel of his life, which remained with him through all his progress, and has served to extend his fame through ages of darkness, even to the present time. His erudition was, beyond all doubt, genuine and powerful. He took no particular delight in encouraging individual instances of mental superiority, though the learned Erasmus speaks so flatteringly of his sumptuous entertainments to the stars of genius, as to make a seat at his table one of the things most desired in England. From the great men of letters in his day, he never called forth a sentiment of gratitude for any encouragement he had given them. With the exception of Sir Thomas More, scarcely any literary character received any support from him; and in him he supported a successor. His views comprehended the revival of the whole people from ignorance by the means of scholastic discipline; and his ideas of the diffusion of learning were connected with schools, seminaries, and colleges, the very architecture of which should speak the taste of their projector. Wolsey had, in early life, imbibed a species of contempt for the monastic impositions, which retained the people in ignorance, but he could not become indifferent to the lustre of the Papacy, to which his soul aspired; no, not even for the sake of truth. It was hence that the patronage of the literature he so much admired as the production of the universities and schools became confined to men who upheld the Papal dominion.