activity in carrying her orders into execution, and to regret that measures still more violent and effectual had not been adopted for the utter extirpation of heresy.[353] Nor does it appear that this speech was resented either by the house or by the queen. De nobis, post hæc, tristis sententia fertur: Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. The refusal of his request, and the harsh treatment of his flock, touched to the quick the irritable temper of our Reformer; and it was with some difficulty that he suppressed the desire which he felt rising in his breast, to prosecute a controversy which he had resolved to abandon. “My first Blast,” says he, in a letter, dated Dieppe, 6th April 1559, “hath blown from me all my friends in England. My conscience bears record, that yet I seek the favour of my God; and so I am in the less fear. The second Blast, I fear, {240} shall sound somewhat more sharp, except that men be more moderate than I hear they are.――England hath refused me; but because, before, it did refuse Christ Jesus, the less do I regard the loss of this familiarity. And yet have I been a secret and assured friend to thee, O England, in cases which thyself could not have remedied.”[354] But greater designs occupied his mind, and engrossed his attention. It was not for the sake of personal safety, nor from the vanity of appearing at court, that he desired to pass through England. He felt the natural wish to visit his old acquaintance in that country, and was anxious for an opportunity of once more addressing those to whom he had preached, especially at Newcastle and Berwick. But there was another object which he had still more at heart, and in which the welfare of both England and Scotland were concerned.