112 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. greater severitythan his follower John Pits. The following are some of those invenomed arrows which he has shot at him :-" This writer," says he, " did not so much enlarge Leland's catalogue, as corrupt it in a °Monstrous manner. For he has stuffed it full of lies and calumnies, and spoiled Leland's work, by his own barbarous style. He says many things worthy, indeed, of the mind and mouth of an heretic, but absolutely void of all civility andmoral honesty, some things plainly unworthy of a christian ear.-If we except his slanders against men, and his blasphemies against God, the poor wretch has nothing of his own, which deserves our notice.-I hoped to have found at least some gem of antiquity in that dunghill : but more unlucky than Esop's cock, I was disappointed in my expectation." He brands him with the name of Baal, and calls him an apostate Carmelite monk, and a married priest. Such are the foul accusations brought against our divine, by this bigotted papist. Wharton charges Bale with paying very little regard to truth, provided he could increase the number of enemies to the Romish church ; and adds, that, for the most part, he settled the chronology of the English writers with his eyes shut. Bishop Nicolson says : " The ground- plot of his famous work was borrowed from Leland ; and the chief of his own superstructure is malicious and bitter invectives against the papists.". It will be proper on the contrary to observe, that Gesner denominates Bale " a writer of the greatest diligence ;" and Bishop Godwin gives him the character of a laborious inquirer into the British antiquities. Dr. Lawrence Humphrey says, that Vergerius, Platina, and Luther, have discovered many errors and frauds of thepapists ; but that Bale bath detected them all. Valentine Henry Vogler says, " it will be less matter of wonder, that Bale inveighs with so much asperity against the power of the pope, when it is considered that England was more grievously oppressed, by the tyranny of the holy see, than any other kingdom. Though lie rendered himself so odious to the papists, his very enemies could not help praising his Catalogue of English writers." t It is generally allowed that Bale's sufferings from the popish party, is some apology for his severe treatment of them : He wrote with all the warmth of one who had escaped the flames. Granger observes, that his intemperate Biog. Britan. vol. i. p. 535. t Ibid. p.534.
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