W. WHITAKER. 73 marriage the wonderful period of seventy-six years. Early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, young Whitaker was sent for to London by the dean his uncle. He was by this means taken from his parents, by whom he had been nursed in thesuperstitions of popery, and trained up in the public school founded by Dr. Colet, who was Nowell's pious predecessor. There he so profited in good literature, and gave such presages of his excellent endowments, that at the age of eighteen, his pious kinsman sent him to the university of Cambridge, and he was admitted into Trinity college ; where his further progress being answerable to his beginning, he was first chosen scholar, then fellow of the house. He soonprocured high esteem and great fame by his learned disputations and other exercises, which were performed to the great admiration of the most eminent persons in that seat of learning.+ He was a person of extraordinary talents and uncommon application, and it was his general practice, and that of several other eminent persons of his time, to stand while employed in study.t As a proof of his great proficiency, and as a token of gratitude to his generous kinsman, he translated Nowell's Catechism into Greek, which he performed with the greatest accuracy, and presented it to him. He, at the same time, translated into Latin the English Liturgy, and Bishop Jewel's Reply to Harding, by which he obtained a distinguished reputation.) Indeed, his great fame was not confined to the learned in Cambridge ; but having taken his various degrees with great applause in that university, he was incorporated doctor in divinity at Oxford.ii Upon the preferment of Dr. William Chadderton to the bishopric of Chester, our learned divine succeeded him in the office of regius professor in the university of Cam- bridge. He was, indeed, very young for such a place ; yet, on account of his great literary accomplishments, he was unanimously chosen to this high office, though some Churton's Life of Nowell, p. 64.-Dean Nowell was prolocutor of the lower house of convocation, in 1562, when the articles of religion were agreed upon.. In 1564, when the debates can high about the use of the clerical garments, he discovered great moderation. He consented to the use of them, but with a protestation that he wished them taken away, for the following reasons " For fear of the abuse they might occasion.-- 2. To express more strongly a detestation of the corruptions and superstitions of the papists.-3. For a fuller profession of christian liberty.-4. To put an end to the disputes among brethren."-Bing. Briton. vol. v. p. 3258. Edit. 1747. -I- Knight's Life of Colet, p. 397. Edit. 1724. t Granger's Biog. Hist. vol. i. p. 99. § Clark's Eccl. Hist. p. 814. N Wood's Athena Oxon. vol. i. p. 744.
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