[ 475] The downfall of Piety and Learning to be deplored.
BOys Sisi the French Leiger in England enquiring what Books Dr. Whitguift then Archbishop of Canterbury had published, was answered, that he had onely set forth certain Books in defence of the Ecclesiastical Government, and it was inci∣dently told him beside, That he had founded an Hospital and a School at Croydon in Surry uttered these words;* 1.1 Profectò Hospitale ad sublevandam paupertatem, & eru∣diendam ju••entutem sunt optimi libri, quos Archiepiscopus scribere potuit: Tru∣ly an Hospital to sustain the poor, and a School to train up youth, are the worthiest Books that an Archbishop could possibly set forth: And certainly such was the piety, such the charity of former times, that in this Kingdom of ours, a man might have run and read in many such Books, the Founders bounty and Munificence, wit∣nesse those Ramahs,* 1.2 those Schools for the Prophets, those Colledges in both the Uni∣versities so well filled, so orderly governed, and so richly endowed; But of late, how faintly did those streams run, which were wont to make glad the City of our God? How were those breasts dryed up, that once nurst up so many? Kiriath-Sepher made Kiriath-Havala; a Kingdom of learning fairly onwards on the way to be made a Kingdom of ignorance,* 1.3 and Seminaries of sound learning and saving knowledge, likely to be Seed••plots of barbarous ignorance, and intolerable presumption.