WYCLIFFE, JOHN DE, was bom in 1324, at the village of Wycliffe in Yorkshire. In 1343 lie entered Queen's College, Oxford, but soon after wards removed to Merton. In 1361 he was pre sented to the living of Fylingham ; soon after he became warden of Daliol College, and ere lonlof Canterbury Hall. At this time he was involved in a keen controversy with the mendicant friars, and the zeal he had shown against them and in favour of ecclesiastical reform generally, led to an attempt to deprive him of his office of warden. A long suit followed, which ended in the papal court de ciding ag,ainst Wycliffe in 1370. In 1372 he took his degree of D.D., and proceeded to lead divinity lectures in the university. In 1374 he was sent to Bruges as a member of the commission appointed to treat with the pope regarding certain encroach ments on the English church which he had perpe trated, a duty which detained him abroad for two years. In his absence he was presented by the crown to the rectory of Lutterworth. 1\4eanwhile the hostility of the party opposed to him in the church had been becoming more determined and bitter ; and in 1377 he was cited to appear before parliament to answer to the charge of holding and publishing heretical opinions. From this time Ile
was involved in almost constant conflict with the hierarchy, and but for the protection of powerful patrons his name would probably have been added to the long roll of martyrs for the truth. He main tained his cause with fearless courage and con summate ability ; but the toils and trials to which he vvas exposed brought on an attack of paralysis. In 1382 he was summoned before a commission at Oxford, to answer certain charges against him of holding heretical doctrines. Here he boldly de fended the views he had advanced, especially on the subject of transubstantiation. The result was the dissolution of his connection with Oxford, on which he retired to Lutterworth, where the re mainder of his days was spent. He died 31st Dec. 1384. He wrote many treatises, but his great work was his translation of the Scriptures into the English of his day—a monument of his learning, piety, and zeal, which happily remains [ENGLISH VERSIONS].-W. L. A.