s." Hartley
did not wait for more, but rode back to Stonor with the news that
the book had surely hit its mark.

At Oxford, as Father Persons says, many remembered and loved the
man, or at least knew of his gentle character, and of the career
he had abandoned to become a Catholic missionary. The book
recalled all this; and to those who were able to enter into its
spirit it preached with a strange penetrating force. By all the
lovers of classical Latin, and there were many such at that day,
it was read greedily. The Catholics and lovers of the old Faith
received it with enthusiasm, but a still more valid testimony to
its power was given by the Protestant Government, which gave
orders to its placemen that they should elaborate replies. These
replies drew forth answers from the Catholics, and the controversy
lasted for several years. Mr. Simpson has included an outline of
this controversy in his _Life of Campion_, and to it I may refer
my readers, having nothing substantial to add to his account.

6. CRITICISM.

It would not be necessary for me to say more about its success,
except that to us nowadays, the _Rationes_ will not seem at all
so remarkable as it did to our ancestors. Religious controversy,
in itself, does not much interest us moderns; and those who will
read Latin merely to enjoy the style are very few. But in the
sixteenth century, as Sir Arthur Helps truly says, men found in
the thrill of controversy the interest they now take in novels.
At that time, too, of all literary charms, that of good Latin
prose was by far the most popular, and the language was still the
"lingua franca" of the learned all the world over. Once we get so
far as to appreciate that both subject and style were in its
favour, the popularity of the volume will seem natural enough,
for it is bright, pointed, strong, full of matter, bold,
eloquent, convincing.

Without attempting anything like a complete account of the
reception of the book by the public, I may mention as the most
obvious proof of its popularity, that more strenuous endeavours
were made (so far as I can discover) to answer it than were made
in the case of any other assault upon the Elizabethan religious
settlement. Lord Burghley himself, the chief minister of the
Crown, called upon the Bishop of London, perhaps the most forward
man then on the episcopal bench, to use all endeavours to ensure
the publication of a sufficient answer. Finally they appointed
the Regius Pro