. . .And I have been told, more than forty years past, that either Cardinal Allen,[25] or learned Dr. Stapleton,[26]—both Englishmen, and in Italy about the time when Mr. Hooker's four books were first printed,—meeting with this general fame of them, were desirous to read an author, that both the reformed and the learned of their own Romish Church did so much magnify; and therefore caused them to be sent for to Rome: and after reading them, boasted to the Pope,—which then was Clement the Eighth,—"That though he had lately said, he never met with an English book, whose writer deserved the name of author; yet there now appeared a wonder to them, and it would be so to his Holiness, if it were in Latin: for a poor obscure English Priest had writ four such books of Laws, and Church-polity, and in a style that expressed such a grave and so humble a majesty, with such clear demonstration of reason, that in all their readings they had not met with any that exce. . . Read More