Cardinal-minister whose lot it was to stand at the parting of the ways. But Wolsey's services to his country can hardly be too highly estimated. He found her weak, almost the derision of Europe. He brought her again into the politics of the world, if not as a dictator, at least as an arbiter to whose decision and whose will foreign nations listened with respect. As a churchman he might have saved England from a movement which, as a great historical teacher once wrote, came "to ruin Art and divide Society." Himself a scholar of the new learning, an Oxford student at the time when men were rediscovering the old world and delighting in the wonders which the old Greek tongue made plain to them, and in later years a patron of learned men, he was yet, though not untouched by vices which even popes yielded to, a man with a conscience, an ideal, and a rule of life. George Cavendish, worthy man, has left an immortal memorial of him; and historians of to-day have united, with the most secret documents of his diplomacy before them, to acknowledge his honesty and his wisdom. "Thus much I dare be bold to say," wrote his gentleman-usher thirty years after, when he had seen many changes, and a godly and thorough reformation to boot, "to say without displeasure to any person, or of affection, that in my judgment I never saw this realm in better order, quietness, and obedience than it was in the time of his authority and rule, nor justice better ministered with indifferency." He alone, among Englishmen of his age, had a coherent scheme, which should assign to his country a definite
