Note 1311 — Chapter XVI

It is not probable that Brydges, as a man of considerable taste and judgment, whatever some other pioneers in the same track may have been, would fail to select the best portions of the authors he has so carefully perused. And yet I would almost defy any one to produce five passages in prose from his numerous volumes, so far as the sixteenth century is concerned, which have any other merit than that of illustrating some matter of fact, or of amusing by their oddity. I have only noted, in traversing that long desert, two sermons by one Edward Dering, preached before the queen (British Bibliographer, i. 260 and 560), which show considerably more vigour than was usual in the style of that age.