Note 8 — VII. New Friends and Old.

As it is intended that the reader should understand that whatever is told of George Wishart throughout is pure history, a word of explanation, perhaps of apology, may be necessary here. It does not seem any deviation from the rule thus laid down, to suppose his doing for the personages of the story what, at this time, he did for so many. Knox tells us “he spared not to visit thame that lay in the verray extreamitie; he comforted thame as that he might in such a multitude; he caused minister all things necessarie to those that might use meat and drink.” And Emery Tilney, who, during the year that he taught at Cambridge, was his affectionate and admiring pupil, writes of him, “His charity had never an end, night, noon, nor day;” and again, “If I should declare his love to me and all men, his charity to the poor, in giving, relieving, caring, helping, providing, yea, infinitely studying how to do good to all and hurt to none, I should sooner want words than just cause to commend him.”