added to his willingness; this John Hooker gave him a visit in
Salisbury, and besought him for charity's sake to look favourably upon
a poor nephew of his, whom Nature had fitted for a scholar; but the
estate of his parents was so narrow, that they were unable to give him
the advantage of learning; and that the Bishop would therefore become
his patron, and prevent him from being a tradesman, for he was a boy
of remarkable hopes. And though the Bishop knew men do not usually
look with an indifferent eye upon their own children and relations,
yet he assented so far to John Hooker, that he appointed the boy and
his School-master should attend him, about Easter next following, at
that place: which was done accordingly; and then, after some questions
and observations of the boy's learning, and gravity, and behaviour,
the Bishop gave his School-master a reward, and took order for an
annual pension for the boy's parents; promising also to take him into
his care for a future preferment, which he performed: for about the
fifteenth year of his age, which was anno 1567, he was by the Bishop
appointed to remove to Oxford, and there to attend Dr. Cole,[2]
then President of Corpus Christi College. Which he did; and Dr. Cole
had--according to a promise made to the Bishop--provided for him both
a Tutor--which was said to be the learned Dr. John Reynolds,[3]--and a
Clerk's place in that College: which place, though it were not a
full maintenance, yet, with the contribution of his Uncle, and
the continued pension of his patron, the good Bishop, gave him a
comfortable subsistence. And in this condition he continued until the
eighteenth year of his age, still increasing in learning and prudence,
and so much in humility and piety, that he seemed to be filled with
the Holy Ghost; and even like St. John Baptist, to be sanctified from
his mother's womb, who did often bless the day in which she bare him.

[Sidenote: "A dangerous sickness"]