MSS.

mss., was given to the world in 1810, and more fully in 1815. until that time it was believed that the book was the composition of george cavendish's younger brother william, the founder of chatsworth, who also was attached to wolsey. joseph hunter proved this to be impossible, and definitely asserted the claim of george. the latter is believed to have died at glemsford in or about 1562. the intrinsic value of cavendish's _life of cardinal wolsey_ has long been perceived, for it is the sole authentic record of a multitude of events highly important in a particularly interesting section of the history of england. its importance as a product of biographical literature was first emphasized by bishop creighton, who insisted over and over again on the claim of cavendish to be recognized as the earliest of the great english biographers and an individual writer of particular charm and originality. he writes with simplicity and with a certain vivid picturesqueness, rarely yielding to the rhetorical impulses which governed the ordinary prose of his age. (e. g.)