[Sidenote: Mr. Lodge's character of her.]
The courteous reader will, it is hoped, pardon this digression; and now set we forth on the second stage of our inquiry, Who wrote Cavendish's Life of Wolsey?
When there are only two claimants upon any property, if the pretensions of one can be shown to be groundless, those of the other seem to be established as a necessary consequence. But here we have a third party. Beside Sir William and his elder brother George, a claimant has been found in a _Thomas_ Cavendish. In the account of Wolsey given in the Athenæ[33], Wood calls the author by this name: and Dodd, a Catholic divine, who published a Church History of England in 3 vols. folio, (Brussels, 1737.) in a list of historians and manuscripts used in the preparation of his work, enumerates "Cavendish _Thomas_, Life of Cardinal Wolsey, Lond. 1590." It is very probable that Dodd may have contented himself with copying the name of this author from the Athenæ, a book he used: and it is with the utmost deference, and the highest possible respect, for the wonderful industry and the extraordinary exactness of the Oxford antiquary, I would intimate my opinion that, in this instance, he has been misled. To subject the pretensions of _Thomas_ Cavendish to such a scrutiny as that to which those of Sir William have been brought is quite out of the question: for neither Wood nor Dodd have thrown any light whatever on his history or character. He appears before us like Homer, _nomen, et præterea nihil_. There was a person of both his names, of the Grimstone family, a noted navigator, and an author in the days of Queen Elizabeth; but he lived much too late to have ever formed a part of the household of Cardinal Wolsey.
We must now state the evidence in favour of George Cavendish. The reader will judge for himself whether the testimony of Anthony Wood, and that of the Catholic church-historian, supposing them to be distinct and independent testimonies, is sufficient to outweigh what is to be advanced in support of George Cavendish's claim. We shall first state on what grounds the work is attributed to a Cavendish whose name was George; and secondly, the reasons we have for believing that he was the George Cavendish of Glemsford in Suffolk, to whom my Lord Herbert ascribes the work.