We turn to Richard Hooker to understand the intellectual background of the Renaissance. He sets forth in his writing the ethical, political, and religious assumptions of his age. This magnificent old-spelling edition of Hooker's works has long been needed, and is being greeted with universal admiration. Volume Four presents the text of the first and only major attack on the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity-namely, A Christian Letter, 1599-with Hooker's marginal notes made on his own copy of the Letter; and the more extensive essays which he left in manuscript, written in preparation for a published reply. The importance of these notes and essays lies in their expansion of some of the more controversial points made in the Laws, and in the light they shed on Hooker, his personality, method, and sources. John Booty's Introduction and substantial commentary place Hooker's arguments firmly in their historical and theological contexts.

The writings of Richard Hooker are of central interest to those studying English Renaissance thought and literature. In this, the third and latest volume of a much needed critical edition of the "Works of Richard Hooker," are the posthumous books of the "Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," Hooker planned the "Laws" in eight books, but he died shortly after publication of Book Five. Books Six, Seven, and Eight which contain his analysis of jurisdiction, episcopacy, and the royal supremacy are here transcribed from versions that have the most authority. The volume also includes Hooker's autograph notes toward those texts (brought to light by P. G. Stanwood in the course of his research) and the contemporary notes by George Cranmer and Edwin Sandys on a lost draft of Book Six. Mr. Stanwood's introduction lays to rest all doubts about the authenticity of the last three books as we have them, doubts current since publication of Walton's "Life of Hooker" in 1662.

This edition, sponsored by the Folger Library, is providing authoritative texts to serve as a basis for the scholarly reappraisal of Richard Hooker's writings that is presently under way.