which ought to produce any change in the disposition of his mind, and as he died in a fixed and settled hope of immortality, he thought any unusual degree of sorrow and concern improper."

More's "Utopia" (1516), the picture of an imaginary commonwealth, in describing which he finds an opportunity for giving his views upon various social and political problems, such as education, the punishment of criminals, &c., was written in Latin and does not concern us here. It was translated into English by Ralph Robinson in 1551, and by Bishop Burnet in 1684. His chief English work is his "Life and Reign of Edward V.," which gives him a title to be considered the first Englishman who wrote the history of his country in its present language. It is believed to have been written in 1513, but was not printed till 1557. "The historical fragment," says Sir James Mackintosh, "commands belief by simplicity, and by abstinence from too confident affirmation. It betrays some negligence about minute particulars, which is not displeasing as a symptom of the absence of eagerness to enforce a narrative. The composition has an ease and a rotundity which gratify the ear without awakening the suspicion of art, of which there was no model in any preceding writer of English prose."

His

A man as admirable as More, though of very different temperament, was Hugh Latimer, the great Reformer. He was born about 1491 at Thurcaston in Leicestershire. father was a yeoman in comfortable circumstances. Seeing the "ready, prompt, and sharp wit" of his son, he wisely determined, says Foxe, "to train him up in erudition and knowledge of good literature, wherein he so profited in his youth, at the common schools of his own country, that at the age of fourteen years he was sent to the University of Cambridge." In due time he obtained a fellowship there, and having been led to embrace Protestantism by the arguments of a certain "Maister Bylney," began, with characteristic impetuosity, to utter his protest against the doctrines of the Church of Rome. The University authorities brought his "heresies" under the

notice of Cardinal Wolsey, but he was triumphantly acquitted. In 1530, he says, "I was called to preach before the King, which was the first sermon that I made before his Majesty, and it was done at Windsor, where his Majesty, after the sermon was done, did. most familiarly talk with me in the gallery." The King seems to have liked the fearless outspoken spirit of the man, who never hesitated to speak out his mind either to prince or to peasant. In 1535 Latimer was appointed Bishop of Worcester, an office he did not long retain, being deprived of it in 1539, because he refused to sign the “ Act of the Six Articles." For some time he su fered imprisonment in the Tower, and during the rest of Henry's reign was "commanded to silence." On the accession of Edward VI., in 1546, he again had an opportunity, of which he took full advantage, of exercising his gifts as a preacher. When Mary came to the throne in 1553, the tide again turned. Soon after her accession, Latimer was thrown into the Tower. In 1555 he was burned at the stake at Oxford. "Be of good cheer, Master Ridley," he said to his fellow-martyr," and play the man we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as (I trust) shall never be put out."

Latimer's sermons, of which that on "The Ploughers," delivered at St. Paul's in 1549, is the most famous, show that he possessed in an extraordinary degree the highest gift of the preacher-that of arousing men's consciences, and of impressing them with the belief that what he says is really true. He is not a seeker after fine phrases: the homeliest illustrations and the homeliest expressions are welcomed by him provided they clearly express the meaning he wishes to convey. A scorner of conventionality, he talked to his hearers as one plain man might talk to another, never mincing matters, and always anxious to set forth his subject in the most lucid way. He did not hesitate to address his remarks to individual hearers when he thought himself called upon to do so, careless if his remarks gave offence or not, so long as he did his duty. Latimer was no sour ascetic: he loved a racy anecdote or a humorous saying, and was ready to make use of them even when dealing

with the most serious subject. A true Englishman, somewhat of the "John Bull" type, frank, manly, honest, courageous, he exerted a wonderful influence over the minds of his contemporaries, and his sermons, though their diction is occasionally rather startling, are still well worth reading as the utterances of a brave, thoroughly sincere man.

The story of Latimer's martyrdom, and of the other persecutions suffered by Protestants, was touchingly related by John Foxe (1517-1587) in his "Book of Martyrs" as it is commonly called, a title better expressing the nature of the work than its original one, "History of the Acts and Monuments of the Church." Foxe himself had to flee to the Continent to escape persecution during Mary's reign, and his "Book of Martyrs" was written on his return. It has great literary merit, but is often inaccurate and prejudiced. He lived too near the time with which he deals to write with impartiality.

We now quit the regions of the dawn, to enter on the broad effulgence of the Elizabethan period.

II.

THE ELIZABETHAN ERA.

Ascham ; Wyatt and Surrey; Spenser ; Sidney, Hooker, Raleigh, Lyly; The Elizabethan Dramatists: Lyly, Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Shakespeare, Chapman, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and others.

IN this chapter we have to deal with what is, upon the whole, the greatest period in our literature. In it flourished Sidney and Hooker, Spenser and Shakespeare, and a crowd of writers, inferior, indeed, to these great names, but possessed of so much fertility and spontaneity of genius, of so much vehement energy and native talent, that in any other era they would have won for themselves a foremost place. Under the rule of the Maiden Queen, the pulse of the nation beat high; all human energies were cultivated to the utmost; the seas were scoured by daring buccaneers; enterprising travellers penetrated to distant places, bringing back accounts of the wonderful things they had seen and heard; English commerce increased to an unexampled extent; and the comparative isolation in which Protestant England stood apart from the Catholic nations of the Continent, made her proudly defiant and confident in her own resources. The love of gorgeous apparel and of splendid pageants which then prevailed is an apt symbol of the unpruned luxuriance, the wealth of high-coloured phrases and extravagant expressions which pervaded the literature. Men lived intensely, thought intensely, and wrote intensely.

Between the Elizabethan literature proper and the writers

of the preceding age, there are two or three authors who form as it were connecting links. Great poets and great prosewriters are always preceded by others, by far their inferiors in genius it may be, but in whose works we can trace the beginnings of the literary tendency which pervades their successors. shall begin with a prose-writer, who might with equal propriety have been included among the authors mentioned in the preceding chapter, were it not for his close connection with Queen Elizabeth. Roger Ascham (1515-1568) lived in the reign of Henry, of Edward, of Mary, and of Elizabeth, and, more fortunate than many of his contemporaries, held comfortable offices under all those sovereigns. A cautious, conciliatory man, of no very pronounced religious opinions, he took care never to give offence; while his polished manners and cultivated mind made him a very attractive companion to his royal patrons. His first work, "Toxophilus," published in 1545, is a dialogue on archery, praising the national weapon, the bow, and advocating its use with the enthusiasm of one who was himself a proficient in the art. No one is likely to find fault with Ascham for being fond of archery, but his love of cockfighting, which, we are told, was his pastime in old age, was certainly reprehensible. Ascham's most famous work, the "Schoolmaster," was published in 1570, two years after his death. It is a very sensible, meritorious performance, abounding in digressions, but containing much advice, which is worth attending to, even in this era of universal education. The numerous anecdotes and reminiscences with which he diversifies his work, add greatly to its attractiveness. "Old Ascham,” wrote Carlyle, "is one of the freshest, truest spirits I have met with; a scholar and writer, yet a genuine man."2

In the preceding chapter we have seen that the old Scottish poets derived their main impulse from Chaucer, whom they reverenced as their master. The same was the case with Chaucer's English successors. But a new epoch in the history

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1 Fuller quaintly describes Ascham as an honest man and a good shooter."

2 Correspondence of Macvey Napier, p. 77.