And it may

advance his praise and commendation, and readier (if I may say it without offence) than he that found fault with me. And Hall (as ye know) wrote but of a few kings, and began where Froissard left; and so neither his Chronicle is mine, nor mine his. Now, as touching John Harding's Chronicle that Stow hath, which he saith doth much differ from that which was imprinted under his name by me, I grant it may well be so; for I have, at this time, a Chronicle that beareth the name of John Harding, written in the Latin tongue in prose, that I am sure John Stow never saw, and though he did, yet I doubt whether he understand it. well be, that one man may write at two times two books of one matter, and yet the one of them not to agree with the other, as Stow himself hath done, who in his later summary of Chronicles, differeth clean from his first, neither agreeing in matter nor years, and yet (as he saith) they are both Stow's Chronicles. And it may also be, that there were more John Hardings than one, and so all may stand well together, and no fault committed by me. Thus much for answer of the faults. And here to make any further declaration of the order of my book, it shall not need; for in the second page thereof are expressed the particulars of the same. And I have joined hereunto an exact table, for the ready finding of any matter herein contained,

hear such, and think much learning is got when they may talk with them.

"But he adds the faults which were sometimes now to be found in English composition, among which he censures the excess of alliteration,"

Some will be so short, and in such wise curtail their sentences, that they had need to make a commentary immediately of their meaning, or else the most that hear them shall be forced to keep counsel. Some will speak oracles, that a man cannot tell

Some will be so fine and

which way to take them. so poetical withal, that to their seeming there shall not stand one heare1 amiss, and yet every body else shall think them meeter for a lady's chamber, than for an earnest matter in any open assembly.-Some use over much repetition of one letter, as pitiful poverty prayeth for a penny, but puffed presumption pass-~ eth not a point, pampering his paunch with pestilent pleasure, procuring his passport to post it to hell pit, there to be punished with pains perpetual

Others, he blames for the affectation of ending a word with a vowel and beginning. the next with another. Some, he says, end

'hair.

their sentences all alike, making their talk' rather to appear rhymed metre, than to seem plain speech.'

I heard a preacher delighting much in this kind of composition, who used so often to end his sentence with words like unto that which went before, that in my judgment there was not a dozen sentences in his whole sermon but they ended all in rhyme for the most part. Some, not best disposed, wished the preacher a lute, that with his rhymed sermon he might use some pleasant melody, and so the people might take pleasure divers ways, and dance if they list.

"Some writers, he observes, disturbed the natural arrangement of their words. Others were copious where they should be concise. The most frequent fault seems to have been, the rejection of common and proper phrases, for those that were more curious, refined, and unintelligible."

This work exhibits a favourable symptom of the dawn of reason. It was considered as an innovation so daring, that the author happening to visit Rome, was imprisoned by the

inquisitors of the holy see, as a presumptuous and dangerous heretic.

Wilson also translated seven orations of Démosthenes, which, in 1570, he dedicated to sir William Cecil; affording thereby another proof of his attention to the advancement of the English stile.

Warton likewise mentions a treatise of rhe. toric, published in 1555, by Richard Sherry, schoolmaster of Magdalene College, Oxford. And speaks of William Fullwood, who-in his "Enemy of Idleness, teaching the manner and stile how to endite and write all sorts of epistles and letters, set forth in English by William Fullwood, merchant;" published in 1571, and written partly in prose and partly in verse-alludes in a respectful manner to Wilson's book. "Whoso (says he) will more circumspectly and narrowly entreat of such matters, let them read the rhetoric of master doctor Wilson, or of master Richard Rainold."-Moreover, in 1582, was published at London, a book entitled, “The first part of the Elementaire, which entreateth chiefly of the right writing of the English tongue, set forth by Richard Mulcaster, London, 1582. This book contains many judicious criticisms and

observations on the English language. Many of its precepts are delivered in metre. In 1586, was published by William Bullokar, a "Brief Grammar for English, imprinted at London by Edmund Bollifant." It is also called "W. Bullokar's Abbreviation of his Grammar for English, extracted out of his grammar at large for the speedy parcing of English speech, and the easier coming to the knowledge of grammar for other languages." This was the first grammar of the English language which ever appeared, except (as the author says) my grammar at large.