honour of being one of the leaders of the Reformation. A clear-sighted, practical man, with considerable humour and much satirical power, he had great influence in stirring up the people to a sense of the wrongs which they endured and in bringing these wrongs under the attention of those in authority. We now turn to our early prose writers. Prose is a much more artificial and mechanical mode of literary expression than verse: the poet's song (if it be a genuine song) is the outpouring of his heart in the metrical form which seems to him best adapted to the subject with which he deals: "he sings but as the linnets do," from the uncontrollable force of his genius. The prose writer, who has to handle all sorts of themes, uses, indeed, a much more commonplace instrumentfor we all talk in prose-but before that instrument is adapted for literary purposes many refinements have to be adopted, and many expedients tried. The talk of an uneducated person, with its repetitions, its wanderings from the point, its innumerable accessory circumstances heedlessly thrown in at the most unsuitable places, its linking together of the most incongruous subjects, its want of clearness and precision, conveys a good idea of the style of our early prose-writers, who wrote before the language was fully formed and before the pathway to the art of English prose composition had been trodden smooth by the steps of innumerable wayfarers. With regard to the merely mechanical part of style, literary genius has not much to do: it may, in great measure, be acquired as grammar is acquired. A schoolboy would be ashamed of himself who could not express his meaning in a form less awkward and cumbrous than that used by Milton in his prose works.

The "first writer of formed English" is commonly said to have been Sir John Mandeville (1300-1371), and though the general opinion of experts now is that he was not the author of the English translation of the book of "Travels" which bears his name, that book, whoever translated it, is the first English prose composition which deserves to be called literature. Of his own life, he says: "I, John Maundevylle, Knyght, alle be it I be not worthi, that was born in Englond,

in the Town of Seynt Albones, passed the See in the Zeer of Qur Lord Jesu Crist MCCCXXII., in the day of Seynt Michelle; and hidre to have ben longe tyme over the See, and have seyn and gon thorghe manye dyverse Londes, and many Provynces and Kingdomes, and Iles, and have passed thorghe Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Tartarye, Percye, Ermonye the litylle and the grete; thorghe Ethiope; thorghe Amazoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie; and thorghe out many othere Iles, that ben abouten Inde; where dwellen many dyverse Folkes, and of dyverse Maneres and Lawes, and of dyverse Schappes of Men." Mandeville's "Travels" is believed to have been translated into English in 1356, and its popularity is proved by the fact that many copies of it circulated in manuscript. It is a strange and amusing book. A good deal of what he relates, is somewhat of the Baron Munchausen order; but it is fair to say that the most extraordinary things told by the old traveller are given by him as having been stated by some one else, and not as the results of his own observation. Distant countries were then nearly as much a terra incognita to Englishmen as the mountains of the moon are to us; and ready credence was given to the most outrageous fables.

The great reformer John Wiclif (1324-1384), the stirring narrative of whose active life belongs more properly to the political than to the literary history of England, was, if tradition may be credited, a very extensive author. But it is now generally believed that his name was often made use of by other writers as a means of attracting attention to what they had to say. "Half the English religious tracts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have been assigned to him in the absence of all external, and in defiance of all internal evidence." It is as the translator of the Bible into English that we mention Wiclif here. His version, which was finished in 1380, is a remarkable one from a literary point of view, and justifies his being called the first writer of later English prose, as Chaucer was the first writer of later English poetry. Wiclif is believed to have received some assistance in the translation

Translations of the Bible.

43

of the Old Testament; but the translation of the New Testament is thought to have been entirely the work of his own hand. His translation of the New Testament was eclipsed by that of William Tyndale (1484-1536), which is the parent of all succeeding versions. It was first published at Antwerp. in 1526. "Tyndale's translation of the New Testament," says Marsh, "is the most important philological monument of the first half of the sixteenth century, perhaps I should say of the whole period between Chaucer and Shakespeare, both as an historical relic and as having more than anything else contributed to shape and fix the sacred dialect, and establish the form which the Bible must permanently assume in an English dress. The best features of the translation of 1611 are derived from the version of Tyndale, and thus that remarkable work has exerted, directly and indirectly, a more powerful influence on the English language than any other single production between the ages of Richard II. and Queen Elizabeth." Besides the New Testament, Tyndale translated the Pentateuch, and published it in 1530. In 1536 he was martyred at Antwerp, on account of his heresy; and in the same year his version of the New Testament was for the first time published in England. The next English Bible was that issued by Miles Coverdale, who followed Tyndale closely in his translation of the New Testament published in 1535. It is from this version that the Psalms still used in the Book of Common Prayer are taken. A second edition, with the royal imprimatur, was published in 1537. Another translation, commonly called "Matthew's Bible," founded chiefly on the labours of Tyndale and Coverdale, appeared in the same year. It was the work of John Rogers, memorable otherwise as having been the first victim of the savage persecution of Protestants in the reign of Mary. Cranmer's Bible, the "Great Bible" as it was called, which is substantially the same as “Matthew's," was published in 1539. Then came, in 1611, the "Authorised Version," the influence of which, even looked at from a purely literary point of view, has been incalculable. Whether the "Revised Version" issued in 1881 is destined to

supersede it, it is yet too early to say. The Authorised Version did not establish itself in public favour till it had encountered much severe opposition.

We have been led beyond our chronological limits, and must now retrace our steps. Attention in recent times has been much drawn to the "Morte d'Arthur” of Sir Thomas Malory, who flourished about 1470, by the fact that Mr. Tennyson has used it as the groundwork for much of his "Idylls of the King." The work, which is a condensation of the numerous floating legends about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, was published by Caxton, the first English printer, in 1485. It is said that Mr. Tennyson first chanced upon a copy of it when little more than a boy: the story kindled his enthusiasm, and the vision of a great poem rose before him. Caxton (1420-1492) himself cannot be passed over in a history of literature. It is needless to enlarge on the results which followed the introduction of the printing press how books have increased and multiplied till in our own day many are inclined to cry "Hold, enough;" how it has made literature accessible to all and attractive to all, how it has swept away thick mists of ignorance and prejudice; and how, by its means, journalism, "the Fourth Estate," has become more powerful for good or for evil than the other three Estates put together. Caxton was no vulgar tradesman; he had a keen interest in literature; was an industrious translator; and delighted to issue fine editions of the old English poets.

Sir Thomas More is a great figure both in political and in literary history. He was born in 1480, the son of a judge of the Court of King's Bench. At Oxford he made the acquaintance of Erasmus, an acquaintance which soon deepened into great mutual friendship. With a keen love of literature, and filled with enthusiasm for those classical studies, the interest in which was then beginning to revive in England, More concealed under a gay and cheerful exterior an almost ascetic piety, and at one time thought of becoming a monk. Instead of doing so, however, he began the study

Sir Thomas More.

45

of law, and in 1529 was appointed by Henry VIII. successor to Wolsey in the Lord Chancellorship. A man of versatile genius, of gentle disposition, and of impregnable integrity, More may justly be reckoned one of the most lovable men of his time. It has been well remarked that one of his most striking characteristics was his infinite variety. "He could write epigrams in a hair shirt at the Carthusian convent; and pass from translating Lucian to lecturing on Augustine in the church of St. Lawrence. Devout almost to superstition, he was light-hearted almost to buffoonery. One hour we see him encouraging Erasmus in his love of Greek and the new learning, or charming with his ready wit the supper tables of the Court, or turning a debate in Parliament; the next at home, surrounded by friends and familiar servants, by wife and children, and children's children, dwelling among them in an atmosphere of love and music, prayer and irony-throwing the rein, as it were, on the neck of his most careless fancies, and condescending to follow out the humours of his monkey and the fool. His fortune was almost as various. From his utter indifference to show and money he must have been a strange successor to Wolsey. He had thought as little about fame as Shakespeare, yet in the next generation it was an honour to an Englishman throughout Europe to be his countryman." In advance of his age in many respects, More yet shared its persecuting tendencies. A staunch Romanist, "this most upright and merciful man became a persecutor of men as innocent, though not of such great minds as himself.” To the Reformers he showed no mercy; and mercy was in turn denied him when he came to need it. He was beheaded in 1535, because he would not take the oath affirming the validity of the King's marriage with Anne Boleyn. "The innocent mirth," says Addison in a passage which has been universally admired, "which had been so conspicuous in his life, did not forsake him to the last. His death was of a piece with his life; there was nothing in it new, forced, or affected. He did not look upon the severing of his head from his body as a circumstance