popularity, from his own age to that of Shakespeare, who introduces him in the Prologue to Pericles and makes him speak thus : "To sing a song that old was sung, From ashes ancient Gower is come; Assuming man's infirmities, To glad your ear and please your eyes." The Confessio Amantis was first printed by Caxton (London, 1483; fol.) The British Museum has two copies of this rare work. Another folio edition, in black-letter, was printed by T. Berthelette (London, 1532), and reprinted in 1554. None of the modern editions deserve mention beside that by Dr. Reinhold Pauli (London, 1857; 3 vols. 8vo), whose Introductory Essay contains all that is known of the poet and his works. C.-WYCLIFFE AND HIS SCHOOL. The revolution effected by Chaucer in poetry was accompanied and aided by an entirely new development of religious literature which, apart from its higher aspect, rendered a similar service to English prose. The new liberty of thought, which found expression in popular literature and in the exercise of private judgment in matters of faith, led to a direct appeal to Scripture; and the reforming teachers satisfied this demand by translating the Bible into the mother tongue. In the other countries of Europe which were affected by the Reformation, the revival of national literature has been connected with a similar work; and if the German Bible of Luther and the Dutch version of 1550 exercised a more powerful influence over their respective languages than the Wycliffite translations, one chief reason is that they appeared after the invention of printing, and were immediately and indefinitely multiplied by that art. In England, this great work is ascribed to JOHN DE WYCLIFFE (circ. 13241384), whose name is spelt in many different ways. He was born at Wycliffe-on-Tees near Darlington; studied at Oxford; and, having obtained his degree of Master, taught in the University. The medieval degree, in an age when professorships were unknown, conferred the right of teaching; and the terms Master and Doctor are really synonymous. Wycliffe was, however, a very important person at Oxford in his day. He held a fellowship or fellowships, probably at Merton and Balliol; he also rose to the position of Master of Balliol. He left Balliol after about a year and took the rectory of Fillingham in Lincolnshire, but returned to Oxford in 1363, residing first at Queen's and then as Warden of the recently founded Canterbury Hall. He began early to attack some abuses in the Church; and, after his deposition from his wardenship by Archbishop Langham and the Pope's rejection of his appeal, he gave all his energies to the work of reform, both by his writings and his theological lectures at Oxford. It is useful to remember, first, that his ideas, thus brought into prominence, were by no means new, but that he had had predecessors at Oxford, chief among whom were his master Armachanus, otherwise Richard Fitz-Ralph, Archbishop of Armagh, and the Profound Doctor," Archbishop Bradwardine. Secondly, he was a Schoolman, and not a Reformer in our sense of the word; to mix him up or identify him with later Lutherans or Calvinists is highly misleading. His theological position, like that of every Schoolman, was complicated by his philosophy; the orthodoxy of the one was impaired by the speculative heresy of the other. As a matter of fact, he belongs to the abstract and idealistic school of Ockham, which, differing from the Realists in no particular of orthodox belief, placed its faith upon different and more intangible grounds. For a long time Wycliffe remained unmolested, and was even regarded as a champion of the National Church. In 1374 he was a member of a commission sent to Avignon, which obtained concessions from the Pope on the question of induction into benefices. He was rewarded by the Crown with a prebendal stall at Worcester and the vicarage of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, which he held till his death, being secured from the storm of persecution that soon arose by the protection of the king's son, John of Gaunt. It was in the retirement of Lutterworth, after he had been driven from his post at Oxford, that Wycliffe, aided by his friends and disciples, undertook the work of Bible translation. Their version was the basis of that of Tyndale, as Tyndale's was of the authorised versions of 1536 (Coverdale's) and 1611 (King James', which is still in use); but three centuries and a half elapsed before Wycliffe's original translation of the New Testament, and nearly five centuries before his whole version appeared in print. The New Testament was edited by the Rev. John Lewis (1731; fol.); by the Rev. H. H. Baker (1810; 4to); and in Bagster's English Hexapla (1841 and 1846; 4to). The Old Testament was first published in the splendid edition by the Rev. J. Forshall and Sir Frederick Madden (Oxford, 1850; 4 vols. 4to). The authorship of the various parts has long been the subject of discussion. According to the latest editions, the Old Testament and Apocrypha, from Genesis to Baruch (in the order of the LXX), was translated by a priest named NICHOLAS OF HEREFORD (fl. 1390), and the rest of the Old Testament and Apocrypha, as well as the New Testament, by Wycliffe. The whole work was revised, in a second edition, by JOHN PURVEY (1353?-1428?), who has left us a very interesting essay on the principles of translation. The first edition seems to have been completed about 1380, and Purvey's edition about 1388; so that this English Bible was generally circulated by the end of the fourteenth century. Cheap editions of certain portions of the Wycliffite version have been issued by the Clarendon Press, under the editorship of Professor Skeat. The excellence of the version is to be ascribed to two chief causes, the religious sensibility of the translators, whose spirit was absorbed in their work, and the simple vocabulary and structure of the language, which presented itself newly formed to their hand. Translated as it was from the Vulgate, it naturalised, chiefly in a Latin form, a large stock of religious terms which had been before almost confined to theologians, and at the same time enlarged and modified them. Above all, by preserving the uniformity of diction and grammar suited to the sacred dignity of the work-a uniformity, by the way, not found in nearly so high a degree in Wycliffe's own treatisesit laid the foundation of that religious or sacred dialect which has contributed to secure dignity and earnestness as the prevailing character of our common speech. While satires of the type of Piers Plowman gratified the popular disgust at corruptions in high places, the newlyopened well-spring of truth supplied the cure for these evils; and the readiness with which the people received both classes of works enriched their language, while it exercised an influence on their thoughts. Wycliffe's English works have been published, in part, under Mr. Arnold's editorship, for the Clarendon Press, the rest by the Early English Text Society, 1880. A full catalogue of his original works, by Dr. Shirley, is also published by the Clarendon Press. There are also modern editions of his scholastic works published by the Wycliffe Society. CHAPTER III. FROM THE DEATH OF CHAUCER TO THE AGE OF § 1. Slow progress of English literature from Chaucer to the age of Elizabeth. Introduction of printing by CAXTON. Improvement of prose. § 2. Scottish literature in the fifteenth century: KING JAMES I; DUNBAR GAVIN DOUGLAS; ROBERT HENRYSON; BLIND HARRY. $3. Reign of Henry VII sterile in literature. § 4. Religious literature: Translations of the Bible; Book of Common Prayer; LATIMER; FOXE. $5. Chroniclers and Historians: LORD BERNERS' Froissart; FABYAN ; HALL. 6. Philosophy and Education: WILSON'S Logic; SIR JOHN CHEKE; ROGER ASCHAM'S Schoolmaster and Toxophilus. § 7. Poets: SKELTON, HAWES, and BARCLAY. § 8. WYATT. § 9. SURREY: the English Sonnet. § 10. Ballads of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: their sources, metre, and modes of circulation. Modern collections by Percy, Scott, etc. Influence on the revival of romantic literature. Ballads of the Scottish Borders and of Robin Hood. Growth of English literature to its culminating point § 1. THE progress of the literature which had been so manifestly inaugurated by the genius of Chaucer, although uninterrupted, was for a time comparatively slow. Many social and political causes contributed to retard it. At the same time, these very circumstances were the forces which accumulated the nation's energies for the greatest display of intellect it was to give. The the age of age of Elizabeth, following on this period of in- Elizabeth. action, is the most splendid epoch in the history of the English people, if not in the annals of the world. But, in the meantime, the causes of delay were the intestine commotions of the Wars of the Roses, the struggle between the dying energies of feudalism and the growing liberties of our municipal institutions, and the great changes consequent upon the Reformation. Splendour, fecundity, intense originality, the presence of the national spirit-these are the qualities which give the Elizabethan era so high a place in the history of mankind. The Eliza In universality of scope, in the influence it was des- bethan era tined to exert upon the thought and knowledge of part of the future generations, no other epoch can be brought European into comparison with it. The influence of the age of Pericles or Augustus, of Lorenzo de' Medici or Louis XIV ENG. LIT. Renaissance. F is partial when set beside the influence of the age, not only of a multitude of brilliant poets and philosophers, but of Shakespeare and Bacon. It must not be forgotten, on the other hand, that the Elizabethan age cannot be taken by itself, but must be considered as part of a great movement, as the English counterpart of the age of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo, as a derivation, in a sense, from that age-in short, the English manifestation of that intellectual revolution which took place, to a greater or less degree, in every European country, and is known as the Renaissance. Meanwhile, the interval between the end of the fourteenth century and the latter part of the sixteenth, although destitute of any names which can compare in respect of creative energy with that of Chaucer, was a period of great literary activity. The importation of the art of printing, which was first exercised among us by WILLIAM WILLIAM CAXTON, himself a diligent translator, whose style CAXTON (d. 1491). did something towards the formation of a literary standard, unquestionably gave a more regular and distinctly literary form to the productions of the age. The improvement of prose style kept pace with the increase in the number of printed books, while the circle of readers was enlarged, and the influence of popular intellectual activity was extended for instance, by the dissemination of political and religious discussion as a general habit. Thus an innovation in the art of prose-writing was effected by the Chief Justice, SIR JOHN FORTESCUE, who, beside his cele1394-1476?). brated Latin work De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, also wrote one in English on the Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy. This clever lawyer had his share in the political troubles of the time. As a Lancastrian, he accompanied Henry VI into exile, and afterwards, being taken prisoner at Tewkesbury (1471), was attainted. He obtained his pardon by making peace with the White Rose and acknowledging Edward IV. SIR JOHN Scottish He § 2. But, at the beginning of our interval, the greatest names belong to Scotsmen, and of these the greatest is the name of a king. JAMES I is the pathetic hero of one literature: of the most melancholy romances in history. JAMES I was the younger brother of that Duke of Rothesay (1394-1437). who, by the machinations of his uncle, Albany, was so cruelly starved to death in 1402. The young prince, sent to France by his father, as a precaution against a repetition of such measures, was taken prisoner on the voyage by an English vessel. He remained in captivity from 1406 to 1424, first in the Tower, and afterwards at Windsor. It was during "The Kingis Quair." this time that he composed the allegorical poem called The Kingis Quair (i.e. Quire or Book). One day in 1423 he saw, walking in the garden below his window, Joan Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and, falling then and there in love, composed his Death of James I. poem in her honour. Of more actual importance to us is the source from which his work was derived. Its allegorical setting strongly testifies to the influence, conveyed through the French rhetorical poets, of Petrarch, who was at this time, and for many generations to come, the chief intellectual guide of Europe. Its English is, however, clearly the result of the study of Chaucer, to whom, in company with Gower, the king appeals at the close of his book. In spite of the allegorical machinery, which, however excellent, must almost certainly lay any poem under the heavy charge of artificiality, there is a very artless simplicity and directness about The Kingis Quair, and constantly the flow of the verse is quickened by a spontaneous outburst of the purest lyric poetry. It is satisfactory to know that the Regent Bedford smiled upon the union of the captive poet with the lady who was the subject of his performance; and, not long after, James was sent back to Scotland and crowned king. He was nevertheless destined to play the leading part in a sad tragedy, for in 1437 he was assassinated at Perth by his nobles, whose unbridled power he had endeavoured to destroy. The extraordinary details of the murder-the warning of the spaewife, the heroism of the Queen and of Catherine Douglasare familiar to all readers of Rossetti's wonderful ballad, The King's Tragedy. James, as a popular king, left his mark behind him in the ballads which he composed in his national dialect, the famous Lowland Scots-a dialect which was then, and long after, the language of literature, of courtly society, and of theology, and is by no means to be regarded in the modern light of a patois or provincial dialect. Even long after the Union of 1707 it was spoken in the best society of Edinburgh, and even now its presence is evident in the speech of the most cultivated Lowlanders. James' Scottish ballads, dealing with the common life of the people, show a remarkable humour, untrammelled and exuberant. One of them, Christ's Kirk upon the Green, with Allan Ramsay's excellent but vastly inferior conclusion, is within reach of all students, and attests, perhaps as strongly as The Kingis Quair, the powerful and versatile genius of the royal poet. Their authenticity is, however, a matter of opinion. His ballads. Beside King James, Scotland produced about this time several poets of great merit, the chief of whom are WILLIAM DUNBAR and GAVIN DOUGLAS, son of the famous WILLIAM earl, Archibald "Bell the Cat," and Bishop of DUNBAR Dunkeld. "More pleased that, in a barbarous age, (about 1465- Of these, Dunbar was a powerful and remarkably original |