principal work was "The Vision of Piers the Plowman; John Gower (1335-1408), author of a poem entitled "The Lover's Confession; " and John Barbour (1316–1396), a Scottish poet, whose best-remembered work is entitled "The Bruce." In the fourteenth century the English language attained a high degree of finish, force, and freedom, though the sentences of its prose writers are long and awkward. Civil wars convulsed England in the fifteenth century, and the cultivation of letters met little encouragement. Accordingly we find in this period no great work in prose or verse. But if no new literature appeared, that which had already been produced took deeper root and spread wider its branches, mainly through the endeavors of William Caxton (1412-1492), the "Father of the English Press," as he has been called: He began to print books in London in the year 1474. This man, whose name has very great significance in the history of our literature, had long been a writer when he took up the business of printing. He was not only author and printer, but compositor, proof-reader, binder, and publisher as well. Caxton's press produced about fifty important works, nearly all of them in English. A number of his publications were translations, made by Caxton himself, of notable foreign books. He printed the poems of Chaucer and of Gower, and the "History of King Arthur," by Sir Thomas Malory. From the last-named work Tennyson has drawn the stories which form the groundwork of his “Idylls of the King." In the preface to his translation of the Æneid of Virgil (published in 1490), Caxton says that he can not understand old books that were written when he was a boy; that "the olde Englysshe is more lyke to dutche than englysshe," and that “our langage now used varyeth ferre from that whiche was used and spoken when I was borne." The sixteenth century was remarkable for its production of anonymous ballads, which were widely circulated among the common people. "King Lear" and "The Babes in Wood" are the best known of these popular pieces. The first half of this century witnessed also the dawn of a new era in poetry, marked by the appearance of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and of the Earl of Surrey (15171547). Both these writers had passed many years in Italy. They had learned, like Chaucer, to appreciate the greatness of Italian literature, and they have been called "the first reformers of English meter and style." Surrey translated part of Virgil in blank verse, and he shares with Wyatt the credit of introducing the sonnet into our literature. A generation later than these appeared Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), the "poet's poet," who, though the predecessor of Shakespeare by but a few years, must yet be reckoned, chiefly on account of his archaisms of style and the nature of his subjects, as belonging to an earlier epoch. He was the study of Shakespeare, and the poetical master of Cowley and of Milton. Spenser's SPENSER earliest work was a set of twelve pastoral poems entitled "The Shepheard's Calendar; " but his fame rests on his great allegory of "The Faerie Queene." The propagation of the several moral virtues is the professed object of this poem. It is written in a stanza of nine lines, since known as the Spenserian stanza. This is so skillfully constructed, and so well adapted to our language, that it is much used by our later poets. Spenser is very fond of alliteration. Thus he has, "What man that sees the ever-whirling wheele " "Derived by due descent" and similar examples may be found in almost every stanza of the six books into which the poem is divided. Two prose writers of this time deserve notice. Sir Thomas More (1480-1535) wrote in a plain, strong, nervous style, "The Life and Reign of Edward V." This is the first work deserving the name of history that appeared in our language, and is an admirable example of classic English prose. Hallam speaks of the language of this work as pure and perspicuous, well-chosen, without vulgarisms, and without pedantry." The work, however, which comes first to mind at the mention of More's name is his Utopia," - a description, as its title denotes, of the land of Nowhere. This favored country is a republic, the idea of which More borrowed from Plato, and in it there are no taverns, no fashions, no wars, and no lawyers. William Tyndale (1484–1536) is famous for his translation of the New Testament and of parts of the Old. His English is remarkably pure and vigorous. Very few of the words used in his translation have become obsolete, and the work is therefore a landmark in the history of our language. This brief sketch of the Beginnings of English Literature brings us to a consideration of the literature of the Elizabethan reign. Certain conditions and influences of the last quarter of the sixteenth century and the first years of the seventeenth strongly disposed English letters to the dramatic form of expression, as will presently appear. For several centuries theatrical representation had been rude and spectacular. It had consisted chiefly of exhibitions of the martyrdoms of saints, and of miracle- · plays, in the successive scenes of which the events of scripture and of prophecy, beginning with the creation, and ending with the destruction of the world, were shown forth. These spectacles grew up under monastic patronage, being performed sometimes within the enclosures of monasteries, and sometimes in the churches themselve As the English people increased in numbers, and in proved in the arts of life, these religious plays were produced in greater pomp and greater excellence of form. Then, as time passed, something new and different was demanded by the popular taste, and by gradual steps the so-called “moral plays" supplanted those of a religious character. In the new drama virtues and vices usurped the places thitherto held by angels and demons, and before long even these ceased to be offered as abstractions,personified qualities yielding room to the proper persons of the drama. Next came translations of the ancient tragedies and comedies; then crude plays founded on Italian Companies of strolling players traveled from place to place, performing in town-halls or in such other buildings as could give accommodation to their audiences. romance. The first regular public theater in England was established just outside of the city limits of London in the year 1575. The number of the players and the prosperity of the playhouse steadily increased. Among the signatures to a memorial addressed to the Queen's Council a few years later by the actors of the "Blackfriars Playhouse" is the name of William Shakespeare. II THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE SHAKESPEARE BACON I LOVE the old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through, The songs of Spenser's golden days, Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. WHITTIER WHAT is called the "Elizabethan literature" is that body of classic English prose and verse which, making its appearance in the latter half of the reign of Elizabeth, continued through that of James and that of nis son. Before the time of Shakespeare the language spoken in England had been subject to a succession of modifications, both in internal structure and by accretions from without, so radical that the speech of Shakespeare would scarce have been intelligible to the Englishman of Chaucer's day. Yet the Elizabethan English is the tongue that we speak; and we may therefore say that our language previous to about the middle of the sixteenth century was making, but not made, was in a formative condition. The foregoing chapter has given in outline some account of this earlier English, and of the causes which led to the successive steps in the development of our language. It is largely due to the great literary figures of the Elizabethan time that the mold of our speech is substantially fixed. They gave to us a standard for guidance, and have themselves become classics for later generations to |