ut hic homo. There was never man spake like this man. Then answered the Pharisees, Num et vos seducti estis? What, ye brain-sick fools, ye hoddy pecks, ye doddy polls, ye huddes, do ye believe Him? Are you seduced also?

Or the following:

"Germany was visited XX. years with God's Word, but they did not earnestly embrace it, and in life follow it, but made a mingle-mangle and a hotch-potch of it.

"I cannot tell what, partly Popery, partly true religion, mingled together. They say in my country when they call their hogs to the swine trough: Come to thy mingle-mangle; come pyr, come pyr,'-even so they made mingle-mangle of it."

Latimer's "Sermon on the Plougher," and his "Seven Sermons before Edward VI.," are in the series of English Reprints. Several editions of his sermons were issued in the sixteenth century.

John Foxe, 1517-1587, author of the Book of Martyrs,' a native of Lincolnshire. Having studied at Oxford and gained a fellowship, he became openly Protestant, and was expelled in 1545. After various distresses, he had been but a short time comfortably settled as tutor to the Earl of Surrey when Mary ascended the throne, and he had to flee to the Continent and support himself by correcting proofs. After Mary's death he returned and received a prebendary. His 'Book of Martyrs' is an interesting record, reprinted by various religious societies: the facts are not much to be relied on, being based upon popular report, evidently little sifted.

Sir John Cheke, 1514-1557, Professor of Greek at Cambridge, is best known by the impulse he gave to the study of Greek. His life was troubled; he had difficulties with Gardiner about certain innovations in the pronunciation of Greek, and on the accession of Mary had to flee the country for his religion. After some years' precarious wandering, he was caught at Antwerp and brought back; was offered the alternative of recantation or death; recanted, and soon after died of shame and grief.

His only English work is written against the insurrection of Ket the Tanner. Its title is, 'The Hurt of Sedition, how grievous it is to a Commonwealth.'

THIRD QUARTER OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Roger Ascham, 1515-1568, is one of the best-known men of his century. He was more fortunate in his life than More, Latimer, or Cheke. He enjoyed a pension under Henry and Edward, had his pension not only continued but increased by Mary, was made her Latin secretary; after her death became a favourite with Elizabeth, continued to enjoy pension and secretaryship, taught Latin and Greek to the learned Queen, and lived to write that, "in our fore

fathers' time, Papistry as a standing pool covered and overflowed all England." The secret of his success was, that he held no strong opinions in religion, or, at any rate, kept them to himself. When at Cambridge he nearly lost his fellowship by indiscreetly speaking against the Pope. Escaping shipwreck that time, he was careful never to offend again by an obtrusive profession of his faith. A Yorkshireman, son of Lord Scroop's steward, he had little of the Yorkshire vigour; a man of delicate constitution, of gentle and polished manners; noted for his fine penmanship and elegant scholarly acquirements, and having not a little of the dexterity of the courtier.

In

The Toxophilus' (1545) is a dialogue on archery, sustained by Philologus and Toxophilus-Lover of the Book, and Lover of the Bow. It gives the history of the bow, compares archery with other recreations, recommends it as an exercise for the student, tells the best kind of wood for the bow, discusses the art of shooting, &c.; above all, it declares what England owes to the bow, and urges every Englishman to practise the national weapon. Upon the merits of this side of the treatise he received his pension from Henry. The 'Schoolmaster' (published in 1570, after his death) discusses the readiest means of acquiring a knowledge of Latin, and criticises the style of Varro, Sallust, Cicero, and Cæsar. both "Toxophilus' and the 'Schoolmaster' he takes great liberty of digression, but does little to redeem his promise of great things under modest titles. He announced a 'Book of the Cockpit,' in defence of his frequenting that place of amusement, but the work was never published. His chief service to English prose is the example he sets, as a scholar and a courtier, of writing in the vernacular. This service is acknowledged by Dr Nathan Drake. Thomas Fuller says of him-"He was an honest man, and a good shooter. Archery was his pastime in youth, which, in his old age, he exchanged for cock-fighting. His 'Toxophilus' is a good book for young men; his 'Schoolmaster' for old; his 'Epistles' for all men."

A collected edition of his English works was published in 1761. Another reprint in 1815 is modernised, not only in the spelling but in the language.

Thomas Wilson, d. 1581, writer on Rhetoric, Logic, &c.-His 'System of Rhetoric and Logic,' pub. 1553, is the first systematic treatise on the English language. He was a man of position, said to have been Dean of Durham, and to have held offices of state under Elizabeth. He made a stand for the purity of the "King's English." He ridiculed fops and scholars for talking Chaucer, and for larding their speech with French-English, with Italianated terms, with inkhorn terms, with "far-fetched colours of gay antiq1 He is, so far as we are aware, the first writer to use this expression.

uity."

"The unlearned or foolish fantastical Latin their tongues that the simple speak by some revelation."

will so

think surely they

Among the many eloquent preachers and able men of business connected with the Church of England in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, the two most celebrated writers were Thomas Becon (1511-1567) and John Jewel (1522-1571). Both had to flee to the Continent during the reign of Mary, and both were rewarded upon the accession of Elizabeth. Becon inclined to be Puritan and Presbyterian, and received no higher preferment than a stall in Canterbury Cathedral. He wrote voluminously, chief books of devotion and poetry. One of his devotional works, TŁ Sick Man's Salve,' became a popular household book, and is frequently alluded to by Ben Jonson and contemporary dramatists. Jewel was made Bishop of Salisbury. He was one of the ables of Elizabeth's bishops. When comparatively a young man, he was chosen by the University of Oxford to deliver a congratulatory address to Queen Mary upon her accession. His famous 'Apology for the Church of England,' written in elegant Latin, was much admired throughout Europe, and at once adopted by the Church as a conclusive defence of her faith.

Sir Thomas North, a collateral ancestor of the Guildfords, issued in 1579 an English version of 'Plutarch's Lives,' rendered from the French translation by Amyot. The work was very popular, until superseded by Dryden's translation. It is closely followed by Shakspeare in Coriolanus,' 'Julius Cæsar,' and 'Antony and Cleopatra.'

Holinshed's Chronicle,' published about 1580, is known to many readers only from being similarly utilised by Shakspeare, who made Holinshed's translation of Boece the basis of Macbeth.' In the composition of his 'Chronicles,' which profess to be a complete history of Great Britain and Ireland, Holinshed, himself a man of uncertain biography, had several assistants, whose lives are equally obscure. The prefatory account of England in the sixteenth century, the most valuable part of the work, was written by William Harrison; the history and description of Ireland by Richard Stanihurst. John Hooker, the Chamberlain of Exeter, and uncle of "the judicious Hooker," is also said to have given some assistance.

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CHAPTER II.

FROM 1580 TO 1610.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY,

1554-1586.

In the prose works of Sir Philip Sidney we discern an advance on the style of all preceding writers. The advance is not perhaps great-we are not to suppose that prose style departed from the usual law of gradual progress :-still, whatever the difference may be in the ultimate analysis, undeniably his prose is nearer the present style of English than any prose of anterior date. His style has a flow and elevation not to be found in any prose work before his time. On that ground, although he is "a warbler of poetic prose," his literary fame resting chiefly on a romance, it is desirable to analyse his style simply as a prose style at some length.

As the "Hero of Zutphen," Sidney is one of the most popular characters in English history; and in his own day, at a very early age, was celebrated all over Europe for his discretion, courage, and accomplishments. It is said that he was mooted as a candidate for the throne of Poland, and that Elizabeth put her veto on the rising negotiation, because she could not part with "the jewel of her time. He was born at Penshurst in Kent; son of Sir Henry Sidney a knight who became a favourite with Elizabeth, and was famed as an administrator of Ireland; and nephew to the Earl of Leicester. He was educated at Shrewsbury, and at Christ Church, Oxford. In 1572, at the age of seventeen, he set out with three years' leave of absence to travel on the Continent; was in Paris during the massacre of St Bartholomew, and went thence to Frankfort, Vienna, and the chief cities of Italy. During these travels,

unlike most travellers of his rank, he associated with scholars and statesmen, making an earnest study of European politics. Introduced at Court in 1575, his mixed courtesy and gravity at once made him a favourite. In 1577, at the age of twenty-two, being sent as ambassador in great state to congratulate the new Emperor of Germany, and discover as far as possible his tendencies, he met William the Silent of Orange, who pronounced him one of the ripest statesmen in Europe. During the eight following years he had no public employment, and lived chiefly at Court. In 1578 he wrote his masque The Lady of the May,' performed at Elizabeth's reception by his uncle the Earl of Leicester. Probably about the same time he began his sonnets to 'Stella,' the daughter of the Earl of Essex, afterwards married to Lord Rich. In the same year he had Spenser living with him at Penshurst. In 1580 he wrote the 'Arcadia,' dedicated to his celebrated sister, the Countess of Pembroke. In the following year he is supposed to have written the Apologie for Poetrie.' (After this he became too much engaged in politics to have time for literature. As a statesman, he devoted himself to the policy of humbling the power of Spain. He had boldly written to Elizabeth in 1580, dissuading her from the marriage with Anjou, and now he was eager that the Queen should take active part with the Continental Protestants. This not being done, he impatiently planned with Drake a secret expedition to strike at the Spanish colonies in America, but was interdicted just at starting. At last Elizabeth resolved to stir, and in the fall of 1585 sent him to the Netherlands as Governor of Flushing along with an army under Leicester. Commencing operations in spring, Sidney showed great enterprise and skill, but was mortally wounded in a rencounter at Zutphen, and died Oct. 17, 1586. The touching incident that has endeared his memory, and made him known to every schoolboy, occurred as he rode wounded from the battle.

Though he was well known as a writer, and widely esteemed as a patron of literary men during his life, none of his works were published till after his death. The Arcadia' was first printed in 1590, the Apologie for Poetrie' in 1595.

In personal appearance Sidney was tall and handsome, with clear complexion, and hair of a dark amber colour. By Spenser's testimony he excelled in athletic sports-"in wrestling-nimble, and in running swift; in shooting steady, and in swimming strong; well made to strike, to throw, to leap, to lift." He was of such prowess in the tournament, that on the occasion of a great festival he was selected as one of four champions to keep the lists in honour of England against all comers.

It is not often that we find in union with such physical prowess any remarkable powers of mind. In Elizabeth's Court there were many able men both physically and mentally, but none of those