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but once a year and tarry not long but are soon gone, but it is meat. It is no dainties. The people must have meat that must be familiar and continual and daily given unto them to feed upon. Many make a strawberry of it, ministering it but once a year, but such do not the office of good ministers."

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Then Latimer goes on to speak of those prelates and clergymen who never taught their people, but passed their time in idleness and self-indulgence; and presently he asks, "Who is the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England that passeth all the rest in doing his office?" Every one listens eagerly to hear which of the clergy Latimer will name, and then he says, "I will tell you; it is the devil. He is never out of his diocese, he is never from his cure, ye shall never find him unoccupied, he is ever in his parish, he keepeth residence at all times: ye shall never find him out of the way, call for him when ye will; he is ever at his plough ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. Oh, that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel." Latimer concludes his sermon with showing how the good King Hezekiah had put down idolatry in his kingdom; and then he says, "Howbeit, there is now very good hope that the king's majesty, being helped by good counsellors, and trained and brought up in learning and knowledge of God's word, will shortly provide a remedy and set an order herein, which thing that it may so be, let us pray for him. Pray for him, good people, pray for him; ye have great cause and need to pray for him.”

The hopes which Latimer placed on Edward VI. were not to be fulfilled by him. In Lent, 1550, Latimer preached his last sermon before the young king. It was against covetous ness, and lasted three hours. Shortly afterwards Latimer left London, and went down into Lincolnshire. He was there at the time of the death of Edward VI., and Mary was

scarcely established on the throne when he was called up to London. He must have known quite well what he was wanted for; but he went up with a brave heart. Mary had resolved to unite the English Church again to Rome; and Latimer had been most earnest in striving to get the English Church purified from the evils and errors which had crept into the Church of Rome. Latimer was brought before the Council; but he steadily refused to sign the articles requiring him to profess faith in the Romish doctrines. Then the old man, now more than sixty years of age, was sent with Cranmer the Archbishop, and Ridley, Bishop of London, to the common gaol at Oxford. Here he remained for sixteen months, but at last was condemned to be burnt at the stake. On an autumn day, October 16, 1555, Latimer and Ridley were brought out of the prison and led to a spot near Baliol College. Here they were fastened to the stake, and the fagots heaped around them. Then some one brought a blazing fagot to set alight to the pile, and he threw this down just at Ridley's feet. Latimer saw this, and turning towards Ridley, he said, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." He then cried out, "O Father of Heaven, receive my soul;" and bathing his hands a little, as it were in the fire, he soon died, as it appeared with very little pain, reminding one of what Cædmon had sung of the brave youths in the fiery furnace at Babylon

"Therein they unhurt

Walked as in shining of the summer sun,

When day breaks and the winds disperse the dew."

Men who held Truth with such hearty faith and such loyal, tender love could not be moved by terror of such a death; but not only the great minds, the leaders in the struggle to find out the true and right, held the treasure as worth more

than life itself, but unlearned men, who had received the Truth from the teaching of men like Latimer, clung to it with an instinctive trust and love as strong as that founded on conviction; and during the five years of Mary's reign, more than three hundred persons suffered death for holding the doctrines of the Reformers. This shows us how widely indifference and self-interest had given place to earnestness and deep concern for the things of God and for a pure and true life. We must notice this, because we shall see, when we come to the time of Queen Elizabeth, how much it has to do with the story of our English Literature. Before passing on to that time, we must also notice the work of two poets who wrote towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII. These are Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey. We have seen in Italy the rise of a bright, imaginative literature, careful and artistic in its outward form, written for the delight of Lorenzo de Medici and his Court. Both Sir Thomas Wyatt and Surrey were students of the Italian literature; and Wyatt is considered to be the first English writer of sonnets. This was

a form of poem specially used in Italian literature ever since the time of Petrarch. The sonnet contains fourteen lines, of which the rhymes generally fall as follows :

say

best

rest

way

may

lest

nest

day

cast

cries

past

rise

last

skies.

Thus it will be seen that in this, the perfect form of the sonnet, there are only four rhymes, though the sequence of these does not always correspond with that of the above model. The first eight lines are supposed to introduce the subject of the sonnet, which is described in the concluding six, in which much variety of arrangement is permitted. In the last line the subject should reach its climax.

Sonnets in Surrey's time were generally grouped around one individual. The poet would choose some one whom he knew, and make this person the hero or heroine of a number of sonnets. Thus the Earl of Surrey chose a young orphan girl named Elizabeth Fitzgerald for the heroine of his sonnets. She was of Italian race, her ancestors having come from Tuscany--from Florence-the very home of the sonnet. Her father was Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare; and from her family name, Surrey calls her Geraldine in the poems. When she was a little child her father was imprisoned in the Tower for treason, where he afterwards died; and her mother, who was cousin to Henry VIII., being dead, she was brought to Court, and was taken care of by the Princess Mary. She was a beautiful little child, and became, no doubt, the pet and favourite of the Court. When Surrey began to make her the heroine of his sonnets she was only about eight or nine years old.

The Earl of Surrey, besides writing sonnets, was the first important writer in England of the kind of poetry called blank verse. This also he found in Italian literature. Blank verse has five feet in a line, each consisting of two syllables, and the accent generally falls on the second. The chief difference between it and the metre used by Chaucer is that the last words do not rhyme. Thus Chaucer writes

"Be-fell | that in ❘ that sea- | son ōn | ǎ dãy,
In South-wǎrk āt | the Tā- | bărd ās | Ĭ lāy,
Read-ỹ to wēnd | ĕn ōn | mỹ pil- | grim-āge
Tŏ Can- | tĕr-bŭry | with fūll | dě-voūt | co-rāgc.”

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HUGH LATIMER, D.D., BISHOP OF WORCESTER

Painted in 1555 by an unknown artist (National Portrait Gallery).

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