History of Edward V., and of his Brother, and of Richard III., which appeared first in English and then in Latin, and has been the chief source of information respecting those reigns to later writers, though it has recently been proved to give a very incorrect view of various important transactions. More was a man of most amiable character, and of great learning and natural talent, and was put to death by Henry VIII., in 1535, on account of his refusing to acknowledge the supremacy of that monarch over

the church.

Another great prose-writer of the reign of Henry VIII. was JOHN LELAND, a Protestant clergyman, who, having devoted many years to the study of the antiquities of his native country, wrote a large and valuable work on that subject, entitled an Itinerary, which was not printed till the year 1710. Leland published, in his own lifetime, several books of less importance, in one of which he gave an account of all the English authors before his own time. There also flourished at this period several prose chroniclers of English history, whose writings, though destitute of judgment, and aiming at no literary excellence, are yet valuable for the facts which they contain. In 1523, LORD BERNERS published an English translation of Froissart's celebrated work, which commemorates the history of England, France, and other countries, during the chivalrous period of the fourteenth century. A few years later, JOHN BELLENDEN, Archdean of Moray, was employed by James V. to translate Hector Boece's History of Scotland, and the works of Livy; the former was published in 1536, and is the earliest existing specimen of Scottish literary prose. The first original prose work in that language was one entitled the Complaynt of Scotland, which was published at St Andrew's in 1548, by an unknown author, and consists of a meditation on the distracted state of the kingdom. The difference between the language of these works, and that employed by More and other English contemporary writers, is very little.

SURREY-TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE.

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The EARL OF SURREY and Sir Thomas Wyatt are the only poets of the reign of Henry VIII. whose writings now bear any value. The former was the eldest son of the Duke of Norfolk, and was born in 1516. He was educated at Windsor, in company with a natural son of the king, and in early life became accomplished, not only in the learning of the time, but in all kinds of courtly and chivalrous exercises. Having travelled into Italy, he became a devoted student of the poets of that country, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Ariosto, and formed his own poetical style upon theirs. His poetry is chiefly amorous, and, notwithstanding his having married in early life, much of it consists of the praises of a lady whom he names Geraldine, supposed to have been a daughter of the Earl of Kildare. Surrey was a gallant soldier as well as a poet, and conducted an important expedition, in 1542, for the devastation of the Scottish borders. He finally fell under the displeasure of Henry VIII., and was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1547. For justness of thought, correctness of style, and purity of expression, Surrey may be pronounced the first English classical poet; and it is worthy of notice that, in some translations from Virgil, he gave the earliest known specimen of blank-verse. THOMAS WYATT was another distinguished character at the court of Henry VIII., and wrote many poems in much the same style with Surrey. He was the first polished satirist in English literature.

SIR

The religious reformation which took place during this reign, caused several English versions of the Bible to be placed before the public; and these were perhaps the most important of all the literary efforts of the time. The first part of the Scriptures published in an English form, was the New Testament in 1526, the translation being executed by WILLIAM TYNDALE, a young scholar of Oxford university. The Old Testament, translated by the same individual, appeared in 1530, and both were eagerly received and read by the people. Tyndale, five years after, was burnt to death in Flanders for these services to

the Protestant cause. In 1535, a new translation of the whole Bible was published by MILES COVERDALE, of the university of Cambridge; and other versions soon after appeared. The dissemination of so many copies of the Scriptures, where neither the Bible nor any considerable number of other books had formerly been in use, produced very remarkable effects. The versions first used, having

been formed in some measure from the Latin translation called the Vulgate, contained many words from that language, which had hardly before been considered as English; such as perdition, consolation, reconciliation, sanctification, immortality, frustrate, inexcusable, transfigure, and many others requisite for the expression of compound and abstract ideas, which had never occurred to our Saxon ancestors, and therefore were not represented by any terms in that language. These words, in the course of time, became part of ordinary discourse, and thus the language was enriched. In the Book of Common Prayer, compiled in the subsequent reign of Edward VI., and which affords many beautiful specimens of the English of that time, the efforts of the learned to make such words familiar, are perceptible in many places; where a Latin term is often given with a Saxon word of the same, or nearly the same meaning following it, as 'humble and lowly,' 'assemble and meet together.' Another effect proceeded from the freedom with which the people were allowed to judge of the doctrines, and canvass the texts of the sacred writings. The keen interest with which they now perused the Bible, hitherto a closed book to the most of them, is allowed to have given the first impulse to the practice of reading in both parts of the island, and to have been one of the causes of the flourishing literary era which followed.

Among the great men of this age, it would be improper to overlook SIR JOHN CHEKE, professor of Greek at Cambridge, who first induced the learned of England to study that language, and the valuable literature embodied in it, with any considerable degree of care; he

was also one of the first who attempted to hold out precepts and models for the improvement of English composition. The earliest theoretical book on the latter subject, was published in 1553, by THOMAS WILSON of Cambridge, under the title of The Art of Rhetoric; it was a work of some merit. Another distinguished instructive writer of this age, was ROGER ASCHAM, preceptor to Queen Elizabeth. He wrote an essay entitled Toxophilus, to inculcate the propriety of mixing recreation with study, and a treatise called The Schoolmaster, containing directions for the most approved methods of studying languages. Much of the intellect and learning of the latter years of Henry VIII., and the whole reigns of Edward and Mary, was spent upon religious controversies, which, though interesting at the time, soon ceased to be remembered.

THIRD PERIOD.

THE REIGNS OF ELIZABETH, JAMES I., AND CHARLES I. [1558-1649.]

In the preceding sections, the history of English literature is brought to a period when its infancy may be said to cease, and its manhood to commence. In the earlier half of the sixteenth century, it was sensibly affected by a variety of influences, which, for an age before, had operated most powerfully in expanding the intellect of European nations. The study of classical literature, the invention of printing, the freedom with which religion was discussed, together with the substitution of the philosophy of Plato, for that of Aristotle, had everywhere given activity and strength to the minds of men. The immediate effects of these novelties upon English literature, were the enrichment of the language, as already mentioned, by a

great variety of words from the classic tongues, the establishment of better models of thought and style, and the allowance of greater freedom to the fancy and powers of observation in the exercise of the literary calling. Not only the Greek and Roman writers, but those of modern Italy and France, where letters experienced an earlier revival, were now translated into English, and, being liberally diffused by the press, served to excite a taste for elegant reading in lower branches of society, than had ever before felt the genial influence of letters. The dissemina

tion of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, while it greatly affected the language and ideas of the people, was also of no small avail in giving new directions to the thoughts of literary men, to whom these antique Oriental compositions, presented numberless incidents, images, and sentiments, unknown before, and of the richest and most interesting kind.

Among other circumstances favourable to literature at this period, must be reckoned the encouragement given to it by Queen Elizabeth, who was herself very learned and addicted to poetical composition, and had the art of filling her court with men qualified to shine in almost every department of intellectual exertion. Her successors, James and Charles, resembled her in some of these respects, and during their reigns, the impulse which she had given to literature, experienced rather an increase than a decline. There was, indeed, something in the policy as well as in the personal character of all these sovereigns, which proved favourable to literature. The study of the belles lettres was in some measure identified with the courtly and arbitrary principles of the time, not perhaps so much from any enlightened spirit in those who supported such principles, as from a desire of opposing the puritans and other malecontents, whose religious doctrines taught them to despise some departments of elegant literature, and utterly to condemn others. There can be no doubt that the drama, for instance, chiefly owed that encouragement which it received under Elizabeth and her successors, to