and Lydgate were the nearest successors to Chancer. Occleve speaks of himself as Chaucer's scholar. He has, at least, the merit of master. But it is difficult to controvert the character which has been generally assigned to him, that of a flat and feeble writer. Excepting the adoption of his story of Fortunatus, by William Browne, in his pastorals, and the modern republication of a few of his pieces, I know not of any public compliment which has ever been paid to his poetical memory. more wonderful that the spark of literature was kept alive, than that it did not spread more widely. Yet the fifteenth century had its redeeming traits of refinement, the more wonder-expressing the sincerest enthusiasm for his ful for appearing in the midst of such unfavourable circumstances. It had a Fortescue, although he wandered in exile, unprotected by the constitution which he explained and extoiled in his writings. It had a noble patron and lover of letters in Tiptoft, although he died by the hands of the executioner. It witnessed the founding of many colleges, in both of the universities, although they were still the haunts of scholastic quibbling; and it produced, in the venerable Pecock, one conscientious dignitary of the church, who wished to have converted the protestants by appeals to reason, though for so doing he had his books, and, if he had not recanted in good time, would have had his body also, committed to the flames. To these causes may be ascribed the backwardness of our poetry between the dates of Chaucer and Spenser. I speak of the chasm extending to, or nearly to Spenser; for, without undervaluing the elegant talents of Lord Surrey, I think we cannot consider the national genius as completely emancipated from oppressive circumstances, till the time of Elizabeth. There was indeed a commencement of our poetry under Henry VIII. It was a fine, but a feeble one. English genius seems then to have come I forth, but half assured that her day of emancipation was at hand. There is something melancholy even in Lord Surrey's strains of gallantry. The succession of Henry VIII. gave stability to the government, and some degree of magnificence to the state of society. But tyranny was not yet at an end; and to judge, not by the gross buffoons, but by the few minds entitled to be called poetical, which appear in the earlier part of the sixteenth century, we may say that the English Muse had still a diffident aspect and a faltering tone. There is a species of talent, however, which may continue to endite what is called poetry, without having its sensibilities deeply affected by the circumstances of society; and of luminaries of this description our fifteenth century was not destitute. Ritson has enumerated about seventy of them t. Of these, Occleve Earl of Worcester. + In his Bibliographia Poetica. Lydgate is altogether the most respectable versifier of the fifteenth century. A list of 250 of the productions ascribed to him (which is given in Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica) attests, at least, the fluency of his pen; and he seems to have ranged with the same facility through the gravest and the lightest subjects of composition. Ballads, hymns, ludicrous stories, legends, romances, and allegories, were equally at his command. Verbose and diffuse as Dan John of Bury must be allowed to have been, he is not without occasional touches of pathos. The poet Gray was the first in modern times who did him the justice to observe them. His "Fall of Princes" may also deserve notice, in tracing back the thread of our national poetry, as it is more likely than any other English production to have suggested to Lord Sackville the idea of his "Mirror for Magistrates." The "Mirror for Magistrates" again gave hints to Spenser in allegory, and may also have possibly suggested to Shakspeare the idea of his historical plays. Vide p. 15 of these Selections. He translated largely from the French and Latin. His principal poems are **The fall of Princes," "The siege of Thebes," and "The Destruction of Troy." The first of these is from Laurent's French version of Boccaccio's book "De Casibus virorum et feminarum illustrium." His "Siege of Thebes," which was intended as an additional Canterbury Tale, and in the introduction to which he feigns himself in company with "the host of the Tabard and the Pilgrims," is compiled from Guido Colonna, Statius, and Seneca. His "Destruction of Troy" is from the work of Guido Colonna, or from a French translation of it. His "London Lickpenny" is curious, for the minute picture of the metropolis, which it exhibits, in the fifteenth century. A specimen of Lydgate's humour may be seen in his tale of "The Prioress and her three Wooers," which Mr. Jamieson has given in his "Popular Ballads and Songs " [vol. i. p. 249–266]. 1 had transcribed it from a manuscript in the British Museum [Harl. MS. 78], thinking that it was not in print, but found that Mr. Jamieson had anticipated me. I know not if Hardynge*, who belonged to the reign of Edward IV., be worth mentioning, as one of the obscure luminaries of this benighted age. He left a Chronicle of the History of England, which possesses an incidental interest from his having been himself a witness to some of the scenes which he records; for he lived in the family of the Percys, and fought under the banners of Hotspur; but from the style of his versified Chronicle, his head would appear to have been much better furnished for sustaining the blows of the battle, than for contriving its poetical celebration. The Scottish poets of the fifteenth, and of a part of the sixteenth century, would also justly demand a place in any history of our End of the fifteenth ning of the 66 false ornament, and alliteration. The rest of them, when they meant to be most eloquent, tore up words from the Latin, which never took root in the language, like children making a mock garden with flowers and branches stuck in the ground, which speedily wither. From Lydgate down to Wyat and Surrey, there seem to be no southern writers deserving attention, unless for the purposes of the antiquary, excepting Hawes, Barklay, and Skelton; and even their names might perhaps be omitted, without treason to the cause of taste. Stephen Hawes §, who was groom of the chamber to Henry VII., is said to have been accomplished in the literature of France and Italy, and to have travelled into those countries. His most important production is the "Pastyme of Pleasure," an allegorical romance, the hero of which is Grandamour or Gallantry, and the heroine La Belle Pucelle, or Perfect Beauty. In this work the personified characters have all the capriciousness and vague moral meaning of the old French allegorical romance; but the puerility of the school remains, while the zest of its novelty is gone. There is also in his foolish personage of Godfrey Gobelive, something of the burlesque of the worst taste of Italian poetry. It is certainly very tiresome to follow Hawes's hero, Grandamour, through all his adventures, studying grammar, rhetoric, and arithmetic, in the tower of Doctrine; afterwards slaughtering giants, who have each two or three emblematic heads; sacrificing to heathen gods; then mar and begin poetry that meant to be copious and sixteenth minute; as the northern "makers," century. notwithstanding the difference of dialect, generally denominate their language Inglis." Scotland produced an entire poetical version of the Æneid, before Lord Surrey had translated a single book of it; indeed before there was an English version of any classic, excepting Boëthius, if he can be called a classic. Virgil was only known in the English language through a romance on the Siege of Troy, published by Caxton, which, as Bishop Douglas observes, in the prologue to his Scottish Æneid, is no more like Virgil, than the devil is like St. Austin +. Perhaps the resemblance may not even be so great. But the Scottish poets, after all that has been said of them, form nothing like a brilliant revival of poetry. They are on the whole superior, in-rying according to the Catholic rites; and, deed, in spirit and originality to their English cotemporaries, which is not saying much ; but their style is, for the most part, cast, if possible, in a worse taste. The prevailing fault of English diction, in the fifteenth century, is redundant ornament, and an affectation of anglicising Latin words. In this pedantry and use of "aureate terms," the Scottish versifiers went even beyond their brethren of the south. Some exceptions to the remark, I am aware, may be found in Dunbar, who sometimes exhibits simplicity and lyrical terseness; but even his style has frequent deformities of quaintness, [* A kind of Robert of Gloucester redivivus.—SIR WALTER SCOTT, Misc. Pr. Works, vol. xvii. p. 13.] [t Warton, vol. iii. p. 112. Douglas is said to have written his translation in the short space of sixteen months, and to have finished it in 1513.-This was before Surrey was born!] finally, relating his own death and burial, to which he is so obliging as to add his epitaph. Yet, as the story seems to be of Hawes's invention, it ranks him above the mere chroniclers and translators of the age. Warton To the reign of Henry VI. belongs Henry Lonelich, who plied the unpoetical trade of a skinner, and who translated the French romance of St. Graal; Thomas Chestre, who made a free and enlarged version of the Lai de Lanval, of the French poetess Marie; and Robert Thornton, who versified the "Morte Arthur" in the alliterative measure of Langlande. [§ A bad imitator of Lydgate, ten times more tedious than his original.-SIR WALTER SCOTT, Misc. Pr. Works, vol. xvii. p. 13.] He also wrote the "Temple of Glass," the substance of which is taken from Chaucer's "House of Fame." [The Temple of Glass is now, as Mr. Hallam observes, by general consent restored to Lydgate.-Lit. Hist. vol. i. p. 432; and Price's Warton, vol. iii. p. 46—7.] praises him for improving on the style of Lydgate. His language may be somewhat more modern, but in vigour or harmony, I am at a loss to perceive in it any superiority. The indulgent historian of our poetry has, however, quoted one fine line from him, describing the fiery breath of a dragon, which guarded the island of beauty: "The fire was great; it made the island light." Every romantic poem in his own language is likely to have interested Spenser ; and if there were many such glimpses of magnificence in Hawes, we might suppose the author of "The Fairy Queen" to have cherished his youthful genius by contemplating them; but his beauties are too few and faint to have afforded any inspiring example to Spenser. Alexander Barklay was a priest of St. Mary Otterburne, in Devonshire, and died at a great age at Croydon, in the year 1552. His principal work was a free translation of Sebastian Brandt's + "Navis Stultifera," enlarged with some satirical strictures of his own upon the | manners of his English cotemporaries. His Ship of Fools" has been as often quoted as most obsolete English poems; but if it were not obsolete it would not be quoted. He also wrote Eclogues, which are curious as the earliest pieces of that kind in our language. From their title we might be led to expect some interesting delineations of English rural customs at that period. But Barklay intended to be a moralist, and not a painter of nature; and the chief, though insipid, moral which he inculcates is, that it is better to be a clown than a courtier. The few scenes of country life which he exhibits for that purpose are singularly ill fitted to illustrate his doctrine, and present rustic existence under a miserable 1 [* Host, vol. iii. p. 54. "Hawes has added new graces to Lydgate's manner."] + Sebastian Brandt was a civilian of Basil. : Barklay gives some sketches of manners; but they are those of the town, not the country. Warton is partial to his black-letter eclogues, because they contain allusions to the customs of the age. They certainly inform us at what hour our ancestors usually dined, supped, and went to bed, that they were fond of good eating; and that it was advisable, in the poet's opinion, for any one who attempted to help himself to a favourite dish at their hanquets to wear a gauntlet of mail. Quin the player, who probably never bad heard of Barklay, delivered at a much later period a similar observation on city feasts; namely, that the candidate for a good dish of turtle ought never to be without a basket-hilted knife and fork. aspect, more resembling the caricature of Scotland in Churchill's "Prophecy of Famine," than anything which we can imagine to have ever been the general condition of English peasants. The speakers, in one of his eclogues, lie littered among straw, for want of a fire to keep themselves warm; and one of them expresses a wish that the milk for dinner may be curdled, to save them the consumption of bread. As the writer's object was not to make us pity but esteem the rustic lot, this picture of English poverty can only be accounted for by supposing it to have been drawn from partial observation, or the result of a bad taste, that naturally delighted in squalid subjects of description. Barklay, indeed, though he has some stanzas which might be quoted for their strength of thought and felicity of expression, is, upon the whole, the least ambitious of all writers to adorn his conceptions of familiar life with either dignity or beauty. An amusing instance of this occurs in one of his moral apologues: Adam, he tells us in verse, was one day abroad at his workEve was at the door of the house, with her children playing about her; some of them she was "kembing," says the poet, prefixing another participle not of the most delicate kind, to describe the usefulness of the comb. Her Maker having deigned to pay her a visit, she was ashamed to be found with so many illdressed children about her, and hastened to stow a number of them out of sight; some of them she concealed under hay and straw, others she put up the chimney, and one or two into a "tub of draff." Having produced, however, the best looking and best dressed of them, she was delighted to hear their Divine Visitor bless them, and destine some of them to be kings and emperors, some dukes and barons, and others sheriffs, mayors, and aldermen. Unwilling that any of her family should forfeit blessings whilst they were going, she immediately drew out the remainder from their concealment; but when they came forth they were so covered with dust and cobwebs, and had so many bits of chaff and straw sticking to their hair, that instead of receiving benedictions and promotion, they were doomed to vocations of toil and poverty, suitable to their dirty appearance. John Skelton, who was the rival and contemporary of Barklay, was laureate to the University of Oxford, and tutor to the prince, afterwards Henry VIII. Erasmus must have been a bad judge of English poetry, or must have alluded only to the learning of Skelton, when in one of his letters he pronounces him "Britannicarum literarum lumen et decus." There is certainly a vehemence and vivacity in Skelton, which was worthy of being guided by a better taste; and the objects of his satire bespeak some degree of public spirit*. But his eccentricity in attempts at humour is at once vulgar and flippant ; and his style is almost a texture of slang phrases, patched with shreds of French and Latin. We are told, indeed, in a periodical work of the present day, that his manner is to be excused, because it was assumed for "the nonce," and was suited to the taste of his contemporaries. But it is surely a poor apology for the satirist of any age, to say that he stooped to humour its vilest taste, and could not ridicule vice and folly without degrading himself to buffoonery +. Upon the * He was the determined enemy of the mendicant friars and of Cardinal Wolsey. The courtiers of Henry VIII., whilst obliged to flatter a minister whom they detested, could not but be gratified with Skelton's boldness in singly He sayeth, How say ye, my lords, Good even, good Robin Hood. Some say yes, and some Sit still, as they were dumb." These lines are a remarkable anticipation of the very words in the fifteenth article of the charges preferred against Wolsey by the Parliament of 1529. "That the said Lord Cardinal, sitting among the Lords and other of your Majesty's most honourable Council, used himself so, that if any man would show his mind according to his duty, he would so take him up with his accustomable words, that they were better to hold their peace than to speak, so that he would hear no more speak, but one or two great personages, so that he would have all the words himself, and consumed much time without a fair tale." His ridicule drew down the wrath of Wolsey, who ordered him to be apprehended. But Skelton fled to the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, where he was protected; and died in the same year in which Wolsey's prosecutors drew up the article of impeachment, so similar to the satire of the poet. [t I know Skelton only by the modern edition of his works, dated 1736. But from this stupid publication I Neve's Cursory Remarks on the English Poets. whole, we might regard the poetical feeling and genius of England as almost extinct at the end of the fifteenth century, if the beautiful ballad of the "Nut-brown Maid" were not to be referred to that period ‡. It is said to have been translated from the German; but even considered as a translation, it meets us as a surprising flower amidst the winter-solstice of our poetry. Sixteenth The literary character of England was not established till near the end of the sixteenth century. At the beginning of that century. century, immediately anterior to Lord Surrey, we find Barklay and Skelton popular candidates for the foremost honours of English poetry. They are but poor names. Yet slowly as the improvement of our poetry seems to proceed in the early part of the sixteenth century, the circumstances which subsequently fostered the national genius to its maturity and magnitude, begin to be distinctly visible even before the year 1500. The accession of Henry VII., by fixing the monarchy and the prospect of its regular succession, forms a great era of commencing civilisation. The art of printing, which had been introduced in a former period of discord, promised to diffuse its light in a steadier and calmer atmosphere. The great discoveries of navigation, by quickening the intercourse of European nations, extended their influence to England. In the short portion of the fifteenth century during which printing was known in this country, the press exhibits our literature at a lower ebb than even that of France; but before that century was concluded, the tide of classical learning had fairly set in. England had received Erasmus, can easily discover that he was no ordinary man. Why Warton and the writers of his school rail at him vehemently I know not; he was perhaps the best scholar of his day, and displays on many occasions strong powers of description, and a vein of poetry that shines through all the rubbish which ignorance has spread over it. He flew at high game, and therefore occasionally called in the aid of vulgar ribaldry to mask the direct attack of his satire. -GIFFORD, Jonson, vol. viii. p. 77. The power, the strangeness, the volubility of his language, the intrepidity of his satire, and the perfect originality of his manner, render Skelton one of the most extraordinary poets of any age or country.-SOUTHEY, Specimens and Quar. Rev. vol. xi. p. 485. Mr. Hallam is not so kind; but till Mr. Dyce gives us his long promised Edition of Skelton, we know the old rough, ready-witted writer very imperfectly.] Warton places it about the year 1500. [It was in print in 1521, if not a little earlier.] of true philosophy was not indeed arrived, and the Reformation itself produced events tending to retard that progress of literature and intelligence, which had sprung up under its first auspices. Still, with partial interruptions, the culture of classical literature proceeded in the sixteenth century; and, amidst that culture, it is difficult to conceive that a system of Greek philosophy more poetical than Aristotle's, was without its influence on the English spirit—namely, that of Plato. That England possessed a distinct school of Platonic philosophy in the sixteenth century, cannot, I believe, be affirmed †, but we hear of the Platonic studies of Sir Philip Sydney; and traits of Platonism are sometimes beautifully visible in the men, were a mass of metaphysics established in his name, first by Arabic commentators, and afterwards by Catholic doctors; among the latter of whom, many expounded the philosophy of the Stagyrite without understanding a word of the original language in which his doctrines were and had produced Sir Thomas More. The English poetry of the last of these great men is indeed of trifling consequence, in comparison with the general impulse which his other writings must have given to the age in which he lived. But everything that excites the ! dormant intellect of a nation must be regarded as contributing to its future poetry. It is possible, that in thus adverting to the diffusion of knowledge (especially classical knowledge) which preceded our golden age of originality, we may be challenged by the question, how much the greatest of all our poets was indebted to learning. We are apt to compare such geniuses as Shakspeare to comets in the moral universe, which baffle all calculations as to the causes which accelerate or retard their appear-poetry of Surrey and of Spenser ‡. The Italian ance, or from which we can predict their return. But those phenomena of poetical inspiration are, in fact, still dependent on the laws and light of the system which they visit. Poets may be indebted to the learning and philosophy of their age, without being themselves men of erudition, or philosophers. When the fine spirit of truth has gone abroad, it passes insensibly from mind to mind, independent of its direct transmission from books; and it comes home in a more welcome shape to the poet, when caught from his social intercourse with his species, than from solitary study. Shakspeare's genius was certainly indebted to the intelligence and moral principles which existed in his age, and to that intelligence and to those moral principles, the revival of classical literature undoubtedly contributed. So ❘ also did the revival of pulpit eloquence, and the restoration of the Scriptures to the people in their native tongue. The dethronement of scholastic philosophy, and of the supposed infallibility of Aristotle's authority, an authority ❘ at one time almost paramount to that of the Scriptures themselves, was another good connected with the Reformation; for though the logic of Aristotle long continued to be formally taught, scholastic theology was no longer sheltered beneath his name. Bible divinity superseded the glosses of the schoolmen, and the writings of Duns Scotus were consigned at Oxford to proclaimed contempt *. The reign Namely in the year 1535. The decline of Aristotle's | authority, and that of scholastic divinity, though to a certain degree connected, are not, however, to be identified. What were called the doctrines of Aristotle by the school written. Some Platonic opinions had also mixed with the metaphysics of the schoolmen. Aristotle was nevertheless their main authority; though it is probable that, if he had come to life, he would not have fathered much of the philosophy which rested on his name. Some of the reformers threw off scholastic divinity and Aristotle's authority at once; but others, while they abjured the schoolmen, adhered to the Peripatetic system. In fact, until the revival of letters, Aristotle could not be said, with regard to the modern world, to be either fully known by his own works, or fairly tried by his own merits. Though ultimately overthrown by Bacon, his writings and his name, in the age immediately preceding Bacon, had ceased to be a mere stalking-horse to the schoolmen, and he was found to contain heresies which the Catholic metaphysicians had little suspected. † Enfield mentions no English school of Platonism before the time of Gale and Cudworth. [Hallam is equally silent.] In one of Spenser's hymns on Love and Beauty, he breathes this Platonic doctrine. Every spirit, as it is most pure This last thought was probably suggested by the lines in "In qual parte del ciel', in quale idea |