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all that I did, and that I took a way contrary to the King and the whole Parliment, and that I was travailed with them that had better wits than I; that I was contrary to them all."

He then goes on to compare his case with Christ's, and draws a humorous ironical parallel between himself and Isaiah, with a quaint drollery, almost buffoonery, not likely to conciliate those already offended by his eccentric power.

He is often praised for his "vigorous Saxon." It is undoubtedly vigorous, and his illustrations have the stamp of genius. But to his cultivated hearers, the homely turns must have sounded like Yorkshire or broad Scotch in a modern discourse. It is not to be supposed that the Court of Edward VI. heard the following without a smile :

"In the VII. of Jhon the Priests sent out certain of the Jews to bring Christ unto them violently. When they came into the temple and heard Him preach, they were so moved with His preaching that they returned home again and said to them that sent them, Nunquam sic locutus est homo ut hic homo. There was never man spake like this man. Then ansered 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:

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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 Arber's 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 was made 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

THOMAS WILSON.-ROGER ASCHAM.

197

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. About the beginning of this period we find a marked development of prose style. It begins to be more generally a subject of special study. Teachers in high places begin to theorise on the essentials of polite writing.

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Thomas Wilson, d. 1581, published an Art of Logic' in 1552, an • Art of Rhetoric' in 1553. The latter is the first treatise on English composition. Wilson was a man of position, said to have been Dean of Durham, and to have held offices of state under Elizabeth. He was not a dry and formal writer, but aimed at conveying instruction in an easy, familiar, and courtly style, expressly eschewing the terms of the schools. In this respect he often reminds us of Addison and the polite writers of Queen Anne's time. His 'Rhetoric' embraces much more than the mere art of composition. It is a familiar treatise on the lines of Quintilian's rhetoric, such as might be written for the instruction of a young nobleman preparing to take a part in public life, the didactic being relieved by witty anecdotes. It deals with a good style among other requisites of oratorical success.

Wilson made a stand for the purity of the "King's English."1 He ridiculed fops and scholars for talking Chaucer, and for larding their speech with FrenchEnglish, with Italianated terms, with inkhorn terms, with "farfetched colours of gay antiquity." "The unlearned or foolish

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will so Latin their tongues that the simple think surely they speak by some revelation." 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 forefathers' 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 1 He is, so far as we are aware, the first writer to use this expression.

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.

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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. In 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.

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Sir Thomas North, a collateral ancestor of the Guilford family, 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.' An earlier work of his-the 'Dial of Princes,' a translation of Guevara's 'El Libro de Marco Aurelio,’ published in 1557-is still more interesting for the history of prose style. It throws strong light on the derivation of Lyly's Euphuism (see p. 229). There are passages in it that might pass for Lyly's.

Holinshed's Chronicle,' published about 1580, is known to many readers only from its being 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 Hocker, the Chamberlain of Exeter, and uncle of "the judicious Hooker," is also said to have given some assistance.

CHAPTER IL

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

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