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POETRY OF GAVIN DOUGLAS.

Honour-were also written by this poet-priest. The distinctive feature of his language is the abundant use of words from the Latin, an innovation by which the foreign-bred scholar strove to lift the diction of his poems above the homely level of Dunbar and other earlier bards. Original prologues stand before each book, bright with pictures of nature; to which, no doubt, the lovely wooded hills, among which the Tay winds at Dunkeld, contributed not a little of their exquisite colouring.

Flodden was a fatal day for the house of Douglas. The Master of Angus and his brother William wet the Cheviot heather with their life-blood. The old earl, whose wise caution had been rudely repelled by the wilful king before the dark day of battle, retired to Galloway to die. And the gentler scholar, Gavin, had soon to flee to the English Court, and in 1521 or 1522 died in London of the plague.

ALEXANDER BARCLAY, who died in 1522, flourished in the reigns of Henry VII. and his son. He is remembered as the writer of a poem, The Ship of Fools, of which the name shows it to be a satirical allegory. It was founded on the German of Brandt.

STEPHEN HAWES, writer of the Pastime of Pleasure, and groom of the chamber to Henry VII., was a Suffolkman. His skill in versifying, combined with his knowledge of French and Italian, made him a great favourite at court.

JOHN SKELTON, a coarse, bold satirist, was in his prime in the latter days of Henry VII., and the earlier days of Henry VIII. In a short-lined poem, called Colin Clout, he belabours the clergy unmercifully with cudgel-words, making no choice of weapons, but striking with the first that came to hand. He is one of that useful band of satirists, among whom we reckon also Longlande and Heywood, whose trenchant lines cut deep into the foul growths of monkish ignorance and lust. So vigorous was the assault of Skelton, that even the magnificent Wolsey found it necessary to turn on the strong-voiced poet, who was forced to shelter himself in the sanctuary of Westminster. There he died in 1529.

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JOHN HEYWOOD, styled the Epigrammatist, who flourished during the reign of Henry VIII., was remarkable for his Interludes, or short satirical plays, in which, as in "Colin Clout," the clergy suffer tremendously.

SIR THOMAS WYATT was born in 1503 in Kent, and was educated at Cambridge. His elegant scholarship and quick wit, added to a fine person and remarkable skill with lance and rapier, speedily won for him a brilliant reputation. But his life was not all sunshine: he was named as one of the lovers of Anne Boleyn, whose praise he had sung in his verses; and for this and other reasons he was cast into prison. He was afterwards restored to royal favour, and being employed on some mission by the king, he overheated himself in riding on a summer day, took fever, and died at Sherbourne in Dorsetshire in 1541. He aided his friend Surrey in raising the tone of English poetry.

SIR DAVID LYNDSAY of the Mount, born about 1490, was page of honour to young James V., by whom he was knighted. He was employed as envoy to Holland and Denmark, and was for two years member of Parliament for his native shire of Fife. He died in that county in 1557 at his seat, the Mount. His chief work is the Play of the Three Estates, a dramatic satire on the king, lords, and commons, which was acted in 1535 at Cupar-Fife and Edinburgh. His Squire Meldrum, last of the metrical romances, is lively but licentious. The Monarchie, opening with the Creation and closing with the Day of Judgment, is valuable for its spirited account of Scotland. A smaller piece, full of pungent satire upon the court, is called the Complaynt of the King's Papingo (peacock or parrot).

NICHOLAS UDALL, author of the earliest existing English comedy, was born in Hampshire about 1506, and was educated at Oxford. Udall was master of Eton, where his cruel floggings won for him a more dubious kind of renown than his learning or his wit. His comedy of Ralph Royster Doyster, in five acts, is thought to have been written some time before 1551, for the Christmas performance at Eton. Udall died in 1557.

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PROSE WRITERS OF THE SECOND ERA.

PROSE WRITERS.

ROBERT FABIAN and EDWARD HALL are the earliest writers of history in English prose. The former, a London alderman, who died in 1512, wrote a chronicle of English history, called the Concordance of Stories; in which fact and fiction are industriously heaped together with honest, well-meaning dullness. The latter, a lawyer, who died in 1547, gives us a more valuable book in his History of the Houses of York and Lancaster.

LORD BERNERS, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Governor of Calais under Henry VIII., translated into vigorous English prose Jean Froissart's brilliant pictures of Chivalry.

JOHN FISHER.-Let us not forget the English sermons of the Bishop of Rochester who bore this name. Leaving out of sight higher results, the good done to our language by its weekly growing hosts of sermons, has been incalculable. Fisher, born in 1459, lived a long life in steady adherence to the Church of Rome. In the bloody year 1535 he was tried and convicted on a charge of denying that Henry VIII. could be the head of the Church. As the poor old bishop lay in the Tower, the pope sent him a cardinal's hat. "Ha!" said the royal wild beast, "Paul may send him a hat, but I will leave him never a head to wear it!" The savage threat was executed on the 22d of June, fourteen days before his friend More met the same fate on the same charge.

SIR THOMAS ELYOT, the friend of Leland and of More, was eminent as a medical man during the reign of Henry VIII. He wrote a work called The Castle of Health, which contains much good advice about food and such matters. Of more importance, however, was his educational work, The Governor, published in 1531, in which he recommends that children should be taught to speak Latin from their infancy, and that music, drawing, and carving (that is sculpture), should have place in a scheme of enlightened education.

JOHN BELLENDEN, Archdeacon of Moray and a Lord of Session under Queen Mary, produced in 1536, by order of James V., a translation of Hector Boece's History of Scotland. This is con

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sidered the earliest existing specimen of Scottish prose literature. An anonymous work, called The Complaynt of Scotland, pub lished at St. Andrews in 1548, was the first original work in Scottish prose. Bellenden also translated the first Five Books of Livy, writing, besides, Poems, Epistles to James V., and a Sketch of Scottish Topography.

JOHN LELAND, the father of our archæological literature, was born in London. Passing from St. Paul's school, he studied at Cambridge, Oxford, and Paris, and then became a chaplain to Henry VIII. His powers as a linguist were remarkable. His great work is the Itinerary, in which he gives the results of his many antiquarian tours. Insane during his last two years, he died in his native city in 1552.

HUGH LATIMER, famous as a leader of the English Reformation, was born in Leicestershire about 1472, received his education at Cambridge, and became Bishop of Worcester in 1535. When the Act of the Six Articles was passed, he resigned in disgust, and spent the last six years of the reign of Henry VIII in prison. Liberated by Edward VI., he devoted himself earnestly to the work of preaching. His style-many of his Sermons and Letters remain is remarkable for its homeliness and its wealth of droll anecdotes and illustrations. He was too great a champion of the truth to escape the flames that Mary lit. Ridley and he burned together at Oxford in 1555. His were the glorious, ever-memorable words, spoken ere the lips of the aged prophet were shrivelled into ashes,-"We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

MILES COVERDALE, Bishop of Exeter, was born in Yorkshire in 1487. His changeful life extended far into the succeeding century (1568). His name is imperishably associated with the story of the English Bible; for in 1535 he published, with a dedication to the king, the first printed translation of the whole Bible. He was also much engaged in the preparation of the Great, or Cranmer's Bible (1540); and when exiled in the time of Mary, he took part in the Geneva translation, printed there in 1557 and 1560 He is supposed to have died in London in 1568.

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PROSE WRITERS OF THE SECOND ERA.

JOHN BALE, Bishop of Ossory in Ireland, was born in Suffolk in 1495. He is chiefly remarkable for a Latin work, Lives of Eminent Writers of Great Britain, the list beginning with Japheth! Many interludes and scriptural dramas were also written by him, besides a Chronicle of Lord Cobham's Trial and Death. He died at Canterbury in 1563.

JOHN KNOX, the great reformer of Scotland, cannot be forgotten here, although his literary works were few. A History of the Scottish Reformation was the chief of these. Born at or near Haddington in 1505, he received his education at St. Andrews, became the leader of the Scottish Reformation, and died at Edinburgh in 1572.

GEORGE CAVENDISH is remarkable as the writer of a very truthful and unaffected Life of Cardinal Wolsey, whose gentlemanusher he was, and whom he served to the last with devoted fidelity. This work, from which Shakspere has largely drawn in his play of Henry VIII., was not printed until 1641. Cavendish, who was also a member of the royal household, died in 1557.

SIR JOHN CHEKE, who was born in 1514, is more worthy of remembrance for his success in fostering the study of Greek at Cambridge, when the hated novelty was in danger of being trampled to death by an opposing party, than for his contributions to English literature. A pamphlet called The Hurt of Sedition is his only original English work. He left also some manuscript translations from the Greek. He died in 1557.

JOHN FOX, born at Boston in 1517, is distinguished as the author of the Acts and Monuments of the Church, which is familiarly known as Fox's Book of Martyrs. His education was received at Oxford, whence he was expelled for heresy in 1545. At one time he was all but starving in London; at another he had to flee for his life to the Continent from the persecutions of Mary's reign. His great work occupied him for eleven years, and was published in 1563. Under Elizabeth he became a prebend of Salisbury, after declining many other offers of promotion in the Church. He died in 1587.

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