REESE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
,190
83043
'. Class No.
OUTLINE
OF
THE PHILOSOPHY
OF
ENGLISH LITERATURE
BY
GREENOUGH WHITE A.M. B.D.
PART I
THE MIDDLE AGES
BOSTON U.S.A. AND LONDON
GINN & COMPANY PUBLISHERS
1895
COPYRIGHT 1895
BY GREENOUGH WHITE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TO
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
IN TOKEN OF GRATITUDE
FOR THE LIBERALLY ACCORDED USE
OF THE TREASURES OF ITS LIBRARY
WITHOUT WHICH THIS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN
AND FOR THOSE EARLIER INTELLECTUAL OPPORTUNITIES
THAT FURNISHED ITS FIRST SUBSTANCE
THIS WORK IS PRESENTED
BY A LOYAL ALUMNUS
83043
PREFACE.
IN view of the excellent treatises upon English literature that
have multiplied of late years until they form by themselves a
veritable library, the only excuse that the present work can
allege for being is that in it the great subject is considered
under a somewhat new light. To describe the process of men-
tal development; to determine the limits and character of
literary ages ; to get at the basal principle of each successive
age and trace its derivation from that which preceded it,
such has been the motive of the work. The lives of authors,
therefore, have not been a primary concern, yet it is hoped that
the personal element in literary history has not been unduly
depressed and that the leading characteristics of men of com-
manding and formative genius have been firmly grasped and
forcibly presented.
It is best to explain at the outset that in prosecuting his
endeavor the author has welcomed any light that contemporary
history, literature or art seemed to afford ; he has refused to
regard any event in the progress of European civilization as
not germane to the subject and has selected many facts that
may at first sight seem remote from it to illustrate his theme.
The result may prove to have a reflective value ; for in laying
European history under contribution in order to interpret Eng-
lish literature, that literature in its turn may make the course
of contemporary history more perspicuous.
vi PREFACE.
In this First Part of the work in particular, which treats of
the ages known as mediaeval, the author will never regret
any pains he has taken if he be deemed to have been success-
ful in breaking up the stark unity which those great and mis-
understood ages so often dismissed as Feudal and Catholic
present to many minds ; in unfolding the mighty movement
that went on in them and discovering in some measure the
source of their subtle attraction ; and in showing how great is
the value they possess for culture a value, indeed, which
nothing that preceded them can supply.
It is right to add that the above was written in Cambridge
the last day of the year 1892, when the work, since subjected
to repeated revision, seemed to be approaching completion.
CHARLESTON
February 1895.
OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF ENGLISH
LITERATURE.
INTRODUCTION.
IT is customary to begin treatises upon English literature
with an account of Anglo-Saxon, or as some of late prefer to
say, Old English writings. Without detracting in the least
from the value of the study of the Anglo-Saxon language as an
intellectual discipline, from its necessity for a complete knowl-
edge of English, from the importance and interest of some of
its literary remains, one may question whether it is truly scien-
tific thus to identify Anglo-Saxon with English literature;
whether it conduces to clearness, or tends to obscure differ-
ences and cause confusion ; whether without affectation a work
can be included in English literature which an intelligent Eng-
lishman of the present day can enjoy only in translation, unless
he would take all the pains necessary for learning a foreign
language. Acquaintance with Latin is necessary for a thorough
knowledge of Italian, but histories of Italian literature do not
therefore begin with Ennius. And yet the connection between
Latin and Italian literature is exceedingly close, and the influ-
ence of the ancient upon the modern authors has been over-
whelming, while the influence of Anglo-Saxon upon English
literature has been just nothing. It was as late as the year
1832 that the treasures of the Vercelli book, among them
Cynewulf's best work, were first made known to the world ;
the same year Benjamin Thorpe edited and translated Caed-
mon's Scripture paraphrase ; the year following J. M. Kemble
2 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
brought out the first English edition of Beowulf, and thus at
last made that noble epic, the most precious relic of Anglo-
Saxon poetry, accessible to students, and by a prose translation
of it in 1837 first unfolded its beauties to the general reader.
In 1842 Thorpe edited the collection known as the Exeter
book. Thus at last the body of that old poetry was brought to
the light of day, and yet, a full generation later, an Anglo-Saxon
scholar could complain of the slow awakening of interest in the
subject, and the unaccountable neglect of that ancient litera-
ture in its native land.
That neglect is sufficiently explained by the lack of original-
ity which, with the brilliant exception of Beowulf, pervades the
whole mass of Anglo-Saxon composition. There are passages
of power and beauty in Caedmon and Cynewulf, but on the
whole one cannot fail to be struck by the absence of native
energy and invention, which leaves to the body of that compo-
sition a purely antiquarian interest, and thus deprives it of the
right claimed for it by some near-sighted scholars to be re-
garded as genuine literature. A glance at those old writings
will reveal, beside, the difficulties that beset any attempt at a
philosophical history of them ; for their. arrangement fluctuates
with the tides of criticism, an important piece being assigned
by different authorities to different generations or centuries
even ; nothing is known about the authors of some of the most
important works, and little that is certain about those whose
names are known. These facts, lack of original thought, and
uncertainty about dates of composition, to which we may
add the gaps in the literary record, render a philosophical
interpretation of the phases of the literature almost impractica-
ble. A survey of its main divisions gives evidence, however,
in a general and unsatisfactory way, of a certain movement.
Before and above all its relics stands the epic of Beowulf,
the solitary finger of the sun that rises from the Saxon plain to
take rank among the mighty monuments of world literature.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 3
The tale possesses a deep and ever vital interest, in that it is a
record of the conflict between heathen and Christian ideas in
the Teutonic mind ; and as it reflects the passage of Saxons
and Angles over the wild North Sea from their old to their new
home, so too it marks the great transition from faith to faith,
in it we may see the revolution in belief in very process.
The most significant antithesis of ideas in this old poem,
this Christian graft upon a heathen stock, is that of the two
explanations of world history offered by Fate and by Provi-
dence that divided the author's and redactor's minds. That
man's life is bound by fate is the thought that lies deepest in
the mind of the hero Beowulf as he prepares for the deadly
conflict with the monster Grendel, but at last he decides to
lay aside his weapon and to wrestle with the foe, leaving the
outcome of the fight to the disposition of the all-wise God, the
holy Lord. Over and over again the poet expresses his faith
in a righteous and all-powerful God of battles, the true gov-
ernor of human affairs, and yet at the end, when Beowulf is
about to die by the fire-dragon's bite, it is said that his Weird,
that is, his Fate, was approaching. In one place the poet tries
to overcome the antithesis by identifying the blind Fate, the
gloomy Destiny of heathendom, with the holy will of the per-
sonal sovereign of the world : Fate, he says, is the Providence
of God.
The thought about nature revealed in the poem is of deep
interest, and shows that in the convert's mind his former gods
did not cease to be, but were simply metamorphosed into
demons, and believed to haunt the fens, moors, crags, and
waste places of the earth. He seems to have thought that
powers of nature malignant to man were directed by evil spir-
its. The dreadful Grendel is a sort of personification of the
deadly miasma of the marshes, and of any other natural influ-
ence hostile to human life. He towers at last to the dimen-
sions of a Satan ; he is an outcast, dwelling in darkness and
4 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
the shadow of death, tormented by sight and sound of human
happiness ; he stalks over marsh and moor with a company of
monsters, giants, and ogres, the brood of Cain; he is the
abomination that makes desolate, the foe of man, at once the
thrall and the thane of hell, the adversary of God. Yet he re-
tains something of human form, he is a Caliban, only more
ghastly ; he destroys thirty warriors in one night. Night is the
time when the fire-dragon flies abroad, when fiends have power,
they flee at the approach of dawn. By night the splendid hall
of Hrothgar is deserted ; the king and his train come trooping
back by day. This horror of darkness and joy in the daylight
illustrate the dualism that underlies the whole work; its theme
is the ancient conflict between good and evil.
One striking touch is the gladness of nature when Grendel's
horrid dam, the hag of the mere, whose home is a cavern un-
der a torrent, is slain by Beowulf with a magic sword ; instantly
the sunlight grows brighter, the turbid water clears.
The lingering influence of heathenism is shown by those
warriors who seek to save themselves from Grendel by propi-
tiating the goblins, by sacrificing to idols ; ' They knew not God,'
is the stern comment of the poet. At last Beowulf is sent to
destroy the pest, by the high grace of the holy God.
Beautiful is the picture of the friendly relations of Beowulf
and his band and the sage old King Hrothgar ; beautiful the
stately courtesy of the queen to the hero. Throughout the
poem loyalty is lauded as the crown of human virtue, the very
bond of social life; disloyalty receives the severest condemna-
tion. Charming, too, are the scenes of mirth in the royal hall ;
the warriors and their guests seated at long tables decked with
barbaric gold, passing around ornamented ale-cups and flagons,
while gold-embroidered hangings wave along the walls.
The next most important relic of Anglo-Saxon poetry is
Caedmon's paraphrase of portions of the books of Genesis
and Exodus, the story of Daniel and the Three Children, and
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 5
fragments of a life of Christ. The fall of the rebel angels and
the rage of Satan are described with spirit and power ; the fall
of man is boldly told, with interesting variations from the Biblical
account ; but after that the paraphrast becomes tame and dull,
goes lumbering through the genealogies, sticks closely to his
text, not attempting, for instance, to harmonize the conflict-
ing details in the story of the flood. The escape of the chil-
dren of Israel from Egypt is more freshly treated. Though of
far less value than Beowulf, this paraphrase, with its variations,
is significant by reason of its deep earnestness of tone ; in those
two works we seem to see the Teutonic mind coming to its-elf.
It ought to be said that Caedmon's poem is regarded by
scholars as a composite work, traces of many hands being
found in it; also that neither it nor the tale of Beowulf are
extant in manuscripts older than the tenth century, later by
many ages than the originals, and, moreover, written in a dif-
ferent dialect from theirs.
About the time when those poems were being composed,
that is, at the end of the seventh century and throughout the
first generation of the eighth, the erudite and saintly Bede
the glory of the Northumbrian monasteries was preparing in
Latin a veritable encyclopaedia of the knowledge of his age.
The most remarkable passage in his works is, perhaps, the
account in the "Ecclesiastical History" of Brother Drithelm
and his vision of hell. Bede finished while on his death-bed a
translation into the vernacular (long since lost) of the Gospel
of St. John.
To the same period, probably, belong the poems of Cynewurf ;
but which and how many they are, and who Cynewulf was, are
still vexed questions among scholars. That ancient bard is
indeed a problematical character ; he has roamed like a rest-
less ghost through centuries far apart, appearing now in the
latest, now in the earliest period of the literature. He has
been identified as an abbot of the eleventh century, as a bishop
6 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
of the eighth, and, finally, all ecclesiastical rank has been
denied him. To increase our uncertainty, there has been a
tendency to attribute to him almost all the floating, anonymous
minor poems in the language ; beside his Riddles, the Phoenix,
and Elene the Finding of the Cross, Andreas, Crist,
Juliana, Guthlac, and the Wanderer have been fathered upon
him. His case is a notable example of the difficulty that
attends any attempt at a reliable interpretation of the develop-
ment of the literature. The genuine specimens of Cynewulf's
work that have come down to us possess considerable beauty
of thought and style ; they show that their author derived real
pleasure from the gentler aspects of nature : his ideal land-
scape was a smooth plain, green and flowery and dotted with
sunny groves, under a bright sky traversed by little clouds.
With the lamentable decay in Northumbrian power and pros-
perity that was going on through the eighth century, a shadow
fell upon Anglo-Saxon literature that rested upon it for more
than a hundred years. And yet that was the period of the rise
of the power of Wessex, under Egbert, who had spent many
years at the court of Charles the Great, in company with his
countryman Alcuin the leading scholar of his age in the
west, and had returned in the year 800 to assume the crown,
and to put in practice as far as he could what he had learned
from the example of Charles. By the year 827, the authority
of King Egbert was recognized over all England ; and his able
administration, his military and political success, must have
been accompanied, it would seem, by some intellectual awaken-
ing. We should expect at this epoch some manifestation of
interest in the operations of the mind, some study of logic and
the laws of thought, and therewith a development, however
slight, of the critical faculty, and of argumentative composition.
The age of great poetry being past, we should look, with the
study of grammar and rhetoric, for the formation of a good
prose style. Some evidence of observation, if not investigation,
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 7
of external nature might be expected : the motions of sun,
moon, and stars, of winds and rivers and the sea, the proper-
ties of plants and minerals, the habits of animals. Already the
Arabians were beginning their chemical studies, and were
fascinated by watching the effect of herbs and minerals upon
the human system. With his training and executive ability
and capacity for organizing, it might be supposed that Egbert
would introduce in his realm of Wessex a more thorough and
comprehensive system of education ; that he would teach his
people the benefits of an improved economy, and would en-
courage agriculture and handiwork of all sorts and the erection
of better buildings ; and that in every way he would promote
social stability and domestic comfort. But if there was move-
ment in any or all of these directions, we have no literary or
architectural proofs of it. This, to be sure, does not prove
that there was no such movement for fire destroys both
books and buildings, and Egbert's reign went out in the dark-
ness of Danish invasion. The probability is, however, that
there was no great intellectual activity in that age ; perhaps
King Egbert found that he could not communicate to a back-
ward people the ideas that he had gathered at the court of
Charles the Great, and so left much to be done by his grand-
son Alfred, fifty years later.
That noble prince, steadfast, wise, and good, the very per-
sonification of moral energy, was nourished as a boy upon the
songs of his native land and language ; and was of himself
sufficient to create a literary age. In tranquil intervals amid
his Danish wars, while engaged in recovering his realm from bar-
barism, in rebuilding cities and restoring arts and commerce,
he made time to do an astonishing amount of literary work.
He translated for the instruction of his people the History of
the World by Paulus Orosius, a Spanish churchman, contem-
porary and friend of St. Augustine ; the Pastoral Care of Pope
Gregory I ; Bede's Ecclesiastical History ; and (most signifi-
8 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
cant of all) Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. The aim of
this latter work is to inculcate self-knowledge and self-mastery :
it discusses the supreme good, the problem of evil, vice and
virtue, misery and happiness, and seeks to reconcile the free-
dom of the human will with God's foreknowledge. Various
comments of his own which the king incorporated in his trans-
lation show what a strong interest he felt in those great themes.
It will be seen that Alfred's work partakes of the imitative
nature of Anglo-Saxon writing in general ; none of it is original,
except the annotations just mentioned, and an account of the
voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan which he added to his trans-
lation of Orosius. Yet by his labors he became the father of
Anglo-Saxon prose-style. In his time, too, the meagre entries
of the ancient Chronicle become more copious, and swell it
into a record worthier of the national history.
The next literary epoch was shaped by the influence of great
ecclesiastics like Odo and Dunstan, who elevated the altar
above the throne, controlled the course of political events, and
brought their church into closer conformity to the Roman
model. The central point in their policy may be divined to
have been the introduction of the doctrine of transubstantiation,
in support of which miracles even were alleged : it was cur-
rently reported that once, while Odo was breaking the con-
secrated bread, great drops of blood fell from it to the
confusion of the incredulous. In this respect those English
churchmen shared in the general heightening of dogma that
was in progress upon the continent of Europe. Odo was trans-
lated from the see of Sherborne to the archbishopric of Can-
terbury in the year 942 ; the year following, Dunstan was
appointed abbot of Glastonbury. The cathedral of Canterbury
was rebuilt at this time.
Upon the death of Odo, Dunstan was raised to the primacy
in 961, and was the ruling spirit throughout the reign of Edgar.
With the king's help he restored many monasteries all over the
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 9
land, naturalized the Benedictine order, and ejected secular
canons from cathedral chapters, putting monks in their place.
This last measure was carried out at Winchester by Bishop
Ethelwold, in the teeth of furious opposition ; it was approved,
however, by a voice that seemed to come from the great
crucifix. In this reign the practice of receiving the sacrament
fasting was canonically enforced.
The long and remarkable career of Dunstan, as monk, artist,
and musician, scholar, and ecclesiastical statesman, came to a
close in the year 988.
Such were some of the conditions under which the new liter-
ature arose ; and its most celebrated names were those of
ecclesiastics, ^Elfric and Wulfstan. It was almost exclusively
religious in its character, consisting of sermons, translations
of the Scriptures, a paraphrase of the Psalms, and lives of
saints ; and it was chiefly 4rujprose, the most conspicuous
exception to the character thus given of it being the spirited
song of the fight at Maldon, in the year 991.
^Elfric was a pupil of Bishop Ethelwold, and taught grammar
in the school at Winchester. Eighty homilies of his have come
down to us, fine specimens of pure and mellow Saxon prose;
in composing them he depended largely upon the writings of
the Fathers of the church, freely translating and compiling from
their stores. He translated beside the first seven books of the
Old Testament. ^Elfric was made an abbot; he has even
been identified (erroneously, as it seems to many) with the
archbishop of Canterbury of that name, who died in 1006.
One homily of his, though not original, is important as giving
evidence of a reaction in the mind of the English church
against the recent development of eucharistic doctrine and
toward the ancient, spiritual view.
Wulfstan, archbishop of York from 1002 to 1023, composed
homilies in a rugged, picturesque style quite different from
ic's; in one fervent address, of great interest and value,
10 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
he describes the forlorn condition of the country under the
oppression of its Danish marauders. The political and social
outlook was so dark, indeed, that it seemed to both those
preachers as if the coming of Antichrist, the day of doom, and
the end of the world were near.
The sun of the Saxon state, after suffering a long eclipse
during the supremacy of the Danes, shone out again with a
pathetic, evening light in the time of Edward the Confessor,
and set forever upon the field of Hastings. By the year 1071,
the Norman conquest of England was complete : and Saxon
nationality, as a freely developing, self-conscious entity, as an
end in itself, existed no more. Its extinction is fitly typed in
the failure of the male line of the Saxon kings. The church,
too, was involved in the ruin of the state : native bishops were
ejected from their sees to make room for foreigners, a
process significantly illustrated by the deposition of Stigand,
native archbishop of Canterbury, and the installation of Lan-
franc, an Italian, in the year 1070. Canterbury cathedral was
destroyed by fire in the first year of the Norman conquest, a
loss that seriously impairs our knowledge of Saxon architecture.
The national literature participated, inevitably, in the general
decline ; yet it lingered on, a thin stream, ever ready to die in
the sand, until the middle of the following century. Some homi-
lies were written and the Chronicle was brought down to the year
1154 when, with the Norman dynasty, it too came to an end.
And then ensued a period of half a century which is practically
a total blank in the history of composition in the language of
the conquered people. A few more homilies belong to that
period, composed in a dialect already so far removed from
the form of the Saxon classics that those who spoke it could
no longer understand the earlier writings : ^Elfric's homilies
had to be modernized for their benefit. Anglo-Saxon language
and literature had shrunk into a possession for monastic
antiquaries.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 11
Even from a survey as swift as this of ours has just been it
is apparent that these compositions form a distinct literary
department which cannot legitimately be merged in any other
but must be isolated for special study. To understand and
enjoy this literature a^special discipline is necessary : the
language must first be learned a language which those who
know most about it admit to be totally new and strange to the
Englishman of to-day, only to be acquired by long study. By
reason of its peculiar form Anglo-Saxon verse especially is
hard to understand, as much so indeed as difficult German.
The literature, moreover, is circumscribed in its scope ; Beowulf
alone soars into the empyrean of universal poetry ; for the rest
it consists almost entirely of paraphrases, translations, and
homilies largely compiled from foreign sources, for the sake of
a special audience in a period long since gone by. Its work
has long been done ; it is now of interest only to the philologist,
the antiquarian, the student of Saxon civilization. It is a
literature at second-hand, for the Saxon mind, assimilative,
imitative, cared chiefly about the reproduction of the thought
of stronger minds. And finally, the gaps in the record, and
our ignorance or uncertainty about the authorship or approxi-
mate date even of much that remains, are such that the result
of the most patient attempt at a philosophical interpretation of
it must still be somewhat unsubstantial. Fresh discoveries and
closer agreement among critics must precede any complete and
comprehensive theory of its development.
12 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
I.
IN the twelfth century the intellect of England found expres-
sion in Latin and Norman- French, and though works composed
in those languages cannot, of course, be included in English
literature merely because they sprang on English soil, and
though at first sight they seem further removed from it than
the Saxon classics even, yet in reality, from a literary point of
view, some of them are much nearer, being allied to it in
subject : in them appeared those images of chivalry and devo-
tion that have swum in enchanting vision before the eyes of
great English poets ; have stirred the emotions of myriads of
hearers and readers, and still have power to charm ; that run
like a golden chain through all these seven centuries of English
literature, binding them in one, the tales of Arthur and his
knights of the Round Table, of Lancelot and Galahad and the
search for the mystic Grail.
The charm of those old stories, the surpassing beauty and
mystery of the conception of the Grail, invite us to consider
the genius of the age from which they sprang.
For several generations there had been in progress a remark-
able religious revival, which, beginning silently in centres far
apart, had gradually widened in influence and gathered such
strength that at the close of the eleventh century it gave a dis-
tinctive character to the age. As far back as the close of the
tenth century a young nobleman of Ravenna named Romuald
was suddenly converted from a worldly to an ascetic life ; he
exerted an extraordinary influence upon all who came in con-
tact with him, and converted many, so that he became at last
the founder of a new brotherhood : he left his cell in the
Ravennese marshes, in the year 1009, to found a monastery at
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 13
Camaldoli, in the region of Arezzo. Even before his time the
monks of Clugny, in Burgundy, had developed an intense
religious zeal which told at last upon the papacy itself, and
raised it from the turpitude into which it had fallen : in 1049,
a brother of Clugny mounted the papal throne as Leo IX, and
carried out stringent reforms, with the aid of his friend and
counsellor, also a brother of the order, the mighty Hildebrand.
In 1038, a Florentine named Gualbert, inspired by a visit to
Camaldoli, started in Vallombrosa a vale of willows a
fraternity pledged to observe in all its strictness the primitive
rule of Benedict. Several affiliated houses were soon formed ;
at the time of the founder's death, in 1073, there were twelve
in the order. Still the deepening of the religious life went on ;
the enthusiasm for starting new orders continued unabated ; in
1084, Bruno of Cologne founded in a desolate site near
Grenoble the first Carthusian monastery, to which, following
an example set by Gualbert, he admitted lay brethren; in 1098,
an aged Benedictine monk named Robert started in a wood at
Citeaux, in the neighborhood of Dijon, a brotherhood which,
after it was joined by the fervent young Bernard, in 1113, out-
rivalled all others in popularity. Soon after, Bernard became
abbot of an affiliated house which he had founded in the wild
valley of Clairvaux. His genius dominated the age; for a
generation he exercised throughout Europe a primacy of piety.
Norbert of Cleves, cousin and almoner of the Emperor Henry
IV, was converted from a life of luxury to one of rigorous
asceticism in consequence of an accident which had nearly
proved fatal to him : while out riding one day he was over-
taken by a fearful thunderstorm, and was thrown by his horse,
terrified at lightning which struck near at hand. Donning
beggar's clothes, Norbert travelled about in Germany and
Brabant, preaching repentance. On Christmas day of the year
1 12 1 he established forty monks in a spot which had been
shown him in a vision, the lonely wooded valley of Pre-
14 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
montre. This was the germ of the Premonstratensian order,
which soon ramified over Europe, and exerted great influence.
At the same time, Gilbert of Sempringham, in Lincolnshire,
the only English founder of an order, instituted one, chiefly
for women, which was known by his name. At meals, Gilbert
always had beside him what he called " the dish of the Lord
Jesus," in which he put aside, for the poor, the best of what-
ever was on the table.
The spiritual fervor of these ascetics ; their phantasmal view
of nature ; their abnormal mode of living, their prolonged
silence, fasts, and vigils ; their periods of rapt contemplation ;
the beautiful services in which they took part, the chant-
ing of the hours at evening and in the night-time, all tended
to produce occasional conditions of ecstasy, especially when,
after long fasting, in a state of physical and mental tension,
they assisted at what was the supreme event of their life and
worship, the celebration of the mass. About that their visions
clustered thickest, and serve to render intelligible to us the
apparition of the Grail. Thus, for example, a young Norman
nobleman named Walthen, who joined the Cistercians at
Rievaulx Abbey, and died as abbot of Melrose in the year
1 1 60, once, while celebrating mass, saw the host in his hands
vanish into the figure of the infant Jesus, who smiled upon him,
and was changed into the host again.
Beside this religious strain, the next most important char-
acteristic of the age was the spirit of warlike adventure which
the Normans infused into Europe. Their bounding blood,
their fresh activity found relief in voyages of discovery, in free-
booting expeditions and feats of arms, which easily took on a
religious cast, and the freebooter became a pilgrim, combining
the congenial search for further adventure with the search for
relief from the consciousness of past crime. Robert the Mag-
nificent (also called the Devil), father of William the Conqueror,
who lies under grave suspicion of having poisoned his brother
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 15
in order to attain the ducal crown, died in Asia Minor upon
his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The Normans
were indefatigable pilgrims, many doubtless from compunc-
tion of conscience ; many drawn by mere religious glamour
blended with the longing to see strange lands ; many from a
desire to dignify or make decent with a pious motive their aim-
less search for adventure, their plundering expeditions even.
Now just at the time when Norman power was in the
ascendant, and when the new birth of devotional enthusiasm
was urging increasing numbers of pilgrims and penitents to-
ward the Holy Land, the fierce Seljuk Turks got possession of
the holy places, and made access to them difficult and danger-
ous. This was all that was wanting to fire the zeal of the
enthusiast, to make the blood of the Norman boil : the tide of
pilgrimage, checked by the barbarities of the Turks, steadily
mounted against the barrier until at last it poured over it in the
First Crusade. The main motive-power of the Crusades was
the instinctive conviction, rooted ineradicably in the human
breast, that there are places where man can draw nearer to
God than he can elsewhere ; and to the mind of that age Pales-
tine was preeminently the place where heaven touched the
earth. The crusading armies, spite of all alloy of baser
motives, were in reality pilgrim hosts, going armed that they
might repel force by force, and obtain for themselves and
others unimpeded access to the scenes of the Saviour's life.
That chivalrous devotion to the person of Christ and loyalty to
his memory that were the very flower of the feudal age, that
blind feeling after his humanity and longing to make it real to
mind and heart that inspired the Crusades, certainly make
those mighty movements deeply affecting as well as impressive.
It was the thought of Incarnation, indeed, which gave to that
and succeeding ages their strange spiritual glow, midway be-
tween the gloom of the dusk ages and the glare of modern
times. On the eve of the^ First Crusade the saintly Anselm
16 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
began in England and finished in a Calabrian monastery his
epoch-making treatise a conspicuous sign of the stir of a
new intellectual life in Western Europe in which he grounded
the necessity of the Incarnation upon the facfrof sin.
In the armed devotion of the Holy Wars, in which bishop
and baron, monk and knight took part, we see revealed the
very form and pressure of the time. Emotional self-abandon-
ment was the note of the era ; men were extreme in whatever
they did. The swing of the soul from tumults of military
ferocity to a tumult of devotion is vividly exemplified in the
case of Godfrey and his crusaders, when, after the carnage at
Antioch and after having marked with blood their course
through Syria, they arrived at last, on that day in June of the
year 1099, within sight of Jerusalem, and in a moment their
souls were melted to contrition, and they fell on their knees,
weeping and groaning, and kissed the earth, and laid aside
their armor, and in the raiment of pilgrims walked barefooted
toward the holy city ; then armed again, and after a fearful
siege took the city, heaped the streets with slain, waded in
blood, and then donned white garments, went to the church
of the Holy Sepulchre, and bowed down in a passion of
humiliation.
In the excitement of battle as well as in the silence of mon-
astic cells men saw visions, or transmuted what they saw into
wondrous apparitions. The Crusaders were nerved in their
assault upon the walls of Jerusalem by the figure of a knight
that appeared over upon Mount Olivet, whom they took to be
St. George the Martyr.
The incident of the discovery at Antioch of the tip of the
lance said to have pierced the Saviour's side, and its immedi-
ate effect in reviving the spirit of the host, is a striking ex-
ample of the belief of those days in a miraculous virtue, a
mysterious power of communicating influence, inhering in the
bones of saints and martyrs, or in objects that had touched
ENGLISH LITERA\UFLE} ' " hi
their bodies. But most significant of all was tKe" discovery at
Caesarea, in noi, of a bowl of greenish glass, said to be
emerald, which was fully believed to be the dish out of which
Christ ate the broth of bitter herbs at his last passover, and in
which Joseph of Arimathea afterward caught the blood issuing
from his crucified body.
An important development of the Crusade and of the age
was the order of the Knights Templars. In those military
monks we see the perfect blend of the two passions of the age,
worship and warfare. Within twenty years after the founding
of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, a few knights banded
themselves together to protect pilgrims on their way to the
holy places ; they obtained from Baldwin II the right to lodge
in the precincts of his palace, on the site of Solomon's temple,
thence their title was derived. They chose as their habit
a white mantle marked with the red cross of the Crusaders.
As members of a religious order they were bound to attend the
daily services of the church ; and at their meals no voice was
heard save that of the reader of the Bible-lesson for the day.
Upon entering the order, in sign of utter self-renunciation, the
knight gave up all his private property, pledged himself to
chastity, and to kiss no woman, not even his nearest relative,
and vowed unquestioning obedience to the master, whose
bidding should be to him as God's. Two forms of disobedi-
ence, which were yet one, were punishable by expulsion from
the society : one was desertion to the infidels, the other, dis-
loyalty to the faith, that is, heresy, and both were treason.
A few years after the institution of the order Bernard was
chosen as its patron, and after that it gained great and speedy
prestige ; before the Second Crusade, of which their patron
and they were the chief promoters, the knights had established
themselves in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and England.
In England the twofold interest of the age was illustrated
by massive monuments that still endure the castles and
18 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
cathedrals that the Normans raised. Gundulph, military
architect and engineer of William the Conqueror, was also
bishop of Rochester ; he re-built his cathedral, and reared near
by it the castle whose mighty keep still frowns upon the
Medway. Bishops were famous castle-builders' in those days :
King Stephen got into trouble by attempting to destroy some
of their fortresses. All over the land, on commanding sites,
rose the threatening walls, the massive keeps with machicolated
battlements of the castles of the Norman lords, temporal and
spiritual. Meanwhile, the splendid fanes of Winchester, Dur-
ham, Norwich, Peterborough, Ely, and Gloucester were also
rising, and in its lovely vale the stately nave pf Fountains
Abbey, over whose ponderous pillars the pointed arches the
first to be seen in England gave evidence, possibly, of the
influence of Saracenic art.
Such was the world into which Geoffrey of Monmouth was
born, and before which he held up the figure of the legendary
Arthur as the mirror of chivalry. Geoffrey came, like his hero,
from the west of Britain ; he was the son of a priest named
Arthur, of the household of Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural
son of King Henry I. He studied at Oxford, and became a
man of learning according to the pattern of the age. There
he gathered material for his history ; there, at a churchman's
bidding, he rendered into Latin the " Prophecies of Merlin."
About the year 1140 he was appointed archdeacon of Llandaff,
through the influence of his father's brother, who was bishop
there. Meantime he was slowly shaping his Latin " History
of the Kings of Britain," making use, probably, of some old
collection of legends long since lost. The work assumed its
final form, it is believed, in 1147 the year of the Second
Crusade. In 1151, Geoffrey was promoted to the bishopric of
St. Asaph ; he died at Llandaff in 1154.
During his lifetime and for half a century after there was
extraordinary literary activity among the Welsh. Beside his
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 19
friend, the chronicler Carodoc, there appeared a veritable
galaxy of bards. Through Geoffrey part of this energy was
projected into the general literature of the world.
In his work appeared a troop of figures that were destined
to a literary immortality. Herein is manifest the difference
between a vein of Anglo-Norman writing and the whole body
of Anglo-Saxon literature : the latter contributed not one great
theme to English literature, while the stories of British kings
that Geoffrey told, the error of Lear, the conquests and mag-
nificence of Arthur, and his mysterious end, have exercised
over it a sovereign charm. It is interesting to notice that, just
at the time when the Norman Conquest had drawn England
into the current of European history, Geoffrey coordinated the
legendary history of the island with that of ancient Rome :
both were made to spring from the same Trojan stock. His
book played an important part in the literary awakening of
mediaeval Europe ; its influence upon the continent was as
great as it was in England. It was soon translated into
French verse by Robert Wace, a Norman trouvere, under
the title of " Brut," or Brutus the grandson of ^Eneas, fabled
to have become the first of the British kings.
During the life-time of Geoffrey another literary tradition,
deeply religious in its nature, was taking shape, which was
destined shortly to be grafted upon his and to transform it.
Among the chroniclers of the twelfth and thirteenth cen-
turies who compiled in Latin their Histories of England,
men who were scandalized by Geoffrey's presumption in calling
his fictions a history, William of Malmesbury only is con-
nected with our subject through his Latin treatise " On the
Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury." He is believed to
have been the son of a Norman father and a Saxon mother ;
he certainly exemplified in his person that union of conquerors
and conquered which was in process earlier than is commonly
supposed, an historic illustration of it is the marriage* of
20 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
Henry I to Matilda, daughter of Queen Margaret of Scotland
a princess of the Saxon line. William entered the Benedic-
tine monastery at Malmesbury, and after a time was made
custodian of its manuscripts. He was befriended by Geoffrey's
patron, the earl Robert of Gloucester. His history of England
ends with the year 1142, and probably indicates the time of his
death. His treatise above referred to tells of the wandering
of Joseph of Arimathea and his companions to Glastonbury,
where they preached to the natives, and gathered the first
Christian church in Britain. It is worth noting that in the
legend Joseph and his fellow-missionaries make up the mystic
number twelve.
Now the romantic interest of the story of Joseph centred in
the dish that he had brought with him, which had been used at
the Last Supper, and which held the blood that issued from
the five wounds of the Lord. Moreover, his body and King
Arthur's both lay enshrined, according to fable, in the sacred
precincts at Glastonbury. When we consider this and bear in
mind the general character of the age, we see clearly how just
one touch of poetic imagination might fuse the two lines of
romance in one, illumining the secular with the sacred, chang-
ing tales of bloodshed, passion, and demonic arts into descrip-
tions of the search for ideal purity and holiness, as suddenly
and wonderfully as the mood of the Crusaders was changed
when they came within sight of the walls of Jerusalem. It was
apparently by a churchman named Walter Map, or Mapes, that
that final touch was given.
He was born, probably, in the west of England. He attended
lectures at the University of Paris, and after his return to Eng-
land was made a canon of Salisbury in the Arthurian region.
His talents gained him the favorable notice of King Henry II ;
he was employed at court, and accompanied the king upon his
progresses through the realm. In 1173, he visited Gloucester
as itinerant justice of the district. The same year, Thomas
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 21
a Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who had been slain three
years before, was canonized by Pope Alexander III.
It must have been about this time that Walter wrote, in
Norman-French, his prose romance of the Quest of the Holy
Grail. We cannot but feel some connection between that work
and the great events of those years, the barbarous murder of
the archbishop, who murmured with his last breath, that in
defence of the church he was willing to die, the disasters that
soon after ensued, and almost overwhelmed the king, the
canonization, the painful humiliation of Henry before the
shrine of the martyr at Canterbury, these events produced
that excitation of imagination that precedes a great conception,
that atmosphere of horror and fearful expectancy, of wonder
and religious awe, upon which flashed in blinding light the
apparition of the Holy Grail.
Walter also wrote, in part at least, the romance of Lancelot
du Lac. He was present, as an English delegate, at a council
held by Pope Alexander III, probably that of the Lateran
in the year 1179. In 1196, he was appointed archdeacon of
Oxford. He was still living in the reign of King John. With
his Latin works we are not concerned here.
A significant fact in connection with the Quest of the Grail
is that in the twelfth century the sacramental wine began to be
generally withheld from the laity. Parallel with this change
came a change in the thought of the Grail : from the dish it
became the cup used by Jesus at the institution of his supper,
that is, the chalice, a symbol of the central mystery of the
Christian faith. The thrill that accompanied its appearance is
like the touch of a ghostly presence. And so the vision of the
Grail became the ideal of the Middle Ages ; it was a glimpse
of heaven, God's presence with men ; it was purity and holi-
ness and perfect faith and peace. And only like could com-
prehend like. Indescribably beautiful and pathetic is Arthur's
grief when his knights, with one accord, vow to undertake the
22 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
quest : he knows that the charm of the Round Table is over-
come by a more potent spell ; that its glory is departing for-
ever ; that his company of gallant knights will gather round
him no more. It is the sundering of human ties by the con-
straining power of a great ideal.
Like Geoffrey's romance of Arthur, the legend of the Grail
soon won wide popularity upon the continent ; it stimulated
the imagination of the age, deeply impressed its finest poets,
and was the motive of its most spiritual poetry. At the French
court Robert de Boron produced his prose version of the story
of Joseph of Arimathea, and Chrestien de Troyes, a prolific
versifier, who flourished in the years 1180-1190, made the
Grail the motive of his romance of " Percevale." A profoundly
imaginative version of this work was the " Parzival " of the
German knight, Wolfram von Eschenbach.
In lighter vein, with frequent touches of satire, Wolfram's
contemporary and rival, Godfrey of Strassburg, recounted the
history of the fateful passion of Tristram and Isolde a theme
that hardly yielded to the legend of Arthur in popular interest.
At this period the great popular epic of Germany, the
Nibelungenlied, took its final form a form interesting to
compare and contrast with that of Beowulf, a savage,
heathen core with a faint burnish of Christian or rather
ecclesiastical terms. And as Denmark was drawn in the
twelfth century into the political system of the Empire, so
do her ancient ballads seem to circle, like satellites, in orbits
more or less remote, round the great luminary, the Lay of the
Nibelungen. In France, the " Chansons de Gestes," a mass
of verse dealing with Charlemagne and his paladins, deeply
imbued with the feudal spirit, had already been produced.
This, too, was the era of the troubadours, chief among whom
were Geoffrey Rudel, Bertrand de Born, and Pierre Vidal ; it
was indeed the golden prime of that Provencal poetry of love
and war, so soon to be extinguished by the ferocious crusade
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 23
that desolated Languedoc, and by the Inquisition thereupon
established. In Spain, the first and greatest monument of the
young Spanish language, the grand poem of the Cid, champion
of the faith and of the nation, emerged at this time amid the
tumult of the Holy Wars that were going on in that peninsula.
The history of Spain, partly by reason of its very aloofness
from the common interests of the rest of Europe, presents the
more striking analogies to them, chief among these being the
religious orders of knighthood that emulated the glory of the
Templars and the Knights of St. John. The order of Cala-
trava originated in an heroic defence of that place against the
Moors in the year 1158 ; and the Knights of Santiago, who for
many years had protected pilgrims to the famous shrine of
Compostella, were formally instituted in 1175 by a bull of
Alexander III.
It is believed that the epic of the Cid as we have it was
shaped from an earlier collection of ballads that sprang from
the fierce border warfare of Moors and Spaniards by an eccle-
siastic who ' refined, idealized, and Christianized the whole.
This gentle graft upon a savage stock would then present an
interesting parallel to the introduction of the Grail-motive into
Arthurian romance. And now, at the close of the chapter, we
return to England, to take note of the poet Layamon, in whose
work the course of English literature, properly speaking, begins.
It may seem that we have travelled far and wide before
making a beginning, but it will prove to have been well
worth our while to do so. We have gained a general impres-
sion of the character of the age ; have traced the working out
of a great conception ; and have seen how widespread and
productive was the fresh literary enthusiasm of the twelfth
century. Now our footing is firm ; we have secured a point of
departure for the literary developments that are to come.
The latter half of the twelfth century, though remarkably
barren of English writings, was, for that very reason largely,
24 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
the seed-time of English speech. Freed from the restraining
influence that works of genius exert upon the tendency to
linguistic change, unused in the services of the church, in the
homes of the learned and the great, the language of the people
passed through a period of confusion from which it emerged as
archaic English. The changes it underwent were chiefly of
two kinds, inflexional and lexical : first, a general reduction of
the various Anglo-Saxon endings for case, gender, number,
person, mood, to e or en on its way to e ; and second, the intro-
duction of new words from Norman-French. Both modes of
development are exemplified in Layamon's poem, although,
long as it is it contains over thirty-two thousand lines
there are hardly one hundred and seventy words of French
derivation to be found in it.
Layamon was a priest who lived on the banks of the Severn,
in Worcestershire. His alliterative poem in which now and
then a stammer of rhyme is heard belongs to the threshold
of the thirteenth century, and stands at the head of English
literature : its author has been called the English Ennius. A
qualification is necessary, however; Layamon wrote in a dia-
lect, in the speech of the south of England one of the three
dialects among which English writings are to be divided for the
next hundred and fifty years. His language is difficult, no
doubt ; special preparation is required to understand it, and a
glossary must be constantly consulted; but it is not like learn-
ing a foreign tongue, two or three hours of study a day for
three or four days would make one master of the grammatical
difficulties that stand in the way of one's enjoyment of the
poem.
It is called the " Brut," and is a translation, with many
additions, of the Brut of Robert Wace. It is the first account
in English of those mythical British kings that were to play so
great a part in English literature. Here we have the story of
Lear (who, as romance says, gave his name to Leicester), as
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 25
Geoffrey of Monmouth told it : the injured king visits his
daughter " Cordoille " in France, and obtains from the king
her husband a force sufficient to re-conquer England, over
which he reigns gloriously until his peaceful death, three years
after. Following this comes the story of " Fereus and Poreus,"
and shortly after of " Kinbelin," in whose time Christ was born,
who, in the theology of our poet, is "Father in heaven,
Son on earth of the good maiden, and holds with himself the
Holy Ghost." Soon there ensues the voluminous account of
the deeds of Arthur, who became king at the age of fifteen
years ; he was prosperous, rich in gold, liberal, strong, stern to
wrong-doers, dear to those who did well, the noblest of
kings, the Britons' darling. The most interesting portion of
the vast work, and that which best repays reading, is the de-
scription of Arthur's coronation, which extends for about five
hundred lines onward from line twenty-four-thousand two-
hundred and forty-one. Here are reflected the brilliant dis-
play of regal power, the stately ceremonial, and all the external
magnificence of the poet's own age the age of Richard I and
the Third Crusade. The coronation takes place on Whit-
sunday at the British capital, Kaerlion-on-Usk, a wealthy
and splendid city, second only to Rome in the whole world.
Thither have gathered from every quarter Arthur's vassal
kings, earls, and thanes, and ladies in gay array. Dubricius,
archbishop of Kaerlion, and the archbishops of London and
York, take part in the solemn ceremony ; Dubricius, the chosen
of Christ, the Pope's legate, leads the procession, and places
the crown upon Arthur's head. Then follow the coronation
feast, and the games, all through the long summer afternoon,
upon the meadows about Kaerlion.
Thus sweetly, with the glamour of poetry, did the Britons
and their king take captive the descendants of their Saxon
conquerors, as they had already, through Geoffrey's Latin
romance, enthralled their conquerors' conquerors. Thus, too,
26 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
by the memory of Saint Dubricius, was the fame of the ancient
British church restored. The harmonizing effect of these old
legends upon the mixed population of England must have been
great indeed.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 27
II.
REMARKABLE differences appear between the work of Laya-
mon and the writings of the age that succeeded his, differ-
ences that were rooted, of course, in the altered character of
the time. Certain notable events help us to determine the
bounds of the new period: it extended from the year 1204,
when Normandy was lost to the English crown, to 1265, the
year of the first typical English parliament, the battle of Eves-
ham, and, let us add, of the birth of Dante Alighieri. It is
hardly necessary to say that the formative influences of the
period were at work years before the former date (they are dis-
tinguishable upon the continent at least as early as 1170), and
though waning were yet operative years after the latter.
A conspicuous sign of the time was the decay of crusading
zeal. Early in the thirteenth century the name crusade was
prostituted by being applied to shameless attacks upon Chris-
tians. A great expedition designed for the recovery of trie
Holy Sepulchre was diverted, by the pride and greed of the
Venetians, into a siege and capture of the city of Zara, and
soon after of Constantinople, and resulted in the temporary
subversion of the hollow Empire of the East. The ruthless
" crusade " against the Albigenses, which for twenty years
desolated the fairest provinces of France, was another instance
of abuse of the name for purposes of mischief. The crusade
of Andrew of Hungary in Palestine, in 1217, ended in failure
and speedy retreat. Europe and Asia alike were growing
weary of the long and costly struggle ; the only considerable
successes of the time were the bloodless victories of the
Emperor Frederick II, in 1229, and Richard, Earl of Corn-
wall, in 1240, who, by negotiation with the infidels, obtained
28 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
possession of Jerusalem and neighboring towns. The zeal of
the former age burned brightly in the breast of Louis IX alone,
and never with a purer flame; but his first expedition was
disastrous in the extreme, and he died, in the year 1270, upon
the torrid sands of Tunis ere the second had fairly begun.
That was the last of the crusades. The forces of the Saracens
drew round the doomed town of Acre, the last stronghold of the
Christians in Palestine ; but the crash of its walls awoke not
an echo in Europe, and the reddened waves washed the
corpses of its defenders along the coast.
At the other extremity of the Mediterranean, Ferdinand III,
the sainted King of Spain, was achieving great success in his
struggle with the Moslem power ; he took town after town in
Andalusia, and in 1236 had the pleasure of converting the
many-pillared mosque of Cordova into a cathedral. In 1249
he took Seville, the largest city in the peninsula, after a pro-
tracted siege ; and at last all that remained to the Moors was
their province of Granada, enclosed, like a promontory, by the
Christian power. But the absorbing interest of the age was
the deadly strife between the papacy and the house of Hohen-
staufen, which ended in the extermination of the latter in the
year 1268, when the boy Conradin, grandson of Frederick II,
and last of his line, went to a cruel death upon the scaffold in
a public square at Naples. Grievous as the conflict was, it
yet shows that the mind of Europe had become more deeply
engaged in its own concerns than in the support of a shadowy
kingdom far off upon the Asiatic shore. It is this introversion
of the mind that gives tone to the whole period.
The most remarkable religious phenomenon of the thirteenth
century, and in religious movements the philosophy of all
these ages practically consists, was the foundation of the
great mendicant orders. Their originating principle was that
longing for complete disengagement from the world that was
manifested with fresh force by Francis of Assisi, who pro-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 29
posed a self-renunciation so absolute that it seemed fanatical
and impracticable even to the churchmen of those days. We
cannot but honor the motive that underlay the practice of such
excessive poverty ; it was designed to disencumber the brothers
of all burdens so that they might move around freely among
the growing towns, preaching the word of God. A similar zeal
for preaching joined with a similar poverty had already been
manifested by the Waldenses, whose apostolical missionaries
had penetrated, in the time of St. Francis, into all the great
countries of Western Europe, having even crossed over into
England. We must recognize this movement as the evan-
gelical phase of mediaeval piety.
Francis' attitude respecting this world's goods was deter-
mined by a thorough-going change in his character. Between
the lines of his life we may read something of the pain that
attends every transition from one age of the spirit to another,
the misunderstanding of the new by the old, the condemnation
of the old by the new, the mental distress, the domestic agony,
that should teach us a deep reverence and sympathy for the
heroes of every spiritual renascence. Francis practised strange
austerities to bring and keep his body in subjection; with that
quaint humor that helped to win him others' hearts he called
his body " Brother Ass," because it was made only to slave
and be beaten and to be supported by the coarsest food. His
order was recognized by Pope Innocent III in 1210, and from
that time to his death Francis held the primacy of piety in
Christendom. In 1219, it was estimated that five thousand
friars attended the general chapter of the order. The virgin
Clara, also of Assisi, founded an order for women under
Francis' rule, which soon numbered twelve houses in Italy,
with others in Germany. A little later, the princess Isabel,
sister of St. Louis, became the patroness of the Clares in
France. Clara was as deeply enamoured of poverty and
ascetic practices as was her model : she went barefoot ; wore a
30 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
shift woven with sharp bristles ; lived on bread and water, and
slept upon the bare floor. We are not surprised to hear that
she suffered much from sickness, yet even her ill turns she
improved by spinning fine linen thread to be woven into altar-
cloths and corporals for the churches of Assisi.
After the death of Francis, in 1226, his work was carried on
in the same spirit by Anthony of Padua (born in Lisbon, in
1 195). He was the most noted preacher of his age, and un-
dertook long missionary tours in France, Spain, and Italy.
Within a few years the Franciscan order produced its brightest
light, the saint and doctor Bonaventura, who was five years of
age at the time of the founder's death, took the habit at the
age of twenty-two and became erelong general of the order.
Among his voluminous works is one that he wrote at Francis'
retreat upon Mt. Alverno : the little golden treatise of mediae-
val mysticism, the " Itinerarium Mentis in Deum."
At the same time the rival mendicant order, the Dominican,
brought forth its great saint and doctor, Thomas Aquinas,
whose " Summa," or system of theology, is a monument of in-
dustry and exhaustive analysis. Aquinas drew a strict line of
demarcation between the provinces of faith and reason in
matters of religion, a psychological distinction fertile of
future controversy and speculation.
The three other mendicant fraternities, Carmelite, Augus-
tinian, and Servite, never attained the popularity and power of
the former two. The Servites originated in Florence, about
the year 1233. The devout Filippo Benizi was one of the
founders, and in time became general of the order. He was
an earnest preacher, and once undertook an extensive mission-
ary journey through France and Flanders. The glory of the
Augustinians in this age was Nicholas of Tolentino, in the
march of Ancona. He too was a fervent and persuasive
preacher, but his usefulness was impaired by his ascetic rigors,
which brought upon him many painful infirmities, which he
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 31
mistook as punishments for his laxity. He chastised his re-
bellious flesh by binding it about with heavy iron girdles; he
ate only the simplest and coarsest food ; his bed was a board,
his pillow a stone.
The little that we have said of the monks and friars is the
very least that was due to men who contributed a large part of
the literature of mediaeval Europe, and copied and preserved
the rest in their libraries.
An interesting episode of the time was the military mission-
work of the Teutonic Knights. As the crusading fever abated,
they devoted their attention more and more to their boreal
provinces about the Baltic Sea. Having converted the natives
to Christianity at the point of the sword, and having established
some scattered bishoprics in Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland,
they caused the whole region to be erected into an ecclesi-
astical province, with its archiepiscopal see at Riga, in the
year 1255.
As it was throughout Europe in general, so was it in England
in particular: interest in home affairs and a spirit of religious
reflection superseded the interest of the preceding age in things
without and far away. The conquest of Normandy by Philip
of France served greatly to stimulate, even if it did not create,
this new self-consciousness of the English people. That event
was followed by two generations of internecine strife, the most
confused period of English history, yet fruitful of future good
beyond almost any other. It was a protracted struggle be-
tween a monarchy that aimed to be absolute, that carried
beyond endurance its abuse of power, that rested upon ex-
ternal sanction and support, and a nobility that however turbu-
lent was yet determined to be free ; between sovereigns like
John and his son Henry III on the one hand, the first tyran-
nical, cowardly, and evil, the other capricious and weak, who,
to gain the support of the Roman curia against their own
vassals, and to wring from them the sums of money of which
32 , OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
they stood in perpetual need, were willing to sell the liberties
of the English church, and on the other hand, a series of able
and independent ecclesiastics, like Langton, Edmund of Can-
terbury, and Robert Grosseteste, who resented the intrusion of
Italian prelates into English livings and the exactions of the
popes, together with the great barons, led by the Marshalls and
Simon de Montfort, who resented the insolence of royal favor-
ites, the heaping of favors upon foreigners, and all the injuries
of irresponsible, personal government by the king. It is
evident, moreover, that this opposition to royal incapacity
and oppression which was in truth the national party, in spite
of the selfish motives that may have swayed many of its
adherents, was buoyed up by the sympathy of the people, and
the rising influence of the towns. It was a dark and troublous
age, yet in it were planted upon imperishable foundations the
rights of persons, the liberties of Englishmen. The charter
drawn up by barons and churchmen at Runnymede, and signed
by King John in June, 1215, was confirmed over and over
again in the following reign ; and Henry's bad faith and
neglect of its provisions led at last to the events of the year
1258, when a wearied nation decided that he was unfit to rule.
Matthew Paris, the best of England's mediaeval chroniclers,
through whose monkish Latin can be clearly discerned a kind-
ling national consciousness, is our authority for a great part of
the reign of Henry III, and exhibits in the plainest way the
dependence of English upon papal politics ; the supreme im-
portance of the contest between empire and papacy, and the
distress it caused all thoughtful minds ; the plunder of the
English and their church to which the pope's necessities drove
him, and the king's connivance at it for his own selfish ends.
The chronicler shows, too, with startling distinctness, how that
awful contest palsied all crusading effort, partly by withholding
aid from Europe, partly by stirring up strife between Hospital-
lers and Templars in Palestine. And further, by an occasional
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 33
naive remark he discloses the ill-feeling that existed among
members of the long-established monastic orders toward their
young, active, and popular rivals, the friars.
In the midst of these manifold antagonisms, and offering, as
it were, a refuge from them, there rose those chaste examples
of early Gothic architecture in which the deepening religious
consciousness of the time found expression. In France, the
cathedrals of Chartres, Rheims, and Amiens, in Germany,
those of Freiburg and Strassburg were more or less advanced
toward completion, and the reconstruction of the choir of
Cologne was begun. A significant change in the ground-plan
of churches accompanied in England the substitution of the
pointed arch for the round : a square eastern end replaced the
Norman apse. The cathedral of Lincoln was covered with a
substantial vault, the first probably that was constructed in the
kingdom. At Salisbury was rising, between the years 1220 and
1258, the most symmetrical of English cathedrals, the only one
that was completed according to the original design in the same
generation in which it was begun. Westminster Abbey was
rebuilt by King Henry III in the latter half of his reign.
It is necessary to bear these noble monuments in mind in
order to do justice to an age that is inadequately represented
by its literary remains. The truth is that the spirit of poetry
expressed itself mutely then in cathedral columns, walls, win-
dows, pinnacles, and spires, it had not yet found a tongue.
How inadequate as a literary medium the English language
yet seemed to educated men is shown by the fact that the
patriotic Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, used French in writing
his doctrinal and allegorical poem, the " Chateau d' Amour "
(the " Castle " being the body of Mary the Virgin), in which
he told of Creation, Redemption, the Judgment, the pains of
Hell and the joys of Heaven.
Now to gather in a focus all that has been said of the period,
to tell its secret in a word, we must recur to the thought of the
34 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
Grail. That was the supreme ideal of the preceding age, at
once its culmination and the beginning of its dissolution ; it
was the pivot on which thought revolved into a new stage.
The vision of the Grail, that is, a foretaste of heaven, could
only be attained by those whose lives were spotlessly pure ;
and in the thirteenth century, chastity meant the extirpation of
physical desire. For the body was regarded as impure, and as
the seat and source of impure appetites and imaginations. To
quell them, therefore, its strength must be reduced ; to live out
of the body, as if one had no body even, was the ideal of
Francis of Assisi and his companions. Hence the ascetic
rigors already noted, hence the snapping of all ties held to be
earthly, hence the straining to be free from worldly pursuits
and possessions. Thus only, it was thought, could one live a
heavenly life. Erelong the inevitable consequences of such a
mode of striving toward the ideal made themselves felt ; the
flesh, which men abused and attempted to ignore, rebelled,
thrusting itself upon their notice ; then ensued a more desperate
struggle to overcome it, followed by more violent revenges;
the ideal seemed ever more remote, and the spirit, groaning
under the bond it hated yet had to endure, conscious of its
own weakness, vexed by prurient suggestions, torn by doubt,
became a prey to melancholy. It is in such mortal strife be-
tween body and soul that self-consciousness grows clear ; in
such a time psychology begins.
The course of English literature in this period may be thus
summarized : devotional works appear, aiming to excite enthusi-
astic love for the Redeemer by pictures of his suffering; lives
of saints hold up examples for imitation ; sermons instruct,
exhort, and endeavor to make religion a more inward thing, a
matter of the heart ; soon an undertone of sadness begins to
be heard, a consciousness of failure, and marks of what the
mystics well term " interior desolation " ; and this ends in a
realization of the antithesis between soul and body as a fierce
antagonism, which induces final despair.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 35
The first and lengthiest specimen of this group of writings
is a series of sermons in metre called the " Ormulum " by its
author, who was an Augustinian canon named Orm. He wrote
in the dialect of the English midland. His plan was simple ;
patience only was needed for its execution, and of that quality
Orm had good store. It was to turn into English the gospel-
lesson for the day, and then append an exposition of it, and
in compiling the latter the author often laid under contribution
the writings of the great patron of his order. How laborious
he was may be gauged by this, that the fragment of his work
we possess, though amounting to more than twenty thousand
lines, only reaches, with many gaps, to the thirty-second ser-
mon, and beyond that stretched, in endless perspective,
scores, perhaps hundreds of gospel paraphrases with their
homiletic commentaries. That such a work should be com-
posed or read was owing, probably, to the fact that some
knowledge of the Scriptures which were now being withheld
from the laity could thus be imparted in a form not subject
to censure by the ecclesiastical authority. A council at Tou-
louse, in the year 1229, inhibited the use of translations of the
Scriptures, but left a way open for paraphrases of portions of
them like the work of Orm.
The Ormulum flows on in unrhymed lines of eight and seven
syllables alternately. Its iambic metre is exceedingly regular,
and does certainly course onward with a lilt that bears the
reader easily along.
In the Southern dialect and in prose were composed the
Lives of Saints Juliana, Margaret, and Katharine ; the " Ancren
Riwle," or Rule of Anchoresses, giving in detail the pattern
according to which nuns should frame their lives ; a long
homily called "Soul's Ward " (or " Guardian ") which urges, in
allegorical fashion, rejection of Self-Will and submission to
heavenly Wisdom as the guide of life; and a devotional treatise,
" The Wooing of Our Lord," which in the swoon of divine love
36 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
that it labors to induce by holding before the gaze the picture
of Jesus' poverty, humiliation, passion, flagellation, and cruci-
fixion, reminds one of the ecstasies of St. Francis, and of the
morbid desire of many in that age to produce in their own
flesh a semblance of the five wounds of the Lord. Similar
to this in spirit is a short poem called "A Good Orison of
Our Lady," in halting lines on the basis of the iambic
pentameter, rhyming in couplets,' in which the beauty and
glory and power of Mary are chanted, and she is entreated
to bring her worshippers at last to the blessed heaven where
she is.
To a later date than any of these about the middle of
King Henry's reign belong a quaint metrical Bestiary that
breaks into occasional rhyme, and a freely flowing version in
octosyllabic couplets of portions of the books of Genesis and
Exodus. Both are couched in the Midland dialect.
.The Bestiary is a version of a Latin work ; it is a curious
example of that mixture of legend and allegory that passed as
natural history in the middle ages. After the description of an
animal and its supposed habits, often apocryphal, but accepted
without suspicion on the authority of the author, there follows
an application to human conduct for every habit, imaginary
or otherwise, was believed to be symbolical, and capable of
conveying a moral lesson. As the Ant, for instance, gathers
food in season, so should we gather spiritual sustenance ; as
winter is to her death is to us ; and as she drops the barley
she is carrying when she finds a grain of fine wheat, so should
we discard the old law, the new is better.
The representative piece of the period, and best worth con-
ning, is a rhyming homily of not quite four hundred lines which
has been poorly entitled " A Moral Ode." " An Earnest Call
to a Godly Life " would be a better description of its character;
its burden is, "Do Good while yet there is Time." The
author's soul was heavily weighted with a sense of the extent
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 37
and power and fearful end of sin ; he felt a pressing responsi-
bility for the souls of others, he must "warny" all his friends
to shun the path that leads to endless pain. His voice comes
sounding to us out of the very heart of that sad age ; this is
proved by the demand that there was for the poem through
many years : several copies of it are still extant, some dating
from the beginning, some from the end of the period. Its long
lines, with their monotonous rise and fall, chime well with the
solemn thought they convey. It begins with a lament for
wasted time : the poet's youth is past, and now he cannot do
the good he then neglected to do ; his example and his regret
should incite his readers to do well while they can, else like
him they will sorely repent. Every man must stand by himself,
trust no kinsfolk, not even wife or child, and the wife must
not trust her husband : none but Christ can save another's
soul. Let each avail of every opportunity of doing good, for a
time of reckoning is to come, when every man will be judged
by his works. God is gracious ; to him a little gift that comes
of good will is dear : ah, do good before it is too late. At the
day of doom devils will be our accusers; they will bring to
light all our evil deeds, and we shall be our own judges, for
there is no witness like a man's own heart; every man knows
himself best, his works and his will, and shall judge himself as
the testimony of his works may compel him, either to death or
to life. The pains of hell are terrible and without end ; a
week's pleasure here must be paid for with seven years of
sorrow there ; if one could experience that pain for only one
hour now he would abandon wife and child, father, sister and
brother, and all the pleasures and possessions of the world, and
be ever in prayer that he might escape hell-fire and arrive at
last in heaven. Oh listen ! in hell are hunger and thirst,
heat and cold ; no rest, but ever-burning fire for the false, lust-
ful, and covetous ; adders and snakes to tear and fret the
proud ; darkness and smoke and dreadful fiends, no tongue
38 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
can tell the horrors of that place ; compared to them the great-
est pain we suffer on earth is glee. And many bad Christians
are there, without hope, oh, warn your friends as I do mine.
We are weak and sinful ; we suffer for our forefather's fault ;
but God is merciful. Two words, love to God and man, sum
up the whole of God's law : if we have those two loves we
shall taste the joys of heaven. Reflect before it is too late ;
keep yourself from the world and its love ; nine men in every
ten are pressing down the broad way ; few take the narrow
way of God's commandment, surrendering their own wills.
Let us take that path, for it leads to heaven ; there God is all
in all, those who are near him lack nothing. There shall those
see more of him who loved him more here, and find in him all
that man can desire : they have enough that have him who
possesses all things. May God bring us to that bliss. Pray,
dear friends, for the soul of him who wrote this, that he may
attain it.
The earnest dualism of this pathetic exhortation gives place
to despair in a remarkable poem called " The Debate of the
Body and the Soul," which was widely popular in many lands
in the thirteenth century. Its grotesqueness and savage dual-
ism were highly characteristic of the age. The author dreams
that he sees a knight's body lying on a bier, and the soul that
has just parted from it standing by. The soul gibes at the
body, and curses it for its disobedience : it would go its own
gait, and now its gluttony and lust have brought them both to
hell. The corpse slowly rears its head and replies : " Thou
dost wrong to lay all the blame upon me. I was entrusted to
thy guidance, and did nothing but what thou didst whisper in
my ear. Thou art lost by thine own fault, and but for thee I
should be as a sheep or an ox, and not be bound to hell." The
soul retorts : " I could do nothing without thee. We were both
born of one woman; I loved thee, but thou wast unruly; I was
thy slave, and now must suffer for thy deadly sins." " Nay,
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 39
the thought of every sin came first from thee, Soul ! I knew
not what was right or wrong except as thou didst teach me. I
was inclined to sin, as is the race, and thou didst allow me my
pleasure, though it was for thee to beat and bind." " I gave
thee good advice," says the soul, "but the fiend and the world
deceived thee. O ye traitors ! combining against my bliss : ye
led me as an ox is led by the horn, and have brought me to
hell-pain. Now no prayer avails ! " " Oh that I had died at
birth ! " cries the corpse, " then I had not known sin." " 'Tis
too late, Body! We must go our way, but oh, that thou
hadst amended only a little while ago ! Here come the fiends,
farewell ! We shall meet at doomsday." Then the devils
swoop upon the wretched soul, strike their claws into it, tousle
it hither and thither, drag it to the pit of hell, hurl it over the
brink and the dungeon door closes upon it. With the horror
the sleeper rouses up, aghast ; and thanks God that he is still
in the land of the living, and by repentance may hope to
escape that fearful fate.
If we turn to contemporary literature upon the continent of
Europe we shall find there also interesting evidence that a
serious spirit was abroad that was quite out of touch with the
spirit of those light romances, full of love and war and adven-
ture, in which the former age delighted. Among the songs of
Walther von der Vogelweide the prince of the Minnesingers
(the German troubadours) there are many verses that show
how acutely he felt the discord of his time. Although he is
remembered now for his love-songs, and especially for his lively
touches of natural description, a serious, moralizing strain was
yet the chief characteristic of his genius. The shadow of the
end seemed to him to be falling upon the world; he saw corrup-
tion spreading in the church, and anarchy impending in the
state. The correctness of this latter forecast appeared before
the next generation had passed away; the fall of the house of
Hohenstaufen was followed by the disorders of the Interreg-
40 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
num, during which the flower of German song faded, and the
line of Minnesingers, like their imperial masters' line, became
extinct.
Sometime about the year 1250 appeared a book of moral in-
struction called "Der Winsbecke," purporting to be a father's
advice to his son. At this time all Germany was ringing with
the eloquence of Berthold Lech, a friar of the order of St.
Francis, a preacher of repentance, and of interior piety as con-
trasted with reliance upon indulgences, the merit of pilgrimages,
and the intercessions of saints. So vast were the crowds that
thronged to hear him that no building would hold them, and
he had to preach in the fields. His sermons are models of
clear German prose.
In France, too, the religious revival stimulated by the men-
dicant orders gave rise to much sermon-writing in the mother-
tongue. How generally prevalent was the didactic spirit
exemplified by " Der Winsbecke " is shown by the appearance
of a similar work in French, " Le Castoiement d'un Pere "
"A Father's Counsel" in which rules of conduct are im-
pressed upon the memory by apposite stories. The contrast
between the two great periods that we have been studying is
well illustrated by the works of the famous chroniclers, Ville-
hardouin and Joinville : the former wrote a history of the con-
quest of Constantinople (in which he took part) in the year
1204, which is full of the stir and color of the times; the latter
wrote, in a sober tone that was suited to a graver period, a
history of his royal patron, St. Louis. Of writings in verse we
can do no more than mention the lays and fables of Marie de
France ; the lyrics of Thibault de Champagne ; and the " Roman
de la Rose," begun by Guillaume de Lorris, who died about the
year 1260. This voluminous work, popular for ages in many
lands, has been suggestively termed a "psychological epic";
it is an allegory, and through it all a moral purpose runs ; the
Rose, to obtain which is the object of the lover's endeavor, is
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 41
the recompense of faithful love, and personified sins such as
Sloth and Hatred stand in the way of its attainment.
After the blighting Albigensian crusade the sceptre of poetry
passed from Provence to Northern Italy, where it was wielded
by the severe Sordello of Mantua, whose shade in after
years guided Dante through the valley to the gate of Purgatory.
A few troubadours, leaving the desolate halls of their patrons,
who had fallen in the wars, wandered over the Pyrenees and
sought a livelihood in Catalonia and Aragon. Chief among
these was Pierre Cardinal, who found a patron in Jayme I,
king of Aragon ; but his spirit was embittered by misfortune,
and in satirical songs he poured contempt upon his age. The
last of the troubadours was Giraud Riquier of Narbonne,
who was befriended by Alfonso the Wise, king of Castile.
His verses suffer from that didacticism which is the death of
poetry.
The representative poet of Spain in this age was the priest
Gonzalo of Berceo, in the neighborhood of Calahorra. He
composed rhyming lives of saints, "The Martyrdom of St.
Lawrence," and the "Merits" and "Miracles of the Blessed
Virgin Mary." He died sometime after the year 1260. At the
end of the century appeared a Spanish version of "The Debate
of the Body and the Soul."
42 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
III.
THERE stands a church upon the embattled acropolis of Car-
cassonne the old church of St. Nazaire the body of which,
dating from the eleventh century, is gloomy indeed. Its west-
ern end was walled up long ago, in time of war, and lets in no
light ; half a dozen heavy pillars on either side divide the aisles
from the nave ; overhead lowers a cavernous vault, pierced by
no openings. The chancel end is bright, and going toward it
one finds himself surrounded by tinted light that almost dazzles
after the darkness left behind. Right and left extend spacious
transepts, above are springy vaults, and round about are
graceful columns, carvings, and large windows filled with the
elegant tracery of the fourteenth century, and the gleam of
painted glass. Something like that is the change we experience
on passing from the shadows of the last age into the light of
the one before us.
We are greeted by an English carol that begins in this way :
" Spring is come with love in its turn, with blossoms and with
birds' songs, that brings all this bliss ; day's-eyes in the dales,
sweet notes of nightingales, every bird sings its song. The
thrustlecock chides them ever ; away is their winter woe when
woodruff springs. These birds sing wondrous many, and
whistle in their winter joy so that all the wood rings."
This is one of a number of refreshing little songs of love and
budding branches, spring flowers ancl returning birds.
A clever poem of considerable length, showing the same
genial appreciation of nature and a new-born sense of humor,
is " The Owl and the Nightingale," in which, in sprightly
couplets well suited to the theme, those birds flout each other,
peck each other's character to pieces, and celebrate their
DIVERSITY
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE)^
own good qualities. " Each said of the other's habits the
very worst that they knew "; it was a " stiff debate." The
nightingale sat on a fair bough, among blossoms, in a thick
hedge mingled with spire (tall grass) and green sedge; near
by, on an old ivy-covered tree-trunk, stood the owl. The night-
ingale taunts her enemy with her evil look and "guggling"
note ; she is a tyrant, hated by small birds ; moreover, she
feeds on nasty creatures like snails and mice and such "foul
wights." The owl swells with rage : "Why won't you fly out
into the open," she says, "and let us see which of us two is
fairer ? " "I don't care to have you claw me with your sharp
cleavers," retorts the nightingale ; " shame on you for your
treachery ! Tell me, monster, why do you sing your doleful
song by night, never by day? 'Tis a grisly shriek to hear.
You fly by night too, you love darkness." "I sing better
than you, chatterer ! My loud note is not like your feeble
piping. You sing all day and all night long ; your piping tires
everybody." " Not so, owl ! Everything is glad when I come.
The blossoms begin to spring and spread on tree and in
meadow ; the lily with her fair beauty welcomes me, prays me to
fly to her ; the red rose too, on the thorny bush, begs me to sing
for her love." " I have a fine dwelling too," rejoins the owl :
" big trees with thick boughs, all overgrown with green ivy that
never fades in frost or snow ; in winter it keeps me warm, in
summer cool ; my house is bright and green when nothing is
left of yours. You jeer at me for my food, but what do you
eat, pray ? Is it not spiders and flies and worms ? But I keep
men's houses and barns free from mice, churches, too, I
cleanse of them ; no foul wight that I can catch ever comes to
Christ's house." At this the nightingale is out of all patience :
" One song of my mouth is better than all that ever you could
do. My notes are sweet, like the songs of Holy Church ; in
heaven there is such singing. I help the priests at matins, and
they rejoice in my song." After further wrangling, the night-
44 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
ingale bursts out, as if victorious, into loud warbling, in which
a choir of other birds join, thrush and throstle and wood-wale;
the wren calls for a decision ; Nicholas of Guilford (the author's
name, no doubt) shall be the umpire. Away they fly to find
him "but how they sped in their judgment I can't tell you;
here is no more of this tale."
In verse similar to that of this playful piece but far more
fluent, brighter yet in color, sprightlier in fancy, is a short
poem called " The Land of Cokaygne " " Kitchen-land." It
is a satire upon the luxury that was already beginning to invade
and corrupt conventual life, but its tone is by no means bitter,
it is rather that of amusement ; it was written in the spirit
of a wag, not of a reformer. Better than Paradise where
there is fruit but no meat, and nothing but water to drink is
the land of Cokaygne, that flows with oil, milk, honey, and
wine. "Well is him that there may be." In that land there
is an abbey of white and grey monks where there is store of
flesh and fish ; the very walls are built of pasties ; in the
cloister is a tree of spices ; a well of treacle is hard by. To
that abbey roast geese fly, bringing garlic. After dinner, the
young monks go out to play, and here the humor of the
piece becomes outrageous. In conclusion it is said that to
reach that delectable land one must wade for seven years up
to his chin in swines' filth.
" The Land of Cokaygne " is one of the best specimens of
light satire in the language. The appearance of such a piece
signifies much : it means that a critical spirit is abroad; that
fresh powers of observation are coming into play ; that thought
is growing independent.
Collections of proverbs those digests of popular experi-
ence were made at this time, and were in great demand.
One of such goes by the name of Hendyng some legendary
sage, some rustic Solomon, whose name became a generic term
for all makers of proverbs. After a ballad-like stanza, in which
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 45
some bit of popular observation is unfolded, the whole is com-
pactly summed up in one of Hendyng's sayings, and often
made yet more portable by being clinched with a rhyme or an
assonance. In this old collection occur many proverbs that
are still current : "A good beginning makes a good ending," -
"a burnt child dreads the fire." Other examples are : " Hope
of long life beguiles many a good wife," "when need is
highest, help is nighest," - " seldom comes loan laughing
home," " well he fights that well flies." In the last two the
assonance is still preserved, it is obscured by our modern
pronunciation in the following : " A fool's bolt is soon shot."
The poetical pieces thus far noticed were simply the prelude
to masses of rhyme. Long rhyming chronicles appeared, in
which Arthur and the other ancient British worthies figured
again upon the scene. Romances full of love and fighting and
adventure gathered bulk proportionate to the popularity of
their heroes. It is plain that there was a resurgence in some
measure of the spirit of the age of Layamon.
Portions of Scripture history, beginning with the birth, death,
and resurrection of Christ, were dramatised and acted in con-
nection with the Corpus Christi festival, first instituted by
Pope Urban IV in 1264, and appointed to be kept on the
Thursday following Trinity Sunday. These representations
were called miracle-plays, and at last mysteries (in order to
distinguish them from other miracle-plays founded on the lives
of saints) : it is believed that a series of them was acted at the
town of Chester within a few years from the date given above.
This promising, fresh beginning of English literature is to be
explained by the spirit of the age of Edward I. As unlike his
father's as was the character of that great sovereign, so unlike
the former age was that which had supervened. The pendulum
of thought and feeling had swung over a wide arc ; a new set
of ideas had replaced the old. Whereas the world, in its double
sense of external nature and human society, had seemed to be
46 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
hopelessly evil, opposed in its very essence to heaven and to
God, and whereas the human body had been despised and
hated as the loathly prison of the soul, now, on the contrary,
instructed doubtless by the unhappy consequences of that view
of things, men began to discover goodness and beauty in the
world and the body ; regarded nature with the genial interest
we have already noted ; and received gratefully the pleasures
of the senses. The human spirit began to feel at home in the
body, looked about it, and exerted itself to improve its condi-
tion. Thus was a higher unity secured after the painful dis-
cord of the previous period.
At such a time natural science is born ; and the striking
witness to this fact is the renowned Franciscan friar, Roger
Bacon. The story of his troubled life marks him out conspic-
uously as the intellectual pioneer and martyr of his age. His
investigations having aroused the suspicion of his superiors in
the order, he was kept under guard in Paris for a whole decade,
and was deprived of instruments and books. Happily for him,
a friend of former years was raised to the papal throne in
1265 as Clement IV; for him Bacon managed to compose a
work the "Opus Majus," a synopsis of science as he under-
stood it, which brought about his liberation, and in 1268 he
was in his native land of England once more. He was too
eager to be discreet; his impatience with ignorance and mental
immobility in high places made him enemies ; the general of
the Franciscans in special disliked and suspected him ; and in
1278 he was confined at Paris again. Ten years later, the
general was chosen pope, with the title Nicholas IV; and it
was not until his death, in 1292, that Bacon was set free. He
returned to England to die.
By making mathematics the ground of all science Bacon
gave unity to his speculations. He excelled in alchemy and
optics, studies in which the Saracens had been without
peers for fully five centuries. As an explanation of the back-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 47
vvardness of science throughout Christendom, Bacon alleged
four causes : unquestioning submission to authority, the force
of habit, prejudice, and self-sufficient ignorance. The only
remedy, he said, was to go directly to nature, and question her
without fear and without prepossession. The scholastic
method of argument had failed to increase or advance knowl-
edge : that could only be done by experience, by experience in
its twofold sense, external observation and experiment and
internal comprehension, conception, understanding. The
causes of sensation, the two principles of physical existence,
he made to be matter and " virtue " (in the sense in which we
speak of the virtues, properties, or powers of herbs): these
were the elements of natural science. Creation, motion, any
effect he explained by the action of a " virtue," or quality, or
power, upon matter.
Out of mere justice to the age one is obliged to say thus
much about Bacon, although his writings, being all in Latin,
do not belong to English literature.
It is interesting to compare with him his almost equally mis-
understood and ill-used contemporary, the star-gazing king of
Castile, Alfonso X. To him we owe the simplification of our
arithmetic by the introduction of Arabic numerals.
Bacon had experimented much with lenses, but it was left
for an Italian, Alessandro Spina, first to put them to practical
use in the manufacture of eye-glasses.
Another Italian meanwhile, the Neapolitan Flavio Gioja, was
experimenting with the loadstone, and about the year 1302
devised a compass and magnetic needle.
The epoch was further signalized by the dissection of two
human bodies at Bologna, in 1315, by the professor of anat-
omy, Mondini di Luzzi, in the presence of the medical students
of the university. Up to that time, the interior structure of
the human body had been inferred from that of lower animals :
the great Galen even derived what he knew of it from the
48 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
bodies of apes. Mondini's work the result of his investiga-
tions was not superseded as a text-book in anatomy for two
hundred years.
The head of the medical profession in England at this time
was John Gatesden, or Gaddesden, a graduate of the newly
founded Merton College, Oxford, who about the year 1299
began to study medicine, and soon became a successful practi-
tioner in London. He gained celebrity by his fanciful treat-
ment of a son of Edward I for small-pox, and the boy
recovered. Toward the close of that king's reign Gatesden
compiled his " Rosa Medicinae," drawing heavily upon the
writings of Arabian doctors. He lived to a great age, dying in
1361; and not many years after he was ranked by Chaucer
among the greatest physicians of all time.
A feature of the age quite as remarkable as this progress of
science and medicine was the development of another profes-
sion, that of the law. Out of the tumult of the previous period
sprang a longing for order, for security of life and limb and
property, that favored the growth of law, and goes far to
explain the rise of strong governments in Europe toward the
close of the thirteenth century. In England, that longing was
responded to by Edward I, one of the greatest of her kings,
whose name is a synonym for order, able government, and
legal and political reform. The battle of Evesham, in 1265,
had established anew the royal authority, and Edward took
advantage of the tranquil period that ensued to go to Palestine
as a continuator of St. Louis' last crusade. There his valor
and military prowess gained him high renown, stirred the
patriotic pride of his people, and won him their admiration and
affection ; upon the death of his father he returned to England,
in 1274, to take up the reins of government in an auspicious
season. The kingdom was at peace, and commerce was flour-
ishing. The year after his return, parliament made a begin-
ning of customs legislation by according him a duty on
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 49
exported wool, which was all that was needed to replenish his
treasury. From the first Edward directed his attention to the
strict execution of justice throughout the realm, and to the
development of law and of a better judicial system. Interest
in the subject had been greatly increased by a valuable com-
pend, "Of the Laws and Customs of England," by a late
learned jurist, Henry Bracton. Edward broke up the old
king's court into its constituent parts, and established these as
distinct courts, those of King's Bench, the Exchequer, and
Common Pleas ; he also parted the martial from the civil func-
tion of the justices (the union of which was characteristic of
the feudal age), it is said that Ralph Hengham, first chief
justice of the reconstructed court of King's Bench, was the first
who did not wear under his ermine a coat of mail.
Great as Edward was as a law-giver and administrator, he
was equally great and successful in his military undertakings ;
indeed, it is the brilliant extension of his authority over all
Britain, whereby he made of it an island-empire, that mention
of his name in general first suggests. Those conquests of his,
moreover, accelerated the growth of sound constitutional gov-
ernment, for the king's necessities forced him to have contin-
ual recourse to parliaments, and to gain the confidence and
support of shires and towns by giving them representation,
and grants of money were secured by concessions on his part.
In 1282 came the conquest of Wales (one cause, without
doubt, of the revival of interest in Welsh legends which we
have already observed) ; the year following, Edward called four
knights from every shire and four burgesses from every corpo-
rate town to devise some means of meeting the cost of the war.
In 1294, in consequence of a serious quarrel with Philip the
Fair of France, he had to make a similar appeal ; and in 1295
there met a parliament that became the model of all such
assemblies in the future. Then followed the war with Scotland
for Edward had allowed himself to be persuaded by his
50 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
lawyers that he had a just claim to the overlordship of that
kingdom, and this time his necessities led to the confirma-
tion of the charters, in the year 1297. In the winter of 1301,
he had again to make large concessions in order to obtain from
the barons unanimous rejection of the arrogant and unprece-
dented claim lately put forth by Pope Boniface VIII to the
suzerainty of Scotland. In 1303, Edward made a triumphant
military progress through that kingdom, his fleet meanwhile
skirting its shores.
Among contemporary sovereigns Edward had no equal as a
great national king. Philip IV (the Fair) was a successful
despot, but he was not great ; he was selfish and cruel ; his
influence and example, and the result of his strongly central-
ized government, were disastrous to France. Yet in many
respects the careers of the two monarchs were remarkably like,
and show in an instructive way with what different motives the
same line of policy may be pursued. Like Edward, Philip
bent all his energies to the depression of feudalism, and to that
end favored the jurists, extended the jurisdiction of the Parlia-
ment of Paris to the virtual suppression of lesser courts, and
called the people to his aid. In 1302, during the height of his
contest with Boniface VIII, he convened, beside the clergy
and nobles, representatives of the Third Estate. It was the
first meeting of the States-General, and was analogous to
Edward's parliament of 1295. That contest between pope and
king was the chief concern of the era ; it was a mortal combat
between a declining and a rising power; the legal, critical,
slightly skeptical temper of the time was all on the king's side.
After the collapse of the papal power, Philip's influence in the
conclave secured the election of a Frenchman as pope, who
took the name of Clement V, was invested at Lyons, and fixed
his residence at Avignon. Having humbled the mightiest insti-
tution of the middle ages and made it subservient to his ends,
Philip continued his war with feudalism by attacking its
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 51
wealthiest, proudest, and most powerful representatives, the
Knights Templars. He forced the pope to his will, and
Clement abolished the order in the year 1312.
The tone of French literature was prevailingly satirical in
this period, as is shown by the poems of Rutebceuf, and yet
more conspicuously by the continuation of the " Romance of
the Rose" by Jean de Meung he introduced into it a new
and significant allegorical personage, " False-Semblance," and
grafted upon a dreamy exposition of the metaphysic of love a
prolix satire upon the society of his day. A consummate
example of long-drawn and remorseless satire was also taking
shape, the great beast-fable of the middle ages, the " Roman
du Renart." There is something terrible in the cynical con-
tempt of honor displayed in this poem, this apotheosis of base-
ness, this triumphant career of coarse and cruel trickery, hypoc-
risy, and lust. It is indicative of the emergence of an ignoble
element in the social life of the time, destitute of any high
ideal, yet quick to discern any discrepancy between profession
and practice on the part of its superiors, and stirred to admira-
tion only by successful cunning.
Late in the thirteenth century the sarcastic Adam de la Halle
produced the first comedy of modern times " Li Jus Adam."
Interesting evidence of the reaction against the gloomy ideas
of the former age is afforded in German literature by some of
the songs of Friedrich von Sonnenburg. The world, he de-
clares, is fair and good ; and he proves it in true mediaeval
fashion by reference to the bodies of Christ and his saints,
which were formed of its substance and by it were nourished ;
the resurrection bodies of the redeemed, moreover, will be
framed of it. We should not despise the world, he concludes,
but be glad that we are in it.
While Friedrich was preaching this wholesome doctrine, the
energetic Rudolf of Hapsburg, king of the Romans, was mak-
ing his part of the world pleasanter to live in, by restoring
52 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
order and maintaining the peace of the Empire as far as he
was able. He repressed the violence of the barons, razed the
castles of the refractory, and cleared the highways of the rob-
ber bands that infested them. He was wise in his generation,
and made friends of the people.
With the rise of the people in political importance, a vein of
satire cropped out in German literature also, appearing most
conspicuously in the homely verse of Hugo von Trimberg.
Even the hastiest survey of the age would be incomplete
were we not to mention again that remarkable man, Alfonso X
(the Wise), brother-in-law of Edward I, his sister, the noble
Eleanor, become Edward's queen. Alfonso had the Bible
translated into Spanish, and had a chronicle of Spanish history
and a great code of laws and customs compiled, also in the
native language. The Code took its title " Las Siete Parti-
das " from its seven main divisions. These were the first
great monuments of Spanish prose. . A little later the fluent
Italian language was moulded by the mighty genius of Dante,
who stands, Janus-like, between two worlds, his backward gaze
piercing depths of gloom until it is lost in the silvery light of
classic literature, while his forward face, flushed with the sun-
rise of the Renascence, seems to command all coming time.
To Aquinas and Bonaventura Dante was profoundly in-
debted, and he more than paid what he owed them : the theol-
ogy of the one and the mysticism of the other, transmuted by
him into poetry, were freed from the shackles of the technical
and professional, and attained a universal validity. It is, of
course, unnecessary to look beyond the sixth book of the
^Eneid for the suggestion of the general design of the Divine
Comedy, but in the middle ages more than one monkish vis-
ionary had made the same awful journey as Virgil's hero, and
had not been deterred, as he was, from exploring the terrific
city of Dis, and in their steps Dante trod. Bede's account
of Drithelm's vision was mentioned long since ; yet more strik-
ing and detailed is the account given by Roger of Wendover
(a precursor of Matthew Paris), among his annals of the year
1196, of a certain monk of Evesham who, while his body lay
in trance, was conducted by St. Nicholas through the doleful
regions where souls received fitting punishment for their sins.
The Divine Comedy may be read as the history of a soul
that has struggled from darkness into light. It is a record of
the travail of its author's own century, as it passes out of the
horror of great darkness, the lurid gleams and deadly fear of
the Inferno, through the milder shades of Purgatory, to the
peace and faith and radiance of the Paradise. The lofty invo-
cation to the Virgin at the very close of the vast poem merits
special attention ; it was in Dante's time that the cultus of
Mary reached its consummation ; it was firmly established
henceforth as an essential element in the popular faith, was
defended and expounded by doctors, enriched the services of
the church, and became the inspiration of poets and artists.
To the Franciscan order this access of devotion was primarily
due ; St. Bonaventura composed a Litany of the Blessed Vir-
gin, and about the year 1300 Duns Scotus, the subtle school-
man, defended with many refined arguments the lately devel-
oped doctrine of her immaculate conception. In this he
antagonised the conservative Aquinas, as he did his theological
system in general, enlarging the domain of faith in doctrinal
matters at the expense of that of reason. The Carmelites
strove to outdo the Franciscans in devotion to Mary; they
called themselves her friars, and boasted that she had shown
their order peculiar favor. The Servites took their title from
the special service they professed to her. The first great
Christian painter, Giovanni Cimabue, thrilled the heart of
Florence with joy by his colossal picture of the Madonna,
and a little later the new cathedral of that city, built by the
eminent architect Arnolfo, was dedicated to St. Mary of the
Lily.
54 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
A clue to the secret source of this outburst of devotional
fervor is afforded by the two wonderful hymns of the thirteenth
century, the " Dies Irae " and the " Stabat Mater," the former
uttering in awe-struck accents the burden of the first half of
the century, the latter opening out in the last half a way of
relief. Both are believed to have been composed by Francis-
can friars. The Dies Irae exhibits a soul conscious only of
two awful facts itself and God: its poverty, helplessness, sin-
fulness, and abysmal alienation from a terribly majestic and
offended Deity. The Stabat Mater interposes a screen be-
tween the trembling soul and its Maker; the Virgin Mother
is the intermediary who dispenses grace and pardon from
above, stirs up holy affections in the human heart, and will
plead for the sinner at the judgment so shudderingly expected.
Thus the awful gulf was bridged, and the guilt-burdened spirit
poured itself forth in the very abandonment of adoration to-
ward that gracious figure, all mercy and mildness, who had
herself sounded the depths of human sorrow, and forgot its
own anguish in contemplating hers.
This motion of sympathy broke up the stony ground of the
heart, and a spring-tide of art ensued. To the year 1288
the first of the pontificate of Nicholas IV, for whom it was
done belongs the great mosaic representing the Coronation
of the Virgin in the apse of S ta Maria Maggiore at Rome. In
the church of S ta Maria sopra Minerva a mosaic over the tomb
of Durandus, who died in 1296, presents the great symbolist
and ritualist on his knees before a Madonna that might have
been designed by Cimabue. At Florence and Siena flourish-
ing schools of fresco-painting arose under Giotto and Duccio.
Those great masters loosed the swathing bands of art; their
work is characterized by a mobility, lifelikeness, and varied
expression of feeling before unknown. In his department
Giotto was as eminent a man as his friend Dante (whose por-
trait he painted) was in his ; it is pleasant to think of the
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, 55
intercourse between them at Padua, Dante looking on and
conversing while Giotto covered the walls of the Arena Chapel
with scenes from the lives of the Virgin -Mother and her son.
The epoch was further rendered illustrious by a revival of
sculpture, under a fresh and direct study of nature and of
remains of ancient art. Now it was that the Pisani carved
and cast their pulpits, statues, tombs, and doors.
The reign of Edward I was the flowering time of mediaeval
English art. Gothic architecture then attained its relative
perfection in the introduction of geometrical tracery, which,
coming midway between the severity of the lancet style and the
weakness of flowing tracery, was capable of endless variety
without extravagance and of perfect adaptation to openings of
any form. This beautiful style is exhibited in the Angel Choir
at Lincoln, which belongs to the early years of Edward I, and
in the nave of York and the Chapter-house at Wells, begun
about the middle of his reign. The sculptures of the Angel
Choir, too, give evidence of the taste and skill of the period.
The leafy capitals of columns show the effect of the new study
of nature, as do the carvings of the exquisite crosses reared by
Edward wherever the body of Queen Eleanor rested on its way
to interment in Westminster Abbey. The fine recumbent fig-
ures in bronze upon the tombs of Henry III and Eleanor were
the work of William Torel, but who he was it is impossible
now to ascertain; some insist that he was an Englishman,
others, that he was an Italian of the school of the Pisani.
The latter claim at least testifies to the excellence of his work.
The beautiful grille by Eleanor's tomb is a specimen of the
delicate iron-work of his time.
After this sweeping glance at the manifold activity of the
age we turn again to the literature, which we are now better
prepared to appreciate. One of the first points to arrest our
attention is the great influence of French literature and lan-
guage upon English : the statutes of Edward's reign were
56 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
couched in French (instead of Latin as before) ; chronicles,
romances, mysteries, were done into English ; and French
words were naturalized in the language in such numbers as to
make this an epoch in its history. The first who thus enlarged
the vocabulary was the monk Robert of Gloucester, who,
about the year 1300, wrote in the southern dialect a rhyming
history of England that begins with the mythical Brutus and
ends with the reign of Henry III. Thus the first part of his
chronicle covers the same ground as Layamon's, but Robert
greatly abridges the history of the British kings in order to
make room for later dynasties. Like Layamon, he dwells
upon the story of Arthur in a tone of admiration and regret.
This new invasion of English literature by the Britons made
amends for the recent conquest of Wales. One cannot fail to
see in the good monk's record of British, Saxon, Danish, Nor-
man, and Angevin dynasties an evidence of patriotic pride, of
the rising national spirit, and of the union of races now hap-
pily achieved. His chronicle contains twelve thousand lines
equivalent to twice as many of the short lines of Layamon.
To Robert has been ascribed a set of Lives of Saints Kath-
arine, Lucy, Christopher, Ursula and the Eleven Thousand
Virgins, Swithin, Dunstan, Edmund the Confessor and others
that are written in the same dialect and verse as his history.
In the life of St. Swithin occurs an interesting touch of criti-
cism of the bishops for their pageantry in the consecration of
churches, the good Swithin did not make such display.
In the year 1303, Robert Mannyng, of Brunne, in Lincoln-
shire, a member of the order of St. Gilbert of Sempringham,
translated into English verse a French treatise called "The
Hand-book of Sins." He called his version " Handlyng
Synne" using the term "handling" in the sense of "touch-
ing " or " concerning." It deals with the seven deadly sins
pride, envy, anger, covetousness, sloth, gluttony, lechery,
illustrating them with stories that enforce the duty and advan-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 57
tage of practising their contrary virtues. Many years later, at
the bidding of his prior, Mannyng translated, also out of the
French, a rhyming history of England. This work, which was
designed for the instruction and entertainment of the common
people, goes over the ground that Robert of Gloucester had
lately occupied, with the addition of the reign of Edward I
whom Mannyng greatly admired. An English version of St.
Bonaventura's " Meditations on the Lord's Supper, and Hours
of the Passion," which is marked by much sweetness of phrase
and feeling, has been attributed to him.
These writings are of importance in the history of the lan-
guage. They are in the Midland dialect, and show it in its
final phrase, just before it rose to recognition as the English
language proper. The changes that we noticed in connection
with the speech of Layamon have been progressing ; the
various terminations of Anglo-Saxon have become (with few
exceptions) indistinguishable, having been melted down to a
universal <?, and even that is beginning to drop off, especially
from adjectives ; es is now established as the regular plural of
substantives; and the vocabulary has been swelled by new
words of French derivation that greatly outnumber those even
that were introduced by Mannyng's elder contemporary, the
monk of Gloucester. Already the language has a decidedly
modern look : it is hardly if at all more difficult to understand
than Chaucer's.
A certain melancholy interest attaches to Adam Davy's
"Dreams about King Edward II," because their glowing va-
ticinations of his miraculous escape from assassination, his
election as emperor, coronation by the pope, and subsequent
crusade under Christ's guidance, are in such woful contrast
with his unhappy career and horrible end.
As the Corpus Christi festival had not yet attained great
popularity or come into general observance, Pope Clement V
promulgated it anew at the Council of Vienne in the year
58 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
1311. Five years later, Pope John XXII ordered that it
should be celebrated everywhere with solemn processions. As
the festival rose thus, rapidly in importance, so, we may pre-
sume, did the dramatic representations that were connected
with it increase in number and popularity. Those five years
may be referred to as the time when a fresh impulse was given
to the performance of mysteries ; then the famous collections
known as the Chester, Wakefield, Coventry, and York plays
were taking shape. These sets contained from two- to four-
dozen plays apiece ; it took days, sometimes even a week to
present them ; they were acted by members of the town guilds
upon movable scaffolds in the market-places or open spaces
before churches. In some instances they became an accom-
paniment of the annual fairs that drew a great concourse of
country people to town. They were in truth the chief means
of popular religious instruction, for sermons were few : Arch-
bishop Peckham of Canterbury had lately had to require his
priests to preach at least once every three months. The
mysteries unfolded in long panorama the great events in the
history of man's redemption ; a series of them would embrace
these and similar subjects: the Fall of the Angels the
Creation the Fall of Man Cain and Abel Noah the
Sacrifice of Isaac the story of Balaam the birth of Christ,
Visit of the Shepherds, and of the Three Kings the Flight
into Egypt Massacre of the Innocents Miracles of Christ,
especially the Raising of Lazarus the Conspiracy of Pilate
and Caiaphas the Crucifixion Harrowing of Hell Res-
urrection walk to Emmaus Ascension appearance of
Antichrist, and Day of Judgment.
This list reminds one of the frescoes of the same scenes and
subjects that were at this very time beginning to bloom upon
the walls of Italian churches. The passion of the age for such
graphic synopses of Bible history is revealed again in the
high popularity of the " Cursor M'undi," or Course of the
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 59
World, a voluminous poem in the Northern dialect, ascribed to
the latter part of the reign of Edward II. Its prologue, which
consists of only two hundred and seventy lines, is really inter-
esting for the glimpse of contemporary romance with which it
begins ; in it, too,' the author has kindly told us just what he is
going to write about, and has spared us the necessity of read-
ing further. Men love (he says) to hear rhymes and romances
of Alexander, Julius Caesar, and the strong strife of Greece
and Troy; of Brut, Arthur, Gawain, and Kay, their adven-
tures and the wonders that befell them ; of Charles and Roland,
and their wars against the Saracens ; of Tristram, Isambras,
and Amadas, vain shadows all. Earthly love is a phantom ;
those who can should rhyme of the blessed Mother of God,
and her love. In her honor he will write and tell of the old
and new law, of the fall of the Angels, of Adam, Noah,
Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph, Moses, David,
and Solomon; then of Christ's coming, of Joachim and St.
Ann, the birth of Mary and of her Son, the Three Kings,
Herod's slaughter, the flight into Egypt, the baptism and temp-
tation of Christ, his miracles, crucifixion, harrowing of hell,
resurrection, and ascension ; and finally of the lives of the
Twelve Apostles, the assumption of Mary, the revelation of
Antichrist, and the Day of Doom. All this he will write in
English tongue, for the love of Englishmen, that the common
folk of England may understand it. Everywhere one finds
French rhymes, but let there be to each his own language.
In this list, as in that of the mysteries, one is struck by the
width of the leap from Old to New Testament times : the
great prophetic period seems to be entirely ignored. But
the author of the " Cursor Mundi " is better than his word,
and in the body of his work partly fills the gap by some
account of Elijah, and of the prophecies of Isaiah and Jere-
miah. He devotes about ten thousand lines to Old Testament
history and prophecy, and about fourteen thousand to the
60 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
(partly apocryphal) Gospel story, and the Last Things. All
through the work much legendary matter is inwoven. The
popularity of a production like this is to be explained (as in
the case of the " Ormulum ") by the ecclesiastical prohibition
of translations of the Bible. The Psalter only was permitted
to be translated ; and a version of it was made in English
prose by William of Shoreham, in Kent, about the year 1327.
To the same date belongs a series of rhyming homilies in
the Northern dialect. The preacher begins with a slight para-
phrase of the Sunday's lesson, proceeds to an exposition of
it that inclines strongly to allegory, and points the whole with
an appropriate tale. It was an age of story-telling ; one
misses its full flavor unless he perceives the na'ive and child-
like delight with which men and women listened then to tales
of marvel and adventure.
The prologue to " Cursor Mundi " classifies excellently the
rhymed romances that were steadily increasing in popularity
through the reign of the first two Edwards. To the groups
there indicated should be added certain suggestions of an old
Danish and Saxon group, the " Lay of Havelok the Dane "
and "King Horn." These are both translations from the
French as, indeed, all the romances are. Horn was a ban-
ished prince, courteously received by King Aylmar, whose
daughter Rimenhild falls desperately in love with him. Before
he can marry her he must be knighted, and prove himself
worthy of her by valiant deeds. So he goes in search of
adventure, beheads hundreds of Saracens, enters the service
of the King of Ireland, kills the giant champion of a heathen
host, and is suddenly called home by a messenger from
Rimenhild, who has been betrothed against her will to a
neighboring prince. Horn braves the king ; tells him he will
conquer his own land and return for Rimenhild ; he does so,
bears her away in triumph and makes her his queen. This is
in brief the simple theme upon which a host of romances
merely ring the changes.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.^ ^% T "
M^ALlFOn^
In the cycle of stories about Charlemagne and^ Roland
echoes of the old " Chansons de Gestes " sounded in England.
One cannot but feel more interest, however, in stories that were
native to the soil, such as the Arthurian legends, chief among
which were those of Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin, Lancelot
of the Lake, the Quest of the Grail, and the Death of Arthur.
The Tale of Troy derived its popularity partly from its imag-
ined connection with the history of Britain.
A set of tales and apologues of Oriental origin that goes by
the name of the "Seven Sages" is significant because it
taught western writers to string together a number of stories
upon a slender thread of narrative. The tales referred to are
fourteen in number ; seven of them are told by a wicked
queen with intent to prejudice her husband's mind against
his innocent son, who must be speechless for a week; their
effect is counteracted by the other seven, told by the sages ;
and the king is thus amused until the fatal week is past, after
which the prince's tongue is loosed, he clears himself com-
pletely, and the bad queen is put to death.
The adventures of two English heroes, Bevis of Hampton
and Guy of Warwick, were unsurpassed in popularity if we
may judge by their great length, and the way in which they
have been patched and added to by later hands. Bevis was
the son of an English earl. Even as a child he performs
wonderful feats of strength and valor, but his wicked mother
sells him into slavery to the Saracens. The Sultan's daughter
Josyan falls in love with him ; after manifold adventures in
paynim and Christian lands, he marries her ; and their son
Guy is crowned king by the dying Sultan. Much better is the
romance of Guy of Warwick, with whom, as a type of chivalry,
we may close this account of the literature of the age. Guy
was a son of the steward of the Earl of Warwick ; he was
shapely, brave, and strong. He dares to love the Earl's
daughter, Felice, but she disdains him. In a vision she is
62 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
warned to be kind to him ; she bids him be knighted, and
when that is done, bids him seek adventure that he may prove
himself worthy of her. For a year he fights and jousts, and
returns famous : still she is not satisfied. He sets off again,
meets with unimaginable adventures, kills the Sultan, is be-
trothed to the daughter of the Emperor of the East, but is
reminded of Felice by the sight of the wedding ring. He
escapes the match by getting into a broil with a courtier ;
leaves Constantinople, and after more adventures arrives in
England. He slays an invulnerable dragon that was wasting
Northumberland ; is joyfully received at Warwick, and is
wedded to Felice, whose scruples are now entirely overcome.
Erelong, compunction of conscience sets him roving upon a
pilgrimage : he visits Jerusalem, and after a few final adven-
tures, returns home to fight a giant, the champion of an invad-
ing Danish host ; and then retires to a forest hermitage to die.
These romances were the delight of the feudal aristocracy,
and continually bring before the mind's eye the gay business
of their lives, their hunting, hawking, jousting, fighting, and
feasting ; and present beside pictures of the castles barbi-
can, drawbridge, portcullis, gloomy gate, and open bailey sur-
rounded by parapeted walls and towers in whose sombre
halls they were chanted by the minstrels. Edward I built
castles on a new plan, of which those he reared at Carnarvon
and Conway are splendid examples : the keep now left its
lordly central position and was engaged with half-a-dozen other
towers in the castle wall, which enclosed a bailey of a rudely
oval outline. The apartments in the towers, lighted by loop-
holes for windows, so dim that lamps had to be lit while it was
yet day, badly ventilated too, filled with smoke from the gusty
fireplace when the wind blew the wrong way, must have been
uncomfortable enough, in spite of the sparse rushes strewn
upon the floor, the arras that covered the damp walls, and the
soft divans memorials of intercourse with the East.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 63
The rest of the literature, rhyming chronicles, paraphrases
of Bible history, and religious poems sprang from another
source, the monasteries. The antithesis between these two
classes of writings the romantic and the religious is well
expressed in the prologue to " Cursor Mundi." Of the grand
churches, rivalling cathedrals, that bounded the cloisters on
their northern side, the most beautiful was Tintern Abbey, re-
built in the perfect style of the time of Edward I. About the
cloisters and the little sunny gardens they enclosed were the
chapter-house, scriptorium, or library, where the work of copy-
ing and illuminating manuscripts went on, hospice, where trav-
ellers were entertained, dormitories for the brothers, almonry
where food, clothing, and medicines were doled to the poor,
refectory, kitchen, cellars, and offices. The mere enumeration
of thes,e buildings indicates how important an agency such an
institution must have been in the social life of the time. The
life of the monks was regulated by the canonical hours ; after
service at prime (6 o'clock in the morning) they worked, in
summer, for four hours ; then read until sext (midday), when
they had a meal ; rested through the heat of the day, and
after nones (3 o'clock) worked until evensong. They were
allowed each a pound of bread a day, and two meals of two
cooked dishes and a dish of fruit. At bed-time compline was
sung, and then they went to rest upon their mattresses of straw.
But the severity of this rule was beginning in many places to
be relaxed, and the simple life of former years to be corrupted
by worldliness and self-indulgence.
Castle and convent were now declining institutions, types of
a system passing away, its work nearly done. The centre of
interest shifts to the growing towns, and homes of the people.
Everywhere there were rising, at first under the protection of
baron, bishop, or abbot, but now, in securer times, farther
away, villages of perhaps one hundred souls, farmers', weavers',
and tanners' families, their cottages arranged in line along a
64 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
X road, near a stream. The cottage floor was simply trodden
earth ; around the walls 'were chests ; a brass pot, wooden
trenchers, and pottery were the household utensils ; chimneys
were perhaps just beginning to be built, but as a rule the
smoke of the fire was allowed to escape through a hole in the
roof. A ladder led to the snug sleeping loft overhead, under
the thatch. The house was scented by the heap of refuse that
fermented for months at a time just outside the door. The
farmer's clumsy cart rolled to field on stout iron-bound discs
of wood that did duty as wheels. The only breaks in the dull
round of hard labor were the services on Sundays and saints'
days, and for the favored few a visit to the annual fair at a
distant town. The church was the centre and light of village
life in those days. It was often fortified, especially if it were
by the sea and in danger from freebooters; to its massive
square tower the people ran for refuge, carrying their little
property of value, when threatened with danger. The conse-
cration of a church was the event of a lifetime ; then the
bishop came with his clergy, marched in procession round the
building, bade the doors be opened, entered, sprinkled holy
water about, blessed the corners of the church, and then the
altar, on which twelve candles shone, chanted the litany,
and then the people, who had been waiting without, were
admitted to see the rest of the ceremony. In like manner
grave-yards were consecrated, the four corners blessed, and
crosses set up. The bell that was to call the village to
service was washed, named, and blessed against lightning and
evil spirits.
The church's watchful care encompassed every individual
from the cradle to the grave, supporting him at the great crises
of his life, and hallowing them ; receiving him, an infant, at
baptism, confirming him at the age of puberty, applying for
every spiritual ailment the antidote of penance, nourishing
him with the Eucharist, solemnizing his marriage, smoothing
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 65
his passage to another world with extreme unction and the
viaticum.
Unless one apprehends such facts as these genially, without
prejudice or contempt, it is not for him to understand or enjoy
the culture of that age.
It is estimated that in the fourteenth century the population
of England amounted to as many as two million, five hundred
thousand souls, of whom at least two hundred thousand were
gathered in the towns. London numbered about forty thou-
sand ; Norwich, the second city in the kingdom, perhaps a
third as many; then came York and Bristol, with about ten
thousand each. The streets of the cities were narrow, the
houses low. In London, an ancient ordinance required that
the buildings should be of stone ; there, at the time of which
we treat, gabled upper stories were beginning to appear, pro-
jecting so boldly that they almost met above the narrow streets.
The rooms on the ground floor were then commonly converted
into shops. Chimneys and glazed windows were becoming
general in the houses of the well-to-do, behind which often
pleasant gardens stretched. More than half the land of Lon-
don was in the hands of ecclesiastics ; fine monasteries like
those of the Black and Gray Friars gave character to the city.
Over all the world-famous spire of St. Paul's shot into the air
to a height of nearly five hundred feet: its dedication, in the
year 1315, signalized the completion of the old cathedral, after
a century of reconstruction and addition. The vast building,
with its cloisters, chapter-house, and episcopal palace adjoining,
enclosed a wide square, in the middle of which rose a large
cross of sculptured stone. In a neighboring row, manuscripts,
pictures, and rosaries were sold. A single bridge old Lon-
don bridge spanned the river Thames ; it was lined, like a
street, with houses on either side. From Southwark the tide
of pilgrimage, travel and traffic set toward Kent, and all the
counties that bordered on the English channel.
66 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
Living was plain and poor in those days, and throughout the
winter absolutely unwholesome, for owing to lack of provender
for that season vast droves of cattle had to be killed in Novem-
ber, and on their salted meat people lived for more than half the
year. The salt used was made by evaporation, and was dark in
color and poor in quality. In Lent, of course, salt fish was the
only fare. As the supply of vegetables was quite insufficient to
correct the ill effects of so unwholesome a diet, it is no wonder
that the people of England were plagued with scurvy in those
long winters. An immediate result of so much salt fare was
intolerable thirst ; vast quantities of ale and small beer were
required to quench it. The tables of the rich were supplied
with Gascon wine.
Such, in brief, was the world into which Chaucer and Gower,
Langland and Wyclif were born.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 67
IV.
THE office of Edward Ill's reign was to fill with feeling,
and thereby modify the intellectual forms of the time of Ed-
ward I. It was an era of sentiment, of a fresri stir of the affec-
tions, of freer fancy and humor, of a new pathos. This it is
that makes it so attractive to the student of history ; the soul
feels more at home in it than in any preceding age.
The settled participation of the people in the government of
the country begot an interest in the common welfare and a
sense of national unity and glory that were more genial and
general than before. In theology, a further departure was
made from the scholastic method which heralded the dissolu-
tion of the system : the logical proofs of church doctrines that
were employed in preceding ages were abandoned as inade-
quate; the reason was declared to be ineffectual in the sphere
of the supernatural ; and faith was proclaimed as the only or-
gan for apprehending spiritual truths. From such an attitude
diverse consequences sprang : among pious souls a more ardent
devotion was stimulated, a warmer coloring was cast over re-
ligion, and it became a matter of feeling; while the stirring
intellect of the time, gladly relinquishing all spiritual concerns
to the direction of an external authority, exercised itself in the
sphere that was left to it of the secular and the human, and
revelled in the glory of nature and the treasures of classic lit-
erature. In architecture, the chaste forms of the last age
were moulded into mild curves of excessive elegance and grace
that bear the impress of the refinement, sentiment, and fancy
of the new epoch. The choirs of the cathedrals of Lichfield,
Ely, and Wells are examples of this Decorated style ; but the
acme of flowing tracery (seeming in this case to copy the deli-
68 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
cate curves of leaves and flower-buds) was attained in the east
window of the cathedral of Carlisle. And now at last the
spirit of the age found a tongue, and in the young Chaucer's
liquid lines, his " ditties and glad songs " (which sparkled, we
may be sure, with dew and sunshine), his " Court of Love,"
" Complaint to Pity," and " Complaint of Mars," warbled forth
the exultant joy in existence, the delight in springtime, in the
fragrance and beauty of flowers, and the song of birds, the bliss
of happy love, the woe of unrequited love, that were the prod-
uct of this new birth of the soul. Chaucer's first literary work
(significant of the French influence that dominated all his early
poems) was a translation of the " Romance of the Rose." He
also translated from the French a prayer to Mary, in which the
thought of the tender compassion of the Virgin Mother rouses
in the* poet's heart the very abandonment of love and passion-
ate entreaty. He flees to her, he has no comfort except in her,
the queen of misericord, the cause of grace. In her is abound-
ing pity ; she has ruth on our adversity. This word ruth is
most characteristic of Chaucer of any in his vocabulary ; it is
his own abounding sympathy, his broad humanity, that has so
endeared him to every later age. This quality gave him access
to the hearts of his characters, and his mastery of language
enabled him to tell their secrets to others. The woes of myth-
ological personages even were real to him ; his beautiful lament
for the Duchess Blanche of Lancaster opens, appropriately,
with the sad story of Alcyone, and
" Truly I which made this book
Had such pity and such ruth
To read her sorrow, that, by my troth,
I fared the worse all the morrow
And after, to thinken on her sorrow."
In the same poem, the inconsolable grief of the man in black
(the widowed Duke) an impersonation of sorrow, and the
poet's sympathy with him, are affectingly portrayed.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 69
The central figure in this epoch of feeling, of a national
enthusiasm which he himself did much to create, is that of the
spirited young king, Edward III. He stands in the heart of
all the stir and glitter of that day. Enthroned when he was
only fourteen years old, he wedded, at fifteen, Philippa of
Hainault, and in 1330, when he was but seventeen years of
age, became the father of a son who is known to history as the
Black Prince. A few months later he assumed in full the sov-
ereign authority ; sent to the gibbet the worthless Mortimer ;
and fairly began his brilliant reign. In 1333, his victory over
the Scots at Halidon Hill wiped out the lingering disgrace of
Bannockburn, and his overlordship of Scotland was admitted
by the king whom he placed upon the throne of that country.
In 1337, in his resentment at the assistance afforded by Philip
VI of France to the refractory Scots, Edward revived his claim
to the French crown as grandson of Philip the Fair ; entered
into an alliance with the Flemings, a connection that had an
important bearing upon the industrial development of England ;
and began the long drama of the Hundred Years' War. The
splendid victory of the English fleet off Sluys, in the year 1340,
was the first great naval battle of modern times. In 1346, on
the field of Cre'cy, King Edward defeated a French army three
times as numerous as his. The following year he reduced
Calais. At Poitiers, in 1356, the Black Prince overcame and
put to flight a host that outnumbered his as five or six to one ;
took the French king captive, carried him to England, and
exhibited him in courteous triumph in the streets of London.
These dazzling victories swelled to the utmost the pride of
Englishmen in their king and country, and greatly diminished
the influence" over them, before so potent, of the French lan-
guage and literature.
Parallel with these events were the Statutes of Provisors and
Praemunire, declarations of the independence of the English
church. The papal curia, still situated at Avignon, was quite
70 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
under French control. Those statutes forbade papal fore-
stalling of the rights of chapters and patrons by appointing
successors to living incumbents, and declared the king's court
the court of final appeal, threatening with outlawry any ecclesi-
astic who carried his case to the curia for settlement.
King Edward enhanced the lustre of his monarchy by intro-
ducing, for princes of the blood royal, an order of nobility ele-
vated above the ancient orders, that is, the dukedom. He
created the Prince of Wales, while yet a young child, Duke of
Cornwall, and soon after made his cousin Henry Duke of Lan-
caster. But it was the institution of the Order of the Garter
that sums up for us picturesquely and completely the magnifi-
cent qualities of his reign. With it was connected the rebuild-
ing of Windsor castle, a truly national work, in which
laborers from every shire in England cooperated, and both
confess the magic power of Arthurian romance. A Round
Table was set up in the Round Tower at Windsor ; knights
and noblemen from far and near contended in splendid tourna-
ments ; twenty-five of the bravest were decorated with the
insignia of the order ; and song and feasting concluded
the day.
Edward was interested in the intellectual culture of his young
subjects : at Cambridge, where Clare Hall had lately been
founded, he founded, in 1332, King's Hall, or College. About
the same time, Oriel and Queen's Colleges were instituted at
Oxford, the latter in honor of Queen Philippa. These founda-
tions are to be compared with the universities that were rising
at the same period in the large towns of southern Europe.
There was no noted man of science in this reign, if we ex-
cept John Ardern, the first celebrated English surgeon, and
he was not as eminent as his French contemporary, Guy de
Chauliac, physician to several of the Avignonese popes. Ar-
dern began his study of the human frame at the time when the
Black Death was devastating Europe; after the year 1370 he
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 71
had a flourishing practice in London, where he attended the
Black Prince and the chief of the nobility.
When we turn to the literature of the reign we catch at first,
to our surprise, echoes of the lugubrious strains of the time of
Henry III. It is as if a fountain of bitter water had flowed
underground for a hundred years to well up darkly amid the
sunshine of a happier age. This sense of incongruity is
lessened when we consider that the writers of the beginning of
Edward Ill's reign were reared in the midst of the fierce
antagonisms of his father's time, and voice its tragic spirit.
It is apparent, moreover, that a deeper religious sentiment was
abroad than in the period immediately preceding.
An excellent illustration of this is afforded by the following
sentence, out of a work translated from the French by Michel
of Northgate, Kent, in the year 1340 : "If thou wilt know
what is good and what is evil, go out of thyself, go out of the
world, learn to die, part thy soul from the body by thought,
send thine heart into the other world (that is, into heaven, hell,
and purgatory) there thou shalt see what is good and what
is evil." The work of which this dualistic effort is the key-
note goes by the name of " The Ayenbite of Inwyt " (Again-
biting of the Inner-wit, or Remorse of Conscience). It is writ-
ten in the uncouth Kentish dialect. It is an exhaustive classi-
fication and description, with divisions and sub-divisions quite
in the manner of a philosophic treatise, of the seven deadly
sins and the virtues that correct them.
Michel's injunction above quoted was followed to the letter
by his contemporary, Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole, near
Doncaster, Yorkshire, who died in the year 1349. He wrote,
in the Northern dialect, a dreary yet interesting poem, "The
Prick of Conscience," in which he expatiates, with infinite
detail, upon the misery of man's life. Every period of it, he
says, contains mickle wretchedness ; as soon as a child is born
it begins to cry ; it is pitifully feeble, and until it is baptized
72 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
is the fiend's son ; even if it lives to grow up a stalwart and
comely young man, evils of all sorts, fever, dropsy, jaundice,
phthisic, gout, and other maladies will cause his strength to
abate, his beauty to fade ; then comes doting old age, heavy of
heart and head, dim of sight, hard of hearing, short of mem-
ory, and then death, whose tokens are remorselessly de-
scribed ; nor is the poet content to leave the grewsome theme
until he has harrowed our feelings to the uttermost by unveil-
ing the horrors of the charnel-house. He enlarges next upon
the uncertainty of life ; the world is unstable, as variable as the
sea, as full of danger as a wilderness haunted by wild beasts or
a forest full of thieves and outlaws ; man's life is a series of
chances and changes ; Dame Fortune turns her wheel, and
while she lifts some from woe to weal, plunges others from weal
to woe. Fascinated, like an Egyptian of old, by the thought of
death, the hermit-poet turns to it again to dilate upon its physi-
cal and spiritual terrors ; he enumerates four reasons why death
is to be dreaded : the pain of the parting of soul and body ; the
vision of devils about the death-bed ; the account of his life
that the sufferer must shortly give ; and his uncertainty whether
he is passing to joy or pain. As to the first point, a figure em-
ployed by a " philosopher " is quoted with approval ; suppose
a tree planted in a man's heart, its roots twisted about every
joint and vein in his body, its top shooting out of his mouth,
and then suppose that that tree, with all its roots, were sud-
denly pulled out, the pain would be like, yet not so fearful as
that of the parting of soul and body. The next portion of the
work treats of Purgatory (its least pain being greater than the
greatest pain of earth ; a spark only of its fires being hotter
than all the fires of earth), the next of Doomsday, and the
last of the Pains of Hell and the Joys of Heaven. Some of
the pains of hell are Dantesque and terrific ; there men suffer
such hunger that they tear their own flesh ; they thirst, and
have only fire to drink ; they are tortured by conscience, and
by devils whose aspect woulfl drive men mad for fear.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 73
Violent as the contrast seems to be between this dismal poem
with its lurid touches and the brilliant reign in which it ap-
peared, there was yet a fundamental agreement between them,
they represented the two poles of feeling. The hermit of
Hampole's aim was emotional coercion ; he would save men
by exciting to an agony the sentiment of fear.
The other extreme of feeling, that of desire of glory, joy in
victory, and patriotic pride, was voiced by Laurence Minot,
Edward Ill's rustic laureate, who composed, in the Northern
dialect, eleven poems that celebrate the great deeds of English-
men and their "comely King" in the war with France and
Scotland. The ground of this sentiment, in large measure the
cause of those triumphs, was a conviction that God was on the
side of the English in the struggle, and that he regarded their
king with peculiar favor. Proof of this is quaintly recorded
by Minot : one dull morning, when the spirit of the English
army was depresssed by a thick fog, King Edward made his
prayer to God, " and God sent him good comfort soon, the
weather grew full clear."
All through this period, we should bear in mind, miracle-
plays and mysteries were enacted in due season before eager
crowds, and metrical romances were as popular as ever. About
the middle of the reign a French romance, " William of Paler-
mo," was translated into the midland dialect, in alliterative
verse. It is a tale of a Sicilian prince who was kidnapped by
a were-wolf, found by a shepherd, and finally adopted by the
emperor of Rome ; the were-wolf, who was in reality a Spanish
prince, suffering under the baleful enchantment of his wicked
step-mother, is in the sequel restored to his right shape, and
returns to his native land to reign. It is a pretty story; and
the best descriptive passages it contains were added by the
English translator. More interesting yet, because smacking of
the soil, is the "Tale of Gamelyn " a youth who is abused
and betrayed by his eldest brother, and escapes to the green-
74 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
wood, where he is made "king" of a company of outlaws.
His story is evidently connected with that of Robin Hood.
The gathering hatred of the people toward the regular clergy
is strikingly exhibited in this poem. The best of all these
romances, either of this or the previous period, is that of " Sir
Gawayne and the Grene Knight." It is of considerable length.
Each section, of about twenty alliterative lines, is pointed with
a jaunty quatrain. Sir Gawayne is King Arthur's nephew ; he
is a paragon of knighthood, an exemplar of the five chivalric
virtues, frankness, fellowship, chastity, courtesy, and pity or
sympathy. The scene opens with the Christmas festivities at
Camelot ; Guenore the queen is there in gay apparel ; after the
bounteous feast Arthur calls for tales of marvel and adventure.
On a sudden a giant, as green as grass, appears before the
court ; his beard is like a bush, his bristly brows are green,
and " all his vesture verily is verdure." He is seated upon a
green foal ; his saddle is embroidered with birds and flies, his
stirrups set with green stones. He holds no weapon but a
holly-bough and axe of sharp green steel. The company is
daunted by this singular apparition, who dares any knight there
present to smite him on the neck three times with the axe, on
condition that that knight shall seek him out a year from that
day and stand as many strokes in his turn. Amid the fore-
bodings of the ladies, Sir Gawayne undertakes the adventure :
his first two blows are ineffectual; the third severs the Green
Knight's head from his body ; the monster catches up his head
and gallops away. The seasons come and go, but no thought
of escape from the conditions he has accepted ever enters
Gawayne's mind to a knight it is an unspeakable disgrace
not to keep his faith. The warm showers fall, the trees grow
green, the birds build and sing, " for solace of the soft summer,"
the " donkand dew " drops from the worts, the sun is bright
and hot, the wind blows, the dust drives, the leaves fall, the
grass grows gray, and winter winds round. It is time for
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 75
Gawayne to start on his quest for the Green Knight. First he
wanders through North Wales, and in the winter woodland
meets many wonders, but none can tell him of the Green
Knight. At Christmastide he arrives at a fine castle, and is
courteously entertained there three days. His host goes hunt-
ing, after making Gawayne promise that he will return him
anything that may be given him in his absence. The descrip-
tions of the arming of a knight, and of deer, boar, and fox-
hunting, are given with spirit, and are entertaining episodes in
the story. Meanwhile the lady of the castle tempts Gawayne ;
it is a difBcult predicament, he must be courteous to the
lady, yet not a traitor to his host ; he withstands her entice-
ments gracefully and honorably. She gives him a magic girdle
to protect him in his encounter with the Green Knight, whose
haunt (he discovers) is not far away. In the evening, when- his
host returns, Gawayne gives him his lady's kisses but says
nothing about the girdle. The next morning, he sets out to
fulfil his compact with the giant. It is a wild winter's day ;
the north wind blows, the " snittering " snow drifts in the dales,
every hill has a hat and cloak of mist. At last he comes to a
cave, overgrown with herbs ; it is the green chapel of the giant,
an " ugly oratory, where devil-wise devotions might well be
paid ; a cursed kirk ! " Out of a hole in the ground comes the
Green Knight, his host of the castle, though he knows it not.
Gawayne bares his neck for the blows ; the first two are only
feigned ; the third time the axe just cuts his skin. Then the
Green Knight tells him he has borne himself well save in the
matter of the girdle : the third stroke was his punishment for
that little blemish upon his honor. Gawayne is deeply humili-
ated, and curses his cowardice and untruth.
As we read, we feel instinctively that the figures of this story
have a hidden meaning, and we are justified in seeking it by
the known passion of the Middle Ages for allegory. What
is the Green Knight but a type of nature, not the inanimate
76 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
world, but the deathless life that is in nature ? Then the
teaching of the tale is that that Protean life can only be con-
quered and made harmless, even friendly, by perfect self-con-
trol and the strength and fearlessness that spring from purity
and good faith.
The most popular book of the age, and an important monu-
ment of early English prose, was Sir John Mandeville's story
of travel in the Orient. Sir John left England in the year 1322,
and was gone for more than thirty years. Upon his return
from the East, he submitted a Latin version of his narrative to
the pope at Avignon ; having gained his approval of it he
translated it into English, in 1356. His motive in composing
the book was to afford pilgrims a guide to Jerusalem and the
Holy Land. So he points out, in the first part, four ways to
the holy city: one by Cyprus and Jaffa, another by Tyre, an-
other northward from Egypt, another, almost entirely by land,
through Constantinople and Antioch. In the second part he
takes a wider range; traverses Armenia, the land of Job, India,
Java, and Cathay ; describes the gardens, palace and throne of
the Grand Khan, and the customs of the Tartars; and then
tells of Media, Georgia, and the Land of Darkness ; of twenty-
two kings pent up between the mountains and the Caspian Sea,
who will break forth in Anti-Christ's time; of the dominion of
Prester John and his palace at Susa; of the Vale Perilous, the
Devil's Head, and the isles of Bragman and Taprobane.
Though some of Mandeville's geography seems to be of fairy-
land, and though he records marvels prodigious enough to
satisfy even the eager craving of that childlike day, yet that
very interest in geography and the doings of strange folk in
far-off lands was at once a sign and a means of a remarkable
intellectual and imaginative awakening, and the many manu-
scripts of the work show how general that awakening was.
One notable trait of Mandeville's is the interest and subtle
sympathy born thereof with which he describes the religious
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 77
beliefs of various peoples, the strange ways of the Greek and
Syrian Christians, the belief of the Saracens and of the Fire-
worshippers. He actually speaks in that day of the Inquisi-
tion, of the " Holy book Alkoran, which God sent by his
messenger Mohammed,"- a dangerously liberal sentiment !
Such was the literature produced in England while Chaucer
was a boy. Meantime, in Germany, William of Occam, an
Englishman, who had already drawn the last conclusion from
that theological nescience on which Duns Scotus had lately
insisted, was defending, under the protection of the Emperor
Louis IV, and in his behalf, the rights of the civil power as
against papal autocracy. It was not by any means by chance
that the flourishing period of German mysticism in the Rhine
valley, at Constance, Basel, Strassburg and Cologne, coincided
with Occam's career, that Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, and the
author of the " German Theology " were his contemporaries.
Scholasticism was dissolved into mysticism through the medium
of feeling, by the doctrine of intuitive apprehension of the
being of God and of all spiritual truths. In matters of faith,
moreover, both yielded unqualified submission to the authority
of the church.
In the year 1362, a priest of Strassburg named Closener
finished his German prose chronicle of his own time. The
most remarkable passages in it are those descriptive of the
Black Death, and the emotional extravagances (connected with
it) of the Flagellants. The whole of the fourteenth century
was prolific in the homely, mechanic verse of the Master-
singers.
The rise of sentiment in that century was signalized by a
revival of poetry in the South ,of France. A court of love was
instituted at Toulouse, and on the first of May, 1324, a golden
violet was awarded to the author of the best poem in the Pro-
vencal dialect. This was the occasion of the Floral Games,
and of a renewed flourish of the "Gay Science." In 1355,
78 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
second and third prizes were awarded, a silver eglantine, or
flower of jasmine, and an acacia-blossom to the author of the
best ballad. And now, in the north, the young Froissart was
meditating the first part of his chronicle of the gorgeous spec-
tacles, the splendid feasts, and all the pride, pomp, and circum-
stances of the glorious wars of his day. By this time, too, the
wave of enthusiasm for classic culture, propagated by Petrarch,
had reached northern France, and Nicholas d'Oresme, a canon
of Rouen, said to be the most learned Frenchman of his day,
headed a revival of letters, in the course of which translations
into the vernacular were made of works of Caesar, Sallust and
Cicero, Livy, Ovid, Valerius Maximus, and Lucan, and of the
Latin version of works by Xenophon and Aristotle.
A delightful collection of tales that deserve to be better
known than they are was composed in Spanish prose by Don
Juan Manuel under the title "El Conde Lucanor." The tales
purport to be a wise counsellor's answers to the Conde's
questions concerning the conduct of life. Witty and wanton
stories, parodies of hymns, and a satire on the papal court for
its luxury and greed of gold, were written in Spanish verse by
a daring priest, Juan Ruiz de Hita. It is no wonder that he
languished, for the last thirteen years of his life, in the prisons
of the archbishop of Toledo. The history of Don Juan's
young relative, King Alfonso XI of Castile, bears comparison
in brilliancy, movement, and romantic coloring with that of
Edward III. Alfonso founded in the year 1332 the short-lived
Order of the Belt, which very probably suggested the institu-
tion of the Order of the Garter. Edward admired his young
Castilian contemporary exceedingly, sought an alliance of their
houses, sent him aid during the siege of Algeciras. Alfonso's
love for the beautiful Leonora de Guzman, and the ill-fated
passion of Pedro, prince of Portugal, for the yet lovelier Inez
de Castro, make this the most romantic era in the history of
the peninsula: and its enthusiastic and often irregular loves,
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 79
its melting sentiment, martial daring and adventurous spirit are
all enshrined in a work of pure imagination, the vast romance
of Amadis of Gaul.
To Italy, alive with the inspiration of Dante's genius, the
literary supremacy of the fourteenth century unquestionably
belonged; and the name of Andrea Orcagna, goldsmith, pain-
ter, sculptor, and architect, a contemporary of Petrarch and
Boccaccio, reminds us that her preeminence in the arts was yet
more absolute. Taddeo Gaddi, a pupil of Giotto, emulated his
master in some frescoes in the church of S to Croce, Florence,
illustrative of scenes in the life of the Virgin ; and to her
Petrarch addressed a fervent hymn. That exquisite poet re-
fined the Italian language, and gave it flexibility, elegance, and
grace. His sonnets to Laura are, many of them, antithetical,
ingenious, studied, but some, especially of those written after
her death, are instinct with a tender and exquisite sentiment
that bathes even hills, woods, and waters in its pensive light.
Thus Petrarch became the clearest spokesman of that age of
feeling. Sentiment like his, moreover, is one of the mightiest
agents in self-knowledge : in him the ideal of culture, of self-
development as contrasted with the monastic ideal of self-
repression, came once for all into full relief. His very name
seems to shed visible radiance over the whole age. After his
coronation with the poet's laurel wreath at Rome, in the year
1341, he was the literary dictator of Europe.
At the same time Boccaccio began his contributions to
Italian literature. He had already composed in Latin an
erudite work on the genealogy of the ancient gods which bears
witness to the passion for antiquity that characterizes every
return to nature. In 1341 he visited Naples, and became the
chief ornament of the gay court of its cultivated but dissolute
queen. There he wrote, in the octave stanza that he made
his own, a diffuse romantic poem intended as an epic, "La
Teseide." This he followed with the " Filostrato " : and then
80 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
taught the Italian language to wind and flow in light and grace-
ful prose in his " Decameron." In this work the tales of the
fourth and fifth days the first set treating of unhappy, the
other of happy love and successful intrigue strikingly illus-
trate the range of sentiment (albeit in this case somewhat
artificial) which we have learned to associate with that time.
Tears, smiles, and mocking laughter chased each other in
quick succession over the countenance of the age.
Among Boccaccio's most admired works were two, written in
Latin, on the sad fortunes of illustrious men and on famous
women. Soon after his return from Naples, where he spent
the seven best years of his life, he met Petrarch, and the two
became fast friends. One of Boccaccio's chief claims to dis-
tinction is that he stimulated a great yearning among scholars
to learn Greek.
A contemporary of his, Giovanni Villani, the historian of
Florence, proved by his work that Italian was a fit instrument
for historical composition.
Such, in brief, was Chaucer's immediate literary background;
and with him English literature began a new course. Up to
this time, as has been constantly forced upon our attention, it
was at best but a dialect literature, provincial and narrow in
scope and interest ; but in the last forty years of the fourteenth!
century the Midland dialect became the English language, and
writings in it enjoyed no longer a merely local but a national
popularity. Henceforth we shall have occasion to mention
the Northern and Southern forms no more, save as the former
may re-appear under a new name as the Scottish dialect, the
first monument of which, a product of the sturdy struggle for
Scottish independence, was honest John Barbour's poem, " the
Bruce." Various reasons have been brought forward to ac-
count for the interesting linguistic development just mentioned:
it has been said that the Midland counties exceeded the others
in extent, wealth and populousness ; that in them were situ-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 81
ated the great institutions of learning at Oxford and Cam-
bridge ; that within their bounds the king held his court ; that
the language of the midland could be understood by men from
north and south who could not understand each other ; and
finally, that Chaucer's poems and Wyclif's translation of the
Bible were sufficient of themselves to raise the dialect in which
they appeared into a commanding position. These reasons
serve to account for the supremacy of the Midland dialect, but
a deeper cause underlay them all which alone satisfactorily
explains the rise in importance of English speech, and that
was the elevation of English sentiment in consequence of the
splendid successes of the war with France. An interesting
expression of it was an act of parliament of the year 1362,
two years after the treaty of Bretigny, which put a term to the
first period of the Hundred Years' War, which required that
henceforth in the courts of law all cases should be pleaded,
defended and judged in the English tongue, "the tongue of the
realm," instead of in French as before. And now, at this
favorable juncture, a great master arose to make the forming
language flow in verses of captivating melody.
Something has already been said, by way of anticipation, of
Chaucer's character : that sympathy which was then empha-
sized as its dominant note remained with him through life.
Over and over again he proclaims his poetic creed, that a truly
noble heart is quick to feel and show compassion :
" For pity runneth soon in gentle heart."
That line sums up his observation of life, and that we may not
miss its import he repeats it, weaving it into works that belong
to different periods of his career. It appears first in the pro-
logue to the " Legend of Good Women," and is repeated in the
tales of knight, merchant, and squire. In the man of law's
tale the thought is otherwise expressed : " a gentle heart is ful-
filled of pity." In the same, the pathos of Constance's story
is too poignant for the narrator :
82 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
" I may not tell her woe until to-morrow,
I am so weary for to speak of sorrow."
He uses the felicitous expression "pitous joye " to suggest
the indescribably affecting blend of various and deep emotions
when relatives, long parted, meet again. That gentle and
beautiful relation of sympathy between human beings, that
noble and refining sentiment of which true courtesy was the
expression, was admirably suggested by the word mansuetude
much used in Chaucer's time ; it is a pity that we have
lost it.
Chaucer's love of nature God's " vicar general " is
proved by innumerable passages: by the well-known description
of his romantic homage 'to the daisy "the emperice and
floure of floures alle" : in the prologue to the "Legend of
Good Women " ; by the pretty lines in the knight's tale :
" The busy larke, messager of claye,
Salueth in hire song the morwe graye-,
And fyry Phebus ryseth up so brighte
That al the orient laugheth of the lighte,
And with his stremes dryeth in the greves
The silver dropes hongyng on the leeves " ;
even more by such examples of delicate observation as these
(from the "Parliament of Fowls" and the squire's tale) :
" Therwith a wynd onethe it myght be lesse
Made in the levys grene a noyse softe
Acordaunt to the bryddis song alofte."
"The vapour, which that fro the erthe glood,
Made the sonne to seme rody and brood."
" Herkneth these blisful briddes how they synge,
And seth the f ressche floures how they springe ;
Ful is myn hert of revel and solaas " -
cries Chanticleer, in the nun's priest's tale.
Chaucer had a keen eye for artistic beauty: in the second
nun's tale occurs this stanza of pictorial quality as distinct as
any fresco of the school of Giotto:
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 83
Valerian gooth hoom, and fynt Cecilie
With-inne his chambre with an angel stonde ;
This angel hadde of roses and of lilie
Corones two, the which he bar in honde ;
And first to Cecile, as I understonde,
He yaf that oon, and after gan he take
That other to Valerian, hir make."
There are traces in other works of his of an art more advanced
than that of any contemporary Italian artist, for Chaucer
died before the boy-painter was born who first dared to depict
the unclad human form. In the " Parliament of Fowls " there
is a picture of Venus recumbent on a golden bed : her golden
hair is loose, she is nude to the waist, her limbs are covered
with thin valence. In the " House of Fame " the poet dreams
that he is in a temple of glass, and among statues and portrai-
tures sees a figure of Venus "naked floating in a see," a garland
of red and white roses on her head, and doves fluttering around.
Not till a hundred years later did any work of Italian art
appear that at all resembled that description.
A mythologic touch that would be startling were it not naive,
and that was subtly characteristic of the Renascence, occurs in
the story of Dido, who was so fair that God the Creator might
take her for his love, if he would wed a mortal woman. It can-
not be denied that this is paralleled by the relation conceived
by mediaeval devotion to exist between the Holy Ghost and
the Virgin Mary : there is a bold expression of it in the prio-
ress's prologue to her tale.
Chaucer's journey into Italy at the end of the year 1372 was
a turning point in his literary career. He went in King
Edward's service, and was away until the end of the following
year. It is supposed that upon that visit he made the ac-
quaintance of Petrarch : it is certain that his Clerk's tale was a
free version of Petrarch's Latin translation of the last tale in
Boccaccio's Decameron. That Italian journey put a term to
the literary influence of France upon his spirit, and opened its
84 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
gates to the more potent influence of the great authors of Italy.
There is not one of Boccaccio's works before mentioned to
which Chaucer was not deeply indebted. His stanza is but a
slight modification of Boccaccio's octave. In 1378, he went on
another embassy to Northern Italy, and some time after his
return composed " The House of Fame," in which Dante's
influence is plainly apparent. An eagle bears the poet to the
echoing palace of fame, midway between heaven, earth and sea.
It is built of beryl, and stands on a high rock of ice which is
written all over with famous names, the least known of which
have partly melted away. In the splendid hall sits the goddess
of Fame on a ruby throne ; on pedestals beside her 'stand
Statius, Homer, Virgil, Ovid, "the great poet Dan Lucan," and
others. This idea of individual glory, this hope of living in the
memory of the race, was a salient feature of Renascent life and
thought : men longed to stand well in others' estimation, to
gain their approbation by brilliant achievements. That desire
arose naturally out of the character of the age : it was simply
a longing for sympathy raised to fever heat. It was a highly
important agent in the cultivation of individuality, in which the
broadest and deepest distinction between mediaeval and mod-
ern literature consists. Literature proper was henceforth no
longer to be provided by cowled monks whose personality was
lost in their profession, or by wandering and nameless min-
strels. Chaucer's personality is surprisingly distinct when seen
against the background of all previous English literature ; he
was in truth a modern man. We should not forget to mention
as a significant factor in his intellectual development, his trans-
lation of Boethius' treatise " On the Consolation of Philosophy."
By the year 1388, Chaucer had worked free of Italian influ-
ence, and entered upon his third, last, and thoroughly English
period, that of the shaping of the Canterbury Tales. To
that period belong the inimitable Prologue, and in all proba-
bility, the tales of miller, reeve, friar, summoner, etc.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 85
stories of broad humor and coarse satire for which Chaucer
himself apologizes: he must not "falsen his mateere." His
own "Rhyme of Sir Thopas " in the midst of which he is
impatiently interrupted by the host is a delicious satire on
the metrical romances still in vogue, on their fantastic charac-
ters, motives, and incidents, and prosy detail. A playful piece
like that is worthy of attentive reading ; it is an evidence of
independent thinking such as generally marks the boundary
between epochs ; it is the criticism of a new age on that which
has gone before.
The Canterbury Tales comprise a veritable world of thought
and feeling. Scattered through them, especially the later ones,
are many allusions that Help us to reconstruct with tolerable
completeness the domestic life of Chaucer's time. The frank-
lin's tale one of the most pleasing of all, its subject bor-
rowed from Boccaccio, opens with a beautiful description of
wedded love : " Love is a thing as any spirit free." The wife
of Bath's tale (for a wonder) concludes in the same strain :
yet it may be doubted whether Chaucer had such a lofty idea
of marriage as some of his critics, deceived by the seeming
seriousness of certain playful passages, have declared that he
had. How could he have when for ages after his day the tra-
ditional view of marriage as a declension from the better state
of celibacy still cumbered the ground ? when he could write
that in the consummation of wedlock a woman lays half her
holiness aside ? a notion that poisoned the stream of domes-
tic life at its source. It is true that he says, correctly enough,
that " marriage is a full great sacrament " but then that line,
with its accompanying (ironical) praise of a wife occurs in the
one and only thoroughly and hopelessly corrupt tale that he
ever wrote. In the parson's sermon is a rebuke that throws a
sad light upon a grave and only too common wrong : " above
all things men ought to avoid cursing their own children, and
giving their offspring to the devil : surely it is great peril and
86 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
great sin." The doctor of physic cautions parents against
negligence in chastising their children. The franklin has a
son whom he brings up on the vicious though common princi-
ple of "snubbing," because the youth is not as virtuous as he
should be.
It seems impossible to doubt that the plan of the Canterbury
Tales was suggested by the Decameron, but its working out
was entirely independent and national in movement and color.
Boccaccio's story-tellers, ten in number, are all young and of
the same station in life ; they meet in the church of Santa
Maria Novella, and leave the plague-stricken city to shut them-
selves from their suffering kind in the safe seclusion of a stately
palace amid delicious gardens and refreshing fountains ; there
they divert their minds from all thought of the misery left be-
hind by telling tales which, as we have seen, tend toward classi-
fication, one set dealing with happy, another with unhappy
love-affairs. The English poet gathers thirty people together,
of all ranks and ages, and of the most varied experience of life ;
they meet in an inn, and their motive is a genial one : they are
pilgrims to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury. In the
morning they set forth, all on horseback, and pass before us
in a gay and shifting cavalcade ; though of varying degrees of
reverence or no reverence, their common motive, and the free
intercourse of travelling acquaintanceship, give them all a
pleasing equality. The tales they tell are of infinite variety,
and are adjusted with nice art to their several characters.
So Chaucer has preserved for us a world of life that moves
and has its being forever. How potent the spell of his gently
lapsing verse!
" In Surrye whylom dwelte a companye
Of chapmen riche, and thereto sadde and trewe,
That wyde-wher senten her spicerye,"
yielding to the current the reader is quickly borne over the tide
of years to that far-off, almost ideal time when Constantinople
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 87
was the centre of the world's commerce, and the precious
stuffs and jewels of the Orient, brought thence in Genoese and
Venetian argosies, were distributed over Europe, and ex-
changed in the ports of Bruges and London for the produce of
northern shores scoured by the fleets of the Hanseatic League ;
when along the line of those fertilizing streams of trade stately
monuments of art were rising ; when the Dukedom of Athens
still existed, a last fragment and fading memorial of the Latin
Empire of the East ; when Genghis Khan and his sons were yet
mighty and marvellous figures in a not distant past ; when bow,
sword and buckler had not yet vanished before powder and
shot ; when English knights served in Lithuania with their
Teutonic brethren, or under Castilian banners against the Moors
of Granada or sought adventure even further away, in Anatolia
and Armenia ; when dreamy legends of saints were still
devoutly believed ; when pilgrimages to Compostella and the
Virgin's house at Loreto were popular ; when Rome was the
religious centre of Christendom, and her emissaries were
omnipresent and numerous as the motes that people the sun-
beams.
88 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
V.
IN relation to his times, Chaucer would have been happier
had his whole career been set back ten years or so: he lived on
into an era of discord, folly and crime in which his spirit must
have felt belated and something of an alien, nor can he have
fully understood and sympathized with the moral struggle of
those troubled years. Even his early manhood had been dis-
turbed by jarring cries, the cry of poor against rich, of
laborers against idlers, of earnest men against worldly church-
men, and worthless monks and friars. The spokesman of this
popular discontent was William Langland ; his allegorical,
severely didactic, preaching poem, in dialect and in alliterative
verse, was in great demand: many manuscripts of it are still ex-
tant. Langland found the social condition of the England of
his day to be lamentably unsound ; in the prologue to his work
he passes in review various classes intended to represent the
sum of English society, and finds that in the mass evil vastly
preponderates : plowmen labor hard to produce what the waste-
ful scatter in gluttony ; the proud array themselves in outward
splendor ; jesters " Judas' children " make fools of them-
selves instead of working as they might ; beggars rove about,
getting food by feints, fighting over their ale greedy, lazy
ribalds! ; pilgrims and palmers seek the shrine of St. James, and
saints at Rome, and have leave to lie all their lives after ;
some great lubbers that are loth to work call themselves her-
mits and take their ease ; friars of all the four orders preach for
their own profit and glose the gospel as seems good to them ;
pardoners and parish-priests divide the people's silver ; ser-
geants at law plead for pence and pounds, but will not part
their lips for love of our Lord ; bishops bold and bachelors of
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 89
divinity become clerks of account, to serve the king ; deacons
and archdeacons, instead of preaching to the people, "lope"
to London to plunder the country as clerks of King's Bench ;
bakers, butchers, weavers, tailors, tanners, masons, ditchers
and delvers do their work badly ; there are some truly pious
people, some honest merchants, some minstrels who get guilt-
less gold, but most men now on earth have their honor in
this world, and reck not of any other heaven than here. The
body of the poem is a rambling allegory of things seen in
dreams ; a lovely lady, Holy-church, explains their meaning,
and preaches about truth and right ; Flattery, Falsehood, and
Meed (this world's goods) appear on the scene : Meed is to be
married to Falsehood, but he leaves her in the lurch ; the king
offers her to Conscience, but he rejects her with horror, and
gives a catalogue of her enormities. In the next dream the
deadly sins are moved to confession, and go in search of St.
Truth ; they are directed on their allegorical way by the ideal
personage who gives his name to the work Piers the Plowman.
In following visions occur interesting and affecting descriptions
of the hard life, improvidence, and sorrows of the poor.
Langland's conviction was that the times were out of joint,
but could be set right if only the rich would have ruth on the
poor, and if every man would work diligently at his calling,
and be guided by right reason, common sense, and conscience.
This appeal to conscience, to the sense of duty, is of deep
significance ; it means that the mind of England was strug-
gling to reach a higher moral level than feeling could afford.
Another and more satisfactory guide of life was being sought
for in the midst of that moral confusion into which mere sen-
timent must ever degenerate. Into such confusion, toward the
close of the fourteenth century, England and the world at
large were plunging; a light shade falls over the face of his-
tory at this point, and dims the brightness of the First
Renascence.
90 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
The treaty of Bretigny was soon infringed by the French
king, Charles V ; his forces made serious encroachments upon
Poitou and Guienne, and the boundary-line of the English
possessions in France began steadily and rapidly to contract.
The Black Prince had sadly embarrassed his cause by his ill-
advised interference in Spanish affairs, he found to his cost
that he was upon the wrong side in the struggle for the
Castilian crown. He achieved his last famous success in the
recapture of the city of Limoges, in 1370, and sullied it by an
act of ungovernable passion which has left an ineffaceable
stain upon his memory : the town had revolted from him, and
in the fury of revenge he ordered a general massacre of its
inhabitants : three thousand persons, all defenceless, many of
them innocent, fell victims to this sanguinary mandate.
In England, King Edward III, though yet in middle life,
was fast declining in vigor and honor. After the death of his
faithful queen Philippa, in 1369, he resigned himself completely
to the influence of a courtesan, the notorious Alice Pierce : the
scandal was such that parliament had finally to bring about her
removal from court. In 1376 the Black Prince died ; the year
after the king followed him to the tomb ; and the Prince's only
surviving son, then but eleven years of age, acceded to the
throne as Richard II. The story of his reign is a depressing
account of incapacity and misgovernment, of a long struggle
for power between the dukes his uncles and the king, of a
series of crafty and vindictive strokes and counterstrokes of
selfish policy. In 1381, the smouldering discontent of the
people was fanned into flame by the imposition of a hated tax
to pay the costs of the futile war with France ; but the insur-
rection was soon suppressed and its leaders were put to death.
In 1386, the French collected a great army and a multitude of
ships for the invasion and subjugation of England, but a
storm at sea and divided counsels among the commanders
brought the vast enterprise to naught. The next year, King
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Richard, restive under the control of his uncle the duke of
Gloucester, and swayed entirely by the influence of his favorite,
the handsome but profligate De Vere, obtained from the sub-
missive Chief Justice, Robert Tresilian, and his colleagues a
declaration against the Duke's attempt to minimize the royal
authority. This scheme failed of success : the duke and his
party rose in arms, De Vere fled to the continent, and Tresil-
ian, caught hiding, was hung. In 1389, however, Richard
managed to secure sovereign power ; but an unpopular step
which he took, in 1396, led to his fall : he made peace with
Charles VI of France for a term of twenty-eight years, and
took to wife his daughter Isabella. Trading upon the general
dislike of this connection in England, Gloucester began fresh
intrigues, which were foiled by a stroke of kingcraft : he was
arrested and made way with, and his chief adherents were ex-
ecuted or banished. Richard now plainly revealed the temper
of a tyrant, and, satisfied that he had crushed all opposition,
he shortly crossed over into Ireland to maintain his authority
there. But while he was away his cousin Henry, duke of
Lancaster, whom he had banished from the realm and whose
possessions he had seized, landed in England and speedily
attracted to himself a numerous following. At the news,
Richard returned precipitately, and found himself alone in his
kingdom : he was taken captive, deposed, removed to some
secret spot, and was never heard of more.
It was in the midst of this period of disintegration, of dis-
solution of family and social ties, while the political pendulum
oscillated between anarchy and tyranny, that a great and
much needed appeal to Conscience and the Bible was stren-
uously and resolutely made by John Wyclif and his band of
"poor priests." This reformatory movement originated at
Oxford: Wyclif first appears upon the scene as Warden of
Balliol College. About the year 1366 he was drawn into the
current of political life, and powerfully defended the refusal of
92 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
the English government to pay the tribute demanded by Pope
Urban V. At this time he sketched out his cardinal doctrine
of Dominion, that all authority depends upon God's favor.
This weapon he turned against the papal claims : like a sword
with double edge it cut right and left. While the English
people obey God, he said, they hold directly of him and not
mediately, through the pope. Thus at a stroke he lopped off
both the temporal and the spiritual authority of the pope in
England. For on the one hand he gave the national idea a
deeper ground than had been recognized since Israelitish
times : the state, he said, as well as the church derives its
power from God and does him service ; and, on the other
hand, by insisting upon the immediate, personal relation of
man to God, that as man sins against his Maker and may sin
secretly so by secret repentance and confession to him he
may obtain forgiveness, he banished all intermediaries between
the creature and the creator, levelled the celestial and terres-
trial hierarchies, and revealed the emptiness of the heavenly
treasury and the deceitfulness of indulgences. Wyclif would
have earnestly exhorted or sternly rebuked the Canterbury
pilgrims had he met them at the Tabard inn : he would have
shown them that pilgrimage was no sure sign of genuine con-
trition or means of grace. His was a ringing appeal to the
conscience of the people. " Some good judgment," he wrote,
"is of men's out-wits [senses] ; some, of men's wit within, as
men judge how they shall do by law of conscience." "Men
of conscience " say that only Christ can hear shrifts. When
Wyclif thought of man he took it for granted that he was
free in choice and act : " each man hath a free will and choos-
ing of good and evil." To convert that will to righteousness
was the motive of his and his followers' fervent preaching, and
of their translation of the Bible. " It is Antichrist," he said,
" who forbids the study of God's word, and who says that
preaching is useless because God ordains to weal or woe."
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 93
This evangelical activity was a necessary consequence of the
doctrine of dominion : the condition by which the English
people received from God the right to govern themselves,
without interference from pope or emperor, was that they
should serve and obey him, should do him homage (an appli-
cation of the feudal principle) : they lost that right by failure
to fulfil the condition, by disobedience and sin. Hence it was
imperatively necessary that the English should be a godly peo-
ple ; to that end it was necessary that they should know the
will of God which it was their duty to obey ; that will was
embodied in the Bible : that therefore they must thoroughly
know by reading and exposition. Wyclif grasped in a manner
granted to few in the world's history the thought of God as
absolute will : when he fixed his gaze on him he was a predes-
tinarian. He held together the doctrine of God's uncondi-
tioned sway and of human freedom, and felt, perhaps perceived
that there was, no conflict between them.
One aspect of his position which needs further illustration
is the conflict between religious authorities that it occasioned.
The theory of theological nescience that was in the ascendant
before and during Wyclif's day left it to faith alone to appre-
hend spiritual truths, but faith was capable of mistaking
temporal errors for eternal truths ; faith bowed unquestion-
ingly to the authority of the church, the mystics gave it an
all but unqualified submission ; and opinions and institutions
purely human, from which divine efficacy had evaporated, and
which were becoming noxious, might be and were generally
accepted on ecclesiastical authority as divinely revealed dogmas
and polities. Any one who would alter anything in the estab-
lished order of things must seek another court of appeal,
and that Wyclif found in the Bible. There, he proclaimed,
was a clear expression of the will of God, with which the con-
fused and changing authority of the church might and often
did come into conflict. For many years that antagonism found
94 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
daily expression in the controversies between the friars and the
" poor priests," or preachers whom Wyclif sent out, who ere-
long came to be known by the unexplained but evidently
opprobrious term " Lollards." They regularly closed their
argument by an appeal to " God's law," which their opponents
as regularly attempted to offset by instancing the practice of the
church. The inefficacy of this latter appeal, and the farthest
reach of intellectual independence in that day, are exemplified
by Wyclif's naive assertion that the pope's approval of a thing
indicates that it is probably wrong !
From this view of the Bible as the supreme authority in
religious matters its translation into the vernacular followed as
a matter of course. That translation was in its best sense a
popular act ; it was an act of trust, of trust in the intelli-
gence of the people, their capacity to understand the book, and
in their moral sense, their will to use it rightly. Distrust of
these was then and for ages after the ground of all objections
to such translation : the people would misconstrue and abuse
the teaching of the book, it was said. To this suspicion Wyclif
opposed a firm faith in the good sense of the majority, and an
argument capable of infinite application : he could not deny
that some might abuse their liberty, "but should food be
forbidden to all because some are gluttons ? " Against his
opponents the friars he adduced the example of Christ, who
taught the people deepest truths in their mother-tongue ; the
spirit, moreover, spoke in divers tongues on the day of Pente-
cost ; St. Jerome translated the Scriptures out of the original,
sacred languages into Latin ; they have been translated into
French ; and the friars themselves teach the Lord's Prayer in
English, why not then the whole Gospel? "Englishmen
know Christ's lore and life best in their mother-tongue."
Wyclif and his coadjutors addressed themselves, therefore, to
the great task of turning the Vulgate into the speech of the
English Midland. He toiled especially at the New Testament,
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 95
beginning with the Gospels, proceeding to the Epistles ; a faith-
ful friend of his named Nicholas Hereford, chief pillar of his
party at Oxford, devoted his attention to the books of the Old
Testament. Hereford's translation was painfully literal, and
had to be revised ; so John Purvey, one of Wyclif's wandering
preachers, and later his curate at Lutterworth, went over the
whole work, clearing up obscurities and polishing the style ; by
the year 1388 his labor was done, and the English Bible stood
forth, a splendid monument of energy and zeal.
Next in importance to the translation of the Word of God was
its exposition ; Wyclif imputed to preaching an extraordinary
efficacy : it is better, he said, and more esteemed by Christ
than the consecration of the elements. Hence his institution
of itinerant preachers, his "poor priests," who in their evan-
gelical poverty resembled the primitive Franciscans. It is
interesting to know that he bade them everywhere do all they
could to strengthen those ties of social and domestic life that
were being so rudely strained in his day. One of his later
English treatises, " Of Servants and Lords," was occasioned by
the insurrection of the year 1381. It discusses the relations of
classes to each other, and dwells upon the important fact (gen-
erally ignored then and for ages after) that masters have some
duties toward those whom they employ : that all the rights are
not on their side, and all the duties on the other. At the same
time, the author is careful to disavow, on the part of the " poor
priests," the doctrine attributed to them that tenants may
refuse to pay rent to wicked landlords. The impression was
general that the new religious teaching was at the bottom of the
social disturbances of the time ; and some incautious followers
of Wyclif's may very likely have drawn extreme but not illogi-
cal conclusions from his doctrine of dominion. The insurrec-
tion was certainly an embarrassing circumstance ; it forced
Wyclif to define his doctrine anew, and expressly to restrict its
applicability : tenants may not keep back rent due to wicked
96 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
lords, he said, though they may withhold tithes from sin-
ful priests. This limitation to the ecclesiastical sphere of
the great principle that dominion is lost by sin, though incon-
sistent, was natural ; Wyclif shrank with horror from revolu-
tionary inferences from it which he had not foreseen when he
first enunciated it, during the contest with Urban V, years
before. Finally, he guarded himself and his doctrine in a way
that emptied it of all practical significance : in this world, he
concluded, one can never know that a man is void of God's
grace and may justly be deprived of the power conferred by it.
As regards his attitude toward the fine arts, Wyclif was no
iconoclast : in his " Trialogus " an approved speaker points out
that Christ did not condemn signs in themselves, but only
abuse of them ; the brazen serpent, the crucified Lord himself,
were both signs. Nevertheless, in Wyclif s nature the moral
element was developed to the sacrifice of the ideal : his intense
seriousness, his fear lest symbols should become to the simple
occasions of idolatry, made him suspicious of the use of the
arts in the service of the sanctuary, while his deep sympathy
with the poor made him intolerant of the diversion of wealth
that would relieve their necessities to the production of works
of art. He seems to have felt that though statues, "gay
windows, and paintings " were not wrong, they were at least
inexpedient, and might have evil effects. " They worship false
gods who seek blind stocks or images and offer to them more
than to poor, bedrid men. Rich men clothe dead stocks and
stones with precious clothes, with gold and silver and pearls
and gayness to the world, and suffer poor men go sore a-cold
and at much mischief." His dislike of the elaborate ritual of
the Middle Ages a gorgeous form closely allied in its nature
to the fine arts was determined by his belief in the potency
of preaching, which seemed to him to be interfered with by the
time spent in ceremonies ; while the pains that had to be taken
to avoid mistakes in these intricate " rites and rules of sinful
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 97
men" made them as intolerable as the requirements of the
Jewish law, the freedom of the gospel was quite done away
by such "novelry." As for church music, "descant and
counter note, organ and small breaking vain japes stir
vain men to dancing more than to mourning. Where there are
forty or fifty in a choir, three or four proud lorels sing so that
none can hear the sentence, and all others shall be dumb and
look on them like fools."
It is well known that up to the time of the papal schism, in
1378, Wyclif's heresies concerned no doctrinal point, but only
such questions as the relation of church and state, the govern-
ment and worship of the church, and the morals and manners
of the clergy. He had become so formidable, however, by his
earnestness and ability, the indisputable strength of his moral
position, and the ever increasing number of his followers, that
the great prelates, monks, and friars whose worldliness he
assailed began to feel that something must be done to suppress
him, and he was summoned by the bishop of London to answer
for his errors before a synod at St. Paul's in the winter of 1377.
But the influence of the University of Oxford, where he had
troops of friends ; the favor of the government, which he served
so well during the controversy with the papacy ; the enthusiasm
of the people, who regarded him as their champion ; and the
powerful protection of John, duke of Lancaster, eldest surviv-
ing son of Edward III, neutralized the utmost efforts of his
enemies ; it was impossible to secure his conviction, and the
synod broke up in confusion. Foiled at home, his embittered
foes appealed to Pope Gregory XI, who, in May of the same
year, fulminated five bulls against the reformer. It is to be
noted that the propositions condemned in these were practical
consequences of the doctrine of dominion : they concerned the
power of prelates, and points of government and discipline,
the constitution of the church, and not her doctrinal decisions.
Thus fortified, Wyclif's opponents attempted again to bring
98 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
him to judgment : he was cited to appear before the bishop of
London and the archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth, in 1378,
but nothing of significance was done by them. In the summer
of that year occurred an event of rare magnitude in European
history, an immediate effect of which was Wyclif's complete
spiritual enfranchisement. Upon the death of Gregory XI
the cardinals elected as his successor Prignano, a Neapolitan,
who assumed the title of Urban VI. More than seventy years
had elapsed since an Italian had worn the tiara. Urban fixed
his residence at Rome, and began at once, and with some
acerbity of temper, considerable disciplinary reforms. Dissat-
isfied with his proceedings, the proud and luxurious French
cardinals, who were in a large majority in the conclave, pre-
tending that their choice had been made under compulsion,
and was therefore invalid, proceeded to elect one of their own
number in Urban's stead. He took the title of Clement VII,
and established his court at Avignon. Thus originated the
memorable Schism of the West, which shook the very founda-
tions of papal power. Rival lines of pontiffs divided the
suffrages of Europe ; they made desperate efforts to crush
each other, it was a shameful but instructive spectacle.
" God hath cloven the head of Antichrist," exclaimed Wyclif,
exultantly ; it seemed to him a God-given opportunity for the
English to throw off the papal dominion altogether. Now
began the last and busiest period of his life, in which he trans-
lated the New Testament, questioned and ere long boldly
controverted the received opinion concerning the eucharist,
and appealed to the intelligence of the people in tract after
tract, couched in vigorous English. It was inevitable that a
strenuous thinker who, as we have seen, regarded with cold
dislike the details of the worship of his day, should sooner or
later penetrate to the central point of that worship the doc-
trine of the eucharist and bring it into question ; that a clear
thinker should revolt from that confusion of thought which
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 99
supposed a conversion of one substance into another, the
phenomena meanwhile remaining unchanged ; that a zealous
reformer should at last fall foul of a doctrine that seemed to be
the innermost intrenchment of the worst evils that afflicted the
church. Wyclif utterly rejected the dogma of transubstantia-
tion as unscriptural and idolatrous : Christ, the apostles, and
the saints of the primitive church all taught, he maintained,
that "the sacred host, white and round," is at the same time
true bread and the Lord's body.
This daring definition brought on another crisis ; many of
his followers, fearful of the innovation and its possible conse-
quences, fell away from him ; and a council was held in the
spring of the year 1382 at which this and other statements in
his works were condemned. Personally, however, Wyclif suf-
fered no harm ; he withdrew to his quiet rectory in the pleasant
village of Lutterworth, and after two years of faithful work
there, died in peace at the close of the year 1384. And now,
as his grand figure fades into that distant past from which we
have summoned it, it were best, perhaps, that some recollection
of his firm hold upon spiritual realities should henceforth be
associated with his name ; that we should pay his memory the
honor due to it for his undaunted claim for man to an immedi-
ate, personal relation with the eternal Origin of things. Few
have pierced with as keen a vision through the outward shows
of things to the realities that underlie them, few have been
as thoroughly convinced of the vanity of all forms that are not
vitalized by spirit. " Baptism by water is nothing without
baptism by fire that is, the Holy Ghost," he said. " Crown
[tonsure] and cloth make no priest, nor the emperor's bishop
with his words, but power that Christ giveth." " Not babbling
of the lips but a holy life is prayer." And this noble sentence
lingers like music in the memory : " God the Trinity is with
each creature by might, wisdom, and goodness to keep it, for
else it should turn to nought; but God is with good men of
100 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
virtuous life by grace, and dwelleth in their souls as his own
temple."
To the series of moralists and reformers belongs the poet
John Gower; he is to be classed with Langland and Wyclif
rather than, as he customarily is, with Chaucer. It must not,
however, be inferred that he was affiliated to the " new sect of
lollardy ": he is emphatic in his denunciations of it ; he adjures
his reader :
" Beware that thou be not oppressed
With Antichristes lollardie : . . .
this newe tapinage
Of lollardie goeth about
To sette Christes faith in doubt
Such newe lore I rede eschewe."
He thus affords interesting and valuable evidence that the
reformatory impulse of the hour was deep and general, too
wide to be confined within sectarian lines.
Gower was several years older than Chaucer, and he outlived
him by some years. His u Vox Clamantis," in Latin verse,
was occasioned by the insurrection of 1381 : it is a searching
analysis of the social and moral evils to which he referred the
discontent of the peasantry, and the outbreak of revolution.
The condition of England seemed to him deplorable, " the
end of the world is fallen upon us." At the head of the gov-
ernment was an ignorant and careless boy. A shocking schism
in the papacy was bringi*. manifold woe upon the church:
" we fall between two stools." The governors of the church
were corrupt ; they committed every deadly sin ; the parish
priests and roving friars followed their example, they were
greedy and drunken, lustful, hypocritical. Soldiers were
extortionate and licentious, merchants dishonest, lawyers
crafty and unjust, laborers discontented, and voracious as
a pack of wild beasts. In the midst of such corruption
what was to be done? Gower's reply is like Langland's,
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 101
let every man take care of himself, have faith in God, who is
over all, do his duty to his fellows, and use the world well,
remembering that its pleasures and possessions pass away.
This anxious interest in the social problem contrasts strik-
ingly with the unconcern of Chaucer, who ignores it so airily
that from his works one would never guess that one of the
most serious convulsions in English history had happened in
his time.
Gower wrote, in French, another moral essay in verse, the
" Speculum Meditantis." This does not appear to have been
a successful effort ; no copy of it is known to exist ; but his
last and greatest work, the " Confessio Amantis," was ex-
tremely popular in his own day and for ages after. It is writ-
ten in English, in smooth, octosyllabic couplets. It consists
of a really interesting prologue, and eight books, one for each
of the deadly sins, and one a summary of the philosophic and
moral, scientific and liberal learning of the poet's own age.
The different books consist of groups of tales that illustrate
the deadly sins; they are borrowed from the Bible, from Ovid,
Cassiodorus, and Isidore, from the " Tale of Troy," of Alex-
ander the Great, and of Lancelot du Lac, and from ; the
popular collection known as the "Gesta Romanorum," and
the " Speculum Regum " of Godfrey of Viterbo. Gower was a
learned, not to say a bookish man, according to the fashion of
his time. " I read as the cronique saith," "In a cronique
this I read" "This find I rt^p ; ~ poesy" are formulas
of frequent occurrence in his work. He strings his stories
together upon the tenuous thread of a supposed confession
made by a young lover, whose father confessor examines
him in the seven sins, and points his precepts with appropriate
tales. Some of these ate tedious enough, and one cannot but
echo the unhappy young penitent's unguarded admission :
" The tales sounen in min ere,
But yet min herte is elleswhere."
102 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
But what makes Gower truly great, and worthy of lasting
remembrance, is his moral view of the universe. To him in
truth preeminently belongs the title "moral " bestowed upon
him, half mischievously perhaps, by Chaucer. Two great ideas
were the fountains of his inspiration : the thought of a myste-
rious correspondence between the physical and moral spheres,
between nature and spirit, and that of human freedom, of a
power in man to rise above the force of circumstance, and to
put the stars under his feet. Gower believed that the Black
Death was incurred by man as a punishment for his sin.
" The sun and moon eclipsen both
And ben with mannes sinne wroth ;
The purest air for sin aloft
Hath ben and is corrupt full oft."
The ground of this belief lay in a supposed interdependence
between the world and man the microcosm. The four elements
of the external world had their counterparts in the four humors
of man's body, and between his soul and these there was
mysterious union. But between soul and body strife has
arisen, and the result is sin:
" For sin of his condition
Is mother of division."
Disturbances in the realm of nature are the portentous signs
and punishment of this moral discord.
" The man, as telleth the clergie,
Is as a world in his partie,
And when this little world misturneth
The grete world all overturneth ;
The land, the sea, the firmament,
They axen alle jugement
Against the man."
The other thought, which he wearies not in reiterating, is
that man, if he is true to himself, is not the sport of chance.
Duty, not Fortune, determines his success and happiness. The
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 103
world is out of joint, and why? Some say, Because of For-
tune, or, Because of the aspect of the stars. Then the poet
delivers his message :
" The man is overall
His owne cause of weal and woe :
That we fortune clepe so
Out of the man himself it groweth."
An invigorating truth, banishing a host of grisly superstitions
whose presence benumbs the soul ! " All earthly things which
God began," he says, in reassuring tones, "were only made to
serve man." The planets do indeed control mundane affairs,
diseases, tempests, wars, but good and wise men need not
fear the stars (and then come the immortal lines) :
" For one man, if him well befalle,
Is more worth than ben they alle
Towardes Him that weldeth all."
A flash of insight like that penetrates the profoundest
depths of the mysteries of creation and redemption and makes
them luminous ; a cheery call like that out of the ages gives
fresh meaning to life, inspires with new courage, and lightens
the oppressive weight that natural science with its mechanical
processes would lay upon the soul. With one sweep of her
pinion the heavenly muse of poetry exalts little man to the
sublime station that is rightfully his ; from that altitude the
world, weary, heavy, and unintelligible before, becomes trans-
parent and intelligible. Thus, in the evening of the fourteenth
century, did John Gower transcend the superstitions of his
time ; and thus may we in this latter day shake off with him
the nightmare of fatalism, and transcend the no less enfeebling
superstitions of a school of scientific thought that would arro-
gate to sensuous experience all reality, and that despises and
denies the ideal. As long as science lasts, as long as the world
endures, poetry will endure to give the spirit its due, to correct
104 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
the one-sided and therefore faulty and dangerous estimates of
a science blind to the moral and ideal, and to resist the mate-
rializing tendency of our every-day life.
It is worth noting upon how much higher a moral level than
Chaucer's Gower stood. Chaucer never worked free of the
eery influence of the constellations ; how numerous his refer-
ences to judicial astrology are every one familiar with his works
knows well. "In the stars," he says, "clearer than is glass,
is written the death of every man, without a doubt. Certainly
our appetites here, be it of war or peace or hate or love, are
all ruled by Destiny. Fortune can turn her wheel and out of
joy bring men to sorrow." With him a favorite maxim is,
" Make virtue of necessity."
A memorable characteristic of Gower's (reminding us how
far we have travelled from the era of the Crusades) is his
recognition of the rights even of infidels. He believes that
Christian men run counter to their Lord's commands when
they shed the blood of heathen folk, for these too have souls
to save. His missionary zeal recalls the evangelical labors of
his Spanish contemporary, Vincent Ferrer, among the Moham-
medans of Granada.
" And for to sleen the hethen alle,
I not what good there mighte falle
So mochel blood though there be shad.
This finde I writen, how Crist bad
That no man other shoulde slee . . .
To sleen and fighten they us bidde
Hem whom they shuld, as the boke saith,
Converten unto Cristes feith . . .
A Sarazin if I slee shall
I slee the soule forth with all,
And that was never Cristes lore."
Passages of natural description, sometimes quite pleasing,
generally conventional, are scattered through the " Confessio
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 105
Amantis." The woful lover seeks the solitude of the woods
and there gives way to his feelings :
" In the moneth of May,
Whan every brid hath chose his make
And thenketh his merthes for to make
Of love that he hath acheved, . .
Unto the wood I gan to fare,
Nought for to singe with the briddes,
For whan I was the wood amiddes
I fonde a swete grene pleine,
And there I gan my wo compleigne."
In another place there are a few pretty lines about the sun
" which is the worldes eye,
Through whom the lusty compaignie
Of foules by the morwe singe,
The freshe floures sprede and springe,
The highe tre the ground beshadeth,
And every mannes herte gladdeth."
Hopelessly conventional, pedantic, and arid are Gower's ref-
erences to the arts. Amid the glories of mediaeval architec-
ture and sculpture, for which he seems to have had no eye, he
nods over names gathered from his books :
" Zeuzis found first the portreture,
And Prometheus the sculpture ;
After what forme that hem thought
The resemblaunce anon they wrought."
and then (O discriminative Gower !),
" Berconius of cokerie
First made the delicacie."
And yet to this poor, prosy old poet was granted the supreme
vision of that age : "One man, if he behave well, is worth
more than planets and stars to Him who wields them all."
When Gower wrote the " Confessio Amantis," sometime
about the year 1386, he was living as a "clerk" and lay
brother with the monks of St. Mary Overies, Southwark. In
106 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
1397, when he was seventy years of age, he married. He had
need of a nurse, for in 1400 (the year of Chaucer's death, and
probably of Langland's also) he became blind. He died in
1408, leaving his widow well provided for, and dividing the
residue of his property among the churches of Southwark, the
leper-houses, and a hospital for the blind and infirm.
It is instructive to observe how, simultaneously with this re-
forming movement that we have been studying, English Gothic
architecture underwent a change. The straight lines and right
angles of the Rectilinear or Perpendicular style began to replace
and repress the graceful and luxuriant but often weak and even
wanton curves of the Decorated style, - a change that symbolizes
delicately and beautifully the passage of the sentimental into
the moral epoch. The mullions of cathedral windows began
to strike right through the tangle of flowing tracery to the
mouldings of the window-heads ; transoms intersected mul-
lions ; the flat surfaces of walls, buttresses, and towers were
ribbed with vertical and horizontal mouldings, and thus marked
off into panels ; within, the heads of pier-arches were de-
pressed, the triforium disappeared and a plane surface closely
ruled up and down with parallel lines took its place. It was
like an invasion of architecture by carpentry ; fancy was con-
fined by measurement ; the style was mechanical, inorganic,
yet something in its regularity, its plain, practical nature, sttited
the English genius ; it was found to be peculiarly fitted for
collegiate structures and manorial halls as well as for church-
building ; and it became the favorite and characteristic variety
of English Gothic. It first appeared in Abbot Litlington's
work at Westminster, in the decades 1366-86, but it was
left to William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, to develop
it with such strength and consistency that it has become in-
dissolubly associated with his name. In 1386, Wykeham
founded New College, Oxford ; the year following, Winchester
College ; meanwhile he was remodelling his cathedral, the nave
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 107
of which is the crowning example of Perpendicular style. The
nave of Canterbury cathedral was also rebuilt in the new
fashion at this time. The utmost elaboration of Perpendicular
tracery is displayed in the great east window of York Minster,
constructed in the years 1403-1408 ; the amazing intricacy of
the work fatigues the sense. (A continental example of the
triumph of parallelism over flamboyancy is afforded by the
marvellous cathedral of Milan, which was being constructed at
this very epoch.) During the Lancastrian Period from 1399
to 1461 the fa9ades and profiles of several important cathe-
drals York, Lincoln, Wells were rendered more imposing
by the completion of their triple towers. That was the palmy
period, moreover, of parish-church building : then uprose, all
over England, many of those picturesque churches with their
square gray towers, that, often embowered in foliage, are such
salient and attractive features in the landscape.
The adaptability of the Rectilinear style to scholastic pur-
poses was exemplified at All Souls College, Oxford, founded
by Archbishop Chichely in 1437; at the royal foundation of
Eton, in 1446; and (consummately) at Magdalen College,
Oxford, founded by Bishop Waynflete in 1459.
Among the minor arts may be mentioned the sepulchral
brasses that were multiplied in this period : large plates of
burnished metal let into slabs in the floors of churches and
mortuary chapels, and engraved with figures to represent those
who rested below. The designs are highly characteristic of
the time ; they are quite conventional in feature and figure, and
are almost Byzantine in their stiff symmetry, their straight and
clear-cut outlines, and tendency to attenuated forms. The
head-dresses are set, the faces flat and staring, and the lines
that represent the folds of drapery are sharp and angular,
sometimes almost parallel as they fall from the waist down-
ward, to break in stiff folds about the feet with their pointed
shoes.
108 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
Before we pass to the history and literature of the Lancas*-
trian era, it will be well to review, briefly, the general condition
of Europe at the close of the fourteenth and beginning of the
fifteenth century: At no other period does the intimate con-
nection that subsisted between the states of Catholic Christen-
dom become more apparent, the subtle sympathy that bound
them together in such a manner that movements originating in
any one were soon propagated among the others, so that they
all underwent similar changes at about the same time; the
working of a like spirit can be perceived at once in all.
In Spain, the ferocious dynastic struggle already alluded to
reached its^crisis in the year 1369, when Pedro the Cruel was
slain by the hand of his half-brother, Henry of Trastamar,
a son of Leonora de Guzman. The new monarch mounted an
uneasy throne ; he and his descendants were involved in inter-
mittent wars with England and Portugal, which latter power
meanwhile underwent a similar dynastic change. The Duke of
Lancaster married Pedro's daughter, and advanced her claim
to the crown of Castile. When the papal schism broke out, the
Spanish states for a while stood neutral ; but French interest
brought them at last to recognize the Avignonese pope. Eng-
land and Portugal, on the contrary, professed obedience to the
Roman pontiff, Urban VI ; and he granted an indulgence to
any who should aid the Duke of Lancaster in his contest with
the usurping king of Castile. Henry's son, John I, suffered a
severe defeat at the hands of the Portuguese in 1385, which
rendered his position so difficult that he had to propose a com-
promise by which the rival claims to the crown were reconciled ;
he married his young son, Henry, to the Duke's daughter. His
death soon after plunged Spain into years of civil strife ; during
the minority of the boy-king the great nobles and prelates con-
tended for the regency : among the latter one at least, the
archbishop of Santiago, held to the Roman pope. It may be
that this fact contains the secret of the political confusion of
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 109
those years. Peace was attained only when the young king
assumed full power, which he enhanced by a bold stroke of
statecraft. During those tumultuous times flourished one who
was to be their chronicler Pedro Lopez de Ayala, courtier,
chancellor, soldier, and chief, if not the only distinguished man
of letters of his nation in that age. He translated into Spanish
the works of Livy and Boethius, the " Morals " of Pope
Gregory I, and Boccaccio's " Falls of Princes," and wrote a
moralizing poem, " El Rimado de Palacio," in which he
described, quite in Gower's vein, but with occasional touches
of the humor that Gower lacked, the duties of rulers, the cor-
ruption of the age, and the need of reform. He died in 1407
a year before the English poet.
The schism in the papacy was the supreme concern of the
period, and it is highly probable that it may serve, to a degree
not generally realized, as a clue to the labyrinth of contem-
porary politics. It should not be forgotten that Urban VI
came to the chair as a reforming pope. Catherine of Siena,
the spiritual heroine, the most noted and influential woman of
her day, engaged herself heart and soul in his cause. But he
was sadly unequal to his opportunity ; the severity with which
he began his reforms was akin to mania ; false to his trust, he
soon abandoned himself to shameful nepotism ; became em-
broiled with the queen of Naples, and made the conquest of
her kingdom the end and aim of his pontificate. Foiled in
spite of desperate efforts, he had to flee to Genoa ; there he
caused five cardinals whom he suspected of conspiracy against
him to be strangled. It was whispered then, and has since
been generally believed that his mind was unbalanced. His
successor, Boniface IX, was a remarkably able man. At his
accession, anathemas were cordially exchanged with his rival
of Avignon, from whose obedience he succeeded erelong in
detaching the kingdom of Naples. His interference precipi-
tated a revolution in German politics, and indications are not
110 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
wanting that he was an agent in the dynastic change in England.
The peace that Richard II made with France in 1396 drew him
into relations, at least of negotiation, with the Avignonese pope
Benedict XIII. This was the time when attempts were made
by several governments, greatly to the annoyance of both
popes, to induce them to resign. Boniface had already had
occasion to remonstrate with Richard in regard to his ecclesi-
astical policy. After the conclusion of the unpopular peace
above mentioned, it will be remembered that Richard appre-
hended certain of his opponents and banished others. Among
the latter was Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury,
whose powerful influence was largely instrumental in raising
Henry of Lancaster to the throne of England in Richard's
stead. Immediately after this revolution in the government
Arundel was restored to his see by Boniface IX. Hostilities
were renewed between England and France ; Henry relied
upon the church for support ; and Boniface, as if emboldened
by the belief that he had a firmer hold upon the nation than
before, revoked certain concessions that he had formerly
granted.
The troubled reign of Wenzel, king of Bohemia, and until
his deposition in 1400, king of the Romans and emperor-elect,
almost exactly coincided in duration with the papal schism.
Wenzel was rude even to brutality, and coarse in his pleasures
but perhaps his character was not as black as it has been
painted by clerical odium. He was unable to cope with the
turbulence of the great nobles, and though he overawed them
once by a stroke of policy similar to that practised at the same
period in England and Spain, his partial and temporary success
was equivalent to failure, and left him hated and suspected, and
in worse condition than before. But when he joined the king
of France in urging the rival popes to abdicate, the measure of
his iniquity was full ; Boniface retorted by commanding the
electors to choose another emperor. The result was fresh
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Ill
confusion in that age of countless schisms ; there was a division
in the college : the electors of the Rhine were in the papal
interest, and chose Rupert of the Palatinate ; those of the
north and east preferred Frederick of Saxony ; so for a moment
there were three shadowy emperors in the field, but the
number was almost instantly reduced by the assassination of
Frederick. Wenzel died in 1419 not without suspicion of
foul play.
In the far north-east of Europe profound political changes
took place. After the extinction of the Piast dynasty, Jagello,
duke of Lithuania, was called to the throne of Poland, and
devoted his energies through a long reign to the depression of
the power of the Teutonic knights. At Tannenberg, in the
year 1410, the order suffered a defeat from which it never
recovered ; and thus the glory of another great institution of
the Middle Ages passed away.
Meantime, confusion verging upon anarchy reigned in the
dominions of the House of Austria. The young duke, Albert
IV, died in 1404, entrusting to his cousins, William and Leo-
pold, the guardianship of his son, Albert V, then a mere infant.
William's death, in 1406, was the signal for civil strife ; Leopold
was involved in disputes with his younger brother, the intract-
able Ernest, at the head of a powerful faction. The spirit of
feudalism broke out once more ; the nobles were all in arms ;
for five years the land was desolated with civil war ; commerce
and agriculture declined ; robbers infested the highways, it
was the darkest hour in the history of the duchy. It was also
a school of hard political experience for the young Albert, who
assumed control of the government upon Leopold's death, in
1411. He proved to be a sagacious ruler, restored peace and
prosperity to his country, and laid the foundations of the future
grandeur of his house.
While the condition of Austria was beginning to improve,
that of France was rapidly approaching the lowest degree of
112 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
humiliation that her annals record. Her king, Charles VI,
was demented ; his queen was an evil woman, and exerted a
pernicious influence upon state affairs ; the conduct of govern-
ment was a prize that was contended for by raging factions
under the lead of the rival dukes of Burgundy and Orleans ;
and the people were wretched. If anything beside self-interest
guided the policy of Louis of Orleans it was his devotion to the
cause of Pope Benedict XIII : with his help Benedict escaped
from his palace at Avignon, where he had been imprisoned for
years by the royal troops, in the spring of 1403, and shortly
after the kingdom returned to his obedience. The fortunes
of both pope and duke rose and fell together ; in the fall of
1407 Louis was foully murdered, and Benedict erelong had to
flee into Spain. For the next seven years the power of the
duke of Burgundy was, upon the whole, in the ascendant.
He favored a conciliar settlement of the papal controversy ;
the city of Pisa, lately conquered by Florence, was offered by
that republic as an eligible site for the proposed synod ; there,
in the year 1409, the fathers met, and, dominated by the
genius of Jean Gerson, declared the rival pontiffs heretics,
schismatics, and perjurers, deposed them both, and elected in
their stead an aged Greek cardinal, who took the title of
Alexander V. The Roman and Spanish popes, however,
refused to accept the character given them by the fathers at
Pisa ; and for years the church and the world were scandalized
by the intrigues and mutual anathemas of three popes. Mean-
while, in France, the Orleanist party was reorganized under
the headship of the Count d'Armagnac, by whose name it was
subsequently known ; civil war broke out, and the Armagnacs,
crushed by the Burgundians, appealed for aid in their despair
to Henry IV of England. The year following he died, and his
son, Henry V, thinking that France in her distracted state was
ripe for subjugation, revived the obsolete claims of Edward III,
and landed with an army at the mouth of the Seine in the
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 113
summer of 1415. The Armagnacs now made amends for their
disloyalty, and almost entirely by themselves withstood the
invader. The duke of Burgundy stood sullenly aloof, and saw
his compatriots worsted at Agin court ; but their ultimate suc-
cess was assured, for they had identified their cause with the
nation's. The siege and capture of Rouen by the English
monarch in the winter of 1419, and his imminent advance upon
Paris, brought about a temporary cessation of party strife ; but
the barbarous murder of the duke of Burgundy at the very
moment when reconciliation seemed accomplished plunged his
country into an abyss of humiliation ; for his son, the young
Duke Philip, opened his arms to the English, and with the
cooperation of the queen, and amid the plaudits of the people
of Paris, concluded with Henry V in the spring of 1420 the
amazing treaty of Troyes, by which the succession to the throne
of France was signed away to the English king, to the exclu-
sion of the dauphin. It was many years before the French
monarchy, consecrated anew by the vision, heroic action, and
piteous death of the Maid of Orleans, resolved the jarring
notes of party hatred into harmony, and led France slowly up
to power and prosperity again.
At the commencement of the struggle between the Burgun-
dians and the Armagnacs, in the year 1410, died Jean Frois-
sart, the singer and chronicler of a brighter day ; and a few
years later another representative of the French literature of the
fourteenth century passed away Eustache Deschamps, author
of innumerable ballads and rondeaus. Their younger contem-
poraries, Christine de Pisan and Alain Chartier, more deeply
impressed by the accumulating evils of the time, moralized in
prose and verse. Productions characteristic of the period were
prose works on morals and manners, which laid down rules of
conduct and illustrated the effects of good and bad behavior.
But perhaps the most significant product of the age was the
" Morality," or moral-play, which made the Devil, the Vice, and
114 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
the Deadly Sins enact their parts upon the stage, and engaged
them in allegorical combat with the Virtues. This develop-
ment in the drama becomes full of meaning when placed in its
proper setting, in the period out of which it sprang.
In spite of this manifest vitality of French literature, it must
be admitted that the literary supremacy of the fourteenth
century belonged to Italy and England in turn. The names
of the great English authors of the last half of that century
are the only ones that can be mentioned with those of the
great Italians of the first half without a painful sense of
incongruity.
It was during the short reign of Henry V that the schism in
the papacy was practically healed. The conscience of Europe
was thoroughly roused by the enormity of three popes excom-
municating and vilifying each other, and was determined to
put a stop to it. An ecumenical council one of the most
magnificent assemblies that ever met was convened at
Constance in the year 1414; and then began one of the
most impressive exhibitions of moral energy in the history of
civilization, a determined effort to reform abuses, and to
bring order out of chaos, the force of which was not spent for
more than a generation. The deliberations of the council were
guided by the eminent French doctors, Gerson and D'Ailly.
Its first important regulation was that the voting should be by
nations. It asserted as a fundamental principle that the
authority of councils is superior to that of popes. (Nicholas
of Clemanges, a learned Frenchman, and a friend of D'Ailly,
maintained in a pamphlet published about this time that the
authority of the Bible is over all.) The three contending
popes were unceremoniously set aside ; two of them eventually
submitted, but nothing could bend or break the will of the
Spaniard, Benedict XIII, in whose favor a temporary diver-
sion was made by the Armagnacs, then in power, and he
remained in schism until his death.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 115
Meanwhile, the fathers in council proceeded to their task
of extirpating heresy, which, they devoutly believed, was
accountable for many of the ills that plagued the church. In
the severity, the injustice, of their procedure, they were
actuated, doubtless, by an uneasy sense that they had gone
far along the road of what seemed to many startling innovations
in ecclesiastical polity, and that it behoved them to vindicate
their unimpeachable orthodoxy. So they made examples of
two conspicuous Bohemian reformers, John Huss and Jerome
of Prague, who had trodden in Wyclif 's footsteps. The writings
of Wyclif had long been well known in the University of Prague,
and his opinions had been sown broadcast throughout Bohemia.
In his preaching Huss had inveighed against the wealth, luxury,
and immorality of the clergy, and the abuse of indulgences,
but he had gone no further ; at his examination it was attempted
to entangle him in errors concerning the sacrament of the
altar, but touching that point no fault could be found in him.
Nevertheless he was burnt at the stake.
Contrary to the desire of the German delegates, who urged
that the promised reform of the church " in head and members "
should next be undertaken, the council hastened the election
of a new pope, and the choice of the cardinals fell upon a
member of the proud Roman family of Colonna, who received
the homage of the assembled fathers as Pope Martin V.
Reform was bruited no more ; and after making arrangements
for a future council, that of Constance was dismissed by the
new pontiff with fair words, in the year 1417. One little event
in the session of that last year a contest for precedence
between the ambassadors of France and England is of
interest to us : the Englishman asserted his right to precede
as the representative of a nation that had been converted to
Christianity by Joseph of Arimathea, years before there were
any converts in Gaul.
Benedict XIII still maintaining that in him alone was the
116 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
true church died in the year 1424, and the little knot of
cardinals whom he had created, and who remained faithful to
him to the last, chose as his successor a canon of Barcelona,
who called himself Clement VIII. For a time he was sup-
ported, on political grounds, by the king of Aragon ; but in
1428 he submitted to Martin V and the schism of half a
century was healed.
Terrible religious wars had broken out in Bohemia as a
result of the mistaken attitude of the council of Constance
towards the reforms of Huss. His followers now went further
than he, and demanded that in the communion the cup should
be administered to the laity. The revolt was quite beyond the
slowly reviving papal power to suppress, and the reluctant
pope had to bow to the decree of Constance, and summon a
council. It assembled at Basel, in 1431. The above-mentioned
controversy over precedence was renewed, this time with the
Castilian ambassador; arguments for and against the mission
of Joseph of Arimathea were brought forward on both sides,
the English adducing " many ancient testimonies" William
of Malmesbury's, doubtless, among the number.
The council of Basel met partly to continue, partly to undo,
whether for good or evil, the work of its predecessor. It
reaffirmed the supremacy of councils in ecclesiastical matters,
and succeeded for a season in humiliating the new pope,
Eugenius IV. Its departure from the practice of voting by
nations, however, lost it the adhesion of the English clergy,
who in convocation determined to obey the pope. The council
admitted a deputation from Bohemia, and for the sake of peace
acceded to its demands. It also promulgated certain reforma-
tory decrees, which were recognized, for a time at least, in
France and Germany. But its influence began steadily to
wane from the time when, in its keen conflict with Eugenius IV,
who had convened a rival synod, it declared him deposed, and
chose another pope. Europe was weary of schisms. The
OF ENGLISH LITER A TU.
council, weakened by defections to the party of., Eugenius,
removed, in 1443, to Lausanne ; it lingered on, an ever-
diminishing remnant, until 1449, when it was glad to accept
overtures of peace made by his successor, Nicholas V. The
conciliar epoch was over, and the jubilee of 1450 celebrated
the completion of the papal restoration.
An earnest, almost pathetic reversion to the antique type of
ascetic piety accompanied and adorned this restitution of the
old ecclesiastical order. It was an attempt, foredoomed to
speedy failure, to retrieve the mediaeval ideal of life which had
lately paled before the sunny ideal of the Renascence. It was
inspired, without doubt, by a desire to countervail the errors of
heretical piety. Within a few years after the papal schism
there came into the world a number of pious souls that were
destined to be powerful agents in the work of Catholic reforma-
tion in the fifteenth century. Bernardino of Siena and John of
Capistrano, Franciscans, by their self-denying lives and fiery
preaching recalled the primitive zeal of their order. Bernardino
refused bishopric after bishopric, believing that by preaching
from city to city throughout Italy he could save more souls.
John of Capistrano preached at large in Italy, and went on
missions into Germany and Austria. A French girl, Colette
Boilet, began a reform in the sisterhood of St. Clara, which
she carried through successfully in the teeth of angry and
contemptuous opposition. She won the regard of Benedict XIII,
who appointed her superior of her order. Her reformed rule,
first adopted in Savoy, made its way into Burgundy, and at last
into Spain and Flanders. Another pious woman, a Roman
widow named Francesca, a mistress of the art of self-mortifica-
tion, and endowed with the faculty of seeing visions, became
the founder of a new order for her sex. In the year 1425 she
formed a convent which grew so rapidly in numbers and
reputation that in 1437 it was erected into an order, that of
Collatines, by Eugenius IV. The most vivid lights of this
118 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
ascetic revival were the sainted archbishops of Florence and
Venice, Antonio, later known as Antoninus, and Lorenzo
Giustiniani. The former was indeed a noble soul, self-denying
in the extreme, but lenient to others, a friend of the poor and
the sick, an earnest preacher. He was a Dominican, and
before his elevation to the archbishopric was prior of the
monastery of San Marco, among whose inmates in his time
was the beatified painter, Fra Angelico of Fiesole, whose
frescoes exquisitely reveal the ideal of the devout spirits of his
day. Lorenzo Giustiniani, a young Venetian nobleman, had a
vision in his nineteenth year that diverted all his thoughts
from the delights of a worldly life to the monastic ideal. He
tested his constancy by lying all night on knotty sticks, and at
last fled to an island monastery to avoid a match that his
widowed mother proposed for him, and never visited his
home again until she lay dying. He practised the utmost
austerities that one could endure and live. He bore the heats
of summer without repining, hoping to escape the more intoler-
able heat of hell, and in midwinter refused the comfort of a
fire. Called from his convent to the bishopric of Venice, the
greatest luxury he permitted himself in his new state was a bed
of straw. From the first, his zeal in the performance of his
new duties, his cogent preaching, his self-immolating spirit,
made the breath of a fresh spiritual life felt throughout his
populous diocese, and churches and religious institutions were
multiplied. The last eminent exponent of this Catholic reforma-
tion was Francis of Paula, on the Calabrian coast. He was
much younger than the men and women just noticed, having
been born at the very close of the papal schism. At the age
of fifteen years he began a hermit's life in a cavern by the sea.
Gradually a little community gathered around him; in 1454 a
church and monastery were erected ; and erelong the brother-
hood obtained the pope's approval as the order of Friars
Minims. Francis visited Sicily, Naples, and Rome, and passed
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 119
on urgent invitation into France, where he became spiritual
adviser to three successive kings.
The English kings of the House of Lancaster were involved
in the perplexities and miseries of the age of schisms ; it was
left for the rival House of York to participate in the general
restoration of order throughout Europe by sovereign authority.
Perhaps the most memorable circumstance connected with the
history of the Lancastrian line is the decided increase of power
that parliament then enjoyed. Freedom of debate was con-
ceded to it, and its right to determine the privileges of its
members was recognized. It guarded the public expenditure,
and exercised control even over the royal household. These
facts are to be viewed in their relation to the significant fact
that the House of Lancaster held by parliamentary title purely ;
not to Henry IV but to the young Edmund Mortimer did the
crown belong by hereditary right.
Henry's foreign policy was, naturally, a reversal of that of
Richard II ; at her father's demand, Richard's child-widow,
Isabella, was sent back to France, but without her dowry;
and the treaty between the two kingdoms was ruptured. Henry
did not live long enough to take advantage to the full of his
neighbor's intestinal conflicts ; for great part of his reign he
was kept busy at home by warfare upon the Scotch and Welsh
borders, and by the menacing attitude of the Earl of Northum-
berland, head of the great family of the Percys, chief repre-
sentatives of the feudal nobility of that day, who, having been
largely instrumental in raising Henry to the throne, conceived
a grudge against him, and, fired with the ambition of a king-
maker, conspired to dispossess him, and bestow the crown
upon Mortimer. On three several occasions Northumberland
rose in arms against his liege ; on the last of these, in the year
1408, he met his death, but his ally, Owen Glendower, still
held out in North Wales.
Scotland had her full share of the portentous crimes and
120 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
vicissitudes of those dark times. Her well-intentioned but
weak king, Robert III, resigned the conduct of affairs to his
ambitious brother, whom, in the year 1398, he created duke
of Albany. David, heir-apparent to the crown, a worthless
young man, was done to death by his uncle's orders in Falkland
Castle, and Robert, fearful of the safety of his remaining son,
James, sought a refuge for him in France but on his way
thither, in 1405, the young prince was intercepted by the
English, and was lodged in the Tower of London. This last
blow broke his father's heart.
By the year 1411, Henry found himself in condition to
interfere cautiously in the strife of Burgundian and Armagnac,
but now his health began to fail: he was subject to attacks
of epilepsy, and early in the spring of 1413 he died, leaving to
his spirited son (with what success we know) the prosecution
of his designs upon unhappy France.
Henry V was detained by an alarming demonstration on the
part of the Lollards, and by a plot to overthrow his government
and raise Mortimer to the throne, before he could make his
descent upon the French coast, and emulate, even outdo the
achievements of his illustrious ancestor, Edward III. The
glories of his brief reign were too transient to initiate a new
literary epoch, to do more than cast a passing gleam athwart
the sombre history of his house ; his dazzling successes left his
infant son only a heritage of disaster. The story of Henry VI's
long reign is, outwardly, that of the slow decay of English
power in France ; inwardly, of misgovernment verging upon
anarchy, degenerating at last into civil war. For a few years
all went well : Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, brother of the
late king, was appointed by parliament protector of the realm,
and his elder brother John, duke of Bedford, regent in France.
A politic act of the new government was the liberation of the
Scottish king, James I, after his long detention of more than
eighteen years ; he pledged himself to preserve peace with
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 121
England, and the treaty was cemented by his marriage with
the Lady Joan Beaufort, a cousin of Henry V. Thus the
French lost a useful ally. James returned to his native land
in the spring of 1424 to begin administrative and legal reforms
that promised to open a new era of order and prosperity in his
distracted kingdom but his enlightened designs were cut
short by his barbarous assassination in the year 1437.
For the first five years of Bedford's able regency the prestige
of the English arms continued unabated : it was even enhanced
by the battle of Verneuil in 1427 a victory that recalled the
palmy days of Henry V. But in the same year the young
French patriot Dunois achieved his first conspicuous success
at Montargis the first of a series of solid though not brilliant
successes that resulted after many years in the utter discom-
fiture of the English and their expulsion from reconstituted
France. In 1428, Bedford began his ill-fated siege of Orleans;
the city was defended by Dunois and succoured by Joan of
Arc : her vision and his steadfastness regenerated the nation.
From that time the tide of English power began steadily to
ebb, and the decline was rather accelerated than stayed by the
Maid's pitiable martyrdom at Rouen. Bedford's death in 1435
broke the last tie that bound the duke of Burgundy to the
English cause, and he made his peace with the French king,
who shortly after recovered his capital of Paris.
Meantime, at home, there was angry contention between
Humphrey of Gloucester and his uncle, the cardinal-bishop of
Winchester, one standing for a continuance of the war, the
other for peace. The logic of events, and such influence as
the meek young king was able to exert, favored the latter policy,
and in 1444 a truce was agreed upon with France, which was
signalized the next year by Henry's marriage with Margaret,
daughter of Rene of Anjou. By a secret article in the
treaty the English possessions in Maine and Anjou were
restored to the new queen's family.
122 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
In this interval of quiet, Charles VII carried out an extremely
important measure, the formation of a standing army ; and
in 1449 he seized the first opportunity that offered to resume
the war. He sent Dunois into Normandy, and town after town
submitted to him; in 1450, Cherbourg, the last possession of
the English in that quarter, was wrested from them.
These disheartening reverses, and the waste of taxation in
prosecuting so unfortunate a war, added to the unpopularity of
Queen Margaret, the suspicion engendered by the cession of
Maine, and the penury and monstrous indebtedness of the
crown, caused great commotion in England ; a popular insur-
rection broke out that resembled that of 1381. The general
discontent was not allayed when in 1451 Dunois overran
Guienne. The year following, Richard, duke of York, heir to
the royal claim of the house of Mortimer, as if representing
the national will, demanded a reform in the government. A
temporary diversion was made in favor of the English in
Guienne, but in 1453 the troops of Charles VII closed
round them again ; they were driven from Bordeaux and
Bayonne, and Calais with its environs remained the last shred
of their French possessions.
These disasters deranged King Henry's feeble intellect, and
parliament appointed the duke of York protector of the realm.
But about Christmas-tide, 1454, Henry enjoyed a restoration
of reason, and Richard was deprived of his authority. He
forthwith raised an army, and met and defeated the royal
forces at St. Alban's in May, 1455, taking the king himself
captive. This was the first of a long series of sanguinary
battles in which victory almost invariably inclined to the side
of the Yorkists, and in which the genius of feudalism was
extinguished.
Again his troubles disordered Henry's understanding, and
again the duke of York was made protector. In 1456 the
king recovered, and a hollow reconciliation of the contending
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 123
parties was effected ; for a few years an ominous quiet was
preserved. But in 1459 the inevitable conflict between a wan-
ing and a rising cause broke out afresh : the Yorkists were
victorious at Bloreheath, and the next year at Northampton ;
and the duke's title to the crown was admitted by the Lords.
The inflexible Margaret, however, gathered an army in the
north and won a victory at Wakefield ; Richard fell in the bat-
tle, and his head, contemptuously circled with a paper crown,
was stuck upon the walls of York. His son Edward, now
duke, a good soldier, though but nineteen years of age, partly
avenged his death at the battle of Mortimer's Cross, in the
winter of 1461, and marching straightway to London mounted
the throne, amid the rejoicings of the citizens, as King Edward
IV. Immediately after, in conjunction with his cousin, the
Earl of Warwick, he established his power by a fearful slaughter
of the Lancastrians on the field of Towton.
The poetry of the Lancastrian period was affected by the
evil fortunes of the House. It presents to our view the grad-
ual decay of the literary enthusiasm inherited from the four-
teenth century. It is afflicted with the garrulity and prolixity
of age ; and a deadly blight steals over it with the increasing
disorders of Henry VI's hopeless reign. The most attractive
quality of the representative poets of the age is, perhaps, their
reverent affection for the memory of Chaucer, but their linger-
ing didacticism gives evidence that they derived more from
Gower, whose name they constantly coupled with Chaucer's.
Among their most characteristic and readable verses are their
confessions of a wasted youth ; the emotion of regret and
penitence in these has a ring of sincerity that makes them
start out from the mass of mediocre and imitative versification
in which they are imbedded.
John Lydgate, monk and scholar, illustrates well the back-
ward look, the longing to have walked and talked with Chaucer,
that was his finest inspiration, in the prologue to his volumi-
124 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
nous " Story -of Thebes." He offers it to us as the last of the
Canterbury tales. He pictures himself as riding in his black
cope on a slender palfrey with a rusty bridle, to visit the shrine
of St. Thomas, and perform his vows after a recovery from
sickness. It befell that he entered the town soon after Chaucer
and his pilgrims had arrived there, and that he sought enter-
tainment at the very inn where they were. The Host
demanded his name, and invited him to join his party ; the
following morning, when they were a bow-shot out of town,
he called on Lydgate not to preach, but to tell a tale, "of
effect of joy " :
4< And as I coude, with a pale chere,
My tale I gan anone, as ye shal here."
It is the story of CEdipus, and of the unbrotherly struggle of
" Ethiocles and Polimite." It was a parable for its author's
own times ; despite the Host's precaution, Lydgate concealed
under the sweetness of rhyme a homiletic motive ; at the con-
clusion of the tale he expresses his conviction that Lucifer is
the originator of war.
That mixture of Christian and classic, that vision of antiquity
through the medium of chivalry, which was so characteristic
of the Renascence, is exhibited in this and other of Lyd-
gate's works. The compromise between the royal brothers
by which they agree to reign in alternate years is confirmed
by "othe of Sacrament." Tydeus is the best knight of the
world ; at his marriage all the Barons are present. When they
prepare for war, the worthy Bishop Amphiorax prophesies a
terrible slaughter of princes. Lydgate's "Testament" opens
with praise of the name of Jesus, who brought many souls
out of hell, in spite of Cerberus ; he is our Samson, our
Orpheus.
The piece last mentioned continues with a pretty but con-
ventional description of spring, to which childhood is compared,
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 125
and thus a transition is effected to the main business of the
poem a piteous disburdening of a sensitive conscience by a
confession of youthful shortcoming for which Jesus' absolution
is implored. As a boy the poet was headstrong and loath to
learn ; late at school, chattering and trifling, he would forge a
lie to cover up a fault. He stole apples ; no hedge or wall
restrained him ; he was readier to pluck grapes off other men's
vines than to say matins. He was a wanton ape, scoffing and
scorning ; he misused his five senses, and would sooner
count cherry-stones than go to church or hear the sacring bell.
He was loath to get up in the morning, to go to bed at night.
He was the bell-wether of truants. After he had entered the
monastic life, like Lot's wife he often looked back. He took
little heed of Benedict's rule, wore a black habit and was
a counterfeit, was disobedient, intemperate, the last at choir
until one day he saw a crucifix painted on a cloister-wall and
beside it the single word VIDE. From the impression at that
moment received he dated his conversion.
For Henry V, Lydgate composed a version of the tale of
Troy a popular subject, as we have seen, among readers who
traced the history of their island up to a king of Trojan
descent. For Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, he composed
another long poem, " The Falls of Princes," based upon
Boccaccio's work : a politico-moral subject appropriate to the
age. In the writings of his French contemporary also, the
didactic Alain Chartier, Lydgate found a congenial spirit
Bred in an age of schisms, of extraordinary vicissitudes, it
is no wonder that he was profoundly impressed by the muta-
bility of the world, the instability of human affairs. "All
stands in change like a midsummer rose " is the refrain of one
of his poems ; and of another, " All worldly thinge turneth as
a ball." Fortune and her wheel play a leading part in his
drama of life ; universal history seems to him simply the record
of her caprices : where are Pyrrhus, Alexander, and Seneca,
126 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
he cries, where Rome and Carthage? it is as Fortune would :
she is the disposer. She is a great goddess, the empress of
this world, that is why it is so variable. Death casts down
princes from her wheel : witness the fate of Absalom, Hector,
Caesar, Belshazzar, Henry V. A curious piece, of contraries
all compact, gives one the impression of a mind confused,
without a clue to the labyrinth of life, helpless before the
riddle of the world, its oppositions, difficulties, and disappoint-
ments : " The more I go, the further behind I am ; the more I
seek, the less can I find ; the longer I serve, the more out of
mind : is this fortune, or is it infortune ? A weary peace, and
peace amid the war ; a weeping laughter, a merry glad weep-
ing ; the more I run, the more way I lose ; is this fortune, or
is it infortune ? A troubled joy, a joyful heaviness ; a sobbing
song, a cheerful distress ; trusty deceit, faithful deception ;
now light, now heavy, now sorrow, now gladness : how escape
these puzzling contrarieties ? By faith in God ; Christ's pas-
sion shall reclaim us in spite of false fortune." Elsewhere he
explains that there can be no " steadfast living " for man, made
as he is of the four elements, of four humors that alter with
the seasons ; in the midst of this perpetual change it is a
relief to lift one's eyes to the constant heavens, to think of the
Lord who is eternal, who sits so far above the seven stars in
his most imperial palace.
Lydgate's didactic vein crops out with exceeding plainness
in his "Dietary," or Rules for Preserving Health, a com-
pend of popular philosophy : " Rise from meat with an appe-
tite . . . don't grumble at meals . . . beware of rear-suppers !
. . . don't drink between meals . . . too much salt meat is
injurious to delicate stomachs ... be moderate in diet, have
compassion on the needy, and live at peace with all men." One
of the best of his short poems is his " Counsel to an old man
on marriage with a young wife," in which he answers the old
man's arguments for such marriage. Another, " On the horned
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 127
head-dresses of ladies," is a dissuasive from an extravagant
fashion of the day. In pieces like these one can mark the
natural and easy transition from a didactic to a satirical spirit
and style, exemplified in a fable of two cows, Chychevache
and Bycorne, the first of which feeds on debonair wives and is
lean, the last on patient husbands, and is fat ; in the well-
known ballad, * London Lickpenny,' which gives us an enter-
taining glimpse into the streets of the capital in that far-off
day ; and in an ironical rhyme in which the poet returns to the
charge against his times : the world is stable princes are
righteous knights true priests perfect " even as the crab
goeth forward " ; law is incorruptible there 's no envy in
cloisters laborers are never idle women have banished
new-fangledness the hungry are fed, the naked clothed
heretics have left their frowardness and all 's "as straight as
a ram's horn."
In the collection of Lydgate's minor poems may be found
one, a love-poem, to the authorship of which he assuredly can
lay no claim. It is known that many fugitive pieces of the
fifteenth century were attributed to him ; and there is evidence
that some anonymous songs and ballads of that time were
written by women. The subject of the poem referred to is
" A Maiden's Complaint" ; in it we read, without question, a
woman's heart ; it is eloquent with passionate yet delicate
feeling. "We played and gathered flowers in the mead
together as children, he and I, and love then gave me for
my reward a knot in heart of remembrance that will never
come undone. And yet I have set my heart where, in all
likelihood, I shall never find favor, so great is the difference
between his manhood and my simpleness. I shall love him
best notwithstanding : would to God that he knew the truth,
how often I sigh for his sake ! His countenance, his figure,
his bearing are ever present in my sight ; in his absence I can
never be happy, without his love I can never be at rest. He
128 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
is and has been from my tender years my chosen knight, though
he knows it not. Imprinted in my inward thought until I die,
he shall never depart out of my heart, whose only solace is
waking or sleeping to dream of him."
One of the finest ballads of the fifteenth century (though
the first draught of it we possess is an inferior version of a
later age) is that of " Chevy Chase," an account of the bold
Lord Percy's hunting-party upon the Cheviot Hills, in the
midst of which he is encountered by the Douglas and his men;
the rival champions fall in deadly combat, and a frightful
slaughter ensues. It is impossible to fix the date of this event,
so contradictory are the historical allusions in the. poem ;
it seems like a confused echo of several border battles. It
presents to our minds a vivid picture of the lawlessness and
bloodshed, the ferocity relieved with rare touches of magna-
nimity, that characterized those turbulent times. It is an epic
in miniature.
In Lydgate's day Moralities, or Moral-plays, were introduced
into England ; three specimens of such plays, known to belong
to the reign of Henry VI, are still extant.
For the canons of St. Paul's, London, Lydgate composed a
version of the " Dance of Death," to be illustrated by designs
upon the cloister wall. The grotesque subject was exceedingly
popular at that epoch, in both verse and painting, throughout
Christendom. For the abbot of St. Albans he wrote a met-
rical life of the patron saint of that ancient and celebrated
monastery.
Lydgate was still living, at an advanced age, in the year
1446. About that time, Osbern of Bokenham, Norfolk, an
Augustinian friar, wrote in unpolished verse a set of lives of
famous female saints for some noble ladies, his patronesses.
Thomas Occleve, a close contemporary of Lydgate's, less of a
poet than he but more of one than Osbern, seems like a
shadow of the stronger master in his devotion to Chaucer,
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 129
his retrospective, moralizing vein, his depressing sense of the
uncertainty of things, his diffuse and prolix style. In a short
poem, "La Male Regie" (Mis-Rule) he makes melancholy
confession of youthful indiscretions, which have brought him
to poverty and sickness. Youthful lusts led him astray ; now
he would return to obedience. Venus' family enticed him,
wine and " thick wafers " ; he was a tavern-haunter. He would
go to bed full of liquor, and rise late : he was a mirror of riot.
He paid the taverners and cooks at Westminster gate just what
they asked, and so was taken for a "very gentleman " ; thence
home by water he would pay the boatmen well and be called
" master,"- oh treacherous flattery ! Erelong his purse grew
light, excess exiled the coin. Then came sickness to restrain
his indulgence, and he found himself in debt. The poem ends
with an invocation to the god of health, and in significant
proximity to it is another "Au Roy," piteously entreating a
flood of royal largess to relieve his distress. Confession and
petition are repeated in his long poem, " The Governail of
Princes," dedicated to Henry V. This is a free rendering of
a mediaeval Latin treatise ; it is an " art of government,"
another of those politico-moral subjects adapted to the time.
In the lengthy introduction he prefixed to it, Occleve bemoans
the mutations of the world, the inroads of heresy, the extrav-
agance of fashion, and the irregular payment of his annuity,
by which he is sometimes reduced to great straits ; he pays a
touching tribute to Chaucer's memory, which he echoes in the
body of the work. He lived long enough to direct his worship
to the rising sun of York ; in an address, doubtless to the
Duke Richard, which must have been composed about the year
1449, he recommends himself to the Princess his wife and to
Prince Edward, and prays the Trinity for a thousand years of
happiness for them all.
In Scotland, the literary impulse exerted by John Barbour
had effect early in the fifteenth century in a rhymed history,
130 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
" The Oryginale Cronykil of Scotland," written by Andrew of
Wyntoun, prior of St. Serf's monastery, Loch Leven. It is in
nine books, "in honor of the nine orders of angels," and was
called " Original " because it began with the creation. It
extends to the death of Robert III, in 1406.
Of Chaucer's immediate followers the Scottish king, James
I, was the most poetical. None made the master's works the
subject of more loving study, none so thoroughly assimilated
their spirit. His main poem, " The King's Quair " (or Book),
is written in Chaucer's stanza, and abounds in reminiscences
of his works, but it is the story of his love a love that had
a happy ending, and the personal element in it is strong and
fresh enough to redeem it fully from the charge of mediocre
imitation. It was composed toward the close of his English
captivity.
The poet-king pictures himself reading Boethius, and medi-
tating on Fortune's inexplicable power, the insecurity of earthly
enjoyment, and his own loss of liberty. Looking from his
window (in Windsor Castle) into a fair garden below he hears
the birds sing hymns to Love, and wonders what this Love is.
Looking again, he sees a lovely lady walking in the garden
with her maids : is she the very goddess Nature ? He prays to
Venus, and calls on the nightingale to sing, but the lady goes
her way, and his day is turned to night. Suddenly a mystic
light streams in at the window, and he is caught up to the
lovers' heaven, Venus has heard his prayer, and receives him
graciously. She sends him, with Good Hope as guide, to
Minerva, who, on examination, finds that his love is virtuous,
gives him good advice (quoting Ecclesiastes), and instructs him
in the doctrine of Necessity and Free-Will. The lover then
descends to earth, and finds himself in a delicious garden along
a river running clear and cold over golden gravel ; he marks
the fishes that leap and play in its waters, their scales glittering
in the sun like fine mail, the rows of trees laden with delec-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 131
table fruit along its banks, and the divers animals that roam
around. At last he discovers a spot encircled with a wall, and
within it the great goddess Fortune and her wheel, under which
is an ugly pit that never gives up again those who fall into it ;
a crowd of folk cling to the wheel, some rising on it, some
almost dropping from it, some violently flung off. The god-
dess sets him on it, and pinches his ear so sharply that he
wakes from his dream. Going once more to his window, a
turtle-dove bearing a branch lights on his hand a favorable
omen ; and he blesses Fortune's axle-tree and wheel that have
whirled him so well. The poem ends, as was customary, with
an envoy, and a reference to the " superlative poets," Gower
and Chaucer, whose souls its royal author commends to the
bliss of heaven in a line that haunts the ear with a fine, far-off,
aeolian melody such as distinguishes mediaeval poetry at its
best; he who has never caught it has missed an exquisite
satisfaction, a pure and humanizing pleasure.
A very important strain of thought that gave tone to the
whole Lancastrian period to a degree scarcely appreciated even
by students was that of the followers of Wyclif. During the
reign of Richard II they increased so rapidly in numbers that
an ecclesiastical annalist could assert that " they were multi-
plied like suckers from the root of a tree and everywhere filled
the compass of the kingdom, insomuch that a man could not
meet two people on the road but one of them was a disciple of
Wyclif." The accession of the House of Lancaster was inaus-
picious to their cause ; Henry IV sought to strengthen his pre-
carious title by any means, principally by courting the favor of
the clergy, and this he found could be most surely gained by
oppressing the Lollards. Hence the famous statute of the year
1400 empowered a bishop to arrest any person suspected of
holding heretical opinions, to try him, and if convicted,
imprison him at pleasure ; and if, having recanted, he after-
ward relapsed, to deliver him to the sheriff to be burnt. John
132 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
Purvey, the reviser of Wyclif's Bible, bowed before the storm
and abjured his heresy ; but a martyr to the cause was soon
found in William Sautrey, a priest in London, upon whom the
awful sentence of deposition was accordingly carried out.
Paten, chalice, and chasuble were taken from him, in token of
his degradation from the priesthood ; New Testament and
lectionary, alb and stole, taper and church-keys symbols of
the diaconate were next taken away ; and clad in the simple
habit of a layman he was led to the stake and burnt alive.
Thus was consummated the first legalized murder for con-
science' sake in England. In 1407 another priest, William
Thorpe, was convicted of holding Lollards' opinions, and was
imprisoned : what finally became of him is not known. In
1410, Thomas Badby, a smith, found in error concerning the
capital point of transubstantiation, was burnt to death. And
yet, meanwhile, the parliament of the land was sufficiently
tinctured with Wyclif's opinions concerning church property to
propose the seizure of some of it. Archbishop Chichely actually
encouraged Henry V in his warlike projects in order to divert
the attention of the people from these questions. The rising
of the persecuted Lollards at the beginning of that king's reign
has been already mentioned ; their patron Oldcastle, a noble-
man, was marked out as a distinguished victim, but he
escaped from prison, and was not apprehended and put to
death until four years later.
The decrees of the Council of Constance stirred in England
fresh efforts to extirpate heresy. Wyclif's ashes were dug up
and vindictively cast into the brook that flows by Lutterworth.
An Inquisition was established, with Thomas Netter con-
fessor to Henry V, and a stalwart defender of orthodoxy at
its head. The learned John Capgrave, provincial of the English
branch of the Augustinian order, author of a lost life of St.
Gilbert, preserves in his English chronicle many curious items
concerning the Lollards which reveal beside his blind and
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 133
bitter prejudice against the sect. His chronicle ends about this
time, though he lived on to hail the accession of Edward IV.
In 1419, several Lollards were constrained to alter their
views. In 1424, two wandering priests were brought back to
the fold. The same year, James I returned to Scotland
which was honeycombed with the new heresy to copy there
the ecclesiastical policy of his Lancastrian gaolers. He made
friends of the clergy by procuring straightway the enactment of
a statute similar to the English one, under which Paul Craw, a
Hussite emissary, was burnt at St. Andrews in the year 1432.
At Oxford, in 1427, Bishop Flemyng of Lincoln founded the
college named after his see for the express purpose of training
young churchmen to combat Wyclifite error. This shows how
widespread and deep-rooted the new doctrines yet were, and
how inefficient the Inquisitors had proved themselves in the
odious business of suppressing them. Even if all these indica-
tions of Lollard strength were lacking, Bishop Pecock's great
work, " The Represser of Over-much Blaming of the Clergy,"
composed about the year 1449, wou ld stand as a monument to
the persistence of the sect. But while controverting many of
its tenets he manifested so tolerant a spirit toward others, and
broached views of his own so novel and startling that he soon
came. to be regarded as quite as great a troubler of the peace
of the church as the sectaries he opposed ; the archbishop of
Canterbury condemned his critical opinions, and he found
himself confronted by the dilemma of recantation or the fagot.
He grasped the former horn and threw his books into the fire.
Copies of them were also burnt at Oxford, where they had led
astray numbers of the best students. Now the pope, Pius II,
interposed in his behalf ; but only elicited from King Henry
VI fuller information as to the grounds of his deprivation, and
in 1459 t ne Y ear when the civil war broke out afresh poor
Pecock was sent to practical incarceration in a sequestered
abbey in Cambridgeshire. Of his after fate nothing is known.
134 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
VI.
IT commonly happens that in a vast cycle of the world's
history distinguished by definite characteristics from every
other there will occur a single epoch, perhaps a generation
only, in which those characteristics are so conspicuously
summed up that one can put his finger on the place and say :
This is the essence of the whole, the focus of every ray. Such
a comprehensive period will naturally occur toward the close
of a series of ages that have an inner harmony, for the series
will display its peculiar qualities more distinctly as it advances.
Just such a period, the quintessence of what we call the Middle
Ages, now stretches before us for the space of half a century,
from about 1460 to about 1510, including thus the reigns of
the Yorkist kings and the first Tudor.
Every age is of course an age of transition, but in the one
before us it is especially necessary to couple with this fact, that
at the end of the fifteenth century the ideas and institutions of
the Middle Ages came to full fruition, their inmost nature
standing revealed, this other fact, that there was not one of
them which the stream of time was not slowly dissolving away;
the mighty fabric of mediaeval civilization was settling down
upon its foundations, to be replaced by quite another structure.
These facts, if constantly borne in mind, will make many con-
trasts clear, many puzzling contradictions intelligible. From
its very richness and variety this complex era is difficult to
comprehend, more so than any we have yet encountered ;
but it will repay any pains taken in its study, for it holds the
keys to the next age, the marvellous sixteenth century ; it
determined the colossal movements of the Reformation era.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 135
The spirit of feudalism blazed forth with extraordinary bril-
liancy at the moment of its expiration : never were there more
commanding representatives of the feudal nobility than War-
wick the king-maker, Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and
Ferdinand, duke of Braganza, yet they fell before the irre-
sistible advance of new ideas, and their falls were the death-
throes of a system. Sovereigns and people combined, and
between those upper and nether millstones the ancient aris-
tocracy was ground to powder ; it was replaced by a court
nobility, a change indicative of a change in culture equally
profound.
Everywhere at this time strong, centralized governments
were emerging from amid the confusion of the passing age ;
governments that met brute force with deep dissimulation, that
overcame the anarchic independence of their vassals by playing
off one against another, by sowing suspicion among members
of a hostile coalition and detaching them one by one ; by tor-
tuous diplomacy, by employment of mean agents, by disguising
stealthy advances to arbitrary power under forms of law ; by
ruthless, exterminating cruelty when occasion offered ; by stand-
ing armies and the use of ordnance ; by rigid economy in
administration, and by encouragement of trade, thereby
gaining the interest of an opulent class and securing a revenue.
The development of a legal spirit, directing particular atten-
tion to the details of justice, was a prominent feature of the
time. And now, in the decrepitude of the empire, whose
" peace," noble ideal as it was, was unhappily seldom more
than a dream, the statesmen of Florence perfected a device
that was to take its place and exert a tremendous influence
upon the destinies of Europe, the theory of a " balance of
power," enforcing peace by common resistance to the aggres-
sions of an overweening foe, an end often attained only
through prodigious wars.
Now, too, intrepid Portuguese navigators were bringing
136 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
home knowledge of new lands, and unfolding prospects of a
golden commerce to the dazzled eyes of Europe.
To the papacy one more chance was given to retrieve itself,
to show of what worth it might be to the nations, and that
chance it made haste to squander miserably. Restored to its
place by the religious sentiment of Christendom, encircled with
a faint halo by the lives and works of a company of saintly
men and women, reformers of discipline, missionaries, preach-
ers, ascetics, visionaries, artists, freed completely from the
interference of emperors, the yet more fatal patronage of
French kings, it was left to itself for a season to work out its
salvation under highly favorable auspices. But hardly had
the salutary check of a general council been removed when it
began to manifest its deep-seated corruption and to speed upon
its downward career ; it became the appanage of a few power-
ful families who used it for their own aggrandizement ; the
supreme pontiffs themselves were luxurious, some of them
revoltingly immoral men, whose highest ambition was to extend
their secular sway ; and the Christian world was drained of gold
by disgraceful means, the German nation being bled above all
others, to support their pleasures, their sumptuous courts, and
their projects for disturbing the peace of Italy.
Scholastic philosophy now produced its last eminent doctor,
Gabriel Biel, lecturer in theology at the new University of
Tubingen. He reproduced Occam's doctrine of a Deity in-
comprehensible by man, whose attributes were mere accommo-
dations to the imbecility of the human intellect and could not
be proved to have any ground in his real nature. He made
explicit avowal of the doctrine that lay at the root of the
religious legalism of the Middle Ages when he defined a meri-
torious act as consisting of two elements, the free-will of the
doer, and divine grace. His fresh assertion of the efficacy of
sacraments without regard to the character of the recipient is
significant, as is his daring exaltation (connected therewith) of
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 137
the power of the priesthood. He was an enthusiastic propa-
gator of the doctrine of the immaculate conception.
At the same time the " new learning," coming in in a flood,
was rapidly undermining and sweeping away the relics of
the scholastic system. Monasticism, another overshadowing
institution of the Middle Ages, was likewise disintegrating.
Though outwardly it seemed stable, inwardly it was unsound ;
the reforming, disciplinary movement of the last age soon
spent its force, and its results, partial at best, passed away like
a vapor, and left the vast institution to disclose its inherently
evil tendencies ; it became hideously corrupt. The principal
agents in its dissolution were a reviving, eager appetite for
enjoyment of life, and a strengthening domestic sentiment.
The astrological and alchemical notions of ages germinated
afresh in this fecund period, close upon the dawn of modern
science (Copernicus was born in the year 1473). Astrologers
were indispensable functionaries at princes' courts ; astrologi-
cal figures were painted upon walls and ceilings and embroi-
dered upon garments ; almanacs were compiled and were in
great request ; the calculation of nativities was pursued with
ardor and without restraint, an ecclesiastic actually pre-
sumed to cast the horoscope of Christ. Another could assert
that his crucifixion was determined by the influence of the
stars, and a Bolognese physician could attribute his miracles to
the same influence, and still evade the Inquisition. So far did
the thought of the age decline from the ethical common-sense
of Gower. Among seekers for the philosopher's stone in this
century the most famous was the German, Basil Valentine,
more honorably distinguished by chemical discoveries of real
value made during his quest. Divination and magical prac-
tices flourished, some of them as disgusting as they were
ridiculous. The movements of the lions in princes' menag-
eries were studied with morbid curiosity and superstition, and
auguries drawn therefrom. At the bottom of all these notions
138 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
and practices lay the persuasion that every property, every
motion in the universe had some occult significance, some
bearing upon human destiny, some correspondence in the
frame of man.
The code of prosecutions for witchcraft was now developed
with scientific precision and minuteness of detail. The occa-
sion of this was the publication of a bull by Pope Innocent
VIII in the year 1484, calling attention to the late portentous
increase in the number of witches and recommending stringent
measures for its reduction. The year following, accordingly,
forty-one miserable beings were burnt at the town of Como
alone; and in 1489, the inquisitor Sprenger, having extracted
full confessions of the heinous practices of German witches,
classified them, and furnished elaborate details of the process
of conviction, in his " Witches' Hammer."
Never in the history of the Catholic church had there been
so superb a ceremonial, such triumphs of art, as glittered in
the last forty years of the fifteenth century ; the elaborate
rites, centering about the sacrifice of the mass, the ecclesias-
tical music and ornaments that were so wearisome, even offen-
sive to Wyclif s soul, were zealously cultivated, and restored to
more than their pristine magnificence. Evidence of the taste
of the time is afforded by the extraordinary demand that there
was for Durandus' great work, the " Rationale " of church
architecture, ornament, and dedication, vestments, the mass,
and other divine offices, festivals and saints' days : it was the
first book put into print after the Bible ; a splendid edition of
it appeared at Mainz in 1459, and it ran through twelve other
editions before the end of the century. The motive of all
this was the elevation of the sacramental system above preach-
ing, extolled by Wyclif and his followers as of superior
efficacy ; and so at last we are able to discriminate the point
of departure of this from the preceding age : it consisted in a
renewed allegiance and devotion to the doctrine of Transub-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 139
stantiation, that God is received in the consecrated wafer more
effectually than through reading or hearing the Scriptures,
preaching, or any other means whatsoever. This was the cen-
tral point of the age ; round it circled the splendid worship
and art, the hieratic absolutism, the thought of sin and justifi-
cation, all the religious life of Christendom. Indissolubly
associated with it were the benefits of confession, penance,
and priestly absolution pre-requisites to reception upon
which fresh emphasis was laid. Pilgrimages were resorted to
as highly meritorious acts and means of grace, pleasant like-
wise, and grateful to a mundane curiosity ; indulgences were
purchased as easy ways of escape from the consequences of
sin. It is worthy of note that the jubilee cycle was now
reduced to one of twenty-five years, so agreeable to one
party was that means of expiation, so lucrative to the other.
Paul II published a jubilee for the year 1475 tne profits of
which, however, he did not live to reap, and in order to
bring its benefits within reach of all he made a remarkable
innovation in its observance, commuting the customary pil-
grimage to Rome into a visit to some local shrine, and a gift
according to ability. His successor, Sixtus IV, reaped the
harvest that Paul had sown ; and in 1477 asserted the lawful-
ness and efricacy of indulgences in ransoming from purgatory
the spirits of the dead.
One can hardly doubt that there was a subtle yet real con-
nection between the dogma of transubstantiation and the
alchemist's notion of a transmutation of metals; that each
stood as an argument for the other. Both were rooted in the
confirmed habit of thought of five hundred years.
It is clear that the idea of the institution, the community,
corporate interest was in the ascendant, as opposed to the rude
individualism of the former age. The church was rehabilitated
in her authority, its impersonation, papal infallibility, did not
lack learned defenders. Divergences of opinion in matters of
140 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
religion were suppressed; in 1478 the Spanish Inquisition was
organized anew, and shortly after Torquemada began his
blood-stained career. So it came to pass that the experience
of more than a century before was repeated, in an intensified
form : the intellect and the emotions, denied fair play in the
religious sphere, expatiated in the fascinating fields of literature
and art. It is a mistake to suppose that Roman literature was
totally neglected during the monastic ages ; most of its greatest
authors, Terence, Cicero and Sallust, Virgil, Tibullus, Horace,
Livy, and Ovid, Seneca and Lucan, Juvenal, Statius, and
Suetonius, were known, at least in part, and probably never
ceased to be read somewhere ; but in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, through the contagion of Petrarch's enthu-
siasm, the indefatigable zeal of Poggio Bracciolini, the list
was greatly extended ; Plautus, Lucretius, much of Cicero,
Catullus, Vitruvius, and Columella, Quintillian, Silius Italicus,
and Aulus Gellius were recovered, and early in the sixteenth
century much of Tacitus was found in a German monastery ;
and all were studied with an ardor and a veneration that it is
hard for us to conceive to-day. Even more notable, and dis-
tinctive of the fifteenth century, was the revival of Greek
letters. There was already a strong desire to become
acquainted with them, when the precarious condition of the
Eastern Empire and the projects for a union between the
Greek and Latin churches sent westward a succession of Greek
scholars who, finding a warm welcome in Italy, settled there
and gave lessons in their language and literature. The first of
these, the learned Chrysoloras, commissioned by the emperor
of Constantinople to solicit aid against the Turks, finally estab-
lished himself at Florence, where he became Poggio's tutor.
He was employed by the Roman pope, Gregory XII, to nego-
tiate a union between the churches. In 1423, Giovanni
Aurispa, a famous collector of manuscripts, brought to Venice
from Constantinople more than two hundred codices, including
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 141
the poems of Pindar, and the complete works of Plato, Xeno-
phon, Lucian, Plotinus, and Proclus. Niccolo Niccoli, a
Florentine, who died in 1436, bequeathed to the republic his
precious collection of eight hundred Greek, Latin, and Oriental
manuscripts. Cosmo de' Medici was a princely purchaser of
Greek, Latin, Hebrew and other Semitic manuscripts, and thus
formed the nucleus of what was later known as the Laurentian
library. Parentucelli, a noted humanist and patron of human-
ists, who had been engaged to draw up a catalogue of Niccoli's
collection, after his accession to the papal throne as Nicholas
V gathered the extraordinary number of over five thousand
volumes of classical authors, thus founding the famous library
of the Vatican. And now at this most favorable juncture
came the invention of printing, by which the study of these
and other authors was marvellously facilitated ; the triumphs
of this art bring into especial prominence the encyclopaedic
character of the age. A remarkable collection of the earliest
specimens of the art exists in the library that was founded at
Vienna about the year 1440 by the Emperor Frederick III.
The correction of texts of the Latin classics, begun by Niccoli,
was carried on with enthusiasm and success by the poet Angelo
Poliziano, who amended the texts of Ovid, Statius, Quintillian,
Pliny Junior, and Suetonius, and inspired others to do as much
for those of Persius, Martial, and Columella. The concourse
of scholars and ecclesiastics that accompanied the Greek em-
peror to Florence in 1439, t effect a reconciliation of the
Eastern and Western churches, marks another stage in the
naturalization of Greek culture in Italy. Conspicuous among
them was the cultivated Bessarion, who, with his tutor Pletho,
indoctrinated the Italian mind in the ideal Platonic philosophy,
and, despite the jealous opposition of conservative thinkers,
broke the spell of the mediaeval version of Aristotle. The
domestication of Greek learning may be said to have been
completed by the fall of Constantinople, which drove a host of
142 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
literary men to Italy, in the year 1453 the cardinal date of
the whole century, doubly important in its bearing upon com-
merce and discovery as well as learning : the imperative neces-
sity henceforth of rinding a sea-route to India led to the dis-
coveries of Columbus, the circumnavigation of Africa by Vasco
da Gama.
By the year 1453 the Second Renascence was fully initiated.
The differences between this and the Petrarchian period were
such that it is unscientific in the extreme to confound the two,
to assume that attributes of one pertain to the other also. One
deeply significant characteristic was common to both : a
divorce of morals and intellectual interests from religion, a
condition of unstable spiritual equilibrium always provocative
of satire ; but in the fifteenth century the schism was completer
than in the fourteenth. One patent distinction the later revival
enjoyed, an infusion of Hellenic thought through the pres-
ence and tuition in the Greek language, literature, history,
philosophy, and mythology, of a swarm of Greek ambassadors,
ecclesiastics, and literary refugees of more or less repute who
wandered up and down in Italy. Again : the first renascence
followed a prolonged endeavor to bring political order out of
chaos that had proved conspicuously successful in several
quarters, fairly so in others ; whereas the second accompanied
a similar endeavor, and emerged amid a welter of conflicting
forces, keeping pace with the reestablishment of civil and
ecclesiastical authority. These and other characteristics, such
as the stronger family feeling before mentioned, melt in a clare-
obscure of sentiment more easily felt than defined, differing as
much from that of former periods as Lorenzo de' Medici's
nameless mistress differed from the Beatrice of Dante, Pe-
trarch's Laura, or the Fiammetta of Boccaccio. The contrast
was as vividly reflected in the arts, in which a revolution
was wrought during the fifteenth century by the study and
representation of the nude figure, the application of the
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 143
sciences of anatomy and perspective, and the use of colors
mixed with oil.
A notable feature of the later revival of learning was the
greater participation in it of the northern nations, shown in the
founding of new homes of humanism, the Universities of
Freiburg and Greifswald, in the years 1455 and 1456 respec-
tively, of Basel, in 1459, Ingolstadt, 1472, Tubingen and
Upsala, 1477, Copenhagen, 1479, an ^ Wittenberg, 1502. In
Scotland, the University of Glasgow was founded in 1451 ;
that of St. Andrews was enlarged by the founding of St.
Saviour's College in 1459 ; and King's College, the germ of
the University of Aberdeen, was instituted in 1494.
As Italy still led the rest of Europe, so did Florence lead
Italy in intellect, varied and harmonious culture, and the art of
elegant living. The peculiar position of that republic then
yielding itself to the genial tyranny of the Medici between
the duchy of Milan and the oligarchic republic of Venice on
the one hand, and the papal monarchy and the kingdom of
Naples on the other, explains how it was that there, in the
midst of such mixed political relations, that compelled perpetual
vigilance for the preservation of autonomy, there should have
been devised that delicate adjustment of forces known as a
balance of power. The conquest of Pisa in the year 1406 was
probably the most important event in Florentine history ; it
resulted in the purchase of Livorno in 1421 ; and Florence,
now first possessed of a strip of sea-coast, began a new role as
a maritime power, her galleys appeared in the Levant, the
Black Sea, and the English channel. This enlargement of
horizon was a powerful stimulus to her intellectual life : the
sciences of astronomy and navigation had henceforth a practical
interest for many of her citizens which occasioned the flourish
of mathematical studies that soon ensued and that exerted a
profound influence upon the arts. Political consequences of
magnitude followed this extension of commerce ; large part of
144 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
the wealth that flowed from it fell to the merchant princes
of the house of Medici and enhanced their power: the recall
of the great Cosmo from brief exile in the year 1434 was
not obscurely connected with the conquest of Pisa. He
remained the first citizen of the republic until his death in 1464,
a position which his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent,
exchanged for almost absolute sway.
The wealth of Florence exhaled in a refined civilization such
as the world had not seen since the golden age of Athenian
culture nearly two thousand years before ; and there was about
it a subtlety, spirituality, inventiveness, a certain iridescent
play of color that contrasts picturesquely with the statuesque
repose and beauty relatively perfect within narrower limits of
the classic time. It cannot be too emphatically stated that the
humanists as a class had no earnest quarrel with the Catholic
church, rather they confessed her authority. They despised
the quiddities of scholasticism, the barbarous Latin of which
moreover smote harshly upon ears sensitive to Ciceronian
cadences ; they had a hearty antipathy to monks and friars,
but none to a cultivated hierarchy, a papacy adorned by such
noted humanists as Nicholas V and Pius II. The imposing
ceremonial of the church gratified their aesthetic sense ; the
common notion of propitiation, quite like that of the ancients,
was no offence to them ; nor was the dogma of transubstantia-
tion monstrous to men who revelled in the classic lore of meta-
morphosis. But while they acknowledged a mysterious depend-
ence upon the sacraments, and yielded to the church all
responsibility for their spiritual life, they indemnified them-
selves by boundless liberty in the region of the human. An
ideal of culture, of a perfected personality, of an harmonious
play of every activity of mind and body, took possession of
the youth of Florence. The charm of the old ideal of knight-
hood was still potent ; it lingered on as the basis of the new
manhood and was enriched by the novel thought of manifold
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 145
accomplishment ; the result was a fusion of mediaeval and
classic ideals. The complete man must be expert in horse-
manship and all the exercises of a cavalier ; he must be a
good swimmer, runner and wrestler (a touch of the palaestra
here) ; he must also learn to dance. Beside his native Tuscan
a cultivated man should master at least one other language,
and that should be the language of Cicero. He should be
versed in literature and be a connoisseur of art ; he should
sing or perform upon some instrument of music, lute, harp,
organ, or (best of all) the violin. A conception like this seen
embodied in one individual enthralls the imagination of an age;
it was more than realized in the consummate character of Leo
Battista Alberti, and all who knew him confessed the fasci-
nation of his personality. He was athletic, literary, musical ; a
wit, and a polished Latinist in verse and prose. He wrote an
Italian treatise, " La Famiglia," in which he held up a noble
ideal of domestic life. He was a mathematician, a student of
science and law. He drew and wrote on art. He was a
passionate admirer of natural beauty and was often melted to
tears by the sight of a fair landscape. His contemporary,
Pope Pius II, gave expression to a feeling similar but not so
romantic, more in the vein of Virgil and Statius, in his Latin
" Commentaries " ; in the description of his summer haunt at
Tivoli, where, among the ivy-clad ruins of Hadrian's villa, he
mused upon the transiency of earthly glory, we have that
mingled sense of the beauty of nature and the pathos of the
dead past that was a dominant note of Renascent life. This
graceful melancholy was nourished by pictures of ruins embow-
ered in dark laurel and funereal cypress, the first of which
appeared in the year 1467.
Sex was not recognized in the culture of the intellect ;
sisters enjoyed the same advantages of education as their
brothers ; and numbers of highly accomplished women gave
tone to the social life of the day. They were conversant with
146 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
classic literature, both Latin and Greek, and often wrote strong
verse of their own ; they could engage in philosophic discus-
sion and correspond with celebrated scholars upon equal
terms ; they were skilled in vocal and instrumental music.
Graceful and dignified demeanor, facile dialogue, exquisite
purity of speech, were cultivated as fine arts.
A day spent in this wise was accounted perfect : first, in the
freshness of the morning, a ramble among the hills, the conver-
sation meanwhile threading some Platonic dream ; about the
middle of the forenoon, breakfast, accompanied by song and
music ; then to a shady garden nook, to listen to the recital of
an original poem by one of the company ; after a long siesta
through the languid hours, to meet again in the cool of the
evening by a bubbling spring or fountain, every one to tell
some tale "of effect of joy" or sorrow; then supper, followed
by sprightly talk which should yet keep within the bounds of
delicacy.
This delightful programme might have been deduced from
joyous days actually passed by Lorenzo and his friends at his
palatial villa of Ambra, with its woods stocked with Sicilian
pheasants and peacocks, its gardens and orchards along the
river-side, or at his other villa at hilly Fiesole, where he
especially enjoyed the society of the philosophers, scholars and
poets who were his intimate companions. There might be
seen the noble Ficino, to whom the Platonic philosophy had
become a religion, and who exemplified in his daily walk its
refining tendency; Poliziano, his pupil, an eminent scholar,
exquisite Latinist, and the first Italian poet since Petrarch;
Pulci, wit and poet, author of a voluminous mock-epic, the
" Morgante Maggiore"; and thither came a singular product of
the Renascence, the omniscient young Pico, prince of Mirandola,
who had lately published at Rome innumerable theses, drawn
from all the great departments of knowledge, which he was
prepared to defend in half a dozen different languages. Poli-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 147
ziano's " Stanzas," written when he was a mere boy on occa-
sion of a grand tournament held by Giuliano de' Medici, evince
a delicate, Virgilian appreciation of rural beauty and contain
a whole gallery of mythological pictures. His description of
the never-fading, Elysian loveliness of Venus' haunt on the
island of Cyprus was a first sketch for yet more glowing
descriptions of delicious gardens by greater poets of a later
day. He also wrote in Italian a tiny lyrical drama, " Orpheus,"
and a few minor poems. The true nature of Pulci's work has
often been a subject of debate ; it has been argued that it is
wholly satirical and skeptical of established beliefs and institu-
tions. The fact seems to be that it is a jocoserious production,
a merry parody of the romances of chivalry still in vogue, heap-
ing deserved ridicule by the way on the religious orders, yet
flowering out now and then in passages of genuine emotion.
A sign of the satirical spirit that grew with the growth of
political absolutism is afforded by the court fools whose num-
bers were now multiplied in the retinues of the petty despots
of Italy and thence throughout Europe. Those fantastic
beings were privileged to mock and gibe without respect of
persons, and sometimes, in the guise of jest, to let their impe-
rious masters know what otherwise they would never hear,
just what others thought of them.
The peculiar glory of Florence in the fifteenth century was
her art. In architecture a remarkable innovation distinguished
the second Renascence, the introduction of the dome. In
the year 1420 Brunelleschi began and left almost finished at
his death in 1444 his magnificent dome over the cathedral.
Years before he had visited Rome with his boy friend Donatello
destined to prove himself in time one of the greatest sculptors
of the world and had been deeply impressed by the superb
cupola of the Pantheon. He returned to Florence filled with
enthusiasm for the wonderful works of antiquity and with an
ambition to recover the mechanical knowledge of the old
148 .OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
Romans and to rival their constructive feats. Donatello
returned to carve many noble statues, among them his ideally
beautiful St. George ; after a second sojourn in the papal
capital he executed in 1433 his reliefs of dancing children for
the choir gallery of the Florentine cathedral. The organ
gallery was decorated with like reliefs by Luca della Robbia ;
his marble youths and maidens are vocal with the spirit of song ;
his children, singing, playing, and dancing, his little naked
frolicsome boys, express the very ecstacy of renascent life, and
reveal the artist's admiring love of happy childhood. Nothing
could picture more vividly the strength of the healthy reaction
from monastic ideas.
In 1451 Donatello designed an equestrian statue the first
since the decline of art in ancient Rome. The year following
his illustrious compeer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, finished his second
glorious set of sculptured bronze doors for the Florentine
baptistery.
This revival of the sculptor's art was due to the passion for
antique and natural beauty already noticed. The rage for
collecting statues, busts, fragments of sculpture, vases, coins,
engraved gems, was identical in principle with the lust of pos-
sessing manuscripts of classical authors. The discovery dur-
ing the pontificates of Alexander VI and Julius II of the Apollo
Belvedere, the group of the Laocoon, the Torso and Venus
named of the Vatican, resembled in effect the recovery of a
lost work by Cicero or Tacitus. In the early part of the cen-
tury Cyriac of Ancona, a zealous antiquary, explored the coasts
of the Mediterranean, exhuming bits of sculpture, sketching
what was too large for him to carry away ; when asked why he
spent his time and substance in such pursuits he replied, " To
wake the dead ! " Cosmo de' Medici left to his son a large
collection of gold and silver medals, cameos and gold rings
with stones engraved with classic and mythological subjects,
inlaid tables from Byzantium, and similar treasures. Such
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 149
were the beautiful objects desire of which banished, from
Florence at least, the old-time eagerness for nauseous relics of
saints. The splendid Lorenzo inherited to the full his grand-
father's tastes ; the readiest way to his favor was to present
him an ancient vase or coin. Along the garden walks and
arcades behind his palace in the city he caused his statuary,
busts, and other specimens of ancient sculpture to be arranged,
and instituted there an academy of art under the direction of
Bertoldo, a chosen pupil of Donatello. There that master's
methods were transmitted to the succeeding generation ; there
Torrigiano studied and the young Angelo learned his art.
We have already observed an improvement in the technics
of painting. By the middle of the century the new medium
oil, first successfully employed by the Flemish painters,
Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, found its way into the studios of
Venice and Florence. Somewhat earlier, Masaccio, an artist
of extraordinary genius, who died very young, originated the
naturalistic style of painting by his noble frescoes (which he
did not live to finish) in the Brancacci chapel of the Carmelite
church in Florence. In one of these a youth who kneels to an
apostle who has wrought his miraculous recovery is represented
entirely naked, the first figure of the kind in modern art.
The Brancacci chapel became a school for future artists ;
Filippo Lippi studied there, and his son Filippino finished
Masaccio's frescoes.
The next nude figure of note was that by Botticelli of Venus
floating over the sea in her shell. But all previous efforts in
this line were puny and immature as compared with Signorelli's ;
in his frescoes at Orvieto, executed upon the threshold of the
sixteenth century, that great master revealed a consummate
knowledge of anatomy and a Dantesque imaginative power
that mark him as the forerunner of Michael Angelo.
A pioneer in the application of mathematical science to the
arts of design was Paolo Uccelli, a pupil of Ghiberti. He prose-
150 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
cuted with enthusiasm the study of perspective and made its
principles generally known. A younger contemporary of his,
Antonio Pollajuolo, was an expert both in perspective and
anatomy.
When we turn to the inventive side of the art we are struck
by its widening range of subjects and its increased capacity to
express emotion, from the tenderest human feeling to the terrific
and sublime. The irresistible inclination of the age made it
inevitable that art should at last overstep its scriptural and
ecclesiastical limits and enter the field of classical and mytho-
logical illustration. Botticelli led the way ; his " Birth of
Venus " has just been mentioned ; another interesting work of
his among many in this style is his attempted reproduction of
the " Calumny " of Apelles, from a passage descriptive of the
original in an ancient author. The magnificent series of
pictures by the great Paduan master, Andrea Mantegna, illus-
trating " The Triumph of Julius Caesar," is well-known. Pin-
turicchio's " Sibyls " at Rome remind us of Angelo's, and
those of the "Three Fates," and those of Da Vinci's terrible
Medusa.
Pinturicchio's name recalls his masterpieces at Siena (in
executing which he enjoyed the collaboration of the young
Raphael) frescoes illustrating the leading events in the life
of yEneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II) representative of the new
departments of historical and portrait painting that flourished
with the reviving idea of earthly renown. Families and com-
munities were desirous of preserving likenesses of their illus-
trious members. Another important feature of renascent life
we may connect with his name : delight in beauty of land-
scape, charmingly shown in the backgrounds of some of these
pictures.
The deepest inspiration, the motive power of this great epoch
of art was, however, a renewed devotion to the Virgin Mary.
A causal connection subsists between the feminine ideal and
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 151
all high art ; the perception of the divine in womanhood, in
motherhood, exerts a refining influence, bestows a new sense
of beauty. Without the Athena of Phidias, the Hera of Poly-
cletus, the Mary of Giotto and Raphael, those artists and the
epochs they dominated would have been other and far less than
they were. In the fifteenth century pope and council were at
one in forwarding the cultus of Mary : the council of Basel
promulgated anew the doctrine of her immaculate conception,
and Sixtus IV forbade dispute about it and authorized its cele-
bration. This action was symptomatic of a fresh wave of
popular devotion, generated in part by way of reaction against
Wyclifite and Hussite disparagement of the cultus. Even the
laughing Pulci grows serious and devout when he invokes
Mary, as he does in opening several cantos of his work ; at its
very beginning he adores her as daughter, mother, and spouse
of God (that is, of the persons of the Trinity respectively) and
entreats her to illumine his mind, inspire his style, and guide
him through the whole progress of the work. Thus she became
to him what the Muse was to a Roman poet.
The painters of the age set forth their ideal of womanhood
in innumerable Madonnas. Representations of the man Christ
were remarkably rare : their place was usurped by the Madonna
and infant Jesus. The invasion of devotional art by the
realistic spirit is shown by this, that whereas previously the
Virgin was represented veiled and the child swathed, toward
the close of the century she was pictured with uncovered head
and the child naked. Scenes from her life were painted by
Ghirlandajo upon the choir-wall of Santa Maria Novella. A
memorable development of the doctrine of the immaculate con-
ception was the novel cultus ftf Ann, mother of the Virgin ; the
devout sentiment of the age soon raised her to a position close
by her daughter, as we see her portrayed by the Bolognese
master Francia. In such a subject we can perceive beside the
working of domestic sentiment, of a sense of the beauty and
152 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
goodness of human relationships, which was manifested yet more
strongly and perfectly in those beautiful groups, the " Holy
Families " that first appeared at the end of the century.
A further awakening of emotion, an effort to compel feelings
of pity, pain, and terror by representations of the mortal suffer-
ings of the Redeemer, are widely apparent in the art of the
time. The tragic series of " Stations of the Cross " was trans-
planted into Europe by a pilgrim from the Holy Land in the
year 1477. Now for the first time we find the Saviour repre-
sented as falling under the weight of his cross. The awful
scene of the crucifixion was depicted with great power by Man-
tegna and the Venetian master Bellini ; and now at that
supreme moment the triumph of natural feeling over faith was
betrayed by the swooning of Mary, in some examples she
even falls as if dead. By reason of its pathos the " Pieta," -
the mother lamenting over the dead body of her son was an
oft-attempted subject : it was nobly and tenderly treated by
Francia and Fra Bartolomeo. Perugino's sentimental concep-
tion of the ascension offers a significant contrast to the fervent
faith revealed in Giotto's upward soaring figure : his Saviour
seems to pause between earth and heaven, and looks down
with a pensive, almost affected grace upon the friends he is
leaving below.
Finally, we have to notice an invention that was to art what
printing was to literature, a means of multiplying copies of
pictures as the other multiplied books, the art of engraving
on copper. To Baccio Baldini, a Florentine, who acted upon
the suggestion afforded him by impressions of goldsmiths' work,
the credit of the invention seems to be due ; he was assisted
with designs by several of the enfinent artists lately mentioned.
The substance of these last few pages is intended whenever
henceforth we have occasion to allude to the influence of Italy
upon other peoples. It is futile to talk about that influence
unless it is clearly understood what is meant by it.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 153
In Spain, during the long and troubled reign of John II,
considerable progress was made in domesticating the study of
classic and Italian literature by Juan de Mena and the Marquis
of Santillana. The latter introduced the sonnet into Castilian
literature, and, though not a scholar himself, was a generous
patron of scholars, and urged on translation of the Latin
classics ; the former was a devoted student of the Italian poets,
and in his famous * Labyrinth ' modelled himself upon Dante.
The conquest of Naples in the year 1443 by the royal humanist
Alfonso V of Aragon was an important factor in making the
intellectual movement in Italy better known in the Peninsula.
At that epoch, too, flourished the Catalan poet Ausias March,
whose delicate love-poems composed some during his lady's
lifetime, some after her death, confessed the fascination of
Petrarch's muse.
The main interest of Spanish history through the first half of
the century centres in the person of one of the most famous
of royal favorites Alvaro de Luna. His influence over the
cultivated but somewhat frivolous king seemed like witchcraft ;
it was offset by the implacable hatred of the great nobles. In
part, doubtless, to divert their attention from his internal
administration of the government, the favorite engaged John II
in a campaign against the Moors of Granada ; it was highly
successful, and the conquest of that delightful province might
have been anticipated by many years but for the disaffection of
the nobles ; their intrigues against Alvaro culminated at last
in tedious civil wars that gave opportunity for a retaliatory
invasion by the Moors. Alvaro's pride finally outwore the
king's infatuation : his sudden fall from the pinnacle of power
and speedy execution in the year 1453 added another example
to the moralist's long catalogue of Fortune's caprices. A year
later John II followed him to the tomb and was succeeded by
his son, Henry IV, who in the recent disturbances had joined
the ranks of the rebel lords. In his careless, pleasure-loving
154 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
temper Henry resembled his father, but was yet weaker ; he was
governed by favorites and mistresses and the manners of his
palace were a scandal to Spain. In order to humble the lords
his late associates he advanced persons of low origin to
positions of honor and influence, but the result was a repeti-
tion of the wretched broils of his father's time. In 1463 Henry
and Louis XI had a conference at Fuentarabia ; the French
king had offered his services in settling matters in dispute
between Castile and Aragon, but his decision pleased neither
party. Shortly after civil war broke out in Castile ; beside the
nobility, many large towns fell away from their allegiance ;
Henry's conduct had disgusted all classes, and in his person
the monarchy was subjected to extreme humiliation. His crown
was at last offered to his young sister, Isabella ; she put it
by for the time, and Henry, having submitted to his enemies'
hard conditions, was allowed to end his pitiable career upon
the throne. In 1469 took place one of the famous marriages
of history a union destined to bring order out of this political
and social chaos and to weld the weak and warring states of
Spain into one compact and powerful monarchy the marriage
of Isabella with Ferdinand of Aragon. From the first their
union was regarded by all who longed for order as the hope of
their distracted country, the pledge of good government to
come a pledge amply redeemed by Isabella when she acceded
to the throne upon her brother's death in the year 1474.
The strange character of Louis XI impressed itself deeply
upon his age and has been revealed for all time by his secre-
tary and confidential adviser, Philippe de Comynes, whose
" Memoirs " are doubtless the best-known and most consider-
able work of the period. Less therefore need be said about
him than his darkly commanding position would justify ; all
we need do is to indicate, with a few brief touches, his his-
torical connections. Like Henry IV Louis had, as heir-appar-
ent, joined the rebels to his father's authority ; like him, but
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
with more success, he as king made use of mean agents in his
subtle stripe with the feudal aristocracy. His confidants and
tools, Olivier le Dain and Tristan 1'Hermite, remind one too of
Catesby and Cochran, the base instruments of his young
contemporaries, Richard III of England and James III of
Scotland. To the extension and elevation of the royal power
and the ruin of feudalism involved therein Louis bent all the
energies of an intellect fertile in resource, tireless in opera-
tion, and unscrupulous as to the means employed. In the
science of politics the despots of ^taly were his tutors ; the won-
derfully successful career of an elder contemporary, Francesco
Sforza, who by a master-stroke of craft and cruelty had made
himself duke of Milan, especially excited his admiration. He
mastered perfectly the art of managing others by self-interest
and fear, of dividing opponents that he might overcome them
separately. He played upon the weaknesses and passions of
his victims and would flatter one to his face while by secret,
far-off agencies he was preparing his destruction. And when
he had an enemy in his toils nothing could exceed his malice
and cruelty. The mingled guile and ruthlessness of his nature
and the singular success with which his policy was crowned
exerted a sort of fascination, the fascination of terror, over the
minds of his contemporaries. Some years elapsed, however,
after he came to the throne in the summer of 1461 before his
character appeared fully in this light : at first he was more
openly aggressive and ambitious ; the great representatives of
French feudalism took the alarm, banded themselves together,
and gave him check in battle at Montl'hery, and with that
his career of cunning began ; he resolved henceforth to avoid
appeals to arms and to meet violence with skilful negotiation,
deceit, and corruption. After the battle he seemed to yield
everything they asked to the confederated lords, but it was only
to find time to practise upon them, break up their league, and
isolate his great adversary, Charles the Bold, who in 1467
156 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
became duke of Burgundy and for the next ten years the
middle period of his reign gave Louis' energies abundant
employment. The way in which the king recovered the ground
he had lost, his dealings with the French dukes and with Charles,
the personification of overgrown feudalism, remind one of
nothing so much as of Reynard the Fox, and the tricks he
played upon the bear, wolf, cat, hare, etc., in that great poem
of the thirteenth century which was now enjoying a renewed
popularity. The redoubtable league of little Swiss republics
proved at last a serviceable 1*>ol to the most absolute monarch
in Europe : the city of Berne, instigated by Louis, rushed into
a war with Charles, drew with it the other cantons, and inflicted
upon the rash duke a series of crushing defeats that culminated
in his death upon the field of battle early in the year 1477. ^
was left for Louis, in the seven remaining years of his reign,
triumphantly to gather in the fruit of his dextrous policy. His
exultation at the fall of his powerful rival, however, caused him
to forget the caution that was necessary in prosecuting one
of his favorite projects, the marriage of his son to Charles's
daughter Mary, heiress of Burgundy : he allowed his rapacious,
treacherous disposition to appear so plainly in his dealings with
her that the young duchess, disgusted and indignant, threw
herself into the arms of the imperial faction, and in August,
1477, wedded Maximilian of Austria, and Louis had the
mortification of seeing the wealthy provinces of the Netherlands
transferred as an hereditary possession to the House of Haps-
burg. This was the second marriage of rare consequence in
that period. It was the chief success attained by the emperor
Frederick III Maximilian's father in his reign of more
than half a century (one of the longest in history), in the course
of which he suffered every ignominy.
Frederick is a conspicuous example of the way in which the
princes of his time rallied around the rehabilitated papacy :
none of them surpassed him in devout submission to it, and
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 157
he had his reward. He surrendered to Eugenius IV the privi-
leges that the council of Basel had secured to the German
church ; and some years later, when his incapacity and neg-
lect of imperial interests had so disgusted the electors that
they began to think seriously of deposing him, Pius II came to
his support and held him on the throne. He carried on his
private studies, astrological and medical, careless though the
empire fell to pieces under the blows of the invading Turks.
In public affairs he pursued a Fabian policy of inactivity,
but under a phlegmatic exterior concealed far-reaching designs
for the aggrandizement of his house which were realized at
the end of his reign, after the Burgundian match.
The founding of German Universities has been mentioned
as evidence that the wave of humanism was travelling north-
ward ; in the year 1467, Desiderius Erasmus, destined to
become the great exponent of northern humanism, was born in
Rotterdam. In France, during the conflict between Louis XI
and Charles of Burgundy, there occur several indications that
the future triumph of the Renascence was preparing : Terence
was done into French for the king, and a fresh translation of
Ovid's " Metamorphoses " was made, while for the duke Quin-
tus Curtius' life of Alexander and Caesar's " Commentaries "
were translated. In the year 1483 a romance based upon the
JEneid appeared in print.
In 1465 died Charles, duke of Orleans, a poet whose
work belongs to the past generation, when Louis XI was yet
Dauphin, but who may be placed here because he illustrates
well an intellectual attitude that greatly furthers political abso-
lutism like Louis' a tendency of cultivated minds, enamoured
of beauty and pleasure, to abstract themselves in stormy
periods from all interest and interference in public affairs, and
to create for themselves worlds apart where, as Charles himself
urged, they can think at their ease, and banish care and sad-
ness. In the present case, this attitude of mind excites no
158 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
wonder : the duke of Orleans had had his full share of the
tribulations of his disastrous time. Taken captive at Agincourt
and detained long years in England, when he was allowed to
return he secluded himself in his chateau at Blois amid a world
of music and song, and practised poetical composition in the
pretty, artificial forms then in vogue. Among his gay and
dainty little verses those on the changing seasons of the year
are especially pleasing. The representative poet of the reign
of Louis XI was one much younger than he, and of a condition
of life as different as could be imagined "a poor little scholar
who was called Francois Villon " the poet of the Paris streets.
A spendthrift and libertine, he was acquainted with all the
profligacy, penury, squalor, and misery of the worst purlieus of
the Paris of his time. Yet he was bred for better things and
had something of an education, and the contrast between
what was and what might have been made him wretched.
When he thought of it he spoke out with a passion of regret or
a settled sadness that brought into French poetry a new and
thrilling note of personal experience and appeal. The upshot
of it all was his resignation in thought to a cheerless fatalism,
he would make the stars responsible for his faults : " I am
a sinner, I know it well," he cries, " and what the planets have
made me I shall be." In other moods an experience like
his gives rise to satirical reflections; much of his work is
instinct with that spirit of satire that was characteristic of the
period and grew sharper as the century grew older. A notable
expression of it is the cynical " Fifteen Joys of Marriage "
an attack on women a prose work ascribed to Antoine de la
Salle, who is believed also to have had a hand in composing a
famous set of prose tales, the " Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles,"
which Louis XI richly enjoyed.
The taste for dramatic representations continued unabated,
and gave rise in this period to new forms of art. The old mys-
tery-plays now rolled up into series of huge bulk, and the great
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 159
number of clever farces that have been preserved from the end
of the fifteenth century proves that these were a favorite form
of popular diversion.
Such, in sum, is the historical and literary setting of the
dynasty of York.
The years of Edward IV's reign 1461 to 1483 exactly
coincided with those of his French rival, Louis XI. The two
halves of the fifteenth century do not offer a contrast more
vivid than that that Edward offered, in aspect and character, to
the poor king whom he displaced a man weak in feature,
intellect, and will, whose virtues fitted him rather for a cloister
than a throne. Edward was a youth of nineteen years when he
assumed the crown. He was the handsomest prince of his
time : Comynes assures us that he was the handsomest man he
ever saw. He was vigorous, a good fighter, devoted to pleasure,
luxurious, lascivious even, and cruel on occasion, as men of his
stamp generally are. His accession signified the triumph of
the principle of legitimacy, of natural right, over parliamentary
enactment, by which the House of Lancaster held. Royal
authority was now in the ascendant ; parliamentary power
declined. Edward had large possessions in his own right and
was further enriched, after his success at Towton, by the
estates of a host of attainted lords and gentry ; parliament,
moreover, helped him to greater independence and diminished
its own consequence by granting him the customs (now increas-
ing in productiveness) once for all, for the term of his life. As
a result of this and of the peace with France it was rarely
summoned during his reign. To balance this constitutional
regression there came about a signal development of law, its
practice and interpretation, a condition of things character-
istic of strong reigns : Louis XI ever sought to give his
arbitrary acts a color of legality. In 1461 the first solicitor-
general of the crown was appointed ; in 1471 the first attorney-
general. In John Markham, a consistent Yorkist, Edward
160 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
found a useful ally, and he was appointed chief justice of
the Court of King's Bench ; but because he would not go the
length the king wished in straining the law to suit his ends he
had to make way, toward the middle of the reign, for a more
pliant tool of power, Thomas Billing, who balked at nothing so
it pleased the king. The latter part of the reign was adorned
by the labors of the learned jurists Sir John Fortescue and
Thomas Littleton. In 1481 Littleton's famous treatise "On
Tenures" was printed. It was couched in the old French of
the law-courts and was divided into three parts, treating
respectively of tenancies in general, of the rights and duties
of lords and tenants, and of means of acquiring and surren-
dering rights in land. It was the first work of the kind in
England, and so clear were its definitions, so thorough its
analysis, so systematic its arrangement, that it aroused real
enthusiasm in the profession, an enthusiasm that may be
gauged by the fact that William Hussey, Edward's attorney-
general and last chief-justice, got it by heart. Fortescue was
a faithful Lancastrian. He had been Henry VPs sergeant and
chief- justice, and after the battle of Towton, in which he took
part, he fled with Margaret and her little son to Scotland and
suffered attainder. He accompanied the queen in her wander-
ings upon the continent as tutor to the prince, for whom he
composed, in Latin, his " Praises of the Laws of England."
After the extinction of the male line of the house of Lan-
caster in 1471 he gave in his submission to Edward IV
and his attainder was reversed. About this time, probably, he
wrote his treatise, in twenty short chapters " On the Govern-
ance of England." In this work he had the courage to use
English. He begins by drawing a comparison between abso-
lute and constitutional monarchy and their effects as exhibited
in France and England respectively, goes on to show the
necessity of an ample revenue for the king, greater than that
of any subject, discusses the means of raising it, and
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 161
winds up with a recommendation (acted upon later) to form a
body of councillors who should advise the king in financial
matters especially.
We have spoken of the increasing value of the customs : it
sometimes seems as if the most significant feature of the revo-
lution that raised the house of York to power is that it was a
victory of the townsfolk, artisans, traders of what is called
the middle class. Great advances were now made in commerce
and manufactures : English merchants began to compete with
the men of the Hanse towns even in the Baltic Sea : for the
encouragement of home-industry a highly protective statute was
passed in 1463 by which importation of woollen and leather
goods and specified articles of hardware was forbidden. For
the farmer's benefit a corn-law was also passed forbidding the
importation of wheat when it was under a specified market
price. Artisans and manufacturers prospered in this period
their work was well paid for, their hours of labor were few ;
rural laborers on the contrary suffered, their day was long, their
wages were low. Little by little the farm-lands of England
were being converted into pasture, into enormous sheep-walks,
to supply the great English staple, wool, in constant demand
in foreign markets.
It was some time before the nature of the new monarchy was
fully disclosed ; at first it seemed allied in policy as well as
by blood and fellowship in arms with the great house of Neville
and its head, the popular and powerful earl of Warwick, the
full-blown flower of the feudal age. We have not in our
possession every link in the chain of events that led up to
the inevitable crisis, the mortal conflict between the new
monarchy and the old feudalism on Barnet field. Edward's
marriage with the beautiful young widow, Elizabeth (Wood-
ville) Grey, made known in the fall of the year 1464, is com-
monly held to have begun the breach, which was widened by
the favor shown the new queen's relatives and by another
162 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
marriage, that of the king's sister Margaret and Charles of
Burgundy brought about by the Woodville interest in 1467.
On both occasions Warwick was planning a French match, for
he favored alliance with Louis XI ; in the latter instance he
was cruelly discredited, for he had already begun negotiations
with the French king. The antagonism of sentiments and
ideas grew keener ; in the summer of 1469 Warwick gave proof
of his power, actually making the king his captive but soon
released him. It is unnecessary to search for the disgusts that
hurried on the final catastrophe : Edward was restive under
his great vassal's overshadowing influence and Warwick
divined that the king's policy was inimical to his whole system.
In 1470 he rose again ; but this time Edward was prepared and
the earl had to take refuge in France. There his affiliations
underwent a radical change ; he turned Lancastrian, was recon-
ciled to Margaret of Anjou, and contracted his daughter to her
son, to whom he pledged the crown of England after the demise
of Henry VI. Surprising as this change of connection was, we
yet feel that there was an inner fitness in it ; it was the des-
perate embrace of the Lancastrian and the feudal cause,
destined to sink together. With aid from Louis XI which he
hardly needed, so popular was he, Warwick landed in England
in September; in a few days he was at the head of a large
army ; Edward was deserted and fled with his brother Richard
on fleet horses to Lynn just in time to escape on a ship
bound for Holland where he arrived with no other possessions
than the clothes he wore. Warwick now had Henry VI pro-
claimed and reigned in his name for half a year. But in the
spring of 1471 came the amend : with some little help from his
brother-in-law, Charles the Bold, Edward returned, nominally
to recover his duchy, really to try his fortune once more ; finding
the way clear he pushed on to London and was warmly wel-
comed by the citizens. Turning back he encountered Warwick
at Barnet and in the sanguinary battle that followed the great
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 163
earl fell. Edward promptly marched across the kingdom to
meet Margaret of Anjou who had landed in the west, defeated
her at Tewkesbury and caused the prince her son to be slain.
Immediately after Henry VI perished in the Tower, and
Edward was sole master in the kingdom. His restoration
was the triumph of London and of trade : the Hanse merchants
had contributed toward it and as a reward he confirmed their
privileges in London and granted them beside factories at
Lynn and Boston. Another point deserves notice, his victo-
ries were won with gunpowder. By this time the long-standing
prejudice against that medium was wearing out ; its use was
pretty well understood and was henceforth constant and the
relics of feudalism were wiped away.
The sun of York was now supreme in an unclouded heaven
and the king, freed from every rival, every apprehension, in the
pride of youth and conquest and a power greater perhaps than
any of his predecessors had ever enjoyed, gave himself up to
the pursuit of pleasure, and tournaments, hunting-parties and
banqueting were the order of the day. A type of the new
nobility was the head of the family of Howard which now
rose into prominence : Edward created him duke of Norfolk
and showered offices upon him. But the particular ornament
of the court, the mirror of courtesy, of elegant tastes and
chivalrous manners, was the queen's brother, Anthony Wood-
ville, Caxton's patron ; and second only to him came the lord
Hastings. As an instance of the refinement, the intellectual
atmosphere of the court, we note that the first royal poet-
laureate in England was appointed in this reign, a writer of
Latin verse named John Kay. A scarce perceptible dawn
of new learning ' began to spread as a slender succession of
scholars returned from Italy, some of them bringing manu-
scripts. Thus the downfall of scholasticism was heralded ; but
the humanists were not numerous or influential enough to
stamp the age, it was Caxton rather and the mediaeval themes
164 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
over which he labored that gave it its literary character. In
1477 he introduced the art of printing into England, an
event sufficient of itself to make the reign illustrious.
We have seen English used for the first time in the discus-
sion of problems in political philosophy by Sir John Fortescue ;
he was preceded by several years in this serious use of the
mother tongue by Bishop Pecock, against whom this very
indictment was brought by his enemies, that he wrote in
English. As a result he is vindicated to-day with acclamation
and his enemies are put to confusion, their memories are
only revived to be covered with contempt and consigned
again to oblivion while his " Represser " stands forth a model
of argumentative composition and without question the most
considerable work produced in England in the course of the
fifteenth century. At first it seems difficult to place him : he
was rejected by the Lancastrians and his case was not bettered
by the revolution that put Edward IV on the throne : in 1476
we find that king, who in such matters took his cue from the
opinion of those about him, commending the authorities at
Oxford for suppressing Pecock's works and bidding them
withhold the degree of doctor in divinity from some theologian
who was believed to have been infected with his obnoxious
ideas. But the fact that his books were circulating at the
university and making many converts during this reign makes
their examination fitting at this point ; the title of his principal
tractate, moreover, is a helpful indication, it was intended
to "repress" the Lollards, to put a stop to their fault-finding
with the church clergy, an end pretty effectually realized by
Edward IV : it is a remarkable fact that after his accession the
Lollards subsided, disappeared beneath the surface ; the church
was heartily Yorkist and held to the monarch a relation of
close and mutual support. More than all we feel in the
bishop's work the breath of the new epoch ; he occupied in
truth a transitional position. His fate was that of most com-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 165
prehensive minds, to be misunderstood and abused on all
sides, proof enough of the independence and originality of
his views. His tolerance extraordinary in that age, his
willingness to see what was good in the contentions even of
his opponents, his desire to do justice to all parties, his
recognition of the claims of the papacy, the English church,
and the Lollards, brought it to pass that he was suspected
and hated by all. His work was of deep significance, for it
was instinct with that fine humanity, that respect for ancient
usages which yet does not preclude all timely change, that
loyalty to Scripture, that large reasonableness, fairness in dis-
cussion, soundness of mind and heart, that came to be known
later as the spirit of Anglicanism, a truly catholic spirit.
Beside his " Represser " Pecock wrote in English a grammar
of morals which he called his " Donet " and a " Treatise on
Faith " in which he met the Lollards half way, admitting that
Scripture is the rule of faith. He also wrote " Of Matrimony"
and projected a work on logic.
His relation to the ages of religious thought that we have
traversed may be stated thus. It will be remembered that in
past centuries the reason had been held to be a useful organ
of religious knowledge, competent to prove some if not all of
the fundamental doctrines of Christianity ; that later it had been
discredited and the authority of the church had been declared
the ground of faith ; and that finally the Bible had been set
over against that authority as the sole depository of unadul-
terated truth. It was left for Pecock at the close of these
ages to combine the results of all and to set forth with vary-
ing degrees of clearness and consistency, the reason, the Bible,
and the church as the threefold root of religious knowledge.
Thus he curiously exemplified in his theological culture the
composite character of the age ; but as has been shown by
reason of its strenuous reaction against Wyclif's ideas the age
was one-sided and intolerant in regard to the Bible and so
166 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
could not appreciate Pecock's liberal attitude ; and though his
defence of the constitution of the church and certain of its
popular practices was agreeable to some it displeased others
by its moderation, and all took alarm at his appeal to the
reason.
The " Represser " falls into two main divisions, the first part
general, clearing the ground and establishing principles, the
second particular, applying those principles to some special
usages chiefly objected to by the Lollards. It begins by setting
forth three radical errors of theirs : (i) That no ordinance is
of God that cannot be found in the Bible (some are so
"smart and wanton " as to ask of any usage they dislike,
"Where groundest thou it in Holy Scripture?"); (2) That any
humble Christian can discover the true sense of any passage in
the Bible ; (3) That when that sense is thus gained one should
not listen to any argument about it. Then follows the doctrine
of the reason ; it is not the office of Scripture to establish any
law or truth that reason may discover. The Moral Law is of
equal authority with Scripture : upon it temperance, justice,
and reverence toward God are based ; it is the law "of kind,"
of nature, the "doom" or judgment of natural reason,
written in men's souls by the finger of God ; it is the * print
and image of God,' not grounded on the Bible but presup-
posed by it, to be dutifully kept by men though there were no
Bible as was the case, for instance, before Abraham's time.
The principles of morals are not founded upon any words of
Christ but were presupposed by him. Whenever there seems
to be a conflict concerning a point of morals between the out-
ward letter and the law within the heart the former must be
harmonized with the latter for that is of absolute obligation.
And the larger part of God's law is written on the heart ;
acquaintance with moral philosophy, therefore, is necessary to
Christians. Let none disparage or seek to diminish that
" inward Scripture." Next, as to the Bible ; it certifies to truths
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 167
intuitively derived, publishes anew the moral law, and estab-
lishes beside points of faith, some of which are laws (as, for
instance, baptism), and some not (as historical facts). Pecock
would not forbid the laity to read the Bible ; he pays by the
way this fine tribute to Wyclif's version : the Scripture in the
mother tongue is delectable and sweet and draws men to devo-
tion and love of God, hence it is esteemed beyond reason.
Many lawful things are not ordained or even mentioned in it,
as articles of clothing, cooking, clocks, translations of itself,
shaving, laughing, singing, quoit-throwing, ale and beer-making
(much worse than images!). "Vain, disputatious women appeal
to express statements of Scripture : how, then, dare they wear
kerchiefs or wash and anoint themselves ? They may not
adduce the example of Susannah for that is an apocryphal
book!" The Lollards' argument from the sole authority of
Scripture is thus reduced to absurdity and they are brought
back to reason. From laymen's conflicting interpretations and
quarrels over the sense of Holy Writ is deduced the need of a
learned ministry ; and from the divisions among the sectaries
is drawn a powerful argument for the authority of the church.
" You Bible-men differ, some of you are called Opinion-
holders, some Neutrals ; you are full of schism, ought you
not to admit the doom of reason and return to the catholic and
general faith and lore of the church ? "
In the second division of his work the bishop applies himself
to a defence of eleven points in the constitution or practice of
the church which were commonly brought in question by the
Lollards. It is interesting to learn that these were the use of
images, pilgrimages, property in land, the hierarchy, ecclesias-
tical laws, religious orders, invocation of saints, costly church
ornament, the mass, taking of oaths, and maintaining the law-
fulness of war and capital punishment. He opens his defence
with a philosophical classification of the whole body of
knowledge according to its derivation (i) from reason, which
168 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
is Philosophy, (2) from revelation, by testimony, apprehended
by faith, that is, Theology. Further, all truth may be classed
as either " speculable " or " doable " (practical) ; and the latter
may be distributed into actions approved, forbidden, or left
undetermined by faith and reason, that is, actions lawful,
unlawful, or indifferent and those of the last class may gen-
erally be considered lawful. Any who deny these distinctions
are out of the pale of argument. Herein the bishop forces into
clear relief the nature of the difference between his and the
church's view of the Bible and the Lollard view ; they may be
distinguished as broad and narrow ; according to the former all
usages are lawful that are not forbidden by Scripture, accord-
ing to the latter none are lawful that Scripture does not enjoin.
One by one the points above mentioned are passed in review ;
the procedure is simple, it is to bring each to the dual test
of reason and the Word of God. The first matter in dispute is
the use of images ; it is usual but not apposite to refer to the
second commandment as condemning these ; in fact it con-
demns idols only, not images used as " minding signs." These
are approved by Scripture, God himself commanded the
brazen serpent to be made, the cherubim, the bosses and
images of the Temple ; Christ used money stamped with
Caesar's image. Crucifixes therefore are lawful. Reason,
moreover, does not forbid them, for no one in his senses wor-
ships them or supposes that any divine virtue inheres in them ;
nor are they to be put out because some abuse them to super-
stition, for other good things are subject to abuse, the Bible
in English for instance ! To use " seeable, rememorative
signs," such as the sacraments are is both permissible and
helpful ; they assist the memory like a knot in* one's girdle,
they are like portraits of dead or absent friends. Pilgrimages
when tried by Scripture and reason are not found lacking,
the women who visited the sepulchre very early in the morning
were pilgrims, and though these too are liable to abuse yet
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 169
when rightly used they quicken devotion. But the Lollards
contend that the Bible and preaching are better reminders than
images and pilgrimages and that living men are better repre-
sentations of Christ " than is any unquick stock or stone graved
and orned with gold and other gay paintures " and that God is
equally present everywhere so that one place is no holier than
another. But this is not true : "God chooseth to give his grace
one place before another, therefore that place is holier." Such
a spot was Bethel, and Jacob said, dreading : " How
gastful is this place ! " And out of the bush God said to Moses :
"Undo the shoes off thy feet for the place in which thou
standest is holy land." Again, the Bible is a "hearable " not
a " seeable " sign of the Lord, and a glance of the eye brings
to mind much and long matter more quickly and easily than
hearing and reading do and there are many who cannot
read. Finally, an image must resemble its object and nothing
else, and no living man can represent Christ as truly as a
crucifix does. Here is the conclusion of the matter: "what-
ever reason deemeth to be done is moral law of God and his
pleasant service even in case it cannot be found specially wit-
nessed to by Holy Scripture." A digression on the origin of
idolatry follows ; Pecock thinks it began in the worship not of
dead men but of the stars. The third point, as to ecclesias-
tical rights in land : some of the laity declare that those who
defend them are in a state of damnation. Yet such holdings
are not condemned in either testament : the Levites were
endowed with forty-eight cities ; and if Christ's example of
poverty be of universal obligation so also should his celibacy
be. Human law does not forbid endowments. The bishop has
a fling at Wyclif's doctrine of dominion : " a clerk verily to
say a heretic" asserts that if the clergy misapply their
property the temporal lords may take it away : but the evil
deeds of an unfaithful servant should not prejudice his inno-
cent heir for otherwise bad kings might be similarly deprived.
170 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
Further : some of the laity say that all ranks above the priest-
hood bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, the pope are anti-
Christian ; yet they are not forbidden by reason or Scripture,
remember the Jewish high-priest and Christ's appointment of
Peter. The remaining points are briefly treated, the method
of disposing of them had been amply illustrated and the bishop
was growing tired of the discussion. Some call religious orders
devilish; yet they are not prohibited by Scripture. It is
objected that they were not instituted by Christ, neither was
the Lord Mayor of London. The habits of the brothers are
"seeable signs," like liveries, and in their "lordly mansions"
they are given to hospitality. The bishop's last retort sounds
somewhat flippant : it was in truth a flash of not unjustifi-
able indignation at the perversity of his opponents' temper,
one cannot call it reasoning. It is clear that the pristine
evangelical fervor of Wyclif's followers had declined and that
the sect was muffling itself in a mantle of legalism, a carping
literalism, the veriest formalism, and that of an ugly kind.
It was just as well that it should lift its voice no more.
In writing his book Pecock evidently had access to many
documents long since lost or destroyed. The " Represser "
is thus a precious record of a highly important controversy.
We turn now to the civilization of the age upon its domestic
and material side. And here we are exceedingly fortunate
in possessing a mass of correspondence that brings the times
of Edward IV before us with the vividness of lightning. The
letters of the Paston family present us pictures of real life so
broad and animated and full of detail that they transport us
into the period with an immediacy quite unprecedented. This
remarkable collection begins well back in the reign of Henry
VI but is most intimately associated with the following reign
for it attains its greatest interest and volume during the time
that Sir John Paston figures upon the scene. He was the
same age as Edward and the companion of his revels ; and
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 171
after his death at the end of the year 1479 the correspondence
loses its vivacity and gradually dwindles away. In the epistles
of the sportive knight we get an inkling as to the license in
speech and manners of the boon companions of the king. A
rueful remark of his after the battle of Barnet shows us
what men of the world inferred from the recent course of
events as to the divine government in general : it seemed to
them sheer caprice : "God hath showed himself marvellously
like Him that made all and can undo again when him list,
and I can think that by all likelihood shall know Himself as
marvellous again and that in short time." The fact that Sir
John had turned Lancastrian after Edward's flight the year
before gives point to the sentiment. In her correspondence
extending over forty years his mother, Margaret Paston, sus-
tains the reputation of her sex in the art of letter-writing ; he
furnishes the high-lights, the glimpses of a courtier's life, she
puts in the shadows, and some of them are black indeed,
the vexations, difficulties, and dangers of a country gentle-
woman's life in the epoch of the Wars of the Roses. We com-
miserate her anxieties, the constant hard times, the difficulty
of getting in the rents, the neighborly quarrels, the general
insecurity; we shudder at deeds of violence committed on
property and person, at mention of the thieves that prowl by
the highways, at fearful visitations of the plague. Looking
through these letters and the documents found among them
we can see the cottages of the peasantry in a wretched state
of disrepair: well for the poor people if they can get rushes
from the lord's marsh and windfallen sticks from his trees to
mend them with! and little wonder that in these forlorn
haunts, living on unwholesome and often scanty food, they
suffer from fevers, scurvy, and leprosy. Up at the hall if it
be late autumn we can see them laying in the winter's supply
of beef; can watch the swing of the butcher's axe, the liberal
use of the salt-bushel, and see the salting-tubs and barrels
172 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
ranged in the larder ; if it be late in the winter we note the
arrival of a horse-load of herring and some eels as a Lenten
supply. Passing through the kitchen we mark the yawning
fireplace well-furnished with its "great brass pot," caldron,
spits, flesh-hook, pot-hook, and other utensils, mortars and
pestles both brass and stone ; and in the buttery may inspect
the gallon bottles, leather pots, wooden trenchers, pewter
basins, ewers, and candlesticks, the silver spoons and dishes,
some chased and bordered with gilt, the precious pottlers
enameled with violets and daisies, the salt-cellar "like a bas-
tille " gilt with roses. The living rooms seem to our eyes
scantily furnished ; save for the formidable array of armor and
weapons at its upper end bassinets, gauntlets, cuirasses,
cuishes and greaves, cross-bows, spear-heads, swords and
guns used moreover not long since to protect the manor from
assault, the great hall has nothing in it but a long table,
some chairs or benches, and a pair of andirons, tongs and fire
shovel. The walls are lined with arras and pieces of tapestry
curiously embroidered : one has on it a hawking-scene, another
a group of archers shooting birds with cross-bows, another, a
lady harping by a castle, another, a savage with a child in his
arms, these last being subjects drawn, no doubt, from old
romances. The bed-rooms have one or two chairs each, a fire-
pan, tongs and bellows, but the one piece of furniture is the
bed, with tester and curtains of linen or say (a necessary
defence against draughts), fine sheets, fustian blankets, silken
coverlets and down-pillows cased in green or purple silk or the
rare magnificence of red velvet. Next we may inspect the
wardrobe the splendid gown of cloth of gold, velvet and
woollen gowns purfled with fur, black and purple girdles "har-
nessed with silver," jackets of blue, russet, red and black velvet
and figured satin, damask, deep green, scarlet and purple
hoods and black and scarlet hose. The wardrobe of a young
student of good family is as follows : a short musterdevelers
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 173
gown, other short gowns, green and blue, the latter made
out of a silk dress, one of murrey silk made only a year
ago and one of russet silk furred with beaver "was made
this time two year." The walk of letters was not all of flowers
to this youth ; his mother or grandmother writes to ask if he
is "doing his devoir in learning" and adds, "if he do not well
nor will not amend pray [his tutor] that he will truly belash
him : so did the last master and the best that ever he had at
Cambridge."
Family relations were harsh and unlovely, bearing the
impress of the feudal system: "homage" was rigorously
exacted of the young as is indicated by the " lowly terms "
of address to be met with in the Paston letters : a daughter
begins a humble letter home with " Right worshipful and my
most entirely beloved mother" ; and Madame Paston writes
with some asperity to Sir John because he has omitted a cus-
tomary form : " I think ye set but little by my blessing ; if ye
did ye would have desired it in your writing to me." Children
were felt to be troubles to be " bestowed " as early as pos-
sible ; it was usual to send them to serve in families of dis-
tinction to be taught good manners ; daughters were then
disposed of to the first fair bidder or even offered as time
wore on with a bonus, and if the heart of one revolted from
a match arranged by her parents it was of no consequence
except perhaps a merciless beating. In one of her epistles
Mistress Margaret urges her husband to look out a good mar-
riage for his sister for his mother is fain to be delivered of
her : let him inquire about widower Kny vet's livelihood. John
Paston, a light-hearted, careless boy, was often in disgrace ; we
have a "lowly" letter of his to his displeased father and one
from his mother on the same occasion pleading for him :
" Vouchsafe to be his good father for I hope he is chastised."
Erelong he ran away and joined Edward IV ; his father was
very angry and visited his indignation upon his mother : she
174 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
writes, "I durst not let him know of the last letter that ye
wrote me because he was so sore displeased with me at that
time." More than a year passes and this cry is wrung from
her: " I understand that ye will not that your son be taken into
your hous'e: for God's sake, sir, a pity on him, and at the
reverence of God be ye his good father, and have a fatherly
heart to him and the blessed Trinity have you in His keep-
ing." How pitiable this paternal anger seems, seen in the
deep light of four hundred years !
' Romances (among them Guy of Warwick, the Green Knight,
and the Belle Dame sans Mercie), chronicles, and lives of
. saints formed the staple reading of the household. For pas-
times they had, indoors, chess, cards, " playing at the tables,"
music (harp, lute, and song), " disguisings," and the ladies
had, of course, their embroidery ; out of doors, they pursued
the venerable amusements of hawking, hunting, and jousting.
What a far-away, romantic sound has the following piece of
news in one of the Paston letters ! it rings in the ear with a
mournful music as out of an infinite past. "There is one
come into England, a knight out of Spain, with a kerchief of
pleasance iwrapped about his arm, the which knight will run
a course with a sharp spear for his sovereign lady's sake."
Having finished our progress through the hall we may next
visit the chapel of the estate and admire its appointments
all the property of the lord of the manor, the altar-cloth
" with the Trinity in the midst," the silver-gilt crucifix, silver
candlesticks, pyx and cruets, chalice and paten, and pax (a
small plate with a raised crucifix on it to be passed round and
kissed during mass), the antiphoners and missals with silver
clasps, the alb, tunicle, cope and other vestments. While
we examine these we are aware that the lady of the manor has
sunk on her knees before the altar and is rapidly running over
her rosary of " chalcedony beads, gaudied with silver gilt." On
a Sunday we might hear a sermon on Lydgate's text: "this
world is but a thoroughfare and full of woe."
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 175
Last of all, and the closing scene of this old-world history,
we are permitted to attend the funeral obsequies of the father
of the family, We catch his parting sigh : " For the more hasty
deliverance of my soul from the painful flames of the fire of
Purgatory, let them faithfully deal my goods." We mix in the
crowd of priests, friars, bell-ringers and torch-bearers whose
lights so fill the church with smoke during the dirge that
the windows have afterward to be taken out to purify the air.
We share the funeral baked meats, beef, mutton, pork and
capons: there are also fish and eggs in abundance, barrels of
beer, and a " roundlet of red wine." In the deserted church a
solitary light is burning over the newly filled tomb, which will
finally be closed by a memorial slab with a flat brass figure
inlaid.
It is interesting to know that during the most prolific years
of the Paston correspondence a similar revelation of home life
in distant Florence was being made in winsome Italian by
Alessandra degli Strozzi, in her letters to her exiled sons. All
we need do to correct any exaggerated estimate we may have
formed of the Paston letters as literary productions is to put
the best of them side by side with hers : the English examples
have the charm of perfect sincerity, of unconscious self-revela-
tion, but only rare and accidental touches of any literary value ;
Madam Strozzi's have also that indefinable charm, and her
letter on the death of her youngest son is an exquisite produc-
tion, rising a whole Apennine above the Paston lowland : it is
a pure and perfect blend of tender human affection and divine
faith.
The most eminent literary man of the Yorkist era was
William Caxton, merchant, printer and translator. Because
he produced no original work one is apt to overlook his claim
to regard in the history of literature. The work he did was of
great importance in his age ; he was its representative man of
letters ; it was an age not of creative energy but of culture,
176 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
and he responded perfectly to its demands. He was versed in
Latin and French and put his knowledge to account in multi-
farious translations ; and as he was guided in his choice by the
desires of his cultivated public the list of books he published
is a faithful register of the taste of his time. Until his fiftieth
year he was known only as a man of affairs and a courtier : in
1465 he was made superintendent of the colony of English
merchants at Bruges, and he was employed by Edward IV to
negotiate a commercial treaty with the duke of Burgundy. In
1471 he finished with the Duchess Margaret's encouragement,
his first translation, the " Recuyell [or collection] of the His-
tories of Troy." The work was soon in such demand that
enough copies could not be supplied in manuscript and Caxton
was glad to put it into print some three years later. By that
time he had finished his second piece of literary labor, a trans-
lation of a work belonging to the end of the thirteenth century
"The Game and Play of the Chess Moralized" in which
under the figure of the pieces of the game and their func-
tions king and queen, knights, rooks, "alphins," and
pawns the duties of various ranks in the social order are set
forth. After this was printed he left Bruges and established
himself and his press at Westminster where he brought out in
1477 "TheDictes and Sayings of Philosophers" the first
book printed in England. The translating had been done by
the accomplished Anthony Woodville. Henceforth until his
death fifteen years later Caxton kept the reading public supplied
at the rate of three or four publications a year. The most
significant thing in his list of productions is an omission :
there is no Bible or portion of the Bible in the mother tongue
to be found in it. A Latin psalter he did print, and the
" Hours " according to the use of Sarum. Another striking
feature of his work is that beyond a version of Tully on Old
Age and Friendship it betrays hardly a trace of the revival of
interest in classic authors. Some of it is distinctly practical
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 177
and didactic, as for example a French and English vocabulary
for the use of travellers, a Governal of Health, and books of
Courtesy and Good Manners. The popularity of Lydgate's
minor works is attested by numerous publications ; and we find
translations of Alain Chartier's letter on the vexations of court
life, Christine de Pisan's Moral Proverbs and Feats of Arms
and Chivalry, and one of those moral treatises belonging to
their time, a Chevalier's advice to his daughters. Quite early
in his career Caxton published an edition of the Canterbury
Tales and followed it up with other of Chaucer's works,
his version of Boethius, Parlement of Fowls, and Troilus and
Cressida. He also printed Gower's Confessio Amantis. ' Going
further back in our history we find him selecting for translation
and publication an English Chronicle, Reynard the Fox, the
Golden Legend (lives of saints), Bonaventura's Mirror of the
Life of Christ, and finally touching the spring of the litera-
ture in Malory's great compilation, the Noble Histories of King
Arthur and some of his Knights. The worthy old printer
rounded his career appropriately with the sequel to the story
of Troy, bringing out his translation of the French romance
drawn from the ^Eneid ; in his conclusion he appeals to a
rising literary light, " Master John Skelton, poet-laureate of
Oxford," to amend the work where necessary.
From this review it appears that the result of Caxton's labors
was to create a library of mediaeval literature for English
readers. His work was to gather up the literary treasures
of a closing cycle. That is the right way to envisage it, -
as resulting in a real mediaeval encyclopaedia.
It is a fact worth noting that the writings of Edward IV's
reign were almost without exception in prose, and of that
prose Sir Thomas Malory became by long practice the prin-
cipal master: it attained its highest relative beauty in his
Morte d'Arthur. Rhymed romances, however, were still so
popular as to warrant the production of new ones; as an
178 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
example of these and not from any inherent merit, as an
illustration also of the witchery of Geoffrey of Monmouth's
legends, potent enough to convert many a fugitive tale into a
satellite of the Arthurian system, we may give an idea of
" Sir Launfal," a version of a French original made by an other-
wise unknown rhymer named Thomas Chester. Launfal was
one of Arthur's knights. He disapproved of the king's mar-
riage with the Irish princess Guinever; and at the wedding
feast she marked her displeasure by bestowing gifts on all but
him. He forsook the court forthwith and haunted the woods
about Caerleon, until one day two lovely damsels came on
him in his poverty and conducted him to the splendid pavilion
of their mistress, the Lady Tryamour. She showed him
peculiar favor, gave him a magic purse in which whenever he
put his hand he should find a piece of gold, gave beside a
charm against the dangers of the tourney, a steed named
Blanchard, and a page to wait on him, enjoining him at the
same time never to speak of her in the presence of others.
Thus equipped and attended he returned to Caerleon where he
lived right royally for a while and was victorious in many jousts.
His fame flew afar, and Sir Valentine, the champion of Lom-
bardy, sent him a challenge. Launfal journeyed thither,
defeated the haughty hero, killing him in the conflict, then
slew his would-be avengers and returned to Arthur's capital in
a blaze of glory. Guinever now made advances to him which
he rejected scornfully and in his indignation forgot the due
government of his tongue, declaring that his lady's ugliest
maid was as fit to be queen as she. The furious woman went
straight to the king and reported his insolence, adding a foul
slander thereto. Meantime Sir Launfal feeling in his purse
found no gold, saw his page spurring away on Blanchard, and
bitterly repented his disobedience to his mistress's command.
Summoned to Arthur's presence and bidden to produce his
incomparable mistress he was in a desperate strait when on
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 179
a sudden ten beautiful maidens appeared, each fairer than the
queen, and after them the dazzling Tryamour. She cleared
the happy knight from Guinever's calumny and breathing on
that wicked woman turned her blind ; then rode away with her
lover and her maids to the magic isle of Oleron. "Thus was
Sir Launfal borne away to faery and never seen more by
mortal men."
The spell of Arthurian legend and the Sancgreal was laid
with fresh power upon the England of Caxton's day. It is a
significant fact that in Wales there had been in progress for
fully a century a revival of song largely connected with Glen-
dower's war of independence. Some time in the reign of
Henry VI a voluminous and singularly dull rhymed version of
the familiar story had been produced, destined speedily to be
effaced, together with all previous versions, by Sir Thomas
Malory's rendering, completed, as he tells us, in the ninth year
of the reign of King Edward IV that is, in 1469 or the
winter of 1470. Though in prose this work, unlike the poem
just mentioned, is anything but prosaic; it is in fact a prose-
epic ; into that mould was poured the aspiration of an age that
would otherwise have found vent in poetry. Malory caught
the naive narrative manner and poetic charm of his French
originals ; his concluding book especially the Morte d' Arthur
proper has in both style and subject the true epic cadence.
And so it came to pass that an enchanted wind of high and
chivalric romance blew through those money-getting days of
Edward IV, and the mystic light of the Grail silvered them,
touching with exquisite refinement and spirituality an age in
which the body was re-asserting itself imperiously and the
senses were grossly indulged, but that glamour could stir
strange yearnings even in the sensual breast. And the old
knight's prose-epic has remained one of the chief legacies that
the Middle Ages have bequeathed to after-times: its theme
universally known, itself more widely read and loved in the
180 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
land of its birth than any other composition of those periods.
It has been a great poetic factor, richly nourishing the
imagination, awakening perennially the sense of wonder.
Those tales of the Round Table are the doubly distilled
essence of the four centuries during which they were in process
of elaboration ; they are a compend of the ages of chivalry,
feudalism, and Latin Catholicism, the embodiment of what
we call the mediaeval spirit, its sensuality and asceticism, its
ferocity and loyalty, its superstition and spirituality. Their
real hero, Sir Launcelot du Lake, is its consummate type,
and second only to him comes Sir Tristram de Lyoness. These
rival champions form, with Arthur and Guinevere, Mark and
Isoud respectively, two triads of souls deeply sinned against
and sinning, in each triad an imperfect marriage, a love per-
fect and passionate yet guilty when it might have been holy,
such is the simple and tragic motive of the double action in this
vast aggregation of romances. It may not be called immoral
for not the representation but the justification of immorality is
immoral and that is not suggested here. Upon the treat-
ment of the theme our judgment must be based and then the
tales of Tristram and Launcelot will be acquitted of any solici-
tation to illicit love ; a heavy sense of a law broken weighs
upon the spirit of the actors, and in the suffering, penitence,
and agony of the guilty ones, even to the rending asunder of
soul and body, poetic justice is duly meted out. Many episodes
in the working out of the plot cannot be thus acquitted save as
they are truthful reflections of a moral lawlessness rife in
those times, largely consequent upon enforced and unhappy
marriages unworthy of the name. Beside, a frank submission
to the demands of the senses was undoubtedly a latent charac-
teristic of the Middle Ages, often erroneously supposed to be
peculiar to the Renascence, a fact that should be sufficient
warning to those who seek to make rigid separation between
those periods, ruling any touch of Renascent life out of its
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 181
legitimate connection with mediaeval history. The most vehe-
ment expression of this riot in the blood is an incident in Tris-
tram's career, when a fresh wound, bleeding freely, cannot
assuage his raging lust.
The ferocity, the lust of fighting of those knightly ages is
expressed in what are perhaps the most tedious passages in
the volume descriptions of battles in which knights " hurtle
like wild boars," one smiting down one and another another
in wearisome repetition until the ground is covered with
blood.
A propensity to magic runs through the whole romance as
was inevitable in an age that practised it and explained every-
thing beyond common experience as the result of magical influ-
ence. The prominent parts played by the wizard Merlin and
Arthur's witch-sister, Morgan le Fay, come instantly to mind :
in a highly imaginative passage the Fay, being pursued and
nearly overtaken, turns herself and her steed into a great
marble stone. Other enchantresses are Dame Brisen and the
Lady of the Lake. The diabolical mantle that the unnatural
Fay sends her brother the king, his sword Excalibur and other
enchanted or fated brands, suggest a strain of Saracenic magic
imported at the time of the Crusades. Violent love and hatred
are the result of witchcraft, as in the case of Sir Pelleas and
the lady Ettarde, practised upon by the sorceress of the lake;
a classic example is the philtre shared by Tristram and Isoud,
" whose love never departed after for weal or woe." Works
of art are a product of subtle craft, as the twelve gilded statues
of kings that Merlin made with the figure of King Arthur
above them all, his drawn sword in his hand. The sovereign
enchantment is that of the blessed Grail, which heals deep
wounds, dispels madness, and spreads the board with delicate
viands.
The landscape through which the knights course on their
quest is solemn, grand, and vague, as befits the breadth and
182 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
mystery of the action; there are no touches of minute observa-
tion, but the large, primitive elements of natural scenery are
ever present mountain and valley, lake and river, wood and
sea ; almost always an old chapel, abbey, or castle may some-
where be discerned, and the May sun or the moonlight of
romance irradiates the scene.
Of the crowning glory of nature the human form a fine
appreciation is displayed that only needed a little quickening
to turn into the passionate admiration felt by the artists of
the Italian Renascence. Thus Sir Galahad's beauty moved all
who saw him (and whoever would behold his semblance, an
ideal knight "without villany or treachery," may go to Florence
and in the St. George of Donatello see it immortalized in stone).
A unique touch occurs in the romance of Tristram, where the
king, riding in the forest, discovers a " fair naked man " sleep-
ing by a spring, his sword lying on the grass beside him, it
is his nephew, Sir Tristram, who has gone distracted through
suspicion that Isoud is deceiving him. The suggestion of
shining water, the gleam of steel on the soft green grass, the
tint of flesh, and the figure of the king on horseback, pushing
through the boughs of the forest, these few simple elements
make up a picture of rare beauty. Enjoying this perception
of the beauty of the nude male form without which the
highest art can never be it is somewhat remarkable that that
generation gave birth to no fine painting or sculpture; the
absence of these indicates a conspicuous defect in the English
genius. The final gorgeous efflorescence of English Gothic
architecture was indeed then preparing : in this the artistic
impulse of the time found satisfaction. It was certainly nour-
ished by Malory's narrative, which constantly blossoms out into
passages of high pictorial value that make it in truth a mine for
artists.
A few extracts will help to illustrate what has been said and
will afford a taste of the enchantment of the tale.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 183
" So they rode till they came to a lake the which was a fair water
and broad. And in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm
clothed in white samite that held a fair sword in the hand. ' Lo,'
said Merlin, ' yonder is the sword that I spake of.' With that they
saw a damsel going upon the lake. ' What damsel is that ? ' said the
king. ' That is the Lady of the Lake,' said Merlin, ' and within that
lake is a rock and therein is as fair a place as any on earth and richly
beseen; and this damsel will come to you anon and then speak ye
fair to her that she will give you that sword.' "...
"Right so there came by the holy vessel of the Sancgreal with all
manner of sweetness and savor but they could not readily see
who bare that vessel. But Sir Percivale had a glimmering of the
vessel and of the maiden that bare it, for he was a perfect clean
maiden. And forthwithal they both were as whole of hide and limb
as ever they were in their life days." . . .
" And then the king and all estates went home unto Camelot and so
went to evensong to the great minster, and after that to supper, and
every knight sat in his own place as they were toforehand. Then anon
they heard cracking and crying of thunder that hem thought the place
should all to drive. In the midst of this blast entered a sunbeam
more clearer by seven times than ever they saw day and all they were
alighted by the grace of the Holy Ghost. Then began every knight
to behold other and either saw other by their seeming fairer than
ever they saw afore. Not for then there was no knight might speak
one word a great while and so they looked every man on another
as they had been dumb. Then there entered into the hall the Holy
Grail covered with white samite, but there was none might see it
nor who bare it ; and there was all the hall fulfilled with good odors
and every knight had such meats and drinks as he best loved in this
world. And when the Holy Grail had been borne through the hall
then the holy vessel departed suddenly that they wist not where
it became. Then had they all breath to speak and then the king
yielded thankings to God of his good grace that he had sent them.
' Certes,' said the king, 'we ought to thank our Lord Jesu greatly for
that he hath showed us this day at the reverence of this high feast of
Pentecost.'" . . .
" And at the last he came to a stony cross which departed two
184 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
ways in waste land ; and by the cross was a stone that was of marble
but it was so dark that Sir Launcelot might not weet what it was. Then
Sir Launcelot looked by him and saw an old chapel and there he
weened to have found people. And Sir Launcelot tied his horse to a
tree and there he did off his shield and hung it upon a tree and then
went to the chapel door and found it waste and broken. And within
he found a fair altar full richly arrayed with cloth of clean silk and there
stood a fair candlestick which bare six great candles, and the candle-
stick was of silver. And when Sir Launcelot saw this light he had
great will for to enter into the chapel but he could find no place where
he might enter ; then was he passing heavy and dismayed. Then he
returned and came to his horse and did off his saddle and bridle and
let him pasture ; and unlaced his helm and ungirded his sword and
laid him down to sleep upon his shield before the cross." . . .
" ' But my time hieth fast,' said the king unto Sir Bedivere ; ' take
thou Excalibur my good sword and go with it to yonder water side
and when thou comest there I charge thee throw my sword in that
water' ... So Sir Bedivere departed and by the way he beheld that
noble sword that the pommel and the haft was all of precious stones
and then he said to himself, 'if I throw this rich sword in the water
thereof shall never come good but harm and loss.' And then Sir
Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree ; and as soon as he might he
came again unto the king and said he had been at the water and had
thrown the sword in. 'What saw thou there?' said the king ...
'Sir' he said, 'I saw nothing but the waters wap and waves wan.'
' Ah, traitor untrue ! ' said King Arthur : ' But now go again lightly
for thy long tarrying putteth me in great jeopardy of my life. For I
have taken cold, and but if thou do now as I bid thee if ever I may
see thee I shall slay thee with mine own hands, for thou wouldest for
my rich sword see me dead.' Then Sir Bedivere departed and went
to the sword and lightly took it up and went to the water side ; and
there he bound the girdle about the hilts and then he threw the
sword as far into the water as he might, and there came an arm and
a hand above the water and met it and caught it and so shook it
thrice and brandished, and then vanished away the hand with the
sword in the water. So Sir Bedivere came again to the king and
told him what he saw. ' Alas ' said the king, ' help me hence for I
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
^
dread me I have tarried over long/ Then Sir Bedivere took the king
upon his back and so went with him to that water side ; and fast by
the bank hovered a little barge with many fair ladies in it, and among
them all was a queen, and all they had black hoods, and they wept
and shrieked when they saw King Arthur.
' Now put me in the barge,' said the king, and so he did softly.
And there received him three queens with great mourning and so
they set him down, and in one of their laps King Arthur laid his
head ; and then that queen said, Ah, dear brother, why have ye
tarried so long ? ' And so then they rowed from the land. Then Sir
Bedivere cried, Ah, my lord Arthur, what shall become of me now
ye go from me and leave me here alone among mine enemies ? '
1 Comfort thyself ' said the king, ' and do as well as thou mayest for
in me is no trust for to trust in. For I will into the vale of Avilion
to heal me of my grievous wound.' "
With such dirgelike music the Morte d' Arthur draws to its
close, and not there only, but through the whole complex of
romances as well may be heard a like asolian strain, swelling
and dying away and rising again with the wind of inspiration.
For poetry of form as well as substance we must cross the
northern border, for such was produced in this era by one man
only in Britain and he a subject of James III. Robert Henry-
son, schoolmaster at Dunfermline, in his bright and picturesque
Scotch verse both openly confesses and unconsciously reveals
the sway that Chaucer's genius exerted over him ; he was
though no servile follower: he linked his work to the master's
by writing a " Testament of Cresseid," intended as a supple-
ment to Chaucer's " Troylus," but in the act gave evidence of
his independence of spirit, for in his sequel he proposed to
correct what he deemed amiss in the moral of his original by
inflicting upon Cressida a fit punishment for her faithlessness.
His " Robyne and Makyne," a comic pastoral, is the first of its
class in British poetry. Makyne, a lovelorn country lass, has
long teased with her affection the insensible Robyne ; just as
she, weary of his hardness of heart, is beginning to catch his
186 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
spirit of indifference he begins to relent and erelong grows
ardent but she is now heart-whole and cold; the moral is,
" He that will not when he may, when he will shall have a nay."
But it is by his clever fables, thirteen in number, that Henryson
is best remembered ; the demand for such reading was general
in his day, Caxton printed a version of the fables of ^Esop.
Two of Henryson's "The Dog, Sheep, and Wolf," and " The
Wolf and Lamb " are palpable hits at the rich and powerful
for their oppression of the poor people, the commons. For his
" Chaunticleir and Fox " Henryson was indebted to the Can-
terbury Tale told by the nun's priest. His beautiful prologue
to the fable of the Lion and Mouse is an excellent example of
his descriptive powers : his delicate observation of nature sup-
plies a notorious want in contemporary English literature,
indeed, he is often startlingly modern in his sensitiveness to
external impressions.
During the reign of James III a prolix narrative poem on
the national hero, William Wallace, was produced by a Scottish
minstrel popularly known as Blind Harry. This effort was
suggested, doubtless, by the success achieved by Barbour's
" Bruce," - to which it serves as an introduction. It is
inspired by a bitter hatred of the English.
In the time of Edward IV, apparently, the old mystery-plays
were matured into the form in which we now possess them.
Among the Wakefield or Towneley mysteries are two lively
pictures of rustic manners the " Cain," and the Second Play
of the Shepherds. Cain is naively represented as an English
boor of the fifteenth century; he is a burly brute, lustful,
greedy, irascible, envious an incarnation of all the deadly
sins: a full-blooded "Iniquity" as compared with that old
abstraction, the Vice of the moral plays.
Chaucer's canon's yeoman's tale may be read as an intro-
duction to this age which was infected fully as much as his
with a rage for alchemical pursuits. To the first half of
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 187
Edward's reign belongs an imposture called " The Book of
Quint- Essence " a panegyric on that purest of substances,
the " Water of Life," incorruptible, and imparting incorrupti-
bility, able to restore old feeble men to the strength of youth :
a walnut-shell full of it is a panacea for every ill. To make it,
" distil one thousand times," etc., etc. George Ripley, a
Carmelite friar, was a celebrated alchemist ; he dedicated his
rhymed " Compound of Alchemy " to the king. Incited by his
success, another of these philosophers named Thomas Norton
produced an "Ordinal of the Chemical Art," also in verse,
which he presented in 1477 to Archbishop Neville, his patron
brother to the fallen Warwick. Roger Bacon was Norton's
paragon, a fact that we may record as one among many
indications of a certain sympathy between this age and that of
Edward I.
A cursory view of the condition of the mainland of Europe
at the end of the century reveals an extraordinary development
of the principle of centralized government so forcibly expounded
by Louis XI. Nowhere is this more striking than in the
Spanish peninsula, where political affairs had long been in a
state of distraction amounting almost to anarchy. Now, under
the resolute control of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Hermandad,
or league of towns for mutual defence, was developed into an
effective police for the whole kingdom ; the nobility even was
subjected to its jurisdiction; and crime and disorder were
repressed. Justice was everywhere unflinchingly administered
and a revision of the Castilian law-code was taken in hand.
Not less remarkable were the financial and economic reforms,
by which the state of the coinage was improved, and the
royal revenues were largely augmented, and the industrial
awakening, extraordinary for Spain, that ensued upon the
restoration of credit : trade and agriculture revived, and the
roads now freed from robbers were put in better condition.
A step symbolical of the changed relations of the feudal
188 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
aristocracy and the new monarchy was taken in the year 1476,
when at the death of Rodrigo Manrique, grandmaster of the
famous order of Knights of Santiago, Ferdinand assumed the
headship. The incorporation of the masterships of the other
military orders with the crown followed in due course and was
erelong made perpetual by a papal provision.
Manrique's death was the occasion of one of the noblest
poems in Spanish literature the sonorous "Coplas " or stanzas
of his son Don Jorge, a young hero who died on the field of
battle three years later. Beginning with some solemn reflections
on death's universal empire over the race, the relentless sweep
of time, and the transiency of this world's pleasure and glory,
the monody passes to a few particular instances of the power
of death and change drawn, in a manner that reminds us of
one of Villon's ballads, from recent Spanish history, and con-
cludes with a. tribute of filial love and pride to the memory
of Don Rodrigo, a typical Castilian cavalier, brave and devout.
Solemn as the poem is it is yet nowhere gloomy for it is
relieved by a perfect faith in a brighter and an enduring
world.
In 1492 the protracted war of conquest waged against the
Moors of Granada to which Spanish zeal gave the character of
a last Crusade and which afforded an opportunity for a final
glorious display of mediaeval chivalry was brought to a
conclusion and made amends in some measure for the losses
that Christendom had lately sustained at the other end of the
Mediterranean. Later in the same year the discoveries of
Columbus gave to Castile and Leon a new world.
At this period the dramatic pieces of Juan de la Enzina
were being performed, an edition of them was published in
1496. They are remarkable for the light they throw upon the
process of transition from the ancient mysteries to the comedy
of real life. In 1499 was published a clever play called
" Celestina " from the tricky woman who is the leading char-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 189
acter ; it was written by a law-student at Salamanca named
Rojas.
Beside the creation of these new forms in the drama active
work was done in translating popular romances. It is interest-
ing to note that about the same time with Malory Spanish
translators were busy with French versions of Arthurian fiction :
a Spanish " Merlin " and " Artus " appeared in print at the
turn of the century. Then, too, was completed a translation
of the Portuguese fiction, " Amadis of Gaul," and bulky as it
was it proved so fascinating that numberless additions were
grafted upon it.
Feudalism was annihilated in Portugal and the monarchy
made absolute by John II, who reigned from 1481 to 1495.
Louis XI was his model. Like Ferdinand and Isabella he
made use of the representatives of the people in his contest
with the feudal nobility and when his end was gained calmly
dispensed with their services and stood alone and supreme.
The first year of his reign he struck severe blows at the power
of the great nobles by setting on foot an inquiry into their
titles to their estates and by ordering the suppression of their
courts of justice. The duke of Braganza, the proudest of
them all, for nearly a third part of Portugal was in his fee,
led the way in opposing these measures : he was summarily
arrested, tried, and put to death in the year 1483. A relative
of his, the duke of Viseu, stepped into his place, and was
stabbed to the heart by the king's own hand the year following ;
a hecatomb of his confederates was then sacrificed and the
ruthless work was done. The king could now turn his atten-
tion to cannon-founding, ship-building and the progress of his
mariners along the African coast, and to the encouragement of
the study of classic literature.
The policy of Louis XI was carried to its triumphant con-
summation when Brittany, the last feudal area in France, was
annexed to the crown by the marriage of his son Charles VIII
190 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
to its Duchess Anne in the year 1491. The French power
thus consolidated was now the most formidable in Europe, but
a rival speedily appeared in Spain, aggrandized by the conquest
of Granada : the two powerful states began to try conclusions
with each other and the theatre of war was hapless, divided
Italy. Imperial prerogatives were endangered by French
aggression there and Maximilian of Austria, emperor-elect,
was hence involved in the struggle. At the same time united
England under the strong government of her Tudor kings was
ready to begin her role in the new political system of Europe.
A novel aspect was thus given to the face of Christendom:
the great powers, united within, began to direct their energies
outward, came into manifold relations with each other, formed
league after league, now for the partition of Italy, now to
counterpoise an overgrown and threatening power : the history
of the next twenty-five years is one of incessant, confusing,
kaleidoscopic changes.
In 1494 the ambitious young king Charles VIII, his head
full of fantastic ideas of conquest, descended upon Italy to
enforce his claim to the sovereignty of Naples. His course
was like a triumphal progress and excited such apprehensions
that Milan, Venice and the pope, Spain and Austria formed a
confederacy to cut off his retreat. Charles had to leave Naples
in haste and fight a battle against great odds in order to save
himself ; his conquest was transient but the impression it made
sufficiently long-lasting ; one consequence of it was that the
French carried home with them fruit of the Renascence.
In 1496 took place a profoundly important union, the com-
plement of the famous marriages formerly noticed, that of
Philip, son of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, and Joanna,
daughter, and eventually heiress, of Ferdinand and Isabella.
In the last year of the century there was born to the young
pair a son upon whose head were to be heaped coronets and
crowns.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 191
At this epoch Louis XII, who had just succeeded his young
cousin Charles upon the throne of France, bringing to it a
decidedly questionable claim to the duchy of Milan, made an
easy conquest of that rich province and then entered into a
nefarious alliance with Ferdinand of Aragon for the partition of
Naples. The kingdom was speedily overrun by their armies
but in the division of the spoils the allies quarreled ; the French
were defeated in several desperate engagements and their forces
wasted by disease ; and at the end of the year 1503 the per-
fidious Ferdinand remained in sole possession. Untaught by
this reverse, Louis immediately, and it must be said wantonly,
projected with Maximilian a partition of the territories of the
republic of Venice. Thus was formed the league of Cambrai,
to which the pope and the minor princes of Italy acceded, and
in a short campaign in the spring of 1509 the republic was
despoiled of its possessions on the mainland. From this sorry
triumph, however, Louis reaped no advantage, for the pope
the belligerent Julius II suddenly veered round and nego-
tiated with Spain, England, Venice and the Swiss the Holy
League for the purpose of driving the French out of Italy
an end that was soon successfully accomplished.
An astonishing figure dominated Florence in the last decade
of the fifteenth century the last and greatest of that line of
preachers of repentance the origin of which we have seen
the eager Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola ; an extraor-
dinary apparition like a Hebrew prophet of old rising in the
midst of renascent Italy to convict her cultured ones of sin and
startle them to contrition, to cast a lurid light upon the vices of
a great city, to denounce the skepticism and immorality that
were infecting the literature and art of the Renascence, to
proclaim the necessity of a reformation in the church, and to
establish a momentary theocracy under which gay Florence
grown devout took Jesus for her king. In other lands as well
eloquent preachers arose to inculcate righteousness and call the
192 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
people back to a spiritual religion and the attentive crowds
that assembled to hear them showed that they satisfied a
widely felt need. The Breton-born Franciscan brother, Olivier
Maillard, whose life overlapped Savonarola's by some years,
preached in many parts of France and in Flanders, exhorting
to holiness of life, rebuking the sins of every class, sparing not
those in highest place : his sermons lacked the intense glow of
the great Dominican's but he was an earnest and persuasive
preacher in the allegorical style then in vogue and his exceed-
ingly direct and familiar address to his congregations, the
satirical touches, anecdotes, and scraps of verse with which his
discourse was enlivened, his frequent improprieties in matter
and manner, simply enhanced his popularity. Another eloquent
Franciscan, Michel Menot, a slightly younger contemporary of
his, far outdid Maillard in these homiletical extravagances,
examples of which were afforded in German literature by the
sermons of Geiler of Strassburg, in which we find the same true
piety and zeal to do good with a like quaintness of illustration,
allegory, amusing and satirical anecdote. An instance of
Geiler's appeal to the public taste is the fact that he drew texts
for a number of sermons from Sebastian Brandt's " Ship of
Fools " an extremely popular and not ungenial satire that
issued from the press of Basel in 1494.
Two versions of that Leviathan of fables, " Reynard the
Fox," demand notice, one in Dutch prose the one that Cax-
ton used, the other in Low German verse based upon the
first. That mordant satire upon all lofty pretensions, with its
ridicule of royal authority, personated by King Lion, its mock-
ery of religious profession by the Fox's sanctimony, manifests
the sharp, quite disenchanted vision of the common folk.
Denying with a grin all that is knightly, romantic, ideal, and
spiritual, it is to the Morte d' Arthur as nadir to zenith, but
both must be attentively perused by any who would apprehend
the Middle Ages in their entirety. The Morte d'Arthur was
<9/' ENGLISH LITERATURE. 193
bandied back and forth between England and France, Rey-
nard, between the Netherlands, France and Germany ; and it
may be doubted whether any other two productions can give
one as clear a notion of the spirit of those times.
Of the many German artists of that day we may mention one
of the most eminent, Peter Vischer of Nuremberg, because of
his conception of King Arthur presented in bronze at Inns-
bruck. It is a noble figure and the helmeted face, especially
as seen in profile, is severely beautiful. Vischer's work other-
wise deserves our attention as indicative of the transition from
Gothic to Renascent art.
During the fifteenth and first quarter of the sixteenth
century, while Denmark was exercising an hegemony over the
other Scandinavian states, final transcriptions of almost all of
her old ballads were being made. Through the veil of the
language of this later age it is not difficult to see how these
interesting little poems can be arranged in groups correspond-
ing to the grand divisions of European literature in the centu-
ries we have traversed. Thus some of them are based on
legends of saints ; one remarkable ballad pictures the soul of
a rich man just dead as seated on the body's breast bewailing
and accusing it : others are poems of tender sentiment, the
supreme type of these being the beautiful and pathetic tale of
the loves of Axel and Walborg ; others again are humorous,
among them a delicious parody of the turgid style of the
romances of chivalry, quite in the spirit of Chaucer's Sir
Thopas or Pulci's Morgante.
The fall of Richard III on Bosworth field in 1485 and the
elevation of his rival to the throne as Henry VII put an end
to the Wars of the Roses ; thereby was effected indeed a pro-
found dynastic change but no real revolution. The policy of
the new king was a continuation of that of Edward IV whose
daughter he married. He projected a war with France and
got subsidies for it from parliament which, according to a
194 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
precedent set by Edward, he reinforced by "benevolences " or
loans exacted from wealthy subjects and then sold peace at
a high price to the French king, making heavy profits on all
sides by the transaction. He promoted commerce, making
treaties with Florence, the Scandinavian countries and Riga.
He provided John and Sebastian Cabot with ships for their
voyage over the western ocean ; and in June, 1497, they dis-
covered the North American continent in the neighborhood of
Newfoundland.
The key to Henry's character and system of government is
a simple one, avarice. Studying the vicissitudes of the past
generation he perceived that Henry VI was poor and unfor-
tunate, his successor rich and fortunate, and he inferred a
causal connection between those terms. So he decided that
to ensure his dynasty and the nation against a return of those
disorders the one thing needful was money, and he cast about
to accumulate it in a manner that suggests that the task was
congenial to his nature. His policy of repressing the great
lords chimed with it ; parliament had passed a statute reducing
their large retinues to safer limits and the king was keen in
discovering through his agents any breach of the law and
inexorable in exacting the penalty. Ingenious instruments of
his rapacity were found in the lawyers Dudley and Empson;
and no device by which sums of money could be extorted and
which could bear a semblance of legality was left untried by
them. These exactions were popularly represented by the
dilemma known as " Morton's fork " from the king's minister,
Cardinal Morton : it was said that none could escape being
impaled upon one or the other of its horns, for if he lived
splendidly he was asked to give the king of his superfluity, if
economically, to contribute of his savings. By these various
artifices, by a pacific policy that traded upon the expectation of
war, by the device of benevolences, by fines and forfeitures
and by a rigid parsimony, Henry managed to amass an enor-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 195
mous treasure and to keep himself quite independent of parlia-
ment. He is to be reckoned among the astute sovereigns of
that day.
The ridiculous pretensions of Simnel and Warbeck and the
measure of credit they gained are curious examples of popular
credulity, the unsettled state of men's minds and the preva-
lency of plots and imposture in that period. Warbeck's attempt
had at least one substantial result, for under color of repelling
the Scottish king's invasion in his behalf Henry wrung fresh
subsidies from parliament. The utter failure of the plot
revealed beside to foreign powers how firmly the king was
seated on his throne, and he was now able to negotiate brilliant
matches for his children, of unforeseen consequence. In 1501
he married his son Arthur a name that yields historical evi-
dence of the power of romance to the princess Catherine,
younger daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. The frail young
prince died in the following spring but the king provided a
substitute for him in his 'second son, Henry, then in his twelfth
year, for otherwise the princess would have had to return to
Spain and with her her precious dowry. Soon after Henry
gave his eldest daughter Margaret in marriage to the king of
Scots, James IV, and thus secured peace on his northern
frontier.
We have seen how exquisitely the changing sentiment of
ages is registered in architecture; fresh and striking illustra-
tions of this law now confront us. The principal monument of
Edward IV's time is the beautiful church of St. Mary Redcliffe
at Bristol one of the finest churches in England not a cathe-
dral, a peculiarly attractive specimen of the perpendicular
style. But the crowning artistic glory of Henry VII's reign
and of the age is the vaulting known as fan-tracery, superbly
exhibited in the three royal chapels of Windsor, Cambridge,
and Westminster. In the system of fan-vaulting each section
is in idea a half of a spreading cone up the surface of which
196 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
splay numerous ribs all of the same length and same curve, like
the fingers of a bent fan. The concave-sided lozenges left in
the roof between the crowns of the vaulting segments are filled
with elaborate tracery or droop in pendants. The effect of the
whole, especially as seen in St. George's chapel, Windsor, is
rich, elegant and buoyant. The inception of the new style
has been thought to belong to the last years of Edward's reign ;
thus the Divinity school at Oxford is referred to the year 1480
but it is roofed in the manner of the next century. Both
St. George's chapel and that of King's college, Cambridge,
were begun by 1479; ^ was ^ e ^ f r Henry VII and his son
to finish them; and so we have an architectural parallel to
what was said above regarding Henry's policy : he built upon
the foundations Edward laid. The nave of St. George's was
vaulted in 1490, its choir in 1507. A pleasing specimen of the
style is the "new building" at the eastern extremity of Peter-
borough minster, begun as a receptacle for relics quite early in
the century but not completed until" this and the following
reign. Bath Abbey is another example. To the year 1502
belongs the tiny chantry of the lamented Prince Arthur at
Worcester ; and then his father's sumptuous mortuary chapel at
Westminster was begun. Here, arching ribs spring from the
wall free for a space, pushing forward and piercing complete
and highly decorated cones. They resemble arms holding
torches and with the whirling flounces of tracery, the aston-
ishing pendants in the middle seeming to rest on air, exert a
truly bewildering effect. It is the very flamboyancy of vaulting,
the dolphin-death of Gothic architecture.
Considerable progress was made in the revival of classical
learning during the reign of Henry VII. Thomas Linacre, a
fellow of All Souls', Oxford, went to Bologna in 1485 to per-
fect himself in Greek as an aid to advanced medical study
and putting by y , the mediaeval versions of their works read
Aristotle and Galen in the original. He visited Florence
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 197
(where he met Poliziano), Rome, Venice and Padua. William
Grocyn, a fellow of New College, learned Greek of an Italian
resident at Oxford; in 1488 he went to Florence and spent
two years in Italy studying. He was followed by one Latimer
in 1489; and both returned to Oxford to teach what they
had learned in the favored haunts of classicism.
John Colet was born in London in 1466. In 1483 he
entered Magdalen College ; there he studied Greek and read
the works of Plato. After ten years he visited Italy and
herein the wide difference between him and the scholars just
mentioned appears: they returned thence polished humanists,
he returned with something more than learning with
religious convictions greatly deepened and a grave sense of
the necessity of a reform in the faith and morals of the clergy.
It has been suggested with a large measure of probability
that he owed to Savonarola this deepening of his religious con-
sciousness ; it is certain that he was in Florence during the
great preacher's supremacy, and a soul like Colet's could not
fail to be moved by that impassioned eloquence. In 1497 we
find him back at Oxford imbued with the teaching of St. Paul,
delivering lectures on his epistle to the Romans, not in the
jejune style of the scholastic scribes with their endless patristic
references, but fresh, helpful, rich in suggestion, vibrating with
the note of personal experience. The hall was crowded when-
ever he lectured ; it was felt that a new spiritual force was
manifesting itself at the University.
A disciple and friend of Colet was the young Thomas More,
son of a justice of the court of King's Bench. He had served
as a lad in the household of Archbishop Morton (afterward
Cardinal), and was distinguished even then by his intelligence
and uprightness of character. In 1492, at the age of fourteen
years, he was entered at Oxford: in 1496 at Lincoln's Inn. When
he was about twenty years old he underwent a severe religious
experience and sought peace through the ascetic discipline
198 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
still in vogue among earnest souls: he wore a harsh shirt of
hair next his skin, scourged himself, and slept on the bare
floor. While in this mood he made the acquaintance of
Erasmus, then on his first visit to England, who, though
eleven years his senior, felt an instant attraction to the young
Englishman and the two became fast friends. The great
scholar exerted a wholesome influence, without doubt, upon
More's sensitive nature, helping him gently out of the thorny
thicket of his spiritual anxieties into the flowery path of letters
again. Erasmus moreover now ripened into intimacy an
acquaintance he had formed with Colet upon the continent
some time before. It is a charming group, an intercourse
delightful to think upon, that of these three scholars and
sympathetic, ardent souls especially in an epoch otherwise
singularly barren in literary attraction. More became the
fairest type of an English humanist. It is a pity that he and
Colet did not trust more than they did the capacity of expres-
sion of their native language : had they done so their fame
and Colet's in particular would now be greatly enhanced.
Kay's successor as poet-laureate royal was Bernard Andre, a
scholar from the south of France. About the middle of
Henry's reign he composed a panegyric in French verse,
" The Twelve Triumphs of Henry the Seventh," in which that
monarch and his brave exploits were compared with Hercules
and his labors. About that time, too, the slender ranks of
English humanists received an accession in the person of
Polydore Vergil, a native of Urbino, who, having been de-
spatched to England by Pope Alexander VI to levy Peter's-
pence found his situation there so agreeable that he decided
to remain and was erelong rewarded by preferment in the
church.
A native 'scholar of considerable celebrity was John Skelton,
to whom, it will be remembered, Caxton looked up and whom
even Erasmus extolled. According to a custom of the time
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 199
he had received the degree of poet-laureate from the University
of Oxford for his skill in Latin versification. In a rhyme of
some length, pleasing in spots, entitled "The Garland of
Laurel," and addressed to some ladies who had worked a
wreath, the insignia of his rank, upon his court gown, he vin-
dicates his title to the poet's crown, adducing a number of his
poems. The king was his patron : he was appointed tutor to
Prince Henry and had the honor of producing a " morality,"
since lost, before his majesty and the court at Woodstock.
When he had reached middle age he took orders and was
presented with a living in Norfolk; his biographers seem to
suppose that at this time his character underwent a sudden
change and that from a scholar he became the coarsely
abusive satirist that his name now first suggests. But in his
earliest known effort, a dirge for Edward IV, we find the moral-
izing tone, the note of disenchantment, of disgust with the world,
that proclaims the embryo satirist; and if we had his poems in
chronological order they would no doubt reveal that his temper
grew more savage as the character of the times became plainer.
In the piece just referred to he quotes St. Bernard to the effect
that " a man is but a sack of stercory and shall return to worm's
meat," and upon that hideous text great part of his produc-
tion hangs. Skelton had a morbid sense of the loathsomeness
of physical decay, disease and death ; in a repulsive poem he
held up a grinning death's head to the age as a picture of the
end of all its strength and splendor. An oft-printed piece of
his, "The Tunning of Elinor Rumming," is a superlative
example of nauseous realism.
The testimony of Alexander Barclay, translator of Brandt's
" Ship of Fools," is that the England of his day was given over
to " Lewdness and Folly." Brandt's famous satire had by this
time been translated into several languages. Its conception
was furnished by the chariot shaped like a ship and peopled
by droll figures, the "naval car " that is believed to have given
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its name to the carnival, at which it used to be a principal
show, being dragged along in procession. Brandt fancied its
passengers and crew to be representatives of over a hundred
classes of fools ; his motive was to expose the myriad devia-
tions from common sense that make men ridiculous. Barclay's
free English version with alterations was produced in 1508
and printed the following year. He explains that its title
might have been " The Satire, or Reprehension of Foolishness."
The book was illustrated with quaint German wood-cuts, among
them two representations of that antique machine, long a poetic
property, the wheel of Fortune. Amid the crowd of fools
we note the bibliophile, the superannuated man of fashion, the
young man who has married an old woman for her money, the
petulant woman, the fat-witted person who cannot understand
a joke, the boaster, the gambler, and some choice specimens
of the fcrol in orders the ignorant priest, the covetous bishop.
In marked contrast to these specimens of satire indicative,
whether coarse or dull, of some deep-seated disorder in the
social framework a schism fast becoming too grave to be
borne between what was and what ought to have been is the
placid rehabilitation of mediaeval ideals in Stephen Hawes'
" Pastime of Pleasure." To an Oxford education Hawes
added the polish of travel in his own country and in France.
He was something of a linguist and was especially conversant
with French. He was a student of literature, a critic even after
his kind : thus he would draw comparisons between Chaucer
and Lydgate, magnifying the excellences of the latter bard.
Lydgate he adopted as his master, his patron saint in letters;
for his memory he showed an extraordinary veneration and
affection. In paying his tribute of respect to the three lords of
English song he despatches Chaucer and Gower in three
stanzas while he devotes ten to Lydgate. Here we have the
unmistakable sign-manual of the literary dilettante, of one who
would establish an esoteric cult in poetry by reversing the
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 201
popular, the vulgar estimate, who seeks distinction by an
amiable eccentricity of judgment, an affectation of special
insight. Hawes was in fact the representative man of letters
of the reign, the exponent of its culture; he was its product,
for he was yet young when towards its close he composed his
principal work. He was an ornament of the court, being in
great request for his talents in composition, conversation and
recitation from the elder poets for he had a capacious
memory. The king made him his Groom of the Chamber.
"The Pastime of Pleasure" was produced in 1505-1506
and printed in 1509. Although the author, in accordance with
a long-standing fashion, prays to Venus for success in love
and to Mars for the meed of enduring fame, and though this
desire of fame is felt to be a potent motive in its composition,
the poem is yet essentially mediaeval in general design and
detail. Its groundwork is that of the romances of chivalry : it
is the quest of a knight, Grand Amour, toward union with the
feminine ideal, La Belle Pucelle. It is allegorical in intention
as these titles indicate and exceedingly didactic mediaeval
characteristics both. Its characters are those of a " morality " :
thus Grand Amour in his quest encounters an ugly dwarf,
False Report, slays the three-headed giant Falsehood, and is
instructed by Counsel. In its execution it develops into a little
cyclopaedia of mediaeval culture, for the typical knight must
be a master of all the sciences : Grand Amour is bidden by
Doctrine to perfect himself in. the studies of the trivium
grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and of the quadrivium, -
arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. His course in
the school of Rhetoric occasions quite an interesting analysis
of that art as taught in Hawes's day: its parts, we learn, are
Invention, Disposition or arrangement of narrative or argu-
ment, Elocution that is, choice of words, expression (well
exemplified by Lydgate !), Pronunciation, and Memory. In
the tower of Music its patroness sits surrounded by a heap of
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instruments tabors, sackbut, dulcimers, rebeck and soft
recorders, and we are treated to a little essay on the moral
influence of the art: it banishes evil thoughts and gladdens
the heart. Under Astronomy several sciences are included.
We are taught first of all that omnipotent God, the "chief
astronomer," has made Nature to be his vice-gerent. A
treatise of mediaeval psychology follows : the five external
" wits " or senses are five gates through which information
streams in upon the first of the five internal senses, the " Com-
mon wit " or understanding ; the other four are Imagination,
Fantasy (" finishing " the matter afforded by the former), Esti-
mation (whose function it is to comprehend space, time, cause
and effect), and finally Memory. Hawes here takes occasion
to explain that his " native language is obscure." A bit of
physiology comes next, for under the " high influence of the
planets " falls the discussion of the four elements and four
humors.
His tuition finished, Grand Amour proceeds to the Tower of
Chivalry and forth thence to slaughter giants with his sword
Clara- Prudence and finally to pierce with it a metallic monster,
Malice, after which feat he is received by Pucelle in a hall
paved with precious stones, its windows of crystal, its walls
covered with arras, its roof "of marvellous geometry." There
they are wedded by Church-Law. In another passage, descrip-
tive of Fortune's hall with its "curiously branched roof,"
Hawes reminds us that he belonged to the epoch of fan-tracery :
like it his work is studied and ornate. He has some passages
that are full of color, notably the description of Doctrine's
palace. His characteristic lines lending themselves easily to
quotation read like echoes of the proverbial philosophy of his
day:
" After an ebb there cometh a flowing tide "...
" After the day there cometh the dark night :
For though the daye be never so long
At last the bell ringeth to evensong."
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 203
His literary enthusiasm finds expression in a highly character-
istic line, in praise
" Of famous poets many years ago."
" Farewell, sweetheart, farewell, farewell, farewell,"
if read with ever fainter breath, a vanishing effect, a dying
fall, will give a just impression of the pensive sweetness long
drawn out, the attenuated grace of Stephen Hawes. His was
a mild St. Martin's summer of mediaeval poetry; he was the
darling of the ladies of the court of Henry VII.
Part of the verse-production of this reign as of previous
ones was anonymous and popular, taking the form of ballads.
It is cause for regret that as in the case of the Danish ex-
amples most of them have been preserved to us only in the
adulterated versions of a later time. One entertaining speci-
men, among the best of its class, may be safely ascribed to the
earlier portion of Henry's reign the ballad of the Nut-brown
Maid, composed presumably by a woman to vindicate the con-
stancy of her sex in love. The maid's lover subjects her
affection to a series of severe tests ; he pretends that he has
committed some breach of law and must away to the greenwood
for refuge: she promises to accompany him and is not deterred
by his clearly drawn picture of the discomforts and dangers of
woodland life. Finally he declares that he is already provided
with a sweetheart in the forest who is fairer than she and
whom he loves better, but the maid stands even this search-
ing test triumphantly :
" ' Though in the wood I understood ye had a paramour,
All this may not remove my thought but that I will be your ;
And she shall find me soft and kind and courteous every hour,
Glad to fulfil all that she will command me, to my power ;
For had ye, lo ! an hundred mo, yet would I be that one,
For in my mind, of all mankind, I love but you alone.' "
This supreme surrender overcomes her lover who comforts
her telling her that he had only said it to prove her and re-
204 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
veals what he had hitherto concealed, that he whom she has
won for her husband by her enduring love is an earl's son and
no banished man.
As regards domestic life in this reign we are provided, but
slenderly as compared with Edward IV's time, with the corre-
spondence of some Yorkshire gentlefolk that serves as a con-
tinuation to the Paston letters, beginning where they leave off
but it is by no means as voluminous or as interesting as that
famous collection. The centre of the new correspondence was
Sir Robert Plumpton, warden of Knaresboro' Castle ; and his
wife, the Lady Isabel, held to it a relation similar to that that
Margaret Paston held to the earlier series. We are afforded a
vivid glimpse of the straits of one among the many families
that were drawn into the toils of Richard Empson, the king's
agent ; he began proceedings against Sir Robert in 1497.
"The great man E[mpson] sits for assessing of fines for
knights,"- fines, that is, levied upon persons who might re-
ceive knighthood but who sought to avoid the attendant trouble
and expense and his correspondent goes on to warn Sir
Robert: "Your, adversaries intend surely to attempt the law
against you." Erelong we hear Lady Plumpton complaining
that she can neither borrow money nor sell wood upon the
estate for everybody knows that she is eager to sell and next
to nothing is offered for the largest trees and meanwhile
there is Lenten stuff to buy. None can tell what the land
would bring for the title is insecure. " We are brought to
beggar-staff." Later, her husband sends her warning: " If any
precept come from the sheriff to take your cattle obey ye it
not. No cattle should be taken thereby but your husband's
cattle and he hath none and so may ye make the bayly
answer."
A curious but by no means exceptional instance of affection
traded upon is offered by a kinsman of the Plumptons who
considers whether it might not be as well to give his sister in
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 205
marriage to a gentleman who loves her so devotedly that he
would probably take her with a smaller dowry than any other
would demand.
Leaving Yorkshire we cross the northern border once again.
The young king of Scots, James IV, handsome, pleasure-loving,
popular, was enjoying an influence rare for the crown in his
distracted country which had lately been rent by discords worse
than ordinary. Under his energetic administration which re-
flected the spirit of the age Scotland enjoyed a respite from
strife and a measure of prosperity. James had splendid tastes,
in especial a passion for architecture ; the palaces of Stirling,
Holyrood, Linlithgow and Falkland were built, restored or
decorated in his reign. He loved music and song : minstrels,
rhymers and scholars were welcome at his gay court and gave
it a finer lustre. Its greatest literary ornament and, indeed,
the chief of Scottish poets throughout the two-hundred years'
course of independent Scottish literature, was William Dunbar.
Formerly a Franciscan friar he had discarded the frock to
become a dependent of the king whom he served in several
foreign missions. He flattered the taste of the age by his alle-
gorical poems which are unusually successful specimens of
their class. His "Golden Targe " opens with a pretty descrip-
tion of May impaired as was inevitable then by classical
allusions. The " Targe " is the shield with which Reason de-
fends the poet for awhile against the darts of Beauty. Dunbar's
finest production in this vein, his best-known work and one that
possesses a permanent charm, is the graceful epithalamium he
composed for the king upon his marriage with the Tudor prin-
cess Margaret. " The Thistle and the Rose " is its symbolic
title : it is instinct with light and color the best and most
characteristic properties of Scottish poetry.
Removed by a whole hemisphere from such play of fancy
and sentiment are the satirical pieces that Dunbar penned in
an altered mood : indeed, but for the well-known vicissitudes
206 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
of mood to which the human spirit is subject it would be hard
to believe that species of writing so different could proceed
from the same author. In his versified report of the confabu-
lation of some female ribalds, "Two Married Women and a
Widow," there is a cynical display of an almost savage lust, of
hypocritic cunning aevoted to the service of animal instinct,
that uncovers an abyss of moral evil in the social life of Scot-
land as the Middle Age was drawing to a close. (The king
himself was a notorious libertine.) Another tale of coarse
humor and intrigue, " The Friars of Berwick," may be ascribed
to Dunbar ; it is quite in the manner of the baser element in
the Canterbury Tales.
We have from him a Scotch version of the " Dance of the
Seven Deadly Sins" and surely that grotesque subject has
never been treated with more force, originality and grewsome
realism. He addressed to the king many rhymed petitions for
places in the church ; and repeated disappointment appears
to have inspired a series of despondent, moralizing poems that
remind one of Lydgate's favorite themes : " the world is false
and unstable," and "all earthly joy returns in pain." He wrote
"Of the World's Vanity," and "Of the Changes of Life," and
once when he was sick and in fear of death composed a lament
for the famous poets of Britain from Chaucer's to his own day.
A like occasion, a like mood doubtless inspired his " Confession "
of all sorts of sins : a line in it tersely expresses the religious
attitude of his age and of a character such as his :
" I trow in the kirk, to do as it commandis."
Submissive as he became he could not escape accusation of
heresy ; in a " Flyting " or humorous dispute in verse his con-
temporary and literary friend, Walter Kennedy, charged him
with being a "Lollard laureate, a lamp of Lollards," doubt-
less because of his shrewd hits at the priests and the religious
orders. Kennedy was of noble birth, well-educated, and had
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 207
travelled upon the Continent. He composed some devotional
poems, a "Passion of Christ " and a " Ballad in Praise of our
Lady " wherein he blesses her from top to toe and begs her
intercession for " KENNEDY her man."
Another noble author and of greater distinction was Gavin
Douglas, whose " Palace of Honor," addressed to King James,
is one of the polished, artificial allegories then in vogue at
court a dream of adventure on a May morning among myth-
ological personages, classic heroes and poets, including a course
over classic geography. As may be imagined, it is tedious
reading to-day ; yet it contains some gorgeous coloring and
reveals its author's genuine and undiscriminating passion for
the antique : it is thus a monument of the spread of renascent
sentiment into remote Scotland. Of that sentiment Douglas
was the one exponent in his day and corner of the world. By
it he was nerved to accomplish his great feat a translation of
the ^Eneid into the Scotch dialect, in heroic couplets. He
prefaced every book with an original prologue, the seventh and
twelfth of which are gems of natural description. In the former
we have a picture drawn from his own observation of the effect
of winter wind and cold upon the sea, upon streams and fields,
cattle and men ; in the latter, the converse of this, the effect
of the spring sun upon the atmosphere, the sea and land, cities
and meadows, trees, flowers, birds and beasts, and finally upon
man. Many passages in these are almost startlingly modern
in delicacy and accuracy of observation, in the light with which
they are irradiated and the color with which they are imbued.
At the very close of our period printing was introduced into
the northern kingdom and the new literature was thus put
into wider circulation by Walter Chepman, a cloth-merchant of
Edinborough. Under the king's patronage, Chepman set up a
press in his house and furnished the capital, a junior partner,
Andrew Miller, who had learned the art in France, doing the
printing. In the autumn of the year 1507 they received a royal
208 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
patent " to imprint books of laws, acts of parliament, chronicles,
mass-books and legends of Scotch saints, and all other books
that shall seem necessary." Poems, romances and ballads, in
the judgment of the shrewd partners, seemed evidently to
belong to the last class and issued from their press before the
heavier kind of literature specified in the patent. In 1508 the
first book printed in Scotland was put upon the market : it
comprised some popular romances of chivalry, the " Gest of
Robin Hood," the "Maying" of Chaucer, the "Golden Targe,"
"Book of Good Counsel to the King," "Two Married Women
and the Widow," and "A Lament for the Makers" (/>., poets),
all by Dunbar, and the " Flyting " of Dunbar and Kennedy.
Then appeared a breviary, in parts, completed in the summer
of 1510; of other works that may have issued from Chepman's
press nothing is known. The defeat and death of James IV
at Flodden demoralized the nation: the light of literature paled
and a press could no longer be supported.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 209
VII.
WE now approach one of the mightiest periods in human
history the era pf the Reformation; an era crowded with
great characters and great events, confused with conflicting
aims ; it is at once one of the most tempting and difficult of
subjects, it seems inexhaustible, oceanic.
In the first half of the sixteenth century there appeared in
Europe a constellation of crowned heads, effulgent, almost ab-
solute in might and glory, foremost among them being Henry
VIII, Francis I, and Charles V. Off in the extreme south-west
reigned a most opulent king, John III of Portugal, the rich-
est sovereign in Europe, for his treasuries were filled with the
gold and silver of the Indies and his capital, Lisbon, which
had attracted to its capacious port the eastern trade formerly
enjoyed by the cities of Italy, was now become the principal
mart of the world. In the extreme north-east there rose a
strong and beneficent king, Gustavus Vasa founder of the
greatness of Sweden. All these monarchs were practically
absolute within their several dominions ; only among them-
selves was any effectual constraint put upon each other's power
and pretensions. The collapse of feudalism was complete.
The supreme political factors upon the continent of Europe
were four in number, and three of them were marshalled against
one the emperor Charles V. It is necessary to bear in mind
the tremendous power of Spain throughout this century: the
union of Castile and Aragon and the resulting conquest of
Granada had created a potent nationality cemented by a som-
bre religious enthusiasm, and Spain was suddenly lifted to
the first place in Europe. At the same time streams of pre-
cious metals poured in upon her from the new world but
210 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
this was not an unalloyed blessing : the Spaniards came out of
the Middle Ages with a knightly contempt of labor, they got
gold by fighting, and it enervated the realm at last: the indus-
trial movement of the preceding generation, slight enough as it
was, subsided under the blight of the American conquests and
erelong ceased. For the time being, however, the strength
and influence of Spain were vast, sufficient of themselves to
give her young king a commanding position in the polity of
Europe. Charles was beside king of the Two Sicilies ; Aus-
tria and the Netherlands were in his domain ; in the year 1519
the crowns of Lombardy and the Empire were united upon his
brow : thus he had the whole continent in his grasp, his was
the widest sway since Charlemagne.
This prodigious power was a menace to the liberty, to the
very existence of the other states of Europe; Charles was more
dreaded than the pitiless Turk; Francis I made it his life-
work to struggle with him and with the cooperation of the
Protestant princes of Germany and of Suleiman II managed
to make head against him and to maintain a precarious bal-
ance of forces. Such were the four political factors of the
Reformation era. A singular spectacle ! a Catholic king of
France, German Protestants and a Turkish sultan forced into
combination against the power of Charles V.
The transition from feudalism was accomplished ; that from
mediaeval Catholicism was now in progress. It is commonly
taught that the Middle Ages came to an end with feudalism,
but that was only one and on the whole a lesser feature of
those ages ; while the mediaeval church yet stood, with its
system of education, morals and worship, its monasteries and
nunneries, cardinalate and papacy, it is erroneous to say that
the Middle Ages were over. That could not be said, either,
until their municipal life was extinct ; until the civic activity
of old, the freedom of the city republics of Italy, the power of
a great institution like the Hanseatic League had also passed
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 211
away. Never had the mediaeval church seemed more magnifi-
cent than in the first quarter of the sixteenth century under
the splendid pontificate of Leo X ; we can now see that its
institutions that then seemed impregnable were in reality but
hollow shells only needing a touch to crumble away. The
principal interest of the history of the first half of the century
lies in the mighty religious revolution that went forward despite
many checks in the north of Europe. It was a conflict of
north and south, of Teuton, Saxon, Norseman against
Roman, Celt and Frank, of the more moral against the
more ideal, of the English and German languages against
the universal Latin, of the ideas of Wyclif, Huss and the
Lollards against those of the succeeding age; and not of
Wyclif and Huss only but also of the reformers of a century
or two before their time : of the almost forgotten Waldenses,
of Friar Berthold and Robert of Lincoln. The historian would
err greatly who neglected the thought and work of those early
leaders of the reformation, of a strenuous evangelicalism that
was never totally extinguished throughout the Middle Ages
and that emerged with power at their close. And so we
behold a tremendous conflict waged over all Europe with
alternate failure and success between evangelical doctrine,
the Scriptures and preaching on the one hand, and on the
other the sacramental and sacerdotal system of the mediaeval
church. The tide of reform flowed and ebbed and flowed
again ; there were eager forward movements and violent reac-
tions : it was a giant oscillation that cradled a new world into
being and it went on with the greatest ease, evenness and
success under the strong hands of Henry VIII and Gustavus
Vasa.
In the capital of Christendom itself the faith of former time
was dead : skepticism was so general and daring that the fifth
Lateran council, held by Leo X, thought it expedient (to
Luther's great disgust) to promulgate anew the doctrine of
212 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
the immortality of the soul against the philosopher Pompo-
nazzi, who had denied that it could be proved by reason or
out of the writings of Aristotle. From the same synod issued
a fresh assertion of papal supremacy and shortly, with almost
cynical disregard of the awakening conscience of Europe,
there was published by the Curia a greatly enlarged and scien-
tifically classified inventory of sins with the prices of accom-
panying pardons. Yet in the days of Leo X Italian humanism
put forth its consummate flower, not as winsome, fresh and
fragrant as in the time of Lorenzo his father, but full-blown
and gorgeous : rarely in the annals of mankind has there shone
such a galaxy of genius and talent as then graced the courts
of Rome, Florence, and Ferrara. Leo's secretary was the
cultivated and fastidious Bembo, who piqued himself on the
classic purity of his Latinity and the almost equal elegance
of his Italian style. He encouraged the use of the vernacular
by men of letters and gave them an example of refined rhetoric
in the elaborate discussion as to the nature of love held by
"gli Asolani." Of greater importance for universal literature
was the dramatic poet Gian-Giorgio Trissino : his tragedy of
" Sofonisba " achieved such conspicuous and instantaneous
success that it secured for its author the favorable notice of
the pope, who appointed him to be one of his ambassadors.
The work appeared in the year 1515: it was the first of its
kind in Italy that gave evidence of spontaneity of native
genius : there had been nothing before but feeble imitations
of the antique. As is natural in nascent drama, " Sofonisba "
is a tale of turgid passion couched in a style that is by com-
parison weak and frigid : it is full of long, studied and declama-
tory speeches : but its significance can be gauged by this, that
they are cast in blank verse. The origin of so important a
form is of such interest that Trissino's reasons for using it are
worth citing; in the dedication of his tragedy to Pope Leo he
explains that he uses Italian so as to be popularly understood
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 213
and blank verse because it is best suited to express emotion :
rhyme, which suggests careful thought, is not adapted for
emotional utterance, which as it is not must not seem studied :
moreover, blank verse has a certain dignity. This last remark
is weightier than it seems : there can be no doubt that the new
poetic medium originated in an endeavor to catch the effect of the
inimitable unrhymed measure of the ancients. And so Trissino
has the credit of having devised this simple, flexible and hence-
forth indispensable form one of the most precious legacies
of the Italian Renascence to modern literature. There is
evidence, however, that before him others were experimenting
in this line ; the credit of prior invention would seem to belong
to Giacomo Sannazaro, a Neapolitan, in the fourth eclogue
of his " Arcadia," published fully ten years before the " Sofo-
nisba," there occurs a considerable passage in blank verse.
The work is otherwise of importance, for it heads the list of
those classico-romantic pastorals that were exceedingly fashion-
able for many generations, pictures of an ideal country life
in the open air colloquies of Platonic shepherds and shep-
herdesses on mountain lawns or in flowery fields by running
streams under green boughs.
Giovanni Rucellai, a cousin of the pope and his ambassador
to the court of France, was the next distinguished writer to
employ blank verse, in a didactic poem of fifteen hundred
lines inspired by one of Virgil's Georgics, " Le Api "- " the
Bees." He also produced a tragedy, "Rosmunda," for his
cousin's entertainment.
Meanwhile in Florence the sinister Macchiavelli had just
published his manual of a portentous political science which
was yet nothing more than the practice of the rulers of Italy in
his day : they had succeeded in effecting a divorce of govern-
ment and morals quite as complete as that already achieved
between morals and religion. When a state has been con-
quered, says Macchiavelli, every scion of the reigning family
214 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
should be killed off, or, if it has been accustomed to govern
itself, it should be effectually ruined and then garrisoned.
A successful usurper should establish his power by a general
massacre. A prince may abide by his engagements when
convenient ; he should seek a reputation for honor and talk
much of good faith ; he should also be accounted liberal and
to this end should be lavish of the possessions of his enemies
but scrupulous as to laying fresh taxes upon his people.
Macchiavelli breaks out in admiration and commendation of
the triumphant craft of Caesar Borgia : he was his political
paragon. A characteristic discussion is that as to whether
it is better for a ruler to be feared or loved ; the misanthrope
concludes that human nature is so changeable, selfish and
contemptible that it is better to be feared : punishment is the
surest means of control.
"The Prince" merely spoke out the open secret of all the
tyrants of Italy. When he had finished it Macchiavelli turned
to his profound " Discourses upon Titus Livius."
The greatest poet of the age flourished at the court of the
Estes at Ferrara. There in the last century, in his " Orlando
Innamorato," Bojardo had told over again the story of the
favorite hero of mediaeval romance in verse that was too rude
for a later, more refined generation. The subject was worked
over in a bright style by Francesco Berni, but the final and
incomparable version was Ariosto's. In the year 1516 appeared
forty cantos of his "Orlando Furioso"; six supplementary
cantos were added later ; the first complete edition was pub-
published at Ferrara in 1532. The following year the poet
died.
It is to be noted that the incidents, the theme of this great
poem the fury in love and warfare of Charlemagne's paladin,
Roland are thoroughly mediaeval ; though touched with the
finer taste, fancy and sensuousness of the Renascence it is
yet a tale of chivalry.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 215
This was the period of the utmost glory of Renascent art,
of the exquisite school of Milan under da Vinci, Luini and
Ferrari, the sumptuous school of Venice under Giorgione,
Palma and Titian, of Correggio at Parma, del Sarto and
the rest at Florence, and Bazzi at Siena; it was typed in the
magnificent reception that Pope Leo gave to the reconstructed
college of cardinals in apartments of the Vatican just decorated
by Raphael. But there was a spirit that deeply felt the differ-
ence between what was and what ought to have been, and in
the wonderful figure of " the Slave " the indignant Angelo
compressed the speechless agony of his great soul over the
enslavement of his native land.
His tutor Torrigiano spent several years in England making
the famous tomb of Henry VII and his queen that may be
seen in his fan-vaulted chapel at Westminster. Another Italian
artist named Benedetto was engaged by Wolsey to execute a
tomb for him at Windsor.
The gabled halls of Brasenose College at Oxford, begun in
the year 1512 (the year that Torrigiano arrived in London),
are interesting relics of the collegiate architecture of Henry
VIII's reign. At the same time the beautiful tower of Mag-
dalen was rising. The intellectual ambition of the time found
expression in many scholastic foundations : Margaret, Countess
of Richmond, mother of the late king, had just established two
colleges at Cambridge ; at Oxford, Bishop Fox began to build
Corpus Christi, Wolsey endowed a Greek lectureship, and in
1524 suppressed an old priory and erected Christ Church
upon its site. We have in this church a fine example of fan-
tracery vaulting ; English architecture was still Gothic and
mediaeval.
Scholasticism still cumbered the ground, but the vehement
efforts its partisans made to sustain it, their loud vociferations,
showed that the system was in its last stages. Feeling ran
high between the disciples of the old and the new learning ;
216 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
the quiet cloisters of Oxford rang with their debates which
not seldom ended in blows. The old order was changing,
giving place to new.
One would have an inadequate idea of the age of Henry
VIII who did not perceive under its external brilliancy the
pathos that attends the decline and fall of great and once
beneficent institutions. A profound pathos invests the decay
of old ideals but God fulfils himself in many ways lest one
good custom outgrown should corrupt the world. And the grief
is generally forgotten in the midst of the magnificence of the
age. It was the last effulgence of mediaevalism the last
intense crimson and golden glow of the long mediaeval day.
But there was a light within that light ; the sunset of the
Middle Ages paled before the new sun of modern times, and
the color of the former half of Henry's reign faded out into
the broad white glare of the latter part. So it was with the
century : it began mediaeval, it ended modern.
We have in Henry VIII a striking illustration of the popular
belief that fathers transmit their peculiar qualities to their
daughters and mothers to their sons, for his character is
illuminated by reading into it that of his maternal grandfather.
With Edward IV we are already acquainted ; his daughter
Elizabeth (queen to Henry VII) inherited from him her fine
figure, beautiful countenance and engaging manners, and
transmitted them, together with his appetite for pleasure and
magnificence and most important of all his determined
will, to her son. Henry was seventeen years old when he
came to the throne and a burst of popular rejoicing, long pent
up under the severe represssion of his father's reign, greeted
the handsome young prince at his accession. His was certainly
an attractive, indeed a superior character. His physique was
fine and he was fond of all knightly exercises. He was a
good scholar, especially in languages, and had refined tastes
loved painting and music, which he practised a little himself ;
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 217
he composed some masses that were sung in his royal chapel.
He was moreover well instructed in mediaeval divinity and
polity and piqued himself somewhat upon his attainments in
that line ; he was an expert in theological discussion. The force
and fascination of his personality may be estimated by this, that
he retained, if not the early affection, at least the admiring awe
of his people all through his long reign of nearly forty years.
He was crowned with his queen, Catherine of Aragon, in
June, 1509, a few days before his eighteenth birthday. He
and his people were at one in their willingness to make a sharp
distinction between his and his father's administration : Empson
and Dudley, the instruments of the old king's rapacity, were
cast into the Tower and erelong beheaded, and his chancellor
and minister, Archbishop Warham, a man of mediocre talents
whom Henry never regarded with particular favor, was eclipsed
and at last edged out by Thomas Wolsey.
The young king hastened to waste the treasure so painfully
collected by his father in tournaments, splendid entertainments
and wars. He continued the time-worn, ancestral policy of
hostility to France, invaded that country in the summer of
1513, and achieved a glittering success in the Battle of Spurs.
The year following, however, perceiving that he was being
tricked by his father-in-law of Spain, he veered round, made
a peace with the French king which he cemented by the gift
of his sister Mary in marriage, and began a series of negotia-
tions that culminated in the pageantry of the Field of the
Cloth of Gold in the summer of 1520. His position was a
novel one for an English king ; in possession of a copious
treasure, at the head of an insular kingdom, strong, compact,
and happily freed from the burden and embarrassment of con-
tinental dependencies (which it was well that he could not
recover), Henry was able to play a distinguished part upon
the theatre of European diplomacy and to pose as an arbiter
between mighty opposites.
218 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
In Wolsey the king found a minister after his own heart.
Of affable manners and splendid tastes, fond of architecture,
fine gardens, spectacles and shows, yet of extraordinary capacity
for public affairs, Wolsey was unique in English history in the
number of great offices that were heaped upon him in succes-
sive years. Beginning as royal chaplain and almoner, he was
summoned to the king's council, was appointed dean and then
bishop of Lincoln, and was almost immediately afterward
elevated to the archbishopric of York. The next year 1515
Pope Leo made him a cardinal at the king's own request
and the great seal of the chancellor, taken from Warham, was
conferred upon him. In 1517 the pope, still acting under
pressure from the king and as a special favor to him, invested
Wolsey with legislative powers over the English church. He
was now the lordliest, most magnificent prelate that England
had ever beheld, the final, full-blown type of an ecclesiastical
statesman of the Middle Age ; he held to the church the same
relation that the great earl of Warwick held to English feudalism.
And that very year Martin Luther posted his theses against
indulgences on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg.
Strange as it may seem, a weighty motive of this accumula-
tion of high offices was a desire of reform : a feeling was
gaining ground that something must be done to reform the
corrupt church. Archbishop Warham had attempted the task
in a feeble way and found it too great for his powers ; he was
thrust aside and Wolsey was invested with unlimited power
over the church. For as papal legate he was superior to the
archbishop of Canterbury and moreover could do what no
bishop could he could inspect, control, suppress monasteries.
To effect a disciplinary reform of the clergy both regular and
secular such was in large measure the motive of these
combinations.
In the early years of the reign, in the midst of the jubilant
rebound from the repression of former years, Lollardy rose to
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 219
the surface ; prosecutions for heresy were renewed, the prin-
cipal point involved being transubstantiation ; in the year
1511 the movement excited general attention and alarm,
several Lollards were forced to recant, some preferred to
suffer death.
The Lollards of London flocked to hear the evangelical
preaching of the dean of Saint Paul's, John Colet altogether
the most significant character in the English church at that day.
He deplored schism and advocated a reform within the church :
his was a voice coming from within, like conscience, calling
upon the body to repent and when such warning voices die
unheeded the retribution and the only remedy is schism. His
prophetic, apostolic character was manifested in his self-denying
life and simple attire. The king respected and admired him
for with all his earnestness he was free from taint of fanaticism.
When the spread of heresy impelled the summoning of convo-
cation in the winter of 1512 Colet was chosen as preacher ; it
was the opportunity of his life and in a stirring sermon, in
Latin, he proclaimed the duty, the necessity of immediate
reform. He attributed to the evil lives of her ministers the
patent corruption of the church ; the impurity of priests, he
said, is the most grievous heresy. He took his text from the
twelfth chapter of St. Paul's epistle to the Romans and
admonished the assembled bishops and clergy in fearless tones
not to be conformed to the world in pride of place, feasting
and pleasures of the senses, pursuit of rich benefices, worldly
business and distractions, but to be reformed to humility,
temperance, charity and a spiritual life. And the reform must
commence with those of highest station : the bishops should be
spiritually-minded men, clear of all simony, should reside in
their sees, abstain from everything unbecoming their high
office and carefully strain out unworthy applicants for orders :
thus the reformation would be extended to the priesthood and
through it finally to the people.
220 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
Colet's sermon made a deep impression ; it was translated
into English and purely practical though it was the bishop of
London brought against the preacher a charge of heresy ; he
was however protected by a powerful sympathizer the arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and the year following was invited to
preach before the king. The whole country was looking
forward to the war with France upon which the king had set
his heart but Colet in the courage of his convictions con-
demned that war. The king's conscience was touched ; he
sent for the preacher and for more than an hour they conferred
together in the palace garden. From that hour none of Colet's
foes ventured to assail him.
A picturesque event was the pilgrimage that Colet and Eras-
mus took together a last pilgrimage to Canterbury. The two
friends found the relics exhibited, the mouldering rags and
bones, repulsive to a degree, and were completely convinced
of the inefficacy of pilgrimages as a means of salvation.
In the fall of 1515 the great preacher had an opportunity to
inculcate sound politics in the sermon he was asked to deliver
upon the occasion of Wolsey's installation as cardinal. His
friend More had just embodied a social ideal in his " Utopia."
The brightest minds of the day were much exercised over the
political and economic situation.
Colet's attitude toward the schoolmen was antagonistic : he
condemned Aquinas for having adulterated the simplicity of
the Gospel with philosophical refinements. Toward the new
learning upon its purely literary side he was no less hostile ;
he exhorted his hearers to shun pagan culture as a vain and
worldly thing and to beware of the books of heathen philoso-
phers unless they would become associates of demons. Herein
his Montanistic strain is revealed ; such a narrow and partial
outlook contrasts painfully with Erasmus's genial, catholic
suggestion : " Perhaps the spirit of God is shed abroad more
widely than we think."
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 221
Colet was a reformer and of too earnest a spirit to jest and
enjoy. His business was to call men back to the Bible,
especially to the writings of St. Paul, whom he esteemed as the
" wisest of men." He was uncompromising in his Augustinian-
ism : man is by nature evil, ignorant, utterly without the divine ;
the world is like the restless sea and men are as fish beneath
its surface, in a state of death and darkness, they have to be
drawn from it to see the light. In this body of ours, so vile,
dark and mortal, a pure, bright and deathless soul may yet
dwell. And God knew before those who should be fitted for
his mysteries, those who cleave less closely to this world ;
they are called and chosen out of the mass according to his
wise and holy will ; their minds are illumined by his presence,
their wills corrected. For the divine artificer moulds men as
wax, moves them as stones, and so constructs his church.
The thought of one Spirit in many persons is a favorite one
with Colet.
With such postulates as to our nature the union of the
divine and the human becomes a serious problem. Colet's
view of the Incarnation was that the iron of Christ's humanity
was attracted and upheld by his divinity as by a magnet.
His teaching on the subject of marriage proves that he still
belonged to the monastic age: marriage is God's condescension
to man's weakness ; it is not good in itself and is but the lesser
of two evils ; if one can do without it he ought to. " If only
all the faithful had remained chaste the heathen would have
supplied new material for the church, and when all the heathen
were converted the kingdom of God would have come, and if
all men had thus come to an end what end more desirable
to this pilgrimage ? But man's weakness delays Christ's
return ! "
In his project of a disciplinary reform within the church
Colet was ably and ardently seconded by Erasmus, who brought
to the cause a finer scholarship and a trenchant weapon of
222 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
satire and gave the idea currency upon the continent. In his
" Praise of Folly " Erasmus launched out in unsparing satire
upon luxurious popes and bishops, lazy and ignorant monks
and friars and quibbling schoolmen nor did he fail to score,
in passing, those princes who careless of the public good sought
only their own pleasure. The book attained a European
circulation ; indeed, Erasmus recalls Petrarch by the dicta-
torial position he occupied in the republic of letters. In 1516
appeared his revision of the Greek text of the New Testament
a monument of critical scholarship.
A like reformatory movement was in progress in France
inspired by a like enthusiasm for Biblical studies. Lefevre
d' Staples, of the University of Paris, commented upon the
New Testament in the original, dwelling especially upon the
epistles of St. Paul, applied himself to amending the text of
the Vulgate and even ventured to translate the Gospels and
Pauline epistles into the vernacular. Conservative Spain too
felt the stir of the new Biblical scholarship : at the University
of Alcala, lately founded by the austere Cardinal Ximenez, and
under his patronage, the learned Lebrija got out a famous
polyglot edition of the Scriptures.
If Colet commanded the respect, more, the veneration of
rasmus, More drew forth his admiring affection and surely
is one of the most lovable characters in history. The subtle
blend of seriousness and humor that made him so winning
comes out in the "Utopia," in which deep thoughts far in
advance of the age are mingled with many a playful fancy.
The beings of that Platonic dream held that reasonable pleasure
is accordant with the will of God ; they therefore condemned
the ascetic life as cruel to one's self and thankless to the
Creator, as though one would not be indebted to him and
so refused all his gracious gifts. In Utopia was no persecution
for conscience' sake, for they held that a man cannot force his
religious beliefs and that various forms of worship might
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 223
proceed from the same God, who might inspire different men
different ways and be pleased with that variety. A novel
liberality ! It is a pity that More did not entrust the work to
his native language for it would then have enjoyed a wider and
longer circulation. His " History of Richard III " shows how
well he could write in English, though its style doubtless
because it was a first essay at historical composition is still
too much in bondage to Latin syntax. It is bright and interest-
ing reading and is set off with speeches in character, in the
manner of Thucydides, the argument of the queen-mother in
sanctuary at Westminster is acute and spirited. At the end of
the description of Jane Shore occurs the author's mournful
comment : " Men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in
marble ; and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust."
In Germany the first tide of reformation was at flood in the
year 1520, when Luther, his thought having been clarified by
controversy, began to realize his spiritual kinship to Huss and
was forced, however reluctantly, to the conclusion that even
an ecumenical council might err. In his address to the Ger-
man nobility he assailed the papal supremacy and speedily
followed this by a thorough-going criticism of the . sacramental
system of the mediaeval church, to which he attributed her
various maladies and upon which the papal supremacy seemed
plainly to be based. He rejected all but three of the seven
sacraments and repudiated the dogma of transubstantiation.
The German knights put forth their last strength in behalf
of Luther's reform, and the union was symbolized by the
literary labors, the satires and ardent appeals of Ulrich von
Hutten, one of their noblest representatives. But upon the
threshold of the third decade of the century a marked reac-
tionary sentiment manifested itself and at the Diet of Worms
the ban of the empire was pronounced against Luther and his
adherents, his writings were burnt and all future dissemination
of his teaching was forbidden. Had the decree been enforced
224 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
it would have gone very hard with him and the cause but the
fall of Belgrade into the power of the Turks that same year
created a timely diversion. In France the reaction attained
sufficient strength to drive d'fitaples from the kingdom and to
wring a retractation from his pupil and protector, the bishop
Bric.onnet. In England it was signalized by the entry of the
king into the lists of theological controversy ; by a " Defence
of the Seven Sacraments against Luther " he won from the
grateful Leo the title, " Defender of the Faith." In his book
Henry assumed perforce the position of bishop Pecock when
attacking the Lollards, namely, that much is lawful which is
not expressed in Scripture ; and in the judgment of the reac-
tionary party he achieved success. Whatever the effect of the
work may have been upon the continent, for England it was of
real moment, for in it Henry put himself on record as a devoted
Catholic and from that position he never receded. Having
once assumed it all his pride, all his obstinacy of will, not to
speak of his convictions, held him to it, and through life he
remained a consistent mediaeval Catholic in all that concerned
doctrine, a determined upholder of the dogma of transubstan-
tiation. So ow for several years reform languished ; Colet
was dead, and the only apparent use that Wolsey made of his
legatine commission was the suppression of a few monasteries.
Henry's book and Luther's reply in which he handled his
royal opponent pretty roughly had this important conse-
quence, that a decisive breach was thereby effected between
the great reformer and Erasmus. The latter cordially assented
to Henry's thesis ; their relations were otherwise of the friend-
liest; and Erasmus, scandalized by Luther's incivility, now
came out as a representative of the reaction. He examined
the reformer's writings, found the weak spot he sought in his
doctrine of predestination and published a severe animadver-
sion upon it. A truculent German monk named Murner
rushed into the fray in the king's behalf with a book bearing
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 225
the sensational title, "Is the King of England a Liar or is
Luther?" and his singular defence must have been gratify-
ing to Henry, for he invited him to visit England.
Murner was a universal satirist, sparing no class, no dignity,
equally bitter against the hierarchy of the old church, the
monks and friars, and the reformers. Such general discontent
is indicative of some deep-seated malady in the social frame.
A like raucous note was raised in England by John^ kelton T
who grew more abusive as he grew older and the times worse.
In the short, rattling lines of his "Colin Clout," running through
odd lists of rhymes, he rails at bishops, priests, friars, schoolmen,
Lollards and Lutherans ! His ire was especially excited by the
unprecedented grandeur of Cardinal Wolsey, to whose adminis-
tration he ascribed all the misfortunes of the reign. " Why
come ye not to Court ? " is a ferocious attack upon " linsey
Wolsey, who rules all the roost with bragging and boast, with
pomp and pride ; who nods and becks in the Star Chamber
and regards lords no more than potsherds, all the barons
fear the butcher's dog." This coarse personal satire so roused
the cardinal that its author had to flee from his vengeance to
Westminster sanctuary.
Skelton composed the best moral-play of the period
designed without doubt as a salutary warning to King Henry
VIII. It shows how Magnificence, seduced from Moderation
by Self-Will and Craft, loses both Liberty and Felicity and
becomes a prey to Adversity, Poverty and Despair; he is saved
by Hope, Redress, Circumspection and Perseverance, who
instruct him in genuine mediaeval fashion as to the mutability
of things.
In "The Manner of the World nowadays" Skelton probed
many a social sore spot of the age. (He always had a curious
taste for mortality, the grotesque, and the loathsome.) " So
many good sermons and so few devotions saw I never; so well
apparelled wives and so ill of their lives widows so soon wed
226 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
after their husbands are dead, so proud and so gay, so rich
in array and so scant of money, saw I never; so many places
untilled, so many beggars, such increase of thieves, all
England decays." This pessimistic outcry in which we catch
clear echoes of Piers Plowman of old had only too much
reason in the existing frame of things. The kingdom was in a
deplorable economic condition. The mediaeval system of
cultivation by which a farm was divided into three fields,
one growing wheat, another beans or peas, while the third lay
fallow was fast wearing out. Food was dear ; the prices of
wheat, pork and poultry doubled during the middle of the
reign. As the profit on English wool was high the passion for
sheep-farming continued and was shared by both spiritual and
temporal lords ; lands were enclosed, small farms were blotted
out and holdings grew ever more extensive. The evicted
tenants flocked to the towns where they helped to swell the
pauper and criminal classes. As villages were deserted their
churches fell into disrepair and were used as folds for the sheep
that pastured in the burial grounds. The whole Isle of Wight
was turned into a vast sheep run. In the cities poverty and
suffering were great and general ; the streets were filthy, the
houses unventilated and noisome ; the old-time guilds that
controlled labor and its materials were rapidly declining, manu-
factures decayed, and there were constant complaints of
trickeries practised in trade of light weights, small measures
and adulterations. The divorce of ethics and economics was
as marked as that of ethics and politics, or religion. And when
the hard struggle for subsistence was made harder by heavy
taxation and a forced loan to build the king's ships and carry
on his wars the popular discontent came near exploding in an
armed insurrection.
War had been declared with France for the political and
military corollary of the religious reaction was a drawing away
from the French toward a Spanish alliance. Of this war there
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 227
remains a literary memorial of worth, for the king, wishing to
kindle the enthusiasm of his subjects by reviving the recollec-
tion of the great deeds of their forefathers in the glorious wars
of old, gave Lord Berners as a task the translation into English
of Froissart's Chronicle a task which he accomplished with
much graphic power. The emperor attached Wolsey to his
cause by holding out to him a golden lure the popedom,
in the attainment of which summit of his ambition he promised
to use all his influence over the college of cardinals. Charles
and Henry now entered into a nefarious confederacy to parti-
tion France ; Henry was to revive his obsolete claims to the
crown of that country and in the division was to have its
western half. But the emperor never intended to lend his
power to the aggrandizement of his ally's, and after the terrible
defeat of the French at Pavia and the capture of their king,
Charles made his own terms with him in utter disregard of
Henry and let him go. He had just shown how lightly he
regarded his compact with Wolsey by permitting a scion of the
Medici family to be raised to the papal chair as Clement VII.
If Wolsey in his resentment now put it into the king's head (as
Catherine always supposed) to offer a mortal insult to the
emperor by repudiating his queen, Charles's aunt, he bitterly
atoned for it later, for that troublous divorce was the rock on
which all his hopes were wrecked. Catherine was several years
older than the king; all their children had died in infancy save
Mary, now a sickly child of some ten summers ; and Henry
interpreted their loss as a divine judgment upon him for having
married his brother's widow. His longing was for a male heir ;
it was impossible for men to see clearly then how far removed
England was from any danger of a return to the distressful
condition of the Wars of the Roses ; Henry really dreaded
another succession war and thought it essential to his dynasty
and the welfare of the kingdom that he should have a son,
and Wolsey was commissioned to negotiate a divorce, which
228 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
implied a revocation of the papal dispensation for the marriage.
The matter first bruited in the year 1526 was a conse-
quence of the breach with the emperor already determined on.
Copies of William Tyndale's version of the New Testament,
just printed at Cologne, were burnt in London that year and it
was forbidden to bring others into the kingdom. In Scotland
a distinguished martyr to the reformed opinions was found in
the young Patrick Hamilton but his death at the stake
marked the culmination of the reaction : its force was now
spent and combinations favorable to renewed progress were
forming. In Germany the Lutheran princes leagued together
and at the Diet of Speyer secured the right of administering
religious affairs in their respective dominions. This result was
achieved through the emperor's alarm at a fresh irruption of
the Turks; by their terrible victory at Mohacz the ancient
Catholic kingdom of Hungary was annihilated : the king and
his principal lords fell on the field of battle and a famous
mediaeval state, which had been a bulwark of civilization
against the Turks for more than a hundred years, came to an
end, losing its independence. The following year, 1527, the
reformation was carried out in Sweden by Gustavus Vasa, who
met the churchmen in diet at Westerns and bade them choose
between him and the pope. Henry and Francis, scandalized
at the sack of Rome by the imperial forces, consummated a
treaty that paved the way for an onward march of reform in
their dominions. It was of no avail to Wolsey that he obtained
a bull from Clement VII authorizing the suppression of some
more monasteries : that trifling measure could not avert the
great catastrophe: he could not arrange the divorce and he
felt that he was doomed. As a prince of the church his lot
was cast with Rome ; the question lay between a text in
Leviticus and a papal dispensation which he could not but
believe to be valid; he did his best to please the king,
failed, and was banished from the court Henry seized his
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 229
palace of York-place (Wolsey had before presented him with
his other palace of Hampton Court) and ordered him to retire
to his archbishopric. But his enemies were not satisfied with
his fall from power ; they wanted his life ; and in the autumn
of 1530 they prevailed upon the king to summon him to
London on a charge of high treason. The old cardinal, broken
down, that is, in body and spirit, though not old in years,
started to obey the king's command but was prostrated upon
the journey; at an abbey by the road he took to the bed from
which he never rose again, and with him mediaeval ecclesi-
asticism expired in England.
A new set of characters appeared upon the stage : Thomas
Cromwell, formerly one of Wolsey's servants, destined to be
for the next ten years the minister of the most absolute mon-
archy that England had ever known ; Thomas Cranmer, who
had suggested an appeal to the universities of Europe concern-
ing the divorce case and who was shortly to be made arch-
bishop upon the death of Warham ; and Anne Boleyji, who had
some time since supplanted her mistress, Queen Catherine, in
the king's affections and was soon to replace her upon the
throne. Interest led her to ally herself with the reformers.
In 1531 came the humiliation of the clergy, who were forced
to pay an enormous sum to obtain Henry's pardon for having
submitted to that legatine authority of Wolsey which he himself
had procured. Convocation, overawed, passed a resolution
that the king was supreme head of the church of England. In
1533 he was married to Anne Boleyn, and Cranmer, now arch-
bishop of Canterbury, adjudged the marriage with Catherine to
have been invalid. It was a triumph of the Protestant prin-
ciple of appeal to Scripture as against the authority of a pope.
The new queen was now crowned with sumptuous ceremony
and in September gave birth to a daughter who was named
Elizabeth. In 1534 the obsequious parliament, echoing the
definition of the terrified convocation, declared the king su-
230 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
preme head on earth of the church of England. This royal
supremacy was precisely analogous to the principle lately
established at Speyer.
While these events were transpiring in England the pros-
pects of Protestantism were brightening upon the continent as
well. The Augsburg Confession was followed by the League
of Schmalcald, by which the Lutheran princes opposed a firm
front to the emperor, and in 1532 Suleiman and his Turks
appeared before the walls of Vienna. Charles was compelled
to reconcile himself to the Protestant princes and signed with
them the religious peace of Nuremberg by which he granted
them free exercise of their religion within their own territories.
A prosperous period ensued : state after state joined the
Protestant cause, Wiirtemberg in 1534, Brandenburg and
Saxony in 1539 : by the latter year Bavaria was the solitary
principality in Germany that remained solidly Catholic.
In France the reformers enjoyed the sympathy of the king's
sister, Margaret, queen of Navarre. Francis too favored them
at first, willing to use them as instruments against his rival the
emperor, but by the year 1535 he began to feel anxious at the
progress that reformed ideas were making in his kingdom;
some of their representatives moreover were either fanatical
or were falsely accused of having posted some daring placards
that appeared upon the walls of Paris, even upon the king's
palace doors; several persons were arrested therefore and
burnt at the stake. And yet Francis concluded that year an
alliance with the Turkish sultan, subordinating religion to
policy. At the same time that he was allied with the infidel
he was burning reformers in Paris and encouraging them in
Germany.
News of these martyrdoms came to John Calvin in his retreat
at Basel and he began forthwith his master-work, the " Chris-
tian Institution," in which he regarded the whole circle of
Christian doctrine from the point of view of justification by
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 231
faith: the result was a clear, logical, severely systematic
treatise. He composed it in Latin and soon translated it into
French for the benefit of a larger public. Luther had recently
completed his translation of the Bible into German and an
Italian version had appeared at Venice, the work of Brucioli, a
capable Greek and Hebrew scholar. Cultivation of the popu-
lar speech was everywhere a feature of the Reformation.
The most eminent Hebraist in England was Robert Wake-
field, for whom a lectureship in Hebrew was founded at Oxford.
In 1535 the king commanded that Greek should be taught in
all the colleges there, and this definitive triumph of the new
learning was celebrated by the students by a general immola-
tion of the works of the schoolmen. But Henry did to death
that year the new learning's fairest representative, Sir Thomas
More. He fell a sacrifice to the royal supremacy in religious
matters, and the following year the king got Tyndale burnt at
Antwerp as a sacrifice to the mass. Such was the policy, as
tortuous as that of Francis I, by which Henry daunted his
subjects.
The monasteries represented the ancient polity in an especial
manner and consequently the tide of reform as it rose was
bound to break about those old institutions ; with the collapse
of papal authority they too were doomed. In 1536 Henry
caused his submissive parliament to institute a commission of
inquiry into the state of the monasteries and in consequence
of their report nearly four hundred were suppressed. In 1537,
to make relic-worship more ridiculous, the frauds perpetrated
at various shrines were exposed ; Becket was declared a traitor,
his ashes were cast out, his shrine was demolished and two
great chests full of jewels from it escheated to the Ipng. In
1538 it was ordered that throughout England every statue that
had been worshipped should be pulled down. And now the
turn of the remaining and greater monasteries came and the
pope, out of all patience, published the bull of excommunication
232 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
that he had ready some years before but had delayed at the
entreaty of Henry's ally, the king of France.
One who looks into the literature of those ten years must be
amazed to note the awe approaching adoration in which the
English held their king. He made, interpreted and executed
laws to suit himself ; parliament and bench were as putty be-
tween his fingers; although for form's sake he made use of
his subservient parliament it came at last to this, that his procla-
mations had the force of law. He was invested with the attri-
butes of the highest secular and ecclesiastical authority and to
the majority of his subjects he appeared as a kind of earthly
divinity. Never has the doctrine of regal irresponsibility been
more boldly expressed than by William Tyndale, the spokesman
of that iconoclastic decade : " The king is in this world without
law and may at his lust do right or wrong and shall give ac-
count but to God only." This apotheosis of earthly sovereignty
sprang from the thought of the divine, upon which it was
grounded, of which it was the visible analogue. Tyndale clear-
ly reveals the connection : God is absolute, inscrutable : we
may not ask why he saves one and not another ; " God hath
power over all his creatures of right, to do with them what he
list; he will be feared and not have his secret judgments
known." And God rules the world through kings : " he that
resisteth the king resisteth God " ; even an evil king is a bene-
fit of God, for " it is better to suffer one tyrant than many."
Such is the passive " Obedience of a Christian Man " incul-
cated by this Protestant Macchiavelli, and his defence is that
only so could the yoke of Rome be broken.
In Tyndale the English Protestant appears in plain colors.
He was a disciple of Colet but his radicalism registers the rise
of the tide of reform far above the limits his master would have
assigned. He disparaged sacraments, ceremonies, consecrated
buildings ; of the first he rejected all but two, baptism and the
Lord's supper and the latter he defined as a memorial of
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 233
Christ's everlasting sacrifice but not itself a sacrifice. Confir-
mation he declared to be "a dumb ceremony " reserved by
bishops to increase their power but "the wagging of a
bishop's hand is not blessing." In like manner he ridiculed
auricular confession, pilgrimage, saint-worship and priestly
celibacy. The spirit that razed Gothic shrines and shattered
statues comes to light in his dictum, God is in all places alike :
what careth he for the temple ? " The temple wherein God
will be worshipped is the heart of man " and no place is holier
than any other. God's absoluteness, man's nothingness were
the poles of his thought. Original sin he defined as birth
poison remaining in all men in this life ; the freedom of the
will and the gospel of works seemed to him the most odious
heresy. "That faith only before all works and without all
merits but Christ's only justifieth, is proved by Paul"; that
the outward deed justifies and makes holy is the error of "the
pope's sect." He vindicated his translation of the Bible ; the
papists, to quench the light, call it impossible, unlawful, hereti-
cal to translate the scriptures but "will ye resist God?
Hath he not made the English tongue ? Why forbid ye him
to speak in the English tongue then as well as in the Latin ? "
He charged his opponents with wresting Holy Scripture from
its plain meaning by their doctrine of multiple senses and alle-
gorical interpretation, whereas " it hath but one simple, literal
sense," and brushed aside the old and common argument
about its difficulty: "a man without the spirit of Aristotle may
by the Spirit of God understand Scripture." His fling at the
light literature of the day is characteristic, Puritanic: "the priests
permit the reading of Robin Hood, Bevis of Hampton, Hercules,
Hector and Troilus, with a thousand histories and fables of
love and wantonness and of ribaldry as filthy as heart can
think, to corrupt the minds of youth withal, clean contrary to
the doctrine of Christ and his apostles." He magnified preach-
ing as the great duty of churchmen and defended it from the
234 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
charge that it was accountable for grave public disorders : not
preaching the gospel but the evil life of ecclesiastics causes dis-
obedience and insurrection. Wyclif is justified : " he preached
repentance unto our fathers not long since, and they repented
not. What followed ? the French and civil wars that made
the land a wilderness." Such was his prophetic philosophy of
history. His practical teaching is of interest. He sought to
recall the daily and economic life of man to its moral and
religious basis : " Let every man of whatsoever craft, whether
brewer, baker, tailor, victualler, merchant or husbandman serve
his brethren as he would do Christ himself, and so his occupa-
tion pleaseth God." All occupations, either washing of dishes
or preaching the word, are alike if done with the spirit of God.
His teaching concerning the family is marked by a curious
contradiction : all generation, all life is of God, he says,
and in the next breath bids children remember that they are
their parents' good and possession (a piece of bad logic from
which has ever sprung most of the misery of the world). A
child should dread its parents for "when they are angry
with thee God is angry with thee and his vengeance will not
depart from the disobedient till they be murdered, drowned or
hanged. The marriage of children pertaineth unto their elders "
by the fifth commandment a truism then, yet one to which
all romance gives the lie. "The husband is to the wife in
God's stead" and the master to the servant: "his command-
ments are God's." All heads up therefore in marital and
paternal absolutism the analogue in the family to the regal
in the state and the divine in heaven. By a contradiction
similar to the above Tyndale bids his autocratic king remember
that the people are God's and not his.
Thomas Starkey, sometime Henry's chaplain and intermedi-
ary between him and his relative, Reginald Pole, reflects
the king-worship of the hour. He wrote an apology for the
royal supremacy and the king's second marriage for in
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 235
saying " My kingdom is not of this world " Christ designed to
leave all such things to the governance of man and worldly
policy ! This exegesis did not convince Pole ; he sent his
kinsman an insulting book upon the points in dispute, identi-
fied his interest with that of the papacy, visited Rome and was
raised to the cardinalate. It was a terrible blow to his agent
Starkey, to whom it was "great grief if the king should not be
good lord to him and gracious." His disgrace begot in him a
"contempt for this life and its vain pleasures." To recover
favor he wrote and dedicated to Henry an imaginary but
instructive " Dialogue " between Pole and a royalist named
Thomas Lupset, one of Colet's pupils. It treats in an interest-
ing manner of the origin of civil life and of existing economic
evils. Pole, it would appear, was a determinist in his psychol-
ogy : " the mind of man first of itself is as a clean and pure
table " and will is as opinion is. He advances the anarchic
postulate that for years men lived without a prince or a common
council and that life was then more virtuous, more accordant
with the dignity of human nature than it is under the existing
social order. He prefers a country to a city life "I had
rather live in the wild forest." Lupset replies that civil life is
grounded in man's better nature and is therefore truly natural ;
that cities are " stars upon earth " and that instead of abandon-
ing them and returning to barbarism one should study how to
remove their imperfections. Pole declares for elective mon-
archy : Lupset regards hereditary succession as a safeguard
against civil war. The prince is the heart of the social order ;
from the heart all life and wisdom spring ; and now is the time
to labor for the state while we have " so noble a prince ; never
prince had more fervent love to the wealth of his subjects than
hath he." True, in a sense not intended !
Starkey had a relish for proverbial philosophy : " Matters
be ended as they be friended ; many eyes see better than one ;
it is easier to spy two faults than amend one ; he was never
236 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
good master that never was scholar, nor never good captain
that never was soldier," are some of the sayings embodied in
the dialogue.
With so excellent a prince it is a marvel that the condition
of society continued as bad as ever ! Both disputants agree
that England is in a bad way ; castles and towns are dilapi-
dated, lands lie waste, poverty is increasing and population
declines while beggars grow more numerous. This gloomy
picture is corroborated by Elyot : " What an infinite number
of English men and women at this present time wander in all
places throughout this realm as beasts brute and savage
abandoning all occupation, service and honesty ! " Starkey
complains of the oppressive number of priests, canons, monks
and friars ; lawyers, those ' cormorants,' are out of all propor-
tion to the number of artisans and farmers ; bishops care only
for the wool of their flock and ape the secular lords ; common-
ers too seek to imitate lords in their expense and show. The
conclusion arrived at is that a remedy for these ills is to be
sought in encouraging marriage : priests should be allowed to
marry, bachelors should be well taxed and poor men with five
children exempted from taxation. For the due repair of decay-
ing towns and the health of the citizens the old office of edile
should be revived. The general idleness might be corrected
by instruction in manual arts and more and better schools
should be established.
The earnest mind of Sir-Thoirias_Elyot was equally exercised
over the political situation and he preceded Starkey in sug-
gesting a better method of education as a specific. He was
one of the most learned men of the reign, an ardent friend
and admirer of More's and a servant of the king on diplomatic
embassies. In 1531 appeared his " Governor " an ideal of
culture for an English youth destined to public office. From
the unity of the supreme ruler Elyot, like Tyndale, derives his
correspondent earthly monarchy : aristocracy and democracy,
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 237
he avers, are ever subject to division and discord : by examples
drawn from Scripture and the experience of Greece, Rome
and several Italian states he unfolds his philosophy of history.
In a single sentence he couches the apology of that revolu-
tionary decade : " From God only proceedeth all honor and
neither noble progeny, succession nor election be of such
force that by them any estate or dignity may be so established
that God being stirred to vengeance shall not shortly resume
it and perchance translate it where it shall like him."
The " education of a gentleman " who is to serve his king
as a lesser " governor " or magistrate should begin in infancy.
He should hear no coarse word but only pure English and
Latin, which may be made familiar to him from his earliest
years. The refining influence of music is not to be forgotten ;
it is a solace and a pleasant science and was so regarded by
the ancients. If the child is inclined to paint or form images
in stone or "tree," he should be encouraged contempt of
art and artists suppresses genius and so we have to apply to
strangers when we would have anything painted or carved.
The boy's tutor should be selected with care, for an ignorant
and cruel master dulls wits as daily experience shows.
(Children suffered untold misery at their teachers' hands in
those days.) While learning Greek the little student is to con-
verse in Latin, and he should begin to read authors before
he gets wearied of the grammar, which should serve simply as
an introduction to literature. It is good to commit to memory
and to practise verse-composition. At fourteen years the lad
should have read Homer and Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Lucan,
Hesiod and selections from other classics ; he may then take
up logic and rhetoric, and geography as a preparation for
history which, with poetry, stimulates courage. Elyot defends
poetry ; much may be learned, he says, even from comedies.
At seventeen years the youth should learn to restrain his ardor
by reason and philosophy especially that branch called
238 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
moral: now he may study Aristotle, Cicero and above all
Plato. To make the physical frame strong and supple, wrest-
ling and running are recommended by the example of the
ancients ; swimming is good though it be not of much repute
now ; sword-play and battle-axe afford good exercise, hunting
and hawking give one an appetite for supper. "All dancing
is not repugnant unto virtue "; it may be a noble and virtuous
pastime and should be turned to account in gentle education.
The mixed dance signifies matrimony and that is a sacra-
ment. Among other amusements and exercises Elyot dissuades
from dice as an invention of the devil ; cards are not so bad
but chess is best of all. " Shooting with the bow " is highly
commended, but ten-pins, quoit-throwing and foot-ball are
proscribed the last because of the "beastly fury and vio-
lence " it excites and the danger of strain incurred.
So far the training of the youth ; the second part of the
work treats of the virtues which one in authority should prac-
tise, of his apparel and his dwelling. He should be affable,
benevolent, liberal. A forcible sentence dissuades from anger
that hideous passion : " who, beholding a man by fury
changed into an horrible figure, his face infarced [swollen]
with rancor, his mouth foul and imbossed [frothy], his eyne
wide staring, not speaking, but as a wild bull roaring and
braying out words despiteful and venomous, forgetting his
estate or condition, forgetting learning, yea, forgetting all
reason, will not have such a passion in extreme detestation ? "
(Such a spectacle, one might suppose, should cure the beholder
and the shame consequent on the exhibition the offender of
any disposition to fly into a like rage or commit a repetition of
such a scene.)
A magistrate's house should have its walls adorned with
arras, painted panels and figures representing famous deeds
and persons, and the board should be set out with plate and
vessels engraved with histories or wise sentences. The duty
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 239
of decorating churches inspired what is perhaps the most glow-
ing sentence in the work ; " These material churches where-
unto repaireth the congregation of Christian people, in the
which is the corporal presence of the Son of God and very God,
ought to be pure, clean and well adorned, as the heaven visible
is most pleasantly garnished with planets and stars resplen-
dishing in the most pure firmament of azure color."
Eljot was the type of a cultivated, Catholic humanist of the
latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. He was overpowered
by the wealth and authority of classic literature ; among his
numberless examples drawn therefrom, his constant reference
to ancient authors, we long for more nervous, original thought.
He remains nevertheless (perhaps we ought to say therefore)
a typical Englishman of the Renascence.
At the court John Heywood made merriment by his witty
talk and song, epigrams and light dramatic pieces. He had
been recommended by Sir Thomas More to the young princess
Mary. In his dialogue of "The Pardoner and the Friar"
written before the breach with Rome we are transported even
to Chaucer's day ; the atmosphere is still mediaeval. The
two sinners strive to outdo each other in popular favor ; the
pardoner vaunts his power to absolve from every sin and the
miraculous efficacy of his relics, while the friar celebrates the
good deeds of his order ; they preach at each other in alternate
lines, work themselves into a passion and finally come to
blows. In " John the Husband, Tyb the Wife, and Sir John
the Priest " the woes of a henpecked husband are set forth,
the ill usage he sustains at the hands of a faithless wife and
a profligate priest, but the brightest of Heywood's pieces is
" The Four P's." A palmer, a pardoner, a 'pothecary and a
pedlar rival each other in telling monstrous stories : at the last
the palmer avers that he never saw a woman out of patience in
his life : the others, agape, profess that he has won, for that is
the greatest lie of all.
240 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
John Bale, a zealous partisan of the Reformation, composed
mysteries and interludes, but for the best dramatic relic of
the day the best morality, perhaps, ever written in Britain
we have to cross once more the Scottish border. Owing to the
treaty with France there was relative peace between England
and Scotland, and at the court of the young king, James V,
we discern a transient blush of letters and arts, a touch of
renascent scholarship, a freedom of thought and speech, a
moment of gayety that recall the palmier time before Flodden.
Among the scholars at the court was John Bellenden, whose
version of Boece's Latin history of Scotland so pleased the
king that he commissioned him to turn the work of Livy
into the popular dialect. In 1537 James concluded a romantic
courtship by bringing home from France the delicate young
princess Madeleine as his bride and in her train there came
a page named Pierre Ronsard. The poor girl lived only a
few weeks after her arrival in the north, dying before she could
be crowned and Sir David Lindsay gave expression to the
general sorrow in a poetical lament. He had been the king's
preceptor and it was he who wrote the moral-play mentioned
above. It is entitled "A pleasant Satire of the Three Estates"
the spiritual and temporal lords, that is, and the burgesses
but the first of these had to bear the brunt of the satire
which can hardly have been " pleasant " to them : and the first
part of the play was designed as a lesson for the king a
warning and rebuke of his sensual propensities. King Humanity
desires to rule his realm well but is tempted by Wantonness to
yield to Sensuality ; good Counsel comes to recover him, to the
alarm of Flattery and Falsehood, who disguise themselves as
friars, change their names to Devotion and Wisdom, beguile
the king and drive Counsel away. Now Truth appears and
is accused to the bishops of having an English Testament in her
hand: an abbot advises a charge of heresy and summary ban-
ishment, but for the present she is put in the stocks. Chastity
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 241
next seeks to save the king but Sensuality bids him choose
between them and he banishes Chastity on pain of death. But
now Correction who has been reforming the rest of Christen-
dom arrives in Scotland: Flattery robs the king and runs away:
Correction looses and recalls Counsel, Truth and Chastity and
drives away Sensuality who takes refuge with the bishops and
abbots.
The play was enacted before the court at Linlithgow palace
in the year 1540. Lindsay used a plainness of speech that is
an extraordinary revelation of the manners of the day. It
speaks well for the king that he took his old tutor's remon-
strances in good part: and without his protection Lindsay
could hardly have ventured upon such bold criticism of the
higher clergy. He illumines for us the ghastly abyss of corrup-
tion the surface of which the common histories skim with
euphemistic, deceptive propriety. The gross sensuality of the
decaying church is his dominant theme : " the Roman church
is the lamp of lechery : the cardinals and bishops have banished
chastity from Rome. Most of the prelates of this nation have
concubines some have three. The marriage of the clergy is
criminal, is irksome, but a change of concubines innocent and
pleasant." And the biting satire was irrefutable, so extreme
was the moral dissolution finally induced by monastic restraint
upon natural instinct and a canonical impediment to a lawful
connection. And his clerical associates, counsellors and con-
science-keepers connived at if they did not actually encourage
the young king in his loose way of life. Such were the morals
of the parties that combined to suppress the reformation in
Scotland and the corruption and tyranny of the Scottish
episcopate is the sufficient explanation of the force that presby-
terianism there acquired.
In the latter part of the satire which recounts the oppres-
sion of John Commonweal whose money is drained Romeward
occur some quaint touches: a pardoner just from Rome finds
242 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
his traffic diminishing and curses the New Testament, Luther
and St. Paul as the cause ; and the spiritual lords agree that
"it had been good that Paul had ne'er been born! "
Among Lindsay's shorter poems is a remorseless exposure
of the immoral suggestions of the confessional and the frivolous
and mercenary nature of the penances prescribed. In his
" Answer to the King's Flyting " he scores his royal pupil's
profligacy in downright terms. In other coarse but clever
verses he ridicules a passing fashion in ladies' dress and his
" Justing between Watson and Barbour " is a satire with a
double edge ; it is a lampoon upon the professors of medicine
and a Rabelaisian caricature of the courtly entertainment of
the tournament and when a once honored institution becomes
a subject for jest and burlesque its end is near.
The best known by far, the most read and loved to-day of
all the writers of the reign of Henry VIII are the poet friends
Wyatt and Surrey ; to them belongs the credit of having intro-
duced the sonnet and blank verse into English literature.
Wyatt was of the more masculine genius. Of his sonnets the
octave is correct, Petrarchian ; the sestet is composed of an
ordinary or inverted quatrain and a couplet. In one experj-
ment there are only three rhymes, two running alternately
through twelve lines, the third forming the terminal couplet.
He also composed rondeaux, songs, epigrams etc. in a single
Chaucerian stanza or Boccaccian octave, and satires in the
rhyming system of Dante's Divine Comedy. So deeply was
his genius swayed by Italian influence, though French too was
not wanting. His verse is analytical, reflective, its subject
is the passion of love. One pretty sonnet the crystalline
form is singularly adapted to contain distilled emotion tells
of the signs of love ; another, of a dream that he had his love
in possession ; another describes the lover's woful state, now
freezing, now burning his life is compared to a ship tossed
at sea and again to the Alps. There is scant observation of
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 243
external nature in these poems: love is compared to a tiger, a
stream, fire, wind, the sea, but there is no landscape, no
picture; external objects are introduced in a frigid, merely
decorative way. He complains of his mistress' cruelty and
his own lack of liberty ; yet again though beloved by her he
loves he suffers still and makes the discovery that there is
pain even in love's fruition. He continues to analyze his
feelings, his doubts: "by love hell may be felt ere death
assail." (Perhaps it was in this mood that he took to trans-
lating the seven penitential psalms !) At last by an effort of
will he breaks his bonds and adopts a manlier strain, rejoicing
that he has regained his freedom, having broken the snares of
love like a bird.
His satires are in similar vein : he exults that he has escaped
from the court where speech is not free, where one must speak
fair to wealth and rank, where life is no life but flattery and
slavery: now he is free "in Kent and Christendom," and
there he invites a friend to join him.
He sums up his experience of life for his young reader's :
" If thou wilt mighty be flee from the rage
Of cruel will and see thou keep thee free
From the foul yoke of sensual bondage . . .
For He that hath each star in heaven fixed . . .
Alike hath made thee noble in his working,
So that wretched no way may thou be
Except foul lust and vice do conquer thee."
Stars and the moral law ! They are a young man's poems,
self-conscious, introspective, aspiring ; in them we perceive the
soul turning in upon itself, studying its own workings ; here is
the personal element, self-analysis, contrast of outer and inner,
the note is distinctly modern, the age is growing meta-
physical, psychological, ethical.
Nature enters largely into Surrey's sonnets ; one of them is
a pretty description of spring and in truth his was the spring-
244 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
time of modern poetry. " The sun, when he hath spread his
rays " reveals a wide landscape :
" The mountains high and how they stand,
The valleys and the great mainland,
The trees, the herbs, the towers strong,
The castles and the rivers long."
Roaming about the streets of London one night with frolic-
some companions, Surrey broke the big glass windows of some
of the staid citizens and was speedily lodged in the Fleet
prison ; but there, instead of using the time for repentance, he
penned a satire upon the city, the modern Babylon, and the
vices of its inhabitants, whose windows he broke to mind
them of God's judgment !
He wrote many quatrains, versified several chapters of the
book Ecclesiastes and several psalms but his chief contri-
bution to his country's literature was a translation of the second
and fourth books of the ^Eneid in blank verse. We note that
his caesura usually falls after the fourth syllable the second
foot, rarely after the fifth ; on an average one line in seven
begins with an accented syllable ; an alexandrine sometimes
intrudes itself ; and the lines, of which only one in six runs on
into the following, never end with a redundant syllable. So
formal and mechanical at its introduction was that most plastic
and ductile form of verse.
It is interesting to learn that at this very epoch the sonnet
was introduced into French literature by Mellin de Saint Gelais.
The fashion of psalm-translating was exemplified with eminent
success by Clement Marot a prote'ge of the queen of Na-
varre. He was an expert beside of polished taste in all kinds
of mediaeval measures. His version of the psalms was widely
popular and for thus abetting the religious movement and for
his liberal opinions he was forced to flee into Italy. Another
of Margaret's protege's Bonaventure des PeViers was a
satirist of all religions : he was no doubt a collaborator with
-
OF ENGLISH
his royal patroness in her famous Heptameron or " tales of
the seven days " with which a supposed party of fashionable
visitors to the springs of Cauteretz beguiled an enforced delay
on their return. Genuine mediaeval license marks many of
their tales.
The traits just slightly touched on are sufficient to indicate
the fatal weakness in faith and morals by reason of which the
French after many noble efforts surrendered themselves to the
remodelled church of Rome. Deeply significant in this regard
is the huge satire, the grotesque allegory, " Gargantua and
Pantagruel " the chief literary landmark of that time, and
a cloaca, as it would seem, for all the ordure of the Middle
Ages. Rabelais has ever been a problematical character ; he
was a monk, but a monk out of his cloister, a student of medi-
cine and of the new learning ; he was sincere in his uncouth
satire upon the monastic and scholastic systems and for the
latter he propounded a natural and sensible substitute, yet
he was not a Protestant, hardly a man of the Renascence ; his
eye was fixed upon the animal part of our nature and though
he had glimpses of higher things he contented himself with
mockery. So it was with his countrymen : France laughed
with Rabelais and abandoned the ideal.
Sonnets had been written in Spanish, it will be remembered,
long since, but the form was now fairly naturalized in Castilian
literature by the poetic pair Juan Boscan and Garcilasso de la
Vega, who afford a pleasing and forcible comparison with their
English contemporaries Wyatt and Surrey. Their sonnets are
tuned to the same pure and meditative strain and the young
Garcilasso's are of even superior grace. They also experi-
mented with blank verse, Boscan in a long tale, his friend in a
poetic epistle. Boscan's best production is an allegory of love
in Boccaccio's octave.
A sample of Spanish prose and of the politico-didactic
interest of the period is the " Dial of Princes " by Antonio de
246 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
Guevara, historiographer to the emperor Charles V. It was
widely read and translated. And a class of writings character-
istic of Spanish literature, thence imported and made popular
in many languages, was headed by Diego de Mendoza with his
comic history, written during his student days at Salamanca, of
the clever rogue and lackey, " Lazarillo de Tormes."
An interesting literary reaction against the late poetic move-
ment under Italian tutelage was led by Christoval de Castillejo
from about the year 1540. He advocated with all his might a
return to old-time modes of verse.
The date is memorable for it was signalized by a strenuous
ecclesiastical reaction whose capital expression was the institu-
tion of the Jesuit order. In 1541 the conciliatory conference
at Regensburg in which a basis of agreement was sought for
both Catholics and Protestants broke up in failure. In 1543
a Spanish Testament was suppressed and the Inquisition was
introduced into Italy ; the following year a Spaniard was burnt
for Lutheran heresy ; and in 1545 the great reactionary Coun-
cil of Trent was convened. Its objects were a reformation of
the church and suppression of heresy but the former point
though pressed by the French bishops was by Spanish and
Italian influence postponed to the latter, and the decrees on
the Scriptures and justification were carefully worded so as to
exclude the reformers' views. The Roman church had at last
awakened to the necessity of repressive measures and disci-
plinary reform if it would save itself from dissolution and
that awakening connotes the close of mediaevalism proper in
southern Europe and the collapse of Italian humanism. The
sack of Rome had scattered the humanists thence, Medicean
tyranny had exiled others from Florence and numbers of
scholars and artists wandered into France to enjoy the pro-
tection and patronage of its munificent king. Conspicuous
among these and one of the first was the Florentine Luigi
Alamanni, author of a didactic poem on agriculture patterned
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 247
after Virgil's Georgics, in blank verse. The sculptor Cellini,
the painter Bordone, the novelist Bandello followed and the
last was gratified by the gift of a bishopric. The Jesuit
reaction was the finishing blow to declining humanism in Italy,
and perhaps it came none too soon. It was merited ; for
the indecencies of Pietro Aretino, the egotism, extravagance
and license of Cellini, were indicative of the degeneration of
genius and demanded a curb. In the tales of Matteo Bandello
the Boccaccio of this later Renascence concupiscence
moves the characters about like pawns on a chess board.
They are not worthy of the name of characters : change of name
and incident alone give variety the intrigue is ever the same.
The conversion of the aged Bembo is symbolical of the
change that came over the spirit of Italy: he was made a
cardinal in 1539 and forthwith forswore the cultivation of classic
literature as profane.
In 1542 Andrea Palladio began his careful measurements
of old Roman buildings, published erelong a set of plans and
restored elevations and elaborated for the builders of the reac-
tion a congenial architectural style, ornate, mechanical, new
Roman : of round arches, round or gabled window-heads,
superimposed tiers of pilasters of different orders, and balus-
traded eaves.
During those years Giorgio Vasari, Angelo's pupil, occupied
himself in collecting, before it was too late, information con-
cerning the artists of past time which he digested in his
incomparable " Lives." It was a last effort of the mediaeval
memory, summing up the results of a long day of creative
activity.
We remark finally a glowing Italian version by Bernardo
Tasso of a romance long popular in the Spanish peninsula
the Amadis of Gaul.
In the realm of natural science the overthrow of outworn
authority went on for of investigations in the sphere of
248 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
matter the powers that be are rarely apprehensive. Under and
through the alchemy of the Middle Ages modern chemistry was
working and protruding like the thumb of Ptah through his
swathing-bands. In 1541 the troubled career of Paracelsus
closed at Salzburg. He first made science stammer in the
German tongue and though beset by teeming, mystical fan-
cies struck into original and practicable paths of research.
In token of his breach with past authority he gave the works
of Galen to the flames.
The supremacy of the great Roman anatomist was more
cautiously and surely undermined by the Fleming, Vesalius,
whose discoveries also superseded Mondini's; he was the
father of modern anatomy.
Shortly before his death in 1543 Nicholas Copernicus pub-
lished his " Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies," relegating
the Ptolemaic system to the past ; but strange to say that
momentous work that wrought a revolution in astronomy only
to be compared with Luther's in religion or with the discov-
eries of Columbus and da Gama remained without effect until
the ensuing century.
The same year the first great botanic garden was laid out at
Padua. And through the decade the young Swiss naturalist,
Conrad Gesner, was travelling far and wide, studying plants,
which he aimed to classify according to a natural system,
gathering materials for his epoch-making work on animals.
The reactionary spirit of the decade was not without its
influence on the temper of Luther ; as he aged he grew harder,
his opinions crystallized, he waxed ever more bitter against
the Calvinists, more intolerant of all variations from his
standard. Sebastian Franck's protest was especially irritating
to him. Franck was a theologian of mystical tendency who
made appeal from Luther's growing dogmatism to a higher
spiritual court that of conscience and inward conviction of
religious truth. He was the spokesman of much secret dis-
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 249
content among Germans with some of the results and princi-
ples of the Lutheran reformation.
The sympathetic attitude of Diirer and Cranach, however,
reminds us that Luther never made the breach with art that
Zwingli and Calvin made. Indeed, he composed a series of
forcible sermons against iconoclasts that are beside good
specimens of his German style. He had the wisdom to set his
hymns to popular melodies and thus they enjoyed immense
vogue. Popular literature too was ever his ally ; Hans Sachs,
the rhyming shoemaker of Nuremberg, in countless songs and
homely satires and narratives helped to advance his cause.
In England the late spring-tide of reform began to ebb.
Henry felt that the religious and intellectual movement had
gone far enough and needed a check which he proceeded to
apply through the notorious Six Articles that he caused his
parliament to pass in the year 1539. Though it be hard to
recollect these in detail it is easy to remember that their pivot
was the mass. The first declared that the doctrine of tran-
substantiation was that of the church of England ; this was
followed by assertions of the sufficiency of communion in one
kind and the efficacy of private masses ; confession to a priest
was declared to be a pre-requisite to communion; and in
remaining articles the condition of celebrants was touched on :
sacerdotal celibacy was enforced and the binding nature of the
second monastic vow was set forth. This last was a pecu-
liarly arbitrary provision ; it was levelled at the hosts of monks
that wandered up and down the land, many of whom after
their ruthless ejection from their old homes were seeking to
make new ones by entering the marriage relation ; by this
article they were forbidden to become thus merged in general
society.
For an attempt he made to attach the king to the protestant
interest in Germany Thomas Cromwell paid the forfeit with
his head. After the death of Jane Seymour, his third queen
250 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
doubly endeared to him as the mother of his son Edward
his minister pressed upon Henry an alliance with the princess
Anne of Cleves. A portrait of her taken by Holbein to
whom we are indebted for likenesses of many distinguished
personages of the reign so attracted the king that the match
was arranged but when Anne appeared his disappointment
was grievous : the cunning painter had flattered her, and she
could speak nothing but German, of which he understood not
a word. He offered therefore to become her affectionate
brother ; she was to receive a pension and take precedence
next after his queen and daughter. Anne was complaisant,
agreed to a divorce and assumed her singular position at the
English court. But Cromwell went to the block on a charge of
heresy, and the very day of his execution the king wedded a
second Catherine, of the great Catholic house of Howard.
The familiar political combinations of the past now repeated
themselves as by an inner necessity ; Henry became estranged
from his late ally of France, drew toward his imperial friend of
former times and the partition agreement of twenty years
before was reverted to. Francis thereupon renewed his alli-
ance with Suleiman II and we behold again the familiar
groups, the king of France, German Protestants, and Turks
against emperor and king of England who has now also per-
force a war with Scotland on his hands. From 1543 to 1545
the European war dragged on ; it was not pressed with
energy by either party ; Europe was exhausted by the tremen-
dous conflicts of the past half-century; and more than all
Francis himself desired reconciliation with the church and the
emperor, he too would become a prominent representative
of the reaction. The three great sovereigns now grown old
were ready and willing to sustain as best they could authority
and the old order, so in 1545 peace was made between them,
a peace that Francis made haste to solemnize by a ferocious
massacre of the Vaudois the Protestants of the south of
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 251
France. Henry wielded over England his "whip with six
strings," sending Protestants to the stake for infringing his
articles while Catholics went to the block for denying his eccle-
siastical jurisdiction ; the land was overawed by his capricious,
inscrutable policy; his closing years were a true reign of
terror. His minister now was Stephen Gardiner, bishop of
Winchester a rigid sacramentarian, who made desperate
efforts to bring Cranmer into discredit, instigating against him
charges of heresy. Hugh Latimer, who had resigned his
bishopric of Worcester upon the passage of the Six Articles,
was sent to the tower. Yet ever and anon the reformers
were heartened by some act like that which directed that
copies of the Bible in English (Tyndale's version as revised
by Coverdale and others) should be exhibited in parish
churches, or that which provided for the publication of part
of the service in the mother tongue. Henry's marriage to
his last queen, Catherine Parr, was regarded as auspicious to
their cause toward which she was well inclined, but in con-
versations with the king on doctrinal subjects she gave too free
expression to her views, was for an instant in grave peril and
only extricated herself by a prudent submission.
Among the victims offered up to the dogma of transub-
stantiation none engaged deeper sympathy than the gentle,
devoted and long-suffering Anne Askew, who was burnt at
Smithfield in 1546. The height of the reaction headed in
Scotland by the evil Cardinal Beaton was marked that year
by the burning of George Wishart, a distinguished evangelical
preacher.
The domestic condition of England continued unprosperous.
The king's necessities led him to commit one of the gravest
injuries a government can inflict on its people ; he debased
the coinage, and workers found their wages shrivel in their
hands they understood not why. The discontent and suffering
were grievous. In consequence partly of the industrial depres-
252 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
sion, partly of the suppression of the monasteries where relief
has been dispensed of old, vagabondage and pauperism
attained dimensions so alarming that the rudiment of a poor-
law had to be devised : "sturdy vagabonds " voluntary pau-
pers were to be repressed and the deserving poor to be
relieved from funds dispensed by episcopal almoners. The
defect of the measure was that public charity alone was relied
on to supply the funds which were hence uncertain and in bad
times quite inadequate.
The literature of the end of the reign was scant and scarce
worth mentioning ; indeed, none could flourish in that atmos-
phere of fear and suspicion ; in his determination to suppress
all opposition to his arbitrary will Henry would seem to have
been animated by a desire to annihilate literature. One by one
its foremost representatives were killed off. Tyndale and More
had been extinguished ; upon the fall of Cromwell Wyatt was
committed to the Tower, and having been commanded to join
the king at Falmouth died on the journey of a fever contracted
in his anxious haste ; and a crowning injustice was the execu-
tion of Surrey because there coursed in his veins a strain of
royal blood.
The king even brought legislation to bear upon literature and
the drama, his object being the suppression of all publications
in English upon the subject of religion. By an act of the year
1542 he put a stop to the performance of the old mysteries and
forbade all religious plays, ballads and songs (of which many
satirical specimens were current) as " noisome to the peace of
the church."
Before his decease in 1546 Sir Thomas Elyot had the satis-
faction of seeing his hints on archery expanded into an elaborate
treatise, the " Toxophilus " or " School of Shooting," by his
young friend Roger Ascham. It is in the form of a dialogue.
Archery is pronounced a most honest pastime, indulged in by
the ancients, wholesome for princes and students ; cards are
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 253
condemned as devoid of exercise and honesty ; and music of
the new school " so nicely fingered, so sweetly tuned " is dis-
countenanced as too nearly resembling the Lydian mode :
beside, Galen has said that " much music marreth men's man-
ners." An exception is made as to old-fashioned plain-song
which is declining and should be encouraged. Here accord-
ingly we have a quaint musical corollary to the doctrinal
reaction !
By that time John Leland, who held the unique office of
king's antiquary, had finished his great tour over England in
the course of which he visited every city, manor-house, castle
and monastery in the kingdom if we may believe his declara-
tion, and saved as many manuscripts as he could from the
wreck, distressing to his honest soul, of the monastic libraries.
That archaeological survey at the moment when the Middle
Ages were expiring was like memory, recapitulating at eventide
the toils and triumphs of the day. It testified to the rise of
national sentiment and an historic sense, uncritical though
it might be : in Leland the Arthurian legends found a last
defender : he published a Latin assertion of their genuineness.
Now it was that written sermons began to supersede the old
fashion of free and familiar delivery. Precision of statement
and literary finish might thus be attained but it was at the
expense of the energy, picturesqueness and directness of appeal
of the extemporaneous style.
Luther died in 1546, none too soon for him he just escaped
witnessing a seeming obliteration of German Protestantism.
The year 1547 was the low- water mark of the reaction; the
protestant leaders were divided among themselves and para-
lyzed by doubt and treachery ; their wholly inadequate force
melted away before the emperor at Miihlberg and Germany
was at his feet. But the same year Henry and Francis passed
away leaving the stage clear for new characters Cardinal
Beaton had paid for his tyranny with his life, and western
254 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
Europe breathed more freely. Slowly the tide began to turn
and a fifth chapter in Reformation history opened a fresh
and even more vigorous forward movement than the last. In
the course of a few years Charles lost the magnificent position
he had gained by his victory at Miihlberg ; the new king of
France allied himself with the protestant princes to undo its
results and received from them a bit of territory on the bank
of the Rhine with the title " Protector of the Liberties of Ger-
many"; in 1552 the Turks took Temesvar ; and the emperor
was constrained to conclude with the Protestants what was to
him the humiliating truce of Passau, granting them freedom of
worship according to the terms of that early decree of Speyer.
In 1555 this was made the basis of the general and lasting
religious pacification of Augsburg ; the labor of his life seemed
thrown away and the unhappy old emperor, bitterly repenting
that he had let Luther escape him, conscious that his whole long
career was a failure, abdicated and went into a monastery
where he soon after died.
Henry's attempt to graft a reformed, national polity upon the
old system of faith and worship had proved impracticable and
in his son's reign the latter went by the board. The boy-king
Edward was a zealous little Protestant ; his maternal uncle and
guardian, the duke of Somerset, was hand and glove with the
reforming party ; Cranmer's star was in the ascendant, Latimer
was released from the Tower where he had spent the years of
reaction, and radical changes in the mode of worship were con-
summated ; in fact the existing ecclesiastical system of England
was then fully inaugurated. The Six Articles were rescinded ;
with the doctrine of the corporal presence of Christ in the
eucharist private masses ceased, both elements were adminis-
tered to the laity, and the clergy were allowed to wed. The
liturgy was done into English; in the year 1548 the Book of
Common Prayer appeared the famous " First Book of King
Edward VI." These sweeping changes seemed revolutionary
OF ENGLISH LITER A TURE. 255
to Bishop Gardiner and his compeer Bonner of London ; they
remonstrated, were cast into prison and shortly deprived of
their sees. Ridley was appointed in Bonner's room and
Hooper to be bishop of Gloucester : his scruples about wearing
the episcopal vestments, which he called idolatrous and impious,
delayed the latter's installation. In Hooper the lineaments of
the Puritan can be plainly discerned. To minds of his stamp
it seemed that the church was not yet reduced to the just
evangelical model ; the agitation went on ; after the crushing
defeat of Miihlberg several eminent continental reformers took
refuge in England and pointed out defects in the prayer-book
which permitted quite too many of the old ceremonies for
their taste. More statues and pictures were removed from the
churches ; the ancient stone altars gave place to communion
tables and candles were no longer seen; in the year 1552 the
Second Book of Edward VI registered the further rise of the
tide. Objectionable practices allowed by the former book were
dropped ; the sentences used when administering the elements
were altered to accord with the merely commemorative view ;
and worship became in outward form and in inward spirit
evangelical.
It is interesting to observe how Wyclif's fame after its long
eclipse came out now in full lustre: indeed, through the vary-
ing phases of doctrine that we have been studying, what men
thought of him was a ready gauge of their position. Cranmer
took issue with Gardiner about him : " John Wyclif was a
singular instrument of God in his time to set forth the truth
of Christ's Gospel, but Antichrist that sitteth in God's temple
boasting himself as God hath by God's sufferance prevailed
against many holy men and sucked the blood of martyrs these
late years." The passage occurs in the archbishop's "Answer
to a Crafty and Sophistical Cavillation " of his old enemy
"against the true and godly doctrine" of the sacrament.
The treatise is not agreeable either in temper or style it
256 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
could scarcely be expected to be, but it defines clearly its
author's position. He believed that "the very body of the
tree or rather the root of the weeds beads, pardons, pil-
grimages, indulgences, service in Latin etc. is the popish
doctrine of transubstantiation." He appealed to Christ's in-
stitution : none of his apostles were so " fond " as not to know
that the bread was not his body nor the wine his blood. Our
opponents " teach that Christ is in the bread and wine. But
we say according to the truth that he is in them that worthily
eat and drink the bread and wine. My meaning is that the
force, the grace, the virtue and benefit of Christ's body that was
crucified for us and of his blood that was shed for us be really
and effectually present with all them that duly receive the sac-
raments but all this I understand of his spiritual presence.
. . . Nor no more truly is he corporally or really present in the
due ministration of the Lord's Supper than he is in the due
ministration of baptism." Bread, wine and water are signs
and tokens, not to be worshipped ; yet Christ is in them as he
is in his Word " when he worketh mightily by the same in the
hearts of the hearers"; he is not present in the voice of the
speaker but uses it as he does his sacraments.
The noblest figure in the English reformation was without
question that of Bishop Latimer, a brave man, earnest, large-
hearted, buoyant of spirit of all the reformers of the island-
kingdom he most resembled Luther. In his youth as he
himself testified he was as " obstinate a papist as any in the
kingdom, zealous without knowledge " like Saul the perse-
cutor; when he was converted he became a sturdy pillar of
evangelic faith. He was much the most popfilar preacher of
the day and he magnified his office. His famous " Sermon on
the Plough," conceived in the quaint, allegorical style that the
people loved, enforced the duty of preaching. It was delivered
at St. Paul's in the winter of 1549. Taking a passage out of
St. Luke's gospel as his starting-point, " the Seed is the
of ENGLISH LITERATURE, 257
Word of God" -he proceeded to draw a parallel between
the ploughman and a preacher. Erelong he rose into a pro-
phetic strain, denouncing the pride and wickedness of London,
calling upon its people to repent, "but London cannot abide
to be rebuked, such is the nature of man ; they will not amend
their faults and they will not be ill spoken of." Nevertheless
he hesitated not fearlessly to expose its sins and to score those
"unpreaching prelates" whom he held to be largely responsible
for the wide-spread ignorance and wrong-doing. We can divine
the hush that fell upon the great congregation as the orator
engaged closer attention by the sudden question, "Who is the
most diligent bishop and prelate in all England that passeth
all the rest in doing his office ? I can tell for I know him
well. But now I think I see you listening and harkening that I
should name him. Will ye know who it is ? I will tell you ;
it is the Devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all other,
he is never out of his diocese, ye shall never find him unoccu-
pied, he keepeth residence at all times, he is ever at his
plough."
The ensuing Lent, Latimer delivered a series of six sermons
before the boy king and on one occasion in the following year
preached to him both in the morning and afternoon of the same
day. Still in prophetic vein he chose as his subject avarice
and lust and their connection, which he illustrated by the
adulteries that follow marriages for money. He returned to
his charge against London as wicked a city as Nineveh,
equally in need of repentance.
An example of his homiletic allegorizing almost as good as
his sermon on the plough was that " on the Card," in which he
drew a moral from the popular pastime : in the game of life
" hearts is trumps, as I said."
" If thou build a hundred churches, give as much as thou
canst make to the gilding of saints and honoring of the church
and offer as great candles as oaks, if thou leave the works of
258 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
mercy and the commandments undone these works shall
nothing avail thee,"- yet of themselves they are good.
Latimer was not an iconoclast.
In 1549 appeared a metrical version of parts of the psalter
the work of Thomas Sternhold, who died that year. The
collection was subsequently enlarged by John Hopkins and
enjoyed for generations an extraordinary popularity.
A single dramatic effort is extant of the reign of Edward VI
the comedy of "Ralph Roister Doister " by Nicholas Udall,
formerly master of Eton College. Other plays that he com-
posed have been lost. Ralph is a brainless, rakish fellow of
the town who is beguiled by a cunning parasite called Mery-
greek an English Lazarillo and is helped and hindered
by him in a vain but persistent suit he pays to a well-to-do
widow. The rhyme, metre and diction of the play are those
of the homely popular tales of former times, the dialogue is
easy and familiar, and the action progresses through well-
defined acts and scenes.
The date of its appearance is fixed by a reference made to it
by Thomas Wilson, the rhetorician, who published a treatise on
rhetoric and logic in the year 1553. His object was the purifi-
cation of the spoken language from the classic and foreign terms
with which scholars, travellers and the fashionable delighted
to encrust it. There is much sensible advice in the book :
" Never affect inkhorn terms or be over-fine. Only the foolish
fantastical Latin their tongues; journeyed gentlemen, for show,
talk a French or Italianate English and the fine courtier talks
nothing but Chaucer." Men were still half-ashamed of their
native tongue which was then just emerging from its state of
immaturity ; it is evident that it was undergoing that expansion
of vocabulary that was to make it the great medium of expres-
sion for the coming generation ; but many in their half-culture,
their would-be elegance, were making mistakes in taste and
selection. Against such Wilson's was a manly and useful protest.
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 259
Sir John Cheke, the most eminent classical scholar in the
kingdom and Edward's tutor in Greek, who had in the last
reign had a sharp controversy with bishop Gardiner as to the
proper pronunciation of that language, was equally jealous of
the purity of his native speech and sought to expunge from its
vocabulary words and phrases that had crept into it from
foreign languages. He also suggested a simplification of its
spelling.
We note elsewhere interest in the vernacular ; Sir David
Lindsay penned a vigorous defence of his in the opening of
his " Dialogue concerning the Monarchy," a long metrical
account of ancient empires that winds up with an attack upon
the papal monarchy in the style with which we are already
familiar. It was the last monument of the old northern or
mediaeval Scottish dialect, the literary history of which we
have traced for two hundred years ; its author died soon after.
A highly interesting parallel to these efforts for the extended
use, enrichment and purification of the vernacular is offered
by a school of French writers that rose at this very era. Its
programme was set forth in an enthusiastic " Defence of the
French language " published in the year 1549, the maiden
essay of a young poet named Joachim du Bellay whose dawning
talent had been marked by king Francis and the queen of
Navarre. After the fashion of the Renascence he was dubbed
" the French Ovid." His defence of his mother tongue con-
sisted in a word in the proposition that it was quite capable of
appropriating spoil from Latin and Greek. A favorite analogy
was the practice of the Latin authors who, though profoundly
versed in Greek, did not therefore discard their own language
but applied their scholarship to its enrichment and regulation.
For the attainment of these ends du Bellay and his followers
accordingly introduced into the language shoals of classic
terms and to give it exquisite polish cultivated the sonnet
with especial zeal.
260 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
After the appearance of his treatise which was the literary
sensation of the hour, du Bellay visited Rome where he spent
some years. He exemplified his theory in a set of over a hun-
dred sonnets "To Olive " and returned in the year 1552 with
forty-five more on "The Ruins of Rome." He was henceforth
a particular star at the court of Henry II. His contem-
porary, Pierre Ronsard, cooperated powerfully in the movement
and erelong eclipsed his fame, winning from the admiring
court the title "Prince of Poets." He applied himself to
composing French odes in imitation of Horace. His preceptor
in the classics, Jean Dorat "the French Pindar" was the
Nestor of the movement, which progressed in spite of the
ridicule of Rabelais now approaching his end.
The year that du Bellay returned from Rome a disciple of
his, fitienne Jodelle, then but twenty years of age, made him-
self the pioneer of an important form classic tragedy by
his play " Cleopatra." It was characterized by the mingled
weakness and extravagance, the frigid, imitative rendering of
heroic passions common to first efforts in this line, but it
was hailed by Ronsard the arbiter as equal to anything of
Sophocles and it furnished a model of its kind for coming
centuries.
The four poets just mentioned made up with some lights of
less magnitude the celebrated group of the Pleiade. One of
the latter, Baif by name, translated two of Euripides' tragedies
and became an exemplar of the tendency of the school to
degenerate into mere academic correctness.
While the affairs of the Protestants were prospering in Ger-
many the death of Edward VI in the summer of 1553 opened
the way for a third Catholic reaction, the most vehement of all,
proportioned to the thoroughness of the late reform. It was
the sixth and last chapter in the long contest between mediae-
val and modern ideas. The princess Mary came to the throne
at the mature age of thirty-six, her nature embittered by many
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 261
injuries and by the thought of the ill-usage endured by a mother
whom she deeply loved and whose memory it was her dearest
consolation to defend. She inherited her father's tenacity of
will but she was more than half her mother's daughter ; her
affections were fixed upon her mother's land of Spain. Hence
from the first her whole heart was engaged in the project
broached by the emperor of a marriage with his son Philip.
Her devotion to her mother's faith was absolute : to restore it
in its integrity was the object of her reign. She passed over
therefore the latter part of her father's reign, aiming not only
to maintain as he had done Catholic doctrine but also to restore
the ancient form of church government, and took as her ideal
the system of his earlier years, of her mother's time.
Gardiner's star was now in the ascendant; he was restored
to his see and was appointed chancellor. Hooper and Cover-
dale were incarcerated in the Fleet, Ridley and Latimer in the
Tower where they were soon followed by Cranmer; other
prominent reformers fled to the continent. Bonner was rein-
stated in his bishopric of London and straightway the old
crucifixes reappeared in the churches of his diocese and the
texts with which the reformers had decorated their walls were
blotted out.
Proceedings were hastened to reconcile England with the
see of Rome. The queen's obsequious parliament declared
that the marriage of Henry and Catherine had been valid and
reversed Cranmer's sentence of divorce ; every act of the late
reign touching religion was revoked ; and Mary's kinsman,
Cardinal Pole, came sailing up the Thames in his barge to
receive as papal legate the submission of the kingdom through
its representatives. Parliament bent the knee, was absolved
by him from the sins of heresy and schism, and renewed the
act for burning heretics.
The sacrament became afresh the subject of impassioned
controversy ; the advocates of tran substantiation, flushed with
262 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
triumph, balked not at its ultimate absurdity, asserting that at
the Last Supper Jesus ate his own body. The celibacy of the
clergy was enforced, married ministrants were ejected from
their livings. The queen's forwardness was yet too slow for
the ungrateful pope : he demanded restitution of all the old
church lands ; but here Mary's hands were tied. Of her own
means however she managed to found anew a few abbeys.
There is something pathetic in this half heart-sick attempt to
stay a vanishing ideal.
That the mediaeval revival might be whole and entire the
old-time culture was brought into fashion again ; the literature,
amusements and popular customs of past centuries were
revived by authority. The mystery-plays lately forbidden were
sanctioned once more, the May-games and dances ; again on
the Feast of Fools boys played the bishop or abbot and
mimicked the solemn ceremonies of the church. By such
strange pastimes an outlet had been provided for the latent
skepticism of the mediaeval populace lest its mocking mood
should flash into something more serious.
In 1554 a fine edition of Gower's " Confessio Amantis" was
gotten out, in 1555 a like one of Lydgate's Troy-book; and the
same year (a symbolic act) Chaucer's bones were reinterred in
a Gothic tomb, the first of poets in the since famous corner
of England's historic abbey. That year too the legend of the
Sangreal appeared in a Spanish dress a romantic emblem of
the alliance subsisting between the two countries.
In 1557 a certain Richard Tottell got out a collection of
poems by various hands Surrey's and Wyatt's among the
number from which we single out two for particular mention
because they were written in blank verse. Their subjects were
the deaths of Cicero and Zoroas (an Egyptian astrologer of
Alexander's day), their author was one Nicholas Grimald
(of Italian descent, as his name implies). These new speci-
mens of English blank verse are marked by more variable
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 263
caesura than Surrey's and are altogether more flexible than
his ; run-on lines are frequent and light endings even appear.
In the last reign Grimald had been Bishop Ridley's chaplain
but under Mary he made little difficulty about conforming to
the reestablished mode of worship.
The jocund John Heywood was among the contributors to
Tottell's " Miscellany." He had suffered some shrewd turns
in the late inconstant times ; toward the end of Henry's reign
he had been taxed with treasonable views touching the king's
ecclesiastical supremacy and had made unconditional surren-
der ; under Edward it is said, perhaps jocosely, that his droll
wit alone saved him from hanging. The accession of his
former patroness was hailed by him with joy ; it promised a
safe covert from such reverses for his sentiments accorded
entirely with hers ; the years of her reign were fulfilled of
halcyon days for him. He greeted her upon her coronation
with a congratulatory address in Latin, and celebrated her
union with Philip in a song. His humor was grateful to her
and often lightened her melancholy moods. In 1556 he pro-
duced a lengthy allegorical poem in his quaint vein, "The
Spider and the Fly,"- the Protestants being figured by the
ruthless spiders, the Catholics by the innocent flies: the heroine
of this epic fable was of course the queen, who appeared in the
character of a house-maid, wielding the broom of her temporal
power at the bidding of her Lord and sovereign Lady, the
church.
The laureateship of the reign was about evenly divided be-
tween Heywood and William Forrest the queen's chaplain.
In Edward's time he had been forced to conform sorely against
his will to the reformed worship. He addressed to the young
king a long didactic effort bearing the sounding alliterative
title "A Pleasant Poesy of Princely Practice " in which he
enlarged upon the unhappy condition of the laboring poor
and the duty of a prince in such an exigency. Only a few
264 OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY
months before Mary's death he finished and presented to her
in manuscript his metrical vindication of her mother's memory,
containing his interpretation of recent history. Catherine of
Aragon in the character of the Second Griselda gave title to
the work, which was couched in the Chaucerian stanza. Ere
the exemplary queen was deposed the land flourished in plenty,
God's service was maintained and the rich helped the poor
Griselda in special was kind to them. She attended matins at
Greenwich priory and had an image of Christ's passion made
"not of idolatrous intent as certain miserable men hold."
The rhymer is severe on Wolsey, who was no friend to Griselda;
"yet he had an edifying end God shield his soul from the
infernal flame ! " With the divorce began the affliction of both
church and realm ; schisms, sects and heresies of Satan's own
raising entered in ; the king " expressed by the name of
Walter was led somewhat by light persons "; bad counsellors
and agents took the place of good, self-will was the chief ruler,
truth was set aside, the saints were slandered, the blessed Virgin
Mary was no better esteemed than any other woman and any
dunghill was as good as the sanctuary :
" These mischiefs with hundredfold moe began
At the incoming of this new Queen Anne."
Now the realm rapidly decayed, the poor suffered penury,
rents were raised and there was dearth ; fasting was made a
jest, down went crosses, churches and monasteries. But Gri-
selda's life was a pattern of piety and she made a good end,
receiving extreme unction. " Now she prays for us though
wretched men seduced by Satan say that saints' prayers profit
nothing : through hers I firmly believe we have been called
back of late from the damnable race we were running."
The leading representative of the new learning fell a sacrifice
to the violent ecclesiastical rebound. Men of the old school
were thoroughly convinced that Greek letters had been largely
responsible for the late religious upheaval: and in Sir John
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 265
Cheke a conspicuous victim was found. His heart was wholly
in the cause of the reform ; but now in age and weakness, in
prison, trembling at the threat of torture, he sent in his recan-
tation and was released only to die of shame and distress of
spirit for his betrayal of the truth.
The queen's Spanish match was generally unpopular and
was made the pretext for a rising which was speedily put down
but which involved the execution of the sweet and hapless Lady
Jane Grey, a gentle representative of the new learning and the
reformed faith. The princess Elizabeth even was in danger :
she was suspected of complicity in the insurrection and was
lodged for a time in the Tower.
The inmost nature of the desperate doctrinal reaction, the
madness of a failing cause, had to be revealed, the connection
of papal supremacy, the mass and persecution to be plainly
exhibited. Squibs and satires upon the mass were many and
were a vexation of spirit to Mary and her counsellors as similar
ones had been to her father in his age. Under the lately re-
vived statute for the punishment of heretics the burning of
protestant martyrs began. The design was by a few single
examples to intimidate the whole body. So early in 1555
Hooper was burnt at Gloucester and Bishop Farrar of St.
David's at Carmarthen ; in the autumn Ridley and Latimer
were sacrificed at Oxford, the latter crying out as the fagots
were heaped around them, " Be of good cheer, Master Ridley,
and play the man, for we shall this day light such a candle in
England as I trust shall never be put out." Gardiner died a
few weeks after in remorse of soul and dismay at the magnitude
of the odious task to which he was committed : the number of
victims greatly surpassed his expectations. The following
spring Archbishop Cranmer also perished in the flames at Ox-
ford. He had shown little of the spirit of the hero, but his
case was pitiable in the extreme and excited general com-
miseration. Cardinal Pole was now invested with the primacy.
266 OUTLINE OF PHILOSOPHY.
In the course of this oppressive reign about three hundred
persons suffered an excruciating death. Kent the scene of
the late insurrection the city of London and the eastern
midland furnished most of the victims. In its frenzy the re-
action destroyed itself; evangelical faith received its baptism
of blood and fire and evinced its truth and power by the forti-
tude of its martyrs.
In 1557 the queen's infatuation for her Spanish partner
involved her in a disastrous war with France in the course of
which Calais and Guisnes, last remnants of once broad posses-
sions, were lost to the English crown.
Worn out with ill health and depression of spirits, full of
misgivings as to the impending failure of her whole policy and
repining at Philip's continued absence, Mary died, a disap-
pointed woman, in the month of November, 1558. The tidings
of her death were brought to her sister Elizabeth as she was
walking under the autumn oaks at Hatfield. The Middle Ages
were over forever.
ADVERTISEMENTS
SKETCH OF THE
PHILOSOPHY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.
By GREENOUGH WHITE, A.M.
12mo. Flexible cloth, iv + 66 pages. Introduction price, 30 cents.
By mail, postpaid, 35 cents.
This essay points out the connection between our country's
literature and history, and shows how new forms in letters
and arts have arisen as advancing thought required. It may
be used as a key to the whole subject, as well as to the
excellent and extended treatises upon it and the numerous
compilations that have recently appeared. It is a book that
will interest the general reader (it can be read at a single
sitting), and the experienced teacher will find it highly valu-
able in inculcating in more advanced classes habits of sound
and scholarly appreciation of American intellectual life.
Professor Barrett Wendell: As a
guide to study I should think the book ad-
mirable. It is well-digested in substance,
rationally put together from beginning to
end, and written in a perfectly direct, fine
style.
Professor F. J. Child (in a letter to the
author) : I think you are a little incautious
in your preface. But when we come to
the history you are entirely temperate and
discriminating. Your rapid sketch pre-
sents the production of two hundred years
lucidly and very agreeably.
Professor Charles F. Richardson,
author of a " History of American Litera-
ture " : It is refreshing, when so much so-
called "criticism" is second-hand, to
come upon a discussion like this, present-
ing conclusions often new and always
based on direct reading.
Professor Moses Coit Tyler, author
of a " History of American Colonial Litera-
ture " : I can honestly say that I am struck
most agreeably by the soundness of its
fundamental conception of the spirit and
motive of American Literature. It is
much to be wished that our people could
catch that fruitful idea here properly put
at the front, that there is a living and illu-
minating connection between our country's
history and its literature.
Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, author of
" Poets of America," etc., etc. : The precis
seems to me to be successful and to go to
the root of the matter i.e. to show the
philosophy of the development of the suc-
cessive phases of our national literature.
Phillips Brooks : I am much interested
by the philosophical spirit in which the
treatise is conceived, and am sure that its
readers will thank its author for much sug-
gestion and food for thought.
Oliver Wendell Holmes : An interest-
ing study of some of our earlier and more
recent authors.
John Greenleaf Whittier: It was
difficult to compress in the space of a brief
essay all that might be said of the develop-
ment and trend of our literature and
thought, but so far as it goes it is a valuable
and well-considered paper in proof of the
fact of an unborrowed and independent
American Literature.
GINN & COMPANY, Publishers, Boston, New York, Chicago, London,
10
HIGHER ENGLISH.
Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature.
Designed mainly to show characteristics of style. By WILLIAM MINTO,
late Professor of Logic and English Literature, University of Aberdeen,
Scotland. 12mo. Cloth. 566 pages. Mailing price, $1.65 ; for intro-
duction, $1.50.
HHHE main design is to assist in directing students in English
composition to the merits and defects of the principal writers
of prose, enabling them, in some degree at least, to acquire the one
and avoid the other. The Introduction analyzes style : elements
of style, qualities of style, kinds of composition. Part First gives
exhaustive analyses of De Quincey, Macaulay, and Carlyle. These
serve as a key to all the other authors treated. Part Second takes
up the prose authors in historical order, from the fourteenth cen-
tury up to the early part of the nineteenth.
Hiram Corson, Professor of Eng-
lish Literature, Cornell University :
Without going outside of this book,
an earnest student could get a knowl-
edge of English prose styles, based
on the soundest principles of criti-
cism, such as he could not get in any
twenty volumes which I know of.
Katharine Lee Bates, Professor
of English, Wellesley College : It is
of sterling value.
Minto's Characteristics of the English Poets.
From Chaucer to Shirley.
By WILLIAM MINTO, late Professor of Logic and English Literature,
University of Aberdeen, Scotland, 12mo. Cloth, xi + 382 pages.
Mailing price, $1.65 ; for introduction, $1.50.
chief object of the author has been to bring into as clear
light as possible the characteristics of the several poets within
the period chosen. As a secondary object he endeavors to trace
how far each poet was influenced by his predecessors and con-
temporaries.
College Requirements in English.
Entrance Examinations. Second Series.
By Rev. ARTHUR WENTWORTH EATON, Instructor in English in the
Cutler School, New York. 12mo. Cloth. 104 pages. Mailing price,
$1.20; for introduction, $1.12.
J. Scott Clark, formerly Prof essor
of Rhetoric, Syracuse University :
We have now given Minto's English
Prose a good trial, and I am so much
pleased that I want some more of the
same.
A. W. Long, formerly of Wofford
College, Spartariburg, S.C.; I have
used Minto's English Poets and Eng-
lish Prose the past year, and am
greatly pleased with the results.
HIGHER ENGLISH. 11
Selections in English Prose from Elizabeth to
Victoria. 1580-1880.
By JAMES M. GABNETT, Professor of the English Language and Liter-
ature in the University of Virginia. 12mo. Cloth, ix-j-701 pages.
By mail, $1.65: for introduction, $1.50.
rpHE selections are accompanied by such explanatory notes as
have been deemed necessary, and will average some twenty
pages each. The object is to provide students with the texts
themselves of the most prominent writers of English prose for
the past three hundred years, in selections of sufficient length to
be characteristic of the author, and, when possible, they are com-
plete works or sections of works.
H. N. Ogden, formerly of W. Vir-
ginia Univ. : The book fulfills my ex-
pectations in every respect, and will
become an indispensable help in the
F. B. Gummere, Prof, of English,
Haverford College: I like the plan,
the selections, and the making of the
book.
work of our senior English class.
Macau lay's Essay on Milton.
Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by HERBERT A. SMITH, Instructor
in English in Yale University. 12mo. Paper. pages. Mailing
price, cents ; for introduction, cents.
A CONVENIENT and well-edited edition of Macaulay's masterly
essay on Milton. The introduction and notes are especially
valuable to students.
Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year.
History of the Plague in London.
Edited by BYRON S. HURLBUT, Instructor in English in Harvard
University. 12mo. Cloth. pages. Mailing price, cents; for
introduction, cents.
rpHE book is intended to meet the requirements of students pre-
paring to take the college entrance examinations, and to
supply a convenient edition for general use.
Biography. Phillips Exeter Lectures.
By Rev. PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D. 12mo. Paper. 30 pages. Mailing
price, 12 cents; for introduction, 10 cents.
12
HIGHER ENGLISH.
The Art of Poetry :
The Poetical Treatises of Horace, Vida, and Boileau, with the trans-
lations by Howes, Pitt, and Soame.
Edited by 'ALBERT S. COOK, Professor of the English Language and
Literature in Yale University. 12mo. Cloth. Iviii + 303 pages. Mailing
price, $1.25; for introduction, $1.12.
Bliss Perry, Prof, of English,
Princeton University : The fullness
and accuracy of the references in the
notes is a testimony to his patience
as well as his scholarship. ... I
wish to express my admiration of
such faithful and competent edit-
ing.
Shelley's Defense of Poetry.
Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by ALBERT S. COOK, Professor of
English in Yale University. 12mo. Cloth, xxvi + 86 pages. Price
by mail, 60 cents; for introduction, 50 cents.
John F. Genung, Prof, of Rhetoric,
Amherst College: By his excellent
editions of these three works, Pro-
fessor Cook is doing invaluable
service for the study of poetry. The
works themselves, written by men
who were masters alike of poetry
and prose, are standard as litera-
ture; and in the introduction and
notes, which evince in every part the
thorough and sympathetic scholar,
as also in the beautiful form given
to the books by the printer and
binder, the student has all the help
to the reading of them that he can
desire.
Cardinal Newman's Essay on Poetry.
With reference to Aristotle's Poetics. Edited, with Introduction and
Notes, by ALBERT S. COOK, Professor of English in Yale University.
8vo. Limp cloth, x -J- 36 pages. Mailing price, 35 cents ; for intro-
duction, 30 cents.
Add/son's Criticisms on Paradise Lost
Edited by ALBERT S. COOK, Professor of the English Language and
Literature in Yale University. 12mo. Cloth, xxiv+200 pages.
Mailing price, $1.10; for introduction, $1.00.
V. D. Scudder, Instructor in Eng
lish Literature, Wellesley College : It
be welcome as an addition to our
store of text-books.
seems to me admirably edited and to
What is Poetry ? " Leigh Hunt's Answer to
the Question, including Remarks on Versification.
Edited by ALBERT S. COOK, Professor of the English Language and
Literature in Yale University. 12mo. Cloth. 104 pages. Mailing
price, 60 cents ; for introduction, 50 cents.
Bliss Perry, Prof, of Oratory,
Princeton University, Princeton,
N.J. : Professor Cook's beautiful
little book will prove to the teacher
one of the most useful volumes in
the series it represents.
HIGHER ENGLISH.
13
Essays and Letters selected from the Writings
of John Ruskin.
With Introductory Interpretations and Annotations. By Lois G.
HUFFORD, Teacher of English Literature in the Indianapolis High
School. 12mo. Cloth, xxix x 441 pages. Illustrated. Mailing price,
$1.10; for introduction, $1.00.
rpHESE essays are characteristic expressions of Ruskin's viewc
on social questions and ethical culture. They are accom-
panied by interpretative introductions and explanatory notes.
The main introduction gives Ruskin's theory of life and art, a
biographical sketch, showing what influences contributed to the
formation of his character, and the characteristics of his literary
style.
The Beginnings of the English Romantic Moue-
ment,
A Study in Eighteenth Century Literature. By WILLIAM LYON
PHELPS, Ph.D., Instructor in English Literature, Yale University.
12mo.. Cloth, viii+192 pages. Mailing price, $1.10; for introduc-
tion, $1.00.
book is a -study of the germs of English Romanticism
between 1725 and 1765. No other work in this field has
ever been published, hence the results given here are all the fruit
of first-hand investigation.
It is believed that this book is a contribution to our knowledge
of English literary history ; and it will be especially valuable
to advanced classes of students who are interested in the develop-
ment of literature.
Archibald MacMechan, Prof, of
English, Dalhousie College, Halifax,
N.S. : It is a valuable contribution
to the history of English literature
in the eighteenth century.
Barrett Wendell, Prof, of Eng-
lish, Harvard University : Among
the most scholarly and suggestive
books of literary history.
Studies in the Evolution of English Criticism.
By LAURA JOHNSON WYLIE, Graduate Student of English in Yale
University. 12mo. Cloth, viii + 212 pages. Mailing price, $1.10 ;
for introduction, $1.00.
PPHE critical principles of Dryden and Coleridge, and the con-
ditions on which the evolution of their opposite theories
depended, are the subjects chiefly discussed in this book.
14
HIGHER ENGLISH.
A Primer of English Verse.
By HIRAM CORSON, Professor of English Literature in Cornell Univer-
sity. 12mo. Cloth. iv + 232 pages. By mail, $1.10; for introduction,
$1.00.
leading purpose of this volume is to introduce the student
to the aesthetic and organic character of English Verse to
cultivate his susceptibility to verse as an inseparable part of poetic
expression. To this end, the various effects provided for by the
poet, either consciously or unconsciously on his part, are given for
the student to practice upon, until those effects come out distinctly
to his feelings.
J. H. Gilinore, Prof, of English,
University of Eo Chester : It gives a
thoroughly adequate discussion of
the principal forms of English verse.
The University Magazine, New
York: Professor Corson has given
us a most interesting and thorough
treatise on the characteristics and
Analytics of Literature.
uses of English metres. He dis-
cusses the force and effects of vari-
ous metres, giving examples of usage
from various poets. The book will
be of great use to both the critical
student and to those who recognize
that poetry, like music, is constructed
on scientific and precise principles.
A Manual for the Objective Study of English Prose and Poetry. By
L. A. SHERMAN, Professor of English Literature in the University of
Nebraska. 12mo. Cloth, xx + 468 pages. Mailing price, $1.40; for
introduction, $1.25.
book was written to embody a new system of teaching
literature that has been tried with great success. The chief
features of the system are the recognition of elements, and insuring
an experience of each, on the part of the learner, according to the
laboratory plan. The principal stages in the evolution of form
in literature are made especial subjects of study.
Edwin M. Hopkins, Instructor of
English, University of Kansas: I
am delighted with the fruitful and
suggestive way in which he has
treated the subject.
Bliss Perry, Prof essor of English,
Princeton University : I have found
it an extremely suggestive book. . .
It has a great deal of originality and
earnestness.
Daniel Dorchester, Jr., Prof, of
Rhetoric and English Literature,
Boston University : It is a very use-
ful book. I shall recommend it.
HIGHER ENGLISH. 15
Fiue Short Courses of Reading in English Litera-
ture.
With Biographical and Critical References. By C. T. WINCHESTER,
Professor of English Literature in Wesleyan University. Sq. 16mo.
Cloth, v + 99 pages. Mailing price, 45 cents j for introduction, 40 cents.
nHHIS little book lays out five short courses of reading from the
most prominent writers in pure literature of the last three
centuries, beginning with Marlowe and ending with Tennyson.
The book contains also information as to the best editions for
student use, with extended and well chosen lists of critical and
biographical authorities.
Le Baron K. Briggs, Professor of
English, Harvard University : I am
much pleased with it. It cannot help
being useful.
Synopsis of English and American Literature.
By G. J. SMITH, Instructor of English, Washington (D.C.) High School.
8vo. Cloth. 125 pages. By mail, 90 cents; for introduction, 80 cents.
/^NE finds here in every case the author's full name, the dates
of birth and death, the class of writers to which he belongs,
the chronological place of that class in the development of litera-
ture, his most important works, his most distinguished contem-
poraries, the leading events of the time, and, in most cases a few
clear words of explanation or criticism.
W. B. Chamberlain, formerly Prof '.
ofEheloric,Oberlin College: Its clear-
ness, compactness, and readiness for
reference, must make it one of the
most useful tools for either teacher
or student. It gives a vast amount
of most valuable information in the
most economical manner possible. A
very valuable feature is its correla-
tion of literary with political and
general historical events. I regard
it as a decided success.
Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet.
For the use of Colleges, High Schools, Academies and Clubs. By CAR-
ROLL LEWIS MAXCY, A.B., Associate Principal and Instructor in Eng-
lish, Troy (N.Y.) Academy. Square lOmo. Cloth. 200 pages. Mail-
ing price, 50 cents; for introduction, 45 cents.
AT the close of each scene is appended an extensive body of
questions covering all the points of action, and leading to
a thorough appreciation and familiarity with the play.
The Philosophy of American Literature.
By GREENOUGH WHITE, A.M., Professor in Univ. of the South. 12mo.
Flexible cloth, iv + 66 pages. By mail, 35 cents ; for in trod., 30 cents.
16 HIGHER ENGLISH.
The Best Elizabethan Plays.
Edited with an Introduction by WILLIAM R. THATEE. 12mo. Cloth,
611 pages. By mail, $1.40; for introduction, $1.25.
rPHE selection comprises The Jew of Malta, by Marlowe; The
Alchemist, by Ben Jonson ; Philaster, by Beaumont and Fletcher;
The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Fletcher and Shakespeare ; and The
Duchess of Malfi, by Webster. It thus affords not only the best
specimen of the dramatic work of each of the five Elizabethan
poets who rank next to Shakespeare, but also a general view of the
development of English drama from its rise in Marlowe to its last
strong expression in Webster.
Felix E. Schelling, Professor of
English, University of Pennsyl-
vania: All professors of English
literature must welcome such intel-
ligent and scholarly editions of our
enduring classics.
Charles F. Richardson, Professor
of English, Dartmouth College: The
book is an excellent one, well edited,
equipped with brief and sensible
notes, and introduced by a preface
of real critical insight.
A Method of English Composition.
By T. WHITING BANCROFT, late Professor of Rhetoric and English
Literature in Brown University. 12mo. Cloth. 101 pages. Mailing
price, 55 cents ; for introduction, 50 cents.
Notes on English Literature.
By FRED PARKER EMERY, Professor of Rhetoric, Dartmouth College.
12mo. Cloth. 152 pages. By mail, $1.10; for introduction, $1.00.
HHHIS book follows the critical, comparative, and philosophical
method of the best universities, and combines the advantages
of the tabulated synopsis of authors and books with those of the
critical literary history
The Rhetoric Tablet
By F. N. SCOTT, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, University of Michi-
gan, and J. V. DENNEY, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Ohio State
University. No. 1. 5|x 9 inches. White paper (ruled). No. 2. Tinted
paper (unruled). 7^x9| inches. Sixty sheets in each. Mailing price,
20 cents ; for introduction, 15 cents.
AS a substitute in English work for composition-books or other
manuscript-paper, the Rhetoric Tablet offers the following
advantages: (1) Uniform paper throughout the school, (2) a
broad margin for corrections, (3) a minute and systematic
analysis of the most common errors in composition, (4) references
to standard rhetorics.
22
HIGHER ENGLISH.
The Classic Myths in English Literature.
Based chiefly on Bulfinch's " Age of Fable." Accompanied by an inter-
pretative and illustrative commentary. Edited by CHARLES MILLS
GAYLEY, Professor of the English Language and Literature, Univer-
sity of California. 12mo. Half leather, xlv + 540 pages. Mailing
price, $1.65; for introduction, $1.50. New Edition, with 16 full-page
illustrations.
work is recommended both as the best manual of mythol-
ogy and as indispensable to the student of English literature.
Some special features are :
1. An introduction on the indebtedness of English poetry to
the literature of fable, and on methods of teaching mythology.
2. An elementary account of myth-making and of the prin-
cipal poets of mythology, and of the beginnings of the world, of
gods and of men among the Greeks.
3. A thorough revision and systematization of Bulfinch's
Stories of Gods and Heroes: with additional stories, and with
selections from English poems based upon the myths.
4. Illustrative cuts from Baumeister, Roscher, and other
standard authorities on mythology.
5. The requisite maps.
6. Certain necessary modifications in Bulfinch's treatment of
the mythology of nations other than the Greeks and Romans.
7. Notes, following the te?:t (as in the school editions of Latin
and Greek authors), containing an historical and interpretative
commentary upon certain myths, supplementary poetical cita-
tions, a list of the better known allusions to mythological fiction,
references to works of art, and hints to teachers and students.
Albert S. Cook, Professor of the
English Language and Literature,
Yale University : I can cordially rec-
ommend it to colleges and schools.
It is scholarly, attractive, stimu-
lating, and refining.
C. K. Adams, President Univer-
sity of Wisconsin: An admirable
volume. It is just what hundreds
of thousands of students need.
William T. Harris, United States
Commissioner of Education: It is
the most satisfactory book yet pub-
lished on this theme. . . . Every
reader of literature should have
this book within reach on his
table.
Katharine Lee Bates, Professor
of English Literature, Wellesley Col-
lege : It is well worth doing and
well done.
F. J. Miller, Professor of Latin,
University of Chicago: I am more
than charmed with it.
26
HIGHER ENGLISH.
ATHENJEUM PRESS SERIES.
ISSUED UNDER THE GENERAL EDITORSHIP OF
PROFESSOR GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE, of Harvard University,
AND
PROFESSOR C. T. WINCHESTER, of Wesleyan University.
FT is proposed to issue a series of carefully edited works in
English Literature, under the above title. This series is in-
tended primarily for use in colleges and higher schools ; but it
will furnish also to the general reader a library of the best things
in English letters in editions at once popular and scholarly. The
works selected will represent, with some degree of completeness,
the course of English Literature from Chaucer to our own times.
The volumes will be moderate in price, yet attractive in appear-
ance, and as nearly as possible uniform in size and style. Each
volume will contain, in addition to an unabridged and critically
accurate text, an Introduction and a body of Notes. The amount
and nature of the annotation will, of course, vary with the age
and character of the work edited. The notes will be full enough
to explain every difficulty of language, allusion, or interr>retation
Full glossaries will be furnished when necessary.
The introductions are meant to be a distinctive feature of the
series. Each introduction will give a brief biographical sketch of
the author edited, and a somewhat extended study of his genius,
his relation to his age, and his position in English literary history.
The introductory matter will usually include a bibliography of
the author or the work in hand, as well as a select list of critical
and biographical books and articles. See a/.so Announcements.
Sidney's Defense of Poesy.
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by ALBERT S. Cook, Professor
of English in Yale University. 12mo. Cloth, xlv + 103 pages. By
mail, <)0 cents; for introduction, 80 cents.
William Minto, Late Prof, of Lit-
erature, University of Aberdeen: It
seems to me to be a very thorough
and instructive piece of work. The
interests of the student are consulted
in every sentence of the Introduction
and Notes, and the paper of ques-
tions is admirable as a guide to the
thorough study of the substance of
the essay.
HIGHER ENGLISH.
27
Ben Jonson's Timber: or Discoveries
Made upon Men and Matter, as they have Flowed out of his Daily
Readings, or had their Reflux to his Peculiar Notions of the Times.
Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by FELIX E. SCHELLING, Profes-
sor in the University of Pennsylvania. 12mo. Cloth, xxxviii + 166
pages. Mailing price, 90 cents ; for introduction, 80 cents.
is the first attempt to edit a long-neglected English classic,
which needs only to be better known to take its place among
the best examples of the height of Elizabethan prose. The intro-
duction and a copious body of notes have been framed with a
view to the intelligent understanding of an author whose wide
learning and wealth of allusion make him the fittest exponent of
the scholarship as well as the literary style and feeling of his age.
Edward Dowden, Prof, of English,
Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland : It
is a matter for rejoicing that so valu-
able and interesting a piece of liter-
ature as this prose work of Jonson
should be made easily accessible, and
should have all the advantages of
scholarly editing.
Selections from the Essays of Francis Jeffrey.
Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by LEWIS E. GATES, Instructor in
English in Harvard University. 12mo. Cloth, xlv + 213 pages. By
mail, $1.00; for introduction, *K) cents.
fPHE selections are chosen to illustrate the qualities of Jeffrey's
style and his range and methods as a literary critic. The
introduction gives a brief sketch of the history of Reviews in
England down to 1802* and suggests some of the more import-
ant changes in critical methods and in the relations between critic
and public which were brought about by the establishment of the
Edinburgh Review. This volume is especially valuable for classes
that are beginning the independent study of literary topics and
methods of criticism.
Charton Collins, London, Author
of "Bolinybroke and Voltaire,"
"Jonathan Swift," etc. : The intro-
duction gives succinctly and clearly
all the facts which enable students
to understand Jeffrey's character-
istics as a man, his relative position
to his contemporaries, his excellence,
his deficiencies and his limitations.
. . . I have no hesitation in saying
that the book supplies a real want,
and supplies it excellently.
28 HIGHER ENGLISH.
Old English Ballads.
Selected and edited, with Notes and Introduction, by Professor F. B.
GUMMERE of Haverford College. 12mo. Cloth, xcviii + 380 pages.
By mail, $1.35; for introduction, $1.25.
fPHE aim has been to present the best of the- traditional English
and Scottish ballads and also to make the collection repre-
sentative. The pieces have been arranged by subject, but not
divided into groups or classes. The glossary will be found full
but simple. Philological details have been given only when the
explanation of the passage rendered them necessary. The notes
have been prepared according to the same principle, the eluci-
dation of the text and the thought. The introduction presents a
detailed study of popular poetry and the views of its chief critics,
with notes on metre, style, etc.
Lever ett Spring, Professor of Rhet-
oric, Williams College : A thorough
and scholarly piece of literary work.
Isaac N. Demmon, Professor of
Michigan: Admirably done through-
out and seems to supply an im-
portant piece of apparatus for the
teaching of English in our schools.
English Literature, University of
Selections from the Poetry and Prose of Thomas
Cray.
Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by WM. LYON PHELPS, Instructor
in English Literature at Yale College. 12mo. Cloth. 1 + 179 pages.
By mail, $1.00 ; for introduction, 90 cents.
rpHIS volume contains all of the poems of Gray that are of any
real interest and value, and the prose selections include the
Journal in the Lakes entire, and extracts from his Letters of auto-
biographical and literary interest. The Introduction, besides
containing a Life of Gray, a Bibliography, etc., gives a summary
of his historical significance, with a critical review of his work.
The Notes on the Prose are very brief, and simply explanatory.
This volume of Gray, besides being adapted for the general reader,
will be especially useful in schools and colleges.
Hiram Corson, Professor of Eng-
lish, Cornell University, Ithaca,
N.Y.: The editorial part of this
work is admirably done.
George C. Chase, President of
Bates College, Lewiston, Me. : An
excellent text, competent editing
and scholarly notes.
HIGHER ENGLISH. 29
A Book of Elizabethan Lyrics.
Selected and edited, with Introduction, Notes and Indices, by FELIX E.
SCHELLING, Professor of English Literature in the University of Penn-
sylvania. 12mo. Cloth. Ixix + 327 pages. By mail, $1.25 ; for intro-
duction, $1.12.
T1HE selections have been drawn from the works of individual
authors, from Plays and Masques, and from the Miscellanies,
Song Books and Sonnet Sequences of the age: each selection is
given entire. The poems are arranged as nearly chronologically
as is possible in order that the collection may be representative.
The introduction sets forth the general nature of the Elizabethan
lyric in its thought and form, briefly treating of the changes
wrought in style and versification, the sources of the selections,
questions of text and authorship.
Herrich: Selections from the Hesperides and the
Noble Numbers.
Edited with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary, by Professor EDWARD
E. HALE, Jr., of the State University of Iowa. 12mo. Cloth,
pages. By mail, ; for introduction,
rpHE editor has made a selection of Herrick's best poems. In
the introduction he endeavors to mark the varied develop-
ment of Herrick's poetic thought and to find bases for proper infer-
ence concerning the poet's life. He has, however, kept in mind
throughout that Herrick is of real interest as a consummate artist
of exquisite quality, and not as an available object for critical
methods.
Carlyle's Sartor Resartus.
Edited, with an Introduction and Commentary, by ARCHIBALD MAC
MECHAN, Munro Professor of English in Dalhousie College, Halifax,
N.S. 12mo. Cloth. pages. By mail, ; for introduction
gARTOR RESARTUS is Carlyle's first important book. It
contains in essence all his teaching for his age, and possesses
also much interest as his spiritual autobiography. Though no
book needs annotation more, on account of its many and remote
allusions, this is the first attempt since its publication to deal fully
with the difficulties which it presents.
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