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PREFACE 

This book covers the period of discovery in the history 
of English Hterary prose. It begins with the latter half 
of the fourteenth century, when the writing of prose first 
assumed importance in the life of the English people, and 
it ends with the first quarter of the seventeenth century, 
when practice and experiment had made of English prose, 
in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, a highly developed and 
efficient means of expression. 

The origins of English prose come relatively late in the~^ 
development of English literary experience. This appar- i 
ently is true of most prose literatures, and the explanation / 
seems to lie in the nature of prose. Even in its beginning^ 
the art of prose is never an unconscious, never a genuinely . 
primitive art. The origins of prose literature can conse- 
quently be examined without venturing far into those misty 
regions of theory and speculation, where the student of 
poetry must wander in the attempt to explain beginnings 
which certainly precede the age of historical documents, 
and perhaps of human record of any kind. Poetry may be 
the more ancient, the more divine art, but prose lies nearer 
to us and is more practical and human. 

Being human, prose bears upon it, and early prose 
especially, some of the marks of human imperfection. 
Poetry of primitive origins, for example the ballad, often 
attains a finality of form which art cannot better, but 
not so with prose. Perhaps the explanation of this may be 
that poetry is concerned primarily with the emotions, and 
the emotions are among the original and perfect gifts of 



vi Preface 

/mankind, ever the same; whereas prose is concerned with 
<■ the reasonable powers of man's nature, which have been 

\ and are being only slowly won by painful conquest. 
Whether this be a right explanation or not, it is certainly 
true that in its first efforts English prose is uncertain and 
faltering, that it often engages our sympathies more by 
what it attempts to do than by what it actually accomplishes. 
In this book the purpose has been to show how the 
English mind approached the practical problem of the 

I invention of prose, to point out what things seemed appro- 

,! priately to be expressed in prose and what devices of lan- 
guage appropriately employed in the expression of them. 
The process was obviously one of the adaptation of lan- 
guage, a genuinely primitive inheritance like the traditions 
of poetry, to many differing and present needs. It was 
indeed closely bound up with the effort of the English people 
to find for itself the golden mean of expression between 
ephemeral colloquial discourse and the special and often 
highly conventionalized forms of poetic expression. The 
study of the origins of English prose is consequently con- 
cerned not only with the growth of the English mind, but, in 
the broadest sense, with the development of the English 
language. 

Since literary prose is very largely the speech of every- 
day discourse applied to special purposes, it is in a way true 
that the origins of English prose are to be sought in the 
origins of English speech. No student of the speech 
would be content to pause short of the earliest English 
records in the four centuries which preceded the Norman 
Conquest. From the days of the first Teutonic conquerors 
of Celtic Britain, the English speech has continued in an un- 
broken oral tradition to the present time. But obviously 
English literary prose in its various stages has not been 
merely the written form, the echo, of this colloquial speech. 



Preface vii 

The bonds which unite the two are close, but their courses 
are not parallel. English literary prose has had no such 
continuous history as the language, and there are sufficient 
reasons for regarding the prose of Alfred and his few 
contemporaries and successors as a chapter in the life of 
the English people which begins and ends with itself. For 
its antiquity and for its importance in preserving so 
abundantly the early records of the language, Old English 
prose is to be respected ; but it was never highly developed 
as an art, nor was its vitality great enough to withstand 
the shock of the several conquests which brought about a 
general confusion of English ideals and traditions in the 
tenth and eleventh centuries. It is consequently in no sense 
the source from which modern English prose has sprung. 
It has a separate story, and when writers of the early 
modern period again turned to prose, they did so in utter 
disregard and ignorance of the fact that Alfred and ^Ifric 
had preceded them by several centuries in the use of 
English for purposes of prose expression. Nor did the 
later writers unwittingly benefit by the inheritance of a 
previous discipline of the language in the writing of prose. 
In the general political and social cataclysm of the eleventh 
century, the literary speech of the Old English period went 
down forever, leaving for succeeding generations nothing 
but the popular speech upon which to build anew the founda- 
tions of a literary culture. 

After the Conquest came the slow process of establishing 
social order. Laws must first be formulated, Normans, 
Scandinavians, and Saxons must learn to live in harmony 
with one another, above all must learn to communicate 
with one another in a commonly accepted speech, before 
literature could again lift its head. During all this period 
of tie making of the new England, verse remained the 
standard form for literary expression. Such prose as was 



viii Preface 

written was mainly of a documentary character, wills, deeds 
of transfer and gift, rules for the government of religious 
houses, and similar writings of limited appeal. In the lack 
of a standard vernacular idiom, more serious efforts, such 
as histories and theological treatises, were composed in 
Latin, and to a less extent, in French. It was not until 
towards the middle of the fourteenth century that the 
various elements of English life were fused into what came 
to be felt more and more as a national unity. A wave of 
popular patriotism swept over the country at this time, 
; clearing away the encumbering foreign traditions by which 
; the English had permitted themselves to become burdened. 
/ This new national feeling showed itself in various ways, in 
\ a renewed interest in English history, in the special respect 
' now shown to English saints, and above all in the rejection 
I of French and in the cultivation of the English language as 
^ the proper expression of the English people. At the same 
time men of riper and broader culture made their appear- 
ance in the intellectual life of the people. An age which 
<^ produced three such personalities as those of Chaucer, 
j Langland, and Wiclif cannot be regarded as anticipatory 
\ and uncertain of itself. Economic conditions also forced 
upon the humbler classes of people the necessity of thinking 
for themselves and of setting forth and defending their 
interests. In the larger world of international afit'airs the 
dissensions and corruptions of the church, culminating in 
the great schism of the last quarter of the century, com- 
pelled account to be taken of that whole order of theo- 
cratic government which the medieval world had hitherto 
accepted almost without question. 

In this combination of circumstances, one man stands 
out pre-eminently in England as realizing the drift of 
events and the kind of action needed to regulate them. 
This man was Wiclif, a scholar and theologian, but not 



Preface ix 

merely a man of the study or the lecturer's chair. Wiclif's 
practical wisdom is particularly apparent in his deliberate 
choice of the English language as a means of exposition, 
and persuasion. If English prose must have a father, no 
one is so worthy of this title of respect as Wiclif. Not a 
great master of prose style himself, Wiclif was the first 
Englishman clearly to realize the broad principles which 
underlie prose expression. He made a sharp distinction 
between prose and verse, and he foresaw, at least, the ends 
to be attained by a skillful use of the mechanism of daily 
colloquial speech for broader and less ephemeral purposes 
than those to which it had hitherto been applied. In a word, 
Wiclif was the first intelligent writer of English prose, a 
discoverer in the truest sense of the word. With him be- 
gins the long and unbroken line of English writers who have 
striven to use the English tongue as a means of conveying 
their message as directly and as forcibly as possible to 
their hearers and readers. The spirit of Wiclif is the spirit 
of Sir Thomas More, of Tindale, of Hooker, of Milton, 
of Burke, of Carlyle, of all the great masters of expositional 
and hortatory prose in the. English language. Technical 
details have changed, exterior ornaments have varied, but 
the fundamental purpose and method have remained the 
same. With Wiclif and his period, therefore, we begin 
our study of the rise of English literary prose. 

The later limits of the present undertaking have not so 
easily determined themselves. It would have been interest- 
ing to carry the discussion down to the masters of prose in 
the seventeenth century, to Milton, Clarendon, Jeremy Tay- 
lor, Burton, Dryden, for they are indeed the fruit of the six- 
teenth-century flower. But the close of the sixteenth cen- 
tury and the opening of the seventeenth century mark the 
end of the great originating period in the development of 
English prose. ■ The tentative beginnings of Wiclifite prose 



X Preface 

are by that time fully realized in models of the plain style 
not surpassed by any later writers. The literary and more 
narrowly artistic interests have entered, and experimenta- 
tion in this direction has been carried almost to the extreme 
limits of the possibilities of the language. Scarcely any 
side of human activity remains unexpressed in English 
prose at the end of the reign of Elizabeth, and though it by 
no means follows that the prose of later times is less ad- 
mirable, it is nevertheless different from the prose of this 
first fresh and tremendously energetic age of invention and 
experimentation. 

Since that is the subject of the whole volume, it mani- 
festly falls outside the province of these prefatory remarks 
to discuss the various processes and developments of this 
first formative period of English prose. It may be worth 
while to put down, however, as a kind of preliminary 
scaffolding, the opinions of one of the greatest of the early 
moderns, of one who from the vantage-ground of the 
end of a long life, cast his eye backward and formulated 
what seemed to him the prime moving causes and tendencies 
of writing in his day. Starting with the discussion of the 
origins of the fantastic or ornate literary style in Europe, 
Bacon continues with an analysis which, whether true for 
the whole European awakening or not, certainly applies in 
a peculiar degree to England, where the Renascence was 
from the first so largely a religious and theological move- 
ment : 

" Martin Luther, conducted (no doubt) by an higher 
Providence, but in discourse of reason finding what a 
province he had undertaken against the Bishop of Rome and 
the degenerate traditions of the church, and finding his 
own solitude, being no ways aided by the opinions of his 
own time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call 
former times to his succors to make a part against the 
present time, so that the ancient authors, both in divinity 



Preface 



XI 



and in humanity, which had long time slept in libraries, 
began generally to be read and revolved. This by con- 
sequence did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite travail 
in the languages original wherein those authors did write, 
for the better understanding of those authors and the better 
advantage of pressing and applying their words. And 
thereof grew again a delight in their manner of style and 
phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing; which 
was much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and 
opposition that the propounders of those (primitive but 
seeming new) opinions had against the schoolmen; who 
were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings 
were altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty 
to coin and frame new terms of art to express their own 
sense and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the 
pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call it) lawfulness of 
the phrase or word. And again, because the great labor 
then was with the people, (of whom the Pharisees were 
wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba, qua: non novit legem,) 
[the wretched crowd that has not known the law,] for the 
winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity in 
chief price and request eloquence and variety of discourse, 
as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the 
vulgar sort. So that these four causes concurring, the 
admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, 
the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preach- 
ing, did bring in an affectionate study of eloquence and 
copie of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew 
speedily to an excess ; for men began to hunt more after 
words than matter; and more after the choiceness of the 
phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, 
and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and 
illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than 
after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of 
argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then 
grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal 
bishop, to be in price. Then did Sturmius spend such in- 
finite and curious pains upon Cicero the orator and Hermo- 
genes the rhetorician, besides his own books of periods and 
imitation and the like. Then did Car of Cambridge, and 



xii Preface 

Ascham, with their lectures and writings, almost deify 
Cicero and Demosthenes, and alkire all young men that 
were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of learn- 
ing. Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing 
echo: Decern aniios consnmpsi in legendo Cicerone, [I have 
spent ten years in reading Cicero:] and the echo answered 
in Greek, one, Asine. Then grew the learning of the school- 
men to be utterly despised as barbarous. In sum, the whole 
inclination and bent of those times was rather toward copie 
than weight." ^ 

Bacon closes his survey with the generation which im- 
mediately preceded his own. The detachment with which 
he viewed the refinements of the artificial writers shows 
that he at least had accepted different standards and ideals 
of writing. To complete the sketch, it would be necessary 
to add certain developments of English prose in the direc- 
tion of order and moderation of which Bacon's own writings 
are signally illustrative. And it is with these developments 
that the survey undertaken in the following pages will come 
to an appropriate conclusion. 

The limits of the present undertaking imply certain 
exclusions. This book is neither a bibliographical nor a 
biographical history of English literary prose, nor is it a 
dictionary of reference to all prose monuments for the 
period it covers. No attempt has been made to give a 
critical survey of the paper wars that have centered about 
debated points, though it will be found, it is hoped, that 
the references given supply the clew to all the rest. Thus 
the earlier bibliography of Euphuism may be derived from 
the studies mentioned in the text or notes. Biographical 
details are included only when they seemed useful for the 
better understanding "of such writings as are discussed, and 
titles are mentioned only for the purpose of indicating with 
certainty the sources of the various passages cited or 
'Bacon, Works, VI, 1 18-120. 



Preface xiii 

quoted in the text. Passages within double quotation marks 
are quoted exactly — except that, for the sake of consistency, 
the modern custom in the use of u and v has been followed. 
Passages within single marks are the author's literal mod- 
ernizations. The temptation to quote more frequently 
and at greater length has been strong, but a single volume 
of reasonable size cannot be both history and anthology. 
Quotation can never take the place of the reading of 
texts, and fortunately, for those who have not access to 
large libraries and for students in college classes, several 
collections of illustrative extracts are available. 

The author has assumed the liberty of saying nothing 
about works and about writers that, to his mind, required 
no mention. It might be a satisfaction to put down all the 
results of one's investigations, if one could only be sure in 
so doing that the reader's share in this pleasure would be as 
great as the author's. But it would be unkind for the 
literary critic or historian to attempt to rescue insignificant 
names from the " poke of oblivion " where time in its mercy 
has permitted them to rest in peace. In such names the 
sixteenth century was as rich as any other, though mere 
antiquity does often seem to lend a specious importance to 
writings otherwise not important. But the author has 
endeavored to choose his materials always with an eye to 
the main point, which has been to trace the growth of a 
temper and attitude of mind towards the use of speech, 
to show the development of taste and feeling for prose 
expression by directing attention to those writings which 
reveal some skill and originating power in the practice of 
the art of prose composition. 

George Philip Krapp. 
Columbia University, 
August, 1915. 



INTRODUCTION 

The Fourteenth Century — Chaucer's Prose — Lang- 
land — Maundevile — Trevisa — Artificial Writers : 
Taystek, Richard Rolle, Thomas Usk 

The second half of the fourteenth century in England 
was a period rich both in realization and in anticipation. 
At such happy times, not one but many kinds of thought and 
action occupy men's attention. The pageant of chivalry was 
then still being displayed upon the stage of the great world, 
and was finding in Froissart a worthy chronicler. Crecy 
and Poitiers were living memories of young men when Ed- 
ward III died. Though the changes abroad were many, at 
home English laws and government were rapidly assuming 
forms which were to be permanent. The place of the com- 
mons in the control of affairs was becoming more clearly de- 
fined, and the nation at large was entering upon a new era of 
patriotism and national self-consciousness. Architecture, 
especially domestic architecture, flourished, and the com- 
forts and luxuries of life were increasing. Cower, Chaucer, 
Langland, and the unknown author of The Pearl and other 
remarkable poems, were lending luster to the newly-prized 
English language. In the humbler walks of life, the voice 
of the people was making itself heard, and the last remnants 
of medieval serfdom were disappearing as new conceptions 
of personal liberty came into being. Wiclif and his fol- 
lowers were spreading doctrines of almost incalculable im- 



2 English Literary Prose 

portance for the future growth of the English nation. And 
not least in importance among these shadowings of the 
future, English prose was coming to be applied to English 
thought in ways more effective and intimate than had ever 
before been necessary or possible. 

By the middle of the fourteenth century, the various 
Scandinavian and Romance additions which had enriched 
at the same time that they had disintegrated the old England, 
built up by the successive kings of the West Saxons from 
the time of Egbert, had united with the English base to 
form a new nation. During the time of disturbance the 
English speech had passed through a period of popular 
degradation. It had lost literary caste, but now, under the 
influence of a new national feeling and a renascence of 
culture, it had recovered all that had been lost and was 
gaining more. By the assimilation of a host of Romance 
words, it had acquired possibilities of expression beyond 
the reach of the language of the Old English period. The 
English were no longer an isolated people. Their intel- 
lectual life was more vigorous and more varied, and their 
social life was more gracious, than either had been in the 
most flourishing days before the Conquest. The English 
writer of the later fourteenth century had a richer body 
of thought and sentiment to express than his Anglo-Saxon 
ancestor, and he had a more effective medium in the lan- 
guage of his day to serve the purposes of expression. The 
Anglo-Saxon poets had seldom passed beyond the simple 
themes of war and religion ; and the prose of Alfred, of 
Wulfstan, of ^Ifric, was limited almost entirely to the 
second of these themes. Religion and theology remain, in- 
deed, the principal concern of prose even into the sixteenth 
century, but with a very great diff'erence. Scarcely a trace 
of popular insurgence is to be found in English writing 
before the days of Wiclif. The newest, the most disturb- 



Introduction 3 

ing, and for the history of English prose, the most im- 
portant element in the life of England in the fourteenth 
century was just this awakening of the underworld of the 
people. Men now first began to realize that their political 
and spiritual salvation lay not in the hands of overlords and 
ecclesiastics, but in their own. New impulses within de- 
manded new modes of external expression. Literature 
could not continue to be merely artistic and courtly, learn- 
ing could not expend itself entirely in theological exegesis 
or the formulation of dogma. The pallid legends and the 
summary repetitions of officially approved information and 
doctrine which constitute so large a part of medieval writing 
in the vernacular began now to disappear and their place to 
be taken by a fresher literature, addressed not merely to 
the memory, but directly to the reason and the hearts of 
mankind. 

It was only gradually, however, that English writers 
acquired the courage to use prose. Long custom had 
established verse as the only accredited form of literary ex- 
pression. From the point of view of literary art, the two 
most significant writers of the latter half of the fourteenth 
century were Chaucer, courtly, polished, and reasonable, and 
Langland, something of a mystic and enthusiast, a fellow- 
sufiferer with the people, whose hard life he so intimately 
describes, and certainly less an artist than his greater con- 
temporary. Chaucer's prevailing interest being in men 
and manners, one might suppose that prose would have 
been for him a more appropriate form of expression than 
verse. And in truth, y^\may suppose that the use of 
metrical form by Chauc|qMy^as largely an accident of time. 
He wrote in verse becai^P'^the literary conventions of his 
time imposed the metrica|^tm upoHvalT wniMl^jpf artistic 
pretension. Perhaps it w|b! fortunate for Choicer that he 
accepted these converftior^. In his day and hour it was 




4 English Literary Prose 

easier to realize the ideals of simplicity, clarity, and con- 
trol which his verse exhibits by following the conventional 
custom of metrical composition than it would have been 
if he had chosen to experiment in prose. But Chaucer was 
not temperamentally an experimenter or innovator. He 
followed clearly defined paths of literary tradition, changing 
and improving greatly in detail, but seldom departing widely 
from the practice of his predecessors and masters. He 
seems to have felt no impulse, therefore, to invent prose for 
English literature, to become an English Boccaccio. 

Chaucer did not neglect altogether the writing of prose, 
although by universal consent his prose writings are re- 
garded as the least interesting of all his works. They are 
four in number, and all of considerable length. The only 
one which can be dated certainly is the latest, the Treatise 
on the Astrolabe, written in 1391. The others were written 
probably within the decade preceding this year, and it is 
interesting to note, therefore, that Chaucer's prose works 
were produced at about the same time that Wiclif began 
to write in English. Of these four prose efforts of Chaucer, 
the most important is his translation of the De Consolatione 
Philosophiae of Boethius, made probably in entire ignorance 
of the fact that it had already been translated into English by 
King Alfred almost five hundred years before. The De 
Consolatione is mentioned in the Romance of the Rose ^ 
as " Boece," and the original author of this section of the 
famous allegory, Jean de Meun, declares that he would 
confer a great benefit on the unlearned folk who should 
translate this work for them. It is not unlikely that Chaucer 
found in this statement of the much admired French poet 
the suggestion which led him to undertake his translation 
into English. 

The original work of Boethius is divided into five books, 
' LI. 5052-5056. 



Introduction 5 

and each book is sub-divided into alternating metrical and 
prose sections, commonly known as Metres and Proses, all of 
which, however, Chaucer translated into prose. In general 
Chaucer's translation attempted to give the content of 
the original, but it is by no means a literal translation, such 
not being the custom of Chaucer's day. Neither is it 
altogether a true translation, for Chaucer's scholarship was 
not always sufficient to save him from blunders. An in- 
structive comparison may be made between Chaucer's prose 
version of Boethius and those passages of the same work 
which he versified in Troilus and Cressida ^ and in The 
Former Age. Such a comparison will show that the 
metrical versions are decidedly more idiomatic and natural 
than the prose — another proof, if any were needed, that 
Chaucer had mastered more completely the discipline of 
verse than that of prose. 

The main defects of the translation are crudity and 
awkwardness, even at times obscurity, of expression, due 
to imperfect adaptation of the thought to the English idiom. 
Chaucer's difficulties arose from the embarrassment caused 
by the necessity of striking a balance between a Latin 
and an English phrasing. In general the translations of 
the Proses are more idiomatic and less complicated than 
the translations of the Metres, obviously due to the fact 
that the Metres are more compact and involved in expres- 
sion in the original. Chaucer wisely made little effort to 
introduce specifically English ornaments of style. Riming 
passages occur occasionally, but they are not frequent or 
long enough to disturb the prose intention. Alliteration is 
used, sometimes rather markedly, as in the phrase 
" fortroden under the feet of felonous folk," ^ but is never 
carried through long passages. The only notable mannerism 
of style is the omission of the definite article where the 
' Bk. IV, 11. 958-1078. " Works, II, 93. 



6 English Literary Prose 

English idiom requires it. This is an obvious Latinism, 
found not only in Chaucer but in Wiclif and many other 
writers of this time who wrote English under the influence 
of Latin.* 

Two of Chaucer's prose writings were distinguished by 
inclusion within the framework of the Canterbury Tales. 
One of these is Chaucer's own contribution to the entertain- 
ment of the pilgrims, the Tale of Melibeus, narrated by 
Chaucer after he has been ' stinted ' of his Tale of Sir 
Thopas by the disgusted Host. The other is the Parson's 
Tale, a long and weary treatise on the vices and virtues 
which serves as the pious ending to the whole series of the 
Canterbury Tales. It is not certain that Chaucer wrote 
either of these tales, granting them this title by courtesy, 
for the express purpose of including them in the Canterbury 
group. Quite possibly they were early works written when 
he was more deeply interested in the composition of pious 
prayers and other works of devotion than he was later, 
which were thriftily turned to account in the elaboration of 
the plan of the Canterbury Tales. The two prose tales have 
very little dramatic appropriateness. One does not expect 
a conventional medieval sermon on the vices and virtues 
from the parson, the brother of the ploughman, who is de- 
scribed in the Prolog in terms that suggest Wiclif's poor 
priests. Here was Chaucer's opportunity to give that pic- 

* One or two examples will illustrate: Empted of light of his 
thought, Works, II, 5, translates cffeto liimine mentis, Bk. I, Metr. II ; 
comen to corage of a parfit man, ibid., translating in uirilis aninii 
robur, Bk. I, Prose II; on allone is fader of thinges, Works, II, 65, 
translating wins enim rerum pater est, Bk. Ill, Metr. VI ; thus, whan 
that night was discussed and chased awey, derknesses forleften me. 
Works, II, 5, translating Tunc me discussa liquerunt node tenebrae, 
Bk. I, Metr. III. The use of several synonomous words to trans- 
late a single Latin word is not uncommon. The literal translation of 
the plural tenebrae was not English idiom. 



Introduction 7 

tare of actual popular movements in his day which we 
miss so much in his writings and which, without question, 
he consciously avoided giving. And the other prose tale, 
the Tale of Melibens, is equally inappropriate to Chaucer, 
who tells it. Chaucer apparently assigned this tale to 
himself in a moment of ironic humor. At the same time 
it must be kept in mind that the modern reader's impa- 
tience with these two tales is likely to be much greater 
than was that of Chaucer's contemporaries. In the four- 
teenth century both the materials and the method of them 
were familiar and approved, and many of Chaucer's readers 
doubtless received them as highly respectable and merito- 
rious performances. 

Both of these prose tales are really translations. The 
Tale of Melibeus is a translation of a French treatise, 
Le Lizre de Melibee et de dame Prudence, probably made 
by Jean de Meun, on the basis of a Latin work, Liber 
Cousolationis et Consilii, by Albertano of Brescia. The 
Tale is not much more than a bundle of quotations of a 
generally moral and sententious character, bound together 
by a simple thread of allegorical narrative. Melibeus is a 
rich man of the world who finds himself ill-treated by his 
enemies and who is elaborately counseled by his wife, 
Dame Prudence, on such topics as the choice of friends and 
advisers, on avenging wrongs, on the use of riches. The 
characters are not realistically conceived, and the wife of 
Melibeus is the source of all wisdom in the story because 
Prudentia, Justitia, Philosophia, and the other virtues were 
traditionally allegorized as feminine. The Tale has some 
resemblance to the type of didactic romance made 
popular in the sixteenth century by Guevara's Dial of 
Princes, the quotations being derived not merely from 
scriptural and patristic sources, but many of them from 
classical and post-classical literature. But the romantic and 



8 English Literary Prose 

narrative interests of the Tale are held severely in hand 
and the main purpose of the story was to serve as a con- 
tainer for numerous aphoristic and sententious quotations. 
From the point of view of Chaucer as a writer of prose, the 
chief interest of the Tale lies in the fact that it is freely 
and idiomatically written, and that it thus shows how much 
easier Chaucer found it to translate from French than from 
Latin. 

The other of Chaucer's two pious tales is not unlike the 
Tale of Melibeus. It likewise is obviously a translation, 
but the immediate source is not known. ^ Whatever this 
immediate source may have been, it was almost certainly 
written in French and was closely followed by Chaucer in 
his translation. Like the Tale of Melibeus, the Parson's 
Tale is idiomatically expressed in a simple, straightforward, 
and unmannered style. Like the Melibeus in another re- 
spect, it is quite without personal or dramatic coloring in 
the body of text, although occasionally, as in the satirical 
passages on extravagance in dress, the conventional themes 
of medieval sermonizing are treated with some vivacity. 
But the main personal interest of the Tale lies in the fact 
that it is followed by the well-known retractions of 
Chaucer, in which he revokes his " Endytinges of worldly 
vanitees," and calls attention to his " othere bokes of 
Legendes of seintes and omelies and moralitee and 
devocioun." ® 

Both the Melibeus and the Parson's Tale come safely 
under the head of medieval works of devotion, and it is 
quite probable that a good many similar pious writings of 
Chaucer have been lost. If so, some of them were pretty 
certainly written in prose, for in this kind of writing, prose 
had established for itself an unquestioned position. 

° See Hammond, Chaucer Bibliography, p. 320. 
' Works, IV, 644. 



Introduction 9 

Chaucer's remaining English prose work is a kind of 
medieval text-book, written for his little son Louis, who 
was at the time of the " tendre age of ten yeer " and who 
had shown evidences of ability to " lerne sciencez touchinge 
noumbres and proporciouns." ^ This Treatise on the Astro- 
labe, like Chaucer's other prose writings, is merely a trans- 
lation, or adaptation, the original in this case being a Latin 
version of a text in Arabic. Chaucer has omitted parts of 
his Latin source and has re-arranged the materials to suit 
himself, but his translation of the Latin is often literal. Al- 
though the exigencies of the subject-matter compelled him 
to use a good many Latinized technical words, the style on 
the whole, thanks perhaps to Chaucer's efforts to adapt it to 
a child of ten, is simple and much more idiomatic than the 
style of the translation from Boethius. The work was 
popular in Chaucer's day, as is shown by the unusual number 
of twenty-two early manuscripts still extant in various 
libraries. 

More interesting, however, to the student of Chaucer's 
prose than the body of this translation is an original preface 
by Chaucer, which is addressed to his little son Louis, and 
which, short as it is, constitutes the longest piece of original 
prose we have from Chaucer's hand. Chaucer declares it to 
be his purpose to set forth his treatise under " ful lighte 
rewles and naked wordes in English ; for Latin ne canstow 
yit but smal, my lyte sone." He continues with a more 
general address to his readers in which he asks them to 
excuse his " rewde endyting " and his " superfluite of 
wordes," the first because " curious endyting and hard 
sentence is ful hevy atones for swich a child to lerne," and 
the second because it seems to him better " to wryten unto 
a child twyes a good sentence than he forgete it ones." 
In conclusion Chaucer points out that he makes no claim to 
' Works, III, 175. 



lo English Literary Prose 

the original authorship of his book, but confesses that he 
is merely " a lewd compilatour of the labour of olde 
Astrologiens," whose work he has translated : " And with 
this swerd shal I sleen envye." The whole passage is in- 
structive as showing that the c[uaint simplicity and humor 
which constitute the main charm of his verse writings 
were not impossible to Chaucer in prose. Had he chosen 
to do so, Chaucer might have written prose tales for some 
of his Canterbury pilgrims, the Shipman or the Miller for 
example, which would have been more than deserving of a 
place in that series. But prose in Chaucer's mind must 
have seemed entirely inappropriate for writing of an enter- 
taining or artistic character, and he therefore uses it only 
^ for practical and pious purposes. Chaucer's attitude to- 
wards prose was generally the attitude of his contempo- 
raries. The first English prose was written under the hard 
necessity of instructing and edifying men, not of pleasing 
them, as Chaucer was mainly endeavoring to do. The art 
of prose begins with the effort to adapt language to useful 
ends, to find some means of communication whereby men 
may inform or persuade each other in the thousand and one 
complications of everyday life. Chaucer's perfunctory use 
of prose shows on the one hand how little interested he was 
in the complexities of the life of his day from the point of 
view of direct exposition or of persuasion, and it shows on 
the other hand how little impressed he was with the possi- 
bilities of prose as an art of fine writing. Limited though 
this attitude towards prose may seem to the modern student, 
it was natural in Chaucer's day and represents undoubtedly 
the best literary feeling of his time. For the development 
of the technic of English writing in verse, Chaucer is im- 
portant ; for the development of the technic of English prose, 
he is almost negligible. 

By the side of Chaucer stands his greatest literary con- 



Introduction ii 

temporary, Langland. Thanks to his connections with the 
court and with the higher official Hfe of his time, public rec- 
ords have preserved a considerable body of information with 
respect to Chaucer. All that is known of Langland, on the 
other hand, is derived from the various manuscripts of his 
writings, and the information thus obtained is meager and 
often uncertain. It is fairly sure that the author of Piers 
Plowman was of Midland origin, that he lived for some 
time in London, that he was married and therefore not 
eligible to any of the higher offices of the church, that he 
himself had known the miseries of poverty which he so 
feelingly describes, and that his Christian name was William. 
The exact form of his surname is doubtful, but tradition 
has firmly established Langland in general use. The poem 
which passes under Langland's name is not a single, sys- 
tematically organized work, but rather a group of closely 
related poems centering more or less about the figure of the 
Plowman. It is recorded in three quite distinct versions, 
the earliest composed about 1362, the second a revision and 
enlargement of this version made some fifteen years later, 
and the third a second revision probably made in the last 
decade of the fourteenth century. Certain interesting ques- 
tions of technical scholarship have been raised by the exist- 
ence of these three versions, the most important being 
whether the three versions are to be regarded as the work of 
a single poet or of two or more poets who revised and ex- 
panded the original theme as it was first developed by 
Langland. It is quite certain that Piers Plowman came to 
be in time a type figure about whom there gathered a con- 
siderable number of writings of generally similar style and 
purpose. He became thus in a way the eponymous hero of 
popular political and theological discussion of the times. ^ 
But that the three versions of the poem known as Piers 
' See below, p. 60. 



12 English Literary Prose 

Plowman were the work of a school of popular alliterative 
poets, writing perhaps under the direct inspiration of 
Langland very much as Wiciif's poor priests preached and 
taught under the leadership of their master, though not 
inherently impossible, seems on the ground of the evidence 
less probable than that Langland himself revised and en- 
larged his own work. Whether the poem be regarded as 
the work of one or of several authors, however, the signifi- 
cant point is that the three versions exemplify a homo- 
geneous and fully thought out method of literary expres- 
sion. 

Both the similarities and the dififerences of Piers Plow- 
man as compared with the writings of Chaucer are sig- 
nificant. Like Chaucer, Langland accepted verse unques- 
tioningly as the proper medium of literary expression and 
for general, popular appeal. He viewed life at a different 
angle from the courtly Chaucer, but he also in his degree 
was a literary artist, and in his art, the child of his own 
generation. Both poets used the standard literary speech 
of their day, for Chaucer's style was not pedantically 
learned, nor was Langland's extravagantly archaic or popu- 
lar. The most striking characteristic of Langland which 
distinguishes him from Chaucer, the characteristic also 
which connects him directly with the study of the origins 
of English prose, is his use of metrical form. Chaucer 
wrote in the strictly regulated meter of numbered syllables 
and of rime which English borrowed from French and 
which the traditions of English poetry have established as 
the prevailing English meter. But Langland followed a 
different and native style of metrical composition, moribund 
but temporarily revived in his day and effectively employed 
by a number of different poets. This was the alliterative 
long line which came by direct descent from the Old English 
line of Csedmon and Cynewulf. It differs from the Old 



Introduction 13 

English line, however, in that the latter, in standard Old 
English poetry, is maintained more rigorously and in accord- 
ance with the rules of a more narrowly defined metrical 
system than in Langland's long line. With the later poet, 
we observe clearly the operation of that breaking down 
tendency which led ultimately to a complete loss of feeling 
for the alliterative long line as in any way a metrical 
form distinguished from prose. Even in the latter part of 
the Old English period, the pure tradition of Old English 
versification was not maintained, and ^Ifric, in many re- 
spects possessed of a fine literary feeling, was guilty of a 
kind of prose poetry compounded of legitimate prose and 
degenerate Old English verse. With the obscuring and loss 
of native customs in general which attended the Danish and 
Norman conquests, the strict system of Old English meter 
disappeared, never again to be restored in the practice of 
English poetry. At no time, however, did the composition 
of alliterative English verse cease altogether. Side by side 
with the regular meter of Romance origin, which took upon 
itself the character of the standard literary meter, a cor- 
rupted form of the older alliterative long line continued 
to be used, especially as the meter appropriate to popular 
and patriotic writing. This popular alliterative meter was 
cultivated, at least in one or two regions of England, with 
special enthusiasm in Langland's own day, as evidenced not 
only by Langland's preference for it, but also by the writings 
of his contemporary, the unknown but highly accomplished 
author of Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight and other 
poems. 

Structurally the old alliterative long line consisted of two 
approximately equal half-lines, each with its own independ- 
ent scansion, which were held together as one line by the 
possession of a common alliterating sound. Each half-line 
contained two metrically stressed syllables, sometimes also 



14 English Literary Prose 

a third secondarily stressed syllable, and a varying but on 
the whole rather narrowly limited number of unstressed 
syllables, the two kinds of syllables being arranged accord- 
ing to a small number of fixed patterns. The alliterating 
sounds were always the initial sounds of metrically stressed 
syllables, v/hich at the same time must also bear a logical 
stress, and each half-line contained at least one, though 
either or both might contain two. Alliteration other than 
that between metrically stressed syllables did not count in 
the metrical scheme, and where it occurs is to be regarded 
as accidental. It was a fixed rule in this strict system of 
scansion that the first metrically stressed syllable of the 
second half-line must bear the alliteration and thus serve as 
a kind of key-word to the alliterative scheme of the line 
as a whole. 

Many lines will be found in Langland which satisfy the 
demands of the strict system of Old English alliterative 
verse. The following, for example, are as regular as any 
written in the Old English period : 

" And also Job the gentel what Joye hadde he on erthe, 
How bittere he hit bouhte as the book telleth ! " ' 

Such lines are not uncommon in the poem, but the poet 
usually preserves the general rhythm of the style without 
paying much attention to the strict rules of Old English 
scansion. Sometimes the alliteration is altogether lacking, 
sometimes it falls on words so lightly stressed that they fail 
to take their place in the metrical structure of the line. 
Frequently the two half-lines contain separate and inde- 
pendent alliterating sounds. Many half-lines are found 
which can be read only with three and sometimes more 

* Skeat, Piers the Plowman, I, 352, Passus XIV, 11. 15-16, C-ver- 
sion. 



Introduction 15 

heavy stresses, and the unstressed syllables are frequently 
so numerous and so disposed as to destroy altogether the 
feeling for the few type patterns of scansion characteristic 
of regular alliterative verse. The result of these various '^ 
irregularities is to produce a line which often is without / 
strict metrical structure, and when several of these lines \ 
come together the effect is not distinguishable from prose : 
with a sprinkling of alliteration. It is true that the swing ' 
of the lines in Piers Plowman usually carries the reader over j 
these unmetrical passages without a violent sense of inter- / 
ruption. But it is apparent that in the hands of a more 
careless versifier than Langland the meter would suffer still I 
more and the distinction between prose and verse become \ 
completely effaced. As it is, often a slightly unusual order / 
of words is all that distinguishes Langland's verse rhythm / 
from prose rhythm.^** / 

The free alliterative line, as treated by Langland, is] 
admirably suited to his somewhat rambling, often turgid and / 
colloquial subject-matter. The style is not that of the 
scholar or the refined artist. Langland probably never sub- 
mitted himself to the severe discipline in versification which 
Chaucer's early experiments in ballades and complaints 
illustrate. Discipline was not necessary to write the kind 
of verse he was trying to write. The main requisites were 
a feeling for rhythm, a vocabulary extensive enough to 
provide alliterating words, and, finally, volubility of ex- 
pression. 

Perhaps this last is the most persistent and striking 
characteristic of Langland's style, a characteristic which 
again connects him with the popular feeling for prose 
expression. Although many lines of admirable compression 
occur, they are usually proverbial in tone, or are short sum- 

'" See the long passage in the latest version (C. Passus I, 107-124) 
in which alliteration has almost completely disappeared. 



i6 English Literary Prose 

maries of moral wisdom. The poem is not infrequently 
powerful, but it attains its effects by a tumultuous heaping 
of details rather than by the carefully weighed style of a 
classic artist, like Chaucer, who uses every word with a 
sense of its fullest effect and meaning. His own moral 
earnestness and the unfailing gift of a concrete and highly 
poetic imagination are all that save Langland from falling 
into rant and bombast. This quality of improvisation in the 
poem appears throughout in the selection of detail. Every- 
thing that came into the author's mind is included, the 
coarsest pictures of popular life standing side by side with 
poetical and profoundly spiritual allegorical imagery. Per- 
sonal allusions abound, to Wat and to Tom Stowe, to Bet 
and to Beton the brewster, to Hick the hackneyman, and 
to dozens of others, who may or may not stand for real 
persons of Langland's acquaintance, but who are effectively 
real in the poem. Frequent references to places in London, 
to Cornhill, Westminster, Shoreditch, Southwark, Tyburn, 
and others, also often lend an air of easy familiarity to the 
narrative. The speech, even of very dignified characters, 
is often colored with the colloquialism of conversation. 
Truth responds to Mercy when the latter expounds the plan 
of the resurrection, that her story is " bote a tale of Wal- 
terot," a piece of nonsense. ^^ And the version of the senti- 
ment, Denteni pro dente, et ocnlum pro ocnlo, which is 
put into the mouth of the Lord himself, picturesquely de- 
clares that whoso hitteth out a man's eye or else his front 
teeth or maimeth or hurteth any other limb, he shall suffer 
the same sore.^^ 

Langland was fond of making up long fantastic com- ^ 
pound names, such as Dame Work-when-time-is, the name 
of the wife of Piers, or Do-right-so-or-thy-dame-shall-thee- 
beat, the name of his daughter. Some of these names, as 

" C. Passus, XXI, 146. '' Ibid., 386 ff. 



Introduction 17 

for example the name of Piers' son, are several lines in 
length and so unwieldy as to become grotesque. Picturesque 
words of popular color occur, and the main difference be- 
tween the vocabulary of Langland and that of Chaucer 
consists in the presence of a certain number of outlandish 
words, as they seem to the modern reader, in the writings 
of Langland, which have been lost altogether to the language 
or have fallen from the literary speech to the dialects. Un- 
doubtedly the alliteration, demanding as it does a wide range 
of vocabulary, is partly responsible for Langland's popular 
words, alliteration and the popular style naturally going 
together. Broad picturesque phrases abound, as in the de- 
scription of Sir Harvey, the covetous man, " bitelbrowed 
and baberlipped," his beard beslobbered, like a bondman's, 
with his bacon;" or when Langland calls Christ's disciples 
God's boys, merry-mouthed men, the minstrels of heaven.^* 
When occasion calls for them, Langland even uses freely 
words not to be repeated for modern readers. Plainness 
of speech is inherent in his mode of thought, and if plain- 
ness becomes vulgarity, Langland feels no necessity for 
apologizing, as Chaucer does when he defends his broad 
style on the artistic grounds that the manner must be appro- 
priate to the matter. On the other hand, Langland is equally 
free in introducing learned Latin and French into the body 
of his narrative, not systematically in the manner of the 
later Macaronic writing, as in Skelton, but apparently as the 
fancy struck him. 

The spirit of Langland's verse was not that of the 
school. Although the style was not without its technic, 
it was a free and easy technic. It called for the readiness 
and copiousness of the improviser, rather than the care and 
forethought of the literary artist. If impassioned prose had 
been possible in his day, Langland might well have chosen 

•"B. Passus V, 190 ff. ^"C. Passus X, 127-128. 



i8 English Literary Prose 

to write in that form, but lacking such a medium," he de- 
veloped in his free metrical rhythms a form that approaches 
prose. By means of this form he expressed himself with an 
astonishing ease and abundance. There is a power in the 
.mere sweep of his thought which would have been im- 
' possible in the regular rimed meters of Chaucer. And yet 
Langland's eloquence seldom reaches the lofty heights of 
\ great poetry. His art is crude, grotesque, and unformed, 
'■ / as compared with the art of later masters of the serious 
\style, like Hooker in prose or Milton in verse. Lacking 
Langland's earnestness of thought, his style in the hands of 
his successors often degenerated into the blustering, robus- 
tious, but formless writing of a host of popular rimesters, 
pamphleteers, and preachers of the Tudor and Elizabethan 
/periods. Even with Langland, the form of Piers Plowman 
J occupied a position of unstable equilibrium between verse 
I and prose, and not infrequently the free alliterative verse 
V.^f this tradition passed over into popular alliterative prose. 
' In its looseness of form and its picturesqueness and homely 
vigor this prose resembles the degraded survival of the 
< older alliterative long line known as ' tumbling verse,' and 
perhaps no better name can be found for it than ' tumbling 
prose.' With all its crudities, this prose played a not in- 
conspicuous part in the development of literary style in the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and more must be said 
of it later. 
^ The latter half of the fourteenth century presents no 
writers of equal eminence to Chaucer and Langland. Verse, 
as has already been pointed out, occupied almost the whole 
field of literary activity, and such prose as was written had 
usually an immediate practical or documentary purpose. 
Simple narration, however, was not beyond the powers of 
fourteenth-century prose, and the famous Vo'xage and 
Travaile of Sir John Maiindevile and Trevisa's numerous 



Introduction 19 

translations, especially his version of Higden's Poly- 
chronicon, are the best representatives of this na'ive and 
rudimentary prose v^hich had as yet hardly lifted itself to 
the literary level. The Voiage and Travaile is also a trans- 
lation, preserved in three versions by unknown translators, 
which are all more or less freely adapted from the French 
original. Under the guise of a manual of directions for 
pilgrims making the journey to the Holy Land, the original 
author or compiler of the work, who also is unknown, 
really wrote a traveler's book, filled with all manner 
of picturesque misinformation about man and nature. How 
much faith the compiler of the book and its translators may 
have had in the marvelous stories it contained it is difficult 
to say. Everything is told with a most profound serious- 
ness, equal to that of Defoe or Swift, which gives even 
the most absurd descriptions an air of verisimilitude. That 
a fourteenth-century reader would realize to some extent 
the contrast between the matter and the manner can 
hardly be questioned, but it is not probable that his 
attitude in general would be very skeptical. In fact, mixed 
with the other matters, the book contains a number of 
Bible stories which can scarcely have been told in any 
other than a spirit of simple belief. To the modern reader 
the book seems much more of an artistic feat than it would 
have seemed to the reader of the time of its compilation. 
And the same applies to the style in which the narrative is 
written. The distinguishing characteristic of this style is its 
utter, its guileless simplicity. The sentences are short and 
direct, never complex. Few connectives are used and those"! 
of the most obvious kind. The words are all familiar and ^ 
never merely ornamental. The whole tone of the expression 
is na'ive, the language of a grown-up child : 

" Also beyonde that Flome. more upward to the Desertes, 
is a gret Pleyn alle gravelly betwene the Mountaynes ; and in 



20 English Literary Prose 

that Playn every day at the Sonne risynge begynnen to growe 
smale Trees, and thei growen til mydday, berynge Frute ; 
but no man dar taken of that Frute, for it is a thing of 
Fayrye. And aftre mydday thei discrecen and entren 
ayen in-to the Erthe; so that at the goynge down of the 
Sonne thei apperen no more ; and so thei don every day : and 
that is a gret marvaylle." ^^ 

And so it continues, the tone never rising, never falHng. 
The simphcity of the book is the simplicity of nature, not 
of art. Much of its quaintness is imparted to it by the 
modern reader who feels keenly the contrast between its 
childlike and effortless style and the more mature manner of 
modern English expression. But no such contrast could 
have been intended in the last quarter of the fourteenth 
century, and the style is consistent because it reflects the 
naive simplicity of the medieval mind. 

Though John de Trevisa was an industrious writer, he 
can scarcely be called a man of letters. A student and fellow 
of Oxford, he later became chaplain and vicar to Thomas, 
fourth baron Berkeley, at whose request his various trans- 
lations were made. These consisted of a translation of 
Bartholomew de Glanville's De Proprietatibus Rerum, of 
Vegetius' De Re Militari, of ^gidius' De Regimine Prin- 
cipum, and of various other works interesting to his mas- 
ter, besides the most important of all, a version of Higden's 
Poly chronic on. As a preface to the Poly chronic on, Trevisa 
composed a Dialogue between a Lord and a Clerk upon 
Translation,'^^ in which he discusses interestingly the prin- 
ciples of the art of translation. Diversity of speech, says 
the lord, has brought it about that men of different nations 
understand each other " no more than gagling of geese." 

'" Chapter XXVII, Cotton version. 

" Reprinted in Pollard, Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, pp. 
203-208. 



Introduction 21 

Interpreters are therefore necessary, especially out of 
Latin, in which so many important books are written. 
The clerk presents various reasons why translations should 
not be made, one of them being that " a great deal of these 
books standeth much by holy writ, by holy doctors, and by 
philosophy," which should not be translated into English. 
The lord responds with arguments frequently used by the 
reformers of the sixteenth century, that St. Jerome trans- 
lated from Hebrew into Latin, that the gospel and the faith 
must be preached to men who know no Latin, that " English 
preaching is very translation, and such English preaching 
is good and needful." The clerk finally sees the necessity 
of translation, as was fore-ordained, and asks the lord if he 
would " liefer have a translation of these chronicles in 
rhyme or in prose ? " " In prose," answers the lord, " for 
commonly prose is more clear than rhyme, more easy and 
more plain to know and understand." 

The translation was accordingly made in prose, carried 
through and finished on the i8th of April, 1387. " In some 
place I shall set word for word," says Trevisa,^^ " and 
active for active, and passive for passive, a-row right as 
it standeth, without changing of the order of words. But 
in some place I must change the order of words, and set 
active for passive and again-ward. And in some place I 
must set a reason for a word and tell what it meaneth. 
But for all such changing, the meaning shall stand and 
not be changed." To this program Trevisa faithfully ad- 
hered. His translation is usually close, though not literal, 
and his additions are few and unimportant. Occasional 
errors occur, due to misunderstanding of the original Latin. 
The most notable characteristic of Trevisa's English as 
compared with the compact and well-constructed Latin of 
the original, is its looseness of form and its verbosity. A 
^''Epistle of Sir John Trevisa, in Pollard, ibid., p. 208. 



22 English Literary Prose 

single English word is seldom allowed to count as the 
equivalent of a Latin word. The simple Latin phrase of 
Higden, in sigmtm quod minoris zirtiitis est quaerere qiiam 
quaesita tueri, became in Trevisa, " in tokeynge [^at ^\s is 
lasse maistrie to wynne and to conquere |)an it is to kepe 
and to save [jat jjat is conquered and i-wonne." ^^ The 
more earnest and the more careful he is, the more cum- 
bersome Trevisa becomes. An unfamiliar allusion always 
calls for elaboration, as in the following sentence of 
Higden : Cujns negotii, velut Daedalini labyrinthi, inex- 
tricabilem attendens intricationem, rogata sum veritus at- 
temptare. This is rendered by Trevisa as follows : " poo 
toke I hede J^at [)is matir, as laborintus, Dedalus hous, 
haJD many halkes and hurnes, wonderful weies, wyndynges 
and wrynkelynges, jjat wil nou^t be unwarled, me schamed 
and dradde to fynde so grete and so gostliche a bone to 
graunte." ^^ Awkward as this translation of Trevisa's is, 
however, it is better than that of the later fifteenth-century 
translator of the PolycJironicon, who speaks in his Latin 
English of " the intricacion inextricable of this labor " and 
of " the obnubilous and clowdy processe of this matter." 
Trevisa, with all his faults, retains his feeling for native 
and familiar English. It had not yet occurred to him that 
English words could be made out of Latin by the simple 
process of bodily transference. His struggle was to ren- 
der his original into intelligible English, not to write a 
high style or to create a new literary vocabulary. His atti- 
tude towards English is not that of the Renascence but of 
the Medieval mind. He uses the language naturally, 
crudely, laboriously, with no higher quality than occa- 
sionally the unconscious and na'ive charm of a simple- 
minded man writing as he speaks. 

'' Polychronicon, Roll's Series, I, 233-235. 
'" Ibid., pp. 8-9. 



Introduction 23 

The latter fourteenth century was not, however, without 
more ambitious writers who attempted to develop a higher 
literary type of prose than the simple medieval narrative 
of Maundevile and Trevisa. These experimenters, like the 
earliest Greek prose stylists, endeavored to raise prose to 
the literary level by giving it some of the characteristics of 
verse. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that a kind of 
prose was derived by abstracting some of the most marked 
features of verse, leaving something which stood half-way 
between colloquial discourse and regular verse. An in- 
structive example of this type of English prose is a didactic 
treatise written about 1357 on the basis of a Latin original 
by John Thoresby, archbishop of York. The name of the 
translator, or paraphraser, was John de Taystek (Tavi- 
stock?), a monk of St. Mary's Abbey at York, a name 
which seems to have been corrupted in later transcripts of 
the text to Gaytrigge, Gaytrik, Gaytringe, and other 
forms. -° The treatise was intended to be preached, as a 
manual of instruction, by parsons and vicars to their parish- 
ioners. It has been printed in three versions, one from the 
official records preserved at York, another from the manu- 
script of a Wiclifite version of Taystek's translation, and 
one from a later copy of it. The work treats of the ten 
commandments, the seven sacraments, the seven deadly 
sins, the seven virtues, and the seven works of mercy, and 
similar material, and it serves, so far as content goes, as a 
good example of popular discourse in the fourteenth cen- 
tury. The most notable stylistic feature of the treatise 
is its semi-metrical character. The metrical characteristics 
easily become obscured, however, and in the Wiclifite ver- 
sion many passages pass over into unqualified prose. In 

''"See "Dan Jon Gaytrigge's Sermon," Religiotis Pieces in Prose 
and Verse, ed. Perry, E.E.T.S., XXVI-'^, 1-14; Lay Folks Cate- 
chism, ed. Simmons and Nolloth, E.E.T.S., CXVIII, 1-99. 



24 English Literary Prose 

the version known as Dan Jon Gaytr'igge's Sermon, the 
editors have felt so little the metrical elements in the text 
that they have simply printed it as prose. There can be 
no doubt, however, that Taystek in his paraphrase of 
Thoresby's original intended to produce a style which 
would be a safe compromise between plain prose and out- 
and-out verse. The metrical feature which survives most 
distinctly is the feeling for the cadence of the four-stress 
long line of alliterative verse. Occasional lines occur which 
are quite regular in scansion, both with respect to rhythm 
and alliteration. In general, however, alliteration is not v 
well maintained, and apparently what Taystek endeavored 
to do was to discard alliteration and retain the general 
rhythmical structure of the alliterative long line. Rime 
occurs scarcely at all. Sometimes the rhythm of the line 
has been satisfied at the expense of an unusual word- 
order, but otherwise there is little in the text to warn the 
reader that he is not reading prose but verse. We can 
scarcely suppose that Taystek refrained from writing his 
treatise in a more regular verse style either from ignorance 
or inability. Quite probably he felt that ordinary alliterative - 
verse, familiar to all in secular romance and story, was not 
appropriate for official instruction in the serious concerns 
of the religious life. And to have spoken to his audience 
merely as man to man, in the language of daily communi- 
cation, was of course not to be thought of. It would be 
vain to seek for evidences of a genuinely creative attitude 
towards prose style in so crude a stylist as Taystek. To 
the worn-down verse which he employed, he added nothing 
in the way of stylistic ornament, except perhaps the frequent 
use of synonymous word-pairs, such as of zvitt and of 
wisdome (p. 2), withouten travaile or trey (p. 4), to 
knowe and to kun (p. 4), comandes and biddes (p. 20), 
ordayned and bidden (p. 22), hiding or helyng (p. 50). 



Introduction 25 

This was a trick of style not unknown to prose writers of 
the Old English period, and one which became almost a 
constant feature of oratorical and artistic prose of the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Needless to say these 
word-pairs were used because of their appropriateness to 
the rotund oratorical style which the various writers af- 
fected, not at all for the sake of logical clearness or with 
any theories of the etymological origins of the words thus 
paired. 

A much more skillful writer of prose and of prose 
poetry than Taystek was Richard Rolle, called of Hampole 
from the place of his death and burial. Although Richard 
Rolle died in the year 1349 at about the age of fifty, his 
influence was especially strong in the last quarter of the 
fourteenth century. At that time a revival of his fame took 
place, and with the popular growth of interest in religion 
and theology, Rolle was annexed by the reformers to their 
party. In one of the transcriptions of Rolle's English 
Psalter, dating from this time, the writer complains that 
the Psalter has been Lollardized and thus " ymped in with 
eresy." Various disciples who followed Rolle's methods 
in writing became active in the last quarter of the century. 
Of these the most important were William Nassyngton, 
Walter Hylton, and Juliana of Norwich. Doubtless there 
were other members of this group whose names have been 
lost, and whose works, if they have survived, are not dis- 
tinguishable from the writings of the better known rep- 
resentatives of the school.^^ 

Rolle began his career in a dramatic manner. He had 
left Oxford at the age of nineteen, having spent his time 

"' See Horstman, Richard Rolle of Hampole and his follozvers, 
I, 189s, II, 1896. The contents of these two volumes are in need of 
sifting in order to determine their authorship, but however numer- 
ous the authors may be, they are all of the school of Hampole. 



26 English Literx\ry Prose 

there mainly in the study of the Bible and having become 
dissatisfied with the scholasticism which at that time held 
sway in the university. He returned home, and shortly 
after, dressing himself up in a costume made from a 
white and a gray gown of his sister's and a hood of his 
father's, and frightening off his sister, who thought that 
he had gone mad, he ran away and became a hermit. For 
the rest of his life Rolle led the life of a recluse, occupying 
himself with preaching, writing, and meditation, and 
according to his own testimony, passing through the various 
formal stages of mystical experience. He was not in holy 
orders, was not a priest or a monk, and though his whole 
life was passed in pious and religious activities, in the eyes 
of the church he was a layman. At first he appears to 
have attempted to spread his views by oral preaching, but 
perhaps he was limited in these endeavors because he was 
not a priest and so could not preach from church pulpits. 
Quite probably, however, he preached anyway, very much 
as Wiclif's poor priests did later, speaking to the people 
wherever he found them. Later he turned to writing, and 
in the composition both of verse and of prose treatises, he 
seems to have found a congenial and effective mode of 
expression. 

As a thinker, Rolle makes no pretensions to a philo- 
sophic system. " His system is religious life, not theory." ^" 
His prose pieces, consisting of prayers, meditations, sen- 
tences, epistles, tracts, translations from Bonaventura, 
Richard of St. Victor, and other mystics, are generally 
structureless and unrelated to each other, except as they 
all breathe the same feeling of pious and fervid devotion. 
The longer pieces are made up merely of a succession of 
spiritual reflections and ejaculations, especially on divine 
love. Few allusions to contemporary life occur, and the 
''^ Horstman, II, xiv. 



Introduction 27 

satirical note is altogether absent. Rolle has little of the 
righteous indignation of the reformer, and though the 
punishments of hell are eloquently described, his most 
frequent subject is the love of God. 

It was a fervid and lyrical temperament which Rolle 
brought with him to the composition of his prose. His 
feeling for prose was by no means artless, although on the 
other hand, the use of his various devices of style is not 
persistent and regular enough to give him a carefully 
thought out and consistent style. At times he wrote quite 
simply. One of his most popular tracts was his Form of 
Perfect Living, addressed to Margaret, an anchoress, who 
was Rolle's disciple and with whom he seems to have 
enjoyed much spiritual communion. The tract recounts 
the various temptations to which one leading the lonely life 
of the hermit is subjected and also the ways by which the 
perfect love of God may be attained. Now thou hast 
heard, he says, a part of the subtle crafts of the devil, and 
if thou wilt thou shalt destroy his traps, and ' burn in the 
fire of love all the bands that he would bind thee with.' ^^ 
' For that thou hast forsaken the solace and the joy of this 
world, and taken thee to solitary life, for God's love to 
suffer tribulation and anguish here, and sithen [afterwards] 
come to that bliss that nevermore blins [ceases] : I trow 
truly that the comfort of Jesus Christ and the sweetness 
of his love, with the fire of the Holy Ghost that purges 
all sin, shall be in thee and with thee, how thou shalt 
think, how thou shalt pray, what thou shalt work, so that 
in a few years thou shalt have more delight to be alone 
and speak to thy love and to thy spouse Jesus Christ, that 
high is in heaven, than if thou were lady here of a thou- 
sand worlds.' Many suppose, he continues, that we hermits 

■^Vol. I, 9. The modernization is literal, as in all passages 
within single quotation marks. 



28 English Literary Prose 

are in pain and great penance. ' They see our body, but 
they see not our heart, where our solace is. If they saw- 
that, many of them would forsake all that they have, for 
to follow us.' The love of God is the perfection of the 
religious life. ' Amore langueo. These two words are 
written in the book of love, that is called the song of love, 
or the song of songs.' The special gift of the solitary is to 
love God. ' In heaven the angels that are most burning 
in love are nearest God.' -* 'If thou love him mickle, 
mickle joy and sweetness and burning thou feelest, that is 
thy comfort and strength, night and day.' -^ 

The Form of Perfect Living is an example of Rolle's 
simpler prose style, the purpose of it being mainly ex- 
positional. Even here, however, there is considerable 
alliteration, some use of the metrical cadences of the long 
line, of oratorical, ejaculatory devices, in short a general 
tendency to fall into a dithyrambic kind of expression 
suited to the mood of the prose-poet. The sentences often 
have a fullness and roundness of phrasing which remind 
one of the cadences of later liturgical literature. Always 
one feels that Rolle's written style is merely a transference 
of the impassioned expression of the orator to the more 
permanent record of the manuscript page. 

More characteristic of Rolle's popular style in its admix- 
ture of prose and verse is the tract Ego dormio et cor meum 
vigilat}^ In general this tract is similar in method to 
Taystek's sermon, and is representative of a kind of preach- 
ing and writing which Wiclif expressly condemned. At 
times, passages can be scanned as alliterative verse, though 
the piece is intended in the main to be prose. It is a dis- ' 
quisition, a kind of rhapsody, on divine love, and naturally 
the subject lends itself to a more lyric treatment than the 
Form of Perfect Living: 

"-' P. 29. " P. 30. " Vol. I, 49-61. 



Introduction 29 

" All perisches & passes jjat we with eghe see. It 
wanes in to wrechednes, \)t welth of |3is worlde. Robes 
& ritches rotes in dike. Prowde payntyng' slakes in to 
sorow. Delites & drewryse stynk sal ful sone. paire golde 
& jjaire tresoure drawes jjam til dede. Al jje wikked of 
{dIs worlde drawes til a dale, {^at j^ai may se [^are sorowyng 
whare waa es ever stabel. Bot he may syng of solace [jat 
lufed Jhesu Criste : (je wretchesse fra wele falles in to 
hell." " 

The tract continues with a passage of plain exposition in 
a more normal prose style, until it reaches a Meditatio de 
passione Cristi, where it again breaks out into a kind of 
rimed prose. 

From the point of view of ingenuity of technic Rolle is 
without question the most effective writer of prose in the 
fourteenth century, though it cannot be said that he 
accomplished much in the development of a practicable 
art of prose style. The distinction between prose and verse 
is not clearly maintained by him, and of prose dignified by 
thought and wisdom, he had no conception. Good English 
prose has generally appealed primarily to the reason, but 
Rolle's appeal is almost altogether to emotion. When 
his prose is normal it is least distinguished. It is only 
when his heart is kindled by the fire of love that a kind of 
vatic enthusiasm colors and exalts his expression, and at 
the same time lifts it into regions where only those equally 
inspired can follow him. 

One further experiment in the writing of artistic prose 
in this period must be noted. This is Thomas Usk's 
Testament of Love,-^ made about 1387, and formerly often 
attributed to Chaucer. The treatise is in fact based upon 
Chaucer's translation of Boethius, and is an attempt to 

''Vol. I, 53- 

'* See Skeat, Chaucerian and other Pieces, pp. 1-45. 



30 English Literary Prose 

give a testament, or witness, of the divine love in relation 
to a symbolic Margaret, the pearl beyond all price, who 
stands for various ideas, the Church, the grace of God, and 
others. The author of the treatise endeavored to write 
mystically, but being without genuine mystical fervor, he 
succeeded merely in furnishing an instructive illustration of 
what must happen when an uninspired writer tries to write 
an inspired style. Usk comments in some detail on his own 
theories of style. Many men, he says, so much swallow 
the deliciousness of gests and of rime by quaint knitting 
colors,^^ that they take little heed of the goodness or bad- 
ness of the thought. But such craft of enditing, he con- 
tinues, will not be of my acquaintance. He puts his trust in 
" rude wordes and boystous." Many delight in French and 
Latin, but Englishmen will do better to write in English, 
for " the understanding of Englishmen wol not strecche to 
the privy termes in Frenche, what-so-ever we bosten of 
straunge langage." "*^ He frequently speaks of his ' lewd- 
ness,' and his desire to write plainly in order to be easily 
understood. The reader of his Testament soon realizes, 
however, that this is all false modesty and affectation of 
simplicity, for the style of the work is highly artificial and 
ambitious. Although there is some use of alliteration, of 
rime, of puns, of violent antitheses, and of ingenious 
figures, Usk depends mainly for his stylistic effects upon 
an obscure and tortuous form of expression, derived 
apparently by taking the crudities of word-order and of 
unidiomatic phrasing found in Chaucer's Boece (and due 
there merely to Chaucer's difficulty in rendering the text 
of his original) and making these inadequacies of the 
Boece the marks of his own distinction of style. That s/ 
Usk was striving after a literary prose style is apparent. 
He deserves some credit for rejecting the dithyrambic 
*• P. I. "" P. 2. 



Introduction 



31 



style of Rolle, but his own style, though different, is Httle 
better. His theme he felt to be lofty, but without a genuine 
or deep desire to express himself truly and lacking a model 
to follow, he invented a literary prose which saved itself 
from being merely colloquial and natural by being un- 
idiomatic and unintelligible. 



II 

WICLIF 

Wiclif's Career — Latin Writings — Theories of Prose 
Style — English Works — Literary Technic 

In the survey of Wiclif's life, the first feeling is one of 
disappointment at its seeming futility. Though he stands 
as the representative English scholar and thinker of the 
latter half of the fourteenth century, what he accomplished 
for his immediate generation seems very little. His life 
was, in Milton's phrase, " but a short blaze, soon damped 
and stifled." ^ He wrote no great works, he achieved no 
apparent and dramatic reforms, only once or twice does he 
appear in the arena of the higher public life of his day. 
And after his death when civil and ecclesiastical authority 
had done its best to destroy the seeds of his teaching, it 
might well have seemed to a contemporary that Wiclif be- 
longed to that class of ephemerally troublesome spirits, the 
Wat Tylers, the John Balls of the time, who fought their 
brief fight against the world and then were swallowed up by 
it. Only a later generation could see that the defeat was 
but apparent, and that at the pure flame of Wiclif's life 
" all the succeeding reformers more effectually lighted their 
tapers." ^ 

Wiclif received the benefit of the best intellectual train- 
ing of his day. Born about the year 1320, he became in 

' " Of Reformation in England," Prose Works, ed. Symmons, I, 4. 
= Ibid. 

32 



WiCLIF 33 

due time a student at Oxford University, perhaps in Bal- 
liol College, of which college he was later made master. 
The greater part of his life was passed at Oxford, in 
teaching and preaching before large bodies of students. On 
several occasions he took part in the public afifairs of the 
time, but then as the ally of John of Gaunt and others, 
rather than as an independent leader. But Wiclif's life, 
though that of the scholar, was by no means the life of 
the hermit or recluse. He was not a mystic, nor was 
Oxford in Wiclif's day, still under the spell of the scho- 
lastic philosophy, a congenial place for the development 
of mysticism. It was a stirring life that Wiclif led and one 
that brought him into close contact with the living issues 
of the time. For the most part he appears to have been 
permitted to express his views without restraint. Indeed 
it was not until the later years of his life that he passed 
from criticism of the abuses of the church to hostility towards 
the pope himself and the whole system of the ecclesiastical 
hierarchy. After the election of the two popes in 1378, 
Urban VI and the anti-pope Clement VII, Wiclif's hostility 
towards papal authority was intensified. It was about this 
time, also, that his opposition to the friars led to the organi- 
zation of his informal order of " poor priests," in a way a 
new order of friars who were to live and teach according 
to the rules which the friars were supposed to follow. A 
few years earlier, in 1374, Wiclif had received a Crown 
appointment to the rectory of Lutterworth, in Leicester- 
shire, and here he went to live altogether when in 1382 he 
was expelled from the University of Oxford. His heretical 
opinions, especially his denial of that mystery of mysteries, 
the doctrine of transubstantiation, separated him more com- 
pletely than ever from the traditional and conservative party 
both in church and state during the last five or six years of 
his life. So far as the English authorities are concerned, 



34 English Literary Prose 

he seems to have been allowed to dwell at Lutterworth in 
peace. He was cited to Rome, however, to answer the 
charges of heresy preferred against him, but his physical 
infirmities made such a journey impossible, and he died 
on December 31, 1384, without ever having been actually 
excommunicated. 

The motive power of Wiclif's life was a strong personal 
sense of justice, guided and supported by a powerful and 
fearless logic. Although he was trained in and himself 
followed the system of scholasticism, Wiclif was not domi- 
nated by it. On the contrary, he used his scholastic methods 
to make more effective his own personal convictions. This 
is not the place to discuss in detail what these convictions 
were, how he began with the arraignment of the patent 
abuses of ecclesiastical authority and privilege, how his 
hostility to the older religious orders led to a new and 
profound conception of the rights of property and do- 
minion, of the inter-relation of civil and ecclesiastical 
authority, of the control which one person may exert over 
the conscience of another, in short to the elaboration of a 
system of Christian democracy far in advance of even the 
enlightened opinion of his own day. The general trend of 
his teaching was to discount the authority of priests and 
officially designated directors of the spiritual life. A 
priest who preaches good doctrine and does not follow it 
in practice, so he says in his Opus Evaiigelicum, is like 
a cow that gives plenty of good milk but immediately 
afterward kicks over the milking-pail. The futility of faith 
without works and of merely formal ceremonies was one 
of his strongest convictions. His theology thus had always 
a distinctly practical side. In the later years of his life, 
when he had passed beyond the authority of the pope and 
beyond the control of his patron, John of Gaunt, these 
doctrines were preached with an apostolic fervor and 



WiCLIF , 35 

directness which lift Wiclif far above the level of the mere 
logician and philosopher, or even that of the practical 
reformer. His vision became that of the prophet, and thus 
ceased to be the program of the practical statesman. 

The attempt to find the real test of the w^orth of a man 
from within, to establish the standard of truth in the 
individual's personal sincerity was not only novel, but also 
heretical teaching in the fourteenth century. It is not 
remarkable, therefore, that as Wiclif's views became more 
and more positive, he found himself compelled to break 
completely with the official party in church and state. In 
the hope of finding a more fertile soil for his teaching, he 
was impelled to address himself to the humbler people of 
England whose minds were not bound by interest and privi- 
lege to the established order of society. It was the necessity 
of reaching this humbler public that caused Wiclif to reflect 
on the capabilities of language for exposition and argu- 
ment, and for the first time in the history of the English 
people, to exemplify the ideal of an honest man speaking 
his convictions on questions of conduct and belief without 
authorization from official sources and in plain language, 
intelligible to all men. 

During the years of his activity as teacher and preacher 
at Oxford, Wiclif naturally wrote in Latin, the established 
language of learning and theology in the time. He wrote 
abundantly, his extant Latin works consisting of several 
hundred short sermons and a number of longer essays and 
treatises. His only attempts at what might be called an 
artistic form in Latin are his dialogues, and even these 
betray some impatience with the limitations which literary 
form may place upon the free expression of the mind of the 
writer. His first treatise in the form of dialogue was his 
Speculum Ecclesie Militantis,^ in which the speakers are 

' Edited by A. W. Pollard, London, 1886. 



36 English Literary Prose 

Veritas and Mendacium, the first supposed to stand for 
Christ and the second for the Devil. At the beginning of 
the first chapter WicHf remarks that he makes use of 
dialogue because many persons take pleasure in loquela 
dialogi. In fact, however, the dialogue soon ceases to have 
any dramatic significance. In the first three chapters the 
characters speak with some respect to the parts which they 
are supposed to take, but after that " Veritas is Wiclif and 
Wiclif only, and we have him frequently professing the 
purity of his motives and his readiness to confront the 
Pope or to endure persecution for the truth." * Mendacium 
in the same way becomes merely a mouthpiece for stating 
the existing abuses of the church, a man of straw, fre- 
quently, for Wiclif to knock down. Veritas soliloquizes 
often at inordinate length. His opening speech fills four- 
teen pages, and his last three speeches are nine, four and 
eleven pages long, while Mendacium is allowed only short 
speeches. The Trialogus ^ is another of Wiclif 's experi- 
ments in what might be called a dramatic form. He again 
comments on the greater interest of discussions in which 
concrete persons are supposed to take part as compared 
with general and impersonal address, and describes the 
persons of his Trialogus as Alithia, a solidns philosophus, 
Pseustis, inHdelis captiosus, and Phronesis, siibtilis theo- 
logus et matiirus. The work, which was very popular, is 
a compendium of theological doctrine, but practically no 
attempt is made to put dramatic life into it. The speakers 
are not given character, the speeches frequently run through 
pages without interruption, and to all intents, are nothing 
more than paragraph divisions. Wiclif never attempted the 
dialogue form in English, and the examples of it in Latin 
are interesting mainly as showing how little his mind con- 
cerned itself with artistic literary form. They followed the 
* Pollard, ibid., p. vi. * Edited by Lechler, Oxford, 1867. 



WiCLIF 37 

traditions of the lifeless medieval dialogue and owe nothing 
to Plato or Cicero, or even to contemporary colloquial dis- 
course.*^ In the minor technical details of expression also, 
Wiclif cultivated a natural and unornamented rather than 
an artificial style. From the time of Tertullian, theological 
discussion and preaching had made use of a highly in- 
genious prose rhetoric, based mainly on antithesis and 
balance in phrasing, the use of alliteration, rime, and pun- 
ning, and of various other formal devices derived ultimately 
from the Greek rhetoric of Gorgias and his successors. All 
this literary artifice, which even affected early attempts to 
write prose in the vernacular and which was certainly 
highly admired by most medieval Latinists, Wiclif expressly 
rejected in theory and never illustrated in practice.'^ 

Of the Latin Sermones of Wiclif, some two hundred are 
extant.^ They were evidently composed for a general but 
learned public, and many of them were doubtless delivered 
at Oxford, probably at St. Mary's, where Wiclif often 
preached. Most of the sermons date from a rather late 
period of Wiclif's life, and those that were of earlier com- 
position are more or less revised. It was probably during 
the last five years of his life that Wiclif collected and re- 
vised the sermons. His reasons for doing so are given in 
an interesting Praefatio in which he says that now at the 
end of his days, being freed from academic occupations and 
desiring to employ his leisure to the advantage of the 

° Wiclif agrees with the frequently expressed medieval opinion 
that the first element in the word dialogue means two, and that 
therefore a dialogue is a conversation between two persons. On the 
analogy of this interpretation, he invented his title Trialogus, a dis- 
cussion in which three take part. 

' For a fuller statement of the technical development of Latin 
Christian prose in the Middle Ages, reference must be made to 
Norden, Die Antike Kunstprosa, pp. 512 ff. 

" Edited by Loserth, 4 vols., London, 1887-1890. 



38 English Literary Prose 

church, he has collected his sermones rudes ad populum 
in order that all that is in them accordant to the true 
teaching of Christ may be approved and all that varies 
from the catholic truth may be rejected. The collection 
was evidently intended, as were Wiclif's English sermons 
written about the same time, to serve as models for other 
preachers, and it is so arranged, according to the calendar, 
as to provide a sermon for each important feast of the 
year. Wiclif thus composed a book to take the place of 
the popular festival books of his day, the legendaries and 
collections of exempla and anecdotes against the use of 
which he constantly preached. For though Wiclif calls his 
sermons rude and popular, the description applies only in 
the sense that he strove to present in them definite in- 
struction for the people, not to amuse and distract them 
by literary artifice or with tales of wonder and romantic 
adventure. 

The Sermones are deserving of special consideration, for 
in them Wiclif has set forth more fully and frankly than 
elsewhere his theories of the art of preaching and of the 
art of literary composition in general. Preaching is fre- 
quently recommended, in a way that reminds one of the 
later Puritans, as the first and most important duty of the 
pastor. With equal positiveness, Wiclif insists that the 
preaching must be adapted to the needs of the hearers.^ 
What the preacher requires is above all a sincere desire in 
his heart to help the people. He must avoid the pomposam 
eloquenciam of the grammarian.^" And the subtleties of 
logic, the laborious observations of natural philosophy, and 
the demonstrations of mathematics are all useless to him.^^ 
All he need know is the life, the teaching, and the acts of 
Christ. Too much learning is not to be imported into 

* See Sermones, I, 35, 107, 128, 130, 133, 197; II, 79. 

'" Ibid., I, 209. " Ibid., II, 18. 



WiCLIF 39 

the study of the scriptures. Christ and his apostles, 
hominum sapientissimi, did not insist on any such learning, 
which indeed savors too much of curiousness and pride. 
Let us know the sacred scriptures and nothing beyond them, 
says Wiclif, for thereby man's spiritual life is regulated.^^ 
Many books indeed might well be destroyed, the New 
Testament remaining, for then priests, imitating Christ, 
might the more effectively preach the truths contained 
within these books. ^^ 

To this theme of the necessity of simplicity and sincerity, 
Wiclif returns again and again. Rhetoric is not needed 
by the preacher, however pleasing it may be to him and 
his audience," for the preacher must not preach for his 
own honor or profit, or pay too much heed to what is 
merely pleasing to his audience. ^^ On the contrary the 
preacher must speak plainly at all times, and even follow 
Christ's boldness in reproving when necessary.^*^ Prelates 
must not allow themselves by reason of their high station 
to lose patience with the people or to become chilled by the 
wind of pomp which blows upon them. The people think 
that a high mountainous place is warmer because it is 
nearer the sun, whereas in truth it is colder for that 
reason. ^^ 

In one of the Sermones, on the text Semen est verbiim 
dei, Wiclif entered into a more specific statement of his 
views on preaching and on the proper style in writing. 
Christ often taught in parables, the sermon begins, and of all 
the parables none is better suited for instructing the people 
than the parable of the sower. From this text Wiclif de- 

^'^ Sapiamus ergo scriptxiram sacram ct nicliil extra illam, cum 
in hoc consistit sobrictas hominis spiritualis, Sermones.lll, 83. 
'Mbid., Ill, 265. 

'' Ibid., II, 230-231. '" Ibid., I, 281. 

" Ibid., II, 279, 448. " Ibid., II, 220. 



40 English Literary Prose 

rives, in scholastic fashion, three themes for the edification 
of his hearers. ^^ The first concerns the nature of the 
seed, the second of the sower, and the third the results of 
the sowing. The word is the seed, and it has as its material 
nature, the voice of the preacher. In it there resides a 
certain seminal power given from above capable of pro- 
ducing a new creature, by which Wiclif means the new 
man, in the hearts of the hearers. But the effectiveness of 
the word is impaired nowadays by the abuse of the material 
(that is of the manner of preaching), which becomes thus 
the seed of death rather than of life. For the preacher 
now preaches not the words of God, but gests, poems, and 
fables ; or if he preaches the sacred scripture, he first dis- 
members it and then binds it up again by means of rhyth- 
mical ornament so that it seems no longer the text of the 
scripture but the very speech of the preacher himself and 
his own invention. Various excuses are given by such 
preachers for these novelties. Some say that if you do not 
admit certain artifices of speech, it will be impossible to 
distinguish between the preaching of the subtle theologian 
and that of the ignorant country priest.^^ But it is mere 
vain-glory, Wiclif declares, to seek after rhetorical distinc- 
tions and curious weavings of words, in order that the 
preacher may be considered ingenious by his audience. 

A second excuse often made for the ornamental style 
was that it is a law of nature that the forms of things should 
be accordant to the matter. Since then the matter of 
theology is the most perfect of all, it should be given the 
most noble and the most beautiful form. This must be 

''His words show that he was addressing a band of his priests: 
E.v qiiibiis verbis elicio viichi tria fratcrnitati vcstrc per ordincm 
declaranda, Sermones, IV, 263. 

'° Inter theolognm qiiantumcunqiie subtileni in seminando vcrbiirn 
Dei et sacerdofem rnralem quantum libet exilitcr literatiim, 
Sermones, IV, 266. 



WiCLIF 41 

done by means of rhetorical ornament and of rhythmical 
combinations, for so, these authors say, eloquence perfects 
wisdom. But such arguments, answers Wiclif, are erro- 
neous. They are wrong because those who defend them 
assume that the form of wisdom consists in the beauty of 
words, and that they speak wisdom, which comes from 
God alone, when they affect a meretricious form. All this 
is nothing other than adulteration of the word of God.^° 
' What else is it, I ask, but adulteration of the word of 
God, when the preacher wraps himself in cloaks and other 
meretricious ornaments, extraneous to the scripture, and 
employed for his own ostentatious delight and to the de- 
struction of the flower and the fruit of preaching, which 
is the honor of God and the conversion of our fellow man? 
And what is sincere speaking, except to utter the truth 
which edifies with clear intention, plainly and aptly ? ' ^^ 
Still another excuse offered for fine style was that certain 
books of the Bible are in meter, and why not also sermons? 
To this Wiclif answers that it is one thing to sing a song 
of praise or a prophecy and another thing to set forth the 
words of an exhortation. Ornaments of style obscure the 
understanding of the thought, for the hearer, perceiving 
the author's intentness on his meter, pays more heed to the 
sensible signs of the thought than to those things for which 
the signs stand. Like those listening to musical melodies, 
for the most part the audience of a popular preacher carry 
nothing away with them except the tickling delight of the 
moment, unless perchance the cleverness of the preacher 
calls forth also their windy praises. 

Philosophy teaches us, says Wiclif in conclusion of this 
part of the sermon, that the most effective means to an 
end are the ones properly to be employed. Since the 
sowing of the word of God is the means ordained for the 

'"' II Cor. ii, 17. -' Sermones, IV, 267-268. 



42 English Literary Prose 

honor of God and the instruction of mankind, it follows 
that the- more compendiously and fully this is done, the 
more suitable it is ; and since there can be no doubt that 
plain speech on all that concerns the salvation of man is the 
most effective, it follov^s that plain speech should be used 
and all heroical declamation set aside. Of all the works of 
the militant church, the faithful sowing of the seed is the 
one most pleasing to God, and so, on the other hand, fraud 
in the sowing of the seed is most harmful, and in con- 
sequence, most hateful in the sight of God.^^ 

Thus fully and clearly Wiclif presented the fundamental 
principles of prose discourse. That he should look at the 
matter mainly from the point of view of spoken language 
was inevitable in his day. But the principles which he has 
so clearly and so completely stated are intended to apply 
equally to all forms, spoken or written, of literary prose 
composition. At bottom Wiclif's demand is that prose shall 
be addressed primarily to man's reasonable understanding. 
He distinguishes clearly and firmly between verse and its 
conventions, which indeed he allows in their proper place, 
and the fitting means which prose must use to attain its 
ends. He raises the standard of the honest man trying 
first of all to express himself sincerely, to find the measure 
of truth not in artifice and external ornament, but in his 
own inner sense of conviction. If he is true to himself, he 
need not be greatly concerned about what others think of 
his efforts. ^^ On the other hand Wiclif does not neglect 
the just demands which the author's public may make upon 
him. Discourse which is not adapted to attain its end 
is bad. The task of the author is to express himself sin-, 
cerely, and at the same time effectively and persuasively. 
Later generations of ingenious experimenters sometimes dis- 
regarded the principles which Wiclif has here laid down, 

" SermoneSj IV, 270-271. " Ibid., II, 279. 



WiCLIF 43 

have obscured the distinctions between prose and poetry, 
and have made the art of prose to consist merely in the 
art of pleasing ; but in the main Wiclif s principles, doubt- 
less set forth many a time to his disciples, have persisted 
from Wiclif's time to the present day. English prose, 
through all its changes, has always demanded a basis of 
truth and plain reason, and its highest forms have always 
resulted from the efforts of honest and sincere men to 
address plainly and convincingly an audience of their equals 
and fellow-men. 

Although Wiclif wrote abundantly in English, he never 
attained the same degree of skill in the management of his 
native tongue as he had acquired through long years of 
experience in the writing of Latin. His early, and his 
more learned works in general, were all written in Latin, 
the strong, easy, free medieval Latin of his day. Later 
in life, as his attention and hopes centered on the people 
and their support, Wiclif made use of English, partly per- 
haps because Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and others were 
making English better known as a literary language, but 
mainly because he attached himself more and more closely 
to the strong national movement of the times and because 
his own interests and the appeal which he wished to make 
were becoming less scholastic and academic and increas- 
ingly popular. The success of the contemporary English 
translation of the scriptures, which will be discussed in 
a later chapter, may also have encouraged him in the use 
of the vernacular. But the use of the native idiom was a 
logical and necessary consequent of Wiclif's opinions, and 
all through his writings he defends the use of English not 
only for purposes of preaching and popular teaching, but 
also as the language of the services of the church, of the 
Bible, and of instruction in theological doctrine. That 
Wiclif found some difficulty in expressing himself in 



44 English Literary Prose 

English is evident not only from his writing but also from 
his own statement. In a passage in which he answers 
certain questions on the nature of the love of God, he re- 
marks that it is hard to answer these questions truly in 
English, but that ' charity drives men to tell them some- 
what in English so that men may best know by this English 
what is God's will.' ^* He realized the difficulty of his 
task, and the imperfection of his execution of it. He wrote 
in English not for his own satisfaction, but because charity 
towards his fellow-men drove him to tell them what he 
could in their native tongue. 

The authorship of the English writings attributed to 
Wiclif is not always definitely determinable. Owing to 
the uncritical habit which scholars and historians of the 
fourteenth century have had of attributing all writings of 
Wiclifean color to Wiclif himself, many texts have cer- 
tainly been assigned to him which he did not write. As 
a matter of fact there must have been a considerable school 
of writers who followed in general Wiclif's method, but 
who in many instances made use of devices of style never 
found in the certain works of Wiclif."-"' Of the assured 
writings of Wiclif, the most considerable body is to be 
found in his English sermons, and in a number of miscel- 
laneous treatises which may be extracted from a medley 
of writings of various origin which his editors have as- 
signed to him.-*^ From these sermons and treatises one 
may form an adequate conception of Wiclif's rrtethods and 



"■* Arnold, Select English Works, III, 183. 

" For some discussion of the canon of Wiclif's writings, see an 
essay by E. D. Jones, in Anglia, XXX. 

^^ The sermons are published in Arnold's Select English Works 
of John Wyclif, Oxford, 1871, 3 vols., especially Vols. I and II; 
other treatises appear in Matthew's English Works of Wyclif, 
hitherto unpriiited, London, 1880. E.E.T.S., LXXIV. 



WiCLIF 45 

ability as a writer of English. Though not so numerous as 
the surviving Latin sermons, the English sermons resemble 
the Latin in purpose and content. They are almost exclu- 
sively expositional, argumentative, or invective in character, 
never meditative or lyric, ejaculatory or hortatory. There 
is little expression of Richard Rolle's favorite theme, the love 
of God, and not much of the terror of him. The evangelical 
side of the religious life is on the whole slightly represented 
in Wiclif. On the other hand, he frequently delays to dis- 
cuss scientific or learned matters, as for example the 
nature of thunder,-' or of salt,-® although these digressions 
are less extensive in the English than they are in the Latin 
sermons. His method is usually to begin with a text, given 
in Latin and translated into English, then to explain the 
literal meaning of the text, then its spiritual significance. 
The sermon ends often with an application of the text, 
especially to the friars, whose faults Wiclif never tires of 
describing. Sometimes the sermon closes with what Wiclif 
calls an elucidation of the doubts, that is, a discussion of 
the various ideas suggested by the sermon, and Wiclif fre- 
quently shows his good sense by dismissing subtleties or un- 
certainties or insignificant matters by saying that it is not 
worth while spending time over them. Sometimes the ser- 
mons are not fully developed, but are preserved only as 
suggestive notes for further elaboration. That they were 
intended to serve as model sermons, doubtless for the poor 
priests, is shown by the fact that Wiclif frequently gives 
direct instructions to preachers. " In this Gospel," he says, 
" may priests tell of fals pride of riche men " ; -^ or again, 
" Here may men touche of alle manner of sin " ; ^° or, 
" Here after this wit [interpretation] men may large this 
Gospel and treat what matter that they ween should profit 

"Arnold, I, i86. 'Mbid., I, 3. 

'' Ibid., I, 266. '" Ibid., I, 6. 



46 English Literary Prose 

to the people." ^^ The sermons are, therefore, intended as a 
kind of liber festivalis, hke the Latin sermones, to be used 
by the poor priests in place of similar books prepared by 
the friars. 

The themes of the Latin sermons recur in the English 
writings. Wiclif's bitter hostility towards the friars has 
already been mentioned. He frequently preaches against 
warfare and civil dissension, charging the prelates with 
assuming temporal authority in order to encourage and to 
participate in warfare.^- But the priest, though he must be 
peaceful, need not always be mild. Scornful words and 
' snibbing ' are permitted by the example of Christ, as well 
as of Paul and others. ' But it is said commonly that three 
things are hard to men, to scorn meedfully, or meedfully 
plead with men, or else to fight with man, by the way of 
charity. But all this may be done, as wise men think. But 
for they are perilous, many men suppose that Christ used 
them never, but went the king's highway.' ^^ As Wiclif 
points out, snibbing is prevented in the ' orders ' (that is, 
the orders of the friars), because when one reproves them, 
the friars say they have a superior to whom reproof be- 
longs ; one brother may not freely reprove another, but 
only the superior may reprove. To this Wiclif objects that 
' Christ reproved where most was need, and so should men 
do to-day.' ^* Wiclif availed himself frequently of this 

" Arnold, I, 133. 

'"See Arnold, II, 43, 44, 166, 190, and frequently elsewhere. 
"Ibid., I, 114; see also II, 76. 

"Ibid., II, 202. Cf. Chaucer's 'poor priest' in the Canterbury 
Tales, Prolog, 11. 519-523: 

" To drawen folk to heven by fairnesse 
By good ensample was his besinesse : 
But it were any persone obstinat, 
What-so he were, of high or lowe estat. 
Him wolde he snibben sharply for the nones." 
Cf. also Chaucer's Gentilesse as an expression of possible 
Wiclifean or Lollard doctrine. 



WiCLIF 47 

privilege of freedom of speech, which appears to be here 
for the first time in the history of the English people 
openly and fully defended. And as one finds in examining 
the history of Lollardy, his successors were no less slow 
in seizing their opportunity. Freedom of speech, with the 
popular Bible-men and Lollard enthusiasts of the early 
fifteenth century often degenerated into license of speech, 
but a new privilege is almost certain to be abused before it 
is properly used, and perhaps the world to-day has not 
fully learned how to ' fight with man by the way of 
charity.' 

Wiclif earnestly advises his hearers to stick to the 
Gospel. The love that Christ taught is enough for this life.^^ 
' To some men it pleaseth to tell the tales that they find in 
saints' lives or without Holy Writ, and such things please 
often more the people. But we hold this manner good, — 
to leave such words and trust in God, and tell surely his 
law, and specially his Gospels ; for we know that they 
came of Christ, and so God saith them all. . . . And thus 
these feasts of these saints have this good beside other, that 
men may well tell in them the understanding of the 
Gospel.' ^^ The use of English Wiclif defends in the English 
sermons with a broad common sense which Tindale, Cran- 
mer, and the other reformers of the sixteenth century 
scarcely surpassed. Truth consists not in words but in wit, 
that is, in the understanding. ' Whoever liveth best, teach- 
eth best, pleaseth most God, of what language ever he be.' ^^ 
As the Holy Ghost gave to the apostles the gift of tongues 
at Pentecost, so God desires that the law be taught in 
different languages. St. Jerome translated the Bible into 
Latin so that it might be afterwards translated into other 
tongues. The French have a translation of the Bible and 
Gospels into French. Why should not the English have one 

" Arnold, I, 310. '' Ibid., I, 332. '' Ibid., Ill, 98. 



48 English Literary Prose 

in their own language? As the lords of England have this 
Bible in French, so it is not unreasonable that the people 
should have the same in English. Even the friars in Eng- 
land have taught the Pater Noster in English, as for ex- 
ample, in the play of York; and since the Pater Noster 
is part of St. Matthew's Gospel, why not turn the whole 
Gospel into English? Mistakes may be made in translating 
into English, but so may there be in translating from 
Hebrew into Greek, or Greek into Latin. Study alone will 
prevent error.^* 

The general tone of Wiclif's English writing is simple, 
and Wiclif frequently declares that he is striving to write 
simply. But as has already been pointed out, the sermons 
are not popular in the usual manner of medieval sermons. 
The stock exempla of sermonizing are altogether lacking, 
and there is very little exhortation. Scripture texts are 
quoted sparingly, and the fathers and the authorities still 
less frequently. Each sermon is a compact and unified dis- 
cussion of a single theme, not generally dry and scholastic, 
though logical and psychological subtleties sometimes appear 
in spite of Wiclif's endeavor to avoid them. The references 
to current life are numerous, though explicit mention of 
persons is not often made. Wiclif makes little efifort to be"*^ 
eloquent, his most spirited passages being his invectives 
against the friars. He is without humor, except occa- 
sionally a grim kind of irony, as, for example, when he 
explains why Christ loved fishermen more than hunters. 
Fishermen, he says, are humbler men than hunters, hunting 
being a " more gentil craft," and being humbler, fishers are 
nearer the state of innocence than hunters. Gentlemen, he 

'* Matthew, English Works, pp. 429-430. The treatise, De Officio 
Pastorali, from which this defense of EngHsh is taken, is a free 
Enghsh version of one of WicHf's Latin tracts, but it is uncertain 
whether the translation was made by WicHf himself. 



WiCLIF 49 

notes regretfully, often hunt even in Lent. Moreover the 
flesh of fish is nearer the elements and not so like to man's 
flesh, and ' thus fish is nearer to meat that man should 
have in Paradise, and slaying of fish is farther from slaying 
of men than is slaying of earthly beasts.' But the friars 
have no scruples against slaying of beasts, and (by implica- 
tion) none against slaying of men. And now there is used 
a 'new craft to slay men commonly' (gunpowder?), and 
priests especially are to use this craft, since they are to 
be lords over men. ' But what men they should kill, whether 
their brethren or aliens, they hold yet in their purse, al- 
though they practice on their brethren. But this people 
(i.e. the friars) is wide scattered, — some in England and 
somic without. And these more friars without say that men 
should kill English ; and so less error at the beginning 
groweth to mickle and perilous.^'' Following the general 
tradition of his time, Wiclif was much given to the tropo- 
logical or anagogical interpretation of the scriptures. He 
insists, as positively as Tindale does later, that the literal 
sense of the scriptures is the most important and that tra- 
ditional interpretations and moralizations have no authori- 
tative value. One man's interpretation is as good as an- 
other's, and the final appeal must be made in all cases to 
the letter of the scriptures themselves. *" But all the scrip- 
tures and all the acts of Christ have also a mystical meaning 
which the preacher may properly search out.*^ Thus the 
ship into which Christ entered may be understood to signify, 
according to the mystical sense, the body of the Virgin 
Mary or Christ's own body which he took from her.*^ 

'"Arnold I, 307-8. 

*° See Sermoncs, I, 83; Arnold, II, 343; Trialogus, ed. Lechler, 
p. 266. 

*' Sennones, I, 14. 
*"■ Ibid., I, 336. 



50 English Literary Prose 

The man sick of the palsy signifies ' unstableness of be- 
lief.' *^ These interpretations are often worked out in- 
geniously and at great length, but obviously they were not 
regarded by Wiclif as ornaments, not as granimatlcorum 
pomposam eloquenciam,*'^ but as an essential and valuable 
part of the scriptures themselves. We shall see them later 
as medieval survivals, for example in the sermons of Bishop 
Fisher, cultivated for their own sake. 

As to details of expression, one naturally finds in Wiclif's 
English writings much that is crude and experimental, al- 
though on the other hand Wiclif never sinks to the level ^ 
of Maundevile's naive and medieval simplicity. His sen- 
tences are short but well constructed, and usually have 
unity. The many-membered, sprawling sentence, found in 
most early writers of English prose, is not characteristic of 
Wiclif. The feeling which he had acquired for a varied 
and logically compact sentence structure in writing Latin 
was carried over into English when he began to write in 
his native speech. The logical connections of sentences are 
also more varied than one usually finds in the simple 
medieval style, with its monotonous sequence of ands, zvhens, 
thens, and biits. Practically no attempts at ornamental 
diction of any kind are made by Wiclif. He uses new words 
only as they are needed to express his thought, never from 
admiration for fine diction in itself. Even the very general 
fifteenth and sixteenth century rhetorical device of word- 
pairs is lacking in Wiclif. He uses no alliteration, except 
such as is accidental, no heaping or cataloguing passages, 
none of the popular tricks of the tumbling style character- 
istic of the oratorical prose discourse of the period. 
Figures and similes occur frequently, but they always arise 
naturally from the text. The question of figurative or 
metaphorical expression, as has already been indicated, was 

"Arnold, I, 47. ** Sennoyies, I, 209. 



WiCLIF 51 

an important one in Wiclif's eyes, and he frequently dis- 
tinguishes between ' literal wit ' and ' ghostly wit.' *^ He 
shows none of the rhetorician's interest, however, in the 
classification of figures of speech. 

Even in the expression of new and abstract ideas, Wiclif 
exercised the scholar's right of invention in matters of 
vocabulary very sparingly. It is interesting to note that 
the Wiclifean translation of the Bible contains many more 
newly borrowed Latin words than Wiclif's English writings, 
the obvious reasons being that the Latin of the Vulgate 
offered immediate models for the formation of new English 
words, and that the text of the Vulgate being regarded as 
specially sacred, the effort was made to translate it into 
English with as little change as possible. The general 
feeling, however, that English as a language ought to be 
elevated and enriched by the consistent borrowing of words 
from Latin had not yet arisen in Wiclif's day. On the 
contrary, Wiclif often stretches an English word to make 
it express his meaning. He uses bigginge (buying) in the 
sense of ' salvation.' or ' redemption,' ^'^ and waishe (wash) 
in the sense of ' baptize,' *^ although the words baptize and 
baptism also frequently occur. The use of wit, meaning 
' understanding,' ' interpretation,' has already been illus- 
trated in passages quoted. Other examples are hekenyng, 
' confession,' *^ bornhed, ' surety,' *^ fur^erhedis, hynder- 
hedis, ' things which precede,' * things which follow.' ^° A 
constant feature of Wiclif's vocabulary is his fondness for 
substantives in -ing, as for example, ' knowing of the day 
of doom ' ; ^^ ' by chasing (i.e. expulsion) of these fiends ' ; ^^ 
* after general doing,' ^^ and so frequently. The free use of 

" Arnold, II, 343. *' Ibid., Ill, 10. 

" Ibid., I, 69; II, 281. '" Ibid., Ill, 78. 

" Ibid., I. 72. " Ibid., II, 407. 

*' Ibid., II, 79. °= Ibid., I, 118. 

'' Ibid., I, 83. 



52 English Literary Prose 

this verbal substantive is directly due to Wiclif's familiarity 
with Latin, the supine, the gerund, and the verbal noun 
in -io being all represented by words in -ing. The motive 
which led Wiclif to the extensive use of these verbal sub- 
stantives in -hig was the necessity of finding English words 
that would express the abstract verbal ideas of words like 
cognitio, visio, etc. He might indeed have taken over the 
Latin words ' cognition,' ' vision,' etc., but this method of 
language enrichment was commonly employed only after 
the Renascence. Instead Wiclif preferred to develop a 
native resource of the language by adapting it to Latin 
models. Another Latinism frequently to be noticed in 
Wiclif's English style is the omission of the definite article, 
not only when he is translating directly from the Latin, 
but at any time. This feature of style often gives his 
English an unidiomatic and abrupt appearance, e.g. ' Time 
of this reaping is clept the day of doom,' ^* or, ' For when 
winds of men's boast make us to dread of worldly harms, 
and floods of tribulation come to us, they make us dread 
and cry on Christ to have help for failing in our belief.' ^^ 
This unidiomatic treatment of the article seems to be due 
to an unconscious and instinctive imitation of Latin usage 
on the part of Wiclif, not to any desire to refashion English 
into a literary language on the basis of Latin models of 
style. 

With Wiclif the sole purpose in the use of words was to 
be clear and intelligible, and the question which occupied 
so much of the thought of theologians and translators of 
the sixteenth century, whether words should be used in their 
etymological or in their acquired traditional senses, had not 
yet arisen to trouble the writer and thinker of Wiclif's day. 

" Arnold, I, 97. 

" Ibid., I, 94. Other characteristic examples, I, 98, 99, 103, 104, 
120, 139, 406; II, 398; in, 160, 175, 180, 203. 



WiCLIF 53 

With all his endeavor to be simple and clear, however, 
Wiclif's English vocabulary is not adequate to save him 
from falling into obscurity. When he wishes to speak of 
general conduct which serves as a public example, he has 
only the words ' general doing,' cited above, to express the 
idea. The distinction between a corporate body and the 
individuals who compose the corporation is intended when 
he speaks of the teaching of the friars ' to feign poverty in 
each person but to ground (i.e. establish) riches in the 
great person.' ^^ Priests, we are told, ' charge behests of 
winning, and they charge not more behests,' ^^ which means 
that priests command those things to be done which redound 
to their ownprofit or winning, but more important things they 
command not at all. Such inadequate forms of expression 
as these cited often make Wiclif's meaning difficult to grasp 
and show how his vigorous mind was compelled to yield to 
the insufficiencies of the language. They suggest also what 
has already been indicated, that Wiclif's importance in the 
development of English prose style consists in the ideas 
which he promulgated and which succeeding generations 
made effective, rather than in his own example and prac- 
tice in the art of writing. 

" Arnold, II, 410. " Ibid., II, 381. 



Ill 

CONTROVERSY AND FREE SPEECH 

Development of Free Speech — Oldcastle and the Lol- 
lards — Piers Plowman and Jack Upland— Reginald 
Pecock — Popular Reformers — Simon Fish — More 
and Tindale — Other Controversies — John Foxe — 
Cartwright and Whitgift — Martin Marprelate — 
Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity " 



It was perhaps WicHf's greatest service to mankind that 
he opened the search for truth to all earnest seekers and 
inquirers. In the fourteenth century, and for centuries 
before, it had been an established and unquestioned rule, 
with learned and unlearned, that the truth was the special 
charge of the church, that it was to be formulated by those 
whom the authority of the church recognized, and was to 
be distributed and imparted to others in the manner and 
in the degree approved by the conservers of truth thus 
ordained. To the authority of the church scholastic phi- 
losophy added the sanction of Aristotelian logic, human 
reason being thus supposedly united with divine revelation. 
Doubly safeguarded in this way, the truth was held firmly 
in the hands of its accredited interpreters, and it was formu- 
lated not as the tentative and mutable opinions of a growing 
and developing body of truth, but as final and absolute 
dogmas, not again to be questioned after they had been 
passed upon by the highest possible witnesses and judges of 

54 



Controversy and Free Speech 55 

truth. This strong position of dogmatic authority Wiclif, 
himself both divine and logician, was the first effectively to 
attack. Every serious and pious man, cleric or layman, ac- 
cording to this new teaching, had the right of individual 
opinion. The scriptures were a sufificient and an authori- 
tative revelation of truth, and it was each man's privilege 
and duty to know the scriptures for himself, and from them 
to draw the rules which should govern his conduct in all 
the concerns, spiritual, intellectual, and practical, of his 
personal life. 

Wiclif, in short, took truth out of the hands of authorita- 
tive dogmatists, and put it into the hands of all those who 
were earnestly seeking for truth. He removed it from the 
regions of the fixed and the absolute, and placed it on the 
battlefield of popular debate and opinion, where the measure 
of its validity was to be found in the degree to which it 
satisfied the general sense of truth, where its acceptance or 
rejection was to depend only upon the free and voluntary 
choice of the seekers after the truth. Debate, which had 
hitherto been carried on only in the high altitudes of 
technical and disciplined scholarship, was now to descend 
to the level of the popular speech and of the popular mind, 
undrilled and untaught in the subtleties of logic, but often 
making up for these deficiencies by earnestness of purpose, 
by breadth of human interest, and by a vivacity of feeling 
which somehow seems often to evaporate at the higher levels. 
For two centuries after Wiclif's death the spirit of con- 
troversy was to rage over the questions which he had 
raised, and from this controversial warfare the English 
mind and its expression in English prose were to emerge 
with a surer sense of personal values, with a power of 
strong and vivid self-expression that would never have been 
possible under the older medieval rule of docile and tran- 
quil submission. 



56 English Literary Prose 

The development of free public discussion was not un- 
impeded or rapid. Although Wiclif himself never counseled 
violence or sedition, to a contemporary observer there must 
have seemed a dangerous and close connection between the 
social disturbances which culminated in the Peasants' 
Revolt and the new teaching of the poor priests. Estab- 
lished society could not be expected to welcome enthusiastic- 
ally a reform which threatened its own safety, and the 
protected interests of property and money therefore com- 
bined with the official party of the church to suppress the 
apostles of unrest. Without any systematic organization or 
any code of belief, the Lollards came to be regarded as a 
popular party in both church and state which was seeking 
the overthrow of established authority and the acceptance 
of radical reforms in political and social theory. With all 
the forces of authority arrayed against it, Lollardy tended 
to become more and more a movement of the unlearned 
and the submerged. In 1401 was passed the notorious act 
authorizing the burning of heretics. A few years later a 
synod was held at Oxford at which twelve censors were 
appointed to examine Wiclif's writings, with the result that 
nearly three hundred propositions found in them were con- 
demned.^ Even his own followers failed to realize the 
greatness of Wiclif's teachings. The story of Sir John Old- 
castle, ' the good Lord Cobham ' of tradition and of Tenny- 
son's poem, tells dramatically the rebellious state of Lollardy 
at this time. A just appraisal of the character of Sir John 
Oldcastle was not possible in his own day when the enthu- 
siasm of his followers made of him a kind of Messiah, sent 
to lead them out of their bondage, and the hostility of his 
enemies saw nothing but fanaticism and sedition in his 
troublesome activities. At a still later time the desire of the 
reformers of the sixteenth century to appropriate to their 
^ Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation, I, 65. 



Controversy and Free Speech 57 

party all earlier advocates of anything that savored of 
Protestant doctrine from the time of ^Ifric down, led to a 
further idealization of the character of Oldcastle, who now 
became, in the eyes of Foxe and similar zealots, a martyr 
for the faith. In fact, Oldcastle seems to have been the 
kind of leader doomed to failure from the beginning, rep- 
resenting an impracticable combination of moral earnestness 
with unrestrained zeal in action. It is not difficult to see 
why the protectors of law and order felt that they must 
condemn him, as they did in the year 1417, as a traitor 
to the king, and as a notorious heretic and a traitor to 
God. 

It was Oldcastle's rank perhaps as much as his specific 
opinions which made his case particularly famous and 
significant in his own day. For here was a Lollard who was 
not a poor plowman, but a knight with money and the re- 
sources of a distinguished social position at his command. 
By his own class he was regarded as a renegade and as 
untrue to the obligations which his rank entailed. Thomas 
Occleve, a faithful defender of the church, expresses the 
attitude of his contemporaries in a poem written in 141 5 for 
the purpose of recalling Oldcastle to a sense of what Occleve 
conceived to be his duty.^ Occleve writes more in sorrow 
than in anger, his attempt being to recall a good man from 
a bad cause. Oldcastle, he says, has drunk of " heresies 
galle," has " lost the style of cristenly prowesse," and should 
now " Ryse up a manly knyght out of the slow of heresie." 
The right duty of a man, according to Occleve, is to de- 
fend what has come down from past times, just as one who 
is heir to an heritage would defend it against any who 
should strive to gain possession of it or to destroy it. Old- 
castle moreover troubles himself over matters that do not 
concern him. The church is the authority which has power 

' Published by L. T. Smith, Anglia, V, 9-42. 



58 English Literary Prose 

to dispute of doctrine, not the bailiff or reeve or man of 
craft : 

" Lete holy chirche medle of the doctryne 
Of Crystes lawes, and of his byleeve, 
And lete all othir folke therto enclyne, 
And of our feith noon argumentis meeve. 
For if we mighte our feith by reson preeve, 
We sholde no meryt of our feith have.' 
But now a dayes, a Bailiff or Reeve 
Or man of craft, wole in it dote or rave. 
Some wommen eeke thogh hir wit be thynne 
Wole argument [e]s make in holy writ; 
Lewde calates ! sittith down and spynne, 
And kakele of sumwhat elles, for your wit 
Is al to feeble to despute of it!"* 

Let Oldcastle beware, continues Occleve, and climb not so 
high in Holy Writ. If he will read, let him read the story 
of Launcelot de Lake, or " Vegece of the aart of Chivalrie," 
or the siege of Troy or Thebes, such things as pertain to the 
order of a knight. Or if he will read " thing of auctoritee," 
that is, stories of authentic fact, not fable, let him go to 
" Judicum, Regum, and Josue, To Judith and Paralipo- 
menon and Machabe," and there as sure as a stone he will 
find " autentik thing" and "pertinent to Chivalrie." As 
it is, Oldcastle and the Lollards meddle with all things — 
they try to shoe the goose. Too free by far are they in the 
charges they make : 

" Presumpcion of wit and ydilnesse. 
And covetyse of good, tho vices three 
Been cause of al your ydil bysynesse." ° 

'An idea which rests upon the authority of St. Gregory: 
" Gregorie seith, in his iii^ Omelie, in the beginnyng: Feith hath 
no merit, to which mannys resoun geveth other sure proof or 
experience." Pecock, Book of Faith, p. 145. Langland expresses 
the same opinion in Piers Plowman, B. X, 246. 

* P. 27. ° P. 36. 



Controversy and Free Speech 59 

The only way for Oldcastle to rehabilitate himself, says 
Occleve, is to renounce his connection with the rabble of 
heretics, Bible-men, and malcontents, to flee to the king, 
and to show his manhood by serving his rightful leader and 
lord. '' Cest tout." 

Several other contemporary poems have been preserved 
which likewise express clearly the attitude of established so- 
ciety towards the insurging populace, with its " unstedefast 
speryte of indyscrecioun." '^ In one of these Oldcastle is 
again indirectly mentioned. It is no " gentel mannes 
game " ^ for a knight who should keep his castle for the 
king to forsake his spear and bow, to creep from knighthood 
into clergy, and to " jangle of Job or Jeremye " : 



" Hit is unkyndly for a knijt 
That shuld a kynges castel kepe, 
To bable the Bibel day and nijt 
In restyng tyme when he shuld slepc." 



Although Oldcastle must have had some sympathizers 
among those of his own rank, the attitude of the writers of 
the poems from which these quotations have been made is 
typical of the average well-regulated opinion of the times. 
Great as the evils which needed correction might con- 
fessedly be, it was felt that the program offered by the 
Lollards was too ideal, too crude and radical, to deserve 
the consideration of serious men. And anyway it was not 
a gentleman's business to discuss such matters. 

The gap between the higher administrative and intel- 
lectual life of the times and the popular life of strong feeling 



° " How Mischaunce regnythe in Ingeland," in Wright, Political 
Poems and Songs, II, 242. 

' "Against the Lollards," in Wright, ibid., H, 245. 
" Ibid., p. 244. 



6o English Literary Prose 

and intuitive, somewhat blundering sense of justice was too 
great to be easily bridged. The questions raised by the 
Lollards were thrown back more and more upon the popular 
mind, there to be debated, clarified, and developed until, 
when the favorable moment came, which indeed was not 
until a century later, they should have that most powerful 
of all supports, a tradition which had established and finally 
justified itself in the general consciousness of the people. 
For the time being, however, the fires of free thinking 
and of free expression of thought, if not extinguished, 
were at least smothered beneath the blanket of oppressive 
authority. 

Lacking the support of the accredited leaders of opinion, 
the new doctrines found their characteristic defender in the 
traditional plowman, the plain man of the people, as typical 
representative of the Lollards. The plowman is not of 
course a cleric, but rather the type of a good man who 
feels himself to be rightly master over his own conscience. 
The tradition was set by Piers Plozvman, and Chaucer in 
his Plowman, the brother of the Parson, in whom the Host 
' smells a Loller,' ^ presents a typical picture of simple and 
whole-hearted piety. The tradition was continued in a 
number of writings, such as the Prayer and Complaint of 
the Ploughman, which was re-issued by Tindale as a 
Reformation document," in Pierce the Plozvman's Creed,'^'^ 
written about 1394 in the alliterative verse of Langland, 
and in the so-called Plowman's Tale,^- incorrectly ascribed 
by some of Chaucer's early editors to Chaucer, in order to 
provide the Plowman in the Canterbury Tales with a tale, 

* Canterbury Tales, in the Shipman's Prolog, 1. 10. 

'" See Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Cattley, II, 727-747, for the 
text of this Prayer. The author of the work is not known, and the 
character of the plowman is not dramatically maintained. 

" Pierce the Ploughmans Crede, ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1906. 

*'' Skeat, Chaucerian and other Pieces, pp. 147-190. 



Controversy and Free Speech 6i 

but probably written by the author of the Plowman's Creed. 
The animated dialogue of John Bon and Mast Parson, of 
the early years of the Reformation, continues the fiction. ^^ 
John Bon, plowing in the field, converses with the Parson, 
who is passing by. With elaborate display of simplicity, 
John asks " what Saint is Copsi Cursty, a man or a woman," 
and cunningly leads the priest on to explain the sacrament 
of the comm.union as he understands it. But when John 
reveals his own opinions, the priest leaves him with a 
prayer that God may bring him to a better mind. " But 
pray not so for me," says John as he turns to his horses and 
his plowing, " for I am well enough." The dialogue is well 
maintained, with the character of John, and in less 
degree, that of the Parson, consistently and realistically 
drawn. 

In an interesting group of writings of the first decade of 
the fifteenth century, the name of the protagonist of the 
popular party changes from Piers Plowman to Jack Up- 
land. The character remains the same, however, an ' up- 
landish man ' being merely a man from the country. Jack 
Upland puts a series of some fifty questions to a friar, who 
replies under the name of Friar Daw Topias, and the debate 
closes with a rejoinder by Jack.^* On the side of form, the 
compositions are noteworthy because they are written in a 
rhythmical kind of alliterating prose, especially Friar Daw's 
reply and Jack Upland's rejoinder, printed as verse by the 
editor but really the kind of tumbling prose which so often 
resulted from the popular and loose treatment of the older 

^° Tudor Tracts, ed. Pollard, pp. 161-169. It was first printed in 
1548 and probably written not long before. 

"-* The text of Jack Upland is printed by Skeat, Chaucerian and 
other Pieces, pp. 191-203. It is also printed, together with the 
reply of Friar Daw Topias (whose real name we learn at the end 
of the reply is John Walsingham), and the rejoinder by Jack 
Upland, in Wright, Political Poems and Songs, II, 16 ff. 



62 ■ English Literary Prose 

alliterative long line. The questions which Jack addresses 
to the friar are chosen with a view to pointing out the main 
abuses with which the orders were usually charged. Simply, 
plainly, bitingly, though without railing or scurrility. Jack's 
questions are effectively expressed. Although he speaks in 
the character of the countryman, Jack is of course ac- 
quainted with the traditions of his subject, and he even 
quotes Latin, especially in his rejoinder to Friar Daw 
Topias. On the whole, however, the simplicity of the char- 
acter in Jack's questions is fairly well maintained. ' Go now 
forth,' he says in his final admonition to Friar Daw, ' and 
study God's law and give Jack an answer; and when thou 
hast assoiled me that I have said sadly in truth, then I 
shall assoil thee of thy orders and save thee to heaven.' ^^ 
Friar Daw's reply is much more alliterative, as well as 
more abusive, than is Jack in his questions. He also 
assumes simplicity, and says that though Jack may think 
his questions hard, it needs no master or no ' man of 
school ' to answer them, ' but a lewd friar that men call 
Friar Daw Topias, as lewd as a leek,' will suffice. ^^ Friar 
Daw frequently gives Jack the lie direct, although occa- 
sionally he varies the formula : ' God wot. Jack, thou 
sparest here the sooth.' His answers to Jack's questions 
are not much to the point, being weak in logic and strong 
in abuse. With a fine show of frankness, he declares it 
great folly for either him or Jack to meddle with the scrip- 
ture. ' For as lewd am I as thou. God wot the sooth ; I 
know not an A from the wind-mill, nor a B from a bull-foot, 
I trow, nor thyself either.' ^^ This fiction of simplicity on 
the part both of Jack and Friar Daw wears a little thin 
when they both begin to quote Latin and ' holy doctors.' 
After one such passage. Friar Daw explains his Latin by 
saying that he was once a manciple at Merton hall and 
^= Wright, p. 38. ^"Ibid., p. 43- 'Mbid., p. 57. 



Controversy and Free Speech 63 

that there he learned Latin by rote from the clerks. Friar 
Daw has various popular epithets for Jack, such as Jakke 
Jospinel, Jak Jawdewyne, but Jack returns the favor with 
Dawe Dotypolle, an epithet which was to see much service 
for the next century and half. In general the two parties 
to the combat maintain the tone of good-humored, vivacious 
raillery, but Jack defends his master bravely when Friar Daw 
attacks Wiclif, and once or twice Friar Daw himself rises 
to an expression of serious and sincere feeling. Both in 
Friar Daw's reply and in Jack's rejoinder, the dialogue is 
dramatic and well-sustained, and the works are interesting 
as early illustrations of that animation and homely vigor 
which develops most effectively in the free air of popular 
discussion. 

Many such debates as this between Jack Upland and 
Friar Daw were doubtless continually taking place at ale- 
houses, fairs, and all places of public meeting among 
those whose humble position offered some degree of protec- 
tion from the prelatical party. Both the wits and the 
tongues of the people were sharpened by these encounters. 
It could hardly be expected that an undisciplined laity with 
what it regarded as a profound grievance should express 
itself moderately. "The essence of heresy," it has been 
said, " was not erroneous thinking — for all men are liable 
to that — but arrogance, tending to contempt of the decisions 
of learned councils and the most approved judgments of 
ancient fathers." ^^ It was perhaps necessarily character- 
istic of this popular and liberal movement of the fifteenth 
century, that it should deny the final authority of learned 
councils and ancient fathers. The radicals of the time were 
seeking new and more immediately personal tests of truth, 
and it was inevitable that their newly acquired freedom of 
speech and criticism should lead them into extravagance and 
'' Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation, I, 507-8. 



64 English Literary Prose 

license, and also into a contemptuous scorn for ways of 
thinking which they could not understand or practice. So 
effective was the opposition to the new movement that all 
this ferment of popular debate can now be viewed only 
indirectly in the efforts which were made to suppress it. 
Imprisonment, punishment, even burning at the stake were 
freely resorted to, with the only result, however, of causing 
the disturbers of the established order of things to devise 
secret and, perhaps for that reason, more seductive means 
of publishing their doctrine. Only one important effort was 
made in the fifteenth century to control this flood of popular 
and radical argument by meeting it on its own ground of 
discussion in the language of the vernacular. This attempt 
was made by Reginald Pecock, himself a bishop of the 
church, who assuming the task of defending the church and 
of convicting her Lollard enemies of false belief, by a 
strange irony of fate was finally denounced by his own 
party and ended his career under conviction of the charge 
of heresy. 

Pecock was a learned man and a voluminous writer, both 
in Latin and English. He was born in the last decade of 
the fourteenth century, was a student and fellow of Oriel 
College, Oxford, and later proceeded to the doctor's degree 
in divinity. Soon after this he was summoned to the 
court, where he found a patron in Humphrey, Duke of 
Gloucester, and was made master of Whittington College in 
London. In the year 1447 he preached a sermon at Paul's 
Cross in which he undertook the defense of the ' unpreach- 
ing prelates,' that is, those high dignitaries in the church 
whose time and interests were so entirely taken up with 
secular matters of state or with the official and financial 
affairs of the church that they found no opportunity to 
provide instruction or sympathetic counsel for the people. 
The popular party was naturally offended at Pecock for 



Controversy and Free Speech 65 

what seemed to the laity a shameless defense of one of the 
most patent abuses of ecclesiastical opportunity, and the 
prelates, on the other hand, must have regarded Pecock's 
efifort as at least untimely, since they felt themselves to be 
in a position doubtfully tenable and at the moment under 
particularly heavy and effective fire. There can be no ques- 
tion, however, of Pecock's entire sincerity in this defense, 
for he continued it later at greater length and even more un- 
compromisingly. Three years before the delivery of the 
sermon, he had been appointed bishop of St. Asaph, in 
Wales, his native country, and three years later he was 
made bishop of Chichester. He led an active life, both as 
writer and as public preacher, for though theoretically he 
declared preaching not to be an essential part of the priestly 
office, he himself in practice frequently expounded his views 
before popular audiences. In the year 1457 came the trial 
for heresy and the abject recantation which ended his 
public career. The few remaining years of his life were 
spent in confinement in the abbey of Thorney, in Cambridge- 
shire, part of the heavy sentence imposed upon him being 
" that he have nothing to write with, no stuff to write 
upon." ^^ 

In his general principles, Pecock doubtless considered that 
he had safely established himself upon the solid foundation 
of the accredited system of theological belief as set forth by 
Thomas Aquinas. Thomas had made the distinction be- ! 
tween truth which was solely accessible by faith and that 
which was likewise accessible by reason. The former was 
the more important truth and was imparted to mankind by 
revelation in the scriptures. Though not out of harmony 
with reason, this truth could never be attained by the un- 
aided reason, nor could it ever be challenged by the reason. 
The church, with the pope at its head, determined what 
'* Babington, I, Ivii. 



66 English Literary Prose 

the matters of faith contained in the scriptures were, and 
these were uhimate truths not in need of proof and never 
to be questioned by the reason. On a lower plane of the 
theological and religious life, however^ there were truths 
which might legitimately be examined and tested by the 
rules of disciplined reasoning. This second kind of truth 
overlapped to some extent the first ; that is, God in his good- 
ness made certain truths accessible by process of reasoning 
also matters of explicit revelation in the scriptures. And he 
had done so, because the methods of determining truth by 
the logical proofs of reasoning were seldom acquired by the 
plain man, incapable of philosophic thought and too much 
occupied with the business of this world to be able to 
undergo the preliminary discipline necessary to the applica- 
tion of a sound philosophic method. To save him from 
utter confusion, therefore, the scriptures present to the 
unlearned man certain truths which he might also attain, 
if his abilities or learning were greater, by the exercise of 
reason. 

This in general was the sub-structure upon which Pecock 
reared his system of theology and practical morals. But the 
change of emphasis which he introduced into the scholastic 
scheme, made of his own system something very dififerent. 
For it is the reason and its workings through the forms of 
logic that stirred Pecock to the greatest enthusiasm and 
admiration. Nothing seemed so excellent in his eyes as the 
operation of a syllogism. Given two premisses " openli 
trewe and to be grauntid," he declares that we have an in- 
strument so mighty in all kinds of matters that though all the 
angels in heaven should say that its conclusion was not 
true, yet " we Schulde leeve the aungels seiyng, and we 
schulden truste more to the proof of thilk sillogisme, than 
to the contrarie seiyng of alle the aungels in hevene, for that 
alle Goddis creaturis musten nedis obeie to doom of resoun, 



Controversy and Free Speech 67 

and such a sillogisme is not ellis than doom of resoun." ^^ 
And elsewhere he says that if any law or statement of the 
scriptures is at variance with the " doom of resoun " with 
respect to any moral virtue, then the scriptures must be 
brought into accord with the judgment of reason, not the 
reverse.-^ Pecock's unwillingness to accept mere literal 
authority is also shown in his brusque treatment of the 
fathers and doctors of the church, one of the most serious 
charges brought against him in his trial for heresy. The 
statements of the fathers have significance in Pecock's eyes 
only as they have reasonable significance in themselves. 
Such opinions seem in no way startling to a mind of the 
nineteenth century, hardened to rational ways of thinking, 
but to many of Pecock's contemporaries the skeptical bold- 
ness of them was disturbing. And what made them more 
disturbing was the harsh self-confidence with which Pecock 
expressed his opinions and rejected all others. He had a 
profound conviction of the validity of the disciplined reason 
in attaining truth and an equally profound distrust of the 
undisciplined reason. By the exercise of reason only could 
mankind attain to a true understanding of the moral virtues, 
but it must always be the reason as governed by the laws of 
formal logic, the laws of " groundly disputing." Much the 
greater part of man's conduct in life, according to Pecock, 
must be governed solely by the reason, since the scriptures 
present no practical and complete guide to conduct. Pecock 
thus takes issue with the Lollards or Bible-men, who main- 
tained that the Bible was in itself a sufficient source of all 
truth, both the truth which is a matter of faith and which 
lies beyond the power of reason, as well as the more prac- 

"" Book of Faith, pp. 174-5. 

*" Repressor, I, 25, Cap. V. This may be contrasted with Pur- 
vey's opinion, which is the more orthodox of the two, that if any 
statement of the scriptures does not harmonize with ' honesty of 
virtues,' the statement is to be taken only figuratively (see p. 228). 



68 English Literary Prose 

tical truth which has to do with moral conduct. Instead of 
one source of truth, that is divine inspiration as recorded in 
the Bible and conserved and expounded by its authorized 
interpreters, or as the Lollards would have it, by each 
devout layman for himself, Pecock proposed two sources of V 
truth, divine inspiration as revealed through the church and 
rationally confirmed by mankind, and natural reason as 
revealed through the operation of the laws of logic. And 
of these two sources of truth, the emphasis is always upon 
the latter. There is very little place in Pecock's system for 
the direct union of the mystic w ch the divine, and very 
little sympathy for those human habits and customs which 
may not be logically impeccable, but which warm and con- 
sole the hearts of men by their familiarity. Like Hooker 
in the outlines and in many of the details of his thought, 
Pecock is unlike the gentle scholar of Elizabeth's day in 
his uncompromising insistence upon the adequacy of his 
formal method to satisfy all the needs of the religious and 
the practical life. 

In his various writings, English and Latin, Pecock planned 
a comprehensive system of popular instruction, embracing 
doctrinal theology and morals in general. Of his English 
writings, only six have survived, and of these only two have 
been printed. The printed works are The Repressor of over 
much blaming of the Clergy,^^ the most important of all his 
writings, and The Book of Faith.^^ The unprinted works are 
briefer summaries of principles contained in The Repressor 
and The Book of Faith. They are The Donet, a compendium 
of theological doctrine for popular use, the title, from the 
name Donatus, being explained by Pecock himself as 
meaning the grammar or key of Christian religion; a con- 
tinuation of The Donet, called The Follower to the Donet; 

" Edited by Babington, 2 vols., London, i860. 
'' Edited by J. L. Morison, Glasgow, 1909. 



Controversy and Free Speech 69 

and two similar works, The Book or Rule of Christian 
Religion, and The Poor Men's Mirror, the latter being an 
' outdraught from the first part of the said Donet.' ^* The 
Donet, The Follower to the Donet, The Poor Men's Mirror, 
and The Book of Faith are all in the form of a dialogue 
between a father and his son. Pecock rarely exerted him- 
self to make his writing interesting, but he calls attention to 
his use of dialogue as deserving the favor which " such 
dialogazacioun or togider talking and clatering " ought to 
have, " which favour, peraventure, sum hasty unconsiderers 
schulen not aspie, and schulen- therfore peraventure the 
soner impugne." -^ 

The title which Pecock himself gave to his most important 
book was The Repressing of over miche wyting of the 
Clergie, but the name by which it has become more gen- 
erally known is a version of Pecock's title supplied by a 
later hand, The Represser of over myche blamyng the 
Clergie. The purpose of the book, which appeared about 
the year 1450, was avowedly to offer, in formal fashion, a 
complete defense of the clergy, and in the way of such 
defense, to overthrow the teachings of the Lollards and 
Bible-men. More specifically, Pecock promises to vindicate 
the church against eleven charges which have been brought 
against it by the Lollards ; but before he begins this detailed 
defense, he presents at length a statement of his general 
position. The fundamental tenet of the Bible-men was not 
only that all truth necessary to man's welfare was contained 
in the scriptures, but also that any good man seeking for the 
truth need only go to the scriptures and interpret them 
for himself. If he did this in an humble and earnest spirit, 
the right meaning of the scriptures would be revealed to 
him, if not completely and infallibly, at any rate, sufficiently 
for his own needs. As Milton phrased this principle after 

" Babington, I, Ixxi. '^ Book of Faith, p. 122. 



70 English Literary Prose 

it had passed through two centuries of debate, the scriptures 
only " can be the final judge or rule in matters of religion, 
and that only in the conscience of every christian to him- 
self," " the holy spirit so interpreting that scripture as war-y 
rantable only to ourselves." ^'^ When, therefore, a prin- 
ciple of belief or action was proposed to the Bible-men, their 
first demand was for literal authority, and their first ques- 
tion was, Where find you it grounded in the Holy Scrip- 
ture? And to this Pecock answers that many truths must 
be accepted about which the Bible says nothing: 

' They that will ask and say thus, " Where findest thou 
it grounded in Holy Scripture ? " as though else it is not 
worthy to be taken for true, whenever any governance or 
truth sufficiently grounded in law of kind and in moral phi- 
losophy is affirmed and ministered to them (as are many of 
those xj, governances and truths which shal be treated 
after in this present book : which are setting up of images 
in high places of the bodily church, pilgrimages done privily 
and pilgrimages openly by laymen and by priests and 
bishops unto the memorials or mind-places of saints, and 
the endowing of priests by rents and by unmoveable posses- 
sions, and such other) ask the while in like manner un- 
reasonably and like unskilfully and like reproveably, as if 
they would ask and say thus, — " Where findest thou it 
grounded in Holy Scripture?" when a truth and a con- 
clusion of grammar is affirmed and said to them: or else 
thus, "Where findest thou it grounded in tailor craft?" 
when that a point or a truth and a conclusion of saddler 
craft is affirmed, said and ministered to them : or ellis thus, 
" Where findest thou it grounded in butchery ? " when a 
point or truth and conclusion of masonry is affirmed and 
said and ministered to them. 

This present thirteenth conclusion may be proved thus : 
Even as grammar and divinity are two diverse faculties and 
cunnings, and therefore are unmeddled [unmixed], and 
each of them hath his proper to him bounds and marks, 
how far and no farther he shall stretch himself upon mat- 
^° Prose Works, ed. Symmons, III, 320, 321. 



Controversy and Free Speech 71 

ters, truths and conclusions, and not to entirmete nor 
entermeene [interfere] with any other facultie's bounds, 
and even as saddlery and tailoring are two diverse faculties 
and cunnings, and therefore are unmeddled, and each of 
them hath his proper to him bounds and marks, how far 
and no farther he shall stretch himself forth upon matters, 
truths and conclusions, and not intercommune with any 
other craft or faculty in conclusions and truths : so it is 
that the faculty of the said moral philosophy and the faculty 
of pure divinity or the Holy Scripture are two diverse 
faculties, each of them having his proper to him truths and 
conclusions to be grounded in him, as the before set six 
first conclusions shew.' ^^ 

From this statement, characteristically involved and cum- 
bersome, it will be apparent on what grounds Pecock bases 
his defense when he endeavors to answer the criticisms 
which the people made against the holding of property by 
the clergy, the worship of images, going on pilgrimages, and 
the various other customs of the church which the Bible- 
men were inclined to sweep aside as superstitions and un- 
authorized traditions. Strong as his arguments are, how- 
ever, they could not have been satisfying even to the 
sounder instincts of the popular party. For in the first 
place, Pecock with his logic proves entirely too much. A 
custom which may have essentially good uses, as for ex- 
ample going on pilgrimages and the worshiping of images, 
cannot be made to seem good by theoretical reasoning after 
it has become corrupt in practice. The Lollards had not 
the logical skill to answer the arguments of Pecock, but 
they had a strong personal conviction of error somewhere 
which enabled them to persist, obstinately, blindly, arro- 
gantly as it may have seemed, in the attitude they had taken. 
The Lollard doctrine that the plain honest man is an 
adequate judge of truth may be a sophistical one, for the 
" Vol. I, 48-49, Pt. I, Cap. X. 



^2 English Literary Prose 

approach to truth may often be by the way of technical 
knowledge which the plain man does not possess. A reason- 
able defense of the doctrine, however, may be made on the 
ground that the truth stripped of its technicalities and pre- 
sented in intelligible language is appreciated with equal 
readiness by all men of good sense, lay or learned. 

It was just this difficulty of finding a form of communi- 
cation common to all men of good sense that Pecock could 
not surmount, and it was this lack which made him in the 
end an ineffective advocate of his cause. He consented to 
address the people in their native tongue, but he did so for 
the purpose of proving to them that they must put their 
trust not in native wisdom, but in something which they did 
not possess, in an esoteric science of formal logic. For the 
people in general, says Pecock, going on pilgrimages and the 
worshiping of images are to be approved and encouraged, 
since these, though rudimentary kinds of expression, are 
the only ones adapted to their undeveloped minds. On the 
other hand, preaching is of little service, since if sermons 
are intelligible to the people and are liked by them, they 
are sure to be the empty mouthings of ' pulpit-bawlers,' ^^ 
of no value whatever in proving or disproving the 
doctrines under discussion. Preaching may be profitable 
" into the end of exhortation and remembrancing," but it 
is of little value " into the end of best teaching." Therefore 
this matter of repressing errors must be taken in hand in 
another way than by wearing a doctor's hat in the pulpit, 
by cunning and savory preaching, or " by great plenteous 
outhilding [outpouring] of texts written in the Bible or in 
Doctors." It is easy, says Pecock, to repeat texts and nar- 
rations and parables and likenesses, and thus to preach 
" full gloriously into pleasaunce of the people." And yet 

^* So Babington, I, Ixxxii, translates Pecock's clamitatores in 
pulpitis. 



Controversy and Free Speech 73 

if such preachers were " apposed " in any of their texts and 
parables, " they could not defend and maintain any one of 
them, neither could put out sufficiently the very and full 
duest understanding of any one of them." -" 

It is strange to hear Wiclif's enemy denouncing almost in 
Wiclif's words the eloquence of popular pulpit orators. 
But Pecock's scorn of popular preaching is merely part of 
his general contempt for the popular mind. If the Lollards 
were guilty of the arrogance of ignorance, Pecock was cer- 
tainly guilty of the pride of intellect. The qualities of 
lightness, of geniality and of humor, the warmth of personal 
feeling, and even of piety, all of which a genuine sympathy 
with the people might have given him, or at least have 
encouraged in him, he sacrificed for the sake of an uncon- 
vincing formal method. The details of his style in writing 
naturally exhibit the defects of his general attitude of mind. 
He makes little effort to realize any of the effects of beauty 
or of vivacity in expression. All is heavy and repetitious 
without being dignified. He formed himself not upon the 
long cadences of the Ciceronian period, but upon a legal 
and syllogistical style. The result is that his sentences, 
though long, are logically clear but never stylistically lim- 
pid. Occasionally he falls into a semi-colloquial and 
familiar vein, but he never becomes simple and picturesque. 
His main concern is to be comprehensive and exact, and it 
is the effort to be so which makes his style so often labored 
and tediously verbose. He lacked the technical skill of a 
writer like Hooker, who was able to bear up and combine, 
and at the same time to animate, the various qualifications 
of a many-sided thought. 

One of the definite charges brought against Pecock in his 
trial for heresy was that he had ventured to address the 
people on matters of weight in their vulgar tongue. But 
=" Vol. I, 88-89, Pt. I, Cap. XVI. 



74 English Literary Prose 

Pecock was thoroughly persuaded that the only way to 
convince the people of error was to place before them books 
which they could read and re-read. It is not enough, he 
declares, that these books " be writen and made and leid 
up or rest in the hondis of clerkis," even though " fame and 
noise " be made to the lay people that such books exist in 
which their errors are confuted.^" But the books should 
be sent abroad among the people who must " sadli and oft 
overrede " them until they are fully acquainted with the 
arguments the books contain. In other words, Pecock seems 
to have been as unwilling to force the popular mind to sub- 
mit blindly to authority as he himself was unwilling to 
accept such submission. But though he accepted the ver- 
nacular for popular instruction Pecock found great diffi- 
culty in adapting English to his purposes. It was, to be^ 
sure, a difficult undertaking to address the people on learned 
subjects in the English language of the middle of the fif- 
teenth century, and the popular and the learned tendencies 
continually clash in Pecock's writing. An air of quaint 
vernacular idiom often results from his use of native 
English words or compounds of mixed origin for which the 
custom of the language in later periods has substituted 
Latin equivalents. Thus he employs follower in the sense 
of * sequel ' or ' successor ' ; sayer, meaning ' speaker ' ; un~ 
ohediencers, meaning ' disobedient persons ' ; knowingal, 
' that which is matter of knowledge,' or to give Pecock's 
.equivalent term, ' sciential ' ; outdranght for ' extract ' ; 
hefore-crier for ' herald ' ; mind places of saints, for 
' memorials ' or ' shrines.' The Latin suffix -able is freely 
united to roots of native origin, as in '' birewable and 
wepeable " ; verbs are made from nouns and adjectives, 
e.g. " thou infirmyst and feblist," thou makest infirm and 
feeble; and many similar usages are employed which show 
'"Book of Faith, p. ii6. 



Controversy and Free Speech 75 

an independent and constructive attitude of mind in ques- 
tions of English style. But in this as in other respects, 
Pecock is characteristically half-hearted. His style in the 
main is a highly Latinized style, and his use of native words 
and constructions is not due to any consistent or puristic 
respect for the English language. It is due largely to 
an incomplete realization on the part of Pecock of the 
value of the Latin vocabulary as a source for the enrichment 
of the English vocabulary. It was not until the Renascence 
had made itself felt in England in the early sixteenth cen- 
tury that the bilingual character of the English language 
became finally established. The Romance element which 
had been added to the language in Chaucer's time and be- 
fore had indeed started the tendency towards the introduc- 
tion of Latin words, but a writer of Wiclif's or Pecock's 
day could scarcely have foreseen that their efforts to create 
a learned and technical vocabulary from the native elements 
of the language was soon to be replaced by another which 
made the very words archaic and often unintelligible, even 
though of native origin, which they used for the sake of 
their clearness and simplicity. If Pecock had been more 
consistent in his style, if he had written altogether in popular 
language or had invented a thoroughly Latinized style, his 
influence as a writer might have been greater. As it is he 
stands halfway, and he provided for his own day neither 
a model of idiomatic English, suitable for popular discus- 
sion, nor yet a consistent literary style for the scholar and 
thinker. The really powerful forces in the making of 
English style in Pecock's day were those forces of popular 
debate and dissension which Pecock scorned and which 
seldom reached the level of literary expression. As a writer 
Pecock consequently exerted but little influence upon his 
own or upon succeeding generations. 

Suppressed so far as surface indications go, Lollardy with 



76 English Literary Prose 

its accompanying vigor and picturesqueness of expression 
continued to flourish in secret until such time as the self- 
will of Henry VIII should set not only the tongues but also 
the pens of men free. Of this hidden life one finds clear 
evidence in the reports of trials and the sayings of popular 
leaders preserved in Foxe and other contemporary his- 
torians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The homely 
vivid rhetoric of John Ball, and doubtless many of Wiclif's 
poor priests, was continued by an unbroken line of suc- 
cessors, whose utterances can be illustrated here only by 
a few typical examples, most of which are taken from the 
pages of Foxe. John Ashton (1382) when asked whether 
after the words of consecration there remained " material 
bread, particular bread, or universal bread," answered that 
the matter passed his understanding, " but amongst other 
things, he spoke in deriding wise against this word ' mate- 
rial,' saying, ' you may put that in your purse, if you have 
any.' " ^^ William Sawtrey (1400) is also arrogant and an- 
swers the questions of his examiners deridingly.^- John 
Badby ( 1409) said " that John Rakier of Bristol had as much 
power and authority to make the like body of Christ as 
any priest had." ^^ Foxe's account of the trial of Old- 
castle preserves many vivid passages. When his examiners 
attempted to prove to Oldcastle the propriety of worship- 
ing the cross, " then said the Lord Cobham, and spread his 
arms abroad, ' This is the very cross, yea, and so much 
better than your cross of wood, in that it was created of 
God, yet will not I seek to have it worshipped.' " ^* John 
Claydon, under examination in 141 5, confessed that he had 
sundry English books in his possession, one of which was 
the Lanthorn of Light, a summary of Lollard doctrine.^^ 
Master Robert, parson of Heggely, examined about the same 

" Foxe, III, 22. " Ibid., Ill, 235. " Ibid, III, 532. 

'' Ibid., Ill, 224. '' Ibid., Ill, 334. 



Controversy and Free Speech 'j'j 

time, answered " mockingly and doubly." ^^ The charge 
was brought against Richard Belward (1424) that he 
blamed certain of his neighbors for refusing his doctrine, 
saying to them, " Truly ye are fools that deny to learn the 
doctrine of my sect, for your neighbours who are of my sect 
are able to confound and vanquish all others that are of 
your sect." ^^ Margery Backster ( 1429) testified that she 
thought " that it were better to eat the fragments left upon 
Thursday at night on the fasting days than to go to the 
market to bring themselves in debt to buy fish." ^® Because 
he smoked the beard and chin of an image of St. John 
Baptist at Newport in Devonshire and addressed abusive 
words to it, Hugh Knight was excommunicated and fined 
in 1441.^^ William Barlowe (1467) would not make con- 
fession, " but oonly unto God, and sayde that no pryste 
had noo more pouer to byre confessyon thenn Jacke 
Hare." When " Docter Mayster Hewe Damlet " reasoned 
with him, Barlowe answered, " Bawe ! bawe ! bawe ! 
What menyth thys pryste ? " with much other irreverent 
speech.*" 

Coming down to the years immediately preceding the 
outbreak of the Reformation, one finds this same note of 
practical commonsense, mingled often with the grossest 
irreverence of a people intoxicated with the new wine of 
unrestrained expression. Elizabeth Sampson (1508) de- 
clared that Our Lady of Wilsdon was but " a burnt tailed 
elf and a burnt tailed stock"; she also called the image of 
St. Saviour, " Sim Saviour with kit lips," and maintained 

'" Foxe, III, 538. 

"Ibid., Ill, 585. 

'« Ibid., Ill, 595- 

'° Transactions of the Roval Historical Society, Third Series, 
VIII, 116. 

*" Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, ed. Gairdner, 
PP- 233-234. 



78 English Literary Prose 

that she could make as good bread as that the priest occu- 
pied.*^ Of the image of Our Lady, John Falks (1509) asked 
" What is it but a block? If it could speak to me, I would 
give it an halfpenny worth of ale." *^ John Higges de- 
clared " that while he was alive he would do as much for 
himself as he could, for after his death he thought that 
prayers and almsdeeds could little help him." *-''^ It was 
charged against Joan Sampson that she called St. Saviour 
at Bermondsey " St. Sawyer," and said " that it was better 
to eat the altar-cloth," since it might be eaten and digested 
as easily as the Lord's body.*^ Thomas Man, burned in 
1518, said that pulpits were " priests' lying stools," and 
blasphemed Our Lady, calling her "Mably." ** As old father 
Bartlet (1521) was threshing one day, there came a man to 
him and said, "God speed, father Bartlet, ye work sore." 
" Yea," said he, " I thresh God Almighty out of the straw." 
This from the testimony of Richard, father Bartlet's son.*^ 
Richard Vulford and Thomas Geffrey said that " the Host 
consecrated was not the very true body of Christ ; in proof 
whereof they said that let a mouse be put in the pix with 
the Host, and the mouse would eat it up." *° This same 
Richard Vulford, meeting with a man who had made a 
wheel with which to take fish, asked him whether " the 
wheel now could turn again and make him, and he said, 
No. ' Even so,' quoth he, ' God hath made all priests, as 
thou hast made the wheel ; and how can they turn again 
and make God?'"*^ 

A public nourished on such strong food as that provided 
in the popular discussions of which the above incidents are 
but a few faint echoes must have quickly developed a 

*' Foxe, IV, 126. " Ibid., IV, 210. 

"Ibid., IV, 13A. "Ibid., IV, 222. 

"a Ibid., IX, 179. *Mbid., IV, 229. 

" Ibid., IV, 206. *' Ibid., IV, 231. 



Controversy and Free Speech 79 

taste for picturesque personal expression. The bitter rail- 
ing spirit of the popular enthusiasts cannot but seem al- 
together reprehensible if it be regarded as the permanent 
spiritual mood or temper of a people. But the fervid 
rhetoric of the popular reformers, of the ' hot gospellers,' *^ 
was merely the froth and foam on the surface of a profound 
national feeling. It was this feeling which determined the 
nature of English controversial writing when in the six- 
teenth century, in the works of Sir Thomas More, of 
Tindale and others, controversy became the concern not 
merely of an ignorant populace, but of the most learned 
and skillful writers of the time. And it may as truly be 
said that this feeling for a popular, yet sincere and vividly 
personal statement of the case has remained throughout its 
history the determining feature of English controversial 
literature. Modern taste has toned down the abusiveness 
of the style of the sixteenth century, but the avoidance of 
pedantry and the broad frank personal appeal remain the 
characteristics of the English public address. 



II 

The first shots in the classic controversy of the English 
Reformation were fired at a safe distance in Germany. 
Thither Simon Fish, a " Gentleman of Grayes Inne," had 
fled when he had incurred the ill-will of Cardinal Wolsey 
by playing a part in a comedy at Gray's Inn " whiche 
touched the sayd Cardinall." *^ From this retreat, in 
the year 1529, Fish sent forth his Supplicacyon for 

" So Edward Underbill acknowledges he is called (Nichols, 
Narratives of the Reformation, p. 159). 

*' Foxe, quoted by Furnivall, in bis edition of Fisb's Sup- 
plicacyon for the Beggers, E.E.T.S., Extra Series 13, from tbe 
edition of 1576, pp. 986-991. 



8o English Literary Prose 

the Beggers/'° a little book which set the model for 
a number of other supplications and which is important 
not only because it interested Henry VIII, but because 
it was answered by Sir Thomas More in his Supplycacyon 
of Soulys. It was this answer which in turn led to More's 
controversy with Tindale. The humble plowman of the 
earlier Lollard literature changes now to the poor man in 
general, the " poore commons " as they are called in a 
somewhat later supplication.^^ The main petition of Fish's 
Supplicacyon, which is directed to the king, is that the 
religious orders should be suppressed for the benefit of the 
poor people of England. The tract is written with great 
vigor and simple, direct logic, part of its effectiveness being 
due to its brevity. It is a powerful, direct charge to the 
king himself to act, to assume the leadership of those 
" poore commons " whose voice was no longer to be 
silenced. How much influence the book had upon Henry 
VHI, it would be difficult to say. Foxe speaks as though 
it were the king's constant companion. He tells us that 
when Wolsey heard that the book was abroad, he went to 
the king and warned him against certain copies which 
had reached England, " desiryng his grace to beware of 
them. Whereupon the kyng, puttyng his hand in his 
bosome, tooke out one of the bookes and delivered it unto 
the Cardinall." ^~ Foxe also preserves the story of Henry's 
first reception of the book. It was brought to him by two 
merchants, who read it to him : " The whole booke beyng 
read out, the kyng made a long pause, and then sayd, if 
a man should pull downe an old stone wall and begyn at 
the lower part, the upper part thereof might chaunce to fall 
upon his head." ^^ 

'"' Printed by Foxe, and edited by Furnivall as above, and by 
Arber, The English Scholar's Library, No. 4, London, 1878. 

"^ Edited by Furnivall, as above. 

*^ Furnivall, 1. c, p. x. *' Furnivall, 1. c, p. viii. 



Controversy and Free Speech 8i 

Whether it influenced Henry VIII or not, the little book 
created great stir in England, all the greater because it was 
not the first of its kind to appear. Tindale had already 
published some of his popular books of instruction, and 
his translation of the New Testament had been printed 
four years before. Feeling that a crisis had come, the 
bishops made an especially vigorous effort to suppress 
heretical publications, and among other measures, in the 
year 1530, and with at least the formal consent of Henry 
VIII, they issued a decree prohibiting the circulation or 
reading of a number of books, " both detestable and 
damnable," among them being certain writings of Tindale, 
and The Book of the Beggars, as the Siipplicacyon is here 
called.^* Similar decrees had been issued in 1526 by Tun- 
stall, bishop of London, and Warham, archbishop of Canter- 
bury, especially against Tindale's New Testament and cer- 
tain other offensive books which had appeared before the 
date of the decrees. But more effective means were taken 
by the bishops for the suppression of heretical literature 
than the issuing of formal decrees which must have been 
difficult of practical execution. They felt that the books of 
the enemy must not only be destroyed, but that their argu- 
ments must be answered on their own ground. They there- 
fore called upon Sir Thomas More to come forth as de- 
fender of the faith, and by .special permission of the bishop 
of London, More was given leave to read and to have by 
him heretical books for the purpose of answering them. 
" And forasmuch as you, dearly beloved brother ! " runs 
Tunstall's letter to More, " can play the Demosthenes both 
in this our English tongue and also in the Latin, and have 
always accustomed to be an earnest defender of the truth in 
all assaults, you can never bestow your spare hours better 

°* Gairdner, LoUardy and the Reformation, II, 244. 



82 English Literary Prose 

(if ye can steal any from your weighty affairs) than to set 
forth something in our tongue, to declare unto the rude and 
simple people the crafty malice of the heretics, and to make 
us the more prompt against these wicked supplanters of 
the church." ^^ 

The bishops were fortunate in having such a man as 
More to call to their aid. Scholar, lawyer, poet, philos- 
opher, wit, with the prestige of a wide European fame, it 
might seem that the mere weight of this man's utterance 
would be sufficient to crush to extinction the rabble of re- 
formers who constituted the opposition. As a writer of 
Latin, More was widely known, not only for his Utopia 
(1516), but for his Latin poems, epistles, and other 
scholarly productions. Nor was he without discipline as x 
a writer of English when he entered the field as defender 
of the church against her enemies. He had written a 
number of English poems, mainly of a serious, didactic 
nature, but like his friend and contemporary Erasmus, he 
had not spared also to treat the friars and their faults in 
a spirit of broad and humorous satire.'''' In prose he had 
made a translation from the Latin of the life of Pico della 
Mirandola, presented by More to his " right entierly be- 
loved sister in Christ, Joyeuce Leigh," as a New Year's 
gift.''^ He had also translated a history of King Richard 
HI, the original Latin probably being by John Morton, 
archbishop of Canterbury, in whose household More at one 
time resided, into a dignified, formal, and at times some- 

°* Foxe, IV, 697. The date of this letter was March 7, 1528. 

°° The poems are printed at the beginning, without page num- 
bering, of The Workes of Sir Thomas Adore Knyght, sometyme 
Lorde Chauncclloiir of England, wryttcn by him in the Englysh 
tonge. London, 1557. This book, a modern edition of which is 
greatly to be desired, will be referred to hereafter simply as 
Workes. 

" Workes, pp. 1-34. 



Controversy and Free Speech 83 

what Latinized style."'* Another of More's early prose writ- 
ings was A Treatyce (unfynyshed) uppon these wordes of 
holye Scrypture, Memorare nouissima & in etermim non 
peccabis, written about 1521, and consisting of general re- 
flections on religious and moral topics, such as prayer, pride, 
wrath, envy, and similar themes. The treatise is not at all 
controversial in tone, and is interesting as a somewhat con- 
ventional devotional tract indicating More's early interest 
in serious subjects. 

Much the greater part of More's English writings, and 
the most significant, are his polemical treatises, seven in 
number, which were all written between the years 1528 
and 1533. These are not slight tracts, but the ample 
work of a great mind arrived at the fullness of its power. 
The first of the series, written in 1528, but not published 
until 1529, in the collected edition bears the following de- 
scriptive title: A Dialogue of Syr Thomas More Knyghte: 
one of the counsaill of our soverayne Lorde the Kinge and 
Chauncellour of his Duchy of Lancaster. Wherin be 
treatyd divers maters, as of the veneracion & worship of 
ymages and relyques, prayng to saintes, and goyng on pyl- 
grimage. With many other thinges toiichyng the pestilent 
side of Luther and Tyndale, by the tone bygone in Saxony, 



■*' Some uncertainty exists, both as to More's share in the trans- 
lation and as to the original authorship of the book, but the weight 
of the evidence at least supports the ascription of the English 
version to More. See Churchill, Richard the Third up to Shake- 
speare (Berlin, 1900), p. 77; Kingsford, English Historical Litera- 
ture in the Fifteenth Century, p. 190. Ascham in his Report and 
Discourse of the affairs of Germany (1553) speaks of " Sir Thomas 
More in that pamphlet of Richard the Thyrd " as presenting a 
commendable example of historical writing. The editor of the 
first collection of More's English writings (1557) says that he 
printed the history of Richard the Third from a manuscript in 
More's own handwriting. 



84 English Literary Prose 

and by the tother labored to be brought into England.^^ 
This work, by all odds the best of More's prose writings in 
English, was the first fruits of Bishop Tunstall's permission 
to More to read and have by him the writings of the 
heretics. Of the publications of Tindale, The New Testa- 
ment, the Parable of the Wicked Mammon, and The 
Obedience of a Christian Man had appeared before More's 
Dialogue was written. The book itself is somewhat elabo- 
rately planned and constructed. More begins by saying 
that one business begets another, that all his writing in 
this book had arisen from the fact that 'a right worshipful 
friend ' of his in the country had sent to him a messenger 
to make inquiries concerning certain matters much called 
in question of the people. At first, says More, he thought 
it enough to tell the messenger by word of mouth what his 
opinions were. After further consideration, however, cer- 
tain doubts assailed him, especially whether he had done 
right in trusting so many and so diverse matters to the 
messenger's memory, and whether even with the best inten- 
tions the messenger could report him truly. He determined 
at length that it would be best to put down in writing the 
conversation he had had with the messenger, and so the 
Dialogue was written with these two persons as its char- 
acters, More, or " quod I," as Tindale facetiously calls him 
from the tag that always accompanies his words, and the 
messenger, or " quod he " or " quod your friend." Having 
written out the conversation, More debated with himself 
whether he should publish it. He decides that he must do 
so, for if copies of his manuscript got abroad and became 
corrupt, as they were bound to do, afterwards if he should 
make corrections in them, the heretics would say that he 
made them at their instigation. Before proceeding to publi- 
cation, however, More says that he sought the advice of 
" Workes, pp. 105-288. 



Controversy and Free Speech 85 

various persons, because however ready he was to express 
himself or commune in familiar manner with any person 
on any deep subject, he hesitated to appear in print, " but 
if better lerned than my selfe shoulde thinke it eyther 
profitable or at the lestwise harmlesse." ^'^ On two points 
in especial More was desirous of securing advice, first, 
" whether it were convenient to reherse the wordes of any 
man so homly & in maner somtime unreverently spoken 
against goddes holy halowes & their reverent memories " 
as were the words of " quod he," and also whether " quod 
he " should be allowed to express at large the wrong posi- 
tions of the heretics concerning whom he professed to be 
seeking for information. In other words, More here raises 
the question whether he should fully state his opponents' 
case, a question which the body of the Dialogue happily 
answers in the affirmative. The second point concerning 
which More sought advice was whether " certaine tales & 
mery wordes which he [i.e. the messenger] mengled with 
his matter, and some such on mine owne parte among " 
might not seem too light and wanton for the gravity of his 
subject. Finding that the opinions of his friends were 
seldom in harmony, More determines to let stand whatever 
two agree upon, even though others disapprove. Then fol- 
lows in the elaborate machinery of this introduction the 
letter supposed to have been brought by the messenger, 
" quod he," from More's friend in the country, and a letter 
which More sent to his friend with the book after it was 
printed. 

No names are given, either of More's friend or of " quod 
he," and no details which would identify either, and indeed 
it seems most probable that the whole framework of the 
Dialogue is a literary artifice." Doubtless More did have 

'" Workes, p. 106. 

°' Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation, I, Siiff., on the 



86 English Literary Prose 

frequent conversations with persons from various parts of 
England and doubtless he endeavored always to spread 
what he regarded as the right views in controversial ques- 
tions. But one can hardly think of More on terms of 
friendly equality with a person who defended heretical 
views as extreme as those which " quod he " holds. The 
messenger is obviously an imaginary character, a vividly 
conceived type by means of which More can display the 
opinions which he wishes to refute. In the Dialogue More 
the artist has not yet been swallowed up by More the 
controversialist. " Quod he " serves a good dramatic pur- 
pose, representing the free-speaking, sometimes coarse and 
vulgar popular mind, a kind of Bible-man, in contrast to 
More himself, who appears usually as the representative of 
dignified and authoritative learning. This contrast shows 
clearly in the diiTerent manners of speech of the two par- 
ticipants in the Dialogue. The messenger is described in 
the friend's letter as wise and more than meanly learned, 
of a very merry wit and " of nature nothing tonge-tayed." 
More asks him to what faculty he had given most study, 
and " quod he " replies that he has studied Latin mainly, 
that " Logicke he rekened but babblinge, Musicke to serve 
for singers, Arithmetricke meete for marchaunts, Geometry 
for masons, Astronomy good for no man, and as for 
Philosophy, the most vanite of all." ^~ Logic and phi- 
losophy, he says, have destroyed all divinity, and besides 
Latin, he studies only the Bible. He pays no heed to learned 
interpreters, but gets the meaning out for himself, mainly 
by comparing one text with another. After " quod he " has 
expressed himself at some length in this fashion, More 

contrary, thinks the country friend and " quod he " are real persons 
and that the Dialogue is practically a report of a conversation 
actually held. 
^' Workes, p. III. 



Controversy and Free Speech 87 

begins to doubt whether he has not " fallen in to Luther's 
secte." Since he was endeavoring to write not only a 
convincing but also an entertaining work, More likewise 
finds it convenient to have an opponent like " quod he " 
upon whose shoulders he can place the responsibility for 
some of his jests and merry tales. In short, More uses in 
the Dialogue devices for securing realistic effect somewhat 
similar to those which he had previously used in the 
Utopia, and which he was to use again later in the Dialogue 
of Comfort. And if the Dialogue, not lacking in literary 
charm, had been on the winning instead of the losing side 
of the great intellectual debate of the time, it might have 
equaled the Utopia in the permanence and universality of 
its interest. 

The general intent of the Dialogue, which is divided into 
four books and numerous chapters, is apparent from its 
title. It is an attempt to answer Lutheran heresy, especially 
with respect to Tindale's part in it. " Quod he " fearlessly 
states the position of the reformers in England, that they 
think many persons have been ' sore handled ' by the 
authorities (especially one, Thomas Bilney, who is not 
mentioned by name, however, anywhere in the Dialogue), 
for the purpose of intimidating conscientious seekers after 
the truth, that " all this gere is done but onelie to stoppe 
mennes mouthes " who would speak of the faults of the 
clergy. Many men begin indeed to doubt if Luther is as 
" evyll as he is borne in hande," and they begin to think 
that " this name of a Lutherane serveth the clargy for a 
common clocke [cloak] of a false crime, y' where they 
lacke special mater to charge one with by iugement, they 
labour to bringe him first in the infamy of the name that 
compriseth (as they make it seme) a confused heape of 
herisies, no man can tell what." *^^ More hears " quod he " 
°' Workes, p. 109. 



88 English Literary Prose 

out and then summarizes his charges and doubtings under 
four heads, each of which he promises to consider in de- 
tail. He does not permit himself, however, to indulge in 
long speeches to the detriment of the dramatic illusion of 
the Dialogue. After the story of Bilney, the worship of 
images, and the working of miracles have all been dis- 
cussed at length in a varied and interesting manner, the first 
book closes with one of those pleasant personal passages 
which lend life and verisimilitude to the whole Dialogue. 
" Quod he " says he still has one important point in mind, 
but as it is now twelve o'clock, he will save it until after 
dinner. More declares his eagerness to hear this matter. 
" Naye," quod he, " it were better ye dyne fyrste. My 
Ladye wyll, I wene, bee angrye with me, that I kepe you 
so longe therefro. For I holde it nowe well towarde 
twelve. And yet more angrye woulde waxe with me, if I 
should make you sit and muse at your meat, as ye woulde, 
I wote well, muse on the matter if ye wyst what it wer." 
" If I were," quod I, " lyke my wyfe, I shoulde muse more 
theron now and eate no meat for longing to know. But 
come on than, & let us dyne fyrste and ye shall tell us 
after." ^* If tradition does not belie Mistress More's tem- 
per, this little picture of More's domestic life is not only 
interesting, but also true. 

In the second book, the speaker discusses first what con- 
stitutes the true church and the reasons why ' sectarians ' 
are not of it. In the latter part of the book there is con- 
siderable repetition of subjects taken up in the first book, 
such as the reverence due to saints, to relics, and images. 
The discussion is resumed in the third book after an interval 
of time during which " quod he " has visited the University 
(i.e. Cambridge), where he has found many offended at 
the burning of Tindale's New Testament, at the official 
°^ Workcs, p. 177. 



Controversy and Free Speech 89 

denunciation of Luther's teaching, and at the treatment 
which Bilney had received. More defends the burning of 
Tindale's New Testament on the ground that it was full of 
heretical translations, maliciously inserted. Over a thou- 
sand texts, according to More, were mistranslated, the most 
flagrant instances being Tindale's translations seniors, con- 
gregation, and love, for which the approved translations 
were priests, church, and charity, and also Tindale's favor, 
knowledging, and repentance instead of grace, confession, 
and penance. The most interesting question discussed in 
this book, perhaps in the whole Dialogue, is whether the 
scriptures should be translated into English at all, and if 
so, how this translation should be used.*'^ The last book 
of the Dialogue returns to the discussion of general ques- 
tions of doctrine, and of the proper way of treating heretics, 
whether they should be put to death or not. In general 
there is a good deal of repetition throughout the Dialogue. 
Topics are dropped and taken up again without much 
order, yet in a manner appropriate to a conversation. The 
friendly, urbane tone of the discussion is maintained 
throughout and the charm and good humor of the work 
never fail. " Quod he " lives up to the character of wanton 
which " quod I " gives him in a way which shows how 
More's fondness for ' merry tales ' not infrequently got the 
better of his sense of dignity.''*' But no more serious 
charges can be made against the Dialogue. The modern 
reader may wonder that More should think of coolly ex- 
plaining, and even defending, the cruel and barbarous 
methods of punishment employed against heretics, but fire 

"^ Bk. Ill, Cap. XVI. For a fuller account of this chapter, see 
below, pp. 242-243. 

'"As in Bk. II, Cap. X, describing the shrine of "saint walerie " 
(St. Valeri) in Picardy, which Tindale in his Answer, p. 124, dis- 
misses briefly as " a filthy chapter," and " meet for the author and 
his worshipful doctrine." 



90 English Literary Prose 

and the sword were accepted theological arguments in the 
sixteenth century, and More was less extreme than many of 
his contemporaries. The views of the reformers are fairly, 
even emphatically expressed, so that without intending it, 
and merely by the clearness of his exposition. More m.ay 
have confirmed some of his readers in their heretical opin- 
ions. In general More endeavors to answer his opponents 
fairly and reasonably, not with mere rant and invective. 
The decision as to which has the better side of the argu- 
ment goes back, however, to questions which are really 
fundamental but which are not specifically raised in the 
Dialogue, that is to the questions how far authority should 
operate in the control of opinion and by what means 
changes should be brought about. To a conservative and 
a lawyer, like More, committed to the maintenance of the 
traditional order of things, the position which he held would 
seem abundantly justified. It is only in the light of history 
that one is led to wonder that a man so wise and just 
should not have seen his way to a more positively con- 
structive part in the great changes that were taking place 
in his day. 

Scarcely was the printer's ink dry on the Dialogue when 
More appeared a second time in the lists with his Supplica- 
tion of Souls (1529), written in answer to Simon Fish's 
Supplication for the Beggars. Fish had recommended the 
confiscation of church endowments and the use of the 
money thus obtained for the relief of the poor people of 
England. He had dwelt upon the immense riches of the 
church, the priests' neglect of duty, and above all their 
selfish use of the doctrine of purgatory. The answering 
supplication of More is supposed to come from " the sely 
soules in purgatory," who would be abandoned to their fate 
if Fish's counsels were carried into execution. But the 
silly souls plead not only for themselves but also for the 



Controversy and Free Speech 91 

souls of others who are still alive, since lack of belief 
in purgatory will bring many a good simple soul " the 
verye strayghte waye to helle." The Supplication is, there- 
fore, first an answer to Fish's book, and secondly, a defense 
of the doctrine of purgatory. It is much longer than the 
Supplication for the Beggars and loses in effectiveness in 
proportion to its length. Fish had written with a fierce in- 
dignation that made every word tell ; IMore's answer is 
wiser and ampler, but it fails to hit the mark as unerringly 
as the tract of his opponent. 

Still less eft'ective is the third of More's controversial 
writings, his Confutation of Tindale's Answer (1532), the 
longest and least interesting of all More's English writings. 
Tindale's Ansiver to More's Dialogue had appeared the pre- 
ceding year. More's Confutation of the Answer fills nearly 
five hundred folio pages, is divided into nine books, and is 
unfinished at the end. The pleasant conversational tone of 
the Dialogue, still maintained to some extent in the Suppli- 
cation of Souls, is here replaced by the harsh controversial 
manner of the most violent popular writers of the time. 
Perhaps More felt that the day for gentle dealing had gone 
by. At the beginning of his Confutation he calls attention 
to the fact that of late years England has had " plentuous 
of evil! bookes," giving a list of them, which includes 
many besides Tindale's. As he advances, More grows 
more earnest, and also becomes less regardful of the artistic 
side of his writing. The notable attention to literary form 
found in the Dialogue is lacking in the Confutation, the 
method of which is the crude, mechanical one of quoting a 
passage from Tindale's Answer and of replying to each 
passage immediately and separately. The disproportion be- 
tween the length of the passages quoted and IMore's an- 
swers is great. Perhaps More hoped to crush his opponent 
and his doctrines once and for all by the fullness and 



92 English Literary Prose 

ponderosity of his own arguments. If so, he deceived 
himself, for the simplicity and directness of Tindale's pres- 
entation of his side of the case seem all the more effective 
and admirable when compared with More's long, repetitious, 
and heavy, even though learned and closely argued an- 
swers. The entire sincerity and earnestness of More in 
this undertaking cannot be called in question. He was 
deeply concerned to provide an antidote to the poison of 
heresy, and he felt that men should " have againe at 
hande suche bookes as may well arme them to resist and 
confute " the writings of heretics. And though he speaks 
modestly of his own work, he declares that he has not 
" shoffled it up so hasteli " but that it may stand in some 
good stead. 

As the Confutation is entirely without structure, it is not 
susceptible of analysis. More takes up the various topics 
of the book scatteringly, as they are suggested to him by 
Tindale's Answer. In his general attitude towards Tindale 
and the reformers he is extremely harsh and condemnatory. 
The merry jests and pleasant humor of " quod he " have 
completely disappeared, and instead of the " poetry," as 
his critics called it, of the imaginary Dialogue, the Confuta- 
tion is profoundly serious. More does not hesitate to give 
Tindale the lie direct. All this gear, he says at one place, 
is " but a fardel ful of lies, and that woteth Tindall him- 
self well ynough," ^^ — and on the next page, " This is 
another fardell full of lyes." He pictures Tindale as 
stricken stark blind by the devil, who has " set him in a 
corner with a chayne and a clogge & made him his ape to 
sit there & serve hym & to make him sporte, with mocking 
and mowing and potting the sacramentes, which yet the 
devil dreadeth himselfe, and dare not come anere them." ^^ 
Answering Tindale's teaching that men should search the 

" Workes, p. 397. "' Ibid., p. 398. 



Controversy and Free Speech 93 

causes and reasons of things, not trust to blind faith, 
More declares that if " our father Tindal had been in para- 
dise in the stede of our father Adam, he should never have 
neded any serpent or woman either to tempt him to eate 
the apple of the tree of knowledge." Searching for the 
cause of this first commandment and not finding any, for 
at that time the flesh had no need of taming, " then woulde 
he have eaten on a good pace . . . and so would he by his 
own rule of searching have found out as much mischief as 
the woman and the serpente and the devill and all." ®^ 
Even so dignified a person as the lord chancellor of England 
descends at times to puerile taunting. Tindale had asked 
why More had not contended with Erasmus, " whom he 
calleth my darling," for translating, as Tindale had done, 
the word ecclesia by congregatio. There had he hit me, 
lo, says More, save for lack of a little fault : 

" I have not contended with Erasmus my derling because 
I found no suche malicious entente with Erasmus my 
derlyng as I fynde with Tyndall. For hadde I founde with 
Erasmus my derling the shrewde entent and purpose that I 
fynde in Tyndall, Erasmus my derlyng should be no more 
my derlyng. But I fynde in Erasmus my derlyng that he 
detesteth and abhorreth the errours & heresies that Tyndall 
playnly teacheth and abideth by, and therefore Erasmus my 
derlyng shalbe my dere derling stil. And surely if Tyndale 
had either never taughte them or yet had the grace to revoke 
them, then should Tyndall be my dere derling too. But 
while he holdeth such heresies styl, I cannot take for my 
derling him that the devil taketh for his derlyng." ''^ 

Following the Confutation in the sequence of More's 
English writings, comes a Letter of Sir Thomas More 
knight, impugning the erronioiise wry ting of John Frith 
agaynst the blessed sacrame?it of the anlter,''''- a short 

** Workes, p. 367. "' Ibid., pp. 421-422, 

" Ibid., pp. 833-844- 



94 English Literary Prose 

treatise the purport of which is sufficiently indicated by its 
title. Much more interesting and important is the Apology, 
written in 1533, after More had given up the office of 
lord chancellor.'^^ The Apology was written with a double 
purpose, first as a defense against the criticisms which 
various persons had made of More and the methods of his 
previous writings, and secondly, to answer a work called 
A Treatise Concerning the Division between the Spiritualty 
and the Temporally, by Christopher St. German, after 
Tindale, More's most important controversial opponent. 
More acknowledges that there are faults in his writings xj 
which " badde brethren " will sift to the " uttermost flake of 
branne," but he comforts himself with the assurance that 
what he has written is consonant with " the common catho- 
like fayth and determinacions of Chrystes catholike 
church." '^^ To the objection that he had handled Tin- 
dale and others " with no fayrer woordes nor in no more 
courtes maner," and that in his writings he had been too 
" parcial towarde the spiritualtye," More responds first 
by giving a summary of his own position as he had stated 
it in his various criticisms of Tindale and of Lutheran 
heresy in general. Then follows a specific defense of the 
charge that he had handled his opponents " ungoodly and 
with uncomely woordes, callynge theym by the name of 
heretyques and fooles." "^ The defense, somewhat dis- 
ingenuous, is that the heretics are wicked, that God's wrath 
is upon them, and that in simple honesty one must give 
them their proper names. Every man, says More, hath not 
like wit or like invention in writing. He is but a " simple 
playne bodye," like the Macedonians who knew no better 
than to call a traitor a traitor. " And in good faithe, lyke 
those good folke am L For thoughe Tindall and Frithe in 

'' Workcs, pp. 845-928. " Ibid., p. 845. 

■" Ibid., p. 863. 



Controversy and Free Speech 95 

their writinge cal me a Poet, it is but of their owne cour- 
tesye, undeserved on my part. For I canne neither so 
muche poetrye, nor so muche rethorique neither, as to 
fynde good names fer evyll thinges, but even as the 
Macedonies coulde not call a traitour but a traitour, so 
canne I not call a foole but a foole, nor an heretique but an 
heretique." '^^ More defends himself also against another 
charge, " that is to wytte where they reprove that I bring 
in among the most earnest matters, fansies and sportes & 
mery tales." For, as Horace says, a man may tell the 
truth in game. And moreover for one who is but a lay- 
man, it may " better happely become hym merely to tell 
hys minde than seriously and solempnely to preach. And 
over thys, I can scant believe that the brethren finde anye 
mirthe in my bookes. For I have not much hearde that 
thei very merely read them." '"^ 

As an example of " a goodlye milde maner " of writing, 
More's attention had been called to St. German's Treatise, 
but he excuses himself for not having followed this example 
by saying that the Book of the Division had appeared 
since he wrote his own works and therefore could not have 
served him as a model. The greater part of the Apology 
is taken up with More's discussion of this book and its 
author, whom he does not mention by name, but whom he 
ironically calls the Pacifier, from St. German's avowed de- 
sire to bring about harmony between spiritualty and tem- 
poralty by mild and reasonable means, and to encourage 
in general a more charitable manner of discussing the ques- 
tions which were dividing the clergy and the laity. St. 
German was a lawyer, with some leaning towards the side 
of the laity. One of his main principles, for example, was 
that where the common law of the land had laid down prin- 
ciples at variance with those of the canon law, the decisions 
" Workes, p. 864. " Ibid., p. 927. 



96 English Literary Prose 

of the common law must stand against those of ecclesias- 
tical tribunals. More apparently saw in St. German an V 
enemy to the church in the disguise of a friend, and as 
later events proved, the support which he gave to the 
policies of Henry VIII strengthened the cause of the re- 
formers. Although frequently ironical, More's treatment 
of St. German is restrained, compared with his treatment 
of Tindale. The length at which he defends himself is 
some indication that More perhaps felt that he had been 
led into undue violence, an indication also, if any were 
needed, that the party of the laity was no longer made up 
of plowmen and rustics and beggars, but that important and 
intelligent people were ready to lend a willing ear to the 
teachings of the reformers. The Apology is significant, 
therefore, not only as a revelation of More's own opinions 
with respect to propriety of manner in polemical discussion, 
but also of the general change in the tone of controversy 
which was a necessary result as soon as the two parties to 
discussion were approximately on the same social and in- 
tellectual level. In conclusion. More says that he thinks 
he has adequately confuted Tindale's heresies, and that for 
a time now he intends to give up writing and to devote him- 
self to something more necessary than writing, the mending 
of his own faults in good living. " For of newe booke 
makers there are now moe then ynough." ^'^ 

The chastened spirit in which More concluded his 
Apology seems, however, to have been somewhat premature. 
For the Apology called forth an answer by St. German, 
Salem and Bizance, a dialogue in which Salem (from Jeru- 
salem) defends the claims of the clergy and Bizance 
(Byzantium) stands for the authority of civil law. This 
book More answered in his Debellacyon of Salem and 
Bizance (1533)/® continuing to speak of St. German as 

'^ Workes, p. 928. " Ibid., pp. 929-1034, 



Controversy and Free Speech 97 

the Pacifiei*. Although milder in tone than More's earlier 
writings, the Dehellacyon is by no means lacking in passages 
of personal aspersion and ridicule. The last of More's 
polemical treatises appeared in the same year as the 
Dehellacyon, and is entitled The Answer to the first part of 
the poysoned booke whych a nameles heretike hath named 
the supper of the Lord. The " poysoned booke " is a little 
pamphlet, containing altogether thirty-two leaves, and 
divided into two parts, of which the first contains fourteen 
leavesJ^ More intended to answer the two parts sep- 
arately, but he finished only the answer to the first part.^" 
This Answer is a large book, twenty times as long as 
the Supper of the Lord, and More here again shows a sad 
lack of discretion in answering the light artillery of the 
enemy with such heavy cannonading. The brethren indeed 
might well be forgiven if they had not " very merely 
read " so long an answer to so short a treatise. 

The works of More's last years are a pleasant relief after 
the storms of his controversial period. Forced by public 
opinion and the request of those whose wishes he respected 
to take up the defense of England's traditional ecclesiastical 
institutions, More was at heart less a controversialist than 
he was a philosopher, and to use the term of reproach 
which his enemies so frequently directed against him, a 
poet. A sincerely pious man himself, he was deeply shocked 
at the evidences of growing irreverence and iconoclasm 
which he beheld on all sides, and after his own duty as de- 
fender of the faith had been performed, he turned gladly 
to the more congenial task of mending his own faults in 
good living. The year before his execution, while he was 
a prisoner in the Tower, he wrote a Dyalogue of Comforte 

''^ Gairdner, I, 539-540, Note. 

*" Workes, pp. 1035-1138, with an additional unnumbered page, 
making altogether 134 folio pages. 



98 English Literary Prose 

agaynste trilndacyon, made in the yere of our lorde, 1534, 
which is supposedly a translation of a work originally writ- 
ten by a Hungarian in Latin, first translated into French, 
and then by More from French into English.*^ The Hun- 
garian author and the Latin and French originals existed, 
however, only in More's poetic imagination, the whole 
being his invention. The dialogue takes place between an 
uncle, named Anthony, and his nephew Vincent, and dis- 
cusses tribulation in a highly analytic way, the kinds thereof 
and the remedies to be employed against it. The reader is y 
reminded of the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius, 
both being dialogues written in prison, of an elevated and 
dignified moral tone, by authors who suffered similar fates. 
It is as a philosopher, wise in the affairs of the human 
heart, that More speaks in this Dyalogue, and he here re- 
veals those spiritual and amiable sides of his nature which 
represent him at his best. Two other meditative treatises 
were written in this last year of More's life, one entitled 
A treatice to receave the blessed body of our lorde and the 
other, A treatice upon the passion of Chryste, the latter 
being unfinished. ^^ These treatises, together with some 
shorter pieces, devout instructions, meditations, and prayers, 
as well as a number of letters, complete the list of More's 
English writings. 

As a controversialist More had the misfortune to be al- ' 
ways on the defensive, and further, to have had his opinions 
largely determined for him by his party. He could not con- 
sequently enter into discussions with the same fire and 
enthusiasm as his opponents. But though he was a con- 
servative and had turned aside from the more liberal opin- 
ions of his earlier years, More never became narrow. He 
perhaps did not see clearly the forward tendencies of his 

^' IVorkes, pp. 1 139-1264. 
*^ Ibid., pp. 1264-1404. 



Controversy and Free Speech 99 

age, but at the same time it is unquestionably true that 
there lay grave danger in what More did see clearly, the 
contemporary violence in thought and feeling, and the dis- 
regard of traditional customs and rights. He is a fair dis- 
putant, often stating, in his self-confidence, his opponents' 
case better than they could do it themselves. As to his 
own arguments and proofs, it is not necessary to speak, 
since history has answered them. M ore's certainty of the 
justice of his own position led him perhaps to underesti- 
mate the strength of his opponents. He is occasionally 
bitter towards them, as Tindale is sometimes towards him, 
but on the whole is rather inclined to regard them with 
something of the scorn and contempt of a strong man 
grown insolent with his sense of power. The jests and 
merry tales, after all is said, also frequently strike a false 
note. Perhaps More did not fully realize the seriousness of 
the situation. He was not fighting for liberty and con- 
science in the same degree as the reformers, and though 
stronger on the side of reason and logic than his opponents, 
More seems lacking a little in moral earnestness. There is 
indeed something unseemly in answering an opponent who 
speaks at a white heat of moral indignation with a jest. 
Such a man is not to be put ofif with banter, nor is he to be 
reasoned with ; he is deaf to philosophy and logic, and the 
only way to silence him is to meet him with a passion equal 
to his own. More was backed by history, by tradition, by 
the best scholarship of his day, but the questions of the 
hour were not to be solved by history, tradition, and scholar- 
ship. They were not to be solved either by literary skill, 
in which More was superior to all his opponents, both in 
the variety of his literary accomplishments and in his power 
of sustained workmanship. This, however, if he could 
have looked into the future, would have seemed to him an 
empty victory, for he did not write in English mainly for 



loo English Literary Prose 

the sake of his art, but for the sake of the truth as he 
viewed it. 

As a writer of EngHsh prose, More followed now one 
and now the other of two tendencies. The first of these 
was the tendency toward an informal easy style which 
rests directly upon colloquial discourse, and the second 
towards the use of a structurally elaborated form after the 
classical tradition. It is characteristic of the experimental 
stage in which English style found itself in More's day that 
he developed neither of these tendencies into a consistent 
and harmonious style of his own. But on the whole his 
writing stands much closer to colloquial discourse than to 
the artificially elaborated periods of the classical stylists. 
For though More was partly driven and did not voluntarily 
choose to use English in order to oppose a popular move- 
ment, he shows his customary wisdom and open-mindedness 
in his frank acceptance of the native idiom for literary pur- 
poses. His range of expression in English is consequently 
wide. When it suits his purpose he can assume the 
familiar, even the broadly popular style. And in his more 
literary moments, he has command over a carefully culti- 
vated and organized form of expression. But even when 
he is most literary, he is not manneristic. All such tricks 
of style as alliteration, the use of doublets, of strange and 
learned words, of ingenious figures of speech, he consist- 
ently avoids. His diction is admirably simple and idiomatic 
and he seems to have felt no difficulty in expressing learned 
matters in plain English. He rises superior to the naive 
medieval sentence, with its sprawling members held to- 
gether by a sprinkling of temporal and co-ordinating con- 
junctions, and he does so by giving his sentences body and 
structure as well as length. But his periodic sentences are 
not often highly elaborated, and the order of clauses, though 
not always natural, is seldom stiff or mechanical. The first 



Controversy and Free Speech ioi 

modern English writer to develop and to maintain a dig- 
nified literary style, without being pompous or overcharged 
with literary mannerism, More shows a much more certain 
feeling for English expression than any of his learned con- 
temporaries. 

When it comes to structure in the larger sense, it is 
apparent that More was not quite so sure of himself, 
though here again he is vastly superior to most of his 
contemporaries. His dialogue in answer to Tindale and his 
later Dialogue of Comfort are ample proof that More was 
capable of maintaining a feeling for the structure of the 
whole throughout an extended piece of writing, but his 
other works show also that the demands of structure were 
likely to yield under the pressure of strong feeling. It was 
assumed, certainly by many of More's opponents and to 
some extent also by More himself, that formal structure 
savored too much of literary artifice, of the work of the 
' poet,' and that the honest man should speak and write 
as the spirit gave him utterance. This principle resulted 
well for Tindale and others of the reformers whose minds 
saw few things but saw them with inexorable directness and 
distinctness. They write as runners stripped for the race. 
But with More there is always more or less fumbling. He 
crowds his canvas, like a medieval tapestry, with a multi- 
plicity of detail the abundance and disorder of which 
confuse the mind in spite of its relevancy. Doubtless also 
the richness of his own mind, his perception of the many 
aspects of every subject he examined, insensibly led him 
at times to discuss questions more fully than was necessary. 

With all his abundance, however. More is always viva- 
cious, holding the interest now by the picturesqueness of his 
phrasing, now by the direct vigor and wisdom of his 
thought, now by the higher charm of a gracious and kindly 
spirit communing at ease with his human fellows. He is 



I02 English Literary Prose 

sometimes quizzical, bantering, a little superior and even 
scornful, but his raillery never hardens into fanaticism. 
His weaknesses and defects are largely those of his age, 
and in the retrospect they seem slight in comparison with 
the strength and the many charms of his personality. 

The David in this classic controversy of the English 
Reformation was William Tindale, a humble scholar and 
wanderer on the face of the earth, with no more powerful 
ally or support than the printing presses of his German 
friends. Of Gloucestershire family, Tindale entered Ox- 
ford in 1 5 10, five years after Colet had brought to a close 
his famous lectures on the New Testament which mark a 
new epoch in the English method of interpreting the scrip- 
tures. On leaving Oxford he dwelt for some years at 
Cambridge, inheriting there the traditions of the teaching 
of Erasmus, who had lectured at Cambridge from 1510 to 
1 5 13. The great purpose of Tindale's life, the origin of \/ 
which dates from the time of his residence at Oxford and 
Cambridge, or perhaps earlier, was to see the Bible trans- 
lated into English and placed in the hands of the English 
people, and it was in the hope of accomplishing this end that 
he went to London in 1523 and sought the patronage of 
Tunstall, bishop of London. He soon found that his choice 
of a prospective patron was not judicious, and giving up all 
hope, after various endeavors, of carrying out his project 
in England, the following year he left England for the 
Continent, never to return during the few remaining years 
of his short life. As a voluntary exile in Germany, Tindale 
composed and published all of his writings. With respect 
to the most important of these, his translation of parts of 
the Bible, further details will be given in a later chapter.^^ 
His other extant works consist of exegetical commentary on 
the scriptures, covering, however, a wide field and includ- 
*' See below, pp. 233-256. 



Controversy and Free Speech 103 

ing not only discnssions of theological doctrine, but also 
of practical questions of contemporary politics and daily 
life, and of didactic and polemical treatises, summarizing 
the teachings of the reformers and defending them against 
the attacks of the Romanists. When Sir Thomas More 
answered the call of the church to come to its defense, Tin- 
dale had already published several doctrinal treatises, be- 
sides that prime cause of offense, his translation of the New 
Testament. More's Dialogue was published in 1529, but 
it was not until two years later that Tindale issued his 
Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogtie.^^ The Answer 
exhibits the quality of straightforward sincerity found in 
all of Tindale's writings, and although it is not without a 
good deal of strong personal language, it is characterized in 
general by moderation and dignity of tone. Perhaps no- 
where do Tindale's deep sense of justice and truth, his 
burning hatred of ignorance and superstition, reveal them- 
selves more clearly than in this Answer. His main point, 
the significance of which he never allows to become ob- 
scured, is the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith, 
the doctrine that the test of spiritual values is to be found 
in the heart of each man for himself, and not in dogma, or 
authority, or ceremony. As to structure, the Answer re- 
sembles More's Confutation in that it takes up the proposi- 
tions of the Dialogue one by one and answers them thus 
with little realization of the effect of the argument as a 
whole. The Answer is therefore not only without structure, 
but also quite without the dramatic interest of the Dialogue, 
and the lightness, humor, and grace which the characters 
lend to it. But the Answer is by no means a disorderly 
jeremiad. It is written with the serenity of a lofty mind 
which, once having seen the truth, expresses itself with 

" Edited by Walker, for the Parker Society, 1850, where Tin- 
dale's other writings will be found. 



104 English Literary Prose 

impersonal but none the less powerful conviction. On the 
side of clearness and coherency of thought, Tindale has the 
better of More; on the side of sustained literary skill and 
human interest, he falls short of his opponent. 

It is always in detached passages that Tindale shows 
at his best, and then at times he attains a clarity and per- 
fection of form, the naked simplicity of which asks nothing 
of the highest art. Such, for example, is the passage, an 
allegory in essence, called by Tindale a " pretty antithesis," 
in which Holy Church attempts to bully Little Flock : 

" When the great multitude . . . behold Little Flock, 
that they come not forth in the service of God, they roar 
out, ' Where art thou ? Why comest thou not forth and 
takest holy water ? ' ' Wherefore ? ' saith Little Flock. ' To 
put away thy sins.' * Nay, brethren, God forbid that ye 
should so think ; Christ's blood only washeth away the sins 
of all that repent and believe. Fire, salt, water, bread and 
oil be bodily things, given unto man for his necessity, and 
to help his brother with ; and God that is a spirit cannot be 
served therewith. Neither can such things enter into the 
soul, to purge her, for God's word only is her purgation.' 
' No ! ' say they, ' are not such things hallowed ? And say 
we not in the hallowing of them, that whosoever is sprinkled 
with the water or eateth of the bread, shall receive health 
of soul and body ? ' ' Sir, the blessings promised unto 
Abraham, for all nations, are in Christ ; and out of his 
blood we must fetch them, and his word is the bread, salt, 
and water of our souls. God hath given you no power to 
give through your charms, such virtue unto unsensible 
creatures, which he hath hallowed himself, and made them 
all clean (for the bodily use of them that believe) through 
his word of promise and permission, and our thanksgiving. 
God saith. If thou believe St. John's gospel, thou shalt be 
saved, and not for the bearing of it about thee with so many 
crosses, or for the observing of any such observances.' 
' God, for thy bitter passion,' roar they out by and by, ' what 
an heretic is this ! I tell thee that Holy Church need to 
allege no scripture for them ; for they have the Holy Ghost, 



Controversy and Free Speech 105 

which Inspireth them ever secretly, so that they cannot err, 
whatsoever they say, do or ordain. What, wilt thou despise 
the blessed sacraments of Holy Church, wherewith God 
hath been served this fifteen hundred years? (Yea, verily, 
this five thousand years, even since Cain hitherto, and 
shall endure unto the world's end, amon^^ them that have 
no love unto the truth to be saved thereby). Thou art a 
strong heretic and worthy to be burnt.' And then he is 
excommunicate out of the church. If Little Flock fear not 
that bug, then they go straight unto the king : ' And it like 
your grace, perilous people and seditious, even enough to 
destroy your realm, if ye see not to them betimes. They be 
so obstinate and tough that they will not be converted, and 
rebellious against God and the ordinances of his holy church. 
And how much more shall they so be against your grace, 
if they increase and grow to a multitude ! They will pervert 
all, and surely make new laws, and either subdue your 
grace unto them, or rise against you.' And then goeth a 
part of Little Flock to pot, and the rest scatter. Thus 
hath it ever been, and shall ever be: let no man therefore 
deceive himself." ^^ 

This pointed, picturesque style, simple but never crudely 
naive, plain but never coarse, is the standard of form which 
Tindale consciously strove to realize. He speaks scornfully 
of Bishop Fisher's " oratory," **'' and Sir Thomas More's 
" painted poetry, babbling eloquence." ^'^ Vaughan, the Eng- 
lish envoy at Antwerp, replies to Thomas Cromwell's objec- 
tion that Tindale's Answer to More's Dialogue was " un- 
clerkly done," by saying that " so seem all his works to 
eloquent men, because he useth so rude and simple style, 
nothing liking any vain praise and commendation." ^^ 

^^ Answer, ed. Walker, for the Parker Society, pp. 109-110. 
Spelling and punctuation have been modernized by the editors in 
all the publications of the Parker Society, but no verbal changes 
have been made without acknowledgment. 

^^ Obedience of a Christian Alan, in Doctrinal Treatises, ed. 
Walker, p. 221, and again, ibid., p. 341. 

°' Expositions, ed. Walker, p. 100. 

^^ Demaus, JVilliani Tyndale, p. 311. 



io6 English Literary Prose 

Simple Tindale's style may be, but it is not rude. It is the 
style of a writer who knows what he wishes to say, and 
knows also precisely the right way of saying it. He 
strikes a golden mean of perfectly idiomatic expression, 
avoiding the extremes of popular bombast on the one side 
and of formal literary artifice on the other. He was deeply 
impressed with the necessity of the direct appeal to popular 
intelligence, but he saw also the necessity of scholarship 
and of the humanistic study of the classics. He recalls with 
disapproval the time when, " within this thirty years and 
far less," the children of darkness raged in every pulpit 
against Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, " some beating the pul- 
pit with their fists for madness, and roaring out with open 
and foaming mouth, that if there were but one Terence or 
Virgil in the world, and that same in their sleeves, and a 
fire before them, they would burn them therein, though it 
should cost them their lives." ^^ 

This defense of the classics is of course at bottom based 
upon the conviction that the only proper way to interpret 
the language of the scriptures was to approach them with 
a knowledge of the meanings of words as words were used 
in general literature, not as they were used in later acquired 
and traditional ecclesiastical senses. The secondary place 
which Tindale assigned to all writings of a purely literary 
kind is indicative of the singleness as well as the limitations 
of his character. His appeal is mainly to commonsense, to 
reason, and to the average human feeling for justice and 
fair dealing. He does not often see the lighter half of life, 
the graceful, the playful, and the humorous. Nor does he 
often appeal to the meditative or mystical side of religious 
experience. He uses language mainly as a thinker intent 
on making his meaning clear, and thus cultivates compact- 
ness rather than variety or amplitude of expression. If he 
^^ Answer, p. 75; see also ibid., p. 55. 



Controversy and Free Speech 107 

is eloquent at all, it is by virtue of the deep feeling which 
lends w^armth and color to v^hat otherwise might seem a 
naked simplicity. 

Tindale's sentences are usually short but well constructed 
and only slightly more formal than the sentences of col- 
loquial discourse. His vocabulary is plain, but without 
affectation of rudeness or quaintness. The perfect sense of 
idiom which distinguishes his translation of the Bible, ap- 
pears in his other English writings. Although nearly four 
hundred years have passed since his treatises were written, 
a reader to-day is seldom brought to a pause by an un- 
familiar word or locution, certainly less often than in read- 
ing Spenser or Shakspere, or almost any of the greater 
Elizabethans. The reason for this is partly that Tindale's 
writings have been potent factors in the development of 
the modern feeling for English idiom, but partly also, and 
mainly, the explanation is to be found in the fact that 
Tindale identified himself, and in consequence his expres- 
sion, so completely with that great central body of English 
people, neither scholars nor plowmen, but honest men of 
good sense, strong in their feeling for personal sincerity and 
relatively untouched by the changes of literary opinion and 
fashion, who have been, since his day, the determining 
elements in English life. The beneficent results of the 
ferment and turmoil of the English Reformation are typi- 
cally represented in Tindale's mind and in his style. He 
has attained absolute clearness of thought ; his mind stands 
alone, refusing the aid of all irrelevant and obscuring de- 
tail. And in harmony with this independence and certainty 
of thought, he expresses himself serenely and lucidly, firmly 
but not violently, with profound earnestness, but not with 
passion. His first and only concern in writing was to 
transmit his message in terms capable of conveying his 
meaning as clearly and deeply as he felt it himself. Literary 



io8 English Literary Prose 

devices which served no useful purpose to this end he 
ignored. Oratory he scorned. He put his faith in his own 
sincerity of purpose, and asked of language nothing more 
than that it should enable him to communicate simply, 
clearly, and sympathetically with his fellow Englishmen. 

Ill 

If a few more years of life had been granted to him, Sir 
Thomas More would not have been so confident that he had 
adequately confuted Tindale's heresies. For the heresies 
grew and controversial battles over them continued to 
rage. Only fifteen years after More's unhappy end, Cran- 
mer issued, in 1550, A Defence of the true and Catholic 
Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our 
Saviour Christ, a book which began the controversy be- 
tween Cranmer and Bishop Gardiner and which raised the 
question in men's minds not how far Cranmer's teachings 
differed from the orthodox tenets of the Roman church, 
but how near they were to the doctrines of the more radical 
branches of the Continental reformed church. 

Always closely related to political afiFairs, in the reigns of 
Henry VHI and his successors questions of belief and of 
church government became more than ever questions of 
state. With the exception of the brief retardation of the 
reign of Mary (1553-1558), the trend of public events was 
in the main favorable to the cause of the reformers. New 
and difficult problems arose, however, with the attempted 
establishment of a uniform national church under Elizabeth 
which were most fully debated in the writings of Jewel 
and Harding, of Cartwright and Whitgift. in the Marpre- 
late pamphlets, and in the Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker, 
the crowning achievement of this second great period of 
English controversy. In the reign of James, the attacks 
of Bellarmine brought forth all English learning and 



Controversy and Free Speech 109 

patriotism in defense of the throne, and at the same time 
introduced a more cosmopolitan tone into English con- 
troversial writing than had hitherto existed. The amount 
of ink spilled in defenses and confutations, in answers and 
counter-answers, in the course of these various paper battles 
is appalling to consider. Only a patient endurance of theo- 
logical subtleties enables the reader to make his way through 
the tangled forest of debate. Nothing loses its interest so 
soon as controversy, especially controversy over minor de- 
tails of doctrine after the main issues have been settled. 
Exceptional literary skill may preserve for future genera- 
tions old questions of outworn significance, but the number 
of controversial writers who possess this skill must always 
be small. After a method of controversy was discovered, 
many of the later controversies of the sixteenth century 
cease to have even an historical interest from the literary 
point of view. They show, however, that the ability to 
write English of a direct and business-like kind was not a 
rare accomplishment. 

Perhaps the most important of the controversies of the 
early years of Elizabeth's reign were the two polemical 
battles waged between Jewel, bishop of Salisbury, and 
Thomas Harding, one time canon of Jewel's cathedral. The 
first controversy began with a sermon by Jewel, preached 
in 1559, and several times later, on the subject of the 
nature of the presence in the sacrament. Harding 
has an Answer to M. Juelles Challenge (1564) ; this 
is followed by Jewel's Reply, and this in turn by 
Harding's Rejoinder and a second amplified Rejoinder 
the year following the first. The other controversy between 
Jewel and Harding began with the publication of Jewel's 
Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1562). Three years later 
Harding published a Confutation of a Booke intituled an 
Apologie, Jewel answering with a Defence of the Apology. 



no English Literary Prose 

Harding then appeared with a Detection of sundry foul 
errors uttered by M. Jewel in his Defence of the Apologie, 
and in conclusion of the debate, Jewel published a new and 
enlarged edition of his Defence, taking account of the 
statements in Harding's Detection. Although both par- 
ticipants in the controversies exhibit great industry and 
learning, from the literary point of view their writings 
have little to distinguish them from the mass of the con- 
troversial literature of the period. Jewel was the better 
writer of the two, but he follows the conventional method 
of citing the propositions of his opponent one at a time and 
then answering them in turn by means of citations from 
learned authorities, varied by passages of personal recrimi- 
nation. He writes simply and clearly, but at inordinate 
length, and, even when he is abusive, without vivacity or 
picturesqueness. 

In this unsettled transitional period of many changes, 
when both radicals and conservatives were shifting to new 
positions, the one side tending towards a more stringent 
Presbyterianism in church government, the other entrenching 
itself more and more strongly within the system of 
Episcopalianism, appeared the stupendous work of John 
Foxe, The Acts and Monuments of these latter and perilous 
days, a work which purports to be a history of the church 
from primitive times, but which in fact turns every historical 
record into an argument in favor of reformation doctrine 
and ends in being a wild ululation of victory rather than a 
history. The first edition, written in Latin, was issued at 
Strassburg in 1559, during Foxe's residence abroad in the 
troubled period of Mary's reign, but an enlarged English 
version was printed at London in 1563, after Foxe's return 
to England. Four later editions within the sixteenth cen- ' 
tury and three in the first half of the seventeenth century 
testify to its continued popularity, and indeed Protestant 



CONTROVEJfSY AND FrEE SpEECH III 

England has never ceased to draw upon The Acts as from 
an inexhaustible source of strength and encouragement. 
One's first impression of the book is of amazement at 
its huge dimensions. Although it is conceived on a scale 
of epic grandeur, from sheer lack of control it ends in being 
big rather than great, an agglomeration rather than a 
structure. Its purpose v^as, as Foxe himself announces, to 
tell the tale of all the martyrs of the church, beginning with 
the earliest persecutions, and narrating with special fullness 
the events of " these latter and perilous days " in England 
and Scotland. It becomes thus a church history, the thread 
of unity being the persecutions of the saints, with digressions 
on the German reformation, on affairs in Italy, Spain, 
and Portugal, on the Turks, on Bohemia and the Bohemian 
reformers. There is also some attention to general history 
apart from ecclesiastical matters, although Foxe, when he 
writes historically at all, sticks fairly close to his main sub- 
ject. But the story is much interrupted by matter which is 
not historical, by controversial discussions, by comments and 
sermonizings from Foxe himself. There is a plentiful dis- 
play of documentary evidence, much of which is quoted 
literally. It is hardly necessary to state that Foxe wrote as 
a violent partisan, and that, for all his documents, his 
method was naively uncritical. He so misunderstands 
Chaucer, for example, as to call him " a right Wicklevian," 
adding that he knows of certain people who " were brought 
to the true knowledge of religion " by reading Chaucer's 
works. Foxe apparently thinks of Chaucer only as the 
author of the pseudo-Chaucerian Testament of Love and 
The Plowman's Tale; the genuine works of Chaucer he 
doubtless had never read, although he remarks that " Chau- 
cer's works be all printed in one volume and therefore 
known to all men." ^° 

'" Acts and Monuments, edited by Townsend, IV, 248-250. 



112 English Literary Prose 

When at the end Foxe brings his work to a conclusion 
" not for lack of matter, but to shorten rather the matter 
for largeness of the volume," ^^ the reader's wonder at the 
tremendous energy and enthusiasm of the author is likely to 
be replaced by a feeling of exasperation and profound 
melancholy. This feeling arises not so much from the 
stories of bloody cruelty and persecution which the volume 
contains, although the monotonous succession of these is 
depressing enough, but from the fact that the story of 
every godly martyr serves merely as the occasion for the 
expression of Foxe's own blind and intolerant spirit. He 
writes with a corroding bitterness and violence of speech 
that deforms everything he touches ; his martyrs are all in- 
credible epitomes of goodness, and their oppressors are all 
unbelievably wicked. He is always the zealot, partisan, and 
fanatic. His soul has not come out of the fiery trial chast- 
ened and humbled, but hardened in its own anger and 
righteousness. One longs for a touch of the clear serenity 
and patient charity of Tindale, but longs in vain. Page 
after page, volume after volume, the reader staggers through 
the storm of scorn and abuse, of grotesque exaggeration, of 
intense but bigoted and narrow feeling, with hardly a ray 
of genial human sympathy to cheer him on the dark jour- 
ney. Strong, personal, independent, with a mighty sense 
of wrong and a determination to express himself to the 
uttermost, Foxe is the complete summing up of the hardness 
and bitterness of struggling England in the battle for liberty 
of thought and teaching. He glories in the righteousness of 
his own cause, but all else is to be trodden under foot as 
evil and wicked. 

As a writer Foxe is remarkable for the distinctness and 
concreteness of his expression. His pictures, though always 
seen through the smoke .and red flame of his own burning 
'^ Acts and Monuments, VIII, 753. 



Controversy and Free Speech 113 

zeal, are dramatically vivid. His characters, whether 
butcher, baker, village prophet, or dignitary of the church, 
stand forth with the reality of life. The many dialogues, 
disputations, and examinations with which he loads his nar- 
rative are all unfailingly interesting because in them Foxe 
catches the very words and tones of conversation. The set 
portraits of persons, many of whom Foxe must have known 
intimately, are sketched with admirable clearness and con- 
creteness of detail. Naturally the portraits of the enemies 
of reform are more vivid than those of the friends. An 
especially elaborate one is his picture of that arch-foe of 
the reformers, Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. 
" First this viper's bird," the passage begins, " crept out of 
the town of Bury in Suffolk, was brought up most part of 
his youth in Cambridge ; his wit, capacity, memory and 
other endowments of nature were not to be complained of, 
if he had well used and rightly applied the same ; wherein 
there was no great want in God's part in him, if he had not 
rather himself wanted to the goodness of his gifts." ^^ 
Unfortunately, continues Foxe, to his good gifts were joined 
as great or greater vices. " He was of a proud stomach 
and high-minded, in his own opinion and conceit flattering 
himself too much ; in wit, crafty and subtle ; toward his 
superiors, flattering and fair spoken; to his inferiors, fierce; 
against his equal, stout and envious, namely if in judg- 
ment and sentence he any thing withstood him. ... I will 
not here speak of that which hath been constantly reported 
to me touching the monstrous making and mis-shaped 
fashion of his feet and toes, the nails whereof were said not 
to be like other men's, but to crook downward, and to be 
sharp like the claws of ravening beasts." Without denying 
him learning or natural ability, Foxe gives Gardiner little 
credit for either. " But what learning or cunning soever 
^^ Acts and Monuments, VII, 585-588. 



114 English Literary Prose 

it was he had, so it fared in him as it doth in butchers, 
which use to blow up their flesh. Even so he with boldness 
and stoutness, and especially with authority, made those 
gifts which he had to appear much greater than they were in 
very deed. Whereunto, peradventure, use also, and ex- 
perience abroad, brought no little helps, rather than either 
quickness of wit or happiness of education." And so the 
portrait proceeds, adding detail after detail, but nothing that 
receives unqualified praise. In contrast to this and similar 
pictures of monsters of wickedness, one should set Foxe's 
glorifications of his saints and martyrs, whose virtues are 
often portrayed with exaggerated pathos and sweetness of 
feeling. Foxe is unfortunate in that at both extremes he 
suggests the worst sides of the narrow Puritanism of a later 
generation, its unctuous piety and exaltation of all within 
the fold and its venomous hatred and condemnation of all 
without. 

With the accession of Elizabeth to the throne, the 
terms of religious controversy had changed but the spirit 
remained much the same. With her strong passion for 
order and obedience in government, Elizabeth felt no more 
sympathy with " sects " than Catholic Mary had done. She 
desired above all things to see one uniform church in 
England, dignified in its services and strongly managed 
in its government. It was inevitable under the circum- 
stances that the form of government for this established 
church should be episcopal and that many details of service 
and of church furniture should be retained from the ancient 
and traditional uses of the historical church in England. 
And it was also inevitable that the successors of the oppo- 
nents of the papacy, those reformers who since the days 
of Wiclif had taken the Bible as their sole guide and who 
had been striving to bring back the church to what they 
regarded as its primitive, simple forms of worship, should 



Controversy and Free Speech 115 

be as bitterly opposed to prelacy as they had been to papacy. 
Vague and uncertain in their beginnings, the theories and 
opinions of the popular party were now assuming a definite, 
even a rigid form. The Bible indeed had been the one 
recognized staff of support of the reformers after they had 
renounced the authority of the organized church, but the 
teachings of the Bible needed formulation and systematiza- 
tion to make them effective as a clearly defined statement 
of belief. The influence, therefore, of Calvin and the 
Genevan church, both upon the practice of dissenting sec- 
tions of the church and also on many persons in the estab- 
lished church who were giving their minds to questions of 
organization and government, was profound. Although still 
discussed with animation, for the time being questions of 
ritual and observance retired to the second place, and the 
more important matter of the method by which order should 
be brought into the threatened chaos in the economy of the 
church received chief attention. 

After the death of the mild Grindal, from whom Queen 
Elizabeth had withdrawn her favor because of what she 
regarded as a too lenient attitude towards elements of dis- 
order in the church, Elizabeth was fortunate in finding a 
new archbishop of Canterbury whose zeal in the cause of 
uniformity was not less than her own, and who combined 
with this zeal the greatest steadfastness and ruthlessness 
of purpose. This was John Whitgift, who after many 
dignities and honors received at Cambridge and in the 
church, became archbishop of Canterbury in 1583 and held 
that office for the succeeding two decades. Although not 
hostile to Calvin's doctrinal views, Whitgift did not share 
with him his theories of church government. On the con- 
trary he was a firm believer in the episcopal form of govern- 
ment, and both as the opponent of Presbyterianism and the 
patron and supporter of the defenders of the Established 



ii6 English Literary Prose 

Church, he perhaps more than any other man of his day 
was responsible for the fate of the English church in this 
formative period of its history. A rich man, he lived the 
life of a prince, dispensing liberal hospitality at his palace, 
where Queen Elizabeth herself often dined with her " little 
black husband," as she is said to have called him. When he 
traveled abroad, it was in great state, with a throng of 
attendants accompanying him. In the eyes of the Puritan 
advocates of simplicity, he stood as the typical representative 
of the proud prelate. Often arbitrary in his actions and of 
a violent temper, he sometimes passed the bounds of legality 
in the carrying out of his purposes, and indeed " little flock " 
might well consider that it had gained nothing if it had freed 
itself from the power of Rome only to fall into the clutches 
of such high-handed governors as Whitgift showed himself 
to be. 

The Puritan cause was not, however, without defense, 
led by Whitgift's controversial opponent, Thomas Cart- 
wright. The hostility between Cartwright and Whitgift 
began early. As preacher, as scholar, and as disputant, 
Cartwright won for himself a distinguished place in the 
life of Cambridge, and it was at Cambridge as defender of 
Calvinistic principles that he came into conflict with Whit- 
gift. In the year 1569 Cartwright was appointed Lady 
Margaret professor of divinity and preached in St. Mary's 
church against the Anglican establishment and in favor of 
the simple primitive type of church organization. The fol- 
lowing year, largely through the instrumentality of Whit- 
gift, he was deprived of his professorship, and soon after of 
his other university privileges. Whitgift was also respon- 
sible for the fact that Cartwright never received his doctor's 
degree in divinity, a fact which Cartwright seems not readily 
to have forgotten, since in the controversy with Whitgift 
which was soon to open, he constantly refers ironically to 



Controversy and Free Speech 117 

Whitgift as Master Doctor — " 370 times is the least," says 
Whitgift, who apparently took the trouble to count the in- 
stances. After a year spent at Geneva, Cartvvright returned 
to England and resumed his defense of the Puritan cause. 
In this same year of Cartwright's return, 1572, there had 
appeared a work by two well-known Puritans, John Field 
and Thomas Wilcox, entitled An Admonition to Parliament, 
which occupies somewhat the same relative position in the 
controversial literature of the last quarter of the sixteenth 
century as Simon Fish's Supplication for the Beggars in 
that of the second quarter of the century. Cartwright then 
wrote a Second Admonition to the Parliament, supporting 
the position of Field and Wilcox. Whitgift now appeared 
with an answer to the first admonition, and Cartwright 
followed with a reply to Whitgift. The ball was sent back 
and forth once more, Whitgift issuing a Defence of his 
answer and Cartwright responding with a second reply, 
which Whitgift refrained from answering. The controversy 
was brought to a close by Cartwright's flight from England 
to escape a warrant for his arrest which had been issued 
at Whitgift's instigation. After twelve years of exile he 
returned to England, and under the patronage of the Earl 
of Leicester, passed the remaining years of his life in com- 
parative quiet. Besides his writings in the controversy with 
Whitgift, Cartwright's most important publications were 
a translation of Travers's Ecclesiasticae Disciplinae . . . 
Explicatio, published at Rochelle in 1574, the recognized 
text-book of Puritanism, and A Confutation of the Rhemists' 
Translation, written about 1582, but not printed until 161 8, 
fifteen years after Cartwright's death. 

With the passing of the years much of the flavor of the 
controversy between Cartwright and Whitgift has evapo- 
rated. On both sides the personal element in the discussion 
is strong and the grasp of general principles is weak, or at 



ii8 English Literary Prose 

least if general principles are clearly perceived, they are 
insufficiently expressed. Both Cartwright and Whitgift 
write adequately in a simple business-like way, though 
neither pays much attention to literary charm and both are'/ 
likely soon to grow wearisome to readers who are no longer 
deeply concerned as to what kinds of vestments priests 
should wear or whether or not they should make the sign 
of the cross in baptism. For the high lights of personal 
abuse, one turns to the Marprelate tracts, which take up 
the fight where Cartwright left it, and for a defense of the 
cause of episcopacy and an explanation of the meaning of 
forms, one turns to Hooker, by the support of whom Whit- 
gift accomplished more than by all his own writings or 
repressive acts of legislation. 

The immediate circumstances under which the Martin 
Marprelate tracts were written and published are wrapped 
to a large extent in a cloud of uncertainty. Not one but a 
number of persons were concerned in the production of the 
tracts, and the name Martin Marprelate was something 
more than the pen-name of an author. Martin indeed was 
a dramatically conceived character, unified and consistent, 
like the Piers Plowman and Jack Upland of earlier periods 
of English religious controversy, and he sums up the spirit 
and tone of one large section of the Puritan party of the 
last quarter of the sixteenth century. It is not known who 
invented the character, nor is it possible to determine with 
any degree of certainty in most instances who wrote the 
various tracts that appeared during the course of the con- 
troversy. It was natural that suspicion should fall upon 
Cartwright, but Cartwright disavowed complicity in the pro- 
duction of the pamphlets and expressed his strong disap- 
proval of the methods of the Martinists. In the interests of 
self-protection, every effort had to be made by the Martin- 
ists to carry on their activities in secrecy. Their program 



Controversy and Free Speech 119 

was one of direct attack, not only upon the theory of 
episcopacy, but upon the private lives and practices of the 
bishops themselves. Whitgift, the archbishop of Canter- 
bury, Aylmer, the bishop of London, and Cooper, the bishop 
of Winchester, three princes of the church, were the targets 
at which the heaviest firing was directed. The ingenious 
methods by which the various writings of Martin were 
printed and distributed in defiance of the licensing laws of 
the press and the inquisition of Whitgift, as well as the 
mystery of the composition of the tracts themselves, have 
afforded one of the most intricate puzzles to which the 
antiquarian student of English literature can give his atten- 
tion. The important facts, however, are plain enough. 
Seven of the Marprelate tracts have survived, which show 
sufficiently the methods and purpose which governed the 
authors in their composition, besides a considerable num- 
ber of tracts, pamphlets, and books by opponents of Martin, 
or by favorers of the Puritan cause who were not within the 
inner circle of the Martinists. 

Of the various writings immediately preceding the publi- 
cation of the Marprelate tracts, two must be noticed because 
of their direct connection with the tracts themselves. One 
of these was John Udall's State of the Church of England.^^ 
This is a dialogue in which five characters take part : 
Diotrephes, a bishop, Tertullus, a papist, Demetrius, a 
usurer, Pandochus, an innkeeper, who is equally well in- 
clined to all teachings, and Paul, a preacher, who defends 
Puritan principles. This tract appeared in April, 1588, 
without license, and was printed by Robert Waldegrave. 
It is written with considerable animation and dramatic 
verisimilitude, and it presents the case against the bishops 
and in favor of " these precise and hot preachers," as they 
are called by Demetrius, in the most outspoken fashion. It 
*' Edited by Arber, English Scholar's Library, No. 5. 



120 English Literary Prose 

appeared anonymously, but Waldegrave's connection with 
it soon became known, his press and types were seized and 
destroyed, and he himself was compelled to flee the coun- 
try. Udall continued his campaign against episcopacy, and 
shortly afterwards was brought to trial on charge of sedition. 
Sentence of death was passed upon him, and though the 
sentence was not carried out, Udall died in prison, probably 
from neglect and the hardships of prison life. Udall was a 
distinguished scholar and a man of blameless private life. 
His misfortunes called forth expressions of sympathy for 
him and efiforts on his behalf from many quarters. One 
of his friends was John Penry, a Welsh Puritan, who seems 
now to have become the main mover in the Marprelate plot. 
Udall provided Penry with some of the materials utilized in 
the first of the Marprelate tracts, but beyond this he ap- 
parently had no connection with the plot itself. Before the 
appearance of any of the Marprelate tracts proper, however, 
Penry, who compares himself to St. Paul and Jeremiah and 
whose known writings show that he had command over the 
peculiar style of invective employed in the tracts, had issued 
the second of the two writings mentioned above. In 1587 
he published a work entitled A Treatise containing the 
aequity of an humble supplication which is to be exhibited 
unto her gracious majesty, and this high Court of Parlia- 
ment in the behalf e of the Countrey of Wales, that some 
order may be taken for the preaching of the Gospell among 
those people, in which he called attention to the neglected 
state of the church in Wales. The freedom with which 
Penry had criticised the church and its ministers in this 
work immediately aroused the hostility of Whitgift. The 
author of it was called before the court of High Commission, 
was accused of heresy and treason, and was cast into prison. 
The charges against him, however, were never specified, nor 
was he at this time brought to trial. After a period of im- 



Controversy and Free Speech 121 

prisonment, illegal since there was no charge against him, 
Penry was released, and it seems probable that soon after 
under the incentive of the harsh treatment which he had 
received, he set about the organization of the Marprelate 
conspiracy in which he was unquestionably one of the chief 
figures.^* It is not necessary to follow Penry through the 
various stages of his career, but it will be sufficient to men- 
tion that in 1593, by which time the Marprelate controversy 
was closed but not forgotten, he was brought to trial and 
was condemned and hanged on a charge of having written 
words inciting to rebellion and insurrection during his resi- 
dence in Scotland, whither he had fled to escape the dangers 
resulting from his suspected complicity in the Marprelate 
publications. If the matter had been brought to trial, doubt- 
less a conviction could have been secured in connection with 
the Marprelate tracts, but the other charges were apparently 
preferred as being more readily susceptible of proof. 

The first two of the Marprelate tracts, in abbreviated 
forms of their long titles called The Epistle and The 
Epitome, appeared in the latter part of the year 1588 and 
are on related subjects. The Epistle is announced as an in- 
troduction to Martin's proposed answer to a book by John 
Bridges, then dean of Salisbury and later bishop of Oxford, 
entitled A Defence of the Government established in the 
church of England, which had appeared the preceding year. 
Although Bridges, " doctor of Divillitie," is ostensibly the 
main object of attack in The Epistle, the tract is addressed 
to all, " whether fickers generall, worshipful paltripolitans, 
or any other of the holy league of subscription." ^^ Martin 

** See Wilson, " A New Tract from the Marprelate Press," The 
Library, X, 225-240, for a discussion of Penry's Exhortation, pub- 
lished under his own name in 1588. This tract is similar in tone to 
the anonymous Marprelate tracts. 

"^ Peterham's ed., p. i. 



122 English Literary Prose 

declares that he keeps a register of all the bishops' knaveries 
and that it is his intention to spare none. John Aylmer, 
bishop of London, " the Lord dumbe John," ^'^ comes in 
for a special share of attention, and Thomas Cooper, then 
dean of Winchester, whose " face is made of seasoned 
wainscot and will lie as fast as a dog can trot," ^'^ is not 
forgotten. A sample is given of the bishop of Gloucester's 
preaching, whose mannerism apparently it was to repeat 
certain words over and over : " John, John, the grace of 
God, the grace of God, the grace of God : gracious John, 
not graceless John, but gracious John. John, holy John, 
holy John, not John ful of holes, but holy John." ^^ Dean 
Bridges, however, is the center to which Martin returns 
from all his excursions, his main endeavor being to make 
Bridges seem ridiculous as a writer. The Dean is assumed 
not to have written Gammer Gurton's Needle, which shows 
both wit and invention, because his books " seeme to pro- 
ceede from the braynes of a woodcocke, as having neyther 
wit nor learning." "^ Martin quotes sentences from The 
Defence, which indeed are chaotic and unintelligible, de- 
claring that " a man might almost run himself out of breath 
before he could come to a full point in many places in your 
booke." ^°° He advises the bishops in general to write 
syllogistically if they must write, " for you shame your- 
selves when you use any continued speach, because your 
stile is so rude and barbarous." "^ Martin is evidently 
proud of his own style and speaks of it frequently. His 
command over sentence-structure, his ingenuity in subject 
matter, his lightness and high spirits, his willingness to do 
anything for the sake of vivacity and variety, give him a 
great advantage over his worthy but heavy adversary. 
The Epistle was followed almost immediately by The 

"" Peterham's ed., p. ii. 'Mbid., p. 60. '""Ibid., p. 15. 

" Ibid., p. 43. '" Ibid., p. 13. ^" Ibid., p. 68. 



Controversy and Free Speech 123 

Epitome, which professedly was to contain a summary of 
Bridge's arguments, with answers to them. In point of 
fact but a small part of the book is concerned with The 
Defence, although a few passages are quoted and answered 
in mock-serious fashion. In The Epitome as in The 
Epistle, Martin is a free lance, striking here and there 
wherever he sees a head, and more intent on making his 
opponents seem ridiculous than in answering their argu- 
ments. 

Smarting under the sting of Martin's satire, an answer 
was attempted, though not in kind,^°- by Thomas Cooper, 
who in 1589, as the official representative of the bishops, 
sent forth An Admonition to the People of England. In 
this admonition the writer professes not to satisfy all kinds 
of men, but only the " moderate and godly." He consistently 
maintains a dignified and restrained tone. Writing with 
considerable good sense and wisdom, he makes no attempt to 
defend abuses, but discourages rash accusations and of 
course denies many of Martin's specific charges. He pleads, 
in reproof of Martin, for a charitable attitude towards the 
bishops, who, being spiritual fathers, should not be treated 
as the sons of Noah treated their father, but their infirmities 
should be hidden from the public gaze. " A wart in the 
face and a blemish in a bishop is no small disfiguring of 
either of them " — but it is merely the prominence of the 
bishop which causes his blemishes to seem so great. ^"^^ Mar- 
tin is reproved for his looseness and boldness of speech, for 
his " bitter stile of malicious Momus dipt in the gall of 
ungodlinesse." ^°* But Cooper shows plainly enough that 
the wounds which Martin had inflicted were still burning. 



'" As Bacon approvingly noted in his Advertisement touching the 
controversies of the Church of England, Letters and Life, I, yj. 
^" Peterham's ed., p. 14. 
"Mbid., p. 44. 



124 English Literary Prose 

As a contrast to Martin's portrait of himself with a face 
of " seasoned wainscot," he endeavors to show Martin his 
" owne ougly shape," proceeding with a portrait of Martin 
like a medieval allegory, with Dolus, Fraus, Insidiae, etc., 
as part of the machinery. Nothing could show more com- 
pletely Cooper's inadequacy to meet Martin on his own 
ground than this labored effort, and indeed, as Hooker 
might have said, silence would have been a more effective 
answer to Martin's impertinence. 

As might have been foreseen, Cooper's Admonition, in- 
stead of quieting Martin, stirred him to new activities. In 
a fantastic broadside. Certain Mineral and Metaphysical 
Schoolpoints to be defended by the reverend bishops, Martin 
presents a list of thirty-seven absurd propositions, supposed 
to be held by various of his enemies, many of which are 
perversions of statements made in Cooper's Admonition. 
A fuller answer to the dean of Winchester, however, ap- 
peared soon, which took its title from a London street cry. 
Hay any worke for Cooper, or a brief e Pistle, directed by 
Waye of an hublication to the reverende Byshopps.^^^ 
Although the title calls this a " briefe Pistle," .it is the 
longest, as it is the most amusing of the Marprelate tracts. 
The impudence, the bluster, and the abusiveness of the 
earlier tracts are still much in evidence. With an impish 
Py, hy, hy, hy, of laughter Martin pokes fun at Cooper 
for his mispronunciation of a Greek word in one of his ser- 
mons."*^ " Hold my cloake there somebody," he says, " that 
I may go roundly to work." "^ And again, after a some- 
what serious passage, he recalls himself with the roar that 
is a regular part of his stock in trade : " Whau, whau, but 
where have I bin al this while. . . . Why Martin, I say, 

"^ That is, Have you any work for cooper, etc. 
"* Peterham's ed., p. lO. 
•" Ibid., p. 23. 



Controversy and Free Speech 125 

hast tow forgotten thy selfe ? " "* He continues then in a 
humorous passage in dialect : " But did I not say truely of 
thee y* thou canst cog, face and lye as fast as a dog can 
trot, and that thou hast a right seasoned wainscoate face of 
ti nowne, chwarnt tee, ti vorehead zaze hard as home." ^°^ 
The tract, however, is not entirely made up of such ridicule 
and buffoonery, but many grave charges are seriously and 
specifically brought against the bishops, and some attempt 
is made to answer the arguments of Cooper's Admonition. 
One of the most interesting passages of the tract is that in 
which Martin for a moment speaks seriously about himself : 

" Like you any of these Nuts, John Canterbury ? ", he 
says to Whitgift, " his Canterburinesse." " I am not dis- 
posed to jest in this serious matter. I am called Martin 
Marprelat. There be many that greatly dislike my doinges. 
I may have my wants I know. For I am a man. But my 
course I knowe to be ordinary and lawfuU. I sawe the 
cause of Christ's government, and of the Bishops anti- 
christian dealing to be hidden. The most part of men 
could not be gotten to read any thing written in the defence 
of the on[e] and against the other. I bethought mee there- 
fore of a way whereby men might be drawne to do both, 
perceiving the humors of men in these times (especially of 
those that are in any place) to be given to mirth. I tooke 
that course. I might lawfully do it. I, for jesting is law- 
ful by circumstances, even in the greatest matters. The 
circumstances of time, place and persons urged me there- 
unto. I never profaned the word in any jest. Other 
mirth I used as a covert, wherein I would bring the truth 
into light. The Lord being the authour both of mirth and 
gravitie, is it not lawfull in it selfe for the trueth to use 
eyther of these wayes when the circumstances do make it 
lawful? . . . My purpose was and is to do good. I know 
I have don no harme, howsoever some may judg Martin 
to mar al . . . I know I am disliked of many which are 
your enemies, that is of many which you cal puritans. It 

"* Peterham's ed., p. 53. "" Ibid., p. 65. 



126 English Literary Prose 

is their weaknes. I am threatened to be hanged by you. 
What though I were hanged, do you thinke your cause 
shalbe the better. For the day that you hange Martin, 
assure your selves, there wil 20. Martins spring in my 
place." "° 

This defense of his methods was continued by Martin in 
the tract which followed, Theses Martinianae, purporting to 
have been set forth as a posthumous work of Martin's, by 
a " prety stripling of his, Martin Junior, and dedicated by 
him to his good neame and nuncka, MaistSr John Kanker- 
bury." After the Theses came The just censure and re- 
proof e of Martin Junior, by another member of this imagi- 
nary family, " his reverend and elder brother, Martin 
Senior." The last of the Martinist tracts, The Protestatyon 
of Martin Marprelat, which appeared in the latter part of 
1589, was written and published after the capture of the 
secret press which the Martinists had used hitherto, and it 
consists mainly of a protestation on Martin's part of his 
intention to continue the defense of his cause, and of a chal- 
lenge to the prelates to discuss openly the questions in dis- 
pute between them. 

In the wake of the genuine Marprelate tracts there fol- 
lowed a number of imitations and rejoinders. Recognizing 
the futility of any serious answer to Martin, the bishops, 
according to Walton with the approval of Whitgift, sought 
for aid among the professed literary wits of the day. In 
response to this call, tracts were written by John Lyly, 
Thomas Nashe, whose influence in silencing Martin Walton 
greatly exaggerates, and Richard Harvey, all of whom owe 
a great deal to Martin's style but never equal it. Lyly's 
Pappe with a hatchet is an obvious effort to out-Martin 
Martin in his own manner. The writer professes " rayling," 
and tries to coin words after the fashion of Martin. The 

"" Peterham's ed., pp. 33-41. 



Controversy and Free Speech 127 

tract is much more noisy and scurrilous than Martin, lacking 
of course Martin's underlying seriousness of purpose and 
consistently substituting coarseness for Martin's wit. The 
author is at a disadvantage also in not knowing who Martin 
actually is, and consequently his personal charges must all 
be general and manifestly invented. An Almond for a 
Parrat, which may have been written by Nashe, is preceded 
by a letter addressed to " Monsieur du Kempe, Jestmonger 
and Vice-gerent generall to the Ghost of Dicke Tarlton," 
and the whole tract is a piece of rather elaborate fooling. 
Martin's style apparently impressed the author of this tract 
deeply, although he declares that " the filth of the stewes, 
distild into ribauldry termes, cannot confectionate a more 
intemperate stile then his Pamphlets." ^" Commenting on 
his own style, he remarks that Martin thinks no man can 
write but himself, adding that he is willing " to try it out 
by the teeth for the best benefice in England." ^^^ Also in 
a ranting style imitative of Martin is the Plaine Percevall 
of Richard Harvey, in which Plain Percevall (who is a very 
distant cousin indeed of the old Piers) takes the part of 
peacemaker. The author implies that Martin is merely 
the literary tool of more powerful persons. " I pray thee," 
he says, " make once an auricular confession, tell me in 
mine eare : is the desire of Reformation so deeply imprinted 
in thine heart, as the terme is often printed in thy papers? 
Is it conscience or lucre that spurgals thy hackney pen to 
force it take so high a hedge as thou leapest at?""^ But 
these and the other imitative tracts which attended and fol- 
lowed the publication of Martin's own writings are all of 
secondary inspiration and prove that the new and original 
note, the one which held the attention not only of the digni- 

*" Peterham's ed., p. 11. 
"^ Ibid., p. 44- 
"' Ibid., p. 10. 



128 English Literary Prose 

taries of the church and their Puritan enemies but of the 
literary public as well, was the one which was struck by the 
mysterious Martin himself. 

In the development of English prose, the Marprelate 
tracts occupy a place in that long line of invective contro- 
versial writing which begins with Wiclif's sermons, and 
which finds in Martin not its final but perhaps its most 
picturesque and least restrained expression. Although popu- 
lar in their appeal, the Marprelate tracts are not the work 
of an ignorant or uneducated man any more than the dis- 
quisitions of Piers Plowman or Jack Upland were. Behind 
the disguise of an apparently erratic popular style, one per- 
ceives in Martin not only profound feeling but also clear 
comprehension of the two main points of his opposition 
to the bishops, first that they support a false form of 
ecclesiastical government, and second, that they are per- 
sonally corrupt, ignorant, and incompetent. In his shame- 
less references to persons by name and in his free use of 
slanderous material, all under cover of anonymity, Martin 
indeed exceeds the limits of anything that had hitherto ap- 
peared in English invective, nor are his methods, we may 
think, quite justified by his excuses. The significant point 
is, however, that Martin here also employed his method as 
a trained writer, perfectly conscious of the effects which he 
wished to secure. Comparison with his literary opponents, 
Lyly, Nashe, and Harvey, shows his superiority over them. 
They were drawn into the controversy in part undoubtedly 
for mercenary reasons and perhaps in part from a desire 
to try their metal against so skillful a writer as Martin. 
They endeavored to answer wit with wit, but where Martin's 
charges against his enemies have the flavor of genuine in- 
cidents of real life, told with all of Martin's peculiar vivacity, 
his imitators were compelled to fall back upon ' merry 
jests ' and tales of the conventional popular style. The 



Controversy and Free Speech 129 

great achievement of Martin was the creation of so real 
a character as Martin himself. This creation vv^as a ' poetic ' 
device of the kind which Tindale criticised in the writings of 
More. Nor did the Puritans of Martin's own day alto- 
gether approve of his methods. Cartwright and others 
specifically condemned them, not only because of the license 
of ink with which Martin taunted his enemies, but also 
from the feeling that Martin '.vas lowering the tone of seri- 
ous discussion by introducing too great an element of fancy 
and literary artifice, the tricks of the stage, as they were 
regarded, into his writings. Bacon in a scathing rebuke of 
what he characterized as the spirit of profane scoffing in the 
controversial writing of the day evidently alludes to Martin 
when he speaks of " this immodest and deformed manner 
of writing lately entertained, whereby matters of religion 
are handled in the style of the stage." "* The proper 
method of controversy, as it was commonly considered, was 
first to state or quote, point by point, the specific opinions 
of your opponent, following each point by its refutation. 
Martin was aware of this, but he declares that such writings 
were not read. It is curious to find that the dignified 
Hooker, who also departed from the conventional method, 
and the flippant Martin were subjected to the same kind of 
criticism. As it was Hooker's merit to show that con- 
troversy need not necessarily dwell merely upon details and 
points but may properly concern itself with general prin- 
ciples, so it was Martin's particular achievement to illustrate 
the fact that controversial writing need not be heavy, dry, 
and pedantic. 

The model employed by the inventor of the character of 

Martin may have been, as was frequently charged against 

him, some popular actor of the day, like Tarleton or Kemp. 

Martin always monologizes. He appears alone upon the 

"^ Letters and Life, I, 76. 



130 English Literary Prose 

stage, figuratively speaking, and pours forth his torrent of 
invective in the ranting, hufif-snuff style which had been 
made familiar to the public not only by comic actors but 
by many a dithyrambic popular preacher. He is fond of 
puns, of mutilated and newly invented words, of loud 
ejaculations and shoutings, which serve the same humorous 
purpose as the thwackings of the Merry Andrew or the 
antics of the Vice in the old comedy. But his changes are 
sudden. In an instant he drops the mask of Momus, delivers 
a quick home thrust that Dryden might envy, and then back 
to his buffoonery. Although the term was frequently ap- 
plied to him by his victims, Martin does not deserve to bef 
called scurrilous. Impertinent and facetious, often bitterly 
personal in his more serious charges, he does not descend to 
indecencies. He merely says in writing what many respect- 
able Puritans doubtless said in conversation. On the other 
hand, neither Martin's inventor nor Puritans in general 
would have been willing to regard Martin as typical of their 
class. The character was hastily conceived as a dramatic 
invention fitted to arrest and hold attention by reason of its 
extravagance. A longer period of reflection might have 
given the character a greater depth and truthfulness, at the 
same time freeing it of some of its superabundant vivacity. 
The germ of an efifective literary satire is contained in the 
creation, to which a more mature art might have given per- 
manent form. In the circumstances under which the tracts 
were written, however, the mere invention of so picturesque 
and consistent a device as Martin Marprelate was no small 
literary achievement. Only the vigilance and the extreme 
zeal of the friends of episcopacy in suppressing the Mar- 
prelate tracts could have prevented such a character from 
developing into a genuinely popular hero of Puritanism. 



Controversy and Free Speech 131 

IV 

Though he was not immediately connected with the Mar- 
prelate controversy, or indeed after his early years with any 
controversy, it was the controversial spirit of the age which 
provided Hooker with the main incentive to the composition 
of his great work, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. 
This book is a survey of the chief points in ecclesiastical 
procedure and doctrine which were under discussion in the 
second half of the sixteenth century, especially those 
points debated in the several writings of Cartwright and 
Whitgift. It is genuinely judicial and philosophical in 
tone, for Hooker temperamentally was better fitted for 
peaceable than for violent discussion. 

After some years at Oxford, Hooker retired in 1584 to 
the quiet country living of Drayton Beauchamp, in Buck- 
inghamshire. But he was not permitted to remain long in 
this congenial retreat. In the following year, through the 
influence of Whitgift, he was appointed Master of the 
Temple, as a compromise candidate instead of the well- 
known Puritan, Walter Travers, author of the Ecclesiasticae 
Disciplinae et Anglicanae Ecclesiae . . . explicatio. Travers 
was already afternoon reader in the Temple and was being 
strongly recommended by his friends and followers for the 
mastership. Unwillingly Hooker left his country living 
where, in his own words as quoted by Walton in his Life 
of Hooker, he might " see God's blessing spring out of 
the earth and be free from noise, and eat that bread which 
he might more properly call his own in privacy and quiet- 
ness," for the more dignified but less peaceful post of 
preacher in the Temple. As Alaster of the Temple, Hooker 
found himself under the necessity of expressing fully and 
clearly the position he wished to occupy in the engrossing 
questions of the day concerning ecclesiastical discipline and 



132 English Literary Prose 

government. His own opinions were by no means uncer- 
tain, and opposed as they were in most respects to those 
of Travers, the Temple soon became the scene of a vigorous 
debate. In the familiar words preserved by Fuller and 
Walton, " the pulpit spoke pure Canterbury in the morning 
and Geneva in the afternoon, until Travers was silenced." 
The silencing of Travers was not long delayed. Although 
the discussion between Hooker and Travers was earnest, 
it seems to have •been conducted in a dignified manner and 
with little of the personal abuse characteristic of most de- 
bates of the times. ^^^ At the close of it, the rare spectacle is 
presented of two theological controversialists who, separated 
with respect for each other, and with their self-respect main- 
tained. In the eyes of Whitgift, however, any such discus- 
sion, no matter how dignified, was unseemly, and in his 
usual way, he brought it to an end by inhibiting Travers 
from preaching, mainly on the ground of irregularity in his 
ordination. 

Though the immediate discussion was over, Hooker's 
mind was by no means at rest. He was already revolving 
the project of a great work in which the nature and author- 
ity of laws and government should be fundamentally ex- 
amined. This work was begun at the Temple, but Hooker 
soon found the atmosphere of the place uncongenial to the 
carrying out of his task. He therefore wrote to the arch- 
bishop that he was weary of the " noise and oppositions " 
of the place, that God and nature did not intend him for 
contentions, but for " study and quietness," and he con- 
cluded with a request that he might be removed to some 
quiet charge where he could proceed with the treatise 
already begun, on " the justification of the laws of our 
ecclesiastical polity." This modest request was granted, and 



lis 



Hooker and Travers were related by marriage, Travers' 
brother having married Hooker's sister. 



Controversy and Free Speech 133 

in the year 1591 he entered into the living of Boscombe, 
near Salisbury, exchanging this in 1595 for the living of 
Bishopsborne, near Canterbury. There are no startfing or 
dramatic events in the life of Hooker. Walton presents a 
charming picture of him, in which his humility, however, 
is somewhat exaggerated at the expense of his sagacity, and 
the testimony of all his contemporaries is at one in finding 
in him the perfect type of the learned but benign and gentle 
scholar. As a preacher. Hooker was lacking in animation, 
and being short-sighted, " where he fixt his eyes at the 
beginning of his sermon, there they continued till it was 
ended." ^'^^ Fuller preserves the report that when Hooker 
and Travers were both preaching at the Temple, " the con- 
gregation ebbed in the morning and flowed in the after- 
noon. " ^^^ But it was " the happy pen of this humble man " 
that expressed his character most fully, and it is by means 
of these writings that later generations of Englishmen have 
been led to understand and to admire his real greatness 
of mind and of soul. 

The design of Hooker's monumental book was carefully 
considered, and, it seems probable, almost completely carried 
out by the author. The whole was to consist of eight 
parts or books, but unfortunately only the first five were 
printed at the time of Hooker's death in 1600. The remain- 
ing three books, probably nearly ready for publication as 
Hooker left them, have suffered both from the carelessness 
and the editorial interference of Hooker's friends. The 
original sixth book, indeed, is generally thought to have 
been altogether lost, that which is now published as the 
sixth book being made up from other of Hooker's writings 
which formed no part of his original plan. The seventh 
and eighth books, as printed, are probably revisions of 
Hooker's own manuscript. Those books which appeared in 

"' Walton's Life. "' Fuller, Bk. IX, 216. 



134 English Literary Prose 

Hooker's lifetime were issued in two sections. The first 
four, published without date, appeared, according to Walton, 
in 1594, having been entered in the Stationers' Register the 
preceding year. The fifth book was published by itself in 
1597. The fifth book is the longest, equaling in length the 
first four books, and together with the first book, is that part 
of Hooker's work which is now most generally read. 

The first book, which is introductory to the whole work, 
presents a broad philosophic discussion of " laws and their 
several kinds in general." It is Hooker's purpose here, 
following his consistent practice of stating general prin- 
ciples before proceeding to specific details, to discover " the 
grounds and first original causes " of all laws. It is his 
fundamental position that all things work according to law, 
by which he means in accordance with reason and purpose. 
The supreme all-comprehending law is the law of God, 
whose nature it is to work only according to the reasonable 
mandates of his will. Reason, therefore, there always must 
be in the working of God, although man in his weakness 
may not be able to discern this reason. As Hooker under- 
stands the term, law means not merely the " rule of work- 
ing which superior authority imposeth," but any kind of 
rule or canon " whereby actions are framed." ^^^ The rule 
of the working of God is therefore the framing of his 
actions in harmony with his will. That part of God's law 
which acts through natural agents is called usually " nature's 
law " ; the law of reason " bindeth creatures reasonable in 
this world," divine law is known to man only by special 
revelation from God, and human law is that which men, 
" out of the law either of reason or of God probably gath- 
ering to be expedient," ^^^ make to be a law. The law of 
God's being by which he must work in accord with the 
reasonable dictates of his will Hooker calls " the first eternal 

''' Bk. I, ed. Church, p. 11. "" Ibid., p. 11. 



Controversy and Free Speech 135 

law," and the law which regulates the actions of all God's 
creatures he calls " the second eternal law." Nothing 
therefore stands outside the rule of law. God himself can- 
not act by caprice, since all his actions must spring from his 
will, which is governed by the dictates of reason and of 
the good. And inasmuch as all creatures of God act by 
consent of God, the workings of the second eternal law are 
" in some sort ordered by the first eternal law." ^-" Hooker 
then proceeds in a passage of great beauty to distinguish 
between those natural agents whose actions are involuntary, 
the winds, the sun, and the rain, all of them under the 
guidance of a director of infinite knowledge, and those 
creatures of God who are endowed with the power of volun- 
tary action. Of these, the highest in order are the angels, 
in whom the desire to resemble God in goodness, " maketh 
them unweariable and even unsatiable in their longing to 
do by all means all manner good unto all the creatures of 
God, but especially unto the children of men, in the coun- 
tenance of whose nature, looking downward, they behold 
themselves beneath themselves, even as upward, in God, 
beneath whom themselves are, they see that character which 
is nowhere but in themselves and us resembled." ^-^ Like 
the angels, man is free in his actions, and again like them, 
the motive force of his action is the desire of goodness. 
But man dift'ers from the higher powers in that the latter 
" already have full and complete knowledge in the highest 
degree that can be imparted to them," ^^^ whereas man con- 
tinually strives towards that which, by the limits of his 
nature, is unattainable. Man's reach exceeds his grasp, in 
the words of a modern poet. 

As the guide and director in the discovery of the good, 
man is governed by reason. " For the laws of well-doing 
are the dictates of right reason. Children, which are not as 

»'" Church, p. II. '"Ibid., p. 19. '^Mbid., p. 24. 



136 English Literary Prose 

yet come unto those years whereat they may have ; again, 
innocents, which are excluded by natural defect from ever 
having; thirdly, madmen, which for the present cannot pos- 
sibly have the use of right reason to guide themselves, have 
for their guide the reason that guideth other men, which 
are tutors over them to seek and to procure their good for 
them. In the rest there is that light of reason, whereby 
good may be known from evil, and which discovering the 
same rightly is termed right." ^^^ Evil in man's actions 
results not from an inherent love of evil, but from the choice 
of the less good in preference to the greater good, and the 
causes why man sometimes chooses the less good are mainly 
ignorance and sloth. " Goodness doth not move by being, 
but by being apparent ; and therefore many things are 
neglected which are most precious, only because the value 
of them lieth hid." ^-* And again custom or habit, " inuring 
the mind by long practice, and so leaving there a sensible 
impression, prevail eth more than reasonable persuasion what 
way soever. Reason therefore may rightly discern the thing 
which is good, and yet the will of man not incline itself 
thereunto, as oft as the prejudice of sensible experience doth 
oversway." ^^^ 

Having laid this preliminary foundation of general prin- 
ciples, Hooker then proceeds to the practically more impor- 
tant task of showing by what signs and tokens man may 
know the good. Of these the most certain proof of the 
good is that " all men do so account it." ^-^ " The general 
and perpetual voice of men is as the sentence of God him- 
self. For that which all men have at all times learned, 
nature herself must needs have taught ; and God being the 
author of nature, her voice is but his instrument." ^" 
Action in harmony with the nature of its being is the surest 

^'^ Church, pp. 29-30. ^" Ibid., p. 31. '"' Ibid., pp. 35-36. 

'"Ibid., p. 31. '^"Ibid., p. 35. 



Controversy and Free Speech 137 

test of the good for every creature. By this test man as an 
individual aspires towards the goodness of God which is re- 
flected in him, and as a social being, living in congregation 
with other men, he governs himself in such a way as 
neither to occasion injury to others nor suffer it himself. 
This is righteousness, the reasonable duty of man to God 
and his fellow-man, just as transgression of these laws of 
his being is sin. Nature herself is the great teacher of 
laws and statutes whereby men are to live. And formal 
laws, such as are fashioned by social and political bodies, 
are merely outdraughts from this great law of nature, 
formulated in various ways as expediency teaches in order 
that men may live with least hindrance in harmony with 
the law of their nature. No one form of government, there- 
fore, has divine right, but the choice is left arbitrary, accord- 
ing as circumstances shall dictate. And since the choice of 
governments is free, manifestly also the forms of social and 
political laws may be altered as experience shows how they 
may be brought into closer harmony with the laws of nature 
and reason. Laws which men thus formulate Hooker calls 
positive laws, and declares that they are not universally 
binding, being but man's fallible and occasional interpreta- 
tion of the law of nature. On the other hand a genuine law 
of nature, whether formulated or not, is eternal and uni- 
versally binding. 

In the search for perfection, mankind is led to seek three 
kinds of good, first a sensual, which is concerned with the 
physical accompaniments of life, second an intellectual, 
which is concerned with such " knowledge and virtue as 
doth most commend men " ^^^ to each other in the social 
human relations, and third a spiritual, which has to do with 
man's imperfect apprehension of things spiritual and super- 
natural, the eternal law of God's being. What, then, are 

*'' Church, p. yz. 



138 English Literary Prose 

the signs and tokens of right reason on the part of man in 
this third and most important of his aspirations? It is in 
answering this question that Hooker makes clear the funda- 
mental difference between his own way of thinking and the 
narrow Puritanism of the Bible-men which for two cen- 
turies it had been their endeavor to force upon the English 
mind. Accepting the scriptures as a divinely inspired gift 
of God, the necessary position to take in that day, Hooker 
looks upon them as only one of the ways in which the 
law of God's being is revealed to man. In them there are 
contained many laws or truths of universal and eternal 
value, but they also contain many positive laws, " but per- 
sonally expedient to be practised of certain men." ^^^ To 
raise such expedient laws to the position of eternal laws, 
that is, to take every statement of the scriptures as a direct 
command of God to all men, in the manner of many Puritan 
thinkers, would be to impose upon man a tyranny irrational 
and intolerable. Every positive law, even of the scriptures, 
must first be tested by its agreement or disagreement with 
the eternal laws of nature before it can be accepted as of 
general value. But more than this. The scriptures contain 
many eternal laws or truths necessary to salvation. How 
are we to know these truths, except by the aid of natural 
reason, " when of things necessary the very chiefest is to 
know what books we are bound to esteem holy, which point 
is confessed impossible for the scripture itself to teach? " ^^° 
Supplementing, completing every law of the scriptures, every 
law or tradition of the church, every law of states and other 
bodies and every custom of society, the law of reason, im- 
planted in man by God as one of the means of revealing 
himself, must help man to the knowledge of those things 
which he is capable of knowing. Revealed religion is an 
aid to the natural understanding, not, with responsible 
^'' Church, p. 84. "" Ibid., p. 86. 



Controversy and Free Speech 139 

beings, a substitute for it. Rites and customs are merely ex- 
pedient practices which justify themselves only as they help 
in the perception of truth. Over all, guiding all, is the will 
of man making for goodness and the intelligent understand- 
ing of man whereby he examines into the causes, reasons, 
and grounds of the good in order that he may accept it. 

In this spirit of earnest and wise endeavor it was that 
Hooker set about his great task of finding some " method 
of reducing the laws whereof there is present controversy 
unto their first original causes," for, he continues, " Is there 
any thing which can either be thoroughly understood or 
soundly judged of, till the very first causes and principles 
from which originally it springeth be made manifest? " ^^^ 
But though such is briefly the manner in which Hooker 
approaches his subject in this first book, it is only fair to 
add that no summary abstract can do justice to the firm- 
ness and the breadth of his hold upon ideas, to the wealth 
of suggestion and illustration he displays in expounding 
them, to the admirable clearness of his exposition, or to the 
deep and serene love of law, whose " seat is the bosom of 
God, her voice the harmony of the world," that lends life 
and color to the most abstract of his general principles. 

The second book discusses in detail a question to which a 
general answer had already been given in the first book, that 
is, whether " scripture is the only rule of all things which in 
this life may be done by men." But here also, Hooker keeps 
himself free, as far as possible, from controversy with 
specific persons. His endeavor is to answer a general posi- 
tion, not to overcome an opponent in an argument. Open- 
ing with a discussion of the real nature of the church, the 
true members of which are clearly known only to God, " who 
seeth their hearts and understandeth all their secret cogita- 
tions," ^^- the third book continues with the discussion begun 

'" Church, p. 98. '"' Works, ed. Keble, I, 219. 



140 English Literary Prose 

in the second by inquiring whether " in scripture there must 
be of necessity contained a form of church poUty, the laws 
whereof may in nowise be ahered." Hooker's answer to 
this question is, obviously, that forms of church polity 
are merely the positive and expedient practices of men, 
that no one form of church government is necessary 
to salvation, and that the government of the church 
is to be determined as experience and reason dictate. 
The fourth book opens with a general discussion of the 
use of ceremonies in the church, and considers then in 
detail the charge that the established church had retained 
many rites and ceremonies from the Roman church which 
it should have followed the example of certain reformed 
churches in discarding. 

The famous fifth book, although it really continues the 
subject of the fourth, its theme being announced as the 
alleged superstitions and corrupt practices which survived 
in the Established Church, takes a fresh start and treats its 
subject with a fullness and independence which give the 
book somewhat the character of a separate work. One 
notes with pleasure that with the passing of time, Hooker's 
spirit has not become harsh or bitter towards his opponents, 
but if anything, his charity and his serene wisdom are 
greater than ever. The wits of the multitude he perceives 
are not naturally perverse, but " being possesst with some 
notable either dislike or liking of any one thing whatsoever, 
sundry other in the mean time may escape them unper- 
ceived." ^^^ This loose regard of circumstances is the nurse 
of vulgar folly.^"^ For his own part Hooker declares his 
purpose to be to help men to think soundly and on all 
sides of subjects. He cares little for " sharp and subtile 
discourses of wit," and his endeavor is not so much to over- 
throw his opponents, as " to yield them just and reasonable 

''' Bk. V, ed. Bayne, p. 8. '" Ibid., p. 15. 



Controversy and Free Speech 141 

cause of these things, which for want of due consideration 
heretofore, they misconceived." ^^^ He reprehends that art 
of contradiction by scorn and mockery, with its " wanton 
superfluity of wit, too much insuUing over the patience of 
more virtuously disposed minds." ^^'^ His own patience sel- 
dom gives way. Sometimes he feels that if it were not 
" to satisfy the minds of the simpler sort of men," many 
of the contemporary questions of controversy would not be 
worth the labor required to answer them.^^^ " We are still 
persuaded," he says again, "that a bare denial is answer 
sufficient to things which mere fancy objecteth ; and that 
the best apology to words of scorn and petulancy is Isack's 
apology to his brother Ishmael, the apology which patience 
and silence maketh. Our answer therefore to their reasons 
is no ; to their scoffs, nothing." ^^® 

The specific subjects which Hooker discusses in the fifth 
book are many and varied. With characteristic Elizabethan 
feeling for stately ceremony, he argues for a certain degree 
of sumptuousness in church structures and furniture. The 
exaggerated importance of the sermon and the comparative 
neglect of prayer in the Puritan discipline he notes with dis- 
approval, and of course defends the use of fixed forms in the 
church service, both for the sake of dignity and as the best 
expression of social religious feeling. In a noble passage, 
which Milton must have read with pleasure, he justifies the 
art of music, not only for its general human interest, but 
also as an effective means of divine worship. But nowhere, 
perhaps, does Hooker rise to greater heights of dignity and 
eloquence than in the carefully constructed chapter, Of the 
Cross in Baptism, with its admirable balance between super- 
stition and genuine reverence, or in that chapter of even 
profounder feeling. Of the Sacrament of the Body and 



ise 



Bayne, p. 14. ''' Ibid., p. 54. 

Ibid., p. 21. -^* Ibid., p. 150. 



142 English Literary Prose 

Blood of Christ, where without evading the theoretical 
sides of this most engrossing theological question of the 
times, Hooker reveals both practical wisdom and the piety 
of a genuinely religious nature in the expressed wish that 
" men would more give themselves to meditate with silence 
what we have by the sacrament, and less to dispute of the 
manner how." ^^^ 

Of the three remaining books it will be sufficient to note 
that, in the form in which they have been preserved, the 
sixth treats mainly of the Puritan contention that the scrip- 
tures themselves establish the particular form of church 
government by lay elders advocated in the Puritan disci- 
pline, that the seventh is a formal defense of the episcopal 
form of church government, and that the eighth discusses 
the general question of the relation of church and state 
and the degree and nature of the king's authority in ecclesi- 
astical matters. 

With Hooker's claims to distinction as a philosopher and 
theologian we are not here primarily concerned. That he 
owed much to Aristotle, to the Greek fathers, to St. 
Augustine, to Thomas Aquinas, and to others, is sufficiently 
evident from the annotations with which the labors of his 
editors have illustrated his writings. But whether or not 
Hooker was great or original as a thinker, he was both re- 
garded as a temper of mind revealing itself through the 
technic of literary expression. His book, in the first place, 
has Elizabethan largeness of conception and of execution. 
It is a work of the age of giants, worthy of its place in the 
rank with the writings of Bacon, Shakspere, and the other 
great Elizabethans. Nor does Hooker's name sufifer when 
it is coupled with that of Aristotle, " the patriarch of phi- 
losophers," as he is called by the writer of A Christian 
Letter of Certain English Protestants,^*^ in which under the 
Bayne, p. 373. "" Ibid., Eccles. Polity, p. 627. 



139 



Controversy and Free Speech 143 

cover of general approval much fault is found both with 
Hooker's personality and style. The resemblance to Aris- 
totle, in the eyes of the writer of this letter and of others in 
that day, seemed not altogether to Hooker's credit. His 
book seemed long and tedious, " in a style not usual and 
(as we verily think) the like hard to be found, far differing 
from the simplicity of the holy scripture, and nothing after 
the frame of the writings of the reverend and learned 
Fathers of our Church, as of Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, 
Jewel, Whitgeeft, Fox, Fulke, etc." ^*^ Hooker's prefaces 
and discourses before he comes to the treatment of specific 
questions seem particularly troublesome to his critic, who 
likens himself to a man who, " afar off beholding a briar 
tree all blown over with his flowers," approaches near 
only to find himself deceived, and the book " far unlike the 
goodly show and appearance." Much more to the taste of 
the times was the cruder method in controversy after which 
the opinions of one's adversary were "judicially set 
down " and answers to them found, " either from holy 
Scripture, from Fathers, or new writers, without all circum- 
ference and crooked windings, directly applied." ^*- The 
very largeness of Hooker's mind made him seem unin- 
telligible to many of his contemporaries, who found in the 
ample sweep of his reasoning merely an evidence of pride 
of intellect. But with Hooker controversy becomes some- 
thing more than an ephemeral and personal interchange of 
opinion. The right of private judgment enounced by 
Wiclif and many a seeker after freedom of thought follow- 
ing him, is also defended by Hooker, who goes even further 
than Wiclif in the vindication of natural reason. But Puri- 
tanism, as it narrowed its field of vision, came to be more 
and more dogmatic, and in the conviction of its own right- 
eousness, to exert more and more the right of personal 
*" Bayne, p. 630. ^'' Ibid., p. 630. 



144 English Literary Prose 

criticism. The " snibbing " of Wiclif's day results ultimately 
in the impudence and violence of Martin Marprelate. It 
was Hooker who saved English controversy from smother- 
ing itself in a wallow of personal abuse, and who showed 
how really great subjects could be treated in a reasonable and 
philosophical way. His service was not merely to the 
Established Church of England, but to the English people, 
and Puritanism itself in the succeeding generation took on 
an added dignity by following the example and standards 
which Hooker had provided. 

The greatness of mind which appears in Hooker's feeling 
for the structure of his subject as a whole, is manifest also 
in the minuter details of the technic of style. He is above 
all an artist in the grand style, which he employs not as a 
rhetorical garment, but because it is the only appropriate 
expression of his grave and lofty mind. Censured by the 
author of the Christian Letter because his manner of writing 
was not like other men's, Hooker answers : " You might 
with as great discretion find fault that I look not like Calvin, 
Beza, Paulus Fagius, P. Martyr, M. Luther. For I hold 
it as possible to be like all those in countenance as them in 
style whom you have mentioned. ... I m.ust look as nature, 
speak as custom, and think as God's good Spirit hath 
taught me, judge you howsoever of my mind, or of my 
style, or if you will of my look also." ^^^ The same feeling 
for order and di;{nity which led Hooker to defend what he 
conceived to be the most orderly and dignified form of 
church government and to advocate the maintenance in the 
church of certain becoming rites and ceremonies which the 
Puritans would have swept aside in the interests of a 
barren simplicity, governed him in the formation of his 
literary style. By his day it had been established once and 
■for all that English controversy must be carried on in the 
"^ Bayne, p. 630, note 219. 



Controversy and Free Speech 145 

English tongue. Latin therefore was not permitted him, 
nor could he write, as Pecock had mistakenly done, in a 
technical language of philosophical and theological discus- 
sion. His problem was to write in such a way as to be 
intelligible to the average English mind without, if possible, 
sacrificing any of the inherent dignity of his subject. How 
well he solved this problem, many succeeding generations 
of readers have borne evidence. The Ecclesiastical Polity 
is the one book in the English controversies of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries which still has a permanent and 
general interest, and it has this interest not merely for the 
significance of its thought, but in large measure for the 
spirit and manner in which Hooker treated his subject. 
In the words recorded by Walton, the book has got " rever- 
ence with age." 

Hooker was consciously and intentionally literary. He 
made no attempt to meet Martin and his crew on their own 
ground, to make his writing popular by making it amusing. 
Nor did he cheapen his phrase by yielding to contemporary 
fashionable notions of wit and eloquence. His standard of 
dignity he found in Aristotle, in Cicero, Chrysostom, St. 
Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas. At times he writes with 
the epigrammatic and aphoristic brevity of Bacon, and very 
rarely he descends to the simple picturesque style of native 
colloquial origin which was the almost universal possession 
of English writers of the Elizabethan age. But in the main 
Hooker seldom falls below the lofty mark he set for him- 
self. What one misses most of all, though not with sur- 
prise, is the power of expressing concrete detail vividly 
which so many Elizabethan writers possessed. But 
Hooker's life was mainly the life of the intellect and his 
writing could not be picturesque. He thought in concepts,' 
not in images. Nor, aside from occasional passages of 
grave irony, does one find in Hooker much sense of 



146 English Literary Prose 

humor. His eyes were turned too intently inward in serene 
contemplation of the activities of his own mind to permit 
him to see the rich contrasts of the life about him, the 
heroic jostling the grotesque, which other English writers 
found so fascinating. Echoes from neither court nor town 
find their way to Hooker's secluded retreat, and even the 
beauties of nature, those blessings of God which he re- 
joiced to see spring out of the earth and by which through- 
out his life he was surrounded, all belong to another order 
of things from that in which Hooker most truly lived. The 
individual in his experience is always transmuted into the 
general, and though the vision of natural objects and forces 
often moves him to expression of great power and majesty, 
this vision is always an inward one, like that of Lucretius 
whom he in many respects resembles, not the vision of 
immediate, tangible realities in a circumjacent world. 

Order and dignity, the two great passions of Hooker's 
life, are the principles which govern his feeling for the 
structure of the sentence as well as for the structure of the 
whole. The loose shambling sentence of the naive English 
style he never employs. Usually long, sometimes involved, 
and not always at the first reading clear. Hooker's sentences 
generally fall into the long rolling cadences of the periodic 
structure. They are not unvaried, however, and the ground 
tone of the harmony is now and then interrupted by short 
quick sentences, the ' little daggers ' ^** recommended by 
Cicero for variety. Another device which he occasionally 
employs to hasten the action is of Latin origin and con- 
sists in the omission of the verb entirely, or of all except the 
past participle.^*^ The antithetic sentence of Lyly and his 

^** pugiuncitlis, Orator, § 224. 

"° As in the following instances from the opening of Bk. I : 
Many times no reason known to us (Church, p. 9) ; Who the guide 
of nature but only the God of nature? (ibid., p. 15); Therefore 
Christianity to be embraced, whatsoever calamities in those times it 



Controversy and Free Speech 147 

Euphuistic imitators did not extend its influence so far as 
Hooker, nor was he affected by the compHcated and manner- 
istic style of Sidney. In general the surface ornamentation 
of style, such as verbal antithesis and balance, alliteration, 
heaping of synonymous words, plays upon words, and 
learned or picturesque allusions, appears scarcely at all in 
Hooker's writing. 

At first acquaintance certain passages in the Ecclesiastical 
Polity impress the modern reader as being heavy and ob- 
scure. This is partly due to the comprehensiveness of the 
thought to be expressed, and partly also to Hooker's desire 
to do justice to as many aspects of an idea as possible 
within the compass of a single sentence. It thus happens 
that occasionally sentences must be read twice before they 
yield their full meaning. Yet Hooker's philosophical style 
is much easier reading than Bacon's, and the difficulty the 
reader may find in getting Hooker's meaning is not due to 
inexperience or lack of technical skill on the part of the 
writer. Hooker completely mastered his form of expres- 
sion, and the reader having once attuned himself to the 
author's rhythms, has little difficulty in following the flow 
of his thought. Unconsciously his familiarity with Latin 
occasionally affected his English word order, making it 
slightly unidiomatic, but not misleading. One instance has 
already been mentioned in the omission of the verb. Similar 
Latinisms are the separation of verb and past participle and 
the placing of the latter at the end of the sentence or 
clause, as in " that root ... is in the bosom of the earth 
concealed," ^*^ or, " such as are not for any other cause than 
for knowledge itself desired." ^^'^ Sometimes the object or 

was accompanied withal (ibid., p. 38) ; All this endless and ever- 
lasting (ibid., p. 72). 
"" Church, Bk. I, 3- 
Ibid., p. 23. 



147 



148 English Literary Prose 

predicate nominative precedes the governing word, the aim 
being either to place the logically important words in the 
emphatic position, or quite as often merely to vary the 
normal fixed order of words in the English sentence, as in, 
" Expedient it will be that we sever the law of nature," 
etc. ; "^ or, " Impossible it was that ever their will should 
change " ; ^^^ or, " In like manner, the use and benefit of good 
laws all that live under them may enjoy with delight and 
comfort, albeit the grounds and first original causes from 
whence they have sprung be unknown, as to the greatest 
part of men they are." ^^*^ On the other hand, sometimes 
an adjective or substantive is suspended until the end of the 
sentence, as in the following, " every man is towards him- 
self and them whom he greatly afifecteth partial." ^^^ Not 
infrequently the adjective follows the noun it modifies, as in 
" a Trinity personal," " sundry arts mechanical," " some 
kind of government public," " any man's deed past," " of 
laws human." These are exceptions, however, and the 
order of words, though varied in many ways for the sake 
of cadence and logical emphasis or precision, follows in the 
main the normal customs of English speech. The few in- 
stances to the contrary may readily be pardoned in a writer 
who was not following a model of English style, but con- 
structing one. 

In his use of words. Hooker is more simple and idiomatic 
than in his feeling for phrasing. Though he writes learnedly 
on philosophic and theological questions, he practically 
never yields to the natural desire, and in that day the almost 
universal practice, of the scholar to coin new words. In this 
respect he again compares favorably with Bacon, who often 
cannot rest content with an adequate English or naturalized 
foreign word, when a new Latin coinage suggests itself 

''^ Church, p. 12. ''" Ibid., p. 3. 

^" Ibid., p. 21. "' Ibid., p. 54. 



Controversy and Free Speech 149 

to him. " We see that assuetude of things hurtful cloth make 
them lose their force to hurt," writes Bacon, where Hooker 
would certainly have said " customary " or " habitual use." 
This contrast is fundamental, and means that Hooker had 
frankly accepted the English language of his day on its own 
plane, that, in accordance with his general principles, his duty 
was to employ the resources which the traditions of the 
language placed at his disposal and to make the best possible 
use of them, shunning both extremes of too great respect 
for the past and too great love of the merely learned or 
striking and novel. The wisdom of this course time has 
shown, for those uses which general custom had sanc- 
tioned in Hooker's day have remained in most instances the 
permanent possessions of the language. 

The publication of the fifth book of Hooker's Ecclesias- 
tical Polity may be taken as marking the close of the first 
great controversial struggle in English thought and litera- 
ture, not because of the persuasive power of the work 
itself, which at the best could have had no such immediate 
efifect, but because the general tendency of the later years 
of the reign of Elizabeth made for peace and quietness. 
The compromise in theological doctrine and church disci- 
pline which by degrees had been effected in the Elizabethan 
establishment had proved itself to be both practicable and 
to the great majority of Englishmen, reasonably satisfactory. 
The elements of unrest were not completely silenced, and 
beneath the surface of apparent uniformity both the forces 
of a Catholic reaction and of a protesting Puritan non- 
conformity were quietly biding the opportunity when they 
might again fight in the open. For the time being, however, 
episcopalianism seemed finally to have triumphed, and the 
closing years of the sixteenth century were years of com- 
parative peace. 



150 English Literary Prose 

In the retrospect of the two centuries of controversy 
thus brought to a temporary conclusion, several re- 
sults stand out prominently. Under the circumstances 
controversy must necessarily have centered about ques- 
tions of theology. These theological questions embraced 
a much wider range of thought, however, than do 
similar questions in later generations. All change, whether 
in the political, the intellectual, or the social world, 
connected itself immediately with questions of theo- 
logical doctrine. Even a mind as liberal and rational as 
that of Hoqker could hardly have expressed itself except 
in terms of some kind of theocratic system. Hooker gen- 
eralized as naturally in such terms as a thinker of to-day 
would in the terms of evolutionary science. The contro- 
versies with respect to theological doctrine meant much 
more, consequently, than hair-splitting argumentation on 
points of metaphysical belief or mere personal quarreling 
over differences of practice in church discipline. At bottom 
the real question was how men could live together and 
commune with each other in social concord without the 
sacrificing of too much of personal liberty on the part of the 
individual, or on the other hand, without the inconsiderate 
exploitation of individuality at the expense of social har- 
mony. That this problem was ultimately solved by the con- 
troversies of the two centuries from Wiclif to Hooker it 
would be rash to maintain; it was fairly posed, however, 
and the history of succeeding generations shows that it did 
not then and, under human conditions, probably never will 
reach a final solution. The achievement of this first period 
of English controversy consists in the fact that it made the 
first great step in the direction of the solving of social 
complications by evolving the only effective means to that 
end, free and reasonable discussion of the questions con- 
cerned. Denying the authority of pope or church council 



Controversy and Free Speech 151 

to govern and regulate the activities of his mind, the seeker 
after liberty of thought was logically compelled to deny also 
all other formal and absolute authority, for example the 
single authority of the Bible which the narrower Puritanism 
sought to establish. In the lack of any fixed and absolute 
authority, the only guide left was that common sense of 
mankind as to what was true and good and reasonable, 
which can be arrived at only by attaining some degree of 
common understanding. English controversy, therefore, did 
not seek to fight its battles on the limited field of special and 
technical scholarship. Since the questions under discussion 
were such as concerned the welfare of mankind in general, 
the validity and sanity of all arguments adduced must be 
tested by the degree of their consonance with the general 
sense of truth. Submission to an intellectual aristocracy, it 
was felt, would be but little better than submission to a 
formal or mechanical authority. 

And since the appeal was to the common understanding, 
it followed necessarily that controversy must be carried on 
in a language commonly intelligible. This language must 
be the English of commonly accepted tradition, the language 
in which words have values immediately appreciable with- 
out definition, and in which not only intellectual concepts 
but also feeling and mood can be expressed. Moreover, al- 
though controversy must be personal and the right of in- 
dividual judgment was to be respected, a further com- 
promise was necessary. The liberty of judgment and the 
liberty of reproof must be tempered by a humane respect 
for an adversary's right to his own opinions. Intellectual 
property must receive the same degree of protection from 
abuse as that afforded to physical possessions in civilized 
communities. These, in brief, were some of the ends to- 
wards which English controversy in the period under dis- 
cussion, sometimes unconsciously, but none the less cer- 



152 English Literary Prose 

tainly, was tending. Its main result, so far as the develop- 
ment of English prose is concerned, was not the production 
of great masterpieces of art, but rather the invention of a 
form of English expression, dignified yet intimately 
idiomatic and many-colored, capable not only of the lan- 
guage of reason, but also of moving the hearts of men, in 
the profoundest as well as in the simplest of their daily 
experiences. 



IV 

THE PULPIT 

Medieval Preaching — John Mirc — Boy-Bishops — Lol- 
lard Preaching — Colet — Bishop Fisher — Sensa- 
tional Preaching — Bradford, Lever, Latimer — 
Paul's Cross — Non-conformist Preaching — Henry 
Smith — Bishop Andrewes — John Donne — Conclu- 
sions 

The medieval church in England produced no great 
preachers, nor did it develop a very animated art of preach- 
ing. It was Wiclif who first utilized the sermon, in any 
extensive way, for the popular discussion of matters of in- 
timate concern to his audiences. The time was ripe for a 
change. By constant repetition both preacher and audience 
had become weary of the seven deadly sins, the seven 
works of mercy, the five joys of the Virgin, the fifteen 
signs of the doom, and the other numerical and summary 
topics of conventional preaching. The popular preachers 
had degraded the sermon by the extravagant use of cer- 
tain entertaining devices which Wiclif sternly reprehended 
as opposed to the high purpose towards which preaching 
should aspire. They made use of meter or of highly allit- 
erative prose in order to produce an impression of elo- 
quence. They filled their sermons with stories and ex- 
amples which were supposedly of an edifying character, but 
which frequently used the moral merely as a specious ex- 
cuse for telling the tale.^ Among the more scholarly and by 

^ For a good summary of the lighter side of English preaching 
at this time, see Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith's essay on " English 



154 English Literary Prose 

the dignitaries of the church, sermons were preached only 
on rare and important occasions. They were then heavy 
and learned, filled with allegorical and tropological interpre- 
tations of the scriptures and with abundant scriptural and 
patristic quotations. But the methods by which interest in 
the sermon might most easily have been aroused, both 
popular and learned preachers cautiously avoided. They 
preached zealously against greed and luxury and sloth and 
false belief in general, but they were careful not to turn 
the pulpit into anything like a debating platform from 
which the popular side of specific social, political, and 
moral reforms could be discussed. 

As illustrative of the character of popular parish preach- 
ing at the time of transition from medieval to modern 
England the Festial of John Mire will serve. This work, 
a kind of model sermon-book, was probably written in the 
first decade of the fifteenth century, but its continuous popu- 
larity is evidenced by numerous manuscript copies, and at 
the end of the century, by printed editions.^ Mire also 
wrote a Maminle Sacerdotnm, and an English poem. In- 
structions for Parish Priests. But his most popular work 
was his Festial, containing seventy-four sermons written in 
simple and easy prose. These sermons were intended to 
constitute a complete cycle for the year. They contain brief 
expositions of the meaning of the feast-day for which they 
were respectively intended, with exhortations to observe the 
simple duties of confession, alms-giving, continence, pen- 
Popular Preaching in the Fourteenth Century," in English Historical 
Review, VII (1892), 25-36. See also Petit-Dutaillis, " Les'Predica- 
tions Populaires, Les Lollards et le Soulevement des Travailleurs en 
1381," in i.tudes d'Histoire dcdiecs a Gabriel Monod (1896), pp. 
373-388. 

* According to Schofield, English Literature from the Norman 
Conquest to Chaucer, p. 395, no less than eighteen editions appeared 
between 1483 and 1532. 



The Pulpit 155 

ance, and similar generalized virtues. Edification, however, 
is always sauced with entertainment in the shape of illus- 
trative anecdotes and stories. The bulk of these stories 
is on the whole considerably greater than that of the exposi- 
tory or hortatory parts of the discourses. From one to 
four anecdotes are added at the end of each sermon, derived 
mainly from the well-known sources of medieval exempla. 
The stories are of the mildest character, and Mire expressly 
declares that he has no interest in " a tale of rybawdy." ^ 
His appeal is always to the naive and credulous side of 
human nature, and it is easy to see how, by a slight shifting 
of the point of view, Mire's simple and crude conception of 
the spiritual life might move not to devotion, but to scorn 
and laughter. To the modern reader Mire would be more 
interesting if the popular life of his own times had been 
more fully pictured in his pages. He had, however, as little 
sense for the reality of men and women passing up and down 
before his eyes as he had for the inner life of the spirit. His 
themes and his characters are few and conventional ; and 
they are repeated again and again with a persistency and 
simple belief in their sufficiency which leaves the mind of 
the reader utterly vacant. 

The sixteenth sermon, for Sexagesima Sunday, is typical 
of the whole collection. It begins with the usual address 
to " Goode men and woymen," and then passes on to com- 
ment on the meaning of sexagesima. Mire points out that 
nowadays a man who lives sixty years " was taken for a 
long lyving man," but that formerly men lived nine hundred 
years an^d more. Such is the goodness of God, however, 
that if we conduct our short lives wisely, he will give us as 
great reward as to those who lived so much longer. Now 
in order to live wisely we must do three things, suffer tribu- 
lation meekly, do alms-deeds discreetly, and hate sin espe- 
^ Erbe's ed., p. 156. 



156 English Literary Prose 

cially. Then follows the exposition of these three points, 
the second being illustrated by a familiar story of the return 
of a rich man from purgatory who tells how his alms-deeds 
in life have been blown away by the wind of " vayn glorie." 
The third point is illustrated by the story of the way in 
which St. Dominic was commissioned by Our Lady to go 
forth and preach in order to turn the people from their 
wickedness; and the whole concludes with a brief applica- 
tion to the preacher's own contemporaries, who though 
they hear preaching and teaching will not amend them nor 
leave their sin. The sermon is neatly put together, as are 
all the sermons in the collection, the points are few and 
clearly made, and as the applications are sufficiently general 
and remote, no doubt the audiences of the time were able to 
listen patiently. They could always be sure, at any rate, of 
a pleasant ending, when the preacher came to the narration 
of his illustrative stories. 

For another glimpse of conventional fifteenth-century 
preaching of a somewhat more learned character, we may 
turn to a sermon preached by a boy-bishop, in the last 
quarter of the century. This picturesque custom of ap- 
pointing annually a mock bishop from among the boys of the 
choir school who should wear the vestments and perform 
the services of a real bishop, was of ancient standing in the 
church. It continued actively until by royal proclamation in 
1 541 it was forbidden that boy-bishops should " singe masse 
and preache in the pulpitt, with such other unfittinge and 
inconvenyent usages." * The sermon in question was de- 
livered at St. Paul's in London, on the text Laudate pueri 
Dominimi:^ Whether or not it was actually composed by 

* For a fuller account of the boy-bishops in England and on the 
Continent, see Chambers, The Medieval Stage, I, 336-371- 

° Printed by Nichols, Two Sermons preached by the Boy Bishop, 
Camden Society, 1875. The second of the two sermons here printed 



The Pulpit 157 

a choir-boy, there is no way of telHng. There is no reason, 
however, why a clever boy who had listened to many ser- 
mons might not have written this one. It is not altogether 
a parody, but rather an imitation. It opens with a sup- 
posedly subtle discussion of the methods of " cognition," that 
is, the way by which men come to knowledge. First of all 
children are sent to school where they learn their ABC, 
and this leads the preacher into an extended allegorical in- 
terpretation of the next to the last letter of the alphabet, 
" the whyche as Ysider " sayth Ethimologis is formyd and 
made after the symylytude of mannes lyfe." After a long 
prayer for the pope, the archbishop, and for " the ryghte 
reverende fader and worshypfull lorde my broder Bysshop 
of London," the preacher turns his attention to his audience. 
He is struck with fear, however, at sight of his school- 
master, for whom he wishes the same fate that Nero the 
Emperor wished for his master Seneca. And for all his 
masters, he hopes they may be promoted " to be perpetuall 
felowes and collegeners of that famouse college of the 
Kynges foundacyon in Southwarke that men call the 
Kynges Benche." In charity he petitions that they may end 
their lives " in that holy waye the whyche often tymes I 
radde whan that I was Ouerester, in the Marteloge of 
Poules, where many holy bodyes deyed, callyd in Latin Via 
Tiburtina: in Englysshe asmoche to saye as the highe waye 
to Tyburne." After this burlesque passage, he continues 
seriously wdth his sermon. He divides life into three ages, 
" infant age," " growynge age," and " mannes age," on the 
basis of which he amplifies his general theme of cognition. 
Because of the lack of good masters and guiders, Truth, 

was " Pronounsyd by John Stubs, Querester, on Childermas Day 
at Gloceter, 1558," and was the result of an attempt to revive the 
ancient custom in the time of Queen Mary. 
" Isidore of Seville. 



158 English Literary Prose 

which formerly stood upright, he declares has now fallen. 
" Goode men have inserchyd the strete where he felle ; some 
sayde he fell in Lombarde strete, some sayde in Buklars- 
bury " ; but the fact was that he was fallen in every street 
(Veritas corruit in plateis). The appropriate ways of wor- 
shiping God in these three ages the boy-bishop then works 
out " by a prety conceyte of oure comyn Kalendar," with 
its divisions of Kalends, Nones, and Ides, in which he dis- 
plays both his learning and his ingenuity. He digresses here 
for a moment to inveigh against extravagance of manner 
and dress in young men, a well-worn preacher's theme, 
to which he gives a new turn by declaring that " boyes of 
fyfty yere of age are as newe fangled as ony yonge men be." 
The sermon is altogether an amusing mixture of boyish fun, 
of popular satire, of conventional exhortation, elaborate 
allegorizing, and commonplace scriptural and classical learn- 
ing. If it is not quite a typical sermon, it is all the more 
instructive as being a composite made up from the accepted 
receipts for sermons. 

It is unfortunate that no collections survive of the sermons 
of those " poor priests " who went out from under Wiclif's 
instructions to carry his message to the simple folk of 
England. Wiclif's own sermons were addressed to this 
special class of his followers who were themselves to be the 
real popular preachers. Perhaps this accounts for the lack 
of warmth and eloquence which the student of Wiclif's life 
is surprised to observe in the sermons. His method was 
that of exposition, and though he spared no pains to make 
matters clear to the simplest intelligence, Wiclif apparently 
felt little interest in the arts of persuasion. The title doctor 
evangelicus, given to him because he based everything on 
the scriptures, should not be interpreted, therefore, as mean- 
ing that he was given to evangelical preaching in the mod- 
ern sense, for nothing was further removed from his method. 



The Pulpit 159 

No great masters of popular eloquence seem to have arisen 
from the Wiclifite movement in England, partly because the 
impulse which Wiclif gave to it was so largely intellectual, 
and partly also because the movement itself was not per- 
mitted to develop sufficiently long or freely to acquire any 
great momentum. Wiclif had prepared the way for a new 
school of English preaching, but the circumstances were 
not auspicious for its development. After his death and 
throughout the fifteenth century, popular preaching of the 
new kind was held in check by the repressive measures 
adopted to combat Lollardy. That the poor priests were 
completely silenced we cannot suppose, since if that had 
been so, there would have been no occasion for the frequent 
complaints made of their activities and for the official 
efforts made to quiet them. Indeed the caution and the fear 
which Lollard preaching inspired infected all preaching. 
Preachers at Paul's Cross were required to have their ser- 
mons censored, no matter who they were, and if they failed 
to follow directions, they received no pay or entertainment. 
One William Ive in 1458 was " commaunded to leve owte 
and put a way many troughtys." He disobeyed and said 
before the king that the censors made the sermons and not 
those wdio preached, which brought it to pass that the men 
who preached had but " sympylle sarmons," because their 
purpose was " alle turnyde upsodowne." For this boldness 
he was sent back home unrewarded, " and alle hys frendys 
fulle sory for hym." ^ 

The preaching of the reformers thus came to be regarded 
more and more as irregular and unauthorized. The lack of 
a great leader who could gather together the scattered 
forces of the popular party was keenly felt. The movement 
towards reform was never extinguished, but its most im- 

' Historical Collections of a Citisen of London in the 15th Cen- 
tury, ed. Gairdner, p. 203. 



i6o English Literary Prose 

portant expression under the abortive leadership of Sir 
John Oldcastle was not of a kind to secure friends and 
supporters for it among the more influential members of 
English society. The voice of the popular orator was there- 
fore silenced, and the preaching of this period between the 
Wiclifite movement and the Reformation of the early six- 
teenth century was merely a weak continuation of the 
medieval traditions. Such as it was, it was limited almost 
exclusively to the preaching of parish priests for whom 
Mire and others like him provided materials. The higher 
church dignitaries, occupied either with secular matters or 
with the business of their offices, sought no opportunity to 
instruct or exhort the people from their pulpits. This was 
the time of the " unpreaching prelates," of those powerful 
churchmen who by their zeal in gathering worldly riches and 
by the neglect of their spiritual duties helped to bring upon 
the church the spoliations of the succeeding century. Colet 
in his sermon before Convocation in February, 1511-12, 
shows how little bishops had to do with the people when he 
declares that they should " personally appear in their 
churches at least on great festivals." * The disinclination of 
the bishops to preach was not entirely due, however, to 
sloth or to incompetence. They were not without a certain 
theoretical justification of their silence, and it will be re- 
called that all through the century of the Reformation the 
question of the relative importance of preaching and of 
the service in divine worship remained unsettled. The 
constant tendency of the reformers was to exalt preaching 
at the expense of prayer and the liturgy, perhaps we may 
say to exalt the reasonable side of religion at the expense of 
the spiritual apprehension of truth without proof. If the 
reformers had all been reasonable men themselves, there 
might have been less objection to their methods. They 
* Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers, p. 242. 



The PuLriT i6i 

were, however, but recently come to a sense of religious 
liberty. They were untrained in theology, undisciplined in 
any kind of close thinking. Little wonder, therefore, that 
they were content " to babble the Bible," and that they 
aroused nothing but a feeling of scorn on the part of the 
conservative members of the church. 

The point of view of the non-preaching clergy is fully 
explained by Pecock. He states the dilemma in this 
fashion : if you preach so as to interest the people, you 
must make use of all manner of unworthy tricks in order 
to amuse and entertain them ; if, on the other hand, you 
preach in such a way as adequately to set forth the ideas 
appropriate to a serious theme, you shoot above their heads. 
They understand nothing of what you are saying and your 
preaching is in vain. Pecock's conclusion is, therefore, that 
there is no place for preaching which is both serious and 
thorough, and that the sermon is a less effective means of 
feeding the flock than the worship of images, going on 
pilgrimages, and the observance of formal traditions. A 
greater mind than Pecock's might have seen that any 
truth which affects common human experience is all the 
truer for being simply stated, but the fact remains that no 
such mind appeared among the accredited intellectual lead- 
ers of the time to illuminate for the people the new ideas in 
the midst of which they were blindly wandering. 

By the beginning of the reign of Henry YHI several new 
forces were making themselves felt in English life which 
tended to raise the general level of pulpit discourse. The 
humanistic ideals of the Renascence were by this time be- 
coming familiar to Englishmen and were demanding a 
more dignified and broader treatment of matters of intel- 
lectual interest than the orthodox and scholastic learning of 
the medieval tradition had required. New theological ideas 
were also beginning to enter England from Germany, con- 



i62 English Literary Prose 

firming tendencies already present but greatly in need of 
outside support. And as the years went by, Henry's own 
attitude of independence naturally encouraged a similar 
spirit among the clergy and all interested in theological 
questions. In general one may discern several clearly 
marked stages in the development of sixteenth-century 
preaching, corresponding to and reflecting the general 
changes in thought and temper of the times. In the early 
part of the century, before the complete break with Rome, 
such preachers as Colet and Bishop Fisher are representa- 
tive of a kind of vernacular preaching which exhibits some 
of the liberalizing effects of humanism, but which has not 
yet been caught in the full tide of the Reformation. This 
moderate kind of preaching, however, had but a short 
period in which to develop. The mild beginnings of the 
Reformation soon swelled into a tempest, and Henry found 
that he had raised more spirits than he could quell. During 
this time of heated discussion and violent differences of 
opinion, the tone of preaching naturally became more 
vehement, more personal, and much more contemporary 
than English preaching had ever been before. Especially 
in the reign of Edward the pulpits rang with the fervid 
oratory of the apostles of the new cause. In the third 
quarter of the century, under Elizabeth, order begins to 
appear out of the theological chaos of the several preceding 
generations, and though feeling continued to run high, and 
though the battle between episcopacy and presbyterianism 
was as bitter as that between Catholicism and protestantism, 
on the whole a new sense of decorum was beginning to 
prevail. The sermon again becomes more restrained, more 
scholarly, and towards the end of the century, in the peace 
of the Establishment, more literary. 

Of the first stage, John Colet is the typical representative. 
He began his career as a lecturer on the New Testament 



The Pulpit 163 

before the university students of Oxford. Colet was in- 
spired by the zeal of the reformer v/ho desired to free the 
church from the corruptions of later ages and to bring it 
back to the purity of its primitive doctrines. He was not 
a Wiclifite, not a Lollard, yet in harmony with these he 
recognized the necessity of making religion of more vital 
concern in the personal experience of individuals than it 
seemed possible for the church with its traditional methods 
to do. It was not, however, merely the poor, the simple, and 
the oppressed that Colet wanted to help. Reform as he 
understood it must begin at the top, with the bishops and 
the higher authorities, and proceed thence gradually through 
the whole ecclesiastical fabric. He began his share in the 
work consequently not as a popular preacher but in lectures 
which made their appeal to the most intelligent and the 
most thoughtful element in the church. 

The second period in Colet's career came with his ap- 
pointment as dean of St. Paul's cathedral in 1504. His 
lectures at Oxford had been voluntary and gratuitous, and 
now as dean he continued freely to serve the cause of en- 
lightenment in ways not called for by the duties of his office. 
Among other things, he delivered regularly sermons from 
the pulpit. As Erasmus points out, this was a novelty at St. 
Paul's, for it was then neither the duty of the dean nor of any 
other regular officer of the cathedral to provide pulpit in- 
struction for the people. Besides delivering these voluntary 
cathedral sermons, Colet was also called upon at various 
occasions to address special audiences of ecclesiastics or 
courtiers. One of these formal sermons, delivered in Latin 
at a meeting of Convocation in 1511-12, the chief business of 
which was to consider methods of repressing the growing 
heresy of the Lollards, is still extant. It reveals Colet as 
a fearless diagnostician of the contemporary evils of the 
church and as a friend of reforms which within a generation 



164 English Literary Prose 

were to lead the church much further in the direction of 
protestantism than Colet would have been willing to go.^ 
Of Colet's English sermons, those that were delivered in 
St. Paul's before audiences of citizens and such others as 
cared to come, unfortunately no examples survive. They 
were probably never written out, for Colet was in agreement 
with most of the later reformed preachers in his express 
disapproval of reading written sermons.^° His method in 
preaching was like that he had followed in lecturing. He 
took a general subject, such as the life of the Savior, the 
Creed, or the Lord's Prayer, and considered it thoroughly 
in a group of sermons. ^^ The Bible and the Apostles' Creed 
were to him sufficient foundation for the Christian faith, 
and the simplicity of his doctrine and of his presentation 
drew to him large numbers of those who were earnestly 
seeking for more light. The Lollards themselves were 
accustomed to go to hear him, probably finding in his 
preaching an earnestness and sincerity in harmony with 
their own serious purposes. At one time charges of heresy 
and of favoring the teachings of heretics were even brought 
against Colet, but they were not sustained. 

As to Colet's manner of preaching not much information 
is available. It is certain that he cultivated none of the 
tricks of the conventional sermonizers of his day. His 
sermon before Convocation reveals him as an impassioned 
but not highly rhetorical speaker. The effect of his preach- 
ing probably depended more upon his own personal serious- 
ness of conviction and upon an apparent desire to help 

' See Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers, pp. 230-247, for a modern 
English translation of the Latin. A contemporary English version 
is printed by Lupton, Life of Dean Colet. pp. 293-304, but there is no 
evidence to show that Colet himself made the translation. 

^^ See Lupton, ibid., p. 203. 

^^ Erasmus is again the authority for this statement; see the pas- 
sage quoted in Seebohm, p. 141. 



The Pulpit 165 

others than upon any formal devices of style. Erasmus 
describes his method of preaching as ardent but not ex- 
travagant. He declares also that even in his early years 
Colet zealously studied books of history and those poets who 
occupy among the English the position which Dante and 
Petrarch occupy among the Italians in order that he might 
polish his language and that he might prepare himself for 
the work of preaching.^^ But the New Learning with Colet 
had not yet degenerated into a cultivation of the artifices 
of expression as it did with many later writers who came 
under its influence. His message had to do not merely 
with the external form but with the spirit of sacred 
literature. 

Colet did not stand entirely alone among orthodox church- 
men of the early sixteenth century in his realization of the 
importance of preaching. An honorable place at his side 
should be given to John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, who, in 
1535, shared the fate of his friend Sir Thomas More. A 
learned man himself and a patron of scholars, Fisher may 
be taken as representative of the best among the great prel- 
ates of the church in his day. His influence was especially 
felt at Cambridge, and when in 1502, Margaret, Countess of 
Richmond, the mother of Henry VH, founded professor- 
ships of divinity at Oxford and at Cambridge, Fisher was 
the first to hold the ofiice in the latter university. A short 
time afterwards and probably at the suggestion of Fisher, 
the Lady Margaret founded a preachership for preaching 
in English. The preacher was to be a fellow of Cambridge, 
but was to have no parish. He was to preach once every 

^^ Denique nullus erat liber historiatn, aut constitutiones continens 
majorum, quern ille non evolverat. Habet gens Britannica qui hoc 
praestiterunt apud suos, quod Dantes ac Petrarcha apud Italos. Et 
horum evolvendis scriptis linguam expolivit, jam turn se praeparans 
ad praeconium sermonis Evangelici. Epistolariim D. Erasmi Libri 
XXXI, London, 1642, Col. 703. 



i66 English Literary Prose 

two years in each of twelve different parishes in the dioceses 
of London, Ely, and Lincoln. 

Fisher himself was a zealous preacher, and was famous in 
his day for his eloquence. He was frequently in request on 
formal occasions. Among his surviving works are a funeral 
oration or sermon delivered at the death of Henry VH, a 
" mornynge remembraunce " for the " moneth mynde " of 
Margaret, Countess of Richmond, seven sermons on the 
penitential Psalms, " made and compyled by the ryght rever- 
ente fader in God lohan Fyssher doctour of dyvynyte and 
bysshop of Rochester at the exortacion and sterynge of the 
moost excellent princesse Margarete countesse of Ryche- 
mount and Derby," a Good Friday sermon on the passion, 
a sermon against Luther, another " concernynge certayne 
hereticks," and several devotional treatises which do not 
greatly differ from the sermons. In these various writings, 
Fisher appears as a man of devout and sincere religious 
feeling. He lacks, however, both the freshness and earnest- 
ness of conviction of Colet, and on the intellectual side, 
for example, when he endeavors to answer the teachings of 
Luther and the reformers, what he says seems inadequate 
and feeble. Perhaps Fisher, like Sir Thomas More, did not 
fully realize the passionate earnestness of the opponents 
whom he was trying to convict of heresy. His eloquence, 
therefore, which made him the proper official spokesman of 
the church on formal public occasions, seems somewhat be- 
side the mark in discussions involving the new point of 
view in religious matters. Tindale speaks scornfully of 
him as an " orator," ^^ as he spoke of Sir Thomas More as 
a " poet," and the charge, if so it be construed, is one of 
which Fisher cannot be acquitted. 

Of the several general types of discourse, Fisher culti- 
vated the one most conveniently described as Ciceronian. 
'' Obedience of a Christian Man, pp. 221, 341. 



The Pulpit 167 

Very little evidence of direct imitation of Cicero can be 
found in his sermons, but it was the general effect of the 
ceremonial, rotund Latin style which he endeavored to re- 
produce in English.^* This is especially apparent in his two 
funeral orations, in which he followed what he accepted as 
the standard formula of structure. The first psalm of the 
dirige he declares may rightly be read at the funeral 
obsequies of a Christian person, " for in it is comprysed all 
that is to be sayd in this mater. And in the same ordre 
that the secular oratours have in theyr funerall oracyons 
moost dylygently observed whiche resteth in • iij • poyntes. 
Fyrst in the commendacyon of hym that deed is. Seconde 
in a styrynge of the herers to have compassyon upon hym. 
And thyrde in a comfortynge of them agayne." ^^ In spite 
of his learned tendencies in style, however, Fisher's longer 
sentences are usually chaotic and labored, mere size being 
substituted for the Ciceronian intricate pattern. Doubtless 
in their spoken forms the sermons were more successful 
than in the printed versions. In the pulpit, Fisher probably 
allowed himself to be directed by that natural gift of ora- 
torical expression which he undoubtedly possessed, and 
which is sufficiently apparent, in spite of their crudities, in 
the written forms of his sermons. 

Though an admirer of the high style, Fisher does not 
use an extravagantly Latinistic vocabulary. His words are 
learned, but not ingenious or pedantic, except perhaps in the 
consistent use of the Latin form of the past participle in- 
stead of the English in words of Latin origin.^^ He makes 
frequent use of word-pairs, such as " warned, instructe 

"He quotes Cicero, "in his thyrde boke de oratore," English 
Works, ed. Mayor, p. 285. 

'° Ibid., p. 269. At the end, pp. 287-288, he recapitulates in formal 
style under these three points. 

'"Examples are " alyenate," p. 142, " assumpt," p. 134, " com- 
puncte," p. 133, etc. See Mayor, p. xxix, for a full list. 



i68 English Literary Prose 

and monysshed," " searche and inquisition," a device which 
seems naturally to inhere in the oratorical style. The most 
notable characteristics of his oratorical vein are his passages 
of set eloquence and of figurative ingenuity. " Where is 
now," begins one such passage cast in the familiar Ubi sunt 
formula, " the innumerable company & puyssaunce of Xerses 
& Cesar, where are the grete victoryes of Alexander and 
Pompey, where is now the grete rychesse of Cresus & 
Crassus," and so through the catalogue for a full page.^'' 
A similar theme in " A Spirituall Consolation " is developed 
at great length by means of the medieval device of an ad- 
dress of the soul to the body. The form, as Fisher employs 
it, is one-sided, the body not being permitted to answer : 

" What avayleth my vanitie or pryde that I had in my 
selfe eyther of apparel or of any other thing belonging unto 
me? what avayleth the filthie and uncleane delightes and 
lustes of the stincking flesh, wherein was appearance of 
much pleasure, but in very deede none other than the Sowe 
hath, waultering hir self in the myerie puddle ? " ^^ 

But for the grace of God, there goes John Mire. Medie- 
val and scholastic are likewise Fisher's ingenious figures 
of speech, which are sometimes worked out with extreme 
elaborateness. As iron is made bright by rubbing, so the 
soul is made fair and white by weeping." The right direct- 
ing of a man's soul and life is minutely compared with mend- 
ing a clock.^^'*^ Another long-drawn-out figure makes a 
comparison " betweene the lyfe of Hunters and the lyfe of 
religious persons." ^° But the most elaborate of all is the 
figure of the crucifix as a book : 

" A booke hath boardes, leaves, lynes, wrytinges, letters 
booth small and great. First I saye that a booke hath two 

" Mayor, p. 14S. '" Pp- i6-i7- " Pp- 365 ff. 

"Ibid., p. 358. ^'"Pp. 1 1 7-1 18. 



The Pulpit 169 

boardes : the two boardes of this booke is the two partes 
of the crosse, for when the boke is opened & spread, the 
leaves be cowched upon the boardes. And so the blessid 
body of Christ was spred upon the crosse." 

The leaves of the book are the members of Christ's body ; 
as there are many lines drawn upon the pages of the parch- 
ment and letters red, black, and blue, so in Christ's body 
were many lines, for it was scourged with whips, and his 
wounds were engraved with sharp pens (i.e. the nails and 
the spear). ^^ The figure, tortured through more than 
three pages, is a striking example of metaphysical in- 
genuity, scarcely to be surpassed by any of Sidney's achieve- 
ments in the Arcadia. One can imagine the scorn with 
which Tindale and the other advocates of plainness of 
speech regarded such attempts at eloquence. The people 
were asking for bread, they might have said, and Fisher 
thought to satisfy them with fine phrases. And yet despite 
a certain element of truth, this criticism would not have 
been a just one. Beneath all of Fisher's medieval ingenuity 
and literary artifice, there lay a foundation of genuine 
feeling. He describes the poor of London and the sick 
people lying in the street,-^ with as much vividness and 
sympathy as any of the later popular preachers could have 
done. At times he can be simple and direct. The story of 
the Prodigal Son, for example, is admirably told and with 
full realization of its human implications.^^ Nevertheless 
it is true that religious feeling was beginning to learn a 
new language in his day, which Fisher only partially appre- 
hended. Traditional methods in preaching, no matter how 
they were dignified by learning and literary ingenuity, no 
longer sufficed for all needs. Though he was the most dis- 
tinguished public preacher of his day, Fisher was not the 

" Pp. 393 ff. "P. 240. '' P. 234. 



170 English Literary Prose 

model upon which the popular preaching of the succeeding 
generation formed itself. 

To the average auditor of the times, perhaps the most 
striking characteristic of the preaching of the early years 
of the Reformation was its audacity. It was audacious not 
only in the doctrines which it attacked and defended, but 
also in its personalities, in its homely picturesqueness, and 
•in the character of the preachers who were now heard from 
the pulpit. This was the day of the railing preachers. Any 
person apparently, tailor, cobbler, or parson, with a gift of 
speech and an abundant vocabulary of abuse, was sure of 
an audience. For this state of affairs the ecclesiastical 
authorities themselves were not without blame. After it 
had been established that the scriptures were to be in 
English and freely accessible to all^ it followed necessarily, 
as Tindale had foreseen, that from the study of them there 
must arise much discussion and violent difference of opinion. 
About the year 1541 Cranmer commissioned six preachers 
at Canterbury, three being of the new learning and three of 
the old, " to the intent that they might between them try 
out the truth of doctrine." ^* This plan, which by no means 
met with universal approval, was distinctly in the spirit of 
the new theology, according to which it was the preacher's 
function not merely to state truth dogmatically but also to 
find truth. A few years later, in 1545, Henry VIII found 
it necessary publicly to reprimand the violent methods of the 
popular preachers. In an address before the House of 
Lords, he requested his subjects to behave more charitably 
towards each other, declaring that the clergy " preach one 
against another, teach one contrary to another, inveigh one 
against another, without charity or discretion." The people 
have the privilege of reading the scriptures in English, he 
^'' Gairdner, Lollardy, II, 368. 



The Pulpit 171 

adds, only to instruct themselves, " and not to make Scrip- 
ture a railing and a taunting stock against priests and 
preachers, as many light persons do." ^^ 

Preaching at this time was no longer exclusively in the 
hands of persons authorized to perform that function, but 
now the " lay exhorter " begins to appear. John Harri- 
daunce was apparently one of this sort. In an examination 
before the Lord Mayor, he acknowledged that he could 
neither read nor write, but declared that for thirty years he 
had been endeavoring to learn the scriptures and always 
carried a New Testament with him. Like Chaucer's man- 
ciple he had heard enough Latin to remember a few phrases, 
and was accustomed to begin his sermons In nomine Patrls 
et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus."^^ Edward Underbill, " the hot 
gospeller " who in the reign of Edward VI won notoriety 
for himself by his fervid addresses to the children of this 
world, was never in orders. And throughout the pages of 
Foxe we catch glimpses of irregular exhorters with occa- 
sional picturesque phrases from their sermons which show 
the sensational character of popular preaching. 

Sensationalism, however, was by no means limited to the 
lay preachers. The spirit of the times shows itself in the 
sermons of both orthodox and reformed preachers, often in 
a way which makes the most highly colored preaching of 
modern times seem modest. Among orthodox preachers, a 
certain Parson Hyberdyne or Hubberdin seems to have been 
contemporarily famous. A mock sermon is preserved in 
two manuscripts,^'^ which purports to have been delivered 
by Parson Hyberdyne at the command of certain thieves 

*' Gairdner, ibid., pp. 425, 426. 

"' Ibid., pp. 208-209. 

*' See Viles and Furnivall, The Fraternitye of Vacahondes, 
E.E.T.S., Extra Series No. IX, 92-95. In one MS. (Lansdowne) 
the preacher is called Parson Haben, in the other (Cott. Vesp.), 
Parson Hyberdyne. 



172 English Literary Prose 

after they had robbed him " besydes hartlerowe, in ham- 
shyer." The theme of the sermon is the praise of thieves 
and thievery ; biblical example is found in defense of 
thievery, and thieves are likened to Christ in that neither 
have a dwelling place, nowhere to lay their heads, but wan- 
der from town to town, and are hated of all men. The 
hero and victim of this parody was evidently no other than 
the Hubberdin, " an old divine of Oxford, a right painted 
pharisee, and a great strayer abroad in all quarters of the 
realm," about whom Foxe has much to say.^^ This man's 
" doings and pageants," if they might be described at large, 
Foxe declares, " were as good as any interlude for the 
reader to behold." He passes over his " hoppings and leap- 
ings, with other like histrionical toys and gestures used in 
the pulpit " to tell of a famous dancing sermon delivered by 
Hubberdin. Passing by a churchyard where the youth of 
the parish were dancing, Hubberdin took this occasion to 
call the people into the church and to give them a " sermon 
of dancing." First he collected, says Foxe, certain common 
texts out of the scriptures, and then passed to the doctors, 
to Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Chrysostom, and other doc- 
tors, all called forth " for the probation of the sacrament of 
the altar " against the views of the reformers. 

" At last, to show a perfect harmony of these doctors 
together — as he made them before to sing after his tune, 
so now to make them dance after his pipe — first he calleth 
out Christ and his apostles ; then the doctors and ancient 
seniors of the church, as in a round ring all to dance to- 
gether, with ' pipe up Hubberdin.' Now dance Christ ; now 
dance Peter, Paul ; now dance Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome. 
And thus old Hubberdin, as he was dancing with his doctors 
lustily in the pulpit against the heretics how he stampt and 
took on I cannot tell, but ' crash,' quoth the pulpit, down 

"* Acts and Monuments, VII, 477 ff. 



The Pulpit 173 

Cometh the dancer, and there lay Hubberdin, not dancing 
but sprawling in the midst of his audience, where alto- 
gether he brake not his neck, yet he so brake his leg the 
same time and bruised his old bones, that he never came in 
pulpit more, and died not long after the same. Whereupon 
when the churchwardens were called, and charged for the 
pulpit being no stronger, they made answer again, excusing 
themselves, that they had made their pulpit for preaching 
and not for dancing." 

Another " railing friar " mentioned by Foxe was Dr. 
Venetus, " an outlandish man," or foreigner, who in his 
" brawling sermons " railed and raged against Latimer, 
" calling him a mad and brainless man and willing the people 
not to believe him." This man Latimer answered out of the 
fifth chapter of Matthew. Latimer's famous sermon " On 
the Card," with its text " Hearts is trumps," itself a daring 
experiment in picturesque metaphor, called forth an an- 
swer from a certain Black Friar, called Buckenham, 
" otherwise surnamed ' Domine Labia.' " Buckenham an- 
swered Latimer's cards with his dice, " casting there to his 
audience cinque and quatre; meaning by the cinque five 
places in the New Testament, and the four doctors by the 
quatre ; by which his cinque quatre he would prove that it 
was not expedient the Scripture to be in English." On the 
afternoon of the day of this sermon, Latimer preached an 
answer, explaining the nature of figurative and metaphorical 
language, by which friar Buckenham " was so dashed that 
never after he durst peep out of the pulpit against master 
Latimer." ^^ 

Though such extravagances as Foxe has here recorded 
are not universally characteristic of the preaching of the 
middle years of the century, nevertheless a similar spirit 
and tone is to be found in many of the most successful 

^^Foxe, VII, 450. 



174 English Literary Prose 

preachers of the times. Little is known of Tindale's method 
of preaching, though we cannot doubt that it was always 
vigorous and to the point. Coverdale, who had a natural 
gift of oratorical expression, was among the famous preach- 
ers of his day; no body of his sermons has survived, how- 
ever, and it is impossible to tell how far his gentle and 
kindly spirit was influenced in public preaching by the 
atmosphere in which he lived. Though not many of John 
Bradford's sermons are extant, enough remain to show how 
different in tone they were from his meditations, prayers, 
paraphrases, and letters. In these latter writings, Bradford 
is seen at his best. Here his self-searching temper, his 
piety and mysticism are uppermost. His most persistent 
strain in these writings is one of self-accusation, of self- 
abasement. The meditative lyric mood of these confessions 
is in complete contrast to the violence of the contemporary 
polemical spirit and to the abusive style of preaching in 
which the times delighted. Bradford's own sermons exhibit 
neither so great restraint in feeling, nor is his literary taste 
as fine in them as it is in his meditative writings. His 
contemporaries spoke of his preaching with admiration. 
" Sharply he opened and reproved sin," writes Foxe ; ^° 
" sweetly he preached Christ crucified ; pithily he impugned 
heresies and errors ; earnestly he persuaded to godly life." 
John Knox, in his Godly Letter, notes Bradford's tendency 
to fall into an ejaculatory style of preaching. " Master 
Bradford," says Knox, " spared not the proudest ; but boldly 
declared that God's vengeance shortly should strike those 
that then were in authority, because they loathed and ab- 
horred the true word of everlasting God . . . ' Will ye or 
will ye not, ye shall drink the cup of the Lord's wrath. 
Judicium Domini, judicium Domini ! The judgment of the 
Lord, the judgment of the Lord ! ' lamentably cried he with 
^'^ Acts and Monuments, VII, 144. 



The Pulpit 175 

a lamentable voice and weeping tears." ^^ These exclama- 
tory passages are not always given at length in the surviving 
form of the sermons, but the theme is merely indicated to 
be developed at will. " God's anger," runs one such passage, 
" at length hath taken him away by death ; death ! cruel 
death ! fearful death, death ! etc." ^^ Another device of the 
popular oratorical style which Bradford often employed is 
that of long lists or catalogues of words of the same general 
meaning — " swearers, blasphemers, liars, flatterers, idle 
talkers, jesters, bribers, covetous, drunkards, gluttons," and 
so on as long as breath lasts. Alliteration is likewise used 
with an abandon which one may hope resulted from the 
heat and inspiration of the moment in the pulpit rather 
than from set intention. The negligence of Eli, he says, in 
correcting his sons, " nipped his neck in two." " But ours, 
which pamper up our children like puppets, will put us to no 
plunge." ^^ We see God's anger directed against those 
guilty of lying " so plainly that we cannot but groan and 
grunt again, in that we a little more have gushed out this 
gear gorgeously ^* in word and deed." ^^ Again he hopes 
that " the tossing to and fro of these examples, and specially 
of our late king and this troublesome time, will tumble 
some tears out of thine heart." ^^ The dignity of preach- 
ing may be supposed to have suffered from the use 
of such trivial artifices, perhaps more than it gained in 
vivacity. 

In his Piteous Lamentation on the state of the Church of 
England,^'' Bishop Ridley groups together four preachers, 

'^ Writings of John Bradford, ed. Townsend, I, iii. 

'= Ibid., I, 62. 

'' Ibid., I, 60. 

'* I.e., from the gorge or throat. 

" Ibid., I, 61. 

"■ Ibid., I, 62. 

*^ See Arber, Reprints, XII, 5, 



176 English Literary Prose 

Latimer, Lever, Bradford, and Knox, as pre-eminent for 
their sharp tongues in reprehending the abuses of the times. 
On his tombstone when he died in 1577, Thomas Lever was 
described as " Preacher to King Edward the Sixte." To this 
dignity, which he shared with various others, Lever was 
called in 1550, and from this year date his three extant 
sermons. Though not without occasional alliterative and 
punning passages. Lever's sermons are in the main straight- 
forward and simple, depending for their effect on plain and 
direct dealing with the specific abuses of the day. He has 
much to say concerning economic conditions, about what in 
modern phrase we call ' social service,' and he declares that 
Christ, though he often " disputed learnedly and preached 
plainly," accomplished not so much by his preaching as he 
did " in feeding and cherishing the people " by means of 
the miracle of the loaves and fishes. So, says Lever, " a 
meane learned person," who keeps a good house in his 
parish, will accomplish more good than " the best lerned 
doctor of divinitie kepyng no house, can perswade or teache 
in his parish by preaching a dosen solemne sermons." And 
a gentleman who keeps a good house shall stand in better 
credit with his people " than the best oratour or lawyer in 
England, for all his eloquence." ^^ This practical piety, this 
* institutional Christianity,' of Lever is characteristic of the 
popular preachers, who became now not only the instructors 
of the people in a new theology, but also the defenders of 
their rights and the advocates of a new feeling for humanity. 
Lever's sermons point out various public abuses, the thieving 
of prelates and magistrates, the buying of office, the evils 
of pluralities, peculation in public transactions, the covet- 
ousness of all both high and low. The contemporary popu- 
lar theory of common property, strangely like certain social- 
ist doctrines of to-day, is carefully considered, and though 

'' Arber's ed., p. 88. 



The Pulpit 177 

Lever is in sympathy with the people, he points out the 
necessity and the methods of correcting the evils of poverty 
by law. His constant cry of robbery in high places was 
not one calculated to quiet the dissatisfaction of the people, 
but Lever explains that such plain speaking he would employ 
in London before an audience of courtiers and magistrates, 
but " an other trade of preachynge " he would follow before 
a different audience.^" One is continually impressed in 
reading these few sermons of Lever preserved in writing 
and print, by their similarity in tone to much modern public 
discussion, not specifically to pulpit oratory, but to that 
wider range of platform speaking which deals with the re- 
form of social theory and with those evils of injustice which 
become apparent only when a new social theory is accepted. 
It was a necessary result of the increased liberty of thought 
in intellectual and religious matters granted to the individual 
in the early years of the Reformation that he should soon 
demand also broader economic rights and liberties. 

But the place of pre-eminence among the popular preach- 
ers of the Reformation must be accorded to the first of 
Bishop Ridley's quartet, to Hugh Latimer. In him the vir- 
tues and the defects of the popular manner are strikingly 
exhibited, and by a happy accident, a sufficient body of his 
sermons has been preserved to enable us to discover fully his 
methods. It was not Latimer's custom to write out his 
discourses. As was generally true of the popular sermons 
of the time, they were delivered first freely and colloquially, 
not without premeditation, but with much dependence on 
the inspiration of the moment ; and afterwards, as w-e learn 
from constant statements to this effect, they were sometimes 
put into writing and print either from the preacher's own 
recollection or from the notes of some person in the audi- 

'® Arber's ed., p. 67. Latimer makes a similar statement, that he 
preaches one way to courtiers and in a different way to countrymen. 



178 English Literary Prose 

ence. It was in this latter way that Latimer's sermons were 
placed on record. To Thomas Some, " humble and faith- 
ful orator " of the Duchess of Suffolk, and to Augustine 
Bernher, a personal servant and follower of Latimer, we 
are indebted for the greater part of the considerable num- 
ber of Latimer's extant sermons. It is not probable that 
Latimer himself had anything to do with seeing them 
through the press, or that he even revised the manuscript 
copy of them. Most likely the sermons were taken down 
in shorthand as they were delivered, and these notes were 
afterwards amplified for publication. The words of the 
sermons are consequently not in every respect exactly as 
Latimer spoke them, for so Thomas Some acknowledges, 
but one cannot read far without realizing that in the main 
the recorders have done their work faithfully. The flavor 
of a personality is in the sermons, and the words ring too 
true to be any other in the main than the very words which 
Latimer's faithful friends heard him speak from the 
pulpit. 

Latimer began his career as a preacher at Cambridge, 
whither he had gone an ardent defender of orthodox prin- 
ciples, and where, under the influence of Thomas Bilney, 
" Master Bilney or rather Saint Bilney," as Latimer de- 
scribes him,**^ he had embraced the doctrines of the re- 
formers. From that time Latimer declares he " began to 
smell the word of God, and forsook forsooth the school- 
doctors and such fooleries." He preached before the king 
at Windsor, on March 16, 1530, and soon after was ap- 
pointed one of the royal chaplains. Five years later he was 
made bishop of Worcester, and continued preaching and 
in the performance of the duties of his office until the pass- 
ing of the Six Articles in 1539, when rather than subscribe 
to them, he resigned his bishopric. On the accession of 
" Sermons, ed. Corrie, p. 334. 



The Pulpit 179 

Edward VI he was offered his bishopric again, but he re- 
fused in order that he might devote his whole time to 
preaching and to defending the rights of the people. He 
would be none of those strawberry-preachers, those un- 
preaching prelates who made a luxury of the sermon, " min- 
istering it but once a year," but in his own practice he 
exemplified his conviction that the people must have spirit- 
ual food " daily given unto them to feed upon." In the 
troublous days of Mary he was cast into prison, and to- 
gether with Cranmer and Ridley was condemned of heresy. 
He was retried and again condemned in the year following, 
and sharing the fate of his two associates, was burned at 
Oxford, October 16, 1555. 

In general tone, Latimer's preaching was always simple 
and direct, even colloquial. He appeared before his audi- 
ences as a fellow-citizen, discussing with them matters of 
conduct in a familiar, humorous way, but as no one could 
fail to see, in a .spirit of profound seriousness. His sermons 
are never learned in the usual sense of the term, nor are 
they ever scholastic and ingenious in the old fashion. He 
quotes occasionally from Terence, from Valerius Maximus, 
sometimes from the church fathers, but in general Latin 
is very sparingly used. He made his appeal direct to human 
nature and rarely sought to bolster up his teachings by the 
authority of learned doctors. Indeed few subtleties of 
doctrine are discussed, and there is no logical quibbling. 
With characteristic common sense, he answers as follows his 
own question as to where the soul of Jairus' daughter was 
during the time that she was dead : 

" Now I will make a clerkly answer unto my question, 
and such an answer that, if the bishop of Rome would have 
gone no further, we should have been well enough ; there 
would not have been such errors and fooleries in religion 
as there hath been. Now my answer is this : ' I cannot tell ; 



i8o English Literary Prose 

but where it pleased God it should be, there it was.' Is 
not this a good answer to such a clerkly question?"*^ 

He was perhaps not a notably deep or original thinker as 
compared with some of his contemporaries, but he held the 
current ideas of the Reformation with a steadiness of con- 
viction that few could equal. His directness and concrete- 
ness, his simplicity and his sympathy are his most admirable 
characteristics. He is Chaucerian in his broad humanity, 
but he had something which Chaucer seems to have lacked, 
an assurance of the sanctity of popular rights. His mission 
he felt to be not merely to feed the people with the right 
interpretation of the word, but to defend them also against 
civil and ecclesiastical oppression. And in this he was 
moved not by the centrifugal medieval conception of charity, 
but by a sense of social responsibility, of the new meaning 
of good works which was one of the lost inheritances from 
primitive Christianity that the reformers of the sixteenth 
century were endeavoring to restore to its proper place as a 
living element in personal character. Dishonesty and greed 
in high places as in low are constant themes with him and 
his endeavor is to awaken in men a fresh sense of fidelity 
and honesty. 

As one expects from the temper of the man, Latimer's 
style in preaching was not finically artful. He used few 
learned words, after the fashion of the aureate writers, and 
on the other hand, he used few archaic words. In vocab- 
ulary he was neither an innovator nor a purist, was not a 
theorist at all. His vocabulary was that of normal colloquial 
use in his day, simple and popular, and at times to modern 
ears, coarse. Though he antedates Shakspere by two gen- 
erations, his language, like Tindale's, is more modern than 
Shakspere's because he was not affected by the extrava- 
gances of sixteenth-century courtly experiment and theory, 
^^ Sermons, p. 550. 



The Pulpit i8i 

His sentences are prevailingly short, and always clear. 
Perhaps they have been somewhat abbreviated in the process 
of writing down, but the elements of the structure cannot 
have been altered. They are the typical short sentences of 
colloquial discourse, and show none of Bishop Fisher's 
striving after Ciceronian amplitude of form. He defends 
the use of English, necessarily so, since his interests are 
mainly popular. But he was not hostile to learning, and he 
also defends the universities and scholarship, as safeguards 
against narrowness and provincialism in learning. " If ye 
will not maintain schools and universities," he declares, " ye 
shall have a brutality." *- 

Yet Latimer's style, if it is not highly literary, is by no 
means colorless and lacking in rhetorical artifice. Word 
pairs after the conventional fashion, " search and inquiry," 
" fused and shed," " behold and see," " sleights and subtle 
means," he employs frequently, though not extravagantly. 
Alliteration is found, but again not as obtrusively as in some 
other contemporary popular styles. The heaping of words 
of similar meaning or of phrases of similar construction, a 
common device of tumbling style in popular oratory, is 
usually combined with alliteration : 

" But now for the fault of unpreaching prelates, me- 
thinks I could guess what might be said for excusing of 
them. They are so troubled with their lordly living, they 
be so placed in palaces, couched in courts, ruffling in their 
rents, dancing in their dominions, burdened with ambas- 
sages, pampering of their paunches, like a monk that maketh 
his jubilee; munching in their mangers, and moiling in their 
gay manors and mansions, and so troubled with loitering 
in their lordships, that they cannot attend it." *^ 

Though there are numerous passages of this kind of 
alliterative volubility in Latimer, there are few places that 

*^ Sermons, p. 269. See also p. 179. *' Ibid., p. 67. 



i82 English Literary Prose 

could be called eloquent. He rarely spoke at a white heat, 
as Tindale often wrote, but even when the words flow forth 
most abundantly, they are vigorous, as in Langland, only 
in a homely, half-humorous way. It was not the admiration 
but the sympathetic attention of his audiences that Latimer 
was striving to secure. 

At times Latimer indulges in the habit, only too com- 
mon in his day, of punning and similar trivial plays on 
words. The king's chaplains, he says, are " of the closet 
and keep close such matters " ; ** and at another place, " he 
would not walk in by-walks where are many balks " ; *^ or 
again, " watching and prying what they might hear or see 
against the see of Rome." '^^ The old word " cough " or 
"coff " in the sense of "procure," " secure," — " if every man 
that hath beguiled the king should make restitution after 
this sort, it would cough the king twenty thousand pounds, 
I think " *^ — offers an obvious opportunity of which Latimer 
does not hesitate to avail himself. Latimer's epithets are 
also often more picturesque than dignified. The answer 
of the Pharisees, Num et vos seducti estisf he translates, 
" What, ye brainsick fools, ye hoddy-pecks, ye doddy-pouls, 
ye huddes, do you believe him? are you seduced also?"^® 
And ' dodipole ' is a favorite term of reproach with him. 
Like all persons who have accustomed themselves to the 
use of strong language, Latimer probably felt his picturesque 
phrases less keenly than his auditors and may thus have 
come to seem more familiar than he intended to be. But 
it was in his nature to be picturesque, and even if he had 
tried, he probably could not have done otherwise. He 
saw things concretely and dramatically, and religious or 
theological ideas so presented necessarily afforded strong 
contrasts. His imagery is thus at times almost grotesque, 

" P. 98. *' P. 287. *' P. 136. 

*° P. 96. " P. 262. 



The Pulpit 183 

as in the famous card sermon, with its " Hearts is trump " 
and other figurative applications of the game of cards ; or 
the sermon on the Lord's Supper described as a great feast, 
with all the parts of a dinner specified, from the beginning 
down to the sweetmeats, " bellaria, certain subtleties, cus- 
tards, sweet and delicate things." "What is that? Marry, 
remission of sins and everlasting life." *^ Elsewhere the 
beatitudes are discussed under the figure of a pilgrimage, 
eight days or eight miles, as you wish to take it.^'^ Faith is 
a noble duchess with her gentleman-usher, repentance, going 
before her.^^ 

Latimer's illustrative stories are usually fresh and con- 
temporary. The old story of Cambyses, who slew the un- 
just judge and hung up his skin, he uses several times, fol- 
lowing Bishop Fisher ^- and various others. But the char- 
acteristic illustrative story in Latimer is not the exemplum 
but the short anecdote of real life. A powerful appeal 
ad hominem is made when Latimer declares that the person 
who " took the silver basin and ewer for a bribe, thinketh that 
it will not come out ; but he may now know that I know it." 
And again, still on this same theme of bribery, he catches 
the ear of the people with a bit of familiar narrative : 

" A good fellow on a time bode another of his friends to 
breakfast, and said, * If you will come, you will be welcome ; 
but I tell ye aforehancl, you shall have slender fare : one 
dish and that is all.' ' What is that? ' said he. ' A pudding 
and nothing else.' ' Marry,' said he, ' you cannot please me 
better ; that is for mine own tooth ; you may draw me round 

" P. 467. 

"" P. 474- 

"' P. 237. Bradford has the same figure : " This faith is not with- 
out repentance, as her gentleman usher before her : before her, I 
say, in discerning true faith from false faith, lip faith, Englishmen's 
faith." Writings of John Bradford, ed. Townsend, I, 40. 

" English Works, pp. 397-398. 



184 English Literary Prose 

about the town with a pudding.' These bribing magistrates 
and judges follow gifts faster than that fellow would follow 
a pudding." ^^ 

If modern taste is at times offended by Latimer's 
colloquial ease and broadness, there are certain con- 
siderations pertinent to the preaching of his day which 
should soften judgment. It should be remembered that the 
sermon was the one place in the service of the church which 
could make a direct appeal to the interest of the people. 
The language of the Latin liturgy was not intelligible to 
them, and its symbolism was often too remote and subtle 
for the average worshiper to grasp. In the sermon the 
service descended to the human level of the congregation. 
Moreover it should be remembered that Latimer, though he 
belongs to the protestant Reformation, preached before the 
stern and arid tendencies of Puritanism had imposed upon 
the church in all its branches that serious and somewhat 
melancholy sense of decorum which impresses one as still 
characteristic of English churches as contrasted with those 
of the Continent. It is a curious fact that the reformed 
church in granting a fuller and more liberal share to the 
people in the control and in the services of the church, 
tended to crowd out the lighter and more familiar sides of 
popular interest. Then again, the church of the early six- 
teenth century was still connected vitally with the political 
life of the times. The king, by his very assumption of 
supremacy, exposed his own actions, and those of his law- 
givers, to the inspection and criticism of the preachers. 
Thus the sermon often became a direct address to the people 
in which matters of concern in the practical moral and 
public affairs of the day were discussed. 

Paul's Cross in London, as the best known of many sim- 
ilar meeting places throughout the country, may stand as 

"" P. 141. 



The Pulpit 185 

representative of this combination of popular theological, 
moral, and political interests. From a period antedating the 
Conquest, the citizens of London had been accustomed to 
come together in their folk-moots under the shadow of the 
cathedral. At first these meetings were probably civil 
rather than religious, and just when the Cross itself was 
erected and a covered rostrum for the speaker built, has not 
been determined. Early in the fourteenth century, how- 
ever, the Cross and the meeting place seem to have become 
distinctly the possession of the cathedral, and although civil 
proclamations and enouncements continued to be made from 
it, the church used it primarily as its own instrument, grad- 
ually making of it a forum of religious discussion. The 
civil side in this discussion was always prominent, however, 
and Paul's Cross was often the place of publication of " in- 
spired " utterances which owed nothing to divine inspira- 
tion. Thus Archbishop Grindal, in one of his extant letters, 
asks Sir William Cecil if there are any matters of state 
which he wishes Grindal to mention in his sermon at Paul's 
Cross the next Sunday.-''* As Carlyle has said, Paul's Cross 
became " a kind of Times Newspaper, but edited partly by 
Heaven itself." ^^ The active history of the Cross continues 
to the middle of the seventeenth century, but it was never as 
popular with the Puritans as it had been in earlier times. 

In its days of prosperity the audiences at the Cross were 
made up not only of citizens, but also of courtiers and nobles, 
even royalty itself being often present. The earliest sermon 
preached at Paul's Cross still extant dates from 1388 or 
1389, and is preserved by Foxe.^'^ Records of activities at 
the Cross after this time are abundant. In 1457 Reginald 
Pecock recanted his heresies at the Cross, and here many a 

°* Grindal, Remains, ed. Nicholson, p. 253. 

°° Cromwell, Introduction, Chapter IV, under 1629. 

"^^ Acts and Monuments, III, 292-307. 



i86 English Literary Prose 

Lollard bore fagots and watched the burning of his hereti- 
cal books. In 1482 Dr. Shaw dehvered here that unhappy 
sermon which was to have turned the people's hearts to 
Richard. In 1521 Cardinal Wolsey was present at the Cross 
when the pope's sentence against Luther was read. Nine 
years after this, Tunstall here burned all those copies of 
Tindale's New Testament that he could secure. Only a few 
years later, however, these same persecuted reformers were 
denouncing their enemies from this very pulpit. All through 
the sixteenth century the Cross reflected the many changes 
of religious feeling and opinion which took place, and one 
need only read in the old chronicles and histories to see how 
large a part it played in the life of the city. The stream 
of pulpit eloquence flowed forth most abundantly in the days 
of Edward. The old rule had been to have preaching at 
the Cross only on Sunday in the afternoon, but now there 
were sermons four or five times a week, and sometimes two 
on one day. The voices of Ridley, Lever, and Latimer were 
often heard from this pulpit. When Ridley preached on the 
new Prayer Book, he spoke so long and earnestly that the 
audience remained until five o'clock of a November evening 
and was then constrained to go home by torchlight. ^^ The 
historians have preserved many picturesque details with 
reference to these citizens' meetings, which were not always 
peaceful and well behaved, and by means of their accounts 
one arrives, perhaps better than in any other way, at an inti- 
mate realization of the popular temper of the times in mat- 
ters of politics and religion. 

Though the opponents of the episcopalianism of the 
Established Church continued their attacks upon " un- 
preaching prelates " late into the century^ and Martin Mar- 
prelate spares not " Lord dumb John of London," it would 
" Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, II, I, 108. 



The Pulpit 187 

seem, from the number of surviving examples, that any 
reasonable appetite for sermons must have been satisfied 
by the supply. The bishops of the Elizabethan church 
whether conservative or radical in their tendencies, 
quite generally accepted the duty of public preaching 
and many of them preached with great vigor. Among 
the minor clergy, although the number of preachers 
was small in comparison with the whole body of the 
clergy,^® the habit of preaching was spreading. It was 
Elizabeth's policy to encourage preaching, though only 
of a zealously guarded kind. Having cared for the revision 
of the service book, Elizabeth began to " tune her pulpits." 
Preaching at Paul's Cross had been inhibited for some 
time, after her accession, and when it was resumed, it was 
provided that " none but men of good wisdom and learning 
should come up at the Cross." ^^ To be sure some of the 
survivors of the earlier period of the Reformation were still 
heard. John Foxe preached from the Cross in 1578, and 
old Miles Coverdale is frequently mentioned in the records. 
In the main, however, authorized preaching was now of a 
new type. It was more restrained, more learned, and more 
doctrinal than the preaching of the early reformers had been. 
The first enthusiasm of the popular movement had given 
place to a less exalted, if not more peaceful mood. This 
was pre-eminently a period of learned controversy, and the 
controversial pamphlet was a better form of expression for 
the religious thought of the formative period of the Estab- 

^' See Frere, A History of the English Church in the Reigns of 
Elizabeth and James I, pp. 107-109, for the figures. Dibdin, Library 
Companion, I, 66-85, has a section on " Old Sermons " in which he 
gives extracts from Latimer, Fox, Drant, and Roger Edgworth, the 
last a Roman Catholic preacher of the eve of the Reformation. A 
complete study of early Reformation preaching is much to be de- 
sired. 

" Strype, Annals of the Reformation, I, Pt. I, 198 (Oxford, 
1824). 



i88 English Literary Prose 

lishment than the sermon. In consequence, though there 
are many Anglican preachers in the third quarter of the 
century, there are none who are principally distinguished 
for their preaching. 

Interest in preaching at this time being largely doctrinal, 
efforts were made to provide a body of authorized pulpit 
discourses which might serve as models for preachers, or 
which might be read in the place of original sermons by such 
as had not the skill or the authority to write sermons of 
their own. The first book of Homilies, in part written by 
Cranmer and as a whole supervised by him, appeared in 
1547, and a second and enlarged edition early in Elizabeth's 
reign. The doctrinal discourses of certain foreigners were 
also held in high esteem. Anne Cooke, afterwards the wife 
of Sir Nicholas Bacon, probably in 1549, published a collec- 
tion of the sermons of Bernardino Ochino, an Italian who 
came to England with Peter Martyr in 1548, on the invita- 
tion of Cranmer. Two collections of Ochino's sermons in 
English had already appeared in 1548, another, Englished 
by John Ponet, was published in 1549, and still another by 
William Phiston in 1580. Various collections of the ser- 
mons of Henry Bullinger, the Swiss reformer, were pub- 
lished in English, one by John Daus in 1561, another in 
1573, and three editions of a translation of Bullinger's 
Decades (in 1577, 1584, 1587), made, according to Strype, 
by a " person of eminency in the church." Among the orders 
issued by Archbishop Whitgift in 1586, " for the better in- 
crease of learning in the inferior ministers and for more 
diligent preaching and catechizing," was one that every 
member of the inferior clergy " shall before the second 
day of February next provide a Bible and Bullinger's 
Decads in Latin or English, and a paper book, and shall 
every day read over one chapter of the holy scriptures, and 
note the principal contents thereof briefly in his paper 



The Pulpit 189 

booke, and shall every week read over one sermon in the 
said Decads, and note likewise the chief matters therein con- 
tained in the said paper." *^° These sermons of Bullinger 
are dignified scholarly expositions, but colorless, as com- 
pared with the sermons of the early preachers of the English 
Reformation, Numerous translations of Calvin's and of 
Beza's sermons also appeared, and though they were not 
made doctrinally authoritative for the Established Church 
as were Bullinger's Decades, there can be no doubt that 
they were generally and diligently studied and often 
imitated. 

In non-conforming and dissenting circles, among Puri- 
tans, Brownists, and Barrowists, the sermon occupied a 
more important place than it did in the churches of the 
Establishment. Indeed its place was so important that the 
Puritans were often criticised for permitting the sermon to 
crowd out prayer and other aspects of religious worship. 
Most of this sermonizing, being of an extempore and horta- 
tory character, was never reduced to writing. On the basis 
of a narrow scriptural outlook, it seems to have developed 
mainly in the direction of apocalyptic eloquence. It affords 
further evidence that the apostolic age of reform was past, 
and that what the church now needed was scholarship and 
discretion, not merely fervor, to guide it safely. Bacon calls 
attention to the fact that " if a preacher preach with care 
and meditation," the non-conformists censure it as a form 
of speaking " not becoming the simplicity of the Gospel, and 
refer it to the reprehension of St. Paul, speaking of the 
enticing speech of man's zmsdom." "^ Improvised preaching 
naturally encouraged a free expression of feeling which was 

°° The Decades of Henry Bidlinger, translated by H. I., ed. Hard- 
ing, Parker Society, IV, xxix. 

"' On the Controversies of the Church, 1589, Letters and Life, I, 
91. 



190 English Literary Prose 

only too often violent and bitter. The non-conformists were 
now the under dogs, as the reformers once had been, and 
little difference is to be observed in the spirit of dissent as 
manifested in 1530 and 1580. Yet with all the liberty of 
speech which the radicals and non-conformists permitted in 
preaching, they failed to develop a preacher of great power. 
The reason for this was partly that their opinions were still 
in a formative stage of development, partly also that they 
themselves were subject to constraint from ecclesiastical and 
civil authority which in general prevented men of ability 
and training from openly espousing their cause. The typical 
separatist congregation of the Elizabethan period was com- 
posed of people from the humbler walks of life who made 
no great demand except that of earnestness, on the part 
of their preachers, and who met in obscure places, gravel 
pits, the open fields, any place where they hoped to escape 
observation. Nashe speaks scornfully of popular preachers, 
such as " preach in ditches and other conventicles, when 
they leape from the Coblers stal to their pulpits." ^^ Such 
preachers felt and expressed a great contempt for literary 
form. They preached as the spirit gave them utterance, and 
extemporary preaching of this kind is not likely to be 
lasting. The more extreme of the non-conformists refused 
to listen to the sermons delivered from the pulpits of the 
Established Church, regarding the preachers altogether as 
wicked and false prophets. Robert Browne, the founder of 
the sect of Brownists, denied the authority of the church 
officially to license preachers for preaching. He character- 
ized the licensed preachers as " hired Lecturers " and 
" wicked Preachers and hirelings." The words they spoke 
were not their own, but came from those by whom they 
held their authority. For their learning Browne had the 
greatest contempt, declaring that you " may smell out their 
** Works, ed. McKerrow, I, 192. 



The Pulpit 191 

spirites by the sent of their Greeke or Ebrewe sentences." ^^ 
And for their literary style, his scorn was equally great: 

" These Maidens of the Bishoppes, are called to the 
Pulpit, and there everie Maiden must hurle to them her 
dressing out of a hoode. If John London do not sauce it 
with a Methode of preachinge, if they have not his Rheto- 
ricke to make the hearers heedful, wel-willers, and teache- 
able (o pure divinitie), or if their cookerie be not welcomed 
with the Beadle & the typstafife, to bring it to the pulpit, 
then may it go for no servis. Their Latin is phisik to 
make hole the sicke, and their greeke and hebrewe wiil 
blesse you from evill spirits. By these and by their booke 
of the order of preaching, they may stand before the Queene, 
as did Daniel before the king. For so soone as they have 
stood up in famouse places, & shewed their universitie 
degrees, and how wel they become their hoodes, or their 
skarlett gownes, and of what standing in Cambridg, and 
reading they are of in the tongues and Doctors ; There 
may then be none like them : then must you needes call 
them Rabbie, Master Doctor, My Lords Chaplain, Maister 
Preacher, and our Divinitie lecturer. This Phisicke will 
heale all at Paules Crosse in one day. For as soone as 
they have shewed it and receyved a Dinner, and their 
honour and the hope of some preferrement, all is made 
whole, and they goe away as if no bodie were sicke." *^* 

Browne would have the preacher's authority come only from 
Christ himself, and though he permitted the ordaining of 
preachers by the laying on of the hands of elders, this was 
in no sense to imply the transmission of a special power to 
preachers thus ordained. Anyone was to preach who had 
" the gift," without examination in Latin or the catechism, 
or in any of those matters of doctrine which the Established 
Church taught its preachers, to be spit out upon others, in 
Browne's words, that men might feed upon their graceless 

"^ Burrage, The True Story of Robert Browne, p. 21. 
°* Ibid., pp. 21-22. 



192 English Literary Prose 

spewings.*'^ In the Barrowist congregations likewise it was 
held that public ministers were no longer needed now that 
the office of the apostles had ceased, and that any layman 
who was a brother, that is a member of the congregation, 
whatever his calling, might preach. He must be able " to 
divide the word of God aright," and must be careful " to 
deliver his doctrine pure, sound & plaine, not with curiositie 
or affectation, but so that it may edifie the most simple, 
approving it to every mans conscience." ^^ The Barrowists 
also practiced extemporary prayer, and refused to use any 
form of read or " stynted " prayer. When they pray, says 
a contemporary description, " one speketh and the rest do 
grone, or sob, or sigh, as if they wold wringe out teares." ^"^ 
All this sounds very familiar to modern ears, but the note 
was a new one in the sixteenth century, and to many minds 
extremely disturbing. Bishop Cox, writing in 1571, speaks 
sadly of these separatist preachers who " by the vehemence 
of their harangues have so maddened the wretched multi- 
tude, and driven some of them to that pitch of frenzy, that 
they now obstinately refuse to enter our churches, either to 
baptize their children, or to partake of the Lord's supper, 
or to hear sermons." ^^ And the violence of the sermons of 
dissenting preachers and of their opinions expressed in writ- 
ing was such as to call forth protest even from friends of 
their cause. The elements of right and justice in the prin- 
ciples of the dissenters at this day call neither for defense 
nor elucidation. Bitterness and narrowness and discord 
were perhaps in no greater degree the first fruits of non- 
conformity than they were those of the Reformation. For 
the time being non-conformist principles were struggling, 

'" Burrage, ibid., p. 24. 

°' Barrowe, A True Description, in Walker, Creeds and Platforms 
of Congregationalism, p. 35. 

"' Burrage, Early English Dissenters, I, 126. 
°' Ibid., p. 90. 



The Pulpit 193 

like those of the Lollards a century and more before, amid 
all the confusion and error of truth in the making, and 
their expression in consequence was correspondingly im- 
perfect. 

It would be unfair to the early history of non-conformity, 
however, to take men like Browne and Barrowe as rep- 
resentative of the whole movement. Between the extremes 
of full conformity and of separatism, there stood a body of 
moderate Puritans who acknowledged the authority of the 
state church but who refused to accept the ceremonies and 
practices which the church was endeavoring to impose upon 
all its members. The most admired spokesman from the 
pulpit of these non-conformists of the center was one whose 
name must have been extremely familiar to Londoners of 
the later eighties in the sixteenth century, but whose fame 
in after days has been eclipsed by that of his more orthodox 
contemporaries. This was Henry Smith, who having al- 
ready won much favor as a popular preacher, in 1587 was 
appointed lecturer at St. Clement Danes. He continued to 
address the citizens of London at this place, until ill-health 
compelled his retirement in 1590. Though he had received 
university training, from conscientious scruples Smith re- 
fused ordination, and being a man of large private means, 
he was enabled to devote himself to the service of the 
ministry in the unremunerated position of lecturer. On 
doctrinal points he accepted the teachings of the established 
church, in his sermons frequently preaching against separa- 
tists, but he reserved the right of non-conformity in certain 
details of practice. It is an evidence of the extent to which 
this right was recognized in Smith's day that with the con- 
sent of the rector and all concerned, he could be appointed 
to a dignified lectureship in an important church like St. 
Clement Danes, and that in the exercise of his office he 
was permitted to overshadow the regular preaching of the 



194 English Literary Prose 

church. '^^ He died early, at about the age of forty, in 1591, 
and during the last year of his life, in the leisure enforced 
by illness, he prepared for printing an edition of his ser- 
mons, some of which had already been printed from short- 
hand notes taken at the time of their delivery. Smith did 
not live to see his v^orks through the press, though the first 
collected edition of the sermons, which appeared in 1592, 
was said to have been " perused by the author before his 
death." ■^° Frequent later editions attest the great popu- 
larity of the sermons, which even to-day are not without 
their faithful readers. 

All accounts go to show that Smith possessed an extraor- 
dinary following in the middle class of English society in 
his day. He addressed himself primarily to the sober, well- 
regulated citizens of London, and among them he found 
his chief supporters. He exhibits unfailingly a strong 
commonsense which leads him to treat with scorn the 
dreamings of the religious visionaries in which the age 
abounded, and which perhaps also accounts for his dislike 
of the ceremonial of the Roman and of the Established 
Church. The character of his audience determined both 
the themes and the method of his preaching. He has much 
to say against city vices, against the sin of usury, as it was 
then regarded, against lawyers, against sleeping in church, 
physical and spiritual, gambling, extravagance in dress and 
fashion, drunkenness and other crudities of conduct, though 
it should be said that these topics are only introduced by the 
way as practical applications of spiritual truths which are 
more broadly apprehended. His treatment of morals is 
serious, never colloquial and familiar as it is with Latimer. 

"'' He was suspended from preaching for a short time in 1588, by 
Aylmer, the tyrannical bishop of London, but was soon restored 
through the influence of Burghley. See Cooper, Athen. Cantab., II, 
104. 

'" Works, ed. Miller, I, xvii. 



The Pulpit 195 

On the whole he has relatively little to say about contro- 
versial matters. Though he defends the preacher's right 
and duty to reprove/^ he is not given to railing, whether 
against Papist, Anglican, or separatist. He laments the fact 
that zeal, commended in others, is held in derision in the 
protestant,"- and in another striking passage he shows the 
danger to which the social reformer is exposed of being re- 
garded as a disturber of peace : 

" If ye ask the atheist, or epicure, or those roguish 
players, what is a disturber? you shall see that they will 
make Solomon one, because he spoke against vanity, for 
this is their definition. He which will not allow men to 
profane the Sabbath, but saith, that cards, and dice, and 
stage-players, and May-games, and May-poles, and May- 
fools, and morris dancers are vanity, is a prattler, disturber, 
and an arch-puritan, by the law, which the Jews had to kill 
Christ, John xix, 7. The reason is, because men cannot 
abide to be controlled of their pleasures, Prov. xiii, i. 
Therefore they hold it as an offence to speak against their 
sports, or their customs, or their follies, or their pleasures, 
or their titles, or their toys ; and they which would not be 
counted precise in these times, must take heed that they 
go not so far as Solomon, to term all vanity. But they 
must say, that the vanities of great men are necessary 
recreations,"^ and the vanities of the people are means to 
make unity." ^* 

The similarity of these arguments of Smith's opponents 
to those of the modern defenders of ' personal liberty,' will 
be apparent. It is characteristic, however, of Smith's mod- 
erate treatment of morals that he attempts to answer such 
arguments not with bitterness, or taunting, or self-right- 

^' Works, II, 213. 
'^bid., I, 131. 

" Perhaps referring to the Bishop of London's known fondness 
for playing bowls on Sunday. 
^Mbid., I, 383-384. 



196 English Literary Prose 

eousness, but with reasons that must have appealed strongly 
to the sense of order and propriety of the decent London 
citizens whom he was addressing. 

Though commonsense and good order in morals and 
religion were the foundation of Smith's character as a 
preacher, they were not the sole grounds of his popularity 
with the audiences that gathered to hear him. He was the 
most eloquent preacher in London, and according to the 
contemporary evidence, awakened in his hearers not only 
admiration but warm feelings of personal respect and affec- 
tion. If not Smith, it must have been some preacher like 
him that Lady Bacon, the mother of Sir Francis, had in 
mind, when she wrote to Lord Burghley in 1584 that she 
had profited more by the " sincere and sound opening of 
the Scriptures by an ordinary preaching within these seven 
or eight years " than she had by hearing " odd sermons at 
Paul's well-nigh twenty years together." '^^ Another of 
Smith's contemporaries, Thomas Nashe, preserves the title 
of " silver tongu'd Smith " by which he was most frequently 
described. Nashe groups Smith with those divines who 
shine " above the common mediocritie," and declares that he 
was such a *' plausible pulpit man " because he refined, pre- 
pared, and purified his mind with " sweete Poetrie " before 
he entered upon the rough ways of theology. " If a simple 
mans censure may be admitted to speake in such an open 
Theater of opinions, I never saw aboundant reading better 
mixt with delight, or sentences which no man can challenge 
of prophane affectation sounding more melodious to the eare 
or piercing more deepe to the heart." '"^ In the short life 
which he prefixed to his edition of the sermons of Smith, 
Fuller says that Smith was " commonly called the Silver- 
tongued preacher, and that was but one metal below St. 

'" Bacon, Letters and Life, I, 41. 

'"^Pierce Penilesse, ed. McKerrow, Works, I, 192-193. 



The Pulpit 197 

Chrysostom." He adds that his church was so crowded 
with auditors that " persons of good quality brought their 
own pews with them, I mean their legs, to stand thereupon 
in the alleys," and that he " held the rudder of their affec- 
tions in his hands, so that he could steer them whither he 
was pleased." ^^ Gabriel Harvey, who had himself heard 
Smith from the pulpit, gives his " slender opinion " of sun- 
dry contemporary preachers, providing each with an appro- 
priate epithet. Among others, he describes Whitgift as 
" pithy," Andrewes as " learned," but Smith's vein he de- 
clares was " patheticall." ''^ 

The epithet pathetical was well chosen, for it touches the 
source of Smith's oratorical power. Circumstances prob- 
ably aided in heightening the emotional appeal of his ser- 
mons. The preacher himself was young, he lived in the 
lonely state of bachelorhood, he had the support of neither 
court nor church, and the disease, probably consumption, 
which carried him off in about his fortieth year, had already 
plainly laid its hand upon him. One of his most frequent 
themes is death, not painted in the ghastly lights and 
shadows of the familiar Puritan accounts of hell-fire and 
judgment but with a sense of human helplessness and stupe- 
faction in the face of this most dreadful of all realities : 

" Our fathers have summoned us, and we must summon 
our children to the grave. Every thing every day suffers 
some eclipse, nothing standing at a stay ; but one creature 
calls to another, Let us leave this world. While we play 
our pageants upon this stage of short continuance, every 
man hath a part, some longer, and some shorter ; and while 
the actors are at it, suddenly death steps upon the stage, 
like a hawk which separates one of the doves from the 
flight ; he shoots his dart ; where it lights, there falls one 

" Works of Henry Smith, ed. Miller, I, ix. 

■" Works, ed. Grosart, II, 292; Elisabethan Critical Essays, ed. 
Gregory Smith, II, 281. 



198 English Literary Prose 

of the actors dead before them, and makes all the rest 
aghast ; they muse, and mourn, and bury him, and then to 
the sport again ! While they sing, play and dance, death 
comes again and strikes another ; there he lies, they mourn 
for him, and bury him as they did the former, and play 
again. So one after another till the players be vanished, 
like the accusers which came before Christ, John viii, 9 ; 
and death is the last upon the stage, so ' the figure of this 
world passeth away.' " ^^ 

The simplicity of this passage is characteristic of Smith's 
method throughout. If he was eloquent, he succeeded in 
being so without straining. He consistently avoided in- 
genuity and rhetorical artifice of all kinds. His text is gen- 
erally a brief sentence^ of broad and obvious significance, 
and he proceeds to develop it, without minute analysis, in 
its general moral and spiritual applications. Except for an 
occasional pun, tricks of style are consistently avoided. His 
figures are sometimes homely, as when he speaks of washing 
the soul clean with the " soap of the gospel," or of the 
people of this world who are never without excuses, they 
can " very easily find a staff to beat a dog," but they are 
never coarse or used merely to raise a laugh. He employs 
neither alliteration, balance, ingenious metaphor, high- 
sounding lists of words, nor any other of the com- 
mon devices of popular preaching. His vocabulary is 
so extremely simple that scarcely a word of it requires 
explanation to-day. His sentences are as simple as 
his vocabulary, short, compact, and crisp in an astonish- 
ingly modern degree. In his own mind he had evidently 
worked out a clear conception, not only of the spirit and 
content, but also of the style, appropriate to popular preach- 
ing. " But indeed," he declares, " to preach simply is not 
to preach rudely, nor unlearnedly, nor confusedly, but to 
preach plainly and perspicuously, that the simplest man may 
^° Sermons, I, 367. 



The Pulpit 199 

understand what is taught, as if he did hear his name." He 
reprehends that kind of preachers " risen up but of late, 
which shroud and cover every rustical and unsavoury and 
childish and absurd sermon, under the name of the simple 
kind of teaching." " As every sound is not music, so every 
sermon is not preaching, but worse than if we should read 
a homily." ^° The kind of preaching which Smith defended, 
and which in his own sermons he exemplified, stood midway 
between the excessive refinement of scholarly preaching, 
then becoming fashionable, and the rude and ill-considered 
outpourings of those zealots whose fervoi- exceeded their 
discretion. He may be regarded as London's first great 
city preacher, and in his character of representative of the 
better and more thoughtful side of Puritanism in his day 
and in his community, as spokesman for certain standards 
of propriety in conduct and expression which the English 
people have frequently seen exemplified in their pulpits. 

The simple, direct methods of Henry Smith contrast strik- 
ingly with those of Launcelot Andrewes, courtier, scholar, 
controversialist, and ingenious analyst of the letter of the 
spiritual life. If Smith was the most popular London 
preacher in his short day, Andrewes by common consent is 
regarded as the greatest of the preachers in the period of the 
Establishment. 

After a distinguished career at Cambridge, in 1589 
when he was thirty-four years old, Andrewes received the 
London living of St. Giles, Cripplegate. Soon after he 
became prebend residentiary of St. Paul's, where he lec- 
tured three times a week during term time, besides preach- 
ing at St. Giles. He became chaplain to Archbishop Whit- 
gift, and also chaplain in ordinary to Queen Elizabeth. He 
was successively bishop of Chichester, Ely, and finally of 
Winchester. In the list of divines appointed in 1607 to 
*° Sermons, I, 139-140; see also I, 337; II, 213. 



200 English Literary Prose 

prepare what is known as the Authorized Version of the 
Jjible, his name stands first. In the reign of James he took 
an important part in tlie Bellarminian controversies con- 
cerning the nature of royal and episcopal authority. He 
died in the second year of Charles I, after a life of unceasing 
and splendid activity. His gifts were remarkably varied. 
With a sense for order in secular and ecclesiastical affairs 
and a deep feeling for the significance of ritual and cere- 
mony he combined a sincere personal piety, scholarship 
which was the wonder of his age, and a tolerant apprecia- 
tion of spiritual values which make of him not indeed a 
typical prelate, but the very flower of the English Establish- 
ment. 

Throughout his career, Andrewes preached incessantly. 
In the latter half of the reign of Elizabeth and during the 
whole of the reign of King James, he was the leading 
preacher at the English court. At St. Giles' and in various 
pulpits of the city, he addressed audiences of a more com- 
posite character. He was always, however, the spokesman 
for the great, for the higher official life of the country, for 
the learned, and for the rich merchants of the city. " Christ 
is not only," he declares in one of his sermons on the 
Nativity, " for russet cloaks, shepherds and such : shows 
himself to none but such. But even the grandees, great 
states such as these, venerunt, 'they came' too; and when 
they came were welcome to Him. For they were sent for 
and invited by this star [of Bethlehem], their star prop- 
erly." ®^ The people, whom Andrewes regards with com- 
passion rather than respect, in his conception were always 
to be held in check and under control. " Therefore guiding 
they need — both the staff of unity, ' Bands,' to reduce them 
from straying, and the staff of order, ' Beauty,' to lead them 
so reduced. And would God they would see their own 
*' Ninety-six Sermons, I, 243. 



The Pulpit 201 

feebleness and shallowness, and learn to acknowledge the 
absolute necessity of this benefit ; in all duty receiving it, in 
all humility praying for the continuance of it, that God 
break not the fold, and smite not the shepherd for the 
flock's unthankfulness ! " ^^ His theories with respect to 
authority and law are very fully presented in sermons which 
consider the nature of kingly power and the right of the 
people to oppose their constituted rulers. He accepted the 
doctrine, much debated in the reign of James, of the divine 
right of kings. Being anointed, kings become parts of God 
himself ; anointing has a holy power " not only to make their 
persons sacred, and so free from touch or violating (all 
agree to that) but even their calling also. For holy unction, 
holy function." ^^ The right of revolt is thus completely 
withdrawn from all private persons ; they are not to do so 
much as " rise or stir the foot, but keep every joint quiet." ^* 
For to go about to oppose the king is as much as to do it. 
The people must be controlled by law, not merely such law 
as they are willing to accept, the mild options of the Gospel, 
but also by stern precept and command. " Gospel it how 
we will, if the Gospel hath not the legalia of it acknowl- 
edged, allowed, and preserved to it ; if once it lose the force 
and vigour of a law, it is a sign it declines, it grows weak 
and unprofitable, and that is a sign it will not long last." ^^ 
It is in such utterances of an almost Old Testament severity, 
that Andrewes reveals his deep-seated sense of authority, 
his hatred of all that approaches sacrilege, of all tendencies 
towards disorder and violence in the political and spiritual 
conduct of men. As one might expect, he has little sym- 
pathy with that genial inspiration of the natural man, 
powerful but ill-regulated, upon which the advocates of a 
naive religion placed so great dependence, and in general he 

^^ Ninety-six Sermons, II, 29. ®* Ibid., IV, 32. 

" Ibid., IV, 84. " Ibid., I, 289. 



202 English Literary Prose 

made little effort to appeal to the simpler emotions of his 
auditors. His themes are usually somewhat remote. If he 
alludes to contemporary events, he does not do so explicitly, 
but merely remarks that his hearers know what he has in 
mind. It may be that in sermons which have not been 
preserved, he preached more personally and directly, but it 
was the temper of his mind to dwell upon intellectual re- 
finements and principles rather than on immediate, con- 
crete details. He trusted to the discretion of his hearers 
to make the applications, which indeed, for one who takes 
the trouble to follow his exposition, are never left in 
doubt. 

Eloquence in the sense of impassioned oratory is entirely 
foreign to Andrewes's nature. He writes at times with 
a refined and delicate fancy which approaches poetic imagi- 
nation of a rarefied kind. Nashe describes him as " the 
absolutest Oracle of all sound Devinitie heere amongst us," 
and declares that he mixes the " two severall properties of 
an Orator and a Poet, both in one, which is not only to 
perswade but to win admiration." *^ But Andrewes's poetry 
was not the poetry of strong and simple feeling. He never 
thunders from the pulpit, but as his destructive weapon, 
employs occasionally a gentle scholarly irony. Limitations 
as they may seem from one point of view, these traits were 
indeed Andrewes's gifts. Vague enthusiasm, often growing 
into passion and violence, were frequent enough in English 
religious life during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 
as was also the arid disputatiousness which spent itself 
in the discussion of mere subtleties of practice and doctrine. 
The finer balance of Andrewes was more difficult to main- 
tain. He was not a theorist or system builder, nor did he 
belong to that class of rhapsodists who often degraded re- 
ligious feeling by not setting to it proper metes and bounds. 
*° Works, ed. McKerrow, III, 105. 



The Pulpit 203 

He preached to select audiences, not to those who flock to 
hear sermons as they would to an entertainment, but to 
people capable of appreciating nice distinctions of thought 
and feeling. 

The published sermons of Andrewes all show evidence 
of careful preparation. He himself expresses his scorn 
both for the facile listener and facile preacher. In the 
funeral sermon preached by the bishop of Ely at his death, 
he is described as " a diligent and painful preacher." He is 
said to have been exacting in the preparation of his ser- 
mons. " I dare say few of them but they passed his hand, 
and were thrice revised, before they were preached ; and he 
ever misliked often and loose preaching without study of 
antiquity, and he would be bold with himself and say, when 
he preached twice a day at St. Giles', he prated once. " ^^ 
His study of antiquity indeed begets wonder. He was at 
ease in the theological literature of his own day, in the 
church fathers, in the schoolmen, and in classical literature. 
He knew the Old Testament at first hand in the Hebrew, 
and his command of details was such as to enable him to 
draw upon the most obscure characters or incidents for 
analysis or illustration. He had little need to go to the 
world immediately about him for the material of life when 
he had the whole world of the Bible at his fingers' ends. 
His scholarship is to be sure often obtruded in a way long 
since gone out of fashion. He not only quotes Latin and 
Greek freely, but he often uses Latin words or phrases in 
English context and co-ordinate in syntax with English 
words. This is not always mere pedantry. The Latin 
words often serve as a kind of abbreviation, repeating and 
summing up a general idea which appears again and again 
and which can thus be conveniently and briefly indicated. 
Commenting on the twelfth verse of the second chapter of 
" Ninety-six Sermons, V, 295. 



204 English Literary Prose 

Luke,^^ he catches up the various words of the text as 
follows : 

" Invenietis leads us to Hoc erit signum. For how shall 
they find Him without a sign ? So come we from Christus 
natiis to Christus signatiis. Natus, ' born,' to be found ; 
Signatns, ' signed or marked,' that He may be found. Born 
He is, that they know : and when, they know ; — hodie. And 
where, they know — in Bethlehem. To Bethlehem they will ; 
but when they come there, how then? In such resort, the 
town so full of strangers, as ' no room in the inns,' whither 
should they turn them? What could they wish, but O quod 
erit signum! Natus est; O that He were signatus! O that 
we had a sign to find Him by ! " ^^ 

His method of treating the text was minutely and rigor- 
ously logical. No one could have been more exhaustive 
than he in dividing the text. The very words are analyzed, 
often one by one, their meanings are determined by careful 
study of the language in which they were originally written 
or into which they have been translated, their cases, moods, 
tenses are often specifically dwelt upon, and the possible 
logical connotations of the words in their context are all 
fully developed. The sermons usually begin with a formal 
statement of the ' points ' to be considered in the text, and 
from this preliminary outline, no excursions are made.^° 

In the details of Andrewes's style, the same scholarly re- 
finement is exhibited as appears in his thought. His vocab- 
ulary is on the whole extremely simple, though it is also 
carefully selected. None realized more clearly than the 
preachers how fantastic were the fashionable mannerisms 

*' Et hoc erit vobis signum: invenietis Infantem, etc. 

'" Ninety-six Sermons, I, 197. 

*" This method of "crumbling a text into small parts," to use 
George Herbert's phrase, persisted well into the seventeenth century 
in England and died a natural death in the arid deserts of Scotch 
Presbyterianism. 



The Pulpit 205 

of the fine literary styles of the day. Extravagances of 
expression which might be written were immediately felt 
to be false coin as soon as the touch of public delivery was 
applied to them. Yet Andrewes's style is very far from 
being colorless. Minor ornaments of style he uses spar- 
ingly ; alliteration, verbal antithesis, balance, ingenious meta- 
phor, all these are entirely wanting. The universal Eliza- 
bethan infection of punning, however, both in Latin and in 
English, he suffers from; but obviously these puns were not 
intended to be flippant or amusing. They are either mere 
verbal echoes, and as such not reprehensible according to the 
standards of taste of the time, or they suggest a collocation 
of ideas which are really related to each other. But the 
most characteristic element in Andrewes's style is the 
rhythm or cadence of his phrasing. The sentences are 
often extremely compact and even elliptical. " These words 
then," to choose a passage from a sermon delivered before 
Queen Elizabeth in 1598, " are a report. A report ; but such 
an one as when St. Paul heard of the Corinthians, he could 
not commend it. ' What shall I say ? Shall I praise you in 
this ? No ; I praise you not.' Neither he them for that, nor 
I these for this." ^'^ Even when the expression is most 
free, it never develops into a flowing oratorical style. The 
rhythm is always somewhat angular, not harsh, but clipped 
and restrained. Occasional passages of colloquial ease, pop- 
ular proverbs, and bits of sententious wisdom stand out in 
contrast to the generally formal tone of the expression. 
The style is restrained, even when it is most popular : 

" Our fashion is to see and see again before we stir a 
foot," he says, commenting on the coming of the wise men 
to Jerusalem, " specially if it be to the worship of Christ. 
Come such a journey at such a time? No; but fairly 
have put it off to the spring of the year, till the days longer, 

°' Ninety-six Sermons, I, 306. 



2o6 English Literary Prose 

and the ways fairer, and the weather warmer, till better 
travelling to Christ. Our Epiphany would sure have fallen 
in Easter-week at the soonest . . . But when we do it, we 
must be allowed leisure. Ever veniemiis, never venimus; 
ever coming, never come. We love to make no very great 
haste. To other things perhaps, not to adorare, the place 
of the worship of God. Why should we? Christ is no 
wild-cat. What talk ye of twelve days ? And if it be forty 
days hence, ye shall be sure to find His Mother and Him ; 
She cannot be churched till then. What needs such haste? 
The truth is we conceit Him and His birth but slenderly, 
and our haste is even thereafter. But if we be at that point, 
we must be out of this venhnus; they like enough to leave 
us behind. Best get us a new Christmas in September ; we 
are not like to come to Christ at this feast. Enough for 
venimus." ^^ 

The preaching of Bishop Andrewes was distinctly of his 
day and generation. His scholarship, his fancy, his minute 
analyses of texts, even his thought on broader themes, now 
all have the flavor of antiquity. He seems indeed much less 
modern than a popular and simpler preacher like his con- 
temporary, Henry Smith, a man of far less intellectual 
power. Modernity, however, is not necessarily a test of 
ability. Preaching with Andrewes became a finer art than 
it had ever before been in England. He raised it to a new 
level, in harmony with the dignified services and aristocratic 
tendencies of the newly established church. One cannot but 
admire the fine sense for form in Andrewes which saves 
ease from descending to vulgarity, the learning which is vast 
but not often labored or wearisome, the subtle irony of the 
scholar which enables him without rant or bluster to prick 
many a bubble of vain belief in his day. Yet the sermons 
of Bishop Andrewes already give some hint that the church 
of Elizabeth and James had its limitations as truly as that 
of Calvin. The sermons were intended for a class, and they 

*■ Ninety-six Sermons, I, 258. 



The Pulpit 207 

have remained permanently interesting only to a class. The 
church of the Establishment was not a church for all time, 
and it was perhaps Andrewes's misfortune that his sermons 
satisfied so perfectly the conditions under which they were 
preached. 

By the side of Bishop Andrewes must be placed his great 
companion figure in the history of the English pulpit, John 
Donne. Modern readers think of Donne chiefly as a poet; 
in his own time, especially during the latter years of his life, 
he was more highly regarded as divine and preacher. 
Having been educated in his youth as a Roman Catholic, 
Donne accepted the Anglican position only after careful and 
independent investigation. The strong logical bent of his 
mind and his power of reasoning, evidenced thus early, were 
again called into service when, at the request of James I, 
he wrote his Pseudo-Martyr (1610), in answer to those 
recusants who preferred persecution to taking the oath of 
allegiance. For a number of years, Donne endeavored to 
make a career for himself at the court, but found his way 
blocked, at least so far as James was concerned, by the lat- 
ter's determination that Donne should receive preferment 
as a divine or none at all. After a long period of hesitation, 
Donne finally was ordained in 1615, being then forty-two 
years old. He was immediately made one of James's chap- 
lains, and in a short time received various preferments. 
One of his most important appointments was that of divinity 
reader to the benchers of Lincoln's Inn, an honorable posi- 
tion which he occupied for six years, from 1616 to 1622. 
In 1621 the highest honor of his life came to him in his 
appointment as dean of St. Paul's. Three years later he 
received the vicarage of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, where 
many of his sermons were delivered. Donne's activity as a 
preacher was not limited, however, to the delivery of ser- 
mons at these three places. He preached often at the 



2o8 English Literary Prose 

court before James I and afterwards before Charles I. 
He preached at Paul's Cross, before the Virginia Company, 
before special congregations of noblemen or ecclesiastics, 
or citizens of London, and on various memorial and other 
occasions. The number of his extant sermons is at least 
one hundred and eighty ; these were carefully prepared by 
himself for printing, though they probably represent but a 
small portion of the number he actually delivered. Donne 
continued to preach to the last days of his life, which fell 
in the year 1631, five years after the death of Bishop 
Andrewes. 

Learning is the framework by which all of Donne's ser- 
mons are held together. Like Andrewes, he uses Latin 
freely and makes much of the precedents of antiquity. The 
church fathers are his constant supports, especially St. 
Augustine, to whom he appears to have been especially 
drawn. Among the moderns, Calvin with his sense for 
order and logic seems to have appealed to him most strongly. 
Donne does not make the mistake, however, of resting his 
message merely upon learning and formal logic. Though 
he has little confidence in " immediate and continuall in- 
fusions and inspirations from God himselfe," °^ such as the 
teachers of certain doctrines of the time claimed for them- 
•selves, and though he glorifies reason as man's highest 
faculty, his appeal to reason is always tempered by a gentle 
persuasiveness and much kindly feeling. The reader of 
the sermons is constantly reminded not merely of the 
methods and ideas, but also of the broad and charitable 
spirit of Hooker. Passages directed against the Roman 
church, especially the Jesuits and their contemporary 
activity in England, are not lacking, but they are rarely 
bitter or violent in tone. The separatist congregations of 
the time are treated in a similar spirit, not indeed of toler- 
^^ Eighty Sermons, London, 1640, p. 494. 



The Pulpit 209 

ance, but of reasonable argumentation. Donne always en- 
deavors to see the good in everything; even the devil has 
some good in him, and the Roman church has profited by the 
Reformation. Man, he declares in a third passage which 
recalls the thought of Browning, the modern poet with 
whom he has often been compared, is all the better for not 
being perfect, for having some sin.^* Controversial topics 
and the more refined subtleties of theological opinion he re- 
frains from discussing, following in this the expressed wish 
of James, who desired " to have slumbered all Pulpit- 
drums." ®^ 

The learned and logical superstructure of Donne's ser- 
mons rests upon a profound conviction of spiritual truths. 
A moral idea apprehended as true does not become any less 
true to him because it is supported by authority. Perhaps 
it does not becom.e any more true for this reason, either, 
but the ideal which Donne and the conservative thinkers 
of his time were striving to realize was to enunciate truth 
in such terms as appealed to the common judgment of 
reasonable men and as would save the quest for truth from 
sinking into the expression of personal and individual ex- 
travagances of opinion. The principle which comes out 
most clearly in Donne's preaching is that the religious life 
of men should be a part of their general social experience. 
Going to church, liturgy, sermons, all have this one pur- 
pose of enabling men to participate intelligently in the re- 
ligious life. The wisdom of the whole is greater than the 
wisdom of the one ; Christ himself praised unity, not sin- 
gularity, and " conventicle purity," Donne is convinced, is 

'' Works, ed. Alford, IV, 286. 

"■^ Eighty Sermons, p. 778. See also the sermon preached at 
Paul's Cross, Sept. 15, 1622, which was published at the command of 
James I, Works, ed. Alford, VI, 189-222. The purpose of James, 
says Donne, was "to put a difference between grave and solid from 
light and humorous preaching." 



2IO English Literary Prose 

but a snare and a delusion. " To be pure and not peace- 
able," so he writes with broad charity^ " to determine this 
purity in ourselves and condemn others, this is but an 
imaginary, but an illusory purity." ^^ 

The style of Donne's sermons is a dignified and carefully 
chosen literary style, not merely applied in the revision for 
printing, but inherent in the original conception of them. 
Though one is not allowed entirely to forget the audience, 
the tone of the sermons is rarely colloquial or familiar. The 
.scriptures, according to Donne, are the most eloquent 
books in the world, and man should not come to the 
handling of them " with an extemporall and irreverent, or 
over-homely and vulgar language." ^^ On the other hand, 
that preacher is equally reprehensible who, having made 
" a Pye of Plums, without meat, offers it to sale in every 
Market, and having made an Oration of Flowres and Fig- 
ures and Phrases without strength, sings it over in every 
Pulpit." ^^ In conformity with these opinions, shallow 
ornament of no kind finds a place in Donne's preaching. 
He occasionally uses learned words — e.g. colluctation, 
exinanition, conculcation, collineate, luxation — but this does 
not become a painful habit with him ; and one is grateful to 
find no puns or other verbal ingenuities. " If your curiosity 
extort more than convenient ornament in delivery of the 
word of God," declares Donne, " you may have a good 
oration, a good panegyric, a good encomiastic, but not so 
good a sermon." He does not altogether forbid " secular 
ornament " or " witty preaching " before learned audiences, 
but he urges the necessity of avoiding " excess in the man- 
ner of doing it." ^^ 

" Works, ed. Alford, V, 243. 

^''Eighty Sermons (1640), p. 47; Alford's ed., I, 96. 

'° Ibid., p. 114; Alford's ed., I, 194. 

•" Works, ed. Alford, IV, 415. 



The Pulpit 211 

Like Andrewes, Donne probably never felt the desire to 
spread his wings in any extended flight of eloquence. The 
learned and analytical method he employed must have pre- 
vented any such free ranging of the emotions ; he is carried 
along by the chain of reasoning, not by the tide of feeling. 
In consequence the sermons are less interesting from the 
rhetorical point of view as wholes than for detached pas- 
sages and paragraphs. But the close-knit logical structure 
of the sermons of the great divines of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, for example Tillotson, is not to be looked for in 
Donne. And on the other hand there is present a frequent 
efflorescence of rich imagery, often verging on fantasy, 
which the advocates of a simpler style in preaching were 
soon scornfully to reject. Donne, like Andrewes, belongs 
distinctly to the Elizabethan age of opulent expression. 
The somber, sometimes grewsome strain of his poetry also 
appears now and then in the sermons. But the ruggedness 
of metrical form which Donne seems to have cultivated in 
his verse is not paralleled by any corresponding roughness 
of manner in the prose of the sermons. In his poems 
Donne seems to have found difficulty in making language, 
" with her tough thick-ribb'd hoops " ^^° supple enough to 
gird about his giant fancy. No such difficulty appears in 
the sermons. They are written, not in a swift or facile style, 
but in a long, full rhythm, often complicated but perfectly 
mastered. Commenting on the idea that the excellence of 
Christ inheres mainly in his divinity, Donne proceeds as 
follows : 

" Now this leads us into two rich and fragant fields ; this 
sets us upon the two Hemispheares of the world ; the West- 
ern Hemispheare, the land of Gold and Treasure, and the 

*°'' Carew, An Elegy on the Death of Dr. Donne, in Poems, ed. 
Ebsworth, p. 112. 



212 English Literary Prose 

Eastern Hemispheare, the land of Spices and Perfumes; 
for this puts us upon both these considerations, first, That 
nothing is Essentially good but God (and there is the land 
of Gold, centricall Gold, viscerall Gold, gremiall Gold, Gold 
in the Matrice and womb of God, that is Essentiall good- 
nesse in God himself) and then upon this consideration, 
too. That this Essentiall goodnesse of God is so diffusive, 
so spreading, as that there is nothing in the world that doth 
not participate of that goodnesse ; and there is the land of 
Spices and Perfumes, the dilatation of Gods goodnesse." ^"^ 

The call to become fishers of men suggests many ideas 
and associations in the preacher's mind : 

" The world is a Sea in many respects and assimilations. 
It is a Sea as it is subject to stormes and tempests; Every 
man (and every man is a world) feels that. And then, 
it is never the shallower for the calmnesse. The Sea is 
as deepe, there is as much water in the Sea in a calme as 
in a storme; we may be drowned in a calme and flattering 
fortune, in prosperity, as irrecoverably as in a wrought 
Sea, in adversity; So the world is a Sea. It is a Sea, as 
it is bottomlesse to any line, which we can sound it with, 
and endlesse to any discovery that we can make of it. The 
purposes of the world, the wayes of the world, exceed our 
consideration ; But yet we are sure the Sea hath a bottome, 
and sure that it hath limits that it cannot overpasse ; The 
power of the greatest in the world, the life of the happiest 
in the world, cannot exceed those bounds which God hath 
placed for them ; So the world is a Sea. It is a Sea as it 
hath ebbs and floods, and no man knows the true reason 
of those floods and those ebbs. All men have changes and 
vicissitudes in their bodies (they fall sick), And in their 
estates (they grow poore), And in their minds (they be- 
come sad), at which changes (sicknesse, poverty, sadnesse) 
themselves wonder, and the cause is wrapped up in the 
purpose and judgement of God onely, and hid even from 
them that have them; and so the world is a Sea. It is a 
Sea, as the Sea affords water enough for all the world to 

"' Eighty Sermons, p. 167, 



The Pulpit 213 

drinke, but such water as will not quench the thirst. The 
world affords conveniences enow to satisfie Nature, but 
these encrease our thirst with drinking, and our desire 
growes and enlarges it self with our abundance, and 
though we sayle in a full Sea, yet we lack water; So the 
world is a Sea." "^ 

This almost strophic passage does not end here, but con- 
tinues in a chain of varying figure and allusion combining 
poetic imagery with profound moral reflection. The " plain 
and sober Christian precepts " are thus ever colored by 
the poet's fancy, sometimes gracefully, sometimes with an 
intellectual ingenuity that verges on the fantastic and 
grotesque. Donne's message was not to simple folk who 
looked for instruction in the alphabet of the religious life. 
His was an " imperious wit," and he calls upon all the 
resources of his hearers to follow him in his progress often 
through remote, dark, and unexpected parts of the realm of 
human experience. But he was the last of the Elizabethan 
preachers. Taste in pulpit discourse was changing, and the 
poetry and fancy of the older divines was soon to give way 
to the cool and commonsense discourse of the preachers of 
simplicity and reason. 

The English sermon, taking its beginnings in the crude 
didacticism of medieval preaching at the end of the four- 
teenth century, reached its first culminating point in the 
highly analytic, scholarly, and intellectual productions of 
the end of the sixteenth and the first quarter of the seven- 
teenth centuries. In the interval between these two ex- 
tremes, the trend of development was in general in a single 
direction. The pioneers of the Reformation started with a 
simple and primitive conception of the religious life in which 
the plain people were to be the final court of appeal. Re- 
^°° Eighty Sermons, p. 735. 



214 English Literary Prose 

ligious experience was to be intelligible to simple minds 
and was to take account of the elementary, natural emo- 
tions. The plowman, the artisan, the untutored folk of 
field and village, as in the days when the founder of Chris- 
tianity walked among men, these were to be the special 
charge of the ministers of religion. For them Tindale trans- 
lated the New Testament, for them, and for the great only 
as they could become like these, as little children, the first 
preachers of the Reformation spoke from the pulpit. They 
put their faith in " continual infusions " of divine inspira- 
tion, in the powerful, direct, even if undisciplined, impulses 
of those who felt themselves to be in immediate contact with 
truth. 

Very soon, however, one notes signs of distrust of this 
newly discovered and suddenly esteemed populace. As in 
the days of Lollardy, so in the days of the Reformation, the 
aroused people became disturbers of the peace. They 
claimed their new rights not in a moderate and limited 
way, but passionately, arrogantly, universally. The in- 
evitable conflict arose between undisciplined feeling and 
the conservative sense for law or order which is based on a 
knowledge of the past, upon a philosophical consideration 
of a great variety of circumstances, and upon the desire to 
retain the tried and the familiar. The development of 
preaching in the sixteenth century reveals the various steps 
of an increasing disinclination to trust to the impulses of the 
natural man. Old organizations were replaced by new, and 
new orders of priesthood were authorized with power to 
enforce new standards of observance and conduct. The 
purely popular side of the movement in preaching sank more 
and more to the lower levels, where it maintained an ex- 
istence unhonored and even forbidden. Civil statutes were 
passed to aid in the task of bridling the tongues of the peo- 
ple. The first of these fell even within the days of Henry 



The Pulpit 215 

VIII. An act of the year 1547, in the reign of Edward 
VI, provided penaUies for those who spoke violently 
against the sacrament in sermons, preachings, readings, 
lectures, etc.'^''^ In the first year of her reign, Elizabeth for- 
bade preaching because thereby arose " among the common 
sort not only unfruitful dispute in matters of religion, but 
also contention and occasion to break common quiet." ^*'* 
And when, the next year, the right to preach was restored, 
the place of sermons, homilies, and readings was narrowly 
specified. When Whitgift became archbishop of Canter- 
bury in 1583, one of his earliest acts was the promulgation 
of a set of elaborate regulations with respect to preaching, 
to the ordaining of preachers, their preparation and train- 
ing, and various other limitations of their calling. James I 
also reflected, and in part directed the tendency of the times 
in his regulations governing preaching. We may respect 
him for his rule that no preacher shall " fall into bitter 
invectives and indecent railing speeches against the persons 
of either papists or puritans." But his restrictions did not 
stop here. The subject-matter of preaching was carefully 
restricted ; the mysteries and subtleties of religion were not 
to be discussed, but were to be kept, as of old, in the hands 
of the specially constituted conservers of such matters ; 
political references were likewise to be avoided, and the 
preachers were generally " to confine themselves wholly to 
those two heads of faith and good life, which are all the 
subject of ancient sermons and homilies." ^°^ In brief the 
Reformation aroused a power it soon began to fear. The 
ideal which Milton later so hopefully and eloquently set 
forth, of a free nation arriving by means of an entirely un- 

'"'Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church 
History, pp. 322-328. 
Ibid., p. 416. 
Ibid., pp. 5i6-.=;20. 



104 



2i6 English Literary Prose 

trammeled interchange of opinion at a complete and a 
mutually charitable understanding of itself in all its mem- 
bers, was not an ideal that commended itself to the leaders 
of thought either in the days of Elizabeth or of James. The 
expressions of scorn and reproof of the many-headed multi- 
tude which one meets so frequently in Elizabethan litera- 
ture, in plays, poems, sermons, and controversial treatises,, 
may in part be conventional and traditional, but at bottom it 
reveals also a deep distrust of primary natural instincts un- 
controlled by reason and law and order. 

The Elizabethan establishment was a compromise, and the 
sermons of the Established Church breathe the spirit of 
compromise. The rough and ready eloquence of Latimer, 
Bradford, Lever, and the early popular preachers, the 
familiar colloquialism of the direct appeal to everyday life, 
and the effort to plumb the deepest mysteries by the 
measure of universal experience, these were in large meas- 
ure replaced by formalized standards of propriety, by minute 
logical analyses of the text of the scripture, and by a sty- 
listic ingenuity which often passed into the mere exercise of 
wit. The plain commonsense of the rationalistic method of 
preaching so admirably exemplified a little later in Tillotson 
had not yet come into being. Enthusiasm, that bugbear of 
mid- and late-seventeenth century moralists, was still too 
much in the air for preachers like Andrewes and Donne 
altogether to escape it. And yet they could not abandon 
themselves to the full flow of natural feeling, which, when 
all is said, must ever be the source from which oratory 
derives its power. On the whole the learned sides of 
preaching continually tended to overshadow the more 
broadly human and emotional. No one will deny that this 
learned preaching has its merits. It helped to bring order 
and dignity into public expression, to prepare the way for 
the clarity and simplicity of statement which are the peculiar 



The Pulpit 217 

virtues of later seventeenth and of eighteenth century pul- 
pit discourse. The reader's progress through the sermons 
of the time is also gladdened now and then by passages of 
vigorous feeling, of picturesque figure or description, even 
of impassioned eloquence. But passages of this latter kind, 
even inthe sermons of the greatest preachers, are only epi- 
sodes. The preachers have strength only for short flights, 
and soon return to their Greek and Latin, to their prece- 
dents of antiquity, to their intellectual game of minute ex- 
position and argument. Their message on its human side 
seems to have dwindled in significance, and in spite of a 
certain respect for the learning, the earnestness, even for the 
highly colored style of the great preachers of the Establish- 
ment, one leaves them with the conviction that the new task 
which the church had set for itself in the reform of popu- 
lar preaching had not been completed, had not even been 
squarely faced. 



V 

BIBLE AND PRAYER BOOK 

Early Translations — The Wiclifite Bible — Tindale 
AND His Translations — Other Experiments — Ro- 
man Catholic Versions — Growth of the Accepted 
Version — English Service Books — Origin of the 
Prayer Book — Its Literary Style 



Most Englishmen were doubtless aware of the existence 
of such a book as the Bible before Wiclif 's English version 
was made, but very few could have known any practical 
use of it. As an English book, the history of the Bible 
begins with the third quarter of the fourteenth century. 
But even this beginning was abortive, and not until Tin- 
dale published his New Testament in the first quarter of 
the sixteenth century did the Bible speak the language 
which ever since has been familiar to all whose native 
tongue was English. The Bible is the oldest and has always 
been the most widely distributed of popular English books. 
By its side, a little younger and less general in its interest, 
stands the English Prayer Book. Both are to be regarded 
as monuments of English literature, for whatever their 
origins, generation after generation of Englishmen has ac- 
cepted them as possessions of the English people in no less 
degree than the plays of Shakspere or the allegories of 
Bunyan. Only the learned pause to think that these books 

218 



Bible and Prayer Book 219 

have a history which passes beyond specifically English 
bounds. 

But though Bible and Prayer Book are popular posses- 
sions of the race, they were at the beginning and have 
remained so in different degrees. The English Bible of the 
sixteenth century was really the growth of centuries. Its 
preliminary forms were many, and its adaptation to the 
English mind was gradual. Around it in time were gath- 
ered many popular aspirations and enthusiasms. It was 
fought for because it was wanted. In this slow process of 
development, the Bible became one of the ineradicable tradi- 
tions of the English people. They appropriated it and in- 
corporated it into the very structure of their being. It 
became the common law of a large part of their moral and 
social life. On the other hand, the Prayer Book from the 
beginning satisfied the thought and feeling of a more limited 
section of the English people. It came not in answer to 
a general popular demand, but to a large extent it was im- 
posed upon the public by the organized authority of the 
Elizabethan establishment. English churches have seldom 
raised the question whether or not there should be an 
English Bible, but they have continually raised the question 
whether or not there should be a service-book, and non- 
conformist churches have usually answered this question 
in the negative. The Prayer Book expressed with dignity 
and elevation one mood or temper of the spirit of reverence, 
but it has never been adequate to satisfy all shades and 
degrees of religious feeling. Though second only to the 
Bible in the familiar knowledge of the English people, it 
has always been more or less tinged by the narrowing 
prejudices of sect and class in such a way as to deprive it 
of that universality of appeal which of all English books 
the Bible alone possesses. The Prayer Book was the child 
of the Established Church, but the English Bible sprang 



220 English Literary Prose 

from that common ground of English character where sects 
and creeds disappear and where the Hterary and the artless, 
the learned and the unlearned, freely meet. 

The story of the vernacular translation of the scriptures 
runs back almost to the beginnings of the English race in 
England. Even before any attempt at specific translation 
was made, the text of the scriptures was freely drawn upon 
by the poets who sang in the native tongue. According to 
Bede,^ Csedmon composed a versified narrative of practically 
the whole Bible. Some of the poems of Cynewulf are 
based, directly and indirectly, upon the story of the New 
Testament. Besides these two, doubtless there were many 
other poets of the Old English period, not now known to 
us by name, who followed a general custom of paraphrasing 
Biblical narrative in the terms of native heroic poetry. 

All this, however, was very different from translation 
in the specific sense. The purpose of Old English Christian 
poetry was literary and devotional, to a very slight extent 
doctrinal. There was no attempt in these poems to repro- 
duce the text of the scriptures with any verbal exactness. 
Experiments in more exact translation were made, how- 
ever, by a number of scholars. Bede, according to the well- 
known story, completed a translation into English of the 
Gospel of St. John upon his death-bed, of which unfor- 
tunately no manuscript has survived. An Old English 
translation of the Psalms, however, is still extant, and a 
number of Biblical manuscripts with glosses in the vernac- 
ular are further evidence of early attempts at translation. 
Towards the end of the Old English period came ^Ifric's 
translation of parts of the Old Testament, and the more 
important translation of the Gospels into West Saxon by 
one, or perhaps several, unknown scholars. But there is 
' Historia Ecclesiastica, Lib. IV, Cap. 24. 



Bible and Prayer Book 221 

no evidence of any attempt to translate the whole of the 
Bible in the Old English period, nor is there any evidence 
that such translations as were made were intended for popu- 
lar use. ^If ric expresses his unwillingness to continue with 
his work of translation for fear that the English version 
of the text might be put to improper uses by the ignorant of 
both clergy and laity. And the numerous interlinear ver- 
sions of and glosses on Latin texts were obviously intended 
as aids in the reading of Latin, not as a means by which 
those ignorant of Latin could dispense with the Latin 
originals. 

In the years which immediately followed the readjust- 
ment of English life and affairs after the Conquest, no great 
change appears in the English attitude towards the scrip- 
tures. Popular interest continued to be satisfied by versified 
paraphrases of portions of the Old and New Testaments, 
which were hardly distinguishable from the general body of 
current legendary and hagiological literature. Bible para- 
phrases on a large scale after the manner of the Historia 
Scholastica of Peter Comestor, were written in French, but 
the nearest parallel to these works in English is the long 
poem entitled Cursor Mnndi, to a great extent based upon 
the Historia Scholastica, but including much miscellaneous 
historical and legendary material. A century earlier, about 
the year 1200, was written another long poem known from 
the name of its author as the Ormulum, in which Orm in- 
tended to translate all the Gospels for the year, adding ex- 
positions on them. The book was designed for the instruc- 
tion of the people in ' holy Gospel's lore,' but the poem, 
although it reaches ten thousand lines in length, does not 
carry the plan to completion. As it is, the pearls of the 
Gospel are almost completely lost in Orm's ocean of com- 
mentary. 

Paraphrases of Genesis and of Exodus were also made in 



222 English Literary Prose 

a popular metrical form, and at the beginning of the four- 
teenth century an English prose Psalter, the work of a 
not unskillful translator, appeared in the West Midland 
dialect. Biblical texts were of course freely inserted in 
homilies and sermons, many sermons being, as Wiclif com- 
plained, nothing more than a string of scriptural quotations 
with just enough connecting commentary to make it im- 
possible for the hearer to tell where the scripture left off 
and the commentary began. Indeed the average layman 
down to the time when printed texts of the Bible began to 
be circulated must have had a very confused sense of what 
was scripture and what was not. He knew perhaps his 
Pater Noster and a certain number of texts, and undoubt- 
edly he was familiar with a great number of Biblical stories, 
especially those of the more picturesque and dramatic kind. 
But he must have found it difficult, if the thought ever 
occurred to him, to distinguish the exempla of profane 
origin with which the preacher adorned his sermon from the 
authentic narratives of the scriptures. The seven deadly 
sins, the marvels of the Physiologus, in short all the store 
of pious legend and doctrine which he heard from the pulpit 
must have seemed to him of equal authority with the narra- 
tive of the creation or of the atonement and resurrection. 
For the scriptures as a book with a definitely limited con- 
tent he could have had scarcely any appreciation until such 
time as the actual pages of the volume could be held in 
hand. Only then was it possible to make the Bible the 
single and all-sufficient rule of conduct for this life and the 
next which it was soon to become. 

For the first attempt to construct an English version of 
the scriptures with a view to presenting the Bible as a 
whole, we must turn to the age of Wiclif. The conception 
of a complete popular translation of the scriptures prob- 
ably originated with Wiclif himself, but before the Wiclifite 



Bible and Prayer Book 223 

version was finished, orthodox tendencies in the same direc- 
tion had already manifested themselves. These orthodox 
experiments, however, differed from Wiclif's in that the 
translations were intended only for the use of members of 
religious orders and others who occupied some more or 
less officially recognized position in the church, and who 
found difficulty in reading the Latin and French versions 
already extant. They were not intended for the use of the 
common people. An interesting example of this more 
limited kind of translation is the version made in the latter 
part of the fourteenth century at the request of the mem- 
bers of some unknown religious house. ^ This book opens 
with a prologue giving a brief narrative account of the 
creation, of the fall of Lucifer, and of the story of Adam 
and Eve. It then takes the form of a dialogue between 
a " lewed and unkunnynge " brother and sister, that is, monk 
and nun, on the one hand, and their brother superior on the 
other. The brother superior acts as instructor and gives 
a running account of the Old Testament, and more briefly, 
of the teachings of the New Testament. Then follow trans- 
lations of the Epistles, Acts, and the first chapter of 
Matthew. Perhaps the intention was to translate all the 
Gospels, and indeed this may have been done, although 
no such complete manuscript has survived. The significance 
of this translation lies in the fact that it was frankly in- 
tended for the orthodox unlearned in the church. The 
main purpose of the translator was to make the meaning of 
the text clear, and his English is in general simple and 
idiomatic. It is not an unreasonable supposition that if the 
Wiclifite version had not appeared under Lollard auspices 
and had not consequently brought to a focus and intensified 
the hostility of ecclesiastical authorities towards vernacular 
versions of the scripture, the church itself might soon have 
' Paues, A Fourteenth Century English Biblical Version, p. xxiv. 



224 English Literary Prose 

put forth, as it constantly maintained its intention of doing, 
an authorized and complete English Bible. 

The exact extent of Wiclif 's share in the translation which 
is usually known by his name, cannot now be determined. 
That the project was inspired by Wiclif was the common 
opinion of his day and likewise of his successors in the task 
of making an English Bible. It seems probable that the 
New Testament was taken up first, and this translation may 
have been made by Wiclif himself. The Old Testament 
was in part the work of Nicholas de Hereford, who trans- 
lated as far as the book of Baruch, where the translation 
breaks off in the middle of a sentence. The probable date 
at which Hereford was interrupted in his work was the 
year 1382.^ The Old Testament was then completed by a 
different translator, who again may have been Wiclif him- 
self. Shortly after Wiclif's death the whole translation 
underwent a revision, probably at the hands of John Pur- 
vey, Wiclif's successor in the leadership of the Lollard 
party. The extraordinary popularity of these translations, 
all made from the Latin of the Vulgate, is attested by the 
large number of manuscripts scattered throughout England 
which are still extant in various degrees of completeness ; * 
and these, it should be remembered, are probably but a 
relatively small number which survived the wear and tear 
to which popular books are always subject and the no less 
destructive zeal of the orthodox party in the early part of 
the fifteenth century. 

Of the many hampering considerations which attended 
the translation of the scriptures in the fourteenth century, 
perhaps the most disturbing was the uncertainty which pre- 
vailed as to the proper balance to be maintained between 
literal translation and paraphrase. No such feeling existed 

' Forshall and Madden, The Holy Bible, p. xvii. 

* Forshall and Madden, I, xxxix-lxiv, give a list of 170. 



Bible and Prayer Book 225 

when the question was one of the translation of monuments 
of profane literature into English. In such cases the uni- 
versal method was that of paraphrase, the purpose of trans- 
lation being assumed to be the transference of the sense of 
the original to the forms of English speech. The scriptures 
themselves had indeed often been paraphrased in this man- 
ner. But when it came to the question of translating the 
Bible as a book, a paraphrastic version of any man's con- 
ception of the content or sense of the book could not be 
regarded as satisfactory. The task before the translator 
was not that of interpreting the book, but of transferring 
it literally in body to another language. Two great oppos- 
ing necessities therefore confronted him. On the one side 
he must take heed not to do violence to the almost sacred 
forms of speech in which the original was written, and on 
the other lay the necessity of making his translation at 
least intelligible, and if possible, natural and idiomatic. 
Deficiencies of vocabulary in the native speech and lack of 
parallelism in grammatical structure and word-order be- 
tween English and Latin were the main obstacles in the 
way of the translator who should attempt to produce in 
English an exact equivalent of the Latin version. At a 
later period the task of translation was further complicated 
by questions of the doctrinal coloring of English words, but 
at the time the Wiclif versions were made, theological dis- 
cussion had not advanced so far as to make these questions 
seriously felt. Wiclif's problem was the relatively simple 
one of finding the safe mean between the extremes of 
literal translation and of free adaptation of the Latin 
originals. 

Three dififering conceptions of the art of translation, 
which for convenience' sake we may ascribe to Wiclif, 
Hereford, and Purvey, with passing acknowledgment that 
the exact share of each in the specific work of translation is 



226 English Literary Prose 

not altogether certain, may be distinguished in this first 
English Bible. Of these three, Hereford was the most 
literal, Purvey was the most idiomatic and free, and Wiclif 
occupied a middle ground between the two extremes. Here- 
ford's version of the Old Testament is often extremely lit- 
eral, in this respect going even farther than Wiclif, who not 
infrequently sacrifices English idiom for the sake of close 
correspondence between the English and Latin. The prin- 
ciples which Purvey followed in his revision of the whole 
" were designed to render the version more correct, in- 
telligible and popular ; and it manifestly becomes more easy 
and familiar as the translator advances." ^ In the Prologue 
to his revision, Purvey has set down some of the rules 
which governed him in his work. He tells how he first 
collated many " elde biblis," taking into consideration the 
statements of the doctors and the glosses in the text in 
order to make " oo Latyn bible sumdel trewe." Having 
collected his materials, he then studied them and took 
counsel of " elde gramariens and elde dyvynis of harde 
wordis and harde sentencis, hou tho mitten best be undur- 
stonden and translatid." And finally he translated the 
text as clearly as he could, according to the significance, 
taking care to have " manie gode felawis and kunnynge at 
the correcting of the translacioun." Purvey insists strongly 
upon the necessity of translating not too literally, but accord- 
ing to the thought of the original. The best translation from 
Latin into English, he says, is to translate " aftir the sen- 
tence, and not oneli aftir the wordis, so that the sentence 
be as opin, either [or] openere, in English as in Latyn " — 
but he adds the saving clause, " and go not fer fro the 
lettre." If the letter may not be followed in translating, 
then let the thought be ever whole and open, for the pur- 
pose of words is to express thought and meaning, and if 
° Forshall and Madden, I, xxix. 



Bible and Prayer Book 227 

they do not serve this purpose, they are superfluous or 
false. Specific instances are then cited by Purvey of ways 
in which the Enghsh translation may legitimately vary 
from the Latin original in order to make the thought more 
clear. Ablative absolutes may be translated as finite 
clauses, " the maistir redinge, I stonde " being rendered 
" while the maistir redith, I stonde," or " if the maistir 
redith," etc., or " for the maistir," etc. Sometimes the 
construction may be rendered by whanne or aftirward, as 
in " whanne the maistir red, I stood," or " aftir the maistir 
red, I stood," or it may even be rendered by an independent 
clause, aresceniibus hominibtis prae timore being translated, 
" and men shulen wexe drie for drede." In a similar way, 
a participle, present or past, active or passive, may be re- 
solved into a verb of the same tense, dicens being trans- 
lated " and seith " or " that seith." Or a relative may be 
resolved into a phrase containing a conjunction and the 
antecedent of the relative, " which renneth," for example, 
being equivalent to " and he renneth." When the Latin 
order of words would be obscure in English, the English 
order is to be preferred ; thus the Latin sentence Dominum 
forniidabunt adversarii ejus, would read literally in English, 
" the Lord hise adversaries shulen drede," but, continues 
Purvey, " I Englishe it thus bi resolucion, ' the adversaries 
of the Lord shulen drede him.' " In translating words 
which may have several meanings in Latin, care should be 
used to choose the English word which accords with the 
thought of the sentence in which the Latin word occurs. 
The Prologue insists a number of times that an English 
translation may be as clear, or even clearer than the Latin 
original. It also comments on the necessity of taking 
figurative speech figuratively, adding the caution that 
" autouris of hooly scripture usiden moo figuris, that is, mo 
fyguratif spechis, than gramariens moun gesse, that reden 



228 English Literary Prose 

not tho figuris in holy scripture." Purvey then announces 
the less tenable position, that whatever thing in God's word 
may not be referred properly to honesty of virtues or to the 
truth of faith, " it is figuratyf speche." ^ Spiritual interpre- 
tations, finally, are commended, but it is pointed out that 
the literal understanding of the scriptures is the foundation 
of all spiritual interpretation. 

Such were some of the problems to be considered by a 
fourteenth-century translator of the scriptures who would 
realize the proper mean between an exact literal translation 
and the more familiar medieval method of paraphrase. In 
the light of the later development of the translation of the 
scriptures into English, the modern reader will feel that 
neither Wiclif nor Purvey went far enough in accommodat- 
ing their versions of the Latin to the English idiom. In 
many instances the later revision improves greatly upon 
the earlier text, as, for example, in the translation of Mark 
h 3^'33> where the earlier version reads: 

"And he cummynge to [Vulgate accedens], reride hir 
up, the bond of hir taken [apprehensa manu ejus], and 
anoon the fevere left hire and she mynystride to hem. For- 
sothe the evenynge maad [vespere aiitem facto], whenne 
the sone wente doun, thei broujten to hym alle havynge 
yvel and havynge develis." 

This is more idiomatically, and indeed quite adequately, 
expressed in the revised version : 

" And he cam nyj, and areride hir, and whanne he hadde 
take hir hoond, anoon the fever left hir, and sche servede 
hem. But whanne the eventid was come, and the sonne 
was gon doun, thei broujten to hym alle that weren of male 
ese, and hem that hadden fendis." 

° St. Augustine expressed the same principle, De Doctrina Chris- 
tiana, Lib. 3, torn. 3, p. 53 ; Tillotson, Works, II, 424. 



Bible and Prayer Book 229 

Often, however, even Purvey 's revision is not carried far 
enough, especially in the books of the Old Testament. 
Translating Genesis i, 11, the earlier version reads: 

" Burion [burgeon] the erthe grene erbe and makynge 
seed [facientem semen], and appletre makynge fruyt 
[faciens fnictnm] after his kynd, whos seed ben in hym 
silf, upon the erthe; and maad it so [et factum est ita]." 

Purvey's translation is only slightly better : 

" The erthe brynge forth greene eerbe and makynge seed, 
and appil tre makynge fruyt bi his kynde, whos seed be in 
it silf on erthe ; and it was doon so." 

The inadequacies of the revised translation arise less from 
the difficulties attaching to words in themselves, for the 
words of the Vulgate usually find a fairly satisfactory 
English or Latinized English equivalent, but rather from a 
disregard of the native idiom. Thus the definite article 
is often omitted, as in Matt, v, 13, " Ye ben salt of the 
erthe" [Vos estis sal terrae]. In verse 11 of the same 
chapter the English revision reads, " whanne men schulen 
curse 30U . . . for me," where " for me " renders the Vul- 
gate propter me. In Matt, v, 25, " Be thou consentynge 
to thin adversarie soone," the English is a literal translation 
of the Vulgate, Esto consentiens adversario tuo cito. The 
unidiomatic " Nyle je " is frequently used as an imperative, 
translating Latin nolite, e.g. Matt, vi, 19, " Nile 3e tresoure 
to 30U tresouris in erthe, where ruste and mou3te destrieth." 
Such passages as these are not sporadic, but are so per- 
sistent as to give the general tone to the translation. As 
a work of literary art the Wiclifite Bible cannot be said to 
have established a new and high standard of English style, 
nor does it seem probable that it could ever have become 
a genuinely popular Bible. Nevertheless the work was 



230 English Literary Prose 

nobly conceived, and it was carried out with respect for 
the highest standards of scholarship and of dignity in ex- 
pression which were possible in its time. Its errors were 
all on the safe side of caution, and when one considers the 
difficulties and constraints which must have attended any 
attempt to translate the scriptures in Wiclif's day, the 
wonder is not that it failed to be a permanently satisfactory 
translation, but that it should be as good as it is. 

Further growth in the form of this first English version 
of the Bible was checked shortly after its completion by 
the hostility which it aroused on the part of the clerical and 
anti-Lollard authorities in church and state. The attitude 
of the conservative element in English society towards the 
vernacular translation of the scriptures is well illustrated 
by the frequently quoted remarks of the contemporary 
chronicler, Henry Knighton. Wiclif, he says, has trans- 
lated the Bible, which Christ gave to clerks and teachers of 
the church, so that now it is better known to lay men and 
women who can read than formerly it was to learned 
clerks. " In this way the pearl of the Gospel is scattered 
broadcast and trodden under foot by swine. And thus, 
what is wont to be esteemed by clerks and laity as precious 
is now become as it were the common joke of both; the 
jewel of the clerics is turned to the sport of the lay people." '' 
Wiclif himself frequently commented on the hostility of the 
friars towards English versions of the Bible and explicitly 
defended their use.^ He often insisted also on the necessity 
of presenting the Gospel to humble people and dwellers in 
" litil touns," following the example of Christ who himself 
" wente to smale uplondishe touns, as to Bethfage and to 

'' Chronic on Henrici Knighton, ed. Lumby, 11, 151-152; quoted by 
Paues, p. xxxi, whose translation of Knighton's Latin is here fol- 
lowed. 

* See above, pp. 47-48. 



Bible and Prayer Book 231 

Cana in Galile." ^ Rich men might possess copies of the 
EngHsh scriptures for themselves, but the inhabitants of 
the villages and of country communities were dependent upon 
the poor priests, many of whom doubtless carried with them 
in their wanderings more or less complete copies of the 
Wiclifite Bible. In this way the laity not only became 
acquainted with the idea of an English Bible, but also with 
a considerable body of the text itself. A movement was 
thus set on foot which, if it had not been checked, must 
soon have resulted in further revisions of the English 
scriptures, and perhaps in the production of a version more 
completely in accord with the popular feeling for idiomatic 
expression than was possible in the first experiments of 
Wiclif, Hereford, and Purvey. Powerful influences were 
brought to bear, however, to obstruct the popular move- 
ment thus begun. In the year 1408 were issued the famous 
Constitutions of Archbishop Arundel, in which the use of 
vernacular translations was forbidden, sub majoris exconi- 
municationis poena,^^ unless the translation had been ap- 
proved by a provincial council of the church. More spe- 
cifically this prohibition was directed against Wiclif, who is 
mentioned by name. 

There is no reason for supposing that at this early period 
the use of vernacular translations of the scriptures was 
absolutely forbidden by the authorities of the church. Men 
of high position and members of religious orders probably 
met with little difficulty in obtaining approved copies of 
translations of at least parts of the Bible, if they wanted 
them. But the evidence is conclusive that the orthodox 
party did not itself father an English translation of the 
Bible, and that it powerfully discouraged the use of any 
such translation by common folk and the laity. Sufficient 

* Arnold, Select English Works, I, 197. 
^^ Wilkins, Concilia, III, 317. 



232 English Literary Prose 

confirmation of this is found in the fact that in the many- 
trials of Lollards for heresy which were held in the early 
fifteenth century, the possession of a copy of the English 
Bible, or even attendance upon readings of it, was regarded 
as damnatory evidence. In 1431, John Stafford, the bishop 
of Bath and Wells, " threatened with excommunication any 
who translated the scriptures or copied such translations." ^^ 
In the face of such opposition, the use of the Wiclifite Bible 
necessarily became more and more limited, and, at least 
so far as the common people were concerned, more and more 
furtive. With the gradual changes in English speech which 
took place in the fifteenth century, important changes in 
vocabulary, in inflections and in syntax, the language of 
the Wiclifite Bible must also soon have needed revision in 
order to make it intelligible to readers of later times. This 
lack of authoritative support and of revision are in them- 
selves causes suf^cient to account for the fact that the 
Wiclifite Bible did not become the foundation of the Eng- 
lish Bible of the Reformation, that by the end of the fifteenth 
century it was remembered mainly as having established the 
tradition of an English Bible, and that when Tindale set 
about the task of creating a new popular version, he carried 
on his work in almost complete disregard of what Wiclif 
and his assistants had already done. The influence of 
Wiclif's English Bible .must be sought not by the way of 
any immediate literary successors, but in the hidden cur- 
rent of popular thought and feeling which it set in motion 
and which for many years it secretly fed. In a later genera- 
tion the popular tradition thus established exerted a power- 
ful influence upon the minds of the public leaders of men 
in politics and religion and upon the forms of English 
literary art. 

" Capes, The English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth 
Centuries, p. 129. 



Bible and Prayer Book 233 

Over a hundred years were to pass after the completion of 
the Wiclifite Bible before another successful attempt could 
be made to translate any considerable portion of the scrip- 
tures into English. The story of the translation and the 
publication of Tindale's New Testament, obscure in some 
minor details, is on the whole clearly known. Tindale sub- 
mitted himself to a long period of preparatory discipline 
before he undertook the task which was to be the chief 
labor of his short life. After a residence at Oxford and 
Cambridge which covered a period of at least ten years, he 
removed in 1521 to the country, where he became tutor in 
the family of a Gloucestershire gentleman. It was not long 
before his advanced opinions with respect to the use of the 
scriptures led him into conflict with some of the local clergy, 
and it was at this time that he is reported to have made his 
famous answer to one who declared that it were better to be 
without God's law than the pope's : " If God spare my life, 
ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow 
shall know more of the scripture than thou doest." 

In pursuance of this purpose, two years later Tindale 
journeyed to London with the expectation of finding support 
from Tunstall, the bishop of London, as a scholar and one 
interested in the translation of the New Testament. As 
testimony of his ability, he bore with him a translation into 
English from the Greek of Isocrates. But Tunstall received 
him coldly and could find no place for him in his household. 
His hope of episcopal support having proved vain, Tindale 
soon realized the impossibility of completing in England the 
work which he had undertaken. " I . . . understode at the 
laste," he wrote later, " that there was no rowme in my 
lorde of londons palace to translate the new testament, but 
also that there was no place to do it in all englande." ^^ 
In 1524 he sailed for Hamburg, and soon after passed 

'^ Preface to Genesis, Parker Society, p. 396, 



234 English Literary Prose 

on to Wittenberg, where he almost certainly saw Luther.^^ 
The work of translation advanced apace, and in 1525 a 
part of the New Testament was printed at Cologne. For- 
bidden to continue the printing of the text by the civil 
authorities of Cologne, Tindale escaped to Worms, where 
the printer Schoeffer was successful in carrying the work of 
printing to completion before the end of the year. With 
the aid of certain of those liberal-minded merchants who 
throughout were Tindale's chief supporters and patrons, 
copies were straightway sent over to England and dis- 
tributed. Tunstall, in a sermon preached at Paul's Cross, 
October 24, 1526, bitterly denounced the translation, de- 
claring that he had found three thousand errors in it. The 
translation was condemned to be burned by a conclave of 
bishops, and this sentence was executed upon as many 
copies as could be discovered. In this, says Tindale, the 
bishops did not otherwise than he expected. Having com- 
pleted his New Testament, Tindale turned his attention to 
the other parts of the scriptures, publishing a translation 
of the Pentateuch in 1530, and one of the Book of Jonah in 
1 53 1. He also added to a revised edition of his New Testa- 
ment in 1534, the Epistles from the Old Testament, which 
included passages from the historical books of the Old 
Testament as well as from the Pentateuch. No more of 
Tindale's Old Testament was printed during his life, but his 
manuscript translation of the books from Joshua to 2 

'^ Tindale's name, however, is not found in the Table-Talk and 
Letters of Luther. A year before the printing of Tindale's first 
fragmentary New Testament at Cologne, Luther had " opened his 
hospitable house at Wittenberg to the English and Scottish refugees." 
" Dr. Edward Lee writes to Henry VIII from Bordeaux, December 
2, 1525: 'An Englishman ... at the solicitation of Luther with 
whome he is bathe the New Testament into English.' " This 
may have been Tindale. Cf. Fliigel, Neitenglischcs Lesebuch, I, 489, 
and References to the English Language in the German Literature of 
the First Half of the Sixteenth Century, Modern Philology, I, IQ- 



Bible and Prayer Book 235 

Chronicles was probably used by his friend Rogers in the 
preparation of the so-called Matthew Bible. A second 
slighter revision of the New Testament appeared in 1535, 
and this brought to an end Tindale's work in the English 
version of the scriptures. He died at Antwerp, at the 
martyr's stake, in October, 1536, young in years but with the 
realization of a great task carried nearly to completion. 

Two endeavors, not easily combined, were constantly 
before Tindale in the preparation of his English Bible. On 
the one side, the ideal of scholarly exactness demanded a 
truthful, though not a literal, reproduction of the original, 
and on the other, the translation could be effective, as Tin- 
dale meant it to be, only by being intelligible and, still more, 
by being interesting to the simple folk in whom Tindale 
was mainly interested. Tindale was convinced that it was 
impossible " to stably sh the laye people in any truth, excepte 
the scripture were playnly layde before their eyes in their 
mother tonge, that they might se the processe, ordre and 
meaninge of the texte." " And this thing only, he declares, 
moved him to translate the New Testament. At another 
place he sets forth in greater detail the reasons which 
justify an English translation of the scriptures. ^^ His main 
points are as follows : 

(i) The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, not a 
learned tongue but the speech of the people : why then may 
we not have both the Old and the New in our tongue? 

(2) "They will say haply, the scripture requireth a pure 
mind and a quiet mind : and therefore the lay-man, because 
he is altogether cumbered with worldly business, cannot 
understand them. If that be the case, then it is a plain 
case that our prelates understand not the scriptures them- 
selves : for no lay-man is so tangled with worldly business 
as they are." 

^* Preface, p. 394. 

" Obedience of a Christian Man, in Doctrinal Treatises, pp. 144 fF, 



236 English Literary Prose 

(3) Another objection was that if the scriptures were in 
the mother tongue, every man would understand them after 
his own way. " Wherefore serveth the curate," answers 
Tindale, " but to teach him the right way? Wherefore were 
the holy days made, but that people should come and learn ? 
Are ye not abhominable schoolmasters, in that ye take so 
great wages, if ye will not teach ? " 

(4) The apostles preached in their mother tongue, and if 
one preach a good sermon, why may it not as well be 
written? 

(5) St. Jerome translated the Bible into his mother 
tongue, and why may we not do the same? 

(6) " They will say it cannot be translated into our 
tongue, it is so rude. It is not so rude as they are false 
liars. For the Greek tongue agreeth more with the English 
than with the Latin. And the properties of the Hebrew 
tongue agreeth a thousand times more with the English 
than with the Latin." 

(7) People are wont to follow different authorities, i.e. 
the various doctors of the church. " Whereby shall I try 
and judge them [the doctors] ? Verily, by God's word, 
which only is true. But how shall I that do, when thou 
wilt not let me see the scripture? . . . Nay, say they, the 
scripture is so hard, that thou couldst never understand it 
but by the doctors. That is, I must measure the mete-yard 
by the cloth. Here be twenty cloths [i.e. doctors] of divers 
lengths and of divers breadths : how shall I be sure of the 
length of the mete-yard by them ? " 

(8) They will say that you cannot understand the scrip- 
tures without philosophy, without a knowledge of Aristotle. 
" Aristotle saith, ' Give a man a law, and he becometh 
righteous with working righteously.' But Paul and all the 
scripture saith, ' That the law doth but utter sin only, and 
helpeth not : neither hath any man power to do the law, 
till the Spirit of God be given him through faith in Christ.' " 
Teaching of the scriptures, says Tindale, should be the 
teaching of God's law, and not the philosophies of nomi- 
nalists and realists, with their " predicaments, universals, 
second intentions, quiddities, haecceities, and relatives." 
Diversity of teaching among the doctors is to be corrected 



Bible and Prayer Book 237 

by return to the pure word of the scriptures. " Now what- 
soever opinions every man findeth with his doctor, that is 
his gospel, and that only is true with him, and that holdeth 
he all his life long; and every man, to maintain his doctor 
withal, corrupteth the scripture, and fashioneth it after his 
own imagination, as a potter doth his clay. Of what text 
thou provest hell, will another prove purgatory ; another 
limbo patrum ; and another the assumption of our lady ; and 
another shall prove of the same text that an ape hath a tail." 

(9) " Finally that this threatening and forbidding of the 
lay people to read the scripture is not for the love of your 
souls (which they care for as the fox doth for the geese) 
is evident, and clearer than the sun ; inasmuch as they per- 
mit and suffer you to read Robin Hood, and Bevis of 
Hampton. Hercules, Hector and Troilus, with a thousand 
histories and fables of love and wantonness and of ribaldry, 
as tilthy as heart can think, to corrupt the mind of youth 
withal, clean contrary to the doctrine of Christ and of his 
apostles." 

(10) " A thousand reasons more might be made, as thou 
mayest see in Paracelsi Erasmi, and in his preface to the 
Paraphrase of Matthew, unto which they should be com- 
pelled to hold their peace or to give shameful answers." 

The form and manner of expression which Tindale settled 
upon as adequate to realize his conception of an English 
Bible for lay readers were of his own invention. He had 
no predecessors in English who served him as models. In 
the Epistle to the Reader at the end of the Worms edition 
of his New Testament, he begs that his readers be not 
offended at the rudeness of the work and he asks them to 
consider that he " had no man to counterfeit, neither was 
helped with English of any that had interpreted the same 
or such like thing in the scripture before time. . . . Count 
it as a thing not having his full shape, but as it were born 
before his time, even as a thing begun rather than 
finished." ^^ 

^^ Doctrinal Treatises, p. 390. 



238 English Literary Prose 

Comparison of Tindale's translation with earlier English 
versions of the Bible, or parts of it, bears out Tindale's claim 
to independence. The style of his first New Testament is 
altogether new in the development of English translations 
of the Bible ; but it was not rudely or imperfectly conceived. 
By the time Tindale began the actual task of translation he 
had definitely established the principles of his work, and 
from these he never greatly departed. The style which he 
accepted was above all simple and popular. He avoided, 
not altogether, but with rare exceptions, the use of un- 
idiomatic Latinisms in syntax, and also the use of un- 
familiar Anglicized Latin words. Long words were not 
cultivated as a means of elevating the style, nor were the 
rolling cadences of liturgical prose imitated. Obvious orna- 
ments of style, such as alliteration, the heaping of synonyms, 
puns, antitheses, and similar mechanical devices of word- 
play, were not called for by the original and were not added 
by Tindale. More striking is his avoidance of the quaint and 
pointed picturesque style of familiar colloquial origin which 
wasthealmost universal possession of writers and translators 
in sixteenth-century England and which Tindale himself fre- 
quently employed in his freer and easier prose writings. He 
made no efifort to reach his readers by bringing his translation 
down to a low level, to color it, as Sir Thomas North did 
his Plutarch, by broad suggestions of the familiar realistic 
sides of English life. Striking a happy balance between 
simplicity and dignity, between the artful structure of a 
learned style and the easy informality of colloquial speech, 
Tindale attained a form of expression, simplex mundiiiis, 
unsurpassed for his purposes. The limits of faithful trans- 
lation to be sure imposed certain restrictions upon any 
tendencies towards stylistic exuberance which he may have 
had, and the quiet tone of the originals from which he trans- 
lated provided useful models of restraint and propriety in 



Bible and Prayer Book 239 

expression. It was no small merit in Tindale, however, 
that he was content to work within the bounds which his 
originals and his own purpose established for him. So 
completely did he realize these limits that he produced a 
translation which has all the idiomatic propriety and the 
vitality of original composition. Translation with him be- 
came a creative process. 

Although Tindale in his first translations of the New 
Testament had already struck the note which was to become 
ever afterward the form of expression peculiar to the Eng- 
lish scriptures, he did not cease to alter and improve. 
Many changes were made in the edition of 1534, some for 
the sake of more exact correspondence in meaning between 
the English and the originals, some for the sake of brevity, 
and a multitude of minute corrections for the sake of " more 
proper English." The great majority of the changes of this 
latter sort were made in order to avoid a certain meagerness 
of phrasing, and also to correct rapid and awkward transi- 
tion from one thought to another. The style which lay at 
the base of Tindale's translation was the easy, polysyndetic, 
and naive style of simple narrative. In his revisions he 
carefully corrected locutions which interrupted this simple 
rhythm, and he very often added connectives which im- 
proved it. Very frequently he merely added an and to a 
sentence to soften an abrupt beginning, or the simpler logi- 
cal relations were indicated by other conjunctions, such as 
hut, or, if, and though. Sometimes also he changed the 
order of words, as, for example, John viii, 45, beleve ye 
nott me (1525), which becomes the more idiomatic, ye beleve 
me not (1534) ; or again he simplified by omission, as in 
Luke xiv, 28, which of you is he that is desposed to bilde a 
toure (1525), which reads in the revision, which of you dis- 
posed to bilde a toure (1534). Numerous changes were 
made for grammatical reasons, and words more appropriate 



240 English Literary Prose 

to the meaning were substituted for others. Nowhere is 
there any indication that Tindale translated with the desire 
to interpret the scriptures by paraphrase in favor of any 
particular set of doctrines. His purpose was above all to 
make the meaning clear as he understood it, and he trans- 
lated always " of a pure intent, singly and faithfully." ^'^ 
As to vocabulary, he used in the main words which had 
established themselves in the language and which were in 
general use. He avoided learned Greek and Latin coinages. 
His attempts to replace conventionalized ecclesiastical terms 
by words of familiar and fresher value, such as seniors or 
elders for priests, congregation for church in the sense of 
the membership, not the physical structure, of the church, 
love for charity, are few in number and by no means violent. 
Sir Thomas More declared that Tindale's New Testament 
was full of heretical translations, maliciously inserted. But 
though he charges that over a thousand texts are mistrans- 
lated. More limits his illustrations to a very few examples 
of the kind just mentioned. The truth is that Tindale was 
not doctrinaire in his translation, and seldom or never 
forced unusual meanings into words. The differences of 
opinion between Tindale and More were such as affected 
ideas and institutions, not merely words, and these differ- 
ences would have been the same whether the institutions 
were called by one name or another. Li fairness to himself 
Tindale could not have done otherwise than use the terms 
which expressed most clearly his understanding of the 
ideas which the words were supposed to designate. The 
proof of the essential justice and sanity of Tindale's trans- 
lation is to be found in the fact that, both in general tone 
and very largely in detail, it was followed in all important 
later English versions of the Bible. The Authorized Ver- 
sion derives not merely phrases from Tindale's translation, 
^''Doctrinal Treatises, p. 390. 



Bible and Prayer Book 241 

but whole connected passages. In the history of English 
prose the origin of the English Bible is consequently to be 
dated not from the early years of the seventeenth century, 
but from the second quarter of the sixteenth century when 
the work in its essentials was both conceived and executed. 
The question was formerly much discussed whether Tin- 
dale's scholarship was adequate for translation from the 
Greek of the New Testament and the Hebrew of the Old 
Testament, and it was often assumed that he translated 
only from the Vulgate or from Luther's Bible. But this 
question is now happily and finally settled. It is certain 
that Tindale was a competent Greek scholar before he began 
the work of translation, and certain also that he acquired 
sufificient command over Hebrew to undertake independent 
translations from that language. His main sources were the 
original Greek and Hebrew texts. In the mechanical ar- 
rangement and in the marginal glosses which accompanied 
the first fragmentary edition of the New Testament, Tindale 
followed the model of Luther's Bible. " Tyndale's New 
Testament is Luther's in miniature ; the general appearance 
of the page is the same ; the arrangement of the text is the 
same ; and the appropriation of the margins, the inner 
one for parallel passages, and the outer for glosses, is also 
the same." ^® But this statem.ent of the dependence of Tin- 
dale upon Luther does not apply to his text. Tindale's 
New Testament is primarily based on the Greek text of 
Erasmus, the third edition of which appeared in 1522, 
accompanied by a Latin translation, occasionally followed 
by Tindale in preference to the Greek. After Erasmus, 
Luther seems most to have influenced Tindale's transla- 
tion, and after Luther the Vulgate. His method in trans- 
lation was more or less eclectic, but on the whole he fol- 
lowed the most authoritative source for the text, which was 
^* Demaus, William Tyndalc, pp. 129-130. 



242 English Literary Prose 

the Greek of Erasmus. In the Old Testament as well, com- 
parison of Tindale's translation with the Hebrew, with the 
Vulgate, and with Luther shows that the Hebrew original 
was not only consulted, but was carefully studied and fol- 
lowed as the final authority. Tindale's translations have, 
therefore, not only the distinction of being the first accept- 
able version in the English idiom, but also of being the first 
to rest upon an adequate scholarly understanding of the 
originals. ^^ 

After the publication of Tindale's translations, the further 
history of the English Bible must be followed in several 
directions. In the immediate line of succession come the 
various adaptations and modifications of Tindale which 
resulted finally in the Authorized Version of 1611. Before 
these are discussed, however, it will be convenient to con- 
sider several efiforts that were made to produce a different 
kind of English Bible from Tindale's. It was Tindale's 
desire that every reader, no matter how simple, should 
understand the text of the scripture without the aid of 
special knowledge of any kind. So far as possible, there- 
fore, he made his translation speak the language of the 
normal daily life of English men and women. At heart in 
sympathy with this theory of translation. Sir Thomas More 
was in some instances unable to reconcile his feeling for the 
special and traditional value of the scripture with Tindale's 
practice. For this reason he protested when Tindale trans- 
lated the traditional words church, priest, grace, confession, 
charity, penance by congregation, elder, favor, knowledge, 
love, repentance, words in Tindale's mind of a fresher and 
clearer significance to English people than the ecclesiastical 

'" Tindale's independence as a translator is amply demonstrated, 
with the aid of comparative tables of illustrations, by Cheney, The 
Sources of Tindale's New Testament, Halle, 1883, and by Westcott, 
The History of the English Bible, 3rd ed., edited by Wright, Lon- 
don, 1905, pp. 131 ff., 152 ff. 



Bible and Prayer Book 243 

traditional terms, which to the pious imphed many irrelevant 
connotations, and to the thoughtless had lost almost all 
significance because they were so familiar. This feeling of 
Sir Thomas More that the Bible by reason of its special dis- 
tinction among books demanded a form peculiar to itself 
was shared by many others, and all through the sixteenth 
century was cherished by the advocates of a more learned 
and exclusive Bible than the popular English Bible of 
Tindale. Naturally the higher dignitaries of the church, 
and in general the conservative theorists in matters of 
church polity, were the chief opponents of the popular 
English Bible. Frequent protests were uttered by the 
bishops against the various popular translations as they were 
made, and promises of a version of their own were given. 
In the year 1534 the bishops presented a petition to the 
king for an English Bible to be made " by certain upright 
and learned men," closing their petition with a request that 
no layman for the future be permitted to discuss the articles 
of faith publicly or the scripture and its meaning.-" What 
such a Bible would have been if it had ever been made in 
the spirit of the more conservative scholarship of the time 
may be inferred from Gardiner, the bishop of Winchester's 
proposals for the revision of the Great Bible in 1542. At 
a meeting of Convocation held in that year, Gardiner pre- 
sented a list of a hundred Latin words which " for their 
genuine and native meaning, and for the majesty of the 
matter in them contained " ought to be retained either in 
their original form, or " fitly Englished with the least 
alteration." ^^ Some of these words were already in general 

'" Pollard, Records of the English Bible, pp. 175-177, reprints the 
petition. 

^' Moore, Tudor-Stuart Views on the Growth, Status and 
Destiny of the English Language, pp. 89-90. This list of words has 
been frequently printed, e.g. by Mr. Moore, and conveniently and 
better in Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation, II, 296. 



244 English Literary Prose 

use in slightly Anglicized forms, such as justice, glory, 
mystery, communion, prudence, society, apostle, and others. 
But apparently Gardiner would have had the Latin origin 
of even these words show more plainly, perhaps to dis- 
tinguish the ecclesiastical from other uses of the words. 
Many of the words in the list, however, whether in a 
Latin or in an Anglicized form, would have been unintel- 
ligible to most English readers, and a translation of the 
Bible made in accordance with the principle Gardiner 
announces would have been in almost as great need of official 
interpretation as the Greek or Latin originals. 

The fullest exemplification of this theory of an ecclesi- 
astical English Bible was to appear a generation later, not 
under Anglican but under Roman auspices. The Rhemish 
New Testament, first published in 1582, and the Douai Old 
Testament, finished earlier but not published until 1609-10, 
were prepared under the same general direction in order to 
supply English Roman Catholics with an approved text of 
the Bible in their native tongue. The translation was pub- 
lished not " upon erroneous opinion of necessitie, that the 
holy Scriptures should alwaies be in our mother tonge, or 
that they ought, or were ordained by God, to be read in- 
differently of all, or could be easily understood of every 
one that readeth or heareth them in a knowen language," 
or for any of a number of similar reasons which are speci- 
fied, but merely as a practical and expedient measure, 
" profitable and medicinable now, that otherwise in the 
peace of the Church were neither much requisite, nor per- 
chance wholy tolerable." ^" For reasons which are given in 
detail, the translation was made from " the old vulgar 
Latin text, not the common Greeke text." The method of 
the translation was carefully considered and it is specifically 

■* Preface to the Rheims New Testament, in Pollard, Records, pp. 
301-302. 



Bible and Prayer Book 245 

defended. The translators declare that they are very pre- 
cise and religious in following their copy, not only in sense, 
but also in the very words and phrases, which may seem 
at first "to the vulgar Reader & to common English eares 
not yet acquainted therewith, rudenesse or ignorance," but 
which in time will become familiar and then will be more 
highly esteemed than if the words were " the common 
knowen English." From this feeling of the sacredness of 
the text, the retention of many words in untranslated form 
is defended. If the older English Bibles retain Hosanna, 
Raca, and Belial untranslated, why may not the same be 
done with Corhana and Parascevef " But if Pentecost, 
Act. 2. be yet untranslated in their bibles, and seemeth not 
strange : why should not Pasche and Azymes so remaine 
also, being solemne feastes, as Pentecost was ? " -^ And if 
proselyte remain, why not also neophyte, if phylacteries be 
allowed, why not prepuce, paraclete, and such like? The 
verb evangeli::o must be translated evangelise, not " as the 
English Bibles do, / bring you good tydings, Luc. 2. 10." 
" Therefore we say Depositum, i Tim. 6. and, He exinanited 
him self, Philip. 2. and. You have retJorished, Philip. 4. 
and, to exhaust, Hebr. 9. 28. because we can not 
possibly attaine to expresse these words fully in Eng- 
lish, and we thinke much better, that the reader staying 
at the difficultie of them, should take an occasion to looke 
in the table folowing, or otherwise to aske the ful meaning 
of them, then by putting some usual English wordes that 
expresse them not, so to deceive the reader." ^* Moreover, 
continue the translators, we presume not in hard places to 
mollify the speeches or phrases, but religiously keep them 
word for word, and point for point, " for feare of missing 
or restraining the sense of the holy Ghost to our phantasie." 
If the meaning is not transparent in the Latin or Greek 
'" Pollard, Records, p. 306. " Ibid., pp. 307-308. 



246 English Literary Prose 

original, according to the logic of the translators, there 
is no reason why it should be made clear in an English 
translation. The extreme learned bias of the translators 
is emphatically expressed in this concluding remark : " And 
why should we be squamish at new wordes or phrases in 
the Scripture, which are necessarie, when we do easily 
admit and folow new wordes coyned in court and in courtly 
or other secular writings? " ^^ 

If the translation were to be used only by learned and 
courtly readers there was indeed little reason why the 
translators should not invent as many learned words as they 
pleased. And in fact the authors of the Rhemish Bible are 
much less extreme in their treatment of vocabulary than 
many a contemporary secular writer with a passion for 
aureate diction. The important question in this instance 
was not whether this or that new word should be accepted, 
but whether the whole project of a learned English Bible 
should be approved. In answering this question, by the 
end of the sixteenth century theoretical considerations car- 
ried little weight. By that time it had been determined once 
and for all that the accepted English Bible for protestant 
readers was to be a popular and not a learned book, that 
the text was to be as frank and open as possible, not recon- 
dite and cryptic. In justice to the Rhemish translation it 
should be said, however, that the effect of the whole is not 
as grotesque as might be inferred from the more extreme 
examples of learned locutions just cited. Consecutive pas- 
sages of some length are frequently found which differ but 
slightly from the earlier English translations based on Tin- 
dale, and many readings which differ in the Rhemish trans- 
lation from the earlier translations are familiar to us now 
because they were incorporated in the Authorized Version 
of 1611. The Rhemish Bible was an unsuccessful, but not 
" Pollard, Records, p. 310. 



Bible and Prayer Book 247 

an uninfluential experiment. In a revised form it remains 
to this day one of the standard English Bibles for Roman 
Catholic readers, but it has never been regarded as a foun- 
tain of pure English in the same degree as Tindale's popu- 
lar English Bible. 

Several other translations which fall outside the main 
line of descent of the English Bible must be noticed. In 
general the tendency in the development of English trans- 
lations was in the direction which the Rhemish translation 
followed to the extreme, that is, in the direction of more 
exact and scholarly translation. Several efforts were made, 
however, to develop an English biblical style which should 
be more popular, or at least less learned, even than Tindale's. 
The first of these found expression in the English Bible of 
R. Taverner, published in 1539, the year of the Great 
Bible. A lawyer by profession and a not incompetent 
Greek scholar, Taverner makes no pretension to being an 
original translator. His work is based upon the so-called 
Matthew Bible, and his alterations are mainly made for 
the purpose of securing what he regarded as a more 
idiomatic English phrasing and vocabulary. Thus in 
I John ii, I, where the other versions read advocate, 
Taverner uses the native word spokesman; and in the fol- 
lowing verse, where the earlier versions follow Tindale in 
translating iXafffxo? by he it is that obtaineth grace for our 
sins (the Rhemish version followed by the Authorized 
Version reading, he is the propitiation for our sins), Taver- 
ner invents an entirely new native word, he is a mercystock 
for our sins. Similar changes are the substitution of 
wickedness for iniquity ( Matt, xiii, 41 ) ; ended for finished, 
(Matt, xiii, 53) ; break for transgress (Matt, xv, 2) ; 
lodged for had his abiding (Matt, xxi, 17) ; and because of 
the abundance of wickedness, the charity of many shall wax 
cold for Tindale's and because iniquity shall have the upper 



248 English Literary Prose 

hand, the love of many shall abate (Matt, xxiv, 12) ; age 
for generation (Matt, xxiv, 34) ; nailed to the cross for 
crucified (Matt, xxvi, 2) ; to the forgiveness for for the 
remission (Matt, xxvi, 28). Taverner's Bible, how^ever, 
is interesting merely as an experiment; it was crowded out 
of use by the Great Bible and it seems not to have exerted 
any influence upon later revisions of the text.-*' Another 
experiment similar to that of Taverner, though much more 
extreme, was the English translation of St. Matthew and 
the beginning of St. Mark, made by Sir John Cheke, in his 
own day regarded as the chief defender of the purity of the 
English language as opposed to those who would enrich, 
or according to the purists, corrupt, the language by freely 
borrowing words of foreign origin. This translation was 
never published in Cheke's lifetime,^'^ and it is interesting 
mainly as an illustration of the form which extreme re- 
spect for the native idiom took in the time when it was 
made. Cheke's endeavor was to use only such words as 
had an immediately intelligible meaning in the English 
language. The older ecclesiastical words he consequently 
translates by means either of popular native words, or 
frequently by means of new coinages made up from native 
elements. Thus he translates apostle by fro-sent, parable 
by by-word, regeneration by gain-birth, resurrection by up- 
rising or gainrising, money-changers by tablers, publicans 
by tollers, proselyte by freshman, crucified by crossed, cen- 
turion by hundreder, founded by groundwrought, etc. 
Though Cheke's strange vocabulary is for the most part 
readily intelligible, the general effect produced by it is of 
an artificial and unidiomatic language, in its way quite as 
pedantic as the English of the extreme Latinists. Cheke 

^° The above illustrations are taken from Westcott, History of 
the English Bible, pp. 208-211. 

"' First printed and published by Goodwin, Cambridge, 1843. 



Bible and Prayer Book 249 

was the victim of a theory in the making of his translation, 
and his fantastic English brings out the more clearly the 
effectiveness of Tindale's simple and natural Biblical 
style. 

After Tindale the next important figure in the develop- 
ment of the English Bible from the point of viev^ of its 
literary form was Miles Coverdale. In his own Bible, 
published in 1535, Coverdale for the first time presented 
to the English people a complete Bible in their native tongue 
between two covers. This translation -Coverdale declares 
to have been made with the help of " sondrye translacions, 
not onely in latyn, but also of the Douche interpreters." ^^ 
At another place he states that he has " with a cleare con- 
science purely & faythfully translated this out of fyve 
sundry interpreters, having onely the manyfest trueth of the 
scriptures before myne eyes." ^"^ The Latin version which 
Coverdale followed was the translation of Pagninus, 1528, 
though he used also the Vulgate ; and his German inter- 
preters were first of all the Swiss-German version of 
Zwingli, known as the Zurich Version, completed in 1529, 
and secondarily, Luther's Bible. The Zurich version pro- 
vided the basis for Coverdale's Old Testament, and Tindale, 
who was probably the fifth of the interpreters mentioned 
by Coverdale, is closely followed in the New Testament. 
Coverdale also used such parts of the Old Testament as 
Tindale had already published, that is, the Pentateuch 
and the Book of Jonah. Coverdale's Bible can conse- 
quently lay claim to no distinction from the point of view 
of original translation. Its merit consists first of all in 
assembling the different parts of the Bible into one complete 
volume, and secondly in the addition of a multitude of 
minute changes which do not indeed replace Tindale's 
Biblical style with a new one, but which in many instances 

'' Pollard, Records, p. 203. '* Ibid., p. 201. 



250 English Literary Prose 

result in a freer and ampler manner of expression than 
Tindale, severe because of his earnestness, permitted him- 
•self. 

But Coverdale's influence upon the text of the English 
scriptures was exerted also through another channel. Fol- 
lowing the publication of the Matthew Bible in 1537, a 
compilation made by Tindale's friend, John Rogers, from 
the translations of Coverdale and Tindale, the next im- 
portant Bible was the Great Bible of 1539, the second edi- 
tion of which, appearing the following year with a preface 
by Cranmer, is often referred to as Cranmer's Bible. It 
was the first authorized English Bible, and is thus often 
known as the Bishops' Bible. The work of revision in 
the Great Bible was intrusted to Coverdale, who returned 
more or less to the originals in the formation of his text, 
but who in the main revised on the basis of his own 
earlier translations and of Tindale's. 

This list of the important revisions of the text is com- 
pleted by the two later versions, the Genevan version of 
1560 and the Authorized Version of 161 1. The Genevan 
Bible was the joint work of a number of Puritan exiles 
temporarily resident at Geneva during the reign of Queen 
Mary, The revision was thorough, both for details of 
scholarship and for style, but the basis of it was the Great 
Bible and the efifort in the preparation of it was distinctly 
not to make a new translation, but to revise the old one. 
Like the Genevan version, the Authorized Version was the 
work of a number of different scholars, " to the number of 
four and fifty," according to King James' letter of instruc- 
tions,^*' who carried on the task of revision more or less 
independently but following a set of principles agreed upon 
beforehand. First of all they agreed that " an entirely new 
version was not to be furnished, but an old version, long 
^" Pollard, Records, p. 331. 



Bible and Prayer Book 251 

received by the Church, to be purged from all blemishes 
and faults; to this end there was to be no departure from 
the ancient translation, unless the truth of the original text 
or emphasis demanded." ^^ " Truly (good Christian 
Reader)," the translators declare in their Preface, "wee 
never thought from the beginning, that we should neede 
to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one 
a good one . . . but to make a good one better, or out 
of many good ones, one principall good one, not justly to 
be excepted against ; that hath bene our indeavour, that our 
marke." ^^ Their task was to make the gold of the English 
scriptures shine more brightly, " being rubbed and polished." 
The text of the Great Bible, accepted as standard, was con- 
tinually before them, and departures from it, though numer- 
ous, were made only for good and definite reasons. On 
the whole one must admire the restraint of these four and 
fifty scholars, who zealously guarded the language of the 
scriptures to the end that they might " bee understood 
even of the very vulgar." It was one of the avowed prin- 
ciples of their translation not to use words in special and 
limited ecclesiastical senses. They would not say to cer- 
tain words, " Stand up higher, have a place in the Bible 
alwayes, and to others of like qualitie, Get ye hence, be 
banished for ever." Niceness in words they counted to be 
the next step to trifling. How easy it would have been for 
them to indulge in literary preciosity, the fine writing of 
their own Preface clearly shows. " In a word," so runs 
their panegyric on the Bible, " it is a Panary of holesome 
foode, against fenowed traditions; a Physions-shop (Saint 
Basill calleth it) of preservatives against poisoned heresies ; 
a Pandect of profitable lawes, against rebellious spirits ; a 

'^ Report on the Making of the Version of 1611 Presented to the 
Synod of Dort, in Pollard, Records, p. 339. 
^' Preface, in Pollard, Records, p. 369. 



252 English Literary Prose 

treasurie of most costly jewels, against beggarly rudiments; 
Finally a fountaine of most pure water springing up unto 
everlasting life." ^^ Only in the last clause of this sentence 
were the authors of this Preface subdued to that in which 
they worked. 

Reviewing these several stages through which the English 
Bible passed, one finds that after Tindale the most signifi- 
cant contributions to it were made by Coverdale. Especially 
in the Old Testament Coverdale treated the text very freely, 
at times, under the influence of the Zurich version producing 
paraphrase rather than translation. Most of Coverdale's 
expansions have been replaced in the Authorized Version 
by more exact translations, and the scholarly Genevan ver- 
sion occupies an important middle position between Cover- 
dale's Old Testament and the Authorized Version of 1611. 
Coverdale did not think of himself as primarily a scholar, 
but in the modern term, as a popularizer. A variety of 
translations does not, he declares, make for " divisyon in 
the fayth and in the people of God." ^* On the contrary, 
the more translations the better. One man cannot always 
hit the mark, but now this shooter and now that comes 
nearest. In accordance with this spirit of eclecticism, 
Coverdale varied his translation, sometimes using Tindale's 
words, sometimes the traditional ecclesiastical words of the 
conservative translators. The particular mark which Cover- 
dale himself attempted to hit was not so much that of literal 
exactness as ease and fluency in phrasing. Unlike Tindale, 
Coverdale was an experienced and successful popular 
preacher and exhorter, and some of the feeling for the 
round style of spoken discourse may be observed in his 
modification of Tindale's compact and sometimes angular 
English. Many of these stylistic expansions were removed 
by later, especially by the Genevan translators, but in the 

" Pollard, Records, p. 348. "' Ibid., p. 203. 



Bible and Prayer Book 253 

Psalter of the Prayer Book they have persisted to the 
present day. The psalms in the Prayer Book were originally 
taken directly from the Great Bible, and on the ground 
that Coverdale's psalms were " smoother and more easy to 
sing " than any of the later revisions, they have remained 
unaltered in the Prayer Book. One notes in these psalms 
not only a fuller phrasing than that of the version of 161 1, 
but also a slightly stronger flavor of the broad popular style, 
as in Psalm x, 14, Tush, thou God carest not for it, which 
the Authorized Version renders more sedately, thou wilt 
not require it (Ps. x, 13). 

In the New Testament Coverdale followed the model of 
Tindale very closely, but even here he made a great many 
minor additions which in a surprising number of instances 
were retained in the version of 161 1. A few illustrations 
from the first Gospel will show how Tindale's texts were 
gradually made more easy and pliable. 

Tindale, in Matt, i, 25, reads, tyll she had brought forth 
hir fyrst sonne, and called hys name Jesus, but Coverdale, 
translating the Greek Ttpootoronov more at length, has fyrst 
home Sonne. This is changed in the Great Bible to hyr 
fyrst begotten sonne, but the Authorized Version returns to 
Coverdale's first rendering. In Matt, iii, 4, Tindale trans- 
lates, This Jhon had hys garment of camels heer and a 
gerdell of a skynne aboute his loynes, where Coverdale, 
again more literally and also more smoothly, reads, a lethren 
gerdell. The Great Bible, the Genevan and the Rhemish 
New Testament all return to Tindale's rendering, but the 
Authorized Version retains Coverdale's first translation. 
A striking illustration of the gradual formation of a smooth 
phrasing is afforded by Matt, vi, 34. Tindale reads here: 
Care not then for the morow, but let the morow care for 
it selfe: for the daye present hath ever ynough of his awne 
trouble. In Coverdale's Bible of 1535 this last clause reads. 



254 English Literary Prose 

Every daye hath ynongh of his owne travayll, which is 
improved in the Great Bible : Care not then for the morow, 
for to morowe day shall care for it selfe: sufficient unto the 
daye is the travayle therof. The Genevan New Testament 
alters the first half of the verse for the better : Care not then 
for the morow: for the morow shal care for it selfe: The 
day present hath ever inongh to do with it owne grief. The 
Rhemish version changes slightly : Be not carefid therfore 
for the morow. For the morow day shal be carefid for it 
self: sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. And the 
Authorized Version, accepting the best from the preceding 
versions and giving the whole a somewhat ampler rhythm, 
reads: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the 
morrow shall take thought for the things of it selfe: 
sufficient unto the day is the evill thereof. A further illus- 
tration may be cited from this Gospel. In Matt, xxv, 21, 
Tindale reads: Then his master sayde unto him: well good 
servaunt and faithfidl. Thou hast bene faithfull in lytell, 
I will make the ruler over moche: enter in into thy masters 
ioye. Coverdale's rendering, as represented by the Great 
Bible, is as follows: His lorde saide tmto him: well thou 
good and faithfull servaunt. Thou hast bene faythfull over 
fewe thinges. I will make the rider over many thinges. 
Entre thou into the ioye of thy lorde. The Genevan Testa- 
ment returns to Tindale, but the Rhemish version, with slight 
modification, follows Coverdale. And the Authorized Ver- 
sion, with one helpful change, also follows Coverdale : 
His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithfull serv- 
ant, thou hast bene faithfull over a few things, I will make 
thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy 
lord. In Luke xviii, 13, Tindale reads : And the publican 
stode afarre of and zvolde not lyfte up his eyes to heven, 
a close translation of the Greek. Coverdale, in the Great 
Bible, followed by the Rhemish and the Authorized Ver- 



Bible and Prayer Book 255 

sions, changes the syntax for the sake of rhythm : And the 
publycan sfondyng a farre of, wolde not lyfte up hys eyes 
to heaven. The play of the texts back and forth is in- 
terestingly illustrated by the translations of Luke xviii, 2^. 
Tindale reads here: When he heard that, he was hevy: for 
he was very ryche. The Great Bible changes hevy to sory, 
which becomes in the Authorized Version, very sorowfidl. 
The Genevan translation reads very hevy and marvelous 
ryche, and the Rhemish version is different from all others : 
He hearing these things, was stroken sad: because he was 
very riche. But in the succeeding verse the Authorized 
Version owes its reading, How hardly shal they that have 
riches, enter into the kingdome of God? mainly to the 
Rhemish translation, Tindale reading here, with what diffi- 
cnlte shall they that have ryches enter into the kingdome 
of God? It is interesting to note, however, that the Rhemish 
version reads money instead of riches, agreeing in this with 
the Great Bible. In Luke xviii, 26, Tindale translates, 
rather awkwardly. Then sayde they that hearde that, which 
reads more smoothly in the Great Bible and the Authorized 
Version, And they that hearde it sayd. One final illustra- 
tion of the minute changes by means of which stylistic 
effect was gained may be cited from Luke xviii, 38. Tindale 
gives here a literal translation of the Greek, except that the 
pronoun subject of the verb is only implied in the form 
of the Greek verb, not specifically expressed : And he cryed 
sayinge: Jesus the sonne of David, have thou mercy on me. 
The Great Bible gains in dramatic force: And he cryed, 
sayinge: Jesii thou sonne of David, have mercy on me. The 
Genevan version as usual follows Tindale except that it 
changes the first word to Then. The Rhemish version also 
agrees with Tindale except that it omits the vocative pro- 
noun altogether. And the Authorized Version follows the 
Great Bible exactly. 



256 English Literary Prose 

These illustrations have been cited to show the changes 
which Coverdale and the Authorized Version made in the 
text of Tindale's translation. Compared with the whole, 
they are relatively slight, and it is much easier to find pas- 
sages in which the later versions agree with Tindale than 
passages in which they differ. Verse after verse of the 
Authorized Version follows Tindale almost without change, 
and such changes as are made, though as a whole they are 
improvements both in style and scholarly exactness, do 
not greatly alter the character of the book as it was first 
established by Tindale. Of a good book the later revisers 
made a better, as it was always their purpose to do, not a 
new translation. 

II 

The conception of a complete service-book in the native 
tongue for the use of the whole congregation of the church 
was of much later origin than the conception of a com- 
plete English Bible. Even Cranmer, to whom the final 
formulation of the Book of Common Prayer " after the use 
of the Church of England " is supposed to owe most, 
arrived at such a conception only slowly and gradually. His 
first plans contemplated only a remodeling of the traditional 
Latin service-books of the church. Later he approved the 
use of English for parts of the service, those parts which 
have to do with " mysteries " being still given in Latin. 
And finally, when the lay members of the church were 
granted that highest of all privileges, the privilege of par- 
taking personally in the service of communion, even this 
last stronghold of Latin was given up by Cranmer. A 
complete English service-book, which differed in no respect 
from that in the hands of the officiating priest, was then 
for the first time put into the possession of the people. 

Although the English people prior to the Reformation 



Bible and Prayer Book 257 

had nothing equivalent to the Book of Common Prayer, 
they had certain books in English which were intended in 
some degree to take the place of an English service-book. 
Of this character was the Lay Folks Mass Book, as the 
work is called by its modern editor.^^ This was not a 
translation of the missal, though several parts of the service 
of the mass were retained, but rather an independent work 
with rubrics and devotions which run parallel to the mass 
and which were to be read silently by the lay people at the 
same time that the priest was celebrating the office aloud. 
The book is in English verse, and with the exception of 
the celebration of the sacrament of communion, in which 
the laity had no share, it provides a substitute for the 
various parts of the mass. 

Another popular book of devotion was the Primer, or 
lay-folk's service book. Primers were written both in Latin 
and in English, and they were used not only as books for 
private devotions, but also as school-books for the instruc- 
tion of children. Certain portions of the Primer were 
learned by heart, and, with the help of an alphabet often 
prefixed, at the same time the student learned how to read.^^ 
The contents of the Primers varied considerably, though 
they were originally derived mainly from the Hours of 
the Virgin. Other devotional matter was gradually added 
to the Hours, such as Psalms, a litany, certain occasional 
offices, and prayers, until the book became a kind of short- 
ened breviary for the use of those who could read Latin 
or English, but who were not themselves clerics. One of 
the earliest English Primers extant was made about the 
year 1400. This Primer is extensive so far as its content 
goes, but in style it is crude and rudimentary. The same 
difficulties which confronted the translators of the Wiclifite 

" Simmons, E.E.T.S., LXXI, 1879. 

'" See Watson, The English Grammar School to 1660, pp. 31-37. 



258 English Literary Prose 

Bible had also to be met by the compilers of a vernacular 
service-book. Such renderings as the following can hardly 
be counted satisfactory, or even intelligible English : " As it 
was in the bigynnynge and now and evere, in to the werldis 
of werldis," a literal translation of Siciit erat in principio, 
et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum; or the trans- 
lation of the phrase from the Venite exultemus, praeoccu- 
pemus faciem ejus in confessione by " biforeocupie we his 
face in confessioun." ^'' 

But the Primer, unlike the Wiclifite Bible, continued in 
general use and underwent numerous revisions from time 
to time. It thus represents a gradual growth in the adapta- 
tion of the vernacular to the needs of the services of the 
church. In the second quarter of the sixteenth century, 
when the champions of the Reformation in England began 
to fight more in the open, it was natural that they should 
send forth certain Primers which were intended to serve 
as popular manuals of instruction in Protestant doctrine. 
Issued first without authority, these Primers were soon to 
receive episcopal and royal sanction. In the latter years 
of the reign of Henry VIII, three different versions of the 
Primer in English were printed, the first known as Mar- 
shall's Primer in 1534, the second in 1539 at Cromwell's 
direction. The third was known as the King's Primer, be- 
cause it was published with Henry's sanction, in 1545, 
and with the command that no other was to be used through- 
out all his dominions. In these Primers we approach very 
near to the form of the Prayer Book by which they were 
soon to be supplanted. Marshall's Primer was the work 
of William Marshall, who translated and published various 
reform writings. In the first edition of his " Prymer in 
Englysshe " he had omitted the litany, but he adds it in the 
second edition " for the contentation of such weak minds " 
*' The Prymer, ed. Littlehales, Pt. I, p. 17. 



Bible and Prayer Book 259 

as were disturbed by not finding it in the first edition. 
" Right doubtful it is, as I think," so he continues, " to 
pray unto all those that be mentioned, named and called 
saints in the common primers in Latin." ^® Besides the 
longer devotions for adults, Alarshall's Primer contains a 
shorter primer for children, called A fruitful and a very 
Christian instruction for children. In this are given various 
prayers, the creed, graces before and after meals, at rising, 
at retiring, and for other occasions. The King's Primer 
was published first in English, being a " determinate form 
of praying in their own mother tongue, to the intent that 
such as are ignorant of any strange or foreign speech, may 
have what to pray in their own acquainted and familiar 
language with fruit and understanding." ^^ To the English 
version was later added a Latin translation, and those who 
thought they could make their prayers with a more fervent 
spirit in that tongue, were given permission to use it. But 
King Henry's Primer was intended to supplement and not 
to replace the traditional service-books of the church. 

With the accession of Edward VI a new impulse was 
given to that reformation of both doctrine and formula 
which had begun in the reign of his predecessor. Following 
the lead of the Continental ecclesiastic. Cardinal Francisco 
de Quiiiones (Cardinal Quignon), Cranmer had already 
made experiments looking to the reformation and simplifi- 
cation of the Latin breviary. In the first years of Edward's 
reign a commission was appointed, with Archbishop Cran- 
mer at its head, to examine the whole question of the formal 
services of the church. The conference met at Windsor, 
" a good number of the best learned men reputed within 

" Three Primers Put forth in the Reign of Henry VIII, p. 124. 
Marshall's Primer was suppressed on the complaint of Convocation, 
cf. Watson, The English Grammar Schools to 1660, p. 2>i- 

'" Three Primers, p. 440. 



26o English Literary Prose 

this realm, some favoring the old, some the new learning," *° 
and the results of their deliberations, laid before Parliament 
in 1549, were immediately accepted. These results were 
embodied in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI, and by 
the Act of Uniformity passed at the time, it was decreed 
that the " great diversitie in saying and synging in churches 
within this realme " which had prevailed hitherto, should 
now give place to this one use of the independent church 
of England. Three years later, in 1552, a revision, mainly 
doctrinal, of the First Prayer Book was made which brought 
it more into harmony with Protestant teachings at cer- 
tain points. Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book of 1559 rep- ^ 
resents a second revision, which differs but little from the 
First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI. Later 
revisions were made by James I, in 1604, and a final one 
by Charles II, in 1662; but the changes in all these later 
revisions are relatively slight, and the book remains essen- 
tially as it was, so far at least as its literary character is 
concerned, when it left the hands of Cranmer and his asso- 
ciates in the days of Edward VI. 

When one regards the Prayer Book from the point of 
view of the earlier traditional services of the church, the 
two most important steps taken by the authors of the book 
seem astonishingly radical. In the first place, a great mass 
of ritual observance which had gradually grown up in the 
course of centuries was ruthlessly set aside. The medieval 
church had developed an elaborate system of services, ordi- 
nary and occasional, for which appropriate forms had been 
devised. To control all the various service-books needed in 
the celebration of the different services taxed the capacity 
even of learned clerics, to say nothing of inexperienced 
laymen. Merely to turn the pages of the book was " so hard 

*" Gasquet and Bishop, Edward the VI and the Book of Common 
Prayer, p. 137. 



Bible and Prayer Book 261 

and intricate a matter that many times there was more 
busines to fynd out what should be read, then to read it 
when it was founde out." *^ With the reformed service, 
" the curates shal nede none other bookes for their pubhque 
service, but this boke and the Bible." By an heroic act 
of compression, some of the traditional daily services of the 
church were omitted altogether, and the three services of 
matins, lauds, and prime were combined to form the service 
called matins in the First Prayer Book and morning prayer 
in the Second Book ; and vespers and compline were united 
to form the only other daily service of the reformed church, 
called evensong in the First Prayer Book and evening 
prayer in the Second, But the services were not only few 
in number, they were also simple in outline. From a con- 
fused medley, rich in detail as a medieval cathedral, the 
reformers extracted a few leading principles, not much 
more than the skeleton of the mass-book, as Milton scorn- 
fully declared, the almsbasket of the prayers of the 
Roman church.*^ But the new service-book had this ad- 
vantage, that it was comprehensible in its entirety, not only 
to the instructed clergy, but to every intelligent layman. 

The second radical step of the authors of the Prayer 
Book was the choice of the vernacular for the language 
of the book. As was the case with the simplification of 
forms, the way for the use of English in all the services 
of the church had long been preparing. Through their lay- 
folk's catechisms, mass-books, and primers, the popular 
mind had grown accustomed to the expression of devo- 
tional ideas in the mother tongue. And with the gradual 
acceptance of the notion of a democratic church, in which 
the priestly orders were the ministers and not the rulers of 
the congregation, it was logically necessary that the great 

*' Preface, in the First Prayer Book. 
*'^ Prose Works, ed. Symmons, I, 45, 262. 



262 English Literary Prose 

barrier of language should be removed so far as possible 
between priest and people. Nevertheless it was an act of 
great courage on the part of the learned men gathered at 
Windsor to set aside so completely the only language in 
which their ancestors had said the divine services for cen- 
turies and in which they themselves had been accustomed 
to I'.ear them from the earliest days of their childhood. And 
it is all the more remarkable if, as Cranmer declares, it 
was agreed by all, " without controversy (not one saying 
contrary) that the service of the church ought to be in the 
mother tongue." *^ For the translation of the scriptures 
many precedents, from St. Jerome down, might be adduced, 
but in the defense of the native tongue as the appropriate 
language for a national church, the English church was 
making and not following precedent. The production of the 
English Prayer Book was but one more step in that slow 
progress towards complete national realization and expres- 
sion which the English people for two centuries had now 
been entered upon. 

Although the exact methods by which the English Prayer 
Book was produced seem not to have been recorded, it is 
certain that the moving personality, both in the construc- 
tion and perhaps also in the actual composition of the book, 
was Archbishop Cranmer. Unlike Tindale's New Testa- 
ment, the Prayer Book from the beginning enjoyed the good 
fortune of royal and episcopal favor. Something of the 
genial glow of the circumstances of its composition is re- 
flected in the book itself. The task which lay before the 
commission assembled at Windsor was not one merely of 
devising a service-book intelligible to the plowman and the 
simple folk of England ; in the mind of a scholar and writer 
of Cranmer's experience, the demands of simplicity and 
intelligibility were to be taken for granted. Equally im- 
*^ Gasquet and Bishop, p. 137. 



Bible and Prayer Book 263 

portant was the necessity of fashioning a book which 
should adequately express the dignity of a great national 
church, and which should have due regard to the feeling 
for form which had been fostered for generations by the 
stately services of the medieval church. It was not enough 
that the services of the reformed church should be simple 
and uniform, they must also be beautiful in themselves. 
In satisfying this demand, with rare discretion Cranmer 
and his associates avoided the extravagances of the fashion- 
able and ephemeral literary styles of the time, and fixed 
their attention upon the purer and more permanent models 
of liturgical expression long traditional in the Latin serv- 
ices of the church. 

The dignity of Cranmer's office and of the services which 
long familiarity must have made second nature to him 
raised him above petty mannerisms of style. In his homilies, 
published two years before the Prayer Book, for the use of 
licensed preachers in the church, Cranmer writes in a re- 
strained, even manner, serene but not cold, and unfailingly 
appropriate to the somewhat formal purpose for which the 
homilies were intended. He eschews all obvious ornaments 
of style, such as alliteration, puns, doublets, fine words, and 
popular picturesque phrases. He never rises to heights of 
fervid eloquence, nor on the other hand, does he ever 
descend to a loose or careless or popular manner of writing. 
One admires throughout the homilies the evenness of tone 
and the fine feeling for words and for the cadences of 
phrasing in which the artist in language is revealed. This 
same disciplined and chastened literary feeling appears 
again in the composition of the Prayer Book. 

It was no easy task to produce a book in the English 
language which should be popular, and at the same time 
compete in dignity and stateliness with the familiar Latin 
services. No literal translation would answer the purpose. 



264 English Literary Prose 

for a literal translation of the Latin is cold and bare. The 
Latin services are both compact and at the same time large 
and dignified in the outline of their phrasing. The Latin 
words in themselves have a richness of flavor not often 
paralleled by an English equivalent, and a w^ord for word 
substitution of English terms for the Latin makes the latter 
seem what they are not, hard and meager. On the other 
hand, mere ornament, compared with the severity of the 
Latin, must have seemed to Cranmer and his associates an 
unworthy and meretricious substitute for something better. 
The main problem before the authors of the book was there- 
fore that of finding the proper cadences in English. By 
Cranmer's time the language was sufliciently rich in vocab- 
ulary to make the transference of ideas from one language to 
the other comparatively easy. But English words were 
prevailingly monosyllabic and were wanting in the sonority 
and fullness of the many-syllabled inflected words of the 
Latin. In the lack of exact equivalents in English, a substi- 
tute for the Latin words must be found. 

This was done mainly by a process of expansion. The 
foundations of the Prayer Book, not only in content but in 
the spirit of the phrasing as well, were the older Latin 
service-books of the church, primarily the Salisbury Use, 
which was the one followed at Canterbury, and, after 1542, 
generally throughout the southern province of England. 
But the same principles of compression which were followed 
in the general structure of the services of the new Prayer 
Book could not be followed in the details of their expres- 
sion. The brevity of the new services were compensated 
for in some measure by their warmth and breadth of feeling. 
So far as vocabulary is concerned, the authors of the first 
Prayer Book made use in the main of simple English words. 
Their diction is only slightly more Latinized than that of 
Tindale's New Testament. The English " almighty " is 



Bible and Prayer Book 265 

preferred to "omnipotent,'' "everlasting" to "sempiter- 
nal," and in general the effort of the authors of the Prayer 
Book seems to have been not to elevate the tone of the 
service-book by the employment of aureate terms, but to 
keep it as far as possible upon the plane of the current and 
generally intelligible speech. The stylistic devices which 
they did employ were various. What would have seemed 
abrupt in a literal translation of the Latin was often soft- 
ened by the insertion of an exclamation at the opening of a 
sentence, e.g. Domine, labia mea aperies, which reads in 
the First Prayer Book, " O Lorde, open thou my lippes." 
And such additions are frequently made where the Latin has 
merely a vocative, or even where there is no vocative. 
Vivacity is also given to the English frequently by the ex- 
pression of a pronoun which is merely implied in the Latin, 
as in the above and in Benedicite omnia opera Domini 
Domino, which becomes " O all ye workes of the Lorde, 
speake good of the Lorde." Or the bare name of the deity 
in the Latin is often amplified by the addition of some 
adjective like " almighty " or " everlasting." In general, 
however, the versicles are remarkable examples of com- 
pressed and faithful translation. Expansions like that of 
the opening sentence of the Litany, Pater de coelis Deus, 
miserere nobis, translated " O God the father of heaven, 
have mercy upon us miserable synners," are rare in the 
versicles and responses. In the prayers and collects, how- 
ever, the changes are more numerous and striking. The 
English often becomes more concrete than the Latin, as 
when qui contritoriim non despicis gemitum in the second 
prayer of the Litany becomes "that despisest not the syghyng 
of a contrite heart." A compact phrase of the Latin is 
often expanded; in this same prayer, the phrase diabolicae 
fraudes is rendered " the crafte and subteltie of the devyll." 
This habit of rounding out the phrasing of the English ver- 



266 English Literary Prose 

sioii by the pairing of almost synonymous words is well illus- 
trated by the collect for the fourth Sunday in Advent. The 
Latin is extremely compact : nt per auxilmm gratiae tuae 
qiiod nostra peccata praepediunt, indulgentia tuae propi- 
tiationis acceleret. This becomes in the English version: 
" that whereas, through our synnes and wickednes, we be 
soore lette and hindred, thy bountifuU grace and mercye, 
through the satisfaccion of thy sonne our Lord, may spedily 
deliver us." Another illustration may be cited from the 
collect for the first Sunday after the Epiphany: Vota, 
qnaesumus, Domine, supplicantis populi coelesti pietate 
proseqiiere; ut et quae agenda sunt, videant; et ad implenda 
quae viderint, convalescant; " Lorde we beseche the mercy- 
fullye to receive the praiers of thy people which cal upon 
thee ; and graunt that they maie both perceave and knowe 
what thinges they ought to do, and also have grace and 
power faithfully to fulfill the same." Sometimes phrases 
are introduced for which the original offers no equivalent, 
such as the words " in al our daungiers and necessities," in 
the collect for the third Sunday after the Epiphany ; or when 
the last clause of the collect for Ascension Day, ipsi qiioque 
mente in coelestihiis habitemus, is rendered, " so we may 
also in heart and mind thither ascende, and with him con- 
tinually dwell." The collect for the twelfth Sunday after 
Trinity is considerably expanded, but one phrase only need 
be cited : effiinde super nos misericordiam tuam, which 
reads, " Powre downe upon us the aboundance of thy 
mercy." Similar illustrations of the way in which a com- 
pact and somewhat stern phrasing of the Latin service has 
been expanded in order to produce equivalent cadences in 
English might be cited indefinitely, but space permits only 
one more, the first of the group of collects which stand at 
the close of the communion service. This reads as follows 
in the original : Adesto, Domine, supplicationibiis nosfris: et 



Bible and Prayer Book 267 

viam fanmlornm tuorum in salntis tuae prosperitate dispone: 
ut inter omnes viae et vitae hujus varietates, tiio semper 
protegantur aiixilio. Admirable in phrasing and diction as 
this prayer is, it cannot be said that the English version 
falls short of it : " Assist us mercifully, O Lord, in these our 
supplicacions and praiers, and dispose the way of thy ser- 
vauntes toward the attainement of everlasting salvacion, that 
emong all the chaunges and chaunces of thys mortall lyfe, 
they maye ever bee defended by thy moste gracious and 
readye helpe." 

Such was the spirit in which the authors of the Prayer 
Book set about the task of composing a common service for 
the use of the English people. The book which they con- 
structed and the tone which they set in it have remained 
essentially unaltered since their day. Some additions were 
made in the first revision of 1552, notably the Exhortation 
and General Confession near the beginning of morning and 
evening prayer, with their familiar word-pairs, " acknowl- 
edge and confess," " synnes and wickedness," " dissemble 
nor cloke," " assemble and mete together," " erred and 
strayed," " devises and desyres," and others like these. 
But the tone of these original contributions to the Prayer 
Book, as they seem to be, does not dififer from that estab- 
lished by the authors of the first version ; nor do the changes 
and additions of Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book of 
1559) or the final revision of 1662, present anything 
new from the literary point of view. As a literary 
achievement the Prayer Book in its essentials is to 
be credited to Cranmer and his associates. And if we 
had no other testimony than that of time, we should have 
to grant that their work was well done. The latter clause 
of the statement attributed to James I, that the " Liturgie 
was taken out of the Masse Book, onely spoyled in the 
translation," has never found many supporters. It is true 



268 English Literary Prose 

that Queen Elizabeth's dream of " an uniform uniformity " 
in the services of the English church has never been com- 
pletely realized. From the days of its first composition, 
there were Puritan non-conformists v^ho would have noth- 
ing to do with a prelatical Prayer Book, and there have al- 
ways been numerous congregations of devout worshipers 
who have refused to accept the established forms. In spite 
of this, no single influence except that of the Bible has been 
so great as the influence of the Prayer Book upon all 
English devotional expression, whether public or private. 
Implicitly the Prayer Book has been accepted as a standard, 
and upon it have been modeled many varying, but not 
essentially different, forms of worship. The First Prayer 
Book of Edward VI expressed permanently one of the 
constant moods of the English people. It put an end to 
the period of experimentation by its invention of an adequate 
and satisfactory form of expression for the devotional feel- 
ing, and it became thereby one of the fixed stars in the 
literary firmament for the guidance of later generations of 
English people. 

The English Bible and the English Prayer Book have a 
peculiar significance as the first classics of modern Eng- 
lish literature. The Morte Darthnr and the Utopia might 
suggest themselves as possible competitors for this distinc- 
tion. But Malory is more medieval than modern, and is to 
be grouped rather with Chaucer than with Spenser. And 
the Utopia, originally written in Latin and never turned 
into English by its author, has persisted less as a classic of 
English literature than as one of universal literature. 
Neither the Morte Darthnr nor the Utopia has enjoyed the 
permanent general interest of the relatively few great classics 
of the language, nor does either occupy one of those central 
pivotal positions in the development of English letters which 



Bible and Prayer Book 269 

lends to other works unusual historical significance. The 
Bible and the Prayer Book are to be regarded as the earliest 
English classics in the sense that they are the earliest books 
in the English tongue which have been uninterruptedly and 
generally read since the time of their composition, and 
which have been read substantially in the form which was 
given them in the middle of the sixteenth century. Whether 
we accept Tindale's New Testament or the Great Bible of 
1539 as establishing the form of the English scriptures, we 
must recognize that this form was fixed and generally 
acknowledged two generations before it received final 
sanction in the Authorized Version. The Version of 
161 1 merely confirmed a tradition and'^ did not estab- 
lish it. In the same way the Prayer Book as an expression 
of the English genius must be dated from the year of the 
First Prayer Book of Edward VI. Official recognition 
helped to conserve what popular feeling would probably 
have maintained, as tenaciously without public authority. 
The combination of the two, popular approval and public 
authority, resulted in the establishment of both Bible and 
Prayer Book in positions of extraordinary influence and 
power. The value of these two books in the maintenance 
of standards of propriety and sanity in English expression 
can hardly be overestimated. In the sixteenth century the 
English people were creating for themselves a new literary 
speech. They were driven to experimentation and to imi- 
tation which often led, in the absence of a standard literary 
idiom, to great extremes of literary styles. The scholars 
would have turned English into a kind of Anglicized Latin. 
The courtly experimenters, the Euphuists and Arcadians, 
would have exalted rhetorical artifice at the expense of 
naturalness and breadth of appeal. The advocates of a 
literary speech based entirely upon the native idiom would 
have sacrificed all dignity and variety of expression in the 



270 English Literary Prose 

interests of a homely and often grotesque popular style. 
From all of these experiments much good resulted in the 
formation of the literary speech which the sixteenth century 
passed on to the seventeenth. But what was needed above 
all in the welter of experimentation was some sense of 
moderation, some feeling for a strong central idiom which 
should enable the writer of English to avoid both the ex- 
treme of artistic fantasy and of an ignoble Saxon bluntness. 
This need of a safe standard was supplied by the English 
Bible and the English Prayer Book. They were popular in 
the sense that they were intelligible to the great public and 
were cast in the forms of normal English speech. But they 
were literary, also, in that they were elevated above the 
ephemeral colloquial language, and in that they satisfied 
not only the intelligence of their readers, but also their 
feeling for propriety, and for dignity and beauty of expres- 
sion. The direct influence of the Bible and the Prayer 
Book upon certain writers of the sixteenth and of later cen- 
turies has been very great. The ultimate significance of 
the books is to be found, however, in something deeper than 
the occasional and specific influence which they have exerted 
upon the style of individual writers. It is to be found in 
the fact that they were, for all Englishmen, unquestioned 
achievements of the English language. They became a 
great steadying, unifying tradition, and by their popular 
acceptance, one of the implicit conditions of all later use of 
English speech. 



VI 

THE COURTLY WRITERS 

The New Learning — Influence of the Classics — 
Aureate Diction — Caxton — Skelton — The ' Tum- 
bling ' Style — Word-Borrowing — Cheke — Ascham 
— Sir Thomas Wilson — The Rhetoricians — The 
Ingenious Style — Guevara and His Influence — 
Lord Berners — Sir Thomas North — The Ingenious 
Style in Fiction — The School of Lyly — Sidney 
and Arcadianism 



The ideal of the scholar and gentleman as mutually com- 
plementary sides of the perfect character greatly occupied 
the minds of Englishmen in the early sixteenth century. 
The new order of thought, as well as the old to which it 
stood in contrast, is illustrated in an anecdote of the time 
of Henry VIII. A certain great peer of the court ex- 
pressed the opinion that " it was enough for noblemen's 
sons to wind their horn, and carry their hawk well, that 
study was for the children of a meaner rank." To this 
Pace, scholar and statesman, answered that " then noble- 
men must be content that their children may wind their 
horns and carry their hawks while meaner men's sons do 
wield the affairs of state." ^ 

Similar warnings and counsels are expressed by another 
of Henry's servants. In one of his numerous treatises 
written for the profit of his " natural country," Sir Thomas 

' Hall, " Quo Vadis," Works, ed. Wynter, IX, 538. 
271 



272 English Literary Prose 

Elyot expounds his belief that the old chivalric rule of 
conduct must give place to a new one, not based on valor 
and courtesy, but on knowledge. That which soonest 
" helpeth a man to virtue," the one " sure and honest rule of 
livynge," Elyot declares, is learning. " All other thynges 
temporall be but tryfils and not of such value that there 
in we oughte to spende any studye." He then compares 
learning with " gentylnes of bloud," with fortune, with 
honor, with other virtues, but he returns to the opinion that 
learning is the most important of all.- That Elyot earnestly 
believed in these views, and all the more earnestly since 
they came to him with the sanction of Plutarch's approval, 
his own life bears ample witness. His " boke called the 
Governour," his " Castel of health," his " Dictionary," all 
his many publications were sent forth with the single intent 
of providing Englishmen of his day with the learning and 
with the principles of conduct befitting the cultivated scholar 
and gentleman. 

But Elyot was not altogether the first by scholarly pre- 
cept or example to set this new ideal of literary culture 
before Englishmen's eyes. Before his time Lydgate, Cax- 
ton, Berners, and Skelton had in some measure adum- 
brated the coming of a new scholarship and a new sense for 
literary form in England. Elyot was merely part of a gen- 
eral movement, he was one of many who added dignity to 
the practice of letters both by their scholarly standards in 
writing and by the distinguished social positions which 
they themselves held. In greater or less degree they real- 
ized the ideal set forth in Castiglione's description of the 
courtier as one who not only knew how " to ride and manage 

^ The Education or bringinge up of children, translated oute of 
Plutarche hy syr Thomas Eliot, knight. Cap. V. The book is 
undated, but it was certainly written before 1540, since it is men- 
tioned in The Image of Goverance, published in that year. 



The Courtly Writers 273 

well his horse," but who was also " well spoken and fair 
languaged," who could write in prose or in verse, and 
who practiced the arts of the pen, like those of the sword, 
with grace and freedom. 

The forces which brought about this changed attitude 
towards literature and learning, hitherto almost exclusively 
the pursuit of ecclesiastics, were of mixed native and for- 
eign origin. In part they were closely bound up with the 
impulses which from the beginning of the fifteenth century 
had been changing the character of the popular English 
mind. When Occleve advised Sir John Oldcastle to rest 
content with the story of Launcelot de Lake or of the siege 
of Troy or Thebes,^ he proved that he had understood 
neither the popular nor the learned tendencies of his time. 
The popular reformers could no longer be quieted with life- 
less summaries of dogmatic doctrine. Nor could the lovers 
of imaginative writing and of good style content themselves 
with the faded plots and worn out literary devices of 
medieval romance. In Malory's Morte Darthnr we have 
the last vanishing echoes from the din and uproar of primi- 
tive fighting, loving, feasting mankind, echoes that become, 
as is the nature of such sounds, purer and sweeter in 
quality as they become fainter and remoter from the ac- 
tuality of their origin. New and fresh material was needed 
upon which the artistic imagination could vigorously exert 
itself. The cultivated writers of Renascence England 
wisely did not often try to breathe new life into the old 
stories of Arthur and Alexander, of Troy and of Thebes. 
Stronger attraction was exerted from a different direction. 

In the earlier years of the English Renascence two con- 
stant elements in the development of the new literary art 
were admiration for the language and literature of classical 
antiquity and desire to transfer the qualities which dis- 
' See above, p. 58. 



274 English Literary Prose 

tinguish the writings of the ancients to English, or at least 
to create their equivalents in the English vernacular. The 
position which French, the language of romance, had occu- 
pied in the fourteenth century, was now taken by Greek, 
and more especially by Latin. The constant effort of the 
early English humanists was to raise their English com- 
position to the level of classical style. Even as early as 
Lydgate the tendency towards lofty style is elaborately 
exemplified, and the high esteem in which he was held by 
his contemporaries, and even by his successors of several 
generations later, as for example Caxton, Hawes, and Skel- 
ton, was due to the fact that he was regarded as herald of a 
new generation. In comparison Chaucer began to seem 
quaint and old and rude. 

But though the writings of antiquity provided the general 
standards of excellence for English stylists, one does not 
find, either early or late, that they were very closely imi- 
tated as models. There were many admirers of Cicero 
among English courtly writers, but there was no English 
Cicero. In this respect English humanism differed from 
Italian, for in the writings of Bembo and the extremer 
Italian stylists, native spontaneity was completely stifled 
by iron-clad rules of servile imitation. Early English 
humanists were both less scholarly and in less degree 
animated by a passionate love of the fine art of writing 
than were the humanists of Italy during the corresponding 
period of the development of Italian literature. In Skelton, 
in Caxton, in Sir Thomas Elyot, one observes only a general 
and remote resemblance to Ciceronian eloquence. Even in 
writers like Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, who 
were more immediately and consciously under the spell of 
Latin style, the form and rhetorical dress of classic expres- 
sion are only in slight measure carried over into English. 
Ascham speaks of " that excellent perfitnesse " in speech 



The Courtly Writers 275 

and writing, " which was onely in TuUie or onelie in Tullies 
tyme." * But the most characteristic features of Cicero's 
style, his rhythms and cadences, are reproduced only in a 
very general way in Ascham's own writing. In their atti- 
tude towards Cicero, English humanists agreed in the main 
with Erasmus and with earlier Italian humanists like 
Petrarch, who, \vith all his admiration for Cicero, declared 
that his Latin was the Latin of Petrarch, not of Cicero.^ 
So the writing of the early literary stylists in England al- 
ways rested on a substantial foundation of native expres- 
sion. What they got from the classics was rather the 
appreciation of form than specific models of form. 

As English stylists continued to cultivate the graces of 
writing and as they developed a technic of their own, they 
departed farther and farther from classical standards. The 
shade of Cicero certainly would not recognize Lyly and 
Sidney as made in his image. Nor was any classical author 
other than Cicero made the determining model of the 
English stylists. They knew Seneca and studied him almost 
as zealously as they did Cicero. They cultivated Isocrates 
as well as Demosthenes and Plato. Their taste was 
eclectic, and indeed not very discriminating. They had a 
voracious appetite for everything that seemed to them to 
lend distinction to writing, but their feeling for classic art 
was enthusiastic and vague, rather than exact and 
scholarly.^ Then again it must not be forgotten that the 

* Scholemaster, ed. Arber, p. 144. 

* Clark, Ciceronianism, in English Literature and the Classics, 
p. 135- 

' English Latinists likewise exhibited moderation in their respect 
for classic models. Sir Thomas More was of course in agreement 
with the theory and practice of the more liberal humanists like 
Erasmus and Vives. But even professional Latinists, like Walter 
Haddon, whose Latin style seems to have been more highly es- 
teemed than that of any other in the sixteenth century, were very 
moderate Ciceronians. It was Haddon who was called on to answer 



276 English Literary Prose 

break between medieval and Renascence culture in England 
was by no means complete. An art of fine writing had 
been elaborately practiced throughout the whole of the 
so-called Dark Ages, and it has already been pointed out 
how Wiclif was impelled to protest against it in the interests 
of simplicity. Many of the artifices of style employed by 
English writers in the sixteenth century seem to be merely 
transferred from medieval Latin style to the vernacular.'^ 
Not before the prose of Milton in the seventeenth century 
does one find what may be called a first-hand and adequate 
imitation of classical Latin prose in native English writing. 
Milton wrote a thoroughly scholarly style, and compared 
with him, the classicists of the sixteenth century seem 
amateurs and novices. 

Among writers of English prose, the first significant culti- 
vator of the learned tendencies of the new style was 
William Caxton, the father of English printing, though not 
of English prose. Born in the first quarter of the fifteenth 
century, Caxton is one of the connecting links between the 
medieval England of Chaucer, with its close French affilia- 
tions, and the Renascence England of the early sixteenth 
century. He was attracted to the trade of printing before 
he became interested in literary production, and afterwards 
he was driven to read, to write, and to translate in order to 

Osorius, the Portuguese bishop, famous for his Ciceronian elo- 
quence (see Preface, p. xi). Foxe (Fox against Osorius, Tracts of 
the Anglican Reformers, VIII, 327) declares that Walter Haddon 
daunted the haughty pride of Osorius " and utterly discomfited his 
vain-glorious peacock-like rhetoric with such gravity, wisdom, and so 
well disposed style " that the truth of the Gospel " might seem to 
have no need of any other patronage." Ascham {Scholemaster, ed. 
Arber, p. 112) advises Osorius to try to write "so straite, fast and 
temperate a style in latine " as Demosthenes wrote in Greek, and a 
preference for the plain style of Demosthenes is recorded by vari- 
ous other sixteenth century writers and scholars. 

^ This point is ably presented by Professor Morris CroU in an 
essay soon to appear, Marie faventc, in Englische Studien. 



The Courtly Writers 277 

supply his press with materials appropriate for publication. 
He thus became a literary experimenter. His work took 
the form mainly of prose translation or adaptation of 
French, Latin, Dutch, and of older English originals. He 
was always more of a literary craftsman than a literary 
artist. Not finding what he needed in contemporary or in 
past English literature, he set to work to supply the lack 
in a straightforward, workmanlike fashion, but always with 
shrewdness and literary discernment. The range of his 
interests was determined in large part by the demands of his 
public. The books which issued from his press were mainly 
romances and books of conduct for the courtly reader, 
editions or versions of what may be called the native classic 
literature of the times, Chaucer, Malory, Boethius, the 
stories of Troy, of Charlemagne, of the ^neid, many his- 
tories and lives of the saints, together with moral treatises 
and service-books of the church. He avoided doctrinal and 
controversial subjects, and the first English press gave 
little support to the popular movements that were trans- 
forming the character of English society. If not in his 
sympathies, at least in the choice of books for publication, 
Caxton was distinctly aristocratic and conservative. His 
originality, so far as it goes, was shown in the form of his 
writings and translations, not in their content. He con- 
ceived that what English needed was to broaden its horizon, 
to increase the volume and the power of its medium of ex- 
pression. He has no hesitancy in parting from the old. 
The English, he declares, were born under the " dominacyon 
of the mone " ; they are always seeking some new and 
strange thing, and their speech has changed so rapidly that 
the English of his boyhood differed greatly from that of his 
mature years. What Englishmen read a generation or two 
before his day, they could no longer read, or could read 
only with difficulty. The old style seemed to him obscure 



278 English Literary Prose 

and rude, and no longer adequate for the uses to which 
English must be put. 

The contrast between Caxton and Chaucer is instructive, 
and it shows why one is and the other is not of the new 
generation. Chaucer's art is highly traditional, and it 
dififers from that of his contemporaries mainly in that it is 
more perfect than theirs. Early brought under the influence 
of French taste, Chaucer never greatly departed from his 
first models. It is difficult to point out any direct influence 
of Vergil or Ovid, of Dante, Petrarch, or Boccaccio upon 
Chaucer's growth as an artist. To all of these he was in- 
debted for materials, but none of them can be called his 
liberator. His art grew deeper and richer in content and 
in form as he grew older, but there were no great revolu- 
tions in his taste. Lowell has said that Chaucer opened his 
windows to the south. Temperamentally he did so, and all 
the chambers of his house of poetry are flooded with the 
soft and genial radiance of his own personality. But 
Chaucer's was not a roving mind. He cultivated assiduously 
his own garden plot, decorated and beautified it with slips 
and seedlings from his neighboring France, some of which 
he improved in the transplanting, but he seldom allowed his 
gaze to wander far beyond his own garden walls. 

Caxton himself misunderstood Chaucer in this respect. 
He regarded him as an innovator, as one who set about the 
task of enriching the English tongue and of providing it 
with a new courtly style as consciously as he himself was 
doing. " For tofore that he by labour embellished, omated 
and made fair our English," says Caxton in a passage of 
the Proem to his edition of the Canterbury Tales which 
well illustrates his own conception of high style, " in this 
realm was had rude speech and incongruous, as yet it 
appeareth by old books, which at this day ought not to have 
place ne be compared among, ne to, his beauteous volumes 



The Courtly Writers 279 

and ornate writings, of whom he made many books and 
treatises of many a noble history, as well in metre as in 
rhyme and prose ; and them so craftily made that he com- 
prehended his matters in short, quick and high sentences, 
eschewing prolixity, casting away the chaff of superfluity, 
and shewing the picked grain of sentence, uttered by 
crafty and sugared eloquence." ^ But " sugared eloquence " 
and the reform of the English tongue were certainly not 
among Chaucer's ideals, and Caxton is led into his mistaken 
criticism merely by the fact that he finds many words of 
Romance origin in Chaucer such as he does not find in his 
" old books." Chaucer's foreign words, however, were not 
conscious innovations ; they were the common property of 
good written and spoken English in his day. His English 
was that of the court, but it was not a newly invented and 
fashionable court language. 

Though he expresses admiration for the virtue of com- 
pactness in Chaucer, Caxton himself cannot be said to have 
eschewed prolixity. He has only one device for elevating 
his style, and that is the multiplication of words. For form 
and structure his feeling is rudimentary. He escapes the 
monotony and simplicity of the medieval narrative style, but 
he does so at the expense often of being obscure, labored, 
and clumsy. He sought fullness, but the harmonious ar- 
rangement of parts in the structure of the sentence, which 
was to be the chief contribution of the classics to English 
style, was beyond his grasp. On the other hand the " fayr 
and straunge termes " of the originals from which he trans- 
lated were within his comprehension, and these terms he 
brought over freely into English. When he was blamed 
for this, his answer on one occasion was that the " olde 

* Pollard, Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, p. 232. See also 
the epilog to the Boethius for another eulogy of Chaucer, Pollard, 
ibid., p. 222. 



28o English Literary Prose 

and homely termes " of the language were no longer in- 
telligible, and furthermore that he translated not " for a 
rude uplondysh man to laboure therin," but for the clerk 
and gentleman. If these latter do not understand his new 
words, let them go read Vergil and other Latin writers, and 
then they will understand all.° A few sentences from the 
Eneydos, which was not translated from the original but 
from a degraded prose version in French, will illustrate 
Caxton's freedom in the use of new words, and his feeling 
for the heaping of words as an element of dignity in style : 

" For to here opene and declare the matere of whiche 
hereafter shall be made mencyon : It behoveth to presuppose 
that Troye, the grete capytall cyte and thexcellentest of 
all the cytees of the countre & regyon of Asye, was con- 
structe and edefyed by the ryght puyssaunt & renomed 
kyng Pryamus, sone of laomedon, descended of thauncyen 
stocke of Dardanus by many degrees, whiche was sone of 
Jubyter & of Electra his wyf, after the fyctions poetyque, 
And the fyrste orygynall begynnynge of the genealogye of 
kynges. And the sayd Troye was envyronned in fourme 
of siege and of excidyon by Agamenon, kynge in grece, 
brother of menelaus, whiche was husbonde to helayne. The 
whiche agamenon, assembled and accompanyed wyth many 
kynges, dukes, erles, and grete quantyte of other princes & 
grekes innumberable, hadde the magystracyon and unyversall 
governaunce of alle thexcersite and boost to-fore Troye." ^° 

This is Caxton at his best — or his worst, as one views it. 
Caxton could and often did write simply and naively, but 
when he wrote ambitiously, the above is a fair sample of his 
wares. 

Another transitional writer who cultivated the courtly and 
learned style as zealously as Caxton was John Skelton. He 
was born in the third quarter of the fifteenth century and 

° Preface to the Eneydos (1490). 
^"Eneydos, E.E.T.S., pp. lo-ii. 



The Courtly Writers 281 

he died in 1529. Skelton studied apparently at both uni- 
versities, was ordained priest, and for some years was tutor 
to Prince Henry, afterwards Henry VHI. He exults in 
his title of poeta laureatus, assumed probably in virtue of 
a degree in grammar, including rhetoric and versification, 
which was conferred upon him by Oxford and again later 
by Cambridge. He also frequently calls himself orator 
re gins, ^^ but just how much this title means remains 
doubtful. Skelton's fame suffered a good deal from the 
tradition which made him merely a jester, the author of 
" merry tales " and abusive satirical poems. But in his day 
he was undoubtedly a person of distinction, a preacher, a 
scholar, a man of some consequence at the court, and a 
companion and associate of high ecclesiastical dignitaries. 
His scholarship is vouched for by Erasmus, but his elo- 
quence made a deeper impression upon his generation than 
his scholarship. Caxton admired his translations of Cicero, 
of Diodorus Siculus, and of other Latin works into English, 
" not in rude and old language, but in polished and ornate 
terms craftily, as he that hath read Virgil, Ovid, Tully. and 
all the other noble poets and orators to me unknown. And 
also he hath read the nine Muses, and understands their 
musical sciences, and to whom of them each science is 
appropred. I suppose he hath drunken of Helicon's well." ^^ 
And Robert Whitinton, the grammarian, praises him with 
an enthusiasm and comprehensiveness that leaves nothing 
to be said for Demosthenes or any other of the orators of 
antiquity.^^ Thomas Churchyard, some years later, gives 
Skelton a lofty place among those who have " helpt our 
Englishe toung," praising especially his high judgment and 
the ' great practice ' of his pen. 

" Dyce, I, 132, 178, 179, 188, 191, 195, 197, 206, 408; II, 25. 
'^ Pollard, Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, p. 241. 
^^ Dyce, I, xviii. 



282 English Literary Prose 

It is apparent from his own writings that Skelton was 
deeply interested in all questions of literary art. In spite 
of his amazing complacency, he usually speaks modestly 
of his own efforts in writing, especially in English. In the 
character of the heroine of the poem, he confesses in 
Phyllyp Sparowe that he cannot as yet find the " Englysh 
wordes elect " which his style requires. The native tongue 
is rude, and is so lacking in " pullysshed termes lusty," that 
he knows not where to find the words to serve his purpose 
if he should try to write ornately. Old poets, like Gower 
and Chaucer, he prizes for their matter, but men now bark 
at Chaucer's English. John Lydgate, however, writes after 
a higher rate, though some men say he " wryteth to haute," 
that is, in too high a style. ^'^ All this Skelton mentions in 
quite serious excuse of his own " Englysshe half abused," 
of his style " rude and playne," and " barreyne of 
eloquence." 

As one might expect from Skelton's frequent apologies, 
his own writings show a zealous cultivation of the arts of 
style. Unfortunately most of Skelton's prose writings have 
been lost, and his literary aims can now be examined in 
large measure only in his metrical compositions. But even 
as poet, Skelton's practice is so illuminative of the develop- 
ments of his time that it repays examination in a study of 
the style of English prose. Skelton very consciously culti- 
vated two different styles of writing, the rude boisterous 
style of Pasquil the plain, and the ornate style of sugared 
eloquence. It is this latter, the learned style of Cicero, 
" with his tong of golde," that Skelton's admirers have in 
mind as his great achievement, but the other is no less 
characteristic. The difference can be best indicated by jux- 
taposing two stanzas from the Garlande of Laiirell, one in 

" Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate are mentioned again in the same 
manner in the Garlande of Laurell, 11. 386 ff., Dyce, I, Z77- 



The Courtly Writers 283 

the popular, the other in the learned style. The first stanza 
is intentionally grotesque: 

" With a pellit of pevisshenes they had such a stroke, 
That all the dayes of ther lyfe shall stycke by ther rybbis ; 
Foo, foisty bawdias ! sum smellid of the smoke; 
I saw dyvers that were cariid away thens in cribbis, 
Dasyng after dotrellis, lyke drunkardis that dribbis ; 
Theis titivyllis with taumpinnis were towchid and tappid ; 
Moche mischefe, I hyght you, amonge theem ther happid." '° 

That the humorous character of the diction in this passage 
was not a necessary quality of the style is readily seen from 
many instances in sixteenth-century writing, which obviously 
were intended to be taken as serious eloquence. Thus Deus 
Pater in one of the Chester Plays ^^ expresses himself in 
the same vein : 

" For all the mighte of the maiestye is magnified in me, 
Prince principall proved in my perpetuall prudens. 
I was never but one and ever one in three, 
set in substantiall sothenes within Caelestiall sapience. 
These three tryalls in a Trone and true Trynitie 
Be grounded in my godhead, exalted by my excellence; 
the mighte of my making is marked all in me, 
dissolved under a Dyademe by my divyne experyence." 

The line in these passages of verse is the familiar allitera- 
tive long line of Langland and others, with the addition of 
rime. The alliteration is not consistently employed accord- 
ing to a strict system, but enough of the older method re- 
mains to preserve the swing of the lines. Moreover the 
alliteration is used to help produce that effect of volubility, 
of popular eloquence, which was noted as a chief character- 
istic of Langland's alliterative long line. The meter thus 
employed by Skelton and others is usually designated as 
tumbling verse in treatises on versification, and the general 

•° LI. 637-643. 

^* The Fall of Lucifer, E.ET.S., Extra Series, LXII, 10. 



284 English Literary Prose 

style, whether in prose or verse, may conveniently be known 
as the tumbling style. Frequent illustrations of it appear 
in the popular literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
turies, sometimes as manifest corruptions of alliterative 
verse, but often also as the characteristic prose expression 
of the pulpit and other forms of popular eloquence. 

In the stanza from the same poem of Skelton, chosen to 
illustrate the learned style, Skelton describes himself as 
commanded by certain great ladies to devise some " goodly 
conseyt " — 

" With proper captacyons of benevolence, 
Ornatly puUysshid after your faculte, 
Sith ye must nedis afforce it by pretence 
Of your professyoun unto umanyte, 
Commensyng your proces after there degre, 
To iche of them rendryng thankis commendable, 
With sentence fructuous and termes concovenable." ^^ 

In this style alliteration disappears, the lines scan as regu- 
lar five-stress lines, and the popular vocabulary is replaced 
by a Latin aureate diction. ^^ 

This double tradition which Skelton followed reveals the 
twofold sources of his eloquence. On the one side he 
cultivated the new style with its ornate and aureate diction, 
tending in verse towards a regular numbered meter and in 
prose towards a clearly defined sentence structure; and on 
the other, he followed the old native tradition of a free 
alliterative long line, easily passing into a loose prose, and 
already in Piers Plowman used for bombastic and magnil- 

^' LI. 815-821. The third line from the end means, "after the 
rank of the persons to be celebrated in the poem." 

'* Similar examples of this double style may be found in other of 
Skelton's poems, notably in Magiiyfycencc, which has been care- 
fully studied in Ramsay's excellent edition for the E.E.T.S., Lon- 
don, 1908. Ramsay notes that the alliterative style is often used in 
this play " in passages designed to be especially impressive," and " in 
speeches of empty boasting." 



The Courtly Writers 285 

oquent effects, which in Skelton, under the impulse of an 
unrestrained vatic enthusiasm, cross the bounds of elo- 
quence into rant and even nonsense. ^^ There can be no 
doubt that Skelton was seriously seeking in both of these 
directions for a method by which he could attain to a high 
style. He felt keenly the two tendencies of English expres- 
sion in his day. As a scholar and a courtier, he was nat- 
urally attracted by the polished terms of the courtly aureate 
style. As regius orator and as plain speaker, he doubtless 
felf an equal admiration for the exuberant and ornamental 
popular style, which he must have known not only as a 
literary tradition, but also from the dithyrambic oratory of 
some of his eloquent contemporaries. For the popular style 
was never without its representatives. The pulpit kept it 
alive, and its influence always runs parallel to that of the 
classic ideals and models of eloquence. 

It is unfortunate that none of Skelton's sermons or public 
discourses have survived, for they would probably illustrate 
clearly this popular native side of his theories and endeavors. 
The few passages of Skelton's prose still extant show, 
however, the way in which his tumbling verse passed into a 
tumbling prose. In his " Replycacion agaynst certayne yong 
scolers," prose and verse easily run into each other. The 
" Replycacion " is also interesting as showing Skelton's in- 
genuity in utilizing aureate and learned words for popular 
rhetorical effects : 

" Over this, for a more ample processe to be farther 
delated and contynued, and of every true christenman 
laudably to be employed, iustifyed, and constantly main- 
teyned ; as touchyng the tetrycall theologisacion of these 
demi divines, and stoicall studiantes, and friscaioly yonker- 
kyns, moche better bayned [limber-jointed] than brayned, 
basked and baththed in their wylde burblyng and boyling 

'* See the nonsense verses of Folly, Ramsay, pp. 56-57. 



286 English Literary Prose 

blode, fervently reboyled with the infatuate flames oi their 
rechelesse youthe and wytlesse wantonnesse, embrased 
and enterlased with a moche fantasticall frenesy of their 
insensate sensualyte, surmysed unsurely in their periher- 
meniall principles, to prate and to preche proudly and 
leudly, and loudly to lye ; and yet they were but febly en- 
formed in maister Porphiris problemes, and have waded 
but weakly in his three maner of clerkly workes, analeticall, 
topicall and logycall : howbeit they were pufifed so full of 
vaynglorious pompe and surcudant elacyon, that popholy 
and pevysshe presumpcion provoked them to publysshe and 
to preche to people imprudent perilously, howe it was 
idolatry to offre to ymages of our blessed lady, or to pray 
and go on pylgrimages, or to make oblacion to any ymages 
of sayntes in churches or els where." ^" 

A passage of prose like this shows how far Skelton was 
from any just appreciation, or at least imitation, of the 
qualities of Ciceronian style. Like Caxton, Skelton would 
attain elevation of style by the heaping of big words and by 
robustious eloquence. For the rhythm of the Ciceronian 
period he probably had very little feeling. Indeed scarcely 
any trace of the direct influence of Cicero or other classical 
models can be found in the style of Skelton's writings. He 
appeals to " Retoricyons and oratours in freshe humanyte " 
for their " suffrage ornate," but his feeling for the humani- 
ties hardly went beyond a knowledge of " langagys divers " ; 
and the manner of art in his conception is comprised under 
certain ornaments of style, especially rich vocabulary, meta- 
phor, and allegory : 

" For trowthe in parabyll ye wantonlye pronounce, 
Langagys divers, yet undyr that dothe reste 
Maters more precious then the ryche jacounce." "' 

^° Dyce, I, 208-209. Dyce, I, cxvii ff., cites a number of direct 
imitations of Skelton, but the " surcudant elacyon " of this style 
is found in many writers who do not get it from Skelton. 

"' " Speke Parrot," Dyce, II, 18, 11. 363-365. On the Renascence the- 
ory of the importance of metaphor and allegory, see below, pp. 306 ff. 



The Courtly Writers 287 

II 

The passion for fine diction, the beginning of which has 
been briefly indicated in the first section of this chapter, 
remained a constant feature of the higher English literary 
style of the latter fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One 
of the most generally and the most savagely discussed ques- 
tions in literary criticism of the time was that of the English 
vocabulary. The flood-gates of all European literature 
suddenly opened upon it, the English literary speech of the 
early Renascence was for a time in danger of being com- 
pletely swamped. The extravagant admiration of foreign 
literatures and the desire to make English the equal of other 
languages led to an undue depreciation on the part of 
Englishmen of their native traditions. The work of enrich- 
ing the vocabulary had been going on for centuries. 
Throughout the Middle English period new words and new 
forms of phrasing had been constantly added to the lan- 
guage. At the end of the fifteenth and in the sixteenth 
centuries, however, the manner of such additions changed. 
The earlier French borrowings were rarely conscious or 
literary. The Middle English poet used a French word 
because the custom of the language provided it for him as 
the natural word for the thought to be expressed. Chaucer, 
for example, rarely considered the origins of his words. 
He did not consciously pair a French word with an English, 
or an English with a French, as some historians have 
mistakenly asserted, but he used the traditional words of 
the courtly vocabulary of his day. 

With Lydgate, with Caxton, Skelton, Sir Thomas Elyot, 
and other contemporary writers, however, begins the era 
of the conscious enriching and elevation of the language. 
As has already been pointed out, Caxton in his reading 
became enamored of the fair terms in French and Latin 



288 English Literary Prose 

which he found there, and he set to work to transfer them 
bodily into English speech. Sir Thomas Elyot declares 
one of his purposes in the Governour to have been " to 
augment our Englyshe tongue " in order that men might 
more abundantly express the thought of their hearts, and 
also translate from Greek, Latin or any other tongue into 
English as adequately as from one foreign tongue into 
another.^2 His new terms he frequently explains by 
coupling with them their English equivalents, e.g. " animate 
or gyve courage," " inferiour or base," " adminiculation or 
aid," " obfuscate or hyd." ^^ But often his new words are 
used without the appended glosses, and many an English 
reader must have been puzzled to know his meaning. The 
rhetorical writings of the times are full of criticisms of 
these inkhorn terms, as they were called, of English 
Italianate and English Latinate. Some of the most extrava- 
gant inkhornism made English into a kind of mongrel 
Latin-English which was frequently satirized by the writers 
of the time, but which, nevertheless, was a fashion culti- 
vated in varying degrees by almost all admirers of good 
style. This fashion continued in full swing to the end of 
the sixteenth century, though it must be said that the courtly 
writers, as they acquired command over structure and 
form, more and more threw their influence in favor of the 
simple vocabulary, thus emphasizing a distinction between 
the easy courtly vocabulary and the pedantic learned vocab- 
ulary. Nevertheless a great many words which the learned 
Latinizers invented were generally accepted and have since 
passed current as good coin in the language. Thomas 
Nashe, for example, pours out all the vials of his wrath 

" Proheme to his book Of the knowledeg [sic] whiche maketh a 
wise man, 1533. 

"^ For other illustrations, see Moore, Tudor-Stuart Views on the 
Growth, Status and Destiny of the English Language, pp. 83 ff. 



The Courtly Writers 289 

upon Gabriel Harvey's head because Harvey had used the 
phrase " villainy by connivance "— rperfectly intelligible to- 
day, whatever else one may care to say about it. And in 
general the modern reader is surprised to find that so much 
of the verbal criticism of the times has 'now lost its point 
because the words which were the occasion of the criticism 
have become completely accepted and natural in the lan- 
guage. 

The innovators of the sixteenth century could not have 
foreseen that this was to happen, nor would they have 
greatly cared if they had known it would not. They were 
carried away by the enthusiasm of invention and experi- 
ment. They enjoyed mixing new words as an artist does 
new colors. Sesquipedalianism was one of the exciting 
occupations of the times, and Harvey felt that he had de- 
livered a telling blow upon his dearest enemy when he had 
invented for him the designation of a " polypragmaticall, 
parasitupocriticall and pantophainoudendeconticall Pup- 
pie." ^* Nashe, in turn, not without at least a grain of 
truth, declares of Harvey's phrase, " villainy by connivance," 
that " the Doctor lay a whole weeke and a day and a night 
entranced on his bed to bring [it] forth, and on the Mun- 
day evening late caused all the bels in the Parish where he 
then soiourned to be rong forth, for ioy that he was de- 
livered of it." But Nashe is tarred with the same stick 
as his opponent, and almost any page of his writings would 
furnish examples more extreme than those he cites against 
Harvey. He himself boasts of his " huge woords," and 
declares that it is his " true vaine to be tragicus orator," 
and that he does not care for " this demure soft mediocre 
genius that is like water and wine mixt togither." He 
would have " pure wine of itself and that begets good 
bloud, and heates the brain thorowly." As a sample of 
'* Works, ed. Grosart, III, 13. 



290 English Literary Prose 

this pure wine, we may decant a sentence from that amazing 
performance, Nashes Lenten Stuff e, itself a monstrous tour 
de force in praise of the red-herring: 

" But how Yarmouth, of it selfe so innumerable populous 
and replenished, and in so barraine a plot seated, should 
not onely supply her inhabitants with plentifull purveyance 
of sustenance, but provant and victuall moreover this 
monstrous army of strangers, was a matter that egregiously 
bepuzled and entranced my apprehension." 

Nashe's " plentifull purveyance of sustenance " has little ad- 
vantage over Harvey's " villainy by connivance." But other 
examples of this brand of verbal magnificence may be found 
in places where one would scarcely expect it. Shakspere 
makes his Michael Williams, a type of the plain, blunt sol- 
dier, speak in the same vein : 

" Now if these men do not die well, it will be a black 
matter for the King that led them to it ; who to disobey 
were against all proportion of subjection." ^^ 

And Falstaff expresses the simple idea, Like master, like 
man, in the following high-sounding diction: 

" Their spirits [i.e. of Justice Shallow and his servants] 
are so married in conjunction by the participation of so- 
ciety that they flock together in consent like so many wild 
geese." ^^ 

Similar examples might be added indefinitely, showing the 
conscious delight of the artist in the mere manipulation of 
big words. At its best, as usually with Shakspere, this 
cultivation of the aureate style resulted in that opulence 
of Elizabethan diction, that " pomp of speech," which later 
ages have admired, but seldom dared to imitate ; at its worst 
it became nothing more than mere childish verbal pyro- 

'' Henry V, IV, i, i5o-i53- " <? Henry IV, V, i, 77- 



The Courtly Writers 291 

technics, not unlike the unctuous rhetoric of popular ora- 
tory, or its more modern equivalent, the ' language ' of an 
inspired ' ink-slinger ' on a country newspaper. 

The extreme measures of the Latinizers naturally stirred 
to activity an opposing conservative party which defended 
the use of a more chastened and a more largely native Eng- 
lish vocabulary. It is not an accident that the earlier rep- 
resentatives of this conservative movement were generally 
friends of the Reformation, and men with more or less 
tendency towards the austere manner of life later to be 
known as Puritanism. In his own day Sir John Cheke 
was the acknowledged head of this party. His connections 
with the court began in the reign of Henry VHI, under 
whose patronage he was enabled to continue studies abroad 
already begun at that fruitful mother of Protestant doctrine 
and learning, St. John's College at Cambridge. In 1540, 
Cheke was made the first regius professor of Greek at 
Cambridge, and two years later he was made tutor to 
Prince Edward by Henry VIII. During the lifetime of 
Edward, Cheke remained one of his most intimate advisers, 
and after Edward's death, he was secretary of state during 
the brief supremacy of Lady Jane Grey. Under Mary, 
Cheke's career was clouded by persecution, and in the end 
by recantation of the opinions which he probably never 
ceased to believe, and by the acceptance of Catholicism. 
He died in 1557, without the opportunity of retrieving his 
self-respect under Mary's successor. Cheke was an accom- 
plished scholar in Greek and Latin, and he possessed a fine 
feeling for Latin style. The greater number of his many 
works are either original compositions in Latin or transla- 
tions from Greek into Latin. His most considerable work 
in English is his Hurt of Sedition, a controversial discussion 
of questions of government and religion, called forth by a 
popular insurrection of the times. Cheke writes here in a 



292 English Literary Prose 

simple, unmannered style, with feeling for a short and 
rapid sentence structure and in a vocabulary carefully held 
in check, but not fantastically conservative. His translation 
from the New Testament, in which he applies in a more 
extreme way his views on the purity of the language, has 
already been mentioned.^'^ 

Cheke's influence as a teacher was much more important 
than his example as a writer. Indirectly his ideas can be 
traced in the opinions of two of his most interesting pupils, 
Sir Thomas Wilson and Roger Ascham, but the character 
of these ideas may be directly inferred from several of 
his own critical pronouncements. One of these is preserved 
by Ascham in The Scholemaster, under the discussion of 
Sallust. Cheke declared, says Ascham, that Sallust's writ- 
ing was " neyther plaine for the matter, nor sensible for 
mens understanding." ^^ And the reason why this was true, 
was that " in Salust writing is more Arte than nature, and 
more labor than Arte : and in his labor also, to moch toyle, 
as it were, with an uncontented care to write better than he 
could, a fault common to very many men." Cheke then, in 
Ascham's report of him, compares " naturall and plaine " 
writers with " artificiall and darke," finding the excellence 
of the former to arise from the fact that they were " daylie 
orators emonges the common people," and that they " gave 
themselves to use soch speach as the meanest should well 
understand and the wisest best allow." Similar in tone is 
a letter which Cheke wrote to Thomas Hoby, prefixed by 
Hoby to his published translation of Castiglione's Courtier. 
The burden of Cheke's criticism is that the English language 
should try to get along with its native resources, that it 
should be " unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other 
tunges." He does not reprehend borrowing altogether, for 
the language, being imperfect, must improve itself in various 

" See above, p. 248. ^^ Arber's Reprint, p. 154. 



The Courtly Writers 293 

ways. But preference is to be given to words formed in 
" the mould of our own tung," and to " the old denisoned 
wordes " of the language, before the writer of English 
ventures to use unknown words. 

Among the disciples of Cheke, none was more enthusiastic 
than Roger Ascham. Although Ascham declares the Latin 
and Greek writers of antiquity to be the only possible 
models of eloquence for Englishr^.en, he insists upon the 
necessity of preserving the purity of the English tongue. 
Anyone who will write well, he says in his Toxophilus, 
must speak as the common people do, and think as wise 
men do.^^ " Many English writers," he adds, " have not 
done so, but usinge straunge wordes as latin, french and 
Italian, do make all thinges darke and harde." 

In the Scholemaster, written some years later, Ascham 
presents his views with respect to the proper use of lan- 
guage much more fully. Style in writing is, to Ascham's 
mind, merely an aspect of moral conduct in general. He 
views with disfavor the tendency of many Englishmen to 
forget the simple native virtues of straightforwardness and 
honesty and to seek to replace them by foreign accom- 
plishments of doubtful value. Yet Ascham also insists 
upon dignity and propriety in expression as in daily 
conduct. Affectation, whether of extreme refinement or of 
rudeness, is reprehensible in his sight. He regards a pure 
style as not only the best preservative of the content of 
writing, but also of the moral standards of the people to 
whom the writing is addressed. He enters a caution against 
making a divorce betwixt the tongue and the heart, and 
points out that when, in the Greek and Latin tongue, " apte 
and good wordes began to be neglected, and properties of 
those to tonges to be confounded, than also began ill deedes 
to spring, strange maners to oppresse good orders, newe 
" Toxophilus, Arber's Reprint, p. 18. 



294 English Literary Prose 

and fond opinions to strive with olde and trewe doctrine, 
first in Philosophic and after in Religion, right judgement 
of all thinges to be perverted, and so vertue with learning 
is contemned, and studie left of." ^^ Ascham's Scholemaster 
is, indeed, in many respects, a conduct book of the new 
kind, in which the ideals of the Reformation and the 
Renascence are united for the guidance of the youth of 
England. Truth of religion, honesty in living, and right 
order in learning are the three cardinal points of its doc- 
trine, and Ascham's opinions on " the common goinge of 
Englishe men into Italic," on extravagance in dress, in be- 
havior, and in diction, are all in harmony with his ideal 
of the dignified and well-ordered character. 

But Ascham's own writings show that he was by no means 
disregardful of the more artful graces of style. He em- 
ployed a simple vocabulary, but a barren or rude and popular 
manner of writing would have seemed, to himself as to 
others, out of harmony with his own important position. 
For he was not only a competent scholar, but also a man of 
some figure at court, enjoying almost uninterruptedly the 
good-will of four successive English sovereigns. Of his 
two important writings, the first, Toxophilus, was presented 
to Henry VIII, and the other, The Scholemaster, though not 
published until 1570, the year following his death, was prob- 
ably finished in 1564, the sixth year of Elizabeth's reign. 
His ventures in authorship were incidental to what probably 
seemed to him his more important activities as lecturer on 
Greek in St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he was 
fellow, as tutor to the Princess Elizabeth, as public orator 
of his university, in succession to Sir John Cheke, as secre- 
tary to Sir Richard Morison on an important mission to 
the court of Charles V, and during the latter years of his 
life, as prebendary in York Cathedral. Ascham felt that 
"* Arber's Reprint, p. 118. 



The Courtly Writers 295 

his own dignified position imposed certain obligations upon 
him. His Toxophilus was undertaken both for the pur- 
pose of showing his loyalty to his king and the love he 
bore his country, and likewise as a memorial of his learn- 
ing. And though he declares it would have been " more 
easier and fit for mi trade in study " ^^ to have written in 
Latin or Greek, he has preferred to write in English in 
order that he might provide some better example of English 
writing than those which passed currently in the hands 
of his countrymen. He defends also his choice of an ap- 
parently insignificant theme such as archery, instead of 
" Religion or Civill discipline," on the ground that a high 
title provokes great expectation, whereas a humbler sub- 
ject permits that free and discursive treatment of the many 
topics in which Ascham was interested. In other words 
Ascham wished to write easily and humanely in the English 
tongue, treating profound moral questions with something 
of the literary grace which he found in his models, Cicero 
and the dialogues of Plato. The two persons in Ascham's 
dialogue are Philologus, lover of learning, and Toxophilus, 
lover of archery, " the Booke and the Bowe," representing 
the two important sides of the cultivated and well-balanced 
English character; for Toxophilus stands not merely for 
the lover of archery as a pastime, but also for sound, 
patriotic interest in all good national rites and customs. 

Ascham obviously bestowed great care upon the elabora- 
tion of the form of English expression in which he sought 
to set forth his ideal of the just combination of learning 
and patriotism. In matters of vocabulary, as has been 
pomted out, he was moderate. He showed great restraint 
in avoiding learned coinages which, with his familiarity 
with Latin and Greek, he must continually have had thrust 
upon his attention. And on the other hand, he avoided 
*' Toxophilus, ed. Arber, p. 14. 



296 English Literary Prose 

any tendency towards the undue use of a quaint and archa- 
istic vocabulary. He avoided also the obvious devices of 
the tumbling style, such for example as the heaping of 
synonymous terms, the excessive use of alliteration, of puns, 
verbal antitheses, and word-play in general. His feeling 
for dignified style was indeed based upon certain principles 
of sentence-structure, clearly perceived and firmly applied. 
In these respects Ascham shows a great advance over the 
earlier English stylists and connects directly with the in- 
genious writers of the third quarter of the century. The 
periodic sentence after the classic model he employed 
frequently and not without success, sometimes in sentences 
of considerable length, sometimes more compactly, as in 
the following: 

" What good thynges men speake of shoting and what 
good thinges shooting bringes to men, as my wit and 
knowlege will serve me, gladly shall I say my mind. But 
how the thing is to be learned I will surely leve to some 
other which bothe for greater experience in it, and also for 
their lerninge, can set it out better than I." ^^ 

Sentences of this formal character are varied, however, by 
the occasional use of crisp sentences of colloquial and 
conversational tone, appropriate to a dialogue. But more 
characteristic of Ascham's style than the periodic sentence, 
is the balanced and antithetic sentence. Of this an ex- 
ample, which Lyly himself might have written, may be cited 
from one of the prefatory addresses of the To.vophilus: 

" And so Cresus, hearyng not the true newes, but per- 
ceyving the wise mannes mynde and counsell, both gave 
then over makyng of his shyppes, and left also behynde 
him a wonderful example for all commune wealthes to 
folowe : that is evermore to regarde and set most by that 

'^ Toxophilus, ed. Arber, p. 31. 



The Courtly Writers 297 

thing whereunto nature hath made them moost apt and use 
hath made them moost fitte." ^^ 

Thomas Wilson had already called attention to and had 
illustrated this kind of balanced antithetic writing in his 
Rhetorique, under the heading " Egall numbers," noting 
that Isocrates " passeth in this behalfe." ^* And probably it 
was the " suazntatem Isocratis" which served Ascham di- 
rectly as a model.^^ Wilson points out that in the balanced 
sentence the syllables need not be " c f iust number, but that 
the eare might iudge them to be so egall, that there may 
appeare small difference." Ascham's writings show that 
he had fully grasped the possibilities of this form of 
sentence structure. 

Another stylistic device in Ascham, that of repeating a 
word in the same or in slightly varying forms within the 
body of the same sentence or within a group of closely 
related sentences, is also noteworthy. Ascham may have 
learned this trick from the Spanish of Guevara, or from 
various other sources. It was so well known that Putten- 
ham classified it among his ornaments of speech, giving it 
the name traductio in Latin or " the tranlacer " in 
English.^^ That this device was not due to poverty of 

'^ Toxophilus, p. 16. 

°* Rhetorique, ed. Mair, p. 204. 

^° Even the severer stylists studied Isocrates, as is proved by 
Tindale's English translations from the Greek and Sir John 
Cheke's from Greek into Latin. 

^''" which is when ye turne and tranlace a word into many 
sundry shapes as the Tailor doth his garment, and after that sort 
do play with him in your dittie : as thus, 

Who lives in love his life is full of feares, 
To lose his love, livelode or libertie, 
But lively sprites, that young and recklesse be, 
Think that there is no living like to theirs . . . 
Here ye see how in the former rime this word life is tranlaced 
into live, living, lively, livelode . . . which come all from one 



298 English Literary Prose 

vocabulary, but was intended as an ornament of style, its 
frequent employment sufficiently proves : 

" To speake of shooting, Philologe, trulye I woulde I 
were so able, either as I my selfe am willing or yet as the 
matter deserveth, but seing with wisshing we can not have 
one nowe worthie, whiche so worthie a thinge can worthilie 
praise, and although I had rather have anie other to do it 
than my selfe, yet my selfe rather then no other. I wil not 
fail to saye in it what I can, wherein if I say litle, laye that 
of my litle habilitie, not of the matter it selfe which 
deserveth no lyttle thinge to be sayde of it." ^^ 

" Over ernest shooting surely I will not over ernestlye 
defende, for I ever thought shooting shoulde be a wayter 
upon lerning not a mastres over learning." ^^ 

" Englysh writers by diversitie of tyme, have taken 
diverse matters in hande." ^^ 

For the development of English style, Ascham was sig- 
nificant in several respects. As a theorizer and critic he 
saw clearly certain tendencies of English speech and writing 
in his day and formed his own opinions firmly and consist- 
ently. He exemplified in his writings a serious literary ideal 
which remained to the end of the century and which was 
frequently commended for imitation. He combined plain- 
ness of speech so far as words are concerned with the 
scholar's standard of solidly dignified and elevated writing. 
He produced little and probably wrote slowly and painfully, 
but his example served as a useful corrective of the loose, 
popular style of writing. His lack of lightness and vivacity 
are obvious defects, and his formality and emphasis on the 

originall." Puttenham, English Poesie (1589), ed. Arber, pp. 213- 
214. 

" Toxophilus, pp. 29-30. 

'Mbid., p. 44. 

'' Ibid., p. 19. 



The Courtly Writers 299 

art of writing were the first steps in the direction of the 
extravagance of certain later writers. Gabriel Harvey 
thought "he heard the " siren of Isocrates " in the writings 
of Ascham, and certainly his ear did not deceive him. 
What Harvey found most admirable in Ascham was his 
" polished and refined eloquence," and he prefers the loosest 
period in Ascham or Sidney to the " tricksiest page of 
Euphues." ^'^ But the tricksiness of Euphues is already to 
a considerable extent implied in Ascham, and Lyly was quite 
as ardent an admirer of Ascham as Harvey. The difference 
between them was that Harvey would have held Ascham 
close to the classic models which he imitated, while Lyly 
followed the general tendency towards the further elabora- 
tion of the hints for the ingenious style which were already 
present in Ascham. 

Sir Thomas Wilson, the pupil of Cheke and the friend of 
Ascham, was, like both of these, a supporter of Protes- 
tant doctrine and a man of importance in public afifairs. 
He was sent on various embassies to the Continent, was 
elected to Parliament, and, as his highest public office, 
was appointed, in 1577, secretary of state to Queen Eliza- 
beth. His most important publications were his Rule of 
Reason, conteinyng the Arte of Logicke (1551), his Arte of 
Rhetorique (1553), his translation into English of Three 
Orations of Demosthenes (1570), and his Discourse iippon 
usury e (1572). 

Wilson declared the Rule of Reason to be the first logic 
in English and feared that the " fruict beyng of a straunge 
kinde," may at the first tasting seem somewhat rough and 
harsh. He defended the translation, however, on the 
ground that English is as capable for such uses as other 
languages. As was customary at the time, logic is but 
slightly distinguished from rhetoric, the only difference be- 
*" Elic. Crit. Essays, ed. Gregory Smith, II, 274. 



300 English Literary Prose 

tween the two being, according to Wilson, " that Logike is 
occupied about all matters, and dooeth plainlie and nakedly 
set forth with apt wordes the sum of things, by the way of 
argumentacion," whereas, on the other hand, '* Rhetorike 
useth gaie painted sentences, and setteth forthe those mat- 
ters with freshe colours and goodly ornaments, and that at 
large." ^^ 

Wilson's opinions with respect to language are set forth 
more at length in his Rhetorique , not the first rhetoric in 
English, since it was preceded by Cox's Arte or Crafte of 
Rhetorique and Sherry's Treatise of Schemes and Tropes, 
but the first book to present rhetorical ideas with any full- 
ness and personal coloring. For the present purpose, the 
most interesting parts of the Rhetorique are those in which 
Wilson discusses plainness of speech. Plainness, in Wil- 
son's definition, consists in the avoidance of " straunge 
ynkehorne termes," and in speaking " as is commonly re- 
ceived." ^^ He gives counsel against outlandish English 
and oversea language, against those who so " Latin their 
tongues that the simple can not but wonder at their talke." 
He speaks of the folly of " them that thinke Rhetorique to 
stande wholie upon darke wordes," and of those who think 
him to be a fine Englishman and a good rhetorician who 
can " catche an ynke home terme by the taile." In his own 
writing, Wilson affects a somewhat colloquial style, not 
without some of the vigor and picturesqueness of Latimer, 
whom he several times mentions with admiration. Through- 
out the Rhetorique, as also in the Rule of Reason, Wilson's 
sympathy with the cause of the reformers appears fre- 
quently in his illustrations and examples. 

Wilson's comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero is 
especially noteworthy. In the Preface to his Three Ora- 
tions he condemns the man who wholly follows Cicero and 

*'■ Rule of Reason, fol. 3. ^"^ Rhetorique, ed. Mair, p. 162. 



The Courtly Writers 301 

uses " his large veyne and vehement maner " of eloquence, 
and he exalts Demosthenes and his " playne familier maner 
of writing and speakyng." This work also contains an 
Epistle in which Wilson declares of Sir John Cheke that he 
had better skill " in our English speach to judge of the 
Phrases and properties of wordes and to divide sentences 
than any else had that I have knowne." With the name of 
Wilson, in this connection, may be joined that of Bishop 
Jewel, public orator of Oxford, and later bishop of Salis- 
bury. Jewel delivered a lecture in Corpus Christi College, 
Oxford, before 1557, since he was ejected from Corpus 
Christi in that year, entitled Oratio contra rhetoricam. The 
oration is interesting as indicating an attitude of mind 
towards style and rhetoric which was certainly not the 
growing one in Jewel's day, except among those writers, 
the heralds of later Puritanism, whose interest in contro- 
versy and dialectic left little room for the more graceful 
side of the art of writing. Jewel declares the study of 
rhetoric to be useless, profitless, vain. Care in the seeking 
out and arrangement of words he considers a puerile waste 
of time. All men, he continues, are sufficiently instructed by 
nature for the needs of speaking. Men discussed important 
affairs among themselves long before Cicero and Demos- 
thenes were born. What need is there of art, or of puerile 
ornaments? Truth is clear and simple, and it has little 
need of eloquence. Rhetoricians merely obscure truth, in- 
stead of revealing it more fully. Cicero has brought much 
evil upon the academic world in modern times ; the study 
of him has, in fact, become a curse within the academic 
halls. Jewel closes his oration with an adjuration to the 
students of Oxford not to waste their time in vain 
rhetorical exercises, not to become mere beadles, heralds, 
and public bawlers, but to scorn all vain abundance of 
words and to turn their thoughts rather to the knowledge 



302 English Literary Prose 

of learned matters. Though the work of a young man and 
itself a somewhat ambitious example of the art it contemns, 
Jewel's oration is instructive as an illustration of the 
earnest, though vain, opposition of some EngHsh scholars 
to the growing interest of Englishmen in the art of fine 
writing.*^ 

Opinions like those of Ascham, Wilson, and Jewel were 
expressed by other purist writers and rhetoricians of the 
latter half of the sixteenth century. These later opinions 
are in the main patriotic protests against the tendency to- 
wards learned extravagance. Thus Gascoigne says that he 
prefers rather to have " faulted in keeping the olde English 
wordes (quamvis iam ohsoleta) than in borrowing of other 
such Epithetes and Adjectives as smell of the Inkhorne." ** 
In his notes on metrical composition, he thinks it not 
" amisse to forewarne you that you thrust as few wordes 
of many sillables into your verse as may be." *^ His en- 
deavor is rather to make English commendable in itself 
than " gay with the feathers of straunge birdes." So far 
as vocabulary is concerned, Gascoigne's practice is in accord 
with his criticism, though in other features of style he does 
not fail to show his respect for the muse of gaudy English. 
In general Elizabethan critical opinion was at one in rep- 
rehending the pedantical and Latinized vocabulary. Henry 
Peacham, in his Garden of Eloquence (1577), gives the 
name Cacozelon to the practice of using big words for 
simple ideas, and among the illustrations cited is one which 
is quoted from Wilson's Rhetorique. Angel Day, in his 
English Secretorie,*^ gives an example of this " ridiculous 

" Jewel's Oratio will be found in Works, Fourth Portion, ed. 
Ayre, for the Parker Society, pp. 1284-1291. 
** Posies (1575), ed. Cunliffe, I, 5. 
" Ibid., I, 468. 
*® First edition, 1586; I quote from the edition of 1595. 



The Courtly Writers 303 

maner of writing " from the epistle to a book published by a 
doctor of physic who intended " to be very eloquent in 
words," the opening sentence of which ran : 

" Egregious Doctors and masters of the eximious & 
Archane Science of Physicke, of your Urbanitie exasperate 
not your selves against mee, for making of this little volume 
of Physick, considering that my pretence is for an utilitie 
and a common wealth," etc. 

The Art of Poesie (1589), ascribed to Puttenham, like- 
wise reprehends the use of ill-affected terms brought in 
by men of learning, " darke wordes, and not usual nor well 
sounding, though they be daily spoken in court." And 
in the latter part of the century, the poets and satirical 
writers join the rhetoricians in ridicule of the high-sound- 
ing diction. Among the many instances of such satire 
may be mentioned the character of Rombus in Sir Philip 
Sidney's mask, The Lady of May, Don Armado in Love's 
Labor's Lost, Torquatus (Ben Jonson) in Marston's 
Scourge of Villanie, Amorphous in Jonson's Cynthia's 
Revels, and Crispinus in the Poetaster, Matzagente 
and Balardo in Marston's Antonio and Mellida, Emulo in 
Dekker's Patient Grissil, one of those men who " chew 
between their teeth terrible words," and finally, Severus, 
" extreame in eloquence," in one of Rowland's epigrams.*'^ 
These characters were doubtless in part imitative of con- 
ventional types of fire-eating braggarts and pedantic scholars 
which had long been established in the traditions of the 
stage. But in part they also reflect the actual tendencies of 
English speech in Tudor times, and the fustian of the ex- 

*' Works (Hunterian Club), I, 41. Though Shakspere in general 
stood closer to the traditions of the elevated, learned style than to 
any other, he has a number of passages in which inflated and 
afifected diction is satirized, cf. Lyly, Works, ed. Bond, I, 151-152, 



304 English Literary Prose 

travagant parodies was merely the extreme of a quality 
which many courtly writers admired and were eagerly 
cultivating. 

Another influence making for the preservation and ex- 
tension of the native resources of the language was the high 
esteem in which Chaucer was held among the courtly writers 
of the early sixteenth century. Thynne's first collected edi- 
tion of Chaucer's works appeared in 1532, and though the 
text was not thoroughly understood, it was rightly felt 
that Chaucer represented a courtly tradition and that the 
mere existence of his writings lent dignity to the older 
forms of the language. It was partly this feeling which 
led Spenser to employ the archaistic style of his Shepherd's 
Calendar, not justified, as Sidney pointed out, by Sanazzaro. 
In doing so, according to Jonson, Spenser " writ no Eng- 
lish," and indeed Spenser's archaic style is as little normal 
as that of the extremists among the Latinizers. Both sides 
were under the dominance of a theory of reform, and both 
made the true language suffer in the interests of their 
theories. Spenser's friend, E. K., was of the opinion that 
special praise was due the poet in that he " hath laboured to 
restore, as to theyre rightfull heritage, such good and 
naturall English words as have been long time out of use 
and almost cleane disherited." And E. K. is convinced that 
the right way to make English " ful enough for prose and 
stately enough for verse " is not to borrow words from 
abroad, but to bring back into the speech these old dis- 
herited words. 

In practice, however, the theories of the conservatives and 
purists were not as powerful as the expanding and enrich- 
ing tendencies of the time. It was in general a European 
and a Latin culture which the England of the sixteenth 
century was endeavoring to assimilate, and even the most 
ardent patriot neither was able nor desired to limit him- 



The Courtly Writers 305 

self narrowly to the native resources of the language. No 
one-sided solution of the difficulty was possible. The Eng- 
lish speech through its constant borrowings, beginning as 
far back as the twelfth century, had already become a 
bilingual language. It had a double personality, as it still 
has, and in harmony with the personality of the speaker or 
writer who uses it, now the one side and now the other 
side of its nature must come to the front. With the sen- 
sible man the main question has never been one of a 
pure Latin or a pure native vocabulary, for the Latinist 
must use native words and the purist must use words of 
foreign origin. The question has always been rather one 
of emphasis, of proportion and choice. So far as the 
problem can be disposed of theoretically, it was already suc- 
cessfully answered by more than one critic of the sixteenth 
century. Abraham Fraunce, for example, the author of the 
Arcadian Rhetortke (1588) and the Lawiers Logike (1588), 
takes the common-sense view of the question. In the 
Lazviers Logike, written for the learned lawyers of Eng- 
land and intended to be read after the " delicate and pleas- 
ant " studies of the university, Fraunce compares words 
for their inconstancy with the leaves of trees, and regard- 
ing logic as he does, in the manner of his time, not as a 
technical discipline but rather as the art of normal intel- 
ligible expression, he disapproves of all extravagance and 
obscurity of diction. He calls it therefore a fallacy " when 
unusuall and upstart woordes be foisted in," meaning 
thereby new and learned words, and on the other hand, 
as equally reprehensible " to affectate such woordes as were 
quite worne out at heeles and elbowes long before the nativi- 
tie of Geffrey Chawcer." *^ In his interesting eulogy on the 
excellency of the English tongue, R. Carew somewhat later 
compares English with Italian, French, Spanish, and Dutch, 
*' Lawiers Logike, Bk. I, Cap. IV. 



3o6 English Literary Prose 

and finds that English has gathered the honey of these lan- 
guages and has left the dregs to themselves : 

" And thus, when substantiallnes combyneth with de- 
lightfulness, fullnes with fynes, seemlynes with portlynes, 
and courrantnes with staydnes, howe canne the languadge 
which consisteth of all these sounde other then most full 
of sweetnes? Againe, the longe wordes that wee borrowe, 
being intermingled with the shorte of our owne store, make 
up a perfitt harmonye, by culling from out which mixture 
(with Judgment) yow maye frame your speech according 
to the matter you must worke on, maiesticall, pleasaunte, 
delicate, or manly, more or lesse, in what sorte you 
please." ^^ 

III 

Of all the devices employed for elevating the style of 
English writing, the extension of the vocabulary by means 
of the introduction of new and ornate words was one of 
the most obvious. Words lend not only color to writing, 
but they are as well the most immediate ways of approach to 
ideas. The aureate diction of the fifteenth and early six- 
teenth centuries was the result therefore of the combined 
influence of the naive respect for high style and of admira- 
tion for the content of literatures other than English. 

But diction, because it is so obvious, is not of itself suffi- 
cient to satisfy the requirements of a thoughtful and in- 
genious literary art. The high priests of literary culture in 
the sixteenth century sought after distinction and elegance 
of style, and these qualities were felt to be dependent not 
merely, or even mainly, upon fine words, but upon orna- 
ment less superficially applied, upon schemes and tropes, 
to use the terminology of the contemporary rhetorics. 
Schemes were figures of speech which arose from the 
manipulation of the sounds of speech, such as verbal 
*® Gregory Smith, Elis. Crit, Essays, II, 293. 



The Courtly Writers 307 

balance and antithesis, alliteration, rime, punning, all being 
" contrarie to the vulgare custome of our speech." ^^ 
Tropes were figures, like metaphor and allegory, which arose 
from the manipulation of ideas or images, and which there- 
fore rested upon a basis of signification. Schemes were 
obviously the more mechanical of the two kinds of orna- 
ment, and they were more fully developed in the artificial 
style of English courtly writers than were tropes. The 
rudiments of the cultivation of figures of speech dependent 
upon mechanical forms or structures have already been in- 
dicated in the discussion of Ascham's style. But the interest 
in this kind of ornament was by no means recent in As- 
cham's day. It goes back in fact both to certain classical 
writers and to the early church fathers, whose Latin style 
was often heavily incrusted with formal and mechanical 
ornament. From them it passed into the tradition of 
medieval rhetoric, and in the form of precepts and defini- 
tions, the features of the ingenious Latin style were elabo- 
rately set down in books which were intended to serve as 
guides in the art of composition. When rhetorics first 
began to be written in English, they carried over from the 
medieval books and from medieval practice many of the tra- 
ditional rules and devices of writing. The rhetoricians of 
the sixteenth century undoubtedly exerted considerable 
direct influence in determining the practice of English prose 
writers when they came to write fine style in the vernacular. 
They are significant also, and call for a moment's notice, 
for their indications of the general drift of opinion with 
respect to high style. 

The most generally held and perhaps the most influential 

of the theories of the rhetoricians was that literature is an 

esoteric art, with canons of composition as far removed as 

possible from every-day discourse. In poetry this was an 

^ Wilson, Rhetorique, ed. Mair, p. 176. 



3o8 English Literary Prose 

ancient tradition. Stephen Hawes, a diligent if not en- 
lightened seeker after artistic effect in writing, bases the 
art of rhetoric mainly upon the use of remote figurative 
language, 

" Clokynge a trouthe wyth colour tenebrous." °' 
And he praises Lydgate as highly for keeping 

" ful close the moralyzacyon 
Of the trouth of his great intencyon " 

as for his " depured rethoryke in Englysh language," which 
he drew, according to Hawes, from the well of fruitfulness 
in Vergil and Cicero.^^ Poetry, the most elevated and 
also the most ornate and figurative kind of writing, naturally 
affected the theory of artistic prose, for it was from poetry 
that rules and principles of writing could be most easily 
derived. Formal treatises which discussed the elements of 
style began to be written about the middle of the sixteenth 

"' Pastime of Pleasure, Percy Society, p. 29. 

"^ This was essentially Sidney's theory of poetry, which has to do 
with things " not affirmatively but allegorically and figurativelie 
written" {Apology, in Eli::. Crit. Essays, I, 185). Petrarch's defini- 
tion runs as follows: oMcium (poetae) est fingere id est componere 
atque ornarc ct vcritatein rerum vel inortalium vel natiiralium vet 
qiianimlibet aliaruni artificiosis adiimhrare coloribus, velo ainoenae 
fictionis obnuhere, quo remoto Veritas elucescat, eo gratior inventu 
quo diMcilior sit quaesitu, Ep. Sen. XII, 2, quoted Koerting, 
Petrarca's Leben imd Werke, p. 650. This definition, says Koerting, 
p. 651, is found almost literally in the early Latin Christian writers, 
especially in Lactantius (Inst. I, p. 36, ed. Bipont). It is objected 
to by Thomas Wilson, an advocate of plainness, who speaks scorn- 
fully of the " misticall wiseman and Poeticall Clerkes " who will 
" speake nothing but quaint Proverbes and blinde Allegories, de- 
lighting much in their owne darkenesse, especially when none can 
tell what they doe say," Arte of Rhctorique, ed. Mair, p. 162. This 
severe censure is considerably modified later (p. 195) when Wilson 
declares that " Poetes under colours shew much wisdome." 



The Courtly Writers 309 

century. ^^ The earliest was Richard Sherry's Treatise of 
Schemes and Tropes (1550). In his preface, Sherry de- 
fends the use of new words, such as the words scheme and 
trope in his title, and others like paraphrasis, homelies, 
usurped, and abolyshed, concluding that any idea whatso- 
ever has " Englyshe oracion natural, and, holpen by art, 
wher by it may most eloquently be uttered." The way in 
which art is to help is manifestly by means of the schemes 
and tropes, which Sherry classifies and illustrates. He has 
various comments on style, one of the most illuminating 
being his definition of " vertue " or distinction in writing: 
" Vertue ... is when the sentence is bewtyfied and lyfte 
up above the comen maner of speaking of the people." 
Thomas Wilson, in his Arte of Rhetorique (1553), takes 
on the whole the commonsense view of style, and insists 
upon plainness and intelligibility as the first requisite. In 
the Rule of Reason (1551), however, he had distinguished 
between plain logical and rhetorical writing, the latter alone 
making use of " gaie painted sentences " and " freshe 
colours and goodly ornaments." Richard Rainolde's Booke 
called the Foundacion of Rhetorike (1563) develops mainly 
the oration on the basis of the fable, which he defines as 
" a forged tale, containing in it by the colour of a lie a 
matter of truthe." Henry Peacham's Garden of Eloquence 
(1577) contains "all manner of Flowers, coulors [sic], 
ornaments, Exornations, Formes and Fashions of speech, 
verj' profitable for all those that be studious of Eloquence." 
A figure, according to Peacham's definition, is a " fashion 
of words, oration or sentence, made new by Arte, toum- 
ing from the common manner and custome of wryting or 
speaking." ^* 

^' The Arte or Crafte of Rhetoryke, by Leonard Cox, appeared 
about 1530, but it treats only the subject of invention. 
"Fol. ^l 



310 English Literary Prose 

In the Artes of Logike and Rethorike (1584), Dudley 
Fenner also has much to say concerning figures. He de- 
fines rhetoric as " an Arte of speaking finelie," and he 
divides it into two parts, " Garnishing of speach, called 
Eloqution, and Garnishing of the manner of utterance, called 
Pronunciation." Abraham Fraunce, discussing the general 
precepts of rhetoric in his Arcadian Rhetorike (1588), 
divides the subject into two parts, congruity and bravery, 
comprising under the first head grammatical rules, omitted 
" for this time as being scarce resolved in this conceipt." 
" Braverie of speech consisteth in Tropes or turnings, and 
in Figures or fashionings," and it is with tropes and figures, 
their definition and illustration, that Fraunce's book is 
mainly concerned. 

These ideals of fineness and bravery of speech are strik- 
ingly illustrated in a large group of prose writers of the 
latter half of the sixteenth century. The conception of a 
vernacular prose as an art of fine writing was new, and one 
is able to follow this prose through the stages of enthusi- 
astic experiment to the point of its extremest elaboration in 
the writings of the most ingenious masters of the artificial 
style which the language has ever known. The develop- 
ment was indeed gradual, and no single model or set of 
models was followed. Picking up a trick here and a trick 
there, from medieval Latin style, from classical Greek and 
Latin, from the debased traditions of native English verse, 
and some from contemporary Continental stylists, the Eng- 
lish courtly prose writers of the sixteenth century com- 
pounded a style which in the end was systematically and fully 
worked out. The prose of Lyly was the pre-eminent artistic 
prose of its period, the completest expression of a tendency 
that appeared in a school of writers. It was the first 
English prose to win acceptance in the literary world as 
exemplifying a satisfactory standard of expression. Lyly's 



The Courtly Writers 311 

contemporaries may have erred in their estimation of the 
value of his style, but they were in no doubt as to their ad- 
miration for it. 

Hov^ far back one should go in tracing the origins of 
the Euphuistic style depends largely upon the defini- 
tion which is given to the term Euphuism. In a broad 
etymological sense this word may designate, and it is often 
loosely used to designate, the excessive refinements of style 
in writing, no matter what their technical characteristics 
may be. Indeed in the use of the name Euphues by Ascham, 
which suggested to Lyly the name of the hero of his novel, 
the meaning is still broader. " Euphues," said Ascham,^^ 
" is he that is apte by goodnes of witte and appliable by 
readines of will to learning, having all other qualities of 
the minde and partes of the bodie that must an other day 
serve learning, not trobled, mangled and halfed, but sounde, 
whole, full and hable to do their office." It is Ascham's 
contention that learning and scholarship should not be the 
concern only of the " wretched, lame and deformed," but 
that they require the highest gifts of the mind and the body, 
that the true scholar is the complete gentleman. Accepting 
this definition of the terms Euphues and Euphuism, one 
might fairly include under them all the many endeavors 
towards the realization of an ideal courtly and scholarly 
character, in literature and in conduct, in the discussion of 
which the writings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
abound. But though these wider applications of the term 
need not be forgotten, it seems on the whole historically 
more justifiable, as it has been critically more customary, to 
limit the specific meaning of Euphuism to that manner of 
expression which finds its fullest illustration in the novels 
of Lyly. 

It has often been pointed out that Euphuistic tendencies 
^° Scholemasier, eel. Arber, p. 38. 



312 English Literary Prose 

in writing are not peculiar to one age or people,^^ and that 
Lyly's progenitors extend all the way back to yElfric, or 
even further, to ^Ifric's models among the medieval Latin 
stylists. The peculiar thing about sixteenth-century English 
Euphuism is the systematic and elaborate way in which the 
tendencies of the style were carried out. Many writers 
were, to be sure, more or less Euphuistic without being 
thoroughgoing Euphuists. The Life of Richard the Third, 
attributed to More, shows definite anticipation of certain 
features of Lyly's style, and even the cruder stylists, like 
Caxton, Elyot, and Skelton, cannot be left altogether out of 
account. Ascham was decidedly more ingenious than any 
of his predecessors. Yet even Ascham's Euphuism was 
merely sporadic, and for the exuberant style as a persistent 
habit, he expresses strongest disapproval. In a young man 
" fulnes " does well enough, says Ascham, but " in farder 
aige," one's manner of writing is to be " temperated." He 
recommends those men who are " full of youthfuU condi- 
tions," as was Sir Francis Bryan, one of the earliest ardent 
cultivators of a Euphuistic style, to " cut away the grosnesse 
that is in them." ^^ 

By the third quarter of the century, however, Ascham 
was beginning to seem a little heavy, to stand for the re- 
spectable but no longer fashionable virtues of an older gen- 
eration. Under certain immediate influences, in part gen- 
eral and in at least one respect specific, Euphuistic writing 
grew rapidly in favor. The most important of the general 
influences, besides those already mentioned, was the breed- 
ing up of a generation of young university scholars who 
made a career not so much of scholarship as of ' wit.' 
Their extravagance in writing was only a part of a general 

** See an interesting comparison between Lyly's Euphues and the 
Sanskrit romance Vasavadattd, ed. Gray, pp. 33-35- 
''' Scholemaster, ed. Arber, p. 112. 



The Courtly Writers 313 

expanding and loosening of the fancy and imagination. The 
sober learning of Ascham and his generation seemed dull 
and antiquated to these university fledglings who flocked to 
London in the third quarter of the century. Theology, 
hitherto the support and justification of scholarship, no 
longer interested them. They had discovered and were in- 
tent on cultivating more amusing interests and on turning 
them into sources of livelihood. The result of this was the 
sudden exploitation of fine writing for fine gentlemen. 

The specific influence referred to was exerted from 
abroad by a writer who, more than any other individual, set 
the fashion towards Euphuism. This was Antonio de 
Guevara, who was introduced to those who read only 
English through the medium of the translations of Lord 
Berners, Sir Thomas North, and others. Guevara was a 
distinguished Spanish humanist, a man who had traveled 
widely, had held lofty positions in church and state, and 
through his writings had acquired an extraordinary literary 
popularity throughout Europe. He was born about 1480 
and died in 1545. Of his various writings the one best 
known to Englishmen was his Libro Aiireo de Marco 
Aurelio. Under this title the original Spanish had appeared 
in a first edition, which was pirated, according to Guevara, 
in 1528. This version was translated into French by Rene 
Bertaut de la Grise, whose book appeared in 1531, with the 
title Liure dore de Marc Aiirele. It was from this French 
version that Bourchier's translation was made. In 1529 
Guevara revised and amplified the unauthorized edition of 
1528, and published the new version as Libro llamado relax 
de principes enel qual va encorporado el miiy famoso libro 
de Marco aurelio, a title which was modified later to read, 
Libro del emperador Marco aurelio con relax de priucipes.^^ 
The French version of 1531 was then revised on the basis 
"* Feuillerat, John Lyly, p. 445. 



314 English Literary Prose 

of Guevara's enlarged edition, and this revision, appearing 
in 1540, served as the basis for a second English translation, 
Sir Thomas North's Diall of Princes. 

In the language of Bourchier's translation, among other 
fictitious details Guevara asserts that he " founde this tretise 
in Florence, amonge the bokes left there by Cosme de 
Medicis," and that he has " reduced " it, not word for 
word, but thought for thought. He does not claim to be 
the principal author of the work, but takes particular credit 
to himself for having given high style to older and more 
rudely expressed high ideas : " for so hyghe sentences are 
not found at this presente tyme, nor to soo hyghe a style 
they of tyme past never atteyned." ^^ As a matter of fact 
the book is in no sense historical, but connects rather with 
the history of the novel than that of historical or biograph- 
ical writing. Its material was gathered from a variety of 
sources, from Plutarch, Xenophon, from Christian philo- 
sophical and meditative writers, in short from any source 
that might provide a thought, a sentiment, or an illustration. 
Of the writings of Marcus Aurelius himself, Guevara could 
have known nothing, since the first edition of them did not 
appear until 1559. He made some use of accessible bio- 
graphical accounts of Marcus Aurelius, adding much from 
his own fancy and citing as his sources of information three 
imaginary biographers, who, he said, were his principal 
authorities. ''^ 

The book covers an extraordinary range of topics, and 
like other conduct books of the Renascence, it was designed 
to serve as a guide to the many possible duties, joys, and 
sorrows of the social life. In reading the Libra Aureo, 
it is not difficult to realize the source of its former popu- 
larity. The modem reader may sniff at the moral platitudes 

" End of the Prologue. 

** See Menendez y Pelayo, Origcncs de la Novcla, I, ccclxiv ff. 



The Courtly Writers 315 

it contains, but a neatly dressed sentiment was as interest- 
ing in the sixteenth century as a cleverly turned situation 
in the plot of a novel to-day. And the moral doctrine of 
the Lihro Aiireo is not cast at the reader in an undigested 
mass. The whole is leavened by the aid of various animat- 
ing devices. Speeches, letters, orations, dialogues between 
historical characters, often naturally presented, fables, 
anecdotes, proverbs, and allusions, all these, to say nothing 
of the sauce of the sweet style, lend life and interest to the 
narrative. At bottom the book is a kind of didactic romance 
with Marcus Aurelius always at the center of its many 
adventures into the realm of the spiritual life. 

The style of the Libro Atireo contributed as much to the 
popularity of the book as its content. Fullness and ingenu- 
ity are the words which best describe this style. Guevara 
abounds in allusion, anecdote, and illustration. He polishes 
and amplifies his ideas to their extreme limits. Rhetorical 
questions, ejaculations, repetitions of syntax and phrasing 
at the beginnings of a set of clauses (anaphora), these and 
similar rhetorical devices are constantly employed. So 
far as the structure of the sentences is concerned, the most 
notable characteristic is the weighing and balancing of 
parallel or antithetic clauses. The periodic Ciceronian 
structure is not the prevailing type of sentence in the Lihro 
Aureo, but the shorter two-part sentence or clause, with 
balanced halves. More purely verbal features of Guevara's 
style are the use of rime and assonance, employed often to 
emphasize balance and antithesis, of puns and word-echoes 
or ' tranlacing.' These characteristics of style will appear 
more specifically in the discussion of the use which Berners 
and North made of them. In passing it may be noted that 
Guevara did not employ alliteration or the so-called un- 
natural natural history of English Euphuism. 

All of Lord Berners, Thomas Bourchier's, books are 



o 



i6 English Literary Prose 



courtly in character, are all translations, and were all writ- 
ten at Calais, where he was deputy governor from 1520 until 
his death in 1533. They consist of a translation of Frois- 
sart's Chronicles, finished in 1525; of the Boke of Duke 
Huon of Burdeux and the History of the most noble and 
valyaunt Knight, Artheur of Lytell Brytaine, both trans- 
lated from the French ; of the Castell of Love, from the 
Spanish of de San Pedro ; and of the Golden Boke of 
Marcus Aurelius, translated from a French version of the 
first edition of Guevara's Libro Aureo. 

Bourchier never acquired a consistent individual style 
and his various translations are interesting in different ways 
as illustrations of several tendencies in English courtly writ- 
ing of the early sixteenth century. The translation of 
Froissart contains an original preface by Bourchier in 
praise of history, in which Bourchier exercises all his lit- 
erary ingenuity to bring together, after the manner of 
Caxton, as many synonymous terms as possible. The 
writers of histories, says Bourchier, " shewe, open, mani- 
fest and declare to the reder, by example of olde antyquite, 
what we shulde enquere, desyre and folowe ; and also, what 
we shulde eschewe, avoyde and utterly flye ; for whan we 
(beynge unexpert of chaunces) se, beholde and rede the 
auncyent actes, gestes and dedes, howe and with what 
labours, daungers and paryls they were gested and done, 
they right greatly admonest, ensigne and teche us howe we 
maye lede forthe our lyves " — and so on to the reader's 
admiration and weariness. In this preface Bourchier was 
decidedly more artful than in the body of the book. When 
he came to translate the narrative itself, he followed the 
simple, unmannered style of his original. The translation 
is usually idiomatic, though now and then French locutions 
are followed slavishly. The vocabulary employed is on 
the whole simple, but it is enriched by an abundance of 



The Courtly Writers 317 

courtly and chivalric terms which the subject demanded. 
Stylistically there is little that is distinctive or significant 
in the book. It follows in the main the traditional methods 
of the later medieval prose romance, and though the writing 
is more virile than that of Malory, it is of the same kind, 
only cruder and less evenly maintained. The narrative 
produces a strong cumulative effect not by any structural 
unity or graces of expression, but by the unfailing vivid- 
ness, reality, and variety of its separate episodes. In this 
book Bourchier wrote like the soldier and man of afifairs he 
was, not gracefully or elegantly or learnedly, except in the 
preface, but concretely and solidly, sometimes crudely and 
bluntly. 

The translation of Huon of Bordeaux was apparently 
undertaken from motives similar to those which led to the 
translation of Froissart, that is, the desire to provide a book 
of courtly entertainment, and at the same time, a picture of 
model knightly conduct. This romance is extremely long, 
and to a modern reader, tedious ; but like all of Bourchier's 
writings, it maintains a dignified courtly tone. Like the 
Froissart, it is written in the naive style of Malory, but 
again without Malory's grace and ease of phrasing. The 
style in general is unornamented, except for the use of 
synonymous doublets and triplets, and on the whole im- 
presses one with a sense of impoverishment both in the 
cadences of phrasing and in vocabulary. 

More interesting from the point of view of style than 
the Froissart or the Huon, is Bourchier's Golden Boke of 
Marcus Aurelius, which first appeared in print in 1535, the 
year after Bourchier's death. The great popularity of the 
work is indicated by the fact that fourteen editions of it 
were issued between 1535 and 1588. Bourchier was aware 
of the stylistic distinction of the book he undertook to 
translate, the quality of which was unescapable, even in a 



3i8 English Literary Prose 

French translation. The English version was published 
under the direction of Sir Francis Bryan, Bourchier's 
nephew, against whom Ascham had preferred the charge of 
eternal youth. It was at Bryan's instant desire, Bourchier 
declares, that he undertook the work. Bryan adds some 
comments at the end of the book in which he speaks of the 
undertaking as " a ryche and newe labour," and he thinks 
as much praise is to be accorded to the various translators 
of the book as to Marcus Aurelius, the reputed original 
author. " A ryghte precyous meate," says Bryan, " is the 
sentences of this boke : But finally the sauce of the sayd 
swete style moveth the appetite." There are many books 
full of " substancial meates," but they are " so rude and so 
unsavery and the style of so smal grace, that the fyrste 
morsell is lothesome and noyfull." It is the fate of such 
books to lie " hole and sounde " in libraries, but Bryan 
hopes a better fate may befall this Golden Boke.'^^ 

Of the characteristics of style of the original, the only 
one which is reproduced with any degree of success by 
Bourchier is balance and antithesis in phrasing. This ap- 
pears constantly and with so little variety that a few simple 
examples will suffice as illustrations : 

" Many tymes of wyse yonge men cometh olde fooles : 
And of yonge fooles customably cometh wise olde men." ^^ 

" Beleve me one thynge, that if a tree beareth not in 
Prymetyme his flowers, we hope not to have the fruyte in 
harveste rype : and a yonge man that hathe not passed his 
youthe with yonge people, we have noo hope that he shulde 
passe his age with olde men." '^^ 

" 1 am sure of one thynge, that if the yonge man be 
borne with foly, the olde man lyveth and dieth with 
covetyse." ^* 

" F. 167, recto. " F. 24, recto. 

"' F. 24, recto. "* F. 89, verso. 



The Courtly Writers 319 

The system of alliteration, of which later English masters 
of the balanced and antithetic styles were to make such 
extensive use, is not in Guevara and was not elaborated 
by Bourchier. Neither does he employ rime. The device 
of ' tranlacing,' already mentioned in connection with As- 
cham, is reproduced to some extent in Bourchier's transla- 
tion, but the results cannot be called successful. A few 
examples may be cited from the same passages as those 
from which the illustrations just quoted were taken : 

" I am sore abasshed, that somme wyll be soo lordely and 
valiant in vertues, and so hygh mynded, and yet wyll make 
us beleve that they lyvynge in the flesshe and being of 
flesh, onely fele not the flesh. I can not tel if nature hath 
made other of an other nature than I am of, or me of an 
other nature thanne other be. For I being never so faste 
inclosed in the swete conversation of philosophy, yea in 
the best tyme, this false flesshe wolle calle atte the gate with 
his noughtye flesshe." 

" This emperour was soo wyse in all thynges, that amonge 
theym that were mery, he was of great myrthe. And in 
verities he was very veritable." 

" Therfore my sonne beware, be not extreme in ex- 
tremities." 

On the whole, Bourchier was quite as crude and awk- 
ward a stylist in his translation of Guevara as in his other 
writings. The hints supplied by his original he did not 
assimilate and apply to a stylistic method of his own. He 
reproduced what came easily in an English translation, but 
did not himself exert much ingenuity. The Golden Boke, 
in its English version, was not kept alive and made popular 
by its stylistic excellence or novelty. It was as a conduct 
book and as a collection of moral maxims, like Elyot's 



320 English Literary Prose 

Governor, Castiglione's Courtier, and similar books, that it 
was esteemed and read, and it was under cover of this 
interest that its literary influence was exerted. 

Another writer of far greater literary importance than 
Bourchier who also came under the influence of Guevara, 
was Sir Thomas North. Born probably in the year which 
saw the publication of Bourchier's Golden Boke, North led 
an active life as soldier, scholar, and courtier. Though not 
without favor in court circles, he never held any very im- 
portant offices, and his fame now rests mainly upon one of 
his literary works, his translation of Plutarch. His other 
writings, only two in number, were also translations. The 
earlier of these, The Diall of Princes (1557), was, as has 
been pointed out, a translation from the revised and ampli- 
fied version of the French translation of Guevara's Libro 
del emp evador Marco aurelio con relox de principes. A 
second edition of it appeared in 1568, to which was added 
a fourth book, " entituled the Favored Courtier, never here- 
tofore imprinted in our vulgar tongue." A third edition 
appeared in 1582, and a fourth in 1619, after North's death. 
North's version was not made independently of Bour- 
chier's, certain parts of the Diall of Princes being taken 
over almost literally from the earlier Golden Boke. Besides 
Berners and the revised French translation from the Span- 
ish, North also had recourse to the original of Guevara, 
from which he translated parts not contained in the French 
version. 

The main interest of the work to North as to Bourchier 
lay in its moral wisdom. In the dedicatory epistle prefixed 
to the translation, North praises Guevara's work because 
it is " so ful of highe doctrine, so adourned with auncient 
histories, so auctorised with grave sentences, and so beauti- 
fied with apte simylitudes." He has nothing to say, how- 
ever, with respect to the stylistic characteristics of Gue- 



The Courtly Writers 321 

vara's writings, now the main source of their historical 
interest both in the originals and in their translations. As 
with Berners the style of the Libro Aiireo passes over into 
the Diall of Princes mainly in the use of the balanced and 
antithetic sentence and of tranlacing. An example which 
illustrates both devices is the following, extracted from 
North's translation of Guevara's prologue : 

" The greatest vanitie that I finde in the worlde is, that 
vayne men are not onely contente to be vayne in their life, 
but also procure to leave a memorye of their vanitye after 
their death. For it is so thought good unto vayne and lyght 
men whiche serve the worlde in vayne workes : that at 
the houre of their deathe when they perceive they can doe 
no more, and that they can no lenger prevaile, they ofifer 
them selves unto deathe, which now they see approche 
uppon theim. Manye of the Worlde are so flesshed in the 
Worlde, that althoughe it forsaketh theim in deedes, yet 
they wyl not forsake it in their desires. And I durste sweare 
that if the world could graunt them perpetual life, they 
would promise it alwayes to remaine in their customable 
folye." «^ 

It seems unnecessary to add further illustrations of 
North's transference of Guevara's mannerisms to his Eng- 
lish translation. Much of the color and luxuriance of the 
original Spanish escapes in the passage through French 

''° Author's Prologue, fol. b II, recto. The Spanish of Guevara 
is as follows : " La mayor vanidad que hallo entre los hijos de 
vanidades : no contentos de ser vanos enla vida : procuran que aya 
memoria de sus vanidades despues dela muerte : porque paresce alos 
hombres vanos y limanos : que enla vida servieron al mundo con 
obras : desde la sepultura le offrezcan a mas no poder sus voluntades. 
Muchos delos del mundo estan tan encarnigados en el mundo : que 
si el los dexa a ellos de hecho : no dexan ellos a el con el desseo : 
porque yo jurare que juren los tales: que si el mundo pudiesse per- 
petuar les la vida : ellos le harian voto de permanescer para siempre 
en su locura." Rclox de principes (ed. 1529), fol. vii, verso, quoted 
Feuillerat, John Lyly, p. 448. 



322 ' English Literary Prose 

into English, and the few rhetorical devices which North 
employs seem mechanical. It is interesting to note, how- 
ever, that in North one begins to find distinct evidences of 
alliteration used to emphasize balance and antithesis in 
sentence structure. But the possibilities of this stylistic 
ornament seem not to have been realized or perhaps not 
to have interested North. He certainly did not regard his 
translation as mainly a stylistic experiment, but rather as 
an attempt to reproduce the content of the original with 
some regard for its form. 

North's second venture in authorship, his Morall Philo- 
sophie of Doni (1570), took its title from the Italian original 
of which it is a translation. It is not, however, a philosophic 
work, but a western form of the well-known Fables of 
Bidpai, a collection of moral tales ultimately of Indian 
origin but extant in dozens of Asiatic and European ver- 
sions. It is a slighter work than either The Diall of Princes 
or the Plutarch, and it seems to have been less popular in 
North's own day. As was the case with both The Diall of 
Princes and the translation of Plutarch, the moral senti- 
ment of Doni's book was the immediate occasion of North's 
interest in it. The " marveylous benefite " which the trans- 
lator promises to the reader is more likely to be found, 
however, in the easy familiarity of the tales themselves than 
in their moral lessons. The stories are mostly animal 
fables, but the various birds and beasts are quaintly and pic- 
turesquely drawn as types of human character. The vivac- 
ity of the narrative is specially heightened by the use of 
colloquial turns of phrasing, exclamations, and terms of 
address which often give the Oriental tales of the book an 
amusingly Elizabethan realistic color. Although the at- 
tentive reader might pick out passages from The Morall 
Philosophie, especially from the moralizing commentaries 
inserted between the tales, which exhibit some attention to 



The Courtly Writers 323 

literary artifice, mainly balance, alliteration and word- 
repetition, the book as a whole produces the effect of the 
free and easy style of colloquial speech. North does not 
employ the tricks of style which he might have learned 
from Guevara in any systematic way in his translation of 
Doni. He writes not an artificial style, but with the free 
idiomatic freshness and vigor of the independent and active- 
minded Elizabethan. 

North's Liz'es of the Noble Grecians and Romans ap- 
peared first in 1579, and was printed only once again, in 1595, 
before North's death. '^*' The translation was made from 
the French of Amyot, and here, as in his other books. 
North owes his form as well as his content to his source. 
The interest of the book for North lay in large measure in 
its didactic value. It also is a conduct book in the larger 
sense, teaching " honor, love, obedience, reverence, zeale, 
and devocion to Princes." It is better, North remarks, " to 
see learning in noble mens lives than to reade it in Philoso- 
phers writings." North himself, accordingly, has nothing 
to say independently. He followed Amyot closely in con- 
tent, though somewhat freely in phrasing. Amyot wrote a 
slow-moving, dignified, and formal style, appropriate to his 
subject. His sentences were usually constructed after the 
model of the Ciceronian period. North, however, trans- 
lated in an easier and more colloquial vein. His sentences 
are prevailingly long, though shorter than Amyot's, and 
variously membered, but they are not put together in regu- 
lar periods. They are indeed very loosely constructed, some- 
times without regard for strict grammatical coherence, 
though never without a feeling for cadence which saves 
them from the amorphous, sprawling structures of the 

°' Various modified and modernized versions of the book appeared 
later, and recently the text of the original edition has been re- 
published, in Tudor Translations, ed. W. E. Henley. 



324 English Literary Prose 

medieval style. The rhythm of the prose of the translation 
is loose, but not naive. 

The vocabulary which North employed in the Plutarch 
was in the main lofty and dignified, but not the aureate 
vocabulary of the learned style. Neither was it a strikingly 
popular and colloquial vocabulary, though perhaps the most 
important difference between North and Amyot consists in 
the greater colloquial ease, even at times humorous famil- 
iarity, of the former as compared with his original. Thus 
Amyot's simple " il luy donna un souflet, et s'en alia," be- 
comes the more vivacious picture in North, " Alcibiades up 
with his fiste, and gave him a good boxe on the eare, and 
went his way." ^'^ Where Amyot speaks of those " que 
estoyent demouriez a Rome," North amplifies into " the 
hometarriers and housedoves that kept Rome still." ®^ 
Pericles, when he was about to place a garland of flowers 
upon the head of his dead son, in Amyot's words, " espandit 
sur I'heure grande quantite de larmes," but in North, " he 
burst out in tears, and cryed a mayne." ^^ An infinite num- 
ber of slight touches like these give to North's translation 
the familiar ease and picturesqueness so generally found in 
Elizabethan prose. 

When North wrote independently he was inclined to be 
stylistically more formal and ambitious than when he 
translated. His use of balance and antithesis in the two- 
part sentence is the most noteworthy characteristic of his 
style when he writes in his own person. The following 
sentences from the short address to Queen Elizabeth pre- 
fixed to the Plutarch have an unmistakable similarity to 
Euphuistic rhythm: 

" Therefore I humbly beseech your Majestic, to suffer 
the simpleness of my translation to be covered under the 
ampleness of your highnes protection." 

" II, 96. " II, 158. "' II, 46. 



The Courtly Writers 325 

" Then well may the Readers thinke, if they have done 
this for heathen Kings, what should we doe for Christian 
Princes? If they have done this for glorye, what shoulde 
we doe for religion? If they have done this without hope 
of heaven, what shoulde we doe that looke for immortalitie ? 
And so adding the encouragement of these exsamples to 
the forwardnes of their owne dispositions : what service is 
there in warre, what honor in peace, which they will not be 
ready to doe, for their worthy Oueene?"^^ 

From such passages one may perhaps infer that North 
might have developed an individual and personal style of his 
own if he had undertaken original composition on an ex- 
tensive scale, and that this style would have had balance 
and antithesis as its fundamental features. But to speak 
of North as the founder of Euphuism is greatly to exag- 
gerate his influence. Neither North nor Bourchier had that 
definite and certain feeling for expression which one looks 
for in the founder of an elaborate artificial style and which 
one finds in so marked a degree in Guevara. It was 
not Guevara the stylist who excited their deepest in- 
terest, but Guevara the preacher and moralist. At 
most Bourchier and North could but have pointed the 
way towards certain devices of style which later and 
more ingenious writers were to use with a fuller sense of 
their value. And of course it must not be forgotten that 
their translations were a symptom as well as a cause of 
interest in the originals of Guevara. 

The channels through which the influence of Spanish style 
may have flowed into England need not be limited to the 
translations of Bourchier and North. With the arrival of 
Katharine of Aragon in England considerable direct interest 
in Spanish afifairs and in Spanish literature was awakened. 
At the court a strong Spanish party was gradually formed, 
among its members being Bourchier and his nephew. Sir 
" Henley's ed., I, 4-5. 



326 English Literary Prose 

Francis Bryan. Various Spaniards of distinction visited 
England from time to time, the notable scholar, Juan Luis 
Vives, for example, who was invited to Oxford in 1523 
by Henry VIII and who remained until the fall of Wolsey 
in 1528, and Guevara himself, for a short time, in 1522/^ 
Considering the esteem in which Guevara was held, it can- 
not be doubted that many Englishmen read his writings in 
their original Spanish, and that in this way the feeling for 
highly artificial literary style was fostered, even though 
Guevara's specific practices were not followed. Other trans- 
lations of Guevara's works besides those already men- 
tioned may be regarded as evidence of the attention which 
was paid to the author's Spanish writings. Sir Francis 
Bryan published in 1548 a translation made from a French 
version of Guevara's Menosprecio de la Corte, under the 
title, A Dispraise of the life of a Courtier and a commenda- 
cion of the life of the labouring man. In 1574 appeared 
Edward Hello wes' Familiar Epistles of Sir Anthonie of 
Guevara, a translation from the Spanish of the Epistolas 
Familiares. Though Hellowes declares that he lacks " both 
glosse and hewe of rare eloquence," his translation, as well 
as his own composition in his prefaces, shows some effort 
to reproduce the stylistic devices of his original. The fol- 
lowing year, 1575, was published Gefifrey Fenton's Golden 
Epistles, contayning varietie of discourse, both Morall, 
Philosophic all and Divine, gathered as wel out of the 
remaynder of Guevaraes woorkes as other Aiithours, 
Latine, French and Italian. This book was intended to 
serve as a supplement to Hellowes' Familiar Epistles, and 
though Fenton, like Hellowes, declares himself " not to be 
so curious to set out this work with elegancie of phrase and 
Rhetoricke, as to exhibite precepts to live wel," he also 
shows himself a not inexpert adapter of the Guevaristic tricks 
" Galvez, Guevara in England, p. 3. 



The Courtly Writers 327 

of style. Other translations by Hellowes were A Chronicle 
conteyniiig the Hues of tenne Emperours of Rome (1577), 
a version of Guevara's Decada de las vidas de los x. Cesares, 
and A Booke of the Inuention of the Art of Nauigation 
(1578), from Guevara's Aguja de Marear y de sus in- 
uentoresJ^ 

The combining of moral purpose with imaginative narra- 
tive and with the quest after distinction of style, which 
Guevara's admirers noted approvingly in his biographical 
and didactic romance, remained one of the constant features 
of sixteenth-century courtly writing. As the art of imagi- 
native narrative developed, drawing its materials more and 
more abundantly from classical, French and Italian sources, 
it continued to justify itself with professions of a moral 
seriousness which was a double inheritance from the Eng- 
lish Reformation and from humanistic critical theory. The 
fancy was not allowed to play freely upon character and 
situation, and the doctrine of art for art's sake, or even of 
direct truth to nature, was probably never less esteemed 
than it was in the third quarter of the sixteenth century. 
The stylists were therefore not simply experimental ; they 
sought a form pleasing to refined readers by means of 
which to convey moral lessons, but the moral intention was 
as prominent as the artistic. Striking illustrations of this 
combination of high style and morality are to be found in 
the various romances and collections of tales which began 
to appear abundantly after the middle of the century.'^^ 

'" The Moiinte of Caluarie, which appeared anonymously in ISQS, 
is a translation of Guevara's Mistcrios del Monte Caluario, a book 
of pious meditations much more soberly written than the Libra 
Aureo. A later translation of the Epistolas Familiares was made by 
John Savage, in 1697, under the title Spanish Letters. 

'' The first Italian novel to be translated directly from the 
Italian (cf. Brie, Englische Studien, CXXIV, 46-57) was the 49th 
novel of Masuccio's Novellino, made by Henry Parker, ca. 1545. 
But this was not printed before Brie's text appeared, it was not a 



328 English Literary Prose 

One of the earliest collections of tales was William 
Painter's Palace of Pleasure, the first volume of which 
appeared in 1566 and the second the following year. The 
stories which Painter told were drawn mainly from Latin, 
Italian, and French sources, " recueled and bound together 
in this volume, under the title of the Palace of Pleasure," 
for the avowed purpose of providing profitable instruction 
in agreeable form. Even those stories which treat of un- 
lawful love, against which Ascham inveighed so bitterly, 
are defended on the ground that by reading them " both 
old and yonge may learne how to avoyde the ruine, over- 
throw, inconvenience and displeasure, that lascivious desire 
and wanton wil doth bring to their suters and pursuers." '^* 
The tales are intermixed, however, with " pleasaunte dis- 
courses, merie talke, sportinge practises, deceitfull devises, 
and nipping tauntes " to exhilarate the reader's mind. In 
the telling of his tales, though he regrets that they are " not 
so set foorth or decked with eloquent stile, as this age more 
brave in tongue then manners dothe require," Painter shows 
plainly enough that he is interested in the artful devices of 
fine writing. In general his narrative method is simple and 
straightforward, though the sentences show some tendency 
to fall into the fixed cadences of the balanced and antithetic 
structure. He is fond of occasional learned words, which 
he sometimes uses in pairs, after the conventional fashion 
of the times, e.g. decerped and chose, recueled and hound 
together, deserts and voide places, etc. Alliteration is also 

love intrigue story, and it was very crudely done. For the general 
bibliography of Italian translations, see Miss Scott's " Elizabethan 
Translations from the Italian," Publications of the Modern Lan- 
guage Association, X, 249-293; XI, 377-484; XIV, 42-153; 465-571. 
Tieje, "The Critical Heritage of Fiction in 1579" (Englische 
Studien, XLVII, 415-448) contains some discussion of the purposes 
avowed by sixteenth-century writers of fiction. 
'* Palace of Pleasure, ed. Jacobs, I, v. 



The Courtly Writers 329 

consciously employed, as when he tells us that good example 
" prescribeth a directe pathe to treade the tracte of this 
present life " ; " or when he declares that " No vertuous 
dede or zelous worke can want due prayse of the honest, 
though faulting fooles and youthly heades full ofte do 
chaunt the faultles checke that Momus mouth did once 
finde out in Venus slipper." ^^ Such passages are sporadic, 
however, and Painter seems to have lacked the skill or the 
patience to employ his stylistic devices systematically. 

In the year of Painter's second volume appeared Certain 
Tragical Discourses of Bandello, translated into English by 
Geffrey Fenton, who has already been mentioned as a 
translator of Guevara. The arguments which Painter had 
used in defense of his book appear again independently 
and more emphatically set forth in the dedicatory address of 
Fenton's work. The defense of history which is here made 
knows no distinction between authentic records of events 
and fictitious narrative, all being equally useful to the reader 
for reproof and counsel : " antiquitie gives choice of ad- 
monicions for obedience to his superiors, with charge to 
applie and employe all his care for the commoditye of his 
countrye." ^^ Fenton is a much more thoroughgoing moral- 
ist than Painter, and he makes frequent additions and com- 
ments of a strongly Puritan color in the course of his 
narratives. Like Painter, he justifies his narratives of un- 
lawful love on the ground that examples of evil to be 
avoided are as necessary as examples of good to be fol- 
lowed. In vocabulary Fenton does not follow the extreme 
of the enriching tendency, though he does not hesitate to 
coin new words at pleasure from Greek, Latin, French, and 
Italian. His style is more dependent for its main effect 
upon structural characteristics than upon the mere surface 

" Jacobs, p. 10. " Ibid., p. 10. 

" Bandello, ed. Douglas, I, 4. 



330 English Literary Prose 

ornamentation of vocabulary. Such Euphuistic sentences 
as the following are of constant occurrence : 

" Albeit as his presence often gave ympedimente to their 
metinge, so his absence restored their enterviewe." ^® 

" Wherin, as the humor of his love seamed to excede the 
ordinarie impressions of men in that case, so he neyther 
was hable to resiste the hoate sommaunce of his newe 
appetit, nor kepe warre any tyme with the suggestion of 
his sodayne desire ; but, as one that felt himselfe stricken 
with the thonderbolt of his destynie, gave place to his 
sentence, and entred into devise with himselfe what waye 
too use, to Wynne the encounter of his fancie." " 

Alliteration is sometimes used, either simply or according 
to the transverse pattern, for the sake of emphasis; but 
Fenton resembles Painter in that alliteration and the 
balanced and antithetic sentence are only occasional fea- 
tures of his style. He is, however, further significant in 
the development of Euphuistic writing for his frequent 
use of similes taken from natural history. His museum 
includes the chameleon, salamander, cockatrice, scorpion, 
elephant, tiger, leopard, ape, and other more familiar mem- 
bers of the animal kingdom. That this had long been a 
recognized kind of rhetorical amplification is evident from 
Wilson's inclusion of it in his Arte of Rhetorique (1553). 
After a brief discussion of the value of antithesis, Wilson 
proceeds : 

"The like helpe we maie have by comparing like ex- 
amples together, either of creatures living or of thinges not 
living: as in speaking of constancie, to shewe the Sunne, 
who ever keepeth one course : in speaking of inconstancie, 
to shewe the Moone which keepeth no certaine course. 
Againe, in young Storkes, we may take an example of love 
towards their damme, for when she is old, and not able for 

" Douglas, I, 89. '° Ibid., pp. 24-25. 



The Courtly Writers 331 

her crooked bill to picke meate, the yong ones feede her. 
In yong Vipers there is a contrary example (for as Plinie 
saieth) they eate out their dammes wombe, and so come 
forth. In Hennes there is a care to bring up their Chickens : 
in Egles the contrary, which cast out their Egges, if they 
have any moe then three : and all because they would not 
be troubled with bringing up of many." ^° 

The year 1576 saw the publication of George Whet- 
stone's Rocke of Regard, the first increase of his " barren 
braine " but to be followed by numerous others, among 
them An Heptameron of Civill Discourses (1582) which 
contains the Christmas exercise of " sundrie well Courted 
Gentlemen and Gentlewomen." The Rocke of Regard is 
divided into four parts which are given picturesque titles 
similar to the name of the book as a whole. The first part is 
called The Castle of Delight, and therein is reported " the 
wretched end of wanton and dissolute living." The second 
part is The Garden of Unthriftinesse, the third, the Ar- 
bour of Vertue, and the fourth. The Orchard of Repent- 
ance, titles which indicate sufficiently the moralizing tone 
of the whole. The book is made up of tales in verse and 
prose, and the same tricks of style, alliteration, puns, and 
other plays on words appear in both forms. Alliteration 
is usually simple, but sometimes it is employed in more 
complicated patterns, as when the author speaks of " the 
alluring beauties of brave ladies," or of one of his lovers 
who has " transformed his late liking unto such faythful 
love, as secretly he vowed that neyther change nor chaunce 
should (whiles life lasted) remove his afifection." ^^ Bal- 

'" Ed. Mair, p. 125. This whole passage on various methods of 
amplification reads like a description of Euphuism. The use of 
" brute beastes," of doves, cranes, dragon, dog, and lion, as " paterns 
and Images" is again recommended, pp. 191-194. See p. yy, v^rhere 
these precepts are exemplified in a specimen oration. 

*^ Rocke of Regard, ed. CoUier, p. 43. 



332 English Literary Prose 

ance in phrasing, sometimes helped out by alliteration, is 
not unfrequently employed by Whetstone, e.g. " the acci- 
dents of his evil fortunes might have forewarned other 
yonge gentlemen to have shunde the like follies." ^^ But 
Whetstone's gifts were those of fluency and of the popular 
style rather than artistic ingenuity, and his stylistic manner- 
isms are crude and obvious. He speaks of the change he 
has made for the reader's delight, " of reading bad verse, 
with the profifer of worsser prose." ^^ The prose is simpler 
than the verse, however, and for that reason better.^* 

Spiritually and artistically akin to Whetstone was George 
Gascoigne, whose writings for the most part appeared in 
print in the years 1575 and 1576. Gascoigne was poet 
and prose writer, and in the tale of intrigue and love 
adventure, " The pleasant Fable of Ferdinando Jeronimi 
and Leonora de Valasco," he varies the prose, like Whet- 
stone, by the introduction of occasional passages in verse. 

*' Collier, p. 276. 

*' Ibid., pp. 41-42. 

^* Certain other collections of tales dating from this period need 
only be mentioned by title. Thomas Fortescue's Forest, or Col- 
lection of Historyes, no lesse profitable then pleasant and neces- 
sary (1571), translated from a French version of an Italian transla- 
tion of Pedro Mexia's Silva de varia leccion, has little narrative or 
stylistic interest. In 1577 appeared Robert Smyth's Straiinge, Lam- 
entable and Tragicall Histories. Translated out of French into 
English; and the year following, Henry Wotton's Courtlie Con- 
troversic of Cupids Cautels: Contcyning five Tragicall Histories, 
very pithie, pleasant, pitiful and profitable. . . . Translated out of 
French as neare as our English phrase will permit. A Posie of 
Cilloflowers (1580) by Humphrey Gifford contains "Divers brief e 
histories " in prose, though most of the book is in verse. Accord- 
ing to Tanner, William Warner published in 1580 a translation of 
Bandello's Novelle, but no such book is now known ; but Warner's 
Pan his Syrinx or Pipe . . . seuen Tragical and Comicall Argu- 
ments is extant in an edition of 1584 and another of 1597. These 
seven stories are rather short romances than novelle. Several in- 
teresting titles of books now lost are mentioned by Esdaile, Eng- 
lish Tales and Romances, pp. xxxiii-xxxv. 



The Courtly Writers 333 

Like Whetstone again, he is fond of picturesque allitera- 
tive titles, such as The fruite of Fetters, The Droomme 
of Doomes day, A Delycaie Diet for daintie mouthde Droon- 
kardes, etc. Gascoigne is a persistent moralist ; even the 
light posies of his misguided youth he turns to account as 
beacons to assist the unwary " to avoyd the subtile sandes 
of wanton desires " and to direct them that they may not 
" runne upon the rockes of unlawfull lust." ^^ But the 
motives which led Gascoigne to write were not simple. He 
delighted not only to exercise his pen in moral discourses 
but was deeply interested in literary experimentation of 
various kinds. His Pleasant Fable of Ferdinando and 
Leonora purports to be a translation from the Italian, but 
no Italian source has been found for it, and it seems to 
be an early attempt to tell in prose a complicated story of 
intrigue and adventure which may have had a basis in real 
life. In its narrative method, it is distinctly a forerunner 
of the novel of Lyly. His Glasse of Government is the first 
English prose comedy, his Jocasta the first tragedy trans- 
lated from Italian into English, his Steele Glas the first 
regular English satire, and his Certayne Notes of Instruc- 
tion concerning the making of verse or ryme in English the 
first treatise on poetry in English. 

As a writer of prose, Gascoigne was an experimenter in 
the new field of the artificial style. He declares that he 
has " alwayes bene of opinion that it is not unpossible 
eyther in Poemes or in Prose too write both compendiously 
and perfectly in our Englishe tongue." ^^ But the way to 
perfect writing in English is not to be sought by the bor- 
rowing of inkhorn terms from foreign languages ; Gas- 
coigne prefers, like the courtly writers in general, to err 
on the conservative side in retaining old English words of 
native origin. This ideal of verbal simplicity was con- 

'" Posies, ed. Cunliflfe, p. 12. *' Ibid., p. 5. 



334 English Literary Prose 

sistently maintained by Gascoigne, and in general he shows 
literary discernment in the avoidance of the more obvious 
mannerisms of style of the time. Alliteration he uses freely, 
but not with crude insistence. Synonymous word-pairs and 
the tumbling or heaping passages of the popular oratorical 
style he rejects altogether. In his effort to attain dis- 
tinction of style he exercises his ingenuity mainly upon the 
structure of his English sentences^ and these he manages 
with considerable skill. Neatness and brevity are the dis- 
tinguishing characteristics of his sentence structure, and 
these qualities are often re-enforced by the employment of 
the formal devices of balance of phrase in cadence and 
antithesis of thought. Gascoigne also indulges in the occa- 
sional use of similes from the natural world, e.g. the stork, 
" which feedeth the damme in age, of whom it selfe re- 
ceived nouriture beeing young in the neast " ; ®^ and the 
industrious bee which gathers honey out of the " most 
stinking weede," while the " malicious Spider may also 
gather poyson out of the fayrest floure that growes." ^^ 

The popular style seems, however, to have grown upon 
Gascoigne, more than the courtly. In the later treatises, 
The Droomme of Doomes day and A Delycate Diet, he 
assumes frankly the role of Puritan pamphleteer, and in 
A Delycate Diet utters a warning against " those Mer- 
maydes of myschiefe, which pype so pleasantly in every 
Potte " with all the amplitude of picturesque phrase and 
alliteration of popular pulpit oratory. 

This cleavage between fine style in fictitious narrative and 
fine style in undiluted didactic writing which has been ob- 
served in Whetstone and Gascoigne may be further examined 
in the practice of a writer of popular moral treatises who 
in his way was quite as ingenious as any of the practitioners 

*' Glasse of Government, ed. Cunliffe, p. 32. 
*° Posies, ed. Cunliffe, p. 12. 



The Courtly Writers 335 

of the courtly style. This was Thomas Becon, born early 
in the second decade of the sixteenth century, later a stu- 
dent at St. John's College, Cambridge, and like many of 
his collegian contemporaries, an ardent advocate of reform 
in morals and religion. At various times he was under trial 
as a seditious preacher and fomenter of disturbance, and 
in 1543 he was compelled publicly to recant some of his 
opinions and to burn his published books. He held various 
livings, though he never attained to any high rank in the 
church, and seems to have died peacefully in 1567, probably 
at Canterbury. Under the pseudonym of Theodore Basil 
he published abundantly, and a few years before his death 
he gathered together his writings previously printed and 
issued them in a revised form in a folio edition of three 
parts or volumes. 

Becon's writings are all theological or didactic in char- 
acter. They were intended to be popular in tone, and 
their most distinctive literary quality arises from the at- 
tempt to make the subjects interesting by style and method 
of treatment. Very frequently the works are written in 
dialogue, and although the persons of the dialogue have 
little dramatic character, the interchange of speeches and 
the setting add some life to the treatises. In fact, they 
need only a slightly greater complication of plot to change 
them into moralities and didactic school-plays like Gas- 
coigne's Glasse of Government. Becon was fond of in- 
genious figures as serving for the structure of his treatises 
and of giving them ingenious titles. A Christmas Banquet 
is a feast to which his friends are invited, the fare con- 
sisting altogether of scriptural texts, rolled on the tongue 
as voluptuously as though they were the most delicate 
morsels. A Potation for Lent is a companion piece to the 
Banquet. The Pathway unto Prayer, The Flower of Godly 
Prayers, and The Pomander of Prayer are self-explanatory 



336 English Literary Prose 

titles. ^^ A Pleasant New Nosegay is typical of a number 
of anthological treatises. Other picturesque titles are The 
Jewel of Joy, The Castle of Comfort, The Solace of the 
Soul, The Fortress of the Faithful, and The Sick Man's 
Salve. His longest work is The Catechism, in reality a 
general conduct book, touching various sides of life from 
many different points of view. It is interesting as giving 
the rules of living which were acceptable to a somewhat 
stern reformer, as distinguished from those so abundantly 
supplied for higher grades of society by the numerous 
courtly conduct books of the times. 

Becon's sympathies with the severer aspects of the 
Reformation in England, with men like Sir John Cheke, 
Ascham, Wilson, and others, appears not only in his gen- 
erally pious and didactic tone, but in many specific ways. 
His true gentleman is not precisely the popular Bible-man 
of Lollard days, but he is one whose life nevertheless is 
largely governed by his reading of the scriptures. Music 
is a " more vain and trifling science than it becometh a 
man, born and appointed to matters of gravity, to spend 
much time about it " ; and Becon has only words of scorn 
for those who " have not spared to spend much riches in 
nourishing many idle singing-men to bleat in their chapels." 
A Christian man's melody is in his heart, when he recites 
psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs — " all outward melody 
is vain and transitory." Elsewhere Becon inveighs against 

^^ This fashion in titles was followed by many. To those already 
mentioned may be added William Averell, " student in Diuinitie and 
Schoolemaister," who published, in 1584, A Dyall for dainty 
Darlings, rockt in the Cradle of Securitie. Among the treatises of 
John Norden, a devotional writer, are A Sinful Man's Solace 
(1585), A Pensive Man's Practice (1585), A Mirror for the 
Multitude (1586), Progress of Piety, or Harherer of Heartsease 
(1596). Becon's Sick Man's Salve is alluded to satirically in 
Jonson's Silent Woman, Act IV, Sc. II, and in Eastward Hoe, Act 
V, Sc. II. 



The Courtly Writers 337 

the building of " gorgeous houses and sumptuous mansions." 
And the refined fashions in dress introduced into England 
from abroad are equally reprehensible in his sight : " O, 
what a monster and a beast of many heads is the English- 
man now become ! To whom may he be compared worthily 
but to Esop's crow ? . . . He is an Englishman : he is also 
an Italian, a Spaniard, a Turk, a Frenchman, a Scot, a 
Venetian, and at the last, what not?"^° 

Curiously combined with this hard and repressive atti- 
tude towards the graces and luxuries of life is Becon's re- 
spect for eloquence and the exuberant and ornate style of 
literary expression. He longs for " the most pleasant speech 
and sugared eloquence " of Pericles, and declares that from 
his early youth he has been trained up " in the court of 
Lady Mnemosyne and her daughters and exercised in the 
wrestling-place of Apollo." ^^ For this reason he thinks 
it not unfitting that he should bring forth some " literal 
lucubration " profitable to his countrymen. But one's 
surprise at Becon's assiduous cultivation of the literary 
graces is lessened when one realizes that he is not aping the 
accomplishments of the courtly writers, but is following 
certain traditions of fine writing current in didactic and 
moral discourse from the time of the church fathers. 
Becon cites Cicero as " most worthy to be embraced and 
both in tongue and pen to be followed," ^^ but it is quite 
certain that he was more at home in the church fathers than 
he was in classical Latin or Greek literature. The robus- 
tious style of popular pulpit oratory also influenced Becon, 
mainly in the employment of the traditional features of 
the tumbling style, long catalogues of words, often carried 
to inordinate length, synonyms grouped in pairs and triplets 

°'' The Catechism, ed. Ayre, p. 438. See also Early Works, p. 204. 
*^ Early Works, p. 236. 
°^ Catechism, p. 386. 



2,2,8 English Literary Prose 

and quadruplets, fantastic word-coinages, of both native and 
learned elements, and crudely insistent alliteration. 

Some of Becon's rhetorical ornaments which depend on 
the manipulation of verbal harmony, the schemes of the 
medieval rhetoric, must be noted more in detail in order to 
bring out clearly their similarity in general spirit to the 
schemes of Euphuism, and at the same time their differ- 
ence from the particular schemes which Euphuism made the 
distinctive features of its style. Alliteration, for example, 
is used very loosely by Becon. Alliterating words are often 
grouped together in long sequences, e.g. " but I know not 
whether your gay, gaudy, gallant, gorgeous, game-players 
garments . . ." ; °^ or sometimes they are used only in 
pairs, e.g. " painful passion, dreadful death and royal resur- 
rection." ^* But beyond this one finds little endeavor to em- 
ploy alliteration in ingenious patterns. End-rime also 
occurs now and then in Becon, sometimes in combination 
with alliteration. Puns are made, even in the most serious 
passages, with amazing frequency. These verbal echoes are 
sometimes close, sometimes imperfect and far-fetched, for 
example, "pulpit" and "coal-pit"; or the statement that 
speech must not be " so polited that the heart be polluted." ^^ 
Modern taste has made the pun so execrable that it is 
well to remember that the sixteenth-century writer, with 
the example of the reverend fathers of the church, from 
Tertullian down,^° to support him, felt differently about it. 
Even so, however, it is doubtful if any courtly writer would 
have used puns as insistently and crudely as Becon has 
done. Slightly more complicated is Becon's use of verbal 
balance and antithesis. This is sometimes simple and rep- 

*° Prayers and Other Pieces, p. 215. 

** Early Works, p. i. 

*° Catechism, p. 350. 

"* See Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, p. 614. 



The Courtly Writers 339 

resents a real antithesis of thought, as when he speaks of 
those who " had fallen from that joyful state into this sor- 
rowful misery." More often, however, the antithesis is 
purely verbal and the words form a kind of linguistic com- 
pound proportion. Thus we have such phrasing as " boun- 
teous liberality and liberal bounty " ; ^^ " the crown of glori- 
ous immortality and immortal glory " ; ^® " O cruel fury 
and furious cruelness " ; ^^ " what studious diligence 
and diligent study, what painful labor and laborious 
pain." 10° 

Such rhetorical flowers as have been illustrated occur 
abundantly in Becon's writings, and many of them are also 
found in the writings of the true Euphuists. What dis- 
tinguishes Becon from Lyly and his immediate school is 
the fact that Becon never established the balanced and 
antithetic sentence as the fixed norm of his expression. His 
style never acquired the neatness and precision of the fully 
developed Euphuistic style, but at bottom it is the natural 
and loose style of popular oratory, decked out with some 
of the traditional schemes of medieval rhetoric. It was 
Becon's desire to edify his readers, not to drive them " into 
an admiration or stupor," but it would seem that his love of 
fine diction and ingenious figure frequently seduced him 
from his main intention. His endeavor apparently was to 
combine humanity and morality, fine writing and didacti- 
cism. All liberal sciences, in his opinion, were " to be 
studied and learned even that they might not depress but 
avance the true religion of God " ; and eloquence without 
godliness is " as a ring in a swine's snout." '^^'^ It was 
Becon's purpose to show that the vanities of the world 
were not the only material upon which the literary artist's 
ingenuity could be exercised. Moral truth to his mind 

•^ Early Works, p. i. " Ibid., p. 53. "* Ibid., p. 382. 

•* Ibid., p. 30. "'"' Catechism, p. 6. 



340 English Literary Prose 

offered as distinguished and interesting a body of content as 
the tales of love and adventure of the worldly writers. All 
that the moral virtues needed was the charm of an attrac- 
tive dress to enable them to satisfy the esthetic interests of 
the complete Christian gentleman. This may seem to have 
been a vain hope, but it was not an unreasonable ideal at a 
time when the children of the imagination had not yet justi- 
fied themselves by their works. 

The contrast between a popular stylist like Becon, with 
his obvious art and obvious morality, and a fine gentleman 
like George Pettie, in the main is surprisingly slight. In 
many respects they accepted similar standards, though they 
appealed to widely different audiences. Pettie was born 
about the middle of the century, was a student at Oxford, 
traveled abroad for some time, and died at Plymouth in 
1589, being then, in the words of Wood, "a captain and a 
man of note." Wood also mentions the fact that Pettie 
first won recognition as a writer by his " passionate penning 
of amorous stories," and that he was " as much commended 
for his neat stile as any of his time." ^"^ Pettie wrote 
only two books, the first a collection of twelve prose tales 
after the model of Painter, entitled A Petite Pallace of 
Pettie his Pleasure containing many pre tie histories by him 
set forth in comely colours and most delightfully discoursed. 
It appeared in two editions in 1576, the year of its publica- 
tion, and other editions followed to the number of at least 
four before the end of the century. His second book 
appeared in print five years after the Petite Pallace, a trans- 
lation through the French of the Italian La Ciz'il Conversa- 
tione of Stefano Guazzo. The title of the English version 
is The Ciznle Conversation of M. Stephen Giiaszo (1581), 
and in its first form, it contained only the first three books 
of Guazzo's work. The fourth book was added by Barthol- 
^"^ Athen. Oxon., I, col. 553- 



The Courtly Writers 341 

omew Young in a second edition which appeared in 1586. 
Guazzo's Civile Conversation belongs to the general type 
of conduct books of which Castiglione's Courtier is the best 
known example. It covers a wide field, discoursing in the 
second book on all those points which should be observed 
out of their own houses in company " betweene young men 
and olde, Gentlemen and yeomen, Princes and private per- 
sons, learned and unlearned. Citizens and strangers. Re- 
ligious and Secular, men and women," and in the third 
book, the order to be observed in conversation within doors 
" betweene the husband and the wife, the father and the 
Sonne, brother and brother, the maister and the servant." 
In short the book covers very much the same ground 
as Becon's Catechism, though the point of view is dif- 
ferent. 

The most interesting and the only original part of Pettie's 
version of Guazzo is contained in The Preface to the 
Readers. This preface opens with a defense of the art of 
writing, and of learning and scholarship as necessary ac- 
complishments in the perfect gentleman. " Alasse, you wil 
be but ungentle Gentlemen, if you bee no schollers." Pettie 
himself seems to have been blamed for having devoted time 
to literary pursuits, and especially for having published the 
fruits of his labors. He considers learning, however, to 
be as necessary for a soldier as for any other man, and 
he reprehends the gentleman who strives to " cloake his 
art and skill in everie thing and to seeme to doe all things 
of his owne mother wit as it were." But study and in- 
dustry are necessary before excellence can be attained in 
anything, and why is it a shame to show to be that, asks 
Pettie, which it is a shame not to be? " Therefore (Gen- 
tlemen) never denie your selves to bee schollers, never be 
ashamed to shew your learning, confesse it, professe it, 
imbrace it, honour it : for it is it which honoreth you, it 



342 English Literary Prose 

is onelie it which maketh you men, it is onelie it which mak- 
eth you Gentlemen." 

This eloquent and reasonable defense of learning leads 
Pettie over to the second point of his preface, the justifica- 
tion of his writing in English, and here again, he shows 
critical discernment. He is not of those who, returning 
from their travels abroad, find nothing at home good 
enough for them. On the contrary, he believes his own 
country to be " the civilest Countrie in the world," and 
as for the barbarousness of the English tongue, he declares 
it to be much the worse for those curious fellows who do 
not know in what the real excellence of a language con- 
sists. If he were furnished with learning otherwise, Pettie 
asserts that he would undertake to write in English " as 
copiouslie for varietie, as compendiously for brevitie, as 
choicely for words, as pithilie for sentences, as pleasantlie 
for figures, and everie waie as eloquentlie as anie writer 
should do in anie vulgar tongue whatsoever." Particularly 
interesting are the sensible views which Pettie expresses 
with respect to vocabulary. He is no enemy of inkhorn 
terms, nor, on the other hand, is he a narrow partisan of 
the native vocabulary. His position is that of the intelligent 
man of the world who is familiar with the usages of good 
society. " If a thing be of it selfe ill, I see not how the 
oldnesse of it can make it good, and if it be of it selfe 
good, I see not how the newnesse of it can make it naught." 
He finds a place for new words, therefore, provided they 
serve a useful purpose, and his only principle is to use all the 
resources of the language as effectively as possible. In 
these opinions Pettie has indicated the great advantages 
which have accrued to the English language through the 
practice in writing of the gentleman who was also a 
scholar. The merely learned, especially in Pettie's day, 
tended toward the pedantic in vocabulary, and the narrow 



The Courtly Writers 343 

patriot was inclined to restrict too much the resources of 
the language. The golden mean was to be found, where 
it always has been found, in the standards approved by the 
normal usage of good society. This intelligent respect for 
the accepted idiomatic vocabulary was a permanent gain 
for the language, and for their recognition of this, Pettie 
and his courtly contemporaries deserve great credit. They 
would have deserved still greater credit if they had also 
recognized that extravagant rhetorical artifice, whatever 
the weight of precedent, is no more necessary than ex- 
travagance in vocabulary for the formation of a literary 
style. 

The Civile Conversation was a work of Pettie's maturer 
judgment and stands in sharp contrast to his Petite Pallace. 
In the Petite Pallace, Pettie tells his " tragical trifles " 
under the most transparent cloak of serious moral inten- 
tion. All is airy, graceful, worldly, and instead of preach- 
ing, we have persiflage. Conventional morality gives place 
to a somewhat cynical didacticism. The dedicatory address 
of the book is To the Gentle Gentlewomen Readers, and 
the ladies are directly appealed to throughout. Their in- 
firmities are held up to their eyes in a vein of witty cynicism 
which seems to have been intended, and accepted, as com- 
plimentary. I could preach better to you in a more pleasant 
matter, says Pettie, after a passage of mock moralizing; 
but the more pleasant, the less proper. In an age of literal 
repetition and of blunt didacticism, it is refreshing to find 
Pettie treating the traditional material of classic and of 
Italian story with something of Ovid's and Chaucer's humor 
and lightness of touch. But the temper of the times was 
not favorable to such moods, and after this first effort of 
his youth, Pettie's playful fancy gives way to serious 
didacticism. He feels it necessary in the Civile Conversa- 
tion to apologize for his earlier " trifling worke " whereby 



344 English Literary Prose 

he has won such fame as " hee which fired the Temple of 
Diana," and to purchase for himself some better fame by- 
some better work and to countervail his former vanity by 
some formal gravity .^°^ 

Writing as an accomplished man of the world, Pettie 
makes use, in the Petite Pallace, of the many arts and graces 
of the courtly style more consistently, more ingeniously 
and effectively than any writer who had preceded him. 
Alliteration, transverse and simple, balance, and antithesis 
are the fundamentals of his style, and to these he adds 
rimes, puns, and all manner of half-suggested plays on 
words. His aim being neatness and precision of effect, he 
avoids the pompous learned vocabulary, the grouping of 
synonyms in couples and triplets, and the long cataloguing 
passages of the popular oratorical style. In one of his 
self-criticisms, Pettie seems to imply that his stories were 
first told orally and afterwards written down. But if so, 
they must have changed form greatly in the process of 
written composition, for only by the taking of much 
thought could so intricate a style have been evolved. To 
be sure, some of the tricks of style are easy and are applied 
crudely and obviously. Alliteration, so thickly laid on, 
hardly adds to the pathos of the following: 

" And is my Curiatius slain ? then care come, cut in sun- 
der my corps, then dole deliver me to the dreadful darts 
of death." "* 

Or rime and alliteration combined in the following lament : 

" Did true Thisbe gore her gorgeous body with the same 
sword wherewith princely Pyramus had pricked himself to 
the heart ; and are not my hands strong enough to do the 
like? Did Julietta die upon the corpse of her Romeo^and 

"* Civile Conversation. Preface to the Readers. 
^"^ Petite Pallace, ed. Gollancz, II, 47. 



The Courtly Writers 345 

shall my body remain on earth, Sinnatus being buried? 
No, gentle death ! come with thy direful dart, and pierce 
my painful heart, and with one death rid me of a thousand 
deaths at once." ^°^ 

Apparently Pettie wrote with a mind open to any kind of 
verbal association, and puns, alliteration, rime, and an- 
tithesis are often combined in one sentence : 

" Nay, there was never bloody tiger that did so terribly 
tear the little lamb, as this tyrant did furiously fare with 
fair Philomela." "'^ 

Sometimes, as in the following sentence, the rhythmical 
combinations approach the music and cadence of verse : 

" And surely in my judgment he reaped the right reward 
of his doating desire, for there only grafts of grief must 
needs grow, where such raw conceit doth set and such rank 
consent doth sow." ^°^ 

The effects here lie on the surface. More subtle are those 
cadences which are not emphasized by alliteration or rime, 
but which result from the balancing of clauses of approxi- 
mately equal length, like the lines of verse, and in the 
marking of the ends of the clauses by means of stressed 
and unstressed syllables, like masculine and feminine end- 
ings, forming thus a kind of prose stanza. To bring out 
the structural character of the passage, in the following 
illustration division has been made into lines of the length 
of the separate clauses and the lines are grouped according 
to the cadences of their endings : 



" Sinorix, having heard this angel thus amiably pronouncing these 
words, 

^"'Petite Pallace, ed. Gollancz, I, 42. "» Ibid., I, 60. 

^" Ibid., I, 122. 



346 English Literary Prose 

Was so wrapt in admiration of her wisdom, 
And ravished in contemplation of her beauty, 
that though she had not enjoined him to silence, 
yet had he not had a word to say : 

and lest his looks might bewray his love, 
and his countenance discover his case, 

he secretly and suddenly withdrew himself into his chamber, 
to study what face to set on the matter." ^°' 

This manner of writing is not employed only in purple 
patches, but is inherent in Pettie's feeling for prose style. 
If it were worth while, the analyst might go through his 
writings and classify the various rhetorical devices in an 
elaborate system. Whether or not Pettie did this himself, 
it seems certain that his style was worked out consciously 
and intentionally. He must have determined his schemes 
of sentence structure and of his use of ornament very 
much as the poet establishes beforehand a form for his 
verses. These pattern units he then employed repeatedly 
and consistently. He was more, therefore, than a facile 
rhapsodizer in prose, he was a careful artist. On the basis 
of the principles he set for himself, he succeeded remark- 
ably well. His error lay in the supposition that distinction 
and elegance in prose were to be attained by confining the 
subtle and infinitely varied cadences of prose within the 
bonds of normalized types of rhythm. Perhaps as satis- 
factory a statement as can be made of the difiference be- 
tween prose and verse is that prose is expression which is 
primarily organic, that is in which the expression responds 
immediately to the sinuosities of the thought, and second- 
arily manipulated, whereas verse is expression which is 
primarily manipulated and only secondarily organic. Now 
it is the characteristic of Pettie's style that the manipulation 

^"^ Petite Pallace, ed. Gollancz, I, 23. 



The Courtly Writers 347 

is so apparent and persistent that what he writes ceases to 
be normal prose. The defense of Pettie's devices of style 
might be made that they emphasize points, logical similars, 
and antitheses. But intelligible and adequate prose expres- 
sion does not often require such artificial aids as formal 
parallelism and antithesis, rime and alliteration, and when 
these devices are continually employed, they cease to rep- 
resent immediate adjustments of form to thought. They 
add something extraneous and manipulated to the communi- 
cation, and logic becomes thus, like the meter of verse, an 
applied ornament of style. The element of surprise plays 
a less important part in Pettie's style than that of 
wonder. 

Though Pettie was the first fully to formulate an arti- 
ficial prose style, it was John Lyly who made this style 
fashionable. All the elements of Lyly's style and literary 
method are to be found in earlier English writers, and 
Lyly, in the words of Gabriel Harvey, merely " hatched 
the egges that his elder f reendes laide." "'^ But Lyly's 
works bulked larger than those of his predecessors, both in 
amount and in the interest which they aroused in con- 
temporary readers. The style which Lyly employed in them 
was peculiarly appropriate to his own character. As a 
student at Oxford he distinguished himself more by super- 
ficial brilliance and impudence than by any solid attain- 
ment or earnestness of purpose. Early in his career he 
laid his plans for climbing in the world through the favor 
and influence of those in high place. In pursuance of these 
plans, he left Oxford in 1575, having received the degree 
of Master of Arts in that year, and betook himself to Lon- 
don, the magnet which naturally drew all ambitious spirits 
to it. In London, Lyly made his residence at the Savoy, 
where he was sure of meeting good company. Here also 
"" Works, ed. Grosart, II, 124. 



34^ English Literary Prose 

he was near to Cecil House, the palace of Lord Burleigh, 
the rung in the ladder of advancement to which he was 
clinging. From the Savoy was issued in 1578 Lyly's first 
work, Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit. This was followed 
in 1580 by a continuation entitled Euphues and his England. 
Besides this long romance in two parts, Lyly's other im- 
portant writings were court comedies, eight in number and 
mainly in prose. The first of these comedies was published 
in 1584, though several may have been written earlier, and 
the last appeared in 1601. They were plays written for 
children's acting companies connected with the Chapel 
Royal and St. Paul's Cathedral, and they brought Lyly 
into the most important connections with the court to which 
he was able to attain. In the year 1589 Lyly entered 
parliament and for a number of years he held a seat in that 
body. His persistence, however, never won for him any 
court appointm^ent of significance, and he died in 1606 with 
his main ambition in life unsatisfied.^^" 

Whatever preliminary studies Lyly may have made in 
the formation of his style seem to have been suppressed. 
His first publication, Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit, is not 
experimental, but on the contrary the completest exemplifi- 
cation among all Lyly's works of the principles in writing 
for which his name has been remembered. The book 
sprang into immediate popularity, and deservedly so, since 
it made skillful use of the three most effective literary in- 
terests of the times. These three interests were didactic 
romance, gentlemxanly scholarship, and distinction in style. 

''° The dates of the many editions of Lyly's novel are an indi- 
cation of its continued popularity. The Anatomy of Wit appeared 
in 1578 in one edition, in two editions in 1579, and in one in 1580. 
Euphues and his England appeared in three editions in 1580. The 
two parts united appeared in 1581, 1582, 1584, 1585, 1587, 159S?, 
1597, 1605, 1606, 1607, 1609, 1613, 1617, 1623, 1630, 1631, 1636, then a 
break to 1716, 1718. See Esdaile, pp. 93-96. 



The Courtly Writers 349 

As a didactic romance, Enphiies had predecessors in Eng- 
lish, which had fixed the feeUng for the type. North's 
Diall of Princes, which Lyly knew and to some extent fol- 
lowed, was essentially a work of this sort. There is, to be 
sure, no plot in The Diall of Princes, but such characters 
as appear are conceived imaginatively, not historically, and 
the sentiments and ideas expressed were such as could 
readily be applied to the situations and complications of 
contemporary life. The courtly books of conduct, such as 
Castiglione's // Cortegiano, accessible in Hoby's translation, 
Elyot's Governor, and even Becon's Catechism, were all in 
some degree preparatory to Euphues. From Ascham Lyly 
derived much, both in thought and in feeling for style. For 
the main part of the plot of Euphues he was indebted to 
Boccaccio's tale of Tito and Gisippo, a well-known and 
very popular story in Lyly's day.^^^ And through Gas- 
coigne, Whetstone, Pettie, and other sources, he was 
brought directly into connection with the Italian novelle.^^^ 
Lyly was original, however, in combining character and 
plot more intimately with didacticism, scholarship, and 
philosophic reflection than his predecessors had done. 

Euphues is a young Englishman, presented by Lyly under 
the guise of a young Athenian, who goes to Italy in the 
manner of cultivated young Englishmen of the day, and 
there meets with experiences which offer Lyly opportunity 

*^^See Wolfif, Source of Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit, in 
Modern Philology, VII, 577-585. In an article in The Library, X, 
337-361 (Oct., 1909), Mr. J. D. Wilson connects Lyly's Euphues with 
the school drama Acolastus and with the prodigal son theme in gen- 
eral, but the connection is not nearly so close as this essay would 
make it out to be. 

^^^ John Grange's Golden Aphroditis, London, 1577, has many 
points of similarity to Lyly's Euphues, according to Long, Kittredge 
Memorial Papers, pp. 371-376. Direct dependence of Lyly upon 
Grange is not certain, however, since Euphuism was in the air when 
both were writing. 



350 English Literary Prose 

for the display of much patriotic feeling and sententious 
wisdom. A young gallant " of more wit then wealth and 
yet of more wealth then wisdome," Euphues arrives at 
Naples, " a place of more pleasure then profit and yet of 
more profit then pietie," and here he determines to make 
his abode. At Naples he meets with a wise old gentleman 
who is moved to pity at the sight of such innocence and in- 
experience in the haunts of luxury and iniquity. The old 
gentleman's counsels have little effect upon Euphues, how- 
ever, for he is determined to surrender himself to all the 
experiences, good and bad, of the fascinating city. In this 
manner, Lyly prepares the way for that familiar method of 
his day of teaching virtue by exploiting evil. In the char- 
acter of Euphues he declares his intention to present as 
well " the vanities of his love as the vertues of his lyfe," 
and his defense is that the fairest leopard is set down with 
his spots. Euphues becomes bosom friends with a young 
Neapolitan, named Philautus, but his principles are so far 
undermined that he soon after abuses the confidence of his 
friend and steals from him the affection of his lady love, 
Lucilla. A true Neapolitan, however, Lucilla soon trans- 
fers her love from Euphues to another aspirant, named 
Curio. His own treachery brought home to him in this 
way, Euphues begins to take account of himself. He makes 
friends again with Philautus, and addresses to him a gen- 
eral disquisition against love, entitled " A Cooling Carde 
for Philautus and all fond lovers." He sees also that he 
has done wrong in leaving his native land, " the nourse of 
wisdome," in order to dwell at Naples, " the nourisher 
of wantonnesse." He determines to return home and to 
give himself up to study and the practice of virtuous living. 
As a kind of appendage to the story of Euphues in Italy, 
Lyly then adds a discourse entitled " Euphues and his 
Ephoebus," in which he sets down his opinions with re- 



The Courtly Writers 351 

spect to the education of youth, and which he concludes 
with an address " to the Gentlemen schollers in Athens," 
a disguise under which he attacks the University of Oxford. 
Then follows a second discourse, " Euphues and Atheos," 
" concerning God," and this first part of Lyly's work closes 
with " Certeine Letters writ by Euphues to his friendes," 
after the manner of the epistles of Guevara. 

The didacticism of Euphues is not assumed or external, 
but inherent in Lyly's conception of his subject. He is 
endeavoring here to present an anatomy of wit, to analyze 
the character of the gentleman of knowledge and influence 
as that character should be. Like Ascham's Toxophilus 
and Scholemaster, with which it frequently agrees in 
thought, Lyly's Euphues is, from one point of view, a tract- 
ate on education. He conceives of the true English gentle- 
man as a man of learning who prefers the simpler customs 
of his native land to the vicious refinements and luxuries 
of the Continent, who leads a life of virtue in all his 
social relations, and who, finally, is free from any suspicion 
of the atheism which the sterner English moralists of the 
sixteenth century beheld with horror in papistical Italy. 
These ideas were not original with Lyly — in fact they are all 
contained in Ascham — nor is it probable that Lyly felt the 
significance of them very sincerely or deeply. To him they 
were little more than conventional literary materials, and he 
borrowed them from his predecessors in the same way that 
he borrowed his scholarship and his style. 

A clear indication that Lyly was not fundamentally a 
serious moralist is to be seen in the ease with which the 
didactic program of Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit, was 
given up in the second part of the romance, Euphues and 
his England. In this change of emphasis, Lyly doubtless 
responded in part to the pressure which his readers brought 
to bear upon him. Euphues was favorably received less for 



352 Englispi Literary Prose 

its obvious morality than for its delicate and witty handling 
of sentimental and courtly situations. The characters 
also stood out with greater fullness and reality in Euphues 
than in any English writings since Chaucer's Troilus and 
Criseyde. Frankly seizing his opportunity, in Euphues and 
his England Lyly threw off the restraints of didacticism, 
and appealed primarily to his readers' interest in real life 
and in the playful and witty analysis of emotion and senti- 
ment. At the opening of the book, Euphues and Philautus 
are on the point of arriving in England. Having mastered 
all science, all knowledge, all the mystery of philosophy and 
religion, Euphues continues for some time to dispense good 
counsel abundantly to his friend. Soon, however, a rup- 
ture takes place in the friendship of the two. Euphues 
goes into retirement, there to spend his time in study ; and 
in spite of its title, for the greater part of the volume, the 
real hero of Euphues and his England is not Euphues but 
Philautus. His adventures form the central theme of the 
action, and in the characters of Philautus and the friends he 
makes in England, Lyly gives himself up unreservedly to 
the discussion of delicate questions of sentiment and social 
conduct. The plot is simple. Philautus is in love with 
Camilla, and the progress of his passion is displayed in 
confidential confessions, in lengthy monologues, in letters 
and all the other familiar machinery of the conventional 
love story. Camilla does not return his affection, however, 
and Philautus is compelled, after much debating back and 
forth with himself on the fine points of constancy and honor 
in love, to turn his attention to the Lady Flavia, one of 
Camilla's friends. In the end Philautus is happily con- 
tracted to the Lady Flavia and settles down in England, 
while as the reward of his virtue, Euphues sits " musing 
in the bottome of the Mountaine Silixsedra " in contempla- 
tion of his old griefs. In Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit, 



The Courtly Writers 353 

the actual narrative of the fortunes of Euphues, Philautus, 
and Lucilla occupies but a minor part of the whole book, 
the greater part being made up of letters and moral dis- 
courses added to the story. But in Euphues and his 
England^ though there is no lack of moralizing and sen- 
tentious didacticism in the course of the narrative, the 
story is not made to carry as its sequel a burden of didactic 
treatises. The matters here raised and discussed are such 
courtly topics as the proposition that beautiful women are 
ever merciful ; or the question whether it be " convenient 
for women to haunt such places where Gentlemen are, or 
for men to have accesse to gentlewomen " ; or the difficult 
choice whether it be better to have as a lover " one that 
shoulde be secreate though fickle then a blabbe though 
constant." ^^^ 

But nowhere does Lyly's change of front in Euphues 
and his England appear more clearly than in the address 
prefixed to the volume " To the Ladies and Gentlewoemen 
of England." The future of the nation no longer rests 
heavily upon Lyly's heart. He has no intention of troubling 
ladies with such serious matters. If they read his book at 
all, let them read it at such times as they spend playing 
with their little dogs ; and so far as the author is con- 
cerned, he will be content that their dogs lie in their laps, 
if Euphues be in their hands. Indeed he declares that 
" Euphues had rather lye shut in a Ladyes casket, then 
open in a Schollers studie." He commends it to the ladies 
not for its seriousness, but for its lightness. " There is 
nothing lyghter then a feather, yet is it sette a loft in a 
woemans hatte, nothing slighter then haire, yet is it most 
frisled in a Ladies head, so that I am in good hope, though 
their be nothing of lesse accounte than Euphues, yet he 
shall be marked with Ladies eyes and lyked sometimes in 
'" Arber's ed., p. 416. 



354 English Literary Prose 

their eares." ^^* In his later writings Lyly never returned 
to the heavy moral role which he assumed in his Anatomy 
of Wit. Enphues and his England was his only other ven- 
ture in the field of romance, but in the comedies which soon 
followed, the prevailing note is still one of lightness, fancy, 
and gallantry. 

Scholarship as an element of distinction in writing was 
as zealously cultivated as didacticism by Lyly, and with 
much the same degree of sincerity. Again he agrees in 
theory with Ascham that learning should not be a thing 
apart, not the technical profession of a specialist, but rather 
the perfectly assimilated accomplishment of the complete 
gentleman. Its function is to lend dignity to character and 
it is to be utilized in such a way that the wisdom of the 
ancient world shall shed light upon all the thoughts and 
sentiments of the immediate present. Lyly's scholarship 
is therefore an applied scholarship. He has no interest in 
antiquarian or philological learning for its own sake, nor 
does he ever interrupt the course of his narrative merely to 
display his own stores of information. The cultivated- 
gentleman, in his conception, may not neglect scholarship, 
nor may he be dominated by it. He may use it to heighten 
the charm, the interest, and the wisdom of his utterances, 
but he must never forget that the mere facts of ancient 
learning are dead bones unless they are vivified by modern 

^'* Works, ed. Bond, II, lo. The similar dedication of Pettie's 
Petite Pallace has been noted above ; and Barnabe Rich, in Riche 
his Farewell to Militarie profession (London, 1581, but written 
before 1579 in Ireland), dedicates his book "to the courteous Gen- 
tlewomen bothe of England and Ireland," declaring that it is " lesse 
painfull to followe a fiddle in a gentlewoman's chamber, then to 
marche after a drumme in the f eeld " (p. 3). Riche his Farewell 
is a collection of eight love tales, the second of which was used by 
Shakspere in Twelfth Night; stylistically the stories show artificial 
traits, but not so markedly as in Pettie and Lyly. Cf. also Sidney, 
below, p. 366. 



The Courtly Writers 355 

wit. This indeed was the attitude of many of the most 
serious-minded EngHshmen of the sixteenth century, the 
difference between men like Cheke, Ascham, and Wilson, 
who all held this view, and Lyly consisting in their different 
conceptions of the kind of learning and wit which were 
thus to be brought into new and living combinations. 

With Lyly, the materials of scholarship served mainly 
for purposes of illustration. The Renascence veneration 
for the classics had carried with it a respect for all the 
thoughts expressed and all the models of conduct contained 
in classical literature. A doubtful proposition needed only 
the support of a classical quotation or a classical example 
to secure its unquestioned acceptance, and even simple and 
obvious truths which seemingly would require nothing more 
than their mere statement, took on an added significance 
when the authority of Aristotle or Cicero or Ouintilian 
could be quoted in support of them. There thus developed 
a conventional feeling for classical example as not essen- 
tial to the content of the expression but as a kind of figura- 
tive ornament of style. And it is in this way that Lyly 
makes use of his learning. Compared with the great 
scholars of the earlier sixteenth century, with Erasmus, 
Scaliger or Budaeus, or even with Englishmen like Colet, 
More, and Cheke, Lyly's scholarly equipment seems slight 
and trivial. Considered, however, from the point of view 
of the aptness and persistency with which he has used 
every scrap of information he could rake together, Lyly 
displays remarkable ingenuity. There is scarcely a senti- 
ment expressed which does not enjoy the authority of some 
classical parallel. The heroes of Homer and Vergil, the 
gods and goddesses of mythology, the various kings and 
captains of ancient history, the poets, scholars, the char- 
acters of story and fiction, in short any name that has about 
it the glow of classical association, all these Lyly invoked 



356 English Literary Prose 

as continually and quite as aptly as contemporary theo- 
logical writers cited passages from the scriptures. 

Another kind of learning which Lyly used with equal 
persistence and for the same purposes, consists of the facts 
of natural science or pseudo-science. These facts range 
from the obvious phenomena of nature, which pass before 
everyone's eyes, to such impossible marvels as the " fugi- 
tive stone in Cyzico, which runneth away if it be not 
fastened to some post," "^ or the serpent Amphisbena, 
" which having at ech ende a sting, hurteth both wayes." ^^® 
This kind of natural history is often combined with classi- 
cal allusion in a way which shows that in Lyly's mind they 
were of equal value : 

" Thinke this with thy selfe, that the sweete songes of 
Calipso, were subtill snares to entice Ulysses, that the 
Crabbe then catcheth the Oyster, when the Sunne shineth, 
that Hiena, when she speaketh lyke a man deviseth most 
mischiefe, that women when they be most pleasaunt, pre- 
tend most trecherie." ^^^ 

These marvels and pretended observations of nature, to a 
large extent ultimately derived from Pliny, are used with 
an abandon and recklessness which imply a complete lack 
of scientific interest on Lyly's part. Their value in his 
eyes consists entirely in their picturesqueness and in their 
aptness as illustrations and parallels. As in his treatment 
of examples from history, he has accepted and utilized the 
mere form of statement of the genuine scholar, who having 
ascertained a fact, is eager to preserve it for posterity. But 
with Lyly the manner becomes a shallow rhetorical artifice, 
and the stores of scholarly or supposedly scholarly fact 
having become by this time abundant and easily accessible, 

"' Works, ed. Bond, II, 221. "" Ibid., II, 64. 

"^ Ibid., I, 250. 



The Courtly Writers 357 

it was an artifice which could be put into practice without 
the expense of much exertion. It satisfied merely a con- 
ventional feeling for scholarship, just as the didacticism 
of Euphues satisfied a conventional feeling for morality. 
Learning divorced from seriousness of purpose became, in 
Lyly's hands, the slave of his own wanton wit. 

In structural technic, as in other respects, Lyly's style is 
less remarkable for its originality than for the skillful and 
consistent use of certain rhetorical devices which his prede- 
cessors had already successfully employed. These devices 
were all intended to heighten the effects of antithesis, of 
parallelism, and balance of statement which were the con- 
stant moulds in which his thought was cast. Lyly's sen- 
tences are sometimes long, but rarely involved and periodic. 
The unit ideas of which they are composed are definite 
and compact, and amplitude of rhythm and phrasing are 
secured by combining similar or antithetic ideas in groups 
which are held together mainly by the structural symmetry 
of the separate parts of the combination. In the shorter 
sentences the effect produced is that of an aphoristic and 
epigrammatic kind of writing ; in the longer sentences, as 
has been pointed out in connection with Pettie, the effect is 
that of an approximately equivalent set of sentence clauses 
or members not unlike the stanzaic structure of verse. And 
the total impression is always one of neatness and precision 
of statement, of pointedness often carried beyond the limits 
of logical necessity. Merely verbal devices of style, such as 
alliteration, assonance, rime, and punning are employed 
sometimes for their own sakes, more often for the purpose 
of emphasizing structural antithesis or parallelism. All 
these various features of Lyly's method in writing have 
been frequently studied and have been classified under the 
heads of an elaborate rhetorical terminology. The artificial 
character of the style lends itself readily to such analytic 



358 English Literary Prose 

treatment, for the effects aimed at are so apparent and 
unmistakable that formal analysis is capable of laying bare 
their essential qualities, as it could not do with a more sutble 
style. The obviousness of Lyly's artifices and the persist- 
ency with which he employed them are, as one would ex- 
pect, the sources of the main defects of his writing. No 
matter how skillfully it is managed, and in this respect one 
must acknowledge that Lyly surpasses any of his imitators 
or predecessors, one tires of continual alliterative balance 
and antithesis, of a manner of writing that easily detaches 
itself from the matter. Ingenuity and cleverness cannot 
lend dignity or abiding charm to shallow artifice. The 
mechanism of Lyly's style was clearly thought out, but his 
form tends to take on the rigidity of machinery. The 
characteristic Euphuistic sentence is sounded as a keynote 
at the opening of Euphues, and thereafter no surprises greet 
the ear except in the ingenuity with which this type sen- 
tence is amplified and embroidered : 

" There dwelt in Athens a young gentleman of great 
patrimonie, and of so comely a personage, that it was 
doubted whether he were more bound to Nature for the 
liniaments of his person, or to fortune for the encrease of 
his possessions." 

The machinery of this* sentence permits of a number of 
obvious ornaments, of which the one most persistently 
applied is alliteration. This figure is frequently employed 
in patterns, ranging from simple pairs, as in 

" O ye gods, have ye ordayned for everye maladye a 
medicine, for every sore a salve, for every payne a plaister, 
leving only love remedilesse ? " ^^^ 

to such ingenious transverse or crossed combination, as in 
the two following sentences : 

"' Works, ed. Bond, I, 208. 



The Courtly Writers 359 

" Heere, yea, heere Euphnes, maiste thou see not the 
carved cisarde of a /ewde woman, but the incarnate zisage 
of a /ascivious wanton, not the jhaddowe of /ove, but the 
j-ubstance of lust." "^ 

" I leave to 7iame thy jinnes, which no Cyphers can 
Mumber." ^'° 

Assonance, rime, verbal repetition, and puns all combine in 
Lyiy's skillful practice to the same general end, to produce 
an English style " like Arras, full of devise which was 
Broade-cloth, full of workmanshippe." ^-^ 

It should be said, however, that Lyly himself outgrew to 
some extent the style by which his name is remembered. 
This style is most fully and most extravagantly exemplified 
in the narrative part of Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit, his 
first book. The story there recounted is a novella after the 
fashion of the tales contained in Pettie's Petite Pallace, by 
which a tradition of fine writing in narrative had become 
established. In the didactic and moral treatises which are 
appended to this story, Euphuistic traits of style are still 
present, but less abundantly and obtrusively. So also in 
Euphnes and his England one finds the formulas of the in- 
genious style less constantly applied. By practice Lyiy's 
manner of writing became less mechanical, and thus the 
virtues of his style became more manifest. For after all 
is said any disposition of the style of Lyly, and of this type 
of courtly writing in general, without a word of commenda- 
tion would be unfair and historically one-sided. It is true 
that there is always too much " workmanshippe " in it, but 
it is also true that certain elements of Euphuistic writing 
were valuable contributions to the development of English 
style. The main defects of earlier prose and of popular 

'*' Works, ed. Bond, I, 189. 

'" Ibid., II, 89. 

^^' Prologue to Midas, Works, ed. Bond, III, 115. 



360 English Literary Prose 

prose writing were formlessness, or when form was con- 
sciously cultivated, heaviness. The courtly writers of the 
school of Lyly developed point and precision, lightness and 
melody. They broke up the long sentence into manageable 
fragments and made their writing easy without making it 
colloquial. When his artifices are not too apparent, as often 
in the second part of the story of Euphues and in the 
comedies which followed, Lyly's phrasing has a limpid 
charm altogether admirable. The following passage, on the 
theme that there is " no greater enchauntment in love then 
temperaunce, wisdome, beautie & chastitie," strikes a happy 
balance between art and simplicity : 

" Fond therefore is the opinion of those that thinke the 
minde to be tyed to Magick, and the practise of those filthy, 
that seeke those meanes. 

Love dwelleth in the minde, in the will, and in the 
hearts, which neyther Coniurer canne alter nor Phisicke. 
For as credible it is, that Cupid shooteth his Arowe and 
hytteth the heart, as that hearbes have the force to bewitch 
the heart, onelye this difiference there is, that the one was 
a fiction of poetrie, the other of superstition. The will is 
placed in the soule, and who canne enter there, but hee 
that created the soule? 

No no Gentle-men what-soever you have heard touching 
this, beleeve nothing : for they in myne opinion which 
imagine that the mynde is eyther by incantation or excanta- 
tion to bee ruled, are as far from trueth, as the East from 
the West, and as neere impietie against God, as they are 
to shame among men, and so contrary is it to the profes- 
sion of a Christian, as Paganisme." ^^^ 

This becomes the prevailing style in the comedies, and 
though the artifices of Lyly's ingenious manner are by no 
means forgotten, they take their proper place as occasional 

'" Works, ed. Bond, II, 118. 



The Courtly Writers 361 

ornaments. " Didst thou never see Cupid ? " asks Ceres in 
Loves Metamorphoses, to which Nisa answers : 

" No : but I have heard him described at the full, and, as 
I imagined, foolishly. First, that he should bee a god blind 
and naked, with wings, with bowe, with arrowes, with fire- 
brands ; swimming sometimes in the Sea, & playing some- 
times on the shore ; with many other devices, which the 
Painters, being the Poets Apes, have taken as great paines 
to shaddow, as they to lie. Can I thinke that gods that 
commaund all things, would goe naked? What should he 
doe with wings that knowes not where to flie? Or what 
with arrowes, that sees not how to ayme? The heart is a 
narrow marke to hit, and rather requireth Argus eyes to 
take level, then a blind boy to shoote at random. If he 
were fire, the Sea would quench those coles, or the flame 
turne him into cinders." ^^^ 

Lyly's stylistic mannerisms were of a kind both to en- 
courage and to prevent imitation. As a readily compre- 
hensible system they offered a complete model for the writer 
who conceived artistic expression to rest upon the applica- 
tion of formulated rules of composition. For here were 
rules both for structure and for ornament, here was a style 
which possessed all the qualities of " bravery " and distinc- 
tion from the commonplace, and which at the same time 
followed a method easily observed and acquired. On the 
other hand, so perfectly had Lyly realized all the possi- 
bilities of his method, that he left little for his followers to 
do except merely to imitate. To Euphuize was easy, but 
when the model could not be surpassed, was not greatly 
creditable. The time was not yet come when English 
courtly writers could boldly reject the excesses of Lyly's 
style and make those merits of clearness, precision, and 
melody which it abundantly possessed, the foundation and 

'" Works, ed. Bond, III, 307-308. 



362 English Literary Prose 

principle of their writing. The vogue of Euphuism as a 
fashion among the wits was consequently short. Obvious 
traces of its influence are to be seen upon many writers of 
the last two decades of the century, upon Greene, Nashe, 
Lodge, and others,^^* but no writers were so persistently 
and consistently Euphuistic as Lyly. Its influence was 
wide rather than lasting. Pulpit discourse was not un- 
affected by it.^^^ The style also made its way down to 
the ' fine writing ' intended for the less cultivated classes, 
as in Deloney's novels of citizen life. It seems even to have 
affected speech, and to " Parley Euphuesime " ^~^ for a time 
was a necessary accomplishment in polite circles. The affec- 
tations of Euphuism soon suggested themselves as fit material 
for the satirist and parodist, and it is not surprising to see 
Shakspere treat with ridicule the mannerisms of a style 
from the better qualities of which he gained much.^^^ 



IV 

To Sidney and to his following more than to any other of 
Lyly's contemporaries, is to be assigned the credit of 
checking fashionable imitations of Euphuism, or at least 

'•* But Nashe, writing in 1592, already declares a long-standing 
emancipation from Euphuism : " Euphues I readd when I was a 
little ape in Cambridge, and then I thought it was Ipse ille; it may 
be excellent good still for ought I know, for I lookt not on it this 
ten yeare : but to imitate it I abhorre . . . ," Eliz. Crit. Essays, II, 

243- 

^"° See the sermons of Aylmer, Bishop of London, as quoted in 
Strype, Life of Bishop Aylmer, pp. 180-181, p. 182. 

^'^ Six Court Comedies, ed. Blount (1632), quoted by Feuillerat, 
John Lyly, p. 95. 

'^^ A parody of Euphuism occurs in i Henry IV, II, 4, 438 fif. For 
other contemporary criticisms of Euphuism, see Lyly, Works, ed. 
Bond, I, 133; and for a just estimate of the influence of Lyly upon 
Shakspere, see Bond, I, 150-154. 



The Courtly Writers 363 

of dividing the current of it. A section of Sidney's Apologie 
for Poetrie (written about 1583, printed first in 1595) 
criticised severely those writers who disguise " honny-flow- 
ing Matron Eloquence " in a " painted affectation," ^-* 
sometimes with far-fetched words, sometimes " with cours- 
ing of a Letter, as if they were bound to followe the method 
of a Dictionary," and in general with the over-elaboration 
of ornament, " like those Indians, not content to weare 
eare-rings at the fit and naturall place of the eares, but 
they will thrust Jewels through their nose and lippes, be- 
cause they will be sure to be fine." Lyly's similes from 
natural history are also ridiculed by Sidney, " all stories of 
Beasts, Foules, and Fishes " ; and he adds the sound criti- 
cism that these similes are usually quite beside the point, 
" rather over-swaying the memory from the purpose 
whereto they were applyed then any whit informing the 
judgement, already eyther satisfied, or by similitudes not to 
be satisfied." Such writers, says Sidney, are dancing to 
their own music, and are " noted by the audience more 
careful to speake curiously then to speake truly." A 
counter-irritant to Euphuism more effective than these 
critical precepts, however, was Sidney's own example in 
providing in his Arcadia the model of a new kind of courtly 
style which soon found as enthusiastic imitators as 
Euphuism. 

Sidney's two important works were his Apologie for 
Poetrie, also called The Defence of Poesie, and the book de- 
scribed on the title-page of the first edition as The Conntesse 
of Pembrokes Arcadia, written by Sir Philippe Sidnei. 
Neither of these works was printed during Sidney's life, but 
both were circulated in manuscript among Sidney's friends, 
probably from the time of their composition. Though the 

'^'Gregory Smith, £fc. Crit. Essays, I, 202; for Harvey's 
opinions of Lyly, see ibid., II, 268 fif. 



364 English Literary Prose 

Apologie for Poetrie was in the first intention a defense of 
poetry called forth by Puritan attacks upon poetry and 
the drama, and perhaps specifically by Stephen Gosson's 
Schoole of Abuse (1579), its tone is not narrowly con- 
troversial, and Sidney took the occasion to present in a 
broadly critical and philosophic way his theories of the 
various kinds of literary composition. Particularly interest- 
ing with respect to English prose, is Sidney's theory that 
verse is merely an accidental accompaniment of poetry. 
Most poets, as he notes, " have apparelled their poeticall 
inventions in that numbrous kinde of writing which is called 
verse " ; ^^^ but the verse, according to Sidney, is to be re- 
garded merely as apparel, " verse being but an ornament 
and no cause to Poetry." Certain writings of Xenophon 
and Heliodorus are then cited as examples of genuine poems, 
written nevertheless in prose. These are mentioned, says 
Sidney, " to shew that it is not riming and versing that 
maketh a Poet, no more than a long gowne maketh an 
Advocate, who though he pleaded in armor should be an 
Advocate and no Souldier." Positively Sidney's definition 
of poetry is given, briefly but broadly, as " that fayning 
notable images of vertues, vices, or what els, with that de- 
lightfuU teaching, which must be the right describing note 
to know a Poet by." "° It is the function of poetry " to 
lead and draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate 
soules, made worse by theyr clayey lodgings, can be capable 
of." It should be noted that this definition of poetry pro- 
vides no place for prose-poetry, as that term is often under- 
stood. Sidney does not advocate the mixing of the con- 
ventions of verse with those of prose ; neither does he state 
that mere ornament and apparel can raise prose to the level 
of poetry. Whether the form be prose or verse, the essen- 

'" Gregory Smith, Eli::. Crit. Essays, I, 159. 
'" Ibid., p. 160. 



The Courtly Writers 365 

tial quality of poetry is to be found in the dignity, the 
richness, and delightfuhiess of the ideas and images which 
are expressed. If, therefore, Sidney regarded his prose 
Arcadia as a poem, he did so not because of the rhetorical 
richness or ingenuity of the style, but because the subject 
seemed to him essentially poetical and therefore appro- 
priate to be treated ornamentally. 

The Apologie for Poetry not being a poetical theme, 
Sidney did not endeavor to treat it ornamentally or rhetori- 
cally. Occasional passages strike one as perhaps uncon- 
scious echoes of Euphuism, but on the whole in the Apologie 
Sidney wrote in a familiar and unmannered, yet dignified 
style. The easy tone of it suggests the dialogues of Plato, 
though the cadences are often Ciceronian. The essay opens 
with the conventional Renascence anecdote, and the discus- 
sion continues in the first person with a pleasant epis- 
tolary flavor that never descends to the level of the merely 
colloquial. Sidney's scholarship is evident in every para- 
graph, but he is as careful to avoid pedantic display of 
learning as he is to avoid affectation of style. According 
to modern taste the Apologie admirably realizes the ideal 
of gravity, charm, and distinction which the courtly authors 
of the time were so generally striving to attain. One is 
surprised that Sidney, having written so well here, should 
write so badly in the Arcadia. But the prose style that 
seemed adequate for a critical essay, perhaps seemed in- 
adequate to Sidney for a work of a higher and imaginative 
kind. Though he regarded the essence of poetry as inherent 
in the subject, with other Elizabethan stylists he shared the 
opinion that an elevated theme, like that of the Arcadia, 
called for a rhetorical and artful style. Time has not al- 
together justified Sidney in this opinion, and his significance 
in the development of English prose would have been vastly 
increased if he had written his most important work with the 



366 English Literary Prose 

sound feeling for prose style which he exhibited in the 
Apologie. 

The exact date at which Sidney began the composition 
of his Arcadia cannot be determined, but it is certain that 
by the year 1580 he had completed a romance of this title, 
divided into five books and with eclogues between the vari- 
ous books. This work was not published, though it was 
widely circulated in manuscript. Later Sidney began a 
revision and enlargement of this " Old Arcadia," as it has 
been called,^^^ which was not completed at the time of his 
death in 1586. In its incomplete form, this second revision 
of the Arcadia was published in 1590; though unfinished, 
even in its fragmentary state it is a long book and, stylis- 
tically at least, it adequately represents everything Sidney 
was endeavoring to do in the Arcadia. Three years later, 
with the approval of the Countess of Pembroke, a second 
edition of the unfinished Arcadia appeared containing large 
additions from the " Old Arcadia," and this form of the 
work has been frequently reprinted.^^^ 

According to Sidney's own statement, he did not write 
the Arcadia for publication, and one of his last requests was 
that the manuscript should be destroyed. In a brief letter 
to his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, which appears in 
the first printed version of the work, he reminds her that 

"^ See Mr. Bertram Dobell's New Light upon Sir Philip Sidney's 
" Arcadia," in the Quarterly Review, July, 1909, pp. 74-100. Mr. 
Dobell gives a full analysis of the Old Arcadia, which is simpler 
both in action and in style than the later published versions. But of 
course it was not through the Old Arcadia, but through the later 
versions that the influence of the romance was exerted. See also 
Wolff, Greek Romances in Elizabethan Fiction, pp. 345 ff., pp. 370 ff. 

^"' The edition of 1590 has been reproduced in photographic fac- 
simile by Sommer (London, 1891). Three manuscript copies of 
the " Old Arcadia " have been discovered, but none has been pub- 
lished. The Countesse of Pemhrokes Arcadia, ed. Feuillerat, 
Cambridge, 1912, is an excellent edition of the text of 1590 



The Courtly Writers 367 

it was intended only for her eyes, not for those of severer 
judges. He reminds her also, in the conventional vein, 
of the manner in which it was written, " being done in loose 
sheetes of paper, most of it in your presence, the rest, by 
sheetes, sent unto you as fast as they were done." Being 
but a trifle, " and that triflinglie handled," Sidney hopes 
that his sister will keep it to herself, or give it only to 
friends " who will weigh errors in the ballaunce of good 
will." Its chief safety " shalbe the not walking abroad." 
" Read it then," the letter concludes, " at your idle tymes, 
and the follyes your good judgement wil finde in it, blame 
not, but laugh at. And so, looking for no better stuffe then, 
as in an Haberdashers shoppe, glasses, or feathers, you will 
continue to love the writer, who doth exceedinglie love you ; 
and most hartelie praies you may long live, to be a prin- 
cipall ornament to the familie of the Sidneis." This hardly 
reads like a serious apology. 

Though Sidney did not specifically avow any moral pur- 
pose in the composition of the Arcadia, one can scarcely 
doubt that it was intended to be more than light pastime 
for idle moments, and more than a mere echo of traditional 
chivalric romance. Of the two adjectives, vain and ama- 
torious, which Milton applied to the work,^^^ the second is 
descriptive, for the story is mainly one of love adventure. 
As to its vanity, there is room for difiference of opinion. 
According to Sidney's friend, Fulke Greville, Sidney's pur- 
pose in the Arcadia was to provide " not vanishing pleasure 
alone, but morall images and examples — as directing threds 
— to guide every man through the confused labyrinth of his 
own desires and life." ^^* At another place he declares 
that " in all these creatures of his making," Sidney strove 
to turn " the barren philosophy precepts into pregnant 

^" Prose Works, ed. Symmons, II, 408. 
^^* Greville, Works, ed. Grosart, IV, 222. 



368 English Literary Prose 

images of life " so that men might see, as in a glass, " how 
to set a good countenance upon all the discountenance of 
adversitie and a stay upon the exorbitant smilings of 
Chance." ^^^ Another of Sidney's friends, Gabriel Harvey, 
not inadequately describes the Arcadia as " a gallant 
Legendary, full of pleasurable accidents, and profifitable 
discourses ; for three thinges especially very notable ; for 
amorous Courting (he [i.e. Sidney] was young in yeeres;) 
for sage counselling, (he was ripe in judgement;) and for 
valorous fighting, (his sovraine profession was Armes:) 
and delightfull pastime by way of Pastorall exercises may 
passe for the fourth." ""^ Throughout the Apologie Sidney 
had made much of the poet as teacher, and it is certain that 
theoretically at least he would not have regarded narrative 
and characterization as sufficiently important in themselves 
to constitute a great poetic theme. It seems not untrue 
therefore to Sidney's probable intention if the Arcadia is 
regarded as a courtly didactic romance, intended to interest 
the same general public as the one to which Lyly made his 
appeal. 

In his choice of a chivalric and romantic theme for his 
Arcadia, Sidney may have been influenced by several con- 
siderations. He may have held opinions like those of 
Ascham and other moralists, that it was time for the 
English to set their faces against the tragical trifles and 
tales of wanton love which his immediate predecessors had 
borrowed so abundantly from Continental sources. These, 
stories, both because of their brevity and their subject-mat- 
ter, must have seemed to Sidney not to measure up to the 
dignity of poetic themes. On the other hand one may feel 
some surprise that he did not seek for his materials in 
classical sources, in the stories of Troy or Thebes. The 

^'^ Greville, Works, ed. Grosart, IV, 19. 
*'* Harvey, Works, ed. Grosart, II, 100. 



The Courtly Writers 369 

setting of the Arcadia, so far as names and machinery are 
concerned, is Greek, but the spirit of it is entirely chivalric 
and medieval. The story has, to be sure, little connection 
with the real world at any time, though it has as much 
reality as the Fairy Queen, in which Spenser, a few years 
later, was to combine didactic romance with the chivalric 
traditions of King Arthur. In his treatment of his chivalric 
material, Sidney may also have had in mind the criticism of 
Du Bellay,^^^ who reprehended the retelling of romances 
merely for the entertainment of ladies. Du Bellay would 
have these romances treated seriously and learnedly, and he 
advises the writers of romances to employ their eloquence 
upon the ancient fragmentary histories and traditions of the 
French people, in order that out of them they might con- 
struct the complete body of a fair history, mingling there- 
with fair orations and addresses after the fashion of Thu- 
cydides, Sallust, and other good authors. With the excep- 
tion that his story was not drawn from national chronicles, 
Sidney followed the method recommended by Du Bellay. 
He did attempt to construct the complete body of a fair 
history, to write, according to his own conception, a sus- 
tained and complex ' poem,' and he inserted in the course 
of his narrative, many orations, speeches, and ornaments 
of style to enliven it. 

The plot of the Arcadia is extremely complicated, not in 
its main structure, but through the interpolation of numer- 
ous long episodes, narrations, and digressions. The earliest 
form of the story in the Old Arcadia is relatively simple 
and direct, but in the revision Sidney exerted himself to 
secure epic fullness and variety. The story opens in medias 
res. Two young princes, Pyrocles and Musidorus, have 
been separated by shipwreck on a voyage the purpose of 

^"''Defence et Illustration de la langue francoyse, ed. Chamard, 
pp. 236-239. 



370 English Literary Prose 

which is explained later. Their various wanderings and 
wonderful feats of valor are followed separately until both 
arrive at the court of Basilius, king of Arcadia. For rea- 
sons which are withheld from the reader's curiosity, Basil- 
ius is living in rustic but luxurious seclusion in a region 
where " falls not hail or rain or any snow " — the days there 
are like one long summer's afternoon. To this happy re- 
treat Pyrocles gains admission in the disguise of a woman 
and under the name of Zelmane, Musidorus as a shepherd's 
servant, under the name of Dorus. Basilius has two daugh- 
ters, Philoclea and Pamela, the objects of the courtly, and 
in the end, successful wooing of Pyrocles and Musidorus. 
Complications are introduced by the passion of Basilius for 
Zelmane, whom he takes to be a woman, and for the 
equally mad infatuation of his queen, Gynecia, with the 
same person, whom she recognizes, in spite of his disguise, 
to be a man. In the end, the reader learns that Basilius 
has retired to the pastoral seclusion of his retreat in Arcadia 
in order to avoid the fulfillment of an oracle, which never- 
theless, in the completed forms of the story, is fulfilled in a 
sufficiently unexpected manner. The two daughters are 
happily married to their faithful lovers, Basilius and 
Gynecia come to their senses, and the story ends hap- 
pily. 

This bare sketch can give no indication of the wealth 
of detail and characterization with which the main story 
is enriched and often encumbered. In this " gallant legend- 
ary " there are over one hundred characters who are not 
merely figures in the action, but are clearly individualized. 
This art of character portrayal Sidney seems to have 
learned from the Greek romance of Achilles Tatius, his 
large and intricate plot on the other hand being more in 
the manner of Heliodorus. Even insignificant characters 
are often analyzed in much greater detail than is required 



The Courtly Writers 371 

by their place in the action. This psychological element 
in the treatment of character helps, however, to give to 
the Arcadia that quality of seriousness and importance with 
which it impressed contemporary readers. The direct 
didacticism of the conventional Elizabethan romantic narra- 
tive is not found in the Arcadia. Sidney was apparently 
not concerned to present a precise code of conduct for 
daily living, but rather types of human character and action 
on an epic scale for the philosophic contemplation of those 
whose spirits moved in ample sweeps. His characters range 
from rude clowns and gentle shepherds to rebellious princes 
and models of all the knightly virtues. The subject of love 
is presented from an astonishing variety of points of view, 
including morbid, exaggerated, and evil passion as well as 
the simpler and more natural aspects of romantic love. 
Propriety or decorum in conduct is always part of the in- 
direct teaching of the story, and the few passages of the 
narrative intended to be humorous usually turn upon situa- 
tions in which a humble character ventures to aspire to the 
courtly privileges of love-making and fighting. The knightly 
virtues of valor, loyalty, and devotion are fully illustrated, 
and courtly accomplishments are exemplified in combats, 
debates, letters, poems, and conversations. The sentiments 
are often spun very fine, but not infrequently the reader is 
rewarded by coming upon admirably-phrased precepts of 
wisdom and elevated conduct. 

The Arcadia had its English as well as its foreign an- 
tecedents. Interest in romantic narrative had never died 
out since the time of its introduction into England in the 
form of Middle English translations from the French. The 
early printers, Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, and Copland, 
found much of the material with which to feed their presses 
in late prose versions of the earlier metrical romances. All 
three, for example, published editions of The Four Sons of 



'^'j2 English Literary Prose 

Aymon and of Malory's Morte Darthur. Later translations 
helped to keep alive the interest in chivalric material. Lord 
Berners' Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux and The History 
of the most noble and valyaunt Knight, Artheur of Lytell 
Brytaine were both translated from French, his Castell of 
Love from Spanish. The XI Bookes of the Golden Asse 
of Apuleius, translated by William Adlington, appeared in 
1566, and three later editions in the same century testify to 
the favor v^ith which Sidney's generation regarded this en- 
chanting medley of romance and satire. Parts of the 
Amadis of Gaul appeared in an English dress in 1 567-1 568, 
though Anthony Munday's fuller translations were not pub- 
lished until after Sidney had written his Arcadia. James 
Sanford published in 1567 The Amorous and Tragicall 
Tales of Plutarch. Wherevnto is annexed the Hystorie of 
Cariclea and Theogenes and the sayings of the Greeke Phi- 
losophers, being passages from Plutarch's Moralia and 
Heliodorus' Ethiopica. In 1569 appeared Thomas Under- 
downe's version of Heliodorus under the title An Ethiopian 
Historie.^^^ Another favorite story which may, however, 
as easily be grouped with the Italian novels as with the 
romances of the period, was the Eurialus and Lucresia of 
Aeneas Sylvius, which had been printed in an early English 
version by van Doesborgh at Antwerp, and again in 1560, 
under the title The goodly History of the moste noble and 
beautyful Ladye Lucres of Scene in Tuskan & of her loner 
Eurialus very pleasaunt and delectable vnto the reder.^^^ 
Some of these translations combined pleasure with the 

'" Other editions followed in 1577, 1587, 1605, 1606, 1622, and 
1627. 

^'° Four editions of this tale appeared between 1560 and 1570, 
another in 1596, and later ones. The story was sufficiently spicy to 
interest Pepys, who owned a copy of an edition of 1567, reprinted in 
The Hystorie of the Moste Noble Knight Plasidas and other rare 
pieces, Roxburghe Club, 1873. 



The Courtly Writers 373 

profit of acquiring foreign tongues, as in the Histoire de 
Aurelio et Isabelle of Juan de Flores, " nyeuly translatede 
In foure langagies, Frenche, Italien, Spanishe and Inglishe," 
in 1566. James Sanford's Garden of Pleasure (1573), con- 
sisting of " most pleasante Tales, worthy deedes and witty 
sayings of noble Princes & learned Philosophers " translated 
from Guicciardini, also contained " divers Verses and Sen- 
tences in Italian, with the Englishe to the same, for the 
benefit of students in both tongs." The Pretie and wittie 
Historie of Arnalt and Lucenda (1575) likewise contains 
Italian and English " set foorth for the learner of th' 
Italian tong " by Claudius Hollyband.^*° 

Of the works of Boccaccio, the Filocolo alone appeared 
in English before Sidney's Arcadia}*'^ The Amorous 
Fiametta, translated by Bartholomew Young, was not pub- 
lished until 1587, and the Decameron not until the first 
quarter of the next century. After the Arcadia had 
strengthened the taste for romance appeared the various 
translations of Anthony Munday, Emanuel Forde, and 
many others. Bartholomew Young added to his Amorous 
Fiametta a translation of Montemayor's Diana in 1598. A 
translation of the Daphnis and Chloe of Longus, made from 
the French of Amyot by Angel Day, was published in 1587. 
The Clitophon and Leucippe of Achilles Tatius appeared 
first in English in William Burton's translation (1597), 
but earlier French, Italian, and Latin versions of the tale 
were accessible to Sidney, who was certainly familiar 
with it. 

Among the immediate sources from which Sidney drew 
most freely, for general tone, for incident, and even for the 

'*" Originally written in Spanish by Diego de San Pedro; see 
Menendez y Pelayo, Origcnes de la Novela, I, cccxvii. On Juan 
de Flores, see ibid., pp. cccxxxvii flf. 

'*' Editions of the Filocolo in English appeared in 1566, 1567, 
1571, and 1587. 



374 English Literary Prose 

details of expression, the most important were chivalric 
romances like Amadis of Gaul, the pastoral novel, Arcadia, 
of Sanazzaro, the Diana Enamorada of Sanazzaro's imi- 
tator, Jorge de Montemayor, and above all the Aethiopica of 
Heliodorus and the Clitophon and Leucippe of Achilles 
Tatius.^*^ The most important single source for the 
Arcadia seems to have been the Aethiopica of Heliodorus, 
and though one may hesitate to go so far as to say that 
Sidney " has deliberately written Greek Romance in Eng- 
lish," ^*^ it is certain that upon the basis of the Greek 
romances he developed his theme in order to give it the 
complexity and magnitude of epic action. 

The style of the Arcadia was carefully chosen to fit the 
subject. Sidney's purpose being to write a sustained and 
elevated narrative, one also in which the events moved with 
the freedom and often the apparent confusion of the com- 
plications of life, he appropriately took as the basis of his 
style a long and complicated sentence structure. The neat 
epigrammatic and antithetic style of Lyly he knew and 
occasionally employed, but it was not made the funda- 
mental style of the Arcadia. Nor is Sidney's characteristic 
sentence the formally constructed period of the Ciceronian 
tradition. Perhaps it can best be described as an episodic 
sentence structure, loose but not chaotic. The elements of 
which his thought was composed were not broken up into 
separate logical points, but groups of detail are presented 
in the interwoven, often parenthetic, and yet progressive 
pattern of natural thinking in which a whole action is held 
in solution. The following is typical : 

"' For a detailed study of Sidney's borrowings from Greek ro- 
mance, see Wolff, Greek Romances in Elizabethan Fiction, pp. 308- 
366. 

^" Wolff, ibid., p. 365. 



The Courtly Writers 375 

" But then, Demagoras assuring himselfe, that now Par- 
thenia was her owne, she would never be his, and receiving 
as much by her owne determinate answere, not more de- 
siring his owne happines, then envying Argakis, whom he 
saw with narrow eyes, even ready to enjoy the perfection of 
his desires ; strengthning his conceite with all the mis- 
chievous counsels which disdayned love, and envious pride 
could geve unto him; the wicked wretch (taking a time that 
Argalus was gone to his countrie, to fetch some of his prin- 
cipall frendes to honour the marriage, which Parthenia had 
most joyfully consented unto,) the wicked Demagoras (I 
say) desiring to speake with her, with unmercifuU force, 
(her weake armes in vaine resisting) rubd all over her face 
a most horrible poyson : the effect whereof was such, that 
never leaper lookt more ugly then she did : which done, 
having his men and horses ready, departed away in spite 
of her servants, as redy to revenge as they could be, in 
such an unexpected mischiefe." ^** 

This synthetic sentence structure lends to Sidney's narra- 
tive a largeness of movement which he doubtless deliber- 
ately cultivated as appropriate to the scale on which the 
whole work was planned. As a compromise between a 
severely architectural and learned sentence and the dapper, 
often mechanical and narrowly formal Euphuistic style, 
Sidney's sentence has much to recommend it. Natural 
without being naive, it reads easily and is capable of a 
great variety of cadences. The parentheses and participles 
which Sidney employs so freely, and the linking of clause 
to clause in loose sequence, may seem to the modern reader 
to imply a disregard of clear and orderly thinking on Sid- 
ney's part, as though he omitted to take the trouble to 
digest his ideas before he set them down. But this criticism 
would be unfair to Sidney. The modern feeling for sen- 
tence structure is highly analytic ; and though Sidney would 
have placed himself more immediately in the line of de- 

^** Arcadia (1590), p. 2i\ 



3/6 English Literary Prose 

velopment of English prose if he had completed the tend- 
encies in this direction already begun by Pettie and Lyly, 
his own ideal of a style which was ample and dignified, yet 
not pedantically formal, was one which he could have 
evolved only after conscientious and careful reflection. In 
the Apologie Sidney employed a simpler sentence structure, 
but for the high style of a great work which was to com- 
bine scholarly dignity with the power of pleasing the courtly, 
cultivated reader, he was in accord with the common opin- 
ion of his age in thinking that something more was re- 
quired. His faults are faults of intention, not of neglect. 

The long episodic sentence, varying in the degree of its 
complexity, is the ground tone of Sidney's style, and upon 
this somewhat elaborate structural framework he has ap- 
plied many minor ornaments of expression. Among the 
most notable are his fine and ingenious forms of phrasing. 
The heroines, for example, when they wish to retire for 
the night do not simply undress, but impoverish their 
clothes to enrich their bed. And the youth Kalander 
recovers from a sickness so rapidly, " that in six weekes 
the excellencie of his returned beautie was a credible em- 
bassadour of his health." "^ A lady enters an arbor 
" whose branches so lovingly interlaced one the other, that 
it could resist the strongest violence of eye-sight." ^^'^ This 
lady, who turns out to be one of the heroes of the story 
disguised as an Amazon, sings a song and is discovered 
by his friend, Musidorus, who calls for explanations : 

" So that Pyrocles (who had as much shame as Musi- 
dorus had sorrow) rising to him, would have formed sub- 
stantiall excuse ; but his insinuation being of blushinge, and 
his division of sighes, his whole oration stood upon a 
short narration, what was the causer of this Metamor- 
phosis." "^ 

"° Arcadia, p. 9. ^*' P. 50b. "' P. 51b. 



The Courtly Writers 377 

Conceits of this sort sometimes run through whole passages, 
as in the following: 

" O my Philoclea, is hee a person to write these words? 
and are these words lightly to be regarded? But if you 
had scene, when with trembling hand he had delivered it 
[a letter], how hee went away, as if he had beene but the 
coffin that carried himselfe to his sepulcher. Two times I 
must confesse I was about to take curtesie into mine eyes; 
but both times the former resolution stopt the entrie of it : 
so that he departed without obtaining any further kindnesse. 
But he was no sooner out of the doore, but that I looked to 
the doore kindly; and truely the feare of him ever since 
hath put me into such perplexitie, as now you found me. 
Ah my Pamela (said Philoclea) leave sorrow. The river 
of your teares will soone loose his fountaine; it is in your 
hand as well to stitch up his life againe, as it was before 
to rent it. And so (though with self-grieved mind) she 
comforted her sister, till sleepe came to bath himself in 
Pamelaes faire weeping eyes." "^ 

Somewhat similar is that form of poetic paraphrase 
recommended by Du Bellay under the name of Antono- 
masia,^*^ which consists in naming objects or stating ac- 
tions not directly but by circumlocutions, as when dusk is 
described as " about the time that the candle begins to 
inherit the Suns ofifice," ^^° or dawn as the time when " the 
morning did strow roses and violets in the heavenly floore 
against the comming of the Sun." ^^^ The trees are said 
to form a pleasant refuge from " the cholericke looke of 
Phoebus," ^^^ and when the Arcadians are about to go to 
sleep, they " recommend themselves to the elder brother 
of death." ^^^ Though set descriptive passages of great 

'*' Pp. I24a-I24b "' P. 7a. 

'"Defence, ed. Chamard, p. 285. '"P. Si". 

P. 40b. "» P. 97b 



150 



378 English Literary Prose 

beauty occur throughout the Arcadia, they are seldom 
entirely free from such conscious artifices of a high poetic 
style. Often poetic elaboration takes the form of that 
sentimental treatment of inanimate objects which Ruskin 
called the pathetic fallacy. A well-known instance is that 
where the Lady Pamela is " woorking uppon a purse cer- 
taine Roses and Lillies " with her needle, " which with so 
prety a maner made his careers to and fro through the 
cloth, as if the needle it selfe would have bene loth to have 
gone fromward such a mistres, but that it hoped to return 
thenceward very quickly againe : the cloth loking with many 
eies upon her, and lovingly embracing the wounds she gave 
it: the sheares also were at hand to behead the silke that 
was growne to short." ^^* The description does not stop 
here, but continues with an elaboration of the conceit 
through all its possibilities. 

Merely verbal devices are also extensively employed in 
the interest of the poetic style. Poetic compounds of a 
kind prescribed by Renascence theorists and employed by 
many Elizabethan poets, frequently occur, such as " day- 
shining stars " ; " hony-flowing speach " ; ^^^ " sun-stayning 
excellencie " ; ^^'^ " wrong-caused sorrow " ; ^^'^ " an un- 
thought-on songe " ; " blame-worthinesse " ; ^^^ " eye-rav- 
ished lover." ^^^ The vocabulary otherwise is in general 
not oppressively learned, though it is always elevated, and, 
as will be evident from the illustrations already quoted, 
sometimes hyper-distinguished. But occasionally Sidney 
also employs plain native words, for example, hurtlessly, 
foregoers, meaning " ancestors," and similar terms in a 
way which shows that he shared, to some extent at least, 
Spenser's respect for the native resources of the language. 

''* P. 278a. '" P. 7. 

IBB p 2b II'S p j„b 

'" P. 3. '" P. 22, 



The Courtly Writers 379 

But such words are not numerous and Sidney never culti- 
vates a rustic or archaic simplicity.^®" 

Sidney's other tricks of style, though not so persistently 
employed as Lyly's, are in general of the same kind. Occa- 
sionally sentences occur which might have been taken bodily 
from Etiphues, as for example : 

" and so growes that to be the last excuse of his fault which 
seemed to have been the first foundation of his faith " ; ^^^ 

" he had yielded to seeke the recovery of health, onely for 
that he might the sooner go seeke the deliverie of 
Pyrocles " ; ^^^ 

" we thought it lesse evil to spare a foe then spoyle a 
friend " ; "^ 

" And so, I that waited here to do you service, have now 
my self most need of succor." ^'^^ 

Riming and punning, on the other hand, and on the 
whole alliteration, are held well in check by Sidney. Nor 
does he employ classical allusion and illustrations from 
natural history in Lyly's extravagant manner. More char- 
acteristic of Arcadian style are certain tricks of merely 
verbal ingenuity. One of these is that known to the early 
rhetoricians as clirnbing, or cjimax^ whereby a word of one 
phrase is repeated as the leading idea of the next, through 
a sequence of phrases : 

" Now then, our Basilius being so publickly happie as to 
be a Prince, and so happie in that happinesse as to be a 

'°" In the Apologie, Elia. Crit. Essays, I, 196, he blames Spenser 
for " framing of his stile to an old rustick language " in the 
Shepherd's Calendar, citing the contrary practice of Theocritus, 
Vergil, and Sanazzaro in support of his own view that an archaic 
vocabulary was not to be employed. 

•" P. 15b ^o" P. 210^ 

16. p 23b 164 p _gb 



380 English Literary Prose 

beloved Prince, and so in his private blessed as to have so 
excellent a wife, and so over-excellent children, hath of late 
taken a course which yet makes him more spoken of then 
all these blessings." "^ 

Another ' ladder ' of this kind is the following : 

" No, no, let us thinke with consideration, and consider 
with acknowledging, and acknowledge with admiration, and 
admire with love, and love with joy in the midst of all 
woes : let us in such sorte thinke, I say, that our poore eyes 
were so inriched as to behold, and our low hearts so exalted 
as to love, a maide, who is such, that as the greatest thing 
the world can shewe, is her beautie, so the least thing that 
may be praysed in her, is her beautie." ^'^^ 

What was intended for ornament in this ' tranlacing,' often 
suggests poverty of vocabulary to the modem reader, as 
in the following repetitions : 

" For finding himselfe not onely unhappy, but unhappie 
after being falne from all happinesse : and to be falne from 
all happines, not by any misconceiving, but by his own 
fault, and his fault to be done to no other but to Pamela: 
he did not tender his owne estate, but despised it ; greedily 
drawing into his minde, all conceipts which might more and 
more torment him." ^''^ 

Transverse verbal balance, as in Becon, is another figure 
frequently employed by Sidney, e.g. " the sweetest faire- 
nesse and fairest sweetnesse " ; "^ " the one wanting no 
store, th' other having no store but of want " ; ^^^ " foolish 
fortune or unfortunate follie " ; ^'^° " rather angry with 
fighting then fighting for anger ; ^'^^ " had shewed such f urie 
\ in his force and yet such stay in his furie " ; ^" " but the 
universall lamenting his absented presence, assured him of 

'«' P. 2^ '" P. 288^ 

169 p ^a_ >" P. 289^ 

''"P. 64a. 



166 p 


12a. 


166 p 


2\ 


167 p 


245^ 



The Courtly Writers 381 

his present absence." ^^^ Often these verbal figures rest 
upon an ingenious antithesis of images or ideas, as in the 
description of the fire on the ship which drove Pyrocles 
and Musidorus " rather to committe themselves to the 
cold mercie of the sea, then to abide the bote crueltie of 
the fire " ; "* or of the delightful country of Laconia, where 
the houses are so distributed as to make '' a shew, as it 
were, of an accompanable solitariness and of a civil wild- 
nes " ; ^^^ or in the following variation on the main theme 
of the book: 

" But while we were thus full of wearinesse of what was 
past, and doubt of what was to follow, Love (that I thinke 
in the course of my life hath a sporte sometimes to poison 
me with roses, sometimes to heale me with worme-wood) 
brought forth a remedy unto us." "^ 

An analysis of style such as the Arcadia has been sub- 
jected to inevitably brings the extravagances of the writing 
into stronger relief than its merits. Enough has been said 
to show that when Sidney broke down the barrier between 
poetry and prose, he had no intention of bringing either 
poetry or literary prose down to the level of everyday dis- 
course. The high style in prose offered to him as broad 
a field for the exercise of rhetorical ingenuity as verse, and 
he agreed with his courtly contemporaries in the opinion 
that a prose style worthy of the scholar and of a lofty theme 
demanded such bravery of speech as would set it apart from 
the common speech of men. At the same time it is not 
difficult to separate the more extreme mannerisms and 
rhetorical ornaments of Sidney's style as mere surface dis- 
play from a background of sound and genuine prose ex- 
pression. His sentences are not always long paragraphs, 

"* P. 49^. '"P. 7a. 

"■* P. 4^ ''' P. 193a. 



382 English Literary Prose 

his conceits and verbal tricks do not adorn every line with 
their false glitter. In the main he v^rote easily and un- 
affectedly, lightly and gracefully. He fashioned a speech 
appropriate to the conversation of gentlemen, neither too 
weighty with learning nor too bluntly familiar and col- 
loquial. This he did whenever he relaxed in his misguided 
effort to do something better. 

The writings of Lyly and Sidney represent the farthest 
swing of the pendulum in the development of an artistic 
English prose in the sixteenth century. Both had their 
imitators, but no other models of fine style appeared to 
take their place. In Etiphues and in the Arcadia experi- 
mentation had been carried to the farthest limits, and the 
natural tendency towards the end of the sixteenth and in 
the seventeenth century was to react in favor of a simpler 
style. Plainness of speech now began to be cultivated and 
to be commended even for writing of literary pretensions. 
But the plainness of speech of the seventeenth century was 
a very different matter from the plainness which had been 
advocated by many theorists in the second quarter of the 
sixteenth century. The whole language had been elevated 
by the learned and courtly stylists. The vocabulary had 
been enormously increased, methods of figurative adorn- 
ment had been elaborated, sentence structure had been 
made pointed and easy. The conservative reaction towards 
plainness was in no danger of exalting a rustic or medieval 
simplicity; its task was merely to restrain some of the 
rhetorical extravagances of the period of artful experiment. 
Of the various types of prose style cultivated in the six- 
teenth century, the most influential for the future literary 
uses of the language was the courtly style. It provided 
models for the middle kind of the three classical genera 
dicendi, the plain, the mean, and the grand. The plain 
style of Tindale, Latimer, and many others, with its pic- 



The Courtly Writers 383 

turesqiie colloquial flavor in diction and in form, was an 
almost universal gift of Elizabethan writers and one that 
even the most ingenious stylists did not permit to fall into 
complete disuse. But this plain style lacked distinction and 
literary tone. Employed unambitiously, it became merely 
matter-of-fact, familiar, and lowly ; elaborated by means of 
the various devices of the tumbling style, it developed into 
a robustious, turgid kind of writing which seemed rude 
and popular when it was measured by the standards of 
classical literature. At the other extreme stood the formal 
periodic style in which many writers made experiments and 
which found its first adequate master in Hooker. This 
was an appropriate kind of writing for scholarly and seri- 
ous subjects, but its dignity and stateliness lifted it above 
the lighter and more graceful moods of the polite world. 
The courtly writers occupied a middle ground. In vocabu- 
lary they shunned the extremes of pedantry and of innova- 
tion, and in phrasing they struck a compromise between the 
shapelessness of the naive style and the architectural 
formality of the period. They applied ornament extrava- 
gantly, but the ornament was not really the essential 
quality of their style. It belonged to an age when even 
men adorned their persons with feathers and with chains 
of gold and dressed themselves in silks and velvet. Be- 
neath all the frippery of this rhetorical dress there lay a 
permanent contribution to the development of English prose 
in the greater ease, the greater variety of modulation which 
the courtly writers introduced into it. Apart from its short- 
lived fashionable absurdities their style was admirably 
adapted to the expression of the opinions, the changing sen- 
timents and actions of cultivated social life. Dryden de- 
clared that Beaumont and Fletcher understood and imitated 
the conversation of gentlemen better than Shakspere. And 
it is true that the prevailing level of expression in Shakspere 



384 English Literary Prose 

is poetical and " aureate," not merely ornamental as in Lyly 
and Sidney, but elevated both in feeling and phrase to the 
plane of the grand style. Lyly and Sidney, however, were 
directly in the line of development which led to Beaumont 
and Fletcher, to Dryden, to Addison, to all cultivators of a 
graceful English literary style raised above the colloquial 
speech, yet not so exalted or so artfully labored as to de- 
stroy the sense of ease and reality. 



VII 

HISTORY AND ANTIQUITY 

Medieval Historians — The City Chronicles — The 
Brut — Fabyan — Froissart — Polydore Vergil — Hall 
— Grafton — Holinshed — Speed — Theory of Histori- 
cal Writing — Early Biographical Histories — 
Cavendish's "Wolsey" — Hayward — Bacon's "Henry 
VII " — Raleigh — Translations — John Leland — 
Lambarde — Stowe's " Survey " — Camden — Conclu- 
sions 



The tradition of historical writing which the early mod- 
ern English historians inherited from medieval times was a 
venerable, if not highly differentiated one. At no time after 
its composition was the existence of the Old English Chron- 
icle forgotten, and the name and writings of Bede were 
revered by many a later historian of far less ability than 
Bede. But Bede never had any genuine successors, and 
with the close of the Old English period, the patriotic im- 
pulse which had led to the composition of the vernacular 
Chronicle suffered a decline, and the Chronicle itself, in its 
latest continuations, tails off ignominiously in a bad Latin. 

For a time little history of any kind, whether in Latin 
or in English, was written. With the beginning of the 
twelfth century, however, an abundant historical literature 
sprang up in England, mainly written in Latin prose and 
under monastic auspices. Soon also romantic metrical 

385 



386 English Literary Prose 

histories in the vernacular began to appear. At the end 
of the twelfth or early in the thirteenth century was writ- 
ten the English metrical history of Layamon, known as 
the Brut, and about a century later, the English metrical 
chronicle of Robert of Gloucester. Another English metri- 
cal history was that of Robert Mannyng, written soon after 
Robert of Gloucester's chronicle, and in the third quarter 
of the fourteenth century, in the north of England appeared 
the Bruce of John Barbour. At the same time Latin con- 
tinued to flourish as the language of prose historical com- 
position, notably in the histories of Roger of Hoveden, of 
Matthew Paris, in the work traditionally ascribed to 
Matthew of Westminster, in the writings of Roger of 
Wendover, and of Ralph Higden, whose Polychronicon was 
" the standard work on general history in the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries." ^ 

The writing of prose histories in English begins with 
Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon, made in 
1387, and with Capgrave's more original work, written 
about the middle of the following century. But this new 
English history was not a return to or a continuation of 
the national Chronicle of the Old English period, nor had 
it learned much from the many Latin histories of the in- 
tervening period. Capgrave, following the usual encyclo- 
pedic method of the times, begins his history with , the 
Creation, and he has quite as much to record concerning 
Hebrew history between the Creation and the Flood as he 
has concerning English history between the coming of Hen- 
gest and Horsa and the Norman Conquest. The whole 
history of Alfred is summed up in the following brief 
paragraph : 

" In this tyme regned Alured in Yngland, the fourt son 
of Adelwold. He began to regn in the yere of our Lord 

' Babington, Rolls Series, p. xlii. 



History and Antiquity 387 

DCCCLXXII. This man, be the councelle of Saint Ned, 
mad an open Scole of divers sciens at Oxenford. He had 
many batailes with Danes ; and aftir many conflictes in 
which he had the wers, at the last he ovircam hem, and be 
his trety Godrus,^ here Kyng, was baptized and went horn 
with his puple. XXVHI yere he regned, and died the 
servaunt of God." ^ 

Brief as they are, we see in these records a complete 
mingling of fact and fable. Alfred is not realized as an 
actual historical personage, and the figures in the record 
move like the dim and half-forgotten actors in some old 
romance. Such was the naive feeling for English history 
which Capgrave, " one of the most learned men of his 
time," * had in the fifteenth century.^ 

One chief cause of the inadequacy of the work of these 
medieval and belated medieval historians was that they at- 
tempted too much. An encyclopedic history from the Crea- 
tion down could scarcely be expected to rest throughout on 
a sound foundation of documentary or traditional evi- 
dence. The mere remoteness of the periods covered was 
in itself sufficient to account for the loose methods em- 
ployed. What English history needed was to narrow its 
circle of inclusion, to discover some foundation of solid 
reality upon which to rest its feet. This foundation Eng- 
lishmen discovered in their own cities, especially the city of 
London, an apparent and inspiring fact, and one about 
which were centering more and more the nation's traditions 

^ A nominative after the Latin form, made on the supposition 
that Godrum, from Guthrum, was an accusative. 

' The Chronicle of England by John Capgrave, ed. Hingeston, 
p. 113. 

* Ibid., p. xii. 

° For a valuable summary of the historical writings of this period, 
see Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Cen- 
tury, Oxford, 1913. Contemporary with Capgrave was the belated 
medieval rimed Chronicle of John Hardyng. 



388 English Literary Prose 

of greatness. It was London which restored to English 
historians the sense for fact, and it is in the chroniclers 
of the city of London, and in less degree of other cities, 
that one must seek for the beginnings of modern English 
historical writing. 

The city chronicles, which were very numerous, are not 
themselves very exciting forms of composition. They were 
written sometimes in French and Latin, but the later ones 
usually in English. The Chronicles of the Mayors and 
Sheriffs of London AD. 1188 to AD. 12/4, and the French 
Chronicle of London AD. I2jp to AD. 1343,^ are typical 
examples of early city chronicles. The materials are or- 
dered under the heads of the successive officials of the city, 
and no attempt at connected narrative is made. Some 
attention is given to national affairs, but the main concern 
of the chroniclers is with the city and its citizens. Many 
details of a legal character are mentioned, both of a private 
nature and such as are connected with the liberties of the 
city. Taxes and coinage, as one might expect, are fre- 
quently matters of comment. And trivial incidents of local 
importance, for example the severe winter and great frost 
in 1268, and the " great fire at St. Botolph's " in 1278, 
occasionally give that gossipy flavor to the records which 
is a constant feature of English fifteenth- and sixteenth- 
century chronicles. These chronicles also contain interest- 
ing references to the Jews and their place in London life. 

From the historical memoranda of John Stowe have been 
published certain collections evidently taken from some 
city chronicle.^ They consist mainly of brief records of 

' Published in English translation by Riley, London, 1863. 

' Edited by Gairdner, Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, Cam- 
den Society, 1880. See also Two London Chronicles from the 
Collections of John Stow, ed. Kingsford, Camden Miscellany, XIT 
(1910). These are brief but characteristic historical memoranda 
of the first half of the sixteenth century. 



History and Antiquity 389 

official business of the city and the kingdom, mingled with 
some amusing city gossip. Sir John White, for example, is 
reprehended because, being mayor, he wore both a long 
beard, whereas it had been the custom for the mayor to 
be shaven, and also a round cap that weighed not four 
ounces, " whiche seemyd to all men, in consyderation of 
y'^ auncient bonyt, to be very uncomly." ^ The Historical 
Collections of a Citizen of London ^ contain a good example 
of fifteenth-century city chronicling. The probable author 
of this chronicle was William Gregory, mayor of London 
in 145 1. It begins with 1189 and extends to 1469, the 
entries for the last few years being probably by a con- 
tinuator. Events are narrated by years in simple chronicle 
fashion, headed by the names of mayors, bailiffs, sheriffs, 
and other city officers. Insignificant matters and marvels 
are not omitted, and a good deal of attention is given 
to national as well as local affairs. One can see how such 
a city chronicle, by some extension of interest, could easily 
develop into a national chronicle. The marvels of royal 
feastings and celebrations seem to have aroused great 
enthusiasm on the part of the chronicler, and he describes 
them with all of the citizen's pride in the magnificence of 
the court maintained by the taxes which he paid. For the 
dinner at the coronation of Henry VI the whole bill of fare 
is given, among other delightful dishes in the second 
course being " Gely wrytyn and notyd, Te Deum Lauda- 
mus." There was also " Pygge in doory," and " A lybarde 
ys hedde whythe ij esterygys fetherys." Abundant details 
are given as to precedence, points of procedure on cere- 
monial occasions, conduct of trials and combats, and other 
weighty matters such as must have troubled the peace of 
mind of a fifteenth-century London mayor. Disturbances 

* Gairdner, pp. 127-128. 

• Also edited by Gairdner, Camden Society, 1876. 



390 English Literary Prose 

in the city are noted, such as the hanging of a thief, the 
burning of a heretic, and such notable happenings as that 
in 1466 " the mayre beryd [his] lady, and his scheryfife and 
his swyrdeberer." ^° One may smile at the simplicity of 
these early city chroniclers, but after much reading of me- 
dieval histories, amusement will be tempered by a sense of 
relief that historical writing is beginning to escape from the 
encyclopedic inclusiveness and the monastic and legendary 
traditions of the medieval period, and is beginning to ac- 
quire some feeling for color and locality and for the imme- 
diate setting of character and life in which events take 
place. If these early chronicles read rather like diaries 
than histories, it should be remembered that the intimate 
sense of reality of the diary or the book of memoirs was 
the very thing which historical writing at this time most 
needed. Another important achievement of the city chron- 
icles was that they finally detached historical writing from 
Latin and made the familiar language of the vernacular the 
customary medium for historical composition. 

The materials contained in the London chronicles were 
utilized towards the middle and the latter part of the 
fifteenth century in the composition of a number of popular 
English histories which followed a more consecutive and 
more comprehensive narrative method than the earlier 
city chronicles had done. Of these one of the most popu- 
lar was The Brut, or the Chronicles of England,^^ written 
in a simple, naive prose and extant in a great variety of 
forms and manuscripts. A version of The Brut was 
printed by Caxton in his Chronicles of England in 1480, 
and thus became " the first of our printed histories." ^^ 
Another development from the London chronicles was the 

'°P. 233. 

" Ed. Brie, E.E.T.S., 1906-1908. 

"Kingsford, 1. c, The Brut, pp. 113-139. 



History and Antiquity 391 

work of Robert Fabyan, who endeavored to enlarge his plan 
so as to make, in some measure, a general English history 
of his book. A clothier and member of the Drapers Com- 
pany, alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without, and 
in 1493 sheriff, Fabyan no doubt was a typical, comfortable 
London citizen. His will, which is still extant, is a long 
detailed document, an interesting illustration of middle- 
class pomposity in the testator's day, with elaborate pro- 
visions for all kinds of prayers and feastings, month's 
minds and alms-givings, to be performed on the occasion 
of his death. Fabyan's book was first printed in 15 16, three 
years after his death. A second edition, revised in many 
details, appeared in 1533.^^ It was called The Concordance 
of Histories, and though mainly devoted to British history, 
it contained also large sections on France. The work was 
elaborately conceived, and the sources which Fabyan used, 
both French and English, were numerous. It is divided 
into seven parts, chronologically, the early sections being 
developed at greatest length. In structure, however, and 
to a large extent in spirit also, it remains a city history, 
with scope broadened. The annals are headed by the names 
of city officials, and the narrative itself is simple and naive. 
There is little feeling for connected story, and no seeking 
after the eloquent and grandiose style of some later English 
chroniclers. On the whole, Fabyan seems to have been an 
industrious, conservative citizen, with little animation or 
literary skill. Occasional passages of crude verse are in- 
serted in the midst of the prose, sometimes translation, 
sometimes original, and often of a pious character. The 
author speaks of his work as rude and preliminary : 

" So have I nowe sette out this rude werke, 
As rough as the stone nat commen to the square, 

"Edited by Ellis, 1811, from both forms. 



392 English Literary Prose 

That the lerned and the studyed clerke 
May it over polysshe and clene do it pare." ** 

His purpose in writing he declares to be not " for any 
pompe or yet for great mede," but only to spread the 
" famous honour of this Fertyle He." Fabyan's patriotic 
fervor was not sufficiently great, however, to impart any 
considerable degree of warmth to his narrative of national 
events. The most interesting parts of the history are 
those in which he treats of matters which touched him more 
nearly than affairs of state. There are various passages 
in praise of London, and frequent references, in the first 
edition always unsympathetic, to Lollards and heretics. 
When John Badby was burned at Smithfield for heresy, 
Fabyan dismisses the affair with the laconic remark, 
" wherfore he had as he deserved." ^^ In later editions 
of the book, following the general tendency of the times, 
these anti-reforming passages were either omitted or modi- 
fied. Among the city details mentioned, many are of 
antiquarian interest, as for example the beginning of 
the market called the Stocks, but many also are of 
merely casual or local interest, as when we are told 
of the remarkable fact that the river Thames was in flood 
twice in one year. In a day when newspapers were not, 
the chronicle served various uses which seem now scarcely 
compatible with the dignity of the muse of history. 

A few years after the publication of Fabyan's Chronicles, 
two works appeared in print, neither originally written in 
English, but both of which were soon to exert a strong 
influence in elevating the literary tone of English historical 
writing. The first of these was Froissart's Chronicles in 
Berners' translation, the first volume of which appeared in 
1523, the second in 1525, and the other was Polydore 
Vergil's Anglicae Historiac Lihri XXVI, first published at 

"P. 3. '^P. 574. 



History and Antiquity 393 

Basel in 1534. Although Englishmen were not unac- 
quainted with Froissart before Berners' translation ap- 
peared, the translation undoubtedly brought home to them 
the significance of the book and compelled a comparison 
with their own historical writings. It was undertaken at 
the request of Henry VHI, and when it was finished, it 
was dedicated to him. In a preface placed before the trans- 
lation Berners expressed eloquently his sense of the dignity 
of the historian's calling. He is in harmony with the best 
thought of his time when he makes the chief function of 
history to be a moral one, that is, the providing of examples 
of character and action from past times for the guidance 
of those living in the present. History he says may well 
be called a divine providence, since in it are embraced all 
human actions. " The most profytable thyng in this 
worlde," he adds, " for the instytution of the humayne 
lyfe is hystorie." All other monuments in process of time 
by " varyable chaunces " are confused and lost ; history 
alone abides, for time, which consumes everything else, is 
the keeper and guardian of history. 

After this preface, however, Berners wisely permits the 
teaching of the book to be conveyed not by direct precept, 
but implicitly. If the book provides models of knightly 
conduct, it does so because the materials of it were origi- 
nally chosen with a consistent feeling for the lofty and the 
dignified. It is throughout a history of the actions of men 
who were governed by the chivalric code of conduct. The 
humble and the familiar find Httle place in it, and though 
the book is unfailingly picturesque and vivid, the scene is 
always set for the higher actions of state or for tales of 
knightly adventure. Without being a romance and without 
sacrificing the feeling for security in the fact, Froissart's 
Chronicles produces on the whole the effect of romantic 
history. From Berners' translation of Froissart, the ob- 



394 English Literary Prose 

servant Englishman of the time could have learned both 
how to carry his story more freely and currently than the 
English chroniclers had been accustomed to do, and also 
how to lift his narrative to a level of interest to which 
historical writing in English had not hitherto aspired. 

The work of Polydore Vergil commands respect both for 
the excellent Latin literary style which it exhibits and for 
the critical spirit with which the sources of English history 
are treated. An Italian acquainted with the best results of 
Renascence scholarship, Polydore Vergil came to England 
in 1 501 or 1502 as sub-collector of Peter's Pence — a 
connection with the papal court that did not enhance his 
credit in the eyes of the increasingly numerous group of 
reformers in England. He received various ecclesiastical 
preferments and soon became friends with the most dis- 
tinguished English scholars. He died in Italy, probably 
iri 1555, whither he had returned a short time before to 
spend the remaining period of his life. 

Polydore Vergil's history of England was written at the 
suggestion of Henry VII, who, in 1505, requested him to 
undertake such a work. Vergil seems to have set about 
the task methodically and seriously, collecting and sifting 
all available sources of information. In 1525 he edited 
Gildas, the first edition of that author ever made. In 1534 
his Anglic ae Historiae Libri XXVI was published at 
Basel. If we count from the avowed date of its inception 
in 1505, Vergil was at work twenty-nine years upon this 
volume. A second edition appeared in 1546, a third in 
1555, and numerous later ones. The first two editions 
come down to the year 1509, but the third, in twenty-eight 
books, comes down to 1538. A fragmentary English trans- 
lation of the work appeared in the latter part of the reign 
of Henry VIII by an unknown translator.^*' 

'" Published by Ellis, Camden Society, 1844 and 1846. 



History and Antiquity 395 

The history opens with a general description of 
Britain and the surrounding islands. This large theme 
is broadly and ably handled. Vergil's own investi- 
gations are included and often show indications of 
keen and independent observation. He notes, for ex- 
ample, that the English avoid the hills and open spaces 
for their dwellings, and, in the words of the English trans- 
lation, choose the " delectable valleys," where the inhabi- 
tants, especially the nobles, have their houses : " whoe 
accordinge to their aunciente usage, do not so greatlie 
affecte citties as the commodious nearenes of dales and 
brookes." From this Vergil notes the result that " the 
ruralls and common people, bie the entercourse and daylye 
conference which they have with the nobilitie, confuselie 
dwellinge emonge them, are made verie civill, and so con- 
sequentlie their citties nothinge famous."" He has observed 
also the clannish pride of the Scots of the Highlands, 
who " avoydinge travayle even in their extreme penurie, 
boste of their nobilite, as whoe shoulde saye, better it 
weare that a man in gentil bloode shoulde wante than bie 
crafte or science to gather for his livinge." ^^ Among the 
products of the land, Vergil gives the chief place to the 
oxen and wethers — " but beafe is peereles, especiallie being 
a fewe dayse poudered with salte." He notes the similarity 
in the speech of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Cornwall, 
and he prefers English to Welsh because the Welsh 
" speake not soe smothelie nor pleasantlie as the Englishe 
people. For Welchemen, as I suppose, speake more in the 
throate ; but contrarie wise. Englishmen, resemblinge more 
the Latinistes, drawe theire voice onelie a litle within their 
lippes, which sounde is pleasaunte and likinge to the 
hearer." ^^ 

In the narrative parts of the history one finds the facts 
'' Ellis, p. 4- " Ibid., p. II. '' Ibid., p. 13. 



396 English Literary Prose 

well ordered and the events presented with considerable 
skill. Throughout the book, the tone of the writing 
is distinguished and it shows that Vergil had formed his 
style upon the best classical models. He is fond of in- 
troducing formal set portraits of characters, in the classic 
manner, a device often imitated by his English followers. 
His treatment of English affairs is impartial, and even in 
the discussion of religious matters, though he is no friend 
of Wiclif or the Lollards, he does not show himself an in- 
tolerant enemy. Personally he probably had no very deep 
religious convictions, and seems to have viewed the religious 
and theological disturbances of the times with a disinter- 
estedness and a worldly detachment which was not uncom- 
mon among cultivated Italians of the sixteenth century, 
and which was, in the eyes of severe English judges, like 
Ascham, for example, almost as bad as out and out atheism. 
Impartiality was scarcely an intelligible virtue to English- 
men of Ascham's day. No abuse was too great, if one may 
judge from the utterances of English writers of this time, 
to be heaped upon the name of Polydore Vergil. Bale, 
for example, in his Chronicle of Lord Cobham (1544), has 
a good deal to say about Polydore Vergil and his history. 
He earnestly desires that someone should set forth the 
English Chronicles " in their right shape," and he wants 
this to be done mainly as a corrective of " Romish blas- 
phemy." He accuses Vergil of " polluting our English 
Chronicles most shamefully with his Romish lies and other 
Italish beggarys."^° But Polydore Vergil offended not 
only the religious prejudices of Englishmen — he also 
touched them very nearly in a tender patriotic spot. 
He called in question the authenticity of Geoffrey of 
Monmouth's history, with its romantic stories of the Brut, 
of Arthur and his achievements, stories which, long since 
'" Select Works, ed. Christmas, p. 8. 



History and Antiquity 397 

mellowed by native tradition, had come to seem an in- 
alienable right of the British people. The battle over 
Geoffrey was a long and bitter one, and though Polydore 
Vergil's critical position was to be established in the end, it 
was only after much rancorous shedding of ink and after 
the death of the prime mover in the conflict. Englishmen, 
however, were not slow to derive some profit by the ex- 
ample of the foreigner whom they did not hesitate to 
malign. Vergil suffered the fate which almost inevitably 
falls to the lot of the author who meddles with the intimate 
affairs of a country not his own. But perhaps because he 
irritated Englishmen of the time, he was the more in- 
fluential. Certainly his historical method, his general skill 
as a writer, and his broad and disinterested view of affairs 
were far in advance of anything that had appeared in 
English historical writing before his day, and just as cer- 
tainly they exerted a great influence on later writers of 
English history. 

The first English historian to profit by Polydore Vergil's 
performance was Edward Hall. He published the first 
edition of his Union of the two noble and illustre Famelies 
of Lancastre and Yorke in 1542, and a second edition, edited 
by Richard Grafton, appeared in 1548, the year after Hall's 
death. No complete copy of the first edition is now ex- 
tant. A third edition appeared in 1550, also under the 
editorial supervision of Richard Grafton, who says that 
Hall finished his chronicle to the year 1532 and that he 
left among his papers a number of notes which Grafton 
declares he put together without any additions of his own. 
It is doubtful, however, as will appear later, if all of the 
book traditionally ascribed to Hall was written by him. 

Having completed his earlier education at Eton and at 
King's College, Cambridge, Hall settled down to the profes- 
sion of the law in London. He was an ardent supporter of 



398 English Literary Prose 

the cause of the reformers and of the policies of Henry 
VIII. The theme of his chronicle, as it is stated in the 
title to the second edition, is the union of the houses of 
York and Lancaster, " beginnyng at the tyme of Kyng 
Henry the Fowerth, the first aucthor of this devision, and 
so successively proceadyng to the reigne of the high and 
prudent prince Kyng Henry the Eight, the undubitate 
flower and very heire of both the sayd linages." Impelled 
by these motives of loyalty and also by the purer desire of 
the historian to save past events from oblivion. Hall writes 
with a sense of the dignity of his great subject, and exerts, 
even strains himself to make the style worthy of the theme. 
His scholarly bent is made apparent in many ways. He 
shows a fondness for long speeches and formal orations, 
of the kind recommended by Thucydides,^^ which the 
characters deliver in their proper persons. He frequently 
employs the rhetorical device of doublets, such as " dolour 
and lamentacion " ; " culpe and cause " ; " breake and vio- 
late all lawes"; "an hundred mo injuries ... he remitted 
and sepulted in oblivion." These, however, are but mild 
examples of Hall's tendency to use fine and wordy phrases. 
The following sentence describing the character of Henry 
VII is fairly typical : 

" He havyng both the ingenious forcast of the subtyl ser- 
pent and also fearyng the burning fire like an infant that is 
a little synged with a small flame : and farther vigilantly 
forseyng & prudently providyng for doubtes that might acci- 
dentally ensue : devysed, studyed and compassed to extirpate 
and eradicate all interior sedicions and apparant presump- 
cions whiche might move any tumulteous route or sedicious 
conjuracion against him within his realme in tyme to 
come." ^^ 

'^ Dale's translation, I, 13. 

" Edition of Ellis, London, 1809, p. 422. 



History and Antiquity 399 

It was this kind of writing which brought upon Hall the 
condemnation of Ascham, who declared that in the chronicle 
" moch good matter is quite marde with Indenture Eng- 
lish," and that anyone who would improve the style of the 
book must first " change strange and inkhome tearmes into 
proper and commonlie used wordes : next specially to wede 
out that that is superfluous and idle, not onelie where 
wordes be vainlie heaped one upon an other, but also where 
many sentences of one meaning be so clowted up together 
as though M. Hall had bene, not writing the storie of 
England, but varying a sentence in Hitching schole." ^^ 

As further aids in elevatiwg his style. Hall frequently 
employs rhetorical questions, ejaculations, and addresses 
to the reader; alliteration is not uncommon, as when he 
describes Joan of Arc as the " pevishe painted Puzel " ; and 
often the phrasing has a true Euphuistic turn, as when he 
speaks of a " lamentable chance & lachrimable loss," ^* or 
of the French king's death as ending " the poynt of his fatall 
fine." ^^ He is fond of introducing set portraits of char- 
acters, a trick probably learned from Polydore Vergil, of 
whose work frequent passages of Hall are scarcely more 
than translations.^^ On the other hand, although there are 
numerous brief passages of general moralizing and of sen- 
tentious wisdom which interrupt the narrative. Hall in- 
dulges in practically no personal references to himself or 
in details of merely gossipy interest. He omits all descrip- 
tions of feasts and ceremonies, usually remarking that it 
would take too long to describe them in detail, and he omits 
much of the picturesque side of the popular religious inno- 
vations of the times, probably from a feeling that the ac- 

^* The Scholemaster, Arber's reprint, pp. 111-112. 

** Ellis, p. 497. 

"Mbid., p. 249. 

*' Gairdner, Early Chronicles, p. 304. 



400 English Literary Prose 

tivities of the humbler disturbers of the peace were not 
fitly to be included in so dignified a narrative. 

The above description, however, applies to the book only 
to the beginning of the history of Henry VIII. All the 
first part extending to the death of Henry VH is formal, 
dignified, somewhat pedantic, but well told in its way, with 
a sense of the largeness of movement of the subject. And 
it is this part, especially the account of the reign of Henry 
Vn, which shows most the influence of Polydore Vergil. 
With the beginning of the reign of Henry VHI the tone 
of the writing completely changes. It becomes much sim- 
pler and less rhetorical, and though it does not become 
gossipy or trivial, it does become much more humanly in- 
teresting. Much more attention is paid to the popular side 
of theological opinion, and it is here that we find recorded 
the amusing story of Tunstall's treatment of Tindale's 
Bibles.-^ The narrative frequently exhibits a feeling for 
the humorous and the picturesque which is quite lacking 
in the earlier parts. The account of the early years of 
Henry's reign is particularly animated. The chronicler tells 
with evident enjoyment how in the eleventh year of Henry's 
reign, at the request of the King's counsellors^ certain 
" young menne whiche were called the kynges minions " 
were dismissed, and in their stead " foure sad and auncient 
knightes " were assigned to the King's privy chamber. He 
continues with a description of a mask wherein the dancers 
" daunsed with Ladies sadly, and communed not with the 
ladies after the fashion of Maskers, but behaved theim- 
selfes sadly. Wherefore the quene plucked of their 
visours," when it appeared that " the youngest man was 
fiftie at the least. The Ladies had good sporte to se these 

"' Turning on the point that the more Bibles Tunstall bought 
and destroyed, the more money Tindale acquired from the profits 
of the sale with which to print new and larger editions. 



History and Antiquity 401 

auncient persones Maskers." -® Feasts and pageants and 
ceremonies are all elaborately described, and the chronicler 
enters joyfully into all the gayety of the court. A riot of 
color runs over the pages of the narrative, " blewe satten 
pauned v^ith Sipres, powdered v^ith spangles of Bullion," 
cloth of silver and cloth of gold, " hed of damaske gold set 
with diamondes," " broched satten," pearls and precious 
stones, " flowers of silk," " crimosin velvet," and a dazzling 
wealth of similar opulent detail. The writer of this part of 
the chronicle has also a feeling for poetry, as when he tells 
of the twelve noblemen dressed " in shorte cotes of Kentishe 
Kendal " who appear, as it were out of the blue sky, be- 
fore the queen and her ladies, and after dancing, take their 
departure ; or of the king when in the second year of his 
reign, with all his knights, squires, and gentlemen in white 
satin and all his guard and yeomen of the crown in white 
sarcenet, he " rose in the mornynge very early to fetche 
May or grene bows." It is difficult to believe that the per- 
son who wrote the " indenture English " of the earlier part 
of Hall's Chronicle could also have written the graceful 
and animated account of the reign of Henry VHI. Who 
the author of this section of the book was seems not to be 
definitely ascertainable, though not improbably the account 
of the reign of Henry VHI is to be credited to Richard 
Grafton, editor and continuator of Hall.^^ 

After Hall and next in the succession of English chron- 
icle writers came Richard Grafton, whose Abridgement of 
the Chronicles of England first appeared in print in 1562 
and several times later. In 1569, however, Grafton pub- 
lished an amplified history which he called A Chronicle 

'' Ellis, p. 599. 

^° The grounds for this statement are presented in an article 
which will appear in a forthcoming number of Modern Language 
Notes. 



402 English Literary Prose 

at Large and meere History of the Affayres of Englande. 
Grafton apologizes for adding one more to the " many- 
books alreadie set forth, bearing the names and tytles of 
Chronicles of Englande," but justifies his own work on the 
ground that others have either been too brief or too de- 
tailed, some have " intermyngled the afit'aires of other for- 
reyne Nations with the matters of Englande," and still 
others, " namely strangers " (the allusion is probably to 
Polydore Vergil), have " slaunderously written and erred 
from the manifest truth." It is Grafton's intention to do 
what he declares has never before been done, to write a 
" playne and meere Englishe historie," and not to " inter- 
mix " his story with foreign afifairs. Nevertheless Graf- 
ton's history begins with the Creation, the explanation 
being given that England had the same time of creation 
that the rest of the world had, and that consequently its 
history begins with the beginning of the world. The 
specific story of England opens with the arrival of Brute 
in Britain, whose legend Grafton accepts without question. 
The earlier parts of the history, however, are passed over 
rapidly, and it is only with the reign of William the Con- 
queror that the narrative is fully elaborated. In those parts 
for which Hall was available Grafton follows Hall very 
closely. But he used various sources, and gives a list of 
seventy-four authors who are " alleged in this history." In 
the earlier parts especially he assigns many passages to 
their specific sources. In its own day Grafton's work was 
highly esteemed, and apart from any question of its his- 
torical value, the reason for its popularity is not difficult to 
find. It tells its story currently and animatedly, and as 
writing, it is much more mature than Fabyan and far less 
afifected and pedantic than Hall. It was the best example 
of chronicle writing which had so far appeared in English. 
Before the publication of Grafton's Chronicle at Large, 



History and Antiquity 403 

his Abridgement had to compete with the similar work of 
a contemporary rival historian, John Stowe's Summarie of 
Englyshe Chronicles, the first edition of which appeared 
in 1565. This was followed by numerous later editions, 
and by editions of a version of the Summarie abridged. 
But Stowe, following Grafton's example, also published 
an amplified form of the Summarie in his Chronicle of 
England in 1580, which in its final and fullest published 
form in 1592 was entitled the Annates of England. The 
Annates was several times reprinted, and after Stowe's 
death the book was continued by Edmond Howes. 
As Howes remarks in his preface, the reader need expect 
in this work " no fyled phrases, Ink-horne termes, uncouth 
wordes, nor fantastique speeches, but good playne English 
without affectation, rightly befitting Chronologic." Stowe 
wrote with industry and with the propriety which became 
a sober London citizen, but his Annates is not an inspired 
work. By temper Stowe was an antiquary rather than an 
historian, and his Survey of London is to-day much more 
important than any of his historical writings. 

With Grafton's Abridgement and Stowe's Summarie 
may be grouped Thomas Cooper's Epitome of Chronicles, 
first published in 1549 and a number of times later. This 
work is a continuation of a chronicle of the world, begun 
by Thomas Lanquet, but carried by Lanquet only from the 
Creation to the year 17 at the time of his death. The major 
part of the work is therefore Cooper's, since he brought 
down the epitome to his own times. It is of slight impor- 
tance now, either as history or literature, but it contains 
some interesting prefatory remarks on the significance of 
historical writing, borrowed mainly from Cicero, and per- 
haps it deserves at least to be mentioned both as an example 
of a kind of compilation popular in its time and later con- 
demned by Bacon, and as one of the works of the author 



404 English Literary Prose 

of * Cooper's Dictionary ' and of several polemical tracts 
that figured in the Marprelate controversy. 

The apex of English chronicle writing was, reached w^ith 
the publication of Holinshed's Chronicles in 1577. The 
published parts of this work, however, were but the merest 
fragment of the plan of the whole as it was originally con- 
ceived. Under the influence probably of the Cosmographia 
Universalis of the famous Hebraist and geographer, Se- 
bastian Miinster, which was published at Basel in 1544, 
Reginald Wolfe, a fellow countryman of Miinster and a 
native of Strassburg, but as early as 1537 established in 
London as printer and publisher, projected "an universal! 
Cosmographie of the whole world," and " therewith also 
certaine particular histories of every knowne nation." As 
Holinshed states in a letter prefixed to the third volume 
of the Chronicles, he together with others was engaged to 
assist Wolfe in the composition of this great work. Un- 
fortunately Wolfe died in 1573 before any part of the plan 
had been brought to completion, and in default of a pub- 
lisher brave enough to assume the burden of so great an 
undertaking as Wolfe had planned, the whole project lapsed. 
Encouraged by friends, Holinshed later continued his his- 
torical labors, and in 1577 was enabled to publish in two 
folio volumes a modification of the original scheme con- 
taining histories of England, Ireland, and Scotland, with 
descriptions prefixed. Ten years later, after the death of 
Holinshed, this first edition, " collected and published by 
Raphaell Holinshed, William Harrison and others," " new- 
lie augmented ... to the yeare 1586," was printed again 
by John Hooker of Exeter, the uncle of Richard Hooker, 
who had had a share in the original edition. The book, 
as the title indicates, was the result of the collaboration of 
various authors. John Hooker contributed a translation 
of Giraldus Cambrensis on the conquest of Ireland, and 



History and Antiquity 405 

some further articles concerning Ireland. Holinshed him- 
self wrote the continuation of the history of Ireland from 
the point where Giraldus left off to 1509. This was con- 
tinued in the first edition by Richard Stanihurst to the 
year 1547, and in the second edition by the same con- 
tributor to the year 1586. Stanihurst's verbal eccentricities 
in writing contrast markedly with the simple style of the 
other contributors. In the second edition the history of 
Scotland, which Holinshed had carried down to 1571, was 
continued by Francis Botevile. But aside from Hol- 
inshed's share in the book, the most important contribution 
was the description of England by William Harrison, a 
native of London who had studied at Westminster School 
and later at Oxford and Cambridge, but the greater part 
of whose life was spent in the seclusion of country livings 
in Essex. Unlike most of the antiquaries of his time, for 
Harrison was antiquary rather than historian, Harrison 
himself was not a traveler. A journey of forty miles 
seemed to him a momentous occasion. Nevertheless, with 
the aid of Leland's manuscripts and the assistance of 
friends by correspondence and conversation, he gathered to- 
gether the materials of his Description and made of them a 
well-ordered and entertaining book. He speaks very mod- 
estly of his achievement. He protests earnestly that he 
" never made any choise of stile or words, neither regarded 
to handle this Treatise in such precise order and method 
as manie other would have done, thinking it sufficient 
truelie and plainelie to set foorth such things as I minded 
to intreat of, rather than with vaine affectation of elo- 
quence to paint out a rotten sepulchre " ; and a little later 
he hopes " that this foule frizeled Treatise of mine will 
prove a spur to others better learned." But Harrison 
writes picturesquely without effort, and perhaps was at 
an advantage over more learned antiquaries in that he was 



4o6 English Literary Prose 

not hampered by theories of a fine style or by an unman- 
ageable mass of detail. His Description is not merely a 
list of facts, but he stops occasionally to deliver his own 
comments and opinions in an engagingly free and intimate 
way. 

As to Holinshed's share in the book, little need be said. 
The traditions of English chronicle writing, by this time 
become conventional, are followed, and the narratives at- 
tempt to present little more than an epitome of historical 
events with some attention to setting. Holinshed main- 
tains his style on the middle level, neither high nor low. 
He writes simply and clearly, but never eloquently. In- 
deed he expressly disclaims any attempt at " rhetoricall 
shew of eloquence, having rather a regard to simple truth 
than to decking words." His work shines more from the 
reflected glory of its use by Shakspere than from any 
splendor of its own. 

Though Holinshed's was the most elaborate attempt at 
chronicle writing in England, perhaps the distinction of 
being the most perfect English chronicle from the point of 
view of execution belongs to John Speed's History of Great 
Britaine. Speed made good use of the fully developed 
technic of chronicle writing with which the traditions of 
the form provided him, but he added nothing essentially 
new. His flamboyant style, however, is sometimes not 
without a certain finish and charm of phrasing not found 
in the earlier chroniclers. Like his predecessor Stowe, 
Speed was a London craftsman, " brought up to his fath- 
er's trade of tailoring." Through the assistance of Sir 
Fulke Greville, however, in 1614, when he was a little over 
sixty years old. Speed's hand was set free " from the daily 
imployments of a manuall trade " by the acquisition of a 
landed estate. As early as 1598 Speed had busied himself 
in making maps of the various counties of England, and 



History and Antiquity 407 

these were collected and published with an accompanying 
descriptive text in the year 1611 under the title Theatre 
of the Empire of Create Britaine. Later editions bear the 
title A Prospect of the most Famous Parts of the World, 
and open with a Generall Description of the World, wherein 
the author shows " how the whole earth which at first knew 
but one Land-lord, hath beene since rent into severall par- 
cels, which Kings and Nations call their owne." ^^ In the 
year 1611 also appeared the first edition of Speed's History, 
which covers the history of England from the conquests of 
the Romans to the reign of King James. The Prospect 
was often printed with editions of the History, providing 
thus a complete chorographical as well as historical ac- 
count of Britain. At the end of the History, Speed gives 
a Summary Conclusion of the Whole, in which he acknowl- 
edges his debt to various books and persons. But he him- 
self, he declares, has journeyed throughout England, 
" whose beautie and benefits, not a farre off, as Moses saw 
Canaan from Pisgah, but by my owne travels through every 
province of England and Wales mine eyes have beheld." 
The materials of the history proper are well ordered and 
compactly narrated, though sometimes with a straining 
after rhetorical effect which seems more like " fusty fool- 
ery " than the high style which Speed thought he was writ- 
ing. The garment of fine writing always sits awkwardly 
on these citizen chroniclers. 

The development of historical writing in the sixteenth 
century was on the whole slow and meager. The chronicles 
differ from one another to some extent in the degree of 
literary skill which their authors exhibit, but the general 
purposes and standards which governed their composition 
remained much the same. The chief defect of the chroni- 
'" Edition of 1631, p. 2. 



4o8 English Literary Prose 

clers lay in their lack of insight into the significance of 
events. Fraudulent invention of detail with intent to de- 
ceive was not frequent, but the sense of distinction between 
romance and history or philosophy and history was not 
keen. The opinion expressed by Isaac Casaubon that his- 
tory " is nothing else but a kind of Philosophy using Ex- 
amples," ^^ " a Metropolis of Philosophy," was very gen- 
erally held. And the defense of history so frequently made 
that it provided the models of good and bad behavior to be 
chosen or shunned by posterity was one which the writers 
of pure fiction could as appropriately offer in defense of 
their work, for contemporary romance likewise rested upon 
an ethical basis. Between didactic fiction and history 
Gefifrey Fenton makes practically no distinction in the prefa- 
tory letter to his Certain Tragical Discourses of Bandello 
(1567). These tragical discourses or 'histories' are mod- 
ern tales told as though they were based on fact and justi- 
fied because they yield us " frelye presidentes for all cases 
that maye happen." Apparently any narrative of events 
with moral applications satisfied Fenton's conception of 
history. A famous instance of the confusion of romance 
and history may be noted in the discussion which centered 
about Guevara's Dial of Princes. In this work, Guevara 
asserted that he was translating from a Florentine manu- 
script, which it appeared on investigation neither he nor 
anyone else had ever seen. In answer to the charges of 
fraud that were brought against him, Guevara maintained 
" that all ancient profane history was no more true than his 
romance of Marcus Aurelius, and that he had as good a 
right to invent for his own high purposes as Herodotus or 
Livy." ^^ And a similar point of view is exemplified, if 

'' See Bolton's Hypercritica, ed. Spingarn, Critical Essays of the 
Seventeenth Century, I, 98. 

'^ See Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, II, 17. 



History and Antiquity 409 

not expressed, in the romances of Lyly, where historical 
anecdote and episode are utilized merely for the sake of 
their moral or illustrative significance and with no regard 
at all for their historical verity. History of this kind dif- 
fers very little from that of the Gesta Romanorum. The 
writings of the chroniclers were to be sure not so uncritical 
as those of the professed romancers, because the chronicles 
usually rest directly upon manuscript sources. But the 
sources themselves were rarely regarded with a question- 
ing eye and were used as storehouses of edifying narrative, 
not in order to verify events. 

The broad scope of the chroniclers likewise tended to 
prevent them from gaining an intimate realization of char- 
acter or of the causes of events and the human motives 
which are the occasions of events. Their story was of 
v/ars and battles, of the births, marriages, and deaths of 
kings, or if they descended to matters more familiar, it 
was only too likely to be in the manner of " your lay Chro- 
nigraphers," who write of nothing but of " Mayors and 
Sheriefs and the deare yeere and the great Frost." ^^ 
They lacked not only " the wings of choise words to fly 
to heaven," but also ideas to be put into words. Edmund 
Bolton speaks of their " vast vulgar tomes," of their 
" tumultuary and centonical writings " as resembling " some 
huge disproportionable Temple, whose Architect was not 
his Arts Master." ^* 

From the middle of the sixteenth century, the theory of 
historical writing had occupied the minds of many Italian 
writers, and in 1574 Thomas Blundeville had published a 
book of precepts derived from Patrizzi's Delia Istoria 
(1560) and from an unpublished work of Jacopo Acontio.^^ 

'' Nash, Pierce Penilcsse, in McKerrow, Works, I, 194. 

"* Hypcrcritica, 1. c, p. 98. 

'° The True Order and Method of writing and reading Histories 



4IO English Literary Prose 

The notion of a constructive and rigorous historical method, 
however, seems not to have become very definitely estab- 
lished in England until towards the end of the sixteenth 
and in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. One 
begins then to meet with frequent expressions of discontent 
with what had previously been accomplished in the field of 
English history. Sir Henry Savile, for example, who five 
years before had published a translation of four books of 
the Histories of Tacitus, remarks in the dedicatory epistle 
of his Reriim Anglicariim Scriptores (1596) that the 
writers of English history, " being of the Dregs of the 
Common People," have merely " stain'd and defiled " while 
they have endeavored "to adorn the Majesty of so great 
a Work." ^^ And Thomas Lodge, in a prefatory address 
To the Courteous Reader in his translation of The Famous 
and Memorable Workes of Josephus (1602), though he 
sets forth the usual theory that history should serve as a 
storehouse of examples, places special stress on the thought 
that the judgment must be called into play to determine 
the significance of the examples, history in the narrow 
sense merely supplying the material upon which the judg- 
ment is to operate. ^^ 

In the Advancement of Learning, published in 1605, ap- 
peared Bacon's well-known analytical discussion of the 
kinds of history and of the methods appropriate to them. 
To the three parts of human understanding, according to 
Bacon's classification, memory, imagination, and reason, 

according to the Precepts of Francisco Patricio and Acontio 
Tridcntino, London, 1574. See Einstein, Italian Renaissance in Eng- 
land, pp. 309-313, for an account of the content of Blundeville's 
book. Sidney has some interesting observations on the qualifica- 
tions of the historian in a letter written to his brother in 1580, re- 
printed in Collins, Critical Essays and Literary Fragments (Arber's 
English Garner), pp. 6-8. 

^^ Bolton's translation of Savile, in Hypercritica, 1. c, I, 96. 

^' Lodge, Complete Works, Hunterian Club, IV, 2y27. 



History and Antiquity 411 

the three appropriate kinds of expression are history, 
poetry, and philosophy. History may be natural, civil, 
ecclesiastical, or literary. Of these four, the first kind, the 
history of the physical world, Bacon finds to have been only 
inadequately attempted, and the last not at all. His com- 
ments on ecclesiastical history are relatively brief, but what 
he has to say about civil history is full and carefully thought 
out. Of the epitomes or chronological summaries which 
were popular at the time, he speaks harshly, calling them the 
corruptions and moths of history. Just or perfect history 
may consist of chronicles, of lives, or of narrations or rela- 
tions. Chronicles he also calls the history of times, and while 
granting that they are the most complete and absolute kind of 
history, he maintains that they are inferior to lives or biog- 
raphies in usefulness and to narrations of particular 
actions in truthfulness. For the histories of England that 
were already in existence, he has little respect. Conceding 
that the history of England, which should include that of 
Scotland, from the beginning to modern times, might be 
an undertaking difficult to manage, because of the length 
of time to be covered, he recommends " an excellent period 
of a much smaller compass of time as to the story of Eng- 
land ; that is to say from the uniting of the roses to the 
uniting of the kingdoms." In conclusion of this section of 
his discussion, Bacon calls attention to various kinds of 
mixed history, reprehending the practice, so dear to the 
chroniclers, of intermingling " matters of triumph, or mat- 
ters of ceremony, or matters of novelty with matters of 
state." He speaks approvingly of cosmography as a kind 
of history compounded of natural and civil history. Some 
of the ideas contained in these passages of the Advance- 
ment of Learning appear also in a set of paragraphs writ- 
ten earlier as introductory to a history of England from 
the beginning of the reign of Henry VHI, " near unto the 



412 English Literary Prose 

present time wherein Queen Elizabeth reigneth in good 
felicity," ^^ which Bacon purposed to write. He declares 
here that he may undertake this task of trying to write an 
English history without apology, since he will not be writing 
again that which others have already done well. " For those 
which I am to follow are such as I may rather fear the 
reproach of coming into their number, than the opinion of 
presumption if I hope to do better than they." Although 
the full plan as it is here outlined by Bacon was never 
carried to completion, only a few years later he gave a 
practical demonstration of these theories in a work which 
established a new standard for English historical writing, 
his history of the reign of Henry VH. 

Shortly after the publication of Bacon's Advancement 
of Learning appeared Samuel Daniel's Collection of the 
History of England (1612). Daniel declares that he 
undertook to write a history because England was held 
" to come behind other Nations in this kind," and that he 
has " made choyce to deliver onely those affaires of action 
that most concerne the government." ^^ He puts in an 
appendix .all " treaties, letters, articles, charters, ordi- 
nances," and similar documentary evidence. The ar- 
rangement of Daniel's Collection is narrowly chronological, 
and though the events are rapidly and compactly told, the 
narrative exhibits little life, or color, or considering his 
theories, little insight into the subject. The book is rather 
an expanded epitome than a history. Daniel's Ciz'il Wars, 
like the historical poems of Drayton, is more significant 
in the history of epic poetry than in that of historical 
writing, though in general these historical poets kept close 
to the facts of history as they were recorded in the chroni- 
clers and other historians. 

One more critical discussion of history may be noticed, 
" Works, ed. Spedding, XI, 34. '' Works, ed. Grosart, IV, 76. 



History and Antiquity 413 

a dissertation written after Bacon's Henry VII was com- 
pleted but before it had appeared in print. Though not 
pubhshed until later, Edmund Bolton's Hypercritica, or A 
Rule of Judgment for writing or reading our History's 
was composed about 161 8. Bolton declares that though 
England has enjoyed all other honors, it still is without a 
history, and he agrees in the main with Sir Henry Savile 
that not any of the English histories " discharge that Office 
which the Titles promise." To Speed he gives rather 
qualified praise when he says with respect to his style and 
industry that " for one who (as Martial speaks) hath 
neither a Graecum jorfpf nor an Az'e Latinum, [he] is 
perhaps without many Fellows in Europe." *° The gravest 
defects of English historical writing he declares to be the 
want of art and style, and in the course of his essay he 
proceeds to lay down the principles which he thinks should 
govern the composition of history. The most difficult duty 
of historians he considers to be that of showing how the 
will of God has operated in the afifairs of men. Of English 
historians he is of the opinion that Sir Thomas More has 
come nearest to realizing this duty. A valiant defense of 
the necessity of truth and of " indifferency and even deal- 
ing " is presented ; if one will set his hand to paper, " then 
the Nobility of the office commands him rather to die then 
with the Injury of Truth to humour Times and Readers, 
and content himself." *^ A principal duty of the historian 
is " to handle the counsels and causes of Affairs," and Bol- 
ton then proceeds to point out the places " where the most 
universal Shipwracks are made," as the English historian 
endeavors " to make his course through the great Sea and 
Archipelago of so noble and magnificent a work." After 
some discussion of the proper style and language to be em- 
ployed, Bolton closes with a summary of the qualities 
'" L. c, I, 98. " L. c, p. 95. 



414 English Literary Prose 

requisite in the good historian. He must write as a 
" Christian Cosmopolite, to discover God's Assistances, 
Disappointments, and Overruling in human affairs " ; as a 
" Christian Patriot to disclose the Causes and Authours " 
of his country's good or evil, to establish thereby the law- 
ful liberty of nations; as a Christian subject, to show " the 
benefit of Obedience and Damage of Rebellions " ; and 
finally as a " Christian Paterfamilias," not neglecting his 
private affairs, since " Labours of this noble Nature are 
fitter to get Renown then Riches, which they will need, not 
amplyfy." "^ 

Though the high demands of theory were not practically 
realized in any pre-eminent English history during the 
period under consideration, there were nevertheless a 
number of attempts which reveal a profounder sense 
for historical narrative than the conventional epitome 
or chronicle. Several of these fall within the earlier 
years of the sixteenth century, for example. The First 
English Life of King Henry the Fifth, written in 1513 
by an anonymous Author known commonly as The 
Translator of Livius,'*^ Sir Thomas More's History of 
King Richard HI, and Cavendish's Life of Wolsey; later 
come Bacon's Henry VH and his fragmentary historical 
writings, and noteworthy for their intention at least, if 
not for their performance, the various historical works of 
Sir John Hay ward. Most of these writings, it will be 
observed, are in the field of historical biography, a limita- 
tion of plan which made possible a more thorough and uni- 
fied treatment than the chronicle histories had usually at- 
tempted. The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth 
is mainly a translation of Tito Livio's Vita Henrici Quinti 
(1438) "out of facound Latine " by a writer who speaks 

*Mbid., p. 114. ""Ed. Kingsford, Oxford, 1911, 



History and Antiquity 415 

of himself as one " from whome all pratique and famous 
inditinge is farr exiled." Other sources are also employed 
by the author and are indicated in his marginal comments. 
His own. additions are mostly moral and general ejacula- 
tions on the subject-matter. The book is a conscientious 
but pedantic piece of work, its chief merit consisting in the 
fact that the materials taken from various sources are 
really fused into an attempt at a united and connected nar- 
rative. 

The History of King Richard III, usually ascribed to 
Sir Thomas More,** in its first published form is a frag- 
ment, breaking off abruptly in the tale of the conspiracy 
between the Duke of Buckingham and Cardinal Morton. 
In the modern edition of the work,*^ the conclusion, to the 
death of Richard, is taken from the version inserted by 
Grafton in his continuation of Hardynge's Chronicle. The 
tone of the writing in this latter part changes and shows 
clearly that it is by a different and less artful writer. The 
earlier part, which may be assumed to be from More's pen, 
is hostile to Richard throughout, following the source of 
which it is a loose translation, but it maintains a dignified 
literary tone. The central thread of the narrative is never 
lost, the unity of detail adding greatly to the dramatic effect. 
The only excursus of any significance is that in which the 
writer dwells for a moment on the fate of Jane Shore, and 
even here he apologizes for mentioning such a subject in a 
serious history. Stylistically the narrative is well man- 
aged. Orations and set speeches are introduced, and often 
the action is made vivacious by means of dialogue. The 
sentences frequently betray classic influence in the use of 
periodic structure and of formal balance and antithesis. 

"■* See p. 83 for the question of authorship. 

■"^ More's History of King Richard III, ed. Lumby, Cambridge, 
1883. 



41 6 English Literary Prose 

But they are also often admirably compact and epigram- 
matic in form. On the whole the biography afforded an 
excellent model of historical narrative from the point of 
view of its style and structure. The same praise cannot be 
given to it for its temper. It presents a set portrait of 
Richard clearly and sharply defined, but certainly over- 
drawn and partisan. It seems to have been written less in 
the spirit of the disinterested seeker after truth than in that 
of the political pamphleteer, intent on strengthening the 
cause of Richard's vanquishers. The '' bad eminence " 
which the name of Richard held through the chroniclers, 
in Shakspere, and which it has held down to the present 
day, is a direct inheritance from this history. One may 
doubt if Richard was as black as he is painted; but there 
can be no difference of opinion as to the dramatic power of 
the picture which is here presented, and the fascination 
which it has exerted upon the minds of all later genera- 
tions. 

In striking contrast to the tone of the History of Richard 
III stands George Cavendish's Life and Death of Cardinal 
IVolsey. Cavendish also is a special pleader, but he pre- 
sents his case for Wolsey with such restraint and modesty 
that his story seems almost a perfect example of historical 
narrative. Cavendish would have been the first perhaps 
to disclaim artistry, and the reader is often in doubt 
whether the best effects in the book are gained by the con- 
scious mastery of technic or are the result of that rarer 
kind of excellence in writing, the natural expression of a 
clear and transparent nature. Certain it is that Cavendish 
was not a skilled professional writer. His Life was the 
work of a man of one book, a book into which he put the 
fruits of all his own reflection and experience. The one 
event of his life was his connection with the great cardinal. 
Born of a good Suffolk family in 1500, at the age of 



History and Antiquity 417 

twenty-four he was married to Margery Kemp, niece of 
Sir Thomas More. Two years later, in Wolsey's words, 
" abandoning his own country, wife and children, his own 
home and family, his rest and quietness, only to serve me," 
Cavendish entered the cardinal's service as gentleman 
usher. He remained with Wolsey throughout the re- 
mainder of Wolsey's career, and was with him at his death 
in November, 1530, at Leicester. His faithfulness to his 
master was highly commended by Henry VHI, who 
promised to take him into his service and who rewarded 
him with a gift of twenty pounds, besides paying to him ten 
pounds of unpaid wages and granting him permission to 
choose six of the best " amongst all my lord's cart horses, 
with a cart to carry my stuff, and five marks for my costs 
homewards."*^ The Duke of Norfolk also would gladly 
have taken Cavendish into his service. But apparently 
Cavendish had seen enough of the life of the court, for 
he never again attempted to make a career for himself. 
With his six cart horses and his stufif, and with a heart 
full of food for many years' meditation, he retired to the 
seclusion of his home at Glemsford in Suffolk, from which 
he never reappeared. 

It was almost thirty years later when Cavendish began 
to set down in writing the story which doubtless long before 
had taken form in his mind. Internal evidence in the 
Life and Death indicates that it was written in 1557, and 
doubtless the counter-reforms of Mary made the time seem 
propitious for the preparation of a defense of the great 
opponent of protestant reform. The accession of Elizabeth, 
however, rendered the publication of the work imprac- 
ticable, and though it was widely circulated in manuscript 
and in this form may have been known to the authors of 
the Shaksperean Henry VIII, it was not until the middle 
*° Life and Death, ed. Ellis (1899), p. 256. 



4i8 English Literary Prose 

of the eighteenth century that a representative manuscript 
appeared in print.*^ 

The purpose which moved Cavendish to w^rite his story 
of Wolsey's life and death is briefly stated at the opening 
of the work. He declares his intention to be to tell of 
Wolsey's " ascending and descending from honorous 
estate," partly from his own knowledge and partly from 
other persons' information. He refuses controversy and 
will not answer the " divers and sundry surmises and 
imagined tales " which have circulated since Wolsey's 
death, but prefers to let them " remain still as lies." This 
dignified position the book consistently maintains. It tells 
its story simply, without violent accusation or partisan 
bias. Its undertone is not one of personal feeling, but of 
sober philosophy. The moral lesson of the vanity of am- 
bition and worldly greatness, which Wolsey's life has so 
often been used to enforce, has nowhere been presented 
with greater sincerity and earnestness than in the Life and 
Death. The early life of Wolsey is very briefly described, 
but the picture of the magnificence of his prosperous period 
is elaborated in great detail, providing thus an artistic con- 
trast with the longer half of the story of Wolsey after his 
fall. Cavendish was an undisguised admirer of Wolsey 
and, by reason of the simplicity and warmth of his feeling, 
he succeeds in presenting an engaging portrait of him. He 
nevertheless sets down frankly the faults of his master, 
faults of pride, of ostentation, of worldliness, and neglect 

*' Stowe in his Annals printed extracts from Cavendish, and a 
garbled version was printed in 1641. In 1761 appeared Grove's 
edition from a manuscript. The first standard edition was by 
Singer, 1815; a second edition appeared in 1827. Singer's text is 
reproduced in Morley's Universal Library. In 1893 Mr. F. S. 
Ellis published an edition for the Kelmscott Press, and in 1899 
reproduced this text, with modernized spelling, for the Temple 
Classics edition. The edition of Boston, 1905, contains a com- 
posite text made up from Singer and Ellis. 



History and Antiquity 419 

of spiritual opportunities. But there is no lachrymose 
sentimentality, no post-mortem familiarity on the part of 
the author. He writes as a simple retainer should write 
of one whom rank and fortune have placed above him, and 
he makes no attempt to set himself up as judge or to 
acquire a vicarious importance by reason of the greatness 
of his master. He is not for a moment garrulous, and 
though there are occasional brief passages of a general 
moralizing character on the vanity of ambition, the burden, 
as it were, of the song, there is much less of this than one 
might expect in a writer of the time. The story closes 
appropriately with the report of Wolsey's death which 
Cavendish made to Henry VHI and to the council in Lon- 
don. No general judgment of praise or blame is passed, 
though at the time Cavendish was writing, the temptation 
to speak harshly of Henry VHI must have been great. 
Even in matters of religion Cavendish never speaks bitterly 
or meddles with questions of state that did not concern him. 
He does not conceal his opposition to the protestant reform, 
but on the other hand, he is not a violent partisan. His 
book is the work of a simple, honest man, writing with a 
sure sense of the proprieties of the situation and with the 
serenity and gravity of one looking back over a long period 
of meditation. It has consequently somewhat the tone of a 
book of memoirs, and as is often the case with such books, it 
perhaps becomes a work of art less by intention than by 
what one might call the happy accident of its truth and 
directness. Cavendish wrote with the vividness and con- 
creteness of one whose prime concern was to put down in 
writing what he had seen and known, and his work thus 
became quite as much a life of himself as of his subject. 

Though tortuous and uncontrolled sentences sometimes 
occur and clauses are not always grammatically relateable, 
Cavendish's style on the whole is simple and compact. He 



420 English Literary Prose 

has a naive way of opening a subject, like a medieval ro- 
mancer, with " Now will I declare unto you," or some 
similar phrase. He often reproduces the exact tone of 
conversation, and probably the exact words. Yet his skill, 
when he sets himself the task of elaborate description or 
portraiture, is by no means slight. For the conventional 
chronicler he seems not to have had much respect. He 
scorns to describe the details of the funeral of Henry VH 
and the coronation of Henry VHI, leaving " the circum- 
stances thereof to historiographers of chronicles of princes, 
the which is no part mine entendment." ^® And as to the 
complications of Henry's troubles with France, Cavendish 
refuses to say anything, speaking perhaps with the im- 
patience of one who has been behind the scenes, of the 
" imaginations and inventions, even as men's fantasies 
served them, too long here to be rehearsed : the which I 
leave to the writers of chronicles." ^^ One habit, however, 
Cavendish shares with the chroniclers, that of frequently 
commenting on the fickleness and lack of judgment of the 
people. In the minor details of style, Cavendish shows 
great restraint. Alliteration is sparingly used, and the 
artificial tricks of balance and antithesis, of the use of 
doublets and learned words appear not at all. The modesty 
which characterizes the spirit of the book governs the man- 
agement of the technical details of expression. One may 
wonder if this twofold restraint and propriety was not the 
result of Cavendish's Catholic training and traditions, and 
if so, be led to reflect on what was lost to writing in six- 
teenth-century England through its rejection of Catholic 
discipline. The only piece of sixteenth-century historical 
writing which in its simple truth and restraint of feeling 
merits a place by the side of Cavendish's Life is the brief 
account of Sir Thomas More, by his son-in-law, Roper, and 
" Ellis's edition, p. lo. *' Ibid., p. 43. 



History and Antiquity 421 

in both cases it was the piety of the writer that gave its 
pecuhar charm to the writing. Enghsh style of this period 
was usually very highly colored and self-assertive. It 
tended to become either extravagantly popular or extrava- 
gantly literary and refined. Both in feeling and in the 
technlc of expression, writers of the time often passed 
beyond the legitimate bounds of their subject. The ex- 
cellence of Cavendish's Life and Death arises from the 
fact that the author clearly perceived the limits of his sub- 
ject and held himself within them. 

The first of the historical writings of John Hayward, 
who in 1619 became Sir John Hayward, appeared in the 
last year of the sixteenth century. This was entitled The 
First Part of the Raigne of Henrie the IIII, and to Hay- 
ward's misfortune, it was dedicated in highly laudatory 
terms to the Earl of Essex. The book aroused Queen 
Elizabeth's anger, who thought she saw in it, after the 
return of Essex from Ireland, allusions favorable to his 
cause. According to the story preserved by Bacon,^° Eliza- 
beth regarded it as a " seditious prelude to put into the 
people's heads boldness and faction," adding that " she had 
good opinion that there was treason in it." Elizabeth 
asked Bacon if he could not find sufficient cause in the 
book for preferring a charge of treason against the author ; 
" whereto I answered," continues Bacon, " ' For treason 
surely I find none, but for felony very many.' And when 
her Majesty hastily asked me wherein, I told her, the 
author had committed very apparent theft; for he had 
taken most of the sentences of Cornelius Tacitus, and 
translated them into English, and put them into his text." 
But Elizabeth was not to be put ofif with a jest, and sus- 
pecting that Hayward was not the author of the book but 
merely a borrowed name to conceal the real author, she 
°° Letters and Life, III, 150. 



422 English Literary Prose 

wanted to rack him " to produce his author." " I repUed," 
says Bacon, " ' Nay, madam, he is a Doctor, never rack 
his person, but rack his style; let him have pen, ink and 
paper, and help of books, and be enjoined to continue the 
story where it breaketh off, and I will undertake by collect- 
ing the styles to judge whether he were the author or no.' " 
Though Hayward escaped the threatened racking, both of 
body and of style, he was kept in prison for several years, 
and it was not until the accession of James that he regained 
his liberty and was taken into favor. He was an ardent 
supporter of James, of the doctrine of the divine right of 
kings and of the hereditary succession. A university grad- 
uate of Cambridge and a student and practitioner of the 
law in London, Hayward was not without learning suffi- 
cient to enable him to set forth his arguments authoritatively 
in the several treatises which he published on these sub- 
jects. His distinction as a lawyer was greater than as an 
historian, and his elevation to the knighthood doubtless 
came in recognition of his legal attainments. In the later 
years of his life he also published several religious treatises, 
the most popular being his Sanctuarie of a troubled Soule, 
a book of prayers, of pious ejaculations, self-recriminations 
and meditations which produces a curious impression of 
fervor without genuine fire. 

Besides the First Part of the Raigne of Henrie IIII, Hay- 
ward's historical writings consist of The Lives of the III 
Normans, Kings of England, William the first, William the 
second, and Henrie the first (1613), and two posthumous 
works published a few years after his death in 1627, The 
Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixth, and The Be- 
ginning of the Reigne of Qiieene Elisabeth. In general 
Hayward strove to be an impartial historian. He is not a 
violent religious partisan, blaming Cranmer, for example, 
for insisting on the burning of two heretics, on the ground 



History and Antiquity 423 

that " a good thing is not good, if it be immoderately de- 
sired or done." ^^ On the whole he gives a very fair state- 
ment of the reasons for religious reformation in Edward 
the Sixth's reign, with much respect for all sides of the 
question. His first experience in connection with his 
Raigne of Henrie IIII doubtless impressed upon him the 
conviction which he expresses, that history should be a 
record of events and not a partisan account of affairs. He 
likewise has definite theories as to what should constitute 
" a true carried History." He takes issue in part with " a 
noble Writer in our time," ^^ who esteemed it to be " a 
maim in History, that the Acts of Parliament should not be 
recited." To this Hayward agrees in so far as parliamen- 
tary acts occasion '' tumults or division, or some remark- 
able alteration in the state ; otherwise, as I find them not 
regarded by most imitable Writers, so I account the relation 
of them both fruitlesse and improper for a true carried 
History." ^^ A preface to Henrie the IIII again touches 
briefly on the art of writing histories — what things 
are to be suppressed, what lightly touched, and what 
to be treated at large, " what liberty a writer may 
use in framing speeches, and in declaring the causes, coun- 
sailes and events of things done," and other similar sub- 
jects. These are merely mentioned, however, as topics 
which Hayward says he might profitably have discussed 
if he had not been unwilling to make his gates wider than 
his town, and he closes " onely wishing that all our English 
Histories were drawne out of the drosse of rude and bar- 
barous English : that by pleasure in reading them, the 
profit in knowing them, might more easily bee attained." ^* 

" Edward the Sixth, 2nd ed. 1636, p. 16. 

°^ Bacon is meant, who in his Henry VII (ed. Spedding, Works, 
XI, 147) defends this doctrine at some length. 
" Edward the Sixth, p. 113. 
°* From the edition of 1642, where the preface is headed " A. P. 



424 English Literary Prose 

It was not for lack of effort on Hayward's part if his 
histories were not " drawne out of the drosse of rude 
and barbarous English." Many of the artful tricks of 
Euphuism and Arcadianism, by Hayward's time already 
become somewhat old-fashioned, he cultivates with more 
zeal than discretion. He is fond of ' tranlacing/ as when 
he speaks of the " common sorte," " which joyeth to see 
any hard happ happen to them wlioe are extreme happy." ^^ 
Alliteration is sometimes hard-worked, as when he declares 
that " many principall poyntes have not punctually beene 
performed." ^^ He is particularly fond of the balanced 
antithetic sentence. The following, describing the grief of 
the two children of Henry VHI on hearing of the death 
of their father, might have come bodily out of Etiphues or 
Arcadia: 

" Never was sorrow more sweetly set forth, their faces 
seeming rather to beautifie their sorrow than their sorrow 
to clowd the beautie of their faces. Their young yeares, 
their excellent beauties, their lovely and lively enterchange 
of complaints, in such sort graced their griefe, as the most 
yron eies at that time present were drawne thereby into 
societie of their teares." ^^ 

He is not averse to puns, and cheap alliterative phrases 
are not uncommon, e.g. " stiffe stubbornness and filthy 
flattery," " vile vulgars," and " vague villaines," meaning 
the people; and speaking of one Bell, put to death at Ty- 
burn, he describes him as " a man nittily needy." He fol- 
lows the usual fashion of the chroniclers in his frequent 
scornful references to the " vulgar multitude," in the in- 

To the Reader." There is no indication who A. P. was, but the 
passage reads like Hayward. 

" Annals of Eli::ahcth, ed. Bruce, p. 24. 

'Mbid., p. 35. 

^'' Edward the Sixth, p. 9. 



History and Antiquity 425 

sertion of set speeches of his own invention, and even 
occasionally in allusions to such prodigies as' the mare that 
brought forth a foal with one body and two heads. He 
pauses in the narrative not infrequently for brief passages 
of moral or political wisdom, and he often cites precedents 
very learnedly and elaborately from Greek, Roman, He- 
brew, and general Asiatic history. Unquestionably Hay- 
ward had a feeling for historical narrative as distinguished 
from mere chronicle writing, but his literary taste was not 
sufficiently formed to enable him to write histories which 
might serve as models of permanent value. 

Bacon's History of the Reign of Henry VU was com- 
posed in the summer of 1621 and appeared in print the 
following year. It was the first work completed by Bacon 
after his fall, and as soon as it was finished, a fair copy, 
still preserved in the British Museum, was made and sent 
to James. But though Bacon evidently had some intention 
of pleasing the king by the composition of this history, the 
reading of it is sufficient to show that he did not strive to 
accomplish this end by flattery. The History is not a 
eulogy of Henry VH, nor a veiled eulogy of King James. 
It is a serious endeavor to realize in practice certain prin- 
ciples of historical writing which Bacon had long held 
theoretically. In the Advancement of Learning he had pro- 
posed as a worthy subject for an English historian the 
history of England from the Union of the Roses to the 
Union of the Crowns. The History of the Reign of Henry 
VU was the first section of this broader plan, and though 
the whole was never carried to completion, a fragment of 
a history of the reign of Henry VIII and another of the 
reign of James I show that the project was never long out 
of Bacon's mind. His reasons for choosing this period of 
English history are specifically given. He refrained from 
going " higher to more ancient times " because the farther 



426 English Literary Prose 

back one goes, the fewer documents and original sources 
of information there are available. Moreover the later 
times are more profitable for the historian to study, since in 
them the matter of history is not great wars and conquests, 
but rather the events of times " refined in policies and in- 
dustries." This period also offers something " altogether 
unknown to antiquity," that is, the changes " in matters of 
religion and the state ecclesiastical." Bacon adds various 
other happenings of interest within the realm and without 
as justifying his intention to write a history of approxi- 
mately his own times, concluding with " the new discov- 
eries and navigations abroad, the new provisions of laws 
and precedents of state at home, and the accidents memo- 
rable both of state and of court." The only doubt that 
occurs to him is that the times of which he proposes to 
write may be " of too fresh memory." But he sets this 
doubt aside by assuring himself that the truthful historian 
of contemporary events, if he does not win the praise of his 
own day, is at least secure of that of posterity. ^^ 

The method of Bacon's Reign of Henry VII does not 
differ greatly from that of earlier biographical English 
histories. The center of the action is always the king and 
his counsellors or followers. The character of the king 
is analyzed to the minutest detail, and all the doings of 
state at home and abroad are duly recorded. The people 
rarely appear in Bacon's narrative except as rebels, as at- 
tendants on the king's celebrations, or as taxpayers from 
whom the royal revenues are derived. In other words, 
Bacon attempts no more than his predecessors the com- 
position of a social or economic history of the times of 
Henry VII. The nearest he comes to this is in the recital 
of the laws passed in the various parliaments of the reign, 
a procedure he recommends to all writers of histories, since 
" Works, ed. Spedding, XI, 34-37. 



History and Antiquity 427 

laws are " the principal acts of peace." Even here, how- 
ever, though the laws discussed are in their effects often 
of a popular character. Bacon seems to be interested in 
them mainly from the point of view of the development of 
legal history or theory. In certain formal respects, also, 
the Reign of Henry VII is like earlier histories. One finds 
in it the, usual invented speeches, put into the mouths of 
the characters, ^^ the formal character portrait, and though 
this is in the main done implicitly and without specific 
comment, the same feeling for the moral and didactic value 
of biography. The one, but all-sufificient, characteristic 
which lifts the Reign of Henry VII out of its class is the 
greatness of mind of the author of the work. Here, for the 
first time in the development of English historical writing, 
one feels that the historian is not only completely master of 
the details of his history with respect to narrative arrange- 
ment and order, but also with respect to the full biographi- 
cal and political significance of the details. Bacon's history 
becomes therefore not primarily a narrative of events, but 
a revelation of character, an analysis of principles and 
theories of government. It tells the story of Henry's life 
in accordance with Bacon's personal interpretation of the 
evidence afforded by the records. Henry is neither a pic- 
turesque villain nor an exalted saint in Bacon's eyes, but a 
human being of mixed character whose actions are in them- 
selves interesting, and for those who care to ponder over 
them, may be edifying. The spirit of Bacon's history is 
as far removed as possible from the romantic. It is the 
work of one who knows himself firmly fixed in a world of 
realities, of one who sees deeply into the motives which 
actuate men, and who by reason of the clearness of his 

°® See Morley, Critical Miscellanies, IV, loi, for a discussion 
of the set speech in Renascence historians, carried back to Thu- 
cydides. 



428 English Literary Prose 

vision lias lost some of the glamour of life. Human nature 
does not need to be highly colored to interest Bacon, and 
the familiar, even the ignoble, does not move him to scorn- 
ful invective. Like the Italians Machiavelli and Guicciar- 
dini, with whose methods he was certainly acquainted, 
Bacon writes with something of the dispassionateness of 
the judge whose concern is primarily to make a full and 
complete statement of the case. Yet at the end of the 
history, it cannot be denied that Bacon has passed sentence 
on Henry VH. The drawing of the indictment is a sen- 
tence, not of absolute condemnation or acquittal, but the 
many-sided sentence which is the only one of any signifi- 
cance to the historian. When one compares Bacon as 
historian with preceding chroniclers and historical writers, 
one can give the earlier writers credit for industry in the 
collection of detail, for occasional picturesqueness in narra- 
tive and richness in description, in which respects they 
often surpass Bacon, but nowhere can one find such grasp 
of general situation and of individual character, such rich- 
ness of thought in so brief compass, as in Bacon's Henry 
VII. It was Bacon's achievement to show that stories of 
great wars and conquests of kings and princes, or descrip- 
tions of royal progresses and feastings, no matter how richly 
embroidered, were not adequate to impart dignity to his- 
torical writing. The true dignity of history, as men might 
learn from Bacon's example, depends less upon the great- 
ness of the action of which it treats than it does upon the 
degree of wisdom displayed by the historian in his grasp of 
character and in his comprehension of the significance of 
events. 

A curious contrast is presented when one turns from 
Bacon's closely reasoned Henry VH to Raleigh's grandiose 
History of the World. This work realizes in some respects 
the philosophical idea of history which the scholarship of 



History and Antiquity 429 

the seventeenth century was beginning to inculcate ; it at 
least attempts to take account, as Bolton recommended, of 
the ways of God to man. But on the other hand it may 
also be grouped with the encyclopedic and cosmographical 
treatises of the kind fragmentarily represented by Holin- 
shed's Chronicle. It may even have been influenced in its 
origins by still earlier and medieval forms of universal 
history, the Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor and the 
Compendious History of the World by Orosius. There is 
more than a trace of medievalism both in the conception 
and in the treatment of the materials of Raleigh's History. 
His authorities, of which he cites over six hundred, are 
often of a kind that even the critical knowledge of his 
day should have taught him to reject. And though the 
Bible is unquestionably an historical document of very 
great importance, Raleigh represents an extreme point of 
view when he declares that the Biblical narratives, by 
virtue of their sacred character, are the tests and touch- 
stones of truthful record with which all other historical 
evidence must be made to concur. On the other hand, the 
History is a peculiarly contemporary expression of Raleigh's 
own spirit and the spirit of his day. The wonder never 
grows less that the great minds of the sixteenth century 
should have been at once so rich in detail and so broadly 
inclusive. Raleigh was a poet, a courtier, a soldier, a 
sailor, a daring explorer, even a philosopher (if we may 
use the term to describe one who has thought widely on the 
moral aspects of human life), and in all these varied activi- 
ties, a man of rare energy and distinction. His mind moved 
freely and in large circles, and it is not surprising that one 
who had committed himself, as Raleigh had done, to the 
bold adventure of determining the outline and structure of 
the physical world should also undertake the still bolder 
adventure of tracing the growth and form of human civili- 



430 English Literary Prose 

zation. Whatever may be its imperfections of execution, 
Raleigh's History in its conception exhibits the quahty of 
greatness which later generations have not always been able 
to share with the Elizabethans. 

The immediate popularity of the book is a proof that it 
met a contemporary need. It was written between 1607 
and 1614, while Raleigh was in prison, and it appeared 
first in print in two editions in 1614. New editions ap- 
peared at intervals of a few years throughout the seven- 
teenth century, attesting a continued interest in the book 
which has now been lost, but which is by no means unin- 
telligible to anyone who may be led to read it. The History 
begins with the Creation, and extends only to the year 
130 B.C. This, however, was but one section of the whole 
as originally planned, which was to consist of three parts 
or volumes, carrying the history of the great nations of the 
world down to Raleigh's own times. Of the whole plan 
the first part alone was finished, and this treats only of 
Jewish, Greek, and Roman history. This first part is itself 
a long work, testifying to Raleigh's industry during the 
seven years in which it was written. It has a unity of its 
own, and though at the end of it, Raleigh declares that he 
has already " hewn out " a second and third volume, the 
lack of the later parts in no way impairs the interest 
of the earlier. The modern reader may regret that 
Raleigh did not begin by writing a history of those events 
in which he himself took so prominent a part, and in 
his Preface he acknowledges that it might have been 
better if he, as one who had been " permitted to draw 
water as near the well-head as another," had attempted 
rather to put together " the unjointed frame of our Eng- 
lish affairs than of the universal." " To this I answer," 
says Raleigh, " that whosoever in writing modern history 
shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply strike out 



History and Antiquity 431 

his teeth." ^° With his final conckision the average reader 
of the seventeenth century, eager for some connected story 
of the history of the great nations, the great captains and 
heroes of antiquity, would doubtless have agreed; and 
though a contemporary history would certainly have gained 
in dramatic interest, it could hardly have retained the broad 
philosophic movement, the moral and political wisdom, 
which are the distinguishing characteristics of the History 
as it stands. 

His own conception of history Raleigh presents in some 
detail in the Preface to his book. The obvious ideas of 
the immortality of history, " that it hath given us life in 
our understanding since the world itself had life and be- 
ginning," and that it provides for mankind edifying ex- 
amples of virtue and of vice, Raleigh passes over lightly. 
His main point is that the writing of history consists in 
tracing the judgments of God, and the chief lesson of his- 
tory is that all human greatness is mutable and transitory. 
Though kings and princes of the world have labored to 
make themselves and their issue masters of the world, " yet 
hath Babylon, Persia, Syria, Macedon, Carthage, Rome 
and the rest, no fruit, flower, grass, nor leaf, springing 
upon the face of the earth of those seeds : — No ; their very 
roots and ruins do hardly remain." *^^ Of the ultimate pur- 
pose of God in thus exalting and degrading the nations 
and princes of the earth, Raleigh does not venture to speak. 
He simply notes that the history of the world is the story 
of a sequence of tragedies, the word tragedy being under- 
stood in its medieval sense, of the ascent and the fall of 
princes. Of one thing, however, he is quite certain, and 
that is that wickedness shall not go unpunished. He finds 
that God is " the same God in Spain, as in England and 

^"History (Edinburgh, 1820), I, Iviii. 
" Ibid., p. vi. 



432 English Literary Prose 

France," a just God, but an avenging God, visiting his 
wrath upon the third and fourth generations. The figure 
of the stage constantly recurs. Man plays out his little part 
before the public gaze, but the end of it always is tragedy. 
Death stands ever at the end of the path, and all winds 
drive us to the port of death, " when by letting fall that 
fatal anchor, which can never be weighed again, the navi- 
gation of this life takes end." ^"^ And since God is the 
author of all our tragedies, since it is He who has " writ- 
ten out for us and appointed us all the parts we are to 
play," ^^ and since He has shown his impartiality by visit- 
ing the greatest misfortunes upon the greatest princes, no 
man, not even the most humble, can complain of wrong. 
" Certainly there is no other account to be made of this 
ridiculous world than to resolve that the change of fortune 
on the great theatre is but as the change of garments on the 
less." ^'^ A manly philosophy, certainly, if somewhat melan- 
choly in its combination of stoicism and helplessness. 

In pursuance of his general plan of displaying the tragedy 
of human life, Raleigh begins with the first great tragic 
story of the creation and fall of man. The whole Biblical 
story from Adam to Noah and the sons of Noah is narrated 
with a great wealth of learned illustration. But Raleigh 
does not feel himself bound to follow, undeviatingly, the 
thread of his narrative. He acknowledges that he makes 
many digressions, " which if they shall be laid to my 
charge, I must cast the fault into the great heap of human 
error." ^^ For this human error of wandering from the 
subject, the reader of the History to-day will be grateful, 
since the digressions are frequently the most interesting 
parts of the narrative. Although acknowledging that " the 
matter is of no great weight as touching his kind," Raleigh 

'" History, p. xxxv. °* Ibid., p. xl. 

•' Ibid., p. xxxix. " Ibid., p. Ivii. 



History and Antiquity 433 

devotes a whole section to the discussion of the question 
whether or not the tree of life in the garden of Paradise 
was the same as the Ficus Indicus, or banian-tree, re- 
putedly a rare tree, though he declares that he himself had 
seen " twenty thousand of them in one valley not far from 
Paria in America." He has seen them also " in those seas 
of the Indies where oysters breed," and by pulling up one 
of the cords of the tree entangled in the beds of oysters, 
he has seen " five hundred oysters hanging in a heap 
thereon ; whereof the report came, that oysters grew on 
trees in India." ^'^ At another place, having narrated some 
of the evil works of the devil in the world, Raleigh pauses 
to describe in a passage of stately oratorical beauty the last 
refuges of the devil, since in these latter days " he cannot 
play upon the open stage of the world " as in former times. 
Now he " finds it more for his advantage to creep into the 
minds of men ; and inhabiting in the temples of their hearts, 
works them to a more effectual adoration of himself than 
ever." Instead of the images and idols of old, dead stones 
cut into the faces of beasts and birds, " he now sets before 
them the high and shining idol of glory, the all-command- 
ing image of bright gold." ''^ These digressions are some- 
times of considerable length, as when the story of the 
giving of the law to Moses leads over into a general 
treatise on the origin and nature of law. Raleigh dis- 
cusses the name and meaning of the words law and right, 
defines the eternal law of God as Hooker, whom he quotes, 
had done before him, with the aid of Thomas Aquinas and 
St. Augustine, distinguishes between the law of nature, the 
written and the unwritten law of God, and various other 
theoretical and administrative aspects of the law. Some- 
times also the digressions are interesting as containing the 
results of Raleigh's own practical experience and observa- 
"" History, I, 145. •=' Ibid., I, 203. 



434 English Literary Prose 

tion. Thus in discussing the relative advantages of the 
Carthaginians and Romans for warfare in Sicily, he shows 
by modern instances how commanders who could avail 
themselves of the means of maritime transportation were 
enabled to overcome and outwit their enemies. " And to 
say the truth," he continues, " it is impossible for any 
maritime country, not having the coasts admirably fortified, 
to defend itself against a powerful enemy that is master 
of the sea. Hereof I had rather that Spain, than England, 
should be an example." ^^ Another interesting digression 
occurs in the account of the funeral games held by Scipio 
in honor of the memory of his father and his uncle. A part 
of these games consisting of a duel between two Spaniards, 
Raleigh is easily led into a long discussion of the history 
of dueling and of the points of honor involved in the duel- 
ing code. For the " mystical curiosities " of the latter he 
has great scorn, as for the rule that it is a far greater dis- 
honor " to receive from an enemy a slight touch with a 
cane than a sound blow with a sword ; the one having rela- 
tion to a slave, the other to a soldier." " I confess," adds 
Raleigh,*'^ " that the difference is pretty ; though, for mine 
own part, if I had had any such Italianated enemy in former 
times, I should willingly have made with him such an ex- 
change, and have given him the point of honour to boot." 
Numerous though the digressions are, so large is the 
general movement of the book that they do not appreciably 
retard the narrative. In a somewhat complicated pattern 
the action moves steadily forward, the main thesis by 
gradual accretion becoming more and more powerful. The 
reader is always a spectator before the stage of the world 
and the author is the showman. His method is not so 
crude as that of the earlier narrators of the falls of princes, 
but the spirit informing it is not dissimilar. Raleigh en- 
" History, V, 56. '' Ibid., V, 467. 



History and Antiquity 435 

deavors to infuse feeling and thought into the bare records 
of antiquity, and in doing so, he often looks at his subject 
from the point of view of the poet. Like the " tragical 
poets " of whom he himself speaks, Raleigh's tale is 
" against infidelity, time, destiny ; and, most of all, against 
the variable success of worldly things, and instability of 
fortune." ^° His theme is moral and didactic only in the 
largest sense, and his story, like those of the tragedians, 
is intended to purge and purify the emotions, not to lay 
down precepts of action. The most eloquent passages of 
the book are those in which Raleigh displays the vanity of 
ambition, " which plougheth up the air and soweth in the 
wind," and the blind ignorance of man who will not know 
himself until death compels him to turn his eyes inward : 

"O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could 
advise, thou hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, thou 
hast done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only 
hast cast out of the world and despised ; — thou hast drawn 
together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, 
and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two 
narrow words, Hie jacet." ^^ 

Bacon raised history to a dignified level by intellect, 
Raleigh elevated it by his poetic feeling. His History of 
the World was without question the most moving account 
of human events that had so far appeared in England. 

Original historical composition during the English 
Renascence was almost exclusively devoted to English sub- 
jects. The history of foreign nations, however, especially 
the nations of antiquity, was not inadequately represented 
in translations. A translation of Xenophon by William 
Barker, containing six books, appeared in 1560 (?), and 
enlarged to eight books in a second edition in 1567, This 

'° History, VI, 368. " Ibid., VI, 370. 



436 English Literary Prose 

translation was made, according to Barker, " out of Greeke 
into Englishe." Later translations were those of John 
Bingham (1623) and of Philemon Holland (1632). 
Herodotus appeared in a partial translation in The 
Famous Hystory of Herodotus . . . Deuided into nine 
Bookes, entituled with the names of the nine Muses 
(1584), translated by one who signs himself B. R. Thu- 
cydides came earlier in a version made from a French 
translation by Thomas Nicolls (1550), the only one to 
appear apparently before the translation made by Hobbes, 
" Immediately out of the Greeke," in 1629. The Moralia 
of Plutarch interested Elizabethan translators more than 
the Lives, the only translation of which was Sir Thomas 
North's (1579), made not from the Greek but from the 
French of Amyot. Polybius is represented by a transla- 
tion made by C. Watson (1568), to which the translator 
added an abstract of the life of Henry V, and by a later 
version by Edward Grimeston (1633). Herodian's history 
of the Roman Emperors was translated by Nicholas Smith 
and published by Copland (1550?), the translation being 
made not from the original Greek but from the Latin ver- 
sion of Politian. A later version (1629), "Interpreted 
out of the Greeke Originall," was one of the numerous 
works of James Maxwell, author of many historical and 
religious writings in the first half of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. Aelian is represented by A registre of Hystories 
translated " as well according to the truth of the Greeke 
text as of the Latine " by Abraham Fleming (1576). The 
Roman history of Appian is represented by An auncient 
Historie and exquisite Chronicle of the Romane warres 
(1578), with continuations from a source not specified. 

The Latin historians were usually translated directly 
from the Latin originals. Of Caesar " as much as con- 
cernyth thys realm of England " was translated and pub- 



History and Antiquity 437 

lished by an unknown author in 1530. Arthur Golding 
issued The eyght bookes of Caius Julius Ccesar in 1565, 
but no other translations of Caesar appeared, probably 
because no need was felt for English translations of so 
well-known a book, until the English versions of Sir Clem- 
ent Edmondes in the first decade of the next century. Ex- 
tracts from Livy by Antony Cope were published in 1544, 
but no completer version appeared until that made by the 
professional translator, Philemon Holland, in 1600. The 
first translations from Tacitus appear to have been the 
Power bookes of the Histories of Corjielius Tacitus (1591) 
by Sir Henry Savile. The Annales of Cornelius Tacitus, 
with the Germania, by R. Grenewey, appeared in 1598, and 
this and the preceding book passed through a number of 
editions. Sallust was translated by Alexander Barclay 
and published by Pynson (1520?). Later translations were 
made by Thomas Heywood (1608) and William Cross 
(1629). Suetonius first received the favor of an English 
dress from Philemon Holland (1606). Eutropius, "Eng- 
lished by Nicolas Haward," stands alone in an edition of 
1564, as does Diodorus Siculus, " Translated out of French 
into Englysh by Thomas Stocker " (1569). A version of 
Diodorus Siculus by Skelton, still extant in manuscript, 
has never been printed. The abridgment of Trogus Pom- 
peius by Justin was translated and published (1564) by 
Arthur Golding, the translator of Caesar. Extracts by 
Thomas Norton had appeared earlier (1560?), and a later 
translation was made by G. W. (1606). Arthur Golding 
also published a translation of Pomponius Mela (1585). 
Ammianus Marcellinus was not translated until he fell into 
the hands of Philemon Holland (1609).^^ To this list of 

'^ For some minor translations and for additional bibliographical 
detail, cf. Palmer, List of English Editions and Translations of 
Greek and Latin Classics printed before 1641, London, 191 1, 



438 English Literary Prose 

translations from the classics may be added a version of 
Dares Phrygius by Thomas Paynell (1553), which had 
previously been versified by Lydgate on the basis of Guido 
della Colonne's Latin prose. Josephiis was first made 
available in English in the translation of Thomas Lodge 
(1602). 

Translations from Italian historians were not numerous. 
John Shute published Two very notable Commentaries, the 
one of the originall of the Turcks and Empire of the house 
of Ottomanno . . . and thother of the warres of the Turcke 
against George Scanderheg (1562), the first part of which 
is a translation from the Italian of the Turkish history of 
Andrea Cambini. To the list of Arthur Golding's transla- 
tions already mentioned is to be added The Historie of 
Leonard Aretine, concerning the Warres hetwene the Im- 
perialls and the Gothes for the possession of Italy (1563). 
A notable History e of the Saracens (1575) was " Drawen 
out of Augustine Curie and sundry other good Authours " 
by Thomas Newton, translator and editor of Seneca and a 
distinguished Latinist of the times. Curio's original was 
written, in Latin from which Newton made his translation. 
Turkish history was again represented by The History of 
the Warres betweene the Turks and the Persians (1595), 
translated from the Italian of Tommaso Minadoi by Abra- 
ham Hartwell, and by Ralph Carr's Mahiimetane or Turk- 
ish Hystorye (1600), "translated from the French and 
Italian tongues." Of the greater Italian historians, Guic- 
ciardini was the earliest to be translated, his history of 
Italy having been " Reduced into English " by Geffrey 
Fenton as The Historie of Guicciardin (1579). Machia- 
velli first appeared in English in Peter Whitehorne's Arte 
of Warre (1560), a translation of Machiavelli's book of 
the same title and one of a number of similar treatises on 
military practice and drill which were translated from 



History and Antiquity 439 

various Italian authors. Of the historical writings of 
Machiavelli the earliest representative was Thomas Bed- 
ingfield's Florentine Historie (i595). The Discorsi were 
translated by Edmund Dacres, under the title Machiavel's 
Discourses upon the first decade of T. Livius (1636), and 
the same translator published in 1640 the first English ver- 
sion of Machiavelli's // PrincipeP Of translations from 
the French, the most important, after Berners' Froissart, 
was The Historie of Philip de Commines (1596), admi- 
rably translated by Thomas Danett/* With the books de- 
rived from French sources, however, may perhaps be 
grouped Richard Knolles' Generall Historie of the Turkes 
(1603 and a number of later editions), a dignified and slow- 
moving narrative, largely based upon Boissard's Vitae et 
hones Sultanorum Turcicorum (1596). 

II 

Antiquarianism and history were two closely related sub- 
jects in the mind of the sixteenth-century scholar, and the 
same writers often cultivated both fields. The impulse 
to the study of English antiquities came partly through the 
desire to follow back to their origins English laws and legal 
traditions ; partly from students of theological questions, 
who often endeavored to give authority to the new teach- 
ings of the Reformation by showing that they were not 
really new but merely an inheritance from ancient practice ; 
partly also from the purely patriotic motive of seeing that 
the records of the nation were preserved and restored ; and 

" For other translations from the Italian, see the bibliography 
by Miss Scott, Pub. of the Modern Language Association, XIV, 

485-524. 

'* Edited by Charles Whibley for the Tudor Translation Series. 
For minor translations from French, see Upham, French Influence 
in English Literature, pp. 471-505. 



440 English Literary Prose 

finally in a considerable degree from the humanistic de- 
sire to imitate in English everything that had been done 
in classical literature. As England had her disciples of 
Cicero, Ovid, and Vergil, so she must also have her fol- 
lowers of Strabo, Pausanias, and Varro. With such 
models to lend distinction to the endeavor, the writing of 
works on English antiquities came to be regarded as 
worthy the attention of the most learned and important 
scholars. And undoubtedly there must have been a fascina- 
tion in entering so virgin a territory. To put down on 
record for the first time the name of a writer or the name 
of a river or town had some of the interest of original dis- 
covery. In the composition of books of antiquity and of 
topographical detail, England was really discovering her- 
self, not merely scattered notices of past times, but 
the country and the people with a unified and unbroken 
history. 

It was about the middle of the sixteenth century when 
such books first began to appear. In 1548 John Bale 
published his catalogue of English writers under the title 
Illustrium Majoris Britanniae Scriptorum Summarium. 
Bale felt keenly the neglect of English antiquities, and es- 
pecially the heedlessness which permitted the destruction 
of ancient books and manuscripts by the very Englishmen 
who should have been the first to care for their preservation. 
At the dissolution of the monasteries, he saw vast numbers 
of books either utterly destroyed or carried out of the 
country into lands where their value was better understood. 
Hindered by " ungentyll poverte " from rescuing these 
books by purchase, he could only stand helplessly by and 
raise his voice in protest. And though he is violent 
enough against the " laysy lubbers and popyshe belly- 
goddes " of the monasteries for their neglect of their 
manuscripts, he confesses that the English are now doing 



History and Antiquity 441 

worse, since they not merely neglect but sell and destroy the 
manuscripts of the old libraries. ^^ 

The first professional English antiquary w^as John Leland. 
He was born in the first decade of the sixteenth century, 
studied at St. Paul's School under William Lyly, later at 
Cambridge, at Oxford, and at Paris, where he knew well 
Budaeus and other famous French scholars. In 1533 he was 
made " king's antiquary," an office created for him in which 
he had neither predecessor nor successor. In the same year, 
by royal commission, he began the task of collecting ma- 
terials for what was to be a great work on the history and 
antiquities of the English nation. His journeyings in quest 
of antiquarian lore were extensive. He had authority to 
enter the libraries of all cathedrals, abbeys, priories, col- 
leges, and other places where records, writings, and secrets 
of antiquity were deposited ; and he declares " that there is 
almost neyther cape nor baye, haven, creke or pere, ryver 
or confluence of ryvers, breches, washes, lakes, meres, fenny 
waters, mountaynes, valleys, mores, hethes, forestes, 
woodes, cyties, burges, castels, pryncypall manor places, 
monasteryes, and colleges, but I have seane them, and noted 
in so doynge a whole worlde of thynges verye memo- 
rable." ^^ This journey, according to Leland's statement, 
occupied six years, but a longer time elapsed before he 
made any report on his activities. In 1545 he addressed 
a little pamphlet to Henry VIII, described as A Nezv 
Years Gift,'''' in which he gave an account of his plans and 
intentions. He intends, he declares, to call his history " de 

" The Laboryouse Journey, 1549. The pages are unnumbered. 

'' A New Years Gift. 

" Published again by Bale in 1549, with comment by Bale, under 
the title, The Laboryouse Journey and serche of John Leylande, for 
Englandes Antiquifees, geven of hym as a newe years gvfte to 
Kynge Henry the VIII. in the XXXVII. yeare of his Reygne, with 
declaracyons enlarged by Johan Bale. 



442 English Literary Prose 

Antiquitate Britannica, or els Civilis historia." There are 
to be as many books as there are shires in England and 
Wales, " so that I esteme that thys volume wyl enclude a 
fyfty bokes." There are then to be six books on the islands 
adjacent to Britain, and finally he expects " to superadde 
a worke as an ornament and a ryght comely garlande," in 
three books, to be entitled De nobilitate Britannica. He 
comments on the general neglect of English antiquities, and 
accounts for the fact on the ground that old works have 
not been printed, " and also because men of eloquence hath 
not enterprised to set them fourth in a flouryshynge style, 
in some tymes past not commenly used in Englande of 
writers otherwise wele learned^ and now in such estyma- 
cyon, that except truth be delycately clothed in purpure 
her written verytees can scant fynde a reader." Bale's 
comment on this is that the endeavor to satisfy " delycate 
eares and wyttes " with a more eloquent style " myghte 
wele be spared." And on Leland's general plans for the 
writing of books, he remarks that " it wolde have byn a 
wondre (yea, a myracle to the worlde) to have redde 
them." 

Leland did not succeed in carrying any part of his great 
plan to a conclusion, and the little New Years Gift is the 
only English writing that he completed. When Bale pub- 
lished his edition of the Nczv Years Gift in 1549, Leland 
had already become insane, in which condition he died three 
years later. Bale charges Leland with being " vayne- 
gloryouse," probably meaning thereby that he set his mark 
higher than was needful ; and he declares that Leland had 
" a poetycall wytt, whyche I lament, for I judge it one of 
the chefest thynges that caused hym to fall besydes his 
ryghte dyscernynges." In this there may be an element of 
truth. Leland had written a considerable body of Latin 
occasional verse and was interested in the graces of expres- 



History and Antiquity 443 

sion. The task, therefore, of assembhng and of setting 
forth in " a flouryshynge style " the mountain of facts 
which he had collected may well have been beyond his 
ability. He left them merely as detached notes, which were 
to be useful to many later chroniclers, antiquaries, and 
historians, but which are entirely without literary quality/® 

A more successful, though less ambitious attempt than 
that of Leland, was William Lambarde's Perambulation of 
Kent. Lambarde was a Londoner who, at the death of his 
father, inherited the manor of Westcombe in Greenwich, 
Kent. He had been a student of law at Lincoln's Inn, and 
had there devoted some time to the study of Anglo-Saxon 
and of history with Laurence Nowell, one of the early re- 
storers of Anglo-Saxon studies in England. His first 
publication, Apxociovof.iia, slve de priscis Angloruni legibus 
(1568). was the result of his interest in these subjects. 
Two years later he completed his Perambulation, though 
it was not printed until 1576. He later published several 
more books on legal subjects, held various public offices, 
among which was that of keeper of the records in the 
Tower, and died in the first year of the new century. 

Lambarde had begun the collection of materials, ar- 
ranged in alphabetical order, for a Topographical Diction- 
ary, covering not one, but many shires,^® but he tells us 
that " after that it had pleased God to provide for me in 
Kent," he determined to begin his publication with that 
shire. He writes with becoming modesty, fearing lest he 
may have " shaped such a peece as is more meete to be 
condemned to the kitchen than worthy to be admitted or 
have place in the parlor." ^"^ The content of his book is 

'^ See Hearne's edition of the Itinerary, 1710 (re-edited by Miss 
Lucy Toulmin Smith, 1906-8), and of the Collectanea, 1715. 

'° Not printed in Lambarde's lifetime, but issued in 1730, as 
Dictionariwn Angliac Topographicum et Historicum. 

'" Perambulation, p. vi. 



444 English Literary Prose 

naturally miscellaneous. He describes the geographical 
characteristics of Kent, the products, the people of the 
county and their activities, but mainly places, towns, 
castles, and similar memorials. He offers etymologies for 
most of the place-names he mentions, carrying the names 
back to Anglo-Saxon or Celtic originals in a way which is 
often picturesque but quite as often incorrect. He makes 
use of the privilege of the local chronicler in recording 
trivial events, as that Lenham long since " had market 
upon the Tuesday, which even to this day it enjoieth," ^^ 
or the story of the orphan boy, William Sennock, who lived 
to become mayor of the city of London. ^^ The gentle 
bucolic spirit of the book breaks, however, when Lambarde 
speaks of matters of religion. For he is a violent partisan, 
and often stops to revile the monks or to expose their 
frauds. Although Lambarde by no means writes in diction- 
ary style and has a constant care for picturesque phrasing, 
he does not descend to petty artifices and mannerisms of 
style. There is a pleasant charm in all his descriptions, 
whether he talks of " Seacoastes, Rivers, Creekes, Waterings 
and Rills," or of the more important places of human habita- 
tion. And with it all, Lambarde never loses the sense of the 
importance of his subject. He was doing something which 
had never been done before, and thereby was uniting himself 
in fellowship to Tacitus and Caesar. He writes with the 
threefold interest of the scholar, the writer, and the gentle- 
man, and though such a task undertaken with the same 
seriousness to-day might seem prosy, at the end neither 
Lambarde nor his modern reader is dissatisfied with this 
" Xenogogie and Perambulation of Kent, the first and onely 
Shyre " that its author has described. 

Lambarde's book, the first local history written in English, 
had many successors, but none more interesting than the 

" Perambulation, p. 292. *' Ibid., p. 469. 



History and Antiquity 445 

work suggested by it, that perambulation of London and 
its suburbs by John Stowe, known as the Survey of London. 
Stowe's Hfe was spent in London. He was born in 1525, the 
son of a tallow-chandler, and he himself was a tailor. Such 
time and money as he could abstract from the necessities of 
his calling he devoted to the pursuit of studies in divinity, 
astrology, and poetry. His interest in the first two of these 
subjects, dangerous matters for a man of his fortune to 
meddle with, seems to have got him into trouble and there- 
after to have declined. His interest in poetry bore fruit, 
however, in the publication of his first work, an edition of 
The Workes of Geffrey Chaucer (1561). This was followed 
by the publication of his various historical works, and a few 
years before his death, by his Survey of London, in 1598. 

In his perambulation of London, Stowe describes all the 
city's gates, towers, castles, bridges, churches, springs, 
streams, wells, together with any other notable thing that 
had come to his attention. It is a highly detailed picture 
of London, more however of the physical London than the 
city of men and women. Nevertheless the book gives one 
a sense of the reality of city life in England in the latter 
part of the sixteenth century such as can be paralleled else- 
where only in the realistic writings of Nashe, Greene, De- 
loney, and Dekker. Stowe, however, was not consciously 
part of any literary movement of the time, and if he shows 
some of the tendencies which appear in naturalist and 
realistic professional writers, the explanation is to be found 
in the common origin of these tendencies, that is, in the 
emergence into literature of the middle classes and their so- 
cial interests. Stowe shares with many other contemporary 
antiquaries and historians the gift of lending life and human 
interest to what might easily have been a dry catalogue of 
detail. The convention of impersonality which the modern 
printed book seems to impose upon most authors was not 



446 English Literary Prose 

then so powerful as it soon became. Stowe takes the reader 
into his confidence, chats discursively about this or that, 
quotes as it were from his personal diary, and if the spirit 
moves him, even enters into the details of his private life. 
The writing as a result may seem garrulous, but it is not 
likely to seem stupid. Moreover, as one who had spent the 
better part of a century in London, Stowe could write with 
something of the privilege of an oldest inhabitant. He 
had seen many and notable changes take place, and knowing 
by experience how difficult it was to recover the truth with 
respect to past happenings, he realized to the full the im- 
portance of his own contemporary observations. 

" This Hogge lane," he notes reminiscently, " stretcheth 
North toward Saint Marie Spitle without Bishopsgate, and 
within these fortie yeares, had on both sides fayre hedge- 
rowes of Elme trees, with Bridges and easie stiles to passe 
over into the pleasant fieldes, very commodious for Citizens 
therein to walke, shoote, and otherwise recreate and refresh 
their dulled spirites in the sweete and wholesome ayre, 
which is now within few yeares made a continuall building 
throughout, of Garden houses, and small Cottages : and the 
fields on either side be turned into Garden plottes, teynter 
yardes, Bowling Allyes, and such like, from Houndes ditch 
in the West, so farre as white Chappell, and further to- 
wards the East." ^^ 

Sometimes the recollections have little more than their an- 
tiquity to commend them, as when, speaking of the church 
of St. Lawrence in the Jewry, he records : 

" I my selfe more than 70. yeares since have scene in this 
church the shanke bone of a man (as it is taken) and also 
a tooth of a very greate bignes hanged up for shew in 
chaines of iron." This shank bone was twenty-five inches 
long, " of a man as is said, but might be of an Oliphant."^* 

'' Survey^ ed. Kingsford, I, 127. ^* Ibid., I, 275. 



History and Antiquity 447 

These passages are typical of Stowe. He always writes 
as the credulous citizen, meetly, soberly, gossipingly, with 
occasional quiet charm, and even with some conscious 
quaintness and humor. But he is never ambitious or strain- 
ing, and to his credit be it said, never affectedly literary. 

The position which Holinshed's Chronicle occupies among 
English chronicles, William Camden's Britannia holds in 
the line of development of antiquarian and chorographical 
writing. In the ambitiousness of its scheme and in the in- 
clusiveness of its detail, it is the result and the summary of 
much preceding effort. The burden consequently under 
which Leland staggered and succumbed, Camden was en- 
abled to carry lightly. He is said to have begun making 
collections for his great work as early as his twentieth 
year, when, in 1571, he returned from Oxford to his home 
in London. In 1575 he became second master in Westmin- 
ster School, utilizing the free periods of vacations for 
journeying about England and adding to his collections. 
On his thirty-fifth birthday. May 2, 1586, appeared the first 
edition of his Britannia, a lasting testimony of his 
admirable industry and skill. Various editions of the 
work appeared later, the last for which Camden was 
responsible being that of 1607. In the mean time Camden 
had become head-master of Westminster School, had pub- 
lished a Greek grammar for use in the school, in 1597 
had been made Clarenceux king-of-arms, and had other- 
wise been active as scholar, antiquary, and herald. In 161 5 
appeared his Annates rerum Anglicariim et Hibernicarnm, 
regnante Elizahetha, which was later several times trans- 
lated into English. The first English translation of 
Britannia was made by Philemon Holland, in 1610, and 
according to the statement of the title page, with additions 
and revision by Camden. Camden lived to be seventy-two 
years old, and among his friends he numbered not only the 



448 English Literary Prose 

pioneers in historical and antiquarian English scholarship, 
but also such representatives of the more exact, but dryer, 
learning of the first half of the seventeenth century as Sir 
Henry Savile, Sir Henry Spelman, and John Selden. 

Camden chose not to write in English and now pays the 
penalty for this choice in that the modern reader is more 
likely to turn to Philemon Holland's translation of the 
Britannia than to the excellent Latin of the original. As 
a Latin stylist, Camden speaks apologetically of his writing. 
He declares that he has not weighed every word in gold- 
smith's scales, and that it is not his intention to pick flow- 
ers in the gardens of eloquence. But this disclaimer need 
not be taken too seriously, for it is quite evident that Cam- 
den was not a negligent student of the technic of expres- 
sion. The freshness, the picturesqueness, and the charm of 
Holland's translation are in the main all found in the 
original. What Holland has added is a certain quaint and 
idiomatic English flavor, unmistakably Elizabethan, which 
doubtless Camden himself would have given to his narrative 
if he had written in the vernacular. 

The Britannia begins with an account of the races that 
have dwelt in Britain, of the political divisions of the coun- 
try, of the different ranks of English society, of the law 
courts of the land, and then proceeds to a minuter descrip- 
tion of England by shires. All topographical features are 
indicated, as well as climate, occupations, and any marvels 
that came to Camden's notice. Much attention is given 
to etymologies, but even these details are not dryly pre- 
sented. The descriptions often show not merely knowledge 
about a place but feeling for it. Speaking of Taunton in 
Somerset, in Holland's words he says : 

" From thence with a soft streame and gentle fall, Thone 
runneth by Thonton, commonly Taunton, and giveth it his 
name. A verie fine and proper towne this is indeed, and 



History and Antiquity 449 

most pleasantly seated : in a word, one of the eies of this 
shire. . . . The Countrey here, most delectable on every 
side with greene medowes ; flourishing with pleasant Gar- 
dens and Orchards, and replenished with faire Mannour 
houses ; wonderfully contenteth the eyes of the beholders." ^^ 

Some of the etymologies are more ingenious than convinc- 
ing. The town Goodmanchester, a name which Camden 
takes to be a popular error for Gormonchester, is carried 
back in its origins to 

" the verie same City which Antonine the Emperour 
termed Duroliponte, amisse, instead of Durosiponte. For 
Diirosi-ponte (pardon mee I pray you for changing one 
letter) soundeth in the British tongue, A Bridge over the 
water Ose. And that this river is named indifferently and 
without distinction Use, Ise, Ose, and Ouse, all men con- 
fesse. But when this name was under the Danes quite 
abolished, it beganne to be called Gormancester, of Gormon 
the Dane, unto whom after agreement of peace, king 
Aelfred graunted these provinces." ^'^ 

Popular traditions and tales are accepted and repeated by 
Camden with an amazing simplicity. In his account of 
Whitby he includes all the local superstitions about jet 
which had there flowered in the people's imaginations. He 
speaks also of " certaine stones faschioned like serpents 
folded and wrapped round as in a wreathe, even the very 
pastimes of Nature disporting her selfe." Some of the 
stones are " shaped round in maner of a Globe," in which, 
if you break them, " are found stony serpents enwrapped 
round like a wreath, but most of them are headless." ^^ 
This region was particularly rich in wonders. For not far 
away the Irt, a little river, " maketh way toward the sea, 
wherein the muscles and cochles, after they have with a 

"= P. 223. '" P. 510. '^ P. 721. 



450 English Literary Prose 

kinde of yawning or gaping sucked in dew, which they hist 
after to conceive by, bring forth pearles, or to speake as the 
Poet doth, Shell-berries, which the inhabitants thereby search 
after at a low water, and our Lapidaries and Jewellers buy 
of the poore needy people for a little, but sell againe at an 
high rate." ^^ Thus is the hard path of science and etymology 
made pleasant and easy. The book as a whole is a monu- 
ment to Camden's industry and to a wide and humane, if 
extremely uncritical, scholarship. But learning had not 
yet grown into the hard mistress she was soon to become. 
Whether the details of Camden's scholarship are exact or 
inexact, they are always kept alive by a pleasant personal 
note. He makes scholarship, if not a precise, at least an 
amiable pursuit. 

Descriptions of English antiquities and of English 
regions, like those of Leland, Lambarde, Harrison, Stowe, 
and Camden, were of course only reflections of a gen- 
eral interest in the bounds of the physical world. This 
interest extended from the period of antiquity to the 
latest contemporary voyage of adventure and discov- 
ery. Arthur Golding's translation of Pomponius Mela 
(1585), " concerninge the Situation of the world," was not 
merely a work of scholarship, but was designed to be of 
practical benefit to " Gentlemen, Marchants, Mariners and 
Travellers." A few years earlier Thomas Twine had pub- 
lished a translation of Dionysius Periegetes under the title 
of The Suriieye of the World (1572), containing not only 
descriptions of the principal countries, kingdoms, peoples, 
cities, towns, ports, promontories, hills, woods, mountains, 

" P. 765. The Latin of this (from the edition of 1590, p. 629), 
runs as follows : Superius Irton amniculus mare petit in quo conchae 
cum rorem, quern veluti maritum appetunt, oscitatione quadam 
hauserint, fiunt gravidae, margaritasque sive, ut cum Poeta loquar, 
baccas concheas pariunt, quae accolae cum resederit aqua venantur, 
gemmariique nostri minimo ab egenis emunt & maximo revendunt. 



History and Antiquity 451 

valleys, rivers, and fountains of the inhabited world, but 
also of the seas, " with their Clyffes, Reaches, Turnings, 
Elbows, Quicksands, Rocks, Flattes, Shelves and Shoares," 
a work which was said to be " very necessary and delectable 
for students of Geographie, Saylers, and others." With the 
progress of discovery in the sixteenth century, contempo- 
rary descriptions of the outlying regions of the world were 
written by most of the notable captains and explorers who 
sailed forth into the unknown from all the ports of Europe. 
Many of these were gathered together by Richard Eden, 
who published part of his materials in A Treatyse of the 
nezve India with other new founde landes and Islands 
(1553)) from Sebastian Miinster's Cosmographia Uni- 
versalis, and The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West 
India (1555), from Peter Martyr. The voyages of the 
great English discoverers, of Drake, Hawkins, Gilbert, 
Frobisher, Raleigh, and others, resulted in the publication of 
descriptions and records of mixed scientific, commercial, and 
romantic interest. As the bulk of this literature increased, 
it inspired Richard Hakluyt to attempt a collection of it. 
The fruit of his labors appeared in his Principall Naviga- 
tions, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, a 
first edition in 1589 and a second, largely increased, in 1600. 
The book is a compilation from various sources, partly trans- 
lated and partly adapted from the original narratives of Eng- 
lish explorers and adventurers. It is not, however, a di- 
gested history of exploration, but rather a library of docu- 
ments and descriptions from which a history could be writ- 
ten. The project of telling the story of the extension of 
man's knowledge of the world upon which he lives was one 
to stir the imagination, but the purpose and plan of Hak- 
luyt's work are more romantic than the execution. The col- 
lection contains much information, much sturdy, straight- 
forward narrative, and by reading between the lines, one 



45^ English Literary Prose 

can catch some of the glow of great achievement in the 
age of Elizabethan exploration. The materials of an epic 
of exploration are contained in Hakluyt, but they were not 
sufficiently fused and refined by passage through a literary 
imagination to form either a history or a poem. 

If one endeavors now in retrospect to measure the 
achievements of the writers of history and of the antiquaries 
of the sixteenth century in relation to the traditions of these 
subjects as they were inherited from their medieval prede- 
cessors, one finds that the great advances were made in two 
opposite directions. In the first place, the writers of English 
history in the Renascence acquired a deeper understanding 
of the comprehensiveness and of the dignity of historical 
narrative than had hitherto prevailed. Medieval history was 
comprehensive so far as chronological inclusiveness was 
concerned, but there is apparent in the cyclical chronicles 
of the earlier period little imaginative feeling for the struc- 
ture of the whole. A good deal of the spirit of medieval 
chronicle writing survives, even to the end of the sixteenth 
century, but in Hall, Holinshed, Stowe, and others, there 
is also evident striving to write history with attention to the 
unity and consecutiveness of events, and in consequence with 
a larger sense of its dignity. The task of the historian, as 
it gradually came to be regarded, was not to fill a treasure- 
house of fact with a mere catalogue of events, but to tell a 
connected story. And towards the end of the century the 
province of the historian was still further enlarged by the 
annexation of some parts of the field of the philosopher and 
theologian in providing explanations of the causes and of 
the course of events. Parallel to this widening of the 
bounds of the intellectual world in history ran the expansion 
of the historian's grasp of the limits of the physical world, 
as evidenced in the cosmographical descriptions and local 



History and Antiquity 453 

perambulations of the antiquaries. The two combined gave 
to the historical writer of the time an inspiring and con- 
fident assurance of the dignity and importance of his subject. 
On the other hand English history made great advances 
in the sixteenth century in its command over a variety of 
minute historical fact and in its sense of the reality of the 
materials out of which history is made. Much of the 
Elizabethan historian's detail is indeed trivial, and only 
slowly was the lesson learned of the difference between 
detail which was genuinely significant, which really gave 
the personal coloring to character and action, and that which 
was of ephemeral or of merely ornamental interest. Never- 
theless historical writing did gradually become more imme- 
diate and personal in its interests, more and more a record 
of credible human beings in a world of credible circum- 
stances. One finds in sixteenth-century historians a much 
clearer realization of the life of the state than had hitherto 
existed, both with respect to the development of internal 
policies and privileges, and with respect to the relations of 
England to foreign nations. The histories of the time clearly 
reflect the growth of the English national consciousness. 
Even in ecclesiastical matters, which were the prime and 
often the exclusive concern of medieval historians, the six- 
teenth-century historian, as Bacon pointed out, had an en- 
tirely new story to tell, a story, too, which came much 
nearer to common humanity in its daily acts and experiences 
than the chroniclings of the monastic historians had ever 
done. And finally, with historians like More, Cavendish, 
and Bacon, one finds human character analyzed with a 
realization of its subtleties and shades of meaning such as the 
historians of the medieval school never remotely approached. 
In some respects it was an advantage to the English his- 
torians of the sixteenth century that they concerned them- 
selves relatively so little with the philosophic interpretation 



454 English Literary Prose 

of events. By keeping their attention directed to concrete 
detail and to specific character and motive they gave to their 
writing a much to be desired solidity and reality which 
otherwise it might have lacked. 

These two characteristics combined, the new sense of the 
largeness of the meaning of history and the new feeling for 
the reality of the characters, the setting and the events of 
historical narrative, appear as the distinctive merits of the 
histories of the sixteenth century when they are compared 
with the cruder historical writings of the earlier centuries. 
They are also the condition of the special applications of the 
art of English prose writing to historical composition in this 
period. The lofty seriousness with which history was re- 
garded encouraged the historian in the cultivation of a 
dignified and substantial technic in writing, at the same 
time restraining in him, to a very considerable degree, the 
strong tendency of the age towards extravagance and arti- 
ficiality of style. The feeling for varied life and color in 
detail also gave to the historical literature of the period a 
much greater vivacity of effect, a much greater illusion of 
truth and reality than the earlier historians were capable of 
producing. The objective existence of the world of history 
exercised, on the whole, a beneficial effect upon the his- 
torians' command of the technical art of composition. It 
kept them in the middle way, providing them with abundant 
materials for the exercise of their art, and steadying them 
also with the sense of a duty towards these materials to be 
soberly and worthily performed. It would be too much to 
expect, even of historians, that they should forego all ex- 
travagance and fantasy in style, but compared with the 
writers of fictitious narrative, they remained engagingly nat- 
ural and simple. 



VIII 

THE MODERNISTS 

Modernism and Realism — Realism in the Drama — Ben 
JoNSON — Economic and Social Discussion — Medi- 
cine AND Quackery — Merry Jests and Tales — 
Rogue Tracts — Modernism and Villainy — Nashe — 
Greene — Peele — Lodge — Dekker — Deloney 

Readers of Shakspere will not need to be reminded that 
the Elizabethan sense of the word ' modern ' was not the 
same as it is in present-day English. To the Elizabethan, 
the adjective meant approximately ' commonplace,' ' famil- 
iar,' and Elizabethan modernism^ as a literary style, may 
fairly be equated with nineteenth-century realism. But 
realism, like M. Jourdain's prose, is ever with us, waiting 
only for the philosopher to give it a name. The mere process 
of naming it, however, often makes realistic writing seem 
to mean more than was intended. Realists who would have 
recognized themselves as such and who were professed 
practitioners of a cult are not to be found until much later 
than the period covered by this book. Before critical opin- 
ion had formulated a theory with respect to it, realistic writ- 
ing was in the main merely an occasional outcropping of 
the rock bottom of daily life. It would be a vain refine- 
ment, therefore, to attempt to state clearly what had not yet 
taken clear form, and in the present chapter many writers 
will be mentioned whose work was not consistently 
or prevailingly, sometimes not even intentionally realistic. 

455 



456 English Literary Prose 

Though realism, or modernism, in the sixteenth cen- 
tury is not susceptible of a sharp and clear definition, 
there is little difficulty in recognizing the numerous mani- 
festations of the realistic spirit when they appear; and per- 
haps it will be sufficient to say that in the following discus- 
sion the term realism will be used, somewhat loosely from 
the philosophic point of view, to designate the reflection of 
the world of sensible fact and of everyday human experi- 
ence in literature, whether presented in a simply descriptive 
spirit, or as reflections of the anti-heroic endeavor to escape 
from the idealistic refinements of poetry and romance. 

Towards the end of the sixteenth century there were some 
indications that the experiences and circumstances of 
familiar life were coming to be recognized more clearly 
than ever before as valuable material for literary purposes, 
and indications also that at this time something like a 
realistic school was beginning to be formed. In his hostile 
discussion of what he called modernism and villainy, Gabriel 
Harvey even gave a name to these tendencies. But the time 
was not ripe for the full apprehension of the possibilities 
of a realistic method, and the literary pictures of London 
life in Dekker, Greene, Nashe, and others, were continued 
only in slight sketches which served as settings for popular 
anecdotes. When the young Milton sought for a great sub- 
ject, it was not London that occurred to him, not the moral 
struggles of men facing the troubles and complications of 
contemporary life, but instead the misty King Arthur and 
the battles of the angels in heaven. 

Certain kinds of writing not originally devised to hold a 
realistic content, by their nature are more open to the re- 
ception of such materials than others. The drama espe- 
cially has proved to be a peculiarly favorable medium for 
the reproduction of the setting and characters of real life. 
In the sixteenth century meter was the form imperatively 



The Modernists 457 

prescribed by tradition for all serious dramatic efforts, and 
from this prescription Elizabethan drama successfully freed 
itself in but relatively few instances. Interesting parallel- 
isms can be observed, however, in the use of prose in the 
drama and in the development of the feeling for realistic 
effect. The mysteries, moralities, and interludes of the 
earliest English drama were written mainly in a four-stress 
line ultimately derived from the Old English alliterative 
line. In its Middle English and early Modern English de- 
velopments, this four-stress line followed two tendencies, 
the one a regularizing and restraining tendency, leading to- 
wards a fixed seven- or eight-syllable line with weak 
caesura and little alliteration but with clearly marked rime, 
and the other a free and expanding tendency, resulting in 
a line with an irregular number of unstressed syllables, a 
clearly marked break or csesura in the line, and a consider- 
able retention of the native ornament of alliteration with a 
correspondingly weak sense for rime. It was this latter 
kind of verse, known as tumbling verse, which connects di- 
rectly, as has already been pointed out,^ with the develop- 
ment of a certain type of English prose. In the mysteries 
and moralities, in the interludes and early comedies, this 
tumbling verse, often passing over into a tumbling prose, 
was frequently employed in passages of boasting, of exhorta- 
tion, of popular and sometimes realistically humorous volu- 
bility. It is often difficult to tell where the metrical inten- 
tion leaves off and the prose begins in this kind of writing. 
The persistence of this style in the popular drama is re- 
markable, so late a comedy as The Taming of a Shrezv 
(1594) exhibiting a thorough confusion between prose and 
tumbling verse. The differentiation and separation of a 
popular tumbling prose from tumbling verse never became 
complete, however, and the significance of the tumbling 
' See above, p. 15. 



458 English Literary Prose 

style in the present discussion lies mainly in the fact that 
it was one of the ways in which the tradition of familiar ex- 
pression established by Piers Plowman was kept alive. 

For the earliest consistent and artistic use of prose in 
dramatic writing one must turn not to the popular drama 
but to the court comedies of Lyly. In his two romances 
Lyly had previously worked out a form of expression suit- 
able for the conversation of the polite world, and this style, 
freed from some of its more extravagant mannerisms, he 
transferred to his comedies. The influence of Lyly's ex- 
ample upon later dramatic writing was very great, both 
upon comedy and the more serious drama. It did not 
establish prose as the standard form in any kind of dramatic 
writing, but it certainly led to the freer use of prose in all 
kinds. The comedies of Shakspere show manifest traces of 
this influence, and as for the tragedies it is doubtful if 
Shakspere would ever have written certain of the more 
familiar passages in Hamlet in prose, or the charming vi- 
gnette of social life in which the visit of the Lady Valeria 
to Volumnia and Virgllia in Coriolamts is described, if Lyly 
had not prepared the way for him. In the Elizabethan 
masques and entertainments, also, the traces of the influence 
of Lyly's prose are very marked. By reason of their light- 
ness and informality, dramatic compositions of this type 
found in prose a peculiarly congenial form of expression, 
and in them are contained some of the most faithful tran- 
scripts of Elizabethan manners and sentiments. 

In the period of the great names in the Elizabethan drama, 
one finds prose used with an increasingly certain sense of 
its values and proprieties. Marlowe used little prose — least 
of all in his heroic plays. Ignoble characters occasionally 
use prose in The Massacre of Paris, only however in plan- 
ning or discussing murders. In Tamburlaine prose is used 
in several passages of comic character or of commonplace 



The Modernists 459 

narration. After Bajazet has committed suicide, Zabina's 
grief passes beyond the restraints of verse into prose. In 
Faiistiis prose is more extensively used, mainly in scenes of 
humorous, satirical, and realistic coloring. The Seven 
Deadly Sins use it exclusively. The character Ithamore 
uses prose almost altogether in The Jew of Malta, though 
he breaks into verse when occasion offers, as in his de- 
scription of the beauties of Greece ; but in general v^hen 
sordid subjects are discussed, such as the lending of money, 
or when the less dignified characters take part in the action, 
the narrative passes from verse to prose. 

Marlowe's contemporaries, Greene, Peele, and Kyd, all 
used prose to a certain extent and according to a scheme 
more or less well defined. Greene's Comical History of 
Alphonsns is entirely in verse, and his Orlando Furioso has 
very little prose in it. But in his Looking Glass for London, 
Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay, James the Fourth, and The 
Pinner of Wakefield, prose is very freely employed. Peek's 
prose is found mainly in his Edward the First, The Old 
Wives Tale, and Sir Clyomen and Sir Clamydes. Kyd's 
Spanish Tragedy contains a few prose passages, brief mo- 
ments of relief from the crude horrors of the play. 

Greene seems to have had a carefully thought out plan 
for the use of prose. His noble characters express them- 
selves in verse, the ignoble characters speak prose, and the 
middle-class characters sometimes employ verse and some- 
times prose, according to the circumstances. In only one in- 
stance does he cause a woman to speak prose, this being 
the character of the Smith's Wife in The Looking Glass for 
London. Elsewhere his women speak verse, even when 
men of corresponding rank speak prose. Thus Alcon speaks 
prose, though Sannia, his wife, employs verse ; Margaret, 
the keeper's daughter, and Joan, a country wench, and The 
Hostess of the Bell at Henley, all speak verse, in Frier 



460 English Literary Prose 

Bacon, though Miles, the two Friars, and other humble 
male characters use prose. While other dramatists did not 
follow this convention as strictly as Greene, the general 
tendency was to give female characters a dignified 
treatment for which verse was the fitting medium of 
expression. The free use of prose by Portia and Nerissa 
in the Merchant of Venice, of Rosalind and Celia in As Yoii 
Like It, of Helena in All's Well, and of other female char- 
acters in Shakspere's early and middle comedy, was per- 
haps due to the influence of the comedy of Lyly, and is 
not found in the more serious plays and in the later comedy. 
Greene's Looking Glasse for London and Englande, writ- 
ten in collaboration with Thomas Lodge, is a satirical and 
didactic survey of London life, having for its main structural 
framework the deeds of the Machiavellian Rasni, king of 
Nineveh, a prince who follows his star through bloodshed 
and destruction. The main action of the play is in verse, 
but inserted at various stages of the main story are realistic 
descriptive scenes of familiar life in prose. The first gives 
a picture of drunkenness and the violence resulting there- 
from, the second illustrates the evils of usury, and the others 
are similar transcripts of London characters and situations. 
Occasional echoes of the cony-catching pamphlets occur and 
throughout these amusing interludes one realizes that 
Greene knew at least his London thoroughly. Frier Bacon 
and Frier Bongay is a play of varied interest, but the story 
of Lacy, the Earl of Lincoln's wooing of Margaret, the 
lovely maid of Fresingfield, a humble dairymaid raised to 
elevated position, is noteworthy for its charming pictures of 
simple English life. Broad comedy situations are provided 
by Miles, Friar Bacon's poor scholar, by Rafe Simnell, a 
court fool, and by various " clowns," or rustics, as this 
term is understood by Greene. The Scottish Historie of 
James the Fourth is primarily a love romance, but here 



The Modernists 461 

again realistic comedy relief is provided by Bohan, a cynical 
Scotchman, by Nano, a dwarf, and Slipper, a rogue, and 
by various other humble characters. One would like to be 
sure that Greene also wrote George a Greene, The Pinner 
of Wakefield, doubtfully assigned to him. The play centers 
about a redoubtable hero of Bradford, George a Greene, the 
town pounder, and it presents an attractive picture of vil- 
lage life in " Merry England " against a background of 
kings and nobles. The change from verse to prose in the 
play corresponds in general to the social plane upon which 
the action for the time being moves. Though it is a patriotic 
and loyal play, its main purpose is to exalt the people and 
to illustrate their valor. Much of the color of town and 
country life is given in the course of the action, by George 
himself and his sweetheart Bettris, by her father Grime, 
by Jenkin, George's man, and Willy, his boy, by various 
townsmen, shoemakers, and others. The play is one of 
hearty, though somewhat heavy humor, and was certainly 
written by one who understood and enjoyed the simple life 
of old England. 

The most engaging qualities of Thomas Dekker appear 
more fully in his plays than in his other writings, especially 
in The Shoemakers Holiday (1600) and Patient Grissill 
(registered in 1600 but not published until 1603), both of 
which are written in prose. The plot of The Shoemakers 
Holiday, derived mainly from Thomas Deloney's novel, The 
Gentle Craft, tells the story of Simon Eyre, who rises from 
humble position to be Lord Mayor of London. It presents 
a pleasant picture of citizen life in London, a hearty, stir- 
ring life, neither too boisterous nor too subtly refined. 
Patient Grissill, written in collaboration with Chettle and 
Haughton, is based on the old story of Griselda as Chaucer 
had told it in the Clerk's Tale, but various sub-plots and 
characters are added. Dekker is generally supposed to have 



462 English Literary Prose 

been responsible for the character of Babulo, the old servant 
of Grissill's father, and for Laureo, her poor-scholar brother. 
Both are admirable character studies, and Babulo fills an 
especially important part in the play by emphasizing the 
human side of the occasionally somewhat far-fetched pas- 
toral situations. The play as a whole presents a charming 
picture of family life among humble, hard-working villagers, 
not poetized beyond recognition like a fanciful shepherd 
idyl, but still lifted above the sordid by much tender feeling 
and good humor. 

Thomas Heywood, in many respects spiritually akin to 
Dekker, followed the more usual custom in his plays of 
mixing prose and verse. His Woman Killed with Kindness 
(about 1603) is a domestic tragedy in which the story is 
simply and naturally told without efifort at high style. The 
prose and verse are about equally divided, the superior char- 
acters speaking blank verse, though the style in general is 
so direct that the transition from their verse to prose is 
never violent. In considering tragedies of this type, which 
deal with middle-class characters and familiar contemporary 
situations, one is surprised to find that prose is not more 
extensively used. Even servants and ruffians sometimes 
employ verse in Arden of Feversham. But perhaps the ex- 
planation is that the established literary convention of metri- 
cal form for tragedy was less likely to be set aside in a 
somewhat crudely popular kind of writing like the domestic 
tragedy than elsewhere, the popular taste clinging to a 
mechanical, even stilted, distinction of form in spite of its 
inappropriateness. 

Heywood's other plays resemble A Woman Killed with 
Kindness in containing a mixture of prose and verse. The 
Fair Maid of the West is a romantic comedy, the leading 
characters being Bess Bridges, a tanner's daughter and bar- 
maid, and her true lover, Spencer, an English gentleman. 



The Modernists 463 

The play is full of interesting pictures of sea-captains, 
pirates, merchants, and swaggering gentlemen, an exciting 
medley of adventures in England, on the high seas, and in 
Morocco. The English Traveller is another domestic 
tragedy, in blank verse with the humbler parts in prose. 
The Wise Woman of Hogsden is a comedy of intrigue deal- 
ing with London characters and written largely in prose, 
though with some verse. Heywood always wrote a remark- 
ably free and unafifected style, whether in prose or verse, 
and is always fresh and direct in feeling. His characters 
are the familiar ones of English life, drawn with great 
verisimilitude and treated realistically, not heroically. The 
power of the metrical convention in Elizabethan drama 
may be estimated from the fact that even Heywood was not 
able to rise superior to it. 

With the so-called later Elizabethans, for example with 
Massinger, Beaumont, and Fletcher, the general tendency 
prevailed of adhering to the convention of meter in dramatic 
composition. Even Shakspere uses prose less freely in his 
later plays than he had done in the comedies and tragedies 
of his early and middle periods. The verse of the later 
Elizabethan drama is, to be sure, a much looser and freer 
metrical form than the earlier blank verse of the Marlowe 
tradition. If the drama did not accept prose as the ac- 
credited form in which dramatic writings were to be com- 
posed, at any rate it modified its verse form in order to 
give it some of the qualities of ease and variety character- 
istic of prose. Massinger employed prose in only one 
play. The Virgin Martyr, mostly in verse but with prose 
passages in which the low-life characters, Hircius and 
Spungius, take part. Beaumont and Fletcher have many 
plays entirely in verse, some in mixed prose and verse, but 
none altogether in prose. Their command over both forms 
is remarkable, and a play like Philaster, or The Knight of 



464 English Literary Prose 

the Burning Pestle, passes from one form to the other 
easily and efifectively. 

In general prose was used in the Elizabethan drama for 
purposes of artistic contrast with verse. This was, in the 
main, Shakspere's use of prose. The only one of his plays 
which is predominantly prose is the Merry Wives of 
Windsor, and the content and expression of this play be- 
long distinctly to the middle-class and familiar style to which 
Harvey applied the terms modernism and villainy. Other- 
wise in Shakspere, as in other Elizabethan dramatists, prose 
occurs only sporadically, and generally as a relief from 
more severe or poetic expression. At times, in passages of 
frenzied and incoherent emotion, prose was employed even 
in moments of highest dramatic tension, the vehicle of verse 
breaking down under the strain of the passion. Usually, 
however, the prose parts of a play present the comedy 
relief to more serious or more elevated action, the comedy of 
clowns, servants, artisans, and country boobies. Often these 
comedy characters are raised to the level of expression in 
verse when they come into contact with characters of higher 
rank, and the reverse is also true. Queen Elinor, for ex- 
ample, in Edward the First, changes from verse to prose 
when she addresses the Potter's Wife. The higher themes, 
such as hate and revenge, romantic love, the beauties of 
nature, as well as all set passages of oratorical quality, al- 
most universally took metrical form, but humble and homely 
or sordid and grotesque situations were often presented in 
prose. On the whole the use of prose was remarkably 
flexible, and within certain limits effective. One might 
expect these limits to have been more widely extended than 
they were, but the critical canon which connected serious 
drama with epic poetry, and in general the feeling for lit- 
erary distinction in style were powerful checks on the free 
development of a dramatic English prose in this period. 



The Modernists 465 

In the discussion of the prose of the EUzabethan drama, 
Ben Jonson occupies a place apart. No dramatist used 
prose more artfully or consciously than Jonson, and few 
used it less successfully. The main defect of Jonson's dra- 
matic prose is that it is so slightly dramatic, or in equivalent 
terms, so little in the spirit of easy, natural conversation. 
This criticism is as old as Dryden, v^ho objected to Jonson's 
language, especially in his comedies, that " he weaved it too 
laboriously." Jonson, he adds, was " the Virgil, the pattern 
of elaborate writing." - And Jonson was quite as elabo- 
rately simple in his prose as in his verse. 

As a prose stylist Jonson formed himself neither upon the 
popular tradition of the loose, familiar, and picturesque 
manner, nor upon the more ornamental courtly style of Lyly 
and his followers. He stands with Bacon, whom he highly 
commends, in his admiration of " a strict and succinct style." 
He quotes approvingly the statement of Aulus Gellius that 
he " would rather have a plaine downright wisdome, then 
a foolish and affected eloquence." ^ " Nothing is fashionable 
till it bee deform'd," he says elsewhere, in a passage which 
seems to be original ; " and this is to write like a Gentle- 
man." * He was annoyed at the distinction often made be- 
tween the scholar and the gentleman, " as if a Scholler were 
no Gentleman," and delivered himself to the effect that to 
write like a gentleman will in time " become all one as to 
write like an Asse." ^ He agrees that the language of the 
" true Artificer " must differ from the vulgar somewhat, 
but it " shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes 
and Tamer-chams of the late Age, which had nothing in 
them but the scenicall strutting and furious vociferation to 

" Essay of Dramatic Poesy, ed. Arnold, pp. 70-71. 
' Discoveries, ed. Castelain, p. 19. 
* Ibid., p. Z2,- 

° Staple of Newes, Act IV, Sc. II. These are the words of Shun- 
field, but seem to be the opinions of Jonson. 



466 English Literary Prose 

warrant them to the ignorant gapers." '^ And he even took 
the pains to go through his own plays after they were 
written and prune away the more luxuriant passages. Ac- 
cording to the report of a conversation with Drummond, 
Jonson wrote all his verses first in prose, and was also of the 
opinion that verses " stood by sense without either colours 
or accent — which yett other tymes he denied." '' But though 
Jonson set his face against the richly ornamented literary 
style, in prose or verse, it was by no means a naive sim- 
plicity which he cultivated. He aimed at a chiseled dis- 
tinctness of form which can be attained only by the highest 
art. 

Aside from the plays, the only extended pieces by Jonson 
entirely in prose are a few critical prefaces and introduc- 
tions to the plays, his English Grammar, and his Timber or 
Discoveries. The English Grammar is a brief sketch which 
ofifered little opportunity for literary amplification. Dis- 
coveries was made up largely of translations from Latin 
writers, though with additions by Jonson. It was a kind 
of commonplace book, a collection of " dispersed medita- 
tions," like Bacon's Essays. The thoughts contained in it 
were not mere jottings, however, but were carefully elabo- 
rated as to form. They continually remind one of Bacon in 
the early editions of his Essays, and many passages might 
be transferred to the Essays bodily without seeming out of 
place. Except for occasional learned words, the medita- 
tions are expressed in that " pure and neat language " which 
Jonson professes he loved. Ornament was so carefully ex- 
cluded that the very lack of it becomes a stylistic distinc- 
tion. The " laborious terseness of expression " which 
Swinburne found so characteristic of Jonson, is nowhere 
more marked than in these brief comments and criticisms. 

Only two of Jonson's plays, Epicoene and Bartholomew 

^Discoveries, p. 41. ' Works, ed. Cunningham, III. 486. 



The Modernists 467 

Fair, were written altogether in prose. Some were written 
entirely in verse — Catiline and Sejanus, as a matter of 
course, but also comedies, like The Alchemist, The Devil is 
an Ass, The New Inn, and others. A number of the plays 
contain a mixture of verse and prose, the prose in some 
of them, for example Every Man in his Humour and Every 
Man out of his Humour, being so much greater in extent 
than the verse that they are practically prose plays. In 
many of the masques and entertainments prose is also ex- 
tensively employed, and in these informal dramatic com- 
positions occur many pleasant sketches of humble English 
life, of city artisans and their wives, of humorous Irish, 
Welsh, and Dutch comedy characters. The prose of the 
masques is on the whole unusually free and easy for Jon- 
sonian prose. In these lighter productions he seems to 
have abated a little of the severity of his literary ideals. 
In the more ambitious plays, however, one is constantly 
aware of Jonson's intention to write like a scholar. It is 
not so much that he obtrudes his professional learning upon 
the reader's attention or that he is lacking in truthful ob- 
servation. His plays, on the contrary, are an inexhaustible 
mine of comment on the details of contemporary middle- 
class life. But Jonson's own attitude towards the life he 
describes is one of aloofness, the voices of his characters 
fall thinly and remotely upon the ear. His purpose was to 
present not individuals and concrete realities but rather gen- 
eralizations of realities. He employed abundantly there- 
fore the materials of realism, and he even strove zealously 
to make his dialogue a faithful record of colloquial conversa- 
tion. He was careful to indicate the clipped and abbreviated 
forms of spoken expression, to employ abundantly the ex- 
pletives and current smart metaphors of familiar speech, 
and in many detailed ways to reproduce photographically 
popular syntax and phonetics. But the result seems over- 



468 English Literary Prose 

done. The very abundance of concrete detail, as often in 
modern dialect stories, leads the reader to look upon it as 
linguistically curious, true to literal fact, but cold and life- 
less. Much of Jonson's detail is not individually appro- 
priate to the character employing it, but only generally to 
his type or class of person. One constantly feels with re- 
spect to Jonson's characters that the showman is exhibiting 
them, that they are not acting or speaking as their own 
spirit gives them utterance. Though theoretically it might 
seem that this ought to make them more real, Jonson's 
abstraction of sentiment and romance from his characters 
has probably also added to the effect of their unreality. In 
spite of his thoroughgoing realistic method, none of Jon- 
son's characters seem as convincing as many of Shakspere's 
or Dekker's or Heywood's, perhaps because none of them 
arouse the immediate sympathy of the imagination which 
is the dramatist's most effective aid in producing the illu- 
sion of reality. Jonson's own age was not greatly interested 
in his plays, and later generations have rather inclined to re- 
gard them with respectful admiration than with affection. 
Perhaps the explanation lies, in part at least, in the feeling 
that a theoretical realism like Jonson's is more in the spirit 
of science than of literature, and that therefore the plays 
call for little emotional or personal response. 

A second group of sixteenth-century writings which fre- 
quently took a realistic coloring is that which had to do 
with general moral, social, and economic conditions. Tech- 
nical treatises on government, such as Sir John Fortescue's 
Governance of England,^ or Cheke's Hurt of Sedition, af- 
forded few opportunities for the introduction of picturesque 
detail, though Fortescue's description of poverty in France ^ 

"Edited by Plummer, Oxford, 1885; written between 1471 and 
1476, but first printed in 1714. 
* Plummer, p. 114. 



The Modernists 469 

is a vigorous and concrete piece of writing. A Discourse of 
the Common Weal of this Realm of England, written by 
John Hales, a man of some importance in civil affairs, has 
more literary quality. ^° It is written in the form of a 
dialogue in which a knight, a merchant, a doctor of theology, 
and a craftsman take part. These four, whose characters 
are well maintained, discuss mainly the economic state of 
England, enclosures and grazing, money and coinage, and 
similar topics. The dialogue is pleasantly written, with 
some humor, a gentlemanly give and take of opinion, and a 
considerable sense for the contemporary conditions of 
English life. 

It was the Reformation, however, which was most effective 
in opening men's eyes not only to new truths within but also 
to the existence of realities without. Simon Fish's Suppli- 
cation for the Beggars and similar supplications have al- 
ready been mentioned. Henry Brinklow's Complaynt of 
Roderyck Mors is an impassioned plea for the poor people 
of England. It calls attention to the exorbitant rents de- 
manded by landlords, a subject discussed at length also in 
Hales, to the lack of alms-giving, to the fact that the people 
are worse off economically under Henry than they had been 
under the papacy. Much is said against proud bishops : 
"What lordes have more gorgyos houses than thei have?",^^ 
and the complaint is in general in behalf of the " comynaltye," 
" the body of this reame." Another work of Brinklow's 
is. his Lamentacyon of a Christen agaynst the Cytye of Lon- 
don. The irreligion and immorality of the city are here 
portrayed, the wretchedness of the poor who " lye in their 
howses in most grevous paynes and dye for lacke of ayde 

" Written in 1549, but first published in 1581 ; also known as 
A brief conceipt of English policy. It has been edited by Miss 
Elizabeth Lamond, Cambridge, 1893, and also by A-C. Tersen, 
Avallon, 1907, with a French translation. 

^^ Cowper, E.E.T.S., Extra Series 22, p. 69. 



470 English Literary Prose 

of the riche," the wickedness of aldermen whom, if they 
repent not, " I will, yf God lende me lyfe, in an other 
worke name you," ^^ and other conditions that called loudly 
for reform. Not infrequently, also, the controversial dia- 
logues of the time, as in Sir Thomas More, are enlivened 
by touches of genuine description and humor. And of 
course for vivid realistic detail it would be difficult to sur- 
pass Foxe's Acts and Monuments. William Turner, bot- 
anist, physician, preacher, and religious controversialist, 
transferred a good deal of the racy humor of his preach- 
ing to his controversial dialogues. He enjoyed a full 
share of that power of vivid, concrete expression which 
characterizes the preachers of the early Reformation, men 
like Latimer, Lever, and Bradford. As time passed, how- 
ever, the drift both in preaching and in controversy was 
towards a more dignified and learned method than that 
which had been employed by the earlier leaders. Popular 
preachers were never lacking, but Hooker, Andrewes, and 
Donne established standards which put most popular 
preaching quite beyond the literary pale, and after the 
first flush of the Reformation, controversy occupied itself 
with the least real of all things, with the subtleties of theo- 
logical doctrine. 

Among other professions, the incentives to literary ex- 
pression seem to have been less powerful. Treatises on bot- 
any, mathematics, astrology, alchemy, agriculture, on military 
subjects, on sword play, on riding the great horse, and similar 
subjects abound, but they seldom rise above the level of the 
literal and matter-of-fact. Among the more learned profes- 
sions, doctors and lawyers perhaps have the fullest oppor- 
tunity of viewing human nature unveiled, but the Eliza- 
bethan lawyer, with exceptions like Sir Thomas More and 
his controversial opponent, Christopher St. German, seldom 
^' Cowper, ibid., p. 91. 



The Modernists 471 

utilized his experiences for active literary purposes, though 
his profession supplied the passive material for much real- 
istic satire and description. The profession of medicine on 
the other hand had strong humanistic associations which 
encouraged the popularization of medical 'ore, and as diver- 
sion from severer professional pursuits, the exercise of the 
pen in many an engaging sketch of men and manners. 
Among early humanist doctors the name of Linacre occupies 
an honorable place, though he wrote little or nothing in 
English. William Turner has already been noticed in con- 
nection with his controversial pamphlets; he deserves men- 
tion also as " the first Englishman who studied plants 
scientifically." ^^ As a part of his general program of edu- 
cation. Sir Thomas Elyot wrote his Castel of Helth, which 
appeared first in 1534, and again in 1541, " in some places 
augmented by the first author therof." In the Proheme, 
Elyot defends himself against the charge of meddling in 
undertaking to write about medicine. He declares that his 
only purpose is to serve the public and benefit it, as did 
Henry VHI himself, who did not disdain " to be the chiefe 
author and setter foorth of an Introduction into grammer 
for the children of his lovyng subjectes." And if physicians 
are angry because he has treated of their science in English, 
let them remember, says Elyot, " that the grekes wrate in 
greke, the Romains in latin, Avicenna and the other in 
Arabike, which were their owne proper and maternall 
tongues." Very naively Elyot tells how he has collected his 
medical lore from various bookish sources. His knowledge 
is not often of the kind which maketh a wise man in medi- 
cine, nor is it presented with much attention to literary form. 
On the whole the book is a mechanical compilation, signifi- 
cant merely as an early attempt to popularize technical 
knowledge. 

" On Turner as herbalist, see Arber, Hcrbals, pp. 100-108. 



472 English Literary Prose 

A more entertaining observer of men and manners was a 
contemporary of Elyot's, Andrew Borde, " of Physicke 
Doctor." He studied abroad, at " all the unyversyties and 
scoles approbated, and beynge within the precinct of 
chrystendome." " Being at Montpellier, " the well-hed of 
Physycke," he consulted " with many egregyous Doctours 
of Physycke " what matter he should write, and as a result 
produced his Compendious Regyment or A Dyetary of Helth 
(1542). Except in the aureate Preface, from which the 
quotations given above are taken, the Compendious Regy- 
ment is as crudely written as Elyot's Castel of Helth. It 
was intended to serve as a book of information and its 
occasional quaintnesses due to the credulity of the author 
are not often intended. A further fruit of Borde's travels 
abroad was his Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowl- 
edge, a book of traveler's reminiscences, criticisms, and 
directions. Its purpose is to " teache a man to speake parte 
of all maner of languages, and to know the usage and fashion 
of all maner of countreys.". His method in attempting to 
carry out this ambitious program was to give first a wood- 
cut presentation of an Englishman, or Frenchman, or Ger- 
man, to follow this with a metrical account of the land of 
the English or the French or the Germans, and then to con- 
clude with a prose account of the same, with a few direc- 
tions how to speak the various languages, lists of common 
phrases, the values of coins, and other such simple wisdom. 
Though a book covering so wide a field must necessarily be 
thin and scattering, Borde often writes picturesquely, as one 
with his eye upon the fact. 

" The people of Hygh Almayne," he observes, " they be 
rude and rustycall, and very boystous in theyr speche, and 
humbly in their apparell ; yet yf some of them can get a fox 

** A Compendious Regyment, ed. Furnivall, pp. 225-226. 



Tpie Modernists 473 

tale or two, or thre fox tayles, standyng up ryght upon 
theyr cappe, set up with styckes, or that he maye have a 
capons feder, or a goose feder, or any long feder on his 
cap, than he is called a * yonker.' " ^^ 

The best of all things he finds in England, except its speech, 
which he confesses is " a base speche to other noble speches, 
as Italion, Castylion and Frenche ; howbeit the speche of 
Englande is of late dayes amended." ^^ He observes that 
in Cornwall there are two speeches : " the one is naughty 
Englyshe, and the other is Cornyshe speche." With true 
English pride he believes that " the noble citie of London 
precelleth al other, not onely of that region, but of all other 
regyons . . . And as for the ordre of the citie in maners 
and good fashyons & curtasy, it excelleth al other cities and 
townes. And there is such a brydge of pulchritudnes, that 
in all the worlde there is none lyke." ^^ 

William Bullein, born early in the reign of Henry VHI, 
also traveled on the Continent to study medicine. He pub- 
lished, in 1558-59, A newe booke entituled the Governement 
of Healthe, and several years later his Biilwarke of defence 
againste all sicklies, Sornes, and woundes that dooe daily 
assaulte mankinde. Other professional writings of Bullein's 
were A comfortable Regiment . . . against the moste peril- 
ous Pletirisie, and A brief e and short discourse of the Ver- 
tiie and Operation of Balsame. But his most interesting, 
and from the literary point of view his most important effort, 
was his Dialogue bothe pleasaunte and pietifidl, wherein is 
a goodly regimente against the fever Pestilence, with a con- 
solacion and comfort against death (1564). The book, as 

^° Fyrst Boke, ed. Furnivall, p. 160. 

'" Ibid., p. 122. 

*' Ibid., p. 119. Borde wrote several other books, among them a 
treatise on beards of which so little is known that it is impossible 
to tell whether it was a waggish or a supposedly scientific perform- 



474 English Literary Prose 

Bullein says, doth " intreate of sonderie thynges," ^^ and is 
indeed a curious jumble of various matters, though the 
author seems to have had specially in mind a practical pur- 
pose of helping his " poore nedie brothers povertie." 
Twelve persons take part in the conversation, and the 
dialogues are presented in succession almost like the scenes 
of a drama. Yet it is characteristic of the unformed literary 
standards of the author that the work also suggests Smollett 
and the rambling type of novel. A citizen and his wife are 
the central figures and about them are grouped a number 
of other characters, a beggar, a doctor, a miser, several 
roguish servants and others. There is a good deal of satire 
in the course of the narrative, upon quackery in medicine, 
upon lawyers and usurers, upon worldly prelates. Some 
serious information as to drugs and the treatment of diseases 
is given. Mingled with the lighter matter occur serious 
philosophic reflections and a discussion of the psychology 
of the will and the soul. A critical estimate is given of 
" Old Morall Goore " of " Wittie Chaucer," of " Lamenting 
Lidgate," of " Bartlet [i.e. Barclay] with an hoopyng Rus- 
set, long coate," and of " Sir Davie Linse." ^^ But the 
main framework of the dialogue is a charmingly simple and 
natural picture of life in contemporary England. We see 
the merchant and his quick-tempered wife leaving London 
in a time of pestilence in search of a place of safety in the 
country. We breathe in with them the odors of the " sweete 
feeldes, garnished with faire plantes and flowers," so re- 
freshing after the deadly air of the city. Her good husband 
kindly explains to his wife the sights as they pass through 
villages upon which she comments with urban superiority. 
She is greatly troubled at a " greate smoke " in a wood, but 
the merchant relieves her fears by explaining that " it is 

^' A Dialogue, etc., ed. Bullen, E.E.T.S., Extra Series, 52, p. i. 
^"Ibid., pp. 16-18. 



The Modernists 475 

nothyng but makyng of charcole in that place." " Why, is 
Charcole made ? " says the wife. " I had thought all thynges 
had been made at London, yet I did never see no Charcoles 
made there : by my troth, I had thought that thei did 
growen upon trees, and had not been made." ^^ This amus- 
ing motive of urban simplicity in the country is well main- 
tained. As they travel leisurely along, the refugees pass 
the time by listening to anecdotes and stories told by Roger, 
their man. At an inn they meet with Mendax, who enter- 
tains the merchant, experienced in traveler's tales, but an- 
gers the simple-minded wife, with accounts of the wonders 
he has seen in the new world, how they " gather up Car- 
buncles and Diamondes with rakes under the spice trees," 
and how in the Torrida Zona a great rain falling upon 
" many hundred carte loades of good Hoppes," blown down 
by the wind, formed " through the help of muche spice " a 
drink equaled neither by " Hipocras wine nor Beere." ^^ 
A Utopia is alluringly described by Mendax called Nodol 
in the land Taerg Natrib, but like these names, the char- 
acteristics of this delectable region are the reverse of those 
actually found in London and Britain. So the travelers 
proceed pleasantly until a great cloud comes out of the sky. 
A passage of remarkable dramatic power and eloquence then 
describes the approach of Mors and the death of the citizen, 
and the dialogue closes with a comforting disquisition from 
Theologus. The whole is a curious mixture of scientific 
treatise, satire, morality play, merry tales, and truthful de- 
lineation of characters and actions. Bullein was a writer 
of varied powers and in a clearly defined literary form 
might have produced a work of lasting importance.^^ 

''" A Dialogue, etc., p. 59. 
"Ibid., p. loi. 

^^ A somewhat similar medley is Thomas Lupton's Sivqila (i.e. 
Aliquis), 1580-81. It is described in detail by F. Brie, in the 



4/6 English Literary Prose 

A more narrowly satirical purpose appears in John Halle's 
Historian Expostulation against the beastlye Abusers, bothe 
of Chyrurgerie and Physyke in cure tyme (1565), the aim 
of which is to reveal the frauds and tricks of quack prac- 
titioners. Halle refers to other works of like kind, " a little 
booke called a Galley late come into Englande from Terra 
Nova, laden with Phisitiens, Apothecaries, and Chirurgiens, 
&c.," " a little worke entitled A Poesie made in forme of a 
vision, &c.," and " maister Bulleyne, in his Bulwarke." ^^ 
But he not only shows up frauds, he also tells good prac- 
titioners how to conduct themselves, and versifies some of 
his precepts " for the better instruction of all yonge chirur- 
giens." At the end of his book he adds some prayers " mete 
for chirurgiens." The didactic purpose usually lies very 
near to the surface in these professional and pseudo-scien- 
tific writings and frequently gets the better of the other 
interests.^* 

A kind of realism appears in literature as an occasional 
manifestation of elements which are persistent on non- 
literary levels. The popular tale, for example, has always 
existed, and when it appears in literary forms, it fre- 
quently carries with it some of the color and business of 
actual life. By emphasis upon some of his broader narra- 
tives, Chaucer acquired a traditional reputation as leader 
and master in this style. Naturally enough it came to pass 
that the accepted antithesis to this kind of writing in the 
sixteenth century was not romance, but decency and 

Festschrift in honor of Wilhelm Victor, Marburg, 1910. Lupton 
wrote other works of a somewhat archaic literary character. 

" Percy Society, p. 26. 

'* Hall's Historian Expostulation was part of a larger book en- 
titled A most excellent and Learned Woorkc of Chirtirgerie Called 
Chirurgia parua Lanfranci, which, according to Hall, was " reduced 
from dyvers translations to our vulgar or usuall frase." 



The Modernists 477 

morality. In a prose work written at the end of his hrief 
career, Greene represents Chaucer and Gower as appearing 
to him in a vision, Chaucer defending merry tales and Gower 
seriousness and morality. To enforce their opinions, each 
tells a story. Chaucer's tale is a picturesque sketch of coun- 
try manners and life with several Cambridge students figur- 
ing in the action. The plot is of the familiar kind in which 
a clever wife outwits a fond and jealous husband. In the 
setting of the story, much attention is given to descriptive 
detail. Tomkins the wheelwright at Grantchester and his 
wife Kate who sold cream in Cambridge are portraits at 
full length of the same school as those of the carpenter and 
his young wife, with her body " gent and smal," in Chau- 
cer's Millers Tale. It is apparent from Greene's comment, 
as well as from the story which he puts into the mouth of 
Chaucer, that he thinks of Chaucer as above all the poet of 
popular life, the teller of merry jests in which the mirth 
was not held in check by considerations of decency. As a 
contrast to Chaucer's story of Tomkins and Kate, Greene 
has Gower tell the moral tale of Theodora and Alexander, 
typically illustrative, in its turn, of the traditional concep- 
tion of Gower. 

Early in the sixteenth century collections of broad tales, 
usually in prose, began to appear in print. One of the 
earliest was the group of crude stories known as the C. 
Mery Talys (c. 1526). A few years later appeared Mery 
Tales, Wittie questions and quicke ansivers (c. 1535). The 
translation of the German jest-book. Till Eulenspiegel, 
which appeared under the English title of Tyll Howleglas, 
was an important contribution to this form of literature. ^^ 
At the same time the German Pfarrer von Kalenherg ap- 
peared in an English version entitled the Parson of Kalen- 

^° It was printed at Antwerp, 1519?, and in three editions by 
Copland; Esdaile, p. 79. 



478 English Literary Prose 

borowe. English collections after a time came to be at- 
tached to the names of native eponymous heroes of jest 
cycles. Merrie Tales Newly Imprinted, attributed to Skel- 
ton, was licensed for printing in 1566-67, but the date of the 
earlier edition indicated by the title, if there was one, is not 
known. The preceding year the Geystes of Skoggon had 
been licensed, though the earliest edition extant is one of 
1613. Popular books of this character must often have been 
simply worn out of existence by much use. A variant on 
the usual form of these collections appeared in the XII. 
Mery Jests of the IVyddow Edyth (1573), the central figure 
of the tales being a woman of Exeter to pleasure inclined. 
In 1582, and in a number of later editions, appeared the 
Life and Pranks of Long Meg of Westminster, which pro- 
vided Deloney with some of the materials for one of his 
novels of London life. A collection of short comic stories in 
prose, containing the story of the Induction in the Taming 
of the Shrew and ascribed to Richard Edwardes, was 
printed in 1570, but is now extant only in a fragment of an 
edition of the early seventeenth century.^*' Among later 
collections may be mentioned Tarltons newes out of Purga- 
torie (1590 and later editions). The Cobler of Caunter- 
burie, or an Inuective against Tarltons Newes out of Pur- 
gatorie (1590 and later). The Merrie Conceited Jests of 
George Peele ( i6oy),Dobsons Drie Bobbes ( 1607), Richard 
Johnson's Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson the merry Lon- 
doner (1607), less popular than the same author's Seauen 
Champions of Christendome (1596 and frequently later), 
and Tarltons Jests (161 1). The Cobler of Caunterburie, the 
authorship of which Greene indignantly repudiated, invokes 
the name of " old Father Chaucer," the stories being sup- 
posed, in imitation of the Canterbury Tales, to have been 
told by passengers on a barge plying between Billingsgate 
^° Esdaile, p. 44. 



The Modernists ^ 479 

and Gravesend. The Merrie Conceited Jests of George 
Peele of course were not written by Peele, but they have a 
homogeneity which results from a clearly defined conception 
of Peele's character. 

These collections of merry tales and anecdotes, the list 
of which might be increased, ^^ contain stories which shade 
from bare outlines of anecdotes, like the medieval exempla, 
to carefully elaborated and realistic pictures of life. That 
they should deal largely with roguery and indecency one 
might expect from their popular origins. Their realistic 
detail arises from no theoretical interest in realism as ma- 
terial for the literary artist, but merely from the desire of 
the raconteur to make his story as convincing as possible. 
A good story is always the better for being provided with a 
recognizable local seat and habitation. At the same time the 
popular anecdote provided a method from which the literary 
artist could and did learn much, and we shall find the literary 
prose novelle of the later sixteenth century as deeply in- 
debted to it as was Chaucer in his metrical tales of common 
life. Indirectly, also, the popular anecdote exerted an in- 
fluence on other forms of expression. The clown of the 
earlier Elizabethan drama, like the end-man of the modern 
minstrel show and the monologue artist of vaudeville, trans- 
ferred much of the spirit of the realistic tale and the merry 
jest to the stage. It was not by accident that collections of 
jests and tales came to be attached to the names of comic 
actors like Kemp and Tarlton. Launce with his dog, in The 
Two Gentlemen of Verona, is an illustration of the kind of 
comedy in which the actor occupied the stage alone and 
kept the audience amused as long as his acquired stock or 

" See Chandler, The Literature of Roguery, I, 59-70; Schulz, Die 
Englischcn Schwankbiicher bis herab an " Dobs on' s Drie Bobs" 
(1607), Palaestra 117, Berlin, 1912; Aydelotte, Elizabethan Rogues 
and Vagabonds, and their representation in contemporary literature, 
Oxford, 1913. 



480 English Literary Prose 

his inventive ingenuity lasted. Ready wit, unimpeded flow 
of language, and an easy familiarity with the audience were 
the qualities required above all in such acting. According 
to a well-known story. Sir Thomas More, whom popular 
tradition remembered, as it did Chaucer, chiefly as a jester, 
sometimes took his place among the actors on the stage and 
improvised a part for himself as he went along. And it 
has already been pointed out how the methods of the early 
comedians exerted a leavening influence on prose contro- 
versial writing in certain of the Marprelate tracts.^^ 

The world of the semi-respectable or of the entirely 
submerged provided the material for still another kind of 
realistic writing popular in the latter half of the sixteenth 
century. These were books describing the practices of 
scamps and vagabonds, professedly for the behoof of in- 
nocent citizens and youth, but really no doubt in large 
measure in satisfaction of the perennial curiosity of the 
respectable and prosperous as to the doings of the under- 
world. One of the earliest of these tracts was A Manifest 
detection of the moste vyle and detestable use of Diceplay 
(1552).^^ A long line of rogue pamphlets was inaugurated 
when John Awdeley published in 1561 his Fraternitye of 
Vacahondes, as wel of ruHying Vacahondes, as of heggerly, 
of 7vomen as of men, of Gyrles as of Boyes, with their 
proper names and qualities. A continuation of Awdeley's 
book appeared in Thomas Harman's Caveat or Warening 
for Common Cursetors vulgarely called Vagahones, the 
first edition of which, no longer extant, was published in 
1566 or 1567. Harman devotes considerable space to "the 
leud, lousey language of these lewtering Luskes and lasy 
Lorrels," which he thinks was invented not more than 

" See above, pp. 128-130. 

=" Reprinted by Halliwell, Percy Society, XXIX (1850). 



The Modernists 481 

thirty years before. ■''° He gives a dictionary of this '' Ped- 
dlers Frenche " which was ampHfied by later writers of 
rogue tracts. Though he professes to use no art, and that 
he " never tasted Helycon," Harman's own English is 
learned and careful, as for example in the use of cursetors 
" in the intytelynge " of his book as a learned equivalent for 
vagabonds. He mentions older names for his cursetors, 
such as " leud leuterars, Faytores, Robardesmen, Draw- 
latches and valyant beggares," but these words he con- 
siders old-fashioned, and such as, if he had used them, might 
have caused his readers to say, " Oh, what a grose, barber- 
ous fellow have we here ! " 

Harman's Caveat passed through a number of editions 
which kept alive popular interest in his rogues. The theme 
became a standard one in later Elizabethan literature, and 
writers who were living on their wits and their pens, Greene, 
Dekker, Rowlands, and others, often turned to it with the 
certainty of being gladly read. These later rogue pamphlets 
are of greater literary significance than Awdeley's or Har- 
man's crude efforts, and more will be said of them in con- 
nection with the general literary career of their authors. 

At the entry of the last quarter of the sixteenth century, 
however, it was not the underworld which supplied the most 
popular and the most widely used material for the story- 
teller's art, but rather the world of fashion and refined 
sentiment. The Italian novella translated into English 
brought with it interest in the analysis and description of 
shades of feeling and subtleties of action hitherto unknown 
in English literature. It is a little difficult to say just how 
much of this writing should properly be characterized as 
realistic. Lyly's Eiiphues, for example, which is merely an 
expanded novella, is primarily a sentimental romance, yet it 
'" A Caveat, etc., ed. Viles and Furnivall, p. 23, 



482 English Literary Prose 

must often have suggested to contemporary Englishmen 
their own gilded youth. With all its extravagances and 
artificialities, Euphues shoves feeling for the reality of life 
as its comedy was acted out on the stage of the polite world. 
The book has social sense in greater degree than any Eng- 
lish book before it ever had, and it is, of course, much 
less " romantic " than Sidney's Arcadia. It would be push- 
ing the definition of realism too far, perhaps, to make 
Euphues a realistic work, but there is some significance, at 
least, in the temptation to do so. The Arcadia, on the other 
hand, could not by any possibility be regarded as a realistic 
story. Realism of a kind there is in the Arcadia, but it is 
the artful realism of humble characters employed merely as 
foils for the gentlemen and ladies whose fine sentiments are 
the main interest of the book. These humble characters are 
often treated with an astonishing brutality and coarseness 
of feeling on Sidney's part, perhaps because Sidney was 
aware that they were not genuinely human and real. 

Romance, whether of the school of Lyly or of Sidney, did 
not long remain in the ascendency. Unmistakable echoes 
of these two models continue to be heard until much later, 
but before the end of the century both the genteel sentiment 
of the romancers and the staid scholarly ideals of the old 
school of Ascham had to compete with a rising generation 
of city wits whose effort was to popularize, or as some of 
their critics thought, to vulgarize literature. The court and 
the university no longer provided the only reading publics, 
but now London, grown prosperous and self-confident, gave 
support and encouragement to a whole disorderly army 
of dramatists, ballad-writers, pamphleteers, and story- 
tellers. Perhaps nowhere better than in the literary quarrel 
between Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Nashe do we get a 
view of the changing ideals of the last decade of the century. 
Harvey was a man of very substantial scholarly attain- 



The Modernists 483 

ments. In his earlier years he lectured on rhetoric at 
Cambridge, and he showed good sense in at least one re- 
spect by changing from a strict Ciceronian to the school of 
Erasmus and Vives. He lived to a good old age but never 
wrote any books of importance. The chief event in his 
life, so far as literary history is concerned, was his quarrel 
with Nashe. The specific details, even the immediate occa- 
sion of this quarrel are of no permanent interest, but the 
general clash of personality and ideal are significant. Nashe 
was a wit; he depended on inspiration, fire, enthusiasm. 
He cultivated volubility and unrestraint, and was deter- 
mined to be entertaining at any cost. Harvey defended a 
more dignified, more scholarly, orderly, and serious attitude 
towards literature. The virtues he inculcated were those 
which, when carried to excess, became the vices of the 
pedant. His witty opponents made of him, indeed, the 
typical pedant of his day, but to an impartial contemporary 
observer there could have been no question that the cause 
he supported stood in need of defense, and it must not be 
forgotten that Harvey was the friend of Sidney and 
Spenser. The clash of opinion between Harvey and Nashe 
was of course not peculiar to them or their day. It was 
akin to the old debate of the relative merits of nature 
and nurture, of natural gifts and discipline. The hero in 
Lyly's Euphties puts the case for nature, but Lyly himself, 
in his role of moralist, speaks for nurture.^^ The same 
side of the debate is assumed by Harvey. " Right arti- 
ficiality," so he writes in one of his Foure Letters, 
" (whereat I once aimed to the uttermost power of my 
slender capacity) is not mad-brained, or ridiculous or ab- 
surd, or blasphemous, or monstrous ; but deep-conceited, 
but pleasurable, but delicate, but exquisite, but gracious, 
but admirable: not according to the fantastical mould of 
'' Euphues, ed. Arber, pp. 43-47. 



484 English Literary Prose 

Aretine or Rabelays, but according to the fine modell of 
Orpheus, Homer, Pindarus, & the excellentest wittes of 
Greece, and of the lande that flowed with milke and 
hony." ^^ He speaks scornfully of " cutting Huffe- 
snufTes," and declares that he borrows not his " phrase of 
knave or queane," but is debtor to the " Civill quill." With 
regret he looks back to the time when Cheke, Smith, Had- 
don, and Ascham flourished, a vanished golden age of 
scholarship. In Ascham's day, men cultivated " a kind of 
smooth and clenly and neate and fine elegancy," " but 
alacke, nothing livelie and mightie, like the brave vino de 
monte, till his [Nashe's] penne began to play the sprite of 
the buttry, and to teach his mother-tongue such lusty gam- 
bolds, as may make the gallantest French, Italian or 
Spanish gagliards to blushe, for extreame shame of their 
ideot simplicitie." ^^ 

Elsewhere Harvey states what he supposes would be a 
contemporary defense of Nashe, the main point of it being 
that men do not now want study or learning or sobriety, 
but cleverness, wit, and " villainy." Writing is not now a 
gentleman's profession, but a villain's. " Life is a gaming," 
so runs this supposed defense, " a jugling, a scoulding, a 
lawing, a skirmishing", a warre ; a Comedie, a Tragedy : the 
sturring witt, a quintessence of quicksilver : and there is 
noe dead fleshe in affection or courage. You may discourse 
of Hermes ascending spirit ; of Orpheus enchanting harpe ; 
of Homers divine furie ; of Tyrtaeus enraging trumpet ; of 
Pericles bounsinge thunderclaps ; of Platos enthusiasticall 
ravishment ; and I wott not of what marvelous egges in 
mooneshine : but a flye for all your flying speculations, 
when one good fellow with his odd jestes or one madd 
knave with his awke hibber-gibber, is able to putt down 

'" Foiire Letters, Works, ed. Grosart, I, 218. 
'' Works, II, so. 



The Modernists 485 

twentye of your smuggest artificial! men, that simper it so 
nicely and coylie in their curious pointes. Try, when you 
meane to be disgraced : & never give me credit, if Sanguine 
vv^itt putt not Melancholy Arte to bedd." ^* With this de- 
fense Harvey is of course not in agreement. He declares 
that they who will " seeke out the Archmistery of the 
busiest Modernistes shall find it nether more nor lesse then 
a certayne pragmatical! secret, called Villany." It is the 
villainist who knocks the nail on the head, and " spurreth 
cutt farther in a day then the quickest Artist in a week." ^^ 

The arch-villainist among these modernists, Thomas 
Nashe, after a troubled career of only thirty-four years, 
left a strange variety of writings behind him as claims to 
future fame. He took his first degree at St. John's College, 
Cambridge, and could have been a fellow, he says, if he 
would. Instead he seems to have preferred the more stir- 
ring life of literary adventurer in London, where he had 
settled as early as his twenty-first year, in 1588. He was 
the friend of some of the most active wits of his day, of 
Greene, Lodge, Daniel, Marlowe, and others, but extreme 
poverty always attended his footsteps. 

His first independent publication, his Anatomie of 
Absurdities (1589), is mainly a satire on women, but it 
contains much about the weakness and vices of other kinds 
of persons, and comments bitterly on the lack of reward 
which the scholar received at the hands of the rich and 
great. This theme is continued in Pierce Penilesse (1592), 
with many others confusedly thrown together. The more 
important of the remaining works of Nashe are his Terrors 
of the Night (1594), a discussion of dreams, visions, and 
supernatural appearances ; his novel, The Unfortunate 
Traveller (1594); Christ's Tears over Jerusalem (1594), 
which contains some highly rhetorical description of the 

'' Works, II, 62. " Ibid., II, 63. 



486 English Literary Prose 

fall of Jerusalem and satire on London ; various pamphlets 
in the quarrel between Nashe and the Harveys ; a lost 
comedy, The Isle of Dogs; and his last work, Nashe's 
Lenten Stuff e (1599), a sort of prose epic of the red- 
herring, descriptive, humorous, and satirical, with many 
excursions, but on the whole sticking remarkably close to 
the subject. 

Nashe's vein was mainly that of railing satire, " the raili- 
potent Nashe " is Harvey's name for him, and his chief 
characteristic as a writer was his verbosity. He admired 
above all lightness and agility in a writer. He scorns 
" grosse-braind formalitie " ^*' and adjures Englishmen not 
to have " Leade and Tynne Muses " because they have lead 
and tin mines. " For shame, bury not your spyrits in Biefe- 
pots." ^"^ In his address " To the Gentlemen Students of 
Both Universities," prefixed to Greene's Menaphon, one of 
his earliest writings, he derides those labored writers who 
afford " the presse a pamphlet or two in an age," and 
praises " the man whose extemporall veine in any humour 
will excell our greatest Art-maisters deliberate thoughts." ^^ 
There is no credit, he declares, in threshing corn out of 
full sheaves, but out of " drie stubble to make an after har- 
vest, and a plentifull croppe without sowing, and wring 
juice out of a flint " — that is the " right trick of a work- 
man." ^^ Even " Zeale and Religion " cannot compensate 
for lack of wit, and the preachers, too, must " arte-enamel " 
their speech if religion is not to reap infamy .^° 

In Nashe's earlier writings, in the Anatomie of Ab- 
surdities for example, one observes obvious traces of the 
influence of the style of Lyly. As he became surer of him- 
self, however, Nashe developed a style more his own. The 

'' Works, ed. McKerrow, II, 10, " Ibid., Ill, 152. 

'' Ibid., II, 122. *" Ibid., II, 124. 

" Ibid., Ill, 312. 



The Modernists 487 

most striking feature of this style is the abundant use of 
long and outlandish words. To the " ploddinger sort of 
unlearned Zoilists about London " this seemed a " puft-up 
stile and full of prophane eloquence." Others made objec- 
tions to Nashe's multitude of " boystrous compound words " 
and to his " often coyning of Italionate verbes which end all 
in Ize, as mummianize, tympanize, tirannize." *^ But Nashe 
maintains that his style is no more puffed-up than any 
man's would be " which writes with any Spirite " ; and as 
to his boisterousness, " no speech or wordes of any power 
or force to confute or perswade but mustbee swelling and 
boystrous." The English tongue, of all languages, " most 
swarmeth with the single money of monasillables," and 
these, in Nashe's opinion, are the " onely scandall of it." *^ 
Nashe's standards, in a word, were those of the bravo. He 
was a literary ruffler, a " roaring boy " with the pen. He 
aroused attention by giving and taking offense and delighted 
in shocking the sensibilities of his readers. 

Nashe's literary dependencies were various, though in 
the main he was the natural product of the life of his day. 
He was one of a group of university wits who had accumu- 
lated the materials of scholarship but who had very few 
serious scholarly interests and who were yet confronted 
with the serious problem of getting a living out of their 
university training. Such scholars were readily drawn into 
the whirlpool of London life, where they only too often 
sacrificed not only their scholarship, but all sense of decency 
and morality to a false notion of genius. Yet Nashe, child 
of his age though he was, manifestly falls in line with a long 
established English tradition. He takes his place with the 

" Works, ed. McKerrow, II, 183. The word "mummianize" he 
had used in the phrase, " lerusalems mummianized earth," and ex- 
plains this to mean, " lerusalems earth manured with mans flesh," 
11, i8s. 

'=Ibid., II, 184. 



488 English Literary Prose 

ancient ranting and railing masters of eloquence, of whom 
examples are to be found as far back as Piers Plowman. 
His method is akin to that of Skelton, of the popular orators 
like Latimer and Bradford, of all practitioners of robustious 
eloquence. At bottom the foundation of all such writing is the 
plain and popular style, the English of colloquial discourse, 
broad and free. In spite of his huge words, Nashe's style 
is less learned and Latinized than the style of many a 
courtly contemporary who seems verbally less striking. In 
harmony with his general anti-heroic attitude, Nashe's writ- 
ings are all conversational and familiar in tone. They are 
all dramatic monologues, in which the author stands before 
his audience and speaks in the first person. He declared 
that he borrowed nothing from Tarleton, the comic actor. 
But he often used devices of dramatic personal address, 
noisy exclamation, popular and coarse epithet which, if not 
derived from Tarleton, were sufficiently like Tarleton's meth- 
ods to be noticeable to contemporaries. He speaks warmly 
of Pietro Aretino, whom he admires chiefly for his wit, his 
virtuosity, but it is doubtful if he was a close student of 
Aretino's writings.*^ There is also some resemblance be- 
tween Nashe and Rabelais, likewise noted by Nashe's con- 
temporaries. But here again the resemblance is general. 
Nashe indeed is representative of a widely distributed 
Renascence type. He is a kind of English Horribilicribri- 
fax, intent on verbal ingenuity, and above all an admirer of 
verbal abundance. With this he joins the unheroic and 
realistic view of life, exploiting not the graceful and senti- 
mental possibilities of his themes, but the sordid and 
ridiculous. 

In considering Nashe as realist, one must dwell for a 
moment on what time has shown to be his one work of last- 

*" Professor McKerrow finds no direct influence of Aretino upon 
Nashe's style. 



The Modernists 489 

ing interest, his Unfortunate Traveller. This short novel, 
a little over one hundred pages, appeared in its first edition 
in 1594. Nashe calls it " a cleare different vaine from other 
my former courses in v^riting." ** And in this work he 
seems to have thought out for himself a more definitely 
realistic method than in any other of his writings. The 
book, however, is by no means a pure example of realistic 
fiction, but rather a medley of familiar and traditional 
literary motives. It tells the story of Jack Wilton, " a cer- 
tain kind of an appendix or page, belonging or appertain- 
ing in or unto the confines of the English court." The time 
of the action is supposed to be about fifty years before 
the time of writing, that is, in Nashe's intention, practically 
contemporary. Jack is a gentleman (he claims this title) 
who follows his various masters in camp and court through 
France, Germany, and Italy. He knows all the shifty tricks 
and vices of pages, and practices them, too, with frank 
admiration of his own cunning. The world is his orange, 
and he busies himself to get as much juice out of it as pos- 
sible. He is not held by any bonds of loyalty to his mas- 
ters, or indeed of honest dealing. He is a page of fortune, 
as his masters were soldiers of fortune. He is a fresh, 
good-looking, spirited youth, not altogether a scamp, but 
with no higher principles than his kind were supposed to 
have. When he is guilty of irregular conduct, it is more 
because of the wickedness of this world than from any 
natural depravity. 

The setting of the story is concrete and detailed, with 
many pictures of the life of the camp, and later, of Venice. 
Yet the descriptions are not minute, and it is uncertain 
whether or not Nashe had seen the places he describes. A 
long episode descriptive of Rome in plague time is power- 
ful, but highly colored and fanciful — a description of the 
^* McKerrow, Works, II, 201. 



490 English Literary Prose 

imagination, not of the observing eye. This passage con- 
tains a story of murder and revenge Hke the famiUar 
" tragical tale " of the Italian novelle. A considerable 
section of the Unfortunate Traveller is also taken up 
with conventional moralizing, in the manner of Lyly, on 
the evils of travel, the wickedness of the Italians, and 
the absurdity of foreign customs in general. And Jack 
Wilton, after his foreign experiences, like Euphues, returns 
to England and swears " upon an English Chronicle never 
to bee out-landish Chronicler more " while he lives.*^ 
Before this he has married his mistress and made resolu- 
tions looking toward a more virtuous life. Many long 
speeches and orations occur in the progress of the story 
quite in the manner of Lyly, and there is Euphuistic satire 
of the universities, of scholars, " the leaden headed Ger- 
mans first " and of Englishmen who have " surfetted of 
their absurd imitation." **' On the whole one finds a sur- 
prising parallelism between the story of Jack Wilton and 
the miscellaneous kind of romance popularized by Euphues. 
But here, as ever, Nashe takes the unheroic view of his 
material, and this gives to his story some resemblance to 
a picaresque narrative. Yet Jack, though he is always 
/poor, is not a rogue nor does he forget that he is a gentle- 
man. He sees mostly the seamy side of life, and one of the 
" good fellowes " who live " as merry as cup and can," he 
passes from adventure to adventure with devil-may-care 
easiness. The shady character of Jack gives to the story 
a general flavor of realism and makes the rom.antic parts 
seem like episodes, though in fact they constitute a con- 
siderable part of the whole. The most important romantic 
episode is the fanciful and ethereal story of the Earl of 
Surrey's love for Geraldine. Jack happens at one time to 
be in the service of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and 
'° McKerrow, Works, II, 328. ■" Ibid., p. 251. 



The Modernists 491 

thus has opportunity to descant upon the Earl of Surrey's 
passion. In strong contrast with this courtly romance is 
the love affair of Jack himself with his mistress, later his 
wife. This story is not idealized, not poetized, and indeed 
one may feel that in his own story Jack has substituted 
mere coarseness for reality, that the realism of his story is 
as extreme as the romance of the Earl of Surrey's. But 
this is the kind of violent contrast in which Nashe delighted. 

When Nashe wrote of the " different vaine " of his story, 
he perhaps had also in mind the style of it, which is not so 
robustious as in his other writings. There are fewer 
big words, fewer compounds, and fewer passages of rhetori- 
cal display. Nashe plainly endeavored to fit an appropriate 
style to Jack Wilton, light, picturesque, and not infrequently 
coarse. Occasional puns and Euphuistic conceits survive, 
but in the main the harmony between the character of the 
hero and the style of the story is fairly complete. 

The Unfortunate Traveller is, therefore, a composite, 
made up of various familiar motives. The most original 
element is the character of Jack, who is really not a 
picaresque hero, but merely a young English gentleman 
viewed from the reverse side. It was Nashe's constant 
habit to take the burlesque point of view. He rarely 
sought effects of charm and grace, rarely idealized char- 
acters or descriptions, but as plain speaker, he brought 
e''erything down to his own irreverent level. This ac- 
counts for the fact that, with all his admiration for lofty 
diction, he never attained to anything better than occa- 
sional patches of huf-snuf rhetorical brilliance. He never 
freed himself from the spirit of mockery, from the habit 
of taking a derisive view of situations which others had 
made familiar in a more conventionally pleasing way. 
Realism which rests upon a dispassionate observation of 
nature, or upon a genuine sympathy with the simple, 



492 English Literary Prose 

homely experiences of life, never appealed to him. The 
fool's fire which he followed, which seemed to him worthy 
the pursuit of genius, was a much more coruscating and 
iridescent affair. 

One of the " good fellowes " with whom Nashe wasted 
his time in London was Robert Greene, probably the son of 
a saddler in Norwich, and a fellow collegian of Nashe's at 
St. John's, though not an exact contemporary. Greene 
came to London as a free lance, deserting his wife and 
child in the country, and after a few years of a life which 
even his friends did not attempt to defend, he died in 1592, 
at about the age of thirty-two, " by a surfeit taken of 
pickled herrings and Rhenish wine ; as witnesseth Thomas 
Nash, who was at the fatal banquet." *^ Perhaps no writer 
of this group of aspiring wits paid more dearly in shame 
and suffering for his belief in the sufficiency of genius 
than did Greene. The strong wine of freedom and in- 
spiration went to his head, and only in the last few years 
of his short life did he come to himself in what seems to 
have been a fit of repentance as violent as his former wild 
life had been. 

Almost two score titles are to be found in the list of 
Greene's works, a surprising fertility considering the 
brevity of his literary career. Most of these titles, how- 
ever, designate short works, written under the spur of 
immediate need. Nashe says that Greene would " yark 
up " a pamphlet " in a night and a day " when the fit was 
on him. He began his literary career with shameless imi- 
tation of Eiiphties. His Mamillia, A Mirrour or looking- 
glasse for the Ladies of Englande, licensed for printing in 
1580, a year after the appearance of Euphnes, in its 

" Meres, Palladis Tamia, in Collins, Critical Essays and Literary 
Fragments (Arber, English Garner), p. 19. 



The Modernists 493 

" sugred happie style " which in " English prose doth 
climbe the skie," almost out-Euphuizes Euphues. It is 
significant, however, of Greene's chief gift, that of the 
story-teller, that the plot of Mamillia is more clearly de- 
fined and less interrupted by subsidiary actions than that 
of Euphues. Other love tales, in the conventional fashion, 
followed Mamillia. It was Greene's custom to make copy 
by inserting short stories in any work upon which he hap- 
pened to be engaged. In his Planetomachia (1585), which 
treats of " the essence, nature and influence " of the seven 
planets, he has enlivened his astronomical discourse " with 
pleasaunt Tragedies." And in Penelopes Web (1584) the 
account of this " Christall Myrror of faeminine perfec- 
tion " is " interlaced with three severall and Comicall 
Histories." The most enduring of Greene's novels was his 
Pandosto (1588), known to-day chiefly because Shakspere 
used it in the Winter's Tale, but formerly so popular that 
at least twenty-four editions appeared between the date 
of publication and 1735.^^ When Sidney's Arcadia, first 
passed around in manuscript and after 1590 accessible in 
a printed form, had somewhat impaired the fame of 
Euphues and had established a new fashion, Greene was 
ready at hand to satisfy the new demand with his Menaphon 
(1589) and various other Arcadian pastorals and romances. 
Nashe praised Greene's " Arcadian Menaphon " as an ex- 
ample of " that temperatum dicendi genus, which Tullie in 
his Orator tearmeth true eloquence." ^^ And Thomas Bra- 
bine, in verses addressed to the author, bids all " witts that 
vaunt the pompe of speach " to view in Menaphon a note 
beyond their reach. All this high praise is for a shepherd 
romance in obvious imitation of Sidney's style, with songs 
interspersed and eclogues and poems of various kinds. 
About the year 1590 Greene seems to have experienced a 
** Esdaile, pp. 69-71. " Greene, Works, ed. Grosart, VI, 11. 



494 English Literary Prose 

change of heart which led to a choice of entirely new ma- 
terials for literary exploitation. In that year he published 
his Mourning Garment, at the end of which there is an 
apology wherein Greene says that this is the last of his 
" trifling Pamphlets." In the same year also appeared 
Greenes Never too late, which purports to reveal " the 
fraudulent effects of Venus trumperies." With this and 
with Francescoes Fortunes, or The Second part of Greenes 
Never too late (1590), Greene was definitely launched 
upon his career of reform and repentance. The story of 
Francesco is a strange combination of romance and reality, 
in some respects not unlike Gascoigne's Pleasant Fable of 
Ferdinando and Leonora. It has an Italian setting, though 
it tells of " an English Historic acted and evented " in 
England. Francesco lives at Caerbranck (Brancaster in 
Norfolk?), a poor young man of wit and learning who had 
been at the university. He falls in love with Isabel, the 
daughter of a gentleman named Fregoso, who lives not far 
from Caerbranck. Fregoso opposes the match, but Fran- 
cesco arranges with Isabel to meet him " upon Thursday 
next at night hard by the Orchard under the greatest Oake." 
Isabel keeps the tryst, clad " onely in her smocke and her 
peticoate with her fathers hat and an old cloake," and to- 
gether they flee to Dunecastrum (Doncaster?) and are 
happily married. They live peacefully and humbly to- 
gether, and their virtuous life causes even Fregoso to be 
reconciled to them. Francesco applied himself " to teach- 
ing of a Schoole, where by his industry he had not onelie 
great favour, but gote wealth to withstand fortune." And 
in due time there was born to this happy pair a son, " an- 
swerable to their own perfection." At length Francesco is 
compelled by " necessarie businesse " to go to the chief 
city of that island, called Troynovant. Knowing that 
he should have to spend the space of some nine weeks 



The Modernists 495 

in Troynovant, on his arrival " he solde his horse and 
hired him a chamber." This is the beginning of his sor- 
rows, for opposite him lives Infida, a courtezan, who gains 
such complete control over him that for him " there is no 
heaven but Infidaes house." Isabel has heard of Fran- 
cesco's unfaithfulness and sends him a tender letter in 
which she says nothing of the life he has been leading, 
but dwells only on her loneliness. " The onely comfort 
that I have in thine absence," so she writes, " is thy child, 
who lies on his mothers knee, and smiles as wantonly as 
his father when he was a wooer." But Francesco scoffs 
at his wife's letter and shows it to Infida. For three years 
he remains under Infida's spell, and then, his money being 
all gone, she turns him adrift. Francesco is hard put to 
it to make a living. He cannot work with his hands, for 
the " care of his parents and of his owne honor perswaded 
him from making gaine by labour; he had never been 
brought up to any mechanicall course of life." He chances 
to fall in with some players who persuade him to tiy 
play-writing. In a short time he " grewe so exquisite in 
that facultie," that happy were the actors who could get 
any of his works. Now that he is prosperous, Infida tries 
to get him again into her toils, but vainly, Francesco's 
eyes having been too completely opened by her earlier faith- 
lessness. In the meantime Isabel is in straits at home. She 
has been approached by a rich " Bourgomaster " of Caer- 
branck named Bernardo. Repulsed by Isabel, Bernardo 
hires a youth of the city to prefer false charges against 
her. When the moment comes, however, this youth is 
smitten in his conscience and reveals Bernardo's evil plan. 
Isabel's fame is thus increased, and reports of these hap- 
penings even reach Francesco in the city. He returns 
home after an absence of six years and is received without 
recrimination by Isabel. They live happily together ever 



496 English Literary Prose 

afterward, and the story closes with a long pastoral tale 
told at the feast given to celebrate the home-coming of 
Francesco. 

This story, which it was worth while to analyze in de- 
tail because it shows how the Italian novella could be 
made the vehicle for the portrayal of genuine English life, 
is undoubtedly in some measure autobiographical. Its 
parallelism to certain episodes in the life of Shakspere will 
not pass unnoticed, and indeed the main events of it are 
of a kind that must have been not infrequently exemplified 
in later Elizabethan London. The story, as Greene tells it, 
is overlaid with all the devices of the conventional romance, 
with high-sounding eloquence, figures of speech, classical 
allusions, quotations, and similar ingenious ornament. At 
bottom, however, it is felt to be real. The gentle and 
womanly Isabel, Francesco, the simple victim of city 
wickedness, the professional harlot Infida, all these are 
genuine transcripts of English life. The actions in which 
they figure are simple and natural, and the only reason why 
Greene did not write in Francescoes Fortunes a thoroughly 
realistic novel of London life was that he had at his com- 
mand only a romantic mould in which to shape his material. 

In pursuance of his program of reform, Greene struck a 
vein which brought him more popularity than any of his 
tales of idle love had ever done. In 1591 appeared his 
Notable Discovery of Coosenage, which constitutes the first 
part of the Art of Connycatching and the first of a long 
series of cony-catching pamphlets by Greene and his imi- 
tators. It begins with an account of various kinds of cheats 
and tricksters, and concludes with two stories, " How a 
Cookes wife in London did lately serve a Collier for his 
coosnage," and " How a Flaxe wife and her neighbours 
used a coosening Collier." The Second Part of the Art of 
Connycatching is really nothing more than a collection of 



The Modernists 497 

such short stories, a group of tales in a cony-catching set- 
ting. These stories are narratives of episodes in London life, 
with actual places mentioned and often the names of per- 
sons. It is usually " a good fellow " who in the Christmas 
holidays came to see a play at the Bull within Bishopsgate, 
or " poor A. B. in Turnmill street " at Spilby fair, or some 
innocent apprentice at Newgate Market who falls victim to 
the practices of sharpers and thus provides the material 
of the story. Greene addresses himself in the Notable Dis- 
covery to the " yong gentlemen, Marchants, Apprentices, 
Farmers, and plain Countrymen " of England, and as the 
pamphlets were cheap, they were widely distributed among 
the class for whom they were intended. A tanner of 
Exeter, in one of the stories, announces that he has bought 
Greene's cony-catching pamphlet for threepence and has 
thus learned all the mysteries of that trade. Greene de- 
clares that his pamphlets had become so generally known 
that sliarpers now had difficulty in finding victims and 
that they had even threatened him with violence. But 
Greene consoles himself with the reflection that " no pains 
nor danger [is] too great that groweth to the benefit " of 
his country. ^° His desire now is only to do good to his 
countrymen. " I am English borne," he writes, " and I 
have English thoughts, not a devill incarnate because I 
am Italianate, but hating the pride of Italic, because I know 
their peevishnes." ^^ In harmony with his change of pur- 
pose he explains that he has adopted a new style, and to 
those who object that his new writings show " no eloquent 
phrases nor fine figurative conveiance " as his other works 
have done, he replies that a " certaine decorum is to bee 
kept in everie thing " and that it is not proper to " applie a 

"" " Epistle Dedicatorie " to the Second Part of the Art of Canny- 
catching, Works, X, 69. 
" Ibid., p. 5. 



498 English Literary Prose 

high stile in a base subject . . . Therefore humbly I crave 
pardon and desire I may write basely of such base wretches 
who live onely to live dishonestly." ^- The style is base, 
however, only in the sense that it is simple and unaffected 
and eschews Euphuistic and Arcadian ornament. 

The theme thus successfully inaugurated by Greene in 
his Art of Connycatching was continued in several modi- 
fied forms. In A Disputation Betweene a Hee and a Shee 
Connycatcher two practitioners of the art conversing to- 
gether reveal themselves in a remarkably vivid and enter- 
taining manner. As part of the Disputation Greene utilizes 
a short conventional love-romance, A Watchword to Wan- 
ton Maidens, written in the old style of such stories and 
evidently left over from his earlier period. In The Defence 
of Connycatching, Greene ^^ writes under the guise of one 
who opposes him. He attacks here other kinds of knavery 
than cony-catching, the oppressions of usurers, the cheating 
of millers, alewives, chandlers, butchers, lawyers, false 
travelers, blackmailers, brokers, tailors, and other seem- 
ingly respectable members of society. There is much popu- 
lar gossip about tradesmen and their ways, the effect of 
the pamphlet being to convince the people of the truth of 
what they will always believe, that there exists a general 
conspiracy of fraud against them among all tradesmen and 
purveyors. 

In continuation of his new-found devotion to popular 
interests, Greene wrote A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, or 
A Quaint dispute between Velvet breeches and Cloth- 
breeches (1592). This engaging sketch was dedicated to 
Thomas Barnabie, Esq., as a " maintayner of Cloth breeches 
(I meane of the olde and worthie customes of the Gentilitie 

"^"Epistle Dedicatorie," p. 71. 

"' Or some imitator of Greene. The authorship of the pamphlet 
is not certain. 



The Modernists 499 

and yeomanrie of England)." The dispute turns on the 
relative merits of Velvet-breeches, adorned with rich orna- 
ments, and Cloth-breeches, plain and simple, but service- 
able. Cloth-breeches maintains not only that the gentle- 
man may lose caste if he degenerates from his " auntient 
vertues," but also that the " churlish and servile " person 
may become a gentleman if " indued with learning or 
valour." Hence he concludes that gentility grows " not 
onely by propagation of nature, but by perfection of 
quality." ^* He discourses eloquently against the vices of 
Italy cultivated by Velvet-breeches, and lauds plain, honest 
English virtues. This is Ascham's old plaint, but the dif- 
ference between x^scham and Greene is that Ascham was 
thinking only of gentlemen, whereas Greene's sympathies 
are really with the plain people. In the end a jury is made 
up, mainly of simple craftsmen, who decide in favor of 
Cloth-breeches, as " by many hundred yeares more antient, 
ever since Brute an inhabitant in this Island." Velvet- 
breeches, on the other hand, is an " upstart come out of 
Italy, begot of Pride, nursed up by selfe love & brought 
into this country by his companion Nufanglenesse." ^^ The 
pamphlet undoubtedly made a strong popular appeal, and 
perhaps it expresses a genuine sympathy with the people on 
Greene's part. The only thing which begets doubt of 
Greene's entire sincerity is that he was now in the desperate 
position of a writer who must continually find a new public 
in order to live. No doubt Greene's romances were bought 
in greater numbers by middle-class readers than they were 
by courtiers, and one cannot help wondering whether or not 
his change of heart had anything to do with a realization 
of the practical wisdom of appealing directly to this popular 
public. 

This doubt becomes acute when one turns to Greene's 
" Works, XI, 225. =' Ibid., p. 294. 



500 English Literary Prose 

penitent pamphlets, written during his last days and pub- 
lished only after his death. The most important of these 
is Greene's Groats-worth of Wit, a last confession the 
bitterness of which is somewhat sweetened by several en- 
tertaining tales. In the address " To the Gentlemen 
Readers," Greene declares that henceforth he will write 
more useful pamphlets, " directing you how to live, yet 
not diswading you from love." Another last confession 
was Greenes Vision: Written at the instant of his death. 
Conieyning a penitent passion for the folly of his Pen. 
How popular these death-bed confessions were is shown by 
the publisher's note prefixed to the posthumous edition of 
the Vision, to the effect that " Manie have published re- 
pentaunces under his name," but that none was " more un- 
feigned than this, being everie word of his owne : his owne 
phrase, his own method." ^^ It is in this vision that Chaucer 
and Gower appear before Greene and argue the merits of 
the two kinds of narrative with which their names had 
become traditionally identified. Chaucer defends merry 
tales, and tells Greene that poets' wits are free, and their 
words ought to be without check, that he has therefore 
" doone Schollerlike " in setting forth his pamphlets. 
Gower, on the other hand, defends serious and moral nar- 
rative. In the end Greene rejects Chaucer, Solomon then 
appears in the vision and counsels Greene to seek wisdom, 
to leave " effeminate fancies " and to give himself up en- 
tirely to theology. " Be a Divine, my Sonne," concludes 
Solomon, " for her documents are severitie, and her foode 
is the bread of life." When Greene awakes from his vision, 
he determines to " seeke after wisdome so highly commended 

°° One of those who made capital out of Greene's death was John 
Dickenson, who in 1598 published Green in Conceipt. New raised 
from his graue to write the Tragique Historie of fair Valeria of 
London. Dickenson had sponged on Lyly in an earlier work, 
Arisbas, Euphues amidst his slumbers (1594). 



The Modernists 501 

by Solomon," and he promises his readers that however the 
direction of his studies shall be limited, they shall have the 
fruits of his better labors. It seems, therefore, from these 
statements, that Greene was upon the point of giving up 
not only the courtly romance but also the tale of common 
life which he had cultivated in place of the romance. All 
that he had hitherto done seemed now to Greene but " wan- 
ton fancies," and had not death intervened, the next stage 
of his career might have seen him devoting his talents to 
religious meditations and pious pamphlets. 

It was Greene's tendency to play insistently on only 
one string at a time. He first wrote Euphuistic romances, 
then Arcadian romances, and when these veins seemed 
exhausted, it came the turn of his rogue pamphlets, fol- 
lowed by his death-bed confessions. These last unhappily 
turned out to be almost literally death-bed confessions, 
though if further time had been granted him, no doubt 
this theme also would soon have given place to a new one. 
The truth appears to be that Greene was more intent on 
working the market than in realizing any firmly held literary 
or personal convictions of his own. And yet he seems at 
bottom to have had some genuine feeling for the life of the 
plain citizen, even the disreputable citizen. His many re- 
flections of the life of merchants, apprentices, servants, 
farmers, and such simple folk are presented in their settings 
with all the fidelity of a Dutch genre picture ; and when 
he treats of low-life characters and activities, of thieves, 
sharpers, courtezans, of the life of the ale-house and the 
suburbs, moral indignation does not obscure his vision of 
the picturesque fact. Much of this method he of course 
learned from the merry tale of the Chaucerian tradition, 
but on the other hand he not infrequently goes out of his 
way to express opinions, not conventional or literary, which 
lead one to suppose that Harvey's criticisms of " villainy " 



502 English Literary Prose 

in literature formed no part of his artistic creed. And yet 
Greene wrote no comprehensive realistic work. His writ- 
ings are all sketches, and his narrative gift, though excel- 
lent within the limits of the novella or anecdote, seems not 
to have been capable of sustained effort. He was apparently 
not completely aware of the vast narrative possibilities of 
the life of his humble public, and though his feeling for this 
public seems genuine so far as it goes, it does not go very 
far. 

Two other London wits whose names are traditionally 
connected with those of Nashe and Greene are George 
Peele and Thomas Lodge. Of Peele little need be said 
in a discussion of realism. His Old Wives Tale is a ro- 
mantic play, pieced together out of fragments of popular 
legendary material which it treats in the spirit of Comus 
and the Midsummer Night's Dream. The Merry Conceited 
Jests of George Peele were not written by Peele but about 
him. If the tales had any basis in fact, Peele must have 
been as knavish a rogue as ever cut purse. Lodge, on the 
other hand, seems at least to have made some effort to join 
the forces of the modernists. He was the son of a lord 
mayor of London, and was educated at the Merchant 
Taylors School and at Oxford. He began his literary 
career with A Reply to Stephen Gossons Schoole of Abuse 
(1580), a short and itself somewhat abusive defense of 
poetry, music, and stage plays. Several years later he pub- 
lished An Alarum against Usurers (1584), to which was 
annexed the " delectable historic of Forbonius and Pris- 
ceria." This book, which is praised in some prefatory 
verses for its " pretie stile," presents, in the first part, the 
story of a young gallant who falls a prey to usurers, with 
the result that his own moral character deteriorates and 
he becomes himself a " gentleman broker." The story is 
told in an extremely Euphuistic manner, though it prob- 



The Modernists 503 

ably reflects some personal experiences of Lodge and be- 
trays some interest in the law, of which he had become 
a student. The story of Forbonius and Prisceria is a con- 
ventional love romance, with Euphuistic and Arcadian fea- 
tures, monologues, letters, debates, shepherd motives, poems 
interspersed, and all the other furniture. In this kind, how- 
ever. Lodge did better with his next romance, his Rosa- 
lynde ; Enphues golden legacie found after his death in his 
cell at Silexedra (1590). The book, according to Lodge, 
was " feathered in the surges of many perillous seas," hav- 
ing been written " on a voyage to the Islands of Terceras & 
the Canaries. ^^ Though he speaks modestly of it as a work 
" heawen down by a soldier with his curtleax, not bought 
with the allurement of a filed tongue," it is in fact an 
ornate romance adorned with all the refinements of the 
artificial style. 

By the time Rosalynde had received its welcome, there 
were signs that the popularity of romance in general had 
begun to wane. Lodge made two attempts to join the new 
movement, neither of them successful. His Famous, true 
and historicall life of Robert second Duke of Normandy, 
surnamed . . . Robin the Divell (1591) is a crudely con- 
ceived story of the bloody acts of an impossible villain. 
The theme was too violent for a rogue pamphlet, in which 
there was always a certain element of humor, and the style 
in which it was written was merely that of the refined ro- 
mance transferred to an inappropriate subject. Lodge's 
second venture in the popular manner was his Life and 
Death of william Long beard, the most famous and witty 
English Traitor, borne in the Citty of London (1593). This 
book, dedicated to the Lord Mayor of London, tells the 
story of a man of low birth who in the reign of Henry II 
attained to wealth and high position, but not to good 
" Works, Hunterian Club, I, 4. 



504 English Literary Prose 

habits. To the main story are added " manye other most 
pleasant and prettie histories." But Lodge had really never 
gone to school to the popular tale, and these stories are all 
written in the slow and long movement of the style of 
romance. Lodge complains, in some introductory remarks, 
that fault is found " if the stile be not of the new stamp," 
and that men are " in thraldome to their fashionate man- 
ners." With respect to his own writing, he promises '* to 
washe out the spots assoone as they are spied." But the 
spots of the romantic style in Lodge were like those of the 
leopard, which grow brighter by washing. 

In his succeeding works, having become a Roman Cath- 
olic and having taken up the study of medicine. Lodge gave 
up the struggle and frankly descended to the level of the 
merely learned and pious. In The Divel Conjured (1596) 
he declares that now he cares not for style, and prefers that 
men should condemn him " for default in Rethoricke, then 
as in times past, commend my stile and lament my judg- 
ment." The book is a supposedly philosophical discussion 
of angels, devils, magic, and similar topics, and not a social 
pamphlet at all. Prosopopoeia containing the teares of the 
holy, blessed and sanctified Marie (1596), a book of medi- 
tations and ejaculations, is another work of repentance in 
which Lodge speaks sorrowfully of the " foule forepassed 
progenie " of his thoughts composed in the night of his 
error. Wits Miserie and the Worlds Madness (1596) 
contains highly elaborated but lifeless and medieval discus- 
sions of the seven deadly sins, illustrated by descriptions of 
typical characters. After this, besides some translations, 
Lodge produced only several medical tracts, A Treatise of 
the Plague (1603), sensible and learned, but not intended 
to be entertaining, and The Poore Mans Talent (1623?), 
a practical collection of prescriptions and of discussions of 
diseases. 



The Modernists 505 

It is with some relief that one turns from these " wanton 
wits," who all seem to have " look'd on truth askance and 
strangely," to Thomas Dekker, the most genuine of the 
end of the century depicters of London life. Curiously little 
is known about Dekker, except that he was a fertile pro- 
ducer of plays and prose pamphlets and that, though in- 
dustrious, he was often in poverty and was probably im- 
provident. He was born in London and, as his writings 
show, quite at home in the life of the city. He was not un- 
learned, since he quotes Latin freely and makes learned 
allusions; but he does not boast of having been at the 
university and probably did not belong to the group of 
university wits. He was a professional man of letters who 
lived close to the public for which he wrote. His pam- 
phlets are full of vivid detail, and his sympathy with the 
simple aspects of London life, with citizens, tradesmen, 
apprentices, serving-maids, and other humble characters is 
frequently apparent. In his Foure Birdes of Noahs Arke 
(1609) he put together a book of prayers, for a school-boy, 
for an apprentice, for a maid-servant, for a mariner, a sol- 
dier, for the higher ranks as well, all of which are admi- 
rably simple, direct, and fresh in expression, but never so 
engagingly so as in the prayers for children, artisans, serv- 
ants, prisoners, and other humble folk. He was a man also 
of unusual humanitarian sensibility, and his descriptions 
of the plague-stricken city are powerful in feeling. His 
pictures of low life are often sweetened by touches of 
poetry, not the poetry of unreal romance, but the poetry 
which inheres in the simplest of things for him who is able 
to extract it. Dekker's vein is not prevailingly satiric, but 
often sympathetic and humorous. His work in prose, like 
that of most prose writers of his time, suffers for lack of 
appropriate forms, and materials are often jumbled together 
in a way which seems to indicate hurried composition. 



5o6 English Literary Prose 

Necessity doubtless fostered in him a journalistic habit of 
filling space and of writing for the immediate occasion. 
With all its defects, however, his work presents a richer 
picture of London life than that of any other contempo- 
rary chronicler. A true child of the London of his day, he 
has given us the most attractive, perhaps also the most 
faithful picture of the life of the city. 

That most terribly real of all happenings, the plague, 
provided Dekker with the material for his first prose pam- 
phlet. This was called The W onderfull Yeare i6o^. 
Wherein is shewed the picture of London, lying sicke of 
the Plague. At the end of it, " like a mery Epilogue to a 
dull Play," certain tales are narrated, " of purpose to 
shorten the lives of long winter nights that lye watching 
in the darke for us." With such stories Dekker says he 
could fill a large volume and call it the second part of the 
hundred merry tales. But the mirth of these tales lies close 
to tragedy. Many touching incidents of the plague are vividly 
narrated, and the pathos of the accounts is increased by the 
mingling of " ridiculous stuffe " in the catalogue of horrors. 
The plague figures again, but less prominently, in Dekker's 
second original pamphlet. The Seven deadly Sinnes of Lon- 
don (1606), not the conventional medieval sins, but the 
sins of the author's day, such as intentional bankruptcy, 
whereby creditors are cheated, lying, " Candlelight," i.e. the 
sins that walk abroad under cover of night, sloth, apish- 
ness, shaving, i.e. trickery and oppression, and cruelty. 
These sins are not abstractly analyzed, but are typified by 
persons, " drawne in seven severall Coaches, Through the 
seven Severall Gates of the Citie Bringing the Plague with 
them." The treatment of the theme contrasts interestingly 
with Lodge's Wits Miserie. In Newes from Hell (1606), 
Dekker attempted a rather heavy-handed satirical descrip- 
tion of hell, its horrors, punishments, and inhabitants, after 



The Modernists 507 

the manner of Nashe's Pierce Penilesse. Nashe himself is 
addressed in terms of extravagant admiration and Dekker's 
" plump braynes " swell and burst in passages of expansive 
eloquence imitative of Nashe. This was not Dekker's true 
vein, however, and fortunately he soon abandoned it. A 
renewed outbreak of the plague in 1625 brought forth A 
Rod for Run-awayes (1625), the last of Dekker's prose 
pamphlets. This is a kind of newspaper report and descrip- 
tion of the city and its misfortunes. Many incidents of the 
plague are related, some only briefly sketched, but even in 
outline powerfully suggestive of the pathos, the grim humor, 
and the tragedy of the situations. 

Like Greene, Dekker found the most fruitful source of 
material for pamphleteering in the underworld of thieves 
and rogues. His Belman of London: Bringing to Light 
the most notorious villanies that are now practised in the 
Kingdome (1608) was an immediate popular success. It 
details the wickedness of night-prowlers, of various kinds 
of rogues, rufflers, anglers, and other picturesque rascals. 
Dekker declares his intention of devoting his life to the 
safety of his country until all such evil-doers are " hunted 
into the toyles of the Lawe." In Lanthorne and Candle- 
Light. Or The Bell-Mans second Nights-walke (1609) a 
" Brood of more strange Villanies " was revealed. Besides 
exposing various criminal practices, Dekker also discusses 
the canting language in some detail. In this pamphlet he 
took occasion to make some criticisms of Samuel Rowlands, 
an imitator of Greene and author of a number of realistic 
satirical poems and rogue pamphlets, who sought profit in 
the success of the Bell-man by publishing his Martin Mark- 
All, Beadle of Bridewell; his defence and answere to the 
Belman of London (1609). Rowlands comments on the 
popularity of the Bel-man of London, which, he says, is so 
well known that every " Jacke-boy now can say as well as 



5o8 English Literary Prose 

tlie proudest of that fraternitie (will you wapp for a wyn, 
or tranie for a make)." He apparently tries to show that 
Dekker was heavily indebted to Harman's Caveat for his 
materials and that he had not given the fraternity of vaga- 
bonds a fair treatment. Dekker in turn charges Rowlands 
with being a usurper who has taken upon him the name 
of the Bell-man without being able to maintain that title, 
and who is " rather a Newter than a friend to the cause." 
In this latter charge there may have been some truth, for 
one feels constantly that the authors of these rogue pam- 
phlets do protest their moral intentions too much, and that 
perhaps they were more at home with rogues and vaga- 
bonds than plain citizens had a right to be. 

With Dekker's rogue pamphlets may be grouped a work 
devoted to rogues whose roguishness was not compensated 
for by their wit. The Guls Horne-booke (1609) contains 
a description of different kinds of fools, cast into the ironi- 
cal form of a book of instructions for all such as would be 
complete gulls. It is a conduct book applied to the fool 
and man about town to teach the elements of the fool's con- 
duct. Structurally it is divided into chapters, how a gal- 
lant should behave himself at the play, in the tavern, at an 
ordinary, in Paul's Walk, and various other situations which 
give Dekker an opportunity of describing different types of 
city rufflers and loungers. The book, says Dekker, " hath 
a relish of Grobianisme, and tastes very strongly of it in 
the beginning." ^^ The reason was, as Dekker explains, that 
he had translated " many Bookes " of Dedekind's Grobiamis 
into English verse, but not liking the subject, he altered 
the shape and " of a Dutchman fashioned a meere English- 
man." Here as ever Dekker writes with his eye upon the 
object, and his " meere Englishman " is an invaluable so- 
cial document, illustrating the life of Shakspere's London. 

"^ Non-Dramatic Works, ed. Grosart, II, 199. 



The Modernists 509 

Most of the remaining pamphlets of Dekker are manifest 
catch-alls, written for the market. His Jests to Make you 
Merie ( 1607) is a collection of short tales with very little wit 
to grace them, to which are added " the discoveries made by 
Cock Wat, the walking Spirit of Newgate," a continuation 
of the cony-catching theme of Greene. The Dead Terme 
(1608), a dialogue between Westminster and London, is a 
jumble of antiquarian information, of satirical and moral 
reflections on the sins of the city, of descriptions of various 
notable objects, Paul's Steeple making a long complaint 
and statement of its history, the stews of the city, the 
Thames and its wonders, and similar matters of popular 
interest. It closes with a description of Stourbridge Fair 
and a merry tale dealing with an episode in plague-time. 
Worke for Armourers: or The Peace is Broken (1609) 
was written when the play-houses were empty because of 
the plague. In default of this customary resource, Dekker 
visits the Bear Garden and describes the baiting of the 
bear with more realization of the barbarous character of 
the sport than was common among his contemporaries. 
The greater part of the pamphlet, however, is a conflict, like 
a morality, between Money and Poverty, with occasional 
glimpses of actual life and manners. The Ravens Alma- 
nacke (1609) is another medley of various things, cast in 
the form of a mock almanac in which the writer prognosti- 
cates misfortunes such as plague, famine, and civil war for 
" this present yeare 1609." The pamphlet also contains 
merry tales, of a cobbler and his shrewish wife, of a usurer, 
of a rope-maker in Devonshire who was cured of cruelty by 
his wife, and others. Many interesting casual descriptions 
and echoes of real life keep the interest alive in the varied 
matter of the pamphlet. Like other pamphlets of similar 
character, it should not be judged too severely from 
the point of view of unity and coherence, since doubtless 



510 English Literary Prose 

one of the main purposes of writings of this kind was to 
supply readers with the miscellaneous entertainment pro- 
vided in modern times by magazines and newspapers. Or 
if Dekker had lived in the days of Addison and Steele he 
would undoubtedly have cast much of his materials into the 
form of periodical essays instead of huddling them together 
within the covers of a single book. So far as structure is 
concerned, however, Dekker's inventive skill was slight, and 
he apparently made little effort to elaborate a form which 
might appropriately have contained his realistic material. 

Still further removed from the group of university wits 
and closer to the public for which he wrote was Thomas 
Deloney, sometimes extravagantly praised as the inventor 
of the realistic novel. Deloney seems to have been a silk- 
weaver by occupation, probably a native of Norwich, who 
took to literature as an additional means of support. 
Among his literary contemporaries he is usually referred 
to with more or less good-humored contempt. His con- 
temporary popularity was established first by his ballads, 
in which he was first the rival and, after his death in 1592, 
the successor of Elderton. The themes of these ballads are 
usually sentimental incidents taken from English history, 
e.g. A Mournfull Dittie on the death of Rosamond, King 
Henry the Seconds Concubine, The Lamentation of Shores 
Wife, the story of Godiva of Coventry, of King Locrine, 
and others. Miscellaneous ballads tell of the destruction 
caused by a great wind in the market town of Beckles in 
Suffolk, of the death and execution of fourteen most wicked 
traitors in Lincoln's Inn Field, of the lamentation of " Mr. 
Pages Wife of Plimouth, who being forc'd to wed him, 
consented to his Murder," and much other " doleful matter 
merrily set down." 

Deloney's novels are three in number, The Most Pleasant 



The Modernists 511 

and delectable Historie of John Winchcomhe, otherwise 
called Jacke of Newherie, The Gentle Craft, in two parts, 
and Thomas of Reading, or The Six Worthie Yeomen of 
the West,^^ all written between 1596 and 1600. Jacke of 
Newherie deals with episodes in the life of a broadcloth 
weaver and others of his calling. The story is not closely 
compacted as to plot, but like all of Deloney's novels, is 
merely a string of episodes. It exemplifies in Jack of New- 
bery the author's conception of the good and honest trades- 
man who by his industry passes from poverty to comfort 
and from comfort to affluence. A good many stories of 
the type of the merry jest find a place in the course of the 
narrative. Tales of a high-strung romantic character are 
also inserted for relief, told in Deloney's version of the 
refined Euphuistic style with an amusing mixture of mag- 
niloquent English and flat statement. One observes a good 
many echoes from the chroniclers, who were probably De- 
loney's most sedulously read authors, in descriptions of 
feasts, entertainments, royal visitations, and similar inci- 
dents. The style also reminds one of Stowe's painful efforts 
to attain dignity and elegance. In spite of its composite 
character, however, there is at bottom a solid founda- 
tion of feeling for the realities of life and character in the 
book. 

What has been said of Jacke of Newherie applies equally 
to Deloney's other novels, to The Gentle Craft, dealing with 
shoemakers, and to his third novel, the story of Thomas of 
Reading, who followed " the trade of clothing." The tales 
are all written from the popular point of view, but are not 
written down by a person who felt himself superior to his 

*'PIagiarized by Henry Roberts in his Haigh for Deuonshire. 
A pleasant Discourse of sixe gallant Marchants of Deuonshire 
(1600), according to Mr. Seccombe (DNB., s. v. Roberts), who 
refers to an article by W. B. Pye, Western Antiquary, Feb., 1885. 



512 ■ English Literary Prose 

characters. The virtues commended are the simple virtues 
of the tradesman, industry, thrift, economy, shrewdness 
rather than generosity, and cleverness in driving a bargain, 
even to the loss of the man you are dealing with. Perhaps 
the women characters are more interestingly developed than 
the men. They consist of widows, serving-maids, roystering 
girls of the taverns, old gossips, and others of full habit. 
The typical situation is that in which a woman, a serving- 
maid, or a rich widow, woos a fresh and promising young 
apprentice or tradesman. In Deloney's view of life it is 
the male who is pursued, not the female. There is much 
of the free-spoken language of a coarse age, coarse rather 
than indecent, in the conversation of the characters, though 
when the proprieties are in evidence, nothing could be more 
proper than their bourgeois primness. The reader is given 
to understand, however, that this is merely surface decora- 
tion. The humor of the stories is mainly of the heavy 
style of practical joking, though some crude efiforts are made 
at comic dialect characterization in very imperfectly indi- 
cated French and German. Some of the English characters 
are also marked by local characteristics of speech. The 
novels are placed in past time, Jacke of Newherie in " the 
dales of King Henrie the eight," Thomas of Reading in 
" the dayes of King Henry the first," while The Gentle 
Craft, in its beginnings, goes back to the time of " the re- 
nowned king of Powis, a noble Brittaine borne," who was 
the father of St. Hugh. But the life described is really that 
of Deloney's England. One sees the bustling, familiar, 
good-natured intercourse of prosperous citizens and their 
workmen in the daily round of tasks. There is much eating, 
drinking, singing, joking, to relieve the tedium of toil. It 
is the carefree, happy life of those who earn their daily 
bread, not in the sweat of their brows, but by the skill of their 
hands, of artisans who know trouble only when they feel 



The Modernists 513 

it in their purses or their paunches. Compared with Dek- 
ker, Deloney's pictures of London life seem heavy and 
coarse. Deloney apparently saw only the boisterous side of 
middle-class life, only the hilarity of comfortable, well-fed 
citizens who give their animal spirits free rein in their 
hours of leisure. Dekker also knows the merry side of 
London life, but the lightness and grace with which he 
describes it are lacking in Deloney. 

In no comprehensive sense can Deloney be characterized 
as the father of the realistic novel. What he did was to 
combine older methods and materials, the chronicle narra- 
tive with the merry jest and the debased courtly ro- 
mance, into a succession of episodes held together loosely 
by a character or group of characters. His three 
novels are relatively very slight and are quite in- 
adequate to give a full and real picture of the life he 
depicts. Nor was this probably Deloney's intention. He 
certainly had no theories of realistic narrative, but wrote to 
amuse his public, which was a public of apprentices, mer- 
chants, tradesmen, and craftsmen. He wrote, consequently, 
in a simple and naive style, even when he tried to be fine. 
He was a man of the people writing for the people, and as 
an artistic achievement his work is of slight significance. 
Nevertheless, so far as it goes, Deloney's method was to a 
considerable extent that of realistic fiction, and one may 
perhaps reasonably inquire whether Deloney did not build 
better than he knew, whether without intending it, he did 
not in fact inaugurate a new literary method which later 
generations utilized and developed. The dates of the 
printed editions of Deloney's three novels lend some color 
to this opinion. Editions of The Gentle Craft are still ex- 
tant which appeared at intervals of a few years to the middle 
of the eighteenth century, and of the other two novels 
editions appeared continuously to the end of the seven- 



514 English Literary Prose 

teenth century. ''^ But the continued interest of the popular 
reading public in Deloney's novels is not in itself sufficient 
justification for applying the title of father of English 
realism to him. He must first be measured by the degree 
of his influence upon his literary successors, and it is ap- 
parent that such influence was slight. His novels w^ere not 
the models for Defoe, Richardson, or any of the later mas- 
ters of realism. His historical significance, like that of the 
other realistic writers of the end of the sixteenth century, 
lies in his reflection of a growing popular interest in reading 
in his day, and in the life of simple folk. Scholars and 
courtiers were then not the only supporters of literature, 
but the increasing class of prosperous townsmen were eager 
for literary entertainment and willing to pay for it. The 
people had always had a traditional oral literature of their 
own and reflections of this appear even in the romances of 
the age of chivalry. But in answer to this new demand, 
certain " villainists," many of whom had enjoyed the ad- 
vantages of the academic and literary culture of England, 
condescended to bring printed literature down to the popu- 
lar level. They told witty and indecent stories, they de- 
scribed the life of the streets, of respectable citizens and 
their despoilers of the underworld, they gave to literature 
the boisterous, huf-snuf, and anti-heroic eloquence which 
was the last cry in Elizabethan modernity. Yet with all 
this their constructive achievements were slight. Even the 
drama, the most appropriate container for their material, 
and one which, in its independent development, had evolved 
a clearly defined form, was only imperfectly and partially 
utilized. The merry tale did indeed contain the germ of the 

'"' For bibliography, see Esdaile, pp. 38-43. Doubtless numerous 
editions of the novels appeared of which no copies have survived. 
Like the popular chap-books which they resemble, the novels were 
printed in cheap form and probably in small editions of which no 
copies escaped the wear and tear of time. 



The Modernists 515 

novel, and the elements of a realistic fiction are present in 
the elaborations of this type of narrative in the writings of 
Greene, Dekker, and Deloney. But not even Greene, whose 
short stories went farthest in this direction, seems to have 
had the courage of any profound realistic convictions, or 
perhaps to have realized the possibilities of the long and 
detailed narrative of real life. The conditions of London 
society called forth writings which revealed the possibilities 
of a realistic fiction, but it was left for later generations 
efifectually to occupy this newly discovered literary world 
of the familiar and commonplace. 



IX 

BACON 

Public Activities — Literary Interests — Early Writ- 
ings — Methods of Self-Discipline — Philosophical 
Treatises — Composition and Growth of the 
" Essays " — Use of Latin — Literary Technic — 
Conclusions 

The influences which molded the life of Francis Bacon 
developed not a talent, but a character. He finds his place 
in the history of literature largely by virtue of a single book, 
and that book one which he esteemed less highly than most 
of his other works. Nature did not deny to Bacon the 
gifts which might have made an author, but he preferred to 
be, as he would have regarded it, something more than 
merely a writer. For all sophistical practices of the craft 
of writing he had as great scorn as the profound thinker 
with whom this historical survey of English prose began. 
Not until all other passages for his activity were closed did 
Bacon become reconciled to the thought of devoting him- 
self entirely to the profession of letters. Within a year or 
two of his death he resolved to spend his time wholly in 
writing, and " to put forth that poor talent, or half talent, 
or what it is that God hath given me, not as heretofore to 
particular exchanges, but to banks or mounts of perpetuity, 
that will not break." ^ But the choice was late and never 
whole-hearted. The literary talent he possessed Bacon cul- 

' Works, XIII, 186. 
516 



Bacon 517 

tivated only as an aid to and as a relief from his more seri- 
ous callings as lawyer, statesman, and philosopher. 

Circumstances and family tradition inclined Bacon, even 
as a youth, to look upon himself as destined for a public 
career. The university had little part in his education. He 
entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1573, at the age of 
twelve years and three months, but his connection with 
Cambridge lasted only two years. His youth must have 
made impossible any deep influence of the university upon 
him at the time, and later he seems never to have felt an 
inclination to ally himself with any group of university 
wits, as ambitious young collegians of his day were wont to 
do. The most that Cambridge did was to beget in him a 
sentimental feeling for that university, and when disap- 
pointment and lack of advancement weighed heavy upon 
him, he often thought of retiring " with a couple of men to 
Cambridge," there to spend his life in " studies and con- 
templations, without looking back." - But these were only 
dreams, and it is doubtful if Bacon would have been as 
happy as he imagined in the cloistral quiet of the university. 
He was never content merely to speculate, and his phi- 
losophy always implied practical activity on a grand scale. 

At the age of fifteen Bacon was admitted to Gray's Inn 
and began the study of the law. These studies were inter- 
rupted, however, by a residence of several years in the 
household of Sir Amias Paulet, Elizabeth's ambassador in 
Paris from 1576 to 1579. The reports which Sir Amias 
Paulet sent to Bacon's father in England show that Bacon 
was already comporting himself with characteristic discre- 
tion. On the death of his father in 1579, however, Bacon 
returned to England and faced the troublesome problem of 
choosing a permanent career for himself, a problem all the 
more difficult and pressing because he was under the neces- 
^ Letters and Life, I, 291. 



5i8 English Literary Prose 

sity of increasing his small income. The practice of his 
own profession of the law would naturally be the first thing 
to suggest itself, but for Bacon this would have been an un- 
happy solution of his difficulties. He had no desire to be- 
come merely a lawyer, not from any dislike of the law in 
itself, but one may suppose for the same reason that he did 
not want to become merely a writer; the acceptance and 
practice of any profession was a virtual confession of limi- 
tation. Instead of the sober law, he turned his mind to 
another field of endeavor, one in which success was perhaps 
less certain, but which offered hopes of larger returns and 
greater liberty. In 1584 he had entered his first Parliament, 
beginning thus a public activity which was to continue until 
his disgrace. In the same year he wrote a letter of Advice 
to Queen Elizabeth, which may be taken as the outward 
evidence of his inward desire to serve the Queen in con- 
fidential capacities. Bacon sought for himself a place in 
the great world, a place from which he might exert a direct- 
ing power upon the affairs of the nation, and as he dreamed, 
upon all the future of mankind. To attain this place, the 
first necessity was royal favor, and Bacon set himself the 
task of winning Elizabeth's ear and of seeming to be a man 
of importance among men before he really was, with an 
assiduity and self-assurance not always entirely pleasing. 
But even so, advancement came slowly, and though she did 
not altogether discourage him, Elizabeth kept him dangling 
always at a distance from the object of his desires. 

These weary years of waiting were not, however, a time 
of idleness. In Parliament, Bacon soon won a position of 
respect for his weighty judgment and thoroughness, and in 
the lack of official advancement, he began to take some in- 
terest in the practice of his profession. But other important, 
if less public, occupations also engaged his attention. Bacon 
aspired to be a ruling and directing power among men, and 



Bacon 519 

during this period of enforced leisure, he set himself the 
task of anatomizing the hearts and minds of his fellow- 
beings. He drew a kind of moral map of humanity by 
which he might direct his course in the great voyages that 
were to bring him power and usefulness in the world. He 
saw himself sitting apart with a Machiavellian aloofness, 
not swayed by the passions and prejudices which make the 
actions of ordinary men ineffective, but by the power of his 
knowledge leading his poor blind fellow-creatures, the un- 
thinking herd, into paths of comfort and safety. Much of 
this wisdom he distilled, drop by drop, into the epigram- 
matic literary form of the Essays, but the applications of it 
are to be seen all through his life. 

Not until after the accession of James did Bacon begin to 
find himself in the important position of confidence which 
he had long aspired to occupy. The story of his advance- 
ment and fall are too familiar to call for discussion. It 
is more to the present point to turn attention to the speeches, 
papers, judicial charges, memorials, and similar writings 
which Bacon composed in the course of his multifarious 
business and professional activities. These were occasional 
papers, but many of them have a permanent interest, both 
as illustrations of Bacon's thought and as examples of the 
successful application of prose to the conduct of affairs. 
The earliest extant is the Letter of Advice to Queen Elica- 
beth,^ written in 1584 when Bacon was twenty- four years 
old. This letter was of course gratuitously written, as 
one might write an essay or review to-day. Its subject is 
the state of religion in England, and Bacon speaks not as 
the friend or defender of any one side, but as the politic 
adviser who would show how best to control contending 
factions. He sets party against party with cool indiffer- 
ence. The Puritans he notes " are somewhat over-squeam- 
' Letters and Life, I, 47-56. 



520 English Literary Prose 

ish and nice, and more scrupulous than they need " ; but 
they are not to be too greatly discouraged since " with their 
careful catechizing and diligent preaching they bring forth 
that fruit which your most excellent Majesty is to wish and 
desire ; namely the lessening and diminishing of the Papisti- 
cal number." As a would-be friend of the government and 
as one who expected favors at the hands of Elizabeth, it 
goes without saying that Bacon supported the Establish- 
ment. One might expect to find in him some of the zeal 
for the Puritan cause by which his mother was distinguished, 
but the expectation is not realized. Young as he was, 
Bacon had already learned either not to have, or not to 
bear too strongly upon personal convictions. 

A few years later Bacon continued the subject of the 
Letter of Advice in his interesting Advertisement Touching 
the Controversies of the Church of England (1589),^ a 
" meditation," as Bacon calls it, probably written to clarify 
his own views and possibly on intimation that what he said 
might interest the government. Here again Bacon is the 
politic adviser, though much general wisdom is mingled 
with his counsel with respect to practical measures. Con- 
troversies, he points out, are not necessarily evil, or if evil, 
a necessary evil. The real question is of the proper spirit of 
controversy. " It is the condition of the church to be ever 
under trials ; and there are but two trials ; the one of 
persecution, the other of scandal and contention ; and when 
the one ceaseth the other succeedeth." ^ The particular 
scandal of the church at the time Bacon was writing was 
the Marprelate tracts, and it was perhaps to aid the govern- 
ment in extricating itself from the awkward position into 
which Martin had put it that Bacon penned his " medita- 
tion." It is not likely that he had any special interest in 

* Letters and Life, I, 74-95- 

° Observations on a Libel, Letters and Life, I, 165. 



Bacon 521 

matters of church government or of religion, but he wrote 
on these subjects merely because they happened to be among 
the important public questions of the day. 

In these earliest of his business or professional writings, 
Bacon exhibits the qualities to be found in all his later 
productions of the same class. Mannerisms of all kinds 
he sedulously avoided. He made no effort to be eloquent 
or fine. He avoided also a technical professional style, 
but in doing so he made no bid for popular attention. 
His tendency indeed was from the start toward a too great 
compression and involution of thought. His mother, 
in a letter written in 1593, complains that she cannot 
understand " his enigmatical folded writing." ^ And a let- 
ter from Henry Gosnold to Bacon's brother, Anthony, in 
1594, describes Bacon as arguing a case of some importance 
and one by which Bacon considerably raised his reputation, 
as follows : 

" His argument, contracted by the time, seemed a bataille 
serrce, as hard to be discovered as conquered. The unusual 
words wherewith he had spangled his speech, were rather 
gracious for their propriety than strange for their novelty, 
and like to serve for occasions to report and means to re- 
member his argument. Certain sentences of his, somewhat 
obscure, and as it were presuming upon their capacities, will 
I fear make some of them rather admire than commend 
him." ' 

But it was never part of Bacon's program to make his utter- 
ances too easily intelligible. He was of the opinion that a 
certain degree of obscurity added to the weight of a thought, 
and that a difHcult style served a useful purpose in elimi- 
nating the unfit from among one's hearers or readers, 
enabling the writer to " single and adopt his reader." ^ A 

" Letters and Life, I, 245. ' Ibid., I, 268. 

^ Valerius Terminus, Works, VI, 71. 



522 English Literary Prose 

facile style soothes, a difficult style excites the attention. 
But fortunately Bacon never carried these theories to ex- 
tremes, and thoughtful readers will rarely find the difficulty 
of arriving at his meaning greater than the value of it when 
it is found. 

In all these professional writings one notes the temperate- 
ness and restraint, the deliberate subjection of means to 
ends, which are throughout characteristic of Bacon. One 
of his favorite mottoes is the saying of Heraclitus, Lumen 
siccum optima anima, and his discussions not only of philo- 
sophical theories but of such concrete realities as Essex and 
Raleigh, realities of a kind to stir the coldest blood, are 
carried on in this dry light so highly commended. Bacon 
was always the cautious analyst and judge, he was never 
betrayed into emotion. As a public speaker he cultivated 
the same qualities as in writing, and though he puts it down 
in his Comentarius Solutus (1608) as something to be cor- 
rected, " To suppress at once my speaking w^'' panting and 
labor of breath and voyce," ^ these impediments to fluent 
discourse could not often have been caused by depth of 
feeling. His manner was so prevailingly grave, deliberate, 
and controlled, that when on one occasion, in a debate on 
Charitable Trusts, the point of which has not been clearly 
recorded, he did " speak out of the very strings " of his 
heart, he noted also that it " doth alter my ordinary form of 
speech." ^° 

Bacon's method of persuasion was to set forth clearly the 
grounds and reasons for a belief or opinion ; and in letters of 
instruction, explanation, and counsel to the king, in charges 
to judges, in the summing up of cases, in communications 
relating to such public affairs as he was concerned with, 
Bacon felt that dignity of expression combined with thor- 
oughness and good order in presentation were sufficient. It 

» Works, IV, 93. ''Letters and Life, III, 38. 



Bacon 523 

was not his business to be " curious or elaborate." ^^ But 
it was his affair to write with an eye to the proprieties of 
the situation, and these demanded of him soberness and 
soHdity rather than the graces of an artful literary style. 
It was Bacon's endeavor to subdue and combine intrac- 
table facts and realities so that they might move together 
in their proper relations and in harmony. And if the 
test of a good style in writing be the fitness of it for 
its purpose, then Bacon's official and business publications 
cannot be regarded otherwise than as admirable models of 
style. 

It was during the closing years of Elizabeth's reign that, 
discouraged at his slow progress in the world. Bacon was 
dallying with the thought of retiring to Cambridge to spend 
his life in studies and contemplations without looking back. 
According to his friend and literary executor, Dr. Rawley, 
when Bacon was sixteen years old and " whilst he was 
commorant in the university " his interest was aroused in 
philosophical thought by his dislike of the philosophy of 
Aristotle, " not for the worthlessness of the author, to 
whom he would ever ascribe all high attributes, but for the 
unfruitfulness of the way." ^^ This interest in philosophy, 
begun thus early, or perhaps earlier, remained with Bacon 
to the end of his life. Though his professional and public 
activities occupied to outward appearances the greater part 
of his time and attention, Bacon may have spoken the truth 
when he declared that the contemplative planet carried 
him away wholly. " Business of state " he professed to 
have chosen merely as a means to an end : " and I was not 
without hope (the condition of Religion being at that time 
not very prosperous) that if I came to hold office in the 
state, I might get something done too for the good of men's 

^^ Letters and Life, IV, 114. ^' Works, I, 27. 



524 English Literary Prose 

souls." ^^ But men's bodies as well as their souls were the 
concern of Bacon's philosophy. His Novum Organum he 
declares is " for the bettering of men's bread and wine 
which are the characters of temporal blessings and sacra- 
ments of eternal." ^* And at another place he says that 
no blessing which could be conferred upon mankind seemed 
to him so great as the " discovery of new arts, endow- 
ments and commodities for the bettering of man's life." ^^ 
The end of his work was " for the benefit and use of 
life " ; ^^ and the task he set himself was " no mere felicity 
of speculation, but the real business and fortunes of the 
human race." ^^ He hoped and planned, as he said, to 
" extend more widely the limits of the power and greatness 
of man." ^® 

To describe the means by which these ends were to be 
attained requires some brief analysis of Bacon's system of 
thought. Its main principles consisted in the application of 
exact observation to the phenomena of nature with the in- 
tent of discovering general laws or causes, and by the in- 
telligent use of these causes, of enabling man to acquire 
power over the immediately surrounding facts of his exist- 
ence. With final causes and with divinity, Bacon did not 
concern himself. He notes several times that it was not 
" that pure light of natural knowledge, whereby man in 
paradise was able to give unto every living creature a name 
according to his propriety, which gave occasion to the fall ; 
but it was an aspiring desire to attain to that part of moral 
knowledge which defineth of good and evil . . . which was 



^''Letters and Life, III, 85. 

" Ibid., VII, 130. 

"Ibid., Ill, 84. 

^° Novum Organum, Works, VIII, 36. 

^' Ibid., p. 53. 

'* Ibid., p. 147. 



Bacon 525 

the original temptation." ^^ This practical and philanthropic 
purpose gives to Bacon's philosophical writings a directness 
and reality rarely found in writings on speculative subjects. 
On a few occasions, particularly in the treatment of 
forms,^° or " absolute actuality," -^ the discussion waxes 
metaphysical, but for the most part what Bacon has to say 
seems more like the wisdom of a thoughtful and experienced 
man applied to the affairs and circumstances of life than 
philosophy — or if it be philosophy, then all thinking men are 
philosophers. But Bacon's philosophy is by no means 
popular in the narrower sense of that term. A lofty pur- 
pose, which he prosecuted with the most profound con- 
viction, gives dignity to the general outlines and to the 
form of presentation of his system. He took, as he de- 
clares, all knowledge for his province, and in the acquisition 
of this knowledge, he purposed to employ a method hitherto 
unknown to mankind, whereby to make " philosophy and 
sciences both more true and more active." ^- His plan was 
to " commence a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and 
all human knowledge, raised upon the proper founda- 
tions." ^^ He felt that he had had the good fortune to hap- 
pen upon a wonderful discovery, that his work was " the child 
of time rather than of wit," and he was filled with wonder 
that " the first notion of the thing, and such great suspicions 
concerning matters long established, should have come into 
any man's mind." ^* He compares himself to Columbus, ^^ 
and like an explorer, he travels in his course " altogether a 
pioneer, following in no man's track, nor sharing these 

^* Valerius Terminus, Works, VI, 30. 

"" Novum Organum, Works, VIII, 168. 

" Ibid., pp. 205-206. 

^^ Letters and Life, VII, 120. 

^^ Novum Organum, Works, VIII, 18. 

'^Ibid., p. 23. 

" Ibid., p. 129. 



526 English Literary Prose 

counsels with any one." ^^ He insists often that he is not 
to be compared with the ancients, that as he does not com- 
pete with them, he cannot detract from their greatness — 
" my object being to open a new way for the understanding, 
a way to them untried and unknown." ^^ But though he 
declares that he " leaves the honour of the ancients un- 
touched," ^^ the whole habit of his mind was exalted above 
them. He accuses the Greek philosophers of leaning " too 
much to the ambition and vanity of founding a sect and 
catching popular applause," and he agrees with the char- 
acterization of the Greeks " by the Egyptian priest," that 
they were always boys, without antiquity of knowledge or 
knowledge of antiquity. " Assuredly they have," he adds, 
" that which is characteristic of boys ; they are prompt to 
prattle, but cannot generate ; for their wisdom abounds in 
words but is barren of works. And therefore the signs 
which are taken from the origin and birth-place of the re- 
ceived philosophy are not good." ^^ 

It is this magnificence of purpose, this bold confidence in 
himself as a modern and as a discoverer which gives to 
Bacon's philosophizing, its characteristic largeness and dig- 
nity of manner. His seriousness is so great that he feels no 
need for the slighter graces of speech or of learning. " First 
then, away with antiquities and citations or testimonies of 
authors . . . everything in short which is philological . . . And 
for all that concerns ornaments of speech, such like empti- 
nesses, let it be utterly dismissed. Also let all those things 
which are admitted be themselves set down briefly and con- 
cisely, so that they may be nothing less than words. For no 
man who is collecting and storing up materials for ship- 
building or the like, thinks of arranging them elegantly, as in 
a shop, and displaying them so as to please the eye ; all his 

'^^ Novum Organum, Works, VIII, 145. "Mbid., p. 89. 

" Ibid., p. 62. '' Ibid., p. 103. 



Bacon 527 

care is that they be so arranged as to take up as little room as 
possible in the warehouse. And this is exactly what should 
be done here." ^° 

These counsels of perfection fairly describe Bacon's own 
endeavors in his philosophical writing. Though his schemes 
may have been grandiose, his language is never so. Ever 
serious, lofty, dignified, it never loses .itself in the fields of 
flowery eloquence. The reader who is attracted by its 
promising title to Bacon's History of Life and Death with 
the expectation of finding there a display of oratory will 
be disappointed, for Bacon never plays the part of the popu- 
lar preacher, never forgets the proprieties of his subject. 
This History of Life and Death was designed to form a 
part of the Great Instauration, and as one " labouring for the 
perfection of arts," Bacon says he naturally took thought 
of the ways in which life is maintained and how it ceases, 
as well as " about the means of prolonging the life of man." 
An Elizabethan Nietzsche or Strauss might have found in 
this theme vast possibilities for poetic treatment, but with 
Bacon all passes under his gaze in the dry light of reason. 
Apparently he was never even tempted to yield to the al- 
lurements of the more purely literary possibilities of his 
subject — at least he makes no apology for neglecting them. 
And yet, despite the dry and scientific treatment, the reader 
is constantly aware that Bacon was keenly alive to the 
elemental grandeur of his undertaking, that he could have 
treated it as poetry if he had not preferred to treat it as 
science. In the titles and names of divisions of the discus- 
sion his imaginative grasp of the whole is specially apparent, 
as for example, to choose one of a number, the title " the 
porches of death," a section which treats of " the things 
which happen to men a little before and a little after the 
point of death." ^^ 

'" Novum Organum, Works, VIII, 359. " Works, III, 142. 



528 English Literary Prose 

This happy facidty in choosing titles and catchwords is 
illustrated throughout Bacon's philosophical writings. His 
imagination often lends color and warmth to detail, but 
especially to structural detail like nomenclature. The desig- 
nation of the impediments to sound thinking as Idols of the 
Tribe, of the Cave, of the Market Place, of the Theatre, are 
perhaps the best known and have been most frequently imi- 
tated, but other inventions in terminology are equally felici- 
tous. The first general conclusion in the interpretation of 
nature he calls the First Vintage,^" and other bits of pic- 
turesque nomenclature are his Instances of the Twilight,^^ 
Instances of the Lamp, " they are those which aid the 
senses," ^* Instances of the Door or Gate, " this being the 
name 1 give to instances which aid the immediate actions 
of the senses." ^^ 

When one comes to examine Bacon's philosophical writ- 
ings singly, one discovers that they consist mainly of a 
collection of fragments. Bacon realized that his scheme 
implied more than one man or one generation of men could 
accomplish. " I was desirous," he says, " to prevent the 
uncertainness of my own life and times, by uttering rather 
seeds than plants." His purpose in the Advancement he 
declares to have been " to ring a bell to call other wits 
together," ^^ and in the Novum Organum he explains his 
willingness to publish incomplete parts of his work as due to 
the fact that " he knew not how long it might be before 
these things would occur to any one else, judging espe- 
cially from this, that he has found no man hitherto who has 
applied his mind to the like." ^^ In consequence of this 

^' Vindematio Prima, Works, I, 390. 
^^ Instantias Crepusculi, Works, I, 407. 
'* Instantias Lanipadis, Works, I, 454. 
''^Instantias Januae sive Portae, Works, I, 455. 
^'^ Letters and Life, III, 301. 
" Works, VIII, 19. 



Bacon 529 

method of publication, one finds much repetition of thought 
and even of phrasing in the various works. The well-known 
figure in the Advancement of "the golden ball thrown be- 
fore Atalanta, which while she goeth aside and stoopeth to 
take up, the race is hindered," ^^ used to illustrate the activi- 
ties of those who by applying knowledge " to lucre and pro- 
fession " interrupt the advancement of knowledge, occurs 
twice with the same application in Valerius Terminus, and 
perhaps elsewhere. And the figure of time like a river 
carrying down the light things but letting the heavy sink 
occurs a number of times. This repetition of thought and 
phrasing, partly due to the fact that Bacon preserved pre- 
liminary drafts of his writings, is indicative of a certain lack 
of literary finish and completeness in the philosophical 
works. The scheme was too vast, apparently, to permit the 
rounding out of even small sections of the whole. The 
Advancement of Learning is the most finished of the minor 
philosophical v/ritings, but even here there are evident 
signs of haste in composition. It was first published in 
English in 1605 as a completed work, but later, though 
it was not originally intended to form part of Bacon's 
general philosophical scheme, it finally found a place in it 
as a general preparative or prolegomenon, in the form of a 
Latin translation under the title De Augmentis Scienti- 
arum. Of the great philosophical work, the Magna In- 
stauratio, only the general outlines were broadly sketched. 
The most important part of this work in Bacon's plan was 
the second division which he entitled the Novum Organum. 
For this section, the most carefully written of all Bacon's 
philosophical works, the language chosen was Latin, which 
indeed was the intention for all the parts of the Magna 
Instauratio. As the Novum Organum presents the method 
by which Bacon hoped to bring about a reform of sciences 
'' Works, VI, 69. 



530 English Literary Prose 

and knowledge, it occupies the place of prime importance 
among the philosophical writings. The third part of the 
Magna Instaiiralio was to consist of a collection of separate 
histories of the phenomena of the universe, a stupendous 
undertaking represented only by the Historia Ventorum, the 
Historia Vitae et Mortis, and the Historia Densi et Rari. 
Some notion of the comprehensiveness of Bacon's plan may 
be seen from his catalogue of particular histories to be sup- 
plied to the number of one hundred and thirty, including a 
History of Showers, Ordinary, Stormy and Prodigious; also 
of Waterspouts (as they are called); and the like; History 
of Sleep and Dreams; History of Ticking and Feathers. 
The seeming triviality of some of these proposed histories 
is due to the fact that Bacon wished to collect a complete 
store of the known facts of natural history upon which the 
philosopher was to operate, and in making this collection 
his purpose was to utilize the knowledge which unphilo- 
sophical artisans and work-people had acquired in the daily 
practice of their various callings. Some of the " science " 
which Bacon thought it worth while to record is amusingly 
naive, but it would not be safe to infer that Bacon believed 
everything he put down. He had not the simple faith in 
prodigies which appears in Stowe and Camden and the 
chroniclers, and though his skepticism was not that of the 
modern scientist, he remarks that he records popular super- 
stitions and beliefs not as truths but as matters to be ex- 
amined and sifted. 

Similar in character to these histories of the Magna In- 
stauratio was the last work upon which Bacon was engaged, 
his Sylva Syh'arum, a collection of experiments on many 
subjects, written in English and full of quaint misinforma- 
tion. As an appendix to his Sylva Sylvarum, Bacon wrote 
his most popular philosophical work, the New Atlantis, 
a summary in the form of fiction of some of the principles 



Bacon 531 

of the Baconian philosophy. One of the latest of Bacon's 
writings, the New Atlantis remained a fragment and was 
not published until after his death. The story is that of an 
ideal commonwealth, the New Atlantis, reports of which 
are brought back by travelers who have met with it on a 
journey from Peru to China and Japan, by way of the 
South Sea. Like most accounts of imaginary voyages 
since More's time, the New Atlantis owes something to the 
Utopia. Concrete and minute descriptions of costume and 
similar details are introduced to lend verisimilitude to the 
narrative. One of the distinguished citizens of the New 
Atlantis " had on him a gown with wide sleeves, of a kind 
of water chamolet, of an excellent azure colour, far more 
glossy than ours ; his under apparel was green ; and so was 
his hat, being in the form of a turban, daintily made, and 
not so huge as the Turkish turbans ; and the locks of his 
hair came down below the brims of it." ^^ Bacon's belief 
in the wealth and luxury which would result from the appli- 
cation of his philosophic method enabled him to indulge in 
the New Atlantis in characteristically Elizabethan opulence 
of description. But the main point of the treatise centers in 
the account of Solomon's House, a house of knowledge com- 
bining the characteristics of a museum of natural history, a 
scientific laboratory, and a modern university. An account 
of the method of experimentation in Solomon's House is 
given, and the experiments are of the same general kind as 
those collected by Bacon in the Syh'a Sylvariim. The great 
quest of the New Atlantis, in the words of one of its citizens, 
was " only for God's first creature, which was Light : to 
have Light (I say) of the growth of all parts of the 
world." *" " The end of our Foundation " (he is speaking 
of Solomon's House) "is the knowledge of Causes, and 
secret motions of things ; and the enlarging of the bounds 
" Works, V, 362. '' Ibid., p. 384. 



532 English Literary Prose 

of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible." *^ 
The sublime simplicity of this Gargantuan curriculum re- 
minds one of the Oriental stories of the philosopher who 
inscribed the onine scibile upon the walls of his pupil's 
chamber and then gave him seven days in which to learn it. 
But Bacon's New Atlantis was not all visionary romance, 
and though the possible " bounds of Human Empire " seem 
now narrower than Bacon thought them, the task of slowly 
widening these bounds in Bacon's way has been assumed 
as its distinctive obligation by the modern world. 

In Bacon's scheme of values, he assigned the first place to 
his public and civil duty. " I aspire," he writes to Essex, 
" to the conscience and commendation first of bonus civis, 
which with us is a good and true servant to the Queen, and 
next of bonus vir, that is an honest man." *^ This distinc- 
tion between public and private morality is characteristic of 
Bacon. " For if any one charge me with seeking to be 
wise overmuch," he says at another place, " I answer simply 
that modesty and civil respect are fit for civil matters ; in 
contemplations nothing is to be respected but Truth." *^ 
And again : " for when a question is de vero, it is simple, 
for there is but one truth ; but when a question is de bono, 
it is for the most part comparative; for there be differing 
degrees of good and evil, and the best of the good is to be 
preferred and chosen and the worst of the evil is to be 
declined and avoided." ** The practical bearing of these 
principles appears in Bacon's criticism of those who '' speak 
as if their scope v/ere only to set forth what is good, and 

*^ Works, V, 398. 

"^ Letters and Life, II, 191. 

*' Ibid., Ill, 86. 

** Ibid., Ill, 308. Cf. also Letters and Life, VI, 157, where he 
speaks of a measure which he thinks to be good " both de vero and 
ad populum." 



Bacon 533 

not to seek forth what is possible ; which is to wish, and not 
to propound." *^ 

Next in rank after good citizenship and the private virtue 
of an honest man, Bacon placed the duty of exerting the 
powers of his mind for the enlightenment and bettering of 
mankind. He felt himself to be of the intellectually elect 
and consequently under obligation to let his light shine. 
And still lower than these several ideals of character and 
conduct, Bacon placed literary ambition. At an age when 
many of the young wits of his generation were flooding 
London with poems, plays, and pamphlets. Bacon had writ- 
ten nothing. He professed scorn for " knowledge which 
tendeth to profit or profession or glory." ^^ The first edition 
of his Essays did not appear until 1597, a thin volume con- 
taining only ten essays, eked out by miscellaneous matters 
omitted in later editions. In the edition of 1612, the number 
was increased to thirty-eight, and the edition of 1625, the 
last with which Bacon was concerned, contains fifty-eight 
essays. Besides the essays. Bacon wrote no other literary 
works of any extent in English except his History of Henry 
VH, which has already been discussed.*^ A very popular 
work in Bacon's day was his De Sapientia Veterum (1609), 
allegorical interpretations of classic myths and legends. 
But this book, though not without a charm of its own, was 
originally written in Latin and never turned into English by 
Bacon. His remaining literary works are either fragmen- 
tary or of very brief extent. Among them may be men- 
tioned translations of seven psalms into English verse, not 
notable in any respect except as the only verse written by 
Bacon now extant, and as illustrating a skill in the manage- 
ment of a variety of metrical forms which could have been 
the result only of considerable practice. Other verses he 

*° Letters and Life, III, 104. '° Works, VI, 34. 

^' See above, pp. 425-428. 



534 English Literary Prose 

composed, but seems to have considered none of them de- 
serving of preservation. He wrote an occasional poem 
when EHzabeth once dined with him at Twickenham, but 
saves himself with the apologetic remark, " I profess not 
to be a poet." *^ 

The first edition of his Essays Bacon dedicated to his 
brother Anthony, perhaps with the feeling that they were 
in a way private and personal utterances and of value to a 
friend, but not important enough to warrant a dedication 
to a great personage. Bacon declared that he published 
them only under compulsion, because certain manuscript 
copies had got abroad and passed into circulation, He fears 
that they will be criticised as were " the late new halfe- 
pence, which though the Silver were good, yet the peeces 
were small." *^ His final opinion of the Essays, expressed 
a few years before his death, shows that his estimation of 
them had not been greatly raised by their popularity. " As 
for my Essays," so he writes in a general review of his 
activities in 1622, " and some other particulars of that 
nature, I count them but as the recreations of my other 
studies, and in that sort purpose to continue them; though 
I am not ignorant that those kind of writings would yield 
more lustre and reputation to my name than those other 
which I have in hand. But I account the use that a man 
should seek of the publishing of his own writings before 
his death to be but an untimely anticipation of that which 
is proper to follow a man, and not to go along with him." ^° 
Though the Essays were but the recreation of his other 
studies, they are nevertheless the completest exemplification 
of Bacon's aims and methods as a writer. They are the 
striking instance in which Bacon permitted technic to occupy 
as important a place as content, and the study of the technic 

*' Letters and Life, III, 149. " Works, XII, 290. 

"• Ibid., XIII, 188. 



Bacon 535 

of the essays is the study of the formation of Bacon's 
style. 

Though for mere literary virtuosity, for technic as 
technic, Bacon frequently expressed utter disregard, it goes 
without saying that he did not arrive at his command over 
English prose without long and exacting preliminary 
exercise. The basis of the style of the Essays is the com- 
pact, aphoristic sentence, weighted with thought and fin- 
ished, but not elaborate, in form. Since Bacon regarded 
ornament as padding, he consistently reduced it to a mini- 
mum in the Essays. In the first edition the separate essays 
are much shorter than in the later editions, and the thoughts 
are expressed more concisely and epigrammatically. They 
bear markedly the indications of being " dispersed medita- 
tions," as loosely put together as the Orphic passages of 
Emerson. As Bacon revised the Essays, however, he 
amplified them, supplied connecting links in thought, and in 
general gave much greater rotundity and fluency to the 
phrasing ; and in these later forms the Essays consequently 
read more easily and currently. But they never become 
discursive treatments of the topics they consider, the fancy 
and imagination are not allowed to play freely. Bacon 
never permits the feeling for the solidity and reality of his 
intellectual world to weaken. The Essays remain, even in 
their elaborated forms, compact summaries of observations. 
The meditations of which they were composed are the 
essence of Baconian wisdom, put up in neat capsules and 
enclosed within labeled boxes. 

" The word is late," says Bacon, commenting on the title 
of his Essays, " but the thing is ancient. For Seneca's 
epistles to Lucilius, if one mark them well, are but essays, 
that is, dispersed meditations, though conveyed in the form 
of epistles." ^^ Bacon seems to have borrowed the word 
"' Letters and Life, IV, 341. 



536 English Literary Prose 

from the Essais of Montaigne and to have been the first to 
use the word in this sense in English.^- Montaigne's Essais 
had appeared in 1580, seventeen years before Bacon's first 
edition, which in turn antedated Florio's translation of 
Montaigne by six years. But Bacon's indebtedness to 
Montaigne was not extensive. Neither the impulse which 
led to the composition of the essays nor the general spirit 
in which they were written owed much to the garrulous 
Frenchman. It is not necessary to look beyond Bacon's own 
mind and the fashion of the times to account for his interest 
in collecting " dispersed meditations." Among Renascence 
scholars the favorite medieval method of summarizing ex- 
perience and doctrine, the narrative exemplum, had been to 
a large extent replaced by the aphorism and wise saying. 
The writings of the ancients were ransacked for pithy 
moral observations, and these, no matter how commonplace, 
seemed to acquire dignity by reason of their classical origin 
and by virtue of the fact that they had never before been 
succinctly formulated in vernacular phrases. The senten- 
tious wisdom of Guevara and of English romancers like 
Lyly are extreme illustrations of this tendency. Wits and 
courtiers were infected with the fashion, and Hamlet with 
his tables, ready to record the observation that a man may 
smile and be a villain — or any other that might occur to 
him — and Polonius with his own collection of rules and 
maxims, doubtless had many a living counterpart in Eliza- 
bethan days. Robert Greene farces his romances with long 
miscellaneous lists of precepts and sententious sayings, quite 
in the manner of Bacon, but entirely lacking in relevancy, 
as though when graveled for lack of matter, he emptied his 
note-book of its available store of observations.^^ He prob- 

°^ Montaigne is mentioned by name in the essay " Of Truth," the 
first essay in the edition of 1625. This essay does not appear in the 
earlier editions. 

°^ See Works, ed. Grosart, III, 143. 



Bacon 537 

ably knew that wise sayings were as acceptable a form of 
entertainment to his public as love-making. 

To come a little closer home, we find that Bacon's mother, 
a learned and serious lady not incapable of quoting Greek 
on occasion, cultivated this same art of sententious moral- 
izing. " Be not speedy of speech nor talk suddenly," she 
writes to her son, " but where discretion requireth, and 
that soberly then.^* For the property of our world is to 
sound out at first coming, and after to contain. Courtesy 
is necessary, but too common familiarity in talking and 
words is very unprofitable, and not without hurt-taking, 
ut nunc sunt tempora." °^ From this serious didacticism 
the rapid transition of Lady Bacon's letters to anxious in- 
quiries as to her son's digestion or his bad habit of going to 
bed late and of rising late, or to the practical details of a 
gift of strawberries from Gorhambury or the first flight of 
her doves, may seem amusing to the modern reader. But 
it doubtless did not seem so to her son, for he agreed with 
Lady Bacon in considering the acquisition of wisdom to be 
one of the practical concerns of daily life. 

Bacon's earliest writings contain many illustrations of his 
fondness for compact epigrammatic expression. In his 
Letter of Advice to Queen Elizabeth he distinguishes neatly 
between discontent and despair : " for it sufficeth to weaken 
the discontented ; but there is no way but to kill the des- 
perate . . . for among many desperate men, it is like some 
one will bring forth a desperate efliort." ^'^ And some of 
the following might be extracts from the Essays: 

" Laws, not refreshed with new laws, wax sour. Without 
change of the ill, a man cannot continue the good. To 
take away abuses supplanteth not good orders, but estab- 

" That is, be hasty only after careful consideration. 
" Letters and Life, I, 112. 
=« Ibid., I, 48. 



538 English Literary Prose 

lisheth them. A contentious retaining of custom is a 
turbulent thing, as well as innovation." ^^ 

" He seeketh not unity, but division, which exacteth in 
words that which men are content to yield in action." ^^ 

These generalizations were doubtless in large part the 
fruits of that solitariness at his place at Twickenham Park 
which " collecteth the mind, as shutting the eyes doth the 
sight," of which Bacon on one occasion speaks. ^^ After 
they were excogitated, they were put down in note-books 
and preserved until an appropriate time for using them 
appeared. In fact they were collected very much in the 
same way that Bacon collected his observations of the 
phenomena of natural science in the external world. The 
thoughts were not merely spun out of Bacon's inner con- 
sciousness, but they have a kind of objective reality which 
results from the fact that their wisdom springs from the 
combination of reflection with experience. 

Examples of these " forms," or thoughts neatly ex- 
pressed to be employed later, together with a great variety 
of other detail indicative of Bacon's methods of self-disci- 
pline, may be found in one of Bacon's note-books which 
happens to have been preserved. It was made in 1608 and 
bears the title Comentarius Solutiis.^'^ A somewhat similar 
work is the Promus of Formularies and Elegancies, a mis- 
cellaneous collection probably representing Bacon's reading 
and his reflections during the Christmas vacation of 1594. 
This latter collection consists of phrases to be used in con- 
versation, of quotations from the Latin poets, a few nat- 
ural history observations, several of Erasmus's Adagia, 
and a number of neat epigrammatic turns of thought — 

" Life and Letters, I, 88. " Ibid., I, 321. 

'' Ibid., I, 89. "" Ibid., IV, 57. 



Bacon 539 

for example, " Ceremonies and green rushes are for 
strangers." ®^ To the student of Bacon as a writer, these 
collections are of great interest as containing suggestions 
for trains of thought, exercises in composition and con- 
versation, in short all the minutiae of self-discipline to which 
the literary artist must subject himself. 

The methods which Bacon followed in practice he also 
preached by precept. " I hold the entry of common- 
places," so he writes in the Advancement of Learning, 
"to be a matter of great use and essence in studying; as 
that which assureth copie of invention and contracteth 
judgment to a strength. But this is true, that of the 
methods of common-places that I have seen, there is none 
of any sufficient worth ; all of them carrying merely the 
face of a school, and not a world, and referring to vulgar 
matters and pedantical divisions without all life or respect 
to action." ^^ The method by which one was to avoid 
the arid deserts of the school and to cultivate the rich 
fields of the world of life and action, Bacon has detailed 
elsewhere. In his Letter of Advice to the Earl of Rutland 
on his Travels, Bacon recommends " writing or medita- 
tion or both " as aids to remembrance ; and by writing he 
means not merely summaries of what one has read, but 
" notes and abridgements of that which you would re- 
member." ®^ For the making of summaries or epitomes. 
Bacon expresses the greatest scorn.*'* " I hold collections 
under heads and commonplaces of far more profit and use," 
he writes to Sir Fulke Greville, counseling him on his 
studies, " because they have in them a kind of observation 
without which neither long life breeds experience, nor great 

»' Works, IV, 21. 
"= Ibid., VI, 281. 
"^ Letters and Life, II, 13. 

" Ibid., II, 23 ; and also Works, VI, 281, in the second book of the 
Advancement of Learning. 



540 English Literary Prose 

reading great knowledge." Then in detail Bacon shows how 
from particular narratives, general ideas may be deduced. 
From the story of Alexander in Plutarch, after observing 
" the variety of accidents he met withal in the course of 
his life," under the head of Conqueror one may note 
" that to begin in the strength and flower of his age ; 
to have a way made to greatness by his father; to 
find an army disciplined, and a council of great captains ; 
and to procure himself to be made head of a league against 
a common enemy, whereby both his quarrel may be made 
popular and his assistance great, are necessary helps to 
great conquests." ^^ In the same way Bacon shows how 
general ideas may be derived from particular narratives 
under the topics War and Periods or Revolutions of States. 
In short, what Bacon recommends is the combination of 
reading with thinking, to be followed by the crystallization 
of the thought in the forms of language. When one recalls 
Bacon's eloquent defense of learning and scholarship, his 
own statement that he has " rather studied books than 
men," ^^ and then the form which his writiiig took, one may 
confidently believe that Bacon's wisdom was in no small 
degree attained by the method he has described. And when 
one considers further the solidity and reality of Bacon's 
thought, qualities which make it still interesting and signi- 
ficant, perhaps one may conclude that the " school " and 
the " world " are not as far apart as they are usually sup- 
posed to be. It is true that, mingled with Bacon's profounder 

"^ Life and Letters, II, 24. It would be interesting to see how 
many of Bacon's " meditations " were derived in this way from his 
reading. A beginning could be made for Plutarch and the Essays 
by examining the numerous parallels noted by the various editors 
of the Essays, to which should be added those recently collected by 
Miss Goodenough, Bacon and Plutarch, Modern Language Notes, 
XII, 283-292. 

*° Ibid., VI, 27, in a letter written in 1616. 



Bacon 541 

meditations, many aphorisms occur which are obvious in 
thought. But it was never Bacon's endeavor to astonish 
by the novelty or remoteness of his ideas. Apt expression 
when coupled with just thinking seemed to him to satisfy all 
reasonable demands. Aphorisms which sound trite in the 
sophisticated speech of the twentieth century seem not so 
facile in the language of the sixteenth century. Words 
inevitably abate their power after long use, but around 
Bacon's wise sayings there still lingers much of the fresh- 
ness of first efforts.^^ 

The preference which Bacon gave to Latin over English, 
in his later years, has often been regarded as indication of 
a deplorable lack of understanding on Bacon's part of the 
possibilities of his native tongue and lack of faith in the 
great literature which was then being written in it. But 
Bacon's choice of Latin was both less significant and more 
reasonable than it is often made to seem. In his profes- 
sional activities he was of course thoroughly accustomed to 
the use of Latin, which thus came to him not merely as a 
dead literary language, but as a speech fit for affairs and 
business. Nevertheless in his earlier writings he used Eng- 
lish almost exclusively, employing Latin only where the 
proprieties and conventions of the situation required it. 
Nor did he descend to the shallow pedantry of Latinizing 
his English in an ostentatious way. His style is a highly 
Latinized style — he was no advocate of Saxon simplicity — 
but his vocabulary is made up in the main of words which 

^'' The method of deriving aphorisms from reading is fully illus- 
trated by Sir Robert Dallington's Aphorismes Civill and Militarie, 
amplified with Authorities, and exemplified with History, out of the 
first Quarterne of F. Guicciardine (1613). The amplifications 
are drawn from various sources and the passages in Guicciardini 
from which the aphorisms are supposed to be derived are printed at 
length. It would be an easy matter to make up a set of Baconian 
essays from Sir Robert Dallington's aphorisms. 



542 English Literary Prose 

had become legitimized in the learned use of the language. 
Compared with some of the more extravagant literary 
Latinizers, Bacon's vocabulary seems quite simple and 
modern. 

When he came to carry out the project of the Magna 
Instauratio, it was almost inevitable that Bacon should turn 
to Latin. For this work was addressed not merely to the 
British nation, but to the world of scholars and thinkers. 
International communication was still to a large extent 
carried on in Latin, which was extensively used in the 
reign of James in theological controversy. In making use 
of Latin, Bacon was merely taking advantage of an oppor- 
tunity the lack of which scientists and scholars to-day are 
vainly trying to supply artificially by the invention of theo- 
retical languages. Latin in Bacon's time was still " the 
general Language," as he describes it in justifying the Latin 
translation of the Advancement of Learning.^^ His pur- 
pose in putting this book into Latin was " to free it in the 
language " so that it might be read everywhere.*'^ In send- 
ing forth one of the presentation copies of this Latin trans- 
lation, he expresses the conviction that the book " will live, 
and be a citizen of the world, as English books are not." '^° 

In the last years of his life, however, these good and rea- 
sonable motives for the use of Latin became mingled with 
others of baser character. As Bacon saw the prospect of 
realizing in any considerable degree the plans of his Magna 
Instauratio growing more remote, he turned his thoughts 
more and more towards the generations that were to follow 
him. As he saw not only present fame but also contempo- 

'' Works, XIII, 187. 

'"' Letters and Life, VII, 436. At the same time he modified 
opinions which might be offensive to Roman Catholic readers of the 
Continent, his purpose being to secure as wide and sympathetic a 
consideration for his main points as possible. 

" Ibid. 



Bacon 543 

rary good name and reputation slipping from him, he de- 
sired more eagerly to leave something behind him at his 
death which should last and which men might recall with 
words of praise after they had forgotten his weaknesses. 
" For my name and memory," so he writes in his last will, 
" I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign 
nations and the next ages." ''^ Writing in 1623 to his friend 
Tobie Matthew, Bacon says that his chief occupation was 
then to have those works which he had formerly published, 
" as that of Advancement of Learning, that of Henry 7th, 
that of the Essays, being retractate and made more perfect, 
well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens 
which forsake me not. For these modern languages will 
at one time or other play the bank-rowtes with books ; and 
since I have lost much time with this age, I would be glad 
as God shall give me leave to recover it with posterity." ^^ 
With the help of these " good pens," who did most of the 
work, the task was carried to completion — an unnecessary 
task, as time has shown, since the interest of posterity in 
Bacon's English writings has not been kept alive by the 
Latin translations of them, nor have these translations 
sufficient interest or distinction to make them important in 
their own right. They have done no harm, however, and 
Bacon's weakness with respect to them must simply be 
cast, in Sir Walter Raleigh's phrase, in the sum of human 
error. 

With Bacon this survey of the origins of English prose 
may appropriately come to an end. Though he takes his 
place among the writers of classic English prose largely by 
virtue of one book, his position there is secure. His Essays 
are the earliest original writing in English prose which has 

" Letters and Life, VII, 228. 
" Ibid., VII, 429. 



544 English Literary Prose 

held a place in the general, one might almost say in the 
popular, interest of readers of English since the time of 
their composition. But whatever Bacon's relative rank may- 
be, whether he was the greatest prose writer in his time or 
not, he takes an important place in the history of English 
prose as marking the close of the age of experiment and 
discovery. With him English prose has definitely found 
itself, has been not merely discovered but conquered. It is 
true that Bacon did not realize the varied possibilities of 
English prose as amply as some of its later masters have 
done, but his limitations were those which his nature, not 
the command of the technic of his art, imposed upon him. 
His profundity of thought, his poet's imagining of abstrac- 
tions, above all the sense of the reality and truth of the 
intellectual world in which he moved and had his being, all 
these Bacon has adequately transferred to the forms of 
English speech. His writing, perhaps, lacks warmth and 
feeling, but in emphasizing the virtues of prose composition 
he also brought into relief its characteristic weakness. 
Bacon's endeavor was to be honest and clear in writing, to 
avoid the self-deception and the floundering to which human 
nature is prone. He takes his stand with the moderns upon 
a platform of independent thinking and an independent and 
intelligent mastery of his art. Like the writer with whom 
this discussion began, to attain freedom Bacon became 
something of an iconoclast. Wiclif scorned to quote " holy 
doctors," and Bacon would away with the intellectual sup- 
port of the ancients so dearly loved of all Renascence writ- 
ers and scholars, away also with their superficial ornament. 
Both were moderns in their day, though Wiclif's reaction 
against medievalism and scholastic authority naturally 
seems much more remote from present interest than Ba- 
con's rejection of philosophical abstractions in favor of 
truth as realized in experience, and of classical oratorical 



Bacon 545 

authority in favor of less literary and external standards of 
expression. 

Bacon is distinctly with the moderns in his attitude to- 
ward the technic of writing. For technical skill as a means 
to a reasonable end, he had the highest respect. But tech- 
nical skill as an exercise in virtuosity, or employed merely to 
realize the dream of an English style as good as that of 
Cicero, or of Caesar or of Tacitus, seemed to him worthless 
and even reprehensible. The message came first in his 
estimation, and the arts of style were to be employed to 
make the message clear and effective, never to make it more 
pleasing than in justice it should be. This distrust of fine 
writing in English prose has not grown weaker with the 
passing of time. Prose has been, as Bacon would have it 
be, the servant of mankind, not merely an ornament of his 
state or a solace for his idler moments. As it has had 
various tasks to perform, so English prose has been made 
flexible to its different applications. Bacon had no theory 
of a fixed and standard form of prose, of an elaborated 
professionally literary style such as the Euphuists and 
Arcadianists, or such even as learned writers like Hooker, 
set up as their ideal. With Bacon prose took its place 
among the practical, not the theoretical virtues. It was not 
something to be imposed upon English life and culture, it 
was an inherent and changing element in that develop- 
ing life and culture, an emanation not an acquisition. 
Time alone, it is true, could have made possible such opin- 
ions as Bacon held. He could rest satisfied with the product 
of the life of his day because English culture had at last 
reached the age of maturity. It had assimilated much in the 
generations since Wiclif and Chaucer, and it had learned 
by many errors as well as by some successes. Bacon's 
wisdom was manifested in his realization of the riches 
which lay at his very door. He saw himself not as a 



546 English Literary Prose 

daemonic being, rapt with a divine frenzy into the fiery 
clouds of inspiration and speaking and writing a language, 
not of men but of the gods. His Pegasus was his intelli- 
gence, a well-disciplined and governed intelligence. He 
placed English prose where English writers ever since have 
labored to keep it, in the everyday world of established ex- 
perience, of good order, and of sound sense. The source of 
eloquence in prose he found not in the elevation of art 
above nature, but in the just expression of all that is best 
and most worthy of expression within the heart and mind 
of man. 



INDEX 



Adlington, William, 372 

^Ifric, 2, 57, 220, 312 

Aelian, 436 

Alfred, 2, 4 

Alliteration, 5, 13, 100, 283, 334, 

338, 344, 347, 399, 424, 457 
Ammianus Marcellinus, 437 
Amyot, 323, 373 
Andrewes, Bishop, 199-207 
Appian, 436 
Apuleius, 372 

Aquinas, Thomas, 65, 142, 145 
Aretino, 488 

Aristotle, 54, }43, ^45, 523 
Article, omission of, 6, 52, 229 
Ascham, Roger, 274, 292-299, 

307, 311, 319, 328, 336, 349, 

351, 354, 368, 399, 484, 499 
Aurelius, Marcus, 314, 408 
Awdeley, John, 480 
Aylmer, Bishop, 119, 122, 362 

note 

Bacon, Francis, x-xii, 123, 129, 
147, 189, 410-41 1, 42T, 425- 
428, 453, 465, 516-546 

Bale, John, 396, 440 

Barbour, John, 386 

Barker, William, 435 

Basil, Theodore, see Becon 

Beaumont, Francis, 463 

Becon, Thomas, 335-340, 349, 380 

Bede, 220, 385 

Bedingfield, Thomas, 439 

Bellarmine, Cardinal, 108 

Earners, Lord, 272, 313, 315-320, 
325, 371, 392 

Bernher, Augustine, 178 

Beza, 189 

Bilney, Thomas, 87, 178 

Bingham, John, 436 

Blundeville, Thomas, 409 



Boccaccio, 4, 349, 373 

Bolton, Edmund, 409, 413-414, 

429 
Borde, Andrew, 472-473 
Botevile, Francis, 405 
Bourchier, see Berners 
Boy-bishops, 156-158 
Bradford, John, 174-175, 216, 488 
Bridges, John, 121-122 
Brinklow, Henry, 469-470 
Browne, Robert, 190-193 
Bryan, Sir Francis, 312, 318, 325 
Budaeus, 355, 441 
Bullein, William, 473-475 
Bullinger, Henry, 188 

Csedmon, 12, 220 
Caesar, 436-437, 444 
Calvin, John, 115, 180, 208 
Cambini, Andrea, 438 
Cambrensis, Giraldus, 404 
Camden, William, 447, 450 
Capgrave, John, 386 
Carew, R., 305 
Carr, Ralph, 438 
Cartwright, Thomas, 116-118 
Casaubon, Isaac, 408 
Castiglione, 320, 341, 349 
Cavendish, George, 416-421, 453 
Caxton, William, 272, 276-280, 

312, 316, 390 
Chaucer, i, 3-11, iii, 171, 274, 

276-278, 304, 343, 351, 446- 

447, 500 
Cheke, Sir John, 248, 291-293, 

301, 336. 354. 355, 468, 484 
Chronicle, Old English, 385 
Churchyard, Thomas, 281 
Cicero, 145, 146, 274-275, 281, 

282, 286, 295, 300, 308, 315, 

323, 337. 365. 403, 440, 483 
City chronicles, 388-390 



547 



548 



Index 



Cobham, Lord, see Oldcastle 
Colet, John, 162-165, 355 
Comestor, Peter, 221, 429 
Cooper, Bishop, 119, 122-125, 403 
Cope, Antony, 437 
Coverdale, Miles, 174, 187, 249- 

250, 252-256 
Cox, Leonard, 300, 309 note 
Cranmer, Abp., 108, 170, 179, 

188, 256, 262-264 
Cursor Mundi, 221 
Cynewulf, 12 

Dacres, Edmund, 439 

Danett, Thomas, 439 

Daniel, Samuel, 412 

Dares Phrygius, 438 

Day, Angel, 302, 373 

Dekker, Thomas, 445, 461-462, 

505-510 
Deloney, Thomas, 362, 445, 478, 

510-515 
Demosthenes, 275, 299, 300 
Diodorus Siculus, 437 
Dionysius Periegetes, 450 
Doni, 322 

Donne, John, 207-213 
Douai Old Testament, 244-247 
Dryden, John, 130, 465 
Du Bellay, 369, 2>77 

Eden, Richard, 451 

Edwardes, Richard, 478 

Elyot, Sir Thomas, 272, 288, 312, 

319, 349, 471 
Erasmus, 82, 93, 163, 165, 275, 

355, 483 
Euphuism, 311 ff-, 3i5, 324, 330, 

338, 361, 365, 424, 492, 502 
Eutropius, 437 

Fabyan, Robert, 391-392 

Fenner, Dudley, 310 

Fenton, Geffrey, 326, 329-330, 408 

Field, John, 117 

Fish, Simon, 79-80, 90, 117, 469 

Fisher, Bishop, 105, 162, 165-170, 

181, 183, 274 
Fleming, Abraham, 436 
Fletcher, John, 463 



Flores, Juan de, 2>72 
Forde, Emanuel, 272 
Fortescue, Sir John, 468 
Foxe, John, 57, 76, 110-114, 171, 

187, 470 
Fraunce, Abraham, 305, 310 
Froissart, i, 316, 392 

Gardiner, Bishop, 108, 113, 243 
Gascoigne, George, 302, 332-334, 

335, 349 
Genevan Bible, 250 
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 396-397 
Gildas, 394 

Golding, Arthur, 437, 450 
Gorgias, 2>7 
Gosson, Stephen, 363 
Gower, i, 447, 500 
Grafton, Richard, 397, 401-403 
Great Bible, 250 
Greene, Robert, 362, 445, 459- 

460, 477, 492-502, 536 
Gregory, William, 389 
Grenewey, R., 437 
Greville, Fulke, 367, 406, 539 
Grimeston, Edward, 436 
Guazzo, Stephen, 340 
Guevara, Antonio de, 7, 297, 313- 

315, 320, 325, 326, 351, 408, 

536 
Guicciardini, 438 

Haddon, Walter, 276 note, 484 
Hakluyt, Richard, 451 
Hales, John, 469 
Hall, Edward, 397-401, 452 
Halle, John, 476 
Harding, Thomas, 108-110 
Harman, Thomas, 480-481, 508 
Harridaunce, John, 171 
Harrison, William, 404-405, 450 
Hartwell, Abraham, 438 
Harvey, Gabriel, 197, 289, 347, 

368, 456, 482-485 
Harvey, Richard, 126-127 
Hawes, Stephen, 308 
Hayward, John, 421-425 
Heliodorus, 370, 374 
Hellowes, Edward, 326 
Hereford, Nicholas de, 224-231 



Index 



549 



Herodian, 436 

Herodotus, 436 

Heywood, Thomas, 462-463 

Higden, Ralph, 386 

Holinshed, Raphael, 404-407, 429, 

447, 452 
Holland, Philemon, 436, 437, 447 
Hollyband, Claudius, 2>72> 
Hooker, John, 404 
Hooker, Richard, 68, y^, 108, 

129, 13 1 -149, 208, 383 
Howes, Edmond, 403 
Hyberdyne, Parson, 171-172 

Isocrates, 22Z, 27s, 297 

Jewel, Bishop, 108-110, 301-302 
Jonson, Ben, 465-468 
Josephus, 438 

Knolles, Richard, 439 
Knox, John, 174 
Kyd, Thomas, 459 

Lambarde, William, 443-444, 450 
Langland, i, 10-18, 283 
Latimer, Hugh, 173, 177-184, 216, 

382, 488 
Layamon, 386 
Lay Folks Mass Book, 257 
Leland, John, 405, 441-443, 447, 

450 
Lever, Thornas, 176-177, 216 
Livio, Tito, 414-415 
Livy, 437 
Lodge, Thomas, 362, 410, 438, 

460, 502-504 
Lollardy, 56, 60, 67, 75-79, 163, 

214, 232, 336, 392 
Longus, 372> 
Luther, Martin, x, 87, 103, 166, 

234, 241-242 
Lydgate, John, 272, 274, 308, 438 
Lyly, John, 126, 146, 27s, 296, 

310-31 1, 333, 347-362, 368, 

379, 382, 409, 4S8, 46s, 481, 

483, 486, 490, 536 
Lyly, William, 441 

Machiavelli, 438 



Malory, Sir Thomas, 273, 317 

Mannyng, Robert, 386 

Marlowe, Christopher, 458-459 

Marprelate, Martin, 108, 118- 
130, 143, 186, 404, 520 

Martyr, Peter, 451 

Massinger, Philip, 463 

Maundevile, Sir John, 18-20 

Maxwell, James, 436 

Milton, John, 32, 69, 141, 215, 
261, 367, 456 

Mire, John, 154-156, 168 

Montaigne, 536 

Montemayor, Jorge de, 273 

More, Sir Thomas, 79, 81-102, 
105, 108, 129, 165, 240, 242- 
243, 274, 312, 355, 413, 415- 
416, 420, 453, 470, 480, 531 

Morte Darthur, 268, 27^ 

Munday, Anthony, 2i72, 273 

Miinster, Sebastian, 404, 451 

Nashe, Thomas, 126, 190, 196, 
202, 288, 362, 445, 482-492, 
507 

Newton, Thomas, 438 

Nicolls, Thomas, 436 

North, Sir Thomas, 238, 313, 
320-325, 348, 436 

Nowell, Laurence, 443 

Occleve, Thomas, 57, 273 
Ochino, Bernardino, 188 
Oldcastle, Sir John, 56-59, 76, 

1 60, 273 
Orm, 221 
Orosius, 429 
Osorius, xi, 275 note 
Ovid, 343, 440 

Painter, William, 328-329, 340 

Paris, Matthew, 386 

Paul's Cross, 64, 159, 184-186, 

208, 234 
Pausanias, 440 
Peacham, Henry, 302, 309 
Peasants' Revolt, 56 
Pecock, Reginald, 64-75, 161 
Peele, George, 459, 479, 502 
Penry, John, 120 



550 



Index 



Pettie, George, 340-344, 349, 357, 

359 
Plato, 275, 295, 365 
Pliny, 356 

Plutarch, 314, 320, 323-3^4, 436 
Polybius, 436 
Pomponius Mela, 437, 450 
Primers, 257-259 
Puns, 182, 205, 307, 331, 338, 344, 

357, 424, 491 
Purvey, John, 224-231 
Puttenham, George, 303 

Quinones, Cardinal de, 259 

Rabelais, 488 
Rainolde, Richard, 309 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 428-435 
Rhemish New Testament, 244-' 

247 
Rime, 5, 24, 345, 347, 357, 364 
Robert of Gloucester, 386 
Roger of Hoveden, 386 
Roger of Wendover, 386 
RoUe, Richard, 25-29 
Rowlands, Samuel, 507 

Sallust, 437 

Sanazzaro, 373 

Sanford, James, 372 

Savile, Sir Henry, 410, 413, 437, 

448 
Scaliger, 355 
Schemes, 307 
Selden, John, 448 
Seneca, 275 
Sentence structure, 100, 146, 167, 

198, 205, 334, 357, 360, 374, 

Shakspere, 180, 290, 362, 383, 
406, 455, 458, 460, 463-464, 
496 

Sherry, Richard, 300, 309 

Shute, John, 438 

Sidney, Sir Philip, I47, 169, 275, 
303, 308 note, 362-381, 482, 

493 
Skelton, John, 272, 280-280, 312, 

437, 478, 488 
Smith, Henry, 193-199, 206 



Smith, Nicholas, 436 

Some, Thomas, 178 

Speed, John, 406, 413 

Spelman, Sir Henry, 448 

Spenser, Edmund, 304, 369, 378 

Stanihurst, Richard, 405 

St. German, Christopher, 94-97, 

470 
Stowe, John, 3S8, 403, 445-447, 

450, 452, 511 
Strabo, 440 
Suetonius, 437 
Sylvius, Aeneas, 372 

Tacitus, 410, 437, 444 

Tatius, Achilles, 370, 374 

Taverner, R., 247 

Taystek, John de, 23-25 

Tertullian, 338 

Thucydides, 398, 427 note, 436 

Tillotson, Bishop, 216 

Tindale, William, 79, 81 fif., 102- 

107, 129, 174, 180, 218, 233- 

242, 252-256, 382 
Topias, Friar Daw, 61-63 
Tranlacing, 297-298, 319, 321, 

379, 424 
Travers, Walter, 117, 131-132 
Trevisa, John de, 20-22 
Trogus Pompeius, 437 
Tropes, 307 
Tumbling prose, 15, 18, 50, 61, 

283, 334. 337, 383, 457 
Turner, William, 470, 471 
Twine, Thomas, 450 

Udall, John, 119 
Underdowne, Thomas, 372 
Underbill, Edward, 171 
Upland, Jack, 61-63, 118 
Usk, Thomas, 29-31 
Utopia, 268 

Varro, 440 

Venetus, Dr., 173 

Vergil, 308, 440 

Vergil, Polydore, 392, 394-397 

Vives, 326, 483 

Vocabulary, 2, 17, 74, 107, 180, 



Index 



551 



204, 243, 248, 251, 264, 287 ff., 
342, Z17, 382, 541 

Walton, Isaac, 126, 132, 133, 145 
Watson, C, 436 

Whetstone, George, 331-332, 349 
Whitehorne, Peter, 438 
Whitgift, Abp., 108, 115-118, 132, 

188, 215 
Whitinton, Robert, 281 
Wiclif, I, 4, 6, 32-53, 7Z, I43, 

153, 158-159, 218, 222-231, 

544 



Wilcox, Thomas, 117 

Wilson, Thomas, 292, 297, 299- 

300, 308 note, 309, 330, 336, 

354 
Wolfe, Reginald, 404 
Wolsey, Cardinal, 80, 186, 416 
Word-pairs, 24, 267, 334, ZZl, 

398 
Wulfstan, 2 

Xenophon, 314, 435 

Young, Bartholomew, 340, 373 



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