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true or imagined, and was very popular in its day. Toward the end of the century, Samuel Daniel-"well-languaged Daniel," as he was called in his own time-wrote a "History of the Civil Wars between York and Lancaster,” in smooth but not very interesting verse. A better poem, in the form of a dialogue in defence of learning, is his "Musophilus." A third poet, whose writings show more power than those of the two last mentioned, and who outlived them both, is Michael Drayton (1563-1631), author of the "Polyolbion." This is a long poem about England, with a little of everything in it; antiquities, minute descriptions of places, legends, scraps of information of all sorts. The poem takes a sort of ramble over England, photographing the scenery (in words) and picking up whatever the writer thought would be of interest to his readers. We find it tedious now, and it had little success even in its own day, for by that time (1613) Spenser and Shakespeare and Ben Jonson had raised the standard of poetry and given its aims a new direction, and the many thousand verses of the "Polyolbion" (Professor Tyler says that the word means "Many-ways-happy") were out of date; something to be admired, but not read. Drayton wrote many years earlier, a poem called "The Barons' Wars."

When we are asked to name the author whose prose shed most glory on the sixteenth century, we answer without a moment's hesitation, Richard Hooker (1554-1600). He was born in 1553-within the lustrum* which gave birth to Spenser, Sidney and Raleigh, the decade which produced Bacon, Daniel and Drayton, and eleven years before the birth-year of Shakespeare and Marlowe. It was an age of great men, and Hooker's name stands out among the rest as the writer of the best English his country produced. Hooker's personal history is interesting. Born of poor par

* A period of five years.

ents, he showed early so remarkable an aptitude for study that he was sent to Oxford by the assistance of friends among the clergy, and rewarded their kindness by becoming one of the most learned men of his time. After finishing his university course, he became a clergyman of the Church of England and soon afterward committed the great mistake of his life. We have the account in the words of his biographer, Isaac Walton, who says that when Hooker arrived in London from Oxford, wet and weary, he was received with so much kindness by his landlady that he thought himself bound in conscience to believe all she said.

She persuaded him that as he was of a weak constitution he ought to have a wife that would take care of him and perhaps thus prolong his life, and he, being too simpleminded to suspect deceit, authorized her to select one for him. The person she chose was her own daughter, described by Walton as a "silly, clownish woman and withal a mere Xantippe," whom Hooker was too honorable to reject, feeling himself committed to the marriage. This foolish, unmannerly and ill-tempered person made his life wretched, and the whole story is told in the narrative given by two college friends who went to visit him. They found him—the scholar, the rector, the gentleman-tending sheep with a volume of Horace in his hand; and when the scene was transferred to his house, his wife called him away from his friends to rock the cradle while she went about some other business. The account goes on to say that they received little entertainment except from his conversation, and the whole situation was so depressing that they returned to the inn instead of finishing their visit.

His greatest work was "The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity" -a defence of the system of the Church of England. This is admired, even by those who do not agree with the author's sentiments, for his power of thought and beautifully clear method of arrangement. His discreet and orderly character