Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER III.

FROM THE DEATH OF CHAUCER TO THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. A. D. 1400-1558.

1. Slow progress of English literature from Chaucer to the age of Elizabeth. Introduction of printing by CAXTON. Improvement of prose. § 2. Scottish literature in the fifteenth century: KING JAMES I.; DUNBAR; GAWIN DouGLAS; HENRYSON; BLIND HARRY. § 3. Reign of Henry VII., sterile in literature. HENRY VIII.; SIR THOMAS MORE. §4. Religious Literature: Translations of the Bible; Book of Common Prayer; LATIMER; FOXE. § 5. Chroniclers and Historians: LORD BERNERS' Froissart; FABYAN; HALL. § 6. Philosophy and Education: WILSON's Logic; SIR JOHN CHEKE; RoGER ASCHAM'S Schoolmaster and Toxophilus. §7. Poets: SKELTON; BARKLAY and HAWES; WYATT and SURREY. § 8. Ballads of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: their sources, metre, and modes of circulation. Modern collections by Percy, Scott, &c. Influence on the revival of romantic literature. Ballads of the Scottish borders and of Robin Hood.

§ 1. THE progress of English Literature, inaugurated in so splendid a manner by the genius of Chaucer, though uninterrupted, was for a long time comparatively slow. Many social and political causes contributed to retard it for a time, or rather to accumulate the nation's energies for that glorious intellectual burst which distinguishes the Age of Elizabeth, making that period the most magnificent in the history of the English people, if not in the annals of the human race. The causes just alluded to were the intestine commotions of the Wars of the Roses, the struggle between the dying energies of Feudalism and the nascent liberties of our municipal institutions, and the mighty transformation resulting from the Reformation.

In point of splendor, fecundity, intense originality, and national spirit, none of the most brilliant epochs in the history of mankind can be considered as superior to the Elizabethan. In universality of scope and in the influence it was destined to exert upon the thoughts and knowledge of future generations, no other epoch can be brought into comparison with it. Neither the age of Pericles nor that of Augustus in the ancient world, nor those of the Medici and of Louis XIV. in modern history, can be regarded as approaching in importance to that period which, independently of a multitude of brilliant but inferior luminaries, produced the Prince of Poets and the Prince of Philosophers - William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon. But the interval between the end of the fourteenth century and the latter part of the sixteenth, though destitute of any names comparable for creative energy to that of Chaucer, was a period of great literary activity. The importation into England of the art of printing, first exercised among us by CAXTON, who was himself a useful and laborious author, and

who died in 1491, unquestionably tended to give a more regular and literary form to the productions of that age; the increase in the number of printed books seems in particular to have been peculiarly efficacious in generating a good prose style, as well as in enlarging the circle of readers and extending the influence of popular intellectual activity, as for example by disseminating the habit of religious and political discussion. Thus Mandeville, regarded as one of the founders of prose writing in England, and who, at the period of Chaucer, gave to the world the curious description of his travels and adventures in many lands,* was followed by CHIEF JUSTICE FORTESCUE (fl. 1430–1470), who, besides his celebrated Latin work "De Laudibus Legum Angliæ," also wrote one in English on "The Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy."†

§ 2. But the most brilliant names which occupy the beginning of this interval are those of Scotsmen. JAMES I. (1394-1437), who was taken prisoner when a child (1405) and carefully educated at Windsor, must be regarded as a poet who does equal honor to his own country and to that of his captivity. This accomplished prince was the author of a collection of love-verses under the title of the King's Quhair (i. e. Quire or Book), written in the purest English and breathing the romantic and elegant grace which the immense popularity of Petrarch had at that time made the universal pattern throughout Europe. His own national dialect, too, was that of the Lowland Scots, then and long after the language of literature, of courtly society, and of theology, and by no means to be regarded as the mere patois or provincial dialect which it has become since the union of the two crowns has destroyed the political independence of Scotland. In it James composed a number of songs and ballads of extraordinary merit, recounting with much humor his own amorous adventures; some, unfortunately, of a character rather too warm for the delicacy of modern times. This intellectual and patriotic prince was assassinated in 1437 at Perth, by the nobles, among whom his own uncle was a chief conspirator, to revenge the king's concessions to the people. Besides King James, Scotland produced about this time several poets of great merit, the chief of whom are WILLIAM DUNBAR (about 1465-1520), and GAWIN or GAVIN DOUGLAS, Bishop of Dunkeld (1474-1522), the former a truly powerful and original genius, and the second a voluminous and miscellaneous poet, whose example tended much to regularize and improve the national dialect, and to enrich the national literature. Among Dunbar's numerous poetical compositions we must in particular specify his wild allegorical conception of “The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins," a fantastic and terrible impersonation, with the intense reality of Dante and the picturesque inventiveness of Callot. Gawin *For an account of Mandeville see p. 54.

+ Sir John Fortescue was originally a Lancastrian. He accompanied Henry VI. into exile; was afterwards taken prisoner at the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, and was attainted. He obtained his pardon by acknowledging the title of Edward IV.

Douglas is now chiefly remembered as the translator of Virgil into Scottish verse, and in both this and his original compositions the reader will be struck by the much greater preponderance of French and Latin words in the dialect of Scotland than in contemporary English writings. This is partly to be attributed to the close political connection maintained by Scotland with France, with which country she generally sided out of hostility to England; and partly, no doubt, to a kind of pedantic affectation, a sort of Scottish estilo culto, like the Gongorism of the Spaniards. ROBERT HENRYSON (d. about 1500), a monk or schoolmaster of Dunfermline, wrote, in imitation of Chaucer, the Testament of Faire Creseide, and the beautiful pastoral of Robin and Makyne (in Percy's Reliques). Another Scottish poet, known under the appellation of BLIND HARRY or HARRY THE MINSTREL, but concerning the details of whose life nothing accurate has been discovered, wrote, in long rhymed couplets, a narrative of the exploits of the second great national hero, William Wallace. This work is not destitute of vigorous and picturesque passages. BARBOUR and the other writers of the fourteenth century have been already mentioned (p. 55). § 3. The reign of Henry VII., as might have been expected from the sombre character of that politic prince, was by no means favorable to literary activity; but Henry VIII. was possessed of much of the learning of his age, and even distinguished himself by his controversial writings against Luther. The title of "Defender of the Faith," by which the Pope recompensed this sceptred polemic, has been ever since retained in the style of English sovereigns a singular example of the vicissitudes of names. The great and good chancellor Sir Thomas More, the poets Skelton, Wyatt, and Surrey, belong to this memorable reign. Of the three last we shall speak among the poets. Sir THOMAS MORE (1480-1535) is unquestionably one of the most prominent intellectual figures of this reign, whether as statesman, polemic, or man of letters. The ardent attachment which More felt to the Catholic religion, and which he so often testified by acts of persecution, contrary to his gentle and genial character, he firmly maintained when himself persecuted and in the presence of a cruel and ignominious death. His philosophical romance of the Utopia, written in Latin, is a striking example of the extreme freedom of speculative and political discussion, exercised not only with impunity, but even with approbation, under the sternest tyranny. The fundamental idea of this work was borrowed from the Atlantis of Plato. It is one of the earliest of many attempts to give, under the form of a voyage to an imaginary island, the theory of an ideal republic, where the laws, the institutions, the social and political usages, are in strict accordance with a philosophical perfection. England has been peculiarly fertile in these sports of political fancy. Bacon also left an unfinished sketch of an imaginary republic; and the Oceana of Harrington is a similar attempt to realize the theory of a perfectly happy and philosophic government.*

* Of Sir Thomas More's English works, the most remarkable, on account of its style, is his Life of Edward V., which Mr. Hallam pronounces to be "the

§ 4. Parallel with the improvement of general literature, and indeed in no small measure connected with it, must be noted the very general diffusion of religious controversy connected with the doctrines of the Reformation, and the dissemination of English translations of the Scriptures. TYNDALE and COVERDALE, the former of whom was burned near Antwerp, in 1536, and the latter made Bishop of Exeter about the middle of the same century, gave to the world the first portions, and the two together the whole, of the sacred writings in an English version; and the compilation of the English Book of Common Prayer in the reign of Edward VI. combined with the diffusion of the Scriptures in the English language to furnish the people with models of the finest possible style-grave and dignified without ostentation, vigorous and intelligible without vulgarity. The Liturgy itself was little else but a translation, with some few omissions and alterations, from the Latin Mass-book of the Catholic Church; but the simple and majestic style of the version, as well as that preserved in the English translation of the Bible, has endowed the Anglican Church with the noblest religious diction possessed by any nation in the world. It was formed at the critical period in the history of our native tongue when the simplicity of the ancient speech was still fresh and living, and yet when the progress of civilization was sufficiently advanced to adorn that ancient element with the richness and expressiveness of a more polished epoch. The singular felicity of these circumstances has had an incalculable effect on the whole character of our language and literature, and has preserved to the English tongue the force and picturesqueness of the fifteenth century, while not excluding the refinements of the nineteenth. Nor is it possible that the majestic style of our older writers can ever become obsolete, while the noble and massive language of our Bible and Prayer-Book continues to exert - as it probably ever will so immense an influence on the modes of thinking and speaking of all classes of the population. Many of our ancient preachers and controversialists too, like good old HUGH LATIMER, burned as a heretic by Mary in 1555, and the chronicler of the Protestant Martyrs, JOHN FOXE, who died in 1587, contributed, in writings which, though sometimes rude and unadorned, are always fervent, simple, and idiomatic, to disseminate among the great mass of the people not only an ardent attachment to Protestant doctrines, but a habit of religious discussion and consequently a tendency to intellectual activity.

§ 5. Independently of purely religious disquisition the period anterior to the reign of Elizabeth was not barren of literary productions of more general interest. LORD BERNERS, governor of Calais under Henry VIII., translated into the picturesque and vigorous English of that day the Chronicle of Froissart, that inexhaustible storehouse of chivalrous incident and mediæval detail. The translation is not only remarkable for fidelity and vivacity, but the archaism of Berners' language, by preserving to the modern English reader the quaintness of

first example of good English language; pure and perspicuous, well-chosen, without vulgarisms or pedantry."

the original, produces precisely the same impression as the picturesque old French.

It is curious to trace the gradual transformation of historical literature. Its first and earliest type, in the ancient as well as the modern world, is invariably mythical or legendary, and the form in which it then appears is universally poetical. The legend, by a natural transition, gives way to the chronicle or regular compilation of legends; and the chronicle becomes, after many ages of civilization, the mine from whence the philosophical historian extracts the rude materials for his work. As the detached legendary or ballad episodes of Homer verge into the chronicle history, so fresh in its infantine simplicity, of Herodotus, or the old rude Latin ballads into the chronicle history of Livy, and as these in their turn generate the profound philosophical reflections of Thucydides or Tacitus, so in the parallel department of modern literature in England, we find the fabulous British legends combining themselves in the Monastic and Trouvère chronicles, and these again generating the prosaic but useful narratives from which the modern historian draws the materials for his pictures and reflections. In the minute and gossiping pages of such writers as old FABYAN (d. 1512), who was an alderman and sheriff of London, and EDWARD HALL (d. 1547), who was a judge in the Sheriff's Court of the same city, we find the transition from the poetical, ballad, or legendary form of history. Their writings, though totally devoid of philosophical system or general knowledge, and though exhibiting a complete want of critical discrimination between trifling and important events, are extremely valuable, not only as vast storehouses of facts which the modern historian has to sift and classify, but as monuments of language and examples of the popular feeling of their time. In England these chronicles wear a peculiar bourgeois air, and were indeed generally, as in the case of the former of these writers, the production of worthy but not very highly-cultivated citizens. Mixed with much childish and insignificant detail, which, however, is not without its value as giving us an insight into the life and opinions of the age, we find an abundant store of facts and pictures, invaluable to the modern and more scientific historian.*

§ 6. Among numerous works on philosophy and education (which now takes its place as a branch of literature) THOMAS WILSON'S Treatise of Logic and Rhetoric, published in 1553, must be regarded as a work far superior in originality of view and correctness of literary prin

* The earliest English Chronicle is John de Trevisa's translation of Higden's 'Polychronicon,' with a continuation by Caxton down to 1460, which is noticed on p. 55. Next comes the metrical chronicle of John Harding, coming down to the reign of Edward IV. (See p. 69.) Then follow the Chronicles of Fabyan and Hall, mentioned in the text. Fabyan's Chronicle, which he called the Concordance of Histories, begins with the fabulous stories of Brute the Trojan, and comes down to his own time. Hall's Chronicle, first printed by Grafton in 1548, under the title of The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrious Families of York and Lancaster, gives a history of England under the houses of York and Lancaster, and of the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII.

« PreviousContinue »