ye palsef, grevousli torniented. And Jesus said vnto him. I wil come and heel him. And ye hunderder answerd him with yees wordes. Sir J am not á fit man whoos house ye schold enter. Saí ye onli ye word and mi servant1 schal be heeled. For I am a man vnder ye power of oyer, and have soldiers vnderneth me, and J sai to ýs soldier go and he goeth, and to an other com and he cometh, and to mi servant do ý and he doth it. Jesus heeringýs marvelled and said to yem yt folowed him. Trulí J sai vnto yow, J have not found so greet faith no not in Jsrt. But J sai vnto yow yt mani schal com from ye Est, and ye West, and schal be set with Abraham Jsaak and Jacob in ye kingdoom of heaven, but yo childern of ye kingdoom schal be thrown in to outward darknes, yeer schal be weping and gnasching of teth. And Jesus said to ye hunderder, go ý wais and as yow belevedst, so be it vnto ye. And his servant was heeled even in ye saam howr.

And Jesus cam in to Peters hous, and saw his moother in law laid down and sick of ye axess,2 and he touched her bi ye hand and ye axes left her, and sche roos and served them.

And late in ye evening yei brought him mani yt was develled, and with his word he cast out ye sprits, and healed al yt weer il at ease, yt Jsaíe y popheets wordes which he spaak might be fulfilled. He hath taken our weaknes on him, and hath born our sickness.

And Jesus seing much resort about him cõmanded yem to go to ye fur side of ye water. And on of ye Scribes cam and said vnto him. Master J wil folow ye whiýersoever ýow goost. and Jesus said vnto him, Foxes hath dens, and ye birds of y'aier hath nests, but ye sõn of man hath not wheer he mai lai his hed.

And an oýer of his disciples said vnto him. Sir suffer me first to depart, and burí mi fajer. And Jesus said vnto him folow me and let ye deed buri yeer deed.

And after he entered into á boot3 his díscipils' folowed him, and lo yeer was a greet stoorm on ye see, in so much yt ye boot was coverd with ye waves. He slept. And his discipils came and raised him, and said. L. save vs we perísch. And he said vnto ýem, ye smalfaithd whi be ye aferd. yen he roos and rebuked ye windes and ye see, and ýeer was a great calm. But ye men yeer marveled and saied. What maner of man is yis yt winds and see obej hím.

And after he was come en ye other side into ye gergeseens contree, yeer mett hím ij develds, coming forth from ye graves, verí fiers men,5 so yt no man cold pas yt waí, and lo yei cried and said, what haav we 5 χαλεποί.

1 παῖς.

πυρετος.

8 πλοῖον.

μαθηταί.

to do with yR Jesus ýow son of god. Camest yow hither afoor hand to torment vs. And yeer was a good wai from yem an herd of mani swijn feeding. And ye devels desird him saieng. Jf yow cast vs forth suffer vs to go into yee heard of swijn. And he bad yem goo. And yei went forth, and went into ye herd of swijn. And lo ye hool heerd of swijn set on yeer waí bí an hedlong place in tó y see, and died in ye waters. And ye swijnherds fled and came into citee, and told yem yee hool matter, and what taking yo develleds weer in. And loo ye hool cittee cam forth and met Jesus, and after yel had seen him yel desired him y he wold depart out of ýoos coosts.

1 ώρμησε.

eer

8 κατὰ τοῦ κρημνοῦ

LECTURE XII.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE DURING THE

REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

THE Mirrour for Magistrates, to which Warton devotes much more space, and ascribes more importance than it merits, was the first conspicuous work that appeared after the accession of Elizabeth, and was moreover the most voluminous production in English poetry between the time of Lydgate and that of Spenser. It was the work of several different writers; but only one of them, Sackville, better known as the author of Gorboduc, exhibits any real poetical power.

The general plan of the work is an imitation of Boccaccio's De Casibus Principum, which, as I have mentioned, was made by Lydgate the groundwork of his Fall of Princes; but the personages in the Mirrour for Magistrates all belong to English history, and the narrative part of the poem is little else than a rhymed chronicle, designed to include all the tragical events known to have happened to persons distinguished in the annals of England.

The prologue by Sackville, or Induction as he calls it, is not destitute of invention, and the versification is smooth and flowing; but, both in this respect and in its allegorical representations, it is so far inferior to Spenser, that it has been deservedly eclipsed by that great author. Nor does this work possess much philological value, for it exhibits few marks of progress or change in the language. In this latter particular, it is more archaic than Surrey and Wyatt, who preceded it by a generation.

The e final is sometimes articulated in the possessive, though otherwise silent, as:

With Nighte's starres thick powdred every where.

This is a point of some interest, because it helps to explain a grammatical corruption, which about this time became almost universal-the employment of the personal pronoun his as the sign of the possessive case.

A remnant of the old Anglo-Saxon gerundial, in its passive signification, sometimes occurs, as:

The soile that earst so seemly was to seen,

seen being here used passively, instead of our modern form to be seen. In this case, however, seen is not a participle, but has the force of a true passive infinitive or gerundial.

Sackville is the principal, if not the sole, author of a more important work, which has been published both under the title of Gorboduc and of Ferrex and Porrex. This is remarkable as being the first regular tragedy in the English language, though constructed in many respects upon very different principles from the modern tragedy. The most noticeable feature of its form is the introduction of what was called the dumb show,' an allegorical pantomimic chorus, at the beginning of each act, and of a regular vocal chorus at the end of each except the last. The use of the former seems to have been to fill up the space between the acts with something which should serve to render less abrupt the change of time and place; for the unities are not observed in the play, and Sackville evidently thought that this departure from the canons of the classic stage ought to be in some way compensated.

The rule of unity of time and place had really no higher origin than the mechanical difficulties of scene-shifting on the primitive stage. It is fortunate for dramatic truth that modern artists have been wise enough to rise above so arbitrary a prescription. Life and nature exhibit no man's whole character,

develope and illustrate no master passion, in a single day, or upon a single scene. In the moral and intellectual, as in the physical world, time is an essential element. The events which subdue or aggravate our native propensities produce no immediate and appreciable effects upon character. Moral results are slowly unfolded, and can be seen and appreciated only by the alternate lights and shades of differently combined circumstances and varied impulses. Nature does not upheave and shape a continent at one throe, and even chemical affinity forms no instantaneous combinations of multiplied ingredients. Both the formation and the knowledge of character are gradual and slow. We know and appreciate a man only by continued observation, under different conditions of time and place and circumstance; and the characters of a drama can best be revealed, in all their completeness, only by changes of outward surroundings, and a succession of events, the occurrence of which at one place and one time implies a greater violation of the truth of life than is involved in the shifting of a scene, or the supposition that days, or weeks, or years intervene between acts of the drama which, upon the stage, are separated by an interval of but a few

moments.

I have mentioned that Lord Berners's translation of Froissart was followed by the appearance of several original English chronicles, generally of slender literary merit; but the period we are now considering gave birth to a work of much greater importance, both in an historical and in a philological point of view. I refer to the Chronicle of Holinshed, which, as well as those of Hall and other early annalists, was diligently studied by Shakespeare, and must have influenced his style, as well as furnished him with historical and biographical facts. Holinshed's history of England is a compilation from various authors, some of earlier date, and some writing expressly for this undertaking. There is, therefore, naturally a great diversity and inequality of style and of literary merit. In these respects, few parts of Holinshed come up to the Life of Richard III.,