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caul-work, divers in spinning of silk, some in continual reading either of the Holy Scriptures, or histories of our own or foreign nations about us, and divers in writing volumes of their own, or translating of other men's into our English and Latin tongue, whilst the youngest sort in the mean time apply their lutes, citterns, pricksong, and all kind of music, which they use only for recreation sake, when they have leisure, and are free from attendance upon the queen's majesty, or such as they belong unto." Many of the eldest sort he goes on to celebrate as also skilful in surgery and distillation of waters, beside sundry other artificial practices pertaining to the ornature and commendations of their bodies ;" and "there are none of them," he adds, "but when they be at home can help to supply the ordinary want of the kitchen with a number of delicate dishes of their own devising." At last, coming directly to the morals of the court, he declares that, whereas some great princes' courts beyond the seas have been likened unto hell on account of the dissipation and debauchery prevailing in them, all such "enormities are either utterly expelled out of the court of England, or else so qualified by the diligent endeavour of the chief officers of her grace's household, that seldom are any of these things apparently seen there without due reprehension, and such severe correction as belongeth to those trespasses." "Finally," he concludes, "to avoid idleness, and prevent sundry transgressions otherwise likely to be committed and done, such order is taken that every office hath either a Bible, or the book of the Acts and Monuments of the Church of

England, or both, beside some histories and chronicles, lying therein, for the exercise of such as come into the same; whereby the stranger that entereth into the court of England upon the sudden shall rather imagine himself to come into some public school of the universities, where many give ear to one that readeth, than into a prince's palace, if you confer the same with those of other nations.

This flattering description of the English court. is very different from that given by Ascham, in his Schoolmaster, who tells us that although it did indeed contain many fair examples for youth to follow, yet they were "like fair marks in the field out of a man's reach, too far off to shoot at well;" while the generality of persons to be found there were the worst of characters. Some private letters of the time of Elizabeth, also, which have been printed, describe the court as a place where there was "little godliness and exercise of religion," and where "all enormities reigned in the highest degree." But what it is more important for our present purpose to observe is, that the learning which existed in this age, however remarkably it may have shone forth in particular instances, was by no means generally diffused even among the higher classes, while the generality of the lower and many even of the middle classes remained to the end of the period almost wholly uneducated and illiterate. The father of Shakspeare, an alderman of Stratford, appears to have been unable to write his name; and probably, throughout the community, for one man that was scholar enough Description of England, b. ii. c. 15.

to subscribe his signature there were a dozen who could only make their marks. With all the advancement the country had made in many respects, it may be doubted if popular education was farther extended at the close of the reign of Elizabeth than it was at the commencement of that of her father or her grandfather. Even the length of time that printing had now been at work, and the multiplication of books that must have taken place, had probably but very little, if at all, extended the knowledge and the habit of reading among the mass of the people. The generation that grew up immediately after the discovery of the art of printing, and that first welcomed the Reformation and the translated Bible, perhaps read more than their grandchildren.

The French language had been familiar to all persons of education in England ever since the Norman Conquest; and the example of Chaucer may remind us that so early as the fourteenth century the Italian had begun to be studied. But in the present period the knowledge of the latter became a common accomplishment both among men of letters and persons of fashion; nor was an acquaintance with the Spanish unusual. Elizabeth, as we have just seen, spoke both tongues. The study of Italian, as we shall presently find, had a

much greater influence upon the English literature of this period than that of Greek and Latin.

The English language in the course of the sixteenth century reached, in regard to both its vocabulary and its structural and syntactical character, very nearly the state in which it still exists, and which may therefore be assumed to be the full and final development of its formative genius and tendencies. Yet it did not attain this maturity till the latter part of the century. If the language of Shakspeare is, in almost all its forms, the language of the present day, that of Lord Surrey is not. But even the language of Surrey is modern as compared with that of Skelton and the other writers of the first quarter of the century. The process of the subsidence of the English tongue into the shape in which it ultimately remained fixed may, therefore, be regarded as having been going on nearly throughout the present period. The course of this process will be sufficiently exhibited by the following series of passages, arranged in chronological order, from contemporary documents, and the works of the principal English writers of the period, down to the latest whose language presents any forms, either lexicographical or grammatical, differing from those that are still in use.

A portion of the Instructions which King Henry VII. gave to Fox, Bishop of Durham, in 1497, when he sent him to Scotland to demand the person of Perkin Warbeck, is the only example of English prose which we shall quote of that reign. The whole may be seen in the Cottonian Manuscript Vespasian, C. xvi. fol. 141:

First, where divers offers were made by the Earle of Aunguish and the Lord Home in a treatie lately had att Jenyn haugh: it is thought unto us and our Counsell that those offers in noe wise doth suffice to the conservation of our honor, nor yett for anie convenient recompence for such damages as hath beene done unto us and our subjects by our said Cosen: and therefore you shall demand and require on our behalf of our said Cosen that hee deliver unto us Perkin Warbeck, the which deliverance of him wee desire not for anie estimation that wee take of him, but because our said Cosen receives him within his land, and favourably hath entreated him and divers others of our Rebells during the peace concluded betwixt us both, and, over that, having him in his companie entred in puissance with in our land, the which was the cause and ground of breache of the said peace, and less therefore may wee not doe with our honor, then to have the deliverance of him [who] is of noe price or value. Howsobeit, for the good will and affection that wee beare unto our said Cosen, wee shalbe contented to take such a peace and intelligence with him as shalbe thought reasonable to our and his Comissioners, soe that hee make deliverance unto us of the said Perkin, and also doe send unto us such a solemne ambassage as was spoken of at the saide treatie had at Jenyn haugh. And whereas it was spoken in the said treatie that our said Cosen should send unto us such persons in ambassage, and at such tymes and places as wee would assigne and limitt: Wee shalbe contented that hee shall send unto us in ambassage incontinently and without delay att anie place with in this our realme, where wee shalbe att the tyme of theire coming, the reverend father in God the Bishopp of Murray, the Earle of Anguish, and the Lord Home his chamberlaine, with such other as shall please our said Cosen to send.

Item, if our said Cosen shall not bee aggreeable to the deliverance of the said Perkin unto us as is before rehersed, the which, as wee thinke (sith he is not the person that he surmised him to be when hee obtained his sauff-conduct of our said Cosen, as it is well knowne through all these parts of the world) hee might with his honor and with out his damage well doe, and soe satisfie our mynde for our honor on that behalf, Yet wee, having consideration to the loving mynde of our said Cosen in the tyme of rebellion of divers of our subjects, as it is showed unto us, att reverence of Almighty God, and in evyting of the effusion of Christian bloode, having in our remembrance the nighnes of bloode betwixt us and our said Cosen, be contented to take an other way for the peace betwixt us, though none other could be unto us more acceptable nor soe well satisfie our mynde and honor, that is to say, that it may lyke our said Cosen first to send his solemne ambassage (as is before rehersed) unto us, and also the same our Cosen to come in person unto our town of Newcastle, or further within this our realme, where wee may meet, comune, and conclude with him for the observation of the said peace, and of farther intelli

gence to bee taken betwixt us and him, bee it by way of alliance or otherwise, as also for the due ordering and reforming of such debats and attemptats as shall grow in tyme betwixt our subjects for the damage that they had by the throwing downe of their castles and Ffortlets at tyme of his first being with in this our land, having then with him the said Perkin and other rebells of ours as is before rehersed.

And, finally, you shall by all wise meanes to you possible, endevor your self to have the said Perkin to be delivered unto us, and also the saide solemne ambassage to bee sent unto us, as is before rehersed, the which to obtaine and have, should be to the conservation of our honnor, and most to our desire and pleasure. And in case our said Cosen will not bee aggreeable to the delivering of Perkin and the sending of the said ambassage, then you shall perswade and insist by all wise meanes to you possible that hee doe send the same his solemne ambassage unto us, and also to come in his owne person to the Newcastle or furder. And, over that, to bee bound in an obligation of Nisi, or att least uppon his oathe and to make satisfaction unto our subjects by him endomaged, and besides that to lay such pledges as is before more at large rehersed. And in case you can not induce him to deliver Perkin and to send the said ambassage, which is the first part and way of these your Instructions, then shall you resort to the seconde part and way, that is to say, Our said Coser. first to send unto us his ambassage, secondly to come into this our land in person, thirdly to be bound in the obligation of Nisi, or att least by his solemne othe, ffourthly to make a convenient recompence for such Castles and Piles as have beene throwen downe by him, and fiftlie to lay pleadges for the performing of his promisses as is before more largely rehearsed. And if our said Cosen will not be aggreeable to any of these two wayes soe before specified, then may you show unto them these our other articles of Instruction, to the entent they may well see that you have noe authority to doe anie thing further in this matter then is comprised in those articles. Howsobeit, if it be thought by your discretion behooffull, you may, rather then to fall to a breache, cause them to send to their Prince for furder understanding of his mynde in this behalf, and thereuppon advertise us with out delay to how many of these articles they wilbe aggreeable.

From the poetry of Henry VII.'s time we shall quote part of the character of the Book-Collector, from Barklay's Ship of Fools, an adapted translation from the Stultifera Navis' of Sebastiau Brandt. Barklay's work first appeared from the press of Wynkyn de Worde, in 1508. That edition is of extreme rarity: we make our extract from the folio edition of 1570:

I am the first foole of all the whole Navie
To keepe the Pompe, the Helme, and eke the Sayle
For this is my minde, this one pleasure have I,
Of bookes to have great plentie and apparayle.
I take no wisedome by them, nor yet avayle,
Nor them perceave not, and then I them despise :
Thus am I a foole, and all that sue that guise.
That in this Ship the chief place I governe,
By this wide Sea with fooles wandring,
The cause is plaine and easy to discerne,
Still am I busy bookes assembling,