hater of abuses, and scourged them with the strong hand of a reformer. For his temerity he lost his office, by the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury; he appealed from him to the Pope; and finding the Pope no friend, he came out in full force against His Holiness. He was a root and branch man." The Popes pursued his memory with such malice, that thirty years after his death, Martin V issued a bull to dig up his bones and throw them on a dung-hill. What impotent malice! Wickliffe was a voluminous writer; his English is among the best of his age. He may be truly considered the founder of the Protestant religion, for he gave the people the word of God in their vernacular, and they were anxious to read it.' Wickliffe was sound in all the doctrines of the Protestant faith.

The work containing those portions of the Old and New Testament translated by Wickliffe, has come down to us, and is now a curiosity; and not less so from its being the fountain of the Biblical knowledge of many of our ancestors, who were not acquainted with the original language of the Scriptures. He died sixteen years before Chaucer, a younger man at his death than the poet.

Mandeville, Wickliffe, and Gower, were styled "the three evangelists of our tongue," but still these were considered as inferior to Chaucer; and to continue the language of the quotation-" though all elder in birth than Chaucer, yet they did not begin so early to work upon the ore of their native language." These writers had genius, and language becomes plastic in the hands of these great masters of thought and expression. Bishop Peacock was a learned writer of this age

and his works added more to the English language than they did to theology, or his own happiness. He was a tolerant sensible man, and of course persecuted in that age.

Divinity, alone did not monopolize the reformers of style, language and taste of that age; the law puts in claims also. Sir John Fortescue, an eminent lawyer, was a distinguished writer of that age. He was honored by the king, but was a portion of his life an exile. He was a learned lawyer and a fine scholar, and is the first English writer I know of, who has given a distinction between a limited, and what is called an absolute monarchy. Sir John is the pride of lawyers.

We come now to a period in which it may be said that the fountains of the great deep of knowledge were broken up, and the floods of light and intelligence fell upon the children of men. This period is that of the invention, or rather of the use of printing. The individual who brought printing into England, and issued from his press any thing English, was William Caxton. He was learned and zealous in the cause of learning. He was taught the sublime art of printing in Holland, and brought it to his native land in the year 1474. The first book printed in England was "The Game of Chess." In four years afterwards a press was established at Oxford, and not long after, at St. Albans. Caxton printed many books; some of his editions have come down to us, besides Wickliffe's Bible. He was a sincere lover of literature. Caxton did much for the language of his native country, while many others were busy in ancient literature. He printed the Chronicles of England. These chronicles were legendary tales-full of romance, and generally

as far from elegance as from truth; they had often the absurdities of the Arabian tales without any considerable share of their genius or character. But they were, no doubt, illegitimate descendants of that stock of literature. These tales have an Arabic physiognomy about them, but sufficient only to show the family likeness.

It is clear to every mind, from looking at the early history of every civilized country, that ballads and tales, and chronicles, in the nature of ballads and tales, were the first specimens of literature; and that these rose to the dignity of poems and histories as the mass of the people made progress in intelligence; and if any writer was in advance of his age, that his works were neglected until the great body of the people reached his standard. When the taste for these compositions grew too rapidly for the supply of native works, a disposition for translation was cultivated, so that the spirit of one nation was virtually infused into another; hence the similarity of thoughts and expressions of passion which are found in different languages, and, perhaps, after a lapse of years, it was difficult to say whence this or that sentiment originated.

Soon as printing had quickened the appetite of the people, the supply of letters was equal to the demand; this is the law of every market. The expulsion of the Greek scholars from Constantinople, then the most learned men of the world, gave lecturers and schoolmasters to all Europe. At this moment the convents gave up their classical treasures, and learned commentaries followed each other in rapid succession ; all pouring from the press under the fostering care of the nobility, who began to have a taste for learning. The

universities were agitated to their very foundation; particularly the university of Oxford. This seminary, conspicuous in all the ages of English literature, had its factions. The reformers took the appellation of Greeks, and the supporters of the old system that of Trojans. All these discussions, and excitements, and quarrels, were productive of great good. In this collision of minds are found the scintillations of genius; unfortunately, however, the niceties and subtleties of scholastic divinity retarded the progress of taste and letters, for the fierce contentions of angry polemics have seldom but little to do with expansion or refinement.

Sir Thomas More, the author of the Eutopia, was one of the very great men of that age. He was born in 1480. He was educated in the best manner of the times. He was a man of first rate talents, and was called to discharge many high and important duties as a public functionary. He was undoubtedly pre-eminent even among the great scholars of his time. Sir Thomas invited Erasmus to visit England, and conferred on this great scholar and wit, many signal marks of his favor and friendship.

From his exalted genius and official stations, he might be considered as the first literary character of his time, not only in England, but in Europe. He was skilled in all classical learning; but what is more to our purpose, his English was the most copious, correct, and elegant, of all the literati of the age. He had drank deeply of the wells of knowledge, and his vernacular had the benefit of his draughts. He was, in writing English, rather making, than looking for a standard. It is well for the world when such men as Sir Thomas

More are found to direct, and, in a measure, fix the taste of an age. If he labored for the beau ideal in politics, and our experience has never found his republic, yet he left thoughts that are imperishable, embalmed in words of taste and beauty.

Wilson, the rhetorician, deserves to be remembered among the sturdy advocates of English literature. He lived in several reigns, but was most conspicuous in that of Elizabeth. He printed his work on rhetoric in the first year of Mary's reign, 1553. It was entitled "The Art of Rhetoric, for the use of all such as are studious of eloquence-set forth in English, by Thomas Wilson." This work, says Burnett, in his specimens of English prose writers, may justly be considered as the first system of criticism in our language. He describes the four parts of elocution-plainness, aptness, composition, and examination. He is a sturdy champion for the free, bold, good use of our mother tongue. Wilson is a philosopher who reasons and feels rightly. He read nature and the poets with a true spirit of criticism. His rules for declamation are admirable, and such as every great orator has followed-that is, in making a speech for a departed great man, to summon up the soul and character of the deceased, and make them speak out. His defence of figurative language deserves to be held in remembrance. "Some time (says he) it is good to make God, the country, or some one town, to speak; and look what we would say in our own person, to frame the whole tale to them. Such variety doeth much good to avoid tediousness; for he who speaketh all things in one sort, though he speak things ever so wittily, shall soon weary his hearers. Figures, therefore, were invented to avoid satiety and