held, requires us to note the state of erudition in the country from the beginning of the century.

Scotland possessed, in this period, two men very eminent in the history of scholastic learning. Probably there was not then in England any speculative philosopher comparable to Major: there was certainly no classical scholar accomplished so variously and so exactly as Buchanan. Yet the general progress of Scottish erudition was slower than in the south; and its benefits were much less widely diffused. The most learned men were partly or altogether educated abroad.

b. ab. 1470.

The honour of having been the first Scotsman who wrote Latin tolerably, has been assigned to Hector Boece, who, about the year 1500, resigned an academical appointment in France to become principal of the college newly founded at Aberdeen. His most famous work, the "History of the Scots," is good, though not faultless, as a specimen of Latinity: the student of antiquity now remembers it only as a receptacle for the wildest of the fables which used to be authoritatively current as the earliest sections in our national annals. Much inferior to Boece's writings in correctness of Latinity, indeed painfully clumsy and inelegant, are those of John d. ab. 1550. Mair or Major, who, however, was one of the most vigorous thinkers of his time. Educated in England and Paris, and teaching for some time in France, he became the head of one of the colleges in Saint Andrews. His greatest works are metaphysical: and these, now utterly neglected, like others of their times and kind, fully vindicate the fame which he enjoyed, as one of the most acute and original of those who taught and defended, in its last stages, the scholastic philosophy of the middle ages. His "History of the Nation of the Scots" has little reputation among modern historical students: but, both there and elsewhere, he exhibits an independence and liberality of opinion, which, it has been believed, were not without influence on his most famous pupils. He was the teacher of Knox and Buchanan.

12. The first of these great names is not to be forgotten in the record of Scottish learning and talent. But the stern apostle of the northern Reformation had his mind fixed steadfastly on objects infinitely more sacred than either fame or knowledge: and b. 1505. Knox's few published writings, although plainly indicating d. 1572. both his force of character and his vigour of intellect, are chiefly valuable in their bearing on the questions of his time. The most elaborate of them, and the only one that can be described as anything more than a controversial or religious tract, is his "His

tory of the Reformation of Religion within the Realm of Scotland." Those who now read this interesting chronicle, and who think that its language is peculiarly Scottish, may be amused by knowing, that Knox's style was reproached by one of his controversial opponents with being affectedly and unpatriotically English.

b. 1506.

George Buchanan, less deeply immersed in the vortex of d. 1582. the times, and enjoying, in more than one stage of his life, the benefits of academical seclusion, found time to earn for himself a fame which can never be lost, unless the revival of learning in Europe should be followed by a total loss of all preceding memorials of civilisation. He is admitted, by those who most keenly dislike his ecclesiastical and political opinions, to have been not only a man of eminent and versatile genius, but one of the finest and most correct classical scholars that ever appeared in Christendom. There have been Latinists more deeply versed in the philosophy of the language, and others more widely informed in the knowledge to which it is the clue; but hardly, perhaps, has there been, since the fall of Rome, any one who has written Latin with an excellence so complete and uniform. The chief of his Prose Works are his History of Scotland, and his Treatise on the Constitution of the Kingdom. The former, certainly the work of a partisan, is nevertheless historically important; the latter is remarkable for the manly independence of its opinions and both of them tell their tale with an antique dignity and purity, which the Roman tongue has seldom been made to wear by a modern pen. The merit of his Latin Poems is yet higher. They are justly declared to unite, more than any other compositions of their kind, originality of matter with classic elegance of style. The most famous of them is his Translation of the Psalms; besides which, the list includes satires, didactic verses, and lyrics, one of these being the exquisite Ode on the month of May.

After the great name of Buchanan, a poor show is made by that of Bishop Lesley, the friend and defender of the unfortunate and misguided queen: yet he, too, was no mean scholar, and no bad Latin writer. Much more learned, probably, was Ninian Winzet. another advocate of the old creed, who had to seek refuge in the southern regions of the continent. A scholar more distinguished than either of them withdrew himself very soon from innovation and turmoil, and closed his days peacefully as a teacher in France. This was Florence Wilson, who translates his name into Volusenus in the Latin treatise, "On Tranquillity of Mind," which has preserved his name with high honour among those who take interest in classical studies.

In closing our separate record of northern literature, we must go forward a little to notice, as having been really eminent both for scholarship and talent, the energetic and restless Andrew Melville, the founder of the Presbyterian polity of the Scottish Church.

We must also mark how, the University of Saint Andrews having been established first of all, the other academical institutions of the country arose before the close of the sixteenth century. That of Glasgow dates from 1450; King's College in Aberdeen, from 1494; the University of Edinburgh was founded by King James in 1582, and Marischal College of Aberdeen in 1593. Still more important, perhaps, was the foundation which was now laid for a system of popular education in Scotland. There had long been, in the towns, grammar-schools where Latin was taught. The establishment of schools throughout the country was proposed by the Reformed clergy in 1560, the very year in which Parliament sanctioned the Reformation; and the principle was again laid down, a few years later, in the Second Book of Discipline. A considerable number of parochial schools were founded before King James's removal to England; and the setting down of a school in each parish, if it were possible, was ordered for the first time by an Act of the Privy Council, issued in 1616, and ratified by Parliament in 1633.

THE AGE OF SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILton.

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CHAPTER III.

THE AGE OF SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON.

INTRODUCTION. 1. The Early Years of Elizabeth's Reign-Summary of their Literature.-2. Literary Greatness of the next Eighty YearsDivision into Four Eras.-REIGN OF ELIZABETH FROM 1580. 3. Social Character of the Time-Its Religious Aspect-Effects on Literature.-4. Minor Elizabethan Writers-Their Literary Importance-The Three Great Names.-5. The Poetry of Spenser and Shakspeare-The Eloquence of Hooker.-REIGN OF JAMES. 6. Its Social and Literary Character-Distinguished Names-Bacon-Theologians-Poets.-THE TWO FOLLOWING ERAS. 7. Political and Ecclesiastical Changes-Effects on Thinking -Effects on Poetry-Milton's Youth.-8. Moral Aspect of the TimeEffects on Literature.-REIGN OF CHARLES. 9. Literary Events-Poetry -Eloquence-Theologians-Erudition.-THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 10. Literary Events-Poetry Checked-Modern Symptoms -Philosophy-Hobbes-Theology-Hall, Taylor, and Baxter.-11. Eloquence-Milton's Prose Works-Modern Symptoms-Style of the Old English Prose Writers.

INTRODUCTION.

1. THE era which is now to open on our view, is the most brilliant in the literary history of England. Thought, and imagination, and eloquence, combine to illuminate it with their most dazzling light; its literature assumes the most various forms, and expatiates over the most distant regions of speculation and invention; and its intellectual chiefs, while they breathe the spirit of modern knowledge and freedom, speak to us in tones which borrow an irregular stateliness from the chivalrous past. But the magnificent panorama does not meet the eye at once, as a scenic spectacle is displayed on the rising of the curtain. Standing at the point which we have now

reached, we must wait for the unveiling of its features, as we should watch while the mists of dawn, shrouding a beautiful landscape, melt away before the morning sun.

Our period covers a century. But the first quarter of it was very unproductive in all departments of literature: it was much more so than the age that had just closed. Of the poets, and philosophers, and theologians, who have immortalized the name of Queen Elizabeth, hardly one was born so much as five years before she ascended the throne.

In whatever direction we look during the first half of her reign, we discover an equal inaptitude, among men of letters, to build on the foundations that had been laid in the generation before. A respectable muster-roll of literary names could not be collected from those twenty or twenty-five years, unless it were to include a few of those writers who, properly belonging to the preceding time, continued to labour in this.

In poetry, the Mirror of Magistrates continued merely to heap up bad verses. The miscellaneous collection, called "The Paradise of Dainty Devices," contains hardly any pieces that are above mediocrity; and old Tusser's "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry," though Southey has thought it worthy of republication, teaches agriculture in verse, but does not aim at making it poetical. It is only towards the end of this interregnum of genius, that we reach something of poetical promise; and then we have only "The Steel Glass" of Gascoigne, a tolerable satirical poem in indifferent blank verse, with some smaller poems of his which are more lively.

The drama lingered in the state in which Udall and Sackville left it, till about the very time of Shakspeare's youth. Even its best writers deserve but slight commendation. Edwards. however, who hardly improved the art at all, was the best of the contributors to the "Paradise;" and Gascoigne the satirist, though merely a dramatic translator, not only used blank verse in tragic dialogue, but wrote our earliest prose comedy. John Still, who in maturer age became a bishop, composed the best of the original comedies, "Gammer Gurton's Needle;" which, however, is in every way in. ferior to "Roister Doister."

In English prose, again, the time was equally barren. Its reputation is redeemed by one great event only; the appearance of the Bishops' Bible, which will soon be commemorated more particularly. Of original writers, it possessed none that are generally remembered, except the venerable Bishop Jewell. But the "Apology for the Church of England," the most celebrated work of this learned, able, and pious man, was written in Latin. We must not,