only book of Scripture which had been entirely rendered into English. Within less than twenty-five years from this date a prose version of the whole Bible, including as well the apocryphal as the canonical books, had been completed, and was in circulation among the people. For this invaluable gift England is indebted to John Wyclif. It may be impossible to determine with certainty the exact share which his own pen had in the translation, but there can be no doubt that he took a part in the labour of producing it, and that the accomplishment of the work must be attributed mainly to his zeal, encouragement, and direction.' The version here referred to is the older of the two versions printed by Forshall and Madden. The later one appeared some years after Wyclif's death, being thought necessary by his Lollard followers on account of the inequality existing between different parts of the original work. However, the general agreement between the two versions is very close. The other English writings of Wyclif consist of Sermons, Exegetical treatises, Controversial treatises and Letters. A selection of these, edited by the present author, was published for the Clarendon Press in 1871.1 The Sermons, which are very short, are based upon the gospels and epistles read in the church service. The explanations of the New Testament parables are often racy and original; many curious traditional interpretations are given; and now and then, though it is but seldom, the tone rises to real eloquence. In the case of the other writings, interesting as many of them are, there is unfortunately much difficulty in distinguishing between those which are genuine and those which are more or less doubtful. The controversial tracts are directed chiefly against the four orders of friars, whose monasteries Wycliff called 'Caym's [i.e. Cain's] castles;'-in a minor degree they assail the pope, the monks, and the higher orders of the secular clergy. Of one of the exegetical tracts, On the Paternoster, a portion of the striking peroration is here subjoined : Whanne a man seith, My God, delyvere me fro myn enemyes, what othir thing saith he than this, Delyvere us from yvel? And if thou rennest aboute bi alle the wordis of holy praieris, thou schalt fynde nothing whiche Select English Works of John Wyclif. Oxford, 1871 is not conteyned in this praier of the Lord. Whoevere seith a thing that may not perteyne to this praier of the Gospel, he praieth bodili and unjustli and unleeffulli, as me thenkith. Whanne a man saieth in his praier, Lord, multiplie myn richessis, and encreese myn honouris, and seith this, havynge the coveitise of hem, and not purposynge the profit of hem to men, to be bettir to Godward, I gesse that he may not fynde it in the Lordis praier. Therfore be it schame to aske the thingis whiche it is not leefful to coveyte. If a man schameth not of this, but coveytise overcometh him, this is askid, that he delyvere fro this yvel of coveytise, to whom we seyn, Delyvere us from yvel.' CHAPTER II. REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 1450-1558. M. SISMONDI, in his admirable work on the Literature of the South of Europe, has a passage,' explaining the decline of Italian literature in the fifteenth century, which is so strictly applicable to the corresponding decline of English literature for a hundred and seventy years after Chaucer, that we cannot forbear quoting it : The century which, after the death of Petrarch, had been devoted by the Italians to the study of antiquity, during which literature experienced no advance, and the Italian language seemed to retrograde, was not, however, lost to the powers of imagination. Poetry, on its first revival, had not received sufficient nourishment. The fund of knowledge, of ideas, and of images, which she called to her aid, was too restricted. The three greatmen of the fourteenth century, whom we first presented to the attention of the reader, had, by the sole force of their genius, attained a degree of erudition, and a sublimity of thought, far beyond the spirit of their age. These qualities were entirely personal; and the rest of the Italian bards, like the Provençal poets, were reduced, by the poverty of their ideas, to have recourse to those continual attempts at wit, and to that mixture of unintelligible ideas and incoherent images, which render the perusal of 1 Vol. ii. p. 400 (Roscoe). them so fatiguing. The whole of the fifteenth century was employed in extending in every direction the knowledge and resources of the friends of the Muses. Antiquity was unveiled to them in all its elevated characters-its severe laws, its energetic virtue, and its beautiful and engaging mythology; in its subtle and profound philosophy, its overpowering eloquence, and its delightful poetry. Another age was required to knead afresh the clay for the formation of a nobler race. At the close of the century, a divine breath animated the finished statue, and it started into life.' Mutatis mutandis, these eloquent sentences are exactly applicable to the case of English literature. Chaucer's eminence was purely personal; even more so, perhaps, than that of the great Italians, for the countrymen of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio at least possessed a settled and beautiful language, adapted already to nearly all literary purposes; while the tongue of Chaucer was in so rude and unformed a condition that only transcendent genius could make a work expressed through it endurable. The fifteenth century seems to have been an age of active preparation in every country of Europe. Though no great books were produced in it, it witnessed the invention of the art of printing, the effect of which was so to multiply copies of the masterpieces of Greek and Roman genius, to reduce their price, and to enlarge the circle of their readers, as to supply abundantly new materials for thought, and new models of artistic form, and thus pave the way for the great writers of the close of the next century. Printing, invented at Metz by Gutenberg about the year 1450, was introduced into England by William Caxton in 1474. The zealous patronage of two enlightened noblemen, Lord Worcester and Lord Rivers, greatly aided him in his enterprise. This century was also signalised by the foundation of many schools and colleges, in which the founders desired that the recovered learning of an tiquity should be uninterruptedly and effectually cultivated. Eton, the greatest of the English schools, and King's College at Cambridge, were founded by Henry VI. between 1440 and 1450. Three new universities arose in Scotland -that of St. Andrew's in 1410, of Glasgow in 1450, of Aberdeen in 1494;-all under the express authority of different Popes. Three or four unsuccessful attempts were made in the course of this and the previous century,the latest in 1496—to establish a university in Dublin. Several colleges were founded at Oxford and Cambridge in the reign of Henry VIII., among which we may specify Christ Church, the largest college at the former university, which, however, was originally planned by the magnificent Wolsey on a far larger scale, and the noble foundation of Trinity College, Cambridge. - In the period now before us our attention will be directed to three subjects;-the poets, whether English or Scotch, the state and progress of learning,-and the prose writers. The manner in which the great and complex movement of the Reformation influenced for good or evil the development of literature, is too wide a subject to be fully considered here. Something, however, will be said under this head, when we come to sketch the rise of the 'new learning,' or study of the Humanities, in England, and inquire into the causes of its fitful and intermittent growth. Poetry:-Hardyng, Hawes, Skelton, Surrey, Wyat; firstPoet Laureate. The poets of this period, at least on the English side of the border, were of small account. The middle of the fifteenth century witnessed the expulsion of the English from France; and a time of national humiliation is unfavourable to the production of poetry. If, indeed, humiliation become permanent, and involve subjection to the stranger, the plaintive wailings of the elegiac Muse are |