But if we will reduce their sense to right of Christian law,
To signify three other things these terms we well may draw.
By gods we understand all such as God hath placed in chief
Estate to punish sin, and for the godly folks relief:

By Fate the order which is set and 'stablished in things,
By God's eternal will and word, which in due season brings
All matters to their falling out, which falling out or end
(Because our curious reason is too weak to comprehend
The cause and order of the same, and doth behold it fall
Unawares to us) by name of Chance or Fortune we do call.1

This curious and obviously sincere sermon on the Metamorphoses then proceeds to adapt an argument which Eusebius had first used for the purpose of descrediting ancient culture. "If any man," says the translator, "thinks that these things may be better learned from Scripture, I agree; but, nevertheless, some are of opinion that the Pagan poets had a knowledge of the Mosaic writings"; and in illustration of his point he shows how Ovid's description of the beginning of things agrees with the Mosaic account of creation, except that it makes no mention of separate days.2

A work conceived in such a spirit was well fitted to conciliate religious prejudice, and Ovid, introduced in English, and with very little alteration of his sense, became the channel through which the knowledge of Greek mythology was diffused widely through educated society in the reign of Elizabeth. Shakespeare was evidently well acquainted with Golding's translation, and the frequency of his mythological allusions is largely due to this source. The translation itself aims simply at telling Ovid's story in a rendering of his own words, but without the slightest effort to reproduce the polish of his style. A fair example of Golding's manner, which is indeed infinitely superior to Phaër's, will be found in the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, familiar to all readers of the Midsummer Night's Dream :

Within the town, of whose huge walls so monstrous high and thick The fame is given Semiramis for making them of brick,

1 Golding's Translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1612), Prefatory Epistle. 2 Ibid. (paraphrased).

Dwelt hard together two young folk in houses joined so near,
That under all one roof well-nigh both twain conveyed were.
The name of him was Pyramus, and Thisbe called was she;
So fair a man was none alive in all the East as he,
Nor ne'er a woman, maid, nor wife, in beauty like to her.
This neighbrod bred acquaintance first, this neighbrod first did stir
The secret sparks, this neighbrod first an entrance in did show,
For love to come to that to which it afterward did grow.
And if that right had taken place they had been man and wife;
But still their parents went about to let which for their life
They could not let. For both their hearts with equal flame did burn;
No man was privy to their thoughts. And for to serve their turn,
Instead of talk they used signs. The closelier they suppressed
The fire of love, the fiercer still it raged in their breast.

The wall that parted house from house had riven therein a cranny,
Which shrank at making of the wall. This fault, not marked of any,
Of many hundred years before (what doth not love espy?)
These lovers first of all found out and made a way whereby
To talk together secretly, and through the same did go
Their loving whispering, very light and safely to and fro.
Now, as at one side Pyramus and Thisbe on the other

Stood, often drawing one of them the pleasant breath from other,
"O spiteful wall" (said they), "why dost thou part us lovers thus ?
What matter were it if that thou permitted both of us

In arms each other to embrace ? Or if thou think that this

Were overmuch yet mightest thou at least make room to kiss.
And yet thou shalt not find us churls. We think ourselves in debt
For the same piece of courtesy in working safe to let

Our sayings to our friendly ears thus freely come and go."
Thus having where they stood in vain complained of their woe,
When night drew near they bade adieu, and each gave kisses sweet,
Unto the parget at their side, the which did never meet.1

1 Golding's Translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book iv. pp. 43, 44.

CHAPTER VI

THE PROGRESS OF THE SCHOOL OF SURREY: LORD VAUX, GRIMALD, GOOGE, TURBERVILE, CHURCHYARD, GASCOIGNE.

THE first twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth are, both in a political and literary sense, perhaps the most barren period in the literature of the sixteenth century. The old chivalrous ideal of life was passing away, no longer finding a home in the imagination of the new aristocracy or the rising middle class. In the prospect

of the succession to the throne, as in the policy of the sovereign, all was uncertainty. A wide interval separated the manners of the Court which educated the knightly generation of Surrey and Wyatt from the manners of the Court of Elizabeth: the school of learned courtliness represented by Sidney, Raleigh, and Oxford was not yet formed. There was a similar ambiguity in the mind of the nation. Perplexed by the suddenness of the rupture with Rome, the full meaning of which was only made apparent to it by the subsequent Spanish invasion, the imagination of the people wavered between conflicting forms of belief, though the quickening of the individual conscience is shown by the marked tendency of the Universities to adopt the extreme forms of opinion advocated by the religious reformers of the Continent.

While the mind of the nation remained in this doubtful condition, the poets necessarily lacked clear motives of composition. They had passed out of the sphere of the mediæval imagination, but they had not

yet become accustomed to the atmosphere of the new region of thought, and, like the infant described by Wordsworth, they were filled with

Blank misgivings of a creature,

Moving about in worlds not realised.

Hence, though Surrey had put them in possession of a well-tuned instrument, his successors made no attempt to use it for the expression of any elevated scheme of art. They contented themselves with timid variations of the old Provençal themes, with religious moralising, or with metrical experiments intended to enlarge the resources of poetical diction.

At the same time we observe at this period the first indications of a force destined hereafter to exercise an important influence on the course of English poetry, the beginnings of a definite public taste. The age of minstrelsy had departed; the jongleur, who had sung in castle halls before lords and ladies, had declined into the needy ballad singer, whose instrument was only listened to by rustic audiences on village greens and ale-house benches. Though the poetical courtier still tuned his lute for the ear of his mistress, his songs and sonnets, when committed to writing, were submitted to the eyes of only a few select and aristocratic judges. But the curiosity of the general reader soon overleaped this exclusive barrier, and an opportunity was thus given for the appearance of the man whom Johnson afterwards described as the Mæcenas of the times, the modern publisher.

One of the most noticeable features in the literature of the latter half of the sixteenth century is its numerous Miscellanies: collections of poems due to the enterprise of different printers who, reckoning on the public taste as a source of gain, employed some accomplished editor to unite in a single volume the productions of many ingenious minds. Between 1557 and 1602 we find the following publications: Tottel's Miscellany; The Paradise of Dainty Devices; The Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions; The Phonix Nest; England's Helicon; Eng

VOL. II

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land's Parnassus; and The Poetical Rhapsody. All of these mark very distinct stages in the progress of public taste, and are deserving of notice, not only on account of the individual names they contain, but also from the light they throw on the general forces, which, after the advent of Wyatt and Surrey, conspired to bring about those changes of imagination that prepared the way for the work of Spenser and Shakespeare.

The first of these Miscellanies was published in June 1557 by Tottel, a well-known printer. It contained almost all the poems that survive of Sir T. Wyatt the elder, and of the Earl of Surrey; a variety of compositions by Nicholas Grimald; and a collection of verses by "Uncertain Authors," among whom were included Lord Vaux, and Sir Thomas Bryan, the friend of Wyatt. The editing of the Miscellany showed how largely the reforms of Surrey had influenced the taste and ear of the general English reader. We have already seen that Wyatt had in his versification made but a small advance on his predecessors. But a comparison of the text of Tottel's Miscellany with the Harrington MS. of Wyatt's poems proves that the halting verses and harsh collisions of accent, which gave no offence to Wyatt's early readers, were found intolerable by the next generation. The following are examples of the changes made by the editor in the text of his original:

And therein camp(e)th, spreading his banner.-Wyatt, Harrington MS.

And therein camp(e)th, displaying his banner.-Tottel.1

May content you without doing grief.-Harrington MS.
Content your mind withouten doing grief.-Tottel.2

Blinded with the stroke, erring here and there.-Harrington MS.
Blind with the stroke, and erring here and there.-Tottel.3

But daily yet the ill doth change into the worse.-Harrington MS. And daily doth mine ill change to the worse.-Tottel. 4

1 Wyatt's Works (Nott), vol. ii. p. 537.

3 Ibid. p. 538.

2 Ibid.

4 Ibid. p. 542.

Sometimes the editor seems to have been puzzled by Wyatt's expressions, and to have made rather absurd emendations. For example,