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fascinated by Italian culture; but, with the general uprush of the classical renascence, it fell once more under suspicion and the pulpit began to be turned against it. With the fall of the monasteries, however, curiously enough, it nearly disappeared altogether-for example, at Oxford, though Wolsey himself had founded a chair for its study-and it was not until things were quiet that it again took its place among its fellows, and is to be found generally recommended for grammar schools along with the arts of 'good manners,' Latin, English, history, writing and even chess. Classics indeed, generally, when the confusion was over, found a fairer field than had been possible under clerical control. Pure Latin was, to a large extent, vitiated by its ecclesiastical rival; and Greek was associated vaguely in men's minds with the principles of Luther and the suspected new translations of the Scriptures, in spite of Fisher's zeal for its study at Cambridge, and the return of Wakefield from Tübingen in the same cause. 'Graeculus,' in fact, had become a colloquial synonym for 'heretic'; and both languages, as represented by such authors as Terence, Plautus and the Greek poets, were under grave suspicions as being vehicles for immoral sentiments. It is true that such men as prior Barnes lectured on Latin authors in his Augustinian house at Cambridge, yet it was not until a few years after the dissolution that even the classical historians began to be translated into English. Friars were reported actually to have destroyed books that in their opinion were harmful or even useless.

Another gain that compensated for the loss of the old kind of intercourse with Italy was, undoubtedly, to be found in the new connections of England with northern Europe as well as with the vigorous life of renascence Italy. The coming of such men as Bucer and Fagius to Cambridge at the invitation of the king, and a flood of others later, the intercourse with Geneva and Zurich, culminating in Mary's reign-these channels could hardly have been opened thus freely under the old conditions; and if this exchange of ideas was primarily on theological subjects, yet it was not to the exclusion of others. So long as the religious houses preserved their prestige in the country at large and in the universities in particular, every new idea or system that was antagonistic to their ideals had a weight of popular distrust to contend against: the average Englishman saw that ecclesiastics held the field, he heard tales of vast monastic libraries and of monkish prodigies of learning, he listened to pulpit thunderings and scholastic disputations, while all that came from Germany

and the Low Countries was represented by single men who held no office and won but little hearing. When the houses were down and their prestige shattered, it was but between man and man that he had to decide.

And, further, in a yet more subtle way, the dissolution actually contributed to the prestige of the new methods of thought under whose predominance the fall had taken place and, under Elizabeth, these new methods were enforced with at least as much state pressure as the old system had enjoyed. There were, of course, other causes for the destruction-the affairs of the king, both domestic and political, religious differences, the bait of the houses' wealth-all these things conspired to weigh the balances down and to accomplish in England the iconoclasm which the renascence did not accomplish in southern Europe. It can hardly be said that the superior culture in England demanded a sacrifice which Italy did not demand; but, rather, that it found here a peculiar collocation of circumstances and produced, therefore, peculiar results. Yet in men's minds the revival of learning and the fall of the monasteries were inextricably associated; and the enthusiasm of Elizabeth's reign, with its countless achievements in art and literature and general effectiveness, was certainly enhanced by the memory of that with which the movement of thirty years before had been busily linked. Great things had been accomplished under a Tudor, an insular independence unheard of in the history of the country had been established; there were no limits then, it seemed, to what might be effected in the future. The triumphant tone in Elizabethan writers is, surely, partly traceable to this line of thought-they are full of an enthusiasm of freedom-and, in numberless passages, Shakespeare's plays served to keep the thought alight.

It can scarcely be reckoned as a gain that the dispersal of the libraries took place, except in one definite point, for it has been seen in what manner the books were usually treated. This gain was the founding of the school of English antiquaries under John Leland1, and the concentration in their hands of certain kinds of manuscripts that, practically, had no existence except in the recesses of monastic libraries. In 1533, this priest was appointed king's antiquary. It was his office 'to peruse the libraries of all cathedrals, abbeys, colleges, etc.,' no doubt with a view to the coming dissolution; but for six years he travelled, and claims to have 'conserved many good authors, the which otherwise had been like to have

1 See post, chap. xv.

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perished, of the which part remain' in the royal libraries. That there was a slight degree of truth in this implied reproach we have already seen; and it is certain that access was now made possible to many copies of English and classical authors, the loss of which might have occurred under monastic complacency, and certainly would have occurred under reforming zeal. 'In turning over of the superstitious monasteries,' says Bale, Leland's friend and editor, 'little respect was had to their libraries.' Others followed Leland in his care for antiquities of literature and history. Matthew Parker, says Josselin his secretary, 'was very careful to seek out the monuments of former times.... Therefore in seeking up the chronicles of the Britons and English Saxons, which lay hidden everywhere, contemned and buried in forgetfulness,' as well as in editing and publishing them, Parker and his assistants did a good work which had scarcely been possible under the old system. Josselin himself helped, and Sir Robert Cotton's collection of Saxon charters and other manuscripts is one of the great founts of English history.

It is impossible, then, with any degree of justice, to set the gains and the losses, resultant from the dissolution, in parallel columns. The former were subtle, far-reaching, immature; the latter were concrete, verifiable and sentimental. Rather, until some definition of progress be agreed upon by all men, we are only safe in saying that, from the purely intellectual side, while the injury to the education of those who lived at the time, and the loss of innumerable books, antiquities and traditions for all time, are lamentable beyond controversy, yet, by the diffusion of general knowledge, by the widening of the limits of learning and philosophy, by the impetus given to independent research, art and literature, and by the removal of unjustifiable prejudice, we are the inheritors of a treasure that could hardly have been ours without the payment of a heavy price.

CHAPTER IV

BARCLAY AND SKELTON

EARLY GERMAN INFLUENCES ON ENGLISH LITERATURE

ALEXANDER BARCLAY was born about 1475. A Scotsman by descent, he probably came to England very early. He seems to have studied in Oxford, and, perhaps, also in Cambridge. In his Ship of Fools he states, with regret, that he has not always been an industrious student; but the title 'syr,' in his translation of Bellum Jugurthinum, implies that he took his degree, and in his will he styles himself doctor of divinity. He is said to have travelled in France and Italy; but whether he visited any foreign universities is rather doubtful. At all events, he strongly disapproves of this fashion of the time in The Ship of Fools. A fairly good scholar, he knew French and Latin well and seems to have been familiar, to a certain extent, even with German; but he probably did not know Greek.

Barclay started his literary career with a translation of Pierre Gringore's Le chasteau de labour, published by Antoine Verard (c. 1503) and reprinted by Pynson (c. 1505) and Wynkyn de Worde (1506 and c. 1510). Subsequently, in 1521, he wrote an Introductory to write and to pronounce Frenche, to which Palsgrave refers in his Esclaircissement de la Langue Francoyse (1530) in a by no means complimentary way. He even suggests that it was not an original work but was founded on an older treatise which Barclay may have found in the library of his monastery.

Barclay's connection with humanism is proved by his Eclogues (c. 1514) and a translation of Bellum Jugurthinum, published by Pynson (c. 1520) and re-edited five years after Barclay's death. Like the French primer, it was made at the suggestion of Thomas, duke of Norfolk, Barclay's patron. In earlier days he owed much to bishop Cornish, provost of Oriel College, Oxford, who made him

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chaplain of the college of Ottery St Mary, Devonshire. This living he probably held for some years, and, during this time, he completed his best known work, the translation of Brant's famous satirical allegory. The Ship of Fools, published first by Pynson in 1509, was dedicated, out of gratitude, to the said bishop. When he translated The Myrrour of Good Maners, about 1523, from the Latin of Dominicus Mancinus, Barclay was a monk at Ely. There he had probably written also his Eclogues, the Introductory, the Sallust and the lost Life of St George. The preface of The Myrrour not only shows that Barclay felt somewhat depressed at that time, but it also contains the interesting statement, that, 'the righte worshipfull Syr Giles Alington, Knight,' for whom the translation was made, had desired at first a modernised version of Gower's Confessio Amantis, a task Barclay declined as unsuitable to his age and profession. He must have been fairly well known at this time; for, according to a letter of Sir Nicholas Vaux to Wolsey, dated 10 April 1520, he is to be asked, 'to devise histoires and convenient raisons to florisshe the buildings and banquet house withal' at the meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I, known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In this letter, Barclay is spoken of as 'the black monk'; but, later, he left the Benedictines for the stricter order of the Franciscans in Canterbury. There he may have written the Life of St Thomas of Canterbury, attributed to him by Bale. Besides the works mentioned already, Barclay seems to have written other lives of saints, some sermons and a few other books to which reference will be made.

What became of him after the dissolution of the monasteries, in 1539, is not known. An ardent champion of the catholic faith, who had written a book de fide orthodoxa, as well as another on the oppression of the church by the French king, he probably found it hard to adapt himself to the altered circumstances of the times. But the years of adversity and hardship were followed at last by a short time of prosperity. In 1546, he was instituted to the vicarage of Great Baddow, in Essex, and, in the same year, also to that of St Matthew at Wokey, in Somerset. Both preferments, apparently, he held till his death. On 30 April 1552, he became rector of All Hallows, Lombard Street, in the city of London. Soon afterwards, he died at Croydon, where he had passed part of his youth, and there he was buried. His will was proved on the 10th of June in the same year.

As we have said before, Barclay's most important work is his translation of Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff. What especially