of miracles and marvels, he was a zealous churchman, and, in using monkish chronicles as material for his own compilation of history, was a devout adopter of the censures of all kings who were enemies to religious places. Of Becket he spoke as a "glorious martyr" and a "blessed saint;" of Henry II. as a "hammer of Holy Church."

With the name of Fabyan as a chronicler is associated that of Edward Hall, who was born in Shropshire at the end of the fifteenth century. He was in 1514 scholar of King's College, Cambridge, but removed to Oxford; about 1518, he entered at Gray's Inn, was called to the bar, became common sergeant and under-sheriff, and in 1540 one of the judges of the sheriff's court. His career belonged entirely to the reign of Henry VIII., and he died in 1547. His history of "The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke," commonly called Hall's "Chronicle," ended with the year 1532. It was first published in 1548, after its author's death, by Richard Grafton, who said that "Hall dying, and being in his latter time not so painful and studious as he ought to have been," Grafton himself undertook the completion of it. This was a forbidden book under Philip and Mary.

Of this branch of literature, the most agreeable specimen produced in the first half of the sixteenth century, was the English translation of Froissart's "Chronicle," made by Lord Berners, and published in 1523. Lord Berners was educated at Oxford, travelled abroad, earned the favor of Henry VII., and was made by Henry VIII. his Chancellor of the Exchequer for life. He translated the "Golden Book" of Marcus Aurelius, and other works, and wrote also a Latin sacred play, "Ite in Vineam Meam," which was acted in church at Calais after vespers. His translation of Froissart is among the best prose English of his time.

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10. Closely allied to these English chronicles is the famous Itinerary" of John Leland, who was born in London about 1506. He was one of the boys under William Lily at St. Paul's School. Thence he proceeded to Christ's College, Cambridge. He took his degree of B.A. early in 1522, went then to Oxford, thence to the University of Paris. He became chaplain and

librarian to Henry VIII., who gave him, in June, 1530, the rectory of Poppeling, in the Marches of Calais. About 1533 he obtained the title of King's Antiquary; three years later he had special license to keep a curate at Poppeling, and work in England. Then he was for six years, by royal commission, travelling over England, taking a particular account of the cities, towns, and villages of each county; describing also the situation, soil, course of the rivers, and number of miles from place to place. He set down the several castles, religious houses, and other public and private buildings, with account of the families of best note resident therein. He recorded windows and monuments of antiquity belonging to the several cathedrals, monasteries, etc. He inspected also their libraries, took exact catalogues of books, even made transcripts of matter useful to his purpose of setting forth a trustworthy account of the history and antiquities of the kingdom. Leland, although a church reformer, lamented the havoc made of valuable libraries at the dissolution of the monasteries, and he did what he could to bring into safe keeping the treasures of literature that he found. Upon his return to London, he settled down to arrange for the press his vast accumulations; but after the excessive labor of several years, his brain gave way, about 1550, and in that condition he died in 1552. During his lifetime, he had won distinction by publishing minor Latin poems; but at his death, the great mass of his writings were still unpublished. Many of these were pilfered, and in a garbled form appeared on the pages of other antiquaries. It was not until more than a century and a half after his death, that his manuscripts were published. In 1709, his "Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis," edited by Anthony Hall, was published in two volumes; and in 1715, his "Collectanea de Rebus Britannicis," edited by Thomas Hearne, was published in six volumes. These are in Latin. His most celebrated work is in English, the "Itinerary," likewise edited by Hearne, which was published in 17101712, in nine volumes. Some of his writings still remain in manuscript.

11. A memorable piece of English writing in this time is "The Governor," by Sir Thomas Elyot, published in 1531,

a prose treatise on education, generous and wise in its tone, and strongly opposing the custom of ill-treating schoolboys. Elyot was a graduate of Cambridge; was knighted by Henry VIII., in whose service he was much employed in foreign embassies; and died in 1546. Although his book on education is the one for which he is chiefly remembered, he wrote several other books, particularly "The Castle of Health," published in 1533; a "Latin and English Dictionary," in 1538, the first ever published in England; and a "Defence or Apology of Good Women," in 1545.

CHAPTER VI.

FIRST HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY: POETRY AND THE DRAMA.

1. John Skelton.-2. William Dunbar.-3. Gavin Douglas.-4. Sir David Lindsay of the Mount.-5. Sir Thomas Wyatt.-6. Earl of Surrey.-7. Alexander Barclay.-8. Stephen Hawes.-9. William Roy.-10. Scottish Hymns. — 11. The Drama; the Morality-Play.-12. Skelton's "Magnificence.”—13. Lindsay's Satire on the Three Estates. - 14. Rise of the Modern Drama.-15. The First Comedy; Nicholas Udall.-16. Masques.-17. Interludes; John Heywood.

1. DURING this period, six poets came into especial prominence, three of them being Scotsmen: John Skelton, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, Sir David Lindsay, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and the Earl of Surrey. These poets we shall first study in the order named; then we shall deal with a few poets of less note; and finally we shall examine the progress made up to 1550 in the development of the English drama.

John Skelton was born either in Cumberland or in Norfolk, and not before the year 1460. He took his Master's degree at Cambridge in 1484; and in 1490 he was spoken of by Caxton as "late created poet laureate " at Oxford. Several years later, he was admitted to the same title at Louvain and at Cambridge. The degree of poet laureate was then a recognized degree in grammar and rhetoric with versification. A wreath of laurel was presented to each new "poeta laureatus;" and if this graduated grammarian obtained also a license to teach boys, he was publicly presented in the Convocation House with a rod and ferule. If he served a king, he might call himself the king's humble poet laureate; as John Kay, of whom no verse remains, was, as far as we know, first to do, in calling himself poet laureate to Edward IV. Before obtaining this degree the candidate would be required to write a hundred Latin verses on the glory of the University, or some other accepted subject.

In 1498, Skelton took orders, and became afterwards rector of Diss, Norfolk; at which time, he was likewise tutor to Prince Henry, afterward King Henry VIII. During the earlier days of Cardinal Wolsey, Skelton was his friend; but from about the year 1519, when Wolsey's oppressions of the clergy and the people became more severe, Skelton turned against him, and in his fearless and savage satires braved the great prelate's wrath. Against that wrath, the poet had finally to protect himself by taking the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, where he was safely sheltered until his death, in 1529. He never ceased to be nominal rector of Diss; though he is said to have been suspended from his functions by Dr. Richard Nix, his diocesan, for inclination towards the opinions of the reformers. The particular offence said to have been charged against John Skelton by the Dominicans was that he had violated the rule of celibacy, by secret marriage to the mother of his children.

The student who glances at the most popular of Skelton's poems, written in the coarse and artless verse which has been named "Skeltonical," and which at first seems to be mere doggerel, will be in danger of concluding that Skelton himself was not a man of much learning or literary cultivation. In reality, however, he was both. That he had many university honors, that he was a tutor in the royal family, and that he wrote Latin verses, and a prose treatise in Latin called "Speculum Principis," is proof of his learning; while his literary culti vation was something for which he was distinguished in his own day. Caxton publicly appealed to him as an arbiter in matters of scholarship, saying that Skelton had translated from the Latin," not in rude and olde langage, but in polysshed and ornate termes craftely, as he that hath redde Vyrgyle, Ovyde, Tullye, and all the other noble poets and oratours, to me unknowen. And also he hath redde the nine muses, and understande theyr musicalle scyences, and to whom of theym eche scyence is appropred. I suppose he hath dronken of Elycon's well." At the end of the fifteenth century, when Prince Henry was nine years old, Erasmus, in dedicating to the boy a Latin ode in “Praise of Britain, King Henry VII., and the royal children," congratulated him on being housed with Skelton, a