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pressed by himself. "He that will write well in any tongue, must speak as the common people do, think as wise men do; as so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him."

This tutor of queens wrote a work he called The Schoolmaster. It is a fine treatise on education, and contains all the elements which are found in the modern treatises upon that subject. He was for uniting the Gymnasia, the Lyceum, and the Academy together; only he did not name the workshop, as Pellendorff and others have since done, in systems of education. It is said, by one of his biographers, that Ascham became a Protestant through the medium of Greek literature. He was an admirer of Sir Thomas More, and followed his example in bringing out his works 'in the English language. He was one of the formers fe literary character of the reign of Elizabeth, she having been known as a scholar of his, previous to her coming to the throne. He was born in 1515, and lived ten years into the reign of Elizabeth.

John Fox, the ecclesiastical historian, was only two years younger than Ascham He was an instructor of youth and a proof-reader for the German presses. He wrote the lives, or rather the accounts of the Martyrs. This has been held in great veneration by the Protestants of England and this country ever since; but it is more the subject than the power of the historian that interests us, in reading his gloomy history. He was, however, a very accurate scholar in the learned languages, and wrote very good English.

Many good prose-writers were at this time to be found in England. Hollingshed, Sir Philip Sidney, whose name we have before mentioned, and Raleigh,

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were fine writers; the two latter, politicians, soldiers, and men of the world. Selby, Cecil, Stow, Knolles, and Agard, wrote works of fancy and history, and were great benefactors to the nation. But we must not pass over so hastily the works of Richard Hooker. The great work of this distinguished scholar and sound divine was his Ecclesiastical Polity. He wrote many other works; but this has come to us, a fine argument, and one that did much towards settling the disputes on religious subjects in those days. The work is read now by all students in divinity who wish to make themselves reasoners in theology. Like Butler's Analogy, of a later date, this work is found in the hands of the young physicians and lawyers, as they are marking out the great outlines of their professional course. In such works there is matter and forms of reasoning which every professional man should be master of. He handled je Puritans with great power and effect, yet he has been honored and respected by the most enlightened of them ever since. They acknowledged the style of Hooker's works to have been superior to any thing in the English language before Bacon's works appeared It is perspicuous, forcible, elevated, and manly. The mind of Hooker was rich in thoughts, original and acquired, and his soul was evidently in his works. It is, in my opinion, a model for modern writers; and evident traces of Hooker's influences may be found in the style of Chatham, Burke, and other states

men.

It is almost impossible to speak of Shakspeare, without falling into some errors of taste, feeling, or criticism, nor do we expect entirely to shun them. He was truly the poet of nature. He was born a few years

before Elizabeth came to the throne of England. He was a sprightly country lad when first known, who had excited some attention by his talent at versifying. In some wild frolic, he trespassed on the huntinggrounds of a rich neighbor. This indiscretion was followed up by a lampoon on the same gentleman. There was much scurrility in his satire, at that time, but no great proofs of genius. The subject of the verse was indignant, and threatening vengeance, young Shakspeare fled to London, and probably, went directly to the theatre, for he had a townsman on the boards, and perhaps a relation. The story of his holding horses at the door of the theatre, or bearing torches to light the lovers of the drama to their seats, is all done away with by the late commentaries upon his works. These were the gossipings of his early admire, who loved the marvellous changes in the destini nen. The probability is that he took some small employment in the business of the stage, until his talents as a dramatic writer became in some measure developed. He was born 1564, was eighteen years of age, or more, when he went to London, and in five years, some say seven, he was distinguished as a dramatic writer; so that his progress must have been rapid. The queen was fond of plays, but the dramatic writers of a previous age had been wretched, and any thing that bore the marks of nature, or genius, was, in the nascent growth of the stage, readily discovered, and acknowledged. He lived easily, that is, comfortably, and on acquiring a competency, retired to his native village, satisfied with what he had done; but heaven did not suffer him long to enjoy his well earned ease, for he died on his birthday, April 23, 1616, aged 52. There were but eleven

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of his plays in print at his death; nor were his plays collected until seven years after this period. During the whole of the seventeenth century there were but four editions of his plays printed. He was admired by the court in the reign of James, and Charles the first and second. Our ancestors, particularly the puritans who came to this country, did not favor the drama in any shape or form, but engaged themselves to put down all theatricals, although, in Christian days, these dramas were first got up by the appendages of religious institutions. I was until nearly or quite a century had elapsed from the death of Shakspeare, before we find a quotation from his works in any American author; and strange as it may seem, in about half a century after Shakspeare's death, we hear the great John Dryden gray saying, that Shakspeare was growing obsolete. then did not feel what we do, that the pyramids will crumble to the dust, and the Nile be dry, and the Ethiop change his skin, and the leopard his spots, before Shakspeare will grow obsolete with us. He looked on man, and at once became master of the inmost recesses of his soul, as it were by intuition. He saw the defects of character at once, as well as the brighter parts; and all the advantages, as well as the absurdities of customs and laws, he struck off as though each one had been the study of his life. There is no variety of character in the lists of men, that he did not portray at full length, or give its semblance by profile, glance, or shadow. Sometimes he painted with care, and at other times he traced with a hurried, but unerring hand. The Dramatic Muse brought him to the great fountain of her inspirations, and as he bent to quaff the waters, he saw all the natural, moral, politi

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cal, and intellectual world, reflected in the pure mirror, which attracted his vision; aye, and other worlds beyond this, were there also for he "exhausted worlds, and then imagined new."

The English language was at that time copious, and rich, but not precisely fixed; nor was the philosophy of its etymology very distinctly understood.

Shakspeare was, classically speaking, an uneducated man, for he had not been allowed to drink of the sweet fountains of ancient learning; but he lived at a period when much of this literature had been done into English, by learned men. He had devoured all the tales, romances, legends, and novels, that were to be found in English; nor did his reading stop there; he was also deeply read in such histories as were then extant, and he particularly studied biography. He is seldom wrong in an incident, act, or a matter of fact. He sometimes takes liberties with both, but he clearly shows you that he is master of both. When Shakspeare was a schoolboy, the press had been teeming with vernacular literature-either original productions or translations-for a century, and he had the advantage of all this. These works were sufficient to set him to thinking and writing, and his mind was free from all shackles. He knew nothing of the logic of the schoolmen, nor was he bound to regard their rules. He was indebted to no Alma Mater for nursing him in learning.

Shakspeare took his words from the common people, that is from all classes in the busy scenes of life, and from those books written for popular reading. He had but little assistance from dictionaries, for but few had turned their attention to the making of dictionaries, nor could this be expected, while a language was

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