One of held high rank among men of learning. Grocyn's pupils, Sir Thomas More-the same More whom Henry VIII. sent to the scaffold-is the author of Utopia, a work in Latin, descriptive of an imaginary commonwealth, from which the epithet of "utopian is now applied to fanciful political schemes. Although education was not general, yet in a select circle of scholarly taste or exalted rank the standard was high. Lady Jane Grey, who spoke, as well as wrote, Greek, Latin, Italian, and French, and also understood Hebrew and Arabic, was especially renowned for her learning. When found at home reading Plato, while the rest of the household were out hunting, she accounted for her love of books by saying that her parents were so harsh and severe, that she was never happy except when with her tutor, who was always gentle and pleasant. Henry VIII., himself a good. scholar, had his children carefully taught. Sir John Cheke, one of the tutors of Edward VI., was the first professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge. He was a Protestant, but in Mary's reign recanted to save himself from burning, and pined to death with shame at his own weakness. Queen Elizabeth could speak Greek fairly, Latin fluently, and French and Italian as readily as her mother-tongue; and these acquirements she kept up after she had ascended the throne, reading with her tutor Roger Ascham for some hours daily. Among the learned men who graced the reigns of Elizabeth and James was William Camden, author of the Britannia, an account of the British Isles written in Latin. He founded in the University of Oxford an historical lecture, still called after him the Camden professorship. Francis Bacon, successively created Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans, who has already been spoken of as Lord Chancellor, stands intellectually, though not morally, among the greatest of mankind. The philosophical work on which his fame rests is in Latin; but to ordinary readers he is best known by his English Essays, a name which he was the first to give to that species of composition. The finest of the Elizabethan prose authors was Richard Hooker, Master of the Temple, who defended the established form of Church government against the Puritans. Two of Elizabeth's favourite courtiers held literary rank-Sir Philip Sidney, author of the Arcadia, a half chivalrous, half pastoral romance, which, though to modern taste tedious, was long exceedingly popular; and Sir Walter Ralegh, who, while a prisoner in the Tower, employed himself in the laborious undertaking of writing a History of the World. This however he never finished. Sidney is also the author of An Apology for Poetry, in which he defends poetry, plays, and fictitious writing generally against the attacks of the Puritan party. Much both of the poetry and prose of the time is marred by a strained and fantastic style, of which the great master was John Lyly, from whose story of Euphues it has got its name of Euphuism. 10. Poetry and the Drama.-Sir Thomas Wyatt, father of the insurgent Wyatt of Queen Mary's reign, and the ill-fated Earl of Surrey, who died on the scaffold in 1547, were the leaders of a school of poets who followed Italian models. Surrey, a graceful and polished writer, though hardly a man of genius, was the first to use, in his translation of the Æneid, what we now call blank verse. To the Italian school also belonged the great Elizabethan poet, Edmund Spenser, author of the Faery Queen, a long though unfinished tale of chivalrous adventure, veiling a religious and political allegory. Spenser's poem represents the wide range of thought of the Elizabethan age-in it the old knightly romances are mixed up with fictions borrowed from the classical poets, and with the Protestant ideas of his own time. His was the form of Protestantism which adored Elizabeth and hated the power of Rome, and Mary Queen of Scots as the championess of that power, but which had nothing of the Puritan austerity and hostility to episcopacy. The age was fertile in poets, among whom Sidney may again be mentioned as a writer of graceful love poems; and some of the most spirited of the English ballads belong to the reigns of Elizabeth and James. Dramatic art Of the earliest was now making an advance. attempts, the mysteries and miracle plays, we have specimens as old as the time of Edward III. These, which were acted in churchyards or streets, were rude representations of Biblical stories, and in the days of few books and little general education, were thought useful for teaching Scripture history to the people. Next came the moralities, allegorical dramas, which were distinguished by the introduction of a character called the Vice, who played a part much like that of Punch in the puppet-shows. The first regular English comedy, Ralph Roister Doister, was composed probably as early as the reign of Henry VIII., by Nicholas Udal, master first of Eton, and afterwards of Westminster School, who was wont to write plays for his scholars to act. This piece gave a picture of the manners of the London gallants and citizens. Elizabeth the taste spread; the first theatres, rude buildings, open, except above the stage, to the weather, were erected; and a school of playwrights sprang up. Some of these early dramatists show great power; but they have all been thrown into the shade by William Shakspere, the greatest name in English literature. Little is known of his life beyond the mere outline. Born in 1564 at Stratford-uponAvon, where his father was a well-to-do townsman, became an actor and playwright, holding a share in the Blackfriars theatre, which was built in 1576. He was also one of the proprietors of the Globe theatre on the Bankside, which was built in 1594. Retiring in his latter days to his native town, he there Under he died in 1616. In the deep knowledge of human nature which his dramas display, no other has ever approached him; and he is further distinguished by his healthy moral tone, and by the national spirit which pervades his historical plays. In them is expressed the fearless temper of the generation which drove back the Armada, and its pride in its sovereign and its country, "this royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle." After Shakspere, though far below him, stands Benjamin, or as he is always called, Ben, Jonson. Other contemporary dramatists of repute were Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who wrote in concert, and so identified themselves with each other that it is almost impossible to distinguish their respective shares in their joint work. They represent the tone of thought and the type of men of the court of James I. Fletcher appears also to have had the honour of being a coadjutor of Shakspere; the greater part of the play of Henry VIII., which goes under Shakspere's name, is believed to have been the work of Fletcher. After Beaumont's death in 1615, Fletcher was assisted by Philip Massinger, another of the great dramatic poets of the Elizabethan school. Massinger, who died in the reign of Charles I., is best remembered by his character of Sir Giles Overreach. This was meant for Sir Giles Mompesson, a fraudulent monopolist, who was impeached by the Commons in 1621. CHAPTER XXXIII. CHARLES I. Charles I.; Henrietta Maria; Petition of Right; murder of Buckingham; Sir John Eliot (1)—Wentworth and Laud; the Star Chamber (2)—ship-money (3)—the Long Parliament; beheading of Strafford (4)—the Irish Rebellion; the Grand Remonstrance; the Five Members; the Civil War; Presbyterians and Independents; Oliver Cromwell; battles of Marston Moor and Naseby; Charles given up by the Scots (5) -the Covenant; beheading of Laud (6)—the army; the Second Civil War (7)—“ Pride's Purge"; the High Court of Justice (8)-trial and beheading of the King (9)-his children (10). 1. Charles I., 1625-1649. The Petition of Right. Shortly after his accession the young King married Henrietta Maria, daughter of the great Henry IV. of France-an alliance which, though less hateful than one with Spain, was yet not liked, as the bride was a Roman Catholic. Charles himself, dignified in his bearing, well conducted, and religious, was welcomed as a great improvement on his predecessor; but events soon showed that his father's maxims of arbitrary authority had sunk deep into his heart. The strife between King and Parliament began at once; for while the King wanted money for war with Spain, the Parliament wanted redress of grievances and the removal of Buckingham, who was more powerful than ever. After dissolving two Parliaments within the space of a year, Charles had recourse to arbitrary methods of raising money, until a petty and mismanaged war on behalf of the French Protestants so increased his difficulties that he had to summon a third Parliament. This, by granting him five subsidies (taxes levied on every subject according to the value of his lands or goods), obtained his assent to its Petition of Right, by which the recent illegal practices -arbitrary taxes and imprisonment, forced billetings of soldiers upon the people, exercise of martial law-were condemned (June 7, 1628). Emboldened by victory. the Commons presented a remonstrance against the excessive power of Buckingham as the chief cause of the national calamities;-words which had a terrible effect, for about two months later the Duke, then at Portsmouth making ready for an expedition against |