obscurity of his language arises principally from his perpetual allusions to old customs and long-forgotten events; from his frequent use of cant phrases, quaint terms, snatches and burdens of popular songs; and from his general and unrestrained use of the vulgar tongue. In spite of these drawbacks and his frequent Latin expressions, he showed, however, undoubted talent and masterly skill in using the Saxon part of the language, and thus succeeded occasionally in writing whole pages which bear a closer resemblance to the English of our day than less idiomatic writing of much later authors. The book of the Sparrow, for instance, contains these stanzas, which bear but few traces of having been written in 1508:

It had a velvet cap,

And would sit in my lap,

And seek after small worms

And sometimes white bread crumbs.

A many times and oft,
Between my breasts soft
It would lie arest;

It was so propre and prest;
Sometimes would he gasp,

When he saw a wasp,

A fly or a gnat,

He would fly at that,

And prettily would he pant

When he saw an ant.

Lord, how he would pry

After the butterfly!

Lord, how he would hop

After the grasshop!

And when I said, Phip! Phip!

Then he would leap and skip,

Take me by the lip.

Phylip would seeke and take

All the fleas blake

That he could there espye

With his wanton eye."

It was left, however, to the exquisite fancy and musical diction of another poet to carry the English to its greatest height of perfection, whilst he himself lived on the shores of Mulla, surrounded by a people who spoke a foreign, barbarous, and most inharmonious language. Spenser earned his renown, too, in spite of the bad tools with which he had to work-a language not yet quite formed, and to which he rather injudiciously added unnecessary archaisms, while the style of his contemporaries underwent a change in the opposite direction. But the effects of this preference were as beneficial as his motives had been honorable. He took the language at a time when it was still rude and imperfect, hesitating, in many essential parts, between the Saxon and the Norman pronunciation, and by his genius moulded it so as to bring out all its latent riches and unsuspected musical harmony and beauty. A still greater difficulty, which he triumphantly overcame, and which served him as a means by which most to benefit his mothertongue, and of adding another remarkable instance of the influence which literature may exercise on national tongues, was the prevailing partiality for the ancient languages. They had but

just become known again, and to the charm of novelty and fashion were added the powerful attractions of literary treasures either newly discovered, or, at least, now first generally known. The sovereigns themselves shared this fondness. Anna Boleyn read Greek with facility and delight; and Queen Elizabeth replied in Greek to the address of a Polish ambassador. Criticism, on the other hand, was but in its infancy, and pedantry a prevailing fault, not of the studious and the learned, but of the courtier and the illiterate. Most injudicious attempts were made to introduce large numbers of Latin and Greek words; men were not satisfied with such additions to their own language as were necessary and useful, nor did they add according to some systematic method; but these importations from abroad were made at random, and frequently from a mere blind love for long, full-sounding expressions. This anomalous jargon was hailed by many influential men as a model of melody and refinement. They considered it a matter of national pride to imitate the scholars of the continent, who knew no other language but Latin for science and literature, and the English was threatened once more with the entire destruction of its power and original purity. A scholar of rank and influence, Sir Thomas Browne, who was himself by no means free from such vice, said that it would "soon become necessary to learn Latin in order to understand English, and a work would prove of equal facility in either." It was at this period that the English was enriched with words which ought for ever to preclude it from all complaint of long Spanish or German compounds, such as incomprehensibility, incommensurability, supererogatory, indivisibility, and thousands of the same stamp and length.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The English Reformers-Sir John Cheke-Roger Ascham-Thomas Wilson and early English Grammars-The Latinists of the age of James HookerMilton.

In this emergency two branches of literature especially came to the aid of the language, and employed their powerful influence to preserve the character of the national tongue from foreign aggression and injurious admixture. The fathers of English Reformation, from Wicliffe to Latimer, employed a language which addressed itself to the people, as it was used by men who had risen from the people, and felt attached to it by the strongest ties of love of their country and Christian zeal. They kept their works, therefore, remarkably free from Latin influence, and always preferred the vernacular in speaking and writing. Translations of the Bible came again into general use, familiarizing all with the Saxon forms of their idiom in its native simplicity and force, and thus establishing a standard which was in itself a protection and a safeguard against too general innovation. Anglo-Saxon authors were once more rescued from oblivion, and as the courage and the zeal of the Reformers rose with the aid they received at the hand of their bold and independent ancestors, their language was strengthened

ENGLISH REFORMERS.

183

by the frequent use of half-forgotten Saxon terms, which now resumed their former power, and soon obtained a strong hold upon the mind of the nation. It was, of course, especially among the uneducated classes in the agricultural districts of England, that the national idiom was thus preserved in a state of purity and stability, while the so-called intellectual orders of society went on ingrafting foreign and often heterogeneous elements. Still the English proper had thus become the language of religion; Protestant England regarded it with national. partiality and pious reverence. Wicliffe became as familiar to court, city, and country as Chaucer; and a better knowledge of his and similar works was soon considered essential to the character of a well-bred man.

These feelings were, of course, not without their effect upon Spenser, and caused, no doubt, his great love of the language of Chaucer, which, though slightly antiquated, was neither obsolete nor unfashionable. He boldly proclaimed his preference. He appealed from the vitiated taste of the court and the learned, to the good sense of the nation; he thought that significant words could not be degraded by passing through the lips of the people, and, with fixed purpose, formed his style after the homely, but venerable models of the great masters before him. Of the eminent success with which he availed himself of the fertility, pliancy, and harmony of the English, and of the influence he thus exercised on his native tongue, his world-wide fame gives ample evidence.

If equal honors did not fall to the share of others who labored with no less earnestness and love in the same good cause, the fault lies, partly at least, with the lawless state of