over to the Reformed Church. Soon we find Latimer as king's chaplain preaching at the court, and petitioning the king to allow the people to read the Bible for themselves. 15. But Latimer soon grew weary of the court, and when the king made him rector of a parish in Leicestershire, he no doubt gladly retired to country life. There he preached so boldly that he was excommunicated; but when his friend Cranmer became Archbishop of Canterbury, Latimer was made Bishop of Worcester. He had always till then been a great favourite with the king; but when an attempt was made to bring back many Roman Catholic forms of worship, Latimer, who was too honest to agree to what he felt was wrong, gave up his bishopric, and for a time led a silent, lonely life as a prisoner in the Tower. 16. When Edward the Sixth became king, Cranmer was at the head of the Church; so Latimer was released, and once more preached at court in the king's chapel or garden, or at St. Paul's, where people flocked to hear him, enjoying the good stories he told in his sermons, as well as respecting his honesty and earnestness. When the young king died, Latimer was away from London, but was summoned at once to appear before Queen Mary. He went boldly and cheerfully forth to what he knew would be certain death, and when asked to sign articles of belief in the Roman Catholic faith, steadily refused. So along with his old friend, Archbishop Cranmer, and Ridley, Bishop of London, Latimer, an old man of sixty, was sent to Oxford jail. 17. After sixteen months' imprisonment, all three were burned at the stake-first Latimer and Ridley together, and then Cranmer. Even then the brave heart did not falter, for, seeing some one bring a faggot and cast it at the feet of Ridley, Latimer called out, "Be of good comfort, brother Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." 18. And perhaps they did; for men who saw or heard of such brave dying for the truth must have learned how precious that truth was, and have begun to make the beautiful soul which English literature afterwards became. Meanwhile two men were beginning to find out a beautiful body for this soul-I mean a fine form for the fine thoughts of great Englishmen. These men were THOMAS WYATT and the EARL OF SURREY, and they found the beautiful form in Italian literature, of which they both were students. They wrote the first sonnets in the English language, borrowing the form from Petrarch and other Italian poets. 19. These sonnets were poems of fourteen lines, with four rhymes recurring according to regular order. They were generally, like Petrarch's sonnets, addressed to some special person. Surrey chose as his heroine a little Irish lady who was the pet of the court of the Princess Mary. Her name was Elizabeth, but the poet calls her Geraldine. Another kind of verse which the Earl of Surrey was the first to use was blank That, too, was borrowed from Italy. It is very like Chaucer's verse, but does not rhyme, so is called "blank." Into this new kind of verse Surrey translated part of Virgil's great Latin poem, the "Æneid." verse. CHAPTER VIII. THE ELIZABETHAN POETRY. 1. We come now to what is usually thought the most brilliant period of English literature-the great Elizabethan age, for which the time immediately before had been a preparation. We have seen how the search for truth and the religious struggles and persecutions had made the English people bolder thinkers, and ready to suffer if need were for their religious faith. The spread of Greek and Italian literature, and the printing and republishing of old English poems and ballads, together with the wonderful stories of new lands, quickened the imagination of the people, and gave them new food for their thoughts. Added to all this was a feeling of strong love and devotion to queen and country, called out by the dangers of England and the strong and wise government of Elizabeth. All these thoughts and feelings burst into flowers of different forms of literature--poetry, plays, travels, histories, romances, and religious works. Besides the greater works of each kind there were little short ripples of song, afterwards collected and published as books, under such titles as The Paradise of Dainty Devices, or Tottel's Miscellany. 2. One of the greatest poets of Elizabeth's or of any time was EDMUND SPENSER. When Elizabeth became queen, Spenser was a little boy of about six years old, living with his parents near the Tower of London. When he was a school-boy at Merchant Taylors' School, Philip the Second of Spain was cruelly persecuting the Protestants in Holland. Many sought refuge in England, and one of them became very friendly with the boy Spenser and his parents, and no doubt added to the lad's dislike of the Roman Catholics by stories of the Duke of Alva's1 cruelty to the Dutch Protestants. 3. We know that Spenser's parents were not wealthy, because when the boy Edmund went to Cambridge, he went as a sizar2 or poor scholar. When he was twenty-one he took his degree, and some years later he left college to go to the north as tutor. No doubt while he was at Cambridge he had been greatly interested in the exciting events that were then taking place in the outside world of England and Europe,-such as the massacre of the Protestants on St. Bartholomew's day in Paris, the many attempts to set Mary Queen of Scots on the throne, and the Duke of Alva's persecution of the Dutch Protestants. Probably he would go to the divinity lectures of a professor who preached strongly against the Catholics, and all this would help the old dislike of Roman Catholics that afterwards showed itself so strongly both in his life and in his writings. 4. Spenser's great friend at Cambridge was Gabriel Harvey. Harvey remained as lecturer at Cambridge after Spenser left; and when the queen visited a place in the neighbourhood, Harvey was presented to her, and also made the acquaintance of the Earl of Leicester and Sir Philip Sidney, Leicester's nephew. Soon afterwards, we find first Harvey and then his 1 Duke of Alva, Spanish governor of the Netherlands. Born 1508; died 1582. 2 Sizar, one who served out the sizes, or rations of food. friend Spenser in the service of the Earl of Leicester, the favourite courtier of Queen Elizabeth. 5. When Spenser was in the north, he had probably planned his first published poem, The Shephearde's Calendar. It is a series of pastorals dedicated to the noble and virtuous gentleman "Maister Philip Sidney." A pastoral is a story of shepherd life. Spenser borrowed the idea from the Italian and French poets. The queen and many of Spenser's friends appear in the poems as shepherdesses and shepherds, and in their meetings on the downs, Spenser makes them talk of the great questions of the times, such as the disputes about Church government. Some pretty songs are introduced in the poem. 6. When he was twenty-eight years of age, Spenser, through his friend Sidney, got the post of secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, and from that time Ireland became his home. It must have been a change from the gay London court life, with such friends as Sidney and Leicester, to the country life in a wild part of Ireland, with but little society save that of one true friend-Sir Walter Ralegh. But perhaps Spenser found more time to write. He had already planned out his great poem, The Faerie Queene, and in six years' time, when he visited London, he brought with him the three first books. Spenser's friend Ralegh was then at court, and through him Spenser was introduced to the queen, and got permission to dedicate his poem to her. Next year the poem was published, and at once took the first place in the poems of the time. Some of Spenser's shorter poems soon appeared. 7. Meanwhile the poet had gone back to Ireland to his work, and to write more poems. One dedicated to Sir Walter Ralegh is another pastoral, called Colin Clout's Come Home Again. Colin Clout was the shepherd in The Shephearde's Calendar, who represented Spenser himself. In it Spenser tells of his visit to London and the court, praising the queen in very beautiful language, as it was the fashion of that time to do; for the queen represented to the people all the brightness, power, and glory of that great age. Speaking of the queen in one place, he says,— "Yet will I think of her, yet will I speak, As long as life my limbs doth hold together; We 8. About this time Spenser met the lady whom he afterwards married. She, too, like the queen, was named Elizabeth. know most about her from the beautiful sonnets in which Spenser speaks of his love for her, only, but of mind and character. and of her beauty, not of face In one verse he says,- "Men call you fair, and you do credit it, But the true fair, that is the gentle wit And virtuous mind, is much more praised of me.” 9. The sonnets end with a beautiful marriage song which Spenser wrote as a gift for his bride on their wedding morning |