always through going contrary to the sorcerer's counsel. Merlin warns Arthur not to marry Guenever; and it is the bad conduct of Queen Guenever and the treachery of his most trusted friend that ruins his home. His life has been a failure. The hated Saxons whom he hoped to drive ignominiously from the land of Britain have prevailed against him. Worn out, not so much by age as by grief and disappointment, he meets death in battle. Having a mortal wound, he withdraws a space to die, attended only by his faithful knight, Sir Bedever. His last care is for his magic sword Excalibur. The scene as portrayed by Tennyson in "The Passing of Arthur" is one of the most thrilling and touching in the entire realm of romance. The casting of the mighty blade afar over the bosom of the lake, its being seized before it touches the water by an arm thrust forth to draw it down, and the death of the ancient hero at the same moment, seem to mark at once the end of a life, of an entire world of enchantment, of an empire and even of a race of men; for the ancient Briton has now no place among the nations, except as his blood may survive among the Welsh and Cornishmen, and across the channel, whither fled a few fugitives who gave its name to Brittany in France. CHAPTER IX. THE TRANSITION PERIOD. N leaving the somewhat barren fifteenth century for the rich and abounding sixteenth, our notice is attracted by a group of poets who belong to both. The first of these, John Skelton (1460-1529), was a writer of great spirit and of considerable learning, to the latter of which attributes we have Caxton's testi mony when he says of him that he had translated from the Latin: Not in rude and olde langage, but in polysshed and ornate terms 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 understand theyr musicalle scyences, and to whom of theym each scyence is appropred. I suppose he hath dronken of Elycon's well. Skelton was "laurel-crowned," not only at the English university, but also at Louvain, in Flanders. He became a priest, but did not on that account restrain his fearless pen, which satirized coarsely and without mercy the follies of the court, the oppression of the poor, the exactions of the church, and the pride and haughtiness of Cardinal Wolsey. During the early years of the sixteenth century, Skelton was in favor at court (being tutor to Prince Henry, afterward Henry VIII.), and also enjoyed the patronage of Wolsey; but after his satire, "Colin Clout" and "Why come ye not to court?" the great prelate's friendship turned to enmity, and the poet was forced to take sanctuary in Westminister, where he died.* The next three names in this "transitional literature" * The peculiarities of Skelton's style may be shown by a quotation from his elegy on the death of " Phyllyp Sparrow," a favorite bird killed by a cat: O cat of carlyshe [churlish] kinde, The lyons in theyr rage, Myght catche the' in theyr pawes, belong to Scotland. The first of these, William Dunbar (1460-1520), was thought by Sir Walter Scott to be the greatest of all Scottish poets, and has been called "the Chaucer of the North." He began life as a Franciscan friar, and begged his bread from door to door, preaching as he went. Afterward, finding this kind of life for him full of hypocrisy, he laid aside his friar's gown and was employed on diplomatic service for the king (James IV. of Scotland), and in this way visited many foreign countries. He received a small pension from the king, and although he groans, as did Spenser at a later period, over the necessity of securing support by servility, the income thus gained enabled him to devote his days to literature. His most famous works are "The Thistle and the Rose," a graceful wedding-song upon the marriage of King James IV. with Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII.; "The Golden Terge" (targe, target or shield), an allegorical poem; and a coarse but vigorous satire, "The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins." Dunbar is supposed to have died about 1530. Gavin (or Gawain) Douglas (1475-1522), son of “Archibald Bell-the-Cat" who appears in such picturesque guise in Scott's "Marmion," was born at a somewhat later date than either of the two last mentioned. He entered the He is best known church and became bishop of Dunkeld. for the first translation into English verse of Virgil's "Æneid." This work was finished just after the battle of Flodden, in which two of the poet's brothers were killed. He died in London of the plague in 1521. Sir David Lindsay, who lived from about 1490 to 1555, is the third of the famous Scottish trio. He was a bold satirist and, belonging himself to the governing class, his denunciations of the corruption prevailing in it are the more striking. The young prince, afterward James V. of Scotland, was placed in his care from the hour of his birth; and in Lindsay's earnest appeal to the king for right and justice for others, he touchingly reminds him of this. He tells him, in his poem of "Lindsay's Dream," how tenderly he carried him in his arms till he began to gang (walk), wrapped him up warmly in bed and told him old stories.* Now, he says, he will tell him a new story, and under the usual guise of an allegory he sets forth the tyranny of the great over the humble, and pictures the misery that had come upon the people from the neglect of their king, their natural protector. All this, however, had little effect on a young man who had been trained from infancy by those about him to self-indulgence and disregard of his people's rights. Sir David Lindsay has been called the poet of the Scottish Reformation, and undoubtedly did much toward encouraging that change by the force of his verse. Still is thy name in high account, And still thy verse has charms, -WALTER SCOTT. Writers of lesser note during this same period (covering the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries) were Alexander Barclay (died 1552), whose "Ship of Fools" gained him some credit in its day; and Stephen Hawes, who wrote a dull poem called "The Pastime of Pleasure," and several others; all of small value. To the same century belong the fine old ballads collected by Bishop Percy at a later time, and including such poems as "Chevy Chase," "The Nut- Brown Maid,” and many others which, being learned by rote and repeated from one generation to another, helped to make the dull hours of the ignorant less dreary, and to infuse a spirit of refinement * Quhen thou was young, I bure the in myne arm, And in thyne bed oft happit the full warme. + Head of the Herald's College in Scotland. into their coarse and sordid lives. It is of one of these that Sir Philip Sidney writes: "I never heard the old song of 'Percie and Douglas' that I found not my heart moved more than with the sound of a trumpet." With the reign of Henry VIII. we begin upon the true sixteenth-century literature. The names of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Lord Surrey in poetry, and Sir Thomas More and William Tyndale in prose, stamp the first half of this century with their own peculiar mark; not of greatness like that of the Elizabethian period, but of an emerging from the confused language of the Middle Ages into a style and manner now accepted as the beginning of modern literature. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42), called "The Elder" to distinguish him from a son who was executed for being concerned in a rebellion against Queen Mary, leads, in point of time, the writers of his century. His name is linked with that of his fellow-poet, Lord Surrey, who, though fourteen years younger than himself, was his intimate friend and fellow-worker. Surrey acknowledges the elder poet as his "master," and some ten years after his death their works were published in the same volume, Surrey's being placed first, probably from respect to his higher rank. To the two together belongs the distinction of raising English verse to a loftier place in the matter of melody and rhythm than it had ever known before. Both had spent much time in Italy, and become inspired with the musical literature of that country; Wyatt was the first to introduce into English verse the true Italian sonnet, though that honor has often been given to Lord Surrey, who also used the new measure. Wyatt's sonnets, however, conform more exactly to the requirements of the Italian model, which is very strict in its rules. His poems are all short, and abound in grace and tenderness, though marred by the "conceits" or affectations which at that time were thought indispensable to fine writing. |