"Caxton was," it is said, "a man of plain understanding, but of great enthusiasm in the cause of literature." He translated, or wrote, about sixty different books, all of which went through his own press before his death, in

1491.

IT

CHAPTER V.

ELIZABETHAN AGE, AND SPENSER.

T has been fairly observed that " of what is commonly called our Elizabethan literature, the greater portion appertains to the reign, not of Elizabeth, but of James, to the seventeenth, not to the sixteenth century; but as it sprung up in the reign of Elizabeth, and was mainly the product of influences which belong to that age, the common name is the just and proper one. It was born and ripened by that sunny morning of a new day, 'Great Eliza's golden time,' when the growing power and prosperity of England had reassured and elevated the national heart." Let us look musingly backward down the long vista of years, and behold in fancy that "golden time" of "Great Eliza." We may see, as in a gorgeous panorama, the splendid court of England's Virgin Queen: the grand presence-chamber, strewn with rushes and adorned with the costly decorations of the time; the "fair Vestal throned by the West," refulgent in jewels and stately in starch and powder; the courtly throng of knights and ladies; Leicester, shrewd, handsome, and unscrupulous, presuming equally on the admiring tenderness of the woman and the golden favor of the queen, and bending low in courtly gallantry to whisper honeyed flatteries, so near that "his breath thaws her ruff." Essex, too, is here, blunt, loyal, and brave, and basking in the yet unclouded smile of his royal mistress. Raleigh, young,

rash, and impetuous, wearing with careless grace his mudsoiled mantle, still elate with his first draught of regal favor, and fain to climb," although he "fall," is here. Spenser has but just come modestly up to court under the wing of Sidney. A few books of the "Faery Queen" are singing a sweet under-song to themselves in his doublet. Sidney, "the spirit without spot," the flower of knighthood and manhood, the wonder of whom it might well be said that "Nature lost the perfect mould," and might never bless the world with a counterpart, graces and adorns the scene.

The pageant fades; knights, lords, and ladies are but "such stuff as dreams are made of," and have long since mouldered in dust. Good Queen Bess has herself “lain down with kings;" but her golden age shall be honored from generation to generation till earth is hoar, for then it was that Nature, assaying through long centuries in her mystic laboratory, brought forth at last the wonder of all time; the immortal bard who foreruns the ages, "anticipating all that shall be said," - our Shakespeare! The chief glory of the Elizabethan age is its poetry, which exceeds in quality and quantity that of any other age in the annals of English literature.

In a catalogue of good authority no less than two hundred poets are referred to that period.

In the poetry of this age fable, fiction, and fancy predominate, and a predilection for thrilling adventures and pathetic events. The cause of this characteristic distinc

tion is thus explained:

"When the corruptions of popery were abolished, the fashion of cultivating the Greek and Roman learning became universal; classic literature, being liberally diffused by the press, served to excite a taste for elegant reading in lower branches of society than had ever before felt the

general influence of letters. The literary character, now no longer appropriated to scholars by profession, was assumed by the nobility and gentry. An accurate comprehension of the phraseology and peculiarities of the ancient poets was, we are told, an indispensable object in the circle of a gentleman's education. Every young lady of fashion was carefully instructed in classical letters, and the daughter of a duchess was taught, not only to distil strong waters, but to construe Greek." Queen Elizabeth's passion for these acquisitions is well known. Roger Ascham, her preceptor, speaks with rapture of her astonishing progress in the Greek nouns, and boasts that "she was accustomed to read more Greek in a day than some canons of Windsor did Latin in one week."

The books of antiquity being thus familiarized to the great, everything was tinctured with ancient history and mythology. It is said that "when the queen paraded through a country town, almost every pageant was a Pantheon. When she paid a visit at the house of any of her nobility, at entering the hall she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy chamber by Mercury. At dinner for even the pastry-cooks were expert mythologists select transformations of Ovid's Metamorphoses' were exhibited in confectionery; and the splendid icing of an immense historic plum-cake was embossed with a delicious basso-relievo of the destruction of Troy.

"In the afternoon, when she condescended to walk in the park, the lake was covered with tritons and nereids.

"The pages of the family were converted into woodnymphs, who peeped from every bower, and the footmen gambolled over the lawn in the figure of satyrs.

"The next morning, after sleeping in a room hung with the tapestry of the voyage of Æneas, when her Majesty hunted in the park she was met by Diana, who, pronouncing

the royal prude to be the brightest paragon of unspotted chastity, invited her to groves free from the intrusion of Acteon. When she rode through the streets of Norwich, Cupid, at the command of the mayor and aldermen, advancing from a group of gods who had obligingly left Olympus to grace the procession, gave her a golden arrow, the most effective weapon of his well-furnished quiver,— which, under the influence of such irresistible charms, was sure to wound the most obdurate heart. . . . A gift," says the honest historian, "which her Majesty, now verging to her fiftieth year, received very thankfully."

This inundation of classic pedantry had an immediate effect upon English literature, enriching the language by a greater variety of words from the classic tongues, establishing better models of thought and style, and allowing greater freedom to fancy and the powers of observation. "Our poets," observes Warton, "were suddenly dazzled with these novel imaginations, and the divinities and heroes of pagan antiquity decorated every composition." The translation of the classics, which now employed every pen, gave a currency and celebrity to these fancies.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth almost all the poets were either courtiers themselves or under the immediate protection of courtiers; whatever, then, there was, refined, gay, or sentimental, in England at this time came with its full influence upon poetry. Elizabeth herself, among her many weaknesses and vanities, is said to have had the desire of shining as a poetess. The praises which the courtiers and writers of that age lavished upon her for her classical attainments she really deserved; but their admiration of her royal ditties was probably about as just as the flatteries bestowed on her beauty.

The queen, being herself addicted to poetical composition, was pleased to fill her court with men qualified to