sidered as his own.' He, therefore, is very properly class ed among the principal writers of his age; and we do not regret the large space allotted by Mr. B. to extracts from the Chronicles of England,' the Description of England,' the Eruit of Times,' and the Golden Legend,' extremely voluminous works which from time to time issued from his press. Much less do we lament those which he has selected for our entertainment from the latter labours of our venerable printer, the Book of the Order of Chivalry or Knighthood,' Morte Arthur,' and the Book of the Feats of Arms,' written by a female, Christina of Pisa.

At the end of this article we are obliged to Mr. Burnett for a short, but sensible, Essay on the Subjects of Chivalry and Romance, and for a very just vindication of the latter from the illiberal and puritanical' censure of Roger Ascham, which has too long passed current among many men even of taste and judgment.

Fabian's silly and bigotted Chronicle The Concordance of Stories' (our treacherous, but unhappily only contemporary guide through the uncertain period of Richard the third's reign and the accession of Henry the seventh) is the next work brought to our notice.

We now arrive at a period of greater illumination. The reign of Henry the eighth is introduced by another essay of our author's, containing, in few words, a great deal of useful information, on the revival of letters.

The first personage to whom we are introduced after this, is no other than our old friend Froissart, who not only was not an English writer, but had died a century before. This article in fact is a misnomer. It ought to have been 'Lord Berners; and it is very extraordinary, as well as wholly irrelevant to the general plan of the work, that the short biographical notice annexed relates solely to Froissart, and that not one word is said on the subject of his translator.

Bishop Fischer, Sir Thomas More, Leland the antiquarian, Harding and Hall the chroniclers, Tyndale, Coverdale, and Rogers, the translators of the Bible, and lastly, the venerable Latimer, furnish the remaining articles under the head of Henry the eighth.

In giving an account of sir Thomas More's celebrated History of Edward the fifth and Richard the third' (his only English work,) we are very much pleased to find that Mr. Burnett is a convert to the arguments (in our opinion incontrovertible) adduced by Mr. Laing (See Appendix to Henry's History of England, Vol. 12) to disprove the vulgar story of the murder in the Tower. So strong are the prejudices of

mankind, and so high is the reverence for respectable authority, that we believe very few persons have yet been able to enter coolly and dispassionately on this curious contro

versy.

We will quote but one extract from the writings of this period. It will be sufficient as a specimen of the great improvement in language and is curious as a picture of the times. It is taken from a sermon of bishop Latimer's.

My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of 31, or 41. by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for an hundred sheep, and my mother milked 30 kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness, with himself and his horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the king's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the king's majesty now. He married my sisters with 51.or 20 nobles a-piece, so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours. And some alms he gave to the poor, and all this did he of the said farm. Where he that now hath it, payeth 161. by the year, or more, and is not able to do any thing for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor.

In my time my poor father was as diligent to teach me to shoot, as to learn me any other thing, and so I think other men did their children: he taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow, and not to draw with strength of arms as divers other nations do, but with strength of the body. I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength; as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger, for men shall never shoot well, except they be brought up in it: it is a worthy game, a wholesome kind of exercise, and much commended in physic.'

We have been very particular in our examination of the contents of this first volume; but must now pass over the two that remain more cursorily.

Sir John Cheke, provost of king's college, the celebrated reformer of Greek pronunciation, was no less a benefactor to his native language. He may be considered as one of the earliest methodical contributors to its perfection. He recommended and practised,' says Mr. B. a more minute attention to the meaning of words and phrases, and adopted a more skilful arrangement of them in composition. Before him, the sentences were long, and too frequently involved. He recommended and used short sentences; and thus he has the merit of introducing greater precision of language, more

perspicuity and force of style.' The only English work extant of this learned man is a tract entitled the Hurt of Sedition.' We have never seen it; but the extracts given by Mr. Burnett are highly admirable for strength and energy of style, for command of words, and for almost all the peculiar excellences of rhetoric.

The first systematically critical work in the language is Wilson's 'Art of Rhetoric'published in the first year of queen Mary. The style does not appear to be answerable to the precepts it is intended to convey; but, under the head of simplicity, we find, by his reprehension of the practice, that the affectation of Italianated English' had already become very prevalent. However good Wilson's intentions were, he certainly did not succeed in checking the mania.

It is not very easy to estimate the advantages which have accrued to literature from the reformation throughout Europe, but most especially in England. These advantages were not indeed immediately apparent; for the polemical contests to which the opinions of Luther and Calvin gave birth, though they tended ultimately to enlarge the human understanding, yet for a time impeded the progress of the fine arts and of all the softer and more agreeable branches of science. The reign of Elizabeth,a period equally proud and glorious to Englishmen,whether considered with reference to religion, politics or literature, removed every remaining barrier to intellectual acquirements. From this period, says Mr. Burnett, we trace the regular and orderly march of society in improvement; and from this period, to the revolution, no country has produced a series of more illustrious writers than England.' Under Elizabeth, our language becomes fixed and regular; nor can it be too often impressed on the minds of English students that this is the classical æra of our literature, and that, however we may admire the polished works of a later period, we cannot too diligently or constantly attend to the illustrious models here presented us.

But as weeds are nourished by the same soil which produces the fairest flowers, so some of those corruptions of style which we have before noticed kept pace with the improvements of the age, and in the reign of Elizabeth's successor, far outstripped them. Roger Ascham inveighs still more bitterly than Wilson against the habits, characters, and language which our English travellers brought with them out of Italy; and, to corroborate his assertions, gives somewhat a loose translation of what he tells us was a common Italian proverb. Englese Italianato è un Diabolo incarnato:

that is to say, you remain men in shape and fashion, but become devils in life and condition." We wish our limits would permit us to copy more of this curious invective, which comprises a great deal of historical information respecting our language. Roger Ascham is followed in this collection, by Fox, the author of the Book of Martyrs, and Holinshed, the Chronicler.

We should be happy, were it in our power, to concur with Mr. Burnett and with the critic whose authority he quotes (p. 152. Vol. 2.) respecting the interest attached to sir Phi lip Sidney's Arcadia. We will agree that his style, though not free from affectation, is deserving of praise, and, under certain restrictions, of imitation; but we really cannot delight in the story itself,' nor do we feel assured that the fault is in ourselves and not in the book.'

We

Every man has it in his power to refer to works of so general circulation as those of Spenser, Ralegh, Camden, Bacon, &c. in the second, of Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Clarendon, Cowley, Boyle, Barrow, Temple, Tillotson, and indeed of almost all the writers included in the third volume. cannot help thinking, therefore, that Mr. Burnett might have spared many of his voluminous extracts from these authors without injuring the consistency of his general plan. Our few remaining observations will now be confined to some of his less notorious articles.

John Lilly was the author of many comedies and of a kind of moral satire in prose entitled "Euphues," a work much in fashion in its day and the subject of frequent allusions among the wits and poets. We have a most singular instance of its celebrity in the words of Blount, the editor of six of his comedies, who asserts" that the nation was indebted to our author for a new English which he taught them in his Euphues; and that all the ladies of that time were his scholars; she who spoke not Euphucism being as little regarded at court, as if she could not speak English." In the present age he will be more justly considered as one of the principal corruptors of our style; and his ill-founded popularity in no small degree extended the mischief of his writings.

Mr. Burnett appears to have justly estimated the extraordinary value of Hooker's labours when he says ' I consider the Ecclesiastical Polity as by far the most important work which had appeared prior to Lord Bacon.' After making some further observations on the general character of the performance, and after quoting the celebrated exclamation of pope Clement VIII.when the first book only had been read to

him.

There is no learning that this man has not searched into;' he concludes by saying that as a composition, it presents the first example in the language, of strict methodical arrangement, and of clear logical reasoning.'

The literary character of the reign of James the first, its extensive learning, its intolerable pedantry, is very accurately and ably drawn. However we may ridicule the conceit of affectation which prevailed during this period, and which the example of the monarch encouraged if it did not introduce, we should never forget the high and important obligations which we owe to the literature of this very period. Ought not sir Edward Coke to have been included among the writers here noticed? a stronger instance both of the learning and of the absurdity alike characteristic of the age, cannot any where be found.

Speed, the chronicler, is perhaps most remarkable as deserving the following encomium of Mr. Tyrrel's. "He was the first English writer, who slighting Geoffrey's tales, immediately fell upon more solid matter, giving us a large account of the history of this island,during the time of the Roman emperors and English Saxon kings.' The eulogy of bishop Nicholson is more general, but perhaps equally merited.

The learned Spelman affords materials for an interesting article; and another very amusing one is formed out of the absurdities of bishop Andrews, who was perhaps the model whom South held up to his imitation, in respect of punning. Both were equally the fashion of the court and of the age; but in point of real worth, Andrews can by no means endure a comparison with his follower.

To those who have been accustomed to consider Donne and Ben Jonson only as poets, the extracts here given from their prose works will be acceptable. Jonson's style, in particular, is well deserving of close attention, though not of indiscriminate imitation. The great antiquaries, Cotton and Seiden, Purchas, the laborious compiler of the Pilgrimage,' and Burton, the quaint, humorous, and entertaining author of the Anatomy of Melancholy,' close the splendid catalogue of this important period.

We had forgotten the majesty of Great Britain' itself, which Mr. Burnett's readers may perhaps grudge even the seven short pages allotted it.

In the mean while, however, we have ourselves allotted to Mr. Burnett's two first volumes so large a space in our Review, that we are obliged to close our criticism without extending it more minutely into the contents of the third. What we have already examined is, however, by far the most