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culation of his works. In his own time, and in the next century, and even later, his "Confessio Amantis was highly esteemed when Chaucer was neglected; just as at a later day Ben Jonson superseded Shakspeare.

Though poetry was the popular form of literature in the fourteenth century, it was not altogether deficient in prose. The best specimen is doubtless that of Chaucer, as illustrated in his "Persones Tale." Some passages are quite racy, and show a fresh, hearty vigor, that is hardly surpassed during the next century. The language was used with no little power by Wycliffe and his followers, and in the political discussions of the time. A treatise against miracle plays, near the close of this century, printed in the "Reliquiæ Antiquæ," has a rude strength and vigor of thought that are worthy of our notice, but the language is evidently too much for the writer. He cannot handle it with ease, however earnest may have been in his convictions.

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The English language, considered as the result of various physical and intellectual elements, was now established. The changes subsequently made were due to causes already in operation and to such intellectual and moral influences as might be exerted on it from without. The rejection of inflections, and the reduction of its orthography to a similar and uniform system, continued for the next three centuries, steadily decreasing with the necessity in order to the greatest simplicity and power of individual words; while a true English idiom gradually became more and more flexible in the spoken language of the people. The latter process was disturbed by the revival of the classics and the introduction of a large number of Latin words at the time of the reformation, but only temporarily.

CHAPTER X.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

General Spirit of this Century - James I. of Scotland -Lydgate Bishop Pecock-Sir John Fortescue Malory's Morte Arthur Its Prose - The Paston Letters - William Caxton, the great English Printer — Character of the Works he printed The Gallicisms of his Style - End of Old English - Extract from Hallam.

THE century succeeding Chaucer, the fifteenth, was little favorable to literature or to language in consequence of the civil dissensions of the times. The specimens of prose and verse extant show that the changes for the better, so rapid in the former period, were greatly hindered, yet not wholly so. A few names are worthy of mention, as James I. of Scotland, Lydgate, Bishop Pecock, and Chief Justice Fortescue. The first two exhibit a good command of the laws of versification, and James I. has a good deal of merit as a poet, though his orthography was not such as to improve our English diction. Lydgate was a man of great learning, well versed in French and Italian literature, and a most prolific writer. In this way he did something to improve the language by additions to its vocabulary. Most critics, however, will hardly concur with Warton in saying that "he is the first of our writers, whose style is clothed with that

perspicuity, in which English phraseology appears at this day to an English reader." 1

The work of Pecock, "The Repression of over much blaming of the clergy," was written about 1450; and intended as a defence of the church against the Wycliffites. It is said by Marsh to be "if not the first, yet certainly the ablest specimen of philosophical argumentation which had yet appeared in the English tongue." The style and the vocabulary are so much like the writings of Wycliffe in the former century, and like Hooker a century and a half later, as to be proof of the existence of a distinctive theological dialect in the English language. Fortescue used the language to set forth the grounds of law and civil government so as to give proof of much legal knowledge, a clear head, and a sound mind.

Two other works are deserving of mention in their relation to the growth of the language. One of these is the "Morte Arthur," a translation from various French sources of the romance of Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory. Taken all in all, his prose is the best English of the century. He shows great mastery of expression, a good deal of animation, and, in many passages, an easy flowing style, sometimes rising to beauty and elegance. His language is conformed to the Saxon idiom, and in its vocabulary is more purely Saxon than most writers of the time, and he seems to have understood better than most the power and beauty of choice words.

The other work to which we have referred is a collection of letters, almost the first, if not really the first specimen of the kind in modern literature. They were 1 ii. p. 362. See also ii. 369.

2 Hippisley's Early English Literature, p. 237.

written in an easy idiomatic style, on matters of common life, by persons of some cultivation, and of course without any thought of the press. In regard to orthography they are of little value; their merit lies in the easy structure of the sentence, and in the naturalness and truthfulness of the style to the matter in hand. In these respects these letters have no rival in their time, and would lead to the suspicion that they belong to the seventeenth rather than to the close of the fifteenth century.

Thus in prose, as well as in verse, a pure English style was occasionally showing itself, and short passages occurring that are in the spirit of a later day, though many years were yet to elapse before all the coarseness and the imperfections incident to the origin and rapid growth of the language were to be put away.

It was reserved for William Caxton, the great English printer, to hold the first place in this century, for service to the English language and literature, by the great number of popular works, translations and originals, which he issued from his press. His efforts were confined mainly to the last quarter of the century, but the amount of labor he accomplished in translating, revising older English works, and superintending the press was very remarkable. The earliest work known to have been printed in England, a moral treatise entitled "The Game of Chess," translated by Caxton, from the French, appeared in 1474. The most of his publications were in accordance with the spirit of the time, works on devotion and romance, with a few translations from the classics. He also gave to the world two editions of the "Canterbury Tales," the second in order to do better justice to the author; also other works of Chaucer, and Gower's "Confessio Amantis.” He was aided in his

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labors by the patronage and assistance of the Earls of Worcester and Rivers, who were possessed of much true literary taste.

The changes which the language was passing through were well indicated by Caxton's preface to the "Polychronicon of Higden," translated by John de Trevisa, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and printed in 1482. "I, William Caxton, a simple person, have endeavored me to write first over all the said book of Polychronicon, and somewhat have changed the rude and old English, that is, to wit, certain words which in these days be neither used ne understood."

Caxton's own style is not free from Gallicisms, and he introduced many romance words, perhaps more than was for the best interests of the language, yet his labors were on the whole of great value to fix and settle our English diction.

"In following the line of our writers," says Hallam,1 "both in verse and prose, we find the old obsolete English to have gone out of use about the accession of Edward the Fourth (1461). Lydgate and Bishop Pecock, especially the latter, are not easily understood by a reader not habituated to their language: he requires a glossary, or must help himself out by conjecture. In the 'Paston Letters,' on the contrary, in Harding, the metrical chronicler, or in Sir John Fortescue's discourse on the difference between an absolute and a limited monarchy, he finds scarce any difficulty; antiquated words and forms of expression frequently occur; but he is hardly sensible that he reads these books much less fluently than those of modern times. These works were written about 1470.

1 Introduction to Literature of Europe.

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