letters.

the past and regretted the chivalry that was passing away. Order was the one great need of the time, and as yet men could see no order except of a kind already past recovery, which they were vainly endeavouring to restore. So for the peace of the Church they burned heretics and put witches to open penance, while, adhering to the traditions of a moribund chivalry, they plunged Europe into war and anarchy. The one direction in which there was a visible movement in men's minds was in a Revival of revival of ancient learning. Scholars were recovering lost literature to the world, and the classic writers of ancient Rome were studied and imitated in a way they had not been before. Greek, too, began to engage more attention in Europe after the fall of Constantinople; for refugees carried the language and the literature into Italy and elsewhere. The art of printing, first used in Germany about the year 1440, and brought into England by Caxton in 1474, helped to multiply copies of the best ancient authors.

2. In England, after the days of Gower and Chaucer we had very little literature that deserved the name. The

principal poet of the succeeding age was John Lydgate. Lydgate, a monk of Bury, whose small lyric

James I.

and Charles Duke of

effusions, though not altogether contemptible, scarcely rank above mediocrity. It is remarkable, however, that two foreign princes-James I. of Scotland and Charles Duke of Orleans-each of whom was for many years detained a prisoner in England, each contributed to his native literature poetry that was far from commonplace.

Orleans.

3. In religion men testified what was going on beneath the surface rather by acts than by words. Men who felt more deeply than their neighbours some

Religion.

neglected phase of Christianity drifted away from the authority of the Church. There were the

R

Flagellants in Italy, the Lollards in England, the Hussites in Bohemia. But their zeal was found to be incompatible even with civil peace, and they were met by a spirit of persecution, in which it is to be lamented that some of the noblest minds of the day concurred. Such was John Gerson at the Council of Constance, Gerson. —the man who in defiance of danger tore to rags all the miserable special pleadings by which the creatures of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, sought to justify or extenuate the murder of his rival Orleans,— even he, so bold and upright in defence of public morals, took the lead in the persecution of Huss and Jerome of Prague. A quieter mind was that of Thomas à Kempis, to whom, as it is generally believed, the world is indebted for the exquisitely beautiful book, still so popular, upon the Imitation of Christ. Nothing can excel it as an exposition of that pure and peaceful devotion for which monasticism still offered a safe asylum amid the perverseness and errors of the time. Outside the cloister zeal was sure to be persecuted, even if it endeavoured to vindicate authority. Such was the fate of RegiReginald Pecock.

Thomas à
Kempis.

nald Pecock, Bishop of Chichester, a man not less remarkable for his vigour of intellect than for his love of toleration, who wrote a number of treatises in English in defence of the Church against the Lollards. His object was to win over heretics by reason instead of by the fires of persecution. His arguments generally are remarkably clear and lucid, tending to show that the Lollard position was founded upon an undue deference to the mere letter of Scripture, and that the Bible was not given us to supersede the use of our natural reason. But this mode of treatment satisfied no one. During the short lull in the civil war in 1457-not long before the procession of the reconciled leaders to St. Paul'sBishop Pecock was accused of heresy, forced to recant

for fear of martyrdom, and deprived of his bishopric. The Church declined to be defended in the spirit of toleration.

Commerce

alone

goes on uninter

rupted.

4. Thus whatever was noble was distressed and persecuted. Commerce and money-getting went on, and the spirits of men, broken by invariable disappointment when they attempted anything higher, became generally sordid and mercenary. Kings grasped at territory instead of money, but in England they soonest tired of the game, and even they, in the end, joined in the general pursuit of wealth in preference to honour or reputation. Edward IV. first set the example of 'trafficking in war' which Lord Bacon notes as a feature of the policy of Henry VII. Both these kings raised great supplies from their own subjects, and then accepted money from the enemy to forbear fighting.

Kings traffic in

war.

New discoveries lead to a

new era.

5. But from the commercial enterprise of the day arose those discoveries which in the end, perhaps, had most influence in the formation of a new era. New coasts, new seas, new islands, and in the end a complete New World, were successively revealed. The thoughts of men were expanded, their imaginations fired with new ideas. Old philosophies insensibly passed away as the ambition, the enterprise, and the avarice of a new generation found channels which had been hitherto unknown. The world, even the material world, was found to be much larger than had been supposed. As for the world unseen, was it likely that popes and councils had taken the true measure of that?