English Literature For Boys And Girls by H.E. Marshall

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More died for his faith, that of the Catholic Church. He, as
others, saw with grief that there was much within the Church that
needed to be made better, but he trusted it would be made better.
To break away from the Church, to doubt the headship of the Pope,
seemed to him such wickedness that he hated the Reformers and
wrote against them. And although in Utopia he allowed his happy
people to have full freedom in matters of religion, in real life
he treated sternly and even cruelly those Protestants with whom
he had to deal.

Yet the Reformation was stirring all the world, and while Sir
Thomas More cheerfully and steadfastly died for the Catholic
faith, there were others in England who as cheerfully lived,
worked, and died for the Protestant faith. We have little to do
with these Reformers in this book, except in so far as they touch
our literature, and it is to them that we owe our present Bible.

First William Tyndale, amid difficulties and trials, translated
afresh the New and part of the Old Testament, and died the death
of a martyr in 1536.

Miles Coverdale followed him with a complete translation in
happier times. For Henry VIII, for his own purposes, wished to
spread a knowledge of the Bible, and commanded that a copy of
Coverdale's Bible should be placed in every parish church. And
although Coverdale was not so great a scholar as Tyndale, his
language was fine and stately, with a musical ring about the
words, and to this day we still keep his version of the Psalms in
the Prayer Book.

Other versions of the Bible followed these, until in 1611, in the
reign of James I and VI, the translation which we use to-day was
at length published. That has stood and still stands the test of
time. And, had we no other reason to treasure it, we would still
for its simple musical language look upon it as one of the fine
things in our literature.

BOOKS TO READ

Life of Sir Thomas More (King's Classics, modern English), by W.
Roper (his son-in-law). Utopia (King's Classics, modern
English), translated by R. Robinson. Utopia (old English),
edited by Churton Collins.

Chapter XXXIX HOW THE SONNET CAME TO ENGLAND

UPON a January day in 1527 two gaily decked barges met upon the
Thames. In the one sat a man of forty. His fair hair and beard
were already touched with gray. His face was grave and
thoughtful, and his eyes gave to it a curious expression, for the
right was dull and sightless, while with the left he looked about
him sharply. This was Sir John Russell, gentleman of the Privy
Chamber, soldier, ambassador, and favorite of King Henry VIII.
Fighting in the King's French wars he had lost the sight of his
right eye. Since then he had led a busy life in court and camp,
passing through many perilous adventures in the service of his
master, and now once again by the King's commands he was about to
set forth for Italy.

As the other barge drew near Russell saw that in it there sat
Thomas Wyatt, a young poet and courtier of twenty-three. He was
tall and handsome, and his thick dark hair framed a pale, clever
face which now looked listless. But as his dreamy poet's eyes
met those of Sir John they lighted up. The two men greeted each
other familiarly. "Whither away," cried Wyatt, for he saw that
Russell was prepared for a journey.

"To Italy, sent by the King."

To Italy, the land of Poetry! The idea fired the poet's soul.

"And I," at once he answered, "will, if you please, ask leave,
get money, and go with you."

"No man more welcome," answered the ambassador, and so it was
settled between them. The money and the leave were both
forthcoming, and Thomas Wyatt passed to Italy. This chance
meeting and this visit to Italy are of importance to our
literature, because they led to a new kind of poem being written
in English. This was the Sonnet.

The Sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines, and is perhaps the most
difficult kind of poem to write. It is divided into two parts.
The first part has eight lines and ought only to have two rimes.
That is, supposing we take words riming with love and king for
our rimes, four lines must rime with love and four with king.
The rimes, too, must come in a certain order. The first, fourth,
fifth and eighth lines must rime, and the second, third, sixth,
and seventh. This first part is called the octave, from the
Latin word octo, eight. The second part contains six lines, and
is therefore called the sextet, from the Latin word sex, meaning
six. The sextet may have either two or three rimes, and these
may be arranged in almost any order. But a correct sonnet ought
not to end with a couplet, that is two riming lines. However,
very many good writers in English do so end their sonnets.

As the sonnet is so bound about with rules, it often makes the
thought which it expresses sound a little unreal. And for that
very reason it suited the times in which Wyatt lived. In those
far-off days every knight had a lady whom he vowed to serve and
love. He took her side in every quarrel, and if he were a poet,
or even if he were not, he wrote verses in her honor, and sighed
and died for her. The lady was not supposed to do anything in
return; she might at most smile upon her knight or drop her
glove, that he might be made happy by picking it up. In fact,
the more disdainful the lady might be the better it was, for then
the poet could write the more passionate verses. For all this
love and service was make-believe. It was merely a fashion and
not meant to be taken seriously. A man might have a wife whom he
loved dearly, and yet write poems in honor of another lady
without thought of wrong. The sonnet, having something very
artificial in it, just suited this make-believe love.

Petrarch, the great Italian poet, from whom you remember Chaucer
had learned much, and whom perhaps he had once met, made use of
this kind of poem. In his sonnets he told his love of a fair
lady, Laura, and made her famous for all time.

Of course, when Wyatt came to Italy Petrarch had long been dead.
But his poems were as living as in the days of Chaucer, and it
was from Petrarch's works that Wyatt learned this new kind of
poem, and it was he who first made use of it in English. He,
too, like Petrarch, addressed his sonnets to a lady, and the lady
he took for his love was Queen Anne Boleyn. As he is the first,
he is perhaps one of the roughest of our sonnet writers, but into
his sonnets he wrought something of manly strength. He does not
sigh so much as other poets of the age. He says, in fact, "If I
serve my lady faithfully I deserve reward." Here is one of his
sonnets, which he calls "The lover compareth his state to a ship
in perilous storm tossed by the sea."

"My galley charged with forgetfulness,
Through sharpe seas in winter's night doth pass,
'Tween rock and rock; and eke my foe (alas)
That is my lord, steereth with cruelness:
And every oar a thought in readiness,
As though that death were light in such a case.
An endless wind doth tear the sail apace,
Of forced sighs and trusty fearfulness;
A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain,
Have done the wearied cords great hinderance:
Wreathed with error and with ignorance;
The stars be his, that lead me to this pain;
Drowned is reason that should me comfort,
And I remain, despairing of the port."

It is not perfect, it is not even Wyatt's best sonnet, but it is
one of the most simple. To make it run smoothly we must sound
the ed in those words ending in ed as a separate syllable, and we
must put a final e to sharp in the second line and sound that.
Then you see the rimes are not very good. To begin with, the
first eight all have sounds of s. Then "alas" and "pass" do not
rime with "case" and "apace," nor do "comfort" and "port." I
point these things out, so that later on you may see for
yourselves how much more polished and elegant a thing the sonnet
becomes.

Although Wyatt was our first sonnet writer, some of his poems
which are not sonnets are much more musical, especially some he
wrote for music. Perhaps best of all you will like his satire Of
the mean and sure estate. A satire is a poem which holds up to
scorn and ridicule wickedness, folly, or stupidity. It is the
sword of literature, and often its edge was keen, its point
sharp.

"My mother's maids when they do sew and spin,
They sing a song made of the fieldish mouse;
That for because her livelod* was but thin
Would needs go see her townish sister's house.

*Livelihood.
. . . . . . .
'My sister,' quoth she, 'hath a living good,
And hence from me she dwelleth not a mile,
In cold and storm she lieth warm and dry
In bed of down. The dirt doth not defile
Her tender foot; she labours not as I.
Richly she feeds, and at the rich man's cost;
And for her meat she need not crave nor cry.
By sea, by land, of delicates* the most,
Her caterer seeks, and spareth for no peril.
She feeds on boil meat, bake meat and roast,
And hath, therefore, no whit of charge or travail.'

*Delicacies.
. . . . . . .
So forth she goes, trusting of all this wealth
With her sister her part so for to shape,
That if she might there keep herself in health,
To live a Lady, while her life do last.
And to the door now is she come by stealth,
And with her foot anon she scrapes full fast.
Th' other for fear durst not well scarce appear,
Of every noise so was the wretch aghast.
At last she asked softly who was there;
And in her language as well as she could,
'Peep,' quoth the other, 'sister, I am here.'
'Peace,' quoth the town mouse, 'why speaketh thou so loud?'
But by the hand she took her fair and well.
'Welcome,' quoth she, 'my sister by the Rood.'
She feasted her that joy it was to tell
The fare they had, they drank the wine so clear;
And as to purpose now and then it fell,
So cheered her with, 'How, sister, what cheer.'
Amid this joy befell a sorry chance,
That welladay, the stranger bought full dear
The fare she had. For as she looked ascance,
Under a stool she spied two flaming eyes,
In a round head, with sharp ears. In France
Was never mouse so feared, for the unwise
Had not ere seen such beast before.
Yet had nature taught her after her guise
To know her foe, and dread him evermore.
The town mouse fled, she knew whither to go;
The other had no shift, but wonders sore,
Fear'd of her life! At home she wished her tho';
And to the door, alas! as she did skip
(The heaven it would, lo, and eke her chance was so)
At the threshold her sill foot did trip;
And ere she might recover it again,
The traitor Cat had caught her by the hip
And made her there against her will remain,
That had forgot her poor surety and rest,
For seeming wealth, wherein she thought to reign."

That is not the end of the poem. Wyatt points the moral.
"Alas," he says, "how men do seek the best and find the worst."
"Although thy head were hooped with gold," thou canst not rid
thyself of care. Content thyself, then, with what is allotted
thee and use it well.

This satire Wyatt wrote while living quietly in the country,
having barely escaped with his life from the King's wrath. But
although he escaped the scaffold, he died soon after in his
King's service. Riding on the King's business in the autumn of
1542 he became overheated, fell into a fever, and died. He was
buried at Sherborne. No stone marks his resting-place, but his
friend and fellow-poet, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, wrote a
noble elegy:--

"A hea, where Wisdom mysteries did frame;
Whose hammers beat still, in that lively brain,
As on a stithy* where that some work of fame
Was daily wrought, to turn to Britain's gain.

*Anvil.
. . . . . . .
A hand, that taught what might be said in rhyme,
That Chaucer reft the glory of his wit.
A mark, the which (unperfected for time)
Some may approach; but never none shall hit!"

BOOKS TO READ

Early Sixteenth-Century Lyrics (Belle Lettres Series), edited by
F. M. Padelford (original spelling).

Chapter XL THE BEGINNING OF BLANK VERSE

THE poet with whose verses the last chapter ended was named Henry
Howard, Earl of Surrey. The son of a noble and ancient house,
Surrey lived a gay life in court and camp. Proud, hot-headed,
quick-tempered, he was often in trouble, more than once in
prison. In youth he was called "the most foolish proud boy in
England," and at the age of thirty, still young and gay and full
of life, he died upon the scaffold. Accused of treason, yet
innocent, he fell a victim to "the wrath of princes," the wrath
of that hot-headed King Henry VIII. Surrey lived at the same
time as Wyatt and, although he was fourteen years younger, was
his friend. Together they are the forerunners of our modern
poetry. They are nearly always spoken of together--Wyatt and
Surrey--Surrey and Wyatt. Like Wyatt, Surrey followed the
Italian poets. Like Wyatt he wrote sonnets; but whereas Wyatt's
are rough, Surrey's are smooth and musical, although he does not
keep the rules about rime endings. One who wrote not long after
the time of Wyatt and Surrey says of them, "Sir Thomas Wyatt, the
elder, and Henry, Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, who,
having travelled in Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately
measures and style of the Italian poesie . . . greatly polished
our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie from that it had been
before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers
of our English metre and syle. . . . I repute them for the two
chief lanterns of light to all others that have since employed
their pens on English poesie."*

*G. Puttenham, Art of English Poesie.

A later writer* has called Surrey the "first refiner" of our
language. And just as there comes a time in our own lives when we
begin to care not only for the story, but for the words in which
a story is told and for the way in which those words are used,
so, too, there comes such a time in the life of a nation, and
this time for England we may perhaps date from Wyatt and Surrey.
Before then there were men who tried to use the best words in the
best way, but they did it unknowingly, as birds might sing. The
language, too, in which they wrote was still a growing thing.
When Surrey wrote it had nearly reached its finished state, and
he helped to finish and polish it.

*W. J. Courthope.

As the fashion was, Surrey chose a lady to whom to address his
verses. She was the little Lady Elizabeth Fitz-Gerald, whose
father had died a broken-hearted prisoner in the Tower. She was
only ten when Surrey made her famous in song, under the name of
Geraldine. Here is a sonnet in which he, seeing the joy of all
nature at the coming of Spring, mourns that his lady is still
unkind:

"The sweet season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale,
The nightingale with feathers new she sings:
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs,
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale,
The buck in haste his winter coat he flings;
The fishes float with new repaired scale,
The adder all her slough away she lings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies small;
The busy-bee her honey now she mings;*
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs."

*Mingles.

Besides following Wyatt in making the sonnet known to English
readers, Surrey was the first to write in blank verse, that is in
long ten-syllabled lines which do not rime. This is a kind of
poetry in which some of the grandest poems in our language are
written, and we should remember Surrey as the first maker of it.
For with very little change the rules which Surrey laid down have
been followed by our best poets ever since, so from the sixteenth
century till now there has been far less change in our poetry
than in the five centuries before. You can see this for yourself
if you compare Surrey's poetry with Layamon's or Langland's, and
then with some of the blank verse near the end of this book.

It was in translating part of Virgil's Aeneid that Surrey used
blank verse. Virgil was an ancient Roman poet, born 70 B. C.,
who in his book called the Aeneid told of the wanderings and
adventures of Aeneas, and part of this poem Surrey translated into
English.

This is how he tells of the way in which Aeneas saved his old
father by carrying him on his shoulders out of the burning town
of Troy when "The crackling flame was heard throughout the walls,
and more and more the burning heat drew near."

"My shoulders broad,
And layed neck with garments 'gan I spread,
And thereon cast a yellow lion's skin;
And thereupon my burden I receive.
Young Iulus clasped in my right hand,
Followeth me fast, with unequal pace,
And at my back my wife. Thus did we pass
By places shadowed most with the night,
And me, whom late the dart which enemies threw,
Nor press of Argive routs could make amaz'd,
Each whisp'ring wind hath power now to fray,
And every sound to move my doubtful mind.
So much I dread my burden and my fere.*
And now we 'gan draw near unto the gate,
Right well escap'd the danger, as me thought,
When that at hand a sound of feet we heard.
My father then, gazing throughout the dark,
Cried on me, 'Flee, son! they are at hand.'
With that, bright shields, and shene** armours I saw
But then, I know not what unfriendly god
My troubled with from me bereft for fear.
For while I ran by the most secret streets,
Eschewing still the common haunted track,
From me, catif, alas! bereaved was
Creusa then, my spouse; I wot not how,
Whether by fate, or missing of the way,
Or that she was by weariness retain'd;
But never sith these eyes might her behold.
Nor did I yet perceive that she was lost,
Nor never backward turned I my mind;
Till we came to the hill whereon there stood
The old temple dedicated to Ceres.
And when that we were there assembled all,
She was only away deceiving us,
Her spouse, her son, and all her company.
What god or man did I not then accuse,
Near wode *** for ire? or what more cruel chance
Did hap to me in all Troy's overthrow?"

*Companion.
**Bright.
***Mad.

Chapter XLI SPENSER--THE "SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR"

WHEN Henry signed Surrey's death-warrant he himself was near
death, and not many weeks later the proud and violent king met
his end. Then followed for England changeful times. After
Protestant Edward came for a tragic few days Lady Jane. Then
followed the short, sad reign of Catholic Mary, who, dying, left
the throne free for her brilliant sister Elizabeth. Those years,
from the death of King Henry VIII to the end of the first twenty
years of Elizabeth's reign, were years of action rather than of
production. They were years of struggle, during which England
was swayed to and fro in the fight of religions. They were years
during which the fury of the storm of the Reformation worked
itself out. But although they were such unquiet years they were
also years of growth, and at the end of that time there blossomed
forth one of the fairest seasons of our literature.

We call the whole group of authors who sprang up at this time the
Elizabethans, after the name of the Queen in whose reign they
lived and wrote. And to those of us who know even a very little
of the time, the word calls up a brilliant vision. Great names
come crowding to our minds, names of poets, dramatists,
historians, philosophers, divines. It would be impossible to
tell of all in this book, so we must choose the greatest from the
noble array. And foremost among them comes Edmund Spenser, for
"the glory of the new literature broke in England with Edmund
Spenser."*

*J. R. Green, History of English People.

If we could stand aside, as it were, and take a wide view of all
our early literature, it would seem as if the names of Chaucer
and Spenser stood out above all others like great mountains. The
others are valleys between. They are pleasant fields in which to
wander, in which to gather flowers, not landmarks for all the
world like Chaucer and Spenser. And although it is easier and
safer for children to wander in the meadows and gather meadow
flowers, they still may look up to the mountains and hope to
climb them some day.

Edmund Spenser was born in London in 1552, and was the son of a
poor clothworker or tailor. He went to school at the Merchant
Taylors' School, which had then been newly founded. That his
father was very poor we know, for Edmund Spenser's name appears
among "certain poor scholars of the schools about London" who
received money and clothes from a fund left by a rich man to help
poor children at school.

When he was about seventeen Edmund went to Cambridge, receiving
for his journey a sum of ten shillings from the fund from which
he had already received help at school. He entered college as a
sizar, that is, in return for doing the work of a servant he
received free board and lodging in his college. A sizar's life
was not always a happy one, for many of the other scholars or
gentlemen commoners looked down upon them because of their
poverty. And this poverty they could not hide, for the sizars
were obliged to wear a different cap and gown from that of the
gentlemen commoners.

But of how Spenser fared at college we know nothing, except that
he was often ill and that he made two lifelong friends. That he
loved his university, however, we learn from his poems, when he
tenderly speaks of "my mother Cambridge."* When he left college
Spenser was twenty-three. He was poor and, it would seem, ill,
so he did not return to London, but went to live with relatives
in the country in Lancashire. And there about "the wasteful
woods and forest wide"** he wandered, gathering new life and
strength, taking all a poet's joy in the beauty and the freedom
of a country life, "for ylike to me was liberty and life,"** he
says. And here among the pleasant woods he met a fair lady named
Rosalind, "the widow's daughter of the glen."***

*Faery Queen, book IV canto xi.
**Shepherd's Calendar, December
***The same, April.

Who Rosalind really was no one knows. She would never have been
heard of had not Spenser taken her for his lady and made songs to
her. Spenser's love for Rosalind was, however, more real than
the fashionable poet's passion. He truly loved Rosalind, but she
did not love him, and she soon married some one else. Then all
his joy in the summer and the sunshine was made dark.

"Thus is my summer worn away and wasted,
Thus is my harvest hastened all too rathe;*
The ear that budded fair is burnt and blasted,
And all my hoped gain it turned to scathe:
Of all the seed, that in my youth was sown,
Was naught but brakes and brambles to be mown."**

*Early.
**Shepherd's Calendar, December.

At twenty-four life seemed ended, for "Love is a cureless
sorrow."*

*Shepherd's Calendar, August.

"Winter is come, that blows the baleful breath,
And after Winter cometh timely death."*

*Shepherd's Calendar, December.

And now, when he was feeling miserable, lonely, desolate an old
college friend wrote to him begging him to come to London.
Spenser went, and through his friend he came to know Sir Philip
Sidney, a true gentleman and a poet like himself, who in turn
made him known to the great Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth's
favorite.

Spenser thought his heart had been broken and that his life was
done. But hearts do not break easily. Life is not done at
twenty-four. After a time Spenser found that there was still
much to live for. The great Earl became the poet's friend and
patron, and gave him a post as secretary in his house. For in
those days no man could live by writing alone. Poetry was still
a graceful toy for the rich. If a poor man wished to toy with
it, he must either starve or find a rich friend to be his patron,
to give him work to do that would leave him time to write also.
Such a friend Spenser found in Leicester. In the Earl's house
the poor tailor's son met many of the greatest men of the court
of Queen Elizabeth. On the Earl's business he went to Ireland
and to the Continent, seeing new sights, meeting the men and
women of the great world, so that a new and brilliant life seemed
opening for him.

Yet when, a few years later, Spenser published his first great
poem, it did not tell of courts or courtiers, but of simple
country sights and sounds. This book is called the Shepherd's
Calendar, as it contains twelve poems, one for every month of the
year.