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the English language by the introduction of this Latin term, now made English for the first time! It has flourished, as well as this other, "the redolent savours of sweet herbs and flowers." But his ear was not always musical, and some of his neologisms are less graceful an alective," to wit; "fatigate," to fatigue; "ostent," to show, and to "sufficate some disputation." Such were the first weak steps of the fathers of our language, who, however, culled for us many a flower among their cockle.

But a murmur more prejudicial arose than the idle cavil of new and hard words; for some asserted that "the Boke seemed to be overlong." Our primeval author considered. that "knowledge of wisdom cannot be shortly declared." Elyot had not yet attained, by sufficient practice in authorship, the secret, that the volume which he had so much pleasure in writing could be over-tedious in reading. “For those," he observes sarcastically, "who be well willing, it is soon learned-in good faith sooner than primero or gleek." The nation must have then consisted of young readers, when a diminutive volume in twelves was deemed

to be " overlong." In this apology for his writings, he

threw out an undaunted declaration of his resolution to

proceed with future volumes. "If the readers of my works, by the noble example of our most dear Sovereign Lord, do justly and lovingly interpret my labours, I, during the residue of my life, will now and then set forth such fruits of my study, profitable, as I trust, unto this my country, leaving malicious readers with their incurable fury.” Such was the innocent criticism of our earliest writerhis pen was hardly tipped with gall.

As all subjects were equally seductive to the artless pen of a primitive author, who had yet no rivals to encounter in public, Elyot turned his useful studies to a topic very opposite to that of political ethics. He put forth "The Castle of Health," a medical treatise, which passed through nearly as many honorable editions as "The Governor." It

did not, however, abate the number, though it changed the character of his cavillers, who were now the whole corporate body of the physicians!

The author has told his amusing story in the preface to a third edition, in 1541:

"Why should I be grieved with reproaches wherewith some of my country do recompense me for my labors, taken without hope of temporal reward, only for the fervent affection which I have ever borne toward the public weal of my country? A worthy matter!' saith one; 'Sir Thomas Elyot has become a physician, and writeth on physic, which beseemeth not a knight. He might have been much better occupied.' Truly, if they will call him a physician who is studious of the weal of his country, let men so name me."

But there was no shame in studying this science, or setting forth any book, being –

"Thereto provoked by the noble example of my noble master, King Henry VIII; for his Highness hath not disdained to be the chief author of an introduction to grammar for the children of his subjects.

"If physicians be angry that I have written physic in English, let them remember that Greeks wrote in Greek, the Romans in Latin, and Avicenna in Arabic, which were their own proper and maternal tongues. These were paynims and Jews; but in this part of charity they far surmounted us Christians."

Several years after, when our author reverted to his "Castle of Health," the Castle was brightened by the beams of public favor. Its author now exulted that "It shall long preserve men, be some physicians never so angry.' y." The work had not been intended to depreciate medical professors, but "for their commodity, by instructing the sick, and observing a good order in diet, preventing the great causes of sickness, or by which they could the sooner be cured." Our philosopher had attempted to

draw aside that mystifying veil with which some affected to envelop the arcana of medicine, as if they were desirous "of writing in cypher, that none but themselves could read." Our author had anticipated that revolution in medical science which afterward, at a distant period, has been productive of some of the ablest treatises in the vernacular languages of Europe.

The patriotic studies of Elyot did not terminate in these ethical and popular volumes, for he had taxed his daily diligence for his country's weal. This appeared in "The Dictionary of Sir Thomas Elyot, 1535," a folio, which laid the foundation of our future lexicons, "declaring Latin by English," as Elyot describes his own labor.

Elyot had suffered some disappointments as a courtier in the days of Wolsey, who lavished the royal favors on churchmen. In a letter to Lord Cromwell, he describes himself with a very narrow income, supporting his establishment" equal to any knight in the country where I dwell who have much more to live on ;" but a new office, involving considerable expense in its maintenance, to which he had been just appointed, he declares would be his ruin, having already discharged "five honest and tall personages." -"I wot not by what malice of fortune I am constrained to be in that office, whereunto is, as it were, appendent loss of money and good name, all sharpness and diligence in justice now-a-days being everywhere odious." And this was at a time when "I trusted to live quietly, and, by little and little, to repay my creditors, and to reconcile myself to mine old studies."

This letter conveys a favorable impression of the real character of this learned man; but Elyot had condescended abjectly to join with the herd in the general scramble for the monastic lands; and if he feigned poverty, the degradation is not less. There are cruel epochs in a great revolution; moments of trial which too often exhibit the lofty philosopher shrinking into one of the people. It is probable that he succeeded in his petition, for I find his

304 DIFFICULTIES EXPERIENCED BY PRIMITIVE AUTHORS.

name among the commissioners appointed to make a general inquiry after lands belonging to the Church, as also to the colleges of the universities, in 1534.

But in this day of weakness Elyot sunk far lower than petitioning for suppressed lands. Elyot was suspected of inclining to Popery, and being adverse to the new order of affairs. His former close intimacy with Sir Thomas More contributed to this suspicion, and now, it is sad to relate, he renounces this ancient and honorable friendship! Peter denied his Master. "I beseech your good lordship now to lay apart the remembrance of the amity betwixt me and Sir Thomas More, which was but usque ad aras, as is the proverb, considering that I was never so much addicted unto him as I was unto truth and fidelity toward my sovereign lord." Was the influence of such illustrious friendships to be confined to chimney-corners? Had Elyot not listened to the wisdom, and revered the immutable fortitude, of "his great friend and crony ?"— he, the stern moralist, who, in his “Governor,” had written a remarkable chapter on "the constancy of friends," and had illustrated that passion by the romantic tale of Titus and Gesippus, where the personal trials of both parties far exceed those of the Damon and Pythias of antiquity, and are so eloquently developed and so exquisitely narrated by the great Italian novelist.

The literary history of Sir Thomas Elyot exhibits the difficulties experienced by a primitive author in the earliest attempts to open a new path to the cultivation of a vernacular literature; and it seems to have required all the magnanimity of our author to sustain his superiority among his own circle, by disdaining their petulant criticism, and by the honest confidence he gathered as he proceeded, in the successive editions of his writings.

305

SKELTON.

Ar a period when satire had not yet assumed any legitimate form, a singular genius appeared in Skelton. His satire is peculiar, but it is stamped by vigorous originality. The fertility of his conceptions in his satirical or his humorous vein is thrown out in a style created by himself. The Skeltonical short verse, contracted into five or six, and even four syllables, is wild and airy. In the quickreturning rhymes, the playfulness of the diction, and the pungency of new words, usually ludicrous, often expressive, and sometimes felicitous, there is a stirring spirit which will be best felt in an audible reading. The velocity of his verse has a carol of its own. The chimes ring in the ear, and the thoughts are flung about like coruscations. But the magic of the poet is confined to his spell; at his first step out of it he falls to the earth never to recover himself. Skelton is a great creator only when he writes what baffles imitation, for it is his fate, when touching more solemn strains, to betray no quality of a poetinert in imagination and naked in diction. Whenever his muse plunges into the long measure of heroic verse, she is drowned in no Heliconian stream. Skelton seems himself aware of his miserable fate, and repeatedly, with great truth, if not with some modesty, complains of

"Mine homely rudeness and dryness."

But when he returns to his own manner and his own rhyme, when he riots in the wantonness of his prodigal genius, irresistible and daring, the poet was not unconscious of his faculty; and truly he tells,

"Though my rime be ragged,

Tattered and jagged,