the haven; and therefore I think that Tenterton-steeple is the cause of the destroying and decay of Sandwich haven. And so to my purpose, is preaching of God's word the cause of rebellion, as Tenterton-steeple was cause that Sandwich haven is decayed. SIR JOHN CHEKE, 1514-1557. In the year 1540, Henry VIII. founded a Greek professorship at Cambridge, of which Cheke was elected the first professor, when only twentysix years of age; so early was he distinguished for his classical attainments. In 1544 he was appointed tutor to Prince Edward,' who, on his accession to the throne, rewarded him with a pension of a hundred marks, with a grant of several lands and manors, and in 1551 conferred on him the honor of knighthood. Sir John was a zealous protestant; in consequence of which he was severely persecuted by the bigoted Mary, twice imprisoned in the Tower, stript of his whole substance, and ultimately reduced to that dilemma which tried the stoutest hearts-" Either turn or burn." His religious zeal was not proof against this fiery ordeal, and he recanted. His property was now restored; but his recantation was followed by such bitterness of remorse, that he survived it but a short time, dying in 1557, at the early age of forty-three. The period in which Cheke flourished is highly interesting to letters. His influence was very great in promoting a taste for classical and philological learning. He introduced a new method of pronouncing Greek, which, notwithstanding the violent fulminations of the papal clergy, ultimately prevailed and still prevails. We are also very much indebted to him for the improvement of our own language. He recommended and practised 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 often involved. He used short sentences, and wrote with greater precision, perspicuity, and force of style than his predecessors. His works were numerous, but they chiefly consisted of Latin translations from the Greek. Almost his only English work extant is his tract, entitled "The Hurt of Sedition." In the summer of 1549 a formidable rebellion broke out in many of the counties in England. The rebels in the western part favored the papal religion, which they were desirous to restore. These Sir John addresses thus: Ye rise for religion. What religion taught you that? If ye To this Milton alludes in one of his sonnets: "Thy age like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheke, Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, When thou taught'st Cambridge and King Edward Greek." were offered persecution for religion, ye ought to flee. So Christ teacheth you, and yet you intend to fight. If ye would stand in the truth, ye ought to suffer like martyrs; and ye would slay like tyrants. Thus for religion, ye keep no religion, and neither will follow the council of Christ, nor the constancy of martyrs. Why rise ye for religion? Have ye any thing contrary to God's book? Yea, have ye not all things agreeable to God's word? But the new [religion] is different from the old; and therefore ye will have the old. If ye measure the old by truth, ye have the oldest. If ye measure the old by fancy, then it is hard, because men's fancies change, to give that is old. Ye will have the old stile. Will ye have any older than that as Christ left, and his apostles taught, and the first church did use? Ye will have that the canons do establish. Why that is a great deal younger than that ye have of later time, and newlier invented; yet that is it that ye desire. And do ye prefer the bishops of Rome afore Christ? Men's inventions afore God's law? The newer sort of wor ship before the older? Ye seek no religion; ye be deceived; ye seek traditions. They that teach you, blind you; that so instruct you, deceive you. If ye seek what the old doctors say, yet look what Christ, the oldest of all, saith. For he saith, "before Abraham was made I am." If ye seek the truest way, he is the very truth. If ye seek the readiest way, he is the very way. If ye seek everlasting life, he is the very life. What religion would ye have other how than his religion? You would have the Bibles in again. It is no mervail; your blind guides should lead you blind still. * * But why should ye not like that [religion] which God's word establisbeth, the primitive church hath authorized, the greatest learned men of this realm have drawn the whole consent of, the parliament hath confirmed, the king's majesty hath set forth? Is it not truly set out? Can ye devise any truer than Christ's apostles used? Ye think it is not learnedly done. Dare ye, commons, take upon you more learning than the chosen bishops and clerks of this realm have? * * Learn, learn to know this one point of religion, that God will be worshipped as he hath prescribed, and not as we have devised. And that his will is wholly in the scriptures, which be full of God's spirit, and profitable to teach the truth. JOHN HEYWOOD,-1565. THE DRAMA.1 THE name of John Heywood introduces us at once to that department of Literature, in which the English have excelled all the other nations of the world—the Drama. It is impossible to fix any precise date for the origin of the English Drama. In tracing its history, however, we must make four divisions-the Miracle Plays-the Moral Plays-the Interludes-and the Legitimate Drama. The Miracle Plays. It would appear that, at the dawn of modern civilization, most countries of Europe possessed a rude kind of theatrical entertainment, consisting of the principal supernatural events of the Old and New Testaments, and of the history of the saints; whence they were called Miracles, or Miracle Plays. Some of their subjects were The CreationThe Fall of Man-The Flood-Abraham's Sacrifice-The Birth of ChristHis Baptism, &c. These plays were acted by the clergy, and were under their immediate management, for they maintained that they were favorable to the cause of religion. On the contrary, the language and the representations of these plays were indecorous and profane in the highest degree: and what must have been the state of society, when ecclesiastics patronized such scenes of blasphemy and pollution! Let us hear no more about "the good old times," for "times" were doubtless far worse then than now. The next step in the progress of the Drama was the Moral Play. The Moral Plays were dramas of which the characters were chiefly allegorical or abstract. They were certainly a great advance upon the Miracles, as they endeavored to convey sound moral lessons, and at the same time gave occasion to some poetical and dramatic ingenuity, in imaging forth the characters, and assigning appropriate speeches to each. The only scriptural character retained in them, was the Devil. He was rendered as grotesque and hideous as possible by the mask and dress he wore. We learn that his exterior was shaggy and hairy, one of the characters mistaking him for a dancing bear. That he had a tail, if it required proof, is evident from the circumstance, that in one play, the other chief character, called Vice, asks 1 We now enter upon the age of Queen Elizabeth, the age which has been fixed upon as the period when our language, shaking off with gigantic strength the incumbrances of rude antiquity, first developed its powers, and asserted its pretensions to classical estimation. "From the authors which arose in the time of Elizabeth," (observes Dr. Johnson in the Preface to his Dictionary,)" a speech might be formed, adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance. If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translation of the Bible; the terms of natural philosophy from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation, from Raleigh, the dialectic of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sydney; and the diction of common life from Shakspeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind, for want of English words in which they might be expressed." him for a piece of it to make a fly trap. Thus, what would otherwise have been quite a sober performance, was rendered no little entertaining. The Interludes were something between the moral plays and the modern Drama. The Moral plays were frequent in the reign of Henry VI. (1422— 1461). In the reign of Henry VII. (1485-1509) they flourished in all their glory, and continued in force down to the latter half of the sixteenth century. But it was at length found that a real human being, with a human name, was better calculated to awaken the sympathies, and keep alive the attention of an audience, and not less so to impress them with moral truths, than a being who only represented a notion of the mind. The substitution of these for the symbolical characters, gradually took place during the earlier part of the sixteenth century, and before its close the English drama, in the writings of Shakspeare, reached its highest excellence. One of the most successful writers of Interludes was John Heywood, or as he was commonly called, "Merry John Heywood." He was a native of London, but the year of his birth is unknown. He studied for some time at Oxford, but did not take his degree. He was of a social, festive genius, the favorite of Henry VIII., and afterwards of his daughter, Queen Mary, who were delighted with his dramatic representations. It is rather singular that the latter should have been so much pleased, as Heywood exposed, in terms of great severity, the vicious lives of the ecclesiastics. The play which perhaps best illustrates the genius of Heywood, is that called the FOUR P's, which is a dialogue between a Palmer,' a Pardoner, a Poticary, 2 and a Pedler. Four such knaves afforded so humorous a man as Heywood was, abundant materials for satire, and he has improved them to some advantage. The piece opens with the Palmer, who boasts of his peregrinations to the Holy Land, to Rome, to Santiago in Spain, and to a score of other shrines. This boasting was interrupted by the Pardoner, who tells him that he has been foolish to give himself so much trouble, when he might have obtained the object of his journey-the pardon of his sins-at home. For at your door myself doth dwell Who could have saved your soul as well, As all your wide wandering shall do, The Palmer will not hear his labors thus disparaged, and he thus exclaims to the impostor, the relic-vender; Right seldom is it seen, or never, That truth and Pardoners dwell together. The Pardoner then rails at the folly of pilgrimages, and asserts in strong terms, the virtues of his spiritual nostrums. 1 The name Palmer was given to those of the crusaders who returned from Palestine, from the branches of the palm tree, which they carried in commemoration of their journey. 2 In early times the apothecary and physician were united in the same person. With small cost, and without any pain, These pardons bring them to heaven plain. The Poticary now speaks, and is resolved to have his share of the merit. Of what avail are all the wanderings of the one or the relics of the other, until the soul is separated from the body? And who sends so many into the other world as the apothecary? Except such as may happen to be hanged, (which for any thing he knows, may be the fate of the Palmer and Pardoner,) who dies by any other help than that of the apothecary? As, therefore, it is he, he says, who fills heaven with inmates, who is so much entitled to the gratitude of mankind! The Pardoner is here indignant, and asks what is the benefit of dying, and what, consequently, the use of an apothecary, even should he kill a thousand a day, to men who are not in a state of grace? And what, retorts the other, would be the use of a thousand pårdons round the neck, unless people died? The Poticary, who is the most sensible of the three, concludes that all of them are rogues, when the Pedlar makes his appearance. He, like his companions, commends his wares. How can there be any love without courtship? And how can women be won without such tempt ing gifts as are in his sack? Who liveth in love and love would win, Even at this pack he must begin. He then displays his wares, and entreats them to buy: but the churchmen of that day were beggars, not buyers; and the Poticary is no less cunning. At length the Pardoner reverts to the subject of conversation, when the Pedlar entered, and in order to draw out the opinion of the last comer, states the argument between himself and his two companions. The Pedlar seems, at first, surprised that the profession of an apothecary is to kill men, and thinks the world may very well do without one; but the other assures him he is under a mistake; that the Poticary is the most useful, and for this notable reason, that when any man feels that his "conscience is ready," all he has to do is to send for the practitioner, who will at once dispatch him. Weary of their disputes for pre-eminence of merit and usefulness, the Pedlar proposes that the other three shall strive for the mastery by lying, and that the greatest liar shall be recognized as head of the rest. The task he imposes on them cannot, he says, be a heavy one, for all are used to it. They are each to tell a tale. The Poticary commences, and the Pardoner follows. Their lies are deemed very respectable, but the Palmer is to be victorious, as he ends his tale in these words : Yet have I seen many a mile, And not one good city, town, or borough, |