A history of English literature

by Edward Albert

1. Reginald Pecock (1395–1460) may have been born in Wales, and perhaps in 1395. He was educated at Oxford, and took orders, when he became prominent through his attacks upon the Lollards. In his arguments he went so far that he was convicted of heresy (1457), forced to make a public recantation, and deprived of his bishopric of Chichester. He died in obscurity about 1460.

His two works were The Repressor of Over-much Blaming the Clergy (1449) and The Book of Faith. In his dogma he strongly supported the ancient usages of the Church; and in the style of his argument he is downright and opinionative. His prose, often rugged and obscure, is marked by his preference for English words in place of those of Latin origin. His books are among the earliest of English controversial works, and thus they mark a victory over the once all-important Latin.

2. William Caxton (1422–91), the first English printer, was born in Kent about the year 1422. He was apprenticed to a London mercer, and in his capacity of mercer went to Bruges to assist in the revival of English trade with the Continent. In Bruges, where he lived for thirty-three years, he started his translations from the French, and in that city he may have learned the infant art of printing. In 1476 he established himself in London as a printer. There he began to issue a series of books that laid the foundation of English printing. The first book printed in England was The Dictes and Sayengis of the Philosophers (1477). The main part of the volume was the work of Lord Rivers, but Caxton, as was his habit, revised it for the press.

In addition to printing many older texts, such as Chaucer and Malory, Caxton did some original work of great value. He translated and printed no fewer than twenty-one books, French texts, the most remarkable of which were the two earliest, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye (1469) and The Game and Playe of Chesse (1474). Like King Alfred, he added to many of his books introductory remarks, some of great personal or general interest.

We give a brief extract from his preface to The Recuyell. Observe the rather clumsy sentences and the plain language.

When I remember that every man is bounden by the commandment and counsel of the wise man to eschew sloth and idleness, which is mother and nourisher of vices, and ought to put myself unto virtuous occupation and business, then I, having no great charge of occupation, following the said counsel, took a French book and read therein many strange and marvellous histories wherein I had great pleasure and delight, as well for the novelty of the same as for the fair language of French, which was in prose so well and compendiously set and written, which methought I understood the sentence and substance of every matter. And forsomuch as this book was new and late made and drawn into French, and never had seen it in our English tongue, I thought in myself it should be a good business to translate it into our English, to the end that it might be had as well in the realm of England as in other lands, and also for to pass therewith the time, and thus concluded in myself to begin this said work. And forthwith took pen and ink and began boldly to run forth as blind Bayard, in this present work which is named the Recuyell of the Trojan histories.

3. John Fisher (1459–1535) was born in Yorkshire about 1459, was educated at Cambridge, and entered the Church. In due course he became Bishop of Rochester. During the time of the Reformation he opposed Henry VIII’s desire to be acknowledged as the head of the English Church, and was imprisoned in the Tower (1531). While there he was made a cardinal by the Pope; and he was beheaded by the orders of Henry.

Fisher wrote much in Latin, and in English he is represented by a small collection of tracts and sermons and a longer treatise on the Psalms. Though they are of no great quantity, his prose works are in their nature of much importance. They are the first of the rhetorical-religious books that for several centuries were to be an outstanding feature of English prose. In addition, they show a decided advance in the direction of style. They are written in the style of the orator and are the result of the conscious effort of the stylist: the searching after the appropriate word (often apparent by the use of two or three words of like meaning), the frequent use of rhetorical figures of speech, and a rapid and flowing rhythm. In brief, in the style of Fisher we can observe the beginnings of an ornate style. It is still in the making, but it is the direct ancestor of the prose style of Jeremy Taylor and other divines of the same class.

In the following passage observe the use of such doublets as “painful and laborious,” “rest and ease,” and “desire and love.” The rhythm is supple, there is a quick procession of phrases, and the vocabulary is copious and Latinized to a considerable extent.

What life is more painful and laborious of itself than is the life of hunters which, most early in the morning, break their sleep and rise when others do take their rest and ease, and in his labour he may use no plain highways and the soft grass, but he must tread upon the fallows, run over the hedges, and creep through the thick bushes, and cry all the long day upon his dogs, and so continue without meat or drink until the very night drive him home; these labours be unto him pleasant and joyous, for the desire and love that he hath to see the poor hare chased with dogs. Verily, verily, if he were compelled to take upon him such labours, and not for this cause, he would soon be weary of them, thinking them full tedious unto him; neither would he rise out of his bed so soon, nor fast so long, nor endure these other labours unless he had a very love therein.