prejudiced hands of the servants of a despotic religion, and permitted the exercise of that freedom of thought and opinion which is so essential a characteristic of true toleration, and so necessary to the progressive march of the human mind, and the advancement of learning. The attempts of the bigotted Mary, during her happily short reign, to counteract the efforts of the Reformation, succeeded only in giving a temporary check to its progress, but eventually contributed to its final success; as a dyke thrown across a raging torrent for a time arrests its course, but at last, overthrown by the increasing strength of the accumulated waters, only serves to render their devastations more terrible and extensive than before.

The age of Elizabeth and James may, we think, be denominated, more justly than any other. the Augustan age of English literature. Many causes conspired to produce the extraordinary development of genius which at this time took place; of these, two have been already noticed, -the revival of learning, and the Reformation; the effects of the latter were, however, materially

forwarded in our country by a work of which we have yet to speak,-the Translation of the Bible; which may not unaptly be called the main-spring of that great event, without which it might possibly never have occurred, certainly would have proved far less beneficial to mankind in general. To these may be added the discovery of America, which opened a new field of action for all enterprising spirits, and demonstrated the ignorance of those minute philosophers who had hitherto ruled the reasoning world.

It was during these reigns most indisputably that the English language received a greater degree of improvement, than in any other equal period. "From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth," says Dr. Johnson in the admirable preface to his English Dictionary, "a speech might be formed adequate to all purposes of use and elegance, if the language of theology were extracted from Hooker, and the Bible translation; the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation, from Raleigh; the dialect

of poetry and fiction from Spenser, and Sidney; and the diction of common life from Shakespeare; few ideas would be lost to mankind for want of English words, in which they might be expressed."

This eulogium will be, by many, considered as extravagant, and it is, perhaps, a little overcharged. The writers of those times are certainly quaint, and frequently indulge too much in involved and latinized constructions; and, indeed, was it not to be expected that they would be partial to classical phraseology? We must recollect that they had no standard, or model of taste, as we have, by which to form their style. The revival of literature was in their days still recent; and they naturally endeavoured, by imitating the arrangement of the dead languages, to impart to their own that nerve and power of expression which they so much admired in them. The writers of this age were fully sensible of the great difficulties under which their language laboured from the want of a standard of style, and they all attempted, though in different manners, and with different

degrees of success, each according to the bent of his talent, to supply the deficiency.

The style of Raleigh approaches much more nearly than that of any of his contemporaries, to the diction of modern times: that frankness of mind which was the chief characteristic of this chivalrous and accomplished man, breathes through all his works; and, united as it is with an elegant, classical, and expressive style, will hardly fail to charm an impartial reader, though he may here and there fall in with an obsolete word or an exploded form of expression. The writings of Bacon and Hooker, but more particularly those of the latter, are, perhaps, not so free from involved constructions as the works of Raleigh; but the opinions they promulgate are of such sterling value, and immense importance, that the student will always be repaid by the study of their sentences, though they are sometimes obscure and abound in classical collocation.

III. After having taken this cursory view of the writers of the Elizabethan age, we must

pause awhile, and, returning to the time of Henry the Eighth, trace the origin, progress, and completion of a design destined to exercise the most beneficial influence upon our language and literature, and, at present, more especially entitled to our attention, as being the subject of this Essay; we mean, the translation of the Bible into English. It is true that Wickliffe, and Hampole before him, had translated, the one the whole, the other a part of the Bible; but Wickliffe, being unacquainted with the originals in the Greek and Hebrew languages, could only translate from the Latin vulgate, and the art of printing not being invented, his version could not be so generally dispersed as those which subsequently appeared. We shall consider, therefore, the translation published in the reign of Henry the Eighth, by Tindal, as the first attempt to render the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue. To this extraordinary man we are greatly indebted. He was one of those few disinterested persons allowed to visit this earth, who, preferring what they conceive to be conducive to the welfare of their country, to the acquisition of any