+1616+ 28. +William Shakespeare+ carried the use of the English language to the greatest height of which it was capable. He employed 15,000 words. “The last act of ‘Othello’ is a rare specimen of Shakespeare’s diction: of every five nouns, verbs, and adverbs, four are Teutonic” (+Born 1564+) +1667+ 29. +John Milton+, “the most learned of English poets,” publishes his ‘Paradise Lost,’-- “a poem in which Latin words are introduced with great skill” +1661+ 30. +The Prayer-Book+ revised and issued in its final form. “_Are_ was substituted for _be_ in forty-three places. This was a great victory of the North over the South” +1688+ 31. +John Bunyan+ writes his ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’-- a book full of pithy English idiom. “The common folk had the wit at once to see the worth of Bunyan’s masterpiece, and the learned long afterwards followed in the wake of the common folk” (+Born 1628+) +1642+ 32. +Sir Thomas Browne+, the author of ‘Urn-Burial’ and other works written in a highly Latinised diction, such as the ‘Religio Medici,’ written [1642] +1759+ 33. +Dr Samuel Johnson+ was the chief supporter of the use of “long-tailed words in osity and ation,” such as his novel called ‘Rasselas,’ published [1759] 34. +Tennyson, Poet-Laureate+, a writer of the best English-- “a countryman of Robert Manning’s, and a careful student of old Malory, has done much for the revival of pure English among us” (+Born 1809+) PART IV. OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAPTER I. OUR OLDEST ENGLISH LITERATURE. 1. +Literature.+-- The history of English Literature is, in its external aspect, an account of the best books in prose and in verse that have been written by English men and English women; and this account begins with a poem brought over from the Continent by our countrymen in the fifth century, and comes down to the time in which we live. It covers, therefore, a period of nearly fourteen hundred years.