His chief works include _The Passetyme of Pleasure_, a kind of romantic-homiletic poem, composed both in rhyme royal stanzas and in couplets, and dealing with man’s life in this world in a fashion reminiscent of Bunyan’s, _The Example of Virtue_, _The Conversion of Swerers_, and _A Joyfull Medytacyon_. Of all the poets now under discussion Hawes is the most uninspired; his allegorical methods are of the crudest; but he is not entirely without his poetical moments. His _Passetyme of Pleasure_ probably influenced the allegory of Spenser. =6. Alexander Barclay (1476–1552)= might have been either a Scotsman or an Englishman for all that is known on the subject. He was a priest in Devonshire, and later withdrew to a monastery in Ely. His important poem, _The Ship of Fools_, a translation of a German work by Sebastian Brant, represents a newer type of allegory. The figures in the poem are not the usual wooden creatures representing the common vices and virtues, but they are sharply satirical portraits of the various kinds of foolish men. Sometimes Barclay adds personal touches to make the general satire more telling. _Certayne Ecloges_, another of Barclay’s works, is the earliest English collection of pastorals. It contains, among much grumbling over the times, quite attractive pictures of the country life of the day. PROSE-WRITERS =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.