_C. Custance._ In good sooth, Madge, e’en so would I, if I were thou. But no more of this fond talk now, let us go in, And see thou no more move me folly to begin. Nor bring me no more letters for no man’s pleasure, But thou know from whom. _M. Mumble._ I warrant ye shall be sure. _Ralph Roister Doister_ _Summary._ We can thus see the material that lay to the hand of Shakespeare and his fellows. It was almost of uniform development and of ancient and diverse origin; it was frequently coarse and childish, but its material was abundant and vital. The time was at hand, and so was the genius of the master to give this vast body a shape and impulse. Almost in a day, after centuries of slow ripening, the harvest came, with a wealth and excellence of fruition that is one of the marvels of our literature. THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STYLE =1. Poetry.= In English poetry there was a marked decadence in style. In the works of Lydgate, Skelton, and Hawes the meters often became mere doggerel; there was little trace of real poetical imagination and phrasing; and the actual vocabulary is not striking. Compared with that of Chaucer, their work seems childish and inept. Many reasons have been advanced to explain this rapid collapse. The most obvious one is the sheer lack of talent: there is nobody to carry on the Chaucerian tradition with any great credit. Another cause is probably the rapid decay of the use of the final _e_, which in the meter of Chaucer was an item of much moment. Pronunciation of English was rapidly changing, and the new race of poets had not the requisite skill to modify the old meter to suit the new age. In Scottish poetry there is much activity. To a large extent the Scottish poets were content to imitate the mannerisms of Chaucer. In one respect, indeed, they carried his descriptive-allegorical method too far, and made their poems lifeless. Such were the less successful poems of Dunbar (_The Golden Targe_), and of Gawain Douglas (_The Palice of Honour_). On the other hand, peculiar Scottish features were not lacking: a breezy and sometimes vulgar humor, bred, perhaps, of the ruder folk and the bleaker air; a robust independence and common sense; a note of passion and pathos; and a sense of the picturesque both in nature and in man. We find such features illustrated, wholly or in part, in such poems as Lyndsay’s _Satyre of the Thrie Estatis_, in Dunbar’s _Lament for the Makaris_, and at the close of Henryson’s _Testament of Cresseid_.