OTHER WORKS.--More also wrote, in most excellent English prose, a history of the princes, Edward V. and his brother Richard of York, who were murdered in the Tower; and a history of their murderer and uncle, Richard III. This Richard--and we need not doubt his accuracy of statement, for he was born five years before Richard fell at Bosworth--is the short, deformed youth, with his left shoulder higher than the right; crafty, stony-hearted, and cruel, so strikingly presented by Shakspeare, who takes More as his authority. "Not letting (sparing) to kiss whom he thought to kill ... friend and foe was indifferent where his advantage grew; he spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew, with his own hands, King Henry VI., being a prisoner in the Tower." With the honorable name of More we leave this unproductive period, in which there was no great growth of any kind, but which was the planting-time, when seeds were sown that were soon to germinate and bloom and astonish the world. The times remind us of the dark saying in the Bible, "Out of the eater came forth meat; out of the strong came sweetness." The art of printing had so increased the number of books, that public libraries began to be collected, and, what is better, to be used. The universities enlarged their borders, new colleges were added to Cambridge and Oxford; new foundations laid. The note of preparation betokened a great advent; the scene was fully prepared, and the actors would not be wanting. Upon the death of Henry VIII., in 1547, Edward VI., his son by Jane Seymour, ascended the throne, and during his minority a protector was appointed in the person of his mother's brother, the Earl of Hertford, afterward Duke of Somerset. Edward was a sickly youth of ten years old, but his reign is noted for the progress of reform in the Church, and especially for the issue of the _Book of Common Prayer_, which must be considered of literary importance, as, although with decided modifications, and an interruption in its use during the brief reign of Mary, it has been the ritual of worship in the Anglican Church ever since. It superseded the Latin services--of which it was mainly a translation rearranged and modified--finally and completely, and containing, as it does, the whole body of doctrine, it was the first clear manifesto of the creeds and usages of that Church, and a strong bond of union among its members. OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD. _Thomas Tusser_, 1527-1580: published, in 1557, "A Hundreth Good Points of Husbandrie," afterward enlarged and called, "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie, united to as many of Good Huswiferie;" especially valuable as a picture of rural life and labor in that age. Alexander Barklay, died 1552: translated into English poetry the _Ship of Fools_, by Sebastian Brandt, of Basle.