into some public schools of the universities, where manie give eare to one that readeth, than unto a princes palace if you conferre the same with those of other nations. Would to God all honorable personages would take example of hir graces godlie, dealing in this behalfe, and shew their conformitie unto these hir so good beginnings which if they would, then should manie grievous offenses (wherewith God is highlie displeased) be cut off and restreined, which now doo reigne exceedinglie, in most noble and gentlemen’s houses, whereof they see no paterne within hur graces gates.” (Holinshed’s _Chronicles_.) Leaving the great masters, let us consider a little the more popular literature of the day; the kind which has its run among the people and is forgotten; the current literature, the books of the time, the works which were bought and read by those of the citizens who read at all, probably as large a proportion as we should find at the present day, when the newspaper is the only reading of multitudes. It is not difficult to arrive at what constituted a library. There were religious books, such as Hooper’s _Sermons_; there were collections of songs, such as _The Court of Venus_, against which the clergy spoke vehemently; books of chivalry and novels in great numbers, such as _Bevis of Hampton_, _Guy of Warwick_, _Arthur of the Round Table_, _Huon of Bordeaux_, _Oliver of the Castle_, _Four Sons of Aymon_, _The Witless Devices of Gargantua_ and _Howleglas_. There were the English stories, _Robin Hood_, _Adam Bell_, _Friar Rushe_, _The Foole of Gotham_. There were satires and fables; _Æsop_, Erasmus’s _Praise of Folly_, _The Schoolhouse of Women_, _The Defense of Women_, _Piers Plowman_, _Raynolde the Fox_, _The Palace of Pleasure_. There were translations, as _Virgil_, _Seneca_, and _Apulosius_; there were books of instruction, as _The Boke of Carvynge_, _The Boke of Cokerye_, _The Boke of Nurture for Men servants_, _The Boke of Fortune_, _The Boke of Curtesey_, _The Boke of Chesse_, and _The Hundred Points of Good Husserye_. These titles are taken from actual lists before me; the presses were extremely active and the output of books was very considerable during the whole of Elizabeth’s long reign. In a word, there was as great a variety of books for the reader’s choice as there is now, setting aside the modern books in science; there were poets by the hundred, dramatists, novelists of all kinds, historians, preachers, moralists, and essayists. It would take too much space and time were I to attempt an estimate or an account of the Elizabethan literature. [Illustration: EDMUND SPENSER (1552(?)-1599) From an engraving by George Vertue.]