The "romance of chivalry" was sinking to be succeeded by the heavier tomes of Gomberville, Scudery, &c., but the extension of classical knowledge, the vast strides in acquirement of various kinds, the utter change, so to speak, in the system of literature, all contributed to the downfall of the chivalric romance. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia introduced a rage for high-flown pastoral effusions; and now too was re-born that taste for metaphorical effusion and spiritual romance, which was first exhibited in the fourth century in the Bishop of Tricca's romance of "Barlaam and Josaphat," and which now pervaded the fast-rising puritan party, and was afterwards fully developed in that unaccountably fascinating work, "The Pilgrim's Progress." Nevertheless, as yet "Courted and caress'd, High placed in hall, a welcome guest," the harper poured to lord and lady gay not indeed "his unpremeditated lay," but a poetical abridgment (the precursor of a fast succeeding race of romantic ballads) of the doughty deeds of renowned knights, so amply expatiated upon in the time-honoured folios of the "olden time." The wandering harper, if fallen somewhat from his "high estate," was still a recognised and welcome guest; his "matter being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rhimes." Though the character of the minstrel gradually lost respectability, yet for a considerable part of Elizabeth's reign it was one so fully acknowledged, that a peculiar garb was still attached to the office. "Mongst these, some bards there were that in their sacred rage Recorded the descents and acts of everie age. Some with their nimbler joynts that strooke the warbling string; In fingering some unskild, but onelie vsed to sing Vnto the other's harpe: of which you both might find Great plentie, and of both excelling in their kind." The superstitions of various kinds, the omens, the warnings, the charms, the "potent spells" of the wizard seer, which "Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon, Or draw the fix'd stars from their eminence, And still the midnight tempest,"-- the supernatural agents, the goblins, the witches, the fairies, the satyrs, the elves, the fauns, the "shapes that walk," the "Uncharnel'd spectres, seen to glide Along the lone wood's unfrequented path"-- the being and active existence of all these was considered "true as holy writ" by our ancestors of the Elizabethan age. On this subject we will transcribe a beautifully illustrative passage from Warton:--