1. The fifteenth century, a remarkable period in many ways, saw three royal dynasties established in England-- the Houses of Lancaster, York, and Tudor. Five successful French campaigns of Henry V., and the battle of Agincourt; and, on the other side, the loss of all our large possessions in France, with the exception of Calais, under the rule of the weak Henry VI., were among the chief events of the fifteenth century. The Wars of the Roses did not contribute anything to the prosperity of the century, nor could so unsettled and quarrelsome a time encourage the cultivation of literature. For this among other reasons, we find no great compositions in prose or verse; but a considerable activity in the making and distribution of ballads. The best of these are +Sir Patrick Spens+, +Edom o’ Gordon+, +The Nut-Brown Mayde+, and some of those written about +Robin Hood+ and his exploits. The ballad was everywhere popular; and minstrels sang them in every city and village through the length and breadth of England. The famous ballad of +Chevy Chase+ is generally placed after the year 1460, though it did not take its present form till the seventeenth century. It tells the story of the Battle of Otterburn, which was fought in 1388. This century was also witness to the short struggle of Richard III., followed by the rise of the House of Tudor. And, in 1498, just at its close, the wonderful apparition of a new world-- of +The New World+-- rose on the horizon of the English mind, for England then first heard of the discovery of America. But, as regards thinking and writing, the fifteenth century is the most barren in our literature. It is the most barren in the +production+ of original literature; but, on the other hand, it is, compared with all the centuries that preceded it, the most fertile in the dissemination and +distribution+ of the literature that already existed. For England saw, in the memorable year of +1474+, the establishment of the first printing-press in the Almonry at Westminster, by +William Caxton+. The first book printed by him in this country was called ‘The Game and Playe of the Chesse.’ When Edward IV. and his friends visited Caxton’s house and looked at his printing-press, they spoke of it as a pretty toy; they could not foresee that it was destined to be a more powerful engine of good government and the spread of thought and education than the Crown, Parliaments, and courts of law all put together. The two greatest names in literature in the fifteenth century are those of +James I.+ (of Scotland) and +William Caxton+ himself. Two followers of Chaucer, +Occleve+ and +Lydgate+ are also generally mentioned. Put shortly, one might say that the chief poetical productions of this century were its +ballads+; and the chief prose productions, +translations+ from Latin or from foreign works.