90

THE EFFECTS OF

CHAP. XX.

much knowledge of the state of the country gene-rally, and of the change that was then going on inthe relations of the several classes of society toeach other.

This work, published about thirty years afterthe sermons of Latimer, from which quotationshave been presented to the reader, repeats andextends the complaints which the pious prelateuttered, and introduces a picture of future decayin England which rivals that of the bishop.

The quaint language and the ancient and un-fixed spelling in this work will need no apologywith any reader, and the phraseology is muchmore appropriate to the period it describes thanany sentences would be if constructed in moremodern English . We give the complaints, there-fore, in their own words, though not exactly inthe order in which they stand in the dialogue.The knight says,—

“ All of my sorte—I meaneall gentlemen—have“ greate cause to complayne, now that the pryces“ of thinges are so risen of all handes that you“ may better lyve after your degree than we ; for“ you may and do rayse the pryce of your wares as

and ventured, without authority or truth, to insert in the title-page “ By William Shakespeare , Gent.,” doubtless thinkingthe name of the great poet would sell the work. As Shakspearewas born in 1564, and could be only seventeen at the time ofthe publication, it is next to impossible he could have been theauthor of a work containing so much accurate knowledge.