k, he soon finds means to throw his master into
a cauldron of boiling water, and pretending that the cook's death
resulted from an accident, he obtains the chief position in the kitchen
himself. He then provides the convent with such delicious food that the
monks give themselves up entirely to material enjoyment, and finally
reach a condition of degeneracy from which recovery is almost
impossible. Rush, however, is exposed in time to prevent absolute ruin,
and sets out to make up for this failure by good service elsewhere. The
story is described on the title-page as "being full of pleasant mirth
and delight for young people."

The tales of the yeomanry were very popular during the sixteenth
century, and were sold as penny chapbooks for many years. They form an
interesting link in the history of English prose fiction, representing
as they do the first appearance of a popular demand for prose stories,
and the first appearance, except in Chaucer, of other than military or
clerical heroes. They possess an element of reality which separates the
chivalric ideal of the Middle Ages from the pastoral-chivalric ideal of
Elizabeth's time, the latter typified by Sidney's "Arcadia." The tales
relating to the conjurers are quite mediaeval in character. They are of
interest only so far as they serve to illustrate the effect of popular
superstition upon the literature of the time.

The New Learning, growing up in the place of war and theology, meant
the dawn of material prosperity, of the rule of law, and of a new
intelligence diffused through the opinions and industries of men. Of
this there is no better exposition than Sir Thomas More's "Utopia."
More was a devout Catholic. He wore a hair shirt next his skin; he
flogged himself; he gave his life for a theological principle. But he
was also a Christian in a wider sense. He appreciated the importance to
men of peace and happiness, as well as of orthodoxy. He sought to
promote, what the clergy sought to destroy, the benefits of
intellectual and material advancement. More was a lawyer, seeing
clearly into the temper of his time, and discerning the new tendencies
which were forming the opinions and influencing the actions of his
countrymen. It was as a lawyer, too, that he was able to do this. As a
soldier, or as the inmate of that Carthusian cell his youth had longed
for, he would have shared the prevailing blindness. For many centuries
all intellectual activity had been occupied with t