HISTORY OF ENGLAND BOOK our clergy evinced a disposition to emancipate them- selves from the papal despotism ; and some to exercise a just freedom of thought, on the most important of all human concerns : that the lineaments of our prose literature became distinctly discernible : that the pursuit of the mathematical and natural sciences, and of the art of reasoning, at one or both of our vener- able Universities, was ardent and successful: that our poetry assumed the attractive form, with which its life, sympathy, utility, and immortality are most surely connected : and that our manners displayed a moral sentiment, which, tho somewhat fantastic, and not always pure, yet contributed to soften the horrors of war, and has led to that more cultivated feeling, which, continually increasing and refining, has made Englishmen distinguished for their generosity, mag- nanimity and honor.

The historical picture pre- sents to us these subjects, as we contemplate the reign of Edward III The monarch himself, for a time advancing with his age, sometimes even preced- ing it, in what was then considered to be the perfect gentleman, was, for many years, and until prosperity, grief, and age, debilitated him, a model for the imita- tion of his contemporaries, and, except in his love of war, to his successors.

He was rewarded for his utilities with a reign long enough to give, to all the improvements which it fostered or occasioned, a suffi- cient period for their due development and effective establishment.

England appears with new features after his death.

She became a country of larger mind and nobler manners, hastening rapidly to more glori- ous destinies.