tion was another mighty
influence, working side by side with all the other forces to effect a
lasting change in English history and literature. In the early part of
the sixteenth century, Martin Luther was electrifying Germany with his
demands for church reformation. In order to decide which religious
party was in the right, there arose a desire for more knowledge of the
_Scriptures_. The language had changed much since Wycliffe's
translation of the _Bible_, and, besides, this was accessible only in
manuscript. William Tyndale, a clergyman and an excellent linguist,
who had been educated at both Oxford and Cambridge, conceived the idea
of giving the English people the Bible in their own tongue. As he
found that he could not translate and print the Bible with safety in
England, he went to the continent, where with the help of friends he
made the translation and had it printed. He was forced to move
frequently from place to place, and was finally betrayed in his hiding
place near Brussels. After eighteen months' imprisonment without pen
or books, he was strangled and his body was burned at the stake.

Of his translation, Brooke says: "It was this _Bible_ which, revised
by Coverdale, and edited and reedited as _Cromwell's Bible_, 1539, and
again as _Cranmer's Bible_, 1540, was set up in every parish church in
England. It got north into Scotland and made the Lowland English more
like the London English. It passed over into the Protestant
settlements in Ireland. After its revival in 1611 it went with the
Puritan Fathers to New England and fixed the standard of English in
America. Many millions of people now speak the English of Tyndale's
_Bible_, and there is no other book which has had, through the
_Authorized Version_, so great an influence on the style of English
literature and on the standard of English prose."

[Illustration: WILLIAM TYNDALE. _From an old print_.]

The following verses from Tyndale's version show its simplicity
directness, and similarity to the present version:--

"Jesus sayde unto her, Thy brother shall ryse agayne.

"Martha sayde unto hym, I knowe wele, he shall ryse agayne in the
resurreccion att the last day.

"Jesus sayde unto her, I am the resurreccion and lyfe; whosoever
beleveth on me, ye, though he were deed, yet shall he lyve."

Italian Influence: Wyatt and Surrey.--During the reign of Henry
VIII. (1509-1547), the influence of Italian poetry made itself
distinctly felt. The r