Renaissance. The disclosure of the older mass of Hebrew
literature, wrought the revolution of the Reformation. But the one
revolution was far deeper and wider in its effects than the other.
No version could transfer to another tongue the peculiar charm of
language which gave their value to the authors of Greece and Rome.
Classical letters, therefore, remained in the possession of the
learned, that is, of the few, and among these, with the exception
of Colet and More, or of the pedants who revived a Pagan worship
in the gardens of the Florentine Academy, their direct influence
was purely intellectual. But the language of the Hebrew, the idiom
of the Hellenistic Greek, lent themselves with a curious felicity
to the purposes of translation. As a mere literary monument the
English version of the Bible remains the noblest example of the
English tongue, while its perpetual use made it from the instant
of its appearance, the standard of our language.

"One must dwell upon this fact persistently, before it will become
possible to understand aright either the people or the literature of
the time. With generations the influence has weakened, though the
best in English speech has its source in one fountain. But the
Englishman of that day wove his Bible into daily speech, as we weave
Shakespeare or Milton or our favorite author of a later day. It was
neither affectation nor hypocrisy but an instinctive use that made
the curious mosaic of Biblical words and phrases which colored
English talk two hundred years ago. The mass of picturesque allusion
and illustration which we borrow from a thousand books, our fathers
were forced to borrow from one; and the borrowing was the easier and
the more natural, that the range of the Hebrew literature fitted it
for the expression of every phase of feeling. When Spencer poured
forth his warmest love-notes in the 'Epithalamion,' he adopted the