That was England, which adopted Protestantism and produced the literature of Spenser, Bacon, and Shakespeare at the same epoch.  France, earlier than England, felt Renaissance influences, and for some while seemed upon the point of joining the Reformation.  But while the French were hesitating, Spain proclaimed herself the uncompromising enemy of Protestantism, and Rome, supported by this powerful ally, dragged Italy into the Catholic reaction.  That effort aimed at galvanizing a decrepit Church into the semblance of vital energy, and, while professing the reformation of its corrupt system, stereotyped all that was antagonistic in its creed and customs to the spirit of the modern world.  The Catholic Revival necessitated vigorous reaction, not only against Protestantism, but also against the Liberalism of the Renaissance and the political liberties of peoples.  It triumphed throughout Southern Europe chiefly because France chose at length the Catholic side.  But the triumph was only partial, condemning Spain and Italy indeed to intellectual barrenness for a season, but not sufficing to dominate and suppress the development of rationalism.  The pioneer’s work of Italy was over.  She joined the ranks of obscurantists and obstructives.  Germany, having failed to accomplish the Reformation in time, was distracted by the Catholic reaction, which plunged her into a series of disastrous wars.  It remained for England and Holland, not, however, without similar perturbations in both countries, to lead the van of progress through two centuries; after which this foremost post was assigned to France and the United States.

IV.

The views which I have maintained throughout my work upon the Renaissance will be found, I think, to be coherent.  They have received such varied illustrations that it is difficult to recapitulate the principles on which they rest, without repetition.  The main outline of the argument, however, is as follows.  During the middle ages, Western Christendom recognized, in theory at least, the ideal of European unity under the dual headship of the Papacy and Empire.  There was one civil order and one Church.  Emperor and Pope, though frequently at strife, were supposed to support each other for the common welfare of Christendom.  That mediaeval conception has now, in the centuries which we call modern, passed into oblivion; and the period in which it ceased to have effective value we denote as the period of the Renaissance and the Reformation.  So long as the ideal held good, it was possible for the Papacy to stamp out heresies and to stifle the earlier stirrings of antagonistic culture.  Thus the precursory movements to which I alluded in the first chapter of my ‘Age of the Despots,’ seemed to be abortive; and no less apparently abortive were the reformatory efforts of Wyclif and Huss.  Yet Europe was slowly undergoing mental and moral changes, which announced the advent