While material and social progress took so new a flight, the splendour of literature under the reign of Elizabeth has not yet faded. The intellectual movement preceded all others. It burst forth towards the end of the civil war, and amidst the desolation which intestine strife brings in its wake. Scotland even took part in this glory, although civil war still reigned there. From 1494 to 1584 seven colleges were founded at Oxford and eight at Cambridge. The university of Aberdeen in 1494, that of Edinburgh in 1582, two colleges of the university of St. Andrew's between 1512 and 1537, the university of Trinity College at Dublin in 1591, assured in Great Britain the development of learning. The suppression of the monasteries retarded this movement momentarily, but the reformers did not lose sight of the danger. { 437} Cranmer in particular made serious efforts to remedy the evil. The schools called grammar-schools, then instituted in great numbers, spread elementary education and a certain degree of intellectual culture; but the higher instruction, and, in particular, the study of the classical languages, received a blow from which they were long in recovering. Great disorder reigned in the universities; morals were lax and the standard of study very deficient. The revival of letters began with the study of foreign languages. We have seen that Queen Mary, like Queen Elizabeth, had studied French, Italian and Spanish, as well as Latin and Greek. From this usage, more and more diffused, sprang a strange abuse of foreign words, which introduced something like a new tongue into the English language. Under the reign of Elizabeth the lords and fine ladies at court spoke a language designated by the word "Euphuism," composed of the harmonious syllables of all languages, which is now difficult to understand, and especially to read. Traces of it may yet be found in the poems of Spenser.