V. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH…

V. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH

TIME-CHART OF THE CHIEF AUTHORS

The thick line indicates the period of active literary production.

1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 | | | | | | | | | Spenser |........|.. ║[83]| | ║ | | | | | (1552–99) | | ║ ===================║ | | | | | | ║ | | |║[84] | | | |║ | Drayton | ║......|........|........|║===================================║ | (1563–1631) | | | | | | | | | | | ║ | | ║ | | | |║ | Donne | | ║ ....|........|.║==================================║ | (1573–1631) | | | | | | | | | | ║ | | ║[85]| ║ | | | | | Marlowe | ║......|........|...║========║ | | | | | (1564–93) | | | | | | | | | | ║ | | | ║[86] | | ║ | | | Shakespeare | ║......|........|........|.║===================║ | | | (1564–1616) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Jonson | | ║ | | ║[87] | | | | ║ | (1573–1637) | | ║....|........|..║=====================================║ | | | | ║ |║[88] ║ | | | | | Hooker |........|........|...║=====║=====║ | | | | | (1553–1600) | | | | | | | | | |║ | | | ║[89] | | | ║ | | Bacon |║.......|........|........|...║==========================║ | | (1561–1626) | | | | | | | | | | | ║ | | | | |║[90] | ║ | Burton | | ║.....|........|........|........|........|║==============║ | (1577–1640) | | | | | | | | |

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (1550–1630)

This chapter introduces the reign of Elizabeth, sees it reach its climax and conclusion, and then witnesses the literary decline under the first of the Stuarts. The dominating features of the period can be conveniently summarized under two heads.

=1. Settlement.= Both in politics and religion the English nation was attaining to a state of stability. Dynastic problems, though they were troublesome, were not sufficient to cause serious trouble; and the union of the Crowns finally set at rest the ancient quarrel between Scotland and England. In religion the same general features were apparent--a general subsidence into quiescence, with minor disturbances at regular intervals. The settlement was all for the good of literature.

=2. Expansion.= In our history this is perhaps the most remarkable epoch for the expansion of both mental and geographical horizons. New knowledge was pouring in from the East, and new worlds were opening in the West. The great voyagers, whose exploits were chronicled in the immortal pages of =Hakluyt (1553–1616)=, brought home both material and intellectual treasures from beyond the “still-vexed Bermoothes,” as Shakespeare called them. It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the important effects which these revolutionary discoveries produced in literature.

LITERARY FEATURES OF THE AGE

=1. The New Classicism.= By the time of Elizabeth the Renaissance, as it was called, had made itself strongly felt in England. In particular, there was an ardent revival in the study of Greek, which brought a dazzling light into many dark places of the intellect. The new passion for classical learning, in itself a rich and worthy enthusiasm, became quite a danger to the language. In all branches of literature Greek and Latin usages began to force themselves upon English, with results not wholly beneficial. It said much for the native sturdiness of English that, after a brief and vexed period of transition, it threw off the worst effects of this deadening pressure. English did not emerge unscathed from the contest. But, applied to this slight extent, the new classical influences were a great benefit: they tempered and polished the earlier rudeness of English literature.

=2. Abundance of Output.= After the lean years of the preceding epoch the prodigal issue of the Elizabethan age is almost embarrassing. As we have pointed out, the historical situation encouraged a healthy production. The interest shown in literary subjects is quite amazing to a more chastened generation. Pamphlets and treatises were freely written; much abuse, often of a personal and scurrilous character, was indulged in; and literary questions became almost of national importance. To a great extent the controversies of the day were puerile enough, but at least they indicated a lively interest in the literature of the period.

=3. The New Romanticism.= The romantic quest is for the remote, the wonderful, and the beautiful. All these desires were abundantly fed during the Elizabethan age, which is our first and greatest romantic epoch. On the one hand, there was the revolt against the past, whose grasp was too feeble to hold in restraint the lusty youth of the Elizabethan age; on the other, there was a daring and resolute spirit of adventure in literary as well as in other regions; and, most important of all, there was an unmistakable buoyancy and freshness in the strong wind of the spirit. It was the ardent youth of English literature, and the achievement was worthy of it.

=4. The Drama.= The bold and critical attitude of the time was in keeping with the dramatic instinct, which is analytic and observant. Hence, after the long period of incubation detailed in the last chapter, the drama made a swift and wonderful leap into maturity. Yet it had still many early difficulties to overcome. The actors themselves were at variance, so much so that outrageous brawls were frequent. On more than one occasion between 1590 and 1593 the theaters were closed owing to disturbances caused by the actors. In 1594 the problem was solved by the licensing of two troupes of players, the Lord Chamberlain’s (among whom was Shakespeare) and the Lord Admiral’s. Another early difficulty the drama had to face was its fondness for taking part in the quarrels of the time--for example, in the burning “Marprelate” controversy. Owing to this meddling the theaters were closed in 1589. Already, also, a considerable amount of Puritanical opposition was declaring itself. The most important anti-dramatic book of the day was Gosson’s virulent School of Abuse (1579), to which Sidney replied with his Apologie for Poetrie (about 1580).

In spite of such early difficulties, the drama reached the splendid consummation of Shakespeare’s art; but before the period closed decline was apparent.

=5. Poetry.= Though the poetical production was not quite equal to the dramatic, it was nevertheless of great and original beauty. As can be observed from the disputes of the time, the passion for poetry was absorbing, and the outcome of it was equal to expectation.

=6. Prose.= For the first time prose rises to a position of first-rate importance. The dead weight of the Latin tradition was passing away; English prose was acquiring a tradition and a universal application; and so the rapid development was almost inevitable.

=7. Scottish Literature.= A curious minor feature of the age was the disappearance of Scottish literature, after its brief but remarkable appearance in the previous age. At this point it took to ground, and did not reappear till late in the eighteenth century.

EDMUND SPENSER (1552–99)

=1. His Life.= From a passage in one of his sonnets it seems clear that Spenser was born in 1552; and from another passage, in his Prothalamion, we can deduce that he was born in London. His parentage is unknown; but, though Spenser claimed kinship with the noble branch of the Spenser family, it is fairly certain that he was a member of some northern plebeian branch. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School (just founded in 1560) and at Cambridge. He left Cambridge in 1576, and for a few years his movements are unknown, though he probably spent the time in the North of England. He comes into view in London during the year 1579 as a member of the famous literary circle surrounding Sir Philip Sidney and his uncle the Earl of Leicester. Sidney patronized Spenser, introducing him to the Queen and encouraging him in his imitation of the classical meters. In 1580 Sidney’s patronage bore fruit, for Spenser was appointed secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, who had just been appointed Lord-Deputy of Ireland.

In Ireland Spenser remained for eighteen years, serving the English government in more than one capacity, and seeing his share of the rebellion, outrage, and misery that afflicted the unhappy land. In the end his services were requited by the grant of Kilcolman Castle, near Limerick, and an estate of three thousand acres. In 1589 he visited London to publish the first three books of The Faerie Queene. After remaining in London for nearly two years he returned to Ireland; married an Irishwoman (1591); revisited London in 1596, bringing a second instalment of his great work; and once more returned to Kilcolman, which was ultimately burnt down (1598) during one of the sporadic rebellions that tormented the country. One of his children perished in the fire. A ruined and disappointed man, he repaired to London, where in the next year he died, “for lack of bread,” according to the statement of Ben Jonson.

=2. His Minor Poems.= The first of the poems that have descended to us is The Shepherd’s Calendar (1579). The title, adopted from a popular compilation of the day, suggests the contents: a series of twelve eclogues, one for each month of the year. Each eclogue, as is common with the species, is in dialogue form, in which the stock pastoral characters, such as Cuddie, Colin Clout, and Perigot, take part. The pieces, though they are of no great poetical merit, served as excellent poetical exercises, for they range widely in meter, contain much skillful alliteration, and juggle with the conventional phrases of the pastoral.

A volume of miscellaneous poems, including The Ruins of Time, The Tears of the Muses, Mother Hubberd’s Tale, and The Ruins of Rome, appeared in 1591; in 1595 he published his Amoretti, a series of eighty-eight sonnets celebrating the progress of his love; Epithalamion, a magnificent ode, rapturously jubilant, written in honor of his marriage; and Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, somewhat wordy, but containing some interesting personal details. In 1596 appeared his Four Hymns and Prothalamion, the latter not so fine as the great ode of the previous year.

Spenser’s shorter poems illustrate his lyrical ability, which is moderate in quality. His style is too diffuse and ornate to be intensely passionate; but, especially in the odes, he can build up sonorous and commanding measures which by their weight and splendor delight both mind and ear. To a lesser extent, as in Mother Hubberd’s Tale, the shorter poems afford him scope for his satirical bent, which can be sharp and censorious.

We quote from the Epithalamion, which stands at the summit of English odes:

Open the temple gates unto my love, Open them wide that she may enter in, And all the posts adorn as doth behove, And all the pillars deck with girlonds trim, For to receive this Saint with honour due, That cometh unto you. With trembling steps, and humble reverence, She cometh in, before the Almighty’s view; Of her, ye virgins, learn obedience, When so ye come into these holy places, And humble your proud faces. Bring her up to the high altar, that she may The sacred ceremonies there partake, The which do endless matrimony make; And let the roaring organs loudly play The praises of the Lord in lively notes; The whiles, with hollow throats, The choristers the joyous anthem sing, That all the woods may answer, and their echo ring.

=3. Prose.= In addition to his letters, which are often interesting and informative, Spenser left one longish prose work, a kind of State paper done in the form of a dialogue. Called A View of the Present State of Ireland (1594), it gives Spenser’s views on the settlement of the Irish question. His opinions are exceeding hostile to the Irish, and his methods, if put in force, would amount to pure terrorism. The style of the pamphlet is quite undistinguished.

=4. The Faerie Queene.= In spite of the variety and beauty of his shorter poems, The Faerie Queene is by far the most important of Spenser’s works.

(a) Dates of Composition. The work appeared in instalments. In 1589 Spenser crossed to London and published the first three books; in 1596 the second three followed; and after his death two cantos and two odd stanzas of Book VII appeared. It was reported that more of the work perished in manuscript during the fire at Kilcolman, but this is not certain.

(b) The Plot. The construction of the plot is so obscure (“clowdily enwrapped in Allegorical devises,” as Spenser himself says) that he was compelled to write a preface, in the form of a letter to his friend Sir Walter Raleigh, explaining the scheme underlying the whole. There were to be twelve books, each book to deal with the adventures of a particular knight, who was to represent some virtue. As we have the poem, the first book deals with the Knight of the Red Cross, representing Holiness; the second with Temperance; the third with Chastity; the fourth with Friendship; and so on. The chief of all the twelve is Prince Arthur, who is to appear at critical moments in the poem, and who in the end is to marry Gloriana, the Queen of “Faerie-londe.” The plot is exceedingly leisurely and elaborate; it is crammed with incident and digression; and by the fifth book it is palpably weakening. It is therefore no misfortune (as far as the plot is concerned) that only half of the story is finished.

(c) The Allegory. With its twelve divisions, each of which bears many smaller branches, the allegory is the most complex in the language. Through the story three strands keep running, twisting and untwisting in a manner both baffling and delightful. (1) There are the usual characters, poorly developed, of the Arthurian and classical romance, such as Arthur, Merlin, Saracens, fauns, and satyrs. (2) There are the allegorized moral and religious virtues, with their counterparts in the vices: Una (Truth), Guyon (Temperance), Duessa (Deceit), Orgoglio (Pride).

(3) Lastly, there is the strongly Elizabethan political-historical-religious element, also strongly allegorized. For example, Gloriana is Elizabeth, Duessa may be Mary, Queen of Scots, Archimago may be the Pope, and Artegal (Justice) is said to be Lord Grey. Sometimes the allegory winds and multiplies in a bewildering fashion. Elizabeth, who is grossly and shamelessly flattered in the poem, is sometimes Gloriana, sometimes Belphœbe, or Britomart, or Mercilla. It is very ingenious, but it retards the story.

(d) The Style. No one, however, goes to Spenser for a story; one goes to steep the senses in the rich and voluptuous style. The style has its weaknesses: it is diffuse, and lacks judgment; it is weak in “bite” and in sharpness of attack; and it is misty and unsubstantial. But for beauty long and richly wrought, for subtle and sustained melody, for graphic word-pictures, and for depth and magical color of atmosphere the poem stands supreme in English. Its imitators, good and bad, are legion. Milton, Keats, and Tennyson are among the best of them, and its influence is still powerful.

(e) The Technique. To the formal part of the poem Spenser devoted the intelligence and care of the great artist. (1) First of all, he elaborated an archaic diction: “he writ no language,” said Ben Jonson, who did not like the diction. When the occasion demanded it he invented words or word-forms; for example, he uses blend for blind, kest for cast, and vilde for vile. The result is not perhaps ideal, but on the whole it suits the old-world atmosphere of the poem. (2) He introduced the Spenserian stanza, which ever since has been one of the most important measures in the language. Longer than the usual stanza, but shorter than the sonnet, as a unit it is just long enough to give an easy pace to the slowly pacing narrative. The complicated rhymes of the stanza suit the interwoven harmonies of the style; and the long line at the end acts either as a dignified conclusion or as a longer and stronger link with the succeeding stanza. (3) The alliteration, vowel-music, and cadence are cunningly fashioned, adroitly developed, and sumptuously appropriate. In these last respects Spenser is almost peerless.

We add two brief extracts to illustrate some features of the style. The reader should analyze the stanza and observe the graphical power and the melodic beauty.

(1) And more to lulle him in his slumber soft, A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe, And ever-drizling raine upon the loft, Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swowne. No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes, As still are wont t’annoy the walled towne, Might there be heard; but carelesse Quiet lyes Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes.

(2) At last he came unto a gloomy shade, Covered with boughes and shrubs from heavens light, Whereas he sitting found in secret shade An uncouth, salvage, and uncivile wight,[91] Of griesly hew and foule ill favour’d sight; His face with smoke was tand and eies were bleard, His head and beard with sout were ill bedight, His cole-blacke hands did seeme to have ben seard In smythes fire-spitting forge, and nayles like clawes appeard.

His yron cote, all overgrowne with rust, Was underneath enveloped with gold; Whose glistring glosse, darkened with filthy dust, Well yet appeared to have beene of old A worke of rich entayle[92] and curious mould, Woven with antickes and wyld ymagery; And in his lap a masse of coyne he told, And turned upside downe, to feede his eye And covetous desire with his huge threasury.

And round about him lay on every side Great heapes of gold that never could be spent; Of which some were rude owre,[93] not purifide Of Mulcibers devouring element; Some others were new driven, and distent[94] Into great Ingowes[95] and to wedges square; Some in round plates withouten moniment; But most were stampt, and in their metal bare The antique shapes of kings and kesars straunge and rare.

OTHER POETS

=1. Sir Thomas Wyat (1503–42)= was descended from an ancient Yorkshire family which adopted the Lancastrian side in the Wars of the Roses. He was educated at Cambridge, and, entering the King’s service, was entrusted with many important diplomatic missions. In public life his principal patron was Thomas Cromwell, after whose death he was recalled from abroad and imprisoned (1541). Though subsequently acquitted and released, he died shortly afterward.

None of Wyat’s poems is very long, though in number they are considerable. The most numerous of them are his love-poems, ninety-six in all, which appeared in a compendium of the day called Tottel’s Miscellany (1557). The most noteworthy of these poems are the sonnets, the first of their kind in English, thirty-one in number. Of these, ten are written almost entirely in the Italian or Petrarchan form. In sentiment the shorter poems, and especially the sonnets, are serious and reflective; in style and construction they are often too closely imitative to be natural and genial; but as indications of the new scholastic and literary influences at work upon English, sweetening and chastening the earlier uncouthness, they are of the highest importance. Wyat’s epigrams, songs, and rondeaux are lighter than the sonnets, and they also reveal a care and elegance that were typical of the new romanticism. His Satires are composed in the Italian terza rima, once again showing the direction of the innovating tendencies.

=2. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1518–47)=, whose name is usually associated in literature with that of Wyat, was the younger poet of the two. He was the son of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, and when his father became Duke of Norfolk (1524) the son adopted the courtesy title of Earl of Surrey. Owing largely to the powerful position of his father, Surrey took a prominent part in the Court life of the time, and served as a soldier both in France and Scotland. He was a man of reckless temper, which involved him in many quarrels, and finally brought upon him the wrath of the ageing and embittered Henry VIII. He was arrested, tried for treason, and beheaded on Tower Hill.

About 1542 Surrey began his literary relations with Wyat, who was his elder by fifteen years. His poems, which were the recreations of his few leisure moments, and which were not published till after his death (1557), appeared along with Wyat’s in Tottel’s Miscellany. They are chiefly lyrical, and include a few sonnets, the first of their kind, composed in the English or Shakespearian mode--an arrangement of three quatrains followed by a couplet. There are in addition a large number of love-poems addressed to a mysterious “Geraldine.” They are smoother than Wyat’s poems, and are much more poetical in sentiment and expression. His most important poem was published separately: Certain Bokes of Virgiles Æneis turned into English Meter (1557). Though the actual translation is of no outstanding merit, the form is of great significance; it is done in blank verse, rather rough and frigid, but the earliest forerunner of the great achievements of Shakespeare and Milton.

In the development of English verse Surrey represents a further stage: a higher poetical faculty, increased ease and refinement, and the introduction of two metrical forms of capital importance--the English form of the sonnet, and blank verse. We add a specimen of the earliest English blank verse. It is wooden and uninspired, but as a beginning it is worthy of attention.

But now the wounded quene with heavie care Throwgh out the vaines doth nourishe ay the plage, Surprised with blind flame, and to her minde Gan to resort the prowes of the man And honor of his race, whiles on her brest Imprinted stake his wordes and forme of face, Ne to her lymmes care graunteth quiet rest. The next morowe with Phœbus lampe the erthe Alightned clere, and eke the dawninge daye The shadowe danke gan from the pole remove.

=3. Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset (1536–1608)=, was born at Buckhurst, in Sussex, and was educated both at Oxford and Cambridge. He was called to the Bar, entered Parliament, took part in many diplomatic and public missions, and was created Lord Buckhurst in 1566. His plain speaking did not recommend itself to Elizabeth, and for a time he was in disgrace. He was restored to favor, created Lord High Treasurer, and made Earl of Dorset in 1604.

In bulk Sackville’s poetry does not amount to much, but in merit it is of much consequence. Two poems, The Induction and The Complaint of Henry, Duke of Buckingham, appeared in a miscellany called The Mirror for Magistrates (1555). Both are composed in the rhyme royal stanza, are melancholy and elegiac in spirit and archaic in language, but have a severe nobility of thought and a grandeur of conception and of language quite unknown since the days of Chaucer. The poems undoubtedly assisted Spenser in the composition of The Faerie Queene.

Sackville collaborated with Norton in the early tragedy of Gorboduc (see p. 77).

We add a few stanzas from The Induction to illustrate the somber graphical power of the poem:

And, next in order, sad Old Age we found, His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind, With drooping cheer still poring on the ground, As on the place where nature him assigned To rest, when that the Sisters had untwined His vital thread, and ended with their knife The fleeting course of fast-declining life.

There heard we him, with broke and hollow plaint, Rue with himself his end approaching fast, And all for nought his wretched mind torment With sweet remembrance of his pleasures past, And fresh delights of lusty youth forwaste;[96] Recounting which, how would he sob and shriek, And to be young again of Jove beseek!

* * * * *

Crook-backed he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed, Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four; With old lame bones, that rattled by his side; His scalp all piled,[97] and he with eld forelore; His withered fist still knocking at Death’s door; Fumbling and drivelling as he draws his breath; For brief, the shape and messenger of Death.

=4. George Gascoigne (1535–77)= is another of the founders of the great Elizabethan tradition. He was born in Bedfordshire, educated at Cambridge, and became a lawyer. Later in life he entered Parliament.

In addition to a large number of elegant lyrics, he composed one of the first regular satires in the language, The Steel Glass (1576). This poem has the additional importance of being written in blank verse. Among his other numerous works we can mention his tragedy Jocasta (1566), a landmark in the growth of the drama (see p. 77); his Supposes (1566), an important early comedy which was the basis of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew; and Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the Making of Verse in English (1575), one of our earliest critical essays. In ease and versatility Gascoigne is typical of the best early Elizabethan miscellaneous writers.

=5. Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86)= was the chief of an elegant literary coterie, and exercised an influence which was almost supreme during his short life. He was the most commanding literary figure before the prime of Spenser and Shakespeare. Born in Kent of an aristocratic family, he was educated at Shrewsbury and Oxford, and then traveled widely. He took a brilliant part in the military-literary-courtly life common with the young nobles of the time, and at the early age of thirty-two was mortally wounded at Zutphen when assisting the Dutch against the Spaniards.

Sidney was successful in more than one branch of literature, but he owes his position chiefly to his collection of sonnets called Astrophel and Stella. Though they are strongly imitative of Italian sentiment, and are immature in thought and in general ideas, they are often remarkable for their flashes of real passion and their genuine poetical style. In metrical form they adopt the English scheme, and thus in another respect they foreshadow the great Shakespearian sonnets, to which alone they take second place.

=6. Michael Drayton (1563–1631)= represents the later epoch of Elizabethan literature. He was born in Warwickshire, studied at Oxford, was attached to a noble family as tutor, came to London about 1590, and for the remainder of his long life was busy in the production of his many poems.

His first book was a collection of religious poems called The Harmony of the Church (1591); then followed a number of long historical poems, which include England’s Heroical Epistles and The Barons’ Wars (1603). His Polyolbion is the most important of his longer poems, and belongs to a later period of his career. It is a long, careful, and tedious description of the geographical features of England, interspersed with tales, and written in alexandrines. His shorter poems, such as his well-known poem on Agincourt, and his verse tales and pastorals, such as The Man in the Moon and Nymphidia, are skillful and attractive. Drayton is rarely an inspired poet--the wonderful sonnet beginning “Since there’s no help” (see p. 152) is perhaps his only poem in which we feel inspiration flowing freely--but he is painstaking, versatile, and sometimes (as in Nymphidia) delightful.

=7. Thomas Campion (1567–1620)= was born in London, educated at Cambridge, studied law in Gray’s Inn, but ultimately became a physician (1606). He wrote some masques that had much popularity, but his chief claim to fame lies in his attractive lyrics, most of which have been set to music composed partly by the poet himself. His best-known collections of songs were A Booke of Ayres (1601), Songs of Mourning (1613), and Two Bookes of Ayres (1613). Campion had not the highest lyrical genius, but he had an ear skillful in adapting words to tunes, the knack of sweet phrasing, and a mastery of complicated meters. He is one of the best examples of the accomplished poet who, lacking the highest inspiration of poetry, excels in the lower technical features.

The lyric of Campion’s that we add is typical not only of his own grace and melody, but also of the later Elizabethan lyrics as a whole. The ideas, in themselves somewhat forced and fantastic, are expressed with great felicity.

There is a garden in her face, Where roses and white lilies blow; A heavenly paradise is that place, Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow; There cherries grow that none may buy, Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose Of orient pearl a double row, Which when her lovely laughter shows, They look like rose-buds fill’d with snow: Yet them no peer nor prince may buy Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still; Her brows like bended bows do stand, Threat’ning with piercing frowns to kill All that attempt with eye or hand These sacred cherries to come nigh, Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry.

=8. Phineas Fletcher (1582–1650)= and =Giles Fletcher (1588–1623)= are usually associated in the history of literature. They were brothers, were both educated at Cambridge, and both took holy orders. Both were poetical disciples of Spenser.

Phineas Fletcher’s chief poem is The Purple Island, or The Isle of Man (1633), a curious work in twelve cantos describing the human body in an allegorical-descriptive fashion. There is much digression, which gives the poet some scope for real poetical passages. In its plan the poem is cumbrous and artificial, but it contains many descriptions in the Spenserian manner. The stanza is a further modification of the Spenserian, which it resembles except for its omission of the fifth and seventh lines.

Giles’s best-known poem is Christ’s Victorie and Triumph (1610), an epical poem in four cantos. The title of the poem sufficiently suggests its subject; in style it is glowingly descriptive, imaginative, and is markedly ornate and melodious in diction. It is said partly to have inspired Milton’s Paradise Regained. The style is strongly suggestive of Spenser’s, and the stanza conveys the same impression, for it is the Spenserian stanza lacking the seventh line.

The Fletchers are imitators, but imitators of high quality. They lack the positive genius of their model Spenser, but they have intensity, color, melody, and great metrical artistry.

=9. John Donne (1573–1631)= was born in London, the son of a wealthy merchant. He was educated at Oxford, and then studied law. Though he entered the public service and served with some distinction, his bent was always theological, and in 1616 he was ordained. In 1621 he was appointed Dean of St. Paul’s.

Donne’s poetical works are probably more important than those composed in prose, valuable though the latter are. He began poetical composition with Satires (1593), forcible and picturesque, though crabbed and obscure in language. His other poems include The Progress of the Soul, his longest poem, composed about 1600; An Anatomy of the World (1611), a wild, exaggerated eulogy of a friend’s daughter, who had just died; and a large number of miscellaneous poems, including songs, sonnets, elegies, and letters in verse.

In his nature Donne had a strain of actual genius, but his natural gifts were so obscured with fitful, wayward, and exaggerated mannerisms that for long he was gravely underrated. His miscellaneous poems show his poetical features at their best: a solemn, half-mystical, half-fanatical religious zeal; a style of somber grandeur, shot with piercing gleams of poetical imagery; and an almost unearthly music of word and phrase. Often, and especially in the Satires, he is rough and obscure; in thought and expression he is frequently fantastic and almost ludicrous; but at his best, when his stubborn, melancholy humor is fired with his emotional frenzy, he is almost alone in his curious compound of gloom and brilliance, of ice and consuming fire. He is the last of the Elizabethans, and among the first of the coming race of the “Metaphysicals.”

His prose works comprise a large number of sermons, a few theological treatises, of which the greatest is The Pseudo-Martyr (1609), and a small number of personal letters. In its peculiar manner his prose is a reflex of his poetry. There is the same soaring and exaggerated imagery, the same fierce pessimism, and often the same obscurity and roughness. In prose his sentences are long and shapeless, but the cadence is rapid and free, and so is suited to the purposes of the sermon.

As a brief specimen of his poetical mannerisms, good and bad, we add the following sonnet. The reader will observe the rugged grandeur of the style and the curious intellectual twist that he gives to the general idea of the poem.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow: And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery. Thou’rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally; And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die. Holy Sonnetts

=10. Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)= was born near Taunton in Somerset, educated at Oxford, and became tutor to the son of the Countess of Pembroke. For a time (1599) he was Poet Laureate, and was made (1603) Master of the Queen’s Revels by James I.

His poems include a sonnet-series called Delia (1592), a romance called The Complaint of Rosamund (1592), some long historical poems, such as The Civil Wars (1595), and a large number of masques, of which The Queenes Wake (1610) and Hymen’s Triumph (1615) are the most important. His best work appears in his sonnets, which, composed in the English manner, carry on the great tradition of Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare. In his longer poems he is prosy and dull, though the masques have pleasing touches of imagination.

=11.= The =poetical miscellanies= which abound during this period are typical of the time. By the very extravagance of their titles they reveal the enthusiasm felt for the revival of English poetry. Each volume consists of a collection of short pieces by various poets, some well known and others unknown. Some of the best poems are anonymous. Among much that is almost worthless, there are happily preserved many poems, sometimes by unknown poets, of great and enduring beauty. We have already drawn attention (p. 96) to Tottel’s Miscellany (1557), which contained, among other poems, the pieces of Wyat and Surrey. Other volumes are The Paradyse of Daynty Devises (1576), A Handfull of Pleasant Delites (1584), The Phœnix Nest (1593), and The Passionate Pilgrim (1599). The last book contains poems by Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Ralegh. The most important of the miscellanies is England’s Helicon (1600), which surpasses all others for fullness, variety, and excellence of contents.

PRE-SHAKESPEARIAN DRAMA: THE UNIVERSITY WITS

In the last chapter we gave a summary of the rise of the English drama; it is now necessary to give an account of the early Elizabethan playwrights.

The name “University Wits” is usually applied to a group of young men, nearly all of whom were associated with Oxford or Cambridge, who did much to found the Elizabethan school of drama. They were all more or less acquainted with each other, and most of them led irregular and stormy lives. Their plays had several features in common. These features were of a nature almost inevitable in strong and immature productions.

(a) There was a fondness for heroic themes, such as the lives of great figures like Mohammed and Tamburlaine.

(b) Heroic themes needed heroic treatment: great fullness and variety; splendid descriptions, long swelling speeches, the handling of violent incidents and emotions. These qualities, excellent when held in restraint, only too often led to loudness and disorder.

(c) The style also was “heroic.” The chief aim was to achieve strong and sounding lines, magnificent epithets, and powerful declamation. This again led to abuse and to mere bombast, mouthing, and in the worst cases to nonsense. In the best examples, such as in Marlowe, the result is quite impressive. In this connection it is to be noted that the best medium for such expression was blank verse, which was sufficiently elastic to bear the strong pressure of these expansive methods.

(d) The themes were usually tragic in nature, for the dramatists were as a rule too much in earnest to give heed to what was considered to be the lower species of comedy. The general lack of real humor in the early drama is one of its most prominent features. Humor, when it is brought in at all, is coarse and immature. Almost the only representative of the writers of real comedies is Lyly, who in such plays as Alexander and Campaspe (1584), Endymion (1592), and The Woman in the Moon gives us the first examples of romantic comedy.

=1. George Peele (1558–98)= was born in London, educated at Christ’s Hospital and at Oxford, and became a literary hack and free-lance in London. His plays include The Araygnement of Paris (1581), a kind of romantic comedy; The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First (1593), a rambling chronicle-play; The Old Wives’ Tale (1595), a clever satire on the popular drama of the day; and The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe (published 1599). Peele’s style can be violent to the point of absurdity; but he has his moments of real poetry; he can handle his blank verse with more ease and variety than was common at the time; he is fluent; he has humor and a fair amount of pathos. In short, he represents a great advance upon the earliest drama, and is perhaps the most attractive among the playwrights of the time.

We give a short example to illustrate the poetical quality of his blank verse:

David. Now comes my lover tripping like the roe, And brings my longings tangled in her hair. To ’joy her love I’ll build a kingly bower, Seated in hearing of a hundred streams, That, for their homage to her sovereign joys, Shall, as the serpents fold into their nests, In oblique turnings wind the nimble waves About the circles of her curious walks, And with their murmur summon easeful sleep To lay his golden sceptre on her brows. The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe

=2. Robert Greene (1560–92)= wrote much and recklessly, but his plays are of sufficient merit to find a place in the development of the drama. He was born at Norwich, educated at Cambridge (1575) and at Oxford (1588), and then took to a literary life in London. If all accounts, including his own, are true, his career in London must have taken place in a sink of debauchery. He is said to have died, after an orgy in a London ale-house, “of a surfeit of pickle herringe and Rennish wine.”

Here we can refer only to his thirty-five prose tracts, which are probably the best of his literary work, for they reveal his intense though erratic energy, his quick, malicious wit, and his powerful imagination. His plays number four: Alphonsus, King of Arragon (1587), an imitation of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine; Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1589), easily his best, and containing some fine representations of Elizabethan life; Orlando Furioso (1586), adapted from an English translation of Ariosto; and The Scottish Historie of James the Fourth (acted in 1592), not a “historical” play, but founded on an imaginary incident in the life of the King. Greene is weak in creating characters, and his style is not of outstanding merit; but his humor is somewhat genial in his plays, and his methods less austere than those of the other tragedians.

=3. Thomas Nash (1567–1601)= was born at Lowestoft, educated at Cambridge, and then (1586) went to London to make his living by literature. He was a born journalist, but in those days the only scope for his talents lay in pamphleteering. He took an active part in the political and personal questions of the day, and his truculent methods actually landed him in jail (1600). He finished Marlowe’s Dido, but his only surviving play is Summer’s Last Will and Testament (1592), a satirical masque. His Jack Wilton, or The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), a prose tale, is important in the development of the novel (see p. 336).

=4. Thomas Lodge (1558–1625)= was the son of a Lord Mayor of London, was educated in London and at Oxford, and studied law. He deserted his legal studies, took to a literary career, and is said to have been an actor at one time.

His dramatic work is small in quantity. He probably collaborated with Shakespeare in Henry VI, and with other dramatists, including Greene. The only surviving play entirely his own is The Woundes of Civile War, a kind of chronicle-play. His pamphleteering was voluminous and energetic; and he imitated the euphuistic tales of Lyly.

=5. Thomas Kyd (1558–94)= is one of the most important of the University Wits. Very little is known of his life. He was born in London, educated (probably) at Merchant Taylors’ School, adopted a literary career, and became secretary to a nobleman. He became acquainted with Marlowe, and that brilliant but sinister spirit enticed him into composing “lewd libels” and “blasphemies.” Marlowe’s sudden death saved him from punishment for such offenses; but Kyd was imprisoned and tortured. Though he was afterward released, Kyd soon died under the weight of “bitter times and privy broken passions.”

Much of this dramatist’s work has been lost. Of the surviving plays The Spanish Tragedy (about 1585) is the most important. Its horrific plot, involving murder, frenzy, and sudden death, gave the play a great and lasting popularity. There is a largeness of tragical conception about the play that resembles the work of Marlowe, and there are touches of style that dimly foreshadow the great tragical lines of Shakespeare. Other plays of Kyd’s are Soliman and Perseda (1588), Jeronimo (1592), a kind of prologue to The Spanish Tragedy, and Cornelia (1594), a tedious translation from the French.

=6. Christopher Marlowe (1564–93)= is symbolical both of the best and the worst of his boisterous times. The eldest son of a shoemaker, he was born at Canterbury, and educated there and at Cambridge. Like so many more of that day, he adopted literature as a profession, and became attached to the Lord Admiral’s players. Marlowe’s great mental powers had in them a twist of perversity, and they led him into many questionable actions and beliefs. He became almost the pattern of the evil ways of his tribe. Charges of atheism and immorality were laid against him, and only his sudden death saved him from the experiences of his friend Kyd. Marlowe is said to have met his death in a tavern brawl, “stabbed to death by a bawdy servingman, a rival of his in his lewde love.” In fairness to the memory of Marlowe it must be remembered that these charges were made against him by the Puritanical opponents of the stage.

With Marlowe’s tragedies we at length come within measureable distance of Shakespeare. The gulf between the work of the two men is still very great. In Marlowe there is none of that benign humanity that clings to even the grimmest of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Marlowe’s characters are bleak in nature and massive in outline; enormous and majestical, but forbidding and almost inhuman. His style has the same qualities: glowing with a volcanic energy, capable of a mighty soaring line and phrase (“Marlowe’s mighty line,” as Ben Jonson called it), but diffuse, truculent, exaggerated, and bombastic. It is a lopsided style lacking the more amiable qualities of humor, flexibility, sweetness, and brevity.

His four great plays, all written within a few years, are Tamburlaine the Great (1587), Doctor Faustus (1588), The Jew of Malta (1589), and Edward II (1593). All four, in their march of horrors and splendors, are not unlike one another. The last has a conclusion which for pity and terror ranks among the great achievements of Elizabethan tragedy. The plays, moreover, show a progressing dexterity in the handling of blank verse. Marlowe’s life was pitiably short. If he had lived there might have been another triumph to chronicle.

He also collaborated with Nash in the tragedy of Dido (1593), and left uncompleted a poor fragment of a play called The Massacre at Paris.

We give a brief extract to show the “mighty line.” In the passage Tamburlaine, “the Scourge of God,” mentally reviews his past conquests.

And I have marched along the river Nile To Machda where the mighty Christian priest, Called John the Great, sits in a milk-white robe, Whose triple mitre I did take by force, And made him swear obedience to my crown, From thence unto Cazates did I march, Where Amazonians met me in the field, With whom, being women, I vouchsafed a league, And with my power did march to Zanzibar, The eastern part of Afric, where I viewed The Ethiopian sea, rivers and lakes, But neither man nor child in all the land; Therefore I took my course to Manico, Where unresisted, I removed my camp, And by the coast of Byather, at last I came to Cubar, where the negroes dwell, And conquering that, made haste to Nubia. There having sacked Borno, the kingly seat, I took the king, and led him bound in chains Unto Damasco, where I stayed before.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616)

=1. His Life.= In considering the life of Shakespeare we have at our disposal a fair number of facts; but on these facts the industry of commentators has constructed an additional mass of great magnitude and complexity. It is therefore the duty of the historian with only a limited space at his disposal to keep his eye steadily upon the established facts and, without being superior or disdainful, to turn toward speculation or surmise, however ingenious or laborious, a face of tempered but obdurate skepticism.

The future dramatist, as we learn from the church records, was baptized in the parish church at Stratford-on-Avon on April 26, 1564. He may have been born on April 23, St. George’s Day, which happens also to be the date of his death in 1616. His father, John Shakespeare, was a burgess of the town, and seems to have followed the occupations of a butcher, a glover, and a farmer. The boy may have attended the grammar school of the town, though Ben Jonson, himself a competent scholar, affirmed that Shakespeare knew “small Latin and less Greek.” From various entries in the town records it is clear that John Shakespeare, after flourishing for a time, fell on evil days, and the son may have assisted in the paternal butcher’s shop. A bond dated November 28, 1582, affords clear evidence of Shakespeare’s marriage on that date to a certain “Anne Hatthwey of Stratford.” As at this time Shakespeare was only eighteen, and (as appears from the inscription on her monument) the bride was eight years older, speculation has busied itself over the somewhat ill-assorted match.

In 1584 Shakespeare left his native town. Why he did so is not known. The most popular explanation, which appeared after his death, is that he was convicted of poaching on the estate of a local magnate, Sir Thomas Lucy, and that he fled to escape the consequences. Then, until 1592, when he reappears as a rising actor, Shakespeare disappears from view. During this period he is said to have wandered through the country, finally coming to London, where he performed various menial offices, including that of holding horses at the stage-door. On the face of them such tales are not improbable, but they grew up when the dramatist had become a half-mythical figure.

In 1592 Robert Greene, in a carping book called A Groatsworth of Wit, mentions “an upstart crow ... in his own conceit the only Shakescene in a country.”[98] This reference, most probably a gibe at Shakespeare, shows that he is now important enough to merit abuse. In 1595 his name appears on the payroll of the Lord Chamberlain’s company of actors, who performed at the Court. This company, one of the most important in the town, also played in the provinces, especially during the plague of 1603, in the Shoreditch Theatre till it was demolished in 1598, in the Globe Theatre, and finally (after 1608) in the Blackfriars. During this period, as can be inferred from his purchases of property both in London and Stratford, Shakespeare was prospering in worldly affairs. He was a competent but not a great actor; tradition asserts that his chief parts were of the type of Adam in As You Like It and the Ghost in Hamlet. His chief function was to write dramas for his company, and the fruit of such labor was his plays.

About 1610 Shakespeare left London for Stratford, where he stayed at New Place, a house that he had bought. He may have written his last plays there; but it is likely that his connection with his company of actors ceased when the Globe Theatre was burned down during a performance of Henry VIII in 1613. His will, a hurriedly executed document, is dated March 25, 1616. His death occurred a month later, April 23.

=2. His Poems.= Shakespeare’s two long narrative poems were among the earliest of his writings. Venus and Adonis (1593), composed in six-line stanzas, showed decided signs of immaturity. Its subject was in accordance with popular taste; its descriptions were heavily ornamented and conventional; but it contained individual lines and expressions of great beauty. Already the hand of Shakespeare was apparent. The Rape of Lucrece (1594), in rhyme royal stanzas, is of less merit. As was common in the poetry of that day, the action was retarded with long speeches, but there were Shakespearian touches all through. In 1599 a collection of verse called The Passionate Pilgrim appeared with Shakespeare’s name on the title-page. Of the constituent poems only one, taking its name from the title of the book, has been decidedly fixed as Shakespeare’s. It consists of some sonnets of unequal merit.

In 1609 a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets was printed by Thomas Thorpe, who dedicated the volume to a certain “Mr. W. H.” as being “the onlie begetter” of the sonnets. Speculation has exhausted itself regarding the identity of “Mr. W. H.” The most probable explanation is that he was William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. The sonnets themselves consist of 154 numbers, which are all composed in the English form of the sonnet, that of three quatrains clenched with a couplet. The entire collection falls into two groups of unequal size, divided, at number cxxvi, by a poem of six couplets. The first group consists largely of a series of cryptic references, often passionately expressed, to his friendship with a youth, apparently of high rank, who may be, and probably is, the mysterious “Mr. W. H.” The second group, also obscurely phrased, is taken up with reproaches addressed to his mistress, “a black beauty,” whose hair is like “black wires.” The identity of this “Dark Lady of the Sonnets” is one of the romances of our literature. She may be, as is often asserted, Mary Fitton, who happened to be fair; but she probably did not exist at all. Among the numerous sonneteers of the time it was a common trick to apostrophize a lovely and fickle mistress, as a rule quite imaginary, and it may be that Shakespeare was following the custom of the period.

Concerning the literary quality of the sonnets there can be no dispute. In the depth, breadth, and persistency of their passion, in their lordly but never overweening splendor of style, and, above all, in their mastery of a rich and sensuous phraseology, they are unique. Byron once remarked that the tissue of poetry cannot be all brilliance, any more than the midnight sky can be entirely stars; but several of the sonnets (for example, xxx, xxxiii, lv, lxxi, cxvi) are thick clusters of starlight; and all through the series the frequency of lovely phrasing is great indeed. We quote one sonnet that is nearly perfect; the second that we give, after a splendid opening, deteriorates toward the conclusion.

(1) Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is a star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Sonnet cxvi

(2) When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rime, In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have expressed Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring; And, for they looked but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing: For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. Sonnet cvi

Shakespeare’s later poetical work is worthily represented in the numerous lyrics that are scattered through the plays. It is not quite certain how much of the songs is original; it is almost certain that Shakespeare, like Burns, used popular songs as the basis of many of his lyrics. As they stand, however, the lyrics show a great range of accomplishment, most of it of the highest quality. It varies from the nonsense-verses in Hamlet and King Lear to the graceful perfection of Ariel’s “Full fathom five”; from the homely rusticity of “It was a lover and his lass” to the scholarly ease and wry humor of “O mistress mine”; it includes such gems as the willow-song in Othello, “Take, O take those lips away,” in Measure for Measure, and the noble dirge, “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,” in Cymbeline. If Shakespeare had not been our greatest dramatist, he would have taken a place among our greatest lyrical poets.

=3. His Plays.= Concerning the plays that are usually accepted as being Shakespeare’s, almost endless discussion has arisen. In the following pages we shall indicate the main lines of Shakesperian criticism.

(a) THE ORDER OF THE PLAYS. All the manuscripts of the plays have perished; Shakespeare himself printed none of the texts; and though eighteen of them appeared singly in quarto form during his lifetime, they were all unauthorized editions. It was not till 1623, seven years after his death, that the First Folio edition was printed. It contained thirty-six dramas (Pericles was omitted), and these are now universally accepted as Shakespeare’s. In the Folio edition the plays are not arranged chronologically, nor are the dates of composition given. The dates of the separate Quartos are registered at Stationers’ Hall, but these are the dates of the printing. With such scanty evidence to hand to assign the order of the plays, a task fundamental to all discussion of the dramas, much ingenious deductive work has been necessary. The evidence can be divided into three groups.

(1) Contemporary References. With one important exception, such are of little value. The exception occurs in a book by Francis Meres (1565–1647), an Elizabethan schoolmaster. In Palladis Tamia, Wit’s Treasury (1598) he gives a list of contemporary authors, among whom is Shakespeare. Meres mentions twelve of Shakespeare’s plays, along with “his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, and his sugred sonnets among his private friends.” This valuable reference supplies us with a list of plays which were written before 1598.

(2) Internal References. In the course of the plays there occur passages, more or less obscure, that can be traced to contemporary events. Such are the references to “the imperial votaress” (perhaps Elizabeth) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to “the two-fold balls and treble sceptres” (perhaps the Union of 1603) in Macbeth, and to a famous eclipse of the moon in the Sonnets. Owing to the invariable obscurity of the passages, this class of evidence should be used cautiously, but unfortunately it has been made the basis of much wild theorizing.

(3) The Literary Evidence. Soberly examined, and taken strictly in conjunction with the statement of Meres and the dates of the Quartos (when these are available), this type of evidence is by far the most reliable. We can examine the workmanship of the plays, paying attention to the construction of the plots, the force and originality of the characters, the standard of style, the metrical dexterity--in short, the general level of competence. In a general survey of the dramas no great skill is necessary on the part of the reader to observe a distinct variation in craftsmanship. By grading the plays according to their literary development a certain rough approximation of date can be deduced.

(b) THE DATES OF THE PLAYS. The following table, which to a large extent is the outcome of generations of discussion and contention, represents a moderate or average estimate of the dates of the plays. It can be only an approximate estimate, for no exact decision can ever be possible.

1590

1 Henry VI

1591–2

2 Henry VI 3 Henry VI

1593

Richard III Edward III (in part) The Comedy of Errors

1594

Titus Andronicus The Taming of the Shrew Love’s Labour’s Lost Romeo and Juliet

1595

A Midsummer Night’s Dream The Two Gentlemen of Verona King John

1596

Richard II The Merchant of Venice

1597

1 Henry IV

1598

2 Henry IV Much Ado about Nothing

1599

Henry V Julius Cæsar

1600

The Merry Wives of Windsor As You Like It

1601

Hamlet Twelfth Night

1602

Troilus and Cressida All’s Well that Ends Well

1603

(Theaters closed)

1604

Measure for Measure Othello

1605

Macbeth King Lear

1606

Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus

1607

Timon of Athens (unfinished)

1608

Pericles (in part)

1609

Cymbeline

1610

The Winter’s Tale

1611

The Tempest

1613

The Two Noble Kinsmen (in part) Henry VIII (in part)

(c) CLASSIFICATION OF THE PLAYS. It is customary to group the plays into sets that to some extent traverse the order given above.

(1) The Early Comedies. In these plays there is a certain amount of immaturity: the plots show less originality; the characters are less finished; the power of the style is less sustained; the humor is often puerile and quibbling; and there is a large amount of prose. Of this type are The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

(2) The Histories. These show an advance, particularly in style. There is more blank verse, which, though it is often stiffly imitative of the older playwrights, abounds in splendid passages. The appearance of such characters as Falstaff in Henry IV and other plays is a sign of growing strength.

(3) The Tragedies. The great tragedies, such as Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear, are the climax of Shakespearian art. They reveal the best of his characterization and the full power of his style.

(4) The Later Comedies. A mellowed maturity is the chief feature of this group, which contains Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. The creative touch of the dramatist, making living men out of figment, is abundantly in view; the style is notable and serenely adequate; and with the ease of the master the author thoroughly subdues the meter to his will. No more fitting conclusion--rich, ample, and graciously dignified--could be found to round off the work of our greatest literary genius.

=4. His Prose.= Shakespeare’s prose appears all through the plays, sometimes in passages of considerable length. In the aggregate the amount is quite large. In the earlier comedies the amount is considerable, but the proportion is apt to diminish in the later plays. With regard to the prose, the following points should be observed: (a) it is the common vehicle for comic scenes, though used too in serious passages (one of which is given below); (b) it represents the common speech of the period, and some of it, as can be seen in Hamlet, is pithy and bracing. Even the rather stupid clowning that often takes place cannot altogether conceal its beauty.

We quote a passage from Hamlet. The style is quite modern in phrase, and the beauty and grace of it are far beyond the ordinary standard of Shakespeare’s literary contemporaries.

I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Hamlet

=5. Features of his Plays.= The extent, variety, and richness of the plays are quite bewildering as one approaches them. All that can be done here is to set down in order some of the more obvious of their qualities.

(a) Their Originality. In the narrowest sense of the term, Shakespeare took no trouble to be original. Following the custom of the time, he borrowed freely from older plays (such as King Leir), chronicles (such as Holinshed’s), and tales (such as The Jew, the part-origin of The Merchant of Venice). To these he is indebted chiefly for his plots; but in his more mature work the interest in the plot becomes subordinate to the development of character, the highest achievement of the dramatist’s art. He can work his originals deftly: he can interweave plot within plot, as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; he can solidify years of history into five acts, as in King John and Antony and Cleopatra; and, as in Macbeth, he makes the dust of history glow with the spirit of his imagination.

(b) Characters. (1) In sheer prodigality of output Shakespeare is unrivaled in literature. From king to clown, from lunatic and demi-devil to saint and seer, from lover to misanthrope--all are revealed with the hand of the master. Surveying this multitude, one can only cry out, as Hamlet does, “What a piece of work is man!”

(2) Another feature of Shakespeare’s characterization is his attitude of impartiality. He seems indifferent to good and evil; he has the eye of the creator, viewing bright and dismal things alike, provided they are apt and real. In his characters vice and virtue commingle, and the union is true to the common sense of humanity. Thus the villain Iago is a man of resolution, intelligence, and fortitude; the murderer Claudius (in Hamlet) shows affection, wisdom, and fortitude; the peerless Cleopatra is narrow, spiteful, and avaricious; and the beast Caliban has his moments of ecstatic vision. The list could be extended almost without limit, but these examples must serve.

(3) Hence follows the vital force that resides in the creations of Shakespeare. They live, move, and utter speech; they are rounded, entire, and capable. Very seldom, and that almost entirely in the earlier plays, he uses the wooden puppets that are the stock-in-trade of the inferior dramatist. Of such a kind are some of his “heavy” fathers, like Egeus (in A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and his sentimental lovers, like Orsino (in Twelfth Night). Yet, as a rule, in the hands of Shakespeare the heavy father can develop into such living beings as the meddlesome old bore Polonius (in Hamlet), and the tediously sentimental lover can become the moody and headstrong Romeo, or the virile and drolly humorous Orlando (in As You Like It).

(c) Meter. As in all the other features of his work, in meter Shakespeare shows abnormal range and power. In the earlier plays the blank verse is regular in beat and pause; there is a fondness for the stopped and rhymed couplet; and in a few cases the couplet passes into definite stanza-formation in a manner suggestive of the early pre-Shakespearian comedies.

Lysander. Why should you think that I should woo in scorn? Scorn and derision never come in tears: Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born, In their nativity all truth appears. How can these things in me seem scorn to you, Bearing the badge of faith to prove them true? A Midsummer Night’s Dream

As Shakespeare becomes more sure of his instrument the verse increases in ease and dexterity; the cadence is varied; the pause is shifted to any position in the line. In the later plays there is an especial fondness for the extra syllable at the end of the line. And before he finishes he has utterly subdued the meter to his will. In the last line of the extract now given every foot is abnormal:

Lear. And my poor fool is hanged! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never! King Lear

(d) Style. For lack of a better name we call Shakespeare’s style Shakesperian. One can instantly recognize it, even in other authors, where it is rarely visible. It is a difficult, almost an impossible, matter to define it. There is aptness and quotability in it: sheaves of Shakespeare’s expressions have passed into common speech. To a very high degree it possesses sweetness, strength, and flexibility; and above all it has a certain inevitable and final felicity that is the true mark of genius.

The following specimen shows the average Shakespearian style, if such a thing exists at all. It is not extremely elevated or poetical, but it is strong, precise, and individual.

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story. Hamlet

Such a style moves easily into the highest flights of poetry:

(1) That strain again! it had a dying fall: O! it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour. Twelfth Night

(2) Cleopatra. Come, thou mortal wretch,

[To the asp, which she applies to her breast.

With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate Of life at once untie; poor venomous fool, Be angry, and despatch....

Charmian. O eastern star!

Cleopatra. Peace, peace! Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep? Antony and Cleopatra

Or it can plumb the depths of terror and despair. The following are the words of a condemned wretch shivering on the brink of extinction:

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendant world; or to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts Imagine howling: ’tis too horrible! Measure for Measure

The style lends itself to the serenely ecstatic reverie of the sage:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. The Tempest

It can express, on the other hand, the bitterest cynicism:

But, man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he’s most assured, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep. Measure for Measure

Or, in prose, Shakespeare can put into words the artless pathos of the humble hostess of the inn:

Hostess. Nay, sure, he’s not in hell: he’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. A’ made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom child; a’ parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o’ the tide; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers and smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew that there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a’ babbled of green fields. “How now, Sir John?” quoth I: “what, man! be of good cheer.” So a’ cried out “God, God, God!” three or four times. Henry V

Shakespeare can rant, and often rants badly; but at its best his ranting glows with such imaginative splendor that it becomes a thing of fire and majesty:

His legs bestrid the ocean; his reared arm Crested the world; his voice was propertied As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends; But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, There was no winter in’t, an autumn ’twas That grew the more by reaping; his delights Were dolphin-like, they showed his back above The element they lived in; in his livery Walked crowns and crownets, realms and islands were As plates dropped from his pocket. Antony and Cleopatra

With such a style as this Shakespeare can compass the world of human emotion, and he does so.

=6. Summary.= “He was the man,” said Dryden, “who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.”

POST-SHAKESPEARIAN DRAMA

In the following section it will be found that, although much of the work was composed during Shakespeare’s lifetime, the most typical of the plays appeared after his death. On the whole, moreover, the work marks a decline from the Shakespearian standard, and so we are probably justified in calling this type of drama post-Shakespearian.

=1. Ben Jonson (1573–1637)= was born at Westminster, and educated at Westminster School. His father died before Jonson’s birth, and the boy adopted the trade of his stepfather, who was a master bricklayer. Bricklaying did not satisfy him for long, and he became a soldier, serving in the Low Countries. From this he turned to acting and writing plays, engaging himself, both as actor and playwright, with the Lord Admiral’s company (1597). At first he had little success, and the discouragement he encountered then must have done much to sour a temper that was not at any time very genial. In his combative fashion he took part freely in the squabbles of the time, and in 1598 he killed a fellow-actor in a duel, narrowly escaping the gallows. On the accession of James I in 1603 there arose a new fashion for picturesque pageants known as masques, and Jonson turned his energies to supplying this demand, with great success. After this period (160315) he commanded great good-fortune, and during this time his best work was produced. In 1617 he was created poet to the King, and the close of James’s reign saw Jonson the undisputed ruler of English literature. His favorite haunt was the Mermaid Tavern, where he reigned as dictator over a younger literary generation. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and over him was placed the epitaph “O rare Ben Jonson!”

Jonson’s works, extremely voluminous and of varying merit, can be classified for convenience into comedies, tragedies, masques, and lyrics. His one considerable prose work, a kind of commonplace book, to which he gave the curious name of Timber, is of much interest, but does not affect his general position.

He began with the comedy Every Man in his Humour, which was written in 1598; then followed Every Man out of His Humour (1599), Cynthia’s Revels (1600), and The Poetaster (1601). These earliest comedies are rather tedious in their characters, for they emphasize unduly the “humor” or peculiar characteristic of each individual. They are, however, ingenious in plot, rich in rugged and not entirely displeasing fun, and full of vivacity and high spirits. The later group of comedies shows a decided advance. The characters are less angular, livelier, and much more convincing; the style is more matured and equable. Such comedies, perhaps the best of all Jonson’s dramatic work, are Volpone, or The Fox (1605), Epicene, or The Silent Woman (1609), and The Alchemist (1610). His last comedies are lighter and more farcical, and show less care and forethought. They include Bartholomew Fair (1614), The Devil Is an Ass (1616), and The Staple of News (1625). His last unfinished play, The Sad Shepherd, a pastoral comedy, is unapproached among his dramas for its combination of sober reflection, lightness of fancy, and delicacy of touch. In nearly all his comedies Jonson opened up a vein that was nearly new and was to be very freely worked by his successors--the comedy of London life and humors, reflecting the manners of the day.

His two historical tragedies, Sejanus his Fall (1603) and Catiline his Conspiracy (1611), are too labored and mechanical to be reckoned as great tragedies, though their author would fain have had them so. They show immense learning, they have power, variety, and insight, but they lack the last creative touch necessary to stamp them with reality, and to give them a living appeal.

As for his masques, they are abundant, graceful, and humorously ingenious. Into them Jonson introduced the device of the anti-masque, which parodied the principal theme. The best of them are The Masque of Beauty (1608), The Masque of Queens (1609), and Oberon, the Fairy Prince (1611).

The lyrics, which are freely introduced into his plays, and the elegies, epitaphs, and other occasional pieces, many of which appeared in a volume called Underwoods (“consisting of divers poems”), represent Jonson’s work in its sweetest and most graceful phase. His song, a translation from Philostratus, beginning “Drink to me only with thine eyes,” is deservedly famous. We cannot resist quoting two brief but typical pieces:

(1) Have you seen but a bright lillie grow, Before rude hands have touch’d it? Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow Before the soyle hath smutch’d it? Have you felt the wooll of the bever? Or swan’s downe ever? Or have smelt of the bud of the brier? Or the nard on the fire? Or have tasted the bag of the bee? O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she! The Triumph

(2) Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother: Death, ere thou hast slain another, Learned, and fair, and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee! Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke[99]

In the estimation of his own age Jonson stood second to none; to a later generation he is overshadowed by the towering bulk of Shakespeare. But even the enormous prestige of Shakespeare cannot or ought not to belittle the merits of Jonson. Of Jonson we can justly say that he had all good literary gifts except one, and that the highest and most baffling of all--true genius. He had learning--perhaps too much of it; industry and constancy well beyond the ordinary; versatility; a crabbed and not unamiable humor, diversified with sweetness, grace, and nimbleness of wit; and a style quite adequate to his needs. But the summit of it all--the magical phrase that catches the breath, the immortal spirit that creates out of words and buckram “forms more real than living man”--these were lacking; and without these he cannot join the circle of the very great.

=2. Francis Beaumont (1584–1616)= and =John Fletcher (1575–1625)= combined to produce a great number of plays, said to be fifty-two in all. How much of the joint work is to be assigned to the respective hands is not accurately known.

The elder, Fletcher, was a cousin of Giles and Phineas Fletcher (see (p. 101), and was born at Rye, Sussex. He was educated at Cambridge, and lived the life of a London literary man. He died of the plague in 1625. His colleague Beaumont, who was probably the abler of the two, was the son of a judge, Sir Francis Beaumont, was educated at Oxford, and entered the Inner Temple (1600), but was captivated by the attractions of a literary life. He died almost within a month of Shakespeare, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

They excelled in comedy, especially in the comedy of London life. Theirs is not the heavy “humorous” comedy of Jonson, but is lighter and more romantic. Their characters are slighter, but more pleasing and human; their humor is free and genial, and their representation of contemporary life is happy and attractive. Their plots are ingenious and workmanlike, and their incidents numerous and striking. Their style shows a distinct decline from the high standard of Shakespeare. They have a greater fondness for prose, their blank verse is looser and weaker, but they are capable of poetical lines and phrases. Typical comedies are A King and No King (1611), esteemed by Dryden the best of them all, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1611), a very agreeable farce, and The Scornful Lady (1616). Their tragedies, such as The Maid’s Tragedy (1619), Philaster (1620), suggesting Twelfth Night, and The Faithful Shepherdess (by Fletcher alone), are not too tragical, and they are diversified by attractive incidents and descriptions.

=3. George Chapman (1559–1634)= was born at Hitchin. Beyond this fact little is known of him. He took part in the literary life of his time, for his name appears in the squabbles of his tribe. He died in London.

His first play, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (1596) was followed by many more, both comical and tragical. Among them are Bussy d’Ambois (1597), Charles, Duke of Byron (1608), and The Tragedie of Chabot (1639). These are historical plays, dealing with events nearly contemporary with his own time. Chapman’s comedies include All Fools (1605) and Eastward Hoe! (1605), in the latter of which he combined with Jonson and Marston. Chapman writes agreeably and well; he has firmness, competence, and variety, and his comic and tragic powers are considerable. His translation of Homer has something of the pace and music of the original.

=4. John Marston (1575–1634)= was born at Coventry, was educated there and at Oxford, became a literary figure in London, and later took orders. Latterly he resigned his living in Hampshire, and died in London.

Marston specialized in violent and melodramatic tragedies, which do not lack a certain impressiveness, but which are easily parodied and no less easily lead to abuse. They impressed his own generation, who rated him with Jonson. For a later age they are spoiled to a great extent by exaggeration, rant, and excessive speeches. Typical of them are Antonio and Mellida (1602) and Antonio’s Revenge (1602), which were ridiculed by Jonson in The Poetaster.

=5. Thomas Dekker (1570–1641)= was born in London, where his life was passed as a literary hack and playwright. His plays, chiefly comedies, have an attraction quite unusual for the time. They have a sweetness, an arch sentimentality, and an intimate knowledge of common men and things that have led to his being called the Dickens of the Elizabethan stage. His plots are chaotic, and his blank verse, which very frequently gives place to prose, is weak and sprawling. The best of his plays are Old Fortunatus (1600), The Shoemaker’s Holiday (1600), and Satiromastix (1602). He collaborated with other playwrights, including Ford and Rowley, with whom he wrote The Witch of Edmonton (about 1633), and Massinger, in The Virgin Martyr (1622).

=6. Thomas Middleton (1570–1627)= was born in London, wrote much for the stage, and in 1620 was made City Chronologer.

He is one of the most equable and literary of the dramatists of the age; he has a decided fanciful turn; he is a close observer and critic of the life of the time, and a dramatist who on a few occasions can rise to the heights of greatness. His most powerful play, which has been much praised by Lamb and others, is The Changeling (1624); others are Women beware Women (1622), The Witch, which bears a strong resemblance to Macbeth, and The Spanish Gipsy (1623), a romantic comedy suggesting As You Like It. Along with Dekker he wrote The Roaring Girle, or Moll Cutpurse (1611), which is a close dramatic parallel to the earliest novels.

=7. Thomas Heywood (1575–1650)= was born in Lincolnshire about 1575, was educated at Cambridge, and became an author and dramatist in London. He himself asserts that he had a hand (“or at least a main finger”) in two hundred and twenty plays, of which twenty-three survive.

Like so many more dramatists of the time, he excelled in his pictures of London life and manners. He was a rapid and light improviser, an expert contriver of stage situations, but otherwise content with passable results, and caring little about the higher flights of the dramatist. His best play is A Woman Killed with Kindnesse (1603), which contains some strongly pathetic scenes; The English Traveller (1633) is only slightly inferior. Other plays of his are The Royall King (1600), The Captives (1624), and a series of clumsy historical dramas, including King Edward the Fourth (1600) and The Troubles of Queene Elizabeth (1605).

=8. John Webster=, who flourished during the first twenty years of the seventeenth century, excels his fellows as a tragical artist. Next to nothing is known regarding his life, and much of his work has been lost, but what remains is sufficient to show that he was a writer of no mean ability. Selecting themes of gloomy and supernatural horror, of great crimes and turbulent emotions and desires, he rises to the height of his argument with an ability equal to his ambition. In several respects--in bleak horror and in largeness of tragical conception--he resembles Marlowe; but he is terse and precise when Marlowe is simply turgid; his plots have the inexorable march of Fate itself; and he far excels Marlowe in brief and almost blinding flashes of sorrow and pity. His two great plays are The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfy (1623). Other and inferior plays ascribed to him are The Devil’s Law Case (1623) and Appius and Virginia.

=9. Cyril Tourneur= (1575–1626) seems to have been a soldier and to have served in the Low Countries. He took part in Buckingham’s disastrous expedition to Cadiz, and on his return died in Ireland.

In the work of Tourneur we have horrors piled on horrors. His two plays The Revenger’s Tragedy (1600) and The Atheist’s Tragedy (1611) are melodramatic to the highest degree. He attempts much, but achieves little. He does not lack a certain poetic sensibility; but he lacks grip, method, and balance, and he is weakest where Webster is strongest.

THE ENGLISH BIBLE: THE AUTHORIZED VERSION

In the last chapter we indicated the growth of the Bible from the earliest to Reformation times. The task of translation was completed by the issue of King James’s Bible, or the Authorized Version (1611).

The need for a standard text was urged during the conference between the dissentient sects held at Hampton Court in 1604. James I, who was present at some stages of the conference, approved of the project. Forty-seven scholars, including the ablest professorial and episcopal talent, were appointed for the task; they were divided into six companies, each receiving a certain portion of the Biblical text for translation; each company revised the work of its fellow-translators. The task, begun in 1607, was completed in 1611. Since that date little of sufficient authority has been done to shake the Authorized Version’s dominating position as the greatest of English translations.

It may be of use here to set down some of the more obvious features of this great work.

=1.= With regard to the actual work of =translation=, it ought to be regarded simply as the climax of a long series of earlier translations. The new translators came to handle a large mass of work already in existence. All the debatable ground in the texts had been fought over again and again, and in a dim fashion a standard was emerging. The translators themselves acknowledge this in the preface to their work: their task, they say, is “to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one principal good one.” In other words, their task was largely one of selection and amendment. The reliance upon earlier work resulted in a certain old-fashioned flavor that was felt even in Jacobean times. “It is not the English,” says Hallam, “of Daniel or Ralegh or Bacon.... It abounds, especially in the Old Testament, in obsolete phraseology.” It is a tribute to the compelling power and beauty of the Authorized Version that its archaisms have long been accepted as permissible, and even inevitable. Allowing, however, for all the reliance upon earlier work, one cannot overpraise the sound judgment, the artistic taste, and the sensitive ear of every member of the band who built up such a stately monument to our tongue.

=2. Diversity of the Work.= One can best appreciate the vastness and complexity of the Bible by recollecting that it is not a single book, but an entire literature, or even two literatures, for both in time and temper the New Testament is separated from the Old. The different books of the Bible were composed at widely different times, and many hands worked at them. Their efforts resulted in a huge collection of all the main species of literature--expository, narrative, and lyrical. These will be noticed in their order below.

=3. Unity of the Work.= If the Bible were a collection of discordant elements it would not possess its peculiar literary attraction. In spite of the diversity of its sources it has a remarkable uniformity of treatment and spirit. The core and substance of the entire work is the belief and delight in the Divine Spirit; and, added to this, especially in the Old Testament, a fiery faith in the pre-eminence of the Jewish race. With regard to the literary style, from cover to cover it is almost unvaried: firm, clear, simple, dignified, and thoroughly English. It represents the broad and stable average of the labors of generations of devout and ardent men; and it endureth unshaken.

=4. The Expository Portions.= Considered from the purely literary point of view, the expository parts (that is, those that contain exhortation, information, or advice) are of least importance. In bulk they are considerable, and include the Book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament and the Pauline Epistles in the New. They have all the distinction of the Biblical style, and they are expressed with clearness, dignity, and precision.

=5.= The =narrative portions= include the bulk of the Bible, and are of great literary interest and value. In the Old Testament they comprise the Pentateuch and many other books, and in the New Testament they include the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The tone of the Old Testament differs somewhat from that of the New. As can be supposed, the former is often harsher in note, and is sometimes confused and contradictory (from the unsatisfactory condition of some of the texts); the New Testament narrative, which came under the influence of the Greek, is more scholarly and liberal in tone. Both, however, have a breadth, solidity, and noble austerity of style that make the Biblical narrative stand alone. It is perhaps unnecessary to quote, but one short specimen may not be out of place:

Then took they him, and led him, and brought him into the high priest’s house. And Peter followed afar off.

And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them.

But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said, This man was also with him.

And he denied him, saying, Woman, I know him not.

And, after a little while, another saw him, and said, Thou art also of them. And Peter said, Man, I am not.

And about the space of one hour after, another confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth this fellow also was with him; for he is a Galilean.

And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, when he yet spake, the cock crew.

And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

And Peter went out, and wept bitterly. St. Luke

=6. The Lyrical Portions.= These (which include the Psalms, the Song of Solomon, much of the Book of Job, and the frequent passages, such as the song of Sisera, which occur in the narrative books) are perhaps the most important as literature. In addition to their native shrewdness and persistence, the Jews had a strongly emotional strain, which finds wide expression in the Bible. Their poetry, like that of the Old English, was rhythmic; it went by irregularly distributed beats or accents. The English translators to a large extent preserved the Jewish rhythms, adding to them the music, the cadence, the soar and the swing of ecstatic English prose. In theme Jewish poetry is the primitive expression of simple people regarding the relations of man and God and the universe. Its similes and metaphors are based upon simple elemental things--the heavens, the running water, and the congregations of wild beasts. The emotions are mystically and rapturously expressed, and convey the impression of much earnestness. The following extract is fairly typical of its kind:

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. The Book of Psalms

=7. The Influence of the Bible.= The English Bible has been a potent influence in our literature. Owing largely to their poetical or proverbial nature, multitudes of Biblical expressions have become woven into the very tissue of the tongue: “a broken reed,” “the eleventh hour,” “a thorn in the flesh,” “a good Samaritan,” “sweat of the brow,” and so on. More important, probably, is the way in which the style affects that of many of our greatest writers. The influence is nearly all for the good; for a slight strain of the Biblical manner, when kept artistically within bounds, imparts simplicity, dignity, and elevation. Bunyan shows the style almost undiluted; but in the works of such widely diverse writers as Ruskin, Macaulay, Milton, and Tennyson the effects, though slighter, are quite apparent.

FRANCIS BACON, BARON VERULAM, VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS (1561–1626)

=1. His Life.= Bacon was born in London, the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. The family was connected with the Cecils and other political magnates of the time. Bacon was a delicate youth, and for a time he was educated privately; then he proceeded to Cambridge, and thence entered Gray’s Inn (1576). To complete his education he spent three years in France. On his being called to the Bar his family influence helped him to acquire a fair practice; but Bacon was ambitious and longed for the highest rewards that his profession could bestow. He became a member of Parliament in 1584, but the recognition that he expected from the Queen did not come his way, hard though he fought for it. He assisted in the prosecution of the Earl of Essex, a nobleman who had befriended him earlier in his career. Essex, an injudicious man, had involved himself in a charge of treason, and the ingenuity of Bacon was largely instrumental in bringing him to the block. On the accession of James I Bacon, who was never remiss in urging his own claims to preferment, began to experience prosperity, for he was tireless in urging the royal claims before Parliament. He was made a knight in 1603, and Attorney-General in 1613. In the latter capacity he was James’s chief agent in asserting and enforcing the King’s theories of divine right, and he became thoroughly unpopular with the House of Commons. His reward came in 1618, when he was appointed Lord Chancellor and created Baron Verulam, and in 1621, when he became Viscount St. Albans. Popular dissatisfaction was mounting against the King and his agents, and when Parliament met in 1620 it laid charges of bribery and corrupt dealings against the Lord Chancellor. Bacon quailed before the storm; made what amounted to a confession of guilt; and was subjected to the huge fine of £40,000 (which was partially remitted), imprisonment during the King’s pleasure (which was restricted to four days in the Tower of London), and exile from Court and office. He spent the last five years of his life in the pursuit of literary and scientific works.

=2. His Works.= Bacon wrote both in Latin and English, and of the two he considered the Latin works to be the more important.

(a) His English works include his Essays, which first appeared in 1597. Then they numbered ten; but the second (1612) and third (1625) editions raised the number to thirty-eight and fifty-eight respectively. They are on familiar subjects, such as Learning, Studies, Vainglory, and Great Place; and in method they represent the half-casual meditations of a trained and learned mind. His other English works were The Advancement of Learning (1605), containing the substance of his philosophy; Apophthegms (1625), a kind of jest-book; and The New Atlantis, left unfinished at his death, a philosophical romance modeled upon More’s Utopia.

(b) His Latin works were to be fashioned into a vast scheme, which he called Instauratio Magna, expounding his philosophical theories. It was laid out on the following plan, but it was scarcely half finished:

(1) De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623). This treatise, in which the English work on the Advancement of Learning is embodied, gives a general summary of human knowledge, taking special notice of gaps and imperfections in science.

(2) Novum Organum (1620). This work explains the new logic, or inductive method of reasoning, upon which his philosophy is founded. Out of the nine sections into which he divides the subject the first only is handled with any fullness, the other eight being merely named.

(3) Sylva Sylvarum (left incomplete). This part was designed to give a complete view of what we call Natural Philosophy and Natural History. The subjects he has touched on under this head are four--the History of Winds, Life and Death, Density and Rarity, Sound and Hearing.

(4) Scala Intellectus. Of this we have only a few of the opening pages.

(5) Prodromi. A few fragments only were written.

(6) Philosophia Secunda. Never executed.

=3. His Style.= Of Bacon as a philosopher we can only say that he is one of the founders of modern systematic thought. His most important literary work is his Essays. In its three versions this work shows the development of Bacon’s English style. In the first edition the style is crisp, detached, and epigrammatic, conveying the impression that each essay has arisen from some happy thought or phrase, around which other pithy statements are agglomerated. In the later editions the ideas are expanded, the expression loses its spiky pointedness, and in the end we have an approach to a freer middle style, an approximation to the swinging manner of Dryden. Bacon had no ear for rhythm and melody; a born rhetorician, he preferred the sharper devices of antithesis and epigram; and he was always clear, orderly, and swiftly precise in his phrasing. Following the fashion of the time, he was free in his use of allusions, conceits, and Latin tags, creating rather a garish ornamental effect; but his style is saved from triviality by his breadth of intellect, by his luminous intensity of ideas, and by his cool man-of-the-world sagacity.

For the sake of comparison we quote the same extract from the first and third editions of the Essays. The second extract, it will be noticed, is a studied expansion of the first.

(1) Crafty men contemn them, simple men admire them, wise men use them; for they teach not their own use, but that is a wisdom without them and above them won by observation. Read not to contradict nor to believe, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read but cursorily, and some few to be read wholly and with diligence and attention. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.

(2) Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Of Studies

OTHER PROSE-WRITERS

=1. Roger Ascham (1515–68)= is representative of the earliest school of Elizabethan prose. He was born in Yorkshire, and educated privately and at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow (1535) and a teacher of Greek (1540). He took part in the literary and religious disputes of the time, but managed to keep his feet on the shifting grounds of politics. He was appointed tutor to Elizabeth (1548) and secretary to Queen Mary; he visited the Continent as secretary to an embassy; and ultimately was appointed a canon of York Minster.

His two chief works were Toxophilus (1544), a treatise, in the form of a dialogue, on archery; and The Scholemaster (1570), an educational work containing some ideas that were then fairly fresh and enlightening. Ascham was a man of moderate literary talent, of great industry, and of boundless enthusiasm for learning. Though he is strongly influenced by classical models, he has all the strong Elizabethan sense of nationality. In Toxophilus he declares his intention of “writing this English matter in the English speech for Englishmen.” In style he is plain and strong, using only the more obvious graces of alliteration and antithesis.

=2. John Lyly (1553–1606)= marks another stage in the march of English prose. He was born in Kent, educated at Oxford, and, failing to obtain Court patronage, became a literary man in London. At first he had considerable success, and entered Parliament; but at a later stage his popularity declined, and he died poverty-stricken in London.

We have already mentioned his comedies (see p. 105), which at the time brought him fame and money. But his first prose work, Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit (1579), made him one of the foremost figures of the day. He repeated the success with a second part, Euphues and his England (1580). The work is a kind of travel-romance, recounting the adventures of Euphues, a young Athenian. The narrative is interspersed with numerous discussions upon many topics. It was, however, the style of its prose that gave the book its great vogue. It is the first consciously fabricated prose style in the language. It is mannered and affected almost to the point of being ridiculous. Its tricks are obvious and easily imitated, and they are freely applied by the next generation: balanced phrases, intricate alliteration, labored comparisons drawn from classical and other sources, and ornate epithets. The effect is quaint and not displeasing, but the narrative labors under the weight of it. It certainly suited the growing literary consciousness of its day, and hence its pronounced, though temporary, success.

The following extract will illustrate the euphuistic manner:

Philautus being a town-born child, both for his own countenance, and the great countenance which his father had while he lived, crept into credit with Don Ferardo one of the chief governors of the city, who although he had a courtly crew of gentlewomen sojourning in his palace, yet his daughter, heir to his whole revenues stained the beauty of them all, whose modest bashfulness caused the other to look wan for envy, whose lily cheeks dyed with a vermilion red, made the rest to blush for shame. For as the finest ruby staineth the colour of the rest that be in place, or as the sun dimmeth the moon, that she cannot be discerned, so this gallant girl more fair than fortunate, and yet more fortunate than faithful, eclipsed the beauty of them all, and changed their colours. Unto her had Philautus access, who won her by right of love, and should have worn her by right of law, had not Euphues by strange destiny broken the bonds of marriage, and forbidden the banns of matrimony. Euphues and his England

=3. Richard Hooker (1553–1600)= was born near Exeter, and educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was elected a Fellow (1577). In 1582 he took orders, and later was appointed to a living in Kent, where he died.

His great work, at which he labored during the greater part of his life, was The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. The first four of the proposed eight books were issued in 1593; he finished one more; and though the remaining three were published under his name when he was dead, it is very doubtful if he was entirely responsible for them. In the work he supports Episcopacy against Presbyterianism. In style he is strongly affected by classical writers; but he usually writes with homeliness and point; his sentences are carefully constructed; the rhythm moves easily; and there is both precision and melody in his choice of vocabulary. His style is an early example of scholarly and accomplished English prose.

=4. Sir Thomas Overbury (1581–1613)= may be taken as typical of a fairly large class of Elizabethan writers. He was born in Warwickshire, educated at Oxford, and became a figure at the Court of King James. His chief friend at Court was James’s favorite Robert Carr, with whom he quarreled over a love-affair. For this Overbury fell into disfavor, and was imprisoned in the Tower, where he was poisoned under mysterious and barbarous circumstances.

Overbury survives in literature as the author of a series of Characters (1614). Based on the ancient Greek work of Theophrastus, the book consists of a number of concise character-sketches of well-known types, such as a Milkmaid, a Pedant, a Franklin, and “an Affectate Traveller.” The sketches are solely of types, not of individuals, and so lack any great literary merit. But they are important for several reasons: they are a curious development of the pamphlet, which was so common at that time; they are another phase of the “humours” craze, seen so strongly in the Jonsonian and other dramas; and they are an important element in the growth of the essay. In style the book is strongly euphuistic, thus illustrating another tendency of the time. They were added to and imitated by other writers, including =John Earle (1601–65)=.

=5. Robert Burton (1577–1640)= was the son of a country gentleman, and was born in Leicestershire. He was educated at Oxford, where, in holy orders, he passed most of his life.

His famous work, The Anatomy of Melancholy, was first issued in 1621, and then constantly revised and reissued. It is an elaborate and discursive study of melancholy, its species and kinds, its causes, results, and cure. The book--labored, saturnine, and fantastic to an extraordinary degree--has exercised a strong fascination over many scholarly minds, including those of Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb. Its learning is immense and unconventional, being drawn from many rare authors; its humor curiously crabbed, subdued, and ironical; and its “melancholy,” though pervading, is not oppressive. The diction, harsh and unstudied, is rarely obscure; the enormous sentences, packed with quotation and allusion, are loosely knit. Both as a stylist and as a personality Burton occupies his own niche in English literature.

=6. The Sermon-writers.= At the beginning of the seventeenth century the sermon rose to a level of literary importance not hitherto attained, and afterward rarely equaled. We have already mentioned Donne (see p. 102), probably the most notable of his group, and we give space to two other writers.

(a) =James Ussher (1581–1656)= was born in Dublin, and was descended from an ancient Protestant family. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and rose to be Bishop of Meath and Archbishop of Armagh (1626). In 1640 he visited England, where, owing to the disturbed state of Ireland, he had to remain for the remainder of his life. His many sermons, discourses, and tracts show learning, adroit argument, and a plain and easy style. His Chronologia Sacra was for a long time the standard work on Biblical chronology.

(b) =Joseph Hall (1574–1656)= was educated at Cambridge, took orders, and became a prominent opponent of the Puritans, among whom was Milton. He was appointed Bishop of Exeter (1627) and of Norwich (1641). When the Puritans rose to power Hall’s opinions brought him into disgrace. He was imprisoned, and, though liberated, forbidden to preach. He died in retirement.

Hall’s earliest work was in verse, and consisted of a series of satires called Virgidemiarum (1597), which were condemned by the Church as being licentious. His theological and devotional works, the product of his later years, are very numerous, and include tracts, sermons, and treatises. Though he is often shallow and voluble, he writes with literary grace. He is without doubt the most literary of the theologians of the time.

=7. The Translators.= The zeal for learning which was such a prominent feature of the early Elizabethan times was strongly apparent in the frequent translations. This class of literature had several curious characteristics. The translators cared little for verbal accuracy, and sometimes were content to translate from a translation, say from a French version of a Latin text. The translators, moreover, borrowed from each other, and repeated the errors of their fellows. These habits deprived their work of any great pretensions to scholarship; but they were eager adventurers into the new realms of learning, and to a great extent they reproduced the spirit, if not the letter, of their originals.

One of the first and most popular of the translations was North’s Diall of Princes (1557), from an Italian original. North also translated Plutarch’s Lives (1579), a work that had much influence upon Shakespeare and other dramatists. Other classical translations were those of Virgil, done by =Phaer= in 1558 and =Stanyhurst= in 1583, and of Ovid, by =Turberville= in 1567 and by =Chapman= in 1595. Chapman’s Translation of Homer (1596) is perhaps the most famous of them all. It is composed in long, swinging lines, and is lively, audacious, and pleasing.

=8. The Pamphleteers.= All through this period there is a flood of short tracts on religion, politics, and literature. It was the work of a host of literary hacks who earned a precarious existence in London. These men represented a new class of writer. The Reformation had closed the Church to them; the growth of the universities and of learning continually increased their numbers. In later times journalism and its kindred careers supplied them with a livelihood; but at this time they eked out their existence by writing plays and squabbling among themselves in the pages of broadsheets.

In its buoyancy and vigor, its quaint mixture of truculence and petulance, Elizabethan pamphleteering is refreshingly boyish and alive. It is usually keenly satirical, and in style it is unformed and uncouth. The most notorious of the pamphleteers were =Thomas Nash (1567–1601)=, =Robert Greene (1560–92)=, and =Thomas Lodge (1558–1625)=. We quote a well-known passage from a pamphlet of Greene, in which he contrives to mingle praise of his friends with sly gibes at one who is probably Shakespeare. The style is typical of the pamphlets.

And thou,[100] no less deserving than the other two,[101] in some things rarer, in nothing inferior; driven (as myself) to extreme shifts, a little have I to say to thee; and were it not an idolatrous oath, I would swear by sweet St. George, thou art unworthy better hap, sith thou dependest on so mean a stay. Base-minded men all three of you, if by my misery ye be not warned; for unto none of you (like me) sought those burs to cleave,--those puppets, I mean,--that speak from our mouths,--those antics garnished in our colours. Is it not strange that I, to whom they all have been beholden,--is it not like that you, to whom they all have been beholden,--shall (were ye in that case that I am now) be both at once of them forsaken? Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger’s heart wrapt in a player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank-verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shakescene in a country. Oh, that I might entreat your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses, and let those apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions! I know the best husband of you all will never prove an usurer, and the kindest of them all will never prove a kind nurse: yet, whilst you may, seek you better masters; for it is pity men of such rare wits should be subject to the pleasures of such rude grooms. A Groatsworth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

At the beginning of the Elizabethan age English literary forms were still to a large extent in the making; at the end of the period there is a rich and varied store of most of the chief literary species. All that can be done here is to give the barest outline of this development.

=1. Poetry.= (a) Lyrical Poetry. The temper of the age was suited to the lyrical mood, and so the abundance of the lyric is very great. It begins with the first efforts of Wyat and Surrey (1557); it continues through the dramas in all their stages; and it appears in the numerous miscellanies of the period. Then the lyrical impulse is carried on without a break into the melodies of Campion and the darker moods of Donne. The forms of the lyric are many, and on the whole its notes are musical, wild, and natural.

An interesting sub-species of the lyric is the sonnet. We have seen how it took two forms--the Italian or Petrarchan form, and the English or Shakespearian type. During this period both kinds flourished, the English kind to a greater degree. Wyat began (1557) with a group of the Italian type; Surrey introduced the English form. Then the sonnet, in one or other of its two forms, was continued by Sidney in Astrophel and Stella (published in 1591), by Spenser, by Shakespeare, by Daniel in Delia (1592), and by Watson in Heoatompathia, or Passionate Century of Sonnets (1582). Later in the period the sonnet was less popular, though Drayton wrote at least one of great power.

(b) Descriptive and Narrative Poetry. This is a convenient title for a large and important class of poems. In this period it begins with such works as Sackville’s Induction (1555), and continues with Marlowe’s Hero and Leander (1598) and Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). It culminates in the sumptuous allegorical poetry of Spenser; and it begins its decline with the Spenserians of the type of the Fletchers and with Drayton’s Endimion and Phœbe (1600). The pastoral, which is a kind of descriptive poem, is seen in Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar (1579), in Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals (1613), and in Drayton. Almost purely descriptive poetry is represented in Drayton’s Polyolbion (1612); and a more strongly narrative type is the same poet’s England’s Heroical Epistles (1597). All these poems are distinguished by strong descriptive power, freshness of fancy, and sometimes by positive genius of style.

(c) Religious, satirical, and didactic poetry cannot take a position equal in importance to the rest. During the period the satirical intent is quite strong, but it does not produce great poetry. Gascoigne’s Steel Glass (1576) is one of the earliest satires; and it is followed by Donne’s Satires (1593) and Hall’s Satires (1597). Drayton’s Harmony of the Church (1591) is religious in motive; so are several poems of Donne, and also many of those of the Jesuit =Robert Southwell (1561–95)=.

=2. Drama.= The opening of the Elizabethan period saw the drama struggling into maturity. The early type of the time was scholarly in tone and aristocratic in authorship. An example of the earliest type of playwright is =Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554–1628)=, who distinguished himself both as a dramatic and lyrical poet.

To this stage succeeded that of Shakespeare, which covered approximately the years 1595 to 1615. Of this drama all we can say here is that it is the crown and flower of the Elizabethan literary achievement, and embodies almost the entire spirit both of drama and poetry.

The decline begins with Jonson, and continues with Beaumont and Fletcher, Dekker, Heywood, and the other dramatists mentioned in this chapter. The decline is made clear in several ways: in the narrowing of the ample Shakespearian motive, which comprises all mankind, into themes of temporary, local, and fragmentary importance; in the lack of creative power in the characterization, resulting (as in Jonson) in mere types or “humors,” or (as in Dekker and Fletcher) in superficial improvisation, or in ponderous tragical figures (as in Webster and Tourneur); and lastly, in the degradation of the style, which will be noted below. Sometimes the decline is gilded with delicate fancy, as in Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess, or in the exquisite Parliament of Bees (1607) by =John Day (1574–1640)=; but the grace and charm of such plays cannot conceal the falling-off in power and imagination.

With regard to the development of the different dramatic types, we have already noted that tragedy developed first; in Shakespeare all kinds received attention, tragedy most of all. In post-Shakespearian drama light comedy was the most popular species, chiefly because the tragic note of exalted pity had degenerated into melodrama and horrors.

A special word is perhaps necessary on the masque, which during this time had a brief but brilliant career. The masque is a short dramatic performance composed for some particular festive occasion, such as the marriage or majority of a great man’s son; it is distinguished by ornate stage-setting, by lyrics, music, and dancing, and by allegorical characters. It finds a place in Shakespeare’s Tempest and other plays; it is strongly developed in the works of Jonson, Fletcher, and other poets of the time; and it attains its climax during the next age in the Comus (1637) of Milton.

=3. Prose.= In Elizabethan times the development of prose was slower and slighter than that of poetry.

(a) The essay, beginning in the pamphlet, character-sketch, and other miscellaneous writing, develops in the work of Bacon. Its rise will be sketched more fully in a future chapter (see p. 268).

(b) The novel has some meager but significant beginnings in More’s Utopia (1516), Sidney’s Arcadia (published in 1590), Lyly’s Euphues (1579), Bacon’s New Atlantis (1626), and most of all in Nash’s The Unfortunate Traveller (1594). The rise of the novel is also reserved for a later chapter (see p. 336).

(c) Miscellaneous prose, in the pamphlets, theological works, sermons, translations, travels, and such abnormalities as Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), is exceedingly voluminous and important. We have here a large, loose, and varied mass of English prose, the central exercising-ground of the average prose-writer, that is to be the foundation of many important groups of the future.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STYLE

=1. Poetry.= The period immediately preceding was that of the clumsy poetry of Hawes, Skelton, and their kind; succeeding it is the strength and beauty of Elizabethan poetry. Between these two extremes the different stages of development are fairly well marked.

(a) The earliest period (say from 1550–80) is that of Wyat, Surrey, Sidney, and the University Wits. This is the formative and imitative period, during which the dependence upon classical originals is particularly strong. The style has the precision and the erratic character of the diligent pupil. There are few deliberate innovations, and lapses into barbarism are not unknown. In this period appear the sonnet, blank verse, and many of the beautiful lyrical metrical forms. The lyrical style is least restrained by the influence of classical models.

(b) The Spenserian and Shakespearian stage (from about 1580 to 1615) is the stage of highest development. The native English genius, having absorbed the lessons of foreign writers, adds to them the youth and ardor of its own spirit. The result is a fullness, freshness, and grandeur of style unequaled in any other period of our literature. There are the lyrics and allegories of Spenser; the poems, dramas, and lyrics of Shakespeare; and the innumerable miscellanies, poems, and plays of other writers. The style is as varied as the poems; but the universal note is the romantic one of power and ease.

(c) In the second decade of the seventeenth century the decline is apparent. The inspired phraseology, the wealth and flexibility of vocabulary, and the general bloom of the style pass into the lightness of fancy and the tinkling unsubstantial verse of the nature of Campion’s. Or the high seriousness degenerates into the gloomy manner of the Websterian tragedy. The handling of blank verse is typical of the movement. The sinewy Shakesperian blank verse becomes nerveless; in drama prose is commoner in quantity and coarser in fiber. In the lyric much of the old technical dexterity survives, but the deeper qualities of passion and sincerity are less common and robust.

=2. Prose.= Unlike that of poetry, the style of prose enjoys a steady development, continued from the previous age, and maintained through the Elizabethan age. Euphuism, which appeared early in this epoch, was a kind of literary measles incidental to early growth, and it quickly passed away, leaving the general body of English prose healthier than before. There is an increase in the raw material of prose in the shape of many foreign words that are imported; there is a growing expertness in sentence-and paragraph-construction and in the more delicate graces of style, such as rhythm and melody. The prose of Hooker and Bacon (in his later stages) represents the furthest development of the time. Prose style has yet a great deal to learn, but it is learning fast.

TABLE TO ILLUSTRATE THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

+----+------------------------------------------+-------------------------+----------------------------------+ | | POETRY | DRAMA | PROSE | |DATE|-------+---------------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | | Lyric |Narrative-Descriptive| Didactic | Comedy | Tragedy | Essay | Narrative | Didactic | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | | | | | | | | | Ascham | | | | | | | | | | | |1550| | | | | | | | | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sackville[102] | | | | | | | |1560|Wyat[103]| Surrey[103] | | | | | | | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |1570| | | | | | | | | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Gascoigne[104]| | | | | | |1580| | Spenser[105] | | | | | North[106]| Lyly | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | | | | | Lyly | Peele | | | | | | | | | Kyd | | | | | | | | | Greene | | | | |1590| | | | Marlowe | | | | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+-------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | |Daniel | Donne | | Nash | | |Hooker[107]| | | | Shakespeare[108] | | | | Nash | | | | | Marlowe | | Shakespeare | | |Spenser | |1600| | | Drayton | Chapman |Bacon[109] | | | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+-------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | |Campion| | |Jonson Dekker Shakespeare| | | | | |Donne | | | Marston | | | | | | | | | Jonson | | | | |1610| | G. Fletcher | | Heywood | | | Donne | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+-------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | | | Drayton | | Webster | | | | | | | | | Beaumont |Overbury[110]| | | | | | | | Fletcher | | | | |1620| | | | | | | | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | | | | | Middleton | | |Bacon | | | | | | | | | |Ussher | | | | | | | | | |Burton | |1630| | | | | | | Bacon |Hall | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | | | P. Fletcher | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |1640| | | | | | | | | +----+-------+---------------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------+

EXERCISES

1. The following extracts illustrate the growth of the English lyric from earliest times. Arrange the passages approximately in order of development, adding dates when it seems possible. Write a note on the style of each, and point out in what respects it is typical of its author or period.

(1) Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powdered, still perfumed: Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art’s hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. JONSON, Epicene

(2) Son icche herde that mirie note Thider I drogh; I fond her in an herber swot Under a bough With joie enough. Son I asked: “Thou mirie mai Hwi sinkestou ai?” _Nou sprinkes the sprai, All for love icche am so seek That slepen I ne mai._ Old Song

(3) A blissful life thou says I lead; Thou wouldest know thereof the stage. Thou wost well when thy Perle con schede, I was full young and tender of age; But my Lord the Lomb, through his God-hede, He took myself to his maryage, Coround me queen in bliss to brede[111] In length of dayes that ever shall wage. And seised in all his heritage His lef[112] is; I am wholly his; His praise, his price, and his parage Is root and ground of all my bliss. Pearl

(4) Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? O sweet content! Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed? O punishment! Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed To add to golden numbers, golden numbers? O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content! Work apace, apace, apace, apace; Honest labour bears a lovely face; Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring? O sweet content! Swim’st thou in wealth, yet sink’st in thine own tears? O punishment! Then he that patiently want’s burden bears No burden bears, but is a king, a king! O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content! Work apace, apace, apace, apace; Honest labour bears a lovely face; Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny! DEKKER, Sweet Content

2. In the following passages, which illustrate the development of blank verse, examine the metrical features (such as the scansion, variation of the pause, and the melody) of each, and mention if any improvement is apparent.

(1) It was the time when granted from the gods, The first sleep creeps most sweet in weary folk, Lo, in my dream before mine eyes, methought With rueful cheer I saw where Hector stood (Out of whose eyes gushed streams of tears), Drawn at a car as he of late had been, Distained with bloody dust, whose feet were bowl’n[113] With the strait cords wherewith they haled him. SURREY, Æneid, 1557

(2) That age is dead and vanished long ago, Which thought that steel both trusty was and true And needed not a foil of contraries, But shewed all things even as they were in deed. In stead whereof, our curious years can find The crystal glass, which glimpseth brave and bright, And shews the thing much better far than it, Beguiled with foils, of sundry subtle sights So that they seem and covet not to be. GASCOIGNE, The Steel Glass, 1576

(3) Prospero. Of the king’s ship The mariners, say how thou hast disposed And all the rest o’ the fleet. Ariel. Safely in harbour Is the king’s ship: in the deep nook, where once Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still-vex’d Bermoothes, there she’s hid: The mariners all under hatches stow’d; Who, with a charm join’d to their suffer’d labour, I have left asleep: and for the rest o’ the fleet Which I dispersed, they all have met again And are upon the Mediterranean flote, Bound sadly home for Naples, Supposing that they saw the king’s ship wreck’d And his great person perish. SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest, 1611

3. Comment upon the style, meter, and general level of excellence shown in the following sonnets. Point out any development that is observable.

(1) The sweet season, that bud and bloom forth brings, With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale. The nightingale, with feathers new, she sings; The turtle to her mate hath told her tale; Summer is come, for every spray now springs. The hart hath hung his old head on the pale: The buck in brake his winter coat he flings; The fishes fleet with new repaired scale; The adder all her slough away she flings; The swift swallow pursueth the flies small; The busy bee her honey how she mings! Winter is worn, that was the flowers’ bale, And thus I see among these pleasant things Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs. SURREY, To Spring, 1557

(2) Sweet is the rose, but growes upon a brere; Sweet is the juniper, but sharpe his bough; Sweet is the eglantine, but pricketh nere, Sweet is the firbloome, but his braunches rough; Sweet is the cyprese, but his rynd is tough; Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;[114] Sweet is the broome flowre, but yet sowre enough; And sweet is moly, but his root is ill; So, every sweet, with soure is tempred still, That maketh it be coveted the more: For easie things that may be got at will Most sorts of men doe set but little store. Why then should I accompt of little paine That endlesse pleasure shall unto me gaine! SPENSER, Amoretti, 1595

(3) Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part,-- Nay, I have done, you get no more of me; And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free; Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of love’s latest breath, When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And innocence is closing up his eyes, --Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou mightest him yet recover! DRAYTON, 1620

4. Hooker’s is sometimes considered to be the most highly developed of Elizabethan prose styles. In the following two extracts examine the vocabulary, sentence-construction, and general competence of the first, and compare it with the second, which was written about two hundred years earlier.

(1) Touching musical harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being but of high and low in sounds a due proportionable disposition, such notwithstanding is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think that the soul itself by nature is, or hath in it, harmony; a thing which delighteth all ages, and beseemeth all states; a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy; as decent being added unto actions of greatest weight and solemnity, as being used when men most sequester themselves from action. The reason hereof is an admirable facility which music hath to express and represent to the mind, more inwardly than any other sensible mean, the very standing, rising and falling, the very steps and inflections every way, the turns and varieties of all passions whereunto the mind is subject; yea, so to imitate them, that, whether it resemble unto us the same state wherein our minds already are, or a clean contrary, we are not more contentedly by the one confirmed, than changed and led away by the other. In harmony, the very image and character even of virtue and vice is perceived, the mind delighted with their resemblances, and brought by having them often iterated into a love of the things themselves. For which cause there is nothing more contagious and pestilent than some kinds of harmony; than some, nothing more strong and potent unto good. HOOKER, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, 1592

(2) This Emperor Prester John, when he goeth in to battle, against any other lord, he hath no banners borne before him: but he hath three crosses of gold, fine, great and high, full of precious stones: and every of the crosses be set in a chariot, full richly arrayed. And for to keep every cross, be ordained ten thousand men of arms, and more than a hundred thousand men on foot, in manner as men would keep a standard in our countries, when that we be in land of war. And this number of folk is without the principal host, and without wings ordained for the battle. And when he hath no war, but rideth with a privy retinue, then he hath borne before him but a cross of tree, without peinture, and without gold or silver or precious stones; in remembrance, that Jesu Christ suffered death upon a cross of tree. MANDEVILLE, Travels, 1400

5. In what respects is each of the following extracts typical of its author and its age? Write a very brief appreciation of the style of each.

(1) Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.-- Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies! Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in those lips, And all is dross that is not Helena. I will be Paris, and for love of thee, Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sacked; And I will combat with weak Menelaus, And wear thy colours on my plumed crest; Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel, And then return to Helen for a kiss. Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. MARLOWE, Doctor Faustus

(2) Iffida, the water standing in her eyes, clasping my hand in hers, with a sad countenance answered me thus:

“My good Fidus, if the increasing of my sorrows, might mitigate the extremity of thy sickness, I could be content to resolve myself into tears to rid thee of trouble: but the making of a fresh wound in my body is nothing to the healing of a festered sore in thy bowels: for that such diseases are to be cured in the end, by the names of their original. For as by basil the scorpion is engendered and by the means of the same herb destroyed: so love which by time and fancy is bred in an idle head, is by time and fancy banished from the heart: or as the salamander which, being a long space nourished in the fire, at the last quencheth it, so affection having taken hold of the fancy, and living as it were in the mind of the lover, in tract of time altereth and changeth the heat, and turneth it to chillness. LYLY, Euphues and his England

(3) Cozen german to idleness, and a concomitant cause which goes hand in hand with it, is nimia solitudo, too much solitariness--by the testimony of all physicians, cause and symptom both; but as it is here put for a cause, it is either coact, enforced, or else voluntary. Enforced solitariness is commonly seen in students, monks, friars, anchorites, that, by their order and course of life, must abandon all company, society of other men, and betake themselves to a private cell; otio superstitioso seclusi (as Bale and Hospinian well term it), such as are the Carthusians of our time, that eat no flesh (by their order), keep perpetual silence, never go abroad; such as live in prison, or some desert place, and cannot have company, as many of our country gentlemen do in solitary houses; they must either be alone without companions, or live beyond their means, and entertain all comers as so many hosts, or else converse with their servants and hinds, such as are unequal, inferior to them, and of a contrary disposition; or else, as some do, to avoid solitariness, spend their time with lewd fellows in taverns, and in ale-houses, and thence addict themselves to some unlawful disports, or dissolute courses. BURTON, The Anatomy of Melancholy

(4) Mr Peter, as one somewhat severe of nature, said plainly, that the rod only was the sword that must keep the school in obedience, and the scholar in good order. Mr Wotton, a man of mild nature, with soft voice, and few words, inclined to Mr Secretary’s judgment, and said, “In mine opinion the school-house should be in deed, as it is called by name, the house of play and pleasure, and not of fear and bondage; and as I do remember, so saith Socrates in one place of Plato. And therefore, if a rod carry the fear of a sword it is no marvel if those that be fearful of nature choose rather to forsake the play, than to stand always within the fear of a sword in a fond man’s handling.” ASCHAM, The Scholemaster

(5) Come little babe, come silly soul, Thy father’s shame, thy mother’s grief, Born as I doubt to all our dole, And to thyself unhappy chief: Sing lullaby and lap it warm, Poor soul that thinks no creature harm.

Thou little think’st and less dost know The cause of this thy mother’s moan; Thou want’st the wit to wail her woe, And I myself am all alone; Why dost thou weep, why dost thou wail, And know’st not yet what thou dost ail?

Come little wretch, ah silly heart, Mine only joy; what can I more? If there be any wrong thy smart, That may the destinies implore; ’Twas I, I say, against my will; I wail the time, but be thou still. A Sweet Lullaby (from The Arbor of Amorous Devices)

(6) Ere long they come where that same wicked wight His dwelling has, low in an hollow cave,[115] Far underneath a craggie clifty pight, Darke, dolefull, dreary, like a greedy grave, That still for carrion carcases doth crave: On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly Owle, Shrieking his balefull note, which ever drave Far from that haunt all other chearefull fowle; And all about it wandring ghostes did wayle and howle.

And all about old stockes and stubs of trees, Whereon nor fruit nor leafe was ever seene, Did hang upon the ragged rocky knees; On which had many wretches hanged beene, Whose carcases were scattred on the greene, And throwne about the clifts. Arrived there, That bare-head knight, for dread and dolefull teene, Would faine have fled, ne durst approchen neare; But th’ other forst him staye, and comforted in feare.

That darksome cave they enter, where they find That cursed man, low sitting on the ground, Musing full sadly in his sullein mind: His griesie lockes, long growen and unbound, Disordered hong about his shoulders round, And his face, through which his hollow eyne Lookt deadly dull, and stared as astound; His raw-bone cheekes, through penurie and pine, Were shronke into his jawes, as he did never dine. SPENSER, The Faerie Queene

6. What features of Shakespeare’s life and literary work does Arnold refer to in the following sonnet? How far do his statements appear to you inaccurate or exaggerated?

Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask--thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, Planting his stedfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foil’d searching of mortality; And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure, Didst tread on earth unguess’d at. Better so! All pains the immortal spirit must endure, All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. MATTHEW ARNOLD, Shakespeare

7. Compare very carefully the two given extracts from Shakespeare’s plays. Observe the handling of each: the simplicity or ornateness of diction, the power of expression, and the strength and flexibility of the blank verse. On these grounds, which would you say was taken from an early and which from a later?

(1) Cordelia. He wakes; speak to him.

Doctor. Madam, do you: ’tis fittest.

Cordelia. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave: Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead.

Cordelia. Sir, do you know me?

Lear. You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?

Cordelia. Still, still, far wide!

Doctor. He’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.

Lear. Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight? I am mightily abused. I should e’en die with pity, To see another thus. I know not what to say. I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see; I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured Of my condition! King Lear

(2) Portia. It must not be. There is no power in Venice Can alter a decree established: ’Twill be recorded for a precedent, And many an error by the same example Will rush into the state. It cannot be.

Shylock. A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel! O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!

Portia. I pray you, let me look upon the bond.

Shylock. Here ’tis, most reverend doctor, here it is.

Portia. Shylock, there’s thrice thy money offered thee.

Shylock. An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven. Shall I lay perjury upon my soul? No, not for Venice.

Portia. Why, this bond is forfeit; And lawfully by this the Jew may claim A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off Nearest the merchant’s heart.--Be merciful: Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond. The Merchant of Venice

8. Explain and discuss the following statements concerning Shakespeare. Whenever you can, illustrate with examples from the plays.

(1) He was not of an age, but for all time.--JONSON.

(2) Panting time toiled after him in vain.--JOHNSON.

(3) The genius of Shakespeare was an innate universality. KEATS.

(4) His plays are distinguished by signal adherence to the great laws of nature, that all opposites tend to attract and temper each other.--COLERIDGE.

(5) The striking peculiarity of Shakespeare’s mind was its power of communicating with other minds, so that it contained a universe of thought and feeling within itself.--HAZLITT.

9. What were the signs of the “dramatic decline” that set in after Shakespeare? Mention some dramatists whose plays show this decline.

10. Try to account for the weakness of English prose when compared with the poetry of the time.

(1) No single prose writer of the time, not even Hooker, holds the same rank that Spenser holds in poetry.--SAINTSBURY.

(2) The poets and dramatists of the age of Elizabeth completed their work quickly, and attained, by leaps and bounds, to the consummate perfection of their diction. But prose style grows more slowly; and its growth is hindered rather than quickened by the very variety of its subject.--CRAIK.

11. In what respects is the title “Elizabethan literature” open to objection when it is applied to the matter of this chapter? Suggest other titles.

12. To what extent were the University Wits immature dramatists? What was their contribution to the English drama?

13. “The age of Elizabeth made the most of both native and classical elements.” Discuss this statement.

14. It is frequently stated that during the second half of the Elizabethan period drama weakened and prose strengthened. Confirm or confute the statement.

15. How was this time “the Golden Age of the lyric”?

VI. THE AGE OF MILTON

TIME-CHART OF THE CHIEF AUTHORS

The thick line indicates approximately the period of active literary production.

1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 | | ║[116] | | | ║ | | Cowley |........|.║==============================║ | | (1618–67) | | | | | | | | ║ | ║ | | | | | Herbert |.║=========║ | | | | | (1593–1633) | | | | | | | | | | ║[117]║ | | ║ | Herrick |........|........|..║=====║........|........|.║ | (1591–1674) | | | | | | | | ║ | [118] | | ║[119] | ║ | Milton |......║=========================║=============║ | (1608–74) | | | | ║ | | | | | | ║[120] | ║ | | | Browne |........|........|.║============║..|........|........| (1605–82) | | | | | | | | | | ║[121] | | ║ | Clarendon |........|........|....║=======================║ | (1609–74) | | | | | | | | | |║ ║ [122] | ║ | | Taylor |........|........|║=======║==============║ | | (1613–67) | | | ║ | | | | ║ | | | ║[123] | | ║ | Hobbes |.....║======================║=====================║ | (1588–1679) | | | | ║ | | | | | | | | | |

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (1630–60)

The entire period covered by this chapter is dominated by the Civil War. The earlier years are marked by the quarrels and alarms which led up to actual hostilities in 1642; the middle of the period is occupied with the spasmodic fighting that lasted till the execution of Charles I in 1649; and the last portion covers the establishment of the Commonwealth, the rise and disappearance of Cromwell (1654–58), the confusion following upon his death, and the final restoration of the monarchy in 1660.

LITERARY FEATURES OF THE AGE

=1. The Reaction.= During this period the decline from the high Elizabethan standard is apparent in several ways. (a) The output, especially of poetry, is much smaller, and the fashion is toward shorter poems, especially the lyric of a peculiar type. (b) There is a marked decay in the exalted poetical fervor of the previous age. In the new poetry there is more of the intellectual play of fancy than of passion and profundity. And, especially in prose, there is a matured melancholy that one is apt to associate with advancing years. (c) In prose there is a marked increase in activity, which is an almost invariable accompaniment of a decline in poetry.

=2. The Pressure of Historical Events.= Viewed from a broad aspect, the Civil War was only a domestic incident in English history; but the very narrowness of the issue intensified the bitterness of the contest. It divided the people into two factions, and among other things vitally affected the literature of the time. Poetry was benumbed and lifeless, and prose assumed a fierce and disputatious character.

=3. The Dominance of Milton.= The age is distinguished by the efforts of Milton to keep literature alive. Upon his “Atlantean shoulders” he bears its reputation. Other poets were scrappy and uneven, like the “Metaphysicals”; or flat and uninspired, like Cowley; or shallow and trivial, like Denham. In Milton alone, and even in the prose of Milton to a considerable extent, we find satisfying quantity and quality.

=4. The Metaphysical Poets.= This term was first used by Johnson, who applied it to Donne and Cowley. It was applied to a kind of poetry, usually lyrical poetry, that often startled the reader by the sudden leaps of its fancy into remoteness and (in exaggerated instances) absurdity. The fashion was popular just before the Civil War broke out, and it can be seen in the works of Herrick, Crashaw, Herbert, Vaughan, and others. More detailed examination of this curious poetical mode will be found in the notices of these poets.

=5. The Cavalier Poets.= This name is often loosely applied to the Metaphysical poets; but the latter were usually of a religious and mystical cast, whereas the Cavalier poets were military and swashbuckling in disposition. They were well represented by Lovelace and Suckling.

=6. The Expansion of Prose.= The development of prose is carried on from the previous age. In spite of the hampering effects of the civil strife, the prose output was copious and excellent in kind. There was a notable advance in the sermon; pamphlets were abundant; and history, politics, philosophy, and miscellaneous kinds were well represented. In addition, there was a remarkable advance in prose style.

=7. The Collapse of the Drama.= Many things combined to oppress the drama at this time. Chief among these were the civil disturbances and the strong opposition of the Puritans. In temper the age was not dramatic. It is curious to note that Milton’s greatest work, which in the Elizabethan age would probably have been dramatic in form, took on the shape of the epic. The actual dramatic work of the period was small and unimportant; and the unequal struggle was terminated by the closing of the theaters in 1642.

JOHN MILTON (1608–74)

=1. His Life.= Milton was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, London. His father was a money-scrivener, an occupation that combined the duties of the modern banker and lawyer. Milton was educated at St. Paul’s School, London, and at Cambridge. At the university his stubborn and irascible nature declared itself, and owing to insubordination he was “sent down” for a term. On taking his final degree (1632) he abandoned his intention of entering the Church and retired to Horton, a small village in Buckinghamshire, some seventeen miles from London, whither his father had withdrawn from business.

Milton’s next few years were those of a sequestered man of letters. Poetry, mathematics, and music were his main studies. In 1638 he left for a tour on the Continent, staying some months in Italy, where he met many scholars and literary men. He was recalled to England by the news that civil war was imminent. He settled down in London and set up a small private school, and when hostilities broke out a year or two later he took no part in the fighting. His pen, however, was active in support of the Parliamentary cause, to which he was passionately attached.

In 1643 he married a woman much younger than himself, and almost immediately his wife left him, and did not return for two years. This unfortunate circumstance led Milton to write two strong pamphlets on divorce, which caused a great scandal at the time. Then in 1649, after the execution of the King, he was appointed by the Commonwealth Government Secretary for Foreign Tongues. In this capacity he became secretary to the Council of State, and drafted Latin documents for transmission to foreign Powers. In addition, he wrote numerous pamphlets in support of the republican cause. By this time his eyesight was failing; and when the Restoration came in 1660 to ruin his hopes, it found him blind, poor, and alone. He escaped, however, from the severe punishments that were inflicted upon many prominent Roundheads. He was slightly punished by a nominal imprisonment; retired to an obscure village in Buckinghamshire to write poetry; and died in London, where he was buried.

=2. His Prose.= Most of Milton’s prose was written during the middle period of his life (1640–60), when he was busy with public affairs. The prose works have an unusual interest, because as a rule they have a direct bearing on either his personal business or public interests. In all they amount to twenty-five pamphlets, of which twenty-one are in English and the remaining four in Latin.

He began pamphleteering quite early (1641), when he engaged in a lively controversy with Bishop Hall over episcopacy. Then, while teaching, he wrote a rather poor tract, Of Education (1644). When his wife deserted him he composed two pamphlets on divorce (1643–4), which scandalized the public by the freedom of their opinions and the slashing nature of their style. The critics of the pamphlets sought to confound Milton on a technical matter by pointing out that he had not licensed the books, as required by law. To this Milton retorted with the greatest of all his tracts, Areopagitica (1644), a noble and impassioned plea for the liberty of the Press. Later works include a defense (in Latin) of the execution of Charles I and of other actions of the Commonwealth Government. During the last years of his life Milton partly completed a History of Britain and other scholastic works.

When we consider the style of Milton’s prose we must keep in mind how it was occasioned. His pamphlets were cast off at white heat and precipitated into print while some topic was in urgent debate either in Milton’s or the public mind. Hence in method they are tempestuous and disordered; voluble, violent, and lax in style. They reveal intense zeal and pugnacity, a mind at once spacious in ideals and intolerant in application, a rich fancy, and a capacious scholarship. They lack humor, proportion, and restraint; but in spite of these defects they are among the greatest controversial compositions in the language. A short extract will illustrate some of the Miltonic features:

I deny not but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors: for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragons’ teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. Areopagitica

=3. His Poetry.= The great bulk of Milton’s poetry was written during two periods separated from each other by twenty years: (a) the period of his university career and his stay at Horton, from 1629 to 1640; and (b) the last years of his life, from about 1660 to 1674. The years between were filled by a few sonnets.

(a) While still an undergraduate Milton began to compose poems of remarkable maturity and promise. They include the fine and stately Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity (1629), and the poems On Shakespeare (1630) and On Arriving at the Age of Twenty-three (1631). These poems show Milton’s command of impressive diction and his high ideals, both literary and religious. While at Horton (1634) he composed L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, two longish poems in octosyllabic couplets dealing with the respective experiences of the gay and thoughtful man. The pieces are decorative rather than descriptive, artificial rather than natural, but they are full of scholarly fancy and adroit poetical phrasing. Comus (1637) belongs to this period, and is a masque containing some stiff but beautiful blank verse and some quite charming lyrical measures. Lycidas (1637) is an elegy on his friend Edward King, who was drowned on a voyage to Ireland.

Lycidas, which is to be reckoned as among the highest of Milton’s achievements, is something quite new in English poetry. In form it is pastoral, but this artificial medium serves only to show the power of Milton’s grip, which can wring from intractable material the very essence of poetry. The elegy has the color and music of the best Spenserian verse; but it has a climbing majesty of epithet and a dignified intensity of passion that Spenser does not possess. Its meter is an irregular stanza-sequence and rhyme-sequence of a peculiar haunting beauty.

For, so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise; Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away,--where’er thy bones are hurled, Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world; Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old, Where the great Vision of the guarded mount Looks towards Namancos and Bayona’s hold....

(b) This period (1660–74) gives us the poetry of the matured Milton. The work of the middle years is composed of a few sonnets. These, with some others written at different times, sufficiently show Milton’s command of the Italian form, which he uses throughout. He gives it a sweep and sonorous impressiveness that set him alone beside Wordsworth, who in this respect is his poetical successor. The best of Milton’s sonnets are On his Blindness and On the Late Massacre in Piedmont.

The great work of this time is Paradise Lost. It was begun as early as 1658, and issued in 1667. At first it was divided into ten books or parts, but in the second edition it was redivided into twelve. In form it follows the strict unity of the classical epic; in theme it deals with the fall of man; but by means of introduced narratives it covers the rebellion of Lucifer in heaven, the celestial warfare, and the expulsion of the rebels. In conception the poem is spacious and commanding; it is sumptuously adorned with all the detail that Milton’s rich imagination, fed with classical and Biblical lore, can suggest; the characters, especially that of Lucifer, are drawn on a gigantic scale, and do not lack a certain tragic immensity; and the blank verse in which the work is composed is new and wonderful. This type of blank verse has founded a tradition in English; it has often been imitated and modified, but never paralleled. It lacks the suppleness of the Shakespearian measure; but it is instinct with beauty and scholarly care. It is almost infinite in modulation; varied cunningly in scansion, in pause, in cadence, and in sonorous dignity of music. It has its lapses into wordiness and bombast, but the lapses are few indeed.

In the following extract the construction of the blank verse should be carefully observed. The variation of foot, pause, and melody is worthy of the closest study.

No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all The multitude of angels, with a shout Loud as from numbers without number, sweet As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heaven rung With jubilee, and loud hosannas filled The eternal regions. Lowly reverent Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground, With solemn adoration, down they cast Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold-- Immortal amarant, a flower which once In Paradise, fast by the tree of life, Began to bloom; but soon for man’s offence To Heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows, And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life, And where the river of bliss, through midst of Heaven, Rolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream.

In 1671 Milton issued his last volume of poetry, which contained Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. The former poem, which tells of Christ’s temptation and victory, is complementary to the earlier epic, and Milton hoped that it would surpass its predecessor. In this his hopes were dashed. It is briefer and poorer than Paradise Lost; it lacks the exalted imagination, the adornment, and the ornate rhythms of the earlier poem. There is little action, the characters are uninteresting, and the work approaches Paradise Lost only in a few outstanding passages.

Samson Agonistes, which tells of Samson’s death while a prisoner of the Philistines, has a curious interest, for in the Biblical hero Milton saw more than one resemblance to himself. In form the work has the strict unity of time, place, and action universal in Greek tragedy. In style it is bleak and bare, in places harsh and forbidding; but in several places Milton’s stubborn soul is wrung with pity and exalted by the hope that looks beyond. The speech of Samson’s father over his dead son is no inappropriate epitaph for Milton himself:

Come, come, no time for lamentation now, Nor much more cause; Samson hath quit himself Like Samson, and heroically hath finished A life heroic, on his enemies Fully revenged, hath left them years of mourning, To himself and father’s house eternal fame; And, which is best and happiest yet, all this With God not parted from him, as was feared, But favouring and assisting to the end. Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame, nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble.

=4. Features of his Poetry.= (a) The Puritan Strain. All through his life Milton’s religious fervor was unshaken. Even his enemies did not deny his sincerity. It is seen even in one of his earliest sonnets:

All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great Taskmaster’s eye.

It persists even to the end, when it runs deeper and darker. In Paradise Lost, for example, his chief motive is to “justify the ways of God to men.”

This religious tendency is apparent in (1) the choice of religious subjects, especially in the later poems; (2) the sense of responsibility and moral exaltation; (3) the fondness for preaching and lecturing, which in Paradise Lost is a positive weakness; (4) the narrowness of outlook, strongly Puritanical, seen in his outbursts against his opponents (as in Lycidas), in his belief regarding the inferiority of women, and in his scorn for the “miscellaneous rabble.”

(b) The Classical Strain. Curiously interwoven with the severity of his religious nature is a strong bent for the classics, which is pagan and sensuous. His learning was wide and matured; he wrote Latin prose and verse as freely as he wrote English. His classical bent is apparent in (1) his choice of classical and semi-classical forms--the epic, the Greek tragedy, the pastoral, and the sonnet; (2) the elaborate descriptions and enormous similes in Paradise Lost; (3) the fondness for classical allusion, which runs riot through all his poetry; (4) the dignity of his style, and its precision and care. His very egoism takes a high classical turn. In his blindness he compares himself with

Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides, And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old.

In his choice of diction we have the classical element abundantly apparent; and, lastly, the same element appears in the typical Miltonic grandeur and frigidity, the arrogant aloofness from men and mortals.

(c) His Poetical Genius. As a poet Milton is not a great innovator; his function is rather to refine and make perfect. Every form he touches acquires a finality of grace and dignity. The epic, the ode, the classical drama, the sonnet, the masque, and the elegy--his achievements in these have never been bettered and seldom approached. As a metrist he stands almost alone. In all his meters we observe the same ease, sureness, and success.

(d) His Position in Literature. In literature Milton occupies an important central or transitional position. He came immediately after the Elizabethan epoch, when the Elizabethan methods were crumbling into chaos. His hand and temper were firm enough to gather into one system the wavering tendencies of poetry, and to give them sureness, accuracy, and variety. The next generation, lacking the inspiration of the Elizabethans, found in him the necessary stimulus to order and accuracy; and from him, to a great extent, sprang the new “classicism” that was to be the rule for more than a century.

OTHER POETS

=1. Abraham Cowley (1618–67)= was born in London, the son of a wealthy citizen. He was educated at Westminster School and at Cambridge, where he distinguished himself as a classical scholar. In the Civil War he warmly supported the King; followed the royal family into exile, where he performed valuable services; returned to England at the Restoration; and for the remainder of his life composed books in retirement.

Cowley, even more than Pope and Macaulay, is the great example of the infant prodigy. When he was ten he wrote a long epical romance, Piramus and Thisbe (1628), and two years later produced an even longer poem called Constantia and Philetus (1630). All through his life he was active in the production of many kinds of work--poems, plays, essays, and histories. His best-known poem was The Davideis (1637), a rather dreary epic on King David, in heroic couplets. Other poems were The Mistress (1647), a collection of love-poems, and the Pindarique Odes, which are a curious hybrid between the early freedom of the Elizabethans and the classicism of the later generation. His prose works included his Essays and Discourse concerning Oliver Cromwell (1661).

Both in prose and poetry Cowley was a man of various methods, showing the wavering moods of the transitional poet. His heroic couplets and irregular odes foreshadow the vogue of the approaching “correctness”; his essays, in their pleasant egoism and miscellaneous subject-matter, suggest Addison; and his prose style, plain and not inelegant, draws near to the mode of Dryden. His variety pleased many tastes; hence the popularity that was showered upon him during his day. But he excelled in no particular method; and hence the partial oblivion that has followed.

=2. The Metaphysical Poets.= The works of this group of poets have several features in common: (i) the poetry is to a great extent lyrical; (ii) in subject it is chiefly religious or amatory; (iii) there is much metrical facility, even in complicated lyrical stanzas; (iv) the poetic style is sometimes almost startling in its sudden beauty of phrase and melody of diction, but there are unexpected turns of language and figures of speech (hence the name of the group).

(a) =Robert Herrick (1591–1674)= was born in London, and educated at Westminster School and at Cambridge, where he lived for fourteen years. He was appointed to a living in Devonshire, where he died.

His two volumes of poems are Noble Numbers (1647) and Hesperides (1648). Both are collections of short poems, sacred and profane. In them he reveals lyrical power of a high order; fresh, passionate, and felicitously exact, but at the same time meditative and observant. Herrick was strongly influenced by Jonson and the classics; he delighted in the good things of this world; but that did not prevent his having a keen enjoyment of nature and a fresh outlook upon life. Among the best known of his shorter pieces are To Anthea, To Julia, and Cherry Ripe.

(b) =George Herbert (1593–1633)= was born at Montgomery Castle, educated at Westminster School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was appointed Fellow and reader, took holy orders, and was given in turn livings near Huntingdon and at Bemerton, near Salisbury.

None of his poems was published during his lifetime. On his death-bed he gave to a friend the manuscript of The Temple, a collection of religious poems in various meters. The poems, of a high quality, are inspired with a devout piety which is often fantastically expressed and quaintly figured. His poetry is not so “metaphysical” as that of some others of his group; but neither does it rise to the great heights that they sometimes achieve.

(c) =Richard Crashaw (1613–50)=, the son of a clergyman, was born in London, and educated at the Charterhouse and at Cambridge. During the Civil War, in which he was a strong Royalist, he was compelled to escape to France, where he became a Roman Catholic. At a later stage he went to Rome and to Loretto. At the latter place he died and was buried.

Crashaw represents the best and the worst of the Metaphysical poets. At his best he has an energy and triumphant rapture that, outside the poems of Shelley, are rarely equaled in English; at his worst he is shrill, frothy, and conceited. His style at its best is harmonious, precise, and nobly elevated; at its worst it is disfigured by obscurity, perversity, and unseemly images. His chief work is Steps to the Temple (1646).

We quote an extract to show the exalted mood to which his poetry can ascend:

Live in these conquering leaves; live all the same; And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame; Live here, great heart;[124] and love, and die, and kill; And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still. Let this immortal life where’er it comes Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms. Let mystic deaths wait on’t; and wise souls be The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee. O sweet incendiary! show here thy art, Upon this carcase of a hard cold heart.... Oh thou undaunted daughter of desires! By all thy power of lights and fires;... By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire; By thy last morning’s draught of liquid fire; By the full kingdom of that final kiss That seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee his;... Leave nothing of myself in me. The Flaming Heart

(d) =Henry Vaughan (1622–95)= was born in Wales, and was descended from an ancient family. He went to London to study law, then turned to medicine, and practiced at Brecon. His books include Poems (1646), Olor Iscanus (1647), Silex Scintillans (1650), and Thalia Rediviva (1678).

Vaughan’s love-poems, though they are often prettily and sometimes beautifully phrased, are inferior to his religious pieces, especially those in Silex Scintillans. His religious fervor is nobly imaginative, and strikes out lines and ideas of astonishing strength and beauty. His regard for nature, moreover, has a closeness and penetration that sometimes (for example, in The Retreat) suggests Wordsworth.

(e) =Thomas Carew (1595–1645)= was born in Kent, educated at Oxford, and studied law in the Middle Temple. He attained to some success as a courtier, but later died in obscurity. The date of his death is uncertain, but it was probably 1645.

His Poems (1640) show his undoubted lyrical ability. The pieces are influenced by Donne and Jonson, but they have a character of their own. The fancy is warmly colored, though it is marred by license and bad taste. We quote a lyric which can be taken as representative of the best of its kind. Its fancy is too rich and beautiful to be called fantastic, and its golden felicity of diction is rarely equaled.

Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose, For in your beauty’s orient deep These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray The golden atoms of the day, For, in pure love, heaven did prepare Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more whither doth haste The nightingale when May is past, For in your sweet dividing throat She winters and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more if east or west The phœnix builds her spicy nest, For unto you at last she flies, And in your fragrant bosom dies.

=3.= The =Cavalier poets= are lyrical poets, and deal chiefly with love and war.

(a) =Richard Lovelace (1618–58)= was born at Woolwich, was educated at the Charterhouse and at Oxford, and became an officer in the King’s household. When the Civil War broke out he was imprisoned by the Roundheads; and, being liberated on parole, could do little actively to assist Charles. At a later stage he saw some soldiering in France, returned to England, and died in obscure circumstances.

His volume Lucasta (1649) contains the best of his shorter pieces, which had appeared at different times previously. He is essentially the poet of attractive scraps and fancies, elegantly and wittily expressed. Some of his lyrics, such as To Althea, from Prison and To Lucasta, Going to the Wars, have retained their popularity.

(b) =Sir John Suckling (1609–42)= was born in Middlesex, and at the age of eighteen fell heir to a large fortune. He was educated at Oxford, traveled on the Continent, served as a volunteer under Gustavus Adolphus, and became a favorite of Charles I. He was implicated in Royalist plots, and escaped abroad (1640), where he died under conditions that are somewhat mysterious.

To some extent (for he seems to have lacked physical courage) Suckling was the cavalier of the romances and the Restoration plays--gay, generous, and witty. His poems largely reflect these characteristics. As a poet he has great ability, but he is usually the elegant amateur, disdaining serious and sustained labor. Some of his poems, such as the Ballad upon a Wedding (see p. 186), and “Why so pale and wan, fond lover?” show the tricksy elegance that is his chief attraction.

DRAMA

=1. Philip Massinger (1583–1640)= was born at Salisbury, educated at Oxford, and became a literary man in London, writing plays for the King’s Men, a company of actors. If we may judge from his begging letters that survive, he found in dramatic work little financial encouragement. He died and was buried in London.

Massinger did much hack-work, and was fond of working out topical and moral themes; so that a large amount of his work is of little permanent importance. The best of his many plays are A New Way to Pay Old Debts (1625) and The City Madam (1632), two quite fine comedies; and The Duke of Milan (1618) and The Unnatural Combat (1619), quite respectable tragedies. The level of Massinger’s workmanship is laudably high; he is remarkably uniform in quality; and in a few cases (as in that of Sir Giles Overreach in A New Way to Pay Old Debts) he has created characters of real distinction. He followed the fashion of the time in collaborating with other dramatists. The Virgin Martyr, produced jointly with Dekker, is perhaps the most important of this class of play.

=2. John Ford (1586–1640)= was born in Devonshire, educated at Oxford, and studied, though he seems never to have practiced, law. He became an active producer of plays, chiefly tragedies, both on his own account and in collaboration with other playwrights.

In his nature Ford had a morbid twist which gave him a strange liking for the horrible and the unnatural. His plays are unequal in quality; but the most powerful of them are prevented from being revolting by their real tragic force and their high literary aims. In The Broken Heart (acted in 1629) he harrows the reader’s feelings almost beyond endurance; his Perkin Warbeck (1634), a historical tragedy, is reckoned to be the best historical drama outside of Shakespeare; and in The Witch of Edmonton (about 1633) he collaborated with Dekker and Rowley to produce a powerful domestic drama. Others of the sixteen plays attributed to him are The Lover’s Melancholy (1629), Love’s Sacrifice (1633), and The Fancies Chaste and Noble (1638).

SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605–82)

Browne may be taken as representative of the best prose-writers of the period.

=1. His Life.= He was born in London, educated at Winchester and Oxford, and studied medicine. For a time he practiced in Oxfordshire; then he traveled abroad, receiving his degree of M.D. at Leyden. Returning to London (1634), he soon removed to Norwich, where for the remainder of his life he successfully practiced as a doctor.

=2. His Works.= Almost alone among his contemporaries, Browne seems to have been unaffected by the commotions of the time. His prose works, produced during some of the hottest years of civil contention, are tranquilly oblivious of unrest. His books are only five in number, are individually small in size, and are of great and almost uniform merit. Religio Medici (1642), his confession of faith, is a curious mixture of credulity and skepticism; Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors (1646), shared the same mental inconsistency, resembles the work of Burton in its out-of-the-way learning; Hydriotaphia or Erne Buriall (1658), commonly considered to be his masterpiece, contains reflections on human mortality induced by the discovery of some ancient funeral urns; The Garden of Cyrus (1658) is a treatise on the quincunx. The last work, Christian Morals, was published after his death.

=3. His Style.= As a philosopher Browne is either obscure and confusing, as in Religio Medici, or unoriginal and obvious, as in Hydriotaphia. His learning, though it is wide and accurate, is too far-fetched and strange to be of much practical use. But as a literary stylist he is very valuable indeed. He shows the ornate style of the time in its richest bloom. His diction is strongly Latinized, sometimes to the limit of obscurity; and he has the scholastic habit of introducing Latin tags and references. In this he resembles Burton; but in other respects he is far beyond the author of The Anatomy of Melancholy. His sentences are carefully wrought and artistically combined into paragraphs; and, most important from the purely literary point of view, the diction has a richness of effect unknown among other English prose-writers. The rhythm is harmonious, and finishes with carefully attuned cadences. The prose is sometimes obscure, rarely vivacious, and hardly ever diverting; but the solemnity and beauty of it have given it an enduring fascination. A brief extract will illustrate some of its qualities:

Pious spirits who passed their days in raptures of futurity, made little more of this world, than the world that was before it, while they lay obscure in the chaos of preordination, and night of their fore-beings. And if any have been so happy as truly to understand Christian annihilation, ecstasies, exolution, liquefaction, transformation, the kiss of the spouse, gustation of God, and ingression into the divine shadow, they have already had an handsome anticipation of heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, and the earth in ashes unto them.

To subsist in lasting monuments, to live in their productions, to exist in their names and predicament of chimeras, was large satisfaction unto old expectations, and made one part of their Elysiums. But all this is nothing in the metaphysics of true belief. To live, indeed, is to be again ourselves, which being not only an hope, but an evidence in noble believers, ’tis all one to lie in St Innocent’s churchyard, as in the sands of Egypt. Ready to be anything, in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content with six foot as the moles of Adrianus. Hydriotaphia

OTHER PROSE-WRITERS

=1. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1609–74)=, was born in Wiltshire, educated at Oxford, and studied law. A man of excellent address, he was a successful lawyer, and became a member of the House of Commons. At first he was attached to the Parliamentary side, but he separated from the party on account of their attitude to the Church. He changed over to the Royalists, and thenceforward became one of the foremost advocates of the King’s cause. After the downfall of the Royalists he accompanied the young Charles into exile; and at the Restoration he was appointed Lord Chancellor and raised to the peerage as Earl of Clarendon. He was too severe for the frivolous Restoration times, was exiled (1667), and died in France. His body was buried in Westminster Abbey.

His great work, The History of the Great Rebellion, was begun as early as 1646 and finished during the years of his last exile. It was not published till 1704. To some extent the work is based on his own knowledge of the struggle; it lacks proportion and complete accuracy; but the narrative is strong and attractive, and it contains masterly character-sketches of some of the chief figures in the struggle. It is composed in long, lumbering sentences, loaded with parentheses and digressions, but the style is readable. It is the most important English work of a historical nature up to the date of its issue.

=2. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)= was born at Malmesbury, and was the son of a clergyman. He finished his education at Oxford, and became tutor to the future Earl of Devonshire. He supported the Royalist cause, was exiled by the Roundheads, and at the Restoration was awarded a pension. The remainder of his long life was devoted to literature.

Hobbes took an active part in the intellectual broils of the period, and much of his work is violently contentious. His chief book was The Leviathan (1651), which expounded his political theories. The ardor of his opinions embroiled him with both of the chief political parties, but the abuse that it occasioned gave the book an immense interest. The style in which it is written is hard, clear, and accurate--almost the ideal medium for sustained exposition and argument.

=3. Jeremy Taylor (1613–67)= is the most prominent literary divine of the period. The son of a barber, he was born and educated at Cambridge, though latterly he removed to Oxford. Taking holy orders, he distinguished himself as an ardent expounder of the Royalist cause, and for a time he was imprisoned by the Parliamentary party. At the Restoration he was rewarded by being appointed to the Irish bishoprics of Down and Dromore. He died in Ireland.

A learned, voluble, and impressive preacher, Taylor carried the same qualities into his prose works, which consisted of tracts, sermons, and theological books. His most popular works, in addition to his collections of sermons, were The Liberty of Prophesying (1647), Holy Living (1650), and Holy Dying (1651). In his writings he is fond of quotations and allusions and of florid, rhetorical figures, such as simile, exclamation, and apostrophe; and his language, built into long, stately, but comprehensible sentences, is abundant, melodious, and pleasing.

=4. Thomas Fuller (1608–61)= was born in Northamptonshire, his father being a clergyman. He was educated at Cambridge, and took holy orders. He received various appointments, and by his witty sermons attracted the notice of Charles I. During the Civil War he was a chaplain to the Royalist forces; but when his side was defeated he made his peace with the Parliamentary party and was permitted to carry on his literary labors. He died the year after the Restoration.

Fuller had an original and penetrating mind, a wit apt for caustic comment, and an industry that remained unimpaired till the end of his life. His literary works are therefore of great interest and value. His serious historical books include The History of the Holy War (1639), dealing with the Crusades, and The Church-History of Britain (1655). Among his pamphlets are Good Thoughts in Bad Times (1645), and An Alarum to the Counties of England and Wales (1660). The work that has given him his reputation is his Worthies of England, published by his son in 1662. It shows his peculiar jocosity at its best.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

=1. Poetry.= (a) The Lyric. The period is rich in lyrical poetry of a peculiar kind. The theme is chiefly love or religion. Most of the love-poems are dedicated to ladies of the usual literary convention, such as Althea, Celia, and Phyllis, who both in name and nature resemble the stock characters of the artificial pastoral poetry. The language addressed to such creations cannot be that of deep and genuine passion; it is rather that of polite compliment, verbal quibble, or courtly jest. This type of lyric is a charming literary exercise, but hardly the inspired searching of the lover’s heart. We have already noticed the poems of Herrick, Lovelace, and Carew as being representative of this class. To these names may be added those of =George Wither (1588–1667)=, who writes freshly and sweetly, =Andrew Marvell (1621–78)=, who sometimes reveals real passion, and the numerous miscellaneous songwriters, mostly anonymous, who in inspired moments could produce such charming lyrics as “Phillada flouts me.”

The religious lyric, on the other hand, as we can see in the case of Crashaw and Vaughan, is frequently passionately inspired; but the passions are vaguely expressed; and we have commented upon the incongruity that frequently disfigures the style. In the case of Milton his lyrics are superbly phrased, but they too lack spontaneity. His sonnets, among the noblest of their class, have much more depth of feeling.

(b) The Epic. The true epic treats of a sublime subject in the grand manner. In some respects Beowulf is an epic, but strictly speaking the epic does not appear till this age. Cowley’s Davideis (1637) and Davenant’s Gondibert (1651) aspire to be great epics; but though they subscribe to the rules governing the outward form of the species they lack the inner spirit and they are failures. Milton’s Paradise Lost (1658) has the heat and inspiration, but the Puritan bias in his nature led him to the rather unsuitable subject of the fall of man. It is unsuitable because it is weak in heroic action. Much more appropriate would have been the story of King Arthur, which for a long time he thought of using. Otherwise Milton’s treatment of the subject is strictly orthodox. Nominally at least he adheres to the epical unity of action; he draws his characters with a wide sweep; and the style is a triumph of English epical style. His Paradise Regained (1671) is worked out on the same lines, but it is shorter and weaker than the earlier epic.

(c) The Ode. In Spenser’s Epithalamion and Prothalamion we have seen the irregular ode attain to a high degree of perfection. In this age we observe the appearance of the Pindaric ode, which was to be so popular in the succeeding generations. Though it appears to be irregular, the Pindaric ode is really bound by stringent rules; its language is ornately artificial; and its diction mannered and unreal. Therefore it is suited to the needs of a transitional period that desires artificiality with a show of freedom. Cowley’s Pindarique Odes (1656) are the first of their class in English.

(d) Descriptive and Narrative Poetry. In this wide class we may include Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, Herrick’s pastoral poems, and Crashaw’s religious-descriptive pieces. To these may be added the Cooper Hill (1641) of =Sir John Denham (1615–69)=, a descriptive poem much praised in its day, and the romantic poem Pharonnida (1659) by =William Chamberlayne (1619–89)=. In all these poems we may observe the growing tendency to avoid contact with actual wild nature, and to seek rather the conventional and bookish landscapes familiar in the more artificial classical authors. Already the new classicism is declaring itself.

=2. Drama.= Earlier in this chapter we have noticed the decline and temporary collapse of the drama (1642). The plays of Massinger sustain the expiring spirit of the great Elizabethans; those of Ford follow the tragical school of Webster and Tourneur. Other playwrights are =James Shirley (1596–1666)=, who wrote some pleasing comedies of London life, such as The Lady of Pleasure (1637), and the feebler writers =Suckling= and =Davenant=.

=3. Prose.= While the period is almost devoid of narrative prose of the lighter sort, it is quite rich in prose of other kinds.

(a) The Sermon. This period has been called “the Golden Age of the English pulpit.” No doubt the violent religious strife of the time has much to do with the great flow of sermon writing, which is marked with eloquence, learning, and strong argument. In addition to Jeremy Taylor and Fuller, already mentioned, we may notice =Robert South (1634–1716)=, who writes rather more briefly and simply than the rest, =Isaac Barrow (1630–77)=, learned and copious, and =Richard Baxter (1615–91)=, a Nonconformist, whose Saints’ Everlasting Rest (1649) has survived all his preachings.

(b) Philosophical Works. On the moral side there are the works of Sir Thomas Browne; on the political those of Hobbes; and on the religious side the books of =John Hales (1584–1656)=. Works of this type show a growing knowledge and advancing scholarship, joined sometimes to quaint conceits and artless credulity.

(c) Historical Works. In this class Clarendon’s and Fuller’s works stand pre-eminent. The development of the history will be noticed in a future chapter (see p. 340).

(d) Miscellaneous Prose. In this large and varied group may be included the pamphlets of Milton, Hobbes, Fuller, and many more; the attractive books of =Isaac Walton (1593–1683)=, whose Compleat Angler (1653) is the classic of its kind; the interesting Resolves, short miscellaneous essays, of =Owen Felltham (1602–68)=; and the Letters (1645), an early type of essay-journalism, of =James Howell (1594–1666)=.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STYLE

=1. Poetry.= In surveying the poetical style of the age one is aware of conflicting tendencies, a state of affairs quite in keeping with the transitional nature of the time.

(a) The lyrical style shows a decline from the natural splendors of the Elizabethan age; but it shows an increase in care, in polish, and in actual metrical dexterity. Moreover, in the best examples of the time we find a melodious resonance and beauty that is quite peculiar to the period. The lyric of Carew quoted on p. 172 illustrates this felicity both of sound and expression. The startling “metaphysical” quality of the works of many of the poets has been commented upon. It is revealed at its worst in the works of =John Cleveland (1613–58)=, whose more violent efforts came to be known as “Clevelandisms.” The following is a mild example of his manner:

The flowers, called out of their beds, Start and raise up their drowsy heads; And he that for their colour seeks, Will find it mantling in her cheeks, Where roses mix; no civil war Between her York and Lancaster. The marigold, whose courtier face Echoes the sun, and doth unlace Her at his rise, at his full stop Packs and shuts up her gaudy shop, Mistakes her cue, and doth display: Thus Phillis antedates the day. On Phillis, walking before Sunrise

(b) In blank verse conflicting movements are also apparent. In Milton the style reaches a magnificent climax. But in the drama, especially in the drama of minor playwrights of the ability of Suckling and Davenant, it becomes a huddle of verse and prose, so bad that one hesitates to say where the verse ends and the prose begins. It is the last stage of poetical decrepitude.

(c) The heroic couplet begins to appear, ushering in its long reign. We have it appearing as early as Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar (1579) and Sandys’s Ovid (1626); but the true stopped couplet, as used by Dryden and developed by Pope, is usually set down to the credit of Cowley’s Davideis (1637), or Denham’s Cooper’s Hill (1641), or the shorter poems of =Edmund Waller (1606–87)=, who wrote stopped couplets as early as 1623. The heroic couplet will receive further notice in the next chapter.

TABLE TO ILLUSTRATE THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

+----+---------------------------------+-------------------+------------------------------------+ | | POETRY | DRAMA | PROSE | |DATE+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+-------------+ | | Lyric | Epic | Descriptive | Comedy | Tragedy | Historical |Religious|Miscellaneous| +----+---------+---------+-------------+---------+----- ---+------------+---------+-------------+ | |Wither | | | | | | | | | | | | | Massinger | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |1630|Milton[125]| | Cowley | |Ford | | | | +----+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+-------------+ | | | | | | | | | | | |Herbert | | Milton | | | | | | | | |Cowley | |Suckling | | | | | | |Suckling | | |Davenant | | | | | |1640|Carew | | | | |Fuller | | | +----+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+-------------+ | | | | Denham | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Browne[126]| | | |Crashaw | | | | | | |Milton | | |Vaughan | | | | | |Fuller |Howell | | | | | | | |Clarendon[127]| |Browne | | |Herrick | | | | | |Baxter | | | |Lovelace | | | | | | | | |1650| |Davenant | | | | |Taylor[128]| | +----+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+-------------+ | |Marvell | | | | | | |Hobbes | | | | | | | | |Barrow |Walton | | |Cowley | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Milton[129]|Chamberlayne| | | | | | |1660| | | | | | | |Fuller | +----+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+-------------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |1670| | | | |Milton[130]| | | | +----+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+------------+---------+-------------+

=2. Prose.= In prose also we see the opposing tendencies. The principal movement is toward ornate prose, in Browne, Jeremy Taylor, Clarendon, and in the Scottish writer =William Drummond (1585–1649)=, whose Cypress Grove (1616) is in the fashionable funereal vein. In the middle style we have the precision of Hobbes in The Leviathan. At the other extreme from the ornate, the miscellaneous writers adopt great simplicity. Of this class, which includes Howell and Fe11tham, the best example is Isaac Walton, whose artless prose is shown in the following specimen:

Piscator. O sir, doubt not but that angling is an art. Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? a trout that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk you have named, and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! and yet I doubt not to catch a brace or two to-morrow for a friend’s breakfast. Doubt not, therefore, sir, but that angling is an art, and an art worth your learning; the question is rather, whether you be capable of learning it? for angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so--I mean with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice; but he that hopes to be a good angler must not only bring an inquiring, searching, observing wit, but he must bring a large measure of hope and patience, and a love and propensity to the art itself; but having once got and practised it, then doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be like virtue, a reward to itself. The Compleat Angler

EXERCISES

1. The following extracts illustrate the good and bad features of the “metaphysical” style in poetry. Comment upon each feature as it appears to you, and estimate the value of the style as a literary medium.

(1) Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must Like th’ other foot obliquely run, Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun. DONNE, A Valediction forbidding Mourning

(2) But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near, And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song: then worms shall try That long preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust: The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. MARVELL, To his Coy Mistress

(3) When, like committed linnets, I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetness, mercy, majesty, And glories of my King; When I shall voice aloud, how good He is, how great should be, Enlarged winds that curl the flood Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty. LOVELACE, To Althea, from Prison

(4) Each little pimple had a tear in it, To wail the fault its rising did commit. DRYDEN, Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings

(5) The plants, whose luxury was lopped, Or age with crutches underpropped, Whose wooden carcases are grown To be but coffins of their own, Revive, and at her general dole, Each receives his ancient soul. CLEVELAND

(6) Her finger was so small, the ring, Would not stay on, which they did bring, It was too wide a peck: And to say the truth (for out it must) It looked like the great collar (just) About our young colt’s neck.

Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they feared the light: But O, she dances such a way! No sun upon an Easter-day Is half so fine a sight.

Her cheeks so rare a white was on, No daisy makes comparison, (Who sees them is undone), For streaks of red were mingled there, Such as are on a Catherine pear The side that’s next the sun. SUCKLING, A Ballad upon a Wedding

2. Compare the following examples of Milton’s earlier and later blank verse respectively. Observe the metrical dexterity, the cadence, and the vowel-music.

(1) They left me then, when the gray-hooded even, Like a sad votarist in palmer’s weed Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phœbus’ wain. But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labour of my thoughts; ’tis likeliest They had engaged their wandering steps too far; And envious darkness, ere they could return, Had stole them from me: else, O thievish night, Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end, In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars, That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps With everlasting oil, to give due light To the misled and lonely traveller? Comus

(2) Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid, Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair, Presented with a universal blank Of nature’s works to me expung’d and ras’d, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. Paradise Lost

3. The following paragraph is fairly typical both of the prose of Jeremy Taylor and of that of the period in general. Point out the good and bad qualities of the style, and estimate its value.

Anger is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer, and therefore is contrary to that attention which presents our prayers in a right line to God. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings, till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing, as if it had learned music and motion from an angel, as he passed sometimes through the air, about his ministries here below. So is the prayer of a good man: when his affairs have required business, and his business was matter of discipline, and his discipline was to pass upon a sinning person, or had a design of charity, his duty met with the infirmities of a man, and anger was its instrument; and the instrument became stronger than the prime agent, and raised a tempest, and overruled the man; and then his prayer was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, and his words went up towards a cloud; and his thoughts pulled them back again, and made them without intention; and the good man sighs for his infirmity, but must be content to lose that prayer, and he must recover it when his anger is removed, and his spirit is becalmed, made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the heart of God; and then it ascends to heaven upon the wings of the holy dove, and dwells with God, till it returns, like the useful bee, laden with a blessing and the dew of heaven. JEREMY TAYLOR, On Prayer

4. Explain the references in the following passages. What parts of Milton’s character and literary works are emphasized?

(1) Nor second he, that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, The secret of th’ abyss to spy. He passed the flaming bounds of place and time-- The living throne, the sapphire-blaze, Where angels tremble while they gaze, He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, Closed his eyes in endless night. GRAY, The Progress of Poesy

(2) Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour.[131] England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life’s common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. WORDSWORTH, To Milton

(3) He left the upland lawns and serene air Wherefrom his soul her noble nurture drew, And reared his helm among the unquiet crew Battling beneath; the morning radiance rare Of his young brow amid the tumult there Grew grim with sulphurous heat and sanguine dew: Yet through all soilure they who marked him knew The sign of his life’s dayspring, calm and fair. But when peace came, peace fouler far than war, And mirth more dissonant than battle’s tone, He, with a scornful sigh of that clear soul, Back to his mountain clomb, now bleak and frore, And with the awful night he dwelt alone, In darkness, listening to the thunder’s roll. ERNEST MYERS, Milton

5. “Milton neither belonged to nor founded a school.” Expand this statement, and try to account for the truth of it.

6. Point out the effects, good and bad, of the civil and religious strife upon the literature of the time.

7. “Both in prose and poetry the period is a turning-point in the history of English literature.” Discuss this statement.

8. Write a brief essay on “The Poetry of Puritanism.”