English literature during the lifetime of Shakespeare

Preface

The following pages attempt to tell once more, and as far as possible at first hand, the fascinating story of Elizabethan literature. But the tale has been somewhat compressed to treat what preceded the birth of Shakespeare with brevity, and what followed his death merely by indications and suggestions. This compression has seemed the more justifiable because Shakespeare's own work, thus contemplated in what surrounded it, gives to the subject a closer unity, and because the transition from literature, as an Elizabethan conceived and practised it, to what it came to be regarded in the time of Charles I, was well on its way by the year 1616.

This book departs in method from the customary arrangement of material by way of annals. It has neither listed authors in the order of their birth nor books in the chronology of their publication; but it has sought to view the subject in large by the recognition of a succession of literary movements, developments, and varieties in poetry, drama, and prose, at times identified with a great name, at others grouped merely because of subject-matter or likeness in origin or purpose. It is believed that the reader can experience no greater difficulty in seeking for Jonson, for example, in half a dozen chapters, than he might undergo in an effort to trace, let us say, the pastoral form of poetry through the scattered annals of a score of poets, ordered with chronological precision. It is the writer's conviction that until the history of literature cuts loose from the tyranny of biography, as history at large has long since cut loose, little progress can be made toward the realization of the higher aims of literary study. These he believes to consist less in the acquisition of a mass of information — however desirable information may be — about books, authors, and borrowings, about style and the bare bones of plays, than in the recognition of those unseen influences, literary and other, by which even the greatest man becomes

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PREFACE the product of his age. These higher aims he finds, too, in the ideals that great men have set up to write for and to Hve by, and in the nature of the artistry which, in as many differing beautiful forms as the forms of nature, results from this finest phase of the activity of men.

History now chronicles the common man. Literature should chronicle the common book, if we are to have a full understanding of the age. For a knowledge of the relations of minor authors, the quality, even the short-comings and inferiorities of their work, give us a mean level from which to judge the heights attained by choicer spirits. This book offers no apology for its treatment of the works of minor poets, dramatists, and pamphleteers where such treatment is demanded for the completeness of the picture. On the other hand it makes no claim to exhaustiveness, as neither its plan nor the demands of a just proportion could support such a claim.

The drama was the most potent form of Elizabethan artistic expression. It is obvious that in it Shakespeare literally dominated his age, as he radiated after his time a wider literary influence than that of any other English author. Shakespeare accordingly dominates this book, the history of literature in his age. For not only is the romantic drama his sovereign domain, but in the lyric, too, Shakespeare expressed the highest reach of his time. From the historical point of view, however, other men equally affected their fellow-subjects of Elizabeth and James. Sidney, Spenser, Donne, and Jonson, in poetry; Lyly, Hooker, Bacon, and the translators of the English Bible, in prose: these were the effective spirits of the time to be recognized as such not only for the divergent rays that each, as a lens, spread after far and wide, but for the converging light that each drew to himself from his predecessors, ancient, modern, foreign, or contemporary at home.

The short quotations from Elizabethan writers that occur in this book have been frankly modernized; as what may be lost of the flavor of quaintness is more than compensated in ready intelligibility to the modern reader. So, too, old titles have been curtailed at need and rendered into modern

PREFACE vu spelling, except where custom demands, as in The Faery Queen, for example, or The Defense of Poesy, a species of compromise. The Bibliography presents, in alphabetical arrangement, a list of authors who were writing or publishing during the lifetime of Shakespeare. It purposes to give, in condensed form, a representation of their literary activity and to indicate where their works may be read in modern available editions. A few items of the Bibliography, such as "the Martin Marprelate Controversy," Character-writing, or the English Bible, are entered independently of any proper name. Cross references, as in these cases, for example, to Penry, Overbury, Coverdale, and others, should make these entries readily available in consultation.

Tamworth, July, 1910. F. E. S.

Chapter I

England at the birth of Shakespeare, z. — Character, policy, and success of Elizabeth, 2. — Literature in the earlier years of her reign, 2. — The Renaissance in Italy and England, 4. — ^Tudor historical literature in prose, 5. — The Mirror for Magistrates, 6, — Latin influences on English prose style, S. — Nature of Elizabethan Latinism, 9. — The prose chronicles, Holinshed, 10. — Harrison's Description of England, II. — Rudimentary conception of history among the chroniclers, 12. — Shakespeare and Holinshed, 13. — Foxc's Book of Martyrs, 14.— The voyagers, Hakluyt, his various collections and translations, 15. — Purchase, the continuator of Hakluyt, and others, 17. — The Last Fight of the Revenge, 17-18.

Chapter 11 LITERATURE OF THE COTERIE

The gentleman of the Renaissance, 19. — Origin of modern English poetry in the court, Wyatt and Surrey, 20. — The limitations of their poetry, and their services to English versification, 21. — Gascoigne and his associates, 22. — Sir Philip Sidney, his life and education, 23. — His poetry that of the coterie, 24. — The Areopagus and its ideals, 25. — Sidney's experiments in classical and Italian versification, 27. — His critical and poetical tenets, The Defense of Poesy^ 27. — The poetry of Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, 29. — Sidney and Lady Rich, 30. — Sidney's alleged borrowings, 31. — Services of Sidney to English poetry, 32-33.

Chapter III

John Lyly, the Euphuist, his life and education, 34. — His novel Euphues and its success, 35. — Mistakes as to Euphues, 36. — Euphuism a rhetorical prose style, 37. — Its use of alliteration and other devices, 38. — Euphuism before Lyly, North, Pettie, 39. — The fiction of Greene, Nash, and minor imitators of Lyly, 40. — Sidney's Arcadia^ its romantic and poetic quality, 41. — Crowded incidents of The Arcadia, 42. — Its style, 43. — Services of Lyly and Sidney to English prose, 44.

Chapter IV SPENSER, THE "NEW POET"

Life and education of Edmund Spenser, 45. — His friendship with Harvey and experiments with classical versification, 47. — The Shepix

X herds^ Calendar, 48. — Its serious import and poetic quality, 49. — Spenser in Ireland, 50. — Colin Clout, 51. — Spenser's contemporary success in poetry, 52. — His marriage, 53. — His View of the Present State of Ireland, 54. — His relations to Queen Elizabeth, 55. — His untimely death, 55. — The Faery Queen, its general design, 56. — Its poetic art, 58. — Its allegory, 59. — ^The Spenserian stanza, 60. — The paradox of Spenser's genius, 61-62.

Chapter V LYLY AND THE DRAMA AT COURT

Elements of the drama in earlier Tudor times, 63. — The first regular plays and the classical influences on them, 64. — Influence of the court on the drama, 66. — The boy companies and other Elizabethan actors, 67. — The choirmaster as theatrical manager, 68. — Lyly's traffic with the stage, 69. — His comedies, 70. — His Endimion, its occasional and allegorical character, 71. — Peele and his Arraignment of Paris, 73. — Presentation of court plays, 76. — Settings of a private theater, 78. — The theater in Blackfriars, 78. — Lyly and his influence as a dramatist, 79.

Chapter VI MARLOWE AND HIS FELLOWS IN THE POPULAR DRAMA

Origin of the professional player, 80. — Early companies, 81. — Shakespeare's company and his relation to it, 81.— Elizabethan playhouses and their sites, 82. — Structure of the Elizabethan playhouse, 84. — Settings, scenery, and properties, 85. — The playhouse and the city fathers, 87. — ^Repute and standing of players, 88. — Pre-Shakespearean plays on the common stage, 89. — The classics, Italian story; and actual life the three mainsprings of Elizabethan drama, 90. — The work of Peele for the popular stage, 90. — Robert Greene and his work in the drama, 91. — Thomas Kyd, his Spanish Tragedy and other plays, 93. — Christopher Marlowe, his Tamburlaine, and his consciousness of his dramatic departure, 93. — Fausius, and other dramas of Marlowe, 97. — Services of Kyd and Marlowe to the new romantic drama, 100. — Alleyn, Burbage, Shakespeare, and the substantial returns of dramatic success, loi.

Chapter VII THE PAMPHLET AND THE PROSE OF CONTROVERSY

London and the Elizabethan reading public, 102. — Diversity and popularity of the pamphlet, 103. — Its character as incipient journalism, 104. — The pamphleteer, Churchyard, 105. — Breton, his ephemeral verse and prose, 106. — Samuel Rowlands, 107. — Greene as a pamphleteer, and writer of fiction, 107. — His conycatching pamphlets, 109. — His autobiographical confessions, no. — Lodge's Rosalynd and other stories, no. — The Nash-Harvey pamphlet war, nr. — The Marprelate controversy, 113. — The part of Lyly, Nash, and Bacon in it, 113. — Nash's Jack Wilton, 115. — The idiomatic qualities of the prose of Nash, his vigor, satire, and humor, n6. — Dekker as a pamphleteer, 117. — Occasional worth and eloquence of the pamphleteers, 119-120.

XI

Chapter VIII THE PASTORAL LYRIC AND THE SONNET

Nature and place of the Elizabethan lyric, 120. — Origin of the English lyric of art with Wyatt and Surrey, 121, — Earlier miscellanies of lyrical poetry, 121. — The pastoral decade, 122. — England's Helicon, 12$. — The lyrics of Greville and Southwell, 125. — Barnes, Watson, and the Italianists, 126. — The conventional " conceit," 127. — ^The decade of the sonnet, 128. — Daniel and Constable, 129. — French influence on the sonneteers, 130. — The sonnet craze at its height, 130. — The form of the sonnet, 131. — Varieties of the Elizabethan sonnet, 131. — Spiritual sonnets, 132. — ^The occasional sonnet, 133. — "Conceits" in the sonnet, 134.. — End of the sonnet craze, 135. — The lyrical poetry of Raleigh, 136. — Drayton's sonnets, 137. — Spenser's Amoretti, their subjective significance, 139. — Shakespeare and his patrons, 141. — The Sonnets of Shakespeare, 142. — Autobiographical and other interpretations of them, 14A. — Their defects and superlative merits, 146-147.

•— Chapter IX

SHAKESPEARE IN COMEDY AND IN CHRONICLE HISTORY

Known events in the life of Shakespeare, 148. — His education and natural endowments, 159. — His cHoTce of the stage as a profession and early success, 153. — His earliest work, its imitative character, 153. — Influence of Lyiy on Shakespeare, 154. — Experimental comedies, 155. — The Merchant of Venice, 156. — A Midsummer-Night's Dream, 157. — The Henry VI trilogy, 158. — Greene's envious allusion to Shakespeare, 155^ — Shakespeare's t^vo Richards and Marlowe's Ediuard II, i6o.-^Height of the chronicle play in Henry IV, 161. — Chronicle plays by other hands, 163. — Plays on mythical British history, 163. — Meres' recognition of the character and standing of Shakespeare, 164. — Much Ado, As You Like It, and Tivelfth Night, 164. — All's Well and Measure for Measure, 166.— The problematic nature of Troilus and Cressida, 167. — Shakespeare and King James, i68. — The orderly growth of Shakespeare's genius, 169-171.

Chapter X VERNACULAR DRAMA OF DEKKER, HEYWOOD, AND MIDDLETON

Dekker as a dramatist, 172. — His Old Fortunatus, 173. — His Shoemakers' Holiday and other comedies, 174. — His dramatic portraiture, 176. — Thomas Heywood, 178. — The number and variety of his plays, A Woman Killed ivitk Kindness, 180. — Improvidence of the lives of Heywood and Dekker, iSi. — Philip Henslowe and his Diary, 182. — The theatrical business in his time, 183. — Arden of Feversham' and other murder plays, 184. — Realism of the bourgeois drama, 185. — Middleton and his comedies of London life, 186. — His collaboration with Rowley and others, his imitatbrs, 187. — ^Romantic plays of Middleton and Rowley, 188. — A Fair Quarrel, 189. — Middleton as a dramatist, 190.

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Chapter XI LATER ANTHOLOGIES AND LYRICS TO BE SET TO MUSIC

Early miscellanies of poetry, 191. — Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, 192. — Elizabethan music, 192. — The Elizabethan song-book, 194. — The madrigal, 195. — Poets of the song-books, 196. — Dowland, Morley, and other Elizabethan musicians, 198. — Thomas Campion, 199. — His metrical felicity, 200.— Songs of the drama, 201. — Dekker, Nash, and other contemporaries of Shakespeare, 202. — The songs of Shakespeare, 203. — Metrical variety and adequacy of the song-writers, 204.. — ^Folk-lore and balladry as sources of Elizabethan songs, 205. — Fletcher and Jonson as writers of songs, 206. — Heywood's songs and Webster's, 208.

Chapter XII EPIC, NARRATIVE, AND PASTORAL VERSE

Elizabethan epic verse, 209. — The historical epics of Daniel and Drayton, 211. — Life and literary activity of Drayton, 212. — ^Warner and other writers of historical verse, 213. — Erotic narrative verse, 214. — Marlowe's Hero and Leander, 215. — Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, 216. — Lodge, Marston, and others in like verse, 217. — Sir John Davies and his poetry, 218. — ^The political verse of Greville and Daniel's Musophilus, 219. — Drayton's Polyolbion, 220. — The Spenserians, Giles and Phineas Fletcher, 221. — Elizabethan eclogues and pastorals, 223. — William Browne as a pastoral poet, 225. — The pastoral ideal, 227-228.

Chapter XIII JONSON AND THE CLASSICAL REACTION

Life of Jonson, 229. — Every Man in His Humor and the Jonsonlan theory of "humors," 230. — Its popularity and imitators, 231. — Jonson and the war of the theaters, 232. — Satire on the Elizabethan stage, 233. — Personal allusions in Every Man Out of His Humor and other plays, 2i4..-*-Poetaster and Dekker's reply, Saiiromastix, 236. — Shakespeare and the "war," 238. — The allusion in Hamlet to the ''war," 239. — Senecan^ and other plays on Roman history, 240. — Shakespeare's Julius Casar, 240.4-Jon8on's Sejanus and Catiline], 241. — Jonson's collaboration in Eastward Hoe, Zi\2. — Volpone and Jonson's larger views of comedy, 243. — The Alchemist and other comedies of London scene, 244. — The last plays of Jonson, 244. — The non-dramatic poetry of Jonson, 245. — Its classicality and sense of finish, 246. — Jonson's catholicity of taste, 248. — His unparalleled influence on the trend of English literature, 249.

— Chapter XIV

SHAKESPEARE, WEBSTER, AND THE HEYDAY OF ROMANTIC TRAGEDY

Range and variety of Elizabethan tragedy, 250. — Seneca and English tragedy, 250. — Influence of Kyd and Marlowe on Shakespeare, 251. — Romeo and Juliet] 252.— Shakespeare, Jonson, and others in plays on classical story, 253. — Antony and Cleopatra, 255. — Marlowe and xiu

Chapman in tragedy on modern foreign history, 255. — Other dramas of this type, 357. — The tragedy of revenge, a revival of Kyd by Marston, 257. — Hamlefs place in this group, 258. — Chettle's and Tourneur's tragedies of revenge, 259. — ^Tragedies of perverted womanhood, 260. — Webster, his White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi, and other plays, 261. — Shakespeare's Othello, the master tragedy of jealousy, 264. — Kinff Lear, Macbeth, 265. — ^The tragic art of Shakespeare, 266. — Its growth and development, 267. — Shifting of Shakespeare's point of view with advancing life, 269. — General qualities of Elizabethan tragedy and of Shakespeare's, 269. — Shakespeare's attitude towards women, 270-271.

Chapter XV TRANSLATION IN VERSE AND PROSE

Elizabethan interest in foreign literatures, 272. — Range and diversity of Elizabethan translation, 273. — Translations of the classics, 274. — Life and education of George Chapman, 274. — His translation of Homer, 275. — North's Plutarch, Holland as a translator, 278. — Translations from the Italian, Harington's Orlando, 280. — ^Painter's Palace of Pleasure and other like collections of Italian tales, 281. — Use of these as sources for drama, 283. — Other works translated, 284. — Translations from the Spanish, 284. — Shelton's Don Quixote, 285. — Translations from the French, 285. — Florio's Montaigne, 286. — Translation of the English Bible, 286.— Tyndale and the Bible, 287. — Coverdale and the Great Bible, 288. — The Bishops' and other Bibles, 289. — The Authorized Version of the Bible, 290-291.

Chapter XVI HISTORY, DIVINITY, AND OTHER PROSE OF CONTEMPO- RARY COMMENT

Elizabethan conception of history, 292. — William Camden and his works, 292, — The Histories of England of Hayward, Speed, and Daniel, 293. — Histories of foreign countries, Grimestone and Knolles, 294. — Raleigh and his History of the World, 295. — Antiquarian writings, Stow's Survey of London, 297. — Sir Henry Wotton and his literary projects, 298. — Educational works, state documents, and minor prose writings, 299. — Reginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft and the literary works of King James, 301. — Books of travel, Moryson's Itinerary, Coryate, Lithgow, and Sandys, 302. — Greville's Life of Sidney, 304.-— Jonson's Discoveries, 305. — ^Theological and controversial writings, 306. — Calvin and the Puritan ideal of church and state, 308. — Richard Hooker, his life and personality, 309. — The Laivs of Ecclesiastical Polity, 311. — Its service to the Established Church, its limitations and style, 312. — Donne's Sermons and the Contemplations of Hall, 314. — Minor theologians and pulpiters, 315.

Chapter XVII ELIZABETHAN SATIRE, THE EPIGRAM, AND THE " CHARACTER "

Nature and form of satire, 316. — The Roman satirists in their influence on English satire, 317. — Wyatt the earliest English imitator

XIV of classical satire, 318. — Hake and Gascoigne, 319. — The Satires of Donne, 319. — Those of Lodge, 321. — The satires of Hall, 322. — Obscurity in poetry, 323. — The satires of Marston, 324. — Suppression of satirical writings by ecclesiastical authority, 326. — Elizabethan epigrams, 326. — Epigrams of the reign of James, 327. — ^Jonson as an epigrammatist, 328. — Irregular satire in prose, pamphlets, and broadsides, 329. — Puritan attacks on social abuses, Stubb's Anatomy of Abuse, 330. — The "Character," its origin and forerunners, 331. — The Characters of Hall, 332. — Sir Thomas Overbury, his tragic death, 333. — His Characters, 334. — Breton's imitations of the character and tiie essay, 335. — Minor character-writing, 336.

Chapter XVHI

BACON, JURIST, PHILOSOPHER. AND ESSAYIST

Life of Francis Bacon, 337. — His friendship with Essex and enmity with Coke, 338. — ^Bacon and Elizabeth, 339. — His conduct towards Essex, 340. — His honors in the reign of James, 340. — His disgrace, 341. — The Advancement of Learning, 342. — The Great Instauration, 343. — The Baconian induction, 344. — His place as a philosopher, 345. — His literary work, the Essays, 346. — Their masterly style and worldly wisdom, 347. — Variety of Bacon's literary style, 349. — Bacon's mistrust of English, 350. — His interest in masques his only touch with the drama, 350. — The verse of Bacon, its mediocrity and pessimism, 351. — Shakespeare and Bacon, 354-356.

Chapter XIX DONNE AND HIS PLACE AMONG LYRICAL POETS

The life and education of John Donne, 357. — His early poetry, its realism, 359. — His secular lyrical poetry, 360. — His scholarship, the vogue of his poetry and his careless attitude towards it, 361. — His romantic marriage, 361. — Years of poverty and depression, Biathanatos, controversial writings, 363. — Mistakes about Donne, "The metaphysical school," 364. — Qualities of the poetry of Donne, 365. — The freedom of his versification and elaboration of his stanza, 366. — The abstraction of his ideas and originality of his thought and style, 367. — His use of conceit, 368. — Influence of Donne on later poets, 371. — William Drummond, his life and reading, 373. — His poetry, 374. — His occasional verse and others works, 375. — The position of Donne among lyrical poets, 376-377.

Chapter XX DRAMA AT THE UNIVERSITIES, THE PASTORAL DRAMA, AND THE MASQUE

Early performance of plays at schools and at the universities, 377. — ^The Parnassus trilogy at Oxford, 379. — Academic estimates of Shakespeare and Jonson, 381. — Allegorical college plays. Lingua, 381. — Prevalence at the universities of dramatic entertainments, 382. — Latin tragedies and comedies, 383. — Ignoramus and King James' ap-

XV preciation of it, 384.. — Nature of pastoral drama, 384. — The pastoral element in earlier Elizabethan comedies, 385. — Jonson and Shakespeare, and the pastoral, 385. — The true pastoral drama, Daniel's Queen's Arcadia, 386. — Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, 388. — Other minor pastoral dramas, 389. — Antiquity of masquing, 391. — ^The masque defined, 391. — Daniel's masques and others', 393. — The preeminence of Jonson as a writer of masques, 393. — His development of the antimasque, 394. — Masques on the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth, 395. — Allegory and classical reference of the Jacobean masque, 396. — Other contemporary pageantry, 396. — Masques in the plays of Shakespeare and others, 397-398.

— Chapter XXI SHAKESPEARE AND THE NEW DRAMA OF FLETCHER

Chronology of the dramatic authors of Shakespeare's time, 399. — Tragicomedy, 400. — The life of John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont, 400. — Their collaboration in the writing of plays, 402. — Criteria of contrast in their work and in that of Massinger, 403. — Change in the popular dramatic taste, in the earlier years of James, 404. — Philaster the typical tragicomedy, 405. — Other plays of the type, 406. — The " dramatic romances " of Shakespeare, their contrasts with the tragicomedy of Fletcher, 407. — Pericles, 408. — Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale, 409. — The Tempest, 411. — The romances of Shakespeare unmarked by any deterioration in art, 412. — Later years of Shakespeare, 413. — His probable association with Fletcher in Henry VIII and The Tv^o Noble Kinsmen, 414. — Fletcher's comedies of manners, 415. — His romantic plays and their levy on Spanish sources, 416. — The Maid's Tragedy, Bonducat and other serious plays of Fletcher, 417. — Fletcher the corapletest of English dramatists, 419.

England and literature at the death of Shakespeare, 421. — New books of the time and old ones reprinted, 433. — Relative popularity of the dramatists and other authors as witnessed by the contemporary demand for their printed works, 424, — The acknowledged preeminence of Shakespeare, 425.

INDEX, 460.

ENGLISH LITERATURE DURING THE LIFETIME OF SHAKESPEARE

CHAPTER I THE LITERATURE OF FACT HEN Shakespeare was born, in the year 1564, Eliza

» ' beth had been on her throne for six years and had already gained, by the steadiness of her conduct and the wisdom of her counsels, the loyal affections and support of her people. King Henry's reign towards its close had degenerated into a reign of terror; and incompetency ruled throughout the government of the child Edward. More recent had been the bloody reprisals of unhappy and bigoted Queen Mary in her misguided endeavors to restore officially to her country the supplanted older faith. England had swung in these three reigns from Rome to Geneva, and from Geneva back to Rome, impelled by the fiat of monarchs and not by popular revulsions of belief. But these things were now memories of the past. What neither the example of Lutheran Germany nor the despotic will of Henry could effect, the fires of Smithfield had accomplished. England was at last become, if not wholly Protestant, at least once and forever hostile to the pretensions of Rome; and the menace of an ill-assorted union of England with Spain, the danger that England might sink, like the Netherlands, into a mere province of the universal Spanish dominion, had vanished with the resolute refusal of Elizabeth to accept the hand of King Philip.

In 1564 Queen Elizabeth was thirty-one years of age, a capable and imperious sovereign, skilled in the tortuous diplomacy of the age, unerring in her power to discern and employ men competent for the task of government, and devoted with the whole strength of her keen intellectual nature to the welfare of England. The queen's subjects at large knew little of her niggardliness in money affairs, of her want of religious conviction, or the doubles and turns of the royal policy in its frequently short-sighted opportunism; but her immediate servants had learned that even by devious courses and without the stay of a strong moral principle, Elizabeth might be trusted to steer a course safe and true among the quicksands of international intrigue; and in their trust was begotten the larger trust of the nation. Elizabeth had acquiesced in the accomplished fact of the French recovery of Calais; but she wrested from Francis and Mary Stuart, a year or two later, the withdrawal of the French garrison from the Scottish town of Leith and the acknowledgment that the realms of England and Ireland appertained of right to her. Elizabeth failed to obtain the papal recognition of her legitimacy and her right to succeed to the crown; ^ut she curbed the reactionary zeal of her sister's clergy as she held in leash the violence of expectant Protestantism, and in the chaos of the religious uncertainty of the first few years of her reign achieved the foundations of a toleration of opinion, if not of worship, which the other European countries of her age knew not.| Moreover Elizabeth was committed now, once and for all/ to the policy of her father by the passing of the act of royal supremacy in the church, by her restoration of the prayer-book, and by her decisive refusal either to admit a papal nuncio into her realm or to send an envoy to the Council of Trent.

It is difficult to realize the poverty nf^ English-literafatye - in the first years of Elizabeth's reign ^nd^ppreciate how little the age had advanced, Respite the new learning, towards the flowering time that was so near at hand. Aside from sermons, controversial pamphlets, and chronicle histories, the chief books reprinted in these years were Elyot's Governor^ the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, now turned into English, and the Colloquies of Erasmus. In poetry the Songs and Sonnets of Henry Howard y Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Others, popularly known as TotteVs Miscellany, attained

LITERATURE IN 1564 a third edition by the year of the accession of the queen; and the notable, if lugubrious, collection of historical "complaints," The Mirror for Magistrates, a second in 1563. Other poetry there was little, if we except Tusser's easy rimes on The HunJreth Good Points of Husbandry, Churchyard's "flyting," as the Scotch call such literary squabbling, with one "Camell," and the Eclogues of Barnabe Googe. In the drama as little had appeared. An interlude or so of John Heywood, Lusty Juventus, The Nice Wanton, and Thersites, these were nearly all. Perhaps the Diccon of Bedlam of the Stationers' Register of 1563 was Gammer Gurton's Needle, though of this we can not be sure. But an interest in poetry was awakening. Chaucer's complete works, Lydgate's Siege of Thebes and Langland's Vision of Piers Plowman, all were reprinted in 1 561; and the works of John Heywood appeared collected in the following year. The ancients, too, were now translated into English. Besides Surrey's earlier attempts of 1557, Phaer's translation of Vergil's Mneid came two years later, carried on to nine books by 1562; while Jasper Heywood and Alexander Nevile set forth four of the Senecan tragedies in English, and Nicholas Udall, the well known author of Ralph Roister Doister (long since written but not yet printed), "newly corrected" his Publius Terentius. Flowers of Latin Speaking. Translations in part of Sallust, Cicero, Plutarch, Quintius Curtius, Cato, and Cjesar were printed within these few years, and Guevara's popular Golden Book, Castiglione's Courtier, and Macchiavelli's Art of War were Englished for the unlettered. More suggestive of what was to come was the translation of two Italian stories, Titus and Gisippus and Romeus and Juliet, both shortly to be employed as subjects for drama; while the beginnings of that deep interest in everything Italian that characterizes Elizabethan literature at large are disclosed in the informing works of William Thomas, his History of Italy, his Italian Grammar, and Dictionary of that language.

■The_mental awakening of Erigland, which some still dare to call the Renaissance, and the similar earlier awakening in Italy offer two marked contrasts: a difference in character and a difference in the tardiness with which that movement proceeded to its results in the northern country. In Italy the Renaissance had been for the most part unmoral, and the highest aesthetic perception and scholarly tastes had often existed in men whose lives were marked by moral obliquity and blackened with crime. There the pleasures of the world's newly stirred curiosity were largely the virtuoso's delight in profane learning. When this reached deeper, it stimulated the frank philosophica! cynicism of Macchiavelli's Prince^ or raised ideals of the perfect man living in society as depicted in The Courtier. In Italy, the new world which the study of the ancients had opened to the spirit of man reacted immediately and mainly on literature, art, and society. In England, on the contrary, the new learning, as it was there called, took on from the first a more practical and a more ethical turn The attitude of such men as Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, and those who brought the study of Greek to England was notable for its moral tone. The new knowledge was to be studied as a means to the better understanding of man in his relations to man and in his obligations to God. This was wide of the virtuoso's pleasures in the beauties of ancient classical art and the niceties of ancient classical learning; and hence it was a long time in England before the spirit of the new learning was felt to the full in works of art. In a word, although the bud vyas swelling and ^''''jj'y ^^^^Mt the time that Shakespeare was born, the^^meJl.Qf^theRenais' sance came into bloom only after Queen Elizabeth had been on hex^ throne for a generation. 'The poetical activities of Sidney and of Spenser begin, at earliest, in the late seventies, and Lyly's Euphues appeared in 1579- It is doubtful if Marlowe, much less Shakespeare, wrote anything permanent before 1586; and Hooker and Bacon first emerge from controversy into authorship in the nineties. It is true that certain qualities which came to distinguish EHzabethan poetry are discoverable in Wyatt and Surrey, both of whom died while Henry VIII was yet reigning, and it is equally certain that men like Roger Ascham, the famous tutor to the children of that sovereign, and Latimer, one of the most eloquently out-