Chapter I…

Chapter I

SHAKSPEARE'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON ABOUT THE YEAR 1586, WHEN TWENTY-TWO YEARS OF AGE—LEAVES HIS FAMILY AT STRATFORD, VISITING THEM OCCASIONALLY—HIS INTRODUCTION TO THE STAGE—HIS MERITS AS AN ACTOR.

No era in the annals of Literary History ever perhaps occurred of greater importance, than that which witnessed the entrance of Shakspeare into the metropolis of his native country; a position which will readily be granted, if we consider the total revolution which this event produced in the Literature of the Stage, and the vast influence which, through the medium of the most popular branch of our poetry, it has subsequently exerted on the minds, manners, and taste of our countrymen. Friendless, persecuted, poor, about the early age of twenty-two, was the greatest poet which the world has ever seen, compelled to desert his home, his wife, his children, to seek employment from the hands of strangers. Rich, however, in talent, beyond all the sons of men, blessed with a cheerful disposition, an active mind, and a heart conscious of integrity, soon did the clouds which overspread his youth break away, and unveil a character which has ever since been the delight, the pride, the boast of England.

We have assigned some strong reasons, at the close of the last chapter, for placing the epoch of Shakspeare's arrival in London, about 1586 or 1587; and we shall now bring forward some presumptive proofs that he not only left his wife and family at Stratford on his first visit to the capital, but that his native town continued to be their settled residence during his life.

Mr. Rowe has affirmed upon a tradition which we have no claim to dispute, that he "was obliged to leave his family for some time;" a fact in the highest degree probable from the causes which led to his removal; for it is not to be supposed, situated as he then was, that he would be willing to render his wife and children the companions and partakers of the disasters and disappointments which it was probable he had to encounter. Tradition further says, as preserved in the manuscripts of Aubrey, that "he was wont to go to his native country once a yeare[414:A];" and Mr. Oldys, in his collections for a life of our author, repeats this report with an additional circumstance, remarking, "if tradition may be trusted, Shakspeare often baited at the Crown Inn or Tavern in Oxford, in his journey to and from London."[414:B] It is true that these traditions, if insulated from other circumstances, might merely prove that he visited the place of his birth annually, without necessarily inferring that his family was also resident there; but if we consult the parish-register of Stratford, their testimony will indeed be strong, and powerfully confirm the deduction; for it appears on that record that, merely including his children, there is a succession of baptisms, marriages, and deaths in his family at Stratford, from the year 1583 to 1616.[414:C] This evidence, so satisfactory in itself, will be strengthened when we recollect that the poet in his mortgage, dated the 10th of March, 1612-13, is described as William Shakspeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, gentleman; and that by his contemporaries he was frequently stiled the Sweet Swan of Avon, designations which, when combined with the testimony already adduced, must be considered as implying the family-residence of the poet.[415:A]

It was this concatenation of circumstances which induced Mr. Chalmers, than whom a more indefatigable enquirer with regard to our author has not existed, to conclude that Shakspeare had no "fixed residence in the metropolis," nor "ever considered London, as his home[415:B];" but had "resolved that his wife and family should remain through life" at Stratford, "though he himself made frequent excursions to London, the scene of his profit, and the theatre of his fame[415:C];" adding, in a note, that the evidence from the parish-register of Stratford had compelled even scepticism to admit his position to be very probable.[415:D]

While discussing this subject in his first Apology, he has introduced a novel and most curious fact, for the purpose of guarding the reader against an apparently opposing, but too hasty inference. "If documents," he observes, "be produced to prove, that one Shakspeare, a player, resided in St. Saviour's parish, Southwark, at the end of the sixteenth, or the beginning of the seventeenth, century, this evidence will not be conclusive proof of the settled residence of Shakspeare: For, it is a fact, as new, as it is curious, that his brother Edmond, who was baptized on the 3d of May, 1580, became a player at the Globe; lived in St. Saviour's; and was buried in the church of that parish: the entry in the register being without a blur; '1607 December 31, (was buried) Edmond Shakespeare, a player, in the church;' there can be no dispute about the date, or the name, or the profession. It is remarkable, that the parish-clerk, who scarcely ever mentions any other distinction of the deceased, than a man, or a woman, should, by I know not what inspiration, have recorded Edmond Shakespeare, as a player. There were, consequently, two Shakspeares on the stage, during the same period; as there were two Burbadges, who were also brothers, and who acted on the same theatre."[416:A]

Upon the whole, we may with considerable confidence and safety conclude, that the family-residence of Shakspeare was always at Stratford; that he himself originally went alone to London, and that he spent the greater part of every year there alone, annually, however, and probably for some months, returning to the bosom of his family, and that this alternation continued until he finally left the capital.

Having disposed of this question, another, even still more doubtful, immediately follows, with regard to the employment and mode of life which the poet was compelled to adopt on reaching the metropolis. Mr. Rowe, recording the consequences of the prosecution in Warwickshire, observes,—"It is at this time, and upon this accident, that he is said to have made his first acquaintance in the play-house. He was received into the company then in being, at first in a very mean rank."[416:B]

From this passage we may in the first place infer, that Shakspeare immediately on his arrival in town, applied to the theatre for support; an expedient to which there is reason to suppose he was induced, by a previous connection or acquaintance with one or more of the performers. It appears, indeed, from the researches of Mr. Malone, that the probability of his being known, even while at Stratford, to Heminge, Burbadge, and Thomas Greene, all of them celebrated comedians of their day, is very considerable. "I suspect," remarks this acute commentator, "that both he (namely, John Heminge,) and Burbadge were Shakspeare's countrymen, and that Heminge was born at Shottery, a village in Warwickshire, at a very small distance from Stratford-upon-Avon; where Shakspeare found his wife. I find two families of this name settled in that town early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth, the daughter of John Heming of Shottery, was baptized at Stratford-upon-Avon, March 12. 1567. This John might have been the father of the actor, though I have found no entry relative to his baptism: for he was probably born before the year 1558, when the Register commenced. In the village of Shottery also lived Richard Hemyng, who had a son christened by the name of John, March 7. 1570. Of the Burbadge family the only notice I have found, is, an entry in the Register of the parish of Stratford, October 12. 1565, on which day Philip Green was married in that town to Ursula Burbadge, who might have been sister to James Burbadge, the father of the actor, whose marriage I suppose to have taken place about that time. If this conjecture be well founded, our poet, we see, had an easy introduction to the theatre."[417:A]

The same remark which concludes this paragraph is repeated by the commentator when speaking of Thomas Greene, whom he terms, a celebrated comedian, the townsman of Shakspeare, and perhaps his relation.[417:B] The celebrity of Greene as an actor is fully ascertained by an address to the reader, prefixed by Thomas Heywood to his edition of John Cook's Greens Tu Quoque; or, The City Gallant; "as for Maister Greene," says Heywood, "all that I will speak of him (and that without flattery) is this (if I were worthy to censure) there was not an actor of his nature, in his time, of better ability in performance of what he undertook, more applauded by the audience, of greater grace at the court, or of more general love in the city[418:A];" but the townsmanship and affinity rest only on the inference to be drawn from an entry in the parish-register of Stratford, and from some lines quoted by Chetwood from the comedy of the Two Maids of Moreclack, which represent Greene speaking in the character of a clown, and declaring

"I pratled poesie in my nurse's arms, And, born, where late our swan of Avon sung, In Avon's streams we both of us have lav'd, And both came out together."[418:B]

As these lines are not, however, in the play from which they are pretended to have been taken; as they appear to be a parody on a passage in Milton's Lycidas, and as Chetwood has been detected in falsifying and forging many of his dates, little credit can be attached to their evidence, and we must solely depend upon the import of the register, which records that Thomas Greene, ALIAS SHAKSPERE, was buried there, March 6th, 1589.[418:C] If this Thomas were the father of the actor, and the probability of this being the case cannot be denied, and may even have led to the attempted imposition of Chetwood, the affinity, as well as the townsmanship, will be established.[418:D]

It seems, therefore, neither rash nor inconsequent to believe, in failure of more direct evidence, that the channel through which Shakspeare, immediately on his arrival in town, procured an introduction to the stage, was first opened by his relationship to Greene, who possessing, as we have seen, great merit and influence as an actor, could easily insure him a connection at the theatre, and would naturally recommend him to his countryman Heminge, who was then about thirty years of age, and had already acquired considerable reputation as a performer.[418:E]

Mr. Rowe's second assertion that he was received into the company, then in being, at first in a very mean rank, has given rise to some reports relative to the nature of his early employment at the theatre, which are equally inconsistent and degrading. It has been related that his first office was that of Call-boy, or attendant on the prompter, and that his business was to give notice to the performers when their different entries on the stage were required.[419:A] Another tradition, which places him in a still meaner occupation, is said to have been transmitted through the medium of Sir William Davenant to Mr. Betterton, who communicated it to Mr. Rowe, and this gentleman to Mr. Pope, by whom, according to Dr. Johnson, it was related in the following terms:—"In the time of Elizabeth, coaches being yet uncommon, and hired coaches not at all in use, those who were too proud, too tender, or too idle to walk, went on horseback to any distant business or diversion. Many came on horseback to the play, and when Shakspeare fled to London from the terror of a criminal prosecution, his first expedient was to wait at the door of the play-house, and hold the horses of those that had no servants, that they might be ready again after the performance. In this office he became so conspicuous for his care and readiness, that in a short time every man as he alighted called for Will. Shakspeare, and scarcely any other waiter was trusted with a horse while Will. Shakspeare could be had. This was the first dawn of better fortune. Shakspeare, finding more horses put into his hand than he could hold, hired boys to wait under his inspection, who, when Will. Shakspeare was summoned, were immediately to present themselves, I am Shakspeare's boy, Sir. In time, Shakspeare found higher employment: but as long as the practice of riding to the playhouse continued, the waiters that held the horses retained the appellation of Shakspeare's boys."[419:B]

Of this curious anecdote it should not be forgotten, that it made its first appearance in Cibber's Lives of the Poets[419:C]; and that if it were known to Mr. Rowe, it is evident he thought it so little entitled to credit that he chose not to risque its insertion in his life of the poet. In short, if we reflect for a moment that Shakspeare, though he fled from Stratford to avoid the severity of a prosecution, could not be destitute either of money or friends, as the necessity for that flight was occasioned by an imprudent ebullition of wit, and not by any serious delinquency; that the father of his wife was a yeoman both of respectability and property; that his own parent, though impoverished, was still in business; and that he had, in all likelihood, a ready admission to the stage through the influence of persons of leading weight in its concerns; we cannot, without doing the utmost violence to probability, conceive that, under these circumstances, and in the twenty-third year of his age, he would submit to the degrading employment of either a horse-holder at the door of a theatre, or of a call-boy within its walls.

Setting aside, therefore, these idle tales, we may reasonably conclude that by the phrase a very mean rank, Mr. Rowe meant to imply, that his first engagement as an actor was in the performance of characters of the lowest class. That his fellow-comedians were ushered into the dramatic world in a similar way, and rose to higher occupancy by gradation, the history of the stage will sufficiently prove: Richard Burbadge, for instance, who began his career nearly at the same time with our author, and who subsequently became the greatest tragedian of his age, had, in the year 1589, appeared in no character more important than that of a Messenger.[420:A] If this were the case with a performer of such acknowledged merit, we may readily acquiesce in the supposition that the parts first given to Shakspeare were equally as insignificant; and as readily allow that an actor thus circumstanced might very properly be said to have been admitted into the company at first in a very mean rank.

As Shakspeare's immediate employment, therefore, on his arrival in town, appears to have been that of an actor, it cannot be deemed irrelevant if we should here enquire into his merits and success in this department.

Two traditions, of a contradictory complexion, have reached us relative to Shakspeare's powers as an actor; one on the authority of Mr. Aubrey, and the other on that of Mr. Rowe. In the manuscript papers of the first of these gentlemen, we are told that our author, "being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London,—and was an actor at one of the play-houses, and did act exceedingly well[421:A];" but, in the life of the poet by the second, it is added, after mentioning his admission to the theatre in an inferior rank, that "his admirable wit, and the natural turn of it to the stage, soon distinguished him, if not as an extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent writer. His name is printed, as the custom was in those times, amongst those of the other players, before some old plays, but without any particular account of what sort of parts he used to play; and though I have enquired, I could never meet with any further account of him this way, than that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own Hamlet."[421:B]

Of descriptions thus opposed, a preference only can be given as founded on other evidence; and it happens that subsequent enquiry has enabled us to consider Mr. Aubrey's account as approximating nearest to the truth.

Contemporary authority, it is evident, would decide the question, and happily the researches of Mr. Malone have furnished us with a testimony of this kind. In the year 1592, Henry Chettle, a dramatic writer, published a posthumous work of Robert Greene's, under the title of "Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance," in which the author speaks harshly of Marlowe, and still more so of Shakspeare, who was then rising into fame. Both these poets were justly offended, and Chettle, who was of course implicated in their displeasure, printed, in the December of the same year, a pamphlet, entitled Kind Harts Dreame, to which is prefixed an address to the Gentlemen Readers, apologizing, in the following terms, for the offence which he had given:

"About three months since died M. Robert Greene, leaving many papers in sundry booksellers' hands, among others his Groatsworth of Wit, in which a letter written to divers play-makers is offensively by one or two of them taken; and because on the dead they cannot be re-avenged, they wilfully forge in their conceites a living author: and after tossing it to and fro, no remedy but it must light on me. How I have, all the time of my conversing in printing, hindered the bitter inveighing against schollers, it hath been very well known; and how in that I dealt, I can sufficiently prove. With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them ('Marlowe') I care not if I never be. The other ('Shakspeare'), whom at that time I did not so much spare, as since I wish I had, for that as I have moderated the hate of living writers, and might have used my own discretion, (especially in such a case, the author being dead,) that I did not, I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault; because myselfe have seene his demeanour no less civil than he EXCELLENT IN THE QUALITIE HE PROFESSES. Besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honestie, and his facetious grace in writing, that approves his art. For the first, whose learning I reverence, and at the perusing of Greene's booke, strooke out what then in conscience I thought he in some displeasure writ; or had it been true, yet to publish it was intollerable; him I would wish to use me no worse than I deserve."[422:A]

This curious passage clearly evinces that our author was deemed EXCELLENT as an actor, (for the phrase the qualitie he professes peculiarly denoted at that time the profession of a player,) in the year 1592, only five or six years, at most, after he had entered on the stage; and consequently that the information which Aubrey had received was correct, while that obtained by Rowe must be considered as unfounded.

So well instructed, indeed, was Shakspeare in the duties and qualities of an actor, that it appears from Downes' book, entitled Roscius Anglicanus, that he undertook to teach and perfect John Lowin in the character of King Henry the Eighth, and Joseph Taylor in that of Hamlet.

Of his competency for this task, several parts of his dramatic works might be brought forward as sufficient proof. Independent of his celebrated instructions to the player in Hamlet, which would alone ascertain his intimate knowledge of the histrionic art, his conception of the powers necessary to form the accomplished tragedian, may be drawn from part of a dialogue which occurs between Richard the Third and Buckingham:—

"Glo. Come, cousin, _can'st thou quake and change thy colour? Murther thy breath in middle of a word? And then again begin, and stop again, As if thou wert distraught, and mad with terror?_

Buck. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian; Speak, and look big, and _pry on every side, Tremble and start at wagging of a straw, Intending deep suspicion: ghastly looks Are at my service, like enforced smiles_."[423:A]

It would be highly interesting to be able to point out what were the characters which Shakspeare performed, either in his own plays, or in those of other writers; but the information which we have on this subject is, unfortunately, very scanty. Mr. Rowe has mentioned, as the sole result of his enquiries, that the Ghost in Hamlet was his chef d'oeuvre. That this part, however, in the opinion of the poet, required some skill and management in the execution, is evident from the expressions attributed to Hamlet, who exclaims, on the appearance of the Royal spectre, during the interview between himself and his mother,—

—————— "Look you how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capable. Do not look upon me, Lest with this piteous action, you convert My stern effects;"[424:A]

a description, which, there is reason to suppose, the author would not have ventured to introduce, unless he had been conscious of the possession of powers capable of doing justice to his own delineation.

Another tradition, preserved by Mr. Oldys, and communicated to him, as Mr. Malone thinks[424:B], by Mr. Thomas Jones of Tarbick, in Worcestershire, whom we have formerly mentioned, imports, as corrected by the commentator just mentioned, that a relation of the poet's, then in advanced age, but who in his youth had been in the habit of visiting London for the purpose of seeing him act in some of his own plays, told Mr. Jones[424:C], that he had a faint recollection "of having once seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein being to personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak and drooping and unable to walk, that he was forced to be supported and carried by another person to a table, at which he was seated among some company, who were eating, and one of them sung a song."[424:D] That this part was the character of Adam, in As You Like It, there can be no doubt, and if we add, that, from the arrangement of the names of the actors and of the persons of the drama, prefixed to Ben Jonson's play of Every Man in his Humour, first acted in 1598, there is reason to imagine that he performed the part of Old Knowell in that comedy, we may be warranted probably in drawing the conclusion, that the representation of aged characters was peculiarly his forte.

It appears also, from the first four lines of a small poem, written by John Davies, about the year 1611, and inscribed, To our English Terence, Mr. William Shakespeare, that our bard had been accustomed to perform kingly parts;

"Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing, Hadst thou not play'd some kingly parts in sport, Thou hadst been a companion for a king, And been a king among the meaner sort;"[425:A]

a passage which leads us to infer, that several of the regal characters in his own plays, perhaps the parts of King Henry the Eighth, King Henry the Sixth, and King Henry the Fourth, may have been appropriated to him, as adapted to the general estimate of his powers in acting.

From the notices thus collected, it will be perceived, that Shakspeare attempted not the performance of characters of the first rank; but that in the representation of those of a second-rate order, to which he modestly confined his exertions, he was deemed excellent. We have just grounds also for concluding that of the theory of acting in its very highest departments, he was a complete master; and though not competent to carry his own precepts into perfect execution, he was a consummate judge of the attainments and deficiencies of his fellow-comedians, and was accordingly employed to instruct them in his own conception of the parts which they were destined to perform.

It may be considered, indeed, as a most fortunate circumstance for the lovers of dramatic poetry, that our author, in point of execution, did not attain to the loftiest summit of his profession. He would, in that case, it is very probable, have either sate down content with the high reputation accruing to him from this source, or would have found little time for the labours of composition, and consequently we should have been in a great degree, if not altogether, deprived of what now constitute the noblest efforts of human genius.

FOOTNOTES:

[414:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 214.

[414:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 124.—Antony Wood, it appears, was the original author of this anecdote, for he tells us in his Athenæ, that John Davenant, who kept the Crown, was "an admirer and lover of plays and play-makers, especially Shakspeare, who frequented his house in his journies between Warwickshire and London." Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 292.

[414:C] The Register informs us,—

1st. That his daughter Susanna was baptized there on the 26th May 1583.

2d. That Hamnet and Judith, his twin-son and daughter, were baptized there the 2d of February 1584.

3d. That his son Hamnet was buried there, on the 11th of August 1596.

4th. That his daughter Susanna was there married to John Hall, on the 5th of June 1607.

5th. That his daughter Judith was there married to Thomas Queeny, on the 10th of February 1615/16.—Vide Chalmers's Apology, p. 247.

[415:A] Ben Jonson, in his Poem to the Memory of Shakspeare, calls him "Sweet Swan of Avon;" and Joseph Taylor, who represented the part of Hamlet in 1596, in the Dedication which he and his fellow-players wrote for Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, in 1647, speaks of "the flowing compositions of the then expired sweet swan of Avon, Shakspeare."

[415:B] Chalmers's Apology, p. 247.

[415:C] Chalmers's Supplemental Apology, p. 227.

[415:D] Ibid. p. 227. note d.

[416:A] Chalmers's Apology, p. 423. note a.

[416:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 63.

[417:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 233.

[417:B] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 230.

[418:A] Ancient British Drama, vol. ii. p. 539.

[418:B] British Theatre, p. 9.

[418:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 230. note 1.

[418:D] Vide Malone's Inquiry, p. 94.

[418:E] Mr. Chalmers, speaking of Heminges, says—"There is reason to believe, that he was, originally, a Warwickshire lad; a shire, which has produced so many players and poets; the Burbadges; the Shakspeares; the Greens; and the Harts." Apology, p. 435, 436.

[419:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 63. note 2.

[419:B] Ibid. p. 120.

[419:C] Lives of the Poets, vol. i. p. 130.

[420:A] Chalmers's Supplemental Apology, p. 158. note n.

[421:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 213.

[421:B] Ibid. vol. i. p. 64.

[422:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 237, 238.

[423:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xiv. p. 403, 404. Act iii. sc. 5.

[424:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 249, 250. Act iii. sc. 4.

[424:B] Ibid. vol. i. p. 128. note 1.

[424:C] "Mr. Jones's informer," observes Mr. Malone, "might have been Mr. Richard Quincy, who lived in London, and died at Stratford in 1656, at the age of 69; or Mr. Thomas Quincy, our poet's son-in-law, who lived, I believe, till 1663, and was twenty-seven years old when his father-in-law died; or some one of the family of Hathaway. Mr. Thomas Hathaway, I believe Shakspeare's brother-in-law, died at Stratford in 1654-5, at the age of 85."—Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 128. note 1.

[424:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 129, 130.

[425:A] The Scourge of Folly, by John Davies of Hereford, no date.

Chapter II

SHAKSPEARE COMMENCES A WRITER OF POETRY, PROBABLY ABOUT THE YEAR 1587, BY THE COMPOSITION OF HIS VENUS AND ADONIS—HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF POLITE LITERATURE DURING THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE.

As the first object of Shakspeare must necessarily have been, from the confined nature of his circumstances, to procure employment, it is highly reasonable to conclude that he at first contented himself with the diligent discharge of those duties which fell to his share as an actor of inferior rank. That these, however, were calculated to absorb, for any length of time, a mind so active, ample, and creative, cannot for a moment be credited; and, indeed, we are warranted, by every fair inference, to assert, that, no sooner did he consider his situation at the theatre of Blackfriars as tolerably secured, than he immediately directed his powers to the cultivation of his favourite art—that of poetry.

Of his inclination to this elegant branch of literature, we have an early proof, in the mode of retaliation which he adopted, in consequence of his prosecution by Sir Thomas Lucy; and that the Venus and Adonis, "the first heir of his invention," as he terms it, was commenced, not long subsequent to this period, and shortly after his arrival in town, a little enquiry will induce us to consider as an almost established fact.

It has, indeed, been surmised, by a very intelligent critic, that this poem may have been written while its author "felt the powerful incentive of love," and consequently "before he had sallied from Stratford;" "certainly," he adds, "before he was known to [426:A]fame." The first suggestion we may dismiss as a mere supposition; the second must be acknowledged as founded on truth.

All the commentators agree in fixing on the year 1591, as the LATEST period for our author's commencement as a dramatic poet: for this obvious reason, that both Greene and Chettle have mentioned him as a writer of plays in 1592, and in such a manner, likewise, as proves that he was even then possessed of some degree of notoriety, the latter mentioning his "facetious grace in writing," and the former, after calling him, "an upstart crow beautified with our feathers," and parodying a line from the Third Part of King Henry VI., concludes by telling us, that he "is in his own conceit the only SHAKE-SCENE in the country;" circumstances which have naturally induced the most sagacious critics on our bard to infer, that, thus early to have excited so much envy as this railing accusation evinces, he must without doubt have been a corrector and improver of plays anterior to 1590, and very probably in 1589.

Now, though the first edition of the Venus and Adonis was not published until 1593, yet the author's positive declaration, that it was "the first heir of his invention," necessarily implies that its composition had taken place prior to any poetical attempts for the stage; and as we have seen, that his arrival in town could not have occurred before 1586; that he was then immediately employed as an actor in a very inferior rank; and that his earliest efforts as a dramatic poet may be attributed to the year 1589 or 1590, it will follow, as a legitimate deduction, if we allow the space of a twelvemonth for his settlement at the theatre, that the composition of this poem, "the first heir of his invention," must be given to the interval elapsing between the years 1587 and 1590, a period not too extended, the nature of his other engagements being considered, for the completion of a poem very nearly amounting to twelve hundred lines.

Having thus conducted Shakspeare to his entrance on the career of authorship and fame, it will now be necessary, in conformity with our plan, to take a general and cursory survey of LITERATURE, as it existed in the reigns of Elizabeth and James. The remainder of this chapter will therefore be devoted to a broad outline on this subject, reserving, however, the topics of Romance and Miscellaneous Poetry, for distinct and immediately subsequent consideration, as these will form an apposite prelude to an estimate of the patronage which our author enjoyed, to a critique on his poems, and to critical notices of contemporary miscellaneous poets, enquiries which, while they embrace, in one view, the merits of Shakspeare as a miscellaneous poet, are, at the same time, in their preliminary and collateral branches, in some degree preparatory to his introduction as a dramatic writer; preparatory also to a sketch of the manners, customs, and diversions of the metropolis, during his age, and to a discussion of his transcendent powers as the bard of fancy and of nature.

The literary period of which we are proceeding to give a slight sketch, may be justly considered as the most splendid in our annals; for in what equal portion of our history can we bring forward three such mighty names as Spenser, Bacon, and Shakspeare, each, in their respective departments, remaining without a rival. As the field, however, is so ample that even to do justice to an outline will require much attention to arrangement, it will be necessary to distribute what we have to offer, in this stage of our work, under the heads of Bibliography, Philology, Criticism, History, General, Local, and Personal, and Miscellaneous Literature; premising that as we confine ourselves, in the strictest sense, to elegant literature, or what has been termed the Belles Lettres, science, theology, and politics, will, of course, be excluded.

Literature, which had for some centuries been confined to ecclesiastics and scholars by profession, was, at the commencement of Elizabeth's reign, thrown open to the higher classes of general society. The example was given by the Queen herself; and the nobility, the superior orders of the gentry, and even their wives and daughters, became enthusiasts in the cause of letters. The novelty which attended these studies, the eager desire to possess what had been so long studiously and jealously concealed, and the curiosity to explore and rifle the treasures of the Greek and Roman world, which mystery and imagination had swelled into the marvellous, contributed to excite an absolute passion for study, and for books. The court, the ducal castle, and the baronial hall, were suddenly converted into academies, and could boast of splendid libraries, as well as of splendid tapestries. In the first of these, according to Ascham, might be seen the Queen reading "more Greeke every day, than some prebendarie of this church doth read Latin in a whole week[429:A]," and while she was translating Isocrates or Seneca, it may be easily conceived that her maids of honour found it convenient to praise and to adopt the disposition of her time. In the second, observes Warton, the daughter of a duchess was taught not only to distil strong waters, but to construe Greek[429:B]; and in the third, every young lady who aspired to be fashionable was compelled, in imitation of the greater world, to exhibit similar marks of erudition.

If such were the studious manners of the ladies, it will readily be credited, that an equal, if not a greater attachment to literature existed in the other sex; in short, an intimacy with Greek, Latin, and Italian, was deemed essential to the character of the nobleman and the courtier; and learning was thus rendered a passport to promotion and rank. That this is not an exaggerated statement, but founded on contemporary authority, will be evident from a passage in Harrison's Description of England, where, after delineating the court, he adds,—"This further is not to be omitted, to the singular commendation of both sorts and sexes of our courtiers here in England, that there are verie few of them, which have not the use and skill of sundrie speaches, beside an excellent veine of writing before time not regarded.—Trulie it is a rare thing with us now, to heare of a courtier which hath but his owne language. And to saie how many gentlewomen and ladies there are, that beside sound knowledge of the Greeke and Latine toongs, are thereto no lesse skilfull in the Spanish, Italian, and French, or in some one of them, it resteth not in me: sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen and gentlemen do surmount in this behalfe, so these come verie little or nothing at all behind them for their parts, which industrie God continue, and accomplish that which otherwise is wanting!" Again, a few lines below, he remarks of the ladies of the court, that some of them employ themselves "in continuall reading either of the holie scriptures, or histories of our owne or forren nations about us, and diverse in writing volumes of their owne, or translating of other mens into our English and Latine toongs[430:A];" employments which now appear to us very extraordinary as the daily occupations of a court, but were, then, the natural result of that ardent love of letters, which had somewhat suddenly been diffused through the higher classes.

Were we, however, to conclude, that the same erudite taste pervaded the bulk of the people, or even the middle orders of society, we should be grossly mistaken. Literature, though cultivated with enthusiasm in the metropolis, was confined even there to persons of high rank, or to those who were subservient to their education and amusement. In the country, to read and write were still esteemed rare accomplishments, and among the rural gentry of not the first degree, little difference, in point of literary information, was perceptible between the master and his menial attendant. Of this several of the plays of Shakspeare and Jonson will afford evidence, especially the comedies of the Merry Wives of Windsor, and Every Man in his Humour, to which a striking proof may be added from Burton, who wrote just at the close of the Shaksperian [430:B]period; and, in treating of study, as a cause of melancholy, says, "I may not deny, but that we have a sprinkling of our Gentry, here, and there one, excellently well learned;—but they are but few in respect of the multitude, the major part (and some again excepted, that are indifferent) are wholly bent for Hawks and Hounds, and carried away many times with intemperate lust, gaming, and drinking. If they read a book at any time, 'tis an English Chronicle, Sir Huon of Bordeaux, Amadis de Gaul, &c. a play-book, or some pamphlet of News, and that at such seasons only, when they cannot stir abroad, to drive away time, their sole discourse is dogs, hawks, horses, and what News? If some one have been a traveller in Italy, or as far as the Emperour's Court, wintered in Orleance, and can court his mistris in broken French, wear his clothes neatly in the newest fashion, sing some choice out-landish tunes, discourse of lords, ladies, towns, palaces, and cities, he is compleat and to be admired: otherwise he and they are much at one; no difference betwixt the master and the man, but worshipful titles: wink and choose betwixt him that sits down (clothes excepted) and him that holds the trencher behind him."[431:A]

It is to the court, therefore, and its attendants, to the nobility, higher gentry, and their preceptors, that we are to look for that ardent love of books and learning which so remarkably distinguished the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and which was destined, in another century, to descend into, and illuminate the larger masses of our population. Nothing, indeed, can more forcibly paint Elizabeth's passion for books and learning, than a passage in Harrison's unadorned but faithful description of her court:—"Finallie," says that interesting pourtrayer of ancient manners, "to avoid idlenesse, and prevent sundrie transgressions, otherwise likelie to be committed and doone, such order is taken, that everie office hath either a bible, or the booke of the acts and monuments of the church of England, or both, beside some histories and chronicles lieing therein, for the exercise of such as come into the same: whereby the stranger that entereth into the court of England upon the sudden, shall rather imagine himselfe to come into some publike schoole of the universities, where manie give eare to one that readeth, than into a princes palace, if you conferre the same with those of other nations. Would to God all honorable personages would take example of hir graces godlie dealing in this behalfe, and shew their conformitie unto these hir so good beginnings! which if they would, then should manie grievous offenses (wherewith God is highlie displeased) be cut off and restrained, which now doo reigne exceedinglie, in most noble and gentlemen's houses, whereof they see no paterne within hir graces gates."[432:A] Well might Mr. Dibdin apostrophize this learned Queen in the following picturesque and characteristic terms:—"All hail to the sovereign, who, bred up in severe habits of reading and meditation, loved books and scholars to the very bottom of her heart! I consider ELIZABETH as a royal bibliomaniac of transcendant fame!—I see her, in imagination, wearing her favorite little Volume of Prayers[432:B], the composition of Queen Catharine Parr, and Lady Tirwit, 'bound in solid gold, and hanging by a gold chain at her side,' at her morning and evening devotions—afterwards, as she became firmly seated upon her throne, taking an interest in the embellishments of the Prayer Book[432:C], which goes under her own name; and then indulging her strong bibliomaniacal appetites in fostering the institution for the erecting of a Library, and an Academy for the study of Antiquities and History."[432:D]

The example of Elizabeth, whose taste for books had been fostered under the tuition of Ascham, was speedily followed by some of the first characters in the kingdom; but by none with more ardent zeal then by Archbishop Parker, who was such an indefatigable admirer and collector of curious and precious books, and of every thing that appertained to them, that, according to Strype, he kept constantly in his house "drawers of pictures, wood-cutters, painters, limners, writers, and book-binders,—one of these was Lylye, an excellent writer, that could counterfeit any antique writing. Him the archbishop customarily used to make old books compleat."[433:A] No expense, in short, was spared, by this amiable and accomplished divine, in procuring the most rare and valuable articles; his library was daily increased through the medium of numerous agents, whom he employed, both at home and abroad, and among these was Batman the author of the Doome and the commentator uppon Bartholome, who, we are told, purchased for him not less than 6700 books "in the space of no more than four years."[433:B]

To Parker succeeded the still more celebrated names of Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Thomas Bodley, men to whom the nation is indebted for two of the most extensive and valuable of its public libraries. The enthusiasm which animated these illustrious characters in their bibliographical researches is almost incredible, and what gives an imperishable interest to their biography is, that their morals were as pure as their literary zeal was glowing.

Sir Thomas Bodley was singularly fortunate in the selection of Dr. Thomas James for the keeper of his library, whom Camden terms vir eruditus, et vere φιλόβιβλος[433:C], and of whom Fuller says, that "on serious consideration one will conclude the Library made for him, and him for it, like tallies they so fitted one another. Some men live like mothes in libraries, not being better for the books, but the books the worse for them, which they only soile with their fingers. Not so Dr. James, who made use of books for his own and the publique good. He knew the age of a manuscript, by looking upon the face thereof, and by the form of the character could conclude the time wherein it was written."[434:A]

Among the lovers and collectors of curious books, during the reign of Elizabeth, may be mentioned Dr. JOHN DEE, notorious for his magical and astrological lore, and who, according to his own account, possessed a library of "four thousand volumes, printed and unprinted, bound and unbound, valued at 2000_l._," beside numerous boxes and cases of very rare evidences Irish and Welsh[434:B]; and Captain Cox of Coventry, whose boudoir of romances and ballads we shall have occasion to notice, at some length, in the succeeding chapter.

It is remarkable that the two sovereigns included in the era of Shakspeare, should have felt an equally unbounded inclination to study and to books. So attached was James to bibliothecal delights, that when he visited the Bodleian Library in 1605, he is said by Burton to have exclaimed on his departure, "if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than this library, and to be chained together with so many good authors."[434:C] Burton himself was one of the most inveterate bibliomaniacs of his day; Hearne tells us that he was a collector of "ancient popular little pieces," which, together with a multitude of books of the best kind, he gave to the Bodleian Library.[434:D] In the preface to his curious folio, he speaks of his eyes aking with reading, and his fingers with turning the leaves[434:E]; and in the body of his work, under the article of study, he expatiates, in the highest strain of enthusiasm, on the luxury of possessing numerous books: "we have thousands of authors of all sorts," he observes; "many great libraries full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat, served out for several palates: and he is a very block that is affected with none of them.—I could even live and dye with—and take more delight, true content of mind in them, than thou hast in all thy wealth and sport, how rich soever thou art.——Nicholas Gerbelius, that good old man, was so much ravished with a few Greek authors restored to light, with hope and desire of enjoying the rest, that he exclaims forthwith, Arabibus atque Indis omnibus erimus ditiores, We shall be richer than all the Arabick or Indian Princes; of such esteem they were with him, in comparable worth and value."—He then adopts the emphatic language of Heinsius: "I no sooner come into the Library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is idleness, their mother Ignorance, and Melancholy herself, and in the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat, with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones, and rich men that know not this happiness. I am not ignorant in the mean time," he adds, "notwithstanding this which I have said, how barbarously and basely for the most part our ruder Gentry esteem of libraries and books, how they neglect and contemn so great a treasure, so inestimable a benefit.—For my part I pity these men,—how much, on the other side, are all we bound that are scholars, to those munificent Ptolomies, bountiful Mæcenates, heroical patrons, divine spirits,—qui nobis hæc otia fecerunt, Namque erit ille mihi semper Deus—that have provided for us so many well furnished libraries as well in our publick Academies in most cities, as in our private Colledges? How shall I remember Sir Thomas Bodley, amongst the rest, Otho Nicholson, and the right reverend John Williams Lord Bishop of Lincolne, (with many other pious acts) who besides that at St. John's College in Cambridge, that in Westminster, is now likewise in Fieri with a Library at Lincolne (a noble president for all corporate towns and cities to imitate) O quam te memorem (vir illustrissime) quibus elogiis?"[435:A]

The passion for letters and for books, which was thus diffused among the higher classes, necessarily occasioned much attention to be paid to the preservation and decoration of libraries, the volumes of which, however, were not arranged on the shelves in the manner that we are now accustomed to see them. The leaves, and not the back, were placed in front, in order to exhibit the silk strings or golden clasps which united the sides of the cover. Thus Bishop Earl, describing the character of a young gentleman of the University, says,—"His study has commonly handsome shelves, his books neat silk strings, which he shews to his father's man, and is loth to unty or take down for fear of misplacing."[436:A]

To the most costly of these embellishments, the golden clasps, Shakspeare has referred, both in a metaphorical and literal sense. In the Twelfth Night the Duke, addressing the supposed Cesario, exclaims—

————————— "I have unclasp'd To thee the book even of my secret soul;"[436:B]

and in Romeo and Juliet, Lady Capulet observes,

"That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, That in gold clasps locks in the golden story."[436:C]

It appears, indeed, that the art of ornamenting the exterior of books was carried, at this period, to a lavish extent, jewels, as well as gold, being employed to enhance their splendour. Let us listen to the directions of the judicious Peacham, on this head, a contemporary authority, who has thought it not unnecessary to subjoin the best mode of keeping books, and the best scite for a library. "Have a care," says he, "of keeping your bookes handsome, and well bound, not casting away over much in their gilding or stringing for ostentation sake, like the prayer-bookes of girles and gallants, which are carried to Church but for their out-sides. Yet for your owne use spare them not for noting or interlining (if they be printed) for it is not likely you meane to be a gainer by them, when you have done with them: neither suffer them through negligence to mold and be moath-eaten, or want their strings or covers.—Suffer them not to lye neglected, who must make you regarded; and goe in torn coates, who must apparell your mind with the ornaments of knowledge, above the roabes and riches of the most magnificent Princes.

"To avoyde the inconvenience of moathes and moldinesse, let your study be placed, and your windowes open if it may be, towards the East, for where it looketh South or West, the aire being ever subject to moisture, moathes are bred and darkishnesse encreased, whereby your maps and pictures will quickly become pale, loosing their life and colours, or rotting upon their cloath, or paper, decay past all helpe and recovery."[437:A]

The interior, also, as well as the exterior, of books, had acquired a high degree of richness and finishing during the era of which we are treating. The black-letter, Roman, and Italic, types were, in general, clear, sharp, and strong, and though the splendid art of illumination had ceased to be practised, in the sixteenth century, in consequence of the establishment of printing, the loss was compensated for, by more correct ornamental capital initials, cut with great taste and spirit on wood and copper, and by engraved borders and title-pages. Portraits were also frequently introduced in the initials, especially by the celebrated printers Jugge, and Day, the latter of whom, patronised by Archbishop Parker, became in his turn the patron of Fox the martyrologist, in the first edition of whose book, 1563, and in Day's edition of Dee's General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the perfecte Arte of Navigation, folio, 1577, may be found an admirable specimen of this style of decoration, the capital initial C including a portrait of Elizabeth sitting in state, and attended by three of her ministers.[437:B] A similar mode of costly ornamenture issued from the presses of Grafton, Whitchurch, Bill, and Barker, and perhaps in no period of our annals has this species of decorative typography been carried to a higher state of perfection. Some very grotesque ornaments, it is true, and some degree of affectation were occasionally exhibited in title-pages, and to one of the latter class, very common in this age, Shakspeare alludes in the Second Part of King Henry IV., where Northumberland, describing the approach of a messenger, says,

—— "This man's brow, like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragick volume;"[438:A]

imagery drawn from the custom of printing elegiac poems with the title-page, and every intermediate leaf, entirely black; but, upon the whole, valuable books, and especially the Bible, had more splendid and minutely ornamental finishing bestowed upon their pages, than has since occurred, in this country, until towards the close of the eighteenth century.

It had been fortunate, if accuracy in typography had kept pace with the taste for decoration; but this, with few exceptions, may be said never to have been the case, and about the termination of Elizabeth's reign, the era of total incorrectness, as Mr. Steevens remarks, commenced, when "works of all kinds appeared with the disadvantage of more than their natural and inherent imperfections[438:B];" an assertion sufficiently borne out by the state in which the dramatic poetry of this period was published. It may be added that the Black-letter continued to be the prevailing type during the days of Elizabeth, but seems to have nearly deserted the English press before the demise of her successor.

Of what extent was the Library of Shakspeare, and of what its chief treasures consisted, can now only be the subject of conjecture. That he was a lover and collector of books more particularly within the pale of his own language, and in the range of elegant literature, is sufficiently evidenced by his own works. A Bibliotheca Shakspeariana may, in fact, be drawn, from the industry of his commentators, who have sought for, and quoted, almost every book to which he has been directly or remotely indebted. The disquisitions indeed into which we are about to enter will pretty accurately point out the species of books which principally ornamented his shelves, and may preclude any other remark here, than that the chief wealth of his collection consisted of Historic, Romantic, and Poetic Literature, in all their various branches.

Philological or grammatical literature, as applied to the English language, appears to have made little progress until after the middle of the sixteenth century. We are told by Roger Ascham in 1544, the period of the publication of his Toxophilus, that "as for the Latine or Greeke tongue, everye thinge is so excellentlye done in them, that none can do better; in the Englishe tongue, contrary, everye thinge in a maner so meanlye both for the matter and handelinge, that no man can do worse. For therein the least learned, for the most part, have bene alwayes most readye to write."[439:A] The Toxophilus of this useful and engaging writer, was written in his native tongue, with the view of presenting the public with a specimen of a purer and more correct English style than that to which they had hitherto been accustomed; and with the hope of calling the attention of the learned, from the exclusive study of the Greek and Latin, to the cultivation of their vernacular language. The result which he contemplated was attained, and, from the period of this publication, the shackles of Latinity were broken, and composition in English prose became an object of eager and successful attention.

Previous to the exertions of Ascham, very few writers can be mentioned as affording any model for English style. If we except the Translation of Froissart by Bourchier, Lord Berners, in 1523, and the History of Richard III. by Sir Thomas More, certainly compositions of great merit, we shall find it difficult to produce an author of much value for his vernacular prose. On the contrary, very soon after the appearance of the Toxophilus, we find harmony and beauty in English style emphatically praised and enjoined. Thus, in THE ARTE OF RHETORIKE for the use of all suche as are studious of Eloquence, sette forthe in Englishe by THOMAS WILSON, 1553, we are informed that many now aspired to write English elegantly. "When we have learned," remarks this critic, "usuall and accustomable wordes to set forthe our meanynge, we ought to joyne them together in apte order, that the eare maie delite in hearynge the harmonie. I knowe some Englishemen, that in this poinct have suche a gift in the Englishe as fewe in Latin have the like; and therefore delite the Wise and Learned so muche with their pleasaunte composition, that many rejoyce when thei maie heare suche, and thinke muche learnyng is gotte when thei maie talke with them."[440:A] The Treatise of Wilson powerfully assisted the cause which Ascham had been advocating; it displays much sagacity and good sense, and greatly contributed to clear the language from the affectation consequent on the introduction of foreign words and idiom. The licentiousness, in this respect, was carried, indeed, at this time, to such a height, that those who affected more than ordinary refinement, either in conversation or writing, so Italianated or Latinized their English, as to be scarcely intelligible to the common people. Wilson severely satirizes this absurd practice. "Some," says he, "seke so farre for outlandishe Englishe, that they forget altogether their mother's language. And I dare sweare this, if some of their mothers were alive, thei were not able to tel what thei saie: and yet these fine Englishe clerkes wil saie thei speake in their mother tongue, if a man should charge them for counterfeityng the kinges Englishe.—He that cometh lately out of Fraunce, will talke Frenche Englishe, and never blushe at the matter. Another choppes in with Englishe Italianated, and applieth the Italian phraise to our Englishe speakyng.—The unlearned or folishe phantasticall, that smelles but of learnyng (suche fellowes as have seene learned men in their daies) will so Latine their tongues, that the simple cannot but wonder at their talke, and thinke surely thei speake by some revelacion. I know them, that thinke Rhetorike to stande wholie upon darke wordes; and he that can catche an ynkehorne terme by the taile, hym thei compt to be a fine Englishman and a good rhetorician." He then adds a specimen of this style from a letter "devised by a Lincolneshire man for a voide benefice," addressed to the Lord Chancellor:—"Ponderyng, expendyng, and revolutyng with myself, your ingent affabilitie, and ingenious capacitie, for mundane affaires, I cannot but celebrate and extoll your magnificall dexteritie above all other. For how could you have adapted suche illustrate prerogative, and dominiall superioritie, if the fecunditie of your ingenie had not been so fertile and wonderfull pregnaunt, &c."[441:A] That the same species of pedantry continued to prevail in 1589, we have the testimony of Puttenham, who, in his chapter Of Language, observes that "we finde in our English writers many wordes and speaches amendable, and ye shall see in some many inkhorne termes so ill affected brought in by men of learning as preachers and schoole-masters: and many straunge termes of other languages by Secretaries and Marchaunts and travailours, and many darke wordes and not usual nor well sounding, though they be dayly spok in Court."[441:B]

Before Puttenham, however, had published, another and a still more dangerous mode of corruption had infected English composition. In 1581, John Lilly, a dramatic poet, published a Romance in two parts, of which the first is entitled, Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit, and the second, Euphues and his England. This production is a tissue of antithesis and alliteration, and therefore justly entitled to the appellation of affected; but we cannot with Berkenhout consider it as a most contemptible piece of nonsense.[441:C] The moral is uniformly good; the vices and follies of the day are attacked with much force and keenness; there is in it much display of the manners of the times, and though, as a composition, it is very meretricious, and sometimes absurd in point of ornament, yet the construction of its sentences is frequently turned with peculiar neatness and spirit, though with much monotony of cadence. William Webbe, no mean judge, speaking of those who had attained a good grace and sweet vein in eloquence, adds,—"among whom I think there is none that will gainsay but Master John Lilly hath deserved most high commendations, as he who hath stepped one step farther therein than any since he first began the witty discourse of his EUPHUES, whose works surely in respect of his singular eloquence and brave composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine, and make a tryal thereof through all parts of rhetoric in fit phrases, in pithy sentences, in gallant tropes, in flowing speech, in plain sense; and surely in my judgment I think he will yield him that verdict, which Quintilian giveth of both the best orators, Demosthenes and Tully; that from the one nothing may be taken away, and to the other nothing may be added[442:A];" an encomium that was repeated by Nash[442:B], Lodge[442:C], and Meres[442:D], but which should be contrasted with the sounder opinion of Drayton, who, in his Epistle of Poets and Poesy, mentioning the noble Sidney,

"That heroe for numbers and for prose,"

observes that he

——— "thoroughly pac'd our language as to show The plenteous English hand in hand might go With Greek and Latin, and did first reduce Our tongue from Lilly's writing then in use; Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, Playing with words, and idle similies, As th' English apes, and very zanies be Of every thing, that they do hear and see, So imitating his ridiculous tricks, They speak and write, all like mere lunatics."[443:A]

Yet the most correct description of the merits and defects of this once celebrated author has been given by Oldys, in his Librarian, who remarks that "Lilly was a man of great reading, good memory, ready faculty of application, and uncommon eloquence; but he ran into a vast excess of allusion; in sentence and conformity of style he seldom speaks directly to the purpose, but is continually carried away by one odd allusion or simile or other (out of natural history, that is yet fabulous and not true in nature), and that still overborne by more, thick upon the back of one another; and through an eternal affectation of sententiousness keeps to such a formal measure of his periods as soon grows tiresome; and so, by confining himself to shape his sense so frequently into one artificial cadence, however ingenious or harmonious, abridges that variety which the style should be admired for."[443:B]

So greatly was the style of Euphues admired in the court of Elizabeth, and, indeed, throughout the kingdom, that it became a proof of refined manners to adopt its phraseology. Edward Blount, who republished six of Lilly's plays, in 1632, under the title of Sixe Court Comedies, declares that "Our nation are in his debt for a new English which hee taught them. Euphues and his England," he adds, "began first that language. All our ladies were then his scollers; and that beautie in court who could not parley Euphuesme, was as little regarded as shee which now there speakes not French;" a representation certainly not exaggerated; for Ben Jonson, describing, a fashionable lady, makes her address her gallant in the following terms:—"O master Brisk, (as it is in Euphues) hard is the choice when one is compell'd, either by silence to die with grief, or by speaking, to live with shame:" upon which Mr. Whalley observes, that the court ladies in Elizabeth's time had all the phrases of Euphues by heart.[443:C]

Scarcely had corruption from this source ceased to violate the purity and propriety of our language, when the fashion of interlarding composition with a perpetual series of Latin quotations commenced; a custom which continued until the close of the reign of James, and gave to the style of this period a complexion the most heterogeneous and absurd, being, in fact, composed of two languages, half Latin and half English. Of this barbarous and pedantic habit, the works of Bishop Andrews afford the most flagrant instance; an example which, we have reason to regret, was followed too closely by Robert Burton, who, when he trusts to his native tongue, has written in a style at once simple and impressive.

These affectations, arising from the use of inkhorn terms, of antithesis, alliteration, arbitrary orthography, and the perpetual intermixture of Latin phraseology, have been deservedly and powerfully ridiculed by Sir Philip Sidney and Shakspeare; by the former under the character of Rombus, a village schoolmaster, in a masque presented to Her Majesty in Wansted Garden, and by the latter in the person of HOLOFERNES in Love's Labour's Lost. The satire of Sir Philip is supported with humour; Her Majesty is supposed to have parted, by her presence, a violent contest between two shepherds for the affection of the Lady of the May, on which event Rombus comes forward with a learned oration.

"Now the thunder-thumping Jove transfused his dotes into your excellent formositie, which have with your resplendent beames thus segregated the enmity of these rurall animals; I am Potentissima Domina, a Schoole-master, that is to say, a Pedagogue, one not a little versed in the disciplinating of the juvenall frie, wherin (to my laud I say it) I use such geometrical proportions, as neither wanted mansuetude nor correction, for so it is described.

"Parcare subjectos, et debellire superbos."

"Yet hath not the pulchritude of my vertues protected me from the contaminating hands of these Plebeians; for coming solummodo, to have parted their sanguinolent fray, they yeelded me no more reverence, than if I had been some Pecorius Asinus. I, even I, that am, who am I? Dixi verbus sapiento satum est. But what said that Troian Æneas, when he sojourned in the surging sulkes of the sandiferous seas, Hæc olim memonasse juvebit. Well, well, ad propositos revertebo, the puritie of the verity is that a certaine Pulchra puella profecto, elected and constituted by the integrated determination of all this topographicall region as the soveraigne Ladie of this Dame Maies month, hath beene quodammodo hunted, as you would say, pursued by two, a brace, a couple, a cast of young men, to whom the crafty coward Cupid had inquam delivered his dire-dolorous dart;" here the May-Lady interfering calls him a tedious fool, and dismisses him; upon which in anger he exclaims,—

"O Tempori, O Moribus! in profession a childe, in dignitie a woman, in yeares a Ladie, in cæteris a maide, should thus turpifie the reputation of my doctrine, with the superscription of a foole, O Tempori, O Moribus!"[445:A]

The Schoolmaster of Shakspeare appears, from the researches of Warburton and Dr. Farmer, to have been intended as a satire upon John Florio, whose First Fruits, or Dialogues in Italian and English, were published in 1578, his Second in 1591, and his "Worlde of Wordes" in 1598. He was ludicrously pedantic, dogmatic, and assuming, and gave the first affront to the dramatic poets of his day, by affirming that "the plaies that they plaie in England, are neither right comedies, nor right tragedies; but representations of histories without any decorum."[445:B] The character of Holofernes, however, while it caricatures the peculiar folly and ostentation of Florio, holds up to ridicule, at the same time, the general pedantry and literary affectations of the age; and amongst these very particularly the absurd innovations which Lilly had introduced. Sir Nathaniel, praising the specimen of alliteration which Holofernes exhibits in his "extemporal epitaph," calls it "a rare talent;" upon which the schoolmaster comments on the compliment in a manner which pretty accurately describes the fantastic genius of the author of Euphues:—"This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater; and deliver'd upon the mellowing of occasion;" and subsequently in a strain of good sense not very common from the mouth of this imperious pedant, he still more definitely points out the foppery of Lilly both in style and pronunciation,—"He is too picked," he remarks, "too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.—He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce, debt; d, e, b, t; not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis domine? to make frantick, lunatick."[446:A]

Yet, notwithstanding these various attempts, all tending to corrupt the purity of our language, and originating from the pedantic taste of the age, and from a love of novelty and over-refinement, English style more rapidly improved during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, than has been the case in any previous, or subsequent period of our annals. To establish this assertion, we have only to appeal to the great writers of this era, and among these, it will be sufficient to mention the names of Ralegh, Hooker, Bacon and Daniel, masters of a style, at once vigorous, perspicuous, and often richly modulated. If to this brief catalogue, though adequate to our purpose, we add the prose of Ascham, Sidney, Southwell, Knolles, Hakewell, and Peacham, still omitting many authors of much merit, it may justly be affirmed, that no specimens of excellence in dignified and serious composition could be wanting as exemplars. That the good sense of the age was aware of the value of these writers, in point of style, though surrounded by innovations supported by rank and fashion, may be concluded from the admonitions of Peacham, who in his chapter "Of stile, in speaking and writing," not only describes the style which ought to be adopted, but enumerates the authors who have afforded the best examples of it for the student. "Let your style," he admirably observes, "bee furnished with solid matter, and compact of the best, choice, and most familiar words; taking heed of speaking, or writing such words, as men shall rather admire than understand.—Flowing at one and the selfe same height, neither taken in and knit up too short, that, like rich hangings of Arras or Tapistry, thereby lose their grace and beautie, as Themistocles was wont to say: nor suffered to spread so farre, like soft Musicke in an open field, whose delicious sweetnesse vanisheth, and is lost in the ayre.

"To helpe yourselfe herein, make choice of those authors in prose, who speake the best and purest English. I would commend unto you (though from more antiquity) the Life of Richard the third, written by Sir Thomas Moore; the Arcadia of the noble Sir Philip Sidney, whom Du Bartas makes one of the foure columnes of our language; the Essayes, and other peeces of the excellent master of eloquence, my Lord of S. Albanes, who possesseth not onely eloquence, but all good learning, as hereditary both by father and mother. You have then M. Hooker, his Policy: Henry the fourth, well written by S. John Heyward; that first part of our English Kings, by M. Samuel Daniel. There are many others I know, but these will tast you best, as proceeding from no vulgar judgment."[447:A]

With regard to the state of colloquial language during this epoch, it may safely be asserted, that a reference to the works of Shakspeare will best acquaint us with the "diction of common life," with the tone of conversation which prevailed both in the higher and lower ranks of society; for the dialogue of his most perfect comedies is, by many degrees, more easy, lively, and perspicuous, than that of any other contemporary dramatic writer.

It is by no means, however, our wish to infer, from what has been said in praise of the prose writers of this period, that they are to be considered as perfect models in the nineteenth century; on the contrary, it must be confessed, that the best of them exhibit abundant proofs of quaintness and prolixity, of verbal pedantry and inverted phraseology; and though the language, through their influence, made unparalleled strides, and fully unfolded its copiousness, energy, and strength, it remained greatly deficient in correctness and polish, in selection of words, and harmony of arrangement.[448:A]

These defects, especially the two latter, are to be attributed, in a great measure, to philological studies being almost exclusively confined to the learned languages, a subject of complaint with a few individuals, who lamented the neglect which this classical enthusiasm entailed on their native tongue. Thus Arthur Golding, in some verses prefixed to Baret's Alviarie, after observing that

———————— "all good inditers find Our Inglishe tung driven almost out of kind, Dismembred, hacked, maymed, rent and torne, Defaced, patched, mard, and made a skorne,"

adds with great truth and good sense,

"No doubt but men should shortly find there is As perfect order, as firm certeintie, As grounded rules to trie out things amisse, As much sweete grace, as great varietie Of wordes and phrazes, as good quantitie For verse or proze in Inglish every waie, As any comen language hath this daie.

_And were wée given as well to like our owne, And for to clense it from the noisome wéede Of affectation which hath overgrowne Ungraciously the good and native séede, As for to borrowe where wée have no néede: It would pricke néere the learned tungs in strength, Perchance, and match mée some of them at length._"[449:A]

The ardour for classical acquisition was, at this time, indeed, so prevalent among the learned and the great, that the mythology as well as the diction of the ancients became fashionable. The amusements, and even the furniture of the opulent, their shows, and masques, the hangings and the tapestries of their houses, and their very cookery, assumed an erudite, and what would now be termed, a pedantic cast. "Every thing," says Warton, speaking of this era, "was tinctured with ancient history and mythology.—When the Queen paraded through a country town, almost every pageant was a pantheon. When she paid a visit at the house of any of her nobility, at entering the hall she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy-chamber by Mercury. Even the pastry-cooks were expert mythologists. At dinner, select transformations of Ovid's metamorphoses were exhibited in confectionary: and the splendid iceing of an immense historic plumb-cake, was embossed with a delicious basso-relievo of the destruction of Troy. In the afternoon, when she condescended to walk in the garden, the lake was covered with Tritons and Nereids: the pages of the family were converted into Wood-nymphs, who peeped from every bower: and the footmen gamboled over the lawns in the figure of Satyrs."[449:B]

In the course of a few years the same taste descended to the inferior orders of society, owing to the numerous versions which rapidly appeared of the best writers of Greece and Rome. The rich catalogue of translations to which Shakspeare had access, may be estimated from the very accurate list which is inserted in the Variorum editions of the poet, and before the death of James the First, not a single classic, we believe, of any value, remained unfamiliarized to the English reader.

The height which classical learning had attained about the year 1570, may be estimated from the testimony of Ascham, a most consummate judge, who, quoting Cicero's assertion with regard to Britain, that "there is not one scruple of silver in that whole isle; or any one that knoweth either learnyng or letter[450:A]," thus apostrophizes the Roman Orator:

"But now, master Cicero, blessed be God, and his sonne Jesus Christ, whom you never knew, except it were as it pleased him to lighten you by some shadow; as covertlie in one place ye confesse, saying, Veritatis tantum umbram consectamur[450:B], as your master Plato did before you: blessed be God, I say, that sixten hundred yeare after you were dead and gone, it may trewly be sayd, that for silver, there is more comlie plate in one citie of Englande, than is in four of the proudest cities in all Italie, and take Rome for one of them: and for learning, beside the knowledge of all learned tonges and liberal sciences, even your owne bookes, Cicero, be as well read, and your excellent eloquence is as well liked and loved, and as trewly folowed in Englande at this day, as it is now, or ever was since your own tyme, in any place of Italie, either at Arpinum, where you was borne, or els at Rome, where you was brought up. And a little to brag with you, Cicero, where you yourselfe, by your leave, halted in some point of learning in your own tongue, many in Englande at this day go streight up, both in trewe skill, and right doing therein."[450:C]

Nor can this progress in the learned languages be considered as surprising, when we recollect the vast encouragement given to these studies, not only by the nobility but by the Queen herself; who was, in fact, a most laborious and erudite author, who wrote a Commentary on Plato, translated from the Greek two of the Orations of Isocrates, a play of Euripides, the Hiero of Xenophon, and Plutarch de Curiositate; from the Latin, Sallust de Bello Jugurthino, Horace de Arte Poetica, Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, a long chorus from the Hercules Œtæus of Seneca, one of Cicero's epistles, and another of Seneca's; who wrote many Latin letters, many English original works, both in prose and poetry, and who spoke five languages with facility.[451:A] The British Solomon, it is well known, was equally zealous and industrious in the cause of learning, and both not only patronized individuals, but founded and endowed public seminaries; Elizabeth was the founder of Westminster-School, and of Jesus-College, Oxford, and to James the University of Edinburgh owes its existence. This laudable spirit was not confined to regal munificence; in 1584, Emanuel-College, Cambridge, rose on the site of the Dominican convent of Black Friars, through the exertions of Sir Walter Mildmay; and in 1594, Sidney-Sussex College, in the same University, sprung from the patronage of the Dowager of Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex.

Of the modern languages cultivated at this period, the Italian took the lead, and became so fashionable at the court of Elizabeth, and among all who had pretensions to refinement, that it almost rivalled the classical mania of the day. The Queen spoke it with great purity, and among those who professed to teach it, Florio, whom we have formerly mentioned as the object of Shakspeare's satire, was the most eminent. He was pensioned by Lord Southampton, and on the accession of James, was appointed reader of the Italian language to Queen Anne, with a stipend of 100_l._ a-year.[451:B] So popular were the writers of this fascinating country, that the English language was absolutely inundated with versions of the Italian poets and novellists, a consequence of which Roger Ascham bitterly complains; for, lamenting the diffusion of Italian licentiousness, he exclaims,—"These be the inchantmentes of Circe, brought out of Italie, to marre men's maners in Englande; much by example of ill life, but more by precepts of fond books, of late translated out of Italian into Englishe sold in every shop in London:—there be moe of these ungratious bookes set out in printe within these few monethes, than have been sene in Englande many score yeares before.—Then they have in more reverence the triumphes of Petrarche, than the Genesis of Moses; they make more account of a tale in Boccace, than a storie of the Bible."[452:A]

It must be allowed, we think, that the censure of Ascham partakes too much of puritanic sourness; for these "ungratious bookes" we find to have been the great classics of Italy, Petrarca, Boccacio, &c. writers who, though occasionally romantic in their incidents, and gross in their imagery, yet presented many just views of life and manners, and many rich examples of harmonious style and fervid imagination. They contributed also very powerfully by the variety and fertility of their fictions, to stimulate the poets of our country, and especially the dramatic, who have been indebted to this source more than to any other for the ground-work of their plots. It is, indeed, sufficiently honourable to Italian literature, that we shall find our unrivalled Shakspeare occasionally indebted to it for the hints which awakened his muse.

We are not to conclude, however, that the labours of our translators were confined to the poetry and romance of Italy, and that its moral, historical, and didactic compositions were utterly neglected. This was so far from being the case, that most of the esteemed productions in these departments were as speedily naturalized as those of the lighter class; and among them we may mention two works which must have had no inconsiderable influence in polishing and refining the manners of our countrymen. In 1576, Robert Peterson, of Lincolne's-Inn, translated the Galateo of John de la Casa, a system of politeness to which Chesterfield has been much indebted[453:A]; and in 1588, Thomas Hobby published a version of the Cortigiano of Baldassar Castiglione, a work in equal estimation as a manuel of elegance, and termed by the Italians "the Golden Book."[453:B]

The philological attainments of this age, with respect to Greek, Latin, and English, will be placed in a still more compendiously clear light, by a mere enumeration of those who greatly excelled in rendering their acquisition more systematic and correct. Both Greek and English literature were early indebted to the labours of Sir Thomas Smith, who was appointed public lecturer at Cambridge on the first of these languages, the study of which he much facilitated by a new method of accentuation and pronunciation; publishing at the same time an improved system of orthography for his native tongue. These useful works were printed together in 4to. in 1568, under the titles of De recta et emendata linguæ Græcæ pronunciatione, and De recta et emendata linguæ Anglicæ scriptione.

Another equally eminent Grecian philologer appeared at the same time, in the person of Sir Henry Savile, who was Greek preceptor to Elizabeth, warden of Merton-College, and provost of Eton. He was editor of the works of Chrysostom, with notes, in 8 vols. folio, 1613, the most elaborate Greek production which had hitherto issued from an English press: of Xenophon's Cyropædia, and of the Steliteutici of Nazianzen. He translated also into English, as early as 1581, the first four books of the History of Tacitus, and his Life of Agricola, accompanied by very valuable annotations, which were afterwards published in a Latin version, by Gruter, at Amsterdam.

To his able assistant, also, in editing the works of Chrysostom, the Rev. John Boys, much gratitude is due for his enthusiasm in the cause of Grecian lore. So attached was he to this study, that during his fellowship of St. John's College, Cambridge, he voluntarily gave a Greek lecture every morning in his own room at four o'clock; and, what affords a still more striking picture of the learned enthusiasm of the times, it is recorded that this very early prelection was regularly attended by nearly all the fellows of his college!

Latin Literature appears to have been cultivated with greater purity and success in the prior than in the latter portion of Elizabeth's reign. It is scarcely necessary to mention the great names of George Buchanan and Walter Haddon, who divided the attention of the classical world, and drew from Elizabeth the following terse expression on their comparative merits:—Buchananum omnibus antepono; Haddonum nemini postpono.[454:A]

Nor can we fail to recollect the truly admirable production of Ascham, the "Schole Master; or plaine and perfite Way of teaching Children, to understand, write, and speake, the Latin Tonge:" than which a more interesting and judicious treatise has not appeared upon the subject in any language.

Among the most eminent Latin philologers who witnessed the close of the sixteenth century, may be mentioned the name of Edward Grant, Master of Westminster-School, who was celebrated for his Latin poetry, and who published, in 1577, Oratio de vita et obitu Rogeri Aschami, ac dictionis elegantia, cum adhortatione ad adolescentulos. He died in 1601.

With Grant should be classed the master of the free-school of Taunton in Somersetshire, John Bond, who subsequently practised as a physician, and died in 1612. He published, in 1606, some valuable commentaries, in the Latin language, on the poems of Horace, and, in 1614, on the Six Satires of Persius.

Roman literature, however, in this country was under yet higher obligations to John Rider, than to either of the preceding philologers; this learned prelate being the compiler of the first dictionary in our language, in which the English is placed before the Latin. It is entitled A Dictionary Engl. and Latin, and Latin and English. Oxon. 1589. 4to. Rider was promoted to the See of Killaloe in 1612, and died in 1632.

In our observations on the state of the English language we have noticed the labours of Ascham and Wilson as pre-eminently conducive to its improvement; the first of these writers having published two excellent models for English composition, and the second having presented us with a valuable treatise on rhetoric. To these should be added the efforts of Richard Mulcaster, first master of the Merchant-Taylors School, who, in 1581, published his "Positions, wherein those primitive circumstances be examined which are necessarie for the training up of Children, either for skill in theire Booke or Health in their Bodie;" a work which was followed, in the subsequent year, by "The first Part of the Elementarie, which entreateth chefely of the right Writing of the English Tung."

The Positions and the Elementarie of Mulcaster, though inferior in literary merit to the Scholemaster of Ascham, contributed materially to the progress of English philology, as they contain many valuable and acute observations on our language.

It appears, from the assertion of William Bullokar, an able co-operator in the work of education, that he was the author of the first English Grammar. In 1586 he printed his "Bref grammar for English," which is likewise entitled in fol. 1. "W. Bullokar's abbreviation of his Grammar for English extracted out of his Grammar at larg for the spedi parcing of English spech, and the eazier coming to the knowledge of grammar for other langages;" and Warton adds, in his account of Bullokar's writings, that among Tanner's books was found "a copy of his bref grammar above mentioned, interpolated and corrected with the author's own hand, as it appears, for a new impression. In one of these manuscript insertions, he calls this, 'the first grammar for Englishe that ever waz, except my grammar at large.'"[456:A]

It is not exactly ascertained in what year the Grammar of Ben Jonson was written, as it did not appear until after his death; but it may be safely affirmed that to this production of the once celebrated rival and contemporary of Shakspeare, the English language has been more indebted than to the labours certainly of any previous, and we may almost add, of any subsequent, grammarian, Lowth's and Murray's even not excepted.

The next branch of our present subject embraces the department of CRITICISM, which was cultivated in this period to a great extent, and we are sorry to add not seldom with uncommon bitterness and malignity. Numerous are the writers who complain of the very severe and sarcastic tone in which the critics of the age indulged; but one instance or two will be sufficient to prove both the frequency and asperity of the art. Robert Armin, in his Address Ad Lectorem hic et ubique, prefixed to The Italian Taylor and his Boy, says, speaking of his pen, "I wander with it now in a strange time of taxation, wherein every pen and inck-horne Boy will throw up his cap at the hornes of the Moone in censure, although his wit hang there, not returning unlesse monthly in the wane: such is our ticklish age, and the itching braine of abon̄dance[456:B];" and in the Troia Britannica of Thomas Heywood, the author, saluting his various readers under the titles of the Courteous, the Criticke, and the Scornefull, tells the latter, "I am not so unexperienced in the envy of this Age, but that I knowe I shall encounter most sharpe, and severe Censurers, such as continually carpe at other mens labours, and superficially perusing them, with a kind of negligence and skorne, quote them by the way, Thus: This is an error, that was too much streacht, this too slightly neglected, heere many things might have been added, there it might have been better followed: this superfluous, that ridiculous. These indeed knowing no other meanes to have themselves opinioned in the ranke of understanders, but by calumniating other mens industries."[457:A]

If such proved the strain of general, we need not be surprised if controversial, criticism assumed a still more tremendous aspect. Between the Puritans, in the reign of Elizabeth, who carried on their warfare under the fictitious appellative of Martin Mar-prelate, and the members of the episcopal church, a torrent of libels broke forth, which inundated the country with a deluge of distorted ridicule and rancorous abuse. Nor were the quarrels of literary men conducted with less ferocity, though perhaps with more wit. The republic of letters was, indeed, infested for near twenty years, from the year 1580 to 1600, with a set of Town-wits, who, void of all moral principle or decent restraint, employed their pens in lashing to death, with indiscriminate rage, the objects of their envy or their spleen. Of this description were those noted characters, Christopher Marlow, Robert Greene, Thomas Decker, and Thomas Nash; men possessed of genius, learning, and unquestioned ability, as poets, satirists, and critics; but excessively debauched in their manners, intemperate in their passions, and heedless of what they inflicted. The treatment which Gabriel Harvey, the bosom-friend of Spenser and Sidney, received from the scurrilous criticism of Greene and Nash, was, though not altogether unprovoked, beyond all measure gross, cruel, and vindictive. The literature and the moral character of Harvey were highly respectable; but he was vain, credulous, affected, and pedantic; he published a collection of panegyrics on himself; he turned astrologer and almanack-maker, he was perfectly Italianated in his dress and manner, in his style he was pompously elaborate, and he boasted himself the inventor and introducer of English Hexameters.[458:A] These foibles, together with the obscurity of his parentage, his father being a rope-maker at Saffron-Walden, in Essex, a circumstance of which he had the folly to be ashamed, furnished to his adversaries an inexhaustible fund of ridicule and wit; and had these legitimate ingredients been unmingled with personal invective and brutal sarcasm, Gabriel, who was no mean railer himself, had not been sinned against; but the malignity of Greene and Nash was unbounded; and Harvey, who was morbidly irritable and bled at every pore, catching a portion of their spirit, the controversy became so outrageously virulent, that the prelates of Canterbury and London, Whitgift and Bancroft, interfering, issued an order, "that all Nashe's books and Dr. Harveys bookes be taken wheresoever they may be found, and that none of the said bookes be ever printed hereafter;" an injunction which has rendered most of the pamphlets on this literary quarrel extremely scarce, particularly Harvey's "Four Letters And Certaine Sonnets. Especially touching Robert Greene and other Poets by him abused. Imprinted by John Wolfe 1592;" a very curious work, which we shall have occasion to quote hereafter; and Nash's "Have with you to Saffron-Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's hunt is up," 1596, which includes a humorous but unmerciful representation of Gabriel's life and character, the bitter satirist exulting in the idea that he had brought on his adversary, by the poignancy of his invectives, the effects of premature old age. "I have brought him low," he exclaims, "and shrewly broken him; look on his head, and you shall find a gray haire for everie line I have writ against him; and you shall have all his beard white too by the time he hath read over this booke."[459:A]

How great a nuisance this bevy of lampooning critics was considered, and to what a height their shameless effrontery was carried, may be learnt from a passage in a pamphlet by Dr. Lodge, a contemporary physician of great learning and good sense, who, though he terms Nash, and perhaps very justly, "the true English Aretine," has drawn a picture which applies to him as accurately as to any individual of the class; "a fellow," to adopt the words of an old play with respect to this very man, "that carried the deadly stocke in his pen, whose muze was armed with a jag tooth, and his pen possest with Hercules furyes."[459:B] "You shall know him" (the envious critic), says Lodge, "by this; he is a foule lubber, his tongue tipt with lying, his heart steeled against charity; he walks, for the most part, in black, under colour of gravity, and looks as pale as y{e} wizard of the ghost which cried so miserably at y{e} theater, like an oister wife, Hamlet revenge: he is full of infamy and slander, insomuch as if he ease not his stomach in detracting somewhat or some man before noontide, he fals into a fever that holds him while supper time; he is alwaies devising of epigrams or scoffes and grumbles, necromances continually, although nothing crosse him, he never laughs but at other men's harms, briefly in being a tyrant over men's fames; he is a very Titius (as Virgil saith) to his owne thoughtes.

"Titiique vultus inter Qui semper lacerat comestque mentem.

"The mischiefe is, that by grave demeanour and newes bearing, he hath got some credite with the greater sort, and manie fowles there bee, that because he can pen prettilee, hold it gospell whatever he writes or speakes, his custome is to preferre a foole to credite, to despight a wise man, and no poet lives by him that hath not a flout of him. Let him spie a man of wit in a taverne, he is a hare brained quareller. Let a scholler write, Tush (saith he) I like not these common fellowes; let him write well, he hath stolen it out of some note booke; let him translate, tut it is not of his owne; let him be named for preferment, he is insufficient because poore; no man shall rise in his world, except to feed his envy; no man can continue in his friendship who hateth all men." He then adds the following judicious advice, predicting what would be the consequence of neglecting to pursue it:—"Divine wits for many things as sufficient as all antiquity (I speake it not on slight surmise, but considerate judgment) to you belongs the death that doth nourish this poison; to you the paine that endure the reproofe. LILLY, the famous for facility in discourse; SPENCER, best read in ancient poetry; DANIEL, choice in word and invention; DRAITON, diligent and formall; TH. NASH, true English Aretine. All you unnamed professors, or friends of poetry (but by me inwardly honoured) knit your industries in private to unite your fames in publicke; let the strong stay up the weake, and the weake march under conduct of the strong; and all so imbattle yourselfes, that hate of vertue may not imbase you. But if besotted with foolish vain glory, emulation and contempt, you fall to neglect one another, Quod Deus omen avertat, doubtless it will be as infamous a thing shortly to present any book whatsoever learned to any Mæcenas in England, as it is to be headsman in any free city in Germanie."[460:A]

Turning, however, from this abuse of critical and satiric talent, let us direct our attention exclusively to those productions of the art which are distinguished as well by moderation and urbanity, as by learning and acumen.

It is worthy of remark that in English literature, during this era, nearly all the professed critical treatises, if we except those of Wilson and Ascham, were employed on the subject of poetry. We shall confine ourselves, therefore, to a chronological enumeration, accompanied by a few observations, of these interesting pieces. The first, in the order of time, is a production of George Gascoigne the poet, and was published at the close of the second edition of "The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire, Corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Authour, 1575. Tam Marti, quam Mercurio. Imprinted at London by H. Bynneman for Richard Smith." It is entitled, "Certayne notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English, written at the request of Master Edovardo Donati;" and was again printed in "The whole workes of George Gascoign Esquyre: newlye compyled into one volume," small 4to. b. l. 1587. This little tract is more didactic than critical; but contains several judicious directions, and some sensible remarks.

Ten years after, appeared a treatise on "Scottis Poesie," from the pen of King James the First, when only eighteen years of age. This learned monarch commenced his career of authorship with "The Essayes of a Premise, in the Divine art of Poesie. Imprinted at Edinburgh, by Thomas Vautroullier, 1585, 4to. Cum privilegio Regali." The fifth article in this miscellany includes the criticism in question, under the title of "Ane schort Treatise, containing some reulis and cautelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis poesie." This is a production highly curious, as well for its manner as matter; for, not content with mere precept, the royal critic has given us copious specimens of the several kinds of verse then in use. The eighth chapter of this short treatise is devoted to this purpose, detailing rules and examples, 1st, For lang histories. 2dly, For heroic acts. 3dly, For heich and grave subjects. 4thly, For tragic matters. 5thly, For flyting or invectives. 6thly, For Sonnet verse. 7thly, For Matters of love; and 8thly, For Tenfoot verse.

Under the fifth head is given as an exemplar of the Rouncefalles, or Tumbling verse, the lines formerly quoted from the Flyting of Montgomery as illustrative of a superstition peculiar to Allhallow-Eve; and under the seventh, on "love materis," is introduced as an example of "cuttit and broken verse, quhairof new formes are daylie inventit according to the Poetis pleasour," the following stanza, which has been rendered familiar to an English ear by the genius of Burns:—

"Quha wald have tyrde to heir that tone, Quhilk birds corroborat ay abone, Through schouting of the larkis! They sprang sa heich into the skyes, Quhill Cupide walknis with the cryis Of Nature's chapell clerkis. Then leaving all the heavins above, He lichted on the card; Lo! how that lytill god of love Before me then appeard. So mylde-like And child-like, With bow thre quarters skant, So moilie And coylie He lukit lyke a Sant."

It is observable that James, in assigning his "twa caussis" for composing this work, tells us that "albeit sindrie hes written of it (poesie) in English, quhilk is lykest to our language, zit we differ from thame in sindrie reulis of poesie, as ze will find be experience;" but who these sundry writers were, has not, with the exception of Gascoigne's "Notes of Instruction," been hitherto discovered.[462:A]

It is barely possible that the royal critic may have included in his "sindrie," the next work which we have to record on the subject, the production of our immortal Spenser, and entitled "The English Poet," a work which we lament should have been suffered to perish in manuscript. Its existence was first intimated to the public in 1579, by E. K., in his argument to the tenth Aeglogue of the Shepheard's Calender, with a promise, which unfortunately proved faithless, of committing it to the press. Poetry, observes this commentator, is "no art, but a divine gift and heavenly instinct not to be gotten by labour and learning, but adorned with both; and poured into the witte by a certaine Enthusiasmos and celestial inspiration, as the Author hereof elsewhere at large discourseth in his booke called The English Poet, which booke being lately come to my handes, I minde also by God's grace, upon further advisement, to publish."[463:A] That the taste and erudition of Spenser had rendered this critical essay highly interesting, there is every reason to conclude, and though the only positive testimony to its composition rests on the single authority which we have quoted, it is extremely probable, from the manner in which its acquisition by the commentator is mentioned, that the MS. had circulated, and continued to circulate, among the friends and admirers of the poet, for some years.

Scarcely had the British Solomon published his juvenile criticisms, when a kindred work issued from the London press, under the title of "A Discourse of English Poetrie, together with the Author's Judgment touching the reformation of our English verse. By William Webbe, Graduate. Imprinted at London by John Charlewood. 4to, 1586." Black letter.

The chief purport of this pamphlet, now so rare that only three copies are known to exist[463:B], is to propose, what the author terms, a "perfect platform, or prosodia of versifying, in imitation of the Greeks and Latins," a scheme which, though supported by Sidney, Dyer, Spenser, and Harvey, happily miscarried. "The hexameter verse," says Nash, with great good sense, in his controversy with Harvey, "I graunt to be a gentleman of an auncient house, (so is many an English beggar,) yet this clyme of ours hee cannot thrive in; our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough in; hee goes twitching and hopping in our language, like a man running upon quagmires, up the hill in one syllable and downe the dale in another, retaining no part of that stately smooth gate which he vaunts himself with amongst the Greeks and Latins."[464:A]

Webbe's "Discourse," however, is valuable on account of the characters which he has drawn of the English poets, from Chaucer to his own time. He notices, also, "Gaskoynes Instructions for versifying;" and, after declaring the Shepherd's Calender inferior neither to Theocritus nor Virgil, he expresses an ardent wish that the other works of Spenser might get abroad, and especially his "English Poet, which his friend E. K. did once promise to publish." The tract concludes with the author's assertion, that his "onely ende" in compiling it was "not as an exquisite censure concerning the matter," but "that it might be an occasion to have the same thoroughly, and with greater discretion taken in hande, and laboured by some other of greater abilitie, of whom I know there be manie among the famous poets in London, who both for learning and leysure may handle the argument far more pythelie."[464:B]

In 1588, Abraham Fraunce, another encourager and writer of English Hexameter and Pentameter verses, published in octavo, a critical treatise, a mixture of prose and verse, under the quaint title of "The Arcadian Rhetoricke, or the Precepts of Rhetoricke made plain by example, Greeke, Latyne, Englishe, Italyan, and Spanishe." This rare volume is in the library of Mr. Malone, and is valuable, observes Warton, for its English examples.[464:C]

In the same year which produced Fraunce's work, appeared the Touch-Stone of Wittes, written by Edward Hake, and printed at London by Edmund Botifaunt. This little tract is employed in sketching the features of the chief poets of the day; but differs not materially from Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie, from which, indeed, it is principally compiled. Hake describes himself (in another of his productions called "A Touchstone for this time present,") as an "attorney of the Common Pleas;" mentions his having been educated under John Hopkins, whom he terms a learned and exquisite teacher, and when criticising the Mirrour of Magistrates in his Touchstone of Wittes, speaks of its augmentor, John Higgins, as his particular friend.[465:A]

But by far the most valuable work which was published in the province of criticism, during the life-time of Shakspeare, was written by George Puttenham, and entitled "The Arte of English Poesie, Contrived into three Bookes: The first of Poets and Poesie, the second of Proportion, the third of Ornament. At London Printed by Richard Field, dwelling in the black-Friers neere Ludgate. 1589."

This book, which seems to have been composed considerably anterior to its publication, was printed anonymously, and has been ascribed to Spenser and Sidney.[465:B] Bolton, whose Hypocritica was written in the reign of James I., though not printed until 1722, mentions Puttenham, however, as the reputed author; and a reference to Bolton's manuscript, preserved in the archives at Oxford, enabled Anthony Wood to announce this fact to the public. "There is," says he, "a book in being called The Art of English Poesie, not written by Sydney, as some have thought, but rather by one Puttenham, sometime a Gentleman Pensioner to Qu. Elizab."[465:C]

An elegant reprint of this old critic has been lately (1811) edited by Mr. Haslewood, in which, with indefatigable industry and research, he has collected all that could throw light on the personal and literary history of his author. His opinion of the critical acumen of Puttenham, though favourable, is not too highly coloured. "Puttenham," he remarks, "was a candid but sententious critic. What his observations want in argument, is made up for by the soundness of his judgment; and his conclusions, notwithstanding their brevity, are just and pertinent. He did not hastily scan his author, to indulge in an untimely sneer, and his opinions were adopted by contemporary writers, and have not been dissented from by the moderns."[466:A]

Of the same tenour are the sentiments of Mr. Gilchrist, who opens his analysis of the Arte of English Poesie, with asserting that it "is on many accounts one of the most curious and entertaining, and, intrinsically, one of the most valuable books of the age of Elizabeth;" infinitely superior, he adds, as an elementary treatise on the arts, to the volumes of Wilson and Webbe, "as being formed on a more comprehensive scale, and illustrated by examples; while the copious intermixture of contemporary anecdote, tradition, manners, opinions, and the numerous specimens of coeval poetry, no where else preserved, contribute to form a volume of infinite amusement, curiosity, and value."[466:B]

To various parts of this interesting treatise, we shall have occasion frequently to refer, when discussing the subjects of miscellaneous poetry and metropolitan manners. It is indeed a store-house of poetical erudition.

The next work which, in the order of publication, falls under our notice, is SIR JOHN HARRINGTON'S Apologie of Poetry, prefixed in 1591 to his Version of the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto. It is a production of some merit, displaying both judgment and ingenuity; but is most remarkable for the earliest notice of Puttenham's Arte of Poesie, and for affording a striking proof of the obscurity in which that critic had enveloped himself with regard to its parentage; for though two years had elapsed since its publication, it appears that neither the Queen, her courtiers, nor the literary world, had the slightest idea of its origin, and Sir John speaks of the author under the appellation of "Ignoto." "Neither," says he, "do I suppose it to be greatly behoovefull for this purpose, to trouble you with the curious definitions of a poet and poesie, and with the subtill distinctions of their sundrie kinds; nor to dispute how high and supernatural the name of a Maker is, so christened in English by that unknowne Godfather, that this last yeare save one, viz. 1589, set forth a booke called the Art of English Poetrie: and least of all do I purpose to bestow any long time to argue, whether Plato, Zenophon, and Erasmus, writing fictions and dialogues in prose, may justly be called poets, or whether Lucan writing a story in verse be an historiographer, or whether Master Faire translating Virgil, Master Golding translating Ovid's Metamorphosis, and my selfe in this worke that you see, be any more than versifiers, as the same Ignoto termeth all translators."[467:A]

Poetry, soon after the birth of this Apology, had to boast of a champion of still greater prowess, in the person of SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, whose Defence of Poesie was first made public in 1595. It had, however, been previously circulated in manuscript for some years; thus Sir John Harrington refers to it in his Apology 1591, and there is reason to believe, that it was written so early as 1581 or 1582. This delightful piece of criticism exhibits the taste and erudition of Sir Philip in a striking light; the style is remarkable for amenity and simplicity; the laws of the Drama and Epopœa are laid down with singular judgment and precision, and the cause of poetry is strenuously and successfully supported against the calumny and abuse of the puritanical scowlers, one of whom had the effrontery to dedicate to him his collection of scurrility, in the very title-page of which he classes poets with pipers and jesters, and terms them the "caterpillars of the commonwealth."[468:A]

A very ingenious "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets, with the Greeke, Latine, and Italian Poets," was published by FRANCIS MERES, in 1598, under the title of Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury.[468:B] Meres is certainly much indebted to the thirty-first chapter of the first book of Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie; but he has considerably extended the catalogue of poets, and it should be added, that his comparisons are drawn with no small portion of skill and felicity, and that his criticisms are, for the most part, just and tersely expressed.

Another attempt was made, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, to introduce the Roman measures into English verse, in a duodecimo entitled, "Observations in the Art of English Poesie, by THOMAS CAMPION, wherein it is demonstratively proved, and by example confirmed, that the English toong will receive eight severall kinds of numbers, proper to itselfe, which are all in this book set forth, and were never before this time by any man attempted." London; printed by Richard Field, for Andrew Wise. 1602.

The object of this tract, which is dedicated to Lord Buckhurst, whom he terms, "the noblest judge of poesie," was not only to recommend the adoption of classical metres, but to abolish, if possible, the use of rhime. "For this end," says he in his preface, "have I studyed to induce a true forme of versefying into our language, for the vulgar and unartificial custome of riming hath, I know, detered many excellent wits from the exercise of English Poesy."

In consequence of this determination, he has enforced his "Observations" by examples on the classic model, without rhime; and among them, at p. 12. is a specimen of what he calls Lincentiate Iambicks, which is, in fact, our present blank verse.

This systematic attack upon rhime speedily called forth a consummate master of the art in its defence; for in 1603 appeared, "A Defence of Ryme, against a pamphlet intituled, Observations in the Art of Poesie, wherein is demonstratively proved that ryme is the fittest harmonie of wordes that comports with our language." By Samuel Daniel.

It need scarcely be said that the elegant and correct poet has obtained a complete victory over his opponent, whom he censures, not so much for attempting the introduction of new measures, as for his abuse of rhime; he might have shown his skill, he justly and eloquently observes, "without doing wrong to the honour of the dead, wrong to the fame of the living, and wrong to England, in seeking to lay reproach upon her native ornaments, and to turn the fair stream and full course of her accents, into the shallow current of a loose uncertainty, clean out of the way of her known delight.—Therefore here stand I forth," he adds in a subsequent paragraph, "only to make good the place we have thus taken up, and to defend the sacred monuments erected therein, which contain the honour of the dead, the fame of the living, the glory of peace, and the best power of our speech, and wherein so many honourable spirits have sacrificed to memory their dearest passions, showing by what divine influence they have been moved, and under what stars they lived."[469:A]

Great modesty and good sense distinguish this pamphlet, in which the author candidly allows that rhime has been sometimes too lavishly used and where blank verse might have been substituted with better effect, and he concludes his "Defence" with some excellent remarks on affectation in the choice and collocation of words, a vice from which he was more free than any of his contemporaries, simplicity and purity, in fact, being the leading features of his style.

The last critic of the era to which we are limited, is EDWARD BOLTON, whose "Hypercritica; Or a Rule of Judgment for writing or reading our Historys," a small collection of tracts or essays, "occasioned," says Warton, "by a passage in Sir Henry Seville's Epistle prefixed to his edition of our old Latin historians, 1596,"[470:A] was supposed by Wood, in a note on the MS. preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, to have been written about 1610. But that this date is too early is evident from the work itself; for in the fourth essay, which is entitled "Prime Gardens for gathering English: according to the true gage or standard of the tongue about fifteen or sixteen years ago," King James's poetry is spoken of in the following manner:—"I dare not presume to speak of his Majesty's exercises in this heroick kind, because I see them all left out in that which Montague lord bishop of Winchester hath given us of his royal writings."[470:B] Now Bishop Montague's edition of James's Works was not published until 1616.

The principal writers in prose and poetry, anterior to 1600, are noticed in this fourth division of the Hypercritica, and the judgment passed upon them is, in general, correct and satisfactory, and does credit to the "sensible old English critic," as Warton emphatically terms him.[470:C]

It is remarkable that the Hypercritica should have been suffered to continue in its manuscript state until 1722, at which period it was printed by Anthony Hall at the end of Trivet's "Annalium Continuatio." Oxford, 8vo.

Bolton, whom Ritson calls "a profound scholar and eminent critic[470:D]," was certainly a man of considerable learning, and occupied no small space in the public eye as an historian, philologer, and antiquary.

To this enumeration it may be necessary to add some notice of that industrious race of critics, termed Commentators; a species which, for the last half century, has been employed as laboriously on old English, as formerly were the German Literati on ancient classical, literature. Of this mode of illustration, which has lately thrown so much light on the manners and learning of our poet's age, two early and very ingenious specimens may be mentioned under the reign of Elizabeth and James. The first is the Commentary of E. K. on the Shepheards Calender of Spenser, in 1579; and the second, the learned Notes of Selden on the first eighteen Songs of the Polyolbion of Drayton, 1612; both productions of great merit, but especially the last, which exhibits a large portion of acumen and research, united to an equal share of discrimination and judgment.

Such are the chief critics on English literature who flourished during the life-time of Shakspeare. That some of them contributed very materially towards the improvement of polite literature, and especially of poetry, by stimulating the genius and guiding the taste of their contemporaries, must be readily granted, and more particularly may these benefits be attributed to the labours of Webbe, Puttenham, Sidney, and Meres. How far the manuscripts of Spenser and Bolton, at the commencement and termination of our critical era, assisted to enlighten the public mind, cannot now be ascertained; but as the circulation of works in this state is generally very confined, we cannot suppose, even admitting the industry and admiration of their favoured readers to have been strongly excited, that their effect could have been either widely or permanently felt.

It would be a subject of still greater curiosity, could we determine, with any approach towards precision, in what degree Shakspeare was indebted, for his progress in English literature, to the authors whom we have just enumerated, under the kindred branches of philology and criticism.

Of his assiduity as a reader of English books, whether original or translated, his works afford the most positive and abundant proofs; and that he was peculiarly attentive to the philology of his native language is to be learnt from the same source. We have already noticed his satirical allusion to Florio and Lilly in the character of Holofernes, and a similar stroke on the innovating pedantry of the times, will be found in his Much Ado about Nothing, which was probably directed against another equally bold attempt to alter the whole system of orthography. The experiment was made by Bullokar, of whose Brief Grammar a slight mention has been given, in a book entitled an Amendment of Orthographie for English Speech, 1580; in which the author proposes not only an entire change in the established mode of spelling, but a total revolution also in the practice of printing. To level a sarcasm at the head of this daring innovator may have been the aim of the poet, where he represents Benedict complaining of Claudio, that "he was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose, like an honest man, and a soldier; and now he is turned ORTHOGRAPHER; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes."[472:A]

In a former part of this work we have mentioned some of the books to which our great poet must have had recourse in the progress even of his limited education in the country; and on his settlement in London, we cannot, with any probability, conceive, that a mind so active, comprehensive, and acute, would sit down content with its juvenile acquisitions, and hesitate to inspect those treatises on philology and criticism which had acquired the popular approbation, and were adapted to the years of manhood. Not only, indeed, did he peruse with avidity the Arte of Rhetoricke of Wilson, and the Scolemaster of Ascham, but we are convinced, from a thorough study of his writings, that so extensive was his range of reading, that not a translation from the Greek, the Latin, the Italian, Spanish, or French appeared, but what was soon afterwards to be found in the hands of Shakspeare. His dramas, in fact, even without the aid of his indefatigable commentators, assure us, in almost every page, that, if not erudite from the possession of many languages, he was truly and substantially learned in every other sense; in the vast accumulation of materials drawn through the medium of translation, from the most distant and varied sources.

That he had not only read, but availed himself professionally of Wilson's Rhetoric, will be evident, we think, from a passage quoted by Mr. Chalmers, from this critic, in support of a similar opinion. Wilson has mentioned Timon of Athens in such a manner as might lead Shakspeare to select this misanthrope for dramatic exhibition; but the very character and language of Dogberry seem to be anticipated in the following sketch:—"Another good fellow of the countrey, being an officer and mayor of a toune, and desirous to speak like a fine learned man, having just occasion to rebuke a runnegate fellowe, said after this wise, in a greate heate:—Thou yngraine and vacation knave, if I take thee any more within the circumcision of my dampnation; I will so corrupt thee, that all other vacation knaves shall take ilsample by thee."[473:A]

We cannot, however, coalesce with Mr. Chalmers, in considering the character of Holofernes as founded on the Scholemaster of Ascham, and that in drawing the colloquial excellence ascribed to the pedagogue by Sir Nathaniel, the poet had in his minds-eye the conversation at Lord Burleigh's table, so strikingly recorded by Ascham in his preface. We have not the smallest doubt but that our author had read, and with much pleasure and profit, the invaluable treatise of that accomplished scholar; but the general folly and pedantry of Holofernes are such, notwithstanding the eulogium of his clerical companion, as to preclude all idea that the character could have been sketched from such a model;—it is, in fact, a broad caricature of some well known pedant of the day, and we must agree with the commentators in fixing upon Florio as the most probable prototype.

It will readily be granted, that, if Shakspeare were the assiduous reader which we have supposed him to be, and no judge, indeed, of his works can doubt it, he must have perused with peculiar interest the critical treatises on poets and poetry which were published during his march to fame. It will be considered, therefore, scarcely as an assumption to conclude, that the works of Webbe, Puttenham, Sidney, and Meres were familiar to his mind; and though he must have written with too much haste, and with too much attention to the gratifications of the million, to carry their precepts, and especially the strictures of Sidney, into perfect execution, yet it is very reasonable to conceive that even his early works may have been rendered less imperfect by the perusal of Webbe and Puttenham; and that, as he advanced in his professional career, the improved mechanism of his dramas, and his greater attention to the unities, may have been in some degree derived from the keen invectives of Sir Philip.

That Shakspeare, in return, contributed, more than any other poet, to enrich and modulate his native language, is now freely admitted; but that he was held in similar estimation by his contemporaries, and even at an early period of his poetical progress, may be inferred from what Markham has said of the "poets of his age" in 1595, when Shakspeare had published some of his poems, and had produced his "Romeo," and from what Meres, in 1598, more specifically applies to our author; the former observing, in the Dedication of his Gentleman's Academie, with reference to the Booke of St. Albans, originally published in 1486, that "our tong being not of such puritie then, as at this day the Poets of our age have raised it to: of whom, and in whose behalf I wil say thus much, that our Nation may only thinke herselfe beholding for the glory and exact compendiousnes of our longuage;" and the latter expressly terming our poet, from the superiority of his diction and versification, "mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakspeare."[475:A]

Reverting to the subject of National Literature, we proceed to notice the progress which HISTORY, GENERAL, LOCAL AND PERSONAL, may be deemed to have made, during the era to which we are limited.

History appears in every country to have been late in acquiring its best and most legitimate form, and to have been usually preceded by annals or chronicles, which, aspiring to no unity in arrangement, and void of all political or philosophical deduction, were confined to a bare chronological detail of facts. Such was the state of this important branch of literature on the accession of Elizabeth; numerous chroniclers had flourished from Robert of Gloucester to Fabian and Hall, but with little to recommend them, except the minuteness of their register, and the occasional illustration of manners and customs; and more distinguishable for credulity and prolixity than for any other characteristics.

The chronicle of Holinshed, however, which appeared in 1577, and a second edition in 1587, merits a higher title. It is more full and complete than any of its predecessors, and less loaded with trifling matter. We are much indebted to Reginald Wolfe, the Queen's printer, for stimulating the historian to the undertaking, who was assisted, in his laborious task, by several able coadjutors, and particularly by the Rev. William Harrison, whose Description of England, prefixed to the first volume, is the most interesting and valuable document, as a picture of the country, and of the costume, and mode of living of its inhabitants, which the sixteenth century has produced.

The example of Holinshed was followed, towards the close of our period, by Stowe and Speed, writers more succinct in their narrative, more correct in their style, and more philosophical in their matter. The "History of Great Britain" by Speed, the second edition of which was printed under the author's care in 1620, is, in every respect, a work of very great merit, whether we consider its authorities, or the mode in which it is written. It is in fact a production which may be read with great pleasure and profit at the present day, and makes a nearer approach, than any former chronicle, to the tone of legitimate history.

In the mean time, the more classical form of this branch of literature was making a rapid progress. Numerous attempts were published, partaking of a mixed character, neither assuming the dignity of history, nor descending to the minuteness of the chronicle; Newton's History of the Saracens[476:A] and Fulbeck's Account of the Roman Factions, previous to the reign of Augustus[476:B], may be mentioned as specimens; but the great historians of this period, who condescended to use their native tongue, were Raleigh, Hayward, Knolles, Bacon, and Daniel, writers who in this province still hold no inferior rank among the classics of their country. The "History of the World," by Sir Walter, exhibits great strength of style, and much solidity of judgment; Hayward's Lives of the three Norman Kings, and of Henry the IV. and Edward the VI., contain many curious facts to which sufficient attention has not yet been paid; his diction is neat and smooth, but he adopts too profusely the classical costume of framing speeches for his principal characters. Knolles's "General History of the Turks" is an elaborate and useful work, and its language is clear, nervous, and often powerfully descriptive. Bacon's Henry the VIIth betrays too much of the apologist for arbitrary power, but it is otherwise of great value; it is written from original, and now lost, materials, with vigour and philosophical acuteness. But these historians are excelled, in purity of style and perspicuity of narration, by Daniel, whose "History of England," closing with the reign of Edward the Third, is a production which reflects great credit on the age in which it was written.

We must not omit to mention, however, two historians, who, by rejecting their vernacular language, and adopting that of ancient Rome, acquired for a time a more extended celebrity in this department. Buchanan and Camden are, or should be, familiar to all lovers of history and topography. The "Rerum Scoticarum Historia" of the first of these historians, and the "Annales Rerum Anglicanarum et Hibernicarum" of the second, are productions in deserved estimation; the former for the classical purity and taste exhibited in its composition, the latter for its accuracy and impartiality.

Of that highly interesting and useful branch of History which is included under the title of Voyages and Travels, the era of which we are treating affords a most abundant harvest. The two great collectors, Hakluyt and Purchas, appear within its range, compilers, whose industry and research need fear no rivalry. Hakluyt's first collection was published in a small volume in 1582; was increased to a folio in 1589, and to three volumes of the same size in 1598, containing upwards of two hundred voyages. The still more ample work of Purchas was commenced in 1613, by the publication of the first volume folio, with the title of "Purchas, his Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World, and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered, from the Creation unto this present; in four parts." This elaborate undertaking was greatly augmented in subsequent editions, of which the fourth and best was published in 1626, in five volumes folio, the last four being entitled "Hakluytus Posthumous, or Purchas, his Pilgrims; containing a history of the world, in sea-voyages, and land-travels, by Englishmen and others." Purchas professes to include, in this immense compilation, the substance of above twelve hundred authors; it contains also the maps of Mercator and Hondius, and numerous engravings.

These vast and valuable collections are an honour to the reigns of Elizabeth and James; and, notwithstanding the industry and research of the moderns, have not yet been superseded.

To the gigantic labours of these writers, which include almost every previous book on the subject of voyage or travel, may be added the publications of two or three contemporaries of singular or useful notoriety. In 1611, Thomas Coryate printed the most remarkable of his eccentric productions, under the quaint title of "Crudities hastily gobbled up in five Months Travels, in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, Helvetia, some Parts of High Germany, and the Netherlands." Lond. large 4to. Coryate was a man of consummate vanity, of some learning, but of no judgment. Inflamed with an inextinguishable desire of travelling, he walked over a great part of Europe and Asia, terminating his life, "in the midst of his Indian travail," about the year 1617. Nothing can be more ridiculous than the style, and often the matter of his book, which is preceded by nearly sixty copies of what Fuller calls mock-commending verses. "Prince Henry," says the same writer, "allowed him a pension, and kept him for his servant. Sweet-meats and Coriat made up the last course at all Court-entertainments. Indeed he was the courtier's anvil to trie their witts upon, and sometimes this anvil returned the hammers as hard knocks as it received, his bluntnesse repaying their abusivenesse."[478:A]

A still greater pedestrian than even Coryate lived, at this time, in the person of William Lithgow, who published his "Travels" in 1614. His peregrinations were extended through Europe, Asia, and Africa, and he declares, at the close of his book, that in his three voyages "his painful feet have traced over (besides passages of seas and rivers) thirty-six thousand and odd miles, which draweth near to twice the circumference of the whole earth." His sufferings through the tyranny of the Spanish governor of Malaga, who had tortured, robbed, and imprisoned him, excited so much pity and indignation, that, on his arrival in England, he was conveyed to Theobalds on a feather-bed, being unable to stand, that King James might be an eye-witness of his "martyred anatomy," as he terms the miserable condition to which his body had been reduced. Lithgow's "Travels" are entertaining, and not ill written, but they abound in the marvellous, and too often excite the smile of incredulity.

The "Itinerary, or Ten Yeares Travell through Germany, Italy, England," &c. a folio volume by Fines Moryson, is a production of a far different cast. Moryson is a sober-minded and veracious traveller, and that part of his book which relates to the manners and customs of England and Scotland is peculiarly useful and interesting. He was a native of Lincolnshire, and fellow of Peter-house, Cambridge. "He began his Travels," relates Fuller, "May the first, 1591, over a great part of Christendome, and no small share of Turky, even to Jerusalem, and afterwards printed his observations in a large book, which, for the truth thereof, is in good reputation, for of so great a traveller, he had nothing of a traveller in him, as to stretch in his reports. At last he was Secretary to Charles Blunt, Deputy of Ireland, saw and wrote the conflicts with, and conquest of Tyrone, a discourse which deserveth credit, because the writer's eye guides his pen, and the privacy of his place acquainted him with many secret passages of importance. He dyed about the year of our Lord 1614."[479:A]

In that department of history which may be termed local, including topography and antiquities, the latter half of the sixteenth century had many cultivators. "Persons of greatest eminence in this sort of learning under queen Elizabeth," remarks Nicolson, "were Humphrey Lhuyd, John Twyne, William Harrison, and William Camden."[479:B] Lluyd possessed unrivalled celebrity in his day, for Camden calls him "a learned Briton, who, for knowledge in antiquities, was reputed to carry, after a sort, with him, all the credit and honour." He wrote a variety of tracts, among which is a fragment of a Commentary on Britain; a Description of the Island of Mona; a Description of the Coasts of Scotland; a Chorography of England and Wales; and a Translation of Caradoc's History of Wales, subsequently published by Powel, and again by Wynn. Lluyd practised physic at Denbigh in Wales, and died there about the year 1570. His friend John Twyne, the translator of his Commentarioli Britannicæ, under the title of The Breviary of Britain, Lond. 1573, has been extolled also both by Lee and Nicolson for his knowledge of the history and antiquities of his country. He died in 1581, leaving behind him two books of Commentaries on British History[480:A], which reached the press in 1590, and various Collectanea relative to the antiquities of Britain.

We must here add to Bishop Nicolson's enumeration the name of William Lambarde, the learned author of Archaionomia, sive de priscis Anglorum Legibus, and of the Perambulation of Kent. This last production, which was printed in 1570, is the prolific parent of our county histories, works which have in our days very rapidly increased, and which exhibit the estimation in which they are held, by the high price annexed to their publication.

Of Harrison's "Historical Description of the Island of Britain" we have already taken due notice, and it would be superfluous, in this place, to do more than mention the Britannia of Camden. Proceeding therefore to the reign of James, we have to increase the catalogue with the names of Stowe, Norden, Carew, and Burton. The Survey of London by Stowe, is one of the most early, valuable, and interesting of our topographical pieces; and on it has been founded the subsequent descriptions of Hatton, Seymour, Maitland, Noorthouck, Pennant, and Malcolm. John Norden is well known to the lovers of topography by his Speculum Britanniæ, which was meant to include the chorography of England, but unfortunately extends no farther than the counties of Middlesex and Hertfordshire. Norden was the projector of those useful works familiarly termed Guides, having written a "Guide for English Travellers," and a "Surveyor's Guide," both works of singular merit. He died about the year 1625. Richard Carew, the author of the "Survey of Cornwall," first printed in 1602, and termed, by Fuller, "the pleasant and faithfull description of Cornwall," was educated at Christ-Church, Oxford, where, at the early age of fourteen, though of three years' standing in the University, "he was called out to dispute extempore, before the Earls of Leicester and Warwick, with the matchless Sir Philip Sidney."[481:A] The Cornwall of Carew, though now superseded by the more elaborate history of Dr. Borlase, is a compilation of great merit, and makes a nearer approach than Lambarde's Kent to a perfect model for county topography. Carew died in 1620.

William Burton, the last writer whom we shall mention under this head, though contemporary with Shakspeare for more than forty years, was not an author until six years after the poet's death, when he published his "Description of Leicestershire," folio; a book which, independent of its own utility, had the merit of stimulating Sir William Dugdale to the composition of his admirable "History of Warwickshire." Burton's work was justly considered as carrying forward, on an improved scale, the plan of Lambarde and Carew; it is now, however, thrown into the shade by the most copious, and, in every respect, the most complete county history which this kingdom has hitherto produced, the "Leicestershire" of Mr. Nichols. Burton was the friend of Drayton, and brother to the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy.

The third branch of History, the personal or biographical, cannot boast of any very celebrated cultivator during the period to which we are confined. Many ephemeral sketches, it is true, were given of the naval and military commanders of the day, at a time when enterprise and adventure enjoyed the marked protection of government; but no classical production in biography, properly so called, no enduring specimen of personal history seems to have issued from the press; at least we recollect no example, worth notice, in a separate form, and of the general compilers in this province, we are reduced to mention the names of Fox and Pits. The "Acts and Monuments of the Church," by the first of these writers, commonly called "Fox's Book of Martyrs," is a mixed composition; but as consisting principally of personal detail and anecdote, more peculiarly belonging to the department of biography. The first edition of the "Martyrology" was published in London in 1563, in one thick volume folio, and the fourth in 1583, four years before the death of the author, in two volumes folio. This popular work, which was augmented to three volumes folio in 1632, has undergone numerous editions, and perhaps no book in our language has been more universally read. "It may regarded," remarks Granger, "as a vast Gothic building: in which some things are superfluous, some irregular, and others manifestly wrong: but which, altogether, infuse a kind of religious reverence; and we stand amazed at the labour, if not at the skill, of the architect. This book was, by order of Queen Elizabeth, placed in the common halls of archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, and heads of colleges; and was long looked upon with a veneration next to the Scriptures themselves."[482:A]

John Pits, who died in 1616, was a writer, in not inelegant Latin, of the lives of the Roman Catholic authors of England. His work, which was published after his death, at Paris, in 1619, 4to. is usually known and quoted by the title of De illustribus Angliæ scriptoribus. He is a bold plagiarist from Bale, partial from religious bigotry, and often inaccurate with regard to facts and dates.

To this summary of historical literature it will be necessary to add a few remarks on the translations which were made, during the era in question, from the Greek and Roman historians, as these would necessarily have much influence on the public taste, and would throw open to Shakspeare, and to those of his contemporaries who could not readily appeal to the originals, many sources of imagery and fable. It appears then, that from the year 1550 to the year 1616, all the great historians of Greece and Rome, had been either wholly or in part, familiarized in our language. That the Grecian classics were translated with any large portion of fidelity and spirit, will not easily be admitted, when we find their sense frequently taken from Latin or French versions; but they still served to stimulate curiosity, and to excite emulation. The two first books of Herodotus, 4to. appeared in 1584; Thucydides from the French of Claude de Seyssel, by Thomas Nicolls, folio, in 1550; a great part of Polybius, by Christopher Watson, 8vo. in 1568; Diodorus Siculus, by Thomas Stocker, 4to. in 1569; Appian, 4to. in 1578; Josephus, by Thomas Lodge, folio, in 1602; Ælian, by Abraham Fleming, 4to. in 1576; Herodian, from the Latin version of Politianus, by Nycholas Smyth, 4to. in 1591; and Plutarch's Lives, from the French of Amyot, by Sir Thomas North, folio, in 1579.

The Roman writers were more generally naturalized, without the aid of an intermediate version. Livy and Florus were given to the world by Philemon Holland, folio, in 1600; Tacitus, by Sir Henry Saville and Richard Grenaway, 4to. and folio, in 1591 and 1598; Sallust, by Thomas Paynell, 4to., and by Thomas Heywood, folio, in 1557 and 1608; Suetonius, by Philemon Holland, folio, 1606; Cæsar, by Arthur Golding, 4to., 1565, and by Clement Edmundes, folio, 1600; Justin, by Arthur Golding, 4to., 1564, and by Holland, 1606; Quintus Curtius, by John Brande, 8vo., 1561; Eutropius, by Nic. Haward, 8vo., 1564, and Marcellinus, by P. Holland, folio, 1609.

Such are the chief authors, original and translated, which, in the province of History, general, local, and personal, added liberally to the mass of information and utility which was rapidly accumulating throughout the Shakspearean era.

That our great poet amply availed himself of these stores, more particularly in those dramas which are founded on domestic and foreign history, every attentive reader of his works must have adequate proof. Several, indeed, of the writers that we have enumerated, though exclusively belonging to our period, and throwing much light on the manners, customs, and literature of their age, came rather too late for the poet's purpose; but of those who published sufficiently early, he has made the best use. Traces of his footsteps may be discerned in many of the authors that we have mentioned, but his greatest inroads seem to have been made through the compilations of Holinshed and Hakluyt, and through the version of Plutarch by North. All that was necessary in the minutiæ of fact, was derivable from the labours of the faithful Holinshed; much illustration was to be acquired from the manners-painting pen of Harrison; a knowledge of the globe and its marvels, was attainable in the narratives of Hakluyt; and the character and costume of Greece and Rome were vividly delineated in the delightful, though translated, pages of Plutarch. From these sources, and from a few which existed previous to the commencement of the poet's age, such as the Froissart of Lord Berners, and the Chronicle of Hall, were drawn and coloured those exquisite pictures of manners, history, and individual character, which fix and enrapture attention throughout the dramatic annals of Shakspeare. Indeed, from whatever mine the poet procured his ore, he uniformly purified it into metal of the finest lustre, and it may truly be added, that on the study of the "Histories" of Shakspeare, a more intimate acquaintance with human nature may be founded, than on any other basis.

Whilst on the subject of History, we must deviate in a slight degree from our plan, which excludes the detail of science, to notice two works in Natural History, from which our bard has derived various touches of imagery and description; I mean the Roman and the Gothic Pliny, rendered familiar to our author by the labours of Holland, and Batman; the former having published his Translation of Pliny's immense collection in 1601, folio, and the latter his Commentary upon Bartholome, under the title of "Batman uppon Bartholome his booke De proprietatibus rerum," in 1582, folio. "Shakspeare," says Mr. Douce, speaking of Batman's Bartholome, "was extremely well acquainted with this work;" an assertion which he has sufficiently established in the course of his "Illustrations."[485:A] Few, indeed, were the popular books of his day, to which our author had not access, and from which he has not derived some slight fact or hint conducive to his purpose.

We now approach the last branch of our present subject, Miscellaneous Literature; a topic which, were we not restricted by various other demands, might occupy a volume; for in no era of our annals have miscellaneous writers been more abundant than during the reign of Elizabeth.

A set of men at this time infested the town, in a high degree dissipated in their manners, licentious in their morals, and vindictive in their resentments, yet possessing a large share of native and acquired talent. These adventurers, who hung loose upon society, appear to have seized upon the press for the purpose of indulging an unbounded love of ridicule and raillery, sometimes excited by the mere spirit of badinage and frolic, more frequently stimulated by malignity and revenge, and often goaded to the task by the pressure of deserved poverty. The fertility of these writers is astonishing; the public was absolutely deluged with their productions, which proved incidentally useful, however, in their day, by the exposure of folly, and are valuable, at this time, for the illustrations which they have thrown upon the most evanescent portion of our manners and customs.

Another description of miscellaneous authors, consisted of those who, attached to the discipline of the puritans, employed their pens in inveighing with great bitterness against the dress and amusements of the less rigid part of the community; and a third, equally distant from the levity of the first, and the severity of the second, class, was occupied in calmly discussing the various topics which morals, taste, and literature supplied.

As examples of the first species, no age can produce more extraordinary characters than Nash, Decker, and Greene; men intimately acquainted with all the crimes, follies, and debaucheries of a town-life, indefatigable as writers, and possessing the advantages of learning and genius. Thomas Nash, whose character as a satirist and critic, we have already given in a quotation from Dr. Lodge, died about the year 1600, after a life spent in controversy and dissipation. He had humour, wit, and learning, but debased by a plentiful portion of scurrility and buffoonery; he was born at Leostoffe in Suffolk, educated at Cambridge, where he resided as a Member of St. John's College, nearly seven years, and obtained great celebrity, as the confuter and silencer of the puritanical Mar-prelates, a service that merited the reputation which it procured him. He was the boon companion of Robert Greene, whose vices he shared, and with whom he acted as the unrelenting scourge of the Harveys.

This terror of his opponents, this Aretine of England, though most remarkable for his numerous prose pamphlets, was also a dramatic poet. His productions, as enumerated by Mr. Beloe, amount to five and twenty.[486:A]

Thomas Decker, an author still more prolific, began his career as a dramatic poet about the year 1597, and as a prose writer in 1603. His plays, now lost, preserved, or written in conjunction with others, amount to twenty-eight; but it is in his capacity as a miscellanist that we have here to notice him.

His tracts, of which thirty have been attributed to him, and near five and twenty may be considered as genuine, clearly prove him to have been an acute observer of the fleeting fashions of his age, and a participator in all its follies and vices. His "Gul's Horne Booke, or Fashions to please all sorts of Guls," first printed in 1609, exhibits a very curious, minute, and interesting picture of the manners and habits of the middle class of society, and on this account will be hereafter frequently referred to in these pages.[487:A] That experience had tutored him in the knaveries of the metropolis, the titles of the following pamphlets will sufficiently evince. "THE BELMAN OF LONDON, bringing to Light the most notorious Villanies that are now practised in the Kingdome," 1608; one of the earliest books professing to disclose the slang of thieves and vagabonds; and remarks Warton, from a contemporary writer, the most witty, elegant, and eloquent display of the vices of London then extant.[487:B] "LANTHERN AND CANDLE LIGHT: Or, The Bell-Man's Second Night's Walke. In which he brings to light a Brood of more strange Villanies than ever were till this Yeare discovered" 4to. 1612. "Villanies discovered by Lanthorn and Candle Light, and the Helpe of a new Crier called O-per-se-O. Being an Addition to the Belman's second Night's Walke, with canting Songs never before printed." 4to. 1616. It will occasion no surprise, therefore, if we find this describer of the arts and language of thieving himself in a jail; he was, in fact, confined in the King's Bench prison from 1613 to 1616, if not longer. The most remarkable transaction of his life appears to have been his quarrel with Ben Jonson, who, no doubt sufficiently provoked, satirizes him in his Poetaster, 1601, under the character of Crispinus; a compliment which Decker amply repaid in his "Satiromastix, or the Untrussing of the humorous Poet," 1602, where he lashes Ben without mercy, under the designation of Horace Junior. Jonson replied in an address to the Reader, introduced in the 4to. edition of his play, in place of the epilogue, and points to Decker, under the appellation of the Untrusser. Decker was an old man in 1631, for in his Match me in London, published in that year, he says: "I have been a priest in Apollo's Temple many years, my voice is decaying with my age;" he probably died in 1639, the previous year being the date of his latest production.

Of Robert Greene, the author of near fifty productions[488:A], the history is so highly monitory and interesting as to demand more than a cursory notice. It affords, indeed, one of the most melancholy proofs of learning, taste, and genius being totally inadequate, without a due control over the passions, to produce either happiness or respectability. This misguided man was born at Norwich, about the middle of the sixteenth century, of parents in genteel life and much esteemed. He was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, from whence, at an early period of his education, he was, unfortunately for his future peace of mind, induced to absent himself, on a tour through Italy and Spain. His companions were wild and dissolute, and, according to his own confession[488:B], he ran headlong with them into every species of dissipation and vice.

On his return to England, he took his degree of Batchelor of Arts at St. John's, in 1578, and afterwards, removing to Clare-hall, his Master of Arts degree in that college, 1583. We learn, from one of his numerous tracts, that, immediately after this event, he visited the metropolis, where he led a life of unrestrained debauchery. Greene was one of those men who are perpetually sinning and perpetually repenting; he had a large share of wit, humour, fancy, generosity, and good-nature, but was totally deficient in that strength of mind which is necessary to resist temptation; he was conscious, too, of his great abilities, but at the same time deeply conscious of the waste of talent which had been committed to his care. When we find, therefore, that he was intended for the church, and that he was actually presented to the vicarage of Tollesbury, in Essex, on the 19th of June, 1584[489:A], we may easily conceive how a man of his temperament and habits would feel and act; he resigned it, in fact, the following year, no doubt shocked at the disparity between his profession and his conduct; for we find, from his own relation, that a few years previous to this incident, he had felt extreme compunction on hearing a sermon "preached by a godly learned man," in St. Andrew's Church, Norwich.[489:B]

It was shortly after this period that he married; and, if any thing could have saved Greene from himself, this was the expedient; for the lady he had chosen was beautiful in her person, amiable and moral in her character, and we know, from the works of this unhappy man, that his heart had been the seat of the milder virtues, and that he possessed a strong relish for domestic life.

The result of the experiment must lacerate the feelings of all who hear it; for it exhibits, in a manner never surpassed, the best emotions of our nature withering before the touch of Dissipation. The picture is taken from a pamphlet of our author's, entitled "Never Too Late," printed in 1590, where his career is admirably and confessedly shadowed forth under the character of the Palmer Francesco. It would appear from this striking narrative, if the minutiæ, as well as the outline of it, are applicable to Greene, that he married his wife contrary to the wishes of her father; their pecuniary distress was great, but prudence and affection enabled them to realize the following scene of domestic felicity:—"Hee and Isabel joyntly together taking themselves to a little cottage, began to be as Ciceronicall as they were amorous; with their hands thrift coveting to satisfy their hearts thirst, and to be as diligent in labours, as they were affectionate in loves; so that the parish wherein they lived, so affected them for the course of their life, that they were counted the very mirrors of methode; for he being a scholer, and nurst up in the universities, resolved rather to live by his wit, than any way to be pinched with want, thinking this old sentence to be true, the wishers and woulders were never good householders; therefore he applied himselfe in teaching of a schoole, where by his industry, hee had not onely great favour, but gate wealthe to withstand fortune. Isabel, that shee might seeme no lesse profitable, then her husband carefull, fell to her needle, and with her worke sought to prevent the injurie of necessitie. Thus they laboured to maintain their loves, being as busie as bees, and as true as turtles, as desirous to satisfie the world with their desert, as to feede the humours of their own desires. Living thus in a league of united virtues, out of this mutuall concord of conformed perfection, they had a sonne answerable to their owne proportion, which did increase their amitie, so as the sight of their young infant was a double ratifying of their affection. Fortune and love thus joyning in league, to make these parties to forget the stormes, that had nipped the blossom of their former yeres."[490:A]

The poetry of Greene abounds still more than his prose with the most exquisite delineations of rural peace and content, and the following lines feelingly paint this short and only happy period of his life:—

"Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content, The quiet minde is richer than a crowne: Sweete are the nights in carelesse slumber spent, The poor estate scornes Fortune's angry frowne: Such sweete content, such mindes, such sleepe, such blis, Beggers injoy, when princes oft doe mis.

The homely house that harbours quiet rest, The cottage that affoords no pride nor care, The meane that grees with country musicke best, The sweete consort of mirth and musick's fare, Obscured life sets downe a type of blis, A minde content both crowne and kingdome is."[491:A]

Deeply is it to be lamented, and with a sense, too, of humiliation for the frailty of human nature, that, with such inducements to a moral and rational life, with sufficient to support existence comfortably, for he had some property of his own, and his wife's dowry had been paid[491:B], and with a child whom he loved, and with a wife whom he confesses was endowed with all that could endear and dignify her sex, he could suffer his passions so far to subdue his reason, as to throw these essentials towards happiness away! In the year 1586 he abandoned this amiable woman and her son, to revel in all the vicious indulgences of the metropolis. The causes of this iniquitous desertion may be traced in his works; from these we learn that, in the first place, she had endeavoured, and perhaps too importunately for such an irritable character, to reform his evil propensities[491:C], and secondly that on a visit to London on business, he had been fascinated by the allurements of a courtesan[491:D], and on this woman, whose name was Ball, and on her infamous relations, for her brother was afterwards hanged[491:E], he squandered both his own property and that of his wife.

It is almost without a parallel that during the remainder of Greene's life, including only six years, he was continually groaning with anguish and repentance, and continually plunging into fresh guilt; that in his various tracts he was confessing his sins with the deepest contrition, passionately apostrophizing his injured wife, imploring her forgiveness in the most pathetic terms, and describing, in language the most touching and impressive, the virtue of her whom he had so basely abandoned.

He tells us, under the beautifully drawn character of Isabel, by whom he represents his wife, that upon her being told, by one of his friends, of his intended residence in London, and by another, of the attachment which had fixed him there, she would not at first credit the tale; but, when convinced, she hid her face, and inwardly smothered her sorrows, yet grieving at his follies, though unwilling to hear him censured by others, and at length endeavouring to solace her affliction by repeating to her cittern some applicable verses from the Italian of Ariosto. He then adds, that she subsequently hinted her knowledge of the amour to him in a letter, saying "the onely comfort that I have in thine absence is the child, who lies on his mother's knee, and smiles as wantonly as his father when he was a wooer. But, when the boy sayes, 'Mam where is my dad, when wil he come home;' then the calm of my content turneth to a present storm of piercing sorrow, that I am forced sometime to say, 'unkinde Francesco that forgets his Isabell. I hope Francesco it is thine affaires, not my faults, that procure this long delay."[492:A]

The following pathetic song seems to have been suggested to Greene by the scene just described, and is a further proof of the singular disparity subsisting between his conduct and his feelings:—

"BY A MOTHER TO HER INFANT.

WEEPE not, my Wanton, smile upon my knee, When thou art old theres griefe enough for thee. Mothers wagge, prettie boy, Fathers sorrow, fathers joy; When thy father first did see Such a boy by him and me, He was glad, I was woe, Fortune changd made him so, When he had left his prettie boy, Last his sorrow, first his joy.

Weepe not, my Wanton, smile upon my knee, When thou art old theres griefe enough for thee. Streaming teares that never stint, Like pearle drops from a flint, Fell by course from his eies, That one anothers place supplies. Thus he grieved in every part, Teares of bloud fell from his heart, When he left his prettie boy, Fathers sorrow, fathers joy.

Weep not, my Wanton, smile upon my knee, When thou art old theres griefe enough for thee. The wanton smilde, father wept, Mother cried, babie lept; Now he crow'd more he cride, Nature could not sorrow hide; He must goe, he must kisse Childe and mother, babie blisse, For he left his prettie boy, Fathers sorrow, fathers joy. Weep not, my Wanton, smile upon my knee, When thou art old theres griefe enough for thee."[493:A]

In the mean time he pursued his career of debauchery in Town, whilst his forsaken wife retired into Lincolnshire. In July 1588, he was incorporated at Oxford, at which time, says Wood, he was "a pastoral sonnet maker, and author of several things which were pleasing to men and women of his time: they made much sport, and were valued among scholars."[493:B] In short, such had been the extravagance of Greene, that he was now compelled to write for his daily support, and his biographers, probably without any sufficient foundation, have chosen to consider him as the first of our poets who wrote for bread. It should be recorded, however, that his pen was employed not only for himself but for his wife; for Wood tells us, and it is a mitigating fact which has been strangely overlooked by every other writer, that he "wrote to maintain his wife, and that high and loose course of living which poets generally follow."[494:A] We have reason, indeed, to conclude, that the income which he derived from his literary labours was considerable, for his popularity as a writer of prose pamphlets, which, as Warton observes, may "claim the appellation of satires[494:B]," was unrivalled. Ben Jonson alludes to them in his Every Man out of his Humour[494:C], and Sir Thomas Overbury, describing a chamber-maid, says "she reads Greenes works over and over; but is so carried away with the Mirror of Knighthood, she is many times resolv'd to run out of herself, and become a lady-errant."[494:D]

It must be confessed that many of the prose tracts of Greene are licentious and indecent; but there are many also whose object is useful and whose moral is pure. They are written with great vivacity, several are remarkable for the most poignant raillery, all exhibit a glowing warmth of imagination, and many are interspersed with beautiful and highly polished specimens of his poetical powers. On those which are employed in exposing the machinations of his infamous associates, he seems to place a high value, justly considering their detection as an essential service done to his country; and he fervently thanks his God for enabling him so successfully to lay open the "most horrible Coosenages of the common Conny-Catchers, Cooseners and Crosse Biters," names which in those days designated the perpetrators of every species of deception and knavery.[494:E]

But the most curious and interesting of his numerous pieces, are those which relate to his own character, conduct, and repentance. The titles of these, as they best unfold the laudable views with which they were written, we shall give at length.

1. Greene's Mourning Garment, given him by Repentance at the Funerals of Love, which he presents for a Favour to all young Gentlemen that wishe to weane themselves from wanton Desires. Both pleasant and profitable. By R. Greene, Utriusque Academiæ in Artibus Magister. Sero sed serio. Lond. 1590.

2. Greene's Never Too Late. Sent to all youthful Gentlemen, decyphering in a true English Historie those particular vanities, that with their frosty vapours nip the Blossomes of every Braine from attaining to his intended perfection. As pleasant as profitable, being a right Pumice Stone, apt to race out Idlenesse with delight and Folly with admonition. By Robert Greene, In Artibus Magister. Lond. 1590.

3. Greene's Groatsworth of Wit. Bought with a million of Repentance, describing the Folly of Youth, the Falshood of make-shift Flatteries, the Miserie of the Negligent, and Mishaps of deceyving Courtezans. Published at his dying Request, and newly corrected and of many errors purged. Felicem fuisse infaustum. Lond. 1592.

4. Greene's Farewell to Follie. Sent to Courtiers and Scholers, as a President to warne them from the vaine Delights that drawe Youth on to Repentance. Sero sed serio. By Robert Greene.

5. The Repentance of Robert Greene, Maister of Artes. Wherein, by himselfe, is laid open his loose Life, with the Manner of his Death. Lond. 1592.

6. Greene's Vision. Written at the instant of his death, conteyning a penitent Passion for the folly of his Pen. Sero sed serio. By Robert Greene.

In these publications the author has endeavoured to make all the reparation in his power, by exposing his own weakness and folly, by detailing the melancholy effects of his dissipation, and by painting in the most impressive terms the contrition which he so bitterly felt. In what exquisite poetry he could deplore his vicious habits, and by what admirable precepts he could direct the conduct of others, will be learnt from two extracts taken from his "Never Too Late," in the first of which the Penitent Palmer, the intended symbol of himself, repeats the following ode:

"Whilome in the Winter's rage, A Palmer old and full of age, Sate and thought upon his youth, With eyes, teares, and hart's ruth, Beeing all with cares yblent, When he thought on yeeres mispent, When his follies came to minde, How fond love had made him blinde, And wrapt him in a fielde of woes, Shadowed with pleasures shoes, Then he sighed, and sayd, alas! Man is sinne, and flesh is grasse. I thought my mistres hairs were gold, And in her locks my harte I folde; Her amber tresses were the sight That wrapped me in vaine delight: Her ivorie front, her pretie chin, Were stales that drew me on to sin: Her starry lookes, her christall eyes, Brighter than the sunnes arise: Sparkling pleasing flames of fire, Yoakt my thoughts and my desire, That I gan cry ere I blin, Oh her eyes are paths to sin. Her face was faire, her breath was sweet, All her lookes for love was meete: But love is folly this I know, And beauty fadeth like to snow. Oh why should man delight in pride, Whose blossome like a dew doth glide: When these supposes taught my thought, That world was vaine, and beautie nought, I gan to sigh, and say, alas! Man is sinne, and flesh is grasse."[496:A]

The second extract, entitled The Farewell of a friend, is supposed to be addressed to Francesco the Palmer, "by one of his companions;" such an one, indeed, as might have saved him from ruin, had he sought for the original in real life.

"Let God's worship be thy morning's worke, and his wisdome the direction of thy dayes labour.

"Rise not without thankes, nor sleepe not without repentance.

"Choose but a few friends, and try those; for the flatterer speakes fairest.

"If thy wife be wise, make her thy secretary; else locke thy thoughts in thy heart, for women are seldome silent.

"If she be faire, be not jealous; for suspition cures not womens follies.

"If she be wise, wrong her not; for if thou lovest others she will loath thee.

"Let thy children's nurture be their richest portion: for wisdome is more precious than wealth.

"Be not proude amongst thy poore neighbours; for a poore mans hate is perillous.

"Nor too familiar with great men; for presumption winnes disdaine."[497:A]

The virtues of Greene were, it is to be apprehended, confined to his books, they were theoretical rather than practical; for, however sincere might be his repentance at the moment, or determined his resolution to reform, the impression seems to have been altogether transient; he continued to indulge, with few interruptions, his vicious course, until a death, too accordant with the dissipated tissue of his life, closed the melancholy scene. He died, says Wood, about 1592, of a surfeit taken by eating pickled herrings and drinking Rhenish wine.[497:B] It appears that his friend Nash was of the party.

Of the debauchery, poverty, and misery of Greene, Gabriel Harvey, with whom he had carried on a bitter personal controversy, has left us a highly-coloured description. If the last scene of his life be not exaggerated by this inveterate opponent, it presents us with a picture of distress the most poignant and pathetic upon record.

"I once bemoned," relates Harvey, "the decayed and blasted estate of M. Gascoigne, who wanted not some commendable parts of conceit, and endevour: but unhappy M. Gascoigne, how lordly happy, in comparison of most unhappy M. Greene? He never envyed me so much as I pitied him from my hart; especially when his hostesse Isam, with teares in her eies, and sighes from a deeper fountaine (for she loved him deerely) tould me of his lamentable begging of a penny pott of Malmesie;—and how he was faine poore soule, to borrow her husbandes shirte, whiles his owne was a washing: and how his dublet, and hose, and sworde were sold for three shillings: and beside the charges of his winding sheete, which was four shillinges, and the charges of his buriall yesterday in the New-church yard neere Bedlam, which was six shillinges and foure pence; how deeply hee was indebted to her poore husbande: as appeered by hys owne bonde of tenne poundes: which the good woman kindly shewed me: and beseeched me to read the writing beneath; which was a letter to his abandoned wife, in the behalfe of his gentle host: not so short as persuasible in the beginning, and pittifull in the ending.

Doll,

I charge thee by the love of our youth, and by my soules rest, that thou wilte see this man paide: for if hee and his wife had not succoured me, I had died in the streetes.

ROBERT GREENE."[498:A]

The pity which Harvey assumes upon this occasion may justly be considered as hypocritical; for the pamphlet whence the above extract has been taken, abounds in the most rancorous abuse and exaggerated description of the vices of Greene, and contains, among other invectives, a sonnet unparalleled, perhaps, for the keen severity of its irony, and for the dreadful solemnity of tone in which it is delivered. It is put into the mouth of John Harvey, the physician, who had been dead some years, but who had largely participated of the torrent of satire which Greene had poured upon his brothers, Gabriel and Richard. If it be the composition of Gabriel, and there is reason to suppose this to be the case, from the tract in which it appears, it must be deemed infinitely superior, in point of poetical merit, to any thing else which he has written.

JOHN HARVEY THE PHYSICIAN'S WELCOME TO ROBERT GREENE!

"COME, fellow Greene, come to thy gaping grave, Bid Vanity and Foolery farewell, That overlong hast plaid the mad-brained knave, And overloud hast rung the bawdy bell. Vermine to vermine must repair at last; No fitter house for busie folke to dwell; Thy conny-catching pageants are past, Some other must those arrant stories tell: These hungry wormes thinke long for their repast; Come on; I pardon thy offence to me; It was thy living; be not so aghast! A Fool and a Physitian may agree! And for my brothers never vex thyself; They are not to disease a buried elfe."[499:A]

We have entered thus fully into the character and writings of Greene, from the circumstance of his having been the most popular miscellaneous author of his day, from the striking talent and genius which his productions display, and from the moral lesson to be drawn from his conduct and his sufferings. It may be useful to remark here, that a well chosen selection from his pamphlets, now all extremely rare, would furnish one of the most elegant and interesting volumes in the language.[500:A]

Of the next class of miscellaneous writers, those derived from that part of the community which adhered to the tenets and discipline of the Puritans, and who employed their pens chiefly in satirizing their less enthusiastic neighbours, it will be sufficient to notice two, who have attracted a more than common share of attention, as well for the rancour of their animadversion, as for their rooted antipathy to the stage. The first of these, Stephen Gosson, was educated at Christ Church, Oxford; on leaving the University, he went to London, where he commenced poet and dramatist, and, according to Wood, "for his admirable penning of pastorals, was ranked with Sir P. Sidney, Tho. Chaloner, Edm. Spencer, Abrah. Fraunce, and Rich. Bernfield."[500:B] His dramatic writings, which consist of a tragedy, founded on Cataline's conspiracy, a comedy, and a morality, were never printed. Of his devotion to the Muses, however, he soon after heartily repented, as of a most heinous sin; for, imbibing the sour severity of the Puritans, he left the metropolis, became tutor in a gentleman's family, in the country, and subsequently took orders, declaiming in a style so vehement against the amusements of his early days, as to acquire a great share of popular notoriety. The work by which he is best known is entitled "The Schoole of Abuse. Conteining a pleasaunt Invective against Poets, Plaiers, Jesters, and such like Caterpillers, of a Comonwelth; setting up the Flagge of Defiance to their mischievous exercise, and overthrowing their Bulwarkes by prophane Writers, naturall Reason and common experience. A Discourse as pleasaunt for Gentlemen that favour learning, as profitable for all that wyll follow vertue. By Stephen Gosson, Stud. Oxon." London, 1597. This was speedily followed by another attack in a pamphlet termed, "Playes confuted in five Actions, &c. Proving that they are not to be suffred in a christian common weale, &c.[501:A];" a philippic which he dedicated to Sir Francis Walsingham, as he had done his Schoole to Sir Philip Sidney; both of whom considered the liberty which he had taken, rather in the light of an insult than a compliment.

The warfare of Gosson, however, was mildness itself, compared with that which Philip Stubbes carried on against the same host of poetical sinners. This puritanical zealot, whose work we have repeatedly quoted, commenced his attack upon the public in the year 1583, by publishing in small 8vo. the first edition of his "Anatomie of Abuses: contayning a discoverie, or briefe summarie of such notable vices and imperfections as now rayne in many Christian Countreyes of the Worlde: but (especiallie) in a verie famous Ilande called Ailgna: &c." A second impression, which now lies before me, was printed in 1595, 4to. and both it and the octavo are among the scarcest of Elizabethan books. "Stubbes," remarks Mr. Dibdin, "did what he could, in his Anatomy of Abuses, to disturb every social and harmless amusement of the age. He was the forerunner of that snarling satirist, Prynne; but I ought not thus to cuff him, for fear of bringing upon me the united indignation of a host of black-letter critics and philologists. A large and clean copy of his sorrily printed work, is among the choicest treasures of a Shakspearean virtuoso." He subjoins, in a note, commencing in the true spirit of bibliomaniacism, that "Sir John Hawkins calls this 'a curious and very scarce book;' and so does my friend, Mr. Utterson; who revels in his morrocco-coated copy of it—'Exemplar olim Farmerianum!'" Then proceeding more soberly, he adds, "Let us be candid, and not sacrifice our better judgments to our book-passions. After all, Stubbes's work is a caricatured drawing. It has strong passages, and a few original thoughts; and is, moreover, one of the very few works printed in days of yore, which have running titles to the subjects discussed in them. These may be recommendations with the bibliomaniac: but he should be informed that this volume contains a great deal of puritanical cant, and licentious language: that vices are magnified in it in order to be lashed, and virtues diminished that they might not be noticed. Stubbes equals Prynne in his anathemas against Plays and Interludes; and in his chapters upon 'Dress' and 'Dancing,' he rakes together every coarse and pungent phrase in order to describe 'these horrible sins' with due severity. He is sometimes so indecent, that, for the credit of the age, and of a virgin reign, we must hope that every virtuous dame threw the copy of his book, which came into her possession, behind the fire. This may reasonably account for its present rarity."[502:A]

Of the tone in which Stubbes book is written no inaccurate judgment may be formed from the various passages which we have already quoted; but the following short extract will more fully develope perhaps, the acrimony of his pen than any paragraph that has yet been brought forward. He is speaking of the neglect of Fox's Book of Martyrs, "whilst other toyes, fantasies and bableries," he adds, "wherof the world is ful, are suffered to be printed. Then prophane schedules, sacraligious libels, and hethnical pamphlets of toyes and bableries (the authors whereof may vendicate to themselves no smal commendations, at the hands of the devil for inventing the same) corrupt men's mindes, pervert good wits, allure to baudrie, induce to whordome, suppresse virtue and erect vice: which thing how should it be otherwise? for are they not invented and excogitat by Belzebub, written by Lucifer, licensed by Pluto, printed by Cerberus, and set a broche to sale by the infernal furies themselves to the poysning of the whole world."[502:B]

The works of Gosson and Stubbes are now chiefly valuable for the numerous illustrations which they incidentally give of the manners, customs, dress, and diversions, of their age, and especially for the light which they throw on the character and costume of the stage.

The progress of discussion has at length brought us to the third class of Miscellaneous Writers, who may be considered as possessing a more decorous and philosophic cast in composition than the authors who have just fallen beneath our notice. The individuals of this genus, too, are numerous, but we shall content ourselves with the mention of three, who were more than usually popular in their day, Thomas Lodge, Abraham Fleming, and Gervase Markham. Lodge was educated at Oxford, which he entered about 1573; he took his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Avignon, and practised as a physician in London, where he died in 1625. He was a dramatic poet as well a miscellaneous writer, and was considered by his contemporaries as a man of uncommon genius. He appears to have been, not only a scholar, but a man of the world, to have possessed no small share of wit and humour, and to have uniformly wielded his pen in support of morality and good order. Of his pieces no doubt many have perished; in his professional capacity, only one remains, a Treatise on the Plague; but the productions which acquired him most celebrity were written to expose the follies and vices of the times, and of these, about half a dozen are preserved. He is now best known by his "Wits Miserie and the Worlds Madnesse. Discovering the Devils incarnate of this Age. Lond. 1596:" a tract which, although so extremely rare as to be in the possession of only one or two collectors, has been frequently quoted, owing to its containing some interesting notices of contemporary writers. The principal faults in the literary character of Lodge seem to have been a love of quaintness and affectation; the very titles of his pamphlets indicate the former; the alliteration in the one just transcribed is notorious, and another is termed "Catharos. Diogenes in his Singularitie. Wherein is comprehended his merrie baighting fit for all men's benefits: Christened by him, A Nettle for Nice Noses, 1591." From a passage in The Returne from Pernassus it is evident that he was thought to be deeply tainted with Euphuism, the literary folly of his time. The poet is speaking of Lodge and Watson, both, he says,

—— "subject to a crittick's marginall. Lodge for his oare in every paper boate, He that turnes over Galen every day, To sit and simper Euphue's legacy."[504:A]

Abraham Fleming, the corrector and enlarger of the second edition of Holinshed's Chronicle in 1585, was prodigiously fertile, both as an original writer and a translator. In the latter capacity he gave versions of the Bucolics and Georgics of Virgil, both in rhyme of fourteen feet, 1575, and in the regular Alexandrine without rhyme, 1589; of Ælian's Various History in 1576; of Select Epistles of Cicero, 1576, and in the same year, a Panoplie of Epistles from Tully, Isocrates, Pliny, and others; of the Greek Panegyric of Synesius, and of various Latin works of the fifteenth century. As an original miscellaneous writer, his pieces are still more numerous, and, for the most part, occupied by moral and religious subjects; for example, one is called The Cundyt of Comfort, 1579; a second, The Battel between the Virtues and Vices, 1582, and a third The Diamond of Devotion, 1586. This last is so singularly quaint both in its title-page and divisions, so superior, indeed, in these departments, to the titles of his contemporary Lodge, and so indicative of the curious taste of the times in the methodical arrangement of literary matter, as to call for a further description. The complete title runs thus: "The Diamond of Devotion: Cut and squared into sixe severall pointes: namelie, 1. The Footepath of Felicitie. 2. A Guide to Godlines. 3. The Schoole of Skill. 4. A swarme of Bees. 5. A Plant of Pleasure. 6. A Grove of Graces. Full of manie fruitfull lessons availeable unto the leading of a godlie and reformed life." The Footepath of Felicitie has ten divisions, concluding with a "looking glasse for the Christian reader;" the Guide to Godlines, is divided into three branches, and these branches into so many blossoms; the first branch containing four blossoms, the second thirteen, and the third ten; the Schoole of Skill is digested into three sententious sequences of the A. B. C.; the Swarme of Bees is distributed into ten honeycombs, including two hundred lessons; the Plant of Pleasure bears fourteen several flowers, in prose and verse; the Grove of Graces exhibits forty-two plants, or Graces, for dinner and supper, and the volume concludes with "a briefe praier."

From the specimens which we have seen of Fleming's composition, it would appear, that his affectation was principally confined to his title pages and divisions: for his prose is more easy, natural, and perspicuous, than most of his contemporaries. He was rector of Saint Pancras, Soper-lane, and died in 1607.[505:A]

Gervase Markham, whom we have incidentally mentioned in various parts of this work, was the most indefatigable writer of his era. He was descended of an ancient family in Nottinghamshire, and commenced author about the year 1592. The period of his death is not ascertained; but he must have attained a good old age, for he fought for Charles the First, and obtained a Captain's commission in his army. His education had been very liberal, for he was esteemed a good classical scholar, and he was well versed in the French, Italian, and Spanish languages. As he was a younger son it is probable that his finances were very limited, and that he had recourse to his pen as an additional means of support. "He seems," remarks Sir Egerton Brydges, "to have become a general compiler for the booksellers, and his various works had as numerous impressions as those of Burn and Buchan in our days."[505:B] No subject, indeed, appears to have been rejected by Markham; husbandry, huswifry, farriery, horsemanship, and military tactics, hunting, hawking, fowling, fishing, and archery, heraldry, poetry, romances, and the drama:—all shared his attention and exercised his genius and industry.[506:A] His popularity, in short, in all these various branches was unrivalled; and such was his reputation as a cattle doctor, that the booksellers, aware of the value of his works of this kind in circulation, got him to sign a paper in 1617, in which he bound himself not to publish any thing further on the diseases of "horse, oxe, cowe, sheepe, swine, goates, &c." His books on agriculture were not superseded until the middle of the eighteenth century, and the fifteenth impression of his Cheap and Good Husbandry, which was originally published in 1616, is now before us, dated 1695. Nor were his works on rural amusements less relished; for his Country Contentments, the first edition of which appeared in 1615, had reached the eleventh in 1675. The same good fortune attended him even as a poet, for in England's Parnassus, 1600, he is quoted thirty-four times, forming the largest number of extracts taken from any minor bard in the book. He appears to have been an enthusiast in all that relates to field-sports, and his works, now becoming scarce, are, in many respects, curious and interesting, and display great versatility of talent. By far the greater part of them, as is evident from their dates, was written before the year 1620, though many were subsequently corrected and enlarged.

Having thus given a sketch of three great classes of miscellaneous writers, it will be necessary to add some notice of a few circumstances which more peculiarly distinguished this branch of literature during the life-time of our poet.

It is to the reign of Elizabeth, that we have to ascribe the origin of genuine printed Newspapers, a mode of publication which has now become absolutely essential to the wants of civilised life. The epoch of the Spanish invasion forms that of this interesting innovation, for, previous to the daring attempt of Spain, all public news had been circulated in manuscript, and it was left to the sagacity of Elizabeth and the legislative prudence of Burleigh to discover, how highly useful, in this agitated crisis, would be a more rapid circulation of events, through the medium of the press. Accordingly, in April 1588, when the formidable Armada approached the shores of old England, appeared the first number of The English Mercury. That it was published very frequently, is evident from the circumstance that No. 50, the earliest number now preserved, and which is in the British Museum, Sloane MSS., No. 4106, is dated the 23d of July 1588. It resembles the London Gazette of the present day, with respect to the nature of its articles, one of which presents us with this curious information:—"Yesterday the Scotch Ambassador had a private audience of Her Majesty, and delivered a letter from the King his master, containing the most cordial assurances of adhering to Her Majesty's interests, and to those of the protestant religion; and the young King said to Her Majesty's minister at his court, that all the favour he expected from the Spaniards was, the courtesy of Polyphemus to Ulysses, that he should be devoured the last."[508:A]

So rapid was the progress of newspapers after this memorable introduction, that towards the close of the reign of James, Ben Jonson, in his Staple of News, alludes to them, as fashionable among all ranks of people, and as sought after with the utmost avidity, one consequence of which was, that the greater part of what was communicated was fabricated on the spot. To this grievance the poet refers in an address to his readers, where, speaking of spurious news, he calls it "news made like the Times news, (a weekly cheat to draw money,) and could not be fitter reprehended, than in raising this ridiculous office of the Staple, wherein the age may see her own folly, or hunger and thirst after published pamphlets of news, set out every Saturday, but made all at home, and no syllable of truth in them."[509:A]

Another branch of miscellaneous literature which may be said to have originated at this period, was that employed in the writing of Characters; a species of composition which, if well executed, necessarily throws much light on the manners and customs of its age.

A claim to the first legitimate collection of this kind, may be allotted, on the authority of Fuller, to Sir Thomas Overbury; "he was," says that entertaining compiler, "the first writer of Characters of our nation, so far as I have observed."[509:B] With the exception of two small tracts, descriptive of the characters of rogues and knaves[509:C], this assertion appears to be correct. Few works have been more popular than Overbury's volume; it was printed several times, according to Wood, before the author's death in 1613; but the earliest edition now usually met with, is dated 1614, and is, with great probability, supposed to be the fifth impression, for the sixth, which is not uncommon, was published the subsequent year. Various alterations took place in the title-page of this miscellany, but that of 1614 is as follows:—"A Wife now the Widdow of Sir Thomas Overbury. Being a most exquisite and singular Poem of the Choice of a Wife. Whereunto are added many witty Characters, and conceited Newes, written by himselfe and other learned Gentlemen his friends.

Dignum laude virum musa vetat mori, Cælo musa beat. Hor. Car. lib. iii.

London, Printed for Lawrence Lisle, and are to bee sold at his shop in Paule's Church-yard, at the signe of the Tiger's head. 1614. 4to."[510:A] The characters in this edition amount to twenty-two, but were augmented in the eleventh, printed in 1622, to eighty. So extensive was the sale of this collection, that the sixteenth impression appeared in 1638.

Both the poem and the characters exhibit no small share of talent and discrimination. In Overbury's Wife, observes Mr. Neve, "the sentiments, maxims, and observations with which it abounds, are such as a considerable experience and a correct judgment on mankind alone could furnish. The topics of jealousy, and of the credit and behaviour of women, are treated with great truth, delicacy and perspicuity. The nice distinctions of moral character, and the pattern of female excellence here drawn, contrasted as they were with the heinous and flagrant enormities of the Countess of Essex, rendered this poem extremely popular, when its ingenious author was no more."[510:B] The prose characters, though rather too antithetical in their style, are drawn with a masterly hand, and are evidently the result of personal observation.

Numerous imitations of both were soon brought forward; in 1614 appeared "The Husband. A poeme expressed in a compleat man;" small 8vo.: and in 1616, "A Select Second Husband for Sir Thomas Overburie's Wife; now a matchlesse Widow:" small 8vo.; which were followed by many others. The prose characters established a still more durable precedent, for they continued to form a favourite mode of composition for better than a century. Of these the most immediate offspring were, "Satyrical Characters" by John Stephens, 8vo. 1615, and "The Good and the Badde, or Description of the Worthies and Unworthies of this Age. Where the Best may see their Graces, and the Worst discerne their Basenesse," by Nicholas Breton, 4to. 1616. Perhaps the most valuable collection of characters, previous to the year 1700, is that published by Bishop Earle, in 1628, under the title of Microcosmography, and which may be considered as a pretty faithful delineation of many classes of characters as they existed during the close of the sixteenth, and commencement of the seventeenth, century.[511:A]

One of the earliest attempts at miscellaneous Essay-writing, since become a most fashionable and popular species of literary composition, may likewise very justly be ascribed to a similar epoch. In 1601, Thomas Wright published in small octavo a collection of Essays, on various subjects, which he entitled The Passions of the Minde. This volume, consisting of 336 pages independent of the preface, was re-issued from the press in 1604, enlarged by nearly as much more matter, and in a quarto form; and a third edition in the same size appeared in 1621.

The work is divided into six books, and, from the specimens which we have seen, is undoubtedly the production of a practised pen and a discerning mind. It is termed by Mr. Haslewood, "an amusing and instructive collection of philosophical essays, upon the customary pursuits of the mind;" and he adds, "though a relaxation of manners succeeded the gloomy history of the cowl, and the abolition of the dark cells of superstition; it was long before the moralist ventured to draw either example, or precept, from any other source than Scripture, and the writings of the fathers. Genius run riot in some instances from excess of liberty, but the calm, rational, and universal essayist was a character unknown. In the present work there are passages that possess no inconsiderable portion of ease, spirit, and freedom, diversified with character and anecdote that prove the author mingled with the world to advantage; and could occasionally lighten the hereditary shackles that burthened the moral and philosophical writer."[512:A]

It is, however, to the profound genius of Lord Bacon that we must attribute the earliest legitimate specimen of essay-writing in this country; for though his "Essays on Councils, Civil and Moral," were not completed until 1612, the first part of them was printed in 1597; and in the intended dedication to Prince Henry of this second edition, he assigns his reason for adopting the term essay. "To write just treatises," he observes, "requires leisure in the writer, and leisure in the reader, and therefore are not so fit, neither in your Highness's princely affairs, nor in regard of my continual service, which is the cause that hath made me chuse to write certain brief notes, set down rather significantly than curiously, which I have called Essays. The word is late, but the thing is ancient; for Seneca's Epistles to Lucilius, if you mark them well, are but essays, that is, dispersed meditations, though conveyed in the form of epistles."[512:B] This invaluable work, in a moral and prudential light, perhaps the most useful which any English author has left to posterity, has been the fruitful parent of a more extensive series of similar productions, collectively or periodically published, than any other country can exhibit.

The age of Shakspeare was fertile, also, in what may be termed Parlour-window Miscellanies; books whose aim was to attract the attention of the idle, the dissipated, and the gossipping, by intermingling with the admonitions of the sage, a more than usual share of wit, narrative, and anecdote. Two of these, as exemplars of the whole class, it may be necessary to notice. In 1589, Leonard Wright published "A Display of dutie, dect with sage sayings, pythie sentences, and proper similies: Pleasant to reade, delightfull to heare, and profitable to practise;" a collection which Mr. Haslewood calls "an early and pleasing specimen" of this species of miscellaneous writing. It contains observations and friendly hints on all the principal circumstances and events of life; "certaine necessarie rules both pleasant and profitable for preventing of sicknesse, and preserving of health: prescribed by Dr. Dyet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman;" and concludes with "certaine pretty notes and pleasant conceits, delightfull to many, and hurtfull to none." The author closes "A friendly advertisement touching marriage," by enumerating the infelicities of the man who marries a shrew, where "hee shall finde compact in a little flesh, a great number of bones too hard to digest.—And therefore," adds he, "some do thinke wedlocke to be that same purgatorie, which learned divines have so long contended about, or a sharpe penance to bring sinnefull men to heaven. A merry fellow hearing a preacher say in his sermon, that whosoever would be saved, must take up and beare his cross, ran straight to his wife, and cast her upon his back. . . . .

"Finally, he that will live quiet in wedlocke, must be courteous in speech, cheareful in countinance, provident for his house, carefull to traine up his children in vertue, and patient in bearing the infirmities of his wife. Let all the keyes hang at her girdle, only the purse at his own. He must also be voide of jelosie, which is a vanity to thinke, and more folly to suspect. For eyther it needeth not, or booteth not, and to be jelious without a cause is the next way to have a cause.

"This is the only way, to make a woman dum: To sit and smyle and laugh her out, and not a word, but mum."[513:A]

In 1600, appeared the first edition of "The Golden-grove, moralized in three books: A worke very necessary for all such, as would know how to governe themselves, their houses, or their countrey. Made by W. Vaughan, Master of Artes, and Graduate in the Civill Law." A second edition, "reviewed and enlarged by the Authour," was printed in 1608.

Each book of this work, which displays considerable knowledge both of literature and of mankind, is divided, after a ridiculous fashion of the time, into plants, and these again into chapters. The first book, on the Supreme Being, and on man, contains eleven plants, and eighty-four chapters; the second, on domestic and private duties, five plants, and thirty chapters; and the third, upon the commonwealth, nine plants and seventy-two chapters.

Great extent of reading, and much ingenuity in application, are discoverable in the Golden Grove, accompanied by many curious tales, and local anecdotes. It is one of the books, also, which has thrown light upon the manners and diversions of its age, and will hereafter be quoted on this account. Vaughan, though he professes himself attached to poetry from his earliest days, and has devoted a chapter to its praise, was too much of the puritan to tolerate the stage, against which he inveighs with more acrimony than discrimination. The passages which allude to our old English poets, we shall throw together, as a specimen of his style and composition.

"Jeffery Chaucer, the English poet, was in great account with King Richard the Second, who gave him in reward of his poems, the mannour of Newelme in Oxfordshire.—King Henry the eighth, her late Maiesties father, for a few psalms of David turned into English meeter by Sternhold, made him groome of his privie chamber, and rewarded him with many great giftes besides. Moreover, hee made Sir Thomas More Lord Chauncelour of this realme, whose poeticall workes are as yet in great regard.—Queene Elizabeth made Doctour Haddon, beyng a poet, Master of the Requests.—Neither is our owne age altogether to bee dispraysed. Sir Philip Sydney excelled all our English poets, in rareness of stile and matter. King James, our dread Soveraigne, that now raigneth, is a notable poet, and hath lately set out most learned poems, to the admiration of all his subjects.

"Gladly I could go forward in this subject, which in my stripling yeeres pleased me beyond all others, were it not I delight to bee briefe: and that Sir Philip Sydney hath so sufficiently defended it in his Apology of Poetry; and if I should proceede further in the commendation thereof, whatsoever I write would be eclipsed with the glory of his golden eloquence. Wherefore, I stay myselfe in this place, earnestly beseeching all gentlemen, of what qualitie soever they bee, to advaunce poetrie, or at least to admire it, and not bee so hastie shamefully to abuse that, which they may honestly and lawfully obtayne."[515:A]

We shall conclude these observations on the miscellaneous literature of Shakspeare's time, by noticing one of the earliest of our Facetiæ, the production of an author who may be termed, in allusion to this jeu d'esprit, the Rabelais of England. Had the subject of this satire been less exceptionable in its nature, the popularity which it acquired for a season might have been permanent; but its grossness is such as not to admit of adequate atonement by any portion of wit, however poignant. It is entitled "A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax. Written by Misacmos to his friend and cosin Philostilpnos." London, 1596; and is said to have originated from the author's invention of a water-closet for his house at Kelston.[515:B] The conceit, or pun upon the word Ajax, or a jakes, appears to have been a familiar joke of the time, and had been previously introduced by Shakspeare in his Love's Labour's Lost, when Costard tells Sir Nathaniel, the Curate, on his failure in the character of Alexander, "you will be scraped out of the painted cloth for this: your lion, that holds his poll-ax sitting on a close-stool, will be given to A-jax: he will be the ninth worthy."[515:C] A similar allusion is to be found in Camden and Ben Jonson.

The Metamorphosis, for which Sir John published a witty apology, under the appellation of An Anatomie of the Metamorphosed Ajax, abounds with humour and sarcastic satire, and is valuable as an illustration of the domestic manners of the age. Either from its indecency, however, or its severity upon her courtiers, the facetious author incurred the displeasure of Elizabeth, and was banished for some time from her presence. It is probably to the latter cause that his exile is to be attributed; for in a letter addressed to the knight by his friend, Mr. Robert Markham, and dated 1598, he says:—"Since your departure from hence, you have been spoke of, and with no ill will, both by the nobles and the Queene herself. Your book is almoste forgiven, and I may say forgotten; but not for its lacke of wit or satyr. Those whome you feared moste are now bosoming themselves in the Queene's grace; and tho' her Highnesse signified displeasure in outwarde sorte, yet did she like the marrowe of your booke. Your great enemye, Sir James, did once mention the Star-Chamber, but your good esteeme in better mindes outdid his endeavours, and all is silente again. The Queen is minded to take you to her favour, but she sweareth that she believes you will make epigrams and write misacmos again on her and all the courte; she hath been heard to say, 'that merry poet, her godson, must not come to Greenwich, till he hath grown sober, and leaveth the ladies sportes and frolicks.' She did conceive much disquiet on being tolde you had aimed a shafte at Leicester."[516:A]

The genius of Harrington was destined to revive, with additional vigour, in the person of Swift, who, to an equal share of physical impurity, united a richer, and more fertile vein of coarse humour and caustic satire.

That Shakspeare was well acquainted with the various works which we have noticed in this class of literature, and probably with most of their authors, there is much reason to infer. We have already found[517:A] that he was justly offended with Robert Greene, for the notice which he was pleased to take of him in his Groat's Worth of Witte bought with a Million of Repentance, and there can be no doubt that the philippics of Gosson and Stubbes, being pointedly directed against the stage, would excite his curiosity, and occasionally rouse his indignation. The very popular satires also of Nash and Decker must necessarily have attracted his notice, nor could a mind so excursive as his, have neglected to cull from the varied store which the numerous miscellanies, characters, and essays of the age presented to his view. It can be no difficult task to conceive the delight, and the mental profit, which a genius such as Shakspeare's, of which one characteristic is its fertility in aphoristic precept, must have derived from the study of Lord Bacon's Essays! The apothegmatic treasures of Shakspeare have been lately condensed into a single volume by the judgment and industry of Mr. Lofft, and it may be safely affirmed, that no uninspired works, either in our own or any other language, can be produced, however bulky or voluminous, which contain a richer mine of preceptive wisdom than may be found in these two books of the philosopher and the poet, the Essays of Bacon, and the Aphorisms of Shakspeare.

FOOTNOTES:

[426:A] Chalmers's Supplemental Apology, p. 269.

[429:A] Ascham's Works, Bennet's edit. p. 242. speaking of Windsor.

[429:B] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 491.

[430:A] Holinshed's Chronicles, edit. 1807, vol. i. p. 330.

[430:B] The 1st edit. of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy was published in 1617.

[431:A] Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, fol. edit. p. 84.

[432:A] Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. i. p. 331.

[432:B] "The reader is referred to an account of a preciously bound diminutive godly book (once belonging to Q. Elizabeth), in the first volume of my edition of the British Typographical Antiquities, p. 83.; for which, I understand, the present owner asks the sum of 150_l._ We find that in the 16th year of Elizabeth's reign, she was in possession of 'One Gospell booke, covered with tissue and garnished on th' inside with the crucifix and the Queene's badges of silver guilt, poiz with wodde, leaves and all, cxij oz." Archæologia, vol. xiii. 221.

"I am in possession of the covers of a book, bound (A. D. 1569) in thick parchment or vellum, which has the whole length portrait of Luther on one side, and of Calvin on the other. These portraits, which are executed with uncommon spirit and accuracy, are encircled with a profusion of ornamental borders of the most exquisite taste and richness." Bibliomania, p. 158.

[432:C] "In the PRAYER BOOK which goes by the name of QUEEN ELIZABETH'S, there is a portrait of Her Majesty kneeling upon a superb cushion, with elevated hands, in prayer. This book was first printed in 1575; and is decorated with wood-cut borders of considerable spirit and beauty; representing, among other things, some of the subjects of Holbein's Dance of Death."

[432:D] Dibdin's Bibliomania, 2d edit. 1811, p. 329-331. This book, the most fascinating which has ever been written on Bibliography, is already scarce. It is composed in the highest tone of enthusiasm for the art, and its dialogue and descriptions are given with a mellowness, a warmth and raciness, which absolutely fix and enchant the reader.

[433:A] Strype's Life of Parker, p. 415. 529.

[433:B] Ibid. p. 528.

[433:C] Britannia in Monmouthshire.

[434:A] Fuller's Worthies, part ii. p. 13.

[434:B] Vide Dibdin's Bibliomania, p. 347, 348.

[434:C] Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 177. 8th edit. folio.

[434:D] Vide Hearne's Benedictus, Abbas, p. iv.

[434:E] Anatomy of Melancholy, Democritus to the Reader, p. 5.

[435:A] Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 176, 177.

[436:A] Earl's Microcosmography, p. 74.

[436:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 257, 258. Act i. sc. 4.

[436:C] Ibid. vol. xx. p. 43. Act i. sc. 3.

[437:A] The Compleat Gentleman, 2d edit. p. 54, 55.

[437:B] Dibdin's Typographical Antiquities, Preliminary Disquisition, p. 35.

[438:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 13.

[438:B] Ibid. vol. i. p. 44, 45.

[439:A] Ascham's Works, Bennet's edit. p. 57.

[440:A] Wilson's Arte of Rhetorike, fol. 85, 86.

[441:A] Wilson, book iii. fol. 82.

[441:B] Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, 1589, reprint, p. 121.

[441:C] Berkenhout's Biographia Literaria, p. 377. note a.

[442:A] Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie, 4to. 1586. Vide Oldys's British Librarian, p. 90. from which this quotation is given.

[442:B] Apology of Pierce Pennilesse, 4to. 1593.

[442:C] Wit's Miserie and Word's Madness, 4to. 1596, p. 57.

[442:D] Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasurie, being the second part of Wit's Commonwealth, 1598. Meres terms him "eloquent and wittie John Lillie."

[443:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. iv. p. 399.

[443:B] British Librarian, p. 90. et seq.

[443:C] Whalley's Works of Ben Jonson: Every Man Out of His Humour, act v. sc. 10.

[445:A] Sir Philip Sidney's Works, 7th edit., 1629, fol., p. 619, 620.

[445:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 86. note.

[446:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 93. 134.

[447:A] Peacham's Compleat Gentleman, 4to. 2d edit. p. 43. 53.

[448:A] For specimens of the prose writers of this period, the introduction of which would be too digressive for the plan of this work, I venture to refer the reader to my Essays on the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, 1805, vol. ii. part 3. Essay II. on the Progress and Merits of English Style; or to Burnett's Specimens of English Prose-Writers, vol. ii. 1807.

[449:A] Vide Preface to Baret's Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, English, Latin, Greek, and French, bl. l. folio, London, 1580.

[449:B] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 492.

[450:A] Britannici belli exitus exspectatur: constat enim aditus insulæ esse munitos mirificis molibus. Etiam illud jam cognitum est, neque argenti scrupulum esse ullum in illa insula, neque ullam spem prædæ, nisi ex mancipiis: ex quibus nullos puto te literis, aut musicis eruditos exspectare. Cic. lib. iv. Epist. ad Attic. ep. 16.

[450:B] Vide Cic. Offic. lib. iii. cap. 17.

[450:C] Ascham's Works, Bennet's edit. 4to. p. 338.

[451:A] Park's edition of Lord Orford's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. i. article Elizabeth.

[451:B] Chalmers's Apology, p. 218. note.

[452:A] Ascham's Works, Bennet's edit. 4to. p. 253. 255, 256.

[453:A] "Galateo of Maister John Della Casa, Archbishop of Beneuenta, or rather a treatise of the mañers and behauiours it behoveth a man to uze and eschewe, in his familiar conversation. A worke very necessary and profitable for all gentlemen or other. First written in the Italian tongue, and now done into English by Robert Paterson of Lincolnes Inne Gentleman. Satis si sapienter. Imprinted at London for Raufe Newbery, dwelling in Fleete streate, a little above the Conduit. An. Do. 1576. 4to. 68 leaves, b. l."

[453:B] "The Courtier of Count Baldessar Castilio, devided into foure bookes. Verie necessarie and profitable for young Gentlemen and Gentlewomen abiding in Court, Pallace, or Place. Done into English by Thomas Hobby. London: Printed by John Wolfe, 1588. 4to. pp. 616."

[454:A] Lord Orford's Royal and Noble Authors apud Park, vol. i. p. 93.

[456:A] Walton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 346, 347.

[456:B] The Italian Taylor and his Boy. By Robert Armin, Servant to the King's most excellent Majestie, 1609.

[457:A] Troia Britannica; or Great Britaine's Troy. A Poem divided into xvij sevrall Cantons, intermixed with many pleasant Poeticall Tales. Concluding with an Universall Chronicle from the Creation, untill these present Times. Written by Tho. Heywood. 1609.

[458:A] One of his specimens of "our Englishe reformed Versifying," as he terms it, is entitled Encomium Lauri, and commences thus:—

"What might I call this Tree? A Laurell? O bonny Laurell: Needes to thy bowes will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto;"

lines which Nash, in his Foure Letters confuted, 1593, has most happily ridiculed, representing Harvey walking under the "ewe-tree at Trinitie Hall," and addressing it in similar terms, and making "verses of weather cocks on the top of steeples, as he did once of the weather cocke of Allhallows in Cambridge:—

"O thou weathercocke, that stands on the top of All-hallows, Come thy waies down, if thou dar'st for thy crowne, and take the wall of us!" Vide Todd's Spenser, vol. i. p. xliii.

[459:A] See a copious and interesting account of the controversy between Nash and Harvey, in D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors, vol. ii. p. 1. ad 49.

[459:B] The Returne from Parnassus; or the Scourge of Simony, publiquely acted by the Students in St. John's College in Cambridge, 1606.—Vide Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 49.

[460:A] Wits Miserie And The Worlds Madnesse. Discovering the Devils incarnate of this Age. 1596.—Vide Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. ii. p. 164, 165.

[462:A] For a further and more minute account of James's "Essayes," I refer the reader to Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, vol. i. p. cxix.; to Park's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. i. p. 120; to Censura Literaria, vol. ii. p. 364; and to Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. i. p. 230.

[463:A] Spenser's Works apud Todd, vol. i. p. 161. See also, vol. i. p. vii. and p. clviii.

[463:B] One in the King's Library, one in the late Mr. Malone's collection, and one purchased by the Marquis of Blandford, at the Roxburgh Sale, for 64_l._!

[464:A] Vide Nash's "Four Letters Confuted," and his "Have with ye to Saffron-Walden," and D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors, vol. i.

[464:B] Vide Oldys's British Librarian, p. 86, and Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. i. p. 234.

[464:C] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 406.

[465:A] Warton's History, vol. iii. p. 275.

[465:B] "Mr. Wanley, in his Catalogue of the Harley Library, says he had been told, that Edm. Spencer was the author of that book, which came out anonymous." Vide Todd's Spenser, vol. i. p. clviii.

[465:C] Wood's Athenæ Oxon. edit. 1691. vol. i. col. 184.

[466:A] Haslewood's Reprint, 1811. p. xi.

[466:B] Censura Literaria, vol. i. p. 339.

[467:A] Haslewood's Puttenham, p. x.

[468:A] "The Schole of Abuse; containing a pleasant invective against poets, pipers, players, jesters, &c. and such like caterpillars of the commonwealth, by Ste. Gossen, Stud. Oxon. dedicated to M. Philip Sidney, Esquier, 1579."

[468:B] "Palladis Tamia. Wits Treasury. Being the second part of Wits Common Wealth. By Francis Meres, Maister of Artes of both Universities. Vivitur ingenio, cætera mortis erunt. At London printed by P. Short, for Cuthbert Burbie, and are to be solde at his shop at the Royall Exchange. 1598." Small 8vo. leaves 174. We are under many obligations to Mr. Haslewood for reprinting the whole of the "Comparative Discourse" in the ninth volume of the Censura Literaria, as it must necessarily be to us a subject of frequent reference.

[469:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. iii. p. 558, 559.

[470:A] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 278.

[470:B] Hypercritica. Addresse iv. sect. 3. p. 237.

[470:C] Warton's History, vol. iii. p. 275.

[470:D] Bibliographia Poetica, p. 135.

[472:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 62, 63. Act ii. sc. 3.

[473:A] Wilson's Art of Rhetoric, p. 167, and Chalmers's Apology, p. 160.

[475:A] Meres's Palladis Tamia, in Censura Literaria, vol. ix. p. 46.

[476:A] A notable history of the Saracens. Lond. 4to. 1575.

[476:B] An historical collection of the continued factions, tumults, and massacres of the Romans before the peaceable empire of Augustus Cæsar. Lond. 1600. 8vo. 1601. 4to.

[478:A] Fuller's Worthies of England, part iii. p. 31.

[479:A] Fuller's Worthies, part iii. p. 167, 168.

[479:B] Bishop Nicolson's Historical Library, vol. i. p. 8.

[480:A] De Rebus Albionicis, Britannicis atque Anglicis Commentariorum, lib. duo. Lond. 1590. 8vo.

[481:A] Fuller's Worthies, part i. p. 205.

[482:A] Granger's Biographical History of England, 2d edit. 1775. vol. i. p. 222.

[485:A] As Batman's Bartholome, continues Mr. Douce, "is likely hereafter to form an article in a Shakspearean Library, it may be worth adding that in a private diary written at the time the original price of the volume appears to have been eight shillings."—Illustrations, vol. i. p. 9.

I have lately seen a copy of Batman, marked, in a Sale Catalogue, at three guineas and a half!

[486:A] Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. i. p. 260-274.

[487:A] We are much obliged to Dr. Nott, for a most elegant reprint of this interesting tract; the accompanying notes are highly valuable and illustrative.

[487:B] Vide Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, Fragment of vol. iv. p. 28-64.

[488:A] For a catalogue of these, as far as they have hitherto been discovered, we refer the reader to Mr. Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. ii., and to Censura Literaria, vol. viii.

[488:B] In his pamphlet, entitled The Repentance of Robert Greene, he informs us, that "wags as lewd" as himself "drew him to march into Italy and Spaine," where he "saw and practised such villanie as is abhominable to declare."

[489:A] See Gilchrist's Examination of the Charges of Ben Jonson's enmity to Shakspeare, p. 22.

[489:B] Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. ii. p. 180.

[490:A] Censura Literaria, vol. viii. p. 11, 12.

[491:A] From Greene's Farewell to Follie. Vide Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. vi. p. 7.

[491:B] We learn these circumstances—his having squandered his paternal inheritance and his marriage portion—from his two tracts, Never Too Late, and Repentance, where all the prominent events of his life are detailed.

[491:C] Oldys says, that "he left his wife, for her good advice, in the year 1586." Berkenhout's Biographia Literaria, p. 390. note d.

[491:D] See Censura Literaria, vol. viii. p. 13.

[491:E] Berkenhout, p. 390. note d.

[492:A] "Never Too Late." See Censura Literaria, vol. viii. p. 15.

[493:A] Greene's Arcadia, 1587. Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 191.

[493:B] Berkenhout's Biographia Literaria, p. 389. note b.

[494:A] Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, vol. i. col. 136.

[494:B] History of English Poetry, Fragment of vol. iv. p. 81.

[494:C] Act ii. sc. 3.

[494:D] Vide New and choice Characters of severall Authors, together with that exquisite and unmatcht poeme, The Wife; written by Syr Thomas Overburie. Lond. 1615. p.

[494:E] His "trifling pamphlets of Love," as he himself terms them, (see Repentance of Robert Greene,) we shall not notice; but there are two, under the titles of "Penelope's Webb," and "Ciceronis Amor," which deserve mention, as exhibiting many excellent precepts and examples for the youth of both sexes.

[496:A] Vide Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. vi. p. 9.

[497:A] Never Too Late, part ii. See Censura Literaria, vol. viii. p. 135, 136.

[497:B] Wood's Athenæ Oxon. vol. i. p. 137.

[498:A] Four Letters and Certaine Sonnets. Especially touching Robert Greene, and other Poets by him abused. Lond. 1592. Vide Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 201, 202.

[499:A] Vide D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors, vol. ii. p. 17, 18.

[500:A] This article has been chiefly drawn up from documents afforded by Wood, Berkenhout, Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, D'Israeli, and the Censura Literaria. The extracts selected from his pamphlets by Mr. Beloe, in the opening of his sixth volume, will enable the reader to form a pretty good estimate of the poetical genius of Greene.

[500:B] Wood's Athenæ Oxon. vol. i.

[501:A] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 288. note t.

[502:A] Dibdin's Bibliomania, p. 366, 367, and note.

[502:B] Anatomie of Abuses, sig. P, p. 7.

[504:A] Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 49.

[505:A] For catalogues of Fleming's Works, see Herbert's Typographical Antiquities; Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 402 ad 405. Tanner's Bibliotheca, p. 287, 288, and Censura Literaria, No. viii. p. 313, et seq.

[505:B] Censura Literaria, vol. ii. p. 218.

[506:A] As no complete catalogue of this ingenious author's productions is to be found in any one writer, I have thought it desirable to endeavour to form one, noticing only the first editions, when ascertained, and referring, for the full titles, to the works cited at the close of this note.

1. A Discource of Horsemanshippe, 4to. 1593.

2. Thyrsys and Daphne, 1593.

3. The Gentleman's Academie, or Booke of St. Albans, 4to. 1595.

4. The poem of poems, or Sions muse, contayning the divine song of king Salomon, devided into eight eclogues, 8vo. 1595.

5. The most honourable tragedie of Sir Richard Grenvill knight, a heroick poem, in eight-line stanzas, 8vo. 1595.

6. Devoreux. Vertues tears for the losse of the most christian king Henry, third of that name, king of Fraunce: and the untimely death of the most noble and heroicall gentleman, Walter Devoreux, &c., 4to. 1597.

7. Ariosto's Rogero and Rodomantho, &c. paraphrastically translated. 1598.

8. The Teares of the beloved, or the Lamentation of Saint John, &c. 4to. 1600.

9. Cavelarice, or the English Horseman, 4to. 1607.

10. England's Arcadia, alluding his beginning from Sir Philip Sydney's ending, 4to. 1607.

11. Ariosto's Satyres, 4to. 1608.

12. The Famous Whore, or Noble Courtezan, 4to. 1609.

13. Cure of all diseases, incident to Horses, 4to. 1610.

14. The English Husbandman in two parts, 1613.

15. The Art of Husbandry, first translated from the Latin of Conr. Heresbachius, by Barnaby Googe, 4to. 1614.

16. Country Contentments; or the Husbandman's Recreations, 4to. 1615.

17. The English Huswife, 4to. 1615.

18. Cheap and Good Husbandry, 4to. 1616.

19. Liebault's Le Maison Rustique, or the Country Farm, folio. 1616.

20. The English Horseman, 4to. 1617.

(8. How To Chuse, Ride, Traine, And Diet Both Hunting Horses And Running Horses, 1599.)

22. The Inrichment of the Weald of Kent, 4to.

23. Markham's Farewel to Husbandry, 4to. 1620.

24. The Art of Fowling, 8vo. 1621.

25. Herod and Antipater, a Tragedy, 4to. 1622.

26. The Whole art of Husbandry, contained in Four Bookes, 4to. 1631.

27. The Art of Archerie, 8vo. 1634.

28. The Faithful Farrier, 8vo. 1635.

29. The Soldiers Exercise, 3d edit. 1643.

30. The Way to Get Wealth, 4to. 1638.

31. The English Farrier, 4to. 1649.

32. Epitome concerning the Diseases of Beasts and Poultry, 8vo.

34. His Masterpiece, concerning the curing of Cattle, 4to. an edition 1662.

(10. Marie Magdalen's Lamentations, 4to. 1601.)

Numerous editions of many of these works, with alterations in the title-pages, were published to the year 1700. See Censura Literaria, vol. ii. p. 217-225. Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica, p. 273, 274. Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. ii. p. 244, et seq. and vol. ii. p. 339. Bridges's Theatrum Poetarum, p. 278-285. Biographia Dramatica. British Bibliographer, No. iv. p. 380, 381. Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 485.

[508:A] See Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman, 8vo. p. 106. Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. iv. p. 34, and Andrew's History of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 145, 156.

[509:A] Act ii., at the close.

[509:B] Fuller's Worthies, p. 359.

[509:C] "The Fraternitye of Uacabondes," 1565, and "A Caveat for common Cursetors vulgarely called Uagabones, set forth by Thomas Herman, Esq." 1567.

[510:A] Three editions were probably published in 1614; for Mr. Capel, in his Prolusions, 8vo., notices one in 8vo., and one in 4to. stated in the title-page to be the fourth. Vide Bliss's edition, of the Microcosmography, p. 258, and Censura Literaria, vol. v. p. 363.

[510:B] Cursory Remarks on Ancient English Poets, 1789. p. 27, et seq.

[511:A] For an accurate Catalogue of the various Writers of Characters to the year 1700, consult Bliss's edition of Earle's Microcosmography, 1811.

[512:A] Censura Literaria, vol. ix. p. 168.

[512:B] Bacon's Works, folio edit. 1740, vol. iv. p. 586.

[513:A] British Bibliographer, No. VI. p. 49. 51.

[515:A] British Bibliographer, No. VIII. p. 272, 273.

[515:B] Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. i. p. xi. edit. 1804.

[515:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 187. Act v. sc. 2.

[516:A] Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. i. p. 239, 240.

[517:A] Part II. chap. i.