A Short Sketch of English Literature: From Chaucer to the Present Time [Compiled from English Sources. Reprint 2020] 9783112349229, 9783112349212

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A SHORT SKETCH OF

ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM CHAUCER TO THE PRESENT TIME

COMPILED FROM ENGLISH SOURCES

BY

EL. MANN.

BONN, EDUARD WEBER'S VERLAG. (JULIUS FLITTSEK.) 1883.

Preface. In he not probable event that this book should ever come bei>re English critics, I feel bound to give an account of its origin and its raison d'etre. Having lived in England for x number of years and having imbibed there a deep lovi and veneration for the Literature of the English nation, 1 wished, on my return to Germany, to spread among mr own nation the knowledge I had gathered, but found maiy obstacles in my way. T h e books on English literature accessible to me were cither far too difficult for German t a m e r s who, with the literature, had to master the English tongue; or they were insufficient; so that I had to cnate my own material in setting forth an account of Englisi literature, which should interest in plain, easy language. Not trusting my own power over the English tongue, I compiled the lives of the authors from English books of literature, periodicals, newspapers; in fact, did as some if my betters have done before m e : "je prenais mon bien oil j e le trouvais", and, want it to be understood, onje for all, that of this book nothing belongs to me excep the collecting it into a whole. As it will never m a k e its ivay into England, I hope I have harmed no one, my wish being to spread the knowledge of that g r a n d and beautiful English literature as far as ever I can and to promote theeby a right understanding of the genius of a mighty nition I have a peculiar regard for.

Vor r e d e. Der geneigte Leser, der die englische Vorrede zu dieser Literaturgeschichte gelesen hat oder doch lesen wird, wird sich Uberzeugt haben, dass dieselbe aus Mangel an bei uns in Deutschland vorhandenem Material entstanden ist. Jedenfalls, wenn ein solches Buch in e n g l i s c h e r Sprache, in Deutschland gedruckt, vorhanden ist, war es mir nicht bekannt. Dass die von mir zusammengestellte Geschichte der englischen Literatur eine Lücke ausfüllen könnte, und Manchem als ein willkommenes und unterhaltendes Buch erwünscht sein möchte, veranlasst mich dieselbe dem Drucke zu übergeben, mit dem Beinerken, dass dieselbe keinerlei Ansprüche an Fachgelchrsamkeit oder Ausführlichkeit macht, dass bei dem grossen Keichthum der englischen Literatur viele Autoren weggelassen werden mussten und dass Niemand mehr von der Bescheidenheit des Unternehmens Uberzeugt sein kann, als ich selbst. Rüngsdorf bei Godesberg im April 1883.

Contents. Page

Chaucer and his Contemporaries

1—8

The 15» Century and the First Half of the Ifith Century The Elizabethan Period (including the reign of James I and that of Charles I to the outbreak of the Civil

8—10

War).

1558—1642

10—46

The Period of the Civil War 1042—1660 The Period of 1660—1702

and the Commonwealth

the Restoration

46—60 and

the

Revolution 60—67

First Half of the 18^ Century. The Period of the Artificial School in the reign of Queen Anne and George I 1702—1727

67—81

The Novelists of the 18» Century

81—96

Second Half of the 18

01

Century.

The Dawn of Romantic Poetry.

96 — 117

The 19«' Century. Poets Prose Writers

118—164 146—191

Addenda Envoi Index

192 193 194—205

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23 34 46 52

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Geoffrey Chaucer (1340—1400). " T h e F a t h e r of E n g l i s h P o e t r y " . In order to understand why Chaucer, who lived at the close of the 14 th century, was called the "Father of English Poetry" we need to go back to the early history of England, where we shall find the reason in the fact that England passed through the hands of many masters. The earliest inhabitants of Britain were called Kelts. In the year B. C. 55 Julius Caesar invaded Britain, and the Romans kept possession of the greater part of it until A. D. 409, when they withdrew their forces from the island. During the dominion of the Romans the Britons had lost their power of self-defence, so much that they could not repel the Picts and Scots, inhabitants of the independent north, who poured over the "Wall". They therefore applied for help to the Angles and Saxons, two tribes between Germany and Denmark, who not only drove back these invaders, but took possession of the country for themselves. They, of course, spoke a language akin to the German and Dutch, and although the Danes also afterwards entered the land in large numbers, there was not much change in the language, the Danish being closely allied to the Anglo-Saxon tongue. The first period of English literature is naturally termed the Anglo-Saxon period 449—1066. The most important prose writers of this period, were the Saxon Chroniclers and King Alfred; the poets Caedmon and Cynewulf and the unknown singer of Beoiculf, who noted Maon, Sketch.

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2 down the events of tbeir time. The monks wrote mostly in Latin. In the year 106G another great change passed over England. Edward the Confessor (1042—10G6), the last Saxon king, having died childless, and William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, pretending to have a lawful claim to the throne, came over with his Normans and after the battle of Hastings or Senlac in Sussex, made himself master of England. Although of the same stock as the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans had been settled in France long enough (since 912) to speak the French tongue, which they introduced into Britain. For a long time after the Conquest, the two nations were sworn enemies although living in the same country. The conquerors trampled on the Anglo-Saxons, took their property and despised them. The Saxons continued to speak their own language; but Norman-French was spoken by the nobles, and in courts-of-law. In course of time this breach was healed; the two nations had to live together, and be on terms of intimacy and consequently by degrees the two languages, the Saxon and Norman, Avere united into one, the English language. This is called in English literature the Norman Period 1066—1362. The Normans introduced many new subjects of literature into England, of which the most popular were the originally British legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, which consisted of six principal tales. I The Romance of San Greal, the cup our Lord used in the Last Supper, and in which Joseph of Arimathea caught the blood (sang real) shed on the cross. Joseph is said to have brought it to Britain, and the loss of it is the great misfortune of the nation. II Merlin is the second tale. It describes the fiendprophet himself, and the birth and exploits of Arthur.

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I I I The Romance of Sir Lancelot du Lal;e is the history of one who is the pattern of knighthood and yet lives ill deadly sin. (Guinevere.) IV The Quest of the San Greal describes the wanderings of the Knights of the Round Table and the successful search by one of them for the Holy Vessel, though amid so much sinfulness that the discovery is fruitless. V The Mortc d'Arthur gives the history of the death of Arthur amid wild and supernatural horrors, and tells of the retirement of the surviving Knights to convcnts, where they mourn over the sin and ruin of their race. VI Tristan (the Sir Tristram of Sir W. Scott) which jjives a repetition of some previous tales with added beauties. From the time of Edward I I I (1327—1377), the union may be said to have been completed and although some poets wrote in French, some in Latin, yet there was only one language spoken — the English; (of course in many dialects, and very different from its present shape), and Chaucer being the first great poet who gave form and stability to the English tongue, is, on that account, called "the Father of English poetry". Geoffrey Chancer was born, as he tells us, in London, probably in 1340. Of his parentage nothing is known. Some say, he w a s of noble birth, others that he himself or his father was a merchant. T h a t Chaucer was educated at a University is a fact, but whether at Oxford or Cambridge is doubtful. He is said to have entered the Temple as a l a w - s t u d e n t ; at all events we find him at an early age in the public service and in confidential intimacy with men of high rank. His chief patron was John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who, late in life, contracted a marriage with the sister of the poet's wife. Chaucer served in the great army which E d w a r d III led into France and was taken prisoner, but was released at the peace of Bretigny in 1360. He was employed as joint-envoy to the Duke of

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Genoa and while in Italy probably made the acquaintance of Petrarch. (Francesco Petrarca 1304—1374.) He was appointed clerk of the King's works at Westminster, where it is probable that he ended his days. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the Poet's Corner, the first of that long array of poets who lie there. The poet's wife was Philippa de Roet, maid of honour to Edward Ill's wife, Queen Philippa. Chancer has written many poems, the earlier of which were composed under the influence of French poetry; in his later metrical compositions we find the influence of the Italian poets becoming strong, but in the Canterbury Tales, his greatest and most original work, he shook off all foreign influence. The style of these tales and the subjects of them were no doubt suggested by the Decameron of Boccaccio (1313—1375). Boccaccio, who died twenty-five years before Chaucer, placed the scene of his Decameron in a garden, to which seven fashionable ladies had retired with three fashionable gentlemen to escape the plague which devastated Florence in 1348. They shut themselves up in a beautiful villa on the Arno, and amused themselves by relating a tale each after dinner. The purpose of the storytellers was to help each other to stifle any sympathies they might have had for the terrible griefs of their friends and neighbours who were dying a few miles away. Ten days form the period of their sojourn in the villa, and we have thus a hundred stories. Though Chaucer adopted the framework of the Decameron for his Canterbury Tales, they have a more pleasing origin. A company of pilgrims, consisting of twentynine "sundry folk" meet accidentally at the Tabard Inn, South wark*). The poet himself is one of the party. They *) Until the other day, this famous old hostel, was still standing in that part of London.

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are all bent on a pilgrimage to tbe shrine of Thomas & Becket in the cathedral of Canterbury*). The goodly company, assembled in a manner so natural in those days of pilgrimages and of difficult and dangerous roads, agree to travel together; and at supper, Harry Bailey, the jolly landlord, proposes to accompany the party and serve as a guide, having, as he says, often travelled the road before, and at the same time suggests that they may much enliven the tediousness of the journey by relating stories as they ride. He is to be accepted by the whole party as a kind of judge or umpire, by whose decision everyone is to abide. As the journey to Canterbury occupies one day and the return another, the plan of the whole work, had Chaucer completed it, would have comprised the adventures on the outward journey, the arrival at Canterbury, a description, in all probability, of the splendid religious ceremonies and the visits to the numerous shrines and relics in the cathedral, the return to London, the farewell supper at the Tabard, and dissolution of the pleasant company, which would separate as naturally as they had assembled. Harry Bailey proposes that each pilgrim should relate one tale on the journey out, and one more on the way home; and that on the return of the party to London, he who should be adjudged to have related the best and most amusing story, should sup at the common cost. Chaucer has not finished his design; there are only twenty-four tales, and here the work is broken off. In the Prologue, the poet gives us an exquisite description not only of the person and character, but of the manners, dress, *) Thomas a Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who opposed King Henry II (1154—1189) in all possible manner, was murdered at the altar of Canterbury cathedral by four of Henry's courtiers. Henry II did penance at the tomb of Becket, who was canonized after his death. His body was removed to a magnificent shrine and pilgrimages to his tomb were frequently performed.

and horse of each member of the party. The pilgrims are of all ranks and classes of society. We have — 1. A Knight, a mirror of chivalry, one who loved truth and honour, freedom and courtesy; and although in war he was as bold as a lion, in peace he was "as meek as is a maid; "And never yet no villainy he said "In all his life, unto no manner wight; "He was a very perfect, gentle Knight." 2. His son, a gallant young Squire, with "curled locks as they were laid in press." Besides being brave, he was fond of rich attire, for — "Embroidered was he, as it were a mead "All full of fresh(e) flowers, white and red, "Singing he was or floyting all the day, "He was as fresh as is the month of May; . . . "Well could he sit his horse, and fair(e) ride. "He could songes make and well endite, "Juste and eke dance, and well pourtray and write. "Courteous he was, lowly and serviceable, "And carve before his father at the table." 3.

A yeoman, their attendant on horseback.

4. A prioress, a lady of rank, whose name was Madame Eglantine, and who was taught all manner of good breeding for — "At meat(e) was she well ytaught withal, "She let no morsel from her lippes fall, "Ne wet her fingers in her sauce deep. "Well could she carry a morsel and well keep "That no drop ne fell upon her breast. "In courtesy was set full much her leste "Her overlippe wiped she so clean, "That in her cuppe was no farthing seen "Of grease, when she drunken had her draught."

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5. A jolly Monk, passionately fond of hunting and good cheer; he rode a dainty, well-caparisoned horse, — "And when he rode, men might his bridle hear, "Jingling in a whistling wind, as clear "And eke as loud as doth the chapel-bell "His head was bald and shone as any glass "And eke his face as he had been anointed." G. A Franklin, or country gentleman. Epicurus' own son, who kept open table, and in whose house it "snowed of meat and drink". 7. A Clerk of Oxford, whose horse was "as lean as is a rake and he was not right fat", one who spent on books all the money he could collect, and "gladly would he learn and gladly teach". "8. A Pardoner, or seller of indulgences, ''brimful of pardons come from Rome all hot". 9. A poor Parson of a town, rich in holy thought and work, who set his parishioners the example, that "first he wrought and afterwards he taught". 10. A Ploughman, the parson's brother, who loved God best and his neighbour as himself. Besides these, there are several priests and monks, five wealthy tradesmen, a doctor of physic whose "study was but little of the Bible", and the Wife of Bath, rich and forward in her speech. The tales are all in verse, with the exception of two. Chaucer borrowed the subjects of his stories from the legends of the Chroniclers, from the fabliaux of the Provençal poets and from a delightful old book, a large collection of stories, written in Latin and known as the "Gesta Romanorum" [the Deeds of the Romans], also from the early Italian writers, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio. Perhaps the most pathetic of all the stories is that of patient Griselda, the model and heroine of wifely patience and obedience, narrated by the Clerk of Oxford, and which Chaucer most

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likely took from Petrarch's Latin translation of the last tale in the Decameron. Chaucer also wrote many minor poems. The contemporary and perhaps the friend of Chaucer, John Wycliffe (1324—1384), translated the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English. He is one of the earliest reformers, — though modern Protestants repudiate some of his tenets, — from whom John Huss and Jerome of Prague afterwards took up the like teaching in Bohemia. The unsettled state of the literary language of England at this time cannot be better illustrated than by mentioning the writings of John Gower, who died in 1408. He wrote three great works, one in Latin, the Vox Clamantis, one in French, Speculum Meditantis, and one in English, the Confessio Amantis; nor is he the only author of this time, who wrote in three different languages. T h e 15 th C e n t u r y . The century that followed upon Chaucer's death was the most unproductive in English literature. In the beginning of the century the struggles between the Lollards, the disciples of Wycliffe, and the Church disturbed the land, and from 1455—1485, the wars of the Roses deprived it of all tranquillity. Although there were many poets, hardly a name among them is worth remembering, unless we except that of John Lydgate, a monk of Bury-St-Edmunds, Suffolk, (about 1430), who produced a number of compositions of different kinds. He rhymed history, ballads and legends, made May-games for Aldermen, mummeries for the Lord Mayor and wrote satirical ballads on the follies of the day. If few valuable books were written during the century, much interest was taken in literature in various parts of the country, and towards the end of the century several important events took place, which prepared the way for

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likely took from Petrarch's Latin translation of the last tale in the Decameron. Chaucer also wrote many minor poems. The contemporary and perhaps the friend of Chaucer, John Wycliffe (1324—1384), translated the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English. He is one of the earliest reformers, — though modern Protestants repudiate some of his tenets, — from whom John Huss and Jerome of Prague afterwards took up the like teaching in Bohemia. The unsettled state of the literary language of England at this time cannot be better illustrated than by mentioning the writings of John Gower, who died in 1408. He wrote three great works, one in Latin, the Vox Clamantis, one in French, Speculum Meditantis, and one in English, the Confessio Amantis; nor is he the only author of this time, who wrote in three different languages. T h e 15 th C e n t u r y . The century that followed upon Chaucer's death was the most unproductive in English literature. In the beginning of the century the struggles between the Lollards, the disciples of Wycliffe, and the Church disturbed the land, and from 1455—1485, the wars of the Roses deprived it of all tranquillity. Although there were many poets, hardly a name among them is worth remembering, unless we except that of John Lydgate, a monk of Bury-St-Edmunds, Suffolk, (about 1430), who produced a number of compositions of different kinds. He rhymed history, ballads and legends, made May-games for Aldermen, mummeries for the Lord Mayor and wrote satirical ballads on the follies of the day. If few valuable books were written during the century, much interest was taken in literature in various parts of the country, and towards the end of the century several important events took place, which prepared the way for

the brilliant literary period of tbe reign of Queen Elizabeth. We mean: first, in or abont 1477, the introduction of the art of printing into England by William Caxton (1412— 1492); secondly, a change in philosophy; thirdly, the progress of the Keformation; and lastly in 1453 the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, when fugitive scholars carried the study of the Greek classical authors from Constantinople to Italy, and gave the impulse to what is known in Europe as the Renascence, or Revival of Letters. Many Englishmen went to Italy to study the old Greek writers, and printing helped these men on their return to England to spread their English translations of the Classics. Some of these scholars taught Greek at the universities, others introduced new models of style and metre. T h e F i r s t H a l f of t h e 16 t h C e n t u r y . A new era in English literature was opened by two noblemen, Sir Thomas W y a t t the Elder and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516—1547). One of them had studied in Italy, and they are regarded as the first really modern English poets. They imitated Italian models, and refined the ruggedness of English poetry. Surrey, who was the greater artist of the two, enriched English poetry in a twofold way; he introduced the sonnet, and the ten-syllabled unrhymed line, which is called blank verse, and which was afterwards made the proper metre of the drama. Two learned men belong to the early part of the 16 th century; Roger Ascham, the author of the Schoolmaster and Sir Thomas More, who in 1530 succeeded the great Cardinal Wolsey as Lord Chancellor. More was the friend of Erasmus (1467—1536) and for some time of Henry VIII himself, until he refused to acknowledge the king as Head of the Church, when he was beheaded for high treason. The most famous book More wrote was the Utopia, in which he described an imaginary commonwealth,

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in the imaginary island of Utopia. The book was written in Latin. The Bible was for the first time translated from the original Hebrew and Greek, the N e w Testament in 1525 by William Tyndale (burnt in Flanders in 1536) and the whole Bible in 1535 by Miles Coverdale. These versions have fixed the English language once for all. T h e E l i z a b e t h a n P e r i o d f r o m 1558 —1(342 (including the reign of James I, and that of Charles I, to the outbreak of the Civil War.)

This period which includes the reigns of James I and partly that of Charles I, extends over a much greater space than the reign of Queen Elizabeth proper. As it was the most brilliant in English literature, its influence continued to be felt for a long time. ' The drama constituted its chief literary feature; and its close is contemporary with the outbreak of the Civil War. It contains the noblest names of English literature, those of Spenser, Shakspeare, Hooker, Bacon, besides a host of others who have almost been overlooked in the crowd. The reign of Elizabeth was also one of important political activity and the time of the great discoveries, and counted as many heroes as poets, and not seldom, both these characters were united in the same person, as in the case of Sir Philip Sidney (1554—1586). A far greater poet, Edmund Spenser (1553—1599), the author of the Faerie Queene (Fairy Queen), was a native of London. He was descended from a good family, though not rich, and received his education at the university of Cambridge. When he left the university, he resided for some time in the north of England, and there published his first poem, "the Shepherd's Calendar", a series of pastorals, divided into twelve parts or months. A friend, (Mr. Gabriel Harvey), persuaded him to return to London and introduced him to Sir Philip Sidney, himself a poet

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in the imaginary island of Utopia. The book was written in Latin. The Bible was for the first time translated from the original Hebrew and Greek, the N e w Testament in 1525 by William Tyndale (burnt in Flanders in 1536) and the whole Bible in 1535 by Miles Coverdale. These versions have fixed the English language once for all. T h e E l i z a b e t h a n P e r i o d f r o m 1558 —1(342 (including the reign of James I, and that of Charles I, to the outbreak of the Civil War.)

This period which includes the reigns of James I and partly that of Charles I, extends over a much greater space than the reign of Queen Elizabeth proper. As it was the most brilliant in English literature, its influence continued to be felt for a long time. ' The drama constituted its chief literary feature; and its close is contemporary with the outbreak of the Civil War. It contains the noblest names of English literature, those of Spenser, Shakspeare, Hooker, Bacon, besides a host of others who have almost been overlooked in the crowd. The reign of Elizabeth was also one of important political activity and the time of the great discoveries, and counted as many heroes as poets, and not seldom, both these characters were united in the same person, as in the case of Sir Philip Sidney (1554—1586). A far greater poet, Edmund Spenser (1553—1599), the author of the Faerie Queene (Fairy Queen), was a native of London. He was descended from a good family, though not rich, and received his education at the university of Cambridge. When he left the university, he resided for some time in the north of England, and there published his first poem, "the Shepherd's Calendar", a series of pastorals, divided into twelve parts or months. A friend, (Mr. Gabriel Harvey), persuaded him to return to London and introduced him to Sir Philip Sidney, himself a poet

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and one of the greatest ornaments of the brilliant court of Elizabeth. Sidney, in his turn, recommended the poet to Dudley, Earl of Leicester (his uncle) the favourite of Elizabeth, and after a long delay, he received a grant of forfeited land in the county of Cork, Ireland. He removed to his new abode, Kilcolman Castle, which was surrounded by fine scenery, and here he married his beloved wife, Elizabeth, wrote his great poem the Faerie Quecnc and received the visit of a brother poet, Sir Walter Kaleigh — famous as a soldier, a sailor, a statesman, a poet and an historian, and no less known for his tragic death. The three first books of the Faerie Qiieene published in 1590 and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, were most enthusiastically received. Elizabeth, though not generally liberal, settled a permanent pension on the poet. "All this," her prime-minister Lord Burleigh is said to have exclaimed "for a song?" "Then give him what is reason" rejoined her majesty. Burleigh, who was no admirer of poets and poetry, chose to forget the order of the Queen, until (it is said), she was at last reminded of it by Spenser in the following petition: " I was promised on a time "To have reason for my rhyme; "From that time unto this season, " I received nor rhyme nor reason: — " upon which the pension was paid. Spenser published several shorter poems and in 1596 three more books of

the Faerie Queene. The Irish, who burned to revenge themselves upon the English, rose up in rebellion. Kilcolman Castle was burnt, one of Spenser's children is said to have perished in the flames; the Poet fled to London poor and heartbroken, and not long after died in want; he was, however, buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, near the tomb of Chaucer.

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The Faerie Queene is an allegorical epic poem; the title is somewhat deceptive, as the Faerie Queene presides not over Fairy-Land, but over the land of chivalry. The poem was intended to consist of twelve books, but only six remain. Each of these is divided into twelve cantos and is devoted to the adventures of a particular knight, who personifies a certain virtue, as Holiness, Temperance, Courtesy. In a letter to his friend Raleigh, which Spenser appended to the volume, he explained the nature of the poem, saying: "that it is an Allegory written to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and noble discipline", and that he had chosen Prince Arthur for his hero. "The method of a poet" Spenser continues to say in his letter "is not such as of an historian; for he relates affairs orderly as they were done, accounting as well the times as the actions, but a poet thrusts into the midst, even where it most concerns him, and then referring to the things past, and foretelling things to come, makes a pleasing analysis of them all. The beginning therefore of my history, if it were to be told by an historian, should be the twelfth book which is the last, where I devise that the Faerie Queene kept her annual feast 12 days, upon which 12 days the occasions of the 12 several adventures happened, which being undertaken by 12 several knights are in these 12 books severally handled. The first was this: In the beginning of the feast, there presented himself a tall, clownish young man, who, falling before the queen of fairies desired a boon (as the manner then was), which during the feast she might not refuse; which was that he might have the achievement of any adventure, which during that feast might happen. That being granted, he rested him on the floor, unfit through his rusticity for a better place. Soon after entered a fair Lady, in mourning weeds, rjding on a white ass, with a Dwarf behind her leading a warlike steed, that bore the arms of a Knight, and his spear in

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the D w a r f s hand. She, falling before the queen of fairies, complained that her father and mother, an ancient king and queen, had been by a huge Dragon many years shut up in a brazen castle and therefore besought the Faerie Queene to assign her some one of her knights to take upon him that exploit. Presently that clownish person upstarting, desired that adventure, whereat the Queen much wondering and the Lady much gainsaying, yet he earnestly requested his desire. In the end the Lady told him, that unless that armour which she had brought would serve him (that is the armour of a Christian man, specified by St. Paul; VI Ephesians 13—17) he could not succeed in that enterprise; which being forthwith put upon him, he seemed the goodliest man in all that company and was well liked of the Lady; and eftsoons taking on him knighthood and mounting the strange courscr, he went forth with her of that adventure, where begins the first book: "A gentle knight was pricking on the plain." — The first book relates the expedition of the Red Cross Knight, who is the allegorical representation of Holiness, while his mistress Una represents true Religion, and the adventures of the Knight shadow forth the triumph of Holiness over Heresy. The second book recounts the adventures of Sir Guyon or Temperance; the third those of Britomartis, a female champion or Chastity; the fourth book contains the legends of Cambell and Triamond, allegorising Friendship; the fifth the legend of Artegall or Justice; the sixth that of Sir Calidore or Courtesy. The principal defect of the Faerie Queene is want of unity, which involves loss of interest in the story; we lose sight of Arthur, the nominal hero, and follow the adventures of each separate Knight. Another defect is the monotony of the characters and of the adventures, which generally consist of combats between Knights and monsters,

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giants or wicked enchanters, in which the knights generally come off victorious. On the other hand, Spenser is the most luxurious and melodious of all poets. His creation of scenes and objects is as infinite as varied and beautiful and his language most sweet and harmonious. The Faerie Queene is written in the so called Spenserian stanza, based upon the eight-lined Ottava ltinia, to which Spenser added a ninth line, being of twelve, instead of, as in the others, ten syllables. Of the several minor poems Spenser has written, may be mentioned his beautiful Epithalamhim or Marriage-song on his own nuptials with "the fair Elizabeth". T h e D a w n and P r o g r e s s of the D r a m a . It is possible to trace the first dim dawning of the stage to the custom of a very remote period to represent in a rude dramatic form, legends of the lives of the saints and striking episodes of Bible history, — which received the name of Mysteries or Miracles. The circumstance that these Miracle-plays were performed in French, is a proof that they were imported from F r a n c e ; but, in fact, Mysteries abound in the early literature of all the Western Countries of Europe. These plays were composed and acted by monks, the cathedral was transformed for the occasion into a theatre, the stage was a kind of graduated platform in three divisions rising one over the other, representing Heaven, Earth, and Hell and placed near the altar; the costumes were furnished by the splendid contents of the vestry of the church. A s it was absolutely necessary to introduce some comic element to attract and amuse the common people, the Devil generally played the part of the clown or jester, and Vice was associated with him to be beaten and cudgelled. When the Mysteries had been in use for more than three centuries and had gone through many stages, another

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form of the Drama was substituted for them, entitled a Morality. T h e subjects of this kind of drama were no longer purely religious; instead of the Deity, Saints and Angels personified Morals, as Virtue, Good Counsel, Repentance, Pride and the like were introduced upon the stage. T h e action was in general exceedingly simple, and, as the tone of these Moralities was grave and doctrinal, the Devil and Vicc had to be retained to make mirth for the multitude. When people grew tired of the Moralities, because they stirred no human sympathy, historical characters celebrated for a virtue or a vice were introduced, and when the Reformation began to occupy the hearts of men, the Moralities were used to support the Protestant or Catholic side. Real men and women were shown under the thin cloak of its allegorical characters; the vices and follies of the time were displayed and the stage was becoming a living power. The transition from the Morality to the regular drama was marked by the Interlude, a kind of play which stands midway between them. It differed from the Morality in that most of its characters were drawn from real life. T h e y were very fashionable at the time of Henry VIII. John Heywood, who was supported at his court, was a prolific writer of Interludes. One of his pieces is called the Four Ps. A Palmer (pilgrim to the Holy Land etc.), a Pardoner (seller of pardons or indulgences), a Pothicary, (Apothecary) and a Pedlar, who are the only characters, have a dispute as to who shall tell the grossest falsehood. A n accidental assertion of the Palmer, that he never saw a woman out of patience in his life, takes the others off their guard, all of whom declare it to be the greatest lie they ever heard, and thus the dispute is settled amidst much merriment. Meanwhile,

the

revival of learning had made men

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familiar with the ancient classic drama. A large number of pieces written upon the models of authors in the Latin language, were performed at the Universities and not unfrequently before the Sovereign. In 1551 the first stage of the regular drama begins with the first comedy written in the English language, Ralph Eoyster Doyster, by Nicholas Udall. The hero is a young fop, who imagines every woman to be in love with him, and who gets into all sorts of absurd and humiliating scrapes. This was followed about fourteen years later by Gammer Gurton's Needle, by Bishop Still. The plot of this comedy turns upon the sudden loss of a needle with which Gammer Gurton has been mending a garment of her man Hodge, a loss comparatively serious when needles were rare and costly. The whole intrigue consists in the search after the unfortunate needle, which is at last discovered by Hodge himself on suddenly sitting down. The first English drama Gorloduc or Ferrex and Porrex written by Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst and Thomas Norton, was acted in 1562 before Queen Elizabeth by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple. The subject of this piece is taken from the annals of the old chroniclers. It is written in blank verse (blank verse, as was said before, was first introduced by Lord Surrey, who was beheaded in 1547 by order of Henry VIII, under a false and absurd charge), consists of five acts, and observes some of the rules of the classic drama, by introducing, for instance, a chorus at the beginning of each act. The thirty years that elapsed between the publication of Gorbodttc, (1562) and the age of Shakspeare, showed a great improvement in the drama, and may be called its second stage. There were a number of dramatists who not only wrote for the stage, but who were performers at the same time. Some of the most important of these forerunners of Shakspeare are George Peele (1558—1598) who

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wrote several historical plays, the first that were written in the English language; Thomas Kid, who lived about the same time, particularly known for his powerful play: The Spanish Drama-, Thomas Nash (1567—1600), who amused the town with his fierce attacks upon Gabriel Harvey (Spenser's friend) and on the Puritans; Robert Greene (1560—1592), who wrote satires as well as dramas. Greene, like most of his brother poets, lived a dissipated life, and came to an untimely, miserable end. His best piece is George-a-Green, the name of an old English legendary hero. These dramatists were the first in whose hands the play of human passion and action is expressed with any true dramatic effect. They made their characters act on, and draw out one another in the several scenes, but they had no power of making a plot, or of working out their plays, scene by scene, to a natural conclusion. In one word, they lacked art, and their characters are neither natural nor simple, though the poetry may be good. But by far the most powerful genius among the dramatists, who immediately preceded Shakspeare was Christopher Marlowe (1563—1593). Born at Canterbury and educated at Cambridge, he, on leaving the university, joined a troop of actors, and is recorded to have broken his leg upon the stage. His mode of life was remarkable for vice, and his career was as short as it was disgraceful; he was stabbed in a scuffle in a low public house. Marlowe has written but eight dramas; his first, Taniburlaine, contains a good deal of bombast, but at the same time it has passages of great power. Marlowe's best works are incontestably the dramas Edivard II and Faustus. The latter is founded upon the very same popular legend that Goethe adopted as the groundwork of his tragedy; but the point of view taken by Marlowe is far simpler than that of Goethe; and the English drama contains no trace of the profound self-questioning of the German hero, and of the Mann. Sketch.

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extraordinary creation ofMephistopheles. The witch element, which reigns so wildly and picturesquely in theGerman poem, is here entirely absent. But, on the other hand, there is certainly no passage in the tragedy of Goethe in which terror, despair and remorse are painted with such a powerful hand, as in the great closing scene of Marlowe's piece; when Faustus, after the twenty-four years of pleasure which were stipulated in his pact with the Evil One, is waiting for the inevitable arrival of the fiend to claim his bargain. This is truly dramatic, and is assuredly one of the most impressive Bcenes that ever was placed upon the stage. The tragedy of Edward 11, which was the last of Marlowe's dramas, showed that in some departments of his art, particularly in that of moving terror and pity, he might, had he lived, have become no insignificant rival of Shakspeare himself. Actors and Theatres. The actors used to wander from place to place, performing where they could get audiences. In order to protect them from being treated as vagabonds, persons of rank took some of these strolling actors under their immediate patronage, authorizing them to wear their liveries and badges with an allowance of wages; thence they styled themselves: the Queen's Servants, the Earl of Leicester's Servants and so forth. The first standing theatres, the Theatre and the Curtain, were built in London about 1576; the form of the building was derived from the courtyards of inns, three sides of which were occupied by balconies. There was at first little or no scenery, and the female parts were acted by boys or young men. Very frequently actors were also writers of plays. William Shakspeare (1564—1616). The life of William Shakspeare, the greatest of all dramatists is involved in much obscurity and very little is

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known of him with certainty. He was bom in Stratford-onAvon in Warwickshire in April 1564, it is said on the 23 rd -, the anniversary of St. George, the tutelar saint of England. There have been endless theories, old and new, affirmations and contradictions as to the worldly calling of John Shakspeare the poet's father. He is said to have been a glover, a butcher and also a dealer in wool, but it is not unlikely that he was a moderate landed proprietor cultivating his own soil, and selling the products of his farm. The poet's mother, Mary Arden, was descended from an old family and possessed some property of her own. B y degrees John Shakspeare rose to be Bailiff and chief Alderman of Stratford; he had six children, of whom William was the eldest. It is generally believed that during the boyhood and youth of the poet, John Shakspeare gradually descended to a condition of comparative poverty, and that he was even obliged to take his son William from the free Grammar School of Stratford in order to help him in his business. There is a blank in the poet's history for some years; he is said to have spent some time in a lawyer's office, which may be true, as he was very familiar with legal phrases and illustrations; according to another authority, he held the occupation of a schoolmaster in the country. Whatever his training as well as his occupations may have been, his works prove sufficiently that at least he must have read the book of nature and the hearts of men; and from the frequent allusions in his dramas to classic history and to the mythology of the ancients, and from the general tenor of his works, it is but too certain that he had, by no means, lost his time. His next step in life which is known with certainty was a very imprudent one. In 1582, when not fully eighteen years old, he married Anne Hathaway, who was twenty-six years of age. The marriage neither bettered his circum-

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stances nor his position in life. There were three children horn to W . Shakspeare; Susan, his favourite daughter and twins, Judith and H a m n e t * ) . There are several facts which seem to point to the conclusion that his married life was not a satisfactory one. When he left Stratford for London, where he spent a number of years, his family was left behind, but he frequently returned to Stratford, paying short visits and arranging his affairs in that place. T h e reason for his removal from his native town is stated differently; one story current is that he had been led into deer-stealing by some riotous companions and that, in order to avoid being prosecuted by Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, whose property he had invaded, he secretly left his native town for London, where he arrived in deep poverty and embraced the occupation of a player. Most likely Shakspeare had from his youth been an admirer of plays and actors. Various companies had visited Stratford at different times and had performed there for the amusement of its inhabitants. T h e greatest tragic actor of the day, Richard Burbage, was a Warwickshire man, and Thomas Greene a distinguished member of the. Globe, then the first theatre in London was a native of Stratford, and most likely a kinsman of Shakspeare's; one or the other of them may have induced him to repair to London and try his fortune there. He actually joined the company of the Globe in 1586, first as an actor, but soon he became an arranger of old plays and subsequently a * ) The boy died young; Judith married Thomas Quiny, a vintner (wine-scller in Stratford) and had three boys (Shakspeare, and Thomas) who died young.

Richard

Susan (who married Dr. John Hall)

had one daughter Elizabeth, who died childless, after having been married twice

(first to Mr. Thomas Nash who died in April 1647,

and then to Sir John Barnard of Abington, Northamptonshire, where she died in 1070).

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writer of original ones. Three years after Lis arrival in London, we find liim enrolled among the shareholders of the Globe. His connection with the theatre continued from 158G to his retirement in 1611, a period of 25 years. It is between these dates that most of the thirty-seven dramas which compose his works were written *). During his stay in London Shakspeare's worldly prosperity seems to have gone on steadily increasing, and he appears to have been very wise and prudent in the management of his affairs. When he became known through his plays, his society was courted by men of rank, one of whom, Lord Southampton, is said to have presented him with a thousand guineas as a mark of his admiration. Whether this be true or not, Shakspeare saw himself enabled to gratify a long cherished wish. He purchased in his native town New Place, a handsome landed estate, and in 1613 he retired to Stratford, still visiting London at times and writing for the stage. In 1616 he died prematurely at the age of 52. He is said to have increased a previous indisposition by a merry meeting with two brother poets, Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton. He was interred in Stratford-on-Avon, but there is a monument erected to him in the Poet's Corner, in Westminster Abbey. The works written by Shakspeare consist of two narrative poems or epics on classical subjects, viz. The Rape of Lucrcce and Venus and Adonis; of a book of sonnets, 154 in all, and of 37 dramas. His two epics are most *) The Globe was on Bankside in Southwark, for the convenience of access by water, but mainly to place it out of the jurisdiction of the Corporation of London, which at that time was deeply tinged with Puritanical doctrines. The same company had the privilege of having another playhouse, Blackfriars, within the precincts of London, which was roofed in and served as a winter playhouse.

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likely youthful productions; his sonnets contain fine passages but are not easily understood. Shakspeare's entire career of authorship extends over twenty years and upwards, from 1588—1612. The division of the century roughly marks a division in the literary career of Shakspeare. About 1601, his genius began to seek new ways. Whatever the cause may have been, whether it was connected with Essex' fall, or due to some great personal grief, the histories and joyous comedies then ceased to be created and a series of heart-searching tragedies was commenced. Each of the decades which together make up the twenty years of Shakspeare's authorship, is itself clearly divisible into two shorter periods, making four in all. First Period — from about 1588—1596; years of dramatic apprenticeship. (This period has been called: In the workshop.) Second Period — from 1596—1602; the period of the English historical plays, and the mirthful and joyous comedies. (This period has been designated: In the world.) Third Period — from 1602—1608; the period of grave or bitter comedies, and of the great tragedies. ( T o this period the name: "Out of the depths" has been applied.) Last Period — 1608—1612 or 1613 — the period of romantic plays, which are at once grave and glad, serene and beautiful. (This last period has been styled: On the heights.) If we call Titus Andronicus (1588—90) and the First Part of Henry VI (1590—91) Pre-Shakspearian plays, because he most likely only revised them, the following plays have been assigned to the first period. First Period (1588-96). Early Comedies. Love's Labour Lost (1590) which is full of a young man's thought, wit and satire, a comedy of oddities.

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The Comedy of Errors (1591) a farcical play; the subject is the mistakes of identity which arise from the likeness of twin-born children. Two Gentlemen of Verona (1592—93) may be called a play of love and friendship, with their mutual relations. A Midsummer Night's Dream (1593—94) in which three different elements: the classic legend, the mediaeval fairyland and the clownish life of the English mechanic of Shakspeare's time are mingled in fantastic beauty. Early Histories. The Second and Third Parts of Henry VI (1591—92). The character of Richard, Duke of Gloucester in these plays was recognized by Shakspeare as so well adapted to dramatic purposes that he wrote Richard 111 (1593); the play may be said to be the exhibition of the one central character of Richard III; all subordinate characters arc created that he many wreak his will upon them. Middle Histories. Richard II (1594). The interest of the play centres in two connected things — the personal contrast between Richard II and Henry IV, the falling and the rising kings; the misgovernment of the one inviting and almost justifying the usurpation of the other. King John (1595). The unprincipled character of the king, the excessive grief of Lady Constance for her son, and the sweetness of the young prince constitute the chief interest of the play. Early Tragedy. Romeo and Juliet (1591 or 1596—97) is in its beauty, its passion and its defects characteristically a young man's tragedy. Venus and Adonis, and the Rape of Lucrece, two epic poems, belong to this period, though to two different parts of it.

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Second Period (1596—1602). Middle Comedies. The Merchant of Venice (1596) in which Shakspeare had reached entire mastery over his art by combining the tragic and the comic element. The interest of the drama centres in the development of the characters of Portia and Shylock, Bassanio and Antonio. The Taming of the Shreiv (1597?) ) t w o Pjfys of The Merry Wives of Windsor ( I M S ^ J S J ^ three comedies roMuch Ado about Nothing (1598) mantic and refined; A -VT-7 It Tj /icnm there is ina touch of As You hike (1599) (sadness "As You Tivelfth Night ( 1 6 0 0 - 1 6 0 1 )

L i k e It» in t h e me_ J lancholy of Jaques.

Later Histories. The two parts of Henry IV (1597—98) which with the Merry Wives of Windsor may be called the comedies of Falstaff. Henry V (1599) a splendid dramatic song immortalizing Shakspeare's favourite king. Third Period (1602—1608). This period contains Shakspeare's deepest and most heart-searching plays. Later Comedies. All's Well that Ends Well (1601 - 1 6 0 2 ) j three serious, Measure for Measure (1603) contains I dark, almost Isabella, one of Shakspeare's highest U r a &j- C 0 I J">.1 /.../. , t, i 1 dies, in which conceptions of the female character I a n e y j j w o r i ^ Troilus and Cressida (1605?) J ¡ s pictured. Tragedies. In Julius Caesar (1601) and Hamlet (1602) we see the failure in practical affairs of two men, Brutus and Hamlet, who are called to the

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performance of great actions, but who are disqualified, the former for acting wisely, the latter for actiug energetically. The bonds of life are broken; in Othello (1604) the bonds which unite husband and wife; King Lear (1605) the bonds between parent and child; Macbeth (1606) the bonds of kinship, and of the loyalty of the subject. In Antony and Cleopatra (1607) Antony through selfindulgence, and Coriolanns (1608) through passionate haughtiness, dissolve the bonds which unite them to their country. Timon of Athens (1607—1608) the man-hater, severs himself from humanity itself. Fourth Period. Tho transition from the dark and gloomy tragedies to the serenity of Shakspeare's last plays is most remarkable. From the plays concerned with the violent breaking of bonds, we suddenly pass to a group of plays which are all concerned with the knitting together of human bonds, the re-union of parted kindred, the forgiveness of enemies, the reconciliation of husband and wife, of child with father, of friend to friend. In Pericles (1608) which may not be altogether by Shakspeare, Pericles recovers his lost wife and child. Cymbeline (1609) in which the generous Imogen forgives the suspicions of her husband. The Tempest (1610) in which Prospero forgives the offences of his ambitions brother. The Winter's Tale (1610—11) in which the jealous husband is re-united to his innocent wife and child, whom he had believed dead. Her,ry VIII (1613) belongs to this period and is said not to be by Shakspeare alone.

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That Shakspearc was the greatest dramatist of his and all other ages has long been universally acknowledged. A well-known Shakspeare critic has justly said of him, "that he possesses a power of depicting the characters of men in all their various shades, such as no writer ever possessed; that his works abound with such strokes of wisdom, tenderness, pathos, fancy and humour as must still be pronounced unrivalled. He had a mind reflecting ages past and present, all the people that ever lived are there. There was no "respect of persons" with him. His genius shone equally on the evil and on the good, on the wise and the foolish, the monarch and the beggar. All corners of the earth, kings, queens and states, maids, matrons, nay the secrets of the grave, are hardly hid from his searching glance. He was like the genius of humanity, changing places with all of us at pleasure, and playing with our purposes as with his own. He turned the globe round for his amusement, and surveyed the generations of men and the individuals as they passed with their different concerns, passions, follies, vices, virtues, actions and motives — as well those they knew, as those they did not know or acknowledge to themselves. The dreams of childhood, the ravings of despair, were the toys of his fancy. The world of spirits lay open to him as well; airy beings waited at his call, and came at his bidding." The plots of Shakspeare's dramas were nearly all borrowed, some from novels and romances, others from legendary tales, and some from older plays. The plots of his comedies are mostly of Italian origin; some may be traced to the Gesta Eomanorum. In his Roman subjects he followed Sir Thomas North's translations of Plutarch's Lives. His English historical plays are chiefly taken from Holinshed's Chronicle; they begin with the reign of King John, and end with that of Henry VIII. Of these ten chronicle plays which Shakspeare composed from the an-

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nals of his country, eight are devoted to one great period, and that period is thus illustrated with extraordinary completeness. It is the time between the reigns of Richard II and Richard III, comprehending the intermediate reigns of Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, and the fourth and fifth Edwards. The subject of this era is the great civil conflict between the two branches of the Plantagenet family; the Houses of Lancaster and York. These eight plays constitute in truth one splendid drama, and the subjcct of it may be described as the declinc and fall of the Plantagenet dynasty. The two historical plays which stand detached from this series: King John and Henry VIII may be brought into relation with it by considering King John as a kind of prologue to the series, in as much as it represents an earlier period with all the varied elements of the early mediaeval times, and on the other hand by regarding Henry VIII as an epilogue representing the beginning of the new political and social condition of England in modern times. A r g u m e n t of King

John.

King John (1199—121G), after the decease of his brother Richard, Coeur de Lion, who died childless, took possession of the throne to the prejudice of his nephew Prince Arthur Plantagenet, son of an elder brother, Geoffrey. Prince Arthur, with his mother, the Lady Constance, had taken refuge with Philip II, king of France (1180—1223), who had promised to assist Arthur in recovering England; but no sooner did John invade France with an army, than the fickle Philip broke his word to Arthur by entering into a league with King John, who carried Arthur a captive to England, where he had him put to death. The excessive grief of Constance for her son, the sweetness of the young prince, the unprincipled character of King John, finely contrasted by the manly straightfor-

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wardness of his faithful nephew and follower, Philip Faulconbridge and the crafty Legate, Cardinal Pandulph, constitute the chief interest of the play. A r g u m e n t of Richard

II.

In Richard II (1377—99) the drama is confined to the last year out of the twenty-two during which Richard occupied the throne. In order therefore to understand the play, we must take a short retrospective view of the whole of his reign. When Edward III died, his grandson succeeded him, then a boy of eleven years. He had three paternal uncles, the Dukes of Lancaster, York and Gloucester, whose interference with government matters caused Richard much uneasiness. The lower class of the people were in a state of revolt which broke out into what was called Wat Tyler's rebellion. The young king showed himself fearless and quenched the insurrection. But this was the only instance of heroism the king ever manifested. He gave himself up to unworthy favourites and to a career of prodigality and despotic pride. The discontented nobility confederated against the king with the Duke of Gloucester as their leader. The king had not courage enough to meet his foes openly, the Duke of Gloucester was secretly hurried to Calais and there died suddenly. It is at this point that the drama of Richard II is brought before us. The play opens with a quarrel between the king's own cousin Henry Bolingbroke, son to John of Gaunt, "time-honoured Lancaster", and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, who accuse each other of high treason before the king. Their quarrel is to be decided by single combat at Coventry (Warwick). When every thing is ready for the combat, Richard prevents it (by throwing down his warder). He banishes Norfolk for life, his cousin Bolingbroke (of whose popularity he is jealous) for six years. When this quarrel is settled and Bolingbroke out

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of the vay, Richard goes on headlong in his old career. The pomp of bis court having swallowed up his resources, he extorts money by unlawful means. In the meantime John of Gaunt had died, not without having warned the king from his deathbed that his misrule would lead him to perdition. N) sooner is he dead than the king seizes upon his estates. This act of robbery brings back Henry BoliDg. broke from his exile to claim his patrimony. He lands at Ravenspur in Yorkshire, whilst Richard had gone to Ireland to quell a rebellion there. The discontented nobles flock tc Henry, whose army soon is large enough to encounter. fight and defeat the kiug. Richard's misfortune is the turning-point in his character ; morally the king is to be sunk no lower, but now, with great truth,, and the large charity of a great poet's heart, Shakspeare raises him up again, not indeed to the loftiness of a hero, but to our sympathy and pity. His energy had long ago been squandered and he needs must yield tc his fate; but the hardness of his heart is softened, his dead conscience brought to life, and all the better elements ii his character called up by his sad but just chastisement. From the field of battle he is hurried to Westminster Hall, thjre to resign his throne to his cousin Henry Bolingbroke; and in the deposition scene, in which each word the king utters hides a tear, we see the misery of the heart o:' a fallen king, who has brought hard but just punishnent upon himself and who is laid lower than the ground. Fnm Westminster, Richard is carried away to Pontefract Castle, Yorkshire, to his untimely and violent death. Argument of Henry

IV (1399—1413) (in two parts).

With that remarkable significancy which Shakspeare gives to the opening of his plays, he indicates, in the very

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first lines the character of the reign,, when he introduces King Henry IV saying: "So shaken as we are, so wan with care Find we a time for frighted peace to pant?" When Bolingbroke had taken his seat on the throne as King Henry IV, he found it neither a quiet nor an easy one. His nobles, Avho had assisted him in dethroning Richard, kept fresh in their memories that it was with their help the king had ascended the throne. More powerful than any of these proud noblemen was the family of the Percys, the Earls of Northumberland. Young Henry Percy, or Hotspur as he is generally called, had acquired in his border warfare against the Scots, an indomitable bravery and, at the same time, great confidence in his own personal prowess. After having defeated the great Douglas, Hotspur refused to deliver to the king the prisoners taken in the fight. When Henry showed his displeasure at this, the Percys entered into a league with Glendower, the selfstyled Prince of Wales, and with Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, who being descended from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III, bad a better claim to the throne than the king himself. The rebellion ended with the overthrow of the rebels. Hotspur, the brave, the fiery, the proud, whom we cannot choose but love and admire, was slain at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. Henry was allowed once more to feel secure on his throne at least to outward appearance; for in his fine soliloquy on sleep, he bewails'that: "sleep, gentle sleep, nature's soft nurse" has deserted his kingly couch to court the "poorest of his many thousand subjects", thus revealing by his words that his nights were as uneasy as his days. "The two parts of Henry IV vary largely from the rest of the Chronicle plays inasmuch as they contain a large proportion of the comic element of life. As the

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scenes change, we behold the interior of the palace, with all the business, anxieties and perplexities of the realm; or the castles of the nobles, where the dark game of conspiracy or the bolder work of rebellion is preparing, and then we turn to see the frolic and revelry of a London tavern, with the matchless wit of one of Shakspeare's most remarkable creations sparkling through the profligacy of the place. We are now at Windsor with the king, or at Bangor with the insurgent nobles, and then we are at the Boar's Head Tavern with Falstaff and his gay companions. We see Henry IV in his palace growing wan and careworn with the troubles of his government, becoming an old man in mid-life; and then we see Falstaff fat, and doubtless growing fatter as he "takes his ease at his inn" — an old man, but with a boyish flow of frolic and spirits; indulging his inexhaustible wit by making merriment for himself and the heir apparent." "The link of association between the serious and the comic parts of these plays is to be found in the character of him, who is the Prince Henry of the Palace, and the Prince Hal of his boon companions in the tavern; — for we meet him in both places, more at home, however, in the places of his amusement than in the place of his rank." Prince Henry, however, is not a depraved man, and Shakspeare brings before us, from the very outset, the thoughtful element in his character, which, by his seemingly loose behaviour, might be overshadowed and darkened awhile, like the sun by clouds and vapours, but which by aid of his own moral strength will be sure to dispel those mists and vapours, bursting forth like a sun in his natural beauty and power — a wonder to the astonished world.

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A r g u m e n t of Henry

V.

Of the many kings which Shakspeare has placed in imperishable individuality before us, Henry V was manifestly the favourite of the poet's heart, and in the multitude of the characters of all kinds which he has portrayed or created, probably no subject was more congenial to him, than the whole career of Henry V from his first introduction as Prince of Wales. As before mentioned, from the very beginning Shakspeare pointed out the undercurrent of real deep feeling in the Prince's heart. When the rebellion of the Percys called Prince Henry into action, he for the first time showed himself a hero and a prince; for to him the victory of the battle of Shrewsbury was due. At his father's death being left king of England, he severed himself with one manly effort from his old companions, giving up his life and energies to the duties of his high rank. The great work of his reign was his wars with France. He revived the old claim put forth by Edward III to the throne of France on account of his being descended through his mother (Isabella) from Philip IV of France (1285 -1314). France was at the time plunged into great disorders through the lunacy of its monarch, Charles VI (1380—1422). The opportunity seeming favourable, Henry V declared war, and carried his army into France. The English fought and won the battle of Agincourt in 1415, and this battle is the subject of the drama. Shakspeare shows the popular character of Henry, who is the soul and idol of his army, and who sharing every hardship and danger with his soldiers, animates them by his kind words full of wisdom. The address to his noblemen on the eve of the battle of Agincourt is one of the many outbursts of his generous, brave heart. Intending this drama as a kind of triumphal song,

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Shakspeare has carried it, not as usual to the monarch's death, but to his marriage to Katherine of France, daughter of Charles VI. Argument of Henry

VI (1422—1461).

The three parts of Henry VI are so manifestly inferior to the rest of the chronicle plays, that Shakspeare's authorship of them has been questioned. Henry VI, a mere infant at the time of his father's death, was crowned king of France in Paris, and king of England in London, and died the most wretched of beings in the Tower. The subject of the three dramas may be divided into two parts. First: the reverses of the English in France during the minority of Henry VI, and their final expulsion from French soil through the instrumentality of the heroic maiden, Joan of Arc; and second: the outbreak of the War of the Roses in England (1435—1485) which ended in the final overthrow of the House of Lancaster, and the death of Henry VI and his young son Edward. "The character of Henry VI in whose gentle heart patience was so engrafted that he never asked vengeance or punishment for the many injuries committed against him, always accepting them as punishment for his own or his forefathers' sins, is well sustained; then we have Warwick, the king-maker, and Margaret the unwomanly queen, who, perhaps, may have been forced into her masculine demeanour by her husband's weakness." Argument of Richard

III

(1483—85).

One of the worst of the many evil consequences of a Civil War is, that it hardens the hearts and minds of men and makes them lose the horror of scenes of violence and bloodshed. There had sprung up in the family of York one man who was much worse than the times he lived in, Mann, Sketch.

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though these were bad enough, and this man was Richard III, commonly called the Crook-backed. He was brother to Edward IV, also a wicked man, who though valiant in war, was cruel in peace and given to degrading pleasures. Shakspeare's Richard III founded on historical and traditional report, is one of the masterpieces of his inventive genius, all cut in one piece; the more is the pity that his subject should have been of such bad stuff. With the usual felicity of the opening of Shakspeare's dramas, Richard III, then only Duke of Gloucester, is introduced soliloquizing. He feels himself, by reason of his deformity, kept aloof from the rest of mankind and resolves to take his revenge by using his mental capacity as an instrument to cut his way to the throne through violence and bloodshed. It was owing to his insinuations that Edward IV caused their brother, the Duke of Clarence, to be killed, and when, soon after, Edward IV died, Richard did not hesitate to murder his young nephews and proclaim himself king of England. His short reign was a succession of cruelties; he committed misdeeds out of love of wickedness, but died the death of a hero, falling in the battle of Bosworth Field. A r g u m e n t of Henry

VIH

(1509—1547).

In Henry VIII' time, a great change had come over the country. The monarchy was no longer swayed by the powerful feudal nobles, but by a tyrannical king. The king himself was controlled by the policy of Cardinal Wolsey, a man of low birth, who had risen to be more powerful than even Warwick, the king-maker, had been in his proudest days. It has been said that Henry VIII is a sort of historical mask, or show-play. Though there may be some truth in that, yet the play is eminently tragic. Its tragic scenes arc chiefly made up of a succession of changes from grandeur to degradation.

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First, the Duke of Buckingham, a prince of the royal blood, who could not endure to bow to the tyrannical pride of Cardinal Wolsey, fell a victim to the cardinal's resentment. The next in the series is Catherine of Arragon, Queen of England, and daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile, for upwards of twenty years Henry's faithful consort, and one of Shakspeare's most felicitously drawn female characters. Her just pride in refusing to make room for Anne Boleyn, her bitter anguish and sorrow, her loneliness in a foreign land and the womanly fortitude with which she encounters her fate, which nevertheless breaks her heart and hastens her to her grave, move the reader's heart to condole with her and her sorrow. The next of these sublime reverses is the downfall of Wolsey. Queen Catherine had warned him: "Take heed, for heaven's sake, take heed, lest at once "The burden of my sorrow fall upon ye" — and so it was, when he opposed the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn. In the days of his power, Wolsey had been odious in his pride, but, after his fall, he became purified by the fire of affliction. His misfortunes had shown him the vanity and hollowness of success, and he had never felt so truly happy as when he came to hate the vainglory and pomp of this world. With those pathetic words: " 0 Cromwell, Cromwell, "Had I but served my God with half the zeal "I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age "Have left me naked to mine enemies" — he vanishes from our sympathizing eyes to find an early grave in Leicester Abbey (1530). The drama ends with the coronation of Anne Boleyn, and the baptism of her daughter, Elizabeth *). *) For the plots of Shakspeare's other dramas read Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare; for a short but excellent study on the whole

— 36 — The age of Elizabeth and James I produced a concourse of dramatic authors, the like of which is seen nowhere else in literary history. In the general style of their writing the dramatists of this period bear a strong family resemblance to Shakspeare, and some of his peculiar merits are found scattered among his fellow-dramatists. Thus, pathos hardly less touching than that of Shakspeare may be found in the dramas of Ford, animation and dignity in the dialogues of Beaumont and Fletcher, deep tragic emotion in the sombre scenes of Webster, moral elevation in the graceful plays of Massinger, but in Shakspeare alone we find the most opposite qualities of the poet, the observer and the philosopher, united. The second place among the dramatic authors of this period is given to Shakspeare's friend, the learned Ben Jonson (1573—1637). His career like that of most of his brother poets of the period was full of strange vicissitudes. Ben Jonson was born in Westminster. His father was a clergyman in narrow circumstances; his mother, being left a widow, married a bricklayer, who took young Ben from school, and put him to his own employment. The boy escaped, enlisted as a soldier, served for some time in the Low Countries, and is said to have distinguished himself by his courage. At the age of twenty, however, we find him in London, an actor and a married man. It is hardly possible that he should have passed some time at the University of Cambridge, as is often related, but wherever he may have got his learning, he had it, and was fond of displaying it. His first piece, "Every Man in his Humour" failed in the first representation. It is reported that Shakspeare of Shakspeare's works see the Shakspeare primer by Mr. Edward Dowden LLD. (London. Macmillan & Co.) from which the dates and arrangements of Shakspeare's dramas are adopted.

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gave him advice, as to how he should alter and improve the play. On being brought out a second time at the Globe theatre, the drama met with triumphant success. From that time Ben Jonson's literary reputation was established, and in quick succession he produced many dramas, though of unequal merit. His irascible disposition led him into frequent quarrels and disputes with his brother poets and twice into danger of life and limb. The close of his life was embittered by poverty and bodily suffering, which he is said to have caused by his too great fondness for sack. His love of conviviality he shared with his brother poets and other prominent men of the time. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552—1618) founded a club, known to all posterity as the Mermaid Club in Friday Street, at which Shakspeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and other poets exercised themselves with "wit-combats" more bright and genial than their wine. Other favourite haunts of these brilliant men were the Old Devil Tavern (Temple Bar) and the Falcon Tavern (Bankside, Southwark). Jonson's comedies and tragedies are seventeen in number, and his masques and other court entertainments fifty-two. Of his comedies the best are: Every Man in his

Humour, Volpone or the Fox,

The Silent Woman,

The

Alchemist. The general effect of Jonson's plays, though satisfactory to the reason, is hard and defective to the taste. His mind was singularly deficient in what is called humanity. He loved to dwell rather upon the eccentricities and monstrosities of human nature, than upon those universal features with which all can sympathize. Though he has too often devoted his great powers to the delineation of those oddities and absurdities which were then called humours, yet some of his characters are truly comic: thus the admirable type of a cowardly braggart

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in Bobadil (Every Man in his Humour) will always preserve its merit. From the wealth of illustration in his plays, drawn from men as well as from books, his comedies form a study eminently substantial. The want of tenderness and delicacy in Jonson will be especially perceived in the harsh and unamiable characters which he has given to his female personages. It may be said that there is hardly one female character in all his dramas which is represented in a graceful or attractive light, while a great many of them are absolutely repulsive from their coarseness and their vices. In the masques and court entertainments, Jonson appears quite another man. Every thing that the richest and most delicate invention could supply, aided by extensive, elegant and recondite reading, is lavished upon these courtly compliments. The same gracefulness stamps the lyrical poems with which Jonson has interspersed his plays. Ben Jonson was buried in Westminster Abbey. On his tombstone in the Poets' Corner are these words: — " 0 rare Ben Jonson." "Masques were dramatic representations made for a festive occasion with a reference to the person and the occasion. Their personages were allegorical. They admitted of dialogue, music, singing and dancing, combined by the use of some ingenious fable into a whole. They were made and performed for the court and the houses of the nobles, and the scenery was as gorgeous and varied as the scenery of the playhouse proper was poor and unchanging" — Inigo Jones made the scenery for Jonson's plays, but in the end they quarrelled.

Francis Beaumont ( 1 5 8 6 - 1 6 1 6 ) . Jolm Fletcher (1576 —1625). In Beaumont and Fletcher, we have two young men of genius and good birth, living together ten years, and writing in union a series of thirty-eight plays, the joint production of the two, besides the fourteen which are said to have been written by Fletcher alone. Such joint authorship was not uncommon in that age, though known only in the history of the drama. The genius of Beaumont is

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said to have been more correct and more strongly inclined to tragedy, while Fletcher was rather distinguished by gaiety and comic humour. Philaster, The Maid's Tragedy, The Two Nolle Kinsmen, in which Shakspeare is said to have assisted them, are among their best tragedies. The Knight of the Burning Pestle is one of their richest and most popular comedies. There is variety, luxuriance and romantic elevation in their tragedies, gay, animated spirit pervades their comedies, but unfortunately much that is objectionable taints both. The Faithful Shepherdess, written by Fletcher alone, and one of his best comedies (an imitation in part of the Pastor Fido of Guarini) suggested to Milton the plan of his Comm. Philip Massinger (1584—1640). While Beaumont and Fletcher were in the height of their fame, another dramatist appeared, even superior to them in tragedy. Of the personal history of Philip Massinger little is known. His education was good and even learned, but his life appears to have been an uninterrupted succession of struggle, disappointment and distress, and was cut off by a fatal termination. He was found dead in his bed in his house at Bankside, Southwark. In the parish register the only note is: "Philip Massinger, a stranger". We possess titles of thirty-seven plays written by Massinger, of which only eighteen are now extant. His best tragedies are: The Fatal Dowry, The Unnatural Combat, The Duke of Milan. A Neio Way to Pay Old Beits has kept possession of the stage. The qualities which distinguish this noble writer are an extraordinary dignity and elevation of moral sentiment, a singular power of delineating the sorrows of pure and lofty minds exposed to unmerited suffering, cast down but not humiliated by misfortune: — the reflection of his own unhappy fate. Genuine humour or sprightliness he had none.

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John Ford (1586—1639). John Ford may be called the great painter of unhappy love. His finest tragedies are: The Brokm Heart, Chaste and Noble, The Lady's Trial. Ford, like the other great dramatists of that era of giants, never shrank from dealing with the darkest, the most mysterious enigmas of our moral nature. John Webster (1582—1652?). Not the least powerful genius among the Shakspearian dramatists of the second order is John Webster, whose tragedies abound in terror and sorrow. His literary physiognomy bears a strong resemblance to the dark, bitter and wot'ul expression which pervades the portraits of Dante (1265—1321). The subjects of most of his dramas are borrowed from the black annals of Italy in the Middle Ages. The Duchess of Mdlfi (1023) and The White Devil are among his best dramas. George Chapman, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, John Marston are all remarkable for their fertility and luxuriance. George Chapman (1557—1634) may be remembered as the translator of Homer, and he has embodied much of his classical lore in his dramas. The name of Middleton has been kept alive on a conjecture, that his play, The Witch, furnished Shakspeare with the witchcraft scenery in Macbeth. Nor ought the works of Taylor, Tonrnenr, Rowley, Broome and Thomas Heywood to be overlooked. Tourneur has some resemblance to the gloomy genius of Webster, while Broome, who was originally Ben Jonson's domestic servant, attained considerable success upon the stage and is remarkable for the immense number of pieces he wrote alone or with others. Thomas Heywood (not to be confounded with his namesake John Heywood, one of the earliest dramatic writers and author of the Interlude 11 The

— 41 — four P's") wrote A Woman Killed with Kindness, one of the most touching pieces of the period. The dramatic era of Elizabeth, James I and Charles I now draws to a close. On the 22 nd of August 1G42, the Civil War broke out, and in September of the same year, the Puritans being in the ascendency, the Long Parliament issued an ordinance "suppressing public stage-plays throughout the kingdom during these calamitous times"; and so the theatres were closcd until they were revived after the Restoration with totally different tendencies, moral as well as literary. T h e P r o s e W r i t e r s of t h e P e r i o d . A few words must be bestowed on the writers of historical chronicles. Those of Raphael flolinshed — died in 1580 — have obtained an additional fame for having furnished to Shakspeare the materials for his legendary as well as historical dramas. John Stow and William Harrison were his coadjutors. John Lyly, born about 1554, was the author of the once highly fashionable book Euphues and his England. Though not without some genius and elegance, Lyly tainted the speech of the court, the aristocracy, and even to a considerable degree literature itself, with a peculiar kind of affected and high-flown language, which is known in literature by the name of Euphuism. Sir Walter Scott has introduced a caricature of this style in the character of Sir Piercie Shafton in the Monastery. Sir Philip Sidney (1554—1586) united in his person almost all the qualities that give splendour to a character — nobility of birth, beauty of person, bravery, generosity, learning and courtesy. He is said to have been one of the candidates for the crown of Poland, then vacant, but Elizabeth opposed the project, saying:

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"She could not brook to lose the jewel of her court." Sidney joined the army, under the great Earl of Leicester, the poet's uncle, which was sent over to the Netherlands, to assist the Dutch in their struggles against the oppression of the Spaniards. At the early age of thirty-two he received a mortal wound in a skirmish near Zutphen in Guelderland, when his generous character was manifested by an incident, which will never be forgotten in the history of humanity. Being overcome with thirst from excessive bleeding, he called for water, which was at last procured. At the moment he was lifting it to his mouth a poor soldier, desperately wounded, was carried past, and fixed his eyes eagerly upon the cup. Sidney, observing this, instantly delivered the water to him, saying: "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." Sidney's contributions to the literature of his time consist of a small collection of sonnets, written in elegant language; of a pastoral romance, entitled Arcadia, written in language slightly tinged with Euphuism, and a short critical work, written in a different style, A Defence of Poetry, the first piece of intellectual literary criticism in the language. Sir Walter Raleigh ( 1 5 5 2 - 1 6 1 8 ) born of an honourable family in Devonshire, was distinguished as a soldier, a sailor, a courtier, an adventurous colonizer of barbarous countries, a poet and an historian. Early in life Raleigh spent many years in foreign wars, and in 1580, was serviceable to Queen Elizabeth in quelling a rebellion in Ireland. He conducted several nautical expeditions of importance, some of which were designed for the colonization of Virginia, and upon which he spent 40,000 pounds. When, in 1588, the safety of England was threatened by the Invincible Armada, Raleigh assisted in obtaining a signal victory over the Spaniards. On the accession of James I, his troubles began. With apparent

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injustice he was charged with having joined a plot to set the king's cousin, Lady Arabella Stuart, on the throne, and committed to the Tower, where he remained for nearly thirteen years. Part of this time he spent in the composition of his principal work, entitled The History of the World, brought down to the end of the second Macedonian War, B. C. 170. The portions which refer to the history of Rome and Greece are much admired; a deep tinge of melancholy pervades the pages of the book. After his long imprisonment, he was allowed by the king to procced upon an expedition to South America, in which he failed. On his return to England, he was executed upon his former sentence. "This is a sharp medecine, but a sound cure for all diseases," he said, when he felt the axe that was to strike the mortal blow. Francis Bacon (1561—1626) the great philosopher, was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, an eminent statesman, Keeper of the Great Seal, and nephew of Lord Burleigh, Queen Elizabeth's prime minister. He was born in 1561, received a careful education, and is said, even as a boy, to have shown indications of that inquiring spirit which led him to investigate the laws of nature. At the age of sixteen he had finished his studies at Cambridge, where he had shown great dislike to the philosophy of Aristotle. He then travelled on the continent, but his father's unexpected death compelled him to return to England, and being a younger son, to enter on some profession. He soon became eminent as an advocate and found a warm protector in the Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's unfortunate favourite, who presented him with a considerable estate, but whom Bacon deserted when accused of high treason. Bacon then attached himself to James' favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and rose

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rapidly. He was made Lord Chancellor, created Baron Vcrulam, and, not long after, Viscount St. Albans. Bacon's taste for magnificence in houses, gardens, trains of domestics, was far above his means. To better his circumstances he married, when advanced in age, Alice Barnliam, the daughter of a London Alderman, who brought him a considerable fortune but neither children nor happiness. In order to escape from his perpetual embarrassments, he accepted large bribes for the deplorable purpose of perverting justice. He was at last impeached, and his accusations inquired into before the House of Lords. He pleaded guilty to three-and-twenty charges, was deposed, expelled from court, fined 40,000, and imprisoned in the Tower. The king remitted every part of this sentence, but Bacon was a broken-hearted man, and for five years longer struggled with pecuniary difficulties. He died in 1626. Bacon wrote upon history, law, the advancement of learning and upon nearly all matters relating to the cultivation of the mind. His writings which extend to ten volumes, he ultimately combined into one great work: "The Instauration of the Sciences". He divides human learning into three great parts: philosophy, history and poetry, respectively referring them to reason, memory and imagination. He explains his method of employing the intellectual faculties for the acquiring of knowledge, as the ascertaining, in the first place, of facts and then reasoning upon them towards conclusions. This method is called the inductive, "a posteriori" method, in opposition to the longestablished deductive or "a priori" method, called "a priori", because in it the establishment of a theory is "prior" to its application in practice. Bacon's aim in all his study was to improve the lot of man, and lessen his burden. His great work was planned at the age of 26, when he was a law-student,

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and it was prosecuted under the pressure of many heavy duties. Bacon also published a volume of Essays, short papers on an immense variety of subjects, which are still universally studied ; and in them appears, in a more appreciable manner, the wonderful union of depth and variety which characterizes Bacon. "No author was so concise as he, and in his mode of writing, there is that remarkable quality which gives to Shakspeare such a strongly marked individuality: a combination of the intellectual and the imaginative, the closest reasoning expressed in the boldest metaphor." Bacon's life is an illustration of the melancholy truth that genius and profound knowledge arc not always coupled with moral excellence, and most likely the consciousness of his shortcomings made him write down in his will: "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own country after some time is passed over." Another great prose writer of the period, although in a different department, was Richard Hooker (1553—1600) the champion of the Anglican Church. This Church, which, at the Reformation, took up a middle position between the opposite extremes, represented by the Romish communion and the Calvinistic sect, had first been exposed to hostilities and persecution at the hands of the Papal party, and was hardly established as the official religion of the state, when the Puritans began to attack her from a directly contrary point of view. For a long time this controversy, in which even Bacon, and particularly Thomas Nash took part, was chiefly carried on in pamphlets, until Richard Hooker in his great work: The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, undertook to investigate and define the fundamental principles upon which the Anglican Churchsystem is founded. But though the immediate object of this book is to vindicate the limited character of thé Re-

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formation of the Anglican Church, Hooker has dug deeper and built his theory upon the basis on which are founded all law, all obedience and all right, political as well as religious. The book contains close reasoning in a clear, vigorous and often musical style and has become a standard work. A description of the life and of the simple childlike character of the learned man has been given to the world by Izaak Walton, himself a charming writer, and author of the Perfect Angler. T h e P o e t s of the Civil War and the Commonwealth. The Metaphysical Poets. The great political events which agitated England during the middle of the 17th century, — the Civil War, the Commonwealth, the Protectorate, — were not without influence on the numerous poets of the period. We have traced the decline of the drama of Elizabeth down to the date of the Civil War. All poetry suffered in the same way after the reign of James I: it became fantastic and overwrought in thought. There was a class of writers who on account of their peculiarities have been called metaphysical poets, though perhaps fantastic might be a more satisfactory term. These poets appealed to the reason rather than to the imagination, and were distinguished by want of simplicity and by pedantic learning. They delighted in far-fetched images; yoking the most heterogeneous ideas together, and ransacking art and nature for illustrations; they preferred to astonish and amaze their readers rather than to give them pleasure. Owing to these peculiarities, they had much to do with generating the artificial manner of the classical writers of the reign of Queen Anne. The poets of the time of Elizabeth, however they

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formation of the Anglican Church, Hooker has dug deeper and built his theory upon the basis on which are founded all law, all obedience and all right, political as well as religious. The book contains close reasoning in a clear, vigorous and often musical style and has become a standard work. A description of the life and of the simple childlike character of the learned man has been given to the world by Izaak Walton, himself a charming writer, and author of the Perfect Angler. T h e P o e t s of the Civil War and the Commonwealth. The Metaphysical Poets. The great political events which agitated England during the middle of the 17th century, — the Civil War, the Commonwealth, the Protectorate, — were not without influence on the numerous poets of the period. We have traced the decline of the drama of Elizabeth down to the date of the Civil War. All poetry suffered in the same way after the reign of James I: it became fantastic and overwrought in thought. There was a class of writers who on account of their peculiarities have been called metaphysical poets, though perhaps fantastic might be a more satisfactory term. These poets appealed to the reason rather than to the imagination, and were distinguished by want of simplicity and by pedantic learning. They delighted in far-fetched images; yoking the most heterogeneous ideas together, and ransacking art and nature for illustrations; they preferred to astonish and amaze their readers rather than to give them pleasure. Owing to these peculiarities, they had much to do with generating the artificial manner of the classical writers of the reign of Queen Anne. The poets of the time of Elizabeth, however they

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might differ from each other, were filled with one spirit: the love of England and the Queen. This unity of spirit in poetry became less and less after the Queen's death. The strife in politics grew so intense that England ceased to be at one, and the poets, too, though not so strongly as other classes, were separated into sections, so that we have Puritan poets and Royalist singers. George W i t h e r (1588—1667) is generally considered the best of the Puritan poets. He was a follower of Cromwell; he fought in his army, and had to undergo long persecution and imprisonment. Many of his pieces are truly poetical, but too often spoilt by the mannerism of his class and time, going far out of his way to find ingenious conceits and unexpected turns. The Shepherd's Hunting is among his best works. Of the Royalist poets we have a longer list of names: William Carew, Sir John Suckling, who composed the graceful Ballad — On a Wedding Day, Colonel Lovelace and Robert Herrick display in their lyrics, a special royalist and court character. Their poems are, for the most part, light, pleasant, short songs and epigrams on the passing interests of the day, on the charms of the court beauties, on a lock of hair, a dress, on all the fleeting forms of fleeting love. Here and there we find a pure or pathetic song, and there are few of them which time has selected that do not possess a gay or gentle grace. As the Civil War deepened, the special court poetry died, and the songs became songs of battle and marching, and devoted and violent loyalty. These have been lately collected under the title of the Songs of the Cavaliers. The most popular poet of the time, and unquestionably one of the leading characters in the literary and political history of England during the Civil War, was Edmund W a l l e r (1605—1687) of an ancient and wealthy family in Buckinghamshire. In politics, he is chiefly remembered as

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a brilliant wit and a time-serving politician, who changed sides unscrupulously. His versification is smooth and flowing, if not deep; his amatory poetry is gay, easy and brilliant. The world is indebted to him for some very happy turns and repartees, as in the passage where he laments the cruelty of his much-flattered lady-love, Saccharissa (Lady Dorothy Sidney) and boasts that his disappointment as a lover had given him immortality as a poet, making the following happy allusion to the fable of Apollo and Daphne: — "I caught at love and filled my arm with bays" And, again, when Charles II complained to him that his panegyric on Cromwell surpassed the verses with which he had complimented him on his return from exile, his quick answer was: "Poets, Sire, succeed better in fiction than in truth." In his verses on Old Age and Death he has struck a deeper chord: "The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er; "So calm are we when passions are no more; "For then we know how vain it was to boast "Of fleeting things too certain to be lost. "Clouds of affection from our younger eyes "Conceal that emptiness which age descries. "The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, "Lets in new light through chinks that time has made, "Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, "As they draw near to their eternal home. "Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, "That stand upon the threshold of the new." Sir William Davenant (1605—1668) who, too, combined the author and politician, is perhaps chiefly interesting as being connected with the revival of the theatre after the eclipse it had suffered during the Puritan

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rule. He was himself a most prolific writer; he composed tragedies for the newly opened theatres, and a long heroic romance, Gondibert, now scarcely ever read. Davenant was an ardent Royalist; on the fall of Charles I, he was confined in the Tower and in danger of his life, and is said to have been released by the interposition of Milton, after which he retired to France until the Restoration brought him back. John Milton ( 1 6 0 8 - 1 6 7 4 ) . Above all the poets of the century, and in the whole range of poetry inferior only to Shakspeare, was John Milton. It has been the custom to speak of him as the poet of the Puritans, forming with George Wither and Andrew Marvcll a small, but select band; but this distinction is unjust, for although his prose writing was wholly devoted to the cause of religious freedom and republicanism, as a poet he stands alone, and for sublimity, grandeur and imagination combined, he is second to no other poet, whether ancient or modern. John Milton was born (at the Spread Eagle) in Bread Street, London, Dec. 9 th , 1608. He was descended from an ancient Oxfordshire family of Roman Catholic persuasion, which had lost their lands during the civil conflict of the Roses. The poet's father was disinherited on forsaking the communion of his ancestors, and had recourse for support to the profession of a scrivener. Milton had the rare advantage of an education specially training him for the career of letters. His father, himself an accomplished scholar, had him first instructed at home under the care of Thomas Young, a Puritan minister of great worth and learning, for whom the poet preserved great veneration. From a child, Milton showed signs of his future greatness, and his zeal equalled his rare natural capacities. He went to St. Paul's School, and at the age of fifteen entered Mans, Sketch.

4

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Christ's College, Cambridge, already eminently skilled in the Latin tongue and otherwise an accomplished scholar. M i l t o n ' s F i r s t P e r i o d (1625—1642). His literary career may be said to begin with his entrance into Cambridge, as during his residence at the University (where he was nicknamed "the lady" from his beauty, delicate taste and morality) he wrote a number of pieces in verse; among them a sonnet On Arriving at the Age of Twenty Three; A Song on a May Morning; and chief and foremost the Ode on the Nativity of Christ, beginning thus: "It was the winter wild, "While the heaven-born child "All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; "Nature in awe to him "Had doff'd her gaudy trim "With her great Master so to sympathize: "It was no season then for her "To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour." Milton's father had acquired a considerable fortune, and purchased an estate at Horton, a Buckinghamshire village, near Windsor, and here, after leaving the University, the poet spent the greater part of the next five years of his life, giving full play to all the powers of his fine intellect, and finding relaxation in composition and music, a passionate love for which he had inherited from his father. In this rural retirement Milton spent the happiest time of his life, and here he wrote the more graceful, fanciful and eloquent of his poems. Among these is the exquisite Masque of Comus, which was performed at Ludlow Castle, in the presence of the Earl of Bridgewater, the President of Wales. His daughter, Lady Alice Egerton, and his two sons had lost their way in Heywood Forest, and

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the lady was separated from her brothers for some time: out of this simple incident Milton created the most lovely pastoral drama of Comus. The characters are few, consisting of the lady, the two brothers, Comns, a wicked enchanter, and the- attendant spirit, disguised as a shepherd. The general character of this play Milton undoubtedly borrowed from Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. The other productions of this period of retirement are Arcades; Lycidas, the elegy on his friend King, who was drowned on a voyage to Ireland; and the two descriptive master-pieces, IS Allegro and H Penseroso. In the former the poet describes the impression made on a man of a cheerful temperament by the open country, its various amusements and occupations; in the latter almost the same objects are viewed by a serious, meditative and studious man. The joy of the cheerful man is temperate, and the melancholy of the thoughtful man without gloom, and the descriptions of the various and varying moods of both are exquisite. In 1638, the poet's mother having died, Milton set out on a European tour. He proceeded by Paris, which seems to have had few charms for him, to Italy where he was much attracted by the language and classical associations. He was everywhere admitted to the society of the most learned men, and is said to have had intercourse with Galileo (1564—1642), then a prisoner in the Inquisition. He was about to visit Sicily and Greece, when the news of the differences between the king and his Parliament, just then threatening an outbreak, induced him to return home, as he disdained "to be diverting himself in security abroad, while his countrymen were contending for their rights." S e c o n d P e r i o d (1642—1660). On his return Milton began a new life; out of art he was carried into politics, out of poetry into prose: and

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this is the second period of his literary career. During twenty years, from 1640—1660 he supported the cause of freedom by his writings, and was a most eloquent but vehement, and at times even furious writer of pamphlets against Episcopacy and in favour of freedom of thought. The finest of his many prose works arc his Arcopagitica or Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing; the Defence of the People of England and On Education. In 1643 Milton was married to Mary Powell, daughter of a ruined gentleman of Royalist sympathies. The bride's father owed the elder Milton large sums of money, which he was unable to repay otherwise than by agreeing to a hastily-formed marriage between the children. The bride was soon disgusted with the austerity of her puritanical home, and, under prctence of a visit to her relations, left Milton and refused to return to the gloom of his house. Milton seriously contemplated a divorce from her, whom he no longer regarded as his wife; this at last brought her back to a sense of her duty, and Milton not only forgave her fully, but aftorded shelter and protection to her family after the triumph of the Republican party. Three daughters were born to them, but it is doubtful if their married life ever was a happy one. In 1649, Milton received the appointment of Latin Secretary to the Council of State, being undoubtedly the most elegant classic in the nation. In 1652 his wife died, leaving him with a young family, his solitude being rendered more painful by the rapid advances of blindness. His eyes had been weak from his youth, he had always overstrained them, but he proudly attributed his total blindness to having overtasked his eyes in the defence of truth and liberty. In this helpless state Milton soon formed another alliance (1656). His second wife, Catherine, daugther of Captain Woodstock, an ardent Republican, he seems to

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have fondly loved, but, after a short union, she was taken from his side. T h i r d P e r i o d (1660—1674). With the Restoration begins the third period of the great poet's life. He was discharged from his office of Latin Secretary and retired into poverty, blindness and political persecution, which last, however, ended with a short imprisonment. It is said and readily believed that, on this occasion, Sir William Davenant paid a debt of gratitude by interposing in his favour and obtaining his release. From this period till his death he lived in close retirement (in Artillery Walk, near Bunhill Fields), busily occupied in the composition of his great Christian epics: Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Milton was unlucky in his daughters, whose education seems to have been sadly neglected, and, on the advice of his medical friend, he entered on his third marriage with Elizabeth Minshull, whom he often employed as amanuensis. This place, however, was for some time occupied by a young quaker, Thomas Ellwood, whose ardent desire for learning Milton tried to satisfy, and who showed his gratitude by obtaining for his master a pleasant little cottage at Chalfont in Bucks, as a place of refuge from the plague which raged in London in 1665. It was on Ellwood's suggestion that Milton wrote Paradise Regained. The last of Milton's works was the tragedy of Samson Agonistes constructed according to the strictest rules of the Greek classic drama. Samson, in his blindness, is called on to make sport for the Philistines and overthrows them in the end. In the character of the hero, in his blindness, his sufferings, his resignation to the will of God, Milton has embodied his own fate. In 1674 Milton died and was buried next his father,

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in St. Giles' Church, Cripplegate. There is a monument erected to his memory in Westminster A b b e y . It has been customary to compare Milton with Dante. T h e y were not unlike in their personal history. Both had been disappointed in their public life and private attachments. In Dante, this experience had produced bitterness; in Milton, the strength of his mind and the confidence of his religious faith overcame every calamity. Of the poet's two great blank-verse epics, Paradise Lost is the better. Its character is sublimity and loftiness. It is divided into twelve books and opens with the awaking of the rebel angels in Hell after their fall from Heaven. T h e consultation of their chiefs as to how they might carry on war with God, — the ordaining of the plan of Salvation; — Satan's voyage to the earth, — the description of Eden and its gentle tenants and of their pure and happy life fill the first four books. The next four books contain the archangel Raphael's story of the war in Heaven, the fall of Satan, and the creation of the world. T h e last four books describe the temptation and the fall of Man, the vision shown by Michael to Adam of the future, and of the redemption of Man by Christ, and the expulsion from Paradise. Eve's Complaint. "Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave "Thee native soil! These happy walks and shades, " F i t haunts of Gods? Where I had hoped to spend, "Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day, " T h a t must be mortal to us both." The interest collects round the character of Satan at first, but he grows more and more mean as the poem goes on, and seems to fall a second time, losing all his original brightness after his temptation of Eve. Indeed this second degradation of Satan after he has not only sinned himself but made innocence sin, and beaten back in himself the

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last remains of good, is one of the finest motives in the poem. At last all thought and emotion centre round Adam and Eve, until the closing lines leave us with their Jonely image on our minds: — "Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon: "The world was all before them, where to choose "Their place of rest and Providence their guide. "They, hand in hand, with wandering step and slow "Through Eden took their solitary way." Samuel Butler (1612—1680). W e now turn to Samuel Butler, another great poet — indeed in his own line the greatest — who, like Milton belonged to both the Civil W a r arid the Restoration, although in his career as poet more to the latter, and whom it has been common to set over against Milton as the poet of the Cavaliers, designating Milton as the poet of the Puritans. Milton's genius towered high above political factions, while Butler was exclusively a party poet. Samuel Butler was the son of a humble, respectable yeoman, in Worcestershire. The details of his early life are little known. Because he was a learned man, he is supposed to have been at a University, but as his father's large family had to subsist on a small fortune, it is more likely that he acquired his great learning by means most creditable to his own diligence. As a young man he became clerk to a Worcestershire Justice of the Peace, and after some time was received into the household of the Countess of Kent through the influence of Selden, the profoundest scholar of the age. The intercourse with Selden and other learned men, the use of a large library, retirement, and leisure for study, made this the most sunshiny part of Butler's life. After the death of the Countess he is found in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's officers and an extreme Puritan, and here he found the originals he

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afterwards reproduced in his satire, which he began to write about this time, but which had to await the Restoration, for making its first appearance. In 166B, he published the first three cantos of Hudibras, a cutting satire on the Puritans. It immediately became popular; its wit was so suited to the taste of the time, and the prototypes of the characters Butler held up to ridicule were all so fresh in the recollection of all men then living, that the poem became the praise of all ranks then in power; the king quoted, the courtiers studied, and the whole party of the cavaliers applauded it. A second part appeared in 1664 and a third fourteen years later. Promises and praise •were the poet's only rewards; he died poor, sufficient funds to bury him in Westminster Abbey could not be raised, so he was interred by a humble friend in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. In 1720, however, a monument was erected to him in the Poet's Corner, on which occasion the following lines were written: — "While Butler, needy wretch, was still alive, "No generous patron would a dinner give. "See him when starv'd to death, and turn'd to dust "Presented with a monumental bust. "The poet's fate is here in emblem shown, , "He asked for bread, and he received a stone." The poem of Hudibras describes the adventures of a fanatic Justice of the Peace, a Presbyterian, who sallies forth — or, as the poet has it "goes a colonelling" — with his clerk Ralph, a sour, obstinate Independent, to put a stop to the sports and amusements of the common people. They meet a procession of vagabonds conducting a bear to the place of combat. As these persons refuse to disperse at the summons of the Knight, a combat ensues in which Hudibras and his clerk are victorious and put the principal delinquents in the parish stocks. They, however, are liberated by their comrades, and now Hudibras

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and Ralph are placed in the stocks, whence at last they are set free by a rich widow, to whom Hudibras is paying court. There is properly no regular plot in the poem; it is in the description of the scenes, in the sketches of character and in the long arguments between the knight and his disputatious, stubborn attendant that the power of the book lies. The leading idea Butler took from the Don Quixote of Cervantes, but the aims of the two authors are dissimilar. Cervantes seeks to make his hero ridiculous indeed, but without making him detestable, and in spite of the absurdities in his character, Don Quixote is at bottom an amiable man. Butler, on the contrary, wished to make Hudibras ridiculous and detestable, and succeeded. He was wrong in making Hudibras, whom we are to consider as the representative of his party, a coward; for whatever might be said against the Puritans, experience had sufficiently shown that their swords were not to be despised.

T h e P r o s e W r i t e r s of t h e C i v i l War a n d t h e Commonwealth. During this period prose literature grew into greater excellence, and took up a greater variety of subjects. The painting of character was begun by Sir T. Overbury, a kind of writing which later took the form of biography, as in Thomas Fuller's Worthies of England. Theological writings of great excellence and literary merit were produced by witty, quaint, old Thomas Fuller (1608—1661) in his Church History of Britain and by the melodious Jeremy Taylor (1613—1667), (often called the Spenser of the Theologians) in his Holy Living and Holy Dying. Both these divines belonged to the party of the King.

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Puritanical theology is represented by Richard Baxter (1615—1691) in his Saints' Everlasting Best. A chief place among the prose writers of this period belongs to humble John Bunyan (1628—1688) whose life and works, however, like those of Milton and Butler, extend into the period of the Restoration. He was born at Elstow, near Bedford. His father was a tinker, and the son in his youth, followed the same lowly calling, travelling for many years about the country in its usual gipsy-life. He has represented himself as being at this time sunk in profligacy and wickedness, but very likely he exaggerated his vices, the worst of which appear to have been a habit of swearing, a taste for ale-drinking, and the then usual pastimes of bell-ringing, playing at hockcy and tip-cat. After long and severe internal religious struggles, which ended in a deadly illness, Bunyan professed conversion, and joined the sect of the Baptists. He soon became a noted preacher. The country being convulsed by the Civil War, Bunyan, too, had entered the army and enlisted on the Royalist side. When he left the army in 1644 he married; himself very young, a poor but virtuous young woman. His wife however brought him two books "The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven" and „ T h e Practice of Piety." During the Commonwealth Bunyan had not been disturbed in his preaching, but at the time of the Restoration the Government began to persecute with severity the Dissenting sects, and Bunyan, as a leading man among the Baptists, was convicted of holding conventicles, and imprisoned for upwards of twelve years in the jail of Bedford. During his long confinement he supported himself by making tagged laces, and gained the veneration of his companions by the saintliness of his deportment, and by the fervour of his exhortations. Though in prison he enjoyed the society of his family, and particularly of his

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darling, a little blind daughter, Mary; and here he composed his immortal Pilgrim's Progress. On his liberation, he gained such a lead among the Baptists, that they popularly styled him "Bishop Bunyan". He went round the country, settling the quarrels, relieving the wants and confirming the faith of his brethren. He had just come from one of these journeys, — to reconcile a father and a son — when he caught the fever which brought his life to a premature end. The works of Bunyan are numerous, but only a few among them command a more general interest. His Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners contains Bunyan's religious autobiography, in which he has minutely and characteristically portrayed his own early spiritual history. The best of his writings, as well as the best of its kind — the Allegory — is the Pilgrim's Progress. (Bishop Patrick's much less known Parable of the Pilgrim stands perhaps next to it, in that age, for perfection as an allegory.) The Pilgrim's Progress narrates the struggles, experiences, and trials of a christian — the Mr. Christian of this allegory — in his passage from a life of sin to everlasting felicity. All the adventures of his travels, the scenes he visits, the dangers he encounters, the enemies he combats, the friends and fellow-pilgrims he meets on his road, are described with such life-like truth and vivacity and such powerful imagination, that the reader sympathizes with these shadowy personages as with real human beings. When we open the book, we see Christian with a burden on his back, and in a distressed state of mind, because the book, which he holds in his hand, tells him the city he lives in is to be destroyed by fire. This induces him to leave home in order to "flee from the wrath to come" and to get rid of his burden. He stops at the Interpreter's House on his way to the Cross and the Sepulchre ; at the latter place he gets rid of his burden. He

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then travels on to Palace Beautiful, from thence descends into the Valley of Humiliation, where he encounters the foul fiend Apollyon, and reaches the city of Vanity Fair, where his friend Faithful is put to death. His road then leads him and his new friend Hope through By-path Meadow to Doubting Castle, the stronghold of Giant Despair. After their escape from that dangerous place, they pass on to the Delectable Mountains and finally to the river Death, which Christian and Hope have to wade through. The

P e r i o d of t h e R e s t o r a t i o n a n d R e v o l u t i o n (1660—1702.)

the

The Period of French Influence. With the Restoration of Charles II a reaction set in in politics, morals and literature. The king and his gay courtiers brought back from France polite and engaging manners, a taste for refinement, but at the same time an utter contempt of virtue. The Puritans, while in the ascendant, besides shutting the theatres, had, with an iron hand, put down every amusement to which the people had been attached from time out of mind. If they had been content with purifying and cultivating the stage, they would have conferred a lasting benefit on the nation, but by denouncing all public recreations, they provoked a reaction in the taste and manners of the people; the over-austerity of one period naturally led to the degeneration of the succeeding age. Soon after the Restoration two theatres were re-opened; one under the direction of Sir William Davenant, which, in compliment to the Duke of York, was called the Duke's; the other establishment was patronized by Charles II and called the King's. A new splendour was thrown round the performances. The female characters began to be regularly personated by women. Rich dresses, beautifully

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then travels on to Palace Beautiful, from thence descends into the Valley of Humiliation, where he encounters the foul fiend Apollyon, and reaches the city of Vanity Fair, where his friend Faithful is put to death. His road then leads him and his new friend Hope through By-path Meadow to Doubting Castle, the stronghold of Giant Despair. After their escape from that dangerous place, they pass on to the Delectable Mountains and finally to the river Death, which Christian and Hope have to wade through. The

P e r i o d of t h e R e s t o r a t i o n a n d R e v o l u t i o n (1660—1702.)

the

The Period of French Influence. With the Restoration of Charles II a reaction set in in politics, morals and literature. The king and his gay courtiers brought back from France polite and engaging manners, a taste for refinement, but at the same time an utter contempt of virtue. The Puritans, while in the ascendant, besides shutting the theatres, had, with an iron hand, put down every amusement to which the people had been attached from time out of mind. If they had been content with purifying and cultivating the stage, they would have conferred a lasting benefit on the nation, but by denouncing all public recreations, they provoked a reaction in the taste and manners of the people; the over-austerity of one period naturally led to the degeneration of the succeeding age. Soon after the Restoration two theatres were re-opened; one under the direction of Sir William Davenant, which, in compliment to the Duke of York, was called the Duke's; the other establishment was patronized by Charles II and called the King's. A new splendour was thrown round the performances. The female characters began to be regularly personated by women. Rich dresses, beautifully

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painted scenes, and fine decorations added to the attraction of the drama. The influence of the literature of France was seen in a twofold way. The tragedies, like their French models, were written in rhyme, and, like these, had little truth or nature in them; they affected a tone of romantic enthusiasm and super-human elevation, far removed from nature and common sense. The comedies were degenerate in a different way. They were framed after the model of" the Spanish comic drama, and adapted to the taste of the king and his courtiers as exhibiting a variety of complicated intrigues, disguises etc.; but although witty and exciting they were highly objectionable; every virtue was held up to ridicule, as if amusement could only be obtained by obliterating all moral feeling. John Dryden (1631—1700) is the representative as well as the greatest poet of this period. He was a native of Oldwinkle in Northamptonshire, and by birth and education a gentleman. His marriage with Lady Elizabeth Howard, unsatisfactory though it was, gave him access to the highest society. He was poor however, and practised literature as a profession, and though possessed of genius, was weak enough to comply with the taste of the time. He entered on his literary career as a Puritan, and wrote some elegiac verses on the death of the Protector. Two years later he celebrated the return of Charles II in a poem called Astraea Redux (1660) (Equity brought back). Necessity and the taste of the court and the public drove him to the drama; he wrote many tragedies and comedies, the former pompous, declamatory, the latter, sad to say, flattering the tastes of a bad court, all showing that his genius did not lie that way. He struck out his real vein, when he began to write his polemic, but especially his satirical poems. Annus Mirabilis appeared in 1667, a poem on the inglorious war with

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Holland and the Great Fire of London, and this poem was the first to show that his genius lay in his power of clear reasoning expressed with entire ease in flowing verse. In 1668, he succeeded Sir William Davenant as poetlaureate, and in 1681, produced his greatest work Absalom and Achitophel a satire (in mockery of the Popish Plot, and the Exclusion Bill) on the leading statesmen. It is a portrait gallery of all the principal men of the time, and a history of the political movements of these years. The plot of the satire is taken from the Old Testament, the rebellion of Absalom against King David, his father (2 Sam. XV), and Old Testament names denote the leading men of the corrupt court. Monmouth was Absalom; Shaftesbury, Achitophel; Charles was David; Cromwell, Saul; the Duke of Buckingham figured as Zimri, Titus Oatcs as Corah, the Boman Catholics were Jebusites, the Dissenters, Levites. The character of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (son of the favourite of James I and Charles I), against whom the poet had a special grudge, for bringing out a farce, called the Rehearsal (1671), in which Dryden and his heroic dramas were held up to ridicule, is described in the following lines: "A man so various that he seemed to be "Not one but all mankind's epitome; "Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, "Was everything by starts, and nothing long, "But, in the course of one revolving moon, "Was chemist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon. "Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, "Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking." The character of the Earl of Shaftesbury (the Ashley of the Cabal Ministry) as Achitophel was given thus: "Of these" (the traitors) "the false Achitophel was first "A name to all succeeding ages curst: "For close designs and crooked counsels fit,

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"Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; "Restless, unfixed in principles and place; "In power unpleased, impatient in disgrace" . . . On the accession of James II, Dryden became a Roman Catholic, and to justify this step, wrote the Hind and the Panther (1687); the milk-white Hind personifying the Church of Rome, the spotted Panther the Church of England. The Revolution of 1688 brought with it Dryden's evil days. He lost his Poet Laureateship, and then necessity called forth his energies, which were not diminished by age. He modernised Chaucer, translated Virgil's JEneid and produced his famous Ode on St. Cecilia's Bay or Alexander's Feast (1697). Pope, who was a great admirer of Dryden, lias characterized his poetry in a few well-known lines: — "Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join "The varying verse, the full-resounding line, "The long majestic march and energy divine." Dryden's prose is spirited and concise. His grave is near Chaucer's, in the Poet's Corner. There were besides Dryden a number of dramatists who belonged to the age of the Restoration and the Revolution, whose works bear the characteristic marks of the time. Their tragedies are unnatural, pompous and tedious, and their comedies, although abounding in witty dialogue and lively incident, are most sadly objectionable. The evils sown broad-cast by these dramatists were not left unrebuked. Jeremy Collier, a non-juring clergyman, in a pamphlet called A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage assailed with unsparing vigour the whole of the dramatists, beginning with Dryden, and it is owing to his courage and outspoken remonstrance that a gradual improvement took place in almost all the departments of literature*). *) Non-jurors were clergymen, and many temporal peers, who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new government after

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of t h e P e r i o d

Restoration and the

of t h e

Revolution.

The age of Charles II was rich in prose writers. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1608—1674) occupies a foremost place. He was a faithful though moderate adherent of Charles I, accompanied Charles II into exile, and at the Restoration was made Chancellor. By the marriage of his daughter Anne with the Duke of York, he became grandfather to two queens of England, Mary, wife of William III, and Anne. But at length his favour with the king declined, as well as his popularity, and in order to avoid impeachment he went into exile. He passed the remainder of his life at Rouen, where he wrote the history of the struggles he had witnessed. The style of his History of the Great Rebellion is full of dignity; he excels in the delineation of character, and is more free from partiality than could be anticipated. The memoirs of John Evelyn (1620—1706) and Samuel Pepys (1632—1703) give minute accounts of the state of society at their time, of the corruption of the court, and of the two great public calamities that visited the metropolis, the Plague in 1665, and the Great Fire in 1666. Both these authors must be studied by those who wish to form a correct idea of the reign of Charles II. The Diary of Pepys is undoubtedly the most curious specimen of its kind. Bishop Burnet (1643—1715) author of the History of the Reformation, one of the most thoroughly digested works of the period, wrote a History of His own Times, which is extremely valuable for many of its facts and for the cool the Revolution. They were Archbishop Sancroft, and those bishops who had been tried with him in 1688 for refusing to read from the pulpit the Declaration of Indulgence, besides 400 clergymen, all of whom were ejected from their livings in 1691.

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shrewdness with which he described the state of things about him. Among the many theologians of this period may be mentioned the names of Sonth, Tillotson and Barrow, whose writings were able and learned. First among the philosophers in point of time stands Thomas Hobbes (158S—1679). In politics he held that men ought to be governed in a most despotic manner, which theory he incorporated in his great work the Leviathan. In philosophy he taught that thinking was a merely mechanical process, that men were influenced by selfish interests only, thus ignoring the influence of the moral elements and of the affections. He was, however, a clear and precise thinker. John Locke (1632—1704) the great metaphysical writer was born in Leicestershire and educated at Westminster School and Christchurch College, Oxford. Displeased with the prevailing method of teaching philosophy, he applied to this branch of knowledge that experimental or inductive method of which Bacon had been the apostle. Locke intended preparing for the medical profession, but relinquished bis design on account of delicate health. Through a long period of his life he attached himself both to the domestic circle, and to the political fortunes of that great statesman, the Earl of Shaftesbury, undertaking first the education of the son, and afterwards of the grandson of the Chancellor. When Shaftesbury brought in the Exclusion Bill, which was to deprive James II of the right of succession to the throne, on the ground of his evident sympathies with the Boman Catholic Communion, a furious agitation forced him to take refuge in Holland, whither Locke accompanied him, and where he published his Letters on Toleration (1689 and 1690), advocating the same principles of freedom of speech and printing which Milton had defended in his Mann, Sketch.

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Areopagitica. The Revolution of 1688 finally restored Locke to his country, and he became a prominent defender of civil and religious liberty. Locke died at Oates in Essex, the seat of his friend Sir J. Masham. In his character he offers a perfect type of the good man, the patriotic citizen, and the philosophical investigator. Locke's greatest work is his Essay on the Human Understanding (1690), the chief peculiarity of which is that it rejects the doctrine which presumes men to have ideas born with them to be in time developed. Locke holds that all our simple ideas are derived from sensation and reflection. He has also written an excellent Essay on Education (1693), and a treatise On the Conduct of the Understanding. The most striking feature of all Locke's philosophical works is the extreme clearness, plainness and simplicity of his language, which is always such as to be intelligible to an average understanding. Sir Isaac Newton (1642—1727) holds by universal consent the highest rank among the natural philosophers of ancient or modern times. He was born at Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, within the quiet walls of which he spent the greater part of his life. To the unrivalled genius and sagacity of Newton the world is still indebted for a variety of splendid discoveries in natural philosophy and mathematics, among which stands first his discovery of the law of gravitation, which he showed to affect the vast orbs which revolve round the sun, not less than the smallest object on our globe. The work in which he explained his system was written in Latin and appeared in 1687 under the title of Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. To Newton we likewise owe extensive discoveries in optics, by which the aspect of that science was so entirely changed that he may justly be termed its founder. His

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optical researches he gave to the world in his treatise On the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light. He also wrote Some Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John. Newton's character was the type of those virtues which ought to distinguish the scholar, the philosopher and the patriot. His modesty was as great as his genius, and he invariably ascribed the attainment of his discoveries rather to patient attention than to any unusual capacity of intellect. "To myself," he said, "I seem to have been as a child playing on the seashore, while the immense ocean of truth lay unexplored before me." Newton was knighted by Queen Anne. He died in 1727, when his body was conveyed to Westminster Abbey, the pall being borne by the Lord Chancellor, two dukes and three earls. A delightful prose writer of the time is honest Izaak Walton (1593—1683) of modest rank and yet the companion of many learned men. He wrote the biographies of five persons, all distinguished for their virtues and learning. That of Richard Hooker ranks highest. He is best known by his work The Complete Angler, a treatise on his favourite art of fishing, which is written with a sweet simplicity and love of nature, and gives a close description of the rural beauties of England. The E i g h t e e n t h Century. The Writers of the Artificial School in the reign of Queen Anne ( 1 7 0 2 - 1 4 ) and of George I (1714—27) also called T h e S e c o n d C l a s s i c a l or A u g u s t a n P e r i o d o f English Literature. The period of twelve years which comprise the reign of Queen Anne is commonly styled the Augustan era of

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optical researches he gave to the world in his treatise On the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light. He also wrote Some Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John. Newton's character was the type of those virtues which ought to distinguish the scholar, the philosopher and the patriot. His modesty was as great as his genius, and he invariably ascribed the attainment of his discoveries rather to patient attention than to any unusual capacity of intellect. "To myself," he said, "I seem to have been as a child playing on the seashore, while the immense ocean of truth lay unexplored before me." Newton was knighted by Queen Anne. He died in 1727, when his body was conveyed to Westminster Abbey, the pall being borne by the Lord Chancellor, two dukes and three earls. A delightful prose writer of the time is honest Izaak Walton (1593—1683) of modest rank and yet the companion of many learned men. He wrote the biographies of five persons, all distinguished for their virtues and learning. That of Richard Hooker ranks highest. He is best known by his work The Complete Angler, a treatise on his favourite art of fishing, which is written with a sweet simplicity and love of nature, and gives a close description of the rural beauties of England. The E i g h t e e n t h Century. The Writers of the Artificial School in the reign of Queen Anne ( 1 7 0 2 - 1 4 ) and of George I (1714—27) also called T h e S e c o n d C l a s s i c a l or A u g u s t a n P e r i o d o f English Literature. The period of twelve years which comprise the reign of Queen Anne is commonly styled the Augustan era of

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English literature on account of its supposed resemblance in intellectual opulence to the reign of the emperor Augustus. This opinion has not been confirmed in the present age; good sense, and a correct and polished style distinguish the prose writers, a felicity in painting artificial life and of reasoning in verse characterize the poets; but they were neither remarkable for fancy and pathos, nor for originality of thought. They deserve however real praise in that they corrected the indecency of the vicious school introduced at the Restoration. Poetry, prose and satire are represented by the three foremost writers of the period, Pope, Addison and Swift. When Dryden was an old man, and at the height of his fame, Alexander Pope (1688—1744), then a boy of twelve or thereabouts, persuaded some friends to take him to Will's Coffee-house, where Dryden, as "glorious John", presided over the wits and geniuses of the day, to obtain a glance of the great poet; a circumstance which he was ever after fond of relating. Even at this early age Pope was a poet, as he has said of himself: — "As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, "I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came". . Born in London, he claimed to have come of gentle blood although his father was a tradesman, who retired to a small estate at Binfield near Windsor, where the poet, a sickly boy, was brought up under his father's eyes, in the Roman Catholic persuasion. From his 12th year he devoted his time to self-instruction and the study of literature. In 1711 he published his Essay on Criticism, unquestionably the finest piece of reasoning poetry in the language. He soon became famous, and his friendship was courted by men of wit and men of rank. The Essay was followed by the Rape of the Lock, (1711 and 1714) a mock heroic poem, a little masterpiece of its kind. The theft of a ringlet of a lady, Miss Arabella Fermor, by her lover Lord

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Petre produced this poem. The silly trick having led to a coolness between the families, Pope set to work, inspired by the wish to reconcile the estranged lovers by a hearty laugh. The Rape of the Lock is the best specimen of the mock heroic poem in the English language. The machinery, or introduction of supernatural beings into the action of the plot, Pope took from the Rosicrucian doctrines that the four, then so-called, elements arc filled with sylphs, gnomes, nymphs and salamanders. One of his greatest and most lucrative literary works was his Translation of Homer (1725) in which he was aided by two brother-poets. He is said to have cleared about