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course in this doleful beginning; therefore they must be used with measure that must be used so often, and so many causes of weeping lying yet in the debt, sith we cannot end our tears, let us at the least reserve them. If sorrow cannot be shunned, let it be taken in time of need, sith otherwise being both troublesome and needless, it is a double misery, or an open folly. We moisten not the ground with precious waters; they were stilled to nobler ends, either by their fruits to delight our senses, or by their operation to preserve our healths. Our tears are water of too high a price to be prodigally poured in the dust of any graves; if they be tears of love, they perfume our prayers, making them odour of sweetness, fit to be offered on the altar before the throne of God; if tears of contrition, they are water of life to the dying souls; learn, therefore, to give sorrow no long dominion over you.

They that are upon removing send their furniture before them; and you,' still standing upon your departure, what ornament could you rather wish in your new abode than this? that did ever please you? God thither sendeth your adamants, whether He would draw your heart; and casteth your anchors where your thoughts should lie at road, that seeing your love taken out of the world, and your hopes disanchored from the stormy shore, you might settle your desires where God seemeth to require them. The terms of our life are like the seasons of the year, some for sowing, some for growing, and some for reaping; in this only different, that as the heavens keep their prescribed periods, so the succession of times have their appointed changes. But in the seasons of our life, which are not3 the law of necessary causes, some are reaped in the seed, some in the blade, some in the unripe ears, all in the end; this harvest depending upon the reaper's will.

Withdraw your eyes from the ruin of this cottage, and cast them upon the majesty of the second building, which St Paul saith shall be incorruptible, glorious, strange, spiritual, and immortal. Night and sleep are perpetual mirrors, figuring in their darkness, silence, shutting up of senses, the final end of our mortal bodies; and for this some have entitled sleep the eldest brother of death; but with no less convenience it might be called one of death's tenants, near unto him in affinity of condition, yet far inferior in right, being but tenant for a time of that which is death's inheritance. For by virtue of the conveyance made unto him in paradise, that dust we were, and to dust we must return, he hath hitherto showed his seigniory over all, exacting of us not only the yearly, but hourly reverence of time, which even by minutes we defray unto him; so that our very life is not only a memory, but a part of our death, sith the longer we have lived, the less we have to live. What is the daily lessening of our life but a continual dying?

1 The Honourable Robert Sackville.

2 Lady Sackville.

3 Some such expression as "regulated by" seems to be wanted here to make the sense complete.

i. e., a memorial, something to remind us of death.

PERIOD SECOND.

FROM THE END OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN TO THE ACCESSION OF ANNE.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

1. The literature of this period may be conveniently considered as falling into two sections, that which preceded, and that which followed, the Restoration.

1. Period before the Restoration.

The former of these is universally regarded as the brightest in our annals, distinguished beyond all others by its abundance in men of genius of the highest order. For this extraordinary fertility in talent many reasons may be assigned. It was not till the reign of Elizabeth that the influence of learning could be said to have been sensibly felt among any considerable proportion of the people of England. Much, indeed, had been already accomplished by the revival of letters, and the diffusion of knowledge through the press; and so rapid had been the progress of events, that the same citizen, who in his youth had gazed with wonder at Caxton as he pursued his mysterious craft in the Abbey at Westminster, might in his age have listened to the sermons of Latimer at Paul's Cross. Within fifty years from the issuing of the "Game of Chess," the Bible was printed in English, the Papal authority was disowned, the monasteries were destroyed, and the Reformation was begun. During the troubled reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, no great progress in the diffusion of knowledge was made; still, printing was gradually making more accessible to all the stores of learning hitherto monopolized by a few, religious disputes awakened the public mind to action, and the Reformation, which owed its origin to the revival of letters, contributed in its turn to disseminate still more widely that enlightenment and spirit of free inquiry which were essential to its own existence. With each new generation, knowledge was diffused more extensively among the community, and hence the writers in the end of Elizabeth's reign-in the fourth generation from the introduction of printing-were at length furnished with an audience capable of appreciating their merits, and the natural stimulus which the sympathy of numbers supplies, operating then with more vigour from its novelty, incited genius to its highest efforts. Nor was empty applause all for which an author might look: literary ability was still sufficiently uncommon to be valued for its rarity, and

the rich and noble were proud to honour, befriend, and reward the man of talent; rank, office, and estates were conferred by Elizabeth on the friends of the muses, and her courtiers did not fail to imitate her example. The spirit of enterprise and adventure, moreover, so widely prevalent at the time, was highly favourable to the growth of vigour and originality of thought, and the difficulties of Elizabeth's position, surrounded on all sides by enemies who menaced her with ever-impending destruction, served to kindle and keep alive in the minds of her subjects a warmth of patriotic feeling that could not but excite an equally ardent glow in the pages of the writers of her reign. Nor were circumstances less favourable in the days of Elizabeth's successors; literary talent was still favoured with royal patronage; James, with all his conceit and pedantry, was not destitute of real wit, and was no despicable scholar; and Charles, with all his faults, was the most liberal and discriminating patron of literature and the arts that has ever occupied the British throne since the days of Alfred. From the continued influence of these various causes, the first half of the seventeenth century was unusually productive of talented writers; to it most of the greatest names in our literature belong; it is the era of Hooker, and Hall, and Taylor; of Spenser, and Shakspere, and Milton; of Raleigh, and Bacon, and Hobbes; and it may perhaps, without undue national vanity, be doubted whether any country can produce as many names equally illustrious who flourished in a period of equal length.

2. The first distinguished poet of this period was Edmund Spenser. He was born in London, educated at Cambridge, and, like many other literary men of that period, was employed in political missions, and rewarded with a considerable grant of land at Kilcolman near Cork, which he had, however, the misfortune to lose in Tyrone's rebellion. His chief work, the " Faery Queen," is an allegorical poem, which was originally intended to fill twelve books, but of these only six remain, and it is doubtful whether Spenser ever finished the work. It is written in the stanza which from him has been called Spenserian, and in melody of language, and beauty of poetical description, it has never been surpassed; but it is generally admitted that the complicated nature of the allegory, and the superabundant profuseness of his invention, render the continuous perusal of the whole work tiresome to a modern reader. Sir Philip Sidney, the contemporary of Spenser, is more favourably known by his noble character than by his sonnets, which are stiff and artificial. Shakspere, besides his dramas, wrote one hundred and fifty-four sonnets and two longer poems, "Venus and Adonis," and the " Rape of Lucrece," all displaying many of his characteristic excellences, and sufficient to have secured him an abiding reputation as a poet, though his admirers could wish that some of his sonnets had never been associated with his name. The next name of importance in our poetic literature is that of Michael Drayton. His "Polyolbion" is an interesting and curious poetical account of the topography of Britain; it is of immense length, extending to nearly thirty thousand lines, and though often highly beautiful and vigorous, the double disadvantage of being long and allegorical has proved too much for its merits. The same allegorizing style prevails in, and has ruined the reputation of, the

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HISTORICAL SKETCH.

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poems of the two Fletchers, Phineas, and Giles, and is, in fact, more or less visible in all the poetry of the period. Among lyric poets, Carew, Herrick, Suckling, and Davenant, have, along with much that is worthless, produced some short pieces, which are not inferior to any in the language. The pastoral poetry of William Browne, once famous and full of feeling, is now forgotten. Two other pastoral poems, or dramas, are, however, still read with pleasure: Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdess" is, without doubt, the finest pastoral poem in the language, and was the model of Milton's Comus," which it even excels in pastoral simplicity; Jonson's Sad Shepherd," though every way inferior to Fletcher's poem, is yet worthy of Jonson's ability. The religious poems of George Herbert, and the quaint conceits of Philip Quarles, though often offending against good taste, still find a large circle of admirers. Bishop Hall was the first who wrote polished satire, and Donne and Sir John Davis were the earliest composers of metaphysical and didactic poetry. Many of the dramatists have interspersed in their plays songs and lyrical poems of various merit, those of Ben Jonson being usually esteemed the best; and the sonnets of Raleigh, in dignity, melody, and pathos, have few superiors in our literature. To this period also belong Milton's "Comus," "Lycidas," and "Arcades," which, though the earliest productions of his muse, have all his peculiar beauties in language and thought, and are not surpassed by anything that he afterwards wrote. 3. The dramatic writers of this period were uncommonly numerous and equally meritorious. All the three sovereigns were distinguished patrons of the drama; it was even objected against Charles, and that by Milton, that he made Shakspere the closest companion of his solitude. The greatest name in the dramatic literature of the period is that of the pride and glory of our nation, Shakspere. It is unnecessary to give any particulars of his life or literary career; not much is known, but what is ascertained is familiar to every one. His plays were produced in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and are now regarded-and that not only by English partiality-as the greatest productions of the human mind. In the ability to delineate character in all its shades, to pourtray man under the influence of all the passions, gentle and stormy, to which our nature is subject, Shakspere is admitted to be without a rival. His fame prevails wherever the English language is known, his works are considered a treasure of wisdom and sound philosophy, and the study of them is an essential part of a liberal education. Of the other dramatists of this period, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, are the best. The tragedies of Ben Jonson are pedantic and declamatory, but his comedies are excellent, the best being the "Alchemist," "Volpone,' the "Silent Woman," and "Every Man in his Humour." Beaumont and Fletcher wrote in combination fifty-two plays, many of them containing passages of superlative merit, but betraying too frequently tokens of hasty composition, and constantly alloyed with an intermixture of much that is worthless and indecent. Massinger, too, often offends against decency, but has many fine characters, and many striking scenes, and is perhaps on the whole entitled to rank next to Shakspere in our dramatic literature. His best plays are the "New Way to Pay Old Debts," the "City Madam," the "Fatal Dowry," and

the "Duke of Milan." Of the other dramatic authors, many of them men who in any other age would deserve longer notice, it will be sufficient to mention Marston, Chapman, Webster, Dekker, Marmion, Suckling, and Davenant. The theatre fell with the power of Charles; the Puritans had all along been hostile to the stage, and one of the first consequences of their ascendency was an act for shutting up the theatres, which were not re-opened till after the Restoration. It has sometimes been said that this step was justified by the immorality of our older dramatists; but this remark has very little foundation in truth. There is, undoubtedly, in these writers an occasional indecency of language, but the whole tendency and scope of their writings is to encourage men to the practice of virtue, and to hold vice up to public scorn. The fact is, that it was not because the theatres were schools of vice that the Puritans closed them, but because they were places of amusement, and in their eyes all amusement was sinful.

4. Our prose literature begins to be valuable in the end of Elizabeth's reign. Richard Hooker, born about 1553, published in 1594 the first four books of his "Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," a work designed as a defence of the Church against the Puritans. It is not, however, confined to a mere refutation of the objections, often trifling and absurd, of his opponents, but enters into a large and philosophical investigation of the fundamental nature of law in general, and hence has a permanent value which no merely polemical treatise can ever possess. It would be difficult to name any English writer superior to Hooker: his learning is extensive, his reasoning acute and logical, his judgment so unfailing, that succeeding ages have agreed to style him" the judicious;" his reflections are deep and philosophical, and his style is manly, dignified, and harmonious. As a controversialist his moderation and candour have never been equalled. Raleigh, after distinguishing himself as a courtier and a soldier, devoted the enforced leisure of his captivity to the composition of a "History of the World," which has been generally admired not so much on account of its historical value, as for its graceful style, and the vein of eloquent, penetrating, and melancholy reflection which pervades it; his political works, most of them posthumous, are neither so well known nor so meritorious. Bacon, whose most important works belong to the reign of James, is distinguished above all writers by the magnificence of his designs, which extended to nothing short of the remodelling of all human knowledge. His writings, which exhibit a condensation of matter not usual in the age in which he lived, are composed in a grave, dignified style, admirably in keeping with the importance of the subject; they are pregnant with thought, and have exercised an incalculable influence upon the progress of knowledge ever since his day. Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" is one of the most singular books in the language; full of quaint wit, overflowing with Latin quotation and learned allusion, and highly amusing, it long enjoyed a high degree of popularity, but is now little read. Chillingworth, as a close, powerful reasoner, has no superior in our literature; the study of his "Religion of Protestants" is itself a complete logical education. Selden, the chief of learned men," according to Milton, wrote several learned treatises on the " Syrian Gods," Tithes," Titles of Honour," &c., which are now known

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