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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLISH   LITERATURE 
ELIZABETHAN   LITERATURE 


A  HISTORY  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

In  Six  Volumes^  Crown  Zvo. 

ENGLISH  LITERATURE  FROM  THE  BEGIN- 
NING TO  THE  NORMAN  CONQUEST.  By  Rev. 
Stopford  A.  Brooke,  M.A.     8s.  6d. 

ENGLISH  LITERATURE  FROM  THE  NORMAN 
CONQUEST  TO  CHAUCER.  By  Prof.  W.  H.  Schofield, 
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THE  AGE  OF  CHAUCER.  By  Professor  W.  H. 
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ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE  (1560-1665).  By 
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EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  LITERATURE  (1660- 
1780).     By  Edmund  GossE,  M.A.     8s.  6d. 

NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LITERATURE  (1780-- 
1900).     By  George  Saintsburv.     8s.  6d. 


By  GEORGE  SAINTSBURY. 

A  SHORT  HLSTORY  OF  ENGLISH  LITERA- 
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^English  Men  of  Letters. 

A   FIRST   BOOK   OF   ENGLISH   LITERATURE. 

Globe  8vo.     Sewed,  2S.     Stiff  Boards,  2S.  3d. 

NOTES  ON  A  CELLAR-BOOK.  Small  4to.  7s.  6d, 
net. 

MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd.,  LONDON. 


A  HISTORY 


OF 


ELIZABETHAN    LITERATURE 


BY 


GEORGE    SAINTSBURY 


MACMIJ.LAN    AND    CO.,    LIMITED 

ST.    MARTIN'S    STRKI'.T,    LONDON 

1920 


COPYRIGHT 

First  Edition  18S7.     Second  Edition  i8go 
Reprinted  \?,(j-^,  1894,  1896,  1898,  1901,  1903,  1907,  1910,  1913,  1918  v 

1920 


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PREFACE    TO    NINTH    EDITION 

As  was  explained  in  the  Note  to  the  Preface  of  the 
previous  editions  and  impressions  of  this  book,  after 
the  first,  hardly  one  of  them  appeared  without  careful 
revision,  and  the  insertion  of  a  more  or  less  considerable 
number  of  additions  and  corrections.  I  found,  indeed, 
few  errors  of  a  kind  that  need  have  seemed  serious  except 
to  Momus  or  Zoilus.  But  in  the  enormous  number  of 
statements  of  fact  which  literary  history  of  the  more 
exact  kind  requires,  minor  blunders,  be  they  more  or  fewer, 
are  sure  to  creep  in.  No  writer,  again,  who  endeavours 
constantly  to  keep  up  and  extend  his  knowledge  of  such 
a  subject  as  Elizabethan  literature,  can  fail  to  have  some- 
thing new  to  say  from  time  to  time.  And  though  no 
one  who  is  competent  originally  for  his  task  ought  to 
experience  any  violent  changes  of  view,  any  one's  views 
may  undergo  modification.  In  particular,  he  may  find 
that  readers  have  misunderstood  him,  and  that  alterations 
of  expression  arc  desirable.  For  all  these  reasons  and 
r)thcrs  I  have  iK)t  sparcil  trfnihh'  in  llie  xarious  revisions 
rcferrc<l   to  ;    1    think    the    bo(jk    has    been    kept    by   them 

1575283 


ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE 


fairly  abreast  of  its  author's  knowledge,  and   I   hope  it  is 
not  too  far  behind  that  of  others. 

It  will,  however,  almost  inevitably  happen  that  a  long 
series  of  piecemeal  corrections  and  codicils  somewhat 
disfigures  the  character  of  the  composition  as  a  whole. 
And  after  nearly  the  full  score  of  years,  and  not  much 
less  than  half  a  score  of  re-appearances,  it  has  seemed  to 
me  desirable  to  make  a  somewhat  more  tiiorough,  minute, 
and  above  all  connected  revision  than  I  have  ever  made 
before.  And  so,  my  publishers  falling  in  with  this  view, 
the  present  edition  represents  the  result.  I  do  not  think 
it  necessary  to  reprint  the  original  preface.  When  I 
wrote  it  I  had  already  had  some,  and  since  I  wrote  it 
I  have  had  much  more,  experience  in  writing  literary 
history.  I  have  never  seen  reason  to  alter  the  opinion 
that,  to  make  such  history  of  any  value  at  all,  the  critical 
judgments  and  descriptions  must  represent  direct,  original, 
and  first-hand  reading  and  thought ;  and  that  in  these 
critical  judgments  and  descriptions  the  value  of  it  consists. 
Even  summaries  and  analyses  of  the  matter  of  books, 
except  in  so  far  as  they  are  necessary  to  criticism,  come 
far  second  ;  while  biographical  and  bibliographical  details 
are  of  much  less  importance,  and  may  (as  indeed  in 
one  way  or  another  they  generally  must)  be  taken  at 
second  hand.  The  completion  of  the  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography  has  at  once  facilitated  the  task  of  the 
writer,  and   to  a  great  extent  disarmed  the  candid  critic 


PREFACE  TO  NINTH  EDITION  vii 

who  delights,  in  cases  of  disputed  date,  to  assume  that 
the  date  which  his  author  chooses  is  the  wrong  one. 
And  I  have  in  the  main  adjusted  the  dates  in  this  book 
(where  necessary)  accordingly.  The  bibliographical  addi- 
tions which  have  been  made  to  the  Index  will  be  found 
not  inconsiderable. 

I  believe  that,  in  my  present  plan,  there  is  no  author 
of  importance  omitted  (there  were  not  many  even  in  the 
first  edition),  and  that  I  have  been  able  somewhat  to 
improve  the  book  from  the  results  of  twenty  years' 
additional  study,  twelve  of  which  have  been  mainly 
devoted  to  English  literature.  How  far  it  must  still  be 
from  being  worthy  of  its  subject,  nobody  can  know  better 
than  I  do.  But  I  know  also,  and  I  am  very  happy  to 
know,  that,  as  an  Elizabethan  himself  might  have  said, 
my  unworthiness  has  guided  many  worthy  ones  to 
something  like  knowledge,  and  to  what  is  more  import- 
ant than  knowledge,  love,  of  a  subject  so  fascinating  and 
so  magnificent.  And  that  the  book  may  still  have  the 
chance  of  doing  this,  I  hope  to  spare  no  trouble  upon  it 
as  often  as  the  opportunity  presents  itself.  ^ 

EuiNBUKGH,  January  30,  1907. 


'  In  the  last  (eleventh)  re-imprcssion  no  alterations  seemed  necessary.  In 
this,  one  or  two  hihlioj^raphical  matters  may  call  for  notice.  Every  student 
of  I)oniie  shoulcl  now  consult  Professor  (iricrson's  edition  of  the  J\>t-»is{2  vols., 
Oxford,  1912),  and  as  inquiries  have  been  made  as  to  the  third  volume  of 
my  own  Caroline  Poets  (see  Index),  containing;  (."leveland,  Kin^,  .Stanley, 
and  some  h-ss  known  authors,  I  may  he  permitted  to  say  that  it  has  lieen  in 
the  press  for  years,  and  a  larfje  part  of  it  is  completed,  l^ut  various  stojip.i^^es, 
in  no  case  due  to  neplert,  and  latterly  made  absolute  l>y  the  war,  have  pre- 
vented its  apiH:arancc. — Hatii,  October  8,  191S. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    I 

FROM   TOTTEL'S    MISCELLANY   TO    SPENSER 

The  starting-point — Tottel's  Miscellany — Its  method  and  authorship — The 
characteristics  of  its  poetry — Wyatt — Surrey — Grimald — Their  metres — 
The  stufT  of  their  poems — The  Afirror  for  Magistrates — Sackville — His 
contributions  and  their  characteristics — Remarks  on  the  formal  criticism 
of  poetry — Gascoigne — Churchyard — Tusser — Turberville — Googe — The 
translators — Classical  metres — Stanyhurst — Other  miscellanies 

Pages  1-27 

CHAPTER    n 

EARLY    ELIZABETHAN    PROSE 

Outlines  of  Early  Elizabethan  Prose— Its  origins— Cheke  and  his  contem- 
poraries—Ascham— His  style— Miscellaneous  writers— Crilics—VVebbe — 
Puttenham  — Lyiy  — ^»//«/^5  and  Euphuism  — Sidney— His  style  and 
critical  principles—]  looker- Greville— Knolles— Mulcaster  -^  49 

CHAPTER    ni 

THE    FIRST    DRAMATIC    PERIOD 

Divisions  of  Elizabethan  Drama— Its  general  character  — Origins  — y^a//// 
Roister  Doister  —  Gammer  Gtirtoti's  Needle  —  Gorbodttc  —  The  Senecan 
Drama— Other  early  plays— The  "university  wits  "—Their  lives  and  char- 
acters—Lyly  (dramas)  — The  Marlowe  group— Peele  — Greene— Kyd— 
Marlowe — The  actor  playwrights        ....  50- Si 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER    IV 

"THE    FAERIE    QUEENE "   AND    ITS    GROUP 

Spenser — His  life  and  the  order  of  his  works — The  Shepherds  Calendar — The 
minor  poems — The  Faerie  Queene — Its  scheme — The  Spenserian  stanza — 
Spenser's  language — His  general  poetical  qualities — Comparison  with  other 
English  poets  —  His  peculiar  charm — The  Sonneteers  —  Fulke  Greville 
■ — Sidney — Watson — Barnes — Giles  Fletcher  the  elder — Lodge — Avisa 
— Percy — Zepheria  —  Constable  —  Daniel  —  Drayton  —  Alcilia  —  Griffin — 
Lynch — Smith — Barnfield — Southwell — The  song  and  madrigal  writers — 
Campion — Raleigh — Dyer — Oxford,  etc. — Gifford — Howell,  Grove,  and 
others— The  historians — Warner — The  larger  poetical  works  of  Daniel 
and  Drayton — The  satirists — Lodge — Donne — The  poems  of  Donne 
generally — Hall — Marston — Guilpin — Tourneur  Pages  82-156 


CHAPTER    V 

THE   SECOND    DRAMATIC    PERIOD — SHAKESPERE 

Difficulty  of  writing  about  Shakespere — His  life — His  reputation  in  England 
and  its  history — Divisions  of  his  work — The  Poems — The  Sonnets — The 
Plays — Characteristics  of  Shakespere — Never  unnatural — His  attitude  to 
morality — His  humour — Universality  of  his  range — Comments  on  him — 
His  manner  of  working — His  variety — Final  remarks — Dramatists  to  be 
grouped  with  Shakespere — Ben  Jonson — Chapman — Marston — Dekker 

157-206 

CHAPTER    VI 

LATER    ELIZABETHAN    AND    JACOBEAN    PROSE 

Bacon — Raleigh — The  Authorised  Version — ^Jonson  and  Daniel  as  prose-writers 
— Hakluyt — The  Pamphleteers — Greene— Lodge — Harvey — Nash — Dek- 
ker— Breton — The  Martin  Marprelate  Controversy — Account  of  it,  with 
specimens  of  the  chief  tracts    .....         207-252 


CONTENTS  XI 


CHAPTER    VII 

THE    THIRD    DRAMATIC    PERIOD 

Characteristics — Beaumont  and  Fletcher — Middlelon — Webster — Heywood-^ 
Tourneur— Day  .....  Pages  253-288 

CHAPTER    VIII 

THE   SCHOOL    OF    SPENSER    AND   THE   TRIBE    OF    BEN 

Sylvester — Davies  of  Hereford — Sir  John  Davies— Giles  and  Phineas  Fletcher 
— William  Browne — Wither  —  Drummond  —  Stirling  —  Minor  Jacobean 
poets — Songs  from  the  dramatists       ....         289-314 

CHAPTER    IX 

MILTON,   TAYLOR,   CLARENDON,    BROWNE,   HOBBES 

The  quintet — Milton's  life — His  character — His  periods  of  literarj'  production 
—  First  Period,  the  minor  poems — The  special  excellences  of  Comics — 
Lycidas  —  Second  Period,  the  pamphlets — Their  merits  and  defects — 
Milton's  prose  style — Third  Period,  the  larger  poems — Milton's  blank 
verse — His  origins — His  comparative  position — Jeremy  Taylor's  life — His 
principal  works — His  style — Characteristics  of  his  thought  and  manner — 
Sir  Thomas  Browne— His  life,  works,  and  editions— His  literary  manner — 
Characteristics  of  his  style  and  vocabulary — His  Latinising — Remarkable 
adjustment  of  his  thought  and  expression— Clarendon — His  life — Great 
merits  of  his  History— Y7\.\x\\.%  of  his  style — Hobbes — His  life  and  works — 
Extraordinary  strength  and  clearness  of  his  style         .  .         3i5~353 

CHAPTER    X 

CAROLINE   POETRY 

Hcrrick — Carew — Crashaw — Divisions  of  Minor  Caroline  poetry — Miscellanies 
— George  Herbert  —Sandys— Vaughan — Lovelaceand  Suckling— Montrose 


xii  CONTENTS 


—  Quarles  —  More — Beaumont — Habington — Chalkhill — Marmion  —  Ky- 
naston— Chamberlayne — Benlowes — Stanley — -John  Hall — Patrick  Carey 
— Cleveland — Corbet — Cartwright,  Sherburne,  and  Brome — Cotton — The 
general  characteristics  of  Caroline  poetry — A  defence  of  the  Caroline 
poets   .......  Pages  354-393 


CHAPTER    XI 

THE    FOURTH   DRAMATIC   PERIOD 

Weakening  of  dramatic  strength  —  Massinger  — Ford  — Shirley— Randolph 
— Brome  —  Cokaine — Glapthorne  —  Davenant  —  Suckling  —  Minor  and 
anonymous  plays  of  the  Fourth  and  other  Periods — The  Shakesperian 
Apocrypha      .......         394-42? 

CHAPTER    XH 

MINOR    CAROLINE    PROSE 

Burton — Fuller — Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury — Izaak  Walton — Howell — Earle 
— Felltham— The  rest  .....         428-444 


Conclusion  .,,»<>.  ^  445 


CHAPTER    I 


FROM   TOTTEL's    "  MISCELLANY  "    TO    SPENSER 


In  a  work  like  the  present,  forming  part  of  a  larger  whole  and 
preceded  by  another  part,  the  writer  has  the  advantage  of  being 
almost  wholly  free  from  a  difficulty  which  often  presses  on 
historians  of  a  limited  and  definite  period,  whether  of  literary  or 
of  any  other  history.  That  difficulty  lies  in  the  discussion  and 
decision  of  the  question  of  origins — in  the  allotment  of  sufficient, 
and  not  more  than  sufficient,  space  to  a  preliminary  recapitula- 
tion of  the  causes  and  circumstances  of  the  actual  events  to  be 
related.  Here  there  is  no  need  for  any  but  the  very  briefest 
references  of  the  kind  to  connect  the  present  volume  with  its 
forerunner,  or  rather  to  indicate  the  connection  of  the  two. 

There  has  been  little  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  long 
dead-season  of  English  poetry,  broken  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  by 
poets  Scottish  rather  than  English,  which  lasted  through  almost 
the  whole  of  the  fifteenth  and  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
centuries.  There  has  also  been  little  difference  in  regarding 
the  remarkable  work  (known  as  Tottel's  Afisce/lariy,  but  more 
jjroperly  called  Sorif^s  and  SonnetSy  written  by  lite  Ri};ht  Jlonour- 
al'/e  Lord  Jlenry  I/imnird,  late  Earl  of  Surrey,  and  other)  which 
was  published  by  Richard  Tottcl  in  1557,  and  which  went 
through  two  editions  in  the  summer  of  that  year,  as  marking  the 
E.I..JI  ®  B 


2  FROM  TOTTEL'S   "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER       chap. 

dawn  of  the  new  period.      The  book  is,  indeed,  remarkable  in 
many  ways.     The  first  thing,  probably,  which  strikes  the  modern 
reader  about  it  is  the  fact  that  great  part  of  its  contents  is  anony- 
mous and  only  conjecturally  to  be  attributed,  while  as  to  the  part 
which  is  more  certainly  known  to  be  the  work  of  several  authors, 
most   of  those   authors  were   either   dead   or   had  written   long 
before.     Mr.  Arber's  remarks  in  his  introduction  (which,  though 
I  have  rather  an  objection  to  putting  mere  citations  before  the 
pubUc,  I  am  glad  here  to  quote  as  a  testimony  in  the  forefront 
of  this  book  to  the  excellent  deserts  of  one  who  by  himself  has 
done  as  much  as  any  living  man  to  facilitate  the  study  of  Eliza- 
bethan literature)  are  entirely  to  the  point — how  entirely  to  the 
point  only  students  of  foreign  as  well  as  of  English  literature 
know.      "  The  poets  of  that  age,"  says  Mr.   Arber,    "  wrote  for 
their  own  delectation  and  for  that  of  their  friends,  and  not  for 
the  general  public.      They  generally  had  the  greatest  aversion  to 
their  works  appearing  in  print."     This  aversion,  which  continued 
in  France  till  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  if  not  later,  had 
been  somewhat  broken  down  in  England  by  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth,  though  vestiges  of  it  long  survived,  and  in  the  form  of 
a  reluctance  to  be  known  to  write  for  money,  may  be  found  even 
within  the  confines  of  the  nineteenth.     The  humbler  means  and 
lesser  public  of  the  English  booksellers  have  saved  English  litera- 
ture from  the  bewildering  multitude  of  pirated  editions,  printed 
from  jjrivate  and   not   always   foithful  manuscript  copies,  which 
were   for   so   long   the   despair   of  the  editors  of  many  French 
classics.       But   the   manuscript   copies   themselves   survive  to  a 
certain  extent,  and  in  the  more  sumptuous  and  elaborate  editions 
of  our  poets   (such  as,  for  instance,  Dr.  Grosart's  Donne)  what 
they  have  yielded  may  be  studied  with  some  interest.     Moreover, 
they  have  occasionally  preserved  for  us  work  nowhere  else  to  be 
obtained,   as,    for    instance,    in    the    remarkable   folio    which   has 
supplied  Mr.  Bullen  with  so  much  of  his  invaluable  collection  of 
Old  Plays.      At  the  early  period  of  Tottel's  Miscellany  it  would 
appear   that   the  very  idea  of  publication    in    print   had    hardly 


TOTTEL'S  "MISCELLANY" 


occurred  to  many  writers'  minds.  When  the  book  appeared,  both 
its  main  contributors,  Surrey  and  Wyatt,  had  been  long  dead,  as 
well  as  others  (Sir  Francis  Bryan  and  Anne  Boleyn's  unlucky 
brother,  George  Lord  Rochford)  who  are  supposed  to  be  repre- 
sented. The  short  Printer's  Address  to  the  Reader  gives  abso- 
lutely no  intelligence  as  to  the  circumstances  of  the  publication, 
the  person  responsible  for  the  editing,  or  the  authority  which  the 
editor  and  printer  may  have  had  for  their  inclusion  of  different 
authors'  work.  It  is  only  a  theory,  though  a  sufficiently  i)lausible 
one,  that  the  editor  was  Nicholas  Grimald,  chaplain  to  Bishop 
Thirlby  of  Ely,  a  Cambridge  man  who  some  ten  years  before  had 
been  incorporated  at  Oxford  and  had  been  elected  to  a  Fellow- 
ship at  Merton  College.  In  Grimald's  or  Grimoald's  connection 
with  the  book  there  was  certainly  something  peculiar,  for  the  first 
edition  contains  forty  poems  contributed  by  him  and  signed  with 
his  name,  while  in  the  second  the  full  name  is  replaced  by  "  N. 
G.,"  and  a  considerable  number  of  his  poems  give  way  to  others. 
More  than  one  construction  might,  no  doubt,  be  placed  on  this 
curious  fact ;  but  hardly  any  construction  can  be  placed  on  it 
which  does  not  in  some  way  connect  Grimald  with  the  publica- 
tion. It  may  be  added  that,  while  his,  Surrey's,  and  Wyatt's  con- 
tributions are  substantive  and  known — the  numbers  of  separate 
poems  contributed  being  respectively  forty  for  Surrey,  the  same  for 
Grimald,  and  ninety-six  for  Wyatt — no  less  than  one  hundred  and 
thirty-four  poems,  reckoning  the  contents  of  the  first  and  second 
editions  together,  are  attributed  to  "other"  or  "uncertain" 
authors.  And  of  these,  though  it  is  pretty  positively  known 
that  certain  writers  did  contribute  to  llie  book,  onlv  four 
poems  have  been  even  conjecturally  traced  to  particular  authors. 
The  most  interesting  of  these  by  far  is  the  poem  attributed, 
with  that  which  immediately  precedes  it,  to  Lord  \'aux,  and 
containing  the  verses  *'  For  age  with  stealing  steps,"  known  to 
every  one  from  the  gravedigger  in  Jfamlct.  Nor  is  this  the 
only  connection  of  Tottel's  Miuellatiy  with  Shakespere,  for  there 
is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  "  Book  of  Songs  and  Sonnets," 


4  FROM  TOTTEL'S  "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER       chap. 

to  the  absence  of  which  Slender  so  pathetically  refers  in  The 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  is  Tottel's,  which,  as  the  first  to  use 
the  title,  long  retained  it  by  right  of  precedence.  Indeed,  one 
of  its  authors,  Churchyard,  who,  though  not  in  his  first  youth 
at  its  appearance,  survived  into  the  reign  of  James,  quotes  it 
as  such,  and  so  does  Drayton  even  later.  No  sonnets  had  been 
seen  in  England  before,  nor  was  the  whole  style  of  the  verse 
which  it  contained  less  novel  than  this  particular  form. 

As  is  the  case  with  many  if  not  most  of  the  authors  of  our 
period,  a  rather  unnecessary  amount  of  ink  has  been  spilt  on 
questions  very  distantly  connected  with  the  question  of  the  abso- 
lute and  relative  merit  of  Surrey  and  Wyatt  in  English  poetry. 
In  particular,  the  influence  of  the  one  poet  on  the  other,  and  the 
consequent  degree  of  originality  to  be  assigned  to  each,  have 
been  much  discussed.  A  very  few  dates  and  facts  will  supply 
most  of  the  information  necessary  to  enable  the  reader  to  decide 
this  and  other  questions  for  himself  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  son  of 
Sir  Henry  Wyatt  of  AUington,  Kent,  was  born  in  1503,  entered 
St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  in  15 15,  became  a  favourite  of 
Henry  VIIL,  received  important  diplomatic  appointments,  and 
died  in  1542.  Lord  Henry  Howard  was  born  (as  is  supposed) 
in  15 1 7,  and  became  Earl  of  Surrey  by  courtesy  (he  was  not, 
the  account  of  his  judicial  murder  says,  a  lord  of  Parliament)  at 
eight  years  old.  Very  little  is  really  known  of  his  life,  and  his 
love  for  "  Geraldine  "  was  made  the  basis  of  a  series  of  fictions 
by  Nash  half  a  century  after  his  death.  He  cannot  have  been 
more  than  thirty  when,  in  the  Reign  of  Terror  towards  the  close 
of  Henry  VIII.'s  life,  he  was  arrested  on  frivolous  charges, 
the  gravest  being  the  assumption  of  the  royal  arms,  found  guilty 
of  treason,  and  beheaded  on  Tower  Hill  on  19th  January  1547. 
Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  Wyatt  was  at  Cambridge  before  Surrey 
was  born,  and  died  five  years  before  him  ;  to  which  it  need  only 
be  added  that  Surrey  has  an  epitaph  on  Wyatt  which  clearly 
expresses  the  relation  of  disciple  to  master.  Yet  despite  this 
relation  and  the  community  of  influences  which  acted  on  both. 


,  W\ATT  5 

their  characteristics  are  markedly  different,   and  each  is  of  the 
greatest  importance  in  Enghsh  poetical  history. 

In  order  to  appreciate  exactly  what  this  importance  is  we  must 
remember  in  what  state  Wyatt  and  Surrey  found  the  art  which 
they  practised  and  in  which  they  made  a  new  start.  Speaking 
roughly  but  with  sufficient  accuracy  for  the  purpose,  that  state  is 
typically  exhibited  in  two  writers,  Hawes  and  Skelton.  The 
former  represents  the  last  phase  of  the  Chaucerian  school,  w-eak- 
ened  not  merely  by  the  absence  of  men  of  great  talent  during 
more  than  a  century,  but  by  the  continual  imitation  during  that 
period  of  weaker  and  ever  weaker  French  models — the  last  faint 
echoes  of  the  Roman  de  la  Rose  and  the  first  extravagances  of 
the  Rhctoriqueurs.  Skelton,  on  the  other  hand,  with  all  his 
vigour,  represents  the  English  tendency  to  prosaic  doggerel. 
Whether  \\'yatt  and  his  younger  companion  deliberately  had 
recourse  to  Italian  example  in  order  to  avoid  these  two  dangers 
it  would  be  impossible  to  say.  But  the  example  was  evidently 
before  them,  and  the  result  is  certainly  such  an  avoidance. 
Nevertheless  both,  and  especially  Wyatt,  had  a  great  deal  to 
learn.  It  is  perfectly  evident  that  neither  had  any  theory  of 
English  prosody  before  him.  Wyatt's  first  sonnet  displays  the 
completcst  indifference  to  quantity,  not  merely  scanning  "  harber," 
"banner,"  and  "suffer"  as  iambs  (which  might  admit  of  some 
defence),  but  making  a  rhyme  of  "  feareth "  and  "  appeareth," 
not  on  the  penultimates,  but  on  the  mere  "eth."  In  the  fol- 
lowing poems  even  worse  liberties  are  found,  and  the  strange 
turns  and  twists  which  the  poet  gives  to  his  decasyllabics  suggest 
cither  a  total  want  of  ear  or  such  a  study  in  foreign  languages 
that  the  student  had  actually  forgotten  the  intonation  anil 
cadences  of  his  own  tongue.  So  stumbling  and  knock-kneed  is 
his  verse  that  any  one  who  remembers  the  admirable  versifica- 
tion of  Chaucer  may  now  and  then  be  inclined  to  think  that 
Wyatt  had  much  better  have  left  his  innovations  alone.  P>ut  this 
petulance  is  soon  rebuked  by  the  apjjcarance  of  such  a  sonnet 
as  this  : — 


FROM  TOTTEL'S  "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER      chap. 


( Thf  lover  having  dreauied  enjoying  of  his  love  coinplaineth   that  the  dream 

is  not  either  longer  or  truer.) 

"  Unstable  dream,  according  to  the  place 

Be  steadfast  once,  or  else  at  least  be  true. 

By  tasted  sweetness,  make  me  not  to  rue 
The  sudden  loss  of  thy  false  feigned  grace. 
By  good  respect  in  such  a  dangerous  case 

Thou  brought'st  not  her  into  these  tossing  seas 

But  mad'st  my  sprite  to  live,  my  care  to  increase,^ 
My  body  in  tempest  her  delight  to  embrace. 
The  body  dead,  the  sprite  had  his  desire  : 

Painless  was  th'  one,  the  other  in  delight. 

Why  then,  alas  !  did  it  not  keep  it  right. 
But  thus  return  to  leap  into  the  fire  ? 
And  where  it  was  at  wish,  could  not  remain  ? 
.Such  mocks  of  dreams  do  turn  to  deadly  pain." 

Wyatt's  awkwardness  is  not  limited  to  the  decasyllabic,  but  some 
of  his  short  poems  in  short  lines  recover  rhythmical  grace  very 
remarkably,  and  set  a  great  example. 

Surrey  is  a  far  superior  metrist.  Neither  in  his  sonnets,  nor 
in  his  various  stanzas  composed  of  heroics,  nor  in  what  may  be 
called  his  doggerel  metres — the  fatally  fluent  Alexandrines,  four- 
teeners,  and  admixtures  of  both,  which  dominated  English  poetry 
from  his  time  to  Spenser's,  and  were  never  quite  rejected  during 
the  Elizabethan  period — do  we  find  evidence  of  the  want  of  ear, 
or  the  want  of  command  of  language,  which  makes  Wyatt's  versifi- 
cation frequently  disgusting.  Surrey  has  even  no  small  mastery 
of  what  may  be  called  the  architecture  of  verse,  the  valuing  of 
cadence  in  successive  lines  so  as  to  produce  a  concerted  piece 
and  not  a  mere  reduplication  of  the  same  notes.  And  in  his 
translations  of  the  /Eneid  (not  published  in  Tottel's  Miscellany^ 
he  has  the  great  honour  of  being  the  originator  of  blank  verse, 
and  blank  verse  of  by  no  means  a  bad  pattern.     The  following 

'  In  original  "  tencrease,"  and  below  "timbrace."  This  substitution  of 
elision  for  slur  or  hiatus  (found  in  Chaucerian  MSS.)  passed  later  into  the 
t'  and  th'  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 


SURREY  7 


sonnet,  combined  Alexandrine-  and  fourteener,  and  blank  verse 
extract,  may  be  useful  : — 

{Complaint  that  his  loiiy  after  she  knc-.v  of  his  love  kept  her  face  ah.cay  hidden 

from  him.) 

"  I  never  saw  my  lady  lay  apart 
Ilcr  cornet  black,  in  cold  nor  yet  in  heat, 
Silh  first  she  knew  my  grief  was  grown  so  great  ; 
Wliich  other  fancies  driveth  from  my  heart, 
That  to  myself  I  do  the  thought  reserve, 
The  which  imwares  did  wound  my  woeful  breast. 
But  on  her  face  mine  eyes  mought  never  rest 
Yet,  since  she  knew  I  did  her  love,  and  serve 
Her  golden  tresses  clad  ahvay  with  black. 
Her  smiling  looks  that  hid[es]  thus  evermore 
And  that  restrains  which  I  desire  so  sore. 
So  doth  this  cornet  govern  me,  alack  ! 
In  summer  sun,  in  winter's  breath,  a  frost 
^Vhereby  the  lights  of  her  fair  looks  I  lost."  ^ 

{Complaint  of  the  absence  of  her  lover  being  upon  the  sea. ) 
"  Good  ladies,  ye  that  have  your  pleasures  in  exile, 
Step  in  your  foot,  come  take  a  place,  and  mourn  with  me  a  while. 

And  such  as  by  their  lords  do  set  but  little  price. 
Let  them  sit  still :  it  skills  them  not  what  chance  come  on  the  dice. 

But  ye  whom  love  hath  bound  by  order  of  desire. 
To  love  your  lords  whose  good  deserts  none  other  would  require, 

Come  ye  yet  once  again  and  set  your  foot  by  mine, 
Whose  woeful  plight  and  sorrows  great,  no  tongue  can  well  define."" 

'  As  printed  exactly  in  both  first  and  second  editions  this  sonnet  is  evi- 
dently corrupt,  and  the  variations  between  the  two  are  adtlitiunal  cviilence  of 
this.  I  have  ventured  to  change  "  hid  "  to  "  hides  "  in  line  lo,  and  to  alter  the 
punctuation  in  line  13.  If  the  reader  takes  "that"  in  line  5  as  =  "so  that," 
"that"  in  line  10  as  =  "which"  {i.e.  "black"),  and  "that"  in  line  il  with 
"  which,"  he  will  now,  I  think,  find  it  intelligible.    Line  13  is  usually  printed  : 

"  In  summer,  sun  :  in  winter's  breath,  a  frost." 
Now  no  one  would  compare  a  black  silk  hood  to  the  sun,  and  a  reference  to  line 
2  will  show  the  real  meaning.    The  hood  is  a  frost  which  lasts  through  summer 
and  winter  alike. 

*  In  reading  these  combinations  it  must  be  remembered  that  is  there  always  a 
strong  ccesura  in  the  midst  of  the  first  and  Alexandrine  line.  It  is  the  Alexandrine 
which  Mr.  Browning  has  imitated  in  Fifine,  not  thnt  of  Drayton,  or  >.f  tlie 
various  practitioners  of  the  Spenserian  stanza  from  Spenser  himself  downwards. 


8  FROM  TOTTEL'S  "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER       chap. 

"  It  was  the  (n)^  night ;  the  sound  and  quiet  sleep 
Had  through  the  eirth  the  weary  bodies  caught, 
The  woods,  the  raging  seas,  were  fallen  to  rest, 
When  that  the  stars  had  half  their  course  declined. 
The  fields  whist  :  beasts  and  fowls  of  divers  hue, 
And  what  so  that  in  the  broad  lakes  remained. 
Or  yet  among  the  bushy  thicks  ^  of  briar, 
Laid  down  to  sleep  by  silence  of  the  night, 
'Gan  swage  their  cares,  mindless  of  travails  past. 
Not  so  the  spirit  of  this  Phenician. 
Unhappy  she  that  on  no  sleep  could  chance, 
Nor  3'et  night's  rest  enter  in  eye  or  breast. 
Her  cares  redouble  :  love  doth  rise  and  rage  again,^ 
And  overflows  with  swelling  storms  of  wrath. " 

The  "other"  or  "uncertain"  authors,  though  interesting 
enough  for  purposes  of  literary  comparison,  are  very  inferior  to 
Wyatt  and  Surrey.  Grimald,  the  supposed  editor,  though  his 
verse  must  not,  of  course,  be  judged  with  reference  to  a  more 
advanced  state  of  things  than  his  own,  is  but  a  journeyman  verse- 
smith. 

"  Sith,  Blackwood,  you  have  mind  to  take  a  wife, 
I  pray  you  tell  wherefore  you  like  that  life," 

is  a  kind  of  foretaste  of  Crabbe  in  its  bland  ignoring  of  the 
formal  graces  of  poetry.  He  acquits  himself  tolerably  in  the 
combinations  of  Alexandrines  and  fourteeners  noticed  above 
(the  "  poulter's  measure,"  as  Gascoigne  was  to  call  it  later),  nor 
does  he  ever  fall  into  the  worst  kind  of  jog-trot.  His  epitaphs  and 
elegies  are  his  best  work,  and  the  best  of  them  is  that  on  his 
mother.  Very  much  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  strictly  mis- 
cellaneous part  of  the  Aliscellany.  The  greater  part  of  the 
Uncertain  Authors  are  less  ambitious,  but  also  less  irregular  than 
Wyatt,  while  they  fall  far  short  of  Surrey  in  every  respect.  Some- 
times, as  in  the  famous   "  I  loath  that  I  did  love,"  both  syntax 

^  In  these  extracts  (   )  signifies  that  something  found  in  text  seems  better 
away  ;  [  ]  thaj  something  wanting  in  text  has  been  conjecturally  supplied. 
'  Thickets. 
^  This  Alexandrine  is  not  common,  and  is  probably  a  mere  oversight. 


EARLY  EXPERIMENTS  IN  METRE 


and  prosody  hardly  show  the  reform  at  all ;  they  recall  the  ruder 
snatches  of  an  earlier  time.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  character- 
istics of  these  poets,  both  in  matter  and  form,  are  sufficiently 
uniform  and  sufficiently  interesting.  Metrically,  they  show,  on 
the  one  side,  a  desire  to  use  a  rejuvenated  heroic,  either  in 
couplets  or  in  various  combined  forms,  the  simplest  of  which  is 
the  elegiac  quatrain  of  alternately  rhyming  lines,  and  the  most 
complicated  the  sonnet ;  while  between  them  various  stanzas 
more  or  less  suggested  by  Italian  are  to  be  ranked.  Of  this 
thing  there  has  been  and  will  be  no  end  as  long  as  English 
poetry  lasts.  The  attempt  to  arrange  the  old  and  apparently 
almost  indigenous  "eights  and  sixes"  into  fourteener  lines  and 
into  alternate  fourteeners  and  Alexandrines,  seems  to  have  com- 
mended itself  even  more  to  contemporary  taste,  and,  as  we  have 
seen  and  shall  see,  it  was  eagerly  followed  for  more  than  half  a 
century.  But  it  was  not  destined  to  succeed.  These  long  lines, 
unless  very  sparingly  used,  or  with  the  ground-foot  changed  from 
the  iambus  to  the  anapaest  or  the  trochee,  are  not  in  keeping  with 
the  genius  of  English  poetry,  as  even  the  great  examples  of  Chap- 
man's Homer  and  the  Polyolhion  may  be  said  to  have  shown  once 
for  all.  In  the  hands,  moreover,  of  the  poets  of  this  particular 
time,  whether  they  were  printed  at  length  or  cut  up  into  eights 
and  sixes,  they  had  an  almost  irresistible  tendency  to  degenerate 
into  a  kind  of  lolloping  amble  which  is  inexpressibly  monoton- 
ous. Even  when  the  spur  of  a  really  poetical  inspiration  excites 
this  amble  into  something  more  fiery  (the  best  example  existing  is 
probably  Southwell's  wonderful  "Burning  Babe"),  the  sensitive 
ear  feels  that  there  is  constant  danger  of  a  relapse,  and  at  the 
worst  the  thing  becomes  mere  doggerel.  Vet  for  about  a  quarter 
of  a  century  these  overgrown  lines  held  the  field  in  verse  and 
drama  alike,  and  llie  encouragement  of  them  must  l)e  counted 
as  a  certain  drawback  to  the  benefits  whi(  h  Surrey,  Wyatt,  and  the 
other  contributors  of  the  Miscellany  conferred  on  I'jiglish  litera- 
ture by  their  exercises,  here  and  elsewhere,  in  the  blank  verse 
decasyllable,  the  couplet,  the  stanza,  and,  above  all,  the  sonnet. 


10  FROM  TOTTEL'S  "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER      chap. 


It  remains  to  say  something  of  the  matter  as  distinguished 
from  the  form  of  this  poetry,  and  for  once  the  form  is  of  hardly 
superior  importance  to  the  matter.  It  is  a  question  of  some 
interest,  though  unfortunately  one  wholly  incapable  of  solution, 
whether  the  change  in  the  character  of  poetical  thought  and 
theme  which  Wyatt  and  Surrey  wrought  was  accidental,  and 
consequent  merely  on  their  choice  of  models,  and  especially  of 
Petrarch,  or  essential  and  deliberate.  If  it  was  accidental,  there 
is  no  greater  accident  in  the  history  of  literature.  The  absence 
of  the  personal  note  in  mediseval  poetry  is  a  commonplace,  and 
nowhere  had  that  absence  been  more  marked  than  in  England. 
With  Wyatt  and  Surrey  English  poetry  became  at  a  bound  the 
most  personal  (and  in  a  rather  bad  but  unavoidable  word)  the 
most  "introspective"  in  Europe.  There  had  of  course  been  love 
poetry  before,  but  its  convention  had  been  a  convention  of  im- 
personality. It  now  became  exactly  the  reverse.  The  lover 
sang  less  his  joys  than  his  sorrows,  and  he  tried  to  express  those 
sorrows  and  their  effect  on  him  in  the  most  personal  way  he 
could.  Although  allegory  still  retained  a  strong  hold  on  the 
national  taste,  and  was  yet  to  receive  its  greatest  poetical  expres- 
sion in  The  Faerie  Qiieene,  it  was  allegory  of  quite  a  different 
kind  from  that  Avhich  in  the  Roman  de  la  Rose  had  taken 
Europe  captive,  and  had  since  dominated  European  poetry  in 
all  departments,  and  especially  in  the  department  of  love-making. 
"  Dangler  "  and  his  fellow-phantoms  fled  before  the  dawn  of  the 
new  poetry  in  England,  and  the  depressing  influences  of  a 
common  form — a  conventional  stock  of  images,  personages,  and 
almost  language — disappeared.  No  doubt  there  was  convention- 
ality enough  in  the  following  of  the  Petrarchian  model,  but  it  was 
a  less  stiff  and  uniform  conventionality ;  it  allowed  and  indeed 
invited  the  individual  to  wear  his  rue  with  a  difference,  and  to 
avail  himself  at  least  of  the  almost  infinite  diversity  of  cir- 
cumstance and  feeling  which  the  life  of  the  actual  man  affords, 
instead  of  reducing  everything  to  the  moods  and  forms  of  an 
already  generalised  and   allegorised  experience.      '\\'ith  the  new 


SACKVILLE  11 


theme  to  handle  and  the  new  forms  ready  as  tools  for  the  handler, 
with  the  general  ferment  of  European  spirits,  it  might  readily 
have  been  supposed  that  a  remarkable  out-turn  of  work  would  be 
the  certain  and  immediate  result. 

The  result  in  fact  may  have  been  certain  but  it  was  not 
immediate,  being  delayed  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century ;  and 
the  next  remarkable  piece  of  work  done  in  English  poetry  after 
Tottel's  Miscellany — a  piece  of  work  of  greater  actual  poetical 
merit  than  anything  in  that  Miscellany  itself — was  in  the  old  forms, 
and  showed  little  if  any  influence  of  the  new  poetical  learning. 
This  was  the  famous  Mirror  for  Magistrates,  or  rather  that  part 
of  it  contributed  by  Thomas  Sackville,  Lord  Buckhurst.  The 
Mirror  as  a  whole  has  bibliographical  and  prosodic  rather  than 
literary  interest  It  was  certainly  planned  as  early  as  1555  by 
way  of  a  supplement  to  Lydgate's  translation  of  Boccaccio's  Fall 
of  Princes.  It  was  at  first  edited  by  a  certain  William  Baldwin, 
and  for  nearly  half  a  century  it  received  additions  and  alterations 
from  various  respectable  hacks  of  letters  ;  but  the  "  Induction  " 
and  the  "Complaint  of  Buckingham"  which  Sackville  furnished 
to  it  in  1559,  though  they  were  not  published  till  four  years  later, 
completely  outweigh  all  the  rest  in  value.  To  my  own  fancy  the 
fact  that  Sackville  was  (in  what  proportion  is  disputed)  also  author 
of  Gorboduc  (see  Chapter  III.)  adds  but  little  to  its  interest. 
His  contributions  to  The  Mirror  for  Magistrates  contain  the  best 
poetry  written  in  the  English  language  between  Chaucer  and 
Spenser,  and  are  most  certainly  the  originals  or  at  least  the 
models  of  some  of  Spenser's  finest  work.  He  has  had  but  faint 
praise  of  late  years.  According  to  the  late  Professor  Minto,  he 
"affords  abundant  traces  of  the  influence  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey." 
I  do  not  know  what  the  traces  are,  and  I  should  say  myself  that 
few  contemporary  or  nearly  contemporary  efforts  are  more  dis- 
tinct Dean  Church  says  that  we  see  in  him  a  faint  anticipation 
of  Spenser.  My  estimate  of  Spenser,  as  I  hope  to  show,  is  not 
below  that  of  any  living  critic;  but  considerations  of  bulk  being 
allowed,  and  it  being  fully  granted  that  .Sackville  had  nothing  like 


12  PROM  TOTTEL'S  "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER      chap. 

Spenser's  magnificent  range,  I  cannot  see  any  "  faintness  "  in  the 
case.  If  the  "  Induction "  had  not  been  written  it  is  at  least 
possible  that  the  "Cave  of  Despair"  would  never  have  enriched 
English  poetry. 

Thomas  Sackville  was  born  at  Buckhurst  in  Sussex,  in  the 
year  1536,  of  a  family  which  was  of  the  most  ancient  extraction 
and  the  most  honourable  standing.  He  was  educated  at  Oxford, 
at  the  now  extinct  Hart  Hall,  whence,  according  to  a  prac- 
tice as  common  then  as  it  is  uncommon  now  (except  in  the 
cases  of  royal  princes  and  a  few  persons  of  difficult  and  in- 
constant taste),  he  moved  to  Cambridge.  Then  he  entered  the 
Inner  Temple,  married  early,  travelled,  became  noted  in  literature, 
was  made  Lord  Buckhurst  at  the  age  of  thirty-one,  was  for  many 
years  one  of  Elizabeth's  chief  councillors  and  officers,  was  pro- 
moted to  the  Earldom  of  Dorset  at  the  accession  of  James  I., 
and  died,  it  is  said,  at  the  Council  table  on  the  19th  of  April  1608. 

We  shall  deal  with  Gorbodiic  hereafter  •.  the  two  contribu- 
tions to  The  Mirror  for  Magistrates  concern  us  here.  And  I  have 
little  hesitation  in  saying  that  no  more  astonishing  contribution 
to  English  poetry,  when  the  due  reservations  of  that  historical 
criticism  which  is  the  life  of  all  criticism  are  made,  is  to  be  found 
anywhere.  The  bulk  is  not  great :  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred 
lines  must  cover  the  whole  of  it.  The  form  is  not  new,  being 
merely  the  seven-line  stanza  already  familiar  in  Chaucer.  The 
arrangement  is  in  no  way  novel,  combining  as  it  does  the 
allegorical  presentment  of  embodied  virtues,  vices,  and  qualities 
with  the  melancholy  narrative  common  in  poets  for  many  years 
before.  But  the  poetical  value  of  the  whole  is  extraordinary. 
The  two  constituents  of  that  value,  the  formal  and  the  material, 
are  represented  with  a  singular  equality  of  development.  There 
is  nothing  here  of  Wyatt's  floundering  prosody,  nothing  of  the 
well-intentioned  doggerel  in  which  Surrey  himself  indulges  and  in 
which  his  pupils  simply  revel.  The  cadences  of  the  verse  are 
perfect,  the  imagery  fresh  and  sharj),  the  presentation  of  nature 
singularly  original,  when  it  is  compared   with  the  battered  copies 


SACKVILLE  13 


of  the  poets  with  whom  Sackville  must  have  been  most  famihar, 
the  followers  of  Chaucer  from  Occleve  to  Hawes.  Even  the  general 
plan  of  the  poem — the  weakest  part  of  nearly  all  poems  of  this 
time — is  extraordinarily  effective  and  makes  one  sincerely  sorry 
that  Sackville's  taste,  or  his  other  occupations,  did  not  permit  him 
to  carry  out  the  whole  scheme  on  his  own  account.  The  "  Induc- 
tion,'' in  which  the  author  is  brought  face  to  face  with  Sorrow, 
and  the  central  passages  of  the  "  Complaint  of  Buckingham," 
have  a  depth  and  fulness  of  poetical  sound  and  sense  for  which 
we  must  look  backwards  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  or  forwards 
nearly  five  and  twenty.      Take,  for  instance,  these  stanzas  : — 

"  Thence  come  we  lo  the  horror  and  the  licll, 
The  l.irge  great  kingdoms,  and  the  dreadful  reign 
Of  Pluto  in  his  throne  where  he  did  dwell, 
The  wide  waste  places,  and  the  hugy  plain, 
The  wailings,  shrieks,  and  sundiy  sorts  of  pain, 

The  sighs, the  sobs,  the  deep  and  deadly  groan  ; 

Earth,  air,  and  all,  resounding  plaint  and  moan. 

"  Here  puled  the  babes,  and  here  the  maids  unwed 
With  folded  hands  their  sorry  chance  bewailed, 
Here  wept  the  guiltless  slain,  and  lovers  dead, 
That  slew  themselves  when  nothing  else  availetl  ; 
A  lhousan,d  sorts  of  sorrows  here,  that  wailed 

With  sighs  and  tears,  sobs,  shrieks,  and  all  yfere 

That  oh,  alas  !   it  was  a  hell  to  hear. 

"  Lo  here,  quoth  Sorrow,  princes  of  renown, 
That  whil<jm  sat  on  top  of  fortune's  wheel, 
Now  laid  full  low  ;   like  wretches  whirled  down, 
Ev'n  with  one  frown,  that  stayed  but  with  a  smile  : 
And  now  Iwihold  the  thing  that  thou,  erewhile, 

Saw  only  in  thought  :  and  what  thou  now  shalt  hear, 
Recount  the  same  to  kesar,  king,  and  peer."  ' 


'  The  precedent  descriptions  of  Sorrow  herself,  of  Misery,  and  of  Old  Age, 
are  even  fmer  llian  the  above,  which,  however,  I  have  preferred  for  three 
reasons.  First,  it  has  been  less  often  (juoled  ;  .secondly,  its  subject  is  a  kind 
«»f  commonplace,  and,  therefore,  shows  the  poet's  strength  of  liandling  ;  thirdly, 
because  of  the  singular  and  characteristic  majesty  of  the  opening  lines. 


14  FROM  TOTTEL'S  "  MISCELLANY "  TO  SPENSER      chap. 

It  is  perhaps  well,  in  an  early  passage  of  a  book  which  will 
have  much  to  do  with  the  criticism  of  poetry,  to  dwell  a  little  on 
what  seems  to  the  critic  to  be  the  root  of  that  matter.  In 
the  first  place,  I  must  entirely  differ  with  those  persons  who  have 
sought  to  create  an  independent  prosody  for  English  verse  under 
the  head  of  "  beats "  or  "  accents "  or  something  of  that  sort. 
Every  English  metre  since  Chaucer  at  least  can  be  scanned,  tvithin  the 
proper  limits,  according  to  the  strictest  rules  of  classical  prosody:  and 
while  all  good  English  metre  comes  out  scatheless  from  the  application 
of  those  rules,  nothing  exhibits  the  badness  of  bad  English  metre  so 
7c>ell  as  that  application.  It  is,  alongside  of  their  great  merits,  the 
distinguishing  fault  of  Wyatt  eminently,  of  Surrey  to  a  less  degree, 
and  of  all  the  new  school  up  to  Spenser  more  or  less,  that  they 
neglect  the  quantity  test  too  freely ;  it  is  the  merit  of  Sackville 
that,  holding  on  in  this  respect  to  the  good  school  of  Chaucer,  he 
observes  it.  You  will  find  no  "jawbreakers"  in  Sackville,  no 
attempts  to  adjust  English  words  on  a  Procrustean  bed  of  inde- 
pendent quantification.  He  has  not  indeed  the  manifold  music  of 
Spenser — it  would  be  unreasonable  to  expect  that  he  should  have 
it.  But  his  stanzas,  as  the  foregoing  examples  will  show,  are  of 
remarkable  melody,  and  they  have  about  therii  a  command,  a 
completeness  of  accomplishment  within  the  writer's  intentions, 
which  is  very  noteworthy  in  so  young  a  man.  The  extraordinary 
richness  and  stateliness  of  the  measure  has  escaped  no  critic. 
There  is  indeed  a  certain  one-sidedness  about  it,  and  a  devil's 
advocate  might  urge  that  a  long  poem  couched  in  verse  (let  alone 
the  subject)  of  such  unbroken  gloom  would  be  intolerable.  But 
Sackville  did  not  write  a  long  poem,  and  his  complete  command 
within  his  limits  of  the  effect  at  which  he  evidently  aimed  is  most 
remarkable. 

The  second  thing  to  note  about  the  poem  is  the  extraordinary 
freshness  and  truth  of  its  imagery.  From  a  young  poet  we  always 
expect  second-hand  presentations  of  nature,  and  in  Sackville's 
day  second-hand  presentation  of  nature  had  been  elevated  to  the 
rank  of  a  science.      Here  the  new  school — Surrey,  Wyatt,  and 


SACKVILLE 


15 


their  followers — even  if  he  had  studied  them,  could  have  given 
him  little  or  no  help,  for  great  as  are  the  merits  of  Tottel's 
Misallany,  no  one  would  go  to  it  for  representations  of  nature. 
Among  his  predecessors  in  his  own  style  he  had  to  go  back  to 
Chaucer  (putting  the  Scotch  school  out  of  the  question)  before  he 
could  find  anything  original.  Yet  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
the  sketches  of  external  scenery  in  these  brief  essays  of  his,  or 
the  embodiments  of  internal  thought  in  the  pictures  of  Sorrow 
and  the  other  allegorical  wights,  are  most  striking.  It  is  perfectly 
clear  that  Thomas  Sackville  had,  in  the  first  place,  a  poetical  eye 
to  see,  within  as  well  as  without,  the  objects  of  poetical  present- 
ment ;  in  the  second  place,  a  poetical  vocabulary  in  which  to  clothe 
the  results  of  his  seeing  ;  and  in  the  third  place,  a  poetical  ear  by 
aid  of  which  to  arrange  his  language  in  the  musical  co-ordination 
necessary  to  poetry.  Wyatt  had  been  too  much  to  seek  in  the 
last;  Surrey  had  not  been  very  obviously  furnished  with  the  first; 
and  all  three  were  not  to  be  i)ossessed  by  any  one  else  till 
Edmund  Spenser  arose  to  put  Sackville's  lessons  in  practice  on 
a  wider  scale,  and  with  a  less  monotonous  lyre.  It  is  possible 
that  Sackville's  claims  in  drama  may  have  been  exaggerated — 
they  have  of  late  years  rather  been  undervalued  :  but  his  claims  in 
poetry  proper  can  only  be  overlooked  by  those  who  decline  to 
consider  the  most  important  part  of  poetry.  In  the  subject  of 
even  his  part  of  The  Mirror  there  is  nothing  new  :  there  is  only  a 
following  of  Chaucer,  and  Cower,  and  Occleve,  and  Lydgate,  and 
Hawes,  and  many  others.  But  in  the  handling  there  is  one 
novelty  which  makes  all  others  of  no  effect  or  interest.  It  is  the 
novelty  of  a  new  poetry. 

It  has  already  been  remarked  that  these  two  important  books 
were  not  immediately  followed  by  any  others  in  poetry  corre- 
sponding to  their  importance.  The  poetry  of  the  first  half  of 
IClizabeth's  reign  is  as  mediocre  as  the  i)Oclry  of  the  last  half  of 
her  reign  is  magnificent.  Although  it  had  taken  some  hints  from 
Wyatt  and  Surrey  it  had  not  taken  the  best ;  antl  the  inexplicable 
devotion  of  most  of  the   versifiers  of  the   time   to   the   doggerel 


i6  FROM  TOTTEL'S  "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER       chap. 

metres  already  referred  to  seems  to  have  prevented  them  from 
cukivating  anything  better.  Yet  the  pains  which  were  spent 
upon  translation  during  this  time  were  considerable,  and  un- 
doubtedly had  much  to  do  with  strengthening  and  improving  the 
language.  The  formal  part  of  poetry  became  for  the  first  time  a 
subject  of  study  resulting  in  the  Instructions  of  Gascoigne,  and  in 
the  noteworthy  critical  works  which  will  be  mentioned  in  the  next 
chapter ;  while  the  popularity  of  poetical  miscellanies  showed  the 
audience  that  existed  for  verse.  The  translators  and  the  miscel- 
lanists  will  each  call  for  some  brief  notice;  but  first  it  is  necessary 
to  mention  some  individual,  and  in  their  way,  original  writers 
who,  though  not  possessing  merit  at  all  equal  to  that  of  Wyatt, 
Surrey,  and  Sackville,  yet  deserve  to  be  singled  from  the  crowd. 
These  are  Gascoigne,  Churchyard,  Turberville,  Googe,  and  Tusser. 
The  poetaster  and  literary  hack,  Whetstone,  who  wrote  a 
poetical  memoir  of  George  Gascoigne  after  his  death,  entitles  it 
a  remembrance  of  "  the  well  employed  life  and  godly  end  "  of 
his  hero.  It  is  not  necessary  to  dispute  that  Gascoigne's  end 
was  godly ;  but  except  for  the  fact  that  he  was  for  some  years  a 
diligent  and  not  unmeritorious  writer,  it  is  not  so  certain  that 
his  life  was  well  employed.  At  any  rate  he  does  not  seem  to 
have  thought  so  himself.  The  date  of  his  birth  has  been  put 
as  early  as  1525  and  as  late  as  1536  :  he  certainly  died  in  1577. 
His  father,  a  knight  of  good  family  and  estate  in  Essex,  dis- 
inherited him ;  but  he  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  if  not  at  both 
universities,  was  twice  elected  to  Parliament,  travelled  and  fought 
abroad,  and  took  part  in  the  famous  festival  at  Kenilworth.  His 
work  is,  as  has  been  said,  considerable,  and  is  remarkable  for  the 
number  of  first  attempts  in  English  which  it  contains.  It  has  at 
least  been  claimed  for  him  (though  careful  students  of  literary 
history  know  that  these  attributions  are  ahvays  rather  hazardous) 
that  he  wrote  the  first  English  prose  comedy  (The  Supposes,  a 
version  of  Ariosto),  the  first  regular  verse  satire  {The  Steel  Glass), 
the  first  prose  tale  (a  version  from  Bandello),  the  first  translation 
from   Greek   tragedy  {/ocasta),  and   the  first   critical   essay  (the 


GASCOIGNE 


17 


above-mentioned  A'otes  of  Tnstructioti).  Most  of  these  things,  it 
will  be  seen,  were  merely  adaptations  of  foreign  originals;  but  they 
certainly  make  up  a  remarkable  budget  for  one  man.  In  addition 
to  them,  and  to  a  good  number  of  shorter  and  miscellaneous 
poems,  must  be  mentioned  the  Ghxss  of  Go7'ernnie/tt  (a  kind  of 
morality  or  serious  comedy,  moulded,  it  would  seem,  on  German 
originals),  and  the  rather  prettily,  if  fantastically  termed  Floivers, 
Hcrbs^  and  Weeds.  Gascoigne  has  a  very  fair  command  of 
metre  :  he  is  not  a  great  sinner  in  the  childish  alliteration  which, 
surviving  from  the  older  English  poetry,  helps  to  convert  so  much 
of  his  contemporaries'  work  into  doggerel.  The  pretty  "  Lullaby 
of  a  Lover,"  and  "Gascoigne's  Good  Morrow  "  may  be  mentioned, 
and  part  of  one  of  them  may  be  quoted,  as  a  fair  specimen  of 
his  work,  which  is  always  tolerable  if  never  first-rate. 

"  Sing  lullaby,  as  women  do, 
Wherewith  they  bring  their  babes  to  rest. 
And  lullaby  can  I  sing  too, 
As  womanly  as  can  the  best. 
With  lullaby  they  still  the  child  ; 
And  if  I  b<?  not  much  beguiled. 
Full  many  wanton  babes  have  I 
Which  must  be  stilled  with  lullaby. 

"  First  lullaljy,  my  youthful  years. 
It  is  now  time  to  go  to  bed, 
For  crooked  age  and  hoary  hairs 
Have  won  the  hav'n  witliin  my  head  : 
With  lullaby  then,  youtii,  be  still, 
With  lullaby  content  thy  will. 
Since  courage  quails  and  comes  beliind, 
Go  sleep  and  so  beguile  thy  mind. 

**  Next  lullaby,  my  gazing  eyes, 

Which  wanton  were  to  glance  apace, 
For  every  glass  may  now  suffice 
To  show  the  furrows  in  my  face. 
With  lullaby  then  wink  awhile, 
With  lullaby  your  l<Kjks  beguile  ; 
Let  no  fair  face,  nor  beauty  bright, 
Entice  you  ofl  with  vain  delight. 

n  c 


i8  FROM  TOTTEL'S  "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER      chap. 

"  And  lullaby,  my  wanton  will, 

Let  reason(s)  rule  now  rein  thy  thought, 
Since  all  too  late  I  find  by  skill 
How  dear  I  have  thy  fancies  bought : 
With  lullaby  now  take  thine  ease, 
With  lullaby  thy  doubts  appease, 
For  trust  to  this,  if  thou  be  still 
My  body  shall  obey  thy  will." 

Thomas  Churchyard  was  an  inferior  sort  of  Gascoigne,  who 
led  a  much  longer  if  less  eventful  life.  He  was  about  the 
Court  for  the  greater  part  of  the  century,  and  had  a  habit  of 
calling  his  little  books,  which  were  nuinerous,  and  written  both  in 
verse  and  prose,  by  alliterative  titles  playing  on  his  own  name, 
such  as  Churchyard^s  Chi/>s,  Churchyard'' s  Choice,  and  so  forth. 
He  was  a  person  of  no  great  literary  power,  and  chiefly  note- 
worthy because  of  his  long  life  after  contributing  to  Tottel's 
Miscellany,  which  makes  him  a  link  between  the  old  literature 
and  the  new. 

The  literary  interests  and  tentative  character  of  the  time, 
together  with  its  absence  of  original  genius,  and  the  constant 
symptoms  of  not  having  "  found  its  way,"  are  also  very  noteworthy 
in  George  Turberville  and  Barnabe  Googe,  who  were  friends  and 
verse  writers  of  not  dissimilar  character.  Turberville,  of  whom 
not  much  is  known,  was  a  Dorsetshire  man  of  good  family,  and 
was  educated  at  Winchester  and  Oxford.  His  birth  and  death 
dates  are  both  extremely  uncertain.  Besides  a  book  on  Falconry 
and  numerous  translations  (to  which,  like  all  the  men  of  his 
school  and  day,  he  was  much  addicted),  he  wrote  a  good  many 
occasional  poems,  trying  even  blank  verse.  Barnabe  Googe, 
a  Lincolnshire  man,  and  a  member  of  both  universities, 
appears  to  have  been  born  in  1540,  was  employed  in  Ireland, 
and  died  in  1594.  He  was  kin  to  the  Cecils,  and  Mr.  Arber 
has  recovered  some  rather  interesting  details  about  his  love 
affairs,  in  which  he  was  assisted  by  Lord  Burghley.  He,  too, 
was  an  indefatigable  translator,  and  wrote  some  original  poems. 
Both  poets  affected  the  combination  of  Alexandrine  and  fourteener 


TURBERVILLE  19 


(split  up  or  not,  as  the  printer  chose,  into  six,  six,  eight,  six),  the 
popularity  of  which  has  been  noted,  and  bolh  succumbed  too 
often  to  its  capacities  of  doggerel.  Turberville's  best  work  is  the 
following  song  in  a  pretty  metre  well  kept  u[) : — 

"  The  green  that  you  did  wish  me  wear 

Aye  for  your  love, 
And  on  my  hchii  a  branch  to  bear 

Not  to  remove. 
Was  ever  you  to  have  in  mind 
\Vhom  Cupid  hath  my  fcire  assigned. 

"  As  I  in  this  have  done  your  will 

And  mind  to  do, 
So  I  ref|uest  you  to  fulfil 

My  fancy  too  ; 
A  green  and  loving  heart  U>  have, 
And  this  is  all  that  I  do  crave. 

"  For  if  your  flowering  heart  should  change 
His  colour  green, 
Or   you  at  lengtli  a  lady  strange 

Of  me  be  seen, 
Then  will  my  branch  against  his  use 
His  colour  change  for  your  refuse.' 

"  As  winter's  force  cannot  deface 

This  branch  his  hue, 
So  let  no  change  of  love  disgrace 

Vour  friendship  true  ; 
You  were  mine  own,  and  so  l>c  still, 
So  shall  we  live  and  line  our  fill. 

"Then  I  may  think  myself  to  be 

^^'ell  recompensed. 

For  wearing  of  the  tree  that  is 

So  well  defensed 
Against  all  weather  that  doth  fall 
\Vhen  wayward  winter  spits  his  galL 

"  And  when  we  meet,  to  try  me  true, 
Look  on  my  head, 

^  Refusal. 


20  FROM  TOTTEL'S  "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER      chap. 

And  I  will  crave  an  oath  of  you 

Whe'r^  Faith  be  fled; 
So  shall  we  both  answered  be, 
Both  I  of  you,  and  you  of  me. " 

The  most  considerable  and  the  most  interesting  part  of 
Googe's  work  is  a  set  of  eight  eclogues  which  may  not  have  been 
without  influence  on  The  Shepherd's  Calendar,  and  a  poem  of 
some  length  entitled  Ciipido  Conquered,  which  Spenser  may  also 
have  seen.  Googe  has  more  sustained  power  than  Turberville, 
but  is  much  inferior  to  him  in  command  of  metre  and  in  lyrical 
swing.  In  him,  or  at  least  in  his  printer,  the  mania  for  cutting 
up  long  verses  reaches  its  height,  and  his  very  decasyllabics  are 
found  arranged  in  the  strange  fashion  of  four  and  six  as  thus  : — 

"  Good  aged  Bale  : 

That  with  thy  hoary  hairs 

Dost  still  persist 

To  turn  the  painful  book, 

O  happy  man. 

That  hast  obtained  such  years, 

And  leav'st  not  yet 

On  papers  pale  to  look. 

Give  over  now 

To  beat  thy  wearied  brain, 

And  rest  thy  pen. 

That  long  hath  laboured  sore." 

Thomas  Tusser  (i524?-i58o)  has  often  been  regarded  as 
merely  a  writer  of  doggerel,  which  is  assuredly  not  lacking  in  his 
Hundred  (later  Five  Hundred)  Points  of  Husbandry  (1557-15 73). 
But  he  has  some  piquancy  of  phrase,  and  is  particularly  noticeable 
for  the  variety,  and  to  a  certain  extent  the  accomplishment,  of  his 
prosodic  experiments — ^a  point  of  much  importance  for  the  time. 

To  these  five,  of  whom  some  substantive  notice  has  been 
given,  many  shadowy  names  might  be  added  if  the  catalogue  were 
of  any  use  :   such  as  those  of  Kinwelmersh,  Whetstone,   Phaer, 

1  Short  for  "whether." 


I  THE  TRANSLATORS  21 

Neville,  Blundeston,  Edwards,  Golding,  and  many  others.     They 
seem  to  have  been  for  the  most  part  personally  accjuainted  with 
one    another ;  the    literary    energies    of   England    being    almost 
confined  to  the  universities  and  the  Inns  of  Court,  so  that  most 
of  those  who  devoted  themselves  to  literature  came  into  contact 
and  formed  what  is  sometimes  called  a  clique.     They  were  all 
studiously  anil  rather  indiscriminately  given  to  translation   (the 
body  of  foreign  work,  ancient  and  modern,  which  was  turned  into 
English  during  this  quarter  of  a  century  being  very  large  indeed), 
and   all   or  many  of  them  were  contributors  of  commendatory 
verses  to  each  other's  work  and  of  pieces  of  different  descriptions 
to  the  poetical  miscellanies  of  the  time.      Of  these  miscellanies 
and  of  the  chief  translations  from  the  classics  some  little  notice 
may  be  taken  because  of  the  great  part  which  both  played  in  the 
poetical  education  of  England.      It  has  been  said  that  almost  all 
the  original  poets  were  also  translators.     Thus  Googe  Englished, 
among  other  things,  the  Zodiacus  Vitce  of  Marcellus  Palingenius, 
the  Regnum  Papisticuin  of  Kirchmayer,  the  Four  Books  of  Hus- 
bandry of  Conrad  Heresbach,  and  the  Proverbs  of  the  Marcjuis  of 
Santillana ;   but  some  of  the  translators  were  not  distinguished 
by   any    original    work.       Thus    Jasper    Heywood,   followed    by 
Neville    above    mentioned,    by    Studley,    and    others,   translated 
between   1560  and   15 So  those  tragedies  of  Seneca  which  had 
such  a  vast  influence  on   foreign    literature   and,  fortunately,  so 
small  an  influence  on  English.     Arthur  Colding  gave  in  1567 
a  version,  by  no  means  destitute  of  merit,  of  the  Melamorphoses 
which  had  a  great  influence  on  English  poetry,    ^^'e  have  already 
mentioned    Surrey's    blank -verse    translation    of    Virgil.       This 
was  followed  up,  in   1555-60,  by  Thomas  Phaer,  who,  like  most 
of  the  persons  mentioned  in  this  paragraph,  used  the  fourteener, 
broken  up  or  not,  as  accident  or  the  necessities  of  the  printer 
brought  it  about. 

It  was  beyond  doubt  this  abundant  translation,  and  perhaps 
also  the  manifest  deficiencies  of  the  fourteener  thus  used,  which 
brought  about  at  the  close  of  the  present  period  and  the  beginning 


22  FROM  TOTTFX'S  "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER      chap. 

of  the  next  the  extraordinary  attempt  to  reproduce  classical 
metres  in  English  verse,  which  for  a  time  seduced  even  Spenser, 
which  was  not  a  little  countenanced  by  most  of  the  critical  writers 
of  the  period,  which  led  Gabriel  Harvey  and  others  into  such 
absurdities,  and  which  was  scarcely  slain  even  by  Daniel's  famous 
and  capital  Defence  of  Rhyme.  The  discussion  of  this  absurd 
attempt  (for  which  rules,  not  now  extant,  came  from  Drant  of 
Cambridge)  in  the  correspondence  of  Spenser  and  Harvey,  and  the 
sensible  fashion  in  which  Nash  laughed  at  it,  are  among  the  best 
known  things  in  the  gossiping  history  of  English  Letters.  But  the 
coxcombry  of  Harvey  and  the  felicitous  impertinence  of  Nash 
have  sometimes  diverted  attention  from  the  actual  state  of  the 
case.  William  Webbe  (a  very  sober-minded  person  with  taste 
enough  to  admire  the  "new  poet,"  as  he  calls  Spenser)  makes 
elaborate  attempts  not  merely  at  hexameters,  which,  though  only  a 
curiosity,  are  a  possible  curiosity  in  English,  but  at  Sapphics  which 
could  never  (except  as  burlesque)  be  tolerable.  Sidney,  Spenser, 
and  others  gave  serious  heed  to  the  scheme  of  substituting  classical 
metres  without  rhyme  for  indigenous  metres  with  rhyme.  And 
unless  the  two  causes  which  brought  this  about  are  constantly  kept 
in  mind,  the  reason  of  it  will  not  be  understood.  It  was  un- 
doubtedly the  weakness  of  contemporary  English  verse  which 
reinforced  the  general  Renaissance  admiration  for  the  classics ; 
nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  Wyatt  takes,  in  vernacular  metres 
and  with  rhyme,  nearly  as  great  liberties  with  the  intonation  and 
prosody  of  the  language  as  any  of  the  classicists  in  their  unlucky 
hexameters  and  elegiacs.  The  majesty  and  grace  of  the  learned 
tongues,  contrasting  with  the  poverty  of  their  own  language, 
impressed,  and  to  a  great  extent  rightly  impressed,  the  early 
Elizabethans,  so  that  they  naturally  enough  cast  about  for  any 
means  to  improve  the  one,  and  hesitated  at  ahy  peculiarity  which 
was  not  found  in  the  other.  It  was  unpardonable  in  Milton 
to  sneer  at  rhyme  after  the  fifty  years  of  magnificent  production 
which  had  put  English  on  a  level  with  Greek  and  above  Latin 
as  a  literary  instrument.      But  for   Harvey  and   Spenser,  Sidney 


STAXVIIURST  aj 


and  Webbe,  with  those  fifty  years  still  to  come,  the  state  of  the 
case  was  ver)-  different. 

The  translation  mania  and  the  classicising  mania  together  led 
to  the  production  of  perhaps  the  most  absurd  book  in  all  literature 
— a  book  which  deserves  extended  notice  here,  partly  because  it 
has  only  recently  become  accessible  to  the  general  reader  in  its 
original  form,  and  partly  because  it  is,  though  a  caricature,  yet  a 
very  instructive  caricature  of  the  tendencies  and  literary  ideas  of 
the  time.  This  is  Richard  Stanyhurst's  translation  of  the  first 
four  books  of  the  .-Enciii,  first  printed  at  Leyden  in  the  summer 
of  1582,  and  reprinted  in  London  a  year  later.  This  wonderful 
book  (in  which  the  spelling  is  only  less  marvellous  than  the 
phraseolog)'  and  verse)  shows  more  than  anything  else  the  active 
throes  which  English  literature  was  undergoing,  and  though  the 
result  was  but  a  false  birth  it  is  none  the  less  interesting. 

Stanyhurst  was  not,  as  might  be  hastily  imagined,  a  person  of 
insufficient  culture  or  insufficient  brains.  He  was  an  Irish 
Roman  Catholic  gentleman,  brother-in-law  to  Lord  Dunsany,  and 
uncle  to  Archbishop  L'sher,  and  though  he  was  author  of  the 
Irish  part  of  Holinshed's  History,  he  has  always  been  regarded 
by  the  madder  sort  of  Hibernians  as  a  traitor  to  the  nation.  His 
father  was  Recorder  of  Dublin,  and  he  himself,  having  been 
born  about  1547,  was  educated  at  University  College,  Oxford, 
and  went  thence,  if  not  to  the  Inns  of  Court,  at  any  rate  to 
those  of  Chancery,  and  became  a  student  of  Furnival's  Inn. 
He  died  at  Brussels  in  16 18.  Here  is  an  example  of  his  prose, 
the  latter  part  of  which  is  profitable  for  matter  as  well  as  for 
form : — 

"  I  low  Wyl'  I  haue  hecrc  haulf  a  guesh,  that  two  sorts  of  carpers  wyl  seeme 
too  s]Hirnc  at  this  myne  enterprise.  Thee  one  vttcrlic  i^jnorant,  the  oother 
meanlye  letter>I.  Thee  ignorant  wyl  imagin,  that  thee  p.issage  was  nothing 
craggye,  in  xs  much  as  M.  I'haere  hath  hrolcen  thee  ice  before  me  :  Thee 
meaner  ciarcks  wyl  suppose  my  trauail   in   theesc  heroical  verses  too  carrye  no 

'  This  and  the  next  extract  are  given  liUratiin  to  siiuw  .Stanyliursl's 
man'ellous  spelling. 


24        From  tottel's  "miscellany*'  to  spenser    chap. 

great  difficultie,  in  that  yt  lay  in  my  choice  too  make  what  word  I  would  short 
or  long,  hailing  no  English  writer  beefore  mee  in  this  kind  of  poetrye  with 
whose  squire  I  should  leauel  my  syllables. 

Haue  not  theese  men  made  a  fayre  speake?  If  they  had  put  in  Alight  ye  Jone, 
and  gods  in  thee  plural  number,  and  Venus  with  Cupide  thee  blynd  Boy,  al  had 
beene  in  thee  nick,  thee  rythme  had  been  of  a  right  stamp.  For  a  few  such 
stiches  boch  vp  oure  newe  fashion  makers.  Prouyded  not  wythstanding 
alwayes  that  Artaxerxes,  al  be  yt  hee  bee  spurgalde,  beeing  so  much  gallop, 
bee  placed  in  thee  dedicatory  epistle  receauing  a  cuppe  of  water  of  a  swayne, 
or  elles  al  is  not  wurth  a  beane.  Good  God  what  a  frye  of  wooden  7ythmours 
dooth  swarme  in  stacioners  shops,  who  neauer  enstructed  in  any  grammar 
schoole,  not  atayning  too  thee  paaringes  of  thee  Latin  or  Greeke  tongue,  yeet 
like  blind  bayards  rush  on  forward,  fostring  theyre  vayne  conceits  wyth  such 
ouerweening  silly  follyes,  as  they  reck  not  too  bee  condemned  of  thee  learned 
for  ignorant,  so  they  bee  commended  of  thee  ignorant  for  learned.  Thee 
reddyest  way,  therefore,  too  flap  theese  droanes  from  the  sweete  senting  hiues  of 
Poetrye,  is  for  thee  learned  too  applye  theym  selues  wholye  (yf  they  be  de- 
lighted wyth  that  veyne)  too  thee  true  making  of  verses  in  such  wise  as  thee 
Greekes  and  Latins,  thee  fathurs  of  knowledge,  haue  doone  ;  and  too  leaue  too 
theese  doltish  coystrels  theyre  rude  rythming  and  balducktoom  ballads."' 

Given  a  person  capable  of  this  lingo,  given  the  prevalent  mania 
for  English  hexameters,  and  even  what  follows  may  not  seem  too 
impossible. 

"  This  sayd,  with  darcksoom  night  shade  quite  clowdye  she  vannisht. 
Grislye  faces  frouncing,  eke  against  Troy  leaged  in  hatred 
Of  Saincts  soure  deities  dyd  I  see. 
Then  dyd  I  marck  playnely  thee  castle  of  Ilion  vplayd, 
And  Troian  buyldings  quit  topsy  turvye  remooued. 
Much  lyk  on  a  mountayn  thee  tree  dry  wythered  oaken 
Sliest  by  the  clowne  Coridon  rusticks  with  twlbbil  or  hatchet. 
Then  the  tre  deepe  minced,  far  chopt  dooth  terrifye  swinckers 
With  menacing  becking  thee  branches  palsye  before  tyme, 
Vntil  with  sowghing  yt  grunts,  as  wounded  in  hacking. 
At  length  with  rounsefal,  from  stock  vntruncked  yt  harssheth. 

Hee  rested  wylful  lyk  a  wayward  obstinat  oldgrey. 

Theese  woords  owt  showting  with  her  howling  the  house  she  replennisht." 

There  is  perhaps  no  greater  evidence   of  the   reverence   in 


I  LATER  MISCELLANIES  25 

which  the  ancients  were  held  than  that  such  frantic  balderdash 
as  this  did  not  extinguish  it  Yet  this  was  what  a  man  of 
undoubted  talent,  of  considerable  learning,  and  of  no  small 
acuteness  (for  Stanyhurst's  Preface  to  this  very  translation  shows 
something  more  than  glimmerings  on  the  subject  of  classical  and 
English  prosody),  could  produce.  It  must  never  be  forgotten 
that  the  men  of  this  time  were  at  a  hopelessly  wrong  point  of 
view.  It  never  occurred  to  them  that  English  left  to  itself  could 
equal  Greek  or  Latin.  They  simply  endeavoured,  with  the 
utmost  pains  and  skill,  to  drag  English  up  to  the  same  level 
as  these  unapi^roachable  languages  by  forcing  it  into  the  same 
moulds  which  Greek  and  Latin  had  endured.  Properly  speak- 
ing we 'ought  not  to  laugh  at  them.  They  were  carrying  out 
in  literature  what  the  older  books  of  arithmetic  call  "  The  Rule 
of  False," — that  is  to  say,  they  were  trying  what  the  English 
tongue  could  not  bear.  No  one  was  so  successful  as  Stany- 
hurst  in  applying  this  test  of  the  rack  :  yet  it  is  fair  to 
say  that  Harvey  and  "Webbe,  nay,  Spenser  and  Sidney,  had 
practically,  though,  except  in  Spenser's  case,  it  would  appear 
unconsciously,  arrived  at  the  same  conclusion  before.  How 
much  we  owe  to  such  adventurers  of  the  impossible  few  men 
know  except  those  who  have  tried  to  study  literature  as  a  whole. 
A  few  words  have  to  be  said  in  passing  as  to  the  miscellanies 
which  played  such  an  important  part  in  the  poetical  literature  of 
the  day.  Tottel  and  The  Mirror  for  Magistraks  (whicli  was, 
considering  its  constant  accretions,  a  sort  of  miscellany)  have 
been  already  noticed.  They  were  followed  by  not  a  few  others. 
The  first  in  date  was  The  Paradise  0/ Dai n/y  Devices  {i^"] 6),  edited 
by  R.  ]%dwards,  a  dramatist  of  industry  if  not  of  genius,  and  con- 
taining a  certain  amount  of  interesting  work.  It  was  very  popular, 
going  through  nine  or  ten  editions  in  thirty  years,  but  with  a  few 
scattered  exceptions  it  does  not  yield  much  to  the  historian  of 
English  poetry.  Its  popularity  shows  what  was  expected ;  its 
contents  show  what,  at  any  rate  at  the  date  of  its  first  appearance, 
was  given.      It  is  possible  that  the  doleful  contents  of  The  Mirror 


26  FROM  TOTTEL'S  "MISCELLANY"  TO  SPENSER      chaP, 

for  Magistrates  (which  was  reprinted  six  times  during  our  present 
period,  and  which  busied  itself  wholly  with  what  magistrates 
should  avoid,  and  wath  the  sorrowful  departing  out  of  this  life  of 
the  subjects)  may  have  had  a  strong  effect  on  Edwards,  though 
one  at  least  of  his  contributors,  W.  Hunnis,  was  a  man  of  mould. 
It  was  followed  in  1578  by  A  Gorgeous  Gallery  of  Gallant 
Inventions^  supposed  to  have  been  edited  by  Roydon  and  Proctor, 
which  is  a  still  drier  stick.  The  next  miscellany,  six  years  later, 
A  Handful  of  Plcasajit  Delights,  edited  by  Clement  Robinson,  is 
somewhat  better  though  not  much.  It  is  followed  by  the  Phcenix 
Nest,  an  interesting  collection,  by  no  less  than  three  miscellanies 
in  1600,  edited  by  "A.  B."  and  R.  Allot,  and  named  Englatid's 
Helicori,  England'' s  Parnassus,  and  Belvedere  (the  two  latter  being 
rather  anthologies  of  extracts  than  miscellanies  proper),  and  by 
Francis  Davison's  famous  Poetical  Rhapsody,  1602,  all  which  last 
belong  to  a  much  later  date  than  our  present  subjects. 

To  call  the  general  poetical  merit  of  these  earlier  miscellanies 
high  would  be  absurd.  But  what  at  once  strikes  the  reader,  not 
merely  of  them  but  of  the  collections  of  individual  work  which 
accompany  them,  as  so  astonishing,  is  the  level  which  is  occasion- 
ally reached.  The  work  is  often  the  work  of  persons  quite 
unknown  or  unimportant  in  literature  as  persons.  But  we 
constantly  see  in  it  a  flash,  a  symptom  of  the  presence  of  the 
true  poetical  spirit  which  it  is  often  impossible  to  find  for  years 
together  in  other  periods  of  poetry.  For  instance,  if  ever  there 
was  a  "  dull  dog  "  in  verse  it  was  Richard  Edwards.  Yet  in  TJie 
Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices  Edwards's  poem  with  the  refrain 
"The  falling  out  of  faithful  friends  renewing  is  of  love,"  is 
one  of  the  most  charming  things  anywhere  to  be  found.  So 
is,  after  many  years,  the  poem  attributed  to  John  Wooton  in 
England's  Helicon  (the  best  of  the  whole  set),  beginning  "  Her 
eyes  like  shining  lamps,"  so  is  the  exquisite  "  Come,  little  babe  " 
from  The  Arbour  of  Amorous  Devices,  so  are  dozens  and  scores 
more  which  may  be  found  in  their  proper  places,  and  many  of 
them   in  Mr.  Arber's  admirable  English  Garner.     The  spirit  of 


CHARACTERISTICS  27 


poetry,  rising  slowly,  was  rising  surely  in  the  England  of  these 
years  :  no  man  knew  exactly  where  it  would  appear,  and  the 
greatest  poets  were — for  their  praises  of  themselves  and  their 
fellows  are  quite  unconscious  and  simple — as  ignorant  as  others. 
The  first  thirty  years  of  the  reign  were  occupied  with  simple 
education — study  of  models,  efforts  in  this  or  that  kind,  transla- 
tion, and  the  rest.  But  the  right  models  had  been  provided  by 
Wyatt  and  Surrey's  study  of  tlie  Italians,  and  by  the  study  of  tlic 
classics  which  all  men  then  pursued  ;  and  the  original  inspiration, 
without  which  the  best  models  are  useless,  though  itself  can 
do  little  when  the  best  models  are  not  used,  was  abundantly 
present.  Few  things  are  more  curious  than  to  compare,  let 
us  say,  Googe  and  Spenser.  Yet  few  things  are  more  certain  than 
that  without  the  study  and  e.xperiments  w'hich  Googe  represents 
Spenser  could  not  have  existed.  Those  who  decry  the  historical 
method  in  criticism  ignore  this ;  and  ignorance  like  wisdom  is 
justified  of  all  her  children, 


CHAPTER    II 


EARLY    ELIZABETHAN    PROSE 


The  history  of  the  earher  EUzabethan  prose,  if  we  except  the 
name  of  Hooker,  in  whom  it  cuhiiinates,  is  to  a  great  extent  the 
history  of  curiosities  of  hterature — of  tentative  and  imperfect 
efforts,  scarcely  resulting  in  any  real  vernacular  style  at  all.  It 
is,  however,  emphatically  the  Period  of  Origins  of  modern  English 
prose,  and  as  such  cannot  but  be  interesting.  We  shall  therefore 
rapidly  survey  its  chief  developments,  noting  first  what  had  been 
done  before  Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne,  then  taking  Ascham 
(who  stands,  though  part  of  his  work  was  written  earlier,  very 
much  as  the  first  Elizabethan  prosaist),  noticing  the  schools  of 
historians,  translators,  controversialists,  and  especially  critics  who 
illustrated  the  middle  period  of  the  reign,  and  singling  out  the 
noteworthy  personality  of  Sidney.  We  shall  also  say  something 
of  Lyly  (as  far  as  Eiiphues  is  concerned)  and  his  singular  attempts 
in  prose  style,  and  shall  finish  with  Hooker,  the  one  really  great 
name  of  the  period.  Its  voluminous  pamphleteering,  though  much 
of  it,  especially  the  Martin  Marprelate  controversy,  might  come 
chronologically  within  the  limit  of  this  chapter,  will  be  better 
reserved  for  a  notice  in  Chapter  VI.  of  the  whole  pamphlet  litera- 
ture of  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James — an  interesting  subject, 
the  relation  of  which  to  the  modern  periodical  has  been  somewhat 
overlooked,  and  which  indeed  was,  until  a  comparatively  recent 
period,    not   very   easy    to    study.       Gabriel    Harvey   alone,    as 


CHAP.  II  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  PROSE  29 

distinctly   belonging   to    the   earlier   Elizabethans,   may   be  here 
included  with  other  critics. 

It  was  an  inevitable  result  ot*  the  discovery  of  printing  that 
the  cultivation  of  the  vernacular  for  purposes  of  all  work — that  is 
to  say,  for  prose — should  be  largely  increased.  Yet  a  different 
influence  arising,  or  at  least  eked  out,  from  the  same  source,  rather 
checked  this  increase.  The  study  of  the  classical  writers  had  at 
first  a  tendency  to  render  inveterate  the  habit  of  employing  Latin 
for  the  journey-work  of  literature,  and  in  the  two  countries  which 
were  to  lead  Western  Europe  for  the  future  (the  literary  date  of 
Italy  was  already  drawing  to  a  close,  and  Italy  had  long  possessed 
vernacular  prose  masterpieces),  it  was  not  till  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century  that  the  writing  of  vernacular  prose  was  warmly 
advocated  and  systematically  undertaken.  The  most  interesting 
monuments  of  this  crusade,  as  it  may  almost  be  called,  in  Eng- 
land are  connected  with  a  school  of  Cambridge  scholars  who 
flourished  a  little  before  our  period,  though  not  a  few  of  them, 
such  as  Ascham,  ^Vilson,  and  others,  lived  into  it.  A  letter  of  Sir 
John  Cheke's  in  the  very  year  of  the  accession  of  Elizabeth  is  the 
most  noteworthy  document  on  the  subject.  It  was  written  to 
another  father  of  English  prose,  Sir  Thomas  Hoby,  the  translator 
of  Castiglione's  Courtier.  But  Ascham  had  already  and  some 
years  earlier  published  his  Toxop/iilus,  and  various  not  unimport- 
ant attempts,  detailed  notice  of  which  would  be  an  antedating  of 
our  proper  period,  had  been  made.  More's  chief  work,  Utopia,  had 
been  written  in  Latin,  and  was  translated  into  English  by  another 
hand,  but  his  History  of  Edivard  V.  was  not  a  mean  contribution 
to  English  prose.  Tyndale's  Ne7u  Testament  had  given  a  new 
and  fMDwerful  impulse  to  the  reading  of  English  ;  Elyot's  Governor 
had  set  the  example  of  treating  serious  subjects  in  a  style  not 
unworthy  of  them,  and  Leland's  quaint  Itinerary  the  exam])le  of 
describing  more  or  less  faithfully  if  somewhat  uncouthls.  Hall 
had  followed  Labyan  as  an  I'Jiglish  historian,  and,  above  all, 
I^timer's  Sermons  had  shown  how  to  transform  spoken  I'.nglish 
of  the  raciest  kind  into  literature.      Lord  Berners's  translations  of 


30  EARLY    ELIZABETHAN    PROSE  chap. 

Froissart  and  of  divers  examples  of  late  Continental  romance 
had  provided  much  prose  of  no  mean  quality  for  light  read- 
ing, and  also  by  their  imitation  of  the  florid  and  fanciful  style  of 
the  French-Flemish  rhetoriqiicurs  (with  which  Berners  was  familiar 
both  as  a  student  of  French  and  as  governor  of  Calais)  had  pro- 
bably contributed  not  a  little  to  supply  and  furnish  forth  the  side 
of  Elizabethan  expression  which  found  so  memorable  an  exponent 
in  the  author  of  Eiiphues. 

For  our  purpose,  however,  Roger  Ascham  may  serve  as  a 
starting-point.  His  Toxophibis  was  written  and  printed  as  early 
as  1545  ;  his  Schoolmaster  did  not  appear  till  after  his  death,  and 
seems  to  have  been  chiefly  written  in  the  very  last  days  of  his  life. 
There  is  thus  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  between  them,  yet 
they  are  not  very  different  in  style.  Ascham  was  a  Yorkshire 
man  born  at  Kirbywiske,  near  Northallerton,  in  1 5 1 5  ;  he  went 
to  St.  John's  College  at  Cambridge,  then  a  notable  seat  of 
learning,  in  1530;  was  elected  scholar,  fellow,  and  lecturer, 
became  public  orator  the  year  after  the  appearance  of  Toxophilus, 
acted  as  tutor  to  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  went  on  diplomatic 
business  to  Germany,  was  Latin  secretary  to  Queen  Mary,  and 
after  her  death  to  his  old  pupil,  and  died  on  the  30th  December 
1568.  A  treatise  on  Cock-fighting  (of  which  sport  he  was  very 
fond)  appears  to  have  been  written  by  him,  and  was  perhaps 
printed,  but  is  unluckily  lost.  We  have  also  Epistles  from  him, 
and  his  works,  both  English  and  Latin,  have  been  in  whole  or 
part  frequently  edited.  The  great  interest  of  Ascham  is  expressed 
as  happily  as  possible  by  his  own  words  in  the  dedication  of 
Toxophibis  to  Henry  VHL  "Although,"  he  says,  "to  have 
written  this  book  either  in  Latin  or  Greek  .  .  .  had  been  more 
easier  and  fit  for  my  trade  in  study,  yet  ...  I  have  written  this 
English  matter  in  the  English  tongue  for  Englishmen  " — a  memor- 
able sentence  none  the  worse  for  its  jingle  and  repetition,  which 
are  well  in  place.  Until  scholars  like  Ascham,  who  with  the 
rarest  exceptions  were  the  only  persons  likely  or  able  to  write 
at  all,  cared  to  write   "  English  matters  in    English  tongue  for 


rt  ASCIIAM  31 

Englishmen,"  the  formation  of  English  prose  style  was  impossible; 
and  that  it  required  some  courage  to  do  so,  Cheke's  letter,  written 
twelve  years  later,  shows. ^ 

"I  am  of  this  opinion  that  our  own  tongue  should  be  written  clean  and 
pure,  unmixed  and  unmingled  with  borrowing  of  other  tongues,  wherein,  if  we 
lake  not  heed  by  lime,  ever  borrowing  and  never  paying,  she  shall  l)e  fain  to 
keep  her  house  as  bankrupt.'  For  then  doth  our  tongue  naturally  and  prais- 
ably  utter  her  meaning,  when  she  borroweth  no  counterfeitures  of  other 
tongues  to  altire  herself  withal,  but  useth  plainly  her  own  with  such  shift  as 
nature,  craft,  experience,  and  following  of  other  excellent  doth  lead  her  unto, 
and  if  she  want  at  any  time  (as  being  imperfect  she  must)  yet  let  her  borrow 
with  such  bashfulness  that  it  may  appear,  that  if  either  the  mould  of  our  own 
tongue  could  serve  us  to  fashion  a  word  of  our  own,  or  if  the  old  ilenizened 
words  could  content  and  ease  this  need  we  would  not  boldly  venture  of  un- 
known words.  "^ 

The  Toxophilus  and  the  Schoolmaster  are  botli  in  their  different 
ways  very  pleasant  reading ;  and  the  Englisli  is  far  more  correct 
than  that  of  much  greater  men  than  Ascham  in  ihc  next  cen- 
tury. It  is,  however,  merely  as  style,  less  interesting,  because 
it  is  clear  that  the  author  is  doing  little  more  than  translate 
in  his  head,  instead  of  on  the  paper,  good  current  Latin  (such 
as  it  would  have  been  "  more  easier "  for  him  to  write)  into 
current  English.  He  does  not  indulge  in  any  undue  classi- 
cism ;  he  takes  itw  of  the  liberties  with  English  grammar  which, 
a  little  later,  it  was  the  habit  to  take  on  the  strength  of  classical 
examjjles.  But,  on  the  oiIkt  hand,  he  does  not  attempt,  and  it 
would  be  rather  unreasonable  to  expect  that  he  should  have 
attempted,  exi)eriments  in  the  literary  power  of  English  itself 
A  slight  sense  of  its  not  being  so  "easy"  to  write  in  l^nglish 
as  in  Latin,  and  of  the  conseciuent  advisableness  of  keeping 
to  a  sober  beaten   path,  to  a  kind  of  style  which   is  not  much 

'  The  letter  is  given  in  full  by  .Mr.  Arbcr  in  his  introduction  to  Ascham's 
Sihoolinasler,  p.  5. 

'  It  will  l>c  seen  that  Chcke  writes  what  he  argues  for,  "  clean  and  pure 
Knglish."  "Other  excellent"  is  perhaps  the  only  doubtful  phrase  in  the 
extract  or  in  the  Icllcr, 


32  EARLY  ELIZABETHAN  PROSE  chap. 

more  English  (except  for  being  composed  of  good  English 
words  in  straightforward  order)  than  it  is  any  literary  language 
framed  to  a  great  extent  on  the  classics,  shows  itself  in  him.  One 
might  translate  passage  after  passage  of  Ascham,  keeping  almost 
the  whole  order  of  the  words,  into  very  good  sound  Latin  prose; 
and,  indeed,  his  great  secret  in  the  Schoolmaster  (the  perpetual 
translation  and  retranslation  of  English  into  the  learned  languages, 
and  especially  Latin)  is  exactly  what  would  form  such  a  style.  It 
is,  as  the  following  examples  from  both  works  will  show,  clear, 
not  inelegant,  invaluable  as  a  kind  of  go-cart  to  habituate  the 
infant  limbs  of  prose  EngUsh  to  orderly  movement ;  but  it  is  not 
original,  or  striking,  or  characteristic,  or  calculated  to  show  the 
native  powers  and  capacities  of  the  language. 

"  I  can  teach  you  to  shoot  fair,  even  as  Socrates  taught  a  man  once  to 
know  God.  For  when  he  asked  him  what  was  God?  'Nay,'  saith  he,  'I 
can  tell  you  better  what  God  is  not,  as  God  is  not  ill,  God  is  unspeakable,  un- 
searchable, and  so  forth.  Even  likewise  can  I  say  of  fair  shooting,  it  hath  not 
this  discommodity  with  it  nor  that  discommodity,  and  at  last  a  man  may  so 
shift  all  the  discommodities  from  shooting  that  there  shall  be  left  nothing 
behind  but  fair  shooting.  And  to  do  this  the  better  you  must  remember  how 
that  I  told  you  when  I  described  generally  the  whole  nature  of  shooting,  that 
fair  shooting  came  of  these  things  of  standing,  nocking,  drawing,  holding  and 
loosing  ;  the  which  I  will  go  over  as  shortly  as  I  can,  describing  the  discom- 
modities that  men  commonly  use  in  all  parts  of  their  bodies,  that  you,  if  3'ou 
fault  in  any  such,  may  know  it,  and  go  about  to  amend  it.  Faults  in  archers 
do  exceed  the  number  of  archers,  which  come  with  use  of  shooting  without 
teaching.  Use  and  custom  separated  from  knowledge  and  learning,  doth  not 
only  hurt  shooting,  but  the  most  weighty  things  in  the  world  beside.  And, 
therefore,  I  marvel  much  at  those  people  which  be  the  maintainers  of  uses 
without  knowledge,  having  no  other  word  in  their  mouth  but  this  use,  use, 
custom,  custom.  Such  men,  more  wilful  than  wise,  beside  other  discommo- 
dities, take  all  place  and  occasion  from  all  amendment.  And  this  I  speak 
generally  of  use  and  custom. " 

"  Time  was  when  Italy  and  Rome  have  been,  to  the  great  good  of  us  who 
now  live,  the  best  breeders  and  bringers  up  of  the  worthiest  men,  not  only  for 
wise  speaking,  but  also  for  well-doing  in  all  civil  affairs  that  ever  was  in  the  world. 
But  now  that  time  is  gone;  and  though  the  place  remain,  yet  the  old  and 
present  manners  do  differ  as  far  as  black  and  white,  as  virtue  and  vice.  Virtue 
once  made  that  country  mistress  over  all  the  world  ;  vice  now  maketh  that 


n  THE  CRITICS  33 


country  slave  to  them  that  l)efore  were  glad  to  serve  it.  All  man  [/>. 
mankind]  seeih  it ;  they  themselves  confess  it,  namely  such  as  be  best  and 
wisest  amongst  them.  For  sin,  by  lust  and  vanity,  hath  and  doth  breed  up 
ever)'where  common  contempt  of  God's  word,  private  contention  in  many 
flimilies,  open  factions  in  every  city  ;  and  so  making  themselves  bond  to 
vanity  and  vice  at  home,  they  are  content  to  bear  the  yoke  of  serving  strangers 
abroad.  Italy  now  is  not  that  Italy  it  was  wont  to  be  ;  and  therefore  now  not 
so  fit  a  place  as  some  do  count  it  for  young  men  to  fetch  either  wisdom  or 
honesty  from  thence.  For  surely  they  will  make  others  but  bad  scholars  that 
l>e  so  ill  masters  to  themselves." 

This  same  characteristic,  or  absence  of  characteristic,  which 
readies  its  climax — a  chmax  endowing  it  with  something  like 
substantive  life  and  merit — in  Hooker,  displays  itself,  with  more 
and  more  admixture  of  raciness  and  native  peculiarity,  in  almost 
all  the  prose  of  the  early  Elizabethan  period  up  to  the  singular 
escapade  of  Lyly,  who  certainly  tried  to  write  not  a  classical  style 
but  a  style  of  his  own.  The  better  men,  with  Thomas  Wilson  and 
Ascham  himself  at  their  head,  made  indeed  earnest  protests 
against  Latinising  the  vocabulary  (the  great  fault  of  the  contem- 
porary French  Pleiade),  but  they  were  not  quite  aware  how  much 
they  were  under  the  influence  of  Latin  in  other  matters.  The 
translators,  such  as  North,  whose  famous  version  of  Plutarch 
after  Amyot  had  the  immortal  honour  of  suggesting  not  a 
little  of  Shakespere's  greatest  work,  had  the  chief  excuse  and 
temptation  in  doing  this ;  but  all  writers  did  it  more  or  less  : 
the  theologians  (to  whom  it  would  no  doubt  have  been  "  more 
easier  "  to  write  in  Latin),  the  historians  (though  the  little  known 
Holinshed  has  broken  off  into  a  much  more  vernacular  but  also 
much  more  disorderly  style),  the  rare  geographers  (of  whom  the 
chief  is  Richard  Ivden,  the  first  English  writer  on  America),  and 
the  rest.  Of  this  rest  the  most  interesting,  perhaps,  are  the 
small  but  curious  knot  of  critics  who  lead  up  in  various  ways 
to  Sidney  and  Harvey,  who  seem  to  have  excited  considerable 
interest  at  the  time,  and  who  were  not  succeeded,  after  the 
early  years  of  James,  by  any  considerable  body  of  critics  of 
English  till  J(jhn  I)rydcn  began  to  write  in  the  last  third  of 
II  D 


34  EARLY  ELIZABETHAN  TROSE  chap. 

the  following  century.  Of  these  (putting  out  of  sight  Stephen 
Gosson,  the  immediate  begetter  of  Sidney's  Apology  for  Poetry, 
Campion,  the  chief  champion  of  classical  metres  in  English, 
and  by  a  quaint  contrast  the  author  of  some  of  the  most  charming 
of  English  songs  in  purely  romantic  style,  with  his  adversary 
the  poet  Daniel,  Meres,  etc.),  the  chief  is  the  author  of  the 
anonymous  Aii  of  Etiglish  Foesie,  published  the  year  after  the 
Armada,  and  just  before  the  appearance  of  The  Faerie  Queene. 
This  Art  has  chiefly  to  be  compared  with  the  Discourse  of  Engl i sit 
Foetrie,  published  three  years  earlier  by  William  Webbe.  Webbe, 
of  whom  nothing  is  known  save  that  he  was  a  private  tutor  at 
one  or  two  gentlemen's  houses  in  Essex,  exhibits  that  dislike 
and  disdain  of  rhyme  which  was  an  offshoot  of  the  passion  for 
humanist  studies,  which  was  importantly  represented  all  through 
the  sixteenth  and  early  seventeenth  century  in  England,  and 
which  had  Milton  for  its  last  and  greatest  exponent.  The  Art  of 
Englisfi  Foesie,  which  is  attributed  on  no  grounds  of  contemporary 
evidence  to  George  Puttenham,  though  the  book  was  generally 
reputed  his  in  the  next  generation,  is  a  much  more  considerable 
treatise,  some  four  times  the  length  of  Webbe's,  dealing  with  a  large 
number  of  questions  subsidiary  to  Ars  Foetica,  and  containing  no 
few  selections  of  illustrative  verse,  many  of  the  author's  own.  As 
far  as  style  goes  both  Webbe  and  Puttenham  fall  into  the  rather 
colourless  but  not  incorrect  class  already  described,  and  are  of 
the  tribe  of  Ascham.      Here  is  a  sample  of  each  : — 

(Webbe's  Pre/ace  to  the  Noble  Poets  of  England.) 

"Among  the  innumerable  sorts  of  English  books,  and  infinite  fardels  of  printed 
pamphlets,  wherewith  this  country  is  pestered,  all  shops  stutled,  and  every 
study  furnished  ;  the  greater  part,  I  think,  in  any  one  kind,  are  such  as  are 
either  mere  poetical,  or  which  tend  in  some  respects  (as  either  in  matter  or 
form)  to  poetry.  Of  such  books,  therefore,  sith  I  have  been  one  that  have  had 
a  desire  to  read  not  the  fewest,  and  because  it  is  an  argument  %\liich  men  of 
great  learning  have  no  leisure  to  handle,  or  at  least  having  to  tlo  with  more 
serious  matters  do  least  regard.  If  I  write  something,  concerning  what  I  think 
of  our  English  poets,  or  adventure  to  set  down  my  simple  judgment  of  English 
poetry,  I  trust  the  learned  poets  will  give   me  leave,  and  vouchsafe  my  book 


ir  I.VI.V  35 

passage,  as  being  for  the  rudeness  thereof  no  prejudice  to  their  noble  studies, 
but  even  (as  my  intent  is)  an  instar  cotis  to  stir  up  some  other  of  meet  ability 
to  bestow  travail  in  this  matter  ;  whereby,  I  think,  we  may  not  only  get  the 
means  which  we  yet  want,  to  discern  between  good  writers  and  bad,  but  per- 
haps also  challenge  from  the  rude  multitude  of  rustical  rliymers,  who  will  be 
called  poets,  the  right  practice  and  orderly  course  of  true  poetry." 


(Puttenham  on  St  vie. ^ 

"  Style  is  a  constant  and  continual  phrase  or  tenour  of  speaking  and  writing, 
extending  to  the  whole  tale  or  process  of  the  poem  or  history,  and  not  properly 
to  any  piece  or  member  of  a  tale  ;  but  is  of  words,  speeches,  and  sentences 
together  ;  a  certain  contrived  form  and  quality,  many  times  natural  to  the 
writer,  many  times  his  peculiar  bye-election  and  art,  and  such  as  either  he 
keepeth  by  skill  or  holdeth  on  by  ig;norance,  and  will  not  or  perailventure 
cannot  easily  alter  into  any  other.  So  we  say  that  Cicero's  style  and  Sallust's 
were  not  one,  nor  Cwsar's  and  Livy's,  nor  Homer's  and  HesiodusV  nor  Hero- 
dotus' and  Thucydides',  nor  Euripides'  and  Aristophanes',  nor  Erasmus'  and 
IJudeus'  styles.  And  because  this  continual  course  and  manner  of  writing  or 
speech  sheweth  the  matter  and  disposition  of  the  writer's  mind  more  than  one 
or  two  instances  can  show,  therefore  there  be  that  have  called  style  the  image 
of  man  {mentis  character).  For  man  is  but  his  mind,  and  as  his  mind  is 
tempered  and  qualified,  so  are  his  speeches  and  language  at  large  ;  and  his 
inward  conceits  be  the  metal  of  his  mind,  and  his  manner  of  utterance  the  very 
warp  and  woof  of  his  conceits,  more  plain  or  busy  and  intricate  or  otherwise 
affected  after  the  rate.-" 

Contemporary  with  these,  however,  there  was  growing  up  a 
quite  different  school  of  P'.nglish  prose  which  showed  itself  on  one 
side  in  the  es/ilo  ctilto  of  Lyly  and  the  university  wits  of  his 
time  ;  on  the  other,  in  the  extremely  vernacular  and  sometimes 
extremely  vulgar  manner  of  the  pamphleteers,  who  were  very 
often  the  same  persons.  Lyly  himself  exhibits  both  styles  in 
Euphnes ;  and  if  I'ap  7>.'ith  a  Hatchet  and  An  Almond  for  ,i 
Parrot  are  rightly  attributed  to  him,  still  more  in  these.  So  also 
does  (iabriel  Har\-ey,  Spenser's  friend,  a  curious  coxcomb  who 
endeavoured  to  dissuade  Spenser  frona  continuing  The  Faerie 
Queene,  devoted  mu<  h  time  himself  and  strove  to  devote  other 
people  to  tlie  thankless  task  of  composing  English  he.vameters  and 

'  The  final  s  of  such  names  often  at  the  time  ai)pears  unaltiriij. 
*  I.e.  "  in  ])roporii<jn." 


36  EARLY  ELIZABETHAN  PROSE  chap. 

trimeters,  engaged  (very  much  to  his  discomfiture)  in  a  furious 
pamphlet  war  with  Thomas  Nash,  and  altogether  presents  one 
of  the  most  characteristic  though  least  favourable  specimens  of 
the  Elizabethan  man  of  letters.  We  may  speak  of  him  further 
Vi^hen  we  come  to  the  pamphleteers  generally. 

John  Lyly  is  a  person  of  much  more  consequence  in  English 
literature  than  the  conceited  and  pragmatical  pedant  who  wrote 
Pierced  Supererogatioti.  He  is  familiar,  almost  literally  to  every 
schoolboy,  as  the  author  of  the  charming  piece,  "  Cupid  with  my 
Campaspe  Played,"  and  his  dramatic  work  will  come  in  for  notice 
in  a  future  chapter;  but  he  is  chiefly  thought  of  by  posterity, 
whether  favourably  or  the  reverse,  as  the  author  of  Euphucs. 
Exceedingly  little  is  known  about  his  life,  and  it  is  necessary  to 
say  that  the  usually  accepted  dates  of  his  death,  his  children's 
birth,  and  so  forth,  depend  wholly  on  the  identification  of  a  John 
Lilly,  who  is  the  subject  of  such  entries  in  the  registers  of  a 
London  church,  with  the  euphuist  and  dramatist — an  identifica- 
tion which  requires  confirmation.  A  still  more  wanton  attempt 
to  supplement  ignorance  with  knowledge  has  been  made  in  the 
further  identification  with  Lyly  of  a  certain  "witty  and  bold 
atheist,"  who  annoyed  Bishop  Hall  in  his  first  cure  at  Hawstead, 
in  Suffolk,  and  who  is  called  "  Mr.  Lilly."  All  supposed  facts 
about  him  (or  some  other  John  .Lyly),  his  membership  of  Parlia- 
ment and  so  forth,  have  been  diligently  set  forth  by  Mr.  Bond  in 
his  Oxford  edition  of  the  Works,  with  the  documents  which 
are  supposed  to  prove  them.  He  is  supposed,  on  uncertain 
but  tolerable  inferences,  to  have  been  born  about  1554,  and  he 
certainly  entered  Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  in  1569,  though  he 
was  not  matriculated  till  two  years  later.  He  is  described  as 
plebeii  filius,  was  not  on  the  foundation,  and  took  his  degree  in 
1573.  He  must  have  had  some  connection  with  the  Cecils,  for 
a  letter  of  1574  is  extant  from  him  to  Burleigh.  He  cannot 
have  been  five  and  twenty  when  he  wrote  Euphues,  which  was 
licensed  at  the  end  of  1578,  and  was  published  (the  first  part) 
early  next  year,   while  the  second  part  followed  with  a  very  short 


n  "EUPHUES" 


37 


interval.  In  15S2  lie  wrote  an  unmistakable  letter  <  omniend- 
atory  to  ^\'atson's  Jlecatompathia^  and  between  15 So  and  1590 
he  must  have  written  his  plays.  He  appears  to  have  continued 
to  reside  at  Magdalen  for  a  considerable  time,  and  then  to  have 
haunted  the  Court.  A  melancholy  petition  is  extant  to  Queen 
Elizabeth  from  him,  the  second  of  its  kind,  in  which  he 
writes:  "Thirteen  years  your  highness'  servant,  but  yet  nothing." 
This  was  in  159S:  he  is  supposed  to  have  died  in  1606. 
Eiiphiit-s  is  a  very  singular  book,  which  was  constantly  reprinted 
and  eagerly  read  for  fifty  years,  then  forgotten  for  nearly  two 
hundred,  then  frecjuently  discussed,  but  very  seldom  read, 
even  it  may  be  suspected  in  Mr.  Arber's  excellent  reprint  of 
it,  or  in  that  of  Mr.  Bond.  It  gave  a  word  to  English,  and 
even  yet  there  is  no  very  distinct  idea  attaching  to  the  word. 
It  induced  one  of  the  most  gifted  restorers  of  old  times  to  make 
a  blunder,  amusing  in  itself,  but  not  in  the  least  what  its  author 
intended  it  to  be,  and  of  late  years  especial!}  it  has  prompted 
constant  discussions  as  to  the  origin  of  the  peculiarities  which 
mark  it.  As  usual,  we  shall  try  to  discuss  it  with  less  reference 
to  what  has  been  said  about  it  than  to  itself. 

Euphm-s  (properly  divided  into  two  parts,  "  Euphucs,  the 
Anatomy  of  Wit,"  and  "  Euphues  and  his  England,"  the  scene  of 
the  first  lying  in  Naples)  is  a  kind  of  love  story;  the  action, 
however,  being  next  to  nothing,  and  subordinated  to  an  infinite 
amount  of  moral  and  courtly  discourse.  Oddly  enough,  the 
unfavourable  .sentence  of  Hallam,  that  it  is  "a  very  dull  story," 
and  the  favourable  sentence  of  King.sley,  that  it  is  "a  brave, 
righteous,  and  pious  book,"  are  both  (juite  true,  and,  indeed, 
any  one  can  see  that  there  is  nothing  incompatible  in  them.  Ai 
the  present  day,  however,  its  substance,  which  chiefly  consists  of 
the  moral  discourses  aforesaid,  is  infinitely  inferior  in  interest 
to  its  manner.  Of  that  manner,  any  one  who  imagines  it 
to  be  rejiroduccd  by  Sir  I'iert  ie  Shafton's  extravagances  in  Tlu 
Atoihiilny  has  an  entirely  false  idea.  It  is  nnu  h  odder  than 
Shaftoncse,  but   also  quite   different   from  il.      1  yiys   two  secrets 


38  EARLY  ELIZABETHAN  PROSE  chap. 

are  in  the  first  place  an  antithesis,  more  laboured,  more  mono- 
tonous, and  infinitely  more  pointless  than  Macaulay's  —  which 
antithesis  seems  to  have  met  with  not  a  little  favour,  and  was 
indeed  an  obvious  expedient  for  lightening  up  and  giving 
character  to  the  correct  but  featureless  prose  of  Ascham  and 
other  "Latiners."  The  second  was  a  fancy,  which  amounts  to  a 
mania,  for  similes,  strung  together  in  endless  lists,  and  derived  as 
a  rule  from  animals,  vegetables,  or  minerals,  especially  from  the 
Fauna  and  Flora  of  fancy.  It  is  impossible  to  open  a  page  of 
Euphiies  without  finding  an  example  of  this  eccentric  'and  tasteless 
trick,  and  in  it,  as  far  as  in  any  single  thing,  must  be  found  the 
recipe  for  euphuism,  pure  and  simple.  As  used  in  modern 
language  for  conceited  and  precious  language  in  general,  the 
term  has  only  a  very  partial  application  to  its  original,  or  to  that 
original's  author.  Indeed  Lyly's  vocabulary,  except  occasionally 
in  his  similes,  is  decidedly  vernacular,  and  he  very  commonly 
mingles  extremely  homely  words  with  his  highest  flights.  No 
better  specimen  of  him  can  be  given  than  from  the  aforesaid 
letter  commendatory  to  the  Hecatompatliia. 

' '  My  good  friend,  I  have  read  your  new  passions,  and  they  have  renewed 
mine  old  pleasures,  the  which  brought  to  me  no  less  delight  than  they  have 
done  to  your  self-commendations.  And  certes  had  not  one  of  mine  eyes  about 
serious  affairs  been  watchful,  both  by  Ijcing  too  too  busy,  had  been  wanton  :  sucli 
is  the  nature  of  persuading  pleasure,  that  it  melteth  the  marrow  before  it  scorch 
the  skin  and  burneth  before  it  warmeth.  Not  unlike  unto  the  oil  of  jet,  which 
rotteth  the  bone  and  never  rankleth  the  flesh,  or  the  scarab  flies  which  enter 
into  the  root  and  never  touch  the  fruit. 

"  And  whereas  you  desire  to  have  my  opinion,  you  may  imagine  that  my 
stomach  is  rather  cloyed  than  queasy,  and  therefore  mine  appetite  of  less  force 
than  my  affection,  fearing  rather  a  surfeit  of  sweetness  than  desiring  a  satis- 
fying. The  repeating  of  love  wrought  in  me  a  semblance  of  liking  ;  hut 
searching  the  very  veins  of  my  heart  I  could  find  nothing  but  a  broad  scar 
where  I  left  a  deep  wound  :  and  loose  strings  where  I  tied  hard  knots  :  and  a 
table  of  steel  where  I  framed  a  plot  of  wax. 

"Whereby  I  noted  that  young  swans  are  grey,  and  the  old  white,  young 
trees  tender  and  the  old  tough,  young  men  amorous,  and,  growing  in  years, 
either  wiser  or  warier.  Tlie  coral  plant  in  the  water  is  a  soft  weed,  on  the 
lantl  a  hard  stone  :  a  sword  frieth  in  the  fire  like  a  black  eel  ;  but  laid  in  earth 


II  LVLV  39 

like  while  snow  :  the  heart  in  love  is  altogether  passionate  ;  but  free  from  desire 
altogether  careless. 

"  But  It  is  not  my  intent  to  inveigh  against  love,  which  women  account  but 
a  bare  word  and  men  reverence  as  the  best  God.  Only  this  I  would  add 
without  offence  to  gentlewomen,  that  were  not  men  more  superstitious  in  their 
praises  than  women  are  constant  in  their  passions  love  would  either  be  worn 
out  of  use,  or  men  out  of  love,  or  women  out  of  lightness.  I  can  condemn 
none  but  by  conjecture,  nor  commend  any  but  by  lying,  yet  suspicion  is  as  free 
as  thought,  and  as  far  as  I  can  see  as  necessary  as  credulity. 

'•Touching  your  mistress  I  must  needs  think  well,  seeing  you  have  written 
so  well,  but  as  false  glasses  shew  the  fairest  faces  so  fine  gloses  amend  the 
baddest  fancies.  Appelles  painted  the  phoenix  by  hearsay  not  by  sight,  and 
Lysippus  engraved  Vulcan  with  a  straight  leg  whom  nature  framed  with  a  poult 
foot,  which  proveth  men  to  be  of  greater  affection  their  [then  ?  =  than]  judg- 
ment. But  in  that  so  aptly  you  have  varied  upon  women  I  will  not  vary  from 
you,  so  confess  I  must,  and  if  I  should  not,  yet  niought  I  be  compelled,  that 
to  love  would  be  the  sweetest  thing  in  the  earth  if  women  were  the  faithfulest, 
and  that  women  would  be  more  constant  if  men  were  more  wise. 

"And  seeing  ycu  have  used  me  so  friendly  as  to  make  me  acquainted  with 
your  passions,  I  will  shortly  make  you  privy  to  mine  which  I  would  lie  lotii 
the  printer  should  see,  for  that  my  fancies  being  never  so  crooked  he  would  put 
them  into  straight  lines  unfit  for  my  humour,  necessary  for  his  art,  who  set- 
teth  down  blind  in  as  many  letters  as  seeing.' — Farewell." 

Many  efforts  have  been  made  to  discover  some  model  for 
Lyly's  oddities.  .Spani.sh  and  Italian  influences  have  been  alleged, 
and  there  is  a  special  theory  that  Lord  Berners's  translations 
have  the  credit  or  discredit  of  the  paternity.  The  curious 
similes  are  certainly  found  very  early  in  Spanish,  and  may 
be  due  to  an  Eastern  origin.  The  habit  of  overloading 
the  sentence  with  elaborate  and  far-fetched  language,  especially 
with  similes,  may  also  have  come  from  the  French  rht'tori- 
qucurs  already  mentioned — a  school  of  pedantic  writers  (Chastel- 
lain,  Robertet,  Cretin,  and  some  others  being  the  chief)  who 
flourished  during  the  last  half  of  the  fifteenth  century  and  the  first 
quarter  of  the  si.vteenth,  while  the  latest  examples  of  them  were 
hardly  dead  when   Lyly  was  born.       The  desire,   very  huukibly 

'  "  Winde  "  with  the  e  according'  to  the  old  spelling  having  si.\  letters,  the 
same  nunil>er  as  seeing.  This  curious  epistle  is  both  in  style  and  matter  an 
epitome  of  F.H^hues,  which  had  api)eared  some  three  years  before. 


46  Early  Elizabethan  prose  chap. 

felt  all  over  Europe,  to  adorn  and  exalt  the  vernacular  tongues, 
so  as  to  make  them  vehicles  of  literature  worthy  of  taking  rank 
with  Latin  and  Greek,  naturally  led  to  these  follies,  of  which 
euphuism  in  its  proper  sense  was  only  one. 

Michael  Drayton,  in  some  verse  complimentary  to  Sidney, 
stigmatises  not  much  too  strongly  Lyly's  prevailing  faults,  and 
attributes  to  the  hero  of  Zutphen  the  purification  of  England  from 
euphuism.  This  is  hardly  critical.  That  Sidney — a  young  man, 
and  a  man  of  fashion  at  the  time  when  Lyly's  oddities  were 
fashionable — should  have  to  a  great  extent  (for  his  resistance  is 
by  no  means  absolute)  resisted  the  temptation  to  imitate  them,  is 
very  creditable.  But  the  influence  of  Euplmes  was  at  least  as 
strong  for  many  years  as  the  influence  of  the  Arcadia  and  the 
Apology  ;  and  the  chief  thing  that  can  be  said  for  Sidney  is  that 
he  did  not  wholly  follow  Lyly  to  do  evil.  Nor  is  his  positive 
excellence  in  prose  to  be  compared  for  a  moment  with  his  positive 
excellence  in  poetry.  His  life  is  so  universally  known  that 
nothing  need  be  said  about  it  beyond  reminding  the  reader  that 
he  was  born,  as  Lyly  is  supposed  to  have  been,  in  1554  ;  that  he 
was  the  son  of  Sir  Henry  Sidney,  afterwards  A^iceroy  of  Ireland, 
and  of  Lady  Mary,  eldest  daughter  of  the  luckless  Dudley,  Duke 
of  Northumberland ;  that  he  was  educated  at  Shrewsbury  and 
Christ  Church,  travelled  much,  acquiring  the  repute  of  one  of  the 
most  accomplished  cavaliers  of  Europe,  loved  without  success 
Penelope  Devereux  ("  Stella  "),  married  Frances  Walsingham,  and 
died  of  his  wounds  at  the  battle  of  Zutphen,  when  he  was  not  yet 
thirty-two  years  old.  His  prose  works  are  the  famous  pastoral 
romance  of  the  Arcadia,  written  to  please  his  sister,  the  Countess 
of  Pembroke,  and  the  short  Apology  for  Poetty,  a  very  spirited 
piece  of  work,  immediately  provoked  by  a  rather  silly  diatribe 
against  the  theatre  by  one  Stephen  Gosson,  once  a  playwright 
himself,  but  turned  Puritan  clergyman.  Both  appear  to  have 
been  written  about  the  same  time — that  is  to  say,  between  1579 
and  1 58 1  ;  Sidney  being  then  in  London  and  in  the  society  of 
Spenser  and  other  men  of  letters. 


11  SIDNEY  41 

'I'he  amiability  of  Sidney's  character,  liis  romantic  history,  the 
exquisite  charm  of  his  verse  at  its  best,  and  last,  not  least,  the 
fact  of  his  enthusiastic  appreciation  and  patronage  of  literature 
at   a   time  when   literary   men   never   failed   to   give   aristocratic 
patrons  somewhat  more  than  quid  pro  qui\  have  perhaps  caused 
his   prose   work   to    be    traditionally  a   little    overvalued.       The 
Apology  for  Pottry   is    full    of  generous    ardour,    contains    man)- 
striking  and    poetical   expressions,    and  explains   more  than   any 
other  single  book  the   secret  of  the  wonderful   literary  produc- 
tion of  tlie  half-century  which  followed.     The  Arcadia,  especially 
when  contrasted  with  Eup/nies,  has  the  great  merit  of  abundant 
and  stirring  incident  and  interest,   of  freedom  from   any  single 
affectation  so  pestering  and  continuous  as  Lyly's  similes,  and  of 
constant  purple  patches  of  poetical  description  and  expression, 
which  are  indeed  not  a  little  out  of  place  in  prose,  but  which  are 
undeniably  beautiful  in  themselves.      But  when  this  is  said  all  is 
said.      Enthusiastic  as  Sidney's  love  for  poetry  and  for  literature 
was,  it  was  enthusiasm  not  at  all  according  to  knowledge.     In 
the  Apo/o^y,  by  his  vindication  of  the  Unities,  and  his  denuncia- 
tion of  the  mixture  of  tragedy  and  comedy,  he  was  (of  course 
without  knowing  it)  laying  down    exactly  the  two   principles,  a 
fortunate  abjuration  and  scouting  whereof  gave  us  the  greatest 
possession    in    mass    and    variety    of   merit    that    any    literature 
ix)ssesses — the  Elizabethan  drama  from  Shakespere  and  Marlowe 
to  Ford  and  Shirley.      Follow  Sidney,  and  good-bye  to  Faustus,  to 
JIamlet,  to  J'/u7aster,  to  77ie  Duchess  of  Malfi,  to  The  C/iangc/i/ii:^, 
to  T/ie  J  '/r^'i/i  Martyr,  to  Tlie  Broken  Heart.      \\c  must  content 
ourselves    with     Gorhodiic    and     Cornelia,     with     Cleopatra     arul 
J'/iiloias,  at   the  very  best  with  Sejanus  and   The  Silent  Woman. 
Again  Sidney  commits  himself  in  this  same  piece  to  the  pestilent 
heresy  of  jjrose-poetry,  saying  that  verse  is  "only  an  ornament  of 
poetry  ;"  nor  is  there  any  doubt  that  Milton,  whether  he  meant  it 
or  not,  fixed  a  deserved  stigma  on   the  Arcadia   by  <  ailing   it  a 
"  vain  and  amatorious  poem."      It  is  a  jjoeiii  in  jirose,  which  is  as 
nuich  as  to  say,  in  other  words,  that   it  unites   the  faults  of  i)()tii 


42  EARLY  ELIZABETHAN  PROSE  chap. 

kinds.  Nor  is  Sidney  less  an  enemy  (though  a  "  sweet  enemy  "  in 
his  own  or  Bruno's  words)  of  the  minor  and  more  formal  graces 
of  style.  If  his  actual  vocabulary  is  not  Latinised,  or  Italianised, 
or  Lylyfied,  he  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  sinners  in  the  special 
Elizabethan  sin  of  convoluting  and  entangling  his  phrases  (after 
the  fashion  best  known  in  the  mouths  of  Shakespere's  fine  gentle- 
men), so  as  to  say  the  simplest  thing  in  the  least  simple  manner. 
Not  Osric  nor  lachimo  detests  the  mot propre  more  than  Sidney. 
Yet  again,  he  is  one  of  the  arch  offenders  in  the  matter  of  spoiling 
the  syntax  of  the  sentence  and  the  paragraph.  As  has  been 
observed  already,  the  unpretending  writers  noticed  above,  if  they 
have  little  harmony  or  balance  of  phrase,  are  seldom  confused  or 
breathless.  Sidney  was  one  of  the  first  writers  of  great  popularity 
and  influence  (for  the  Arcadia  was  very  widely  read)  to  introduce 
what  may  be  called  the  sentence-and-paragraph-heap,  in  which 
clause  is  linked  on  to  clause  till  not  merely  the  grammatical  but  the 
philosophical  integer  is  hopelessly  lost  sight  of  in  a  tangle  of 
jointings  and  appendices.  It  is  not  that  he  could  not  do  better ; 
but  that  he  seems  to  have  taken  no  trouble  not  to  do  worse. 
His  youth,  his  numerous  avocations,  and  the  certainty  that  he 
never  formally  prepared  any  of  his  work  for  the  press,  would  of 
course  be  ample  excuses,  even  if  the  singular  and  seductive  beauty 
of  many  scraps  throughout  this  work  did  not  redeem  it.  But 
neither  of  the  radical  difference  in  nature  and  purpose  between 
prose  and  verse,  nor  of  the  due  discipline  and  management  of  prose 
itself,  does  Sidney  seem  to  have  had  the  slightest  idea.  Although 
he  seldom  or  never  reaches  the  beauties  of  Xhe.  Jlamboyafit  period 
of  prose,  which  began  soon  after  his  death  and  filled  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  he  contains  examples  of  almost  all 
its  defects ;  and  considering  that  he  is  nearly  the  first  writer  to  do 
this,  and  that  his  writings  were  (and  were  deservedly)  the  favourite 
study  of  generous  literary  youth  for  more  than  a  generation,  it  is 
scarcely  uncharitable  to  hold  him  directly  responsible  for  much 
misch'ief  The  faults  of  Euphues  were  faults  which  were  certain 
to  work  their  own  cure  ;  those  of  the  Arcadia  were  so  engaging  in 


II  SIDXEV  43 

themselves,  and  linked  with  so  many  merits  and  beauties,  tliat  tliey 
were  sure  to  set  a  dangerous  example.  I  believe,  indeed,  tliat  if 
Sidney  had  lived  he  might  have  pruned  his  style  not  a  little  without 
weakening  it,  and  then  the  richness  of  his  imagination  would  prob- 
ably have  made  him  the  equal  of  Bacon  and  the  superior  of 
Raleigh.  But  as  it  is,  his  light  in  English  prose  (we  shall  speak 
and  speak  very  differently  of  his  verse  hereafter)  was  only  too  often 
a  will-o'-the-wisp.  I  am  aware  that  critics  whom  I  respect  have 
thought  and  spoken  in  an  opi)osite  sense,  but  the  difference  comes 
from  a  more  important  and  radical  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the 
nature,  functions,  and  limitations  of  English  prose.  Sidney's  style 
may  be  perhaps  best  illustrated  by  part  of  his  Dedication  ;  the 
narrative  parts  of  the  Arcadia  not  lending  themselves  well  to  brief 
excerpt,  while  the  Apology  is  less  remarkable  for  style  than  for 
matter. 

To  my  dear  Lady  and  Sister,  the  Countess  of  Petnbroke. 

"  Here  have  you  now,  most  dear,  and  most  worthy  to  be  most  dear,  lady, 
this  idle  work  of  mine ;  which,  I  fear,  like  the  spider's  web,  will  be  thought 
fitter  to  be  swept  away  than  wove  to  any  other  purpose.  For  my  part,  in  very 
truth,  as  the  cruel  fathers  among  the  Greeks  were  wont  to  do  to  the  babes 
they  would  not  foster,  I  could  well  find  in  my  heart  to  cast  out  in  some  desert 
of  forgetfulness  this  child  which  I  am  loth  to  father.  But  you  desired  me  to 
do  it,  and  your  desire  to  my  heart  is  an  absolute  commandment.  Now  it  is 
done  only  for  you,  only  to  you  ;  if  you  keep  it  to  yourself,  or  commend  it  to 
such  friends  who  will  weigh  errors  in  the  balance  of  good  will,  I  hope,  for  the 
father's  sake,  it  will  be  pardoned,  perchance  made  much  of,  though  in  itself  it 
have  deformities.  For  indeed  for  severer  eyes  it  is  not,  lieing  but  a  trille,  and 
that  triflingly  handled.  Vour  dear  self  can  best  witness  the  manner,  being  done 
in  loose  sheets  of  paper,  most  of  it  in  your  presence,  the  rest  by  sheets  sent 
unto  you  as  fast  as  they  were  done.  In  sum,  a  young  head,  not  so  well  stayed 
as  I  would  it  were,  and  shall  be  when  (;o<l  will,  having  many  fancies  begotten 
in  it,  if  it  had  not  been  in  some  way  delivered,  would  have  grown  a  iiujiister, 
an<l  more  s<jrry  might  I  be  that  they  came  in  than  that  they  gat  out.  ISui 
his '  chief  safety  shall  Ik:  the  walking  abroad  ;  and  his  chief  protection  tlie 
Ix-ariiig  the  livery  of  your  name,  which,  if  much  good  will  do  not  deceive  nic, 
is  worthy  to  be  a  sanctuary  for  a  greater  offender.  This  say  I  iiecause  I  know 
thy  virtue  vi  ;  and  this  say  I  because  it  may  be  for  ever  so,  or,  t<j  say  belter, 
because  it  will  Ik:  for  ever  so." 


'  Apparently  =  the  liook's. 


44  EARLY  ELIZABETHAN  PROSE  chap. 

The  difference  referred  to  above  is  again  well  exemplified  by- 
the  difference  of  opinions  on  the  style  of  Hooker  as  compared 
with  that  of  Sidney.  Hooker  wrote  considerably  later  than  the 
other  authors  here  criticised,  but  his  work  is  so  distinctly  the  climax 
of  the  style  started  by  Ascham,  Cheke,  and  their  fellows  (the 
style  in  which  English  was  carefully  adapted  to  literary  purposes 
for  which  Latin  had  been  previously  employed,  under  the  general 
idea  that  Latin  syntax  should,  on  the  whole,  rule  the  new  literary 
medium),  that  this  chapter  would  be  incomplete  without  a  notice 
of  him.  For  the  distinguished  writers  who  were  contemporary  with 
his  later  years  represent,  with  rare  and  only  partly  distinguished 
exceptions,  not  a  development  of  Hooker,  but  either  a  develop- 
ment of  Sidney  or  a  fresh  style,  resulting  from  the  blending  in 
different  proportions  of  the  academic  and  classical  manner  with 
the  romantic  and  discursive. 

The  events  of  Hooker's  neither  long  nor  eventful  life  are 
well-known  from  one  of  the  earliest  of  standard  biographies  in 
English — that  of  Izaak  Walton.  He  was  born  at  Heavitree,  a 
suburb  of  Exeter,  in  1554  (?).  Though  he  was  fairly  connected, 
his  parents  were  poor,  and  he  was  educated  as  a  Bible  clerk  at 
Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford.  He  entered  here  in  1567,  and 
for  some  fifteen  years  Oxford  was  his  home,  latterly  as  Fellow 
and  Lecturer  of  Corpus.  The  story  of  his  marriage  is  slightly 
pathetic,  but  more  than  slightly  ludicrous,  and  he  appears  to 
have  been  greatly  henpecked  as  well  as  obliged  to  lead  an  un- 
congenial life  at  a  country  living.  In  1585  he  was  made  Master 
of  the  Temple,  and  held  that  post  for  seven  years,  distinguishing 
himself  both  as  a  preacher  and  a  controversialist.  But  neither 
was  this  his  vocation ;  and  the  last  nine  years  of  his  life  were 
spent,  it  would  seem  more  congenially,  in  two  other  country 
livings,  first  in  Wiltshire,  then  in  Kent.  He  died  in  1600.  The 
first  four  books  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity  were  published  in 
1594,  the  fifth  in  1597.  The  last  three  books,  published  after 
his  death,  lie  under  grave  suspicion  of  having  been  tampered 
with.     This,  however,  as  the  unquestionably  genuine  portion  is 


HOOKER  45 


considerable  in  bulk,  is  a  matter  rather  of  historical  and  theo- 
logical than  of  purely  literary  interest.  Hooker  himself  appears 
to  have  been  something  like  the  popular  ideal  of  a  student  : 
never  so  happy  as  when  pen  in  hand,  and  by  no  means 
fitted  for  tJie  rougher  kind  of  converse  with  his  fellow-men, 
still  less  for  the  life  of  what  is  commonly  called  a  man  of  the 
world. 

But  in  the  world  of  literature  he  is  a  very  great  man  indeed. 
Very  few  theological  books  have  made  themselves  a  place  in 
the  first  rank  of  the  literature  of  their  country,  and  if  tlie 
Ecclesiastical  Polity  has  done  so,  it  has  certainly  not  done  so 
without  cause.  If  there  has  been  a  certain  tendency  on  the  part 
of  strong  partisans  of  the  Anglican  Church  to  overestimate  the 
literary  and  philosophical  merit  of  this  book,  which  may  be  called 
the  first  vernacular  defence  of  the  position  of  the  Engli.sh  Church, 
that  has  been  at  least  compensated  by  partisan  criticism  on  the 
other  side.  Nor  is  there  the  least  fear  that  the  judgment  of 
impartial  critics  will  ever  deprive  Hooker  of  the  high  rank  gene- 
rally accorded  to  him.  He  is,  of  course,  far  from  being  faultles.s. 
In  his  longer  sentences  (though  long  sentences  are  by  no  means 
the  rule  with  him)  he  often  falls  into  that  abuse  of  the  classical 
style  which  the  comparatively  jejune  writers  who  had  preceded 
him  avoided,  but  which  constantly  manifested  itself  in  the  richer 
manner  of  his  own  contemporaries — the  abuse  of  treating  the 
uninflected  English  language  as  if  it  were  an  inflected  language, 
in  which  variations  and  distinctions  of  case  and  gender  and 
number  help  to  connect  adjective  with  substantive,  and  relative 
with  antecedent.  Sometimes,  though  less  often,  he  distorts  the 
natural  order  of  the  English  in  order  to  secure  the  Latin  desider- 
atum of  finishing  with  the  most  emphatic  and  important  words 
of  the  clauso.  His  subject  leads  and  almost  forces  him  to  an 
occasional  pedantry  of  vocabulary,  and  in  the  region  which  is  not 
quite  that  of  form  n/jr  ([uile  that  of  matter,  he  sometimes  fails  in 
ro-ordinaling  his  arguments,  his  facts,  and  his  citations,  and  in 
directing  the  whole  with  crushing  force  at  his  enemy.      His  argu- 


46  EARLY  ELIZABETHAN  PROSE  chap. 

ment  occasionally  degenerates  into  mere  illustration  ;    his  logic 
into  mere  rhetoric. 

But  when  all  these  things  are  admitted,  the  Ecclesiastical 
Polity  remains  a  book  in  which  matter  and  manner  are  wedded  as 
in  few  other  books  of  the  same  kind.  The  one  characteristic 
which  has  been  admitted  by  Hooker's  faintest  praisers  as  well  as 
by  his  warmest — the  golden  moderation  and  judiciousness  of  his 
argument  —  is  perhaps  rather  calculated  to  extort  esteem  than 
to  arouse  admiration.  Moderation,  like  other  kinds  of  probity, 
laudatur  et  algct :  the  adversary  is  not  extremely  grateful  for  not 
being  pushed  to  extremity,  and  those  on  the  same  side  would  at 
least  excuse  a  little  more  vehemence  in  driving  advantages  home. 
But  Hooker  has  other  quahties  which  are  equally  estimable  and 
more  shining.  What  especially  distinguishes  him  from  the  lite- 
rary point  of  view  is  his  almost  unique  faculty  of  diversifying 
dry  and  technical  argument  with  outbursts  of  rhetoric.  These 
last  are  not  mere  purple  patches ;  they  do  not  come  in  with  the 
somewhat  ostentatious  usherment  and  harbingery  which,  for  in- 
stance, laid  the  even  more  splendid  bursts  of  Jeremy  Taylor  open 
to  the  sharp  sarcasm  of  South.  There  is  nothing  theatrical  about 
them ;  they  rise  quite  naturally  out  of  the  level  of  discussion  and 
sink  into  it  again,  with  no  sudden  stumble  or  drop.  Nor  are  they 
ever  (like  some  of  Sidney's  poetical  excrescences)  tags  and  hemi- 
stichs  of  unwritten  sonnets  or  songs  stuck  in  anyhow  upon  the 
prose.  For  instance,  Sidney  writes  :  "About  the  time  when  the 
candles  had  begun  to  inherit  the  sun's  office."  Now  this  in  a  some- 
what quaint  and  conceited  fashion  of  verse  would  be  excellent. 
It  would  also  be  excellent  in  burlesque,  and  in  such  prose 
as  Browne's  it  might  conquer  its  place  victoriously.  But 
except  in  such  a  context  (which  Sidney  cannot  weave)  it 
is  a  rococo  ornament,  a  tawdry  beautification.  Compare  with  it 
any  of  the  celebrated  passages  of  Hooker,  which  may  be  found 
in  the  extract  books — the  encomium  on  law,  the  admirable  passage, 
not  so  admirable  indeed  in  the  context  as  it  might  be,  but  still 
admirable,  about  angels,  the  vindication  of  music  in  the  church 


ir  IIOOKKK  47 

service.  Here  the  expression,  even  at  its  warmest,  is  in  no  sense 
l)oetical,  and  the  flight,  as  it  is  called,  connects  itself  with  and 
continues  and  drops  into  the  ordinary  march  of  argument  in  the 
most  natural  and  imperceptible  manner.  The  elevated  passages 
of  Hooker's  style  resemble  more  than  anything  else  those  con- 
venient exploits  common,  probably,  in  most  persons'  dreams,  in 
which  the  dreamer,  without  any  trouble  to  himself  or  any  apparent 
surprise  in  those  about  him,  lifts  himself  from  the  ground  and 
skims  or  soars  as  he  pleases,  sure  that  he  can  return  to  earth  also 
when  he  pleases,  and  without  any  shock.  The  speculators  on  the 
causes  of  beauty,  admiration,  and  the  like  have  sometimes  sought 
them  in  contrast  first  of  all,  and  it  has  been  frequently  noticed 
that  the  poets  who  charm  us  most  are  those  who  know  how  to 
alternate  pity  and  terror.  There  is  something  of  the  same  sort  in 
these  variations  of  the  equable  procession  of  Hooker's  syllogisms, 
these  flower-gardens  scattered,  if  not  in  the  wilderness,  yet  in  the 
humdrum  arable  ground  of  his  collections  from  fathers  and  philo- 
sophers, his  marshallings  of  facts  and  theories  against  the  counter- 
theories  of  Cartwright  and  Travers.  Neither  before  him  nor  in 
his  time,  nor  for  generations  after  him  —  scarcely,  indeed,  till 
Berkeley — did  any  one  arise  who  had  this  profound  and  unpre- 
tentious art  of  mixing  the  useful  with  the  agreeable.  Taylor — 
already  mentioned  as  inferior  to  Hooker  in  one  respect,  however 
superior  he  may  be  in  the  splendour  of  his  rhetoric — is  again  and 
still  more  inferior  to  him  in  the  parts  that  are  not  ornamental,  in 
the  pedestrian  body  of  his  controversy  and  exposition.  As  a  mere 
controversiali.st.  Hooker,  if  not  exactly  a  Hobbes  or  a  lientley,  if 
not  even  a  Chillingworth,  is  not  likely  to  be  spoken  of  without 
resjjcct  by  those  who  understand  what  evidence  means.  If  he 
sometimes  seems  to  modern  readers  to  assume  his  premisses,  the 
conclusions  follow  mui  h  more  rigidly  than  is  customary  with  a 
good  many  of  our  later  j)hil(JS(jphers,  who  protest  against  the 
assumption  of  premisses;  but  having  so  protested  neglect  the 
ambiguity  of  terms,  and  leave  their  middles  undistributed,  ami 
i)er[)Ctrate  illicit  i)rocess  with  a  gaiety  of  heait  which  is  extremely 


48  EARLY  ELIZABETHyVN  PROSE  chap. 

edifying,  or  who  fancy  that  they  are  building  systems  of  philo- 
sophy when  they  are  in  reality  constructing  dictionaries  of 
terms.  But  his  argument  is  of  less  concern  to  us  here  than  the 
style  in  which  he  clothes  it,  and  the  merit  of  that  is  indisputable, 
as  a  brief  extract  will  show. 

"As  therefore  man  doth  consist  of  different  and  distinct  parts,  every  part 
endued  with  manifold  abilities  which  all  have  their  several  ends  and  actions 
thereunto  referred  ;  so  there  is  in  this  great  variety  of  duties  which  belong  to 
men  that  dependency  and  order  by  means  whereof,  the  lower  sustaining  always 
the  more  excellent  and  the  higher  perfecting  the  more  base,  they  are  in  their 
times  and  seasons  continued  with  most  exquisite  correspondence.  Labours  of 
bodily  and  daily  toil  purchase  freedom  for  actions  of  religious  joy,  which 
benefit  these  actions  requite  with  the  gift  of  desired  rest  —  a  thing  most 
natural  and  fit  to  accompany  the  solemn  festival  duties  of  honour  which  are 
done  to  God.  For  if  those  principal  works  of  God,  the  memory  whereof  we 
use  to  celebrate  at  such  times,  be  but  certain  tastes  and  says,^  as  it  were,  of 
that  final  benefit  wherein  our  perfect  felicity  and  bliss  lieth  folded  up,  seeing 
that  the  presence  of  the  one  doth  direct  our  cogitations,  thoughts,  and  desires 
towards  the  other,  it  giveth  surely  a  kind  of  life  and  addeth  inwardly  no  small 
delight  to  those  so  comfortable  anticipations,  especially  when  the  very  out- 
ward countenance  of  that  we  presently  do  representeth,  after  a  sort,  that  also 
whereunto  we  tend.  As  festival  rest  doth  that  celestial  estate  whereof  the 
very  heathens  themselves,  which  had  not  the  means  whereby  to  apprehend 
much,  did  notwithstanding  imagine  that  it  must  needs  consist  in  rest,  and 
have  therefore  taught  that  above  the  highest  movable  sphere  there  is  no  thing 
which  feeleth  alteration,  motion,  or  change  ;  but  all  things  immutable,  unsub- 
ject  to  passion,  blest  with  eternal  continuance  in  a  life  of  the  highest  perfec- 
tion, and  of  that  complete  abundant  sufficiency  within  itself  which  no 
possibility  of  want,  maim,  or  defect,  can  touch." 

Hooker's  defects  have  been  already  admitted,  and  it  has  to  be 
added  to  them  that  he  was  necessarily  destitute  of  much  useful 
vocabulary  which  his  successors  inherited  or  added,  and  that  he  had 
absolutely  no  model  of  style.  What  he  lacked  was  the  audacity 
to  be,  not  like  Sidney  more  flowery,  not  like  the  contemporary 
pamphleteers  more  slangy,  but  more  intelligently  vernacular;  to 
follow  in  the  mould  of  his  sentences  the  natural  order  of  English 
speech  rather  than  the  conventional  syntax  of  Latin,  and  to 
elaborate  for  himself  a  clause-architecture  or  order,  so  to  speak, 

^  "Assays." 


II  HOOKER  49 

of  word-building,  which  should  depend  upon  the  inherent  qualities 
of  euphony  and  rhythm  possessed  by  English.  It  is,  how- 
ever, quite  certain  that  nothing  was  further  from  Hooker's 
thoughts  than  the  composition  of  English  literature  merely  as 
English  literature.  He  wanted  to  bring  a  certain  subject  under 
the  notice  of  readers  of  the  vulgar  tongue,  and  being  before  all 
things  a  scholar  he  could  not  help  making  a  scholarly  use  of 
that  tongue.  The  wonder  is  that,  in  his  circumstances  and 
with  his  purposes,  with  hardly  any  teachers,  with  not  a  great  stock 
of  verbal  material,  and  with  little  or  no  tradition  of  workmanship 
in  the  art,  he  should  have  turned  out  such  admirable  work. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  dwell  on  the  prose  of  Fulke 
Greville,  Sidney's  friend,  who  long  outlived  him,  and  who  antici- 
pated not  a  little  of  that  magnificence  of  the  prose  of  his  later 
contemporaries,  beside  which  I  have  ventured  to  suggest  that 
Sidney's  own  is  sometimes  but  rococo.  A  place  ought  to  be  given 
to  Richard  Knolles,  who  deserves,  if  not  the  name  of  the  first 
historian  of  England,  certainly  the  credit  of  making,  in  his  History 
of  lite  Turks  (1604),  a  step  from  the  loose*  miscellany  of  the 
chronicle  to  the  ordered  structure  of  the  true  historic  style. 
Some  would  plead  for  Richard  Mulcaster,  whose  work  on  educa- 
tion and  especially  on  the  teaching  of  the  English  tongue  in  his 
Positions  and  First  Part  of  the  Elementary  (1582)  is  most 
intimately  connected  with  our  general  subject.  But  there  is  no 
room  for  more  than  a  mention  of  these,  or  for  further  dwelling  on 
the  translators  already  glanced  at  and  others,  the  most  important 
and  influential  of  whom  was  John  Florio,  the  Englishcr  (1603)  of 
Montaigne. 


II 


CHAPTER    III 


THE    FIRST    DRAMATIC    PERIOD 


It  does  not  belong  to  the  plan  of  this  division  of  the  present 
book  to  trace  the  earliest  beginnings  of  the  English  theatre,  or 
those  intermediate  performances  by  which,  in  the  reigns  of  the 
four  first  Tudors,  the  Mystery  and  Morality  passed  into  the 
Interlude.  Even  the  two  famous  comedies  of  Ralph  Roister 
Doister  and  Ganwter  Gurton''s  Needle  stand  as  it  were  only  at 
the  threshold  of  our  period  in  this  chapter,  and  everything  before 
them  is  shut  out  of  it.  On  the  other  hand,  we  can  take  to 
be  our  province  the  whole  rise,  flourishing,  and  decadence  of 
the  extraordinary  product,  known  somewhat  loosely  as  the  Eliza- 
bethan drama.  We  shall  in  the  present  chapter  discuss  the  two 
comedies  or  rather  farces  just  mentioned,  and  notice  on  the  one 
hand  the  rather  amorphous  production  which,  during  the  first 
thirty  years  of  Elizabeth,  represented  the  influence  of  a  grow- 
ing taste  for  personal  and  lively  dramatic  story  on  tlie  some- 
what arid  soil  of  the  Morality  and  Interlude,  and,  on  the  other, 
the  abortive  attempt  to  introduce  the  regular  Senecan  tragedy — 
an  attempt  which  almost  immediately  broke  down  and  disappeared, 
whelmed  in  the  abundance  of  chronicle -play  and  melodrama. 
And  finally  we  shall  show  how  the  two  rival  schools  of  the 
university  wits  and  the  actor  playwrights  culminated,  the  first  in 
Marlowe,  the  second  in  the  earlier  and  but  indistinctly  and 
conjecturally   known   work   of   Shakesperc.       A   second   chapter 


ruAr.  HI  CLASSIFICATION  OF  DRAMA  '  51 

will  show  us  the  triumph  of  the  untrammelled  English  play  in 
tragedy  and  comedy,  furnished  by  Marlowe  with  the  mighty  line, 
but  freed  to  a  great  extent  from  the  bombast  and  the  unreal  scheme 
which  he  did  not  shake  off.  Side  by  side  with  Shakespere 
himself  we  shall  have  to  deal  with  the  learned  sock  ofjonson, 
the  proud  full  style  of  Chapman,  the  unchastened  and  ill-directed 
vigour  of  Marston,  the  fresh  and  charming,  if  unkempt  grace  of 
Dekker,  the  best  known  and  most  remarkable  members  of  a  crowd 
of  unknown  or  half-known  playwrights.  A  third  division  will  show 
us  a  slight  gain  on  the  whole  in  acting  qualities,  a  considerable 
perfecting  of  form  and  scheme,  but  at  the  same  time  a  certain 
decline  in  the  most  purely  poetical  merits,  redeemed  and  illus- 
trated by  the  abundant  genius  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  of 
Middleton,  of  Webster,  of  Massinger,  and  of  Ford.  And  the 
two  latest  of  these  will  conduct  us  into  the  fourth  or  period  of 
decadence  where,  round  the  voluminous  work  and  still  respectable 
fame  of  James  Shirley,  are  grouped  names  like  Brome,  Glap- 
thorne,  Suckling,  and  others,  w^hose  writing,  sometimes  remarkable 
and  even  brilliant,  gradually  loses  not  only  dramatic  but  poetical 
merit,  till  it  drops  into  the  formless  plots,  the  unscannable  verse, 
the  coarseness  unredeemed  by  passion,  the  horrors  unlit  by  any 
tragic  force,  which  distinguish  the  last  plays  before  the  closing  of 
the  theatres,  and  reappear  to  some  extent  at  a  period  beyond  ours 
in  the  drama  (soon  to  be  radically  changed  in  almost  every 
possible  characteristic)  of  the  Restoration.  The  field  of  survey 
is  vast,  and  despite  the  abundant  labour  which  has  been  bestowed 
upon  it  during  the  nineteenth  century,  it  is  still  in  a  somewhat 
chaotic  condition.  'I'he  remarkable  collection  of  old  plays 
which  we  owe  to  Mr.  A.  H.  BuUen  shows,  by  sample  only 
and  with  no  pretence  of  being  exhaustive,  the  amount  of 
absolutely  unknown  matter  which  still  exists.  The  collection 
and  editing  of  texts  has  proceeded  on  the  most  widely  different 
principles,  and  with  an  almost  complete  absence  of  that  in- 
telligent partition  of  labour  whi(  h  alone  can  reduce  chaos  to 
order   in    such    a    case.      'I"o    give    but    (jiie    instance,  there    is 


52  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

actually  no  complete  collection,  though  various  attempts  have 
been  made  at  it,  which  gives,  with  or  without  sufificient  editorial 
apparatus  to  supplement  the  canon,  all  the  dramatic  adespota 
which  have  been  at  one  time  or  another  attributed  to  Shakespere. 
These  at  present  the  painful  scholar  can  only  get  together  in 
publications  abounding  in  duplicates,  edited  on  the  most 
opposite  principles,  and  equally  troublesome  either  for  library 
arrangement  or  for  literary  reference.  The  editions  of  single 
authors  have  exhibited  an  equal  absence  of  method ;  one 
editor  admitting  doubtful  plays  or  plays  of  part-authorship  which 
are  easily  accessible  elsewhere,  while  another  excludes  those 
which  are  difficult  to  be  got  at  anywhere.  It  is  impossible  for 
any  one  who  reads  literature  as  literature  and  not  as  a  matter 
of  idle  crotchet,  not  to  reflect  that  if  either  of  the  societies 
which,  during  the  nineteenth  century,  have  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  study  of  Shakespere  and  his  contemporaries,  had 
chosen  to  employ  their  funds  on  it,  a  complete  Corpus  of  the 
drama  between  1560  and  1660,  edited  with  sufficient,  but  not 
superfluous  critical  apparatus  on  a  uniform  plan,  and  in  a  decent 
if  not  a  luxurious  form,  might  now  be  obtainable.  Some  forty  or 
fifty  volumes  at  the  outside  on  the  scale  of  the  "  Globe  "  series, 
or  of  Messrs.  Chatto's  useful  reprints  of  Jonson,  Chapman,  and 
other  dramatists,  would  probably  contain  every  play  of  the 
slightest  interest,  even  to  a  voracious  student — who  would  then 
have  all  his  material  under  his  hand.  What  time,  expense,  and 
trouble  are  required  to  obtain,  and  that  very  imperfectly,  any 
such  advantage  now,  only  those  who  have  tried  to  do  it  know. 
Even  Mr.  Hazlitt's  welcome,  if  somewhat  uncritical,  reprint  of 
Dodsley,  long  out  of  print,  did  not  boldly  carry  out  its 
principle—  though  there  are  plans  for  improving  and  supple- 
menting it. 

Nevertheless,  if  the  difficulties  arc  great  so  are  the  rewards.  It 
has  been  the  deliberate  opinion  of  many  competent  judges  (neither 
unduly  prejudiced  in  favour  of  English  literature  nor  touched  with 
that  ignorance  of  other  literature  which  is  as  fatal  to  judgment 


lit  GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  53 

as  actual   prejudice)  that  in  no  time  or  country  has  the  literary 
interest  of  a  short  and  definite  period  of  production  m  one  well- 
defined  kind  approached  in  value  the  interest  of  the  Elizabethan 
drama.     Other  periods  and  other  countries  may  produce  more  re- 
markable work  of  different  kinds,  or  more  uniformly  accomplished, 
and  more  technically  excellent  work  in  the  same  kind.      But  for 
originality,  volume,  generic  resemblance  of  character,  and  indi- 
vidual independence  of  trait,  exuberance  of  inventive  thought,  and 
splendour  of  execution   in  detached  passages — the  Elizabethan 
drama    from    Sackville   to  Shirley  stands    alone   in    the    history 
of  the   world.     The  absurd   overestimate  which  has   sometimes 
been  made  of  its  individual   practitioners,  the   hyperbole  of  the 
language  which  has  been  used  to  describe  them,  the  puerile  and 
almost  inconceivable  folly  of  some  of  their  scholiasts  and  parasitic 
students,  find  a  certain  excuse  in  this  truth — a  truth  which  will 
only  be  contested  by  those  who  have  not  taken  the  very  consi- 
derable trouble  necessary  to  master  the  facts,  or  who  are  precluded 
by  a  natural  inability  from  savouring  the  goiU  du  terroir  of  this 
abundant  and  intoxicating  wine.     There  are  those  who  say  that 
nobody  but  an  enthusiast  or  a  self-deceiver  can  read  with  real 
relish  any  Elizabethan  dramatist  but   Shakespere,  and  there  are 
those  who  would  have  it  that  the  incommunicable  and  uncom- 
municated  charm  of  Shakespere  is  to  be  found  in  Nabbes  and 
Davenport,  in  Glapthorne  and  Chettle.     They  are  equally  wrong, 
but  the  second  class  are  at  any  rate  in  a  more  saving  way  of 
wrongness.      Where  Shakespere  stands  alone  is  not  so  much  in 
his  actual  faculty  of  poetry  as   in  his  command  of  that  faculty. 
Of  the  others,  some,  like  Jonson,  Fletcher,  Massinger,  had  the  art 
without  the  power  ;  others,  like  Chapman,  Dekker,  Webster,  had 
flashes  of  the  power  without  the  art.      But  there  is  something  in 
the  whole  crew,  jovial  or  saturnine,  which  is  found  nowhere  else, 
and  which,  whether   in  full   splendour   as    in    Shakespere,   or   in 
occasional  glimmers  as  in  Tourneur  or  Rowley,  is  found  in  all, 
save  those  mere  imitators  and  hangers-on  who  are  peculiar  to  no 
period. 


54  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

This  remarkable  quality,  however,  does  not  show  itself  in  the 
dramatic  work  of  our  present  period  until  quite  the  close  of  it. 
It  is  true  that  the  period  opens  (according  to  the  traditional 
estimate  which  has  not  been  much  altered  by  recent  studies) 
with  three  plays  of  very  considerable  character,  and  of  no  incon- 
siderable merit  — the  two  comedies  already  named  and  the 
tragedy  of  Gofboduc,  otherwise  Fernx  and  Porrex.  Ralph  Roister 
Doister  was  licensed  and  is  thought  to  have  been  printed  in 
1566,  but  it  may  have  been  acted  at  Eton  by  1541,  and  the 
whole  cast  of  the  metre,  language,  and  scenario,  is  of  a  colour 
older  than  Elizabeth's  reiga  It  may  be  at  least  attributed  to 
the  middle  of  the  century,  and  is  the  work  of  Nicholas  Udall,  a 
schoolmaster  who  has  left  at  two  great  schools  a  repute  for 
indulgence  in  the  older  methods  of  instruction  not  inferior  to 
Busby's  or  Keate's.  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  though  a  fanciful 
estimate  may  see  a  little  cruelty  of  another  kind  in  it,  is  of  no 
austere  or  pedagogic  character.  The  author  has  borrowed  not  a 
little  from  the  classical  comedy — Plautine  or  even  Aristophanic 
rather  than  Terentian — to  strengthen  and  refine  the  domestic 
interlude  or  farce ;  and  the  result  is  certainly  amusing  enough. 
The  plot  turns  on  the  courtship  of  Dame  Christian  Custance 
[Constance],  a  widow  of  repute  and  wealth  as  well  as  beauty,  by 
the  gull  and  coxcomb,  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  whose  suit  is  at 
once  egged  on  and  privately  crossed  by  the  mischievous  Matthew 
Merrygreek,  who  plays  not  only  parasite  but  rook  to  the  hero. 
Although  Custance  has  not  the  slightest  intention  of  accepting 
Ralph,  and  at  last  resorts  to  actual  violence,  assisted  by  her 
maids,  to  get  rid  of  him  and  his  followers,  the  affair  nearly 
breeds  a  serious  quarrel  between  herself  and  her  plighted  lover, 
Gawin  Goodluck ;  but  all  ends  merrily.  The  metre  is  the  some- 
what unformed  doggerel  couplet  of  twelve  syllables  or  there- 
abouts, with  a  strong  caesura  in  the  middle,  and  is  varied  and 
terminated  by  songs  from  Custance's  maids  and  others.  Indeed 
the  chief  charm  of  the  piece  is  the  genuine  and  unforced 
merriment  which  pervades  it.     Although   Merrygreek's  practices 


Ill  "RALrn  ROISTER  DOISTER"  55 


on  Ralph's  silliness  sometimes  tend  a  little  to  tediousness,  the 
action  on  the  whole  moves  trippingly  ei>ough,  and  despite  the 
strong  flavour  of  the  "  stock  part "  in  the  characters  they  have 
considerable  individuality.  The  play  is,  moreover,  as  a  whole 
remarkably  free  from  coarseness,  and  there  is  no  difficulty  in 
finding  an  illustrative  extract. 

C.  Custaiue  loqtiitur. 

"  O  Lord  I  how  necessary  it  is  now  o'  days, 

That  each  body  live  uprightly  all  manner  ways ; 

For  let  never  so  little  a  gap  be  open, 

And  be  sure  of  this,  the  worst  shall  be  spoken. 

How  innocent  stand  I  in  this  frame  o'  thought. 

And  yet  see  what  mistrust  towards  me  it  hath  wrought. 

But  thou,  Lord,  knowest  all  folks'  thoughts  and  eke  intents  ; 

And  thou  art  the  deliverer  of  all  innocents. 

Thou  didst  keep  the  advoutress,'  that  she  might  be  amended  ; 

Much  more  then  keep.  Lord,"  that  never  sin  intended. 

Thou  didst  keep  Susanna,  wrongfully  accused. 

And  no  less  dost  thou  see,  Lord,  how  I  am  now  abused. 

Thou  didst  keep  Hester,  when  she  should  have  died, 

Keep  also,  good  Lord,  that  my  truth  may  be  tried. 

Vet,  if  Gawin  Goodluck  with  Tristram  Trusty  speak, 

I  trust  of  ill-report  the  force  shall  be  but  weak  ; 

And  lo  !  yond  they  come  talking  sadly  together  : 

I  will  abide,  and  not  shrink  for  their  coming  hither." 

Freedom  from  coarseness  is  more  than  can  be  predicated  of 
the  still  more  famous  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  attributed  to,  and 
all  but  certainly  known  to  be,  by  John  Still,  afterwards  bishop.  The 
authorship,  indeed,  is  not  quite  certain  \  and  the  curious  reference 
in  Martin  Marprelate's  Epistle  (ed.  Arber,  p.  11)  to  "this  trifle" 
as  "shewing  the  author  to  have  had  some  wit  and  invention  in 
him"  only  disputes  the  claim  of  Dr.  Bridges  to  those  qualities, 
and  does  not  make  any  suggestion  as  to  the  identity  of  the 
more  favoured  author.  Still  was  the  son  of  a  Lincolnshire 
gentleman,  is  suj)i)0sed  to  have  been  born  about  1543,  was 
educated  at  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  and  after  a  course  of 
'  Adulteress.  '•'  Understand  "  me." 


5^  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  CHAP. 

preferment  through  the  positions  of  parish  priest  in  London  and 
at  Hadleigh,  Dean  of  Booking,  Canon  of  Westminster,  Master 
successively  of  St.  John's  and  Trinity,  and  Vice-Chancellor  of  his 
own  University,  was  at  the  beginning  of  1593  made  Bishop  of 
Bath  and  Wells,  an  office  which  he  held  for  fifteen  years.  His 
play  (taking  it  as  his)  was  his  only  work  of  the  kind,  and  was  the 
first  English  play  acted  at  either  university,  though  later  he 
himself  had  to  protest  officially  against  the  use  of  the  vernacular 
in  a  piece  performed  before  the  Queen.  Gammer  Giirtori's  Needle, 
as  has  been  said,  is,  despite  the  subsequent  history  of  its  author 
and  the  academic  character  of  its  appearance,  of  a  much  lower 
order  of  comedy  than  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  though  it  is  also 
more  spontaneous,  less  imitative,  and,  in  short,  more  original. 
The  best  thing  about  it  is  the  magnificent  drinking  song,  "  Back 
and  Side  go  Bare,  go  Bare,"  one  of  the  most  spirited  and  genuine 
of  all  bacchanalian  lyrics  ;  but  the  credit  of  this  has  sometimes 
been  denied  to  Still.  The  metre  of  the  play  itself  is  very  similar 
to  that  of  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  though  the  long  swinging  couplet 
has  a  tendency  to  lengthen  itself  still  further,  to  the  value  of  four- 
teen or  even  sixteen  syllables,  the  central  caesura  being  always 
well  marked,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  following  : — - 

Diccon.  "  Here  will  the  sport  begin,  if  these  two  once  may  meet, 

Their  cheer,  [I]  durst  lay  money,  will  prove  scarcely  sweet. 

My  gammer  sure  intends  to  be  upon  her  bones, 

With  staves,  or  with  clubs,  or  else  with  coble  stones. 

Dame  Chat  on  the  other  side,  if  she  be  far  behind, 

I  am  right  far  deceived,  she  is  given  to  it  of  kind. 

He  that  may  tarry  by  it  a  while,  and  that  but  short, 

I  warrant  him  trust  to  it,  he  shall  see  all  the  sport. 

Into  the  town  will  I,  my  friends  to  visit  there, 

And  hither  straight  again  to  see  the  end  of  this  gear. 

In  the  meantime,  fellows,  pipe  up  your  fiddles  ;   I  say,  take  them. 

And  let  your  friends  hear  such  mirth  as  ye  can  make  them." 

As  for  the  story,  it  is  of  the  simplest,  turning  merely  on  the 
losing  of  her  needle  by  Gammer  Gurton  as  she  was  mending 
her  man  Hodge's  breeches,  on  the  search  for  it  bv  the  house- 


Ill  'GAMMER  CURTON'S  NEEDLE"  57 


hold,  on  the  tricks  by  which  Diccon  the  Bedlam  (the  clown 
or  "  vice "  of  the  piece)  induces  a  quarrel  between  Gammer 
and  her  neighbours,  and  on  the  final  finding  of  the  needle  in 
the  exact  place  on  which  Gammer  Gurton's  industry  had  been 
employed.  The  action  is  even  better  sustained  and  livelier  than 
in  Udall's  play,  and  the  swinging  couplets  canter  along  very 
cheerfully  with  great  freedom  and  fluency  of  language.  Unfor- 
tunately this  language,  whether  in  order  to  raise  a  laugh  or  to  be 
in  strict  character  with  the  personages,  is  anything  but  choice. 
There  is  (barring  a  possible  double  meaning  or  two)  nothing  of 
the  kind  generally  known  as  licentious ;  it  is  the  merely  foul  and 
dirty  language  of  common  folk  at  all  times,  introduced,  not  with 
humorous  extravagance  in  the  Rabelaisian  fashion,  but  with 
literal  realism.  If  there  had  been  a  little  less  of  this,  the  piece 
would  have  been  much  improved ;  but  even  as  it  is,  it  is  a  capital 
example  of  farce,  just  as  Ralph  Roister  Doister  is  of  a  rather 
rudimentary  kind  of  regular  comedy. 

The  strangeness  of  the  contrast  which  these  two  plays  offer 
when  compared  with  the  third  is  peculiar  in  English  literature. 
Elsewhere  it  is  conmion  enough.  That  tragedy  should  be  stately, 
decorous,  and  on  the  whole  somewhat  uneventful  as  far  as  visible 
action  goes, — comedy  bustling,  crammed  with  incident,  and  quite  re- 
gardless of  decorum, — might  seem  a  law  of  nature  to  the  audience 
of  ^schylus  and  Aristophanes,  of  Plautus  and  Pacuvius,  even  to  the 
audience  of  Moli^re  and  Racine.  But  the  vast  and  final  change, 
the  inception  of  which  we  have  here  to  record,  has  made  tragedy, 
tragicomedy,  comedy,  and  farce  pass  into  one  another  so 
gradually,  and  with  so  little  of  a  break  in  the  English  mind, 
that  Gammer  Gurtotis  Needle  and  Gorboduc,  though  they  were 
presented  to  the  same  audiences,  and  in  all  probability  written 
within  ten  years  of  each  other  at  furthest,  seem  to  belong  to 
different  worlds  of  literature  and  society.  The  two  comedies  just 
noticed  are  framed  upon  no  literary  model  at  all  as  wholes,  but 
simply  upon  the  inudcl  of  human  nature.  Gorboduc  is  framed, 
though  not  with  absolute  fidelity,  (jn   the   model  of  the  tragedies 


58  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  TERIOD  CHAP. 

of  Seneca,  which  had,  during  the  early  years  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  mastered  the  attention  of  the  hterary  playwrights  of  Italy, 
France,  and  even  to  some  extent  Germany,  and  which  determined 
for  three  hundred  years,  at  any  rate,  the  form  of  the  tragedy  of 
France.  This  model — which  may  be  briefly  described  as  the 
model  of  Greek  tragedy,  still  further  pruned  of  action,  with  the 
choruses  retained,  but  estranged  from  their  old  close  connection 
with  the  dialogue,  and  reduced  to  the  level  of  elaborate  lyrical 
moralisings,  and  with  the  tendency  to  such  moralising  in  dialogue 
as  well  as  in  chorus  largely  increased — was  introduced  in  England 
with  hardly  less  advantage  than  abroad.  Sackville,  one  of  the 
reputed  authors  of  Gorbodiic,  was  far  superior  to  Jodelle,  both 
as  poet  and  as  versifier,  and  the  existence  of  the  two  univer- 
sities in  England  gave  a  support,  to  which  nothing  in  France 
corresponded,  to  the  influence  of  learned  writers.  Indeed, 
till  nearly  the  close  of  our  present  period,  the  universities  had 
the  practical  control  of  literary  production.  But  the  genius  of 
the  English  nation  would  have  none  of  Seneca.  It  refused  him 
when  he  was  first  introduced  by  Sackville  and  others  ;  it  refused 
him  once  more  when  Daniel  and  the  set  of  the  Countess  of  Pem- 
broke again  attempted  to  introduce  him  ;  it  refused  him  again 
and  again  in  the  later  seventeenth  century,  when  imitation,  first 
of  his  earlier  French  followers,  and  then  of  the  greater  tragedy 
of  Corneille  and  Racine  (which  was  only  the  Senecan  model 
strengthened  and  improved)  was  repeatedly  tried  by  fine  gentle- 
men and  by  needy  hacks,  by  devotees  of  the  unities,  and  by 
devotees  of  court  fashion.  I  hardly  know  any  other  instance  in 
literary  history  of  a  similar  resistance  offered  to  a  similar  tide  of 
literary  influence  in  Europe.  We  have  little  room  here  for 
fanciful  comparisons,  yet  might  the  dramatic  events  of  1560- 
1590  in  England  well  seem  a  literary  battle  of  Tours,  in  which 
an  English  Charles  Martel  stemmed  and  turned  back  for  ever 
and  ever  the  hitherto  resistless  march  of  a  literary  invader 
and  spread  of  a  literary  heresy. 

To  the  modern  reader   Gorboduc  (part  of  which  is  attributed 


in  "GORBOnUC" 


59 


to  Thomas  Norton,  and  which  was  acted  on  i8th  January  1561, 
pubUshed  j)iratically  in  1565,  and  authoritatively  under  the  title 
of  Ferrex  and  Porrex  in  157 1  ?)  is  scarcely  inviting,  but  that  is 
not  a  criterion  of  its  attractiveness  to  its  own  contemporaries. 
Perhaps  the  most  curious  thing  about  it  is  the  violence  done  to 
the  Horatian  and  Senecan  theories,  or  rather  the  «</{/"  outwitting 
of  those  theories,  by  an  arrangement  of  dumb  shows  between  the 
acts  to  satisfy  the  hunger  for  real  action  which  the  model  refused 
to  countenance.  All  the  rest  is  of  the  most  painful  regularity  : 
and  the  scrupulosity  with  which  each  of  the  rival  princes  is 
provided  with  a  counsellor  and  a  parasite  to  himself,  and  the 
other  parts  are  allotted  with  similar  fairness,  reaches  such  a 
point  that  it  is  rather  surprising  that  Gorboduc  was  not  provided 
with  two  queens — a  good  and  a  bad.  Such  action  as  there  is 
lies  wholly  in  the  mouths  of  messengers,  and  the  speeches  are  of 
excessive  length.  But  even  these  faults  are  perhaps  less  trying  to 
the  modern  reader  than  the  inchoate  and  unpolished  condition 
of  the  metre  in  the  choruses,  and  indeed  in  the  blank  verse 
dialogue.  Here  and  there,  there  are  signs  of  the  stateliness  and 
poetical  imagery  of  the  "  Induction  " ;  but  for  the  most  part  the 
decasyllabics  stop  dead  at  their  close  and  begin  afresh  at  their 
beginning  with  a  staccato  movement  and  a  dull  monotony  of 
cadence  which  is  inexpressibly  tedious,  as  will  be  seen  in  the 
following  : — 

(  Vitlena  soliloquises. ) 

"  Why  sliould  I  live  and  linger  forth  my  time 
In  longer  life  to  double  my  ilistress  ? 
O  me,  most  woeful  wight,  whom  no  mishap 
Lfjng  ere  this  day  could  have  bereaved  hence. 
Might  not  these  hands,  by  fortune  or  by  fate, 
Have  pierc'd  this  breast,  and  life  with  iron  reft? 
Or  in  this  palace  here  where  I  so  long 
Have  spent  my  days,  could  not  that  happy  hour 
Once,  once  have  happ'd  in  which  these  hugy  frames 
With  death  by  fall  might  have  oppressed  me? 
Or  should  not  this  most  hard  and  cruel  soil, 


6o  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  CHAP. 

So  oft  where  I  have  press'd  my  wretched  steps, 
Some  time  had  ruth  of  mine  accursed  Hfe, 
To  rend  in  twain  and  swallow  me  therein  ? 
So  had  my  bones  possessed  now  in  peace 
Their  happy  grave  within  the  closed  ground, 
And  greedy  worms  had  gnawn  this  pined  heart 
Without  my  feeling  pain  :  so  should  not  now 
This  living  breast  remain  the  ruthful  tomb 
Wherein  my  heart  yielden  to  death  is  graved  ; 
Nor  dreary  thoughts,  with  pangs  of  pining  grief, 
My  doleful  mind  had  not  afflicted  thus." 

There  is  no  blame  due  to  Sackville  in  that  he  did  not  invent 
what  no  single  man  invented,  and  what  even  in  England,  where 
only  it  has  been  originally  attained,  took  some  thirty  years  of 
the  genius  of  the  nation  working  through  innumerable  individual 
tentatives  and  failures  to  bring  about.  But  he  did  not  invent  it ; 
he  did  not  even  make  any  attempt  to  invent  it ;  and  had  this 
first  English  tragedy  been  generally  followed,  we  should  have 
been  for  an  unknown  period  in  the  land  of  bondage,  in  the 
classical  dungeon  which  so  long  retained  the  writers  of  a  nation, 
certainly  not,  at  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  Gorboduc,  of  less 
literary  promise  than  our  own. 

In  describing  these  tentatives  and  failures  it  will  be  impossible 
here  to  enter  into  any  lengthened  criticism  of  particular  works. 
We  shall  have  to  content  ourselves  with  a  description  of  the 
general  lines  and  groups,  which  may  be  said  to  be  four  in 
number  :  (i)  The  few  unimportant  and  failing  followers  of  Sack- 
ville;  (2)  The  miscellaneous  farce-and-interlude-writers,  who, 
incult  and  formless  as  their  work  was,  at  least  maintained  the 
literary  tradition  ;  (3)  The  important  and  most  interesting  group 
of  "  university  wits  "  who,  with  Marlowe  at  their  head,  made  the 
blank  verse  line  for  dramatic  purposes,  dismissed,  cultivated  as 
they  were,  the  cultivation  of  classical  models,  and  gave  English 
tragedy  its  Magna  Charla  of  freedom  and  submission  to  the 
restrictions  of  actual  life  only,  but  who  fiiiled,  from  this  cause  or 
that,   to    achieve    perfect  life-likeness ;    and    (4}  The   actor-play- 


Ill  l^riXOR  EARLV  TLAYS  6t 

Wrights  who,  rising  from  very  humble  beginnings,  but  possessing 
in  their  follow  Shakespere  a  champion  unparalleled  in  ancient 
and  modern  times,  borrowed  the  improvements  of  the  University 
Wits,  added  their  own  stage  knowledge,  and  with  Shakespere's 
aid  achieved  the  master  drama  of  the  world. 

A  very  few  lines  will  suffice  for  the  first  group,  who  are  the 
merest  literary  curiosities.  Indeed  the  actual  number  of  Senecan 
dramas  in  English  is  very  small  indeed,  though  there  may  possibly 
be  some  undiscovered  in  MS.  The  Tancred  and  Gismund  of 
Robert  Wilmot  (acted  1568,  and  of  some  merit),  the  Cornelia  of 
(larnier,  translated  by  Kyd  and  printed  in  1594,  the  curious  play 
called  The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,  acted  before  the  Queen  in  the 
Armada  year,  with  "  triumphs  "  partly  devised  by  Francis  Bacon, 
the  two  plays  of  Samuel  Daniel,  and  a  very  few  others,  complete 
the  list ;  indeed  Cornelia,  Cleopatra,  and  Philotas  are  almost  the 
only  three  that  keep  really  close  to  the  model.  At  a  time  of  such 
unbounded  respect  for  the  classics,  and  when  Latin  plays  of  the 
same  stamp  were  constantly  acted  at  the  universities,  such  a 
paucity  of  examples  in  English  can  only  testify  to  a  strong  national 
distaste — an  instinctive  feeling  that  this  would  never  do. 

The  nondescript  followings  of  morality  and  farce  are  infinitely 
more  numerous,  and  perhaps  intrinsically  more  interesting;  but 
they  can  hardly  be  said  to  be,  except  in  bulk,  of  much  greater 
importance.  Their  real  interest  to  the  reader  as  he  turns  them 
over  in  the  first  seven  or  eight  volumes  of  Dodsley,  or  in  the 
rarer  single  editions  where  they  occur,  is  again  an  interest  of 
curiosity — a  desire  to  trace  the  various  shiftings  and  turnings  of 
the  mighty  but  unorganised  genius  which  was  soon  to  find  its 
way.  Next  to  the  difficulty  of  inventing  a  conveniently  plastic 
form  seems  to  have  been  the  difficulty  of  inventing  a  suitable 
verse.  For  some  time  the  swinging  or  lumbering  doggerel  in  which 
a  tolerably  good  rhyme  is  reached  by  a  kind  of  scramble  through 
four  or  five  feet,  which  are  most  like  a  very  shuffling  anapsest — 
the  verse  whi(  h  appears  in  the  comedies  of  Udall  and  Still — held 
its   ground.      \\'c   have    it    in    the   morality  of  the  New  Custom^ 


62  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

printed  in  1573,  but  no  doubt  written  earlier,  in  the  Interlude  of 
The  Trial  of  Treasure.,  in  the  farcical  comedy  of  Like  Will  to  Like, 
a  coarse  but  lively  piece,  by  Ulpian  Fulwell  (1568).  In  the  very 
curious  tragicomedy  of  Cavibyses  this  doggerel  appears  partly,  but 
is  alternated  with  the  less  lawless  but  scarcely  more  suitable 
"fourteener"  (divided  or  not  as  usual,  according  to  printer's 
exigencies)  which,  as  was  shown  in  the  last  chapter,  for  a  time 
almost  monopolised  the  attention  of  English  poets.  The  same 
mixture  appears  to  some  extent,  though  the  doggerel  occupies  the 
main  text,  in  the  Damon  and  Pythias  of  Richard  Edwards,  the 
editor  of  The  Paradise  of  Daitity  Devices.  In  Appius  and 
Virginia  (a  decidedly  interesting  play)  the  fourteener  on  the 
contrary  is  the  staple  verse,  the  doggerel  being  only  occa- 
sional. Something  the  same  may  be  said  of  a  very  late  mor- 
ality, The  Conflict  of  Conscience.  Both  doggerel  and  fourteeners 
appear  in  the  quaint  productions  called  Three  Ladies  of  Lofidon, 
etc. ;  but  by  this  time  the  decasyllabic  began  to  appear  with  them 
and  to  edge  them  out.  They  died  hard,  however,  thoroughly  ill- 
fitted  as  they  were  for  dramatic  use,  and,  as  readers  of  Love's 
Labour  Lost  know,  survived  even  in  the  early  plays  of  Shake- 
spere.  Nor  were  the  characters  and  minor  details  generally  of 
this  group  less  disorderly  and  inadequate  than  the  general 
schemes  or  the  versification.  Here  we  have  the  abstractions 
of  the  old  Morality ;  there  the  farcical  gossip  of  the  Gammer 
Gurtons  Needle  class ;  elsewhere  the  pale  and  dignified  person- 
ages of  Gorboduc:  all  three  being  often  jumbled  together  all  in 
one  play.  In  the  lighter  parts  there  are  sometimes  fair  touches 
of  low  comedy ;  in  the  graver  occasionally,  though  much  more 
rarely,  a  touching  or  dignified  phrase  or  two.  But  the  plays  as 
wholes  are  like  Ovid's  first-fruits  of  the  deluge — nondescripts 
incapable  of  life,  and  good  for  no  useful  or  ornamental  purpose. 

It  is  at  this  moment  that  the  cleavage  takes  place.  And 
when  I  say  "this  moment,"  I  am  perfectly  conscious  that  the 
exact  moment  in  dates  and  years  cannot  be  defined.  Not  a  little 
liarm  has  been  done  to  the  history  of  English  literature  by  the 


in  THE  UNIVERSITY  ^VITS  63 

confusion  of  times  in  which  some  of  its  historians  have  pleased 
themselves.  But  even  greater  harm  might  be  done  if  one 
were  to  insist  on  an  exact  chronology  for  the  efflorescence  of 
the  really  poetical  era  of  Elizabethan  literature,  if  the  blos- 
soming of  the  aloe  were  to  be  tied  down  to  hour  and  day. 
All  that  we  can  say  is  that  in  certain  publications,  in  certain 
passages  even  of  the  same  publication,  we  find  the  old  respect- 
able plodding,  the  old  blind  tentative  experiment  in  poetry 
and  drama  :  and  then  without  warning — without,  as  it  seems,  any 
possible  opportunity  of  distinguishing  chronologically — we  find  the 
unmistakable  marks  of  the  new  wine,  of  the  unapproachable  poetry 
proper,  which  all  criticism,  all  rationalisation  can  only  indicate 
and  not  account  for.  We  have  hardly  left  (if  Ave  take  their 
counterparts  later  we  have  not  left)  the  wooden  verse  of  Gorboduc, 
the  childish  rusticity  of  Like  Will  to  Like,  when  suddenly  we 
stumble  on  the  bower — 

"  Seated  in  hearing  of  a  hiindreil  streams  " — 

of  George  Peele,  on  the  myriad  graceful  fancies  of  Lyly,  on  the 
exquisite  snatches  of  Greene,  on  the  verses,  to  this  day  the  high- 
water  mark  of  poetry,  in  which  Marlowe  speaks  of  the  inexpressible 
beauty  which  is  the  object  and  the  despair  of  the  poet.  This  is 
wonderful  enough.  But  what  is  more  wonderful  is,  that  these 
lightning  flashes  are  as  evanescent  as  lightning.  Lyly,  Peele, 
(keene,  ^^arlowe  himself,  in  probably  the  very  next  passages, 
certainly  in  passages  not  very  remote,  tell  us  that  this  is  all  matter 
■:ii  chance,  that  they  are  all  capable  of  sinking  below  the  level  of 
Sackville  at  his  even  conceivably  worst,  close  to  the  level  of 
Edwards,  and  the  various  anonymous  or  half-anonymous  writers 
of  the  dramatic  miscellanies  just  noted.  And  then  beyond  these 
unequal  wits  arises  the  figure  of  Shakespere  ;  and  the  greatest 
work  of  all  literature  swims  slowly  into  our  ken.  There  has  been 
as  yet  no  history  of  this  uiii(iue  pheiKJiiu'iion  worthy  of  it  ;  I  haw- 
not  the  least  pretension  to  supply  one  that  sliall  he  worthy.  But 
at  least  the  uni<iuencss  of  it  shall  here  have  due  celebration.     'I'hc 


64  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

age  of  Pericles,  the  age  of  Augustus,  the  age  of  Dante,  had  no 
such  curious  ushering-in  unless  time  has  dealt  exceptional  injustice 
to  the  forerunners  of  all  of  them.  We  do  not,  in  the  period 
which  comes  nearest  in  time  and  nature  to  this,  see  anything  of 
the  same  kind  in  the  middle  space  between  Villon  and  Ronsard, 
between  Agrippa  d'Aubigne  and  Corneille.  Here  if  anywhere  is 
the  concentrated  spirit  of  a  nation,  the  thrice-decocted  blood  of  a 
people,  forcing  itself  into  literary  expression  through  mediums 
more  and  more  worthy  of  it.  If  ever  the  historical  method  was 
justified  (as  it  always  is),  now  is  its  greatest  justification  as 
we  watch  the  gradual  improvements,  the  decade-by-decade, 
almost  year-by-year  acquisitions,  which  lead  from  Sackville  to 
Shakespere. 

The  rising  sap  showed  itself  in  two  very  different  ways,  in 
two  branches  of  the  national  tree.  In  the  first  place,  we  have 
the  group  of  University  Wits,  the  strenuous  if  not  always  wise  band 
of  professed  men  of  letters,  at  the  head  of  whom  are  Lyly,  Mar- 
lowe, Greene,  Peele,  Lodge,  Nash,  and  probably  (for  his  connec- 
tion with  the  universities  is  not  certainly  known)  Kyd.  In  the 
second,  we  have  the  irregular  band  of  outsiders,  players  and 
others,  who  felt  themselves  forced  into  literary  and  principally 
dramatic  composition,  who  boast  Shakespere  as  their  chief,  and 
who  can  claim  as  seconds  to  him  not  merely  the  iinperfect  talents 
of  Chettle,  Munday,  and  others  whom  we  may  mention  in  this 
chapter,  but  many  of  the  perfected  ornaments  of  a  later  time. 

It  may  be  accident  or  it  may  not,  but  the  beginning  of  this 
period  is  certainly  due  to  the  "university  wits."  Lyly  stands  a 
good  deal  apart  from  them  personally,  despite  his  close  literary 
connection.  We  have  no  kind  of  evidence  which  even  shows 
that  he  was  personally  acquainted  with  any  one  of  the  others. 
Of  Kyd,  till  Mr.  Boas's  recent  researches,  we  knew  next  to 
nothing,  and  we  still  know  very  little  save  that  he  was  at 
Merchant  Taylors'  School  and  was  busy  with  plays  famous 
in  their  day.  But  the  other  five  were  closely  connected  in 
life,   and  in   their  deaths   they   were   hardly   divided,      Lodge 


in  THE  UNIVERSITY  WITS  65 


only  of  the  five  seems  to  have  freed  huiiself,  partly  in  virtue  of  a 
regular  profession,  and  partly  in  consequence  of  his  adherence  to 
the  Roman  faith,  from  the  Bohemianism  which  has  tempted  men 
of  letters  at  all  times,  and  which  was  especially  dangerous  in  a 
time  of  such  unlimited  adventure,  such  loose  public  morals,  and 
such  unco-ordinated   society  as  the  Elizabethan  era.      'Whatever 
details  we  have  of  their  lives  (and  they  are  mostly  very  meagre 
and  uncertain)  convey  the  idea  of  times  out  of  joint  or  not  yet 
in  joint.     The  atheism  of  Marlowe  rests  on  no  proof  whatever, 
though  it  has  got  him  friends  in  this  later  time.      I  am  myself 
by  no  means  sure  that  Greene's  supposed  debauchery  is  not,  to 
a  great  extent,    "copy."      The    majority  of  the    too  celebrated 
"jests"    attributed    to   George   Peele    are   directly  traceable   to 
Villon's  Replies  Franchcs  and  similar  compilations,  and  have  a 
suspiciously  mythical  and  traditional  air  to  the  student  of  literary 
history.     There   is    something   a   little   more   trustworthily  auto- 
biographical about  Nash.      But  on  the  whole,  though  we   need 
not  doubt  that  these  ancestors  of  all  modern   Englishmen  who 
live  by  the  gray  goose  quill   tasted  the  inconveniences  of  the 
profession,   especially  at  a  time  when  it  was  barely  constituted 
even  as  a  vocation  or  employment  (to  quote  the  Income  Tax 
Papers),  we  must  carefully  avoid  taking  too  gloomy  a  view  of 
their  life.      It   was  usually  short,  it  was  probably  merry,  but  we 
know  very  little  else  about  it.      The  chief  direct  documents,  the 
remarkable  pamphlets  which  some   of  them    have   left,    will   be 
dealt  with  hereafter.      Here  we  are  busied  only  with  their  dates 
and  their  dramatic  work,  which  was  in  no  case  (except  perhaps 
in  that  of  Kyd)  their  sole  known  work,  but  which  in  every  case 
except    those    of    Nash    and    perhaps    Greene    was    their    most 
remarkable. 

In  noticing  Euphues  an  account  has  already  been  given  of 
Lyly's  life,  or  rather  of  the  very  scanty  particulars  which  are 
known  of  it.  His  plays  date  considerably  later  than  Euphues. 
But  they  all  bear  the  character  of  the  courtier  about  them  ;  and 
both  in  this  characteristic  and  in  the  absence  of  any  details  in 
11  K 


66  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chai>. 


the  gossipping  literature  of  the  time  to  connect  him  with  the 
Bohemian  society  of  the  playhouse,  the  distinction  which  sepa- 
rates Lyly  from  the  group  of  "  university  wits "  is  noteworthy. 
He  lost  as  well  as  gained  by  the  separation.  All  his  plays  were 
acted  "by  the  children  of  Paul's  before  her  Majesty,"  and  not 
by  the  usual  companies  before  Dick,  Tom,  and  Harry.  The 
exact  date  and  order  of  their  writing  is  very  uncertain,  and  in 
one  case  at  least,  that  of  The  Woman  in  the  Moon,  we  know 
that  the  order  was  exactly  reversed  in  publication  :  this  being  the 
last  printed  in  Lyly's  lifetime,  and  expressly  described  as  the 
first  written.  His  other  dramatic  works  are  Campaspe,  Sappho 
and  Fhaon,  Efidymion,  Galathca,  Midas,  Mother  Bombic,  and 
Love's  Metafnorphosis ;  another,  The  Maid's  Metamorphosis,  which 
has  been  attributed  to  him,  is  in  all  probabiUty  not  his. 

The  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  production  of  Lyly's  plays, 
and  the  strong  or  at  any  rate  decided  individuality  of  the  author, 
keep  them  in  a  division  almost  to  themselves.  The  mythologi- 
cal or  pastoral  character  of  their  subject  in  most  cases  might  not 
of  itself  have  prevented  their  marking  an  advance  in  the  dramatic 
composition  of  English  playwrights.  A  Midsuimner  Nighfs 
Dream  and  much  other  work  of  Shakespere's  sliow  how  far 
from  necessary  it  is  that  theme,  or  class  of  subject,  should  affect 
merit  of  presentment.  But  Lyly's  work  generally  has  more  of 
the  masque  than  the  play.  It  sometimes  includes  charming 
lyrics,  such  as  the  famous  Campaspe  song  and  others.  But  most 
of  it  is  in  prose,  and  it  gave  beyond  doubt — though  Gascoigne 
had,  as  we  have  seen,  set  the  example  in  drama — no  small 
impetus  to  the  use  and  perfectioning  of  that  medium.  For  Lyly's 
dramatic  prose,  though  sometimes  showing  the  same  faults,  is 
often  better  than  Tuphnes,  as  here  : — 

"End.  O  fair  Cyntliia,  why  do  others  term  thee  unconstant,  whom  I  have 
ever  found  immovable?  Injurious  time,  corrupt  manners,  unkind  men,  who 
finding  a  constancy  not  to  be  matched  in  my  sweet  mistress,  have  christened 
her  with  the  name  of  wavering,  waxing,  and  waning.  Is  she  inconstant  that 
keepeth  a  settled  course,  which  since  her  first  creation  altereth  not  one  minute 


Ill  LVLY  67 

in  her  moving  ?  There  is  nothing  thought  more  admirable,  or  commendable 
in  the  sea,  than  the  ebbing  and  flowing  ;  and  sliall  the  moon,  from  whom  the 
sea  taketh  this  virtue,  be  accounted  fickle  for  increasing  and  decreasing? 
Flowers  in  their  buds  are  nothing  worth  till  they  be  blown  ;  nor  blossoms 
accounted  till  they  be  ripe  fruit  ;  and  shall  we  then  say  they  be  changeable, 
for  that  they  grow  from  seeds  to  leaves,  from  leaves  to  buds,  from  buds  to  their 
perfection  ?  then,  why  be  not  twigs  that  become  trees,  children  that  become 
men,  and  mornings  that  grow  to  evenings,  termed  wavering,  for  that  they  con- 
tinue not  at  one  stay  ?  Ay,  but  Cynthia  being  in  her  fulness  decayeth,  as  not 
delighting  in  her  greatest  beauty,  or  withering  when  she  should  be  most 
honoured.  When  malice  cannot  object  anything,  folly  will ;  making  that  a 
vice  which  is  the  greatest  virtue.  What  thing  (my  mistress  excepted)  being  in 
the  pride  of  her  beauty,  and  latter  minute  of  her  age,  that  waxeth  young 
again?  Tell  me,  Eumenides,  what  is  he  that  having  a  mistress  of  ripe  years, 
and  infinite  virtues,  great  honours,  and  unspeakable  beauty,  but  would  wish 
that  she  might  grow  tender  again  ?  getting  youth  by  years,  and  never-decaying 
beauty  by  time  ;  whose  fair  face,  neither  the  summer's  blaze  can  scorch,  nor 
winter's  blast  chap,  nor  the  numbering  of  years  breed  altering  of  colours. 
Such  is  my  sweet  Cynthia,  whom  time  cannot  touch,  because  she  is  divine, 
nor  will  offend  because  she  is  delicate.  O  Cynthia,  if  thou  shouldest  always 
continue  at  thy  fulness,  both  gods  and  men  would  conspire  to  ravish  thee. 
But  thou,  to  abate  the  pride  of  our  affections,  dost  detract  from  thy  perfections  ; 
thinking  it  sufficient  if  once  in  a  month  we  enjoy  a  glimpse  of  thy  majesty  ; 
and  then,  to  increase  our  griefs,  thou  dost  decrease  thy  gleams ;  coming  out 
of  thy  royal  robes,  wherewith  thou  dazzlest  our  eyes,  down  into  thy  swath 
clouts,  beguiling  our  eyes  ;  and  then " 

In  these  plays  there  are  excellent  phrases  and  even  striking 
scenes.  But  they  are  not  in  the  true  sense  dramatic,  and  are 
constantly  spoilt  by  Lyly's  strange  weakness  for  conceited  style. 
Everybody  speaks  in  antitheses,  and  the  intolerable  fancy  similes, 
drawn  from  a  kind  of  imaginary  natural  history,  are  sometimes 
as  prominent  as  in  Euphues  itself  Lyly's  theatre  represents, 
in  short,  a  mere  backwater  in  the  general  stream  of  dramatic 
progress,  though  not  a  few  allusions  in  other  men's  work 
show  us  that  it  attracted  no  small  attention.  AVith  Nash  alone, 
of  the  University  Wits  proper,  was  Lyly  connected,  and  this 
only  problematically.  He  was  an  Oxford  man,  and  most  of 
them  were  of  Cambridge ;  he  was  a  courtier^  if  a  badly-paid 
one,   and  they   all   lived  by   their  wits  ;    and,    if  we   may  judge 


68  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

by  the  very  few  documents  remaining,  he  was  not  inclined  to 
be  hail-fellow-well-met  with  anybody,  while  they  were  all  born 
Bohemians.  Yet  none  of  them  had  a  greater  influence  on 
Shakespere  than  Lyly,  though  it  was  anything  but  a  beneficial 
influence,  and  for  this  as  well  as  .for  the  originality  of  his  pro- 
duction he  deserves  notice,  even  had  the  intrinsic  merit  of  his 
work  been  less  than  it  is.  But,  in  fact,  it  is  very  great,  being 
almost  a  typical  production  of  talent  helped  by  knowledge,  but 
not  mastered  by  positive  genius,  or  directed  in  its  way  by  the 
precedent  work  of  others. 

In  the  work  of  the  University  Wits  proper — Marlowe,  Greene, 
Peele,  Lodge,  Nash,  and  Kyd,  the  last  of  whom,  it  must  again 
be  said,  is  not  certainly  known  to  have  belonged  to  either  uni- 
versity, though  the  probabilities  are  all  in  favour  of  that  hypo- 
thesis— a  very  diff"erent  kind  of  work  is  found.  It  is  always 
faulty,  as  a  whole,  for  even  Dr.  Faiistiis  and  Edward  11. , 
despite  their  magnificent  poetry  and  the  vast  capabilities  of 
their  form,  could  only  be  called  good  plays  or  good  composi- 
tions as  any  kind  of  whole  by  a  critic  who  had  entirely  lost  the 
sense  of  proportion.  But  in  the  whole  group,  and  especially  in 
the  dramatic  work  of  Marlowe,  Greene,  Peele,  and  Kyd  (for  that 
of  Lodge  and  Nash  is  small  in  amount  and  comparatively  unim- 
portant in  manner),  the  presence,  the  throes  of  a  new  dramatic 
style  are  evident.  Faults  and  beauties  are  more  or  less  common 
to  the  whole  quartet.  In  all  Ave  find  the  many-sided  activity  of 
the  Shakesperian  drama  as  it  was  to  be,  sprawling  and  strug- 
gling in  a  kind  of  swaddling  clothes  of  which  it  cannot  get  rid, 
and  which  hamper  and  cripple  its  movements.  In  all  there  is 
present  a  most  extraordinary  and  unique  rant  and  bombast  of 
expression  which  reminds  one  of  the  shrieks  and  yells  of  a  band 
of  healthy  boys  just  let  out  to  play.  The  passages  which  (thanks 
chiefly  to  Pistol's  incomparable  quotations  and  parodies  of  them) 
are  known  to  every  one,  the  "  Pampered  jades  of  Asia,"  the 
"  Have  we  not  Hiren  here,"  the  "Feed  and  grow  fat,  my  fair 
Callipolis,"    the  other   quips   and    cranks   of   mine   ancient    are 


in  THE  MARLOWE  GROUP  69 

scattered  broadcast  in  their  originals,  and  are  evidently  meant 
quite  seriously  throughout  the  work  of  these  poets.  Side  by 
side  with  this  mania  for  bombast  is  another  mania,  much  more 
clearly  traceable  to  education  and  associations,  but  specially  odd 
in  connection  with  what  has  just  been  noticed.  This  is  the 
foible  of  classical  allusion.  The  heathen  gods  and  goddesses, 
the  locaUties  of  Greek  and  Roman  poetry,  even  the  more  out- 
of-the-way  commonplaces  of  classical  literature,  are  put  in  the 
mouths  of  all  the  characters  without  the  remotest  attempt  to 
consider  propriety  or  relevance.  Even  in  still  lesser  peculiarities 
the  blemishes  are  uniform  and  constant — such  as  the  curious 
and  childish  habit  of  making  speakers  speak  of  themselves  in 
the  third  person,  and  by  their  names,  instead  of  using  "  I "  and 
"  me."  And  on  the  other  hand,  the  merits,  though  less  evenly 
distributed  in  degree,  are  equally  constant  in  kind.  In  Kyd, 
in  Greene  still  more,  in  Peele  more  still,  in  Marlowe  most  of  all, 
phrases  and  passages  of  blinding  and  dazzling  poetry  flash  out 
of  the  midst  of  the  bombast  and  the  tedium.  Many  of  these 
are  known,  by  the  hundred  books  of  extract  which  have  followed 
Lamb's  Specif/iens,  to  all  readers.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the 
"  Sec  where  Christ's  blood  streams  In  the  firmament  " 

of  Marlowe,  and  his  even  more  magnificent  passage  beginning 
"  If  all  the  pens  that  ever  poets  held  ;  " 

such  Peele's  exquisite  bower, 

"  Seated  in  hearing  of  an  hundred  streams, 

which  is,  with  all  respect  to  Charles  Lamb,  to  be  paralleled  by 
a  score  of  other  jewels  from  the  reckless  work  of  "(George 
Pyeboard":  such  Greene's 

"Why  thinks  King  Henry's  son  that  Margaret's  love 
Hangs  in  the  uncertain  balance  of  ])rou(l  time?" 

such  even  Kyd's 

"  There  is  a  path  upon  your  left  hand  side 
That  lea<leth  from  a  guilty  consricncc 
Urilu  a  forest  of  distrust  and  fear." 


70  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

But  the  whole  point  of  the  thing  is  that  these  flashes,  which  are 
not  to  be  found  at  all  before  the  date  of  this  university  school, 
are  to  be  found  constantly  in  its  productions,  and  that,  amorphous, 
inartistic,  incomplete  as  those  productions  are,  they  still  show 
Hamlet  and  A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream  in  embryo.  Whereas 
the  greatest  expert  in  literary  embryology  may  read  Gorhoduc 
and  The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur  through  without  discerning  the 
slightest  signs  of  what  was  coming. 

Nash  and  Lodge  are  so  little  dramatists  (the  chief,  if  not  only 
play  of  the  former  being  the  shapeless  and  rather  dull  comedy, 
Will  Sumtner's  Testament^  relieved  only  by  some  lyrics  of  merit 
which  are  probably  not  Nash's,  while  Lodge's  Marius  and  Sylla, 
while  it  wants  the  extravagance,  wants  also  the  beauty  of  its 
author's  companions'  work),  that  what  has  to  be  said  about  them 
will  be  better  said  later  in  dealing  with  their  other  books. 
Greene's  prose  pieces  and  his  occasional  poems  are,  no  doubt, 
better  than  his  drama,  but  the  latter  is  considerable,  and  was 
probably  his  earliest  work.  Kyd  has  left  nothing,  and  Peele 
little,  but  drama ;  while  beautiful  as  Marlowe's  Hero  and  Leander 
is,  I  do  not  quite  understand  how  any  one  can  prefer  it  to  the 
faultier  but  far  more  original  dramas  of  its  author.  We  shall 
therefore  deal  with  these  four  individually  here. 

The  eldest  of  the  four  was  George  Peele,  variously  described 
as  a  Londoner  and  a  Devonshire  man,  who  was  probably  born 
about  1558.  He  was  educated  at  Christ's  Hospital  (of  which 
his  father  was  "clerk")  and  at  Broadgates  Hall,  now  Pembroke 
College,  Oxford,  and  had  some  credit  in  the  university  as  an 
arranger  of  pageants,  etc.  He  is  supposed  to  have  left  Oxford  for 
London  about  1581,  and  had  the  credit  of  living  a  Bohemian, 
not  to  say  disreputable,  life  for  about  seventeen  years  ;  his  death 
in  1597  (?)  being  not  more  creditable  than  his  life.  But  even  the 
scandals  about  Peele  are  much  more  shadowy  than  those  about 
Marlowe  and  Greene.  His  dramatic  work  consists  of  some  half- 
dozen  plays,  the  earliest  of  which  is  The  Arraignmefit  of  Paris, 
1 58 1  (?),  one  of  the  most  elaborate  and  barefaced  of  the  many  con- 


Ill  PEELE  71 

temporary  Hatteries  of  Elizabeth,  but  containing  some  exquisite 
verse.  In  the  same  way  Peele  has  been  accused  of  having 
in  Edward  J.  adopted  or  perhaps  even  invented  the  basest 
and  most  groundless  scandals  against  the  noble  and  stainless 
memory  of  Eleanor  of  Castile ;  while  in  his  Battle  of  Alcazar 
he  certainly  gratifies  to  the  utmost  the  popular  ante -Spanish 
and  ante-Popish  feeling.  So  angry  have  critics  been  with 
Peek's  outrage  on  Eleanor,  that  some  of  them  have  declared 
that  none  but  he  could  have  been  guilty  of  the  not  dissimilar 
slur  cast  on  Joan  of  Arc's  character  in  Henry  VL,  the  three 
parts  of  which  it  has  been  the  good  pleasure  of  Shakespcrian 
commentators  to  cut  and  carve  between  the  University  Wits  ad 
libitum.  I  cannot  myself  help  thinking  that  all  this  has  arisen 
ver)'  much  from  the  idea  of  Peek's  vagabondism  given  by  the 
untrustworthy  "Jests."  The  slander  on  Queen  Eleanor  was 
pretty  certainly  supplied  to  him  by  an  older  ballad.  There  is 
little  or  nothing  else  in  Peele's  undoubted  writings  which  is  at 
all  discreditable.  His  miscellaneous  poems  show  a  man  by  no 
means  given  to  low  company  or  low  thoughts,  and  one  gifted 
with  the  truest  poetic  vein  ;  while  his  dramas,  besides  exhibiting 
a  greater  command  over  blank  verse  than  any  of  his  prede- 
cessors and  than  any  except  Marlowe  of  his  contemporaries 
can  claim,  are  full  of  charming  passages.  Sir  Clyomon  and  Sir 
Clamydcs,  which  has  been  denied  to  him — an  interesting  play 
on  the  rare  basis  of  the  old  romance — is  written  not  in  blank 
verse  but  in  the  fourteener.  The  Old  IVii'es'  Tale  pretty 
certainly  furnished  Milton  with  the  subject  of  Comus,  and 
this  is  its  chief  merit.  Edivard  I.  and  The  Battle  of  Alcazar, 
but  especially  the  latter,  contain  abundance  of  the  hectoring 
rant  which  has  been  marked  as  one  of  the  characteristics 
of  the  school,  and  which  is  half-excused  by  the  sparks  of 
valour  that  often  break  from  its  smoke  and  clatter.  Put 
Peele  would  undoubtedly  stand  higher,  though  he  might  not 
be  so  interesting  a  literary  figure,  if  we  had  nothing  of  his  save 
The    Arraignment   of    Paris    and    David   and   Tethsal'e.        The 


72  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  Chap. 

Arraignment  (written  in  various  metres,  but  mainly  in  a  musical 
and  varied  heroic  couplet),  is  partly  a  pastoral,  partly  a  masque, 
and  wholly  a  Court  play.  It  thus  comes  nearest  to  Lyly,  but  is 
altogether  a  more  dramatic,  livelier,  and  less  conceited  perform- 
ance than  anything  by  the  author  of  Euphues.  As  for  David  and 
Bethsal'e,  it  is  crammed  with  beauties,  and  Lamb's  curiously  faint 
praise  of  it  has  always  been  a  puzzle  to  me.  As  Marlowe's  are 
the  mightiest,  so  are  Peele's  the  softest,  lines  in  the  drama  before 
Shakespere ;  while  the  spirit  and  humour,  which  the  author  also 
had  in  plenty,  save  his  work  from  the  merely  cloying  sweetness 
of  some  contemporary  writers.  Two  of  his  interposed  or  occa- 
sional lyrics  will  be  given  later  :  a  blank  verse  passage  may  find 
room  here  : — 

Bethsabe.  "  Come,  gentle  Zephyr,  trick'd  with  those  perfumes 
That  erst  in  Eden  sweeten'd  Adam's  love, 
And  stroke  my  bosom  with  thy  silken  fan  : 
This  shade,  sim-proof,^  is  yet  no  proof  for  thee  ; 
Thy  body,  smoother  than  this  waveless  spring, 
And  purer  than  the  substance  of  the  same, 
Can  creep  througli  that  his  lances  cannot  pierce : 
Thou,  and  thy  sister,  soft  and  sacred  Air, 
Goddess  of  hfe,  and  governess  of  health. 
Keep  every  fountain  fresh  and  arbour  sweet ; 
No  brazen  gate  her  passage  can  repulse, 
Nor  bushy  thicket  bar  thy  subtle  breath  : 
Then  deck  thee  with  thy  loose  delightsome  robes, 
And  on  thy  wings  bring  delicate  perfumes, 
To  play  the  wanton  with  us  through  the  leaves. " 

Robert  Greene,  probably,  if  not  certainly,  the  next  in  age  of  the 
group  to  Peele,  was  born  in  1560,  the  son  of  apparently  well-to-do 
parents  at  Norwich,  and  was  educated  at  Clare  Hall,  Cambridge, 
where  he  took  his  Master's  degree  in  1583.  He  was  subsequently 
incorporated  at  Oxford,  and  being  by  no  means  ill-inclined  to 
make  the  most  of  himself,  sometimes  took  the  style  of  a  member 

^  Cf  Milton's   "elms  star-jnuof"  \n  \\\q  A>xacies.      Milton  evidently  knew 
Peele  well. 


m  GREENE  7^ 


"  Utriusque  Academice."  After  leaving  the  university  he  seems 
to  have  made  a  long  tour  on  the  Continent,  not  (according  to  his 
own  account)  at  all  to  the  advantage  of  his  morals  or  means. 
He  is  said  to  have  actually  taken  orders,  and  held  a  living  for 
some  short  time,  while  he  perhaps  also  studied  if  he  did  not 
practise  medicine.  He  married  a  lady  of  virtue  and  some  fortune, 
but  soon  despoiled  and  deserted  her,  and  for  the  last  six  years  of 
his  life  never  saw  lier.  At  last  in  1592,  aged  only  two  and 
thirty, — but  after  about  ten  years  it  would  seem  of  reckless  living 
and  hasty  literary  production, — he  died  (of  a  disease  caused  or 
aggravated  by  a  debauch  on  pickled  herrings  and  Rhenish)  so 
miserably  poor  that  he  had  to  trust  to  his  injured  wife's  forgive- 
ness for  payment  of  the  money  to  the  extent  of  which  a  charit- 
able landlord  and  landlady  had  trusted  him.  The  facts  of  this 
lamentable  end  may  have  been  spitefully  distorted  by  Gabriel 
Harvey  in  his  quarrel  with  Nash  ;  but  there  is  little  reason  to 
doubt  that  the  received  story  is  in  the  main  correct.  Of  the  re- 
markable prose  pamphlets  which  form  tlie  bulk  of  Greene's  work 
we  speak  elsewhere,  as  also  of  the  pretty  songs  (considerably  ex- 
ceeding in  poetical  merit  anything  to  be  found  in  the  body  of  his 
])lays)  with  which  both  ])ami)hlets  and  plays  are  diversified.  His 
actual  dramatic  production  is  not  inconsiderable  :  a  working-up 
of  the  Orlando  Furioso  ;  A  Looking  Glass  for  London  and  England 
(Nineveh)  with  Lodge  ;  James  LV.  (of  Scotland),  a  wildly  un- 
historical  romance  ;  Alplionsiis,  King  of  Arragon  ;  and  perhaps 
Tke  Pinner  of  Wakefield,  which  deals  with  his  own  i)art  namesake 
Gcorge-a-Greene ;  not  impossibly  also  the  pseudo-Shakesperian 
luiir  F.m.  His  best  play  without  doubt  is  The  History  of  Friar 
Bacon  and  L^iar  Bungay,  in  which,  after  a  favourite  fashion  of  the 
time,  he  mingles  a  certain  amount  of  history,  or,  at  least,  a  certain 
number  of  historical  personages,  with  a  plentiful  dose  of  the  super- 
natural and  of  horse-play,  and  with  a  very  graceful  and  prettily- 
handled  love  story.  With  a  few  touches  from  the  master's  hand, 
Margaret,  the  fair  maid  of  Fressingfield,  might  serve  as  handmaid 
to  Shakcspcrc's  women,  and  is  certainly  by  far  the  most  human 


74  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

heroine  produced  by  any  of  Greene's  own  group.  There  is  less 
rant  in  Greene  (though  there  is  still  plenty  of  it)  than  in  any  of 
his  friends,  and  his  fancy  for  soft  female  characters,  loving,  and 
yet  virtuous,  appears  frequently.  But  his  power  is  ill-sustained, 
as  the  following  extract  will  show  : — 

Margaret.   "  Ah,  father,  when  the  harmony  of  heaven 
Soundeth  the  measures  of  a  lively  faith, 
The  vain  illusions  of  this  flattering  world 
Seem  odious  to  the  thoughts  of  Margaret. 
I  loved  once, — Lord  Lacy  was  my  love  ; 
And  now  I  hate  myself  for  that  I  loved, 
And  doted  more  on  him  than  on  my  God, — 
For  this  I  scourge  myself  with  sharp  repents. 
But  now  the  touch  of  such  aspiring  sins 
Tells  me  all  love  is  lust  but  love  of  heaven ; 
That  beauty  used  for  love  is  vanity  : 
The  world  contains  naught  but  alluring  baits, 
Pride,  flattery  [  ],  and  inconstant  thoughts. 

To  shun  the  pricks  of  death  I  leave  the  world. 
And  vow  to  meditate  on  heavenly  bliss, 
To  live  in  Framlingham  a  holy  nun. 
Holy  and  pure  in  conscience  and  in  deed  ; 
And  for  to  wish  all  maids  to  learn  of  me 
To  seek  heaven's  joy  before  earth's  vanity." 

We  do  not  know  anything  of  Thomas  Kyd's,  except  The 
Spafiish  Tragedy,  which  is  a  second  part  of  an  extremely  popular 
play  (sometimes  attributed  to  Kyd  himself,  but  probably  earlier) 
called  Jeroni/iio,  and  the  translation  of  Cornelia,  though  others 
are  doubtfully  attributed.  The  well-known  epithet  of  Jonson, 
"  sporting  "  Kyd,  seems  to  have  been  either  a  mere  play  on  the 
poet's  name,  or  else  a  lucus  a  noti  hicendo ;  for  hoih.  Jeronimo  and 
its  sequel  are  in  the  ghastliest  and  bloodiest  vein  of  tragedy,  and 
Cornelia  is  a  model  of  stately  dullness.  The  two  "Jeronimo" 
or  "  Hieronimo  "  i)lays  were,  as  has  been  said,  extremely  popu- 
lar, and  it  is  positively  known  that  Jonson  himself,  and  probably 
others,  were  employed  from  time  to  time  to  freshen  them  up ;  with 
the  consequence  that  the  exact  authorship  of  particular  passages 


Ill  KYD  75 

is  somewhat  ])roblematical.  P.olh  plays,  however,  display,  nearly 
in  perfection,  the  rant,  not  always  quite  ridiculous,  but  always 
extravagant,  from  which  Shakespere  rescued  the  stage ;  though, 
as  the  following  extract  will  show,  this  rant  is  by  no  means  always, 
or  indeed  often,  smoke  without  fire  : — 

"  O  !  forbear, 
For  other  talk  for  us  far  fitter  were. 
But  if  you  be  importunate  to  know 
The  way  to  him,  and  where  to  find  him  out, 
Then  list  to  me,  and  I'll  resolve  your  doubt. 
There  is  a  path  upon  your  left  hand  side, 
That  leadeth  from  a  guilty  conscience 
Unto  a  forest  of  distrust  and  fear — 
A  darksome  place  and  dangerous  to  pass. 
There  shall  you  meet  with  melancholy  thoughts 
Whose  baleful  humours  if  you  but  uphold, 
It  will  conduct  you  to  despair  and  death. 
Whose  rocky  cliffs  when  you  have  once  beheld 
Within  a  hugy  dale  of  lasting  night — 
That,  kindled  with  the  world's  iniciuities, 
Doth  cast  up  filthy  and  detested  fumes — 
Not  far  from  thence,  where  murderers  have  built 
An  habitation  for  their  cursed  souls, 
There  is  a  brazon  cauldron  fixed  by  Jove 
In  his  fell  wrath  upon  a  sulphur  flame. 
Yourselves  shall  find  Lorenzo  bathing  him 
In  boiling  lead  and  blood  of  innocents." 

But   nothing,  except   citation  of  whole   scenes   and   acts,  could 
show  the  extraordinary  jumble  of  ghosts,  blood,  thunder,  treach- 
ery, and  horrors  of  all  sorts  which  these  plays  contain. 
Now  for  a  very  different  citation  : — 

"  If  all  the  pens  that  ever  poets  held 

1  lad  fed  the  feeling  of  their  masters'  thoughts, 
And  every  sweetness  that  inspir'd  their  hearts, 
Their  minds,  and  muses,  on  admired  themes; 
If  all  the  heavenly  (juintessence  they  'still 
I'rom  their  inmiortal  flowers  of  poesy, 
Wherein  as  in  a  mirror  we  perceive 


76  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

The  highest  reaches  of  a  human  wit ; 
If  these  had  made  one  poem's  period, 
And  all  combined  in  beauty's  worthiness, 
Yet  should  there  hover  in  their  restless  heads 
One  thought,  one  grace,  one  wonder  at  the  least 
Which  into  words  no  virtue  can  digest." 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  whole  school  has  been  dwarfed 
in  the  general  estimation,  since  its  work  was  critically  considered 
and  isolated  from  other  work,  by  the  towering  excellence  of 
this  author.  Little  as  is  known  of  all  the  band,  that  little 
becomes  almost  least  in  regard  to  their  chief  and  leader.  Born 
(1564)  at  Canterbury,  the  son  of  a  shoemaker,  he  was  educated 
at  the  Grammar  School  of  that  city,  and  at  Benet  (afterwards 
Corpus)  College,  Cambridge ;  he  plunged  into  literary  work  and 
dissipation  in  London ;  and  he  outlived  Greene  only  to  fall  a 
victim  to  debauchery  in  a  still  more  tragical  way.  His  death  (1593) 
was  the  subject  of  much  gossip,  but  the  most  probable  account 
is  that  he  was  poniarded  in  self-defence  by  a  certain  Francis 
Archer,  a  serving-man  (not  by  any  means  necessarily,  as  Charles 
Kingsley  has  it,  a  footman),  while  drinking  at  Deptford,  and  that 
the  cause  of  the  quarrel  was  a  woman  of  light  character.  He 
has  also  been  accused  of  gross  vices  not  to  be  particularised,  and 
of  atheism.  The  accusation  is  certain ;  and  Mr.  Boas's  researches 
as  to  Kyd,  who  was  also  concerned  in  the  matter,  have  thrown 
some  light  on  it ;  but  much  is  still  obscure.  The  most  offensive 
charges  were  due  to  one  Bame  or  Baines,  who  was  afterwards 
hanged  at  Tyburn.  That  Marlowe  was  a  Bohemian  in  the  fullest 
sense  is  certain  ;  that  he  was  anything  worse  there  is  no  evidence 
whatever.  He  certainly  was  acquainted  with  Raleigh  and  other 
distinguished  persons,  and  was  highly  spoken  of  by  Chapman  and 
others. 

But  the  interest  of  Marlowe's  name  has  nothing  to  do  with 
these  obscure  scandals  of  three  hundred  years  ago,  though  it 
may  be  difficult  to  pass  them  over  entirely.  He  is  the 
undoubted  author  of  some  of  the  masterpieces  of  English  verse ; 


iir  ]\IARLO\VE  77 

the  hardly  to  be  doubted  author  of  others  not  much  inferior. 
Except  the  very  greatest  names — Shakespere,  Milton,  Spenser, 
Dryden,  Shelley — no  author  can  be  named  who  has  j^roduced, 
when  the  proper  historical  estimate  is  applied  to  him,  such  work 
as  is  to  be  found  in  Tamburlaine,  Doctor  Faustus,  The  Je70  of 
Malta,  Edward  the  Second,  in  one  department ;  Hero  and  Leander 
and  the  Passionate  Shepherd  in  another.  I  have  but  very  little 
doubt  that  the  powerful,  if  formless,  play  of  Lusfs  Dominion  is 
Marlowe's,  though  it  may  have  been  rewritten,  and  the  translations 
of  Lucan  and  Ovid  and  the  minor  work  which  is  more  or  less 
probably  attributed  to  him,  swell  his  tale.  Prose  he  did  not 
write,  perhaps  could  not  have  written.  For  the  one  characteristic 
lacking  to  his  genius  was  measure,  and  prose  without  measure,  as 
numerous  examples  have  shown,  is  usually  rubbish.  Even  his 
dramas  show  a  singular  defect  in  the  architectural  quality  of 
literary  genius.  The  vast  and  formless  creations  of  the  writer's 
boundless  fancy  completely  master  him ;  his  aspirations  after  the 
immense  too  frequently  leave  him  content  with  the  simply  un- 
measured. In  his  best  play  as  a  play,  Edward  the  Second,  the 
limitations  of  a  historical  story  impose  something  like  a  restraining 
form  on  his  glowing  imagination.  But  fine  as  this  play  is,  it  is 
noteworthy  that  no  one  of  his  greatest  things  occurs  in  it.  The 
Massacre  at  Paris,  where  he  also  has  the  confinement  of  reality 
after  a  fashion,  is  a  chaotic  thing  as  a  whole,  without  any  great 
beauty  in  parts.  The  Tragedy  of  Dido  (to  be  divided  between 
him  and  Nash)  is  the  worst  thing  he  ever  did.  Ikit  in  the 
purely  romantic  subjects  of  Tamburlaine,  Fausius,  and  Tlie  Jew  of 
.\falta,  his  genius,  untrammelled  by  any  limits  of  story,  showed 
itself  equally  unable  to  contrive  such  limits  for  itself,  and  able  to 
develop  the  most  marvellous  beauties  of  detail.  Shakespere 
himself  has  not  surpassed,  which  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  no 
other  writer  has  c(iualled,  the  famous  and  wonderful  passages  in 
Tamburlaine  and  Faustiis,  which  arc  familiar  to  every  student  of 
English  literature  as  examples  of  the  ne  plus  ultra  i^i  the  poetic 
powers,  not  of  the  language  but  of  language.    The  tragic  imagina- 


78  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

tion  in  its  wildest  flights  has  never  summoned  up  images  of  pity 
and  terror  more  imposing,  more  moving,  than  those  excited  by 
The  Je7i>  of  Malta.  The  riot  of  passion  and  of  delight  in  the 
beauty  of  colour  and  form  which  characterises  his  version  of 
Hero  and  Leander  has  never  been  approached  by  any  writer.  But 
Marlowe,  with  the  fullest  command  of  the  apeiron,  had  not,  and, 
as  far  as  I  can  judge,  never  would  have  had,  any  power  of  intro- 
ducing into  it  the  law  of  i\\e.  peras.  It  is  usual  to  say  that  had  he 
lived,  and  had  his  lot  been  happily  cast,  we  should  have  had  two 
Shakesperes.  This  is  not  wise.  In  the  first  place,  Marlowe  was 
totally  destitute  of  humour — the  characteristic  which,  united  with 
his  tragic  and  imaginative  powers,  makes  Shakespere  as,  in  a  less 
degree,  it  makes  Homer,  and  even,  though  the  humour  is  grim 
and  intermittent,  Dante.  In  other  words,  he  was  absolutely 
destitute  of  the  first  requisite  of  self-criticism.  In  the  natural 
course  of  things,  as  the  sap  of  his  youthful  imagination  ceased 
to  mount,  and  as  his  craving  for  immensity  hardened  itself, 
he  would  probably  have  degenerated  from  bombast  shot  through 
with  genius  to  bombast  pure  and  simple,  from  Faustus  to  Lusfs 
Dominion,  and  from  Lusfs  Dominion  to  Jeronivio  or  The  Dis- 
tracted Emperor.  Apart  from  the  magnificent  passages  which  he 
can  show,  and  which  are  simply  intoxicating  to  any  lover  of 
poetry,  his  great  title  to  fame  is  the  discovery  of  the  secret  of 
that  "  mighty  line  "  which  a  seldom-erring  critic  of  his  own  day, 
not  too  generously  given,  vouchsafed  to  him.  Up  to  his  time 
the  blank  verse  line  always,  and  the  semi-couplet  in  heroics,  or 
member  of  the  more  complicated  stanza  usually,  were  either  stiff 
or  nerveless.  Compared  with  his  own  work  and  with  the 
work  of  his  contemporaries  and  followers  who  learnt  from  him, 
they  are  like  a  dried  preparation,  like  something  waiting  for  the 
infusion  of  blood,  for  the  inflation  of  living  breath.  Marlowe 
came,  and  the  old  wooden  versification,  the  old  lay-figure  structure 
of  poetic  rhythm,  was  cast  once  for  all  into  the  lumber-room,  where 
only  poetasters  of  the  lowest  rank  went  to  seek  it.  It  is  im- 
possible to  call  Marlowe  a  great  dramatist,  and  the  attempts  that 


Ill  CHARACTERISTICS  79 

have  been  made  to  make  him  out  to  be  such  remind  one  of  the 
attempts  that  have  been  made  to  call  MoHere  a  great  poet.  Mar- 
lowe was  one  of  the  greatest  poets  of  the  world  whose  work  was 
cast  by  accident  and  caprice  into  an  imperfect  mould  of  drama ; 
Moliere  was  one  of  the  greatest  dramatists  of  the  world  who  was 
obliged  by  fashion  to  use  a  previously  perfected  form  of  verse. 
The  state  of  Moliere  was  undoubtedly  the  more  gracious  ;  but 
the  splendour  of  Marlowe's  uncut  diamonds  of  poetry  is  the  more 
wonderful. 

The  characteristics  of  this  strange  and  interesting  school  may 
be  summed  up  briefly,  but  are  of  the  highest  importance  in  literary 
history.  Unlike  their  nearest  analogues,  the  French  romantics  of 
the  1830  type,  they  were  all  of  academic  education,  and  had  even 
a  decided  contempt  (despite  their  Bohemian  way  of  life)  for  un- 
scholarly  innovators.  They  manifested  (except  in  Marlowe's 
fortuitous  and  purely- genial  discovery  of  the  secret  of  blank  verse) 
a  certain  contempt  for  form,  and  never,  at  least  in  drama, 
succeeded  in  mastering  it.  But  being  all,  more  or  less,  men  of 
genius,  and  having  the  keenest  sense  of  poetry,  they  supplied  the 
dry  bones  of  the  precedent  dramatic  model  with  blood  and 
breath,  with  vigour  and  variety,  which  not  merely  informed  but 
transformed  it.  David  and  Bethsabe,  Doctor  Faustus,  Friar 
Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay,  are  chaotic  enough,  but  they  are  of  the 
chaos  that  precedes  cosmic  development.  The  almost  insane 
bombast  that  marks  the  whole  school  has  (as  has  been  noticed) 
the  character  of  the  shrieks  and  gesticulations  of  healthy  childhood, 
and  the  insensibility  to  the  really  comic  which  also  marks  them 
is  of  a  similar  kind.  Every  one  knows  how  natural  it  is  to 
childhood  to  appreciate  bad  jokes,  how  seldom  a  child  sees  a 
good  one.  Marlowe  and  his  crew,  too  (the  comparison  has  no 
doubt  often  been  used  before),  were  of  the  brood  of  Otus  and 
Ephialtes,  who  grew  so  rai)idly  and  in  so  disorderly  a  fashion  that 
it  was  necessary  for  the  gods  to  make  an  end  of  thcin.  The 
universe  probably  lost  little,  and  it  certainly  gained  something. 

Side  by  side  with  this  learned,  extravagant,  gifted,  ill-regulated 


8o  THE  FIRST  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

school,  there  was  slowly  growing  up  a  very  different  one,  which 
was  to  inherit  all  the  gifts  of  the  University  Wits,  and  to  add  to 
them  the  gifts  of  measure  and  proportion.  The  early  work  of  the 
actor  school  of  English  dramatists  is  a  difficult  subject  to  treat  in 
any  fashion,  and  a  particularly  difficult  subject  to  treat  shortly. 
Chronology,  an  important  aid,  helps  us  not  very  much,  though 
such  help  as  she  does  give  has  been  as  a  rule  neglected  by 
historians,  so  that  plays  before  1590  (which  may  be  taken 
roughly  as  the  dividing  date),  and  plays  after  it  have  been 
muddled  up  ruthlessly.  We  do  not  know  the  exact  dates  of 
many  of  those  which  are  (many  of  the  plays  of  the  earlier  time 
are  not)  extant ;  and  of  those  which  are  extant,  and  of  which  the 
dates  are  more  or  less  known,  the  authors  are  in  not  a  few  most 
important  cases  absolutely  undiscoverable.  Yet  in  the  plays 
which  belong  to  this  period,  and  which  there  is  no  reason  to 
attribute  wholly  to  any  of  the  Marlowe  group,  or  much  reason  to 
attribute  to  them  under  the  guidance,  or  perhaps  with  the 
collaboration  of  practical  actors  (some  at  least  of  whom  were  like 
Shakespere  himself,  men  of  no  known  regular  education),  there 
are  characteristics  which  promise  at  least  as  well  for  the  future  as 
the  wonderful  poetic  outbursts  of  the  Marlowe  school  itself.  Of 
these  outbursts  we  find  few  in  this  other  division.  But  we  find 
a  growing  knowledge  of  what  a  play  is,  as  distinguished  from  a 
series  of  tableaux  acted  by  not  too  lifelike  characters.  We  find  a 
glimmering  (which  is  hardly  anywhere  to  be  seen  in  the  more 
literary  work  of  the  other  school)  of  the  truth  that  the  characters 
must  be  made  to  work  out  the  play,  and  not  the  play  be  written 
in  a  series  of  disjointed  scenes  to  display,  in  anything  but  a  suc- 
cessful fashion,  the  characters.  With  fewer  flights  we  have  fewer 
absurdities ;  with  less  genius  we  have  more  talent.  It  must  be 
remembered,  of  course,  that  the  plays  of  the  university  school 
itself  were  always  written  for  players,  and  that  some  of  the  authors 
had  more  or  less  to  do  with  acting  as  well  as  with  writing.  But 
the  flame  of  discord  which  burns  so  fiercely  on  the  one  side  in 
the  famous  real   or  supposed   dying   utterances  of  Greene,   and 


in  JEALOUSY  OF  ACTORS  AND  SCHOLARS  8i 

which  years  afterwards  breaks  out  on  the  other  in  the  equally 
famous  satire  of  The  Return  from  Parnassus^  illuminates  a  real 
difterence — a  difference  which  study  of  the  remains  of  the  lite- 
rature of  the  period  can  only  make  plainer.  The  same  differ- 
ence has  manifested  itself  again,  and  more  than  once  in  other 
departments  of  literature,  but  hardly  in  so  interesting  a  manner, 
and  certainly  not  with  such  striking  results. 

'  The  outburst  of  Greene  about  "the  only  Shakescene,"  the  "upstart 
crow  beautified  with  our  feathers,"  and  so  forth,  is  too  well  known  to  need 
extracting  here.  The  Return  from  Parnassus,  a  very  curious  tripartite  play, 
performed  1 597-1601  but  retrospective  in  tone,  is  devoted  to  the  troubles  of 
poor  scholars  in  getting  a  livelihood,  and  incidentally  gives  much  matter  on  tlic 
authors  of  the  time  from  Shakespere  downward,  and  on  the  jealousy  of  pro- 
fessional actors  felt  by  scholars,  and  vice  versd. 


11 


CHAPTER    IV 
"the  faerie  queene"  and  its  group 

"  Velut  inter  ignes  luna  minores  " 

There  is  no  instance  in  English  history  of  a  poet  receiving  such 
immediate  recognition,  and  deserving  it  so  tlioroughly,  as  did 
Edmund  Spenser  at  the  date  of  The  Shepherd's  Calendar.  In 
the  first  chapter  of  this  volume  the  earlier  course  of  Elizabethan 
poetry  has  been  described,  and  it  will  have  been  seen  that,  with 
great  intention,  no  very  great  accomplishment  had  been  achieved. 
It  was  sufficiently  evident  that  a  poetic  language  and  a  general 
poetic  spirit  were  being  formed,  such  as  had  not  existed  in 
England  since  Chaucer's  death ;  but  no  one  had  yet  arisen  who 
could  justify  the  expectation  based  on  such  respectable  tentatives. 
It  seems  from  many  minute  indications  which  need  not  be 
detailed  here,  that  at  the  advent  of  The  Shepherd'' s  Calendar  all 
the  best  judges  recognised  the  expected  poet.  Yet  they  could 
hardly  have  known  how  just  their  recognition  was,  or  what 
extraordinary  advances  the  poet  would  make  in  the  twenty 
years  which  passed  between  its  publication  and  his  death. 

The  life  of  Spenser  is  very  little  known,  and  here  and  else- 
where the  conditions  of  this  book  preclude  the  reproduction  or 
even  the  discussion  of  the  various  pious  attempts  which  have 
been  made  to  supply  tlie  deficiency  of  documents.  The  chief 
of  these  in  his  case  is  to  be  found  in  Dr.  Grosart's  magnificent 


CHAP.  IV  SPENSER  S^ 


edition,  the  principal  among  many  good  works  of  its  editor.     That 
lie  belonged  to  a  branch — a  Lancashire  branch  in  all  probability — 
of  the  family  which  produced  the  Le  Despensers  of  elder,  and  the 
Spencers  of  modern  English  history,  may  be  said  to  be  unques- 
tionable.      But   he  appears   to   have   been   born   about   1552    in 
London,  and  to  have  been  educated  at  Merchant  Taylors',  whence 
in  May  1569  he  matriculated  at  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge,  as 
a  sizar.     At  or  before  this  time  he  must  have  contributed  (though 
there  are  puzzles  in  the  matter)  certain  translations  of  sonnets 
from  Petrarch   and  Du  Bellay  to  a  book  called  77/e  Theatre  of 
I'oluptuous  Worldlings,  published  by  a  Brabanter,  John  van  dcr 
Xoodt.       These,   slightly  changed  from   blank   verse   to  rhyme, 
appeared  long  afterwards  with  his  minor  poems  of   1590.      But 
the  original   pieces  had  been  claimed   by  the  Dutchman  ;   and 
though    there   are   easy   ways    of   explaining    this,    the    thing    is 
curious.       However    it    may    be    with    these    verses,    certainly 
nothing  else  of  Spenser's  appeared  in  print  for  ten  years.      His 
Cambridge  life,  except  for  some  vague  allusions  (which,  as  usual 
in  such  cases,  have  been  strained  to  breaking  by  commentators 
and    biographers),   is    equally   obscure ;    save    that    he    certainly 
fulfilled  seven  years  of  residence,  taking  his  Bachelor's  Degree  in 
1573,  and  his  ^Lister's  three  years  later.      But  he  did  not  gain  a 
fellowship,   and  the  chief  discoverable  results  of  his  Cambridge 
sojourn  were  the  thorough  scholarship  which  marks  his  work,  and  his 
friendship  with  the  notorious  Gabriel  Harvey — liis  senior  by  some 
years,  a  Fellow  of  l^embroke,  and  a  person  whose  singularly  bad 
literary  taste,  as  shown  in  his  correspondence  with  Spenser,  may 
be  perhaps  forgiven,  first,  because  it  did  no  harm,  and  .secondly, 
because  without  him  we  should  know  even  less  of  Spenser  than 
we  do.      It   is   reasonably  supposed  from  the   notes  of  his  friend, 
"  K.  K."  (apparently  Kirke,  a  Pembroke  man),  to  The  ShepheriPs 
Calendar,  that  he  went  to  his  friends  in  the  north  after  leaving 
Cambridge  and   spent  a  year  <jr  two   there,  falhng  in  love  with 
the  heroine,  poetically  named  Rosalin<l,  of  The  Calendar,  and  no 
doubt  writing  that  remarkable  hook.      'Jhen  (probably  very  \.\W  \\\ 


84  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

1578)  he  went  to  London,  was  introduced  by  Harvey  to  Sidney 
and  Leicester,  and  thus  mixed  at  once  in  the  best  hterary  and 
political  society.  He  was  not  long  in  putting  forth  his  titles  to 
its  attention,  for  The  Shepherd's  Cakfidar  was  published  in  the 
winter  of  1579,  copiously  edited  by  "  E.  K.,"  whom  some  absurdly 
suppose  to  be  Spenser  himself.  The  poet  seems  to  have  had  also 
numerous  works  (the  titles  of  which  are  known)  ready  or  nearly 
ready  for  the  press.  But  all  were  subsequently  either  changed 
in  title,  incorporated  Avith  other  work,  or  lost.  He  had  already 
begun  The  Faerie  Qi/eetie,  much  to  the  pedant  Harvey's  disgust ; 
and  he  dabbled  in  the  fashionable  absurdity  of  classical 
metres,  like  his  inferiors.  But  he  published  nothing  more 
immediately ;  and  powerful  as  were  his  patrons,  the  only  pre- 
ferment which  he  obtained  was  in  that  Eldorado -Purgatory  of 
Elizabethan  ambition — Ireland.  Lord  Grey  took  him  as  private 
secretary  when  he  was  in  1580  appointed  deputy,  and  shortly 
afterwards  he  received  some  civil  posts  in  his  new  country,  and  a 
lease  of  abbey  lands  at  Enniscorthy,  which  lease  he  soon  gave 
up.  But  he  stayed  in  Ireland,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  his 
immediate  patron  Grey  soon  left  it.  Except  a  few  bare  dates 
and  doubtful  allusions,  little  or  nothing  is  heard  of  him  between 
1580  and  1590.  On  the  eve  of  the  latter  year  (the  ist  of 
December  1589)  the  first  three  books  of  The  Faerie  Queene  were 
entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  and  were  published  in  the  spring  of 
the  next  year.  He  had  been  already  established  at  Kilcolman  in 
the  county  Cork  on  a  grant  of  more  than  three  thousand  acres  of 
land  out  of  the  forfeited  Desmond  estates.  And  henceforward 
his  literary  activity,  at  least  in  publication,  became  more  consider- 
able, and  he  seems  to  have  been  much  backwards  and  forwards 
between  England  and  Ireland.  In  1590  appeared  a  volume  of 
minor  poems  {The  Rtiins  of  Time,  The  Tears  of  the  Muses,  Virgil's 
Gnat,  uW other  Hubbard's  Tale,  The  Ruins  of  Rome,  Muiopotmos, 
and  the  Visions),  with  an  address  to  the  reader  in  which  another 
list  of  forthcoming  works  is  promised.  These,  like  the  former  list 
of  Kirke,  seem  oddly  enough  to  have  also  perished.      The  whole 


IV  SPENSER  85 

collection  was  called  Complainls,  and  a  somewhat  similar  poem, 
Daphnaida,  is  thought  to  have  appeared  in  the  same  year.  On 
the  iith  of  June  1594  the  poet  married  (strangely  enough  it  was 
not  known  wliom,  until  Dr.  Grosart  ingeniously  identified  her 
with  a  certain  Elizabeth  Boyle  alias  Seckerstone),  and  in  1595 
were  published  the  beautiful  Avioretli  or  love  sonnets,  and  the  still 
more  beautiful  EpitJialamion  describing  his  courtship  and  mar- 
riage, with  the  interesting  poem  of  Colin  Cloiifs  Come  Home  Again  ; 
while  in  the  same  year  (old  style;  in  January  1596,  new  style)  the 
fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  books  of  77ie  Faerie  Queetie  were  entered 
for  publication  and  soon  appeared.  The  supposed  allusions  to 
Mary  Stuart  greatly  offended  her  son  James.  The  Hymns  and 
the  Profhalamion  followed  in  the  same  year.  Spenser  met  with 
difficulties  at  Court  (though  he  had  obtained  a  small  pension  of 
fifty  pounds  a  year),  and  had  had  like  other  Englishmen  troubles 
with  his  neighbours  in  Ireland  ;  yet  he  seemed  to  be  becoming 
more  prosperous,  and  in  1598  he  was  named  Sheriff  of  Cork.  A 
few  weeks  later  the  Irish  Rebellion  broke  out;  his  house  was  sacked 
and  burnt  with  one  of  his  children ;  he  fled  to  England  and  died 
on  the  1 6th  of  Januar}'  1599  at  King  Street,  Westminster,  perhaps 
not  "for  lack  of  bread,"  as  Jonson  say.s,  but  certainly  in  no 
fortunate  circumstances.  In  the  year  of  his  misfortune  had  been 
registered,  though  it  was  never  printed  till  more  than  thirty  years 
later,  his  one  prose  work  of  substance,  the  remarkable  Vie7v  of  the 
Present  State  of  Ireland ;  an  admirable  piece  of  prose,  and  a  poli- 
tical tract,  the  wisdom  and  grasp  of  which  only  those  who  have 
had  to  give  close  attention  to  Irish  politics  can  fully  estimate.  It 
is  probably  the  most  valuable  document  on  any  given  period  of 
Irish  history  that  exists,  and  is  certainly  superior  in  matter,  no  less 
than  in  style,  to  any  political  tract  in  English,  published  before 
the  days  of  Halifax  eighty  years  after. 

It  has  been  said  that  The  Shepherd's  Calendar  placed  Spenser 
at  once  at  the  head  of  the  English  poets  of  his  day  ;  and  it  did 
so.  But  had  he  written  nothing  more,  he  would  not  (as  is  the 
case  with   not  a  few  distinguished  poets)  have  occupied  as  Iiigh 


86  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

or  nearly  as  high  a  position  in  quaUty,  if  not  in  quantity,  as  he 
now  does.  He  was  a  young  man  when  he  pubhshed  it ;  he  was 
not  indeed  an  old  man  when  he  died  ;  and  it  would  not  appear 
that  he  had  had  much  experience  of  life  beyond  college  walls. 
His  choice  of  models  —  the  artificial  pastorals  in  which  the 
Renaissance  had  modelled  itself  on  Virgil  and  Theocritus,  rather 
than  Virgil  and  Theocritus  themselves — was  not  altogether  happy. 
He  showed,  indeed,  already  his  extraordinary  metrical  skill, 
experimenting  with  rhyme -royal  and  other  stanzas,  fourteeners 
or  eights  and  sixes,  anapaests  more  or  less  irregular,  and  an 
exceedingly  important  variety  of  octosyllable  which,  whatever 
may  have  been  his  own  idea  in  practising  it,  looked  back 
to  early  ]\Iiddle  English  rhythms  and  forward  to  the  metre 
of  Christabel,  as  Coleridge  was  to  start  it  afresh.  He  also 
transgressed  into  religious  politics,  taking  (as  indeed  he  always 
took,  strange  as  it  may  seem  in  so  fanatical  a  worshipper  of 
beauty)  the  Puritan  side.  Nor  is  his  work  improved  as  poetry, 
though  it  acquires  something  in  point  of  quaint  attractiveness,  by 
good  Mr.  "  E.  K.'s  "  elaborate  annotations,  introductions,  explana- 
tions, and  general  gentleman-usherings  —  the  first  in  English, 
but  most  wofully  not  the  last  by  hundreds,  of  such  overlayings  of 
gold  with  copper.  Yet  with  all  these  drawbacks  The  Shepherd's 
Calendar  is  delightful.  Already  we  can  see  in  it  that  double 
command,  at  once  of  the  pictorial  and  the  musical  elements  of 
poetry,  in  which  no  English  poet  is  Spenser's  superior,  if  any  is 
his  equal.  Already  the  unmatched  power  of  vigorous  allegory, 
which  he  was  to  display  later,  shows  in  such  pieces  as  T]ie  Oak 
and  the  Briar.  In  the  less  deliberately  archaic  divisions,  such  as 
"April"  and  "November,"  the  command  of  metrical  form,  in 
which  also  the  poet  is  almost  peerless,  discovers  itself.  Much 
the  same  may  be  said  of  the  volume  of  Complaints,  which,  though 
published  later  than  The  Faerie  Queene,  represents  beyond  all 
question  very  much  earlier  work.  Spenser  is  unquestionably, 
when  he  is  not  at  once  spurred  and  soothed  by  the  play  of  his 
own   imagination,  as  in  The   Queene,  a  melancholy  poet,  and  the 


IV  SPENSER'S  MINOR  POEMS  87 

note  of  melancholy  is  as  strong  in  these  poems  as  in  their  joint 
title.  It  combines  with  his  delight  in  emblematic  allegory 
happily  enough,  in  most  of  these  pieces  except  Mot/ier  Hubbard's 
Tale.  This  is  almost  an  open  satire,  and  shows  that  if  Spenser's 
genius  had  not  found  a  less  mongrel  style  to  disport  itself  in, 
not  merely  would  Donne,  and  Lodge,  and  Hall,  and  Marston 
have  had  to  abandon  their  dispute  for  the  post  of  first  English 
satirist,  but  the  attainment  of  really  great  satire  in  English  miglit 
have  been  hastened  by  a  hundred  years,  and  Absalom  and 
Achitophel  have  been  but  a  second.  Even  here,  however,  the 
piece  still  keeps  the  Chaucerian  form  and  manner,  and  is  only  a 
kind  of  exercise.  The  sonnets  from  and  after  Du  Bellay  and 
others  are  more  interesting.  As  in  the  subsequent  and  far  finer 
A/norelti,  Spenser  prefers  the  final  couplet  form  to  the  so-called 
Petrarchian  arrangement ;  and,  indeed,  though  the  most  recent 
fashion  in  England  has  inclined  to  the  latter,  an  impartial  judg- 
ment must  pronounce  both  forms  equally  good  and  equally 
entitled  to  place.  The  Amoreiti  written  in  this  metre,  and 
undoubtedly  representing  some,  at  least,  of  Spenser's  latest 
written  work,  rank  with  the  best  of  Sidney's,  and  hardly  below 
the  best  of  Shakespere's ;  while  both  in  them  and  in  the  earlier 
sonnets  the  note  of  regret  mingled  with  delight — the  special  Re- 
naissance note — sounds  as  it  rarely  does  in  any  other  English  verse. 
Of  the  poems  of  the  later  period,  however  (leaving  TJie  Faerie 
Queene  for  a  moment  aside),  the  Epithalainion  and  the  Four 
Hymns  rank  undoubtedly  highest.  For  splendour  of  imagery, 
for  harmony  of  verse,  for  delicate  taste  and  real  jjassion,  the 
Epitlialamion  excels  all  other  poems  of  its  class,  and  the  Four 
Hymns  express  a  rai)ture  of  Platonic  enthusiasm,  which  may 
indeed  be  answerable  for  the  unreadable  Psyches  and  Psychozoias 
of  the  next  age,  but  which  is  itself  married  to  immortal  verse  in 
the  happiest  manner. 

Still,  to  the  ordinary  reader,  Spenser  is  the  poet  of  The  Faerie 
Queene,  and  for  once  the  ordinary  reader  is  right.  I'Acry  quality 
found  in  his  other  poems  is  found  in  this  greatest  of  them  in 


88  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  cuAf. 

perfection ;  and  much  is  found  there  which  is  not,  and  indeed 
could  not  be,  found  anywhere  else.  Its  general  scheme  is  so 
well  known  (few  as  may  be  the  readers  who  really  know  its 
details)  that  very  slight  notice  of  it  may  suffice.  Twelve  knights, 
representing  twelve  virtues,  were  to  have  been  sent  on  adventures 
from  the  Court  of  Gloriana,  Queen  of  Fairyland.  The  six  finished 
books  give  the  legends  (each  subdivided  into  twelve  cantos, 
averaging  fifty  or  sixty  stanzas  each)  of  Holiness,  Temperance, 
Chastity,  Friendship,  Justice,  and  Courtesy ;  while  a  fragment  of 
two  splendid  "Cantos  on  Mutability"  is  supposed  to  have  belonged 
to  a  seventh  book  (not  necessarily  seventh  in  order)  on  Constancy. 
Legend  has  it  that  the  poem  was  actually  completed ;  but  this 
seems  improbable,  as  the  first  three  books  were  certainly  ten 
years  in  hand,  and  the  second  three  six  more.  The  existing 
poem  comprehending  some  four  thousand  stanzas,  or  between 
thirty  and  forty  thousand  lines,  exhibits  so  many  and  such  varied 
excellences  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the  poet  could  have 
done  anything  new  in  kind.  No  part  of  it  is  as  a  whole  inferior 
to  any  other  part,  and  the  fragmentary  cantos  contain  not  merely 
one  of  the  most  finished  pictorial  pieces — the  Procession  of  the 
Months — to  be  found  in  the  whole  poem,  but  much  of  the  poet's 
finest  thought  and  verse.  Had  fortune  been  kinder,  the  volume 
of  delight  would  have  been  greater,  but  its  general  character 
would  probably  not  have  changed  much.  As  it  is.  The  Faerie 
Qiieene  is  the  only  long  poem  that  a  lover  of  poetry  can  sincerely 
wish  longer. 

It  deserves  some  critical  examination  here  from  three  points 
of  view,  regarding  respectively  its  general  scheme,  its  minor 
details  of  form  in  metre  and  language,  and  lastly,  its  general 
poetical  characteristics.  The  first  is  simple  enough  in  its  com- 
plexity. The  poem  is  a  long  Rofnati  d' Avctitiire  (which  it  is  per- 
haps as  well  to  say,  once  for  all,  is  not  the  same  as  a  "  Romance 
of  Chivalry,"  or  a  "  Romance  of  Adventure  "),  redeemed  from  the 
aimless  prolixity  incident  to  that  form  by  its  regular  plan,  by  the 
intercommunion  of  the  adventures  of  the  several  knights  (none 


IV  "THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE"  Sg 

of  whom  clisapi!)ears  after  having  achieved  his  own  quest),  and  by 
the  constant  presence  of  a  not  too  obtrusive  allegory.  This  last 
characteristic  attaches  it  on  the  other  side  to  the  poems  of  the 
Roman  Je  la  Roscoxi\tx,  which  succeeded  the  Romans  dAventures 
as  objects  of  literary  interest  and  practice,  not  merely  in  France, 
but  throughout  Europe.  This  allegory  has  been  variously  esti- 
mated as  a  merit  or  defect  of  the  poem.  It  is  sometimes  political, 
oftener  religious,  very  often  moral,  and  sometimes  purely  personal 
— -the  identifications  in  this  latter  case  being  sometimes  clear,  as 
that  of  Gloriana,  Britomart,  and  Belphcebe  with  Queen  Elizabeth, 
sometimes  probable,  as  that  of  Duessa  with  Queen  Mary  (not  one 
of  Spenser's  most  knightly  actions),  and  of  Prince  Arthur  with 
Leicester,  and  sometimes  more  or  less  problematical,  as  that  of 
Artegall  with  Lord  Grey,  of  Timias  the  Squire  with  Raleigh,  and 
so  forth.  To  those  who  are  perplexed  by  these  double  meanings 
the  best  remark  is  Hazlitt's  blunt  one  that  "  the  allegory  won't 
bite  them."  In  other  words,  it  is  always  perfectly  possible  to 
enjoy  the  poem  without  troubling  oneself  about  the  allegory  at  all, 
except  in  its  broad  ethical  features,  which  are  quite  unmistakable. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  presence  of 
these  under-meanings,  with  the  interest  which  they  give  to  a 
moderately  instructed  and  intelligent  person  who,  without  too 
desperate  a  determination  to  see  into  millstones,  understands 
"words  to  the  wise,"  is  a  great  addition  to  the  hold  of  the  poem 
over  the  attention,  and  saves  it  from  the  charge  of  mere  desultori- 
ne.ss,  which  .some,  at  least,  of  the  other  greatest  poems  of  the 
kind  (notably  its  immediate  exemplar,  the  Orlando  Furioso)  must 
undergo.  And  here  it  may  be  noted  that  the  charge  made  by 
most  foreign  critics  who  have  busied  themselves  with  Spenser, 
and  perhaps  by  some  of  his  countrymen,  that  he  i.s,  if  not  a 
mere  paraphrast,  yet  little  more  than  a  transplanter  into  English 
of  the  Italian,  is  glaringly  uncritical.  Not,  perhaps,  till  Ariosto 
and  Tasso  have  been  carefully  read  in  the  original,  is  Spenser's 
real  greatness  understood.  lie  has  often,  and  evidently  of 
purpose,  challenged   comparison ;    but   in   every   instance   it  will 


90  "  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE  "  AND  ITS  GROUP         chap. 

be  found  that  his  beauties  are  emphatically  his  own.  He  has 
followed  his  leaders  only  as  Virgil  has  followed  Homer;  and 
much  less  slavishly. 

It  is  strange  to  find  English  critics  of  this  great  if  not 
greatest  English  poem  even  nowadays  repeating  that  Spenser 
borrowed  his  wonderful  stanza  from  the  Italians.  He  did  nothing 
of  the  kind.  That  the  ottava  rima  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
sonnet  on  the  other,  may  have  suggested  the  idea  of  it  is  quite 
possible.  But  the  Spenserian  stanza,  as  it  is  justly  called,  is  his 
own  and  no  one  else's,  and  its  merits,  especially  that  primal  merit 
of  adaptation  to  the  subject  and  style  of  the  poem,  are  unique. 
Nothing  else  could  adapt  itself  so  perfectly  to  the  endless  series 
of  vignettes  and  dissolving  views  which  the  poet  delights  in 
giving ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  has,  for  so  elaborate  and 
apparently  integral  a  form,  a  singular  faculty  of  hooking  itself  on  to 
stanzas  preceding  and  following,  so  as  not  to  interrupt  continuous 
narrative  when  continuous  narrative  is  needed.  Its  great  com- 
pass, admitting  of  an  almost  infinite  variety  of  cadence  and  com- 
position, saves  it  from  the  monotony  from  which  even  the  consum- 
mate art  of  Milton  could  not  save  blank  verse  now  and  then,  and 
from  which  no  writer  has  ever  been  able  to  save  the  couplet,  or 
the  quatrain,  or  the  stanzas  ending  with  a  couplet,  in  narratives 
of  very  great  length.  But  the  most  remarkable  instance  of 
harmony  between  metrical  form  and  other  characteristics,  both  of 
form  and  matter,  in  the  metrist  has  yet  to  be  mentioned.  It  has 
been  said  how  well  the  stanza  suits  Spenser's  pictorial  faculty  ;  it 
certainly  suits  his  musical  faculty  as  well.  The  slightly  (very 
slightly,  for  he  can  be  vigorous  enough)  languid  turn  of  his  grace, 
the  voluptuous  cadences  of  his  rhythm,  find  in  it  the  most  perfect 
exponent  possible.  The  verse  of  great  poets,  especially  Homer's, 
has  often  been  compared  to  the  sea.  Spenser's  is  more  like  a 
river,  wide,  and  deep,  and  strong,  but  moderating  its  waves  and 
conveying  them  all  in  a  steady,  soft,  irresistible  sweep  forwards. 
To  aid  him,  besides  this  extraordinary  instrument  of  metre,  he 
had  forged  for  himself  another  in  his  language.      A  great  deal 


IV  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  91 

has  been  written  on  this — comments,  at  least  of  tiie  unfavourable 
kind,  generally  echoing  Ben  Jonson's  complaint  that  Spenser  "  writ 
no  language "  ;  that  his  dialect  is  not  the  dialect  of  any  actual 
place  or  time,  that  it  is  an  artificial  "  poetic  diction  "  made  up  of 
Chaucer,  and  of  Northern  dialect,  and  of  classicisms,  and  of 
foreign  words,  and  of  miscellaneous  archaisms  from  no  matter 
where.  No  doubt  it  is.  But  if  any  other  excuse  than  the  fact  of 
a  beautiful  and  satisfactory  effect  is  wanted  for  the  formation  of  a 
poetic  diction  different  from  the  actually  spoken  or  the  ordinarily 
written  tongue  of  the  day  (and  I  am  not  sure  that  any  such  ex- 
cuse is  required)  it  is  to  be  found  at  once.  There  was  no 
actually  spoken  or  ordinarily  written  tongue  in  Spenser's  day 
which  could  claim  to  be  "  Queen's  English."  Chaucer  was 
obsolete,  and  since  Chaucer  there  was  no  single  person  who  could 
even  jiretend  to  authority.  Every  writer  more  or  less  endowed 
with  originality  was  engaged  in  beating  out  for  himself,  from 
popular  talk,  and  from  classical  or  foreign  analogy,  an  instrument 
of  speech.  Spenser's  verse  language  and  Lyly's  prose  are  the 
most  remarkable  results  of  the  process ;  but  it  was,  in  fact, 
not  only  a  common  but  a  necessary  one,  and  in  no  way  to  be 
blamed.  As  for  the  other  criterion  hinted  at  above,  no  one  is 
likely  to  condemn  the  diction  according  to  that.  In  its  remote- 
ness without  grotesqueness,  in  its  lavish  colour,  in  its  al:)undance 
of  matter  for  every  kind  of  cadence  and  sound-effect,  it  is  exactly 
suited  to  the  subject,  the  writer,  and  the  verse. 

It  is  this  singular  and  complete  adjustment  of  worker  and 
implement  which,  with  other  peculiarities  noted  or  to  be  noted, 
gives  The  Knrie  Quee/ie  its  unique  unicity,  if  such  a  conceit  may 
be  pardoned.  From  some  points  of  view  it  might  be  called  a 
very  artificial  poem,  yet  no  poem  runs  with  such  an  entire 
absence  of  effort,  with  su(  h  an  easy  eloquence,  with  such  an 
effect,  as  has  been  said  already,  of  flowing  water,  ^\'ith  all  his 
learning,  and  his  archaisms,  and  his  classicisms,  and  his  Platonisms, 
and  his  isms  without  end,  hardly  any  i)oct  smells  of  the  lamp  less 
disagreeably  than  Spenser.      W'liere  .Milton  forges  and  smells,  his 


92  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

gold  is  native.  The  endless,  various,  brightly -coloured,  softly 
and  yet  distinctly  outlined  pictures  rise  and  pass  before  the  eyes 
and  vanish — the  multiform,  sweetly-linked,  softly-sounding  har- 
monies swell  and  die  and  swell  again  on  the  ear — without  a 
break,  without  a  jar,  softer  than  sleep  and  as  continuous,  gayer 
than  the  rainbow  and  as  undiscoverably  connected  with  any 
obvious  cause.  And  this  is  the  more  remarkable  because  the 
very  last  thing  that  can  be  said  of  Spenser  is  that  he  is  a  poet  of 
mere  words.  Milton  himself,  the  severe  Milton,  extolled  his 
moral  teaching ;  his  philosophical  idealism  is  evidently  no  mere 
poet's  plaything  or  parrot-lesson,  but  thoroughly  thought  out  and 
believed  in.  He  is  a  determined,  almost  a  savage  partisan  in 
politics  and  religion,  a  steady  patriot,  something  of  a  statesman, 
very  much  indeed  of  a  friend  and  a  lover.  And  of  all  this  there 
is  ample  evidence  in  his  verse.  Yet  the  alchemy  of  his  poetry 
has  passed  through  the  potent  alembics  of  verse  and  phrase  all 
these  rebellious  things,  and  has  distilled  them  into  the  inimitably 
fluent  and  velvet  medium  which  seems  to  lull  some  readers  to 
inattention  by  its  very  smoothness,  and  deceive  others  into  a 
belief  in  its  lack  of  matter  by  the  very  finish  and  brilliancy  of  its 
form.  The  show  passages  of  the  poem  which  are  most  gene- 
rally known ^ — -the  House  of  Pride,  the  Cave  of  Despair,  the 
Entrance  of  Belphcebe,  the  Treasury  of  Mammon,  the  Gardens 
of  Acrasia,  the  Sojourn  of  Britomart  in  Busirane's  Castle,  the 
Marriage  of  the  Thames  and  Medway,  the  Discovery  of  the  False 
Florimel,  Artegall  and  the  Giant,  Calidore  with  Meliboeus,  the 
Processions  of  the  Seasons  and  the  Months — all  these  are  not,  as 
is  the  case  with  so  many  other  poets,  mere  purple  patches, 
diversifying  and  reUeving  dullness,  but  rather  remarkable,  and  as 
it  happens  easily  separable  examples  of  a  power  which  is  shown 
constantly  and  almost  evenly  throughout.  Those  who  admire 
them  do  well ;  but  they  hardly  know  Spenser.  He,  more  than 
almost  any  other  poet,  must  be  read  continuously  and  constantly 
till  the  eye  and  ear  and  mind  have  acquired  the  freedom  of  his 
realm  of  enchantment,  and  have  learnt  the  secret  (as  far  as  a  mere 


IV  "thp:  faerie  QUEENE"  93 

reader  may  learn  it)  of  the  poetical  spells  by  which  he  brings 
together  and  controls  its  wonders.  The  talk  of  tediousness,  the 
talk  of  sameness,  the  talk  of  coterie-cultivation  in  Spenser  shows 
bad  taste  no  doubt  ;  but  it  rather  shows  ignorance.  The  critic 
has  in  such  cases  stayed  outside  his  author ;  he  speaks  but  of 
what  he  has  not  seen. 

The  comparative  estimate  is  always  the  most  difficult  in  litera- 
ture, and  where  it  can  be  avoided  it  is  perhaps  best  to  avoid  it. 
But  in  Spenser's  case  this  is  not  possible.  He  is  one  of  those  few 
who  can  challenge  the  title  of  "  greatest  English  poet,"'  and  the 
reader  may  almost  of  right  demand  the  opinion  on  this  point  of 
any  one  who  writes  about  him.  For  my  part  I  have  no  intention 
of  shirking  the  difficulty.  It  seems  to  me  that  putting  Shake- 
spere  aside  as  hors  concours,  not  merely  in  degree  but  in  kind, 
only  two  English  poets  can  challenge  Spenser  for  the  primacy. 
These  are  Milton  and  Shelley.  The  poet  of  The  Faerie  Queene  is 
generally  inferior  to  Milton  in  the  faculty  of  concentration,  and 
in  the  minting  of  those  monumental  phrases,  impressive  of  them- 
selves and  quite  apart  from  tlie  context,  which  often  count 
highest  in  the  estimation  of  poetry.  His  vocabulary  and  general 
style,  if  not  more  remote  from  the  vernacular,  have  sometimes  a 
touch  of  deliberate  estrangement  from  that  vernacular  which  is 
no  doubt  of  itself  a  fault.  His  conception  of  a  great  work  is 
looser,  more  excursive,  less  dramatic.  As  compared  with  Shelley 
he  lacks  not  merely  the  modern  touches  which  appeal  to  a  par- 
ticular age,  but  the  lyrical  ability  in  which  Shelley  has  no  ec^ual 
among  English  poets.  But  in  each  case  he  redeems  these  defects 
with,  as  it  seems  to  me,  far  more  than  counterbalancing  merits. 
He  is  never  pro.saic  as  Milton,  like  his  great  successor  Words- 
worth, constantly  is,  and  his  very  faults  are  the  faults  of  a  poeL 
He  never  (as  Shelley  does  constantly)  dissolves  away  into  a  flux  of 
words  which  simply  bids  good-bye  to  sense  or  meaning,  and 
wanders  on  at  large,  unguided,  without  an  end,  without  an 
aim.  I'.ut  he  has  more  than  these  merely  negative  merits.  I 
have  seen   long   accounts  of  Spenser   in  which  the  fact  of  his 


94  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

invention  of  the  Spenserian  stanza  is  passed  over  almost  without 
a  word  of  comment.  Yet  in  the  formal  history  of  poetry  (and 
the  history  of  poetry  must  always  be  pre-eminently  a  history  of 
form)  there  is  simply  no  achievement  so  astonishing  as  this. 
That  we  do  not  know  the  inventors  of  the  great  single  poetic 
vehicles,  the  hexameter,  the  iambic  Senarius,  the  English  heroic, 
the  French  Alexandrine,  is  one  thing.  It  is  another  that  in 
Spenser's  case  alone  can  the  invention  of  a  complicated  but 
essentially  integral  form  be  assigned  to  a  given  poet.  It  is 
impossible  to  say  that  Sappho  invented  the  Sapphic,  or  Alcseus 
the  Alcaic  :  each  poet  may  have  been  a  Vespucci  to  some  pre- 
cedent Columbus.  But  we  are  in  a  position  to  say  that  Spenser 
did  most  unquestionably  invent  the  English  Spenserian  stanza — 
a  form  only  inferior  in  individual  beauty  to  the  sonnet,  which  is 
itself  practically  adespotofi,  and  far  superior  to  the  sonnet  in  its 
capacity  of  being  used  in  multiples  as  well  as  singly.  When  the 
unlikelihood  of  such  a  complicated  measure  succeeding  in  nar- 
rative form,  the  splendid  success  of  it  in  The  Faerie  Quecnc,  and 
the  remarkable  effects  which  have  subsequently  been  got  out  of 
it  by  men  so  different  as  Thomson,  Shelley,  and  Lord  Tennyson, 
are  considered,  Spenser's  invention  must,  I  think,  be  counted 
the  most  considerable  of  its  kind  in  literature. 

But  it  may  be  very  freely  admitted  that  this  technical  merit, 
great  as  it  is,  is  the  least  part  of  the  matter.  Whosoever  first 
invented  butterflies  and  pyramids  in  poetry  is  not  greatly  com- 
mendable, and  if  Spenser  had  done  nothing  but  arrange  a  cunning 
combination  of  eight  heroics,  with  interwoven  rhymes  and  an 
Alexandrine  to  finish  with,  it  may  be  acknowledged  at  once  that 
his  claims  to  primacy  would  have  to  be  dismissed  at  once.  It  is 
not  so.  Independently  of  Tlie  Faerie  Queem  altogether  he  has  done 
work  which  we  must  go  to  Milton  and  Shelley  themselves  to  equal. 
The  varied  and  singularly  original  strains  of  Tlie  Calendar,  the 
warmth  and  delicacy  combined  of  the  Epit/iaiamion,  the  tone 
of  mingled  regret  and  wonder  (not  inferior  in  its  characteristic 
Renaissance  ring  to  Du  Bellay's  own)  of  77ie  Ruins  of  Rome,  the 


I 


IV  "  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  95 

different  notes  of  the  different  minor  poems,  arc  all  things  not  to 
be  found  in  any  minor  poet.      But  as  does  not  always  happen, 
and  as  is  perhaps  not  the  case  with  Milton,  Spenser's   greatest 
work  is  also  his  best.      In  the  opinion  of  some  at  anv  rate  the 
poet  of  Lyddas,   of  Comus,  of  Samson    Agonistes,   even   of   the 
Allegro  and  Paiseroso,  ranks  as  high  as,  if  not  above,  the  poet  of 
Paradise  Lost.    But  the  poet  of  The  Faerie  Qtieene  could  spare  all 
his  minor  works  and   lose  only,  as  has  been   said,  quantity  not 
quality  of  greatness.      It  is  hardly  necessary  at  this  time  of  day 
to  repeat  the  demonstration  that  Macaulay  in   his  famous  jibe 
only  succeeded  in  showing  that  he  had  never  read  what  he  jibed 
at ;  and  though  other  decriers  of  Spenser's  masterpiece  may  not 
have    laid  themselves  open   to  quite  so  crushing  a   retort,  they 
seldom    fail    to   show  a   somewhat   similar   ignorance.      For  the 
lover  of  poetry,  for  the  reader  who  understands  and  can  receive 
the  poetic  charm,  the  revelation  of  beauty  in  metrical  language, 
no    English   poem   is   the   superior,  or,  range   and  variety  being 
considered,  the  equal  of  The  Faerie  Queene.     Take  it  \ip  where 
you   will,  and   provided   only  sufficient   time   (the   reading   of  a 
dozen  stanzas  ought  to  suffice  to  any  one  who  has  the  necessary 
gifts   of  appreciation)  be  given  to  allow  the  soft  dreamy  versi- 
coloured atmosphere  to  rise  round  the  reader,  the  languid  and  yet 
never  monotonous  music  to   gain  his  ear,   the  mood  of  mixed 
imagination   and   heroism,   adventure    and   morality,  to    impress 
itself  on  his  mind,  and  the  result  is  certain.      To  the  influence  of 
no   poet    are   the   famous   lines   of   Spenser's    great   nineteenth- 
century  rival  so  applicable  as  to  Spenscrs  own.      The  enchanted 
boat,  angel-guided,  floating  on  away,  afar,  without  conscious  pur- 
pose, but  simply  obeying  the  instinct  of  sweet  poetry,  is  not  an 
extravagant   symbol  for   the   mind  of  a  reader  of  Spenser.      Jf 
such  readers  want  "  Criticisms  of  Life  "  first  of  all,  they  must  go 
elsewhere,  though  they  will  find  them  amply  given,  subject  to  the 
limitations  of  the  jtoctifal  method.      If  they  want  story  they  may 
complain  of  slackness  and  deviations.    If  they  want  glcjrifications  of 
science  and  suf  h  like  things,  they  had  better  shut  the  book  at  once, 


q6  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

and  read  no  more  on  that  day  nor  on  any  other.  But  if  they  want 
poetry — if  they  want  to  be  translated  from  a  world  which  is  not 
one  of  beauty  only  into  one  where  the  very  uglinesses  are 
beautiful,  into  a  world  of  perfect  harmony  in  colour  and  sound, 
of  an  endless  sequence  of  engaging  event  and  character,  of  noble 
passions  and  actions  not  lacking  their  due  contrast,  then  let 
them  go  to  Spenser  with  a  certainty  of  satisfaction.  He  is  not, 
as  are  some  poets,  the  poet  of  a  certain  time  of  life  to  the 
exclusion  of  others.  He  may  be  read  in  childhood  chiefly  for  his 
adventure,  in  later  youth  for  his  display  of  voluptuous  beauty, 
in  manhood  for  his  ethical  and  historical  weight,  in  age  for  all 
combined,  and  for  the  contrast  which  his  bright  universe  of 
invention  affords  with  the  work-day  jejuneness  of  this  troublesome 
world.  But  he  never  palls  upon  those  who  have  once  learnt  to 
taste  him ;  and  no  poet  is  so  little  of  an  acquired  taste  to  those 
who  have  any  liking  for  poetry  at  all.  He  has  been  called  the 
poet's  poet — a  phrase  honourable  but  a  little  misleading,  inasmuch 
as  it  first  suggests  that  he  is  not  the  poet  of  the  great  majority  of 
readers  who  cannot  pretend  to  be  poets  themselves,  and  secondly 
insinuates  a  kind  of  intellectual  and  aesthetic  Pharisaism  in  those 
who  do  admire  him,  which  may  be  justly  resented  by  those  who 
do  not.  Let  us  rather  say  that  he  is  the  poet  of  all  others  for 
those  who  seek  in  poetry  only  poetical  qualities,  and  we  shall 
say  not  only  what  is  more  than  enough  to  establish  his  greatness 
but  what,  as  I  for  one  believe,  can  be  maintained  in  the  teeth  of 
all  gainsayers.^ 

The  volume,  variety,  and  vigour  of  the  poetical  production  of 
the  period  in  which  Spenser  is  the  central  figure — the  last  twenty 
years  of  the  sixteenth  centuiy — is  perhaps  proportionally  the 
greatest,  and  may  be  said  to  be  emphatically  the  most  dis- 
tinguished in  purely  poetical  characteristics  of  any  period  in  our 

^  Of  Spenser  as  of  t«o  other  poets  in  this  vohime,  Shakespere  and  Milt(jn, 
it  seemed  to  be  unnecessary  and  even  impertinent  to  give  any  extracts.  Their 
works  are,  or  ought  to  be,  in  all  hands  ;  and  even  if  it  were  not  so,  no  space 
at  my  command  could  give  sample  of  thejr  infinite  varieties. 


IV  THE  SONNETEERS 


97 


history.  Every  kind  of  poetical  work  is  represented  in  it,  and 
every  kind  (with  the  possible  exception  of  the  semi-poetical  kind 
of  satire)  is  well  represented.  There  is,  indeed,  no  second  name 
that  approaches  Spenser's,  either  in  respect  of  importance  or  in 
respect  of  uniform  excellence  of  work.  But  in  the  most  incomplete 
production  of  this  time  there  is  almost  always  that  poetical  spark 
which  is  often  entirely  wanting  in  the  finished  and  complete 
work  of  other  periods.  I  shall,  therefore,  divide  the  whole  mass 
into  four  groups,  each  with  certain  distinguished  names  at  its  head, 
and  a  crowd  of  hardly  undistinguished  names  in  its  rank  and  file. 
These  four  groups  are  the  sonneteers,  the  historians,  the  satirists, 
and  lastly,  the  miscellaneous  lyrists  and  poetical  miscellanists. 

Although  it  is  only  recently  that  its  mass  and  its  beauty  have 
been  fully  recognised,  the  extraordinary  outburst  of  sonnet-writing 
at  a  certain  period  of  Elizabeth's  reign  has  always  attracted  the 
attention  of  literar)'  historians.  For  many  years  after  Wyatt  and 
Surrey's  work  appeared  the  form  attracted  but  little  imitation  or 
practice.  About  1580  Spenser  himself  probably,  Sidney  and 
Thomas  Watson  certainly,  devoted  much  attention  to  it ;  but  it 
was  some  dozen  years  later  that  the  most  strilcing  crop  of  sonnets 
appeared.  Between  1593  and  1596  there  were  published  more 
than  a  dozen  collections,  chiefly  or  wholly  of  sonnets,  and  almost 
all  bearing  the  name  of  a  single  person,  in  whose  honour 
they  were  supposed  to  be  composed.  So  singular  is  this 
coincidence,  showing  either  an  intense  engouement  in  literary 
society,  or  a  spontaneous  determination  of  energy  in  individuals, 
that  the  list  with  dates  is  worth  giving.  It  runs  thus: — In  1593 
came  Barnes's  Parthenophil  and  Parthenophe,  Fletcher's  Z/tw, 
and  Lodge's  r/iil/is.  In  1594  followed  Constable's  Diana, 
Daniel's  Delia,^  the  anonymous  Zep/wn'a,  Drayton's  Pfea,  Percy's 
Ca;lia,  and  \Villoughby's  Avisa ;  1595  added  the  A/cilia  of  a 
certain  J.  C,  and  Sjjenser's  perfect  Amoretii ;  1596  gave 
Griffin's    Fidessa,    Lynch's     Die/la,    and    Smith's    Chloris,    while 

1  Delia  h.id  .appeared  earlier  in  1592,  and  partially  in  1591  ;  but  the  text 
of  1594  i-,  the  definitive  one.      .Several  of  lliest  d.ites  aie  doulnfui  or  iHsputed. 

II  H 


98  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

Shakespere's  earliest  sonnets  were  probably  not  much  later. 
Then  the  fashion  changed,  or  the  vein  was  worked  out,  or  (more 
fancifully)  the  impossibility  of  equalling  Spenser  and  Shake- 
spere  choked  off  competitors.  The  date  of  Lord  Brooke's 
singular  Ccelica,  not  pubhshed  till  long  afterwards,  is  uncertain  ; 
but  he  may,  probably,  be  classed  with  Sidney  and  Watson  in 
period. 

Fulke,  or,  as  he  himself  spelt  it,  Foulke  Greville,  in  his 
later  years  Lord  Brooke,^  was  of  a  noble  house  in  Warwick- 
shire connected  with  the  Beauchamps  and  the  Willoughbys. 
He  was  born  in  1554,  was  educated  at  Shrewsbury  with  Philip 
Sidney,  whose  kinsman,  lifelong  friend,  and  first  biographer  he 
was — proceeded,  not  like  Sidney  to  Oxford,  but  to  Cambridge 
(where  he  was  a  member,  it  would  seem,  of  Jesus  College,  not 
as  usually  said  of  Trinity) — received  early  lucrative  preferments 
chiefly  in  connection  with  the  government  of  Wales,  was  a 
favourite  courtier  of  Elizabeth's  during  all  her  later  life,  and, 
obtaining  a  royal  gift  of  Warwick  Castle,  became  the  ancestor 
of  the  present  earls  of  Warwick.  In  16 14  he  became  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer.  Lord  Brooke,  who  lived  to  a  considerable 
age,  was  stabbed  in  a  rather  mysterious  manner  in  1628  by  a 
servant  named  Haywood,  who  is  said  to  have  been  enraged  by 
discovering  that  his  master  had  left  him  nothing  in  his  will.  The 
story  is,  as  has  been  said,  mysterious,  and  the  affair  seems  to 
have  been  hushed  up.  Lord  Brooke  was  not  universally  popular, 
and  a  very  savage  contemporary  epitaph  on  him  has  been  pre- 
served. But  he  had  been  the  patron  of  the  youthful  Davenant, 
and  has  left  not  a  little  curious  literary  work,  which  has  only 
been  recently  collected,  and  little  of  which  saw  the  light  in  his 
own  lifetime.  Of  his  two  singular  plays,  Mustapha  and  Alaliam 
(closet-dramas  having  something  in  common  with  the  Senecan 
model),   Mustapha   was    printed   in    1609;  but   it   would    seem 

^  He  is  a  little  liable  to  be  confounded  with  two  writers  (brothers  of  a 
patronymic  the  same  as  his  title)  Samuel  and  Christopher  Brooke,  the  latter 
of  whom  wrote  poems  of  some  merit,  which  Dr.  Grosart  has  edited. 


IV  LORD  BROOKE  99 


piratically.  His  chief  prose  work,  the  JJJe  of  Sid/uy,  was  not 
printed  till  1652.  His  chief  work  in  verse,  the  singular  Poems 
of  Monarchy  (ethical  and  political  treatises),  did  not  appear  till 
eighteen  years  later,  as  well  as  the  allied  Treatise  on  Religion. 
But  poems  or  tracts  on  human  learning,  on  wars,  and  other 
things,  together  with  his  tragedies  as  above,  had  appeared  in 
1633.  This  publication,  a  folio  volume,  also  contained  by  far 
the  most  interesting  part  of  his  work,  the  so-called  sonnet  collec- 
tion of  Coelica — a  medley,  like  many  of  those  mentioned  in  this 
chapter,  of  lyrics  and  short  poems  of  all  lengths  and  metrical 
arrangements,  but,  unlike  almost  all  of  them,  dealing  with  many 
subjects,  and  apparently  addressed  to  more  than  one  person.  It 
is  here,  and  in  parts  of  the  prose,  that  the  reader  who  has  not  a  very 
great  love  for  Elizabethan  literature  and  some  experience  of  it, 
can  be  recommended  to  seek  confirmation  of  the  estimate  in  which 
Greville  was  held  by  Charles  Lamb,  and  of  the  very  excusable 
and  pious,  though  perhaps  excessive,  admiration  of  his  editor  Dr. 
Grosart.  Even  Coelica  is  very  unlikely  to  find  readers  as  a  whole, 
owing  to  the  strangely  repellent  character  of  Brooke's  thought, 
which  is  intricate  and  obscure,  and  of  his  style,  which  is  at  any 
rate  sometimes  as  harsh  and  eccentric  as  the  theories  of  poetry 
which  made  him  compose  verse-treatises  on  politics.  Neverthe- 
less there  is  much  nobility  of  thought  and  expression  in  him, 
and  not  unfrequent  flashes  of  real  poetry,  while  his  very  faults 
are  characteristic.  He  may  be  represented  here  by  a  piece  from 
Ca-lica,  in  which  he  is  at  his  very  best,  and  most  poetical  because 
most  simple — 

"I,  with  whose  colours  Myra  dressed  her  head, 
I,  that  ware  posies  of  her  own  hand  making, 
I,  that  mine  own  name  in  the  chimnies  read 
I'y  Myra  finely  wrought  ere  I  was  waking  : 
Must  I  look  on,  in  hope  time  coming  may 
With  change  bring  back  my  turn  again  to  play  ? 

"  I,  that  on  Sunday  at  the  church-stile  found 
A  garland  sweet  with  true  love  knots  in  flowers, 


loo  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 


Which  I  to  wear  about  mine  arms,  was  bound 
That  each  of  us  might  know  that  all  was  ours  : 
Must  I  lead  now  an  idle  life  in  wishes, 
And  follow  Cupid  for  his  loaves  and  fishes? 

"  I,  that  did  wear  the  ring  her  mother  left, 
I,  for  whose  love  she  gloried  to  be  blamed, 
I,  with  whose  eyes  her  eyes  committed  theft, 
I,  who  did  make  her  blush  when  I  was  named  : 
Must  I  lose  ring,  flowers,  blush,  theft,  and  go  naked, 
Watching  with  sighs  till  dead  love  be  awaked  ? 

"  I,  that  when  drowsy  Argus  fell  asleep, 
Like  jealousy  o'erwatched  with  desire. 
Was  ever  warned  modesty  to  keep 
While  her  breath,  speaking,  kindled  Nature's  fire  ; 
Must  I  look  on  a-cold  while  others  warm  them  ? 
Do  Vulcan's  brothers  in  such  fine  nets  arm  them  ? 

"  Was  it  for  this  that  I  might  Myra  see 

Washing  the  -water  luiih  her  beauties  white  ? 
Yet  would  she  never  write  her  love  to  me  : 
Thinks  wit  of  change  when  thoughts  are  in  delight  ? 
Mad  girls  may  safely  love  as  they  may  leave  ; 
No  man  can  print  a  kiss  :  lines  may  deceive. " 

Had  Brooke  always  written  with  this  force  and  directness  he 
would  have  been  a  great  poet.  As  it  is,  he  has  but  the  ore  of 
poetry,  not  the  smelted  metal. 

For  there  is  no  doubt  that  Sidney  here  holds  the  primacy, 
not  merely  in  time  but  in  value,  of  the  whole  school,  putting 
Spenser  and  Shakespere  aside.  That  thirty  or  forty  years' 
diligent  study  of  Italian  models  had  much  to  do  with  the  extra- 
ordinary advance  visible  in  his  sonnets  over  those  of  Tottel's 
Miscellany  is,  no  doubt,  undeniable.  But  many  causes  besides 
the  inexplicable  residuum  of  fortunate  inspiration,  which  eludes 
the  most  careful  search  into  literary  cause  and  effect,  had  to  do 
with  the  production  of  the  "  lofty,  insolent,  and  passionate  vein," 
which  becomes  noticeable  in  English  poetry  for  the  first  time 
about   1580,    and   which   dominates   it,    if   we   include  the    late 


IV  SIDNEY  loi 

autumn-summer  of  Milton's  last  productions,  for  a  hundred  years. 
Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  makes  its  very  first 
appearance  in  Sidney's  verse,  for  The  Shepherd's  Calendar^  though 
of  an  even  more  perfect,  is  of  a  milder  strain.  The  inevitable 
tendency  of  criticism  to  gossip  about  poets  instead  of  criticising 
poetry  has  usually  mixed  a  great  deal  of  personal  matter  with 
the  accounts  of  Astrophel  and  Stella,  the  series  of  sonnets  which 
is  Sidney's  greatest  literary  work,  and  which  was  first  published 
some  years  after  his  death  in  an  incorrect  and  probably  pirated 
edition  by  Thomas  Nash.  There  is  no  doubt  that  there  was  a 
real  affection  between  Sidney  (Astrophel)  and  Penelope  Devereux 
(Stella),  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  afterwards  Lady  Rich, 
and  that  marriage  proving  unhappy,  Lady  Mountjoy.  But  the 
attempts  which  have  been  made  to  identify  every  hint  and  allusion 
in  the  series  with  some  fact  or  date,  though  falling  short  of  the 
unimaginable  folly  of  scholastic  labour-lost  which  has  been  ex- 
pended on  the  sonnets  of  Shakespere,  still  must  appear  some- 
what idle  to  those  who  know  the  usual  genesis  of  love-poetry — 
how  that  it  is  of  imagination  all  compact,  and  that  actual  occur- 
rences are  much  oftener  occasions  and  bases  than  causes  and 
material  of  it.  It  is  of  the  smallest  possible  importance  or 
interest  to  a  rational  man  to  discover  what  was  the  occasion  of 
Sidney's  writing  these  charming  poems — the  important  point  is 
their  charm.  And  in  this  respect  (giving  heed  to  his  date  and 
his  oi)portunities  of  imitation)  I  should  put  Sidney  third  to 
Shakespere  and  Spenser.  The  very  first  piece  of  the  series,  an 
oddly  compounded  sonnet  of  thirteen  Alexandrines  and  a  final 
heroic,  strikes  the  note  of  intense  and  fresh  poetry  which  is  only 
heard  afar  off  in  Surrey  and  Wyatt,  which  is  hopelessly  to  seek  in 
the  tentatives  of  Turberville  and  Googe,  and  which  is  smothered 
with  jejune  and  merely  literary  ornament  in  the  less  formless  work 
of  Sidney's  contemporary,  Thomas  Watson.     The  second  line — 

"  That  she,  dear  she,  might  lake  some  j)leasure  of  my  pain," 
the  couplet — 


102  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

"  Oft  turning  others'  leaves  to  see  if  thence  would  flow 
Some  fresh  and  fruitful  showers  upon  my  sunburnt  brain," 

and  the  sudden  and  splendid  finale — 

"  '  Fool  ! '  said  my  muse,  '  look  in  thy  heart  and  write  !' " 

are  things  that  may  be  looked  for  in  vain  earlier. 

A  little  later  we  meet  with  that  towering  soar  of  verse  which 
is  also  peculiar  to  the  period  : 

"When  Nature  made  her  chief  work — Stella's  eyes. 
In  colour  black  why  wrapt  she  beams  so  bright?" — 

lines  which  those  who  deprecate  insistence  on  the  importance  of 
form  in  poetry  might  study  with  advantage,  for  the  thought  is  a 
mere  commonplace  conceit,  and  the  beauty  of  the  phrase  is 
purely  derived  from  the  cunning  arrangement  and  cadence  of  the 
verse.  The  first  perfectly  charming  sonnet  in  the  English 
language — a  sonnet  which  holds  its  own  after  three  centuries  of 
competition — is  the  famous  "With  how  sad  steps,  O  moon,  thou 
climbst  the  skies,"  where  Lamb's  stricture  on  the  last  line  as  obscure 
seems  to  me  unreasonable.  The  equally  famous  phrase,  "  That 
sweet  enemy  France,"  which  occurs  a  little  further  on  is  another,  and 
whether  borrowed  from  Giordano  Bruno  or  not  is  perhaps  the 
best  example  of  the  felicity  of  expression  in  which  Sidney  is  sur- 
passed by  few  Englishmen.  Nor  ought  the  extraordinary  variety  of 
the  treatment  to  be  missed.  Often  as  Sidney  girds  at  those  who, 
like  Watson,  "  dug  their  sonnets  out  of  books,"  he  can  write  in 
the  learned  literary  manner  with  the  best.  The  pleasant  ease  of 
his  sonnet  to  the  sparrow,  "  Good  brother  Philip,"  contrasts  in  the 
oddest  way  with  his  allegorical  and  mythological  sonnets,  in  each 
of  which  veins  he  indulges  hardly  less  often,  though  very  much 
more  wisely  than  any  of  his  contemporaries.  Nor  do  the  other 
"Songs  of  variable  verse,"  which  follow,  and  in  some  editions  are 
mixed  up  with  the  sonnets,  display  less  extraordinary  power.  The 
first  song,  with  its  refrain  in  the  penultimate  line  of  each  stanza, 
"  To  you,  to  you,  all  song  of  praise  is  due," 

contrasts  in  its  throbbing   and   burning  life  with  the  faint   and 


IV  SIDNEY  103 

misty  imagery,  the  stiff  and  wooden  structure,  of  most  of  the  verse 
of  Sidney's  predecessors,  and  deserves  to  be  given  in  full : — 

"Doubt  you  to  whom  my  Muse  these  notes  intendeth  ; 
\\Tiich  now  my  breast  o'ercharged  to  music  lendeth  ? 

To  you  !  to  you  !  all  song  of  praise  is  due  : 
Only  in  you  my  song  begins  and  endeth.  • 

"Who  h.ilh  the  eyes  which  marry  state  with  pleasure, 
Who  keeps  the  keys  of  Nature's  chiefest  treasure? 

To  you  !  to  you  I  all  song  of  praise  is  due  : 
Only  for  you  the  heaven  forgat  all  measure. 

"Who  hath  the  lips,  where  wit  in  fairness  reigneth? 
Who  womankind  at  once  both  decks  and  staineth  ? 

To  you  !  to  you  !  all  song  of  praise  is  due  : 
Only  by  you  Cupid  his  crown  maintaineth. 

"Who  hath  the  feet,  whose  steps  all  sweetness  planteth? 
Who  else  ;  for  whom  Fame  worthy  trumpets  wanteth  ? 

To  you  !  to  you  !  all  song  of  praise  is  due  : 
Only  to  you  her  sceptre  Venus  granteth. 

"Who  hath  the  breast,  whose  milk  doth  passions  nourish? 
^\^^ose  grace  is  such,  that  when  it  chides  doth  cherish  ? 

To  you  !  to  you  !  all  song  of  praise  is  due  : 
Only  through  you  the  tree  of  life  doth  flourish. 

"  Who  hath  the  hand,  which  without  stroke  subdueth  ? 
Who  long  dead  beauty  with  increase  reneweth  ? 

To  you  I  to  you  I  all  song  of  praise  is  due  : 
Only  at  you  all  envy  hopeless  rueth. 

"Who  hath  the  hair,  which  loosest  fastest  tieth  ? 
Who  makes  a  man  live  then  glad  when  he  dieth  ? 

To  you  !  to  you  !  all  song  of  praise  is  due  : 
Only  of  you  the  flatterer  never  lieth. 

"Who  hath  the  voice,  which  soul  from  senses  sunders? 
Whose  force  but  yours  the  bolts  of  beauty  thunders? 

To  you  !  to  you  !  all  song  of  praise  is  due  : 
Only  with  you  not  miracles  are  wonders. 

"  Doubt  you  to  whom  my  Muse  these  notes  intendeth? 
Which  now  my  breast  o'ercharged  to  music  lendeth  ? 

To  you  !  U)  you  !  all  song  of  prai'ic  is  due  : 
Only  in  you  my  song  begins  and  cndctli." 


104  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

Nor  is  its  promise  belied  by  those  which  follow,  and  which 
are  among  the  earliest  and  the  most  charming  of  the  rich 
literature  of  songs  that  really  are  songs — songs  to  music  — 
which  the  age  was  to  produce.  All  the  scanty  remnants  of 
his  other  verse  are  instinct  with  the  same  qualities,  especially 
the  fsplendid  dirge,  "  Ring  out  your  bells,  let  mourning  shows 
be  spread,"  and  the  pretty  lines  "  to  the  tune  of  Wilhelmus  van 
Nassau."      I  must  quote  the  first : — 

"  Ring  out  your  bells  !  let  mourning  shows  be  spread, 
For  Love  is  dead. 
All  love  is  dead,  infected 

With  the  plague  of  deep  disdain  ; 
Worth  as  nought  worth  rejected. 

And  faith,  fair  scorn  doth  gain. 
From  so  ungrateful  fancy, 
From  such  a  female  frenzy, 
From  them  that  use  men  thus, 
Good  Lord,  deliver  us  ! 

'  Weep,  neighbours,  weep  !     Do  you  not  hear  it  said 
That  Love  is  dead  ? 
Ilis  deathbed,  peacock's  Folly  ; 

His  winding-sheet  is  Shame  ; 
His  will,  False  Seeming  wholly  ; 

His  sole  executor.  Blame. 
From  so  ungrateful  fancy. 
From  such  a  female  frenzy, 
From  them  that  use  men  thus, 
Good  Lord,  deliver  us  ! 

'°  Let  dirge  be  sung,  and  trentals  rightly  read, 
For  Love  is  dead. 
Sir  Wrong  his  tomb  ordaineth 
My  mistress'  marble  heart ; 
Which  epitaph  containeth 

'  Her  eyes  were  once  his  dart.' 
From  so  ungrateful  fancy. 
From  such  a  female  frenzy. 
From  them  that  use  men  thus. 
Good  Lord,  deliver  us    ! 


IV  WATSON  105 

"  Alas,  I  lie.     Rage  hath  this  error  bred, 
Love  is  not  deail. 
Love  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth 

In  her  unmatched  mind  : 
Where  she  his  counsel  keepeth 

Till  due  deserts  she  find. 
Therefore  from  so  vile  fancy 
To  call  such  wit  a  frenzy, 
WTio  love  can  temper  thus. 
Good  Lord,  deliver  us  !  " 

The  verse  from  the  Arcadia  (which  conrains  a  great  deal  of 
verse)  has  been  perhaps  injuriously  affected  in  the  general  judg- 
ment by  the  fact  that  it  includes  experiments  in  the  impos- 
sible classical  metres.  But  both  it  and  the  Translations 
from  the  Psalms  express  the  same  poetical  faculty  employed 
with  less  directness  and  force.  To  sum  up,  there  is  no  Eliza- 
bethan poet,  except  the  two  named,  who  is  more  unmistak- 
ably imbued  with  poetical  tjuality  than  Sidney.  And  liazlitt's 
judgment  on  him,  that  he  is  "jejune"  and  "frigid"  will,  as  Lamb 
himself  hinted,  long  remain  the  chiefest  and  most  astonishing 
example  of  a  great  critic's  aberrations  when  his  prejudices  are 
concerned. 

Had  Hazlitt  been  criticising  Thomas  "Watson,  his  judgment, 
though  harsh,  would  have  been  not  wholly  easy  to  quarrel  with. 
It  is  probably  the  excusable  but  serious  error  of  judgment  which 
induced  his  rediscoverer,  Professor  Arber,  to  rank  "Watson  above 
Sidney  in  gifts  and  genius,  that  has  led  other  critics  to  put  him 
unduly  low.  Watson  himself,  moreover,  has  invited  depreciation 
by  his  extreme  frankness  in  confessing  that  his  Passionate 
Century  is  not  a  record  of  passion  at  all,  but  an  elaborate  literary 
pastiche  after  this  author  and  that.  I  fear  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  average  critic  is  not  safely  to  be  trusted  with  sue  h  an 
avowal  of  what  he  is  too  much  disposed  to  advance  as  a  charge 
without  confession.  Watson,  of  whom  as  usual  scarcely  anything 
is  known  personally,  was  a  Londoner  by  birth,  an  Oxford  man  by 
education,  a  friend   of  most  of  the  earlier    literary  school  of  the 


lo6  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

reign,  such  as  Lyly,  Peele,  and  Spenser,  and  a  tolerably 
industrious  writer  both  in  Latin  and  English  during  his  short  life, 
which  can  hardly  have  begun  before  1557,  and  was  certainly 
closed  by  1593.  He  stands  in  English  poetry  as  the  author  of 
the  Hecatompathia  or  Passt'ofiafe  Century  of  sonnets  (1582),  and 
the  Tears  of  Fancy,  consisting  of  sixty  similar  poems,  printed  after 
his  death.  The  Tears  of  Fancy  are  regular  quatorzains,  the 
pieces  composing  the  Hecatompathia,  though  called  sonnets,  are 
in  a  curious  form  of  eighteen  lines  practically  composed  of  three 
six-line  stanzas  rhymed  A  B,  A  B,  C  C,  and  not  connected  by 
any  continuance  of  rhyme  from  stanza  to  stanza.  The  special 
and  peculiar  oddity  of  the  book  is,  that  each  sonnet  has  a  prose 
preface  as  thus  :  "  In  this  passion  the  author  doth  very  busily 
imitate  and  augment  a  certain  ode  of  Ronsard,  which  he  writeth 
unto  his  mistress.  He  beginneth  as  followeth,  Plusieurs,  etc." 
Here  is  a  complete  example  of  one  of  Watson's  pages  : — - 

"  There  needeth  no  annotation  at  all  before  this  passion,  it  is  of  itself  so  plain 
and  easily  conveyed.  Yet  the  unlearned  may  have  this  help  given  them  by  the 
way  to  know  what  Galaxia  is  or  Pactolus,  which  perchance  they  have  not  read 
of  often  in  our  vulgar  rhymes.  Galaxia  (to  omit  both  the  etymology  and  what 
the  philosophers  do  write  thereof)  is  a  white  way  or  milky  circle  in  the  heavens, 
which  Ovid  mentioneth  in  this  manner — 

Est  via  subliniis  ccslo  manifesta  sereno. 
Lactea  -nomen  habet,  candore  iiotahilis  ipso. 

— Metamorph.  lib.   i. 

And  Cicero  thus  in  Somnio  Scipionis  :  Erat  auiem  is  splendissitito  candort 
inter flammas  circtilus  eliicens,  qucm  vos  {iit  a  Graijs  accepistis)  orbem  lacteum 
nuncupatis. 

Pactolus  is  a  river  in  Lydia,  which  hath  golden  sands  under  it,  as  Tibullus 
witnesseth  in  this  verse  : — 

Nee  me  i-eg7ia  juvant,  nee  Lydins  aiirifer  amnis. — Titul.  lib.  3. 

Who  can  recount  the  virtues  of  my  dear, 

Or  say  how  far  her  fame  hath  taken  flight, 

That  cannot  tell  how  many  stars  appear 

In  part  of  heaven,  which  Galaxia  hight, 
Or  number  all  the  moats  in  Phoebus'  rays, 
Or  golden  sands  whereon  Pactolus  plays  ? 


IV  WATSON  107 


And  yet  my  hurts  enforce  nie  to  confess, 
In  crystal  breast  she  shrouds  a  bloody  heart, 
Which  heart  in  time  will  make  her  merits  less. 
Unless  betimes  she  cure  ni}-  deadly  smart  : 
For  now  my  life  is  double  dying  still, 
And  she  defamed  by  sufferance  of  such  ill  ; 

And  till  the  time  she  helps  me  as  she  may. 

Let  no  man  undertake  to  tell  my  toil. 

But  only  such,  as  can  distinctly  say, 

What  monsters  Nilus  breeds,  or  Afric  soil  : 
For  if  he  do,  his  labour  is  but  lost. 
Whilst  I  both  fry  and  freeze  'twixt  flame  and  frost." 

Now  this  is  undoubtedly,  as  Watson's  contemporaries  would 
have  said,  "  a  cooling  card  "  to  the  reader,  who  is  thus  presented 
with  a  series  of  elaborate  poetical  exercises  affecting  the  acutest 
personal  feeling,  and  yet  confessedly  representing  no  feeling  at  all. 
Yet  the  Hecatompathia  is  remarkable,  both  historically  and  intrin- 
sically. It  does  not  seem  likely  that  at  its  publication  the  author 
can  have  had  anything  of  Sidney's  or  much  of  Spenser's  before 
him  ;  yet  his  work  is  only  less  superior  to  the  work  of  their  com- 
mon predecessors  than  the  work  of  these  two.  By  far  the  finest 
of  his  Centiny  is  the  imitation  of  Ferrabosco — 

"  Resolved  to  dust  intombed  here  lieth  love." 

The  quatorzains  of  the  Tears  of  Fancy  are  more  attractive  in  form 
and  less  artificial  in  structure  and  phraseology,  but  it  must  be 
remembered  that  by  their  time  Sidney's  sonnets  were  known  and 
Spenser  had  written  much.  The  seed  was  scattered  abroad,  and 
it  fell  in  congenial  soil  in  falling  on  Watson,  but  the  Hecatom- 
pathia was  self-sown. 

This  difference  shows  itself  very  remarkably  in  the  vast  out- 
burst of  sonneteering  which,  as  has  been  remarked,  distinguished 
the  middle  of  the  last  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century.  All  these 
writers  had  Sidney  and  Spenser  before  them,  and  they  assume  so 
much  of  the  character  of  a  school  that  there  are  certain  subjects, 
for  instance,  "Care-charming  sleep,"  on  which  many  of  them 
(after  Sidney)  composed  sets  of  rival  poems,  almost  as  definitely 


io8  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

competitive  as  the  sonnets  of  the  later  "  Uranie  et  Job "  and 
"  Belle  Matineuse  "  series  in  France.  Nevertheless,  there  is  in 
all  of  them — what  as  a  rule  is  wanting  in  this  kind  of  clique 
verse — the  independent  spirit,  the  original  force  which  makes 
poetry.  The  Smiths  and  the  Fletchers,  the  Griffins  and  the 
Lynches,  are  like  little  geysers  round  the  great  ones  :  the  whole 
soil  is  instinct  with  fire  and  flame.  We  shall,  however,  take  the 
production  of  the  four  remarkable  years  1593-1596  separately, 
and  though  in  more  than  one  case  we  shall  return  upon  their 
writers  both  in  this  chapter  and  in  a  subsequent  one,  the  unity 
of  the  sonnet  impulse  seems  to  demand  separate  mention  for 
them  here. 

In  1593  the  influence  of  the  Sidney  poems  (published,  it  must 
be  remembered,  in  1591)  was  new,  and  the  imitators,  except 
Watson  (of  whom  above),  display  a  good  deal  of  the  quality  of  the 
novice.  The  chief  of  them  are  Barnabe  Barnes,  with  his  Fartheno- 
phil  and  FarthenoJ)he,  Giles  Fletcher  (father  of  the  Jacobean  poets, 
Giles  and  Phineas  Fletcher),  with  his  Licia,  and  Thomas  Lodge, 
with  his  Phillis.  Barnes  is  a  modern  discovery,  for  before  Dr. 
Grosart  reprinted  him  in  1S75,  from  the  unique  original  at 
Chatsworth,  for  thirty  subscribers  only  (of  whom  I  had  the 
honour  to  be  one),  he  was  practically  unknown.  Mr.  Arber  has 
since,  in  his  English  Garner,  opened  access  to  a  wider  circle, 
to  whom  I  at  least  do  not  grudge  their  entry.  As  wath 
most  of  these  minor  Elizabethan  poets,  Barnes  is  a  very 
obscure  person.  A  little  later  than  Parthenophil  he  wrote  A 
Divine  Centurie  of  Spirittial  So?mets,  having,  like  many  of  his 
contemporaries,  an  apparent  desire  poetically  to  make  the  best  of 
both  worlds.  He  also  wrote  a  wild  play  in  the  most  daring 
Elizabethan  style,  called  The  Devil's  Charter,  and  a  prose  political 
Treatise  of  Offices.  Barnes  was  a  friend  of  Gabriel  Harvey's,  and 
as  such  met  with  some  rough  usage  from  Nash,  Marston,  and 
others.  His  poetical  worth,  though  there  are  fine  passages  in 
The  Devil's  Charter  and  in  the  Divine  Centurie,  must  rest  on 
Parthenophil.      This  collection  consists  not  merely  of  sonnets  but 


IV 


MINOR  SONNETEERS  109 


of  madrigals,  sestines,  canzons,  and  other  attempts  after  Italian 
masters.  The  style,  both  verbal  and  poetical,  needs  chastising  in 
places,  and  Barnes's  expression  in  particular  is  sometimes  obscure. 
He  is  sometimes  comic  when  he  wishes  to  be  passionate,  and 
frequently  verbose  when  he  wishes  to  be  expressive.  But  the  fire, 
the  full-bloodedness,  the  poetical  virility,  of  the  poems  is  extra- 
ordinary. A  kind  of  intoxication  of  the  eternal-feminine  seems  to 
have  seized  the  poet  to  an  extent  not  otherwise  to  be  paralleled 
in  the  group,  except  in  Sidney ;  while  Sidney's  courtly  sense  of 
measure  and  taste  did  not  permit  him  Barnes's  forcible  extrava- 
gances.     Here  is  a  specimen  : — 

"  Phcebus,  rich  father  of  eternal  light. 
And  in  his  hand  a  wreath  of  Ilehochrise 
He  brought,  to  beautify  those  tresses, 
Whose  train,  whose  softness,  and  whose  gloss  more  bright, 

Apollo's  locks  did  overprize. 
Thus,  with  this  garland,  whiles  her  brows  he  blesses. 
The  golden  shadow  with  his  tincture 
Coloured  her  locks,  aye  gilded  with  the  cincture." 

Giles  Fletcher's  Licia  is  a  much  more  pale  and  colourless 
performance,  though  not  wanting  in  merit.  The  author,  who 
was  afterwards  a  most  respectable  clergyman,  is  of  the  class 
of  amoureux  transis,  and  dies  for  Licia  throughout  his  poems, 
without  apparently  suspecting  that  it  was  much  better  to  live  for 
her.  His  volume  contained  some  miscellaneous  poems,  with  a 
dullish  essay  in  the  historical  style  {^0.0.  post),  called  The  Rising  of 
Richard  to  the  Crown.  \'cry  f:\r  superior  is  Lodge's  Phiilis,  the 
chief  poetical  work  of  that  interesting  person,  except  some  of  the 
madrigals  and  odd  pieces  of  verse  scattered  about  his  jirose 
tracts  (for  which  see  Chapter  W.)  PJiillis  is  especially  remarkable 
for  the  grace  and  refinement  with  which  the  author  elaborates  the 
Sidneian  model.  Lodge,  indeed,  as  it  seems  to  me,  was  one  of 
the  not  uncommon  persons  who  can  always  do  best  with  a  model 
before  them.  He  euphuiscd  with  better  taste  than  lyly,  but  in 
imitation  of  him  ;  his  tales  in  prose  are  more  graceful  than  those 


no  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE "  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

of  Greene,  whom  he  copied ;  it  at  least  seems  hkely  that  he  out- 
Marlovved  Marlowe  in  the  rant  of  the  Looking- Glass  for  Londo?i, 
and  the  stiffness  of  the  JVou/ids  of  Civil  JJ'ar,  and  he  chiefly 
polished  Sidney  in  his  sonnets  and  madrigals.  It  is  not  to  be 
denied,  however,  that  in  three  out  of  these  four  departments  he 
gave  us  charming  work.  His  mixed  allegiance  to  Marlowe  and 
Sidney  gave  him  command  of  a  splendid  form  of  decasyllable, 
which  appears  often  in  Phillis,  as  for  instance — 

"  About  thy  neck  do  all  the  graces  throng 
And  lay  such  baits  as  might  entangle  death," 

where  it  is  worth  noting  that  the  whole  beauty  arises  from 
the  dexterous  placing  of  the  dissyllable  "  graces,"  and  the  tri- 
syllable "entangle,"  exactly  where  they  ought  to  be  among  the 
monosyllables  of  the  rest.  The  madrigals  "  Love  guards  the  roses 
of  thy  lips,"  "  My  Phillis  hath  the  morning  sun,"  and  "  Love  in 
my  bosom  like  a  bee  "  are  simply  unsurpassed  for  sugared  sweet- 
ness in  English.      Perhaps  this  is  the  best  of  them  : — 

"  Love  in  my  bosom  like  a  bee, 
Doth  suck  his  sweet ; 
Now  with  his  wings  he  plays  with  me, 

Now  with  his  feet. 
Within  mine  eyes  he  makes  his  nest 
His  bed  amidst  my  tender  breast, 
My  kisses  are  his  daily  feast ; 
And  yet  he  robs  me  of  my  rest  ? 
'  Ah,  wanton  !  will  ye  ? ' 

"  And  if  I  sleep,  then  percheth  he, 
With  pretty  flight, ^ 
And  makes  his  pillow  of  my  knee 

The  livelong  night. 
Strike  I  my  lute,  he  tunes  the  string. 
He  music  plays,  if  so  I  sing. 
He  lends  me  every  lovely  thing 
Yet  cruel  !  he,  my  heart  doth  sting. 
'  Whist,  wanton  !  still  ye  ! ' 

^   Printed  in  England'' s  Helicon  "sleight." 


IV  MINOR  SONNETEERS  ui 

"  Else  I  with  roses,  every  day 
Will  whip  you  hence, 
And  bind  youj  when  you  want  to  play. 

For  your  ofTence. 
I'll  shut  my  eyes  to  keep  you  in, 
I'll  make  you  fast  it  for  your  sin, 
I'll  count  your  power  not  worth  a  pin. 
Alas,  what  hereby  shall  I  win 
If  he  gainsay  me  ? 

"  What  if  I  beat  the  wanton  boy 
With  many  a  rod  ? 
He  will  repay  me  with  annoy 

Because  a  god. 
Then  sit  thou  safely  on  my  knee, 
And  let  thy  bower  my  bosom  be. 
Lurk  in  mine  eyes,  I  like  of  thee. 
O  Cupid  !  so  thou  pity  me, 

Spare  not,  but  play  thee." 

1594  was  the  most  important  of  all  the  sonnet  years,  and 
here  we  are  chiefly  bound  to  mention  authors  who  will  come  in 
for  fuller  notice  later.  The  singular  book  known  as  Willoughby's 
Avi'sa  which,  as  having  a  supposed  bearing  on  Shakespere  and  as 
containing  much  of  that  personal  puzzlement  which  rejoices 
critics,  has  had  much  attention  of  late  years,  is  not  strictly  a 
collection  of  sonnets;  its  poems  being  longer  and  of  differing 
stanzas.  But  in  general  character  it  falls  in  with  the  sonnet- 
collections  addressed  or  devoted  to  a  real  or  fanciful  personage. 
It  is  rather  satirical  than  panegyrical  in  character,  antl  its  j)oetical 
worth  is  very  far  from  high.  William  Percy,  a  friend  of  Barnes 
(who  dedicated  the  Parthetiophil  to  him),  son  of  the  eighth  Earl  of 
Northumberland,  and  a  retired  jjcrson  who  seems  to  have  passed 
the  greater  part  of  a  long  life  in  Oxford  "  drinking  nothing  but 
ale,"  produced  a  very  short  collection  entitled  Ca-lia,  not  very 
noteworthy,  though  it  contains  (probably  in  imitation  of  Barnes) 
one  of  the  tricky  things  called  echo-sonnets,  which,  with  dialogue- 
sonnets  and  the  like,  have  sometimes  amused  the  leisure  of  poets. 
Much    more   remarkable   is   the    singular    anonymous   collection 


112  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE "  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

called  Zepheria.  Its  contents  are  called  not  sonnets  but  canzons, 
though  most  of  them  are  orthodox  quatorzains  somewhat  oddly 
rhymed  and  rhythmed.  It  is  brief,  extending  only  to  forty 
pieces,  and,  like  much  of  the  poetry  of  the  period,  begins  and 
ends  with  Italian  mottoes  or  dedication -phrases.  But  what  is 
interesting  about  it  is  the  evidence  it  gives  of  deep  familiarity 
not  only  with  Italian  but  with  French  models.  This  appears 
both  in  such  words  as  " jouissance,"  "thesaurise,"  "esperance," 
"  souvenance,"  "  vatical "  (a  thoroughly  Ronsardising  word),  with 
others  too  many  to  mention,  and  in  other  characteristics.  Mr. 
Sidney  Lee,  in  his  most  valuable  collection  of  these  sonneteers, 
endeavours  to  show  that  this  French  influence  was  less  uncommon 
than  has  sometimes  been  thought.  Putting  this  aside,  the 
characteristic  of  Zepheria  is  unchastened  vigour,  full  of  promise, 
but  decidedly  in  need  of  further  schooling  and  discipline,  as  the 
following  will  show  : — 


'£3 


"  O  then  Desire,  father  of  Jouissance, 
The  Life  of  Love,  the  Death  of  dastard  Fear, 
The  kindest  nurse  to  true  perseverance, 
^line  heart  inherited,  with  thy  love's  revere.  [?] 
Beauty  !  peculiar  parent  of  Conceit, 
Prosperous  midwife  to  a  travelling  muse, 
The  sweet  of  life,  Nepenthe's  eyes  receipt, 
Thee  into  me  distilled,  O  sweet,  infuse  ! 
Love  then  (the  spirit  of  a  generous  sprite. 
An  infant  ever  drawing  Nature's  breast, 
The  Sum  of  Life,  that  Chaos  did  unnight !) 
Dismissed  mine  heart  from  me,  with  thee  to  rest. 
And  now  incites  me  cry,  '  Double  or  quit  ! 
Give  back  my  heart,  or  take  his  body  to  it  ! '  " 

This  cannot  be  said  of  the  three  remarkable  collections  yet  to 
be  noticed  which  appeared  in  this  year,  to  wit,  Constable's  Diana^ 
Daniel's  Delia,  and  Drayton's  Idea.  These  three  head  the  group 
and  contain  the  best  work,  after  Shakespere  and  Spenser  and 
Sidney,  in  the  English  sonnet  of  the  time.  Constable's  sonnets 
had  appeared  partly  in  1592,  and  as  they  stand  in  fullest  collec- 


IV  CONSTABLE— DANIEL  113 

tion  were  published  in  or  before  1594.  Afterwards  he  wrote, 
like  others,  "  divine  "  sonnets  (he  was  a  Roman  Catholic)  and  sdme 
miscellaneous  poems,  including  a  very  pretty  "  Song  of  Venus  and 
Adonis."  He  was  a  close  friend  of  Sidney,  many  of  whose  sonnets 
were  published  with  his,  and  his  work  has  much  of  the  Sidneian 
colour,  but  with  fewer  flights  of  happily  expressed  fancy.  The  best 
of  it  is  probably  the  following  sonnet,  which  is  not  only  full  of 
gracefully  expressed  images,  but  keeps  up  its  flight  from  first  to 
last — a  thing  not  universal  in  these  Elizabethan  sonnets  : — 

"  My  Lady's  presence  makes  the  Roses  red, 
Because  to  see  her  lips  they  blush  for  shame. 
The  Lily's  leaves,  for  envy,  pale  became ; 
And  her  white  hands  in  them  this  envy  bred. 
The  Marigold  the  leaves  abroad  doth  spread  ; 
Because  the  sun's  and  her  power  is  the  same. 
The  Violet  of  purple  colour  came. 
Dyed  in  the  blood  she  made  my  heart  to  shed. 
In  brief  all  flowers  from  her  their  virtue  take  ; 
From  her  sweet  breath,  their  sweet  smells  do  proceed ; 
The  living  heat  which  her  eyebeams  doth  make 
Warmeth  the  ground,  and  quickenelh  the  seed. 
The  rain,  wherewith  she  watereth  the  flowers, 
Falls  from  mine  eyes,  which  she  dissolves  in  showers." 

Samuel  Daniel  had  an  eminently  contemplative  genius  which 
might  have  anticipated  the  sonnet  as  it  is  in  Wordsworth,  but 
which  the  fashion  of  the  day  confined  to  the  not  wholly  suitable 
subject  of  Love.  In  the  splendid  "  Care-charmer  Sleep,"  one  of 
the  tournament  sonnets  above  noted,  he  contrived,  as  will  be  seen, 
to  put  his  subject  under  the  influence  of  his  prevailing  faculty. 

"  Care-charmer  Sleep,  son  of  the  sable  Night, 

Brother  to  Death,  in  silent  darkness  born, 
Pelieve  my  anguish,  and  restore  the  light, 

With  dark  forgetting  of  my  cares,  return  ; 
And  let  the  day  be  time  enough  to  mourn 

The  shi])wreck  of  my  ill-adventured  youth  ; 
Let  v/akiiig  eyes  sufTice  to  wail  their  sct)rn 

Without  the  torment  of  the  night's  untruth. 

H  I 


114  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP         chap. 

Cease,  Dreams,  th'  imag'ry  of  our  day-desires, 
To  model  forth  the  passions  of  the  morrow, 

Never  let  rising  sun  approve  you  liars, 

To  add  more  grief  to  aggravate  my  sorrow. 

Still  let  me  sleep,  embracing  clouds  in  vain  ; 

And  never  wake  to  feel  the  day's  disdain." 

But  as  a  rule  he  is  perhaps  too  much  given  to  musing,  and  too 
little  to  rapture.  In  form  he  is  important,  as  he  undoubtedly 
did  much  to  establish  the  arrangement  of  three  alternate  rhvmed 
quatrains  and  a  couplet  which,  in  Shakespere's  hands,  was  to  give 
the  noblest  poetry  of  the  sonnet  and  of  the  world.  He  has  also 
an  abundance  of  the  most  exquisite  single  lines,  such  as 

"  O  clear-eyed  rector  of  the  holy  hill," 

and  the  wonderful  opening  of  Sonnet  xxvii.,  "The  star  of  my 
mishap  imposed  this  pain." 

The  sixty-three  sonnets,  varied  in  different  editions  of  Dray- 
ton's Idea,  are  among  the  most  puzzling  of  the  whole  group.  Their 
average  value  is  not  of  the  very  highest.  Yet  there  are  here  and 
there  the  strangest  suggestions  of  Drayton's  countryman,  Shake- 
spere,  and  there  is  one  sonnet,  No.  6i,  beginning,  "Since  there's 
no  help,  come  let  us  kiss  and  part,"  which  I  have  found  it  most 
difficult  to  believe  to  be  Drayton's,  and  which  is  Shakespere  all 
over.  That  Drayton  was  the  author  of  Idea  as  a  whole  is  certain, 
not  merely  from  the  local  allusions,  but  from  the  resemblance  to 
the  more  successful  exercises  of  his  clear,  masculine,  vigorous, 
fertile,  but  occasionally  rather  unpoetical  style.  The  sonnet  just 
referred  to  is  itself  one  of  the  very  finest  existing — perhaps  one 
of  the  ten  or  twelve  best  sonnets  in  the  world,  and  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  give  it  with  another  in  contrast : — 

"  Our  flood's  Queen,  Thames,  for  ships  and  swans  is  crowned  ; 

And  stately  Severn  for  her  shore  is  praised. 
The  crystal  Trent  for  fords  and  fish  renowned  ; 

And  Avon's  fame  to  Albion's  cliffs  is  raised  ; 
Carlegion  Chester  vaunts  her  holy  Dee  ; 

York  many  wonder3  of  her  Ouse  can  tell. 


IV  DRAYTON'S  SONNETS— "  ALCILIA  "  115 

The  Peak  her  Dove,  whose  banks  so  fertile  be ; 

And  Kent  will  say  her  Med  way  doth  excel. 
Cotswold  commends  her  Isis  to  the  Tame ; 

Our  northern  borders  boast  of  Tweed's  fair  flood 
Our  western  parts  extol  their  Wily's  fame  ; 

And  the  old  Lea  brags  of  the  Danish  blood. 
Ardcn's  sweet  Ankor,  let  thy  glory  be 
That  fair  Idea  only  lives  by  thee  !  " 


"  .Since  there's  no  help,  come,  let  us  kiss  and  part  ! 

Nay,  I  have  done.     You  get  no  more  of  me. 
And  I  am  glad,  yea,  glad  with  all  my  heart 

That  thus  so  cleanly  I  myself  can  free. 
.Shake  hands  for  ever,  cancel  all  our  vows, 

And  when  we  meet  at  any  time  again 
I>e  it  not  seen  in  either  of  our  brows 

That  we  one  jot  of  former  love  retain. 
Now  at  the  last  gasp  of  Love's  latest  breath, 

When,  his  pulse  failing,  Passion  speechless  lies  ; 
When  Faith  is  kneeling  by  his  bed  of  death, 

And  Lmocence  is  closing  up  his  eyes  : 
Now,  if  thou  would'st,  when  all  have  given  him  over, 
P>om  death  to  life  thou  might'st  him  yet  recover  ! " 

1595  chiefly  contributed  the  curious  production  called  Alcilia, 
by  J.  C.,  who  gives  the  name  of  sonnets  to  a  series  of  six-line 
stanzas,  varied  occasionally  by  other  forms,  such  as  that  of  the 
following  pretty  verses.  It  may  be  noted  that  the  citation  of 
proverbs  is  very  characteristic  of  Alcilia  : — 

"  Love  is  sorrow  mixed  with  gladness, 
Fear  with  hope,  and  hope  with  madness. 
Long  did  I  love,  but  all  in  vain  ; 
I  loving,  was  not  loved  again  : 
Yi>x  which  my  heart  sustained  much  woe. 
It  fits  not  maids  to  use  men  so, 
Just  deserts  arc  not  regarded. 
Never  love  so  ill  rewarded. 
But  '  all  is  lost  that  is  not  sought,' 
'Oft  wit  proves  best  that's  dearest  bought.' 

**  Women  were  made  for  men's  relief; 
To  comfort,  not  to  cause  their  grief. 


Ii6  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP         chap. 

Where  most  I  merit,  least  I  find  : 
No  marvel,  since  that  love  is  blind. 
Had  she  been  kind  as  she  was  fair. 
My  case  had  been  more  strange  and  rare. 
But  women  love  not  by  desert, 
Reason  in  them  hath  weakest  part. 
Then  henceforth  let  them  love  that  list, 
I  will  lieware  of  'had  I  wist.'" 

1596  (putting  the  Amoretti,  which  is  sometimes  assigned  to 
this  year,  aside)  was  again  fruitful  with  Griffin's  Fidessa,  Lynch's 
Diella,  and  Smith's  Chloris.  Fidessa,  though  distinctly  "young," 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  clearly  imitative  class  of 
these  sonnets,  and  contains  some  very  graceful  poetry,  especially 
the  following,  one  of  the  Sleep  class,  which  will  serve  as  a  good 
example  of  the  minor  sonneteers  : — 

"  Care-charmer  Sleep  !  sweet  ease  in  restless  misery  ! 

The  captive's  liberty,  and  his  freedom's  song  ! 
Balm  of  the  bruised  heart  !  man's  chief  felicity  ! 

Brother  of  quiet  Death,  when  Life  is  too  too  long  ! 
A  Comedy  it  is,  and  now  an  History  ; 

What  is  not  sleep  unto  the  feeble  mind  ? 
It  easeth  him  that  toils,  and  him  that's  sorry  ; 

It  makes  the  deaf  to  hear  ;  to  see,  the  blind  ; 
Ungentle  Sleep  !   thou  helpest  all  but  me. 

For  when  I  sleep  my  soul  is  vexed  most. 
It  is  Fidessa  that  doth  master  thee 

If  she  approach  ;  alas  !  thy  power  is  lost. 
But  here  she  is  !  See,  how  he  runs  amain  ! 
I  fear,  at  night,  he  will  ncft  come  again." 

Diella,  a  set  of  thirty-eight  sonnets  prefixed  to  the  "Amorous 
poem  of  Diego  and  Genevra,"  is  more  elaborate  in  colouring  but 
somewhat  less  fresh  and  genuine ;  while  Chloris,  whose  author 
was  a  friend  of  Spenser's,  approaches  to  the  pastoral  in  the  plan 
and  phrasing  of  its  fifty  sonnets. 

Such  are  the  most  remarkable  members  of  a  group  of  English 
poetry,  which  yields  to  few  such  groups  in  interest.  It  is  con- 
nected by  a  strong  similarity   of  feeling — if  any  one  likes,  even 


IV  BARNFIELD  Ii7 

by  a  strong  imitation  of  tlie  same  models.  But  in  following 
those  models  and  expressing  those  feelings,  its  members,  even 
the  humblest  of  them,  have  shown  remarkable  poetical  capacity ; 
while  of  the  chiefs  we  can  only  say,  as  has  been  said  more  than 
once  already,  that  the  matter  and  form  together  acknowledge, 
and  indeed  admit  of,  no  superior. 

In  close  connection  with  these  groups  of  sonnets,  displaying 
ver)'  much  the  same  poetical  characteristics  and  in  some  cases 
written  by  the  same  authors,  there  occurs  a  great  body  of  mis- 
cellaneous poetical  writing  produced  during  the  last  twenty  years 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  ranging  from  long  poems  of  the 
allegorical  or  amatory  kind  to  the  briefest  lyrics  and  madrigals. 
Sometimes  this  work  appeared  independently ;  sometimes  it 
was  inserted  in  the  plays  and  prose  pamphlets  of  the  time.  As 
has  already  been  said,  some  of  our  authors,  notably  Lodge  and 
Greene,  did  in  this  way  work  which  far  exceeds  in  merit  any 
of  their  more  ambitious  pieces,  and  which  in  a  certain  unbor- 
rowed and  incommunicable  poetic  grace  hardly  leaves  anything 
of  the  time  behind  it.  Shakespere  himself,  in  Fenus  and  Adonis 
and  Lucrece,  has  in  a  more  elaborate  but  closely  allied  kind  of 
poetry  displayed  less  mature,  but  scarcely  less,  genius  than  in 
his  dramatic  and  sonnet  work.  It  is  my  own  opinion  that  the 
actual  poetical  worth  of  Richard  Barnfield,  to  whom  an  exquisite 
poem  in  The  Passionate  Pilgrim,  long  ascribed  to  Shakespere,  is 
now  more  justly  assigned,  has,  owing  to  this  assignment  and  to 
the  singular  character  of  his  chief  other  poem,  The  Affectionate 
Shepherd,  been  considerably  overrated.  It  is  unfortunately  as 
complete  if  not  as  common  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  any 
one  who  disdains  his  country's  morality  must  be  a  good  poet, 
as  to  set  down  any  one  who  disdains  it  without  further  ex- 
amination for  a  bad  one.  The  simple  fact,  as  it  strikes  a  critic, 
is  that  "As  it  fell  upon  a  day"  is  miles  above  anything  else 
of  liarnfield's,  and  is  not  like  anytliing  else  of  his,  while  it  is 
very  like  things  of  Shakespere's.  The  best  thing  to  be  said  for 
liarnficld  is  that   he   was  an    avowed    and   enthusiastic    imitator 


Ii8  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP         chap. 

and  follower  of  Spenser.  His  poetical  work  (we  might  have 
included  the  short  series  of  sonnets  to  Cyiithia  in  the  division 
of  sonneteers)  was  all  written  when  he  was  a  very  young  man, 
and  he  died  when  he  was  not  a  very  old  one,  a  bachelor  country- 
gentleman  in  Warwickshire.  Putting  the  exquisite  "  As  it  fell 
upon  a  day  "  out  of  question  (which,  if  he  wrote  it,  is  one  of 
the  not  very  numerous  examples  of  perfect  poetry  written  by  a 
very  imperfect  poet),  Barnfield  has,  in  no  extraordinary  measure, 
the  common  attributes  of  this  wonderful  time — poetical  enthu- 
siasm, fresh  and  unhackneyed  expression,  metrical  charm,  and 
gorgeous  colouring,  which  does  not  find  itself  ill-matched  with 
accurate  drawing  of  nature.  He  is  above  the  average  Eliza- 
bethan, and  his  very  bad  taste  in  The  Affediotiate  Shepherd  (a  fol- 
lowing of  Virgil's  Second  Eclogue)  may  be  excused  as  a  humanist 
crotchet  of  the  time.  His  rarity,  his  eccentricity,  and  the  curious 
mixing  up  of  his  work  with  Shakespere's  have  done  him  some- 
thing more  than  yeoman's  service  with  recent  critics.  But  he 
may  have  a  specimen  : — 

"  And  thus  it  happened  :  Death  and  Cupid  met 
UiDon  a  time  at  swilling  Bacchus'  house, 
Where  dainty  cates  upon  the  board  were  set. 
And  goblets  full  of  wine  to  drink  carouse  : 
Where  Love  and  Death  did  love  the  liquor  so 
That  out  they  fall,  and  to  the  fray  they  go. 

"  And  having  both  their  quivers  at  tlieir  liack 
Filled  full  of  arrows — the  one  of  fatal  steel, 
The  other  all  of  gold  ;  Death's  shaft  was  black, 
But  Love's  was  yellow — Fortune  turned  her  wheel, 
And  from  Death's  quiver  fell  a  fatal  shaft 
That  under  Cupid  by  the  wind  was  waft. 

"  And  at  the  same  time  by  ill  hap  there  fell 
Another  arrow  out  of  Cupid's  quiver ; 
The  which  was  carried  by  the  wind  at  will, 

And  imder  Death  the  amorous  shaft  did  shiver.^ 
They  being  parted,  Love  took  up  Death's  dart, 
And  Death  took  up  Love's  arrow  for  his  part." 

1  Not,  of  course  =  "break,"  but  "shudder." 


IV 


SOUTHWELL  !i9 


There  is  perhaps  more  genuine  poetic  worth,  though  there  is  less 
accompUshment  of  form,  in  the  unfortunate  Father  Robert  South- 
well, who  was  executed  as  a  traitor  on  the  20th  of  February  1595. 
Southwell  belonged  to  a  distinguished  family,  and  was  born 
(probably)  at  Horsham  St.  Faiths,  in  Norfolk,  about  the  year 
1560.  He  was  stolen  by  a  gipsy  in  his  youth,  but  was  recovered; 
and  a  much  worse  misfortune  befell  him  in  being  sent  for  educa- 
tion not  to  Oxford  or  Cambridge  but  to  Douay,  where  he  got  into 
the  hands  of  the  Jesuits,  and  joined  their  order.  He  was  sent  on 
a  mission  to  England ;  and  (no  doubt  conscientiously)  violating 
the  bw  there,  was  after  some  years  of  hiding  and  suspicion 
betrayed,  arrested,  treated  with  great  harshness  in  prison,  and  at 
last,  as  has  been  said,  executed.  No  specific  acts  of  treason  were 
even  charged  against  him  ;  and  he  earnestly  denied  any  designs 
whatever  against  the  Queen  and  kingdom,  nor  can  it  be  doubted 
that  he  merely  paid  the  penalty  of  others'  misdeeds.  His  work 
both  in  prose  and  poetry  was  not  inconsiderable,  and  the  poetry 
was  repeatedly  printed  in  rather  confusing  and  imperfect  editions 
after  his  death.  The  longest,  but  by  no  means  the  best,  piece  is 
SL  Pders  Complaint.  The  best  unquestionably  is  The  Burning 
Babe,  which,  though  fairly  well  known,  must  be  given  : — 

"  As  I  in  hoary  winter's  night  stood  shivering  in  the  snow, 

Surpris'd  I  was  with  sudden  heat,  which  made  my  heart  to  glow  ; 

And  Hfting  up  a  fearful  eye  to  view  what  fire  was  near, 

A  pretty  15ahe  all  burning  bright,  did  in  the  air  appear, 

Who  scorched  with  excessive  heat,  such  floods  of  tears  did  shed, 

As  though  Ilis  floods  should  quench  His  flames  which  with  His  tears  were  fed ; 

'  .-Mas  ! '  quoth  He,  '  but  newly  born,  in  fiery  heats  I  fry, 

Yet  none  approach  to  warm  their  hearts  or  feci  My  fire  but  I  ! 

My  faultless  brexst  the  furnace  is,  the  fuel  wounding  thorns, 

Ix)ve  is  the  fire,  and  sighs  the  smoke,  the  xshes  shame  and  scorns  ; 

The  fuel  Justice  layeth  on,  and  Mercy  blows  the  coals  ; 

The  metal  in  this  furnace  wrought  are  men's  defiled  souls. 

For  which,  as  now  on  fire  I  am,  to  work  them  to  their  good 

So  will  I  melt  into  a  bath  to  wash  theni  in  My  lilood  :' 

With  these  He  vanished  out  of  sight,  and  swiftly  shrunk  awny, 

And  straight  I  called  unto  mind  that  it  was  Christmas  Day." 


120  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP         Chap, 

Something  of  the  glow  of  this  appears  elsewhere  in  the  poems, 
which  are,  without  exception,  religious.  They  have  not  a  little 
of  the  "  hectic  "  tone,  which  marks  still  more  strongly  the  chief 
English  Roman  Catholic  poet  of  the  next  century,  Crashaw ;  but 
are  never,  as  Crashaw  sometimes  is,  hysterical.  On  the  whole,  as 
was  remarked  in  a  former  chapter,  they  belong  rather  to  the  pre- 
Spenserian  class  in  diction  and  metre,  though  with  something  of 
the  Italian  touch.  Occasional  roughnesses  in  them  may  be  at 
least  partly  attributed  to  the  evident  fact  that  the  author  thought 
of  nothing  less  than  of  merely  "  cultivating  the  muses."  His  religi- 
ous fervour  is  of  the  simplest  and  most  genuine  kind,  and  his 
poems  are  a  natural  and  unforced  expression  of  it. 

It  is  difficult  in  the  brief  space  which  can  here  be  allotted 
to  the  subject  to  pass  in  review  the  throng  of  miscellaneous 
poets  and  poetry  indicated  under  this  group.  The  reprints  of 
Dr.  Grosart  and  Mr.  Arber,  supplemented  in  a  few  cases  by 
recourse  to  the  older  recoveries  of  Brydges,  Haslewood,  Park, 
Collier,  and  others,  bring  before  the  student  a  mass  of  brilliant 
and  beautiful  matter,  often  mixed  with  a  good  deal  of  slag  and 
scoriiE,  but  seldom  deficient  in  the  true  poetical  ore.  The  mere 
collections  of  madrigals  and  songs,  actually  intended  for  casual 
performance  at  a  time  when  almost  every  accomplished  and 
well-bred  gentleman  or  lady  was  expected  to  oblige  the  com- 
pany, which  Mr.  Arber's  invaluable  English  Garner  and  Mr. 
Bullen's  Elizabethan  Lyrics  give  from  the  collections  edited  or 
produced  by  Byrd,  Yonge,  Campion,  Dowland,  Morley,  Alison, 
Wilbye,  and  others,  represent  such  a  body  of  verse  as  probably 
could  not  be  got  together,  with  the  same  origin  and  circum- 
stances, in  any  quarter-century  of  any  nation's  history  since  the 
foundation  of  the  world.  In  Campion  especially  the  lyrical 
quality  is  extraordinary.  He  was  long  almost  inaccessible,  but 
Mr.  Bullen's  edition  of  1889  has  made  knowledge  of  him  easy. 
His  birth-year  is  unknown,  but  he  died  in  1620.  He  was  a 
Cambridge  man,  a  member  of  the  Inns  of  Court,  and  a  physician 
in  good  practice.     He  has  left  us  a  masque  ;  four  Books  of  Airs 


IV  SPECIMENS  OF  SONGS  AND  MADRIGALS  I2I 

(1601-17?),  in  which  the  gems  given  below,  and  many  others, 
occur  ;  and  a  sometimes  rather  unfairly  characterised  critical 
treatise,  Observations  on  the  Art  of  English  Poesy,  in  which  he 
argues  against  rhyme  and  for  strict  quantitative  measures,  but  on 
quite  different  lines  from  those  of  the  craze  of  Stanyhurst  and 
Harvey.  Some  of  his  illustrations  of  his  still  rather  unnatural 
fancy  (especially  "  Rose-cheeked  Laura,"  which  is  now  tolerably 
familiar  in  anthologies)  are  charming,  though  never  so  charming 
as  his  rhymed  "Airs."  The  poetry  is,  indeed,  mostly  in  flashes, 
and  it  is  not  very  often  that  any  song  is  a  complete  gem,  like 
the  best  of  the  songs  from  the  dramatists,  one  or  two  of  which 
will  be  given  presently  for  comparison.  But  by  far  the  greater 
number  contain  and  exemplify  those  numerous  characteristics  of 
poetry,  as  distinguished  from  verse,  which  at  one  time  of  literary 
history  seem  naturally  to  occur — seem  indeed  to  be  had  for  the 
gathering  by  any  one  who  chooses — while  at  another  time  they  are 
but  sparingly  found  in  the  work  of  men  of  real  genius,  and  seem 
altogether  to  escape  men  of  talent,  accomplishment,  and  laborious 
endeavour.  Here  are  a  few  specimens  from  Peele  and  others, 
especially  Campion.  As  it  is,  an  exceptional  amount  of  the  small 
space  possible  for  such  things  in  this  volume  has  been  given  to 
them,  but  there  is  a  great  temptation  to  give  more.  Lyly's  lyrical 
work,  however,  is  fairly  well  known,  and  more  than  one  collection 
of  "  Songs  from  the  Dramatists  "  has  popularised  others. 

y£".    "  Fair  and  fair,  and  twice  so  fair, 
As  fair  as  any  may  be  ; 
The  fairest  shepherd  on  our  green, 
A  love  for  any  lady. 

Par.    lair  and  fair,  and  twice  so  fair, 
As  fair  as  any  m.iy  be  : 
Thy  love  is  fair  for  thee  alone, 
And  f<jr  no  other  lady. 

^7''..    My  l(jve  is  fair,  my  hive  is  gay, 

As  (resh  as  bin  the  flowers  in  May, 
And  of  my  love  my  roundelay 


122  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

Concludes  wilh  Cupid's  curse, 

They  that  do  change  old  love  for  new 

Pray  gods,  they  change  for  worse  ! 

Ambo,  simul.  They  that  do  change,  etc.,  etc. 
Ai..   Fair  and  fair,  etc. 
Par.   Fair  and  fair,  etc. 
AL.   My  love  can  pipe,  my  love  can  sing. 
My  love  can  many  a  pretty  thing. 
And  of  his  lovely  praises  ring 
My  merry,  merry  roundelays. 
Amen  to  Cupid's  curse, 
They  that  do  change,  etc." 

Peele. 

"  His  golden  locks  time  hath  to  silver  turned  ; 
O  time  too  swift,  O  swiftness  never  ceasing  ! 
His  youth  'gainst  time  and  age  hath  ever  spurned. 
But  spumed  in  vain  ;  youth  waneth  by  increasing  : 
Beauty,  strength,  youth,  are  flowers  but  fading  seen. 
Duty,  faith,  love,  are  roots,  and  ever  green. 

"  His  helmet  now  shall  make  a  hive  for  bees. 
And  lovers'  songs  be  turned  to  holy  psalms  ; 
A  man-at-arms  must  now  serve  on  his  knees, 
And  feed  on  prayers,  which  are  old  age's  alms  : 
But  though  from  court  to  cottage  he  depart. 
His  saint  is  sure  of  his  unspotted  heart. 

"  And  when  he  saddest  sits  in  homely  cell, 
He'll  teach  his  swains  this  carol  for  a  song : 
'  Blessed  be  the  hearts  that  wish  my  Sovereign  well, 
Cursed  be  the  souls  that  think  her  any  wrong.' 
Goddess  allow  this  aged  man  his  right. 
To  be  your  beadsman  now  that  was  your  knight. " 

Peele. 

"  Fain  would  I  change  that  note 

To  which  fond  love  hath  charni'd  me. 

Long,  long  to  sing  by  rote 

Fancying  that  that  harm'd  me  : 

Yet  when  this  thought  doth  come, 

'  Love  is  the  perfect  sum 


IV  SPECIMENS  OF  SONGS  AND  MADRIGALS  123 


Of  all  delight!' 
I  have  no  other  choice 
Either  for  pen  or  voice 

To  sing  or  write. 

"  O  Love,  they  wrong  thee  much 
That  say  thy  sweet  is  bitter, 
^^^len  thy  rich  fruit  is  such 

As  nothing  can  be  sweeter. 
Fair  liouse  of  joy  and  bhss 
Where  truest  pleasure  is, 
I  do  adore  thee  ; 
I  know  thee  what  thou  art. 
I  serve  thee  with  my  heart 
And  fall  before  thee. 

Afwn.  in  BuLLEN. 

"  Turn  all  thy  thoughts  to  eyes. 
Turn  all  thy  hairs  to  ears. 
Change  all  thy  friends  to  spies, 
And  all  thy  joys  to  fears  : 
True  love  will  yet  be  free 
In  spite  of  jealousy. 

"  Turn  darkness  into  day, 
Conjectures  into  truth, 
Believe  what  th'  curious  say, 
Let  age  interpret  youth  : 
True  love  will  yet  be  free 
In  spile  of  jca](jusy. 

"  Wrest  every  word  ami  look, 

Rack  every  hidden  thought ; 

Or  fish  with  golden  hook, 

True  love  cannot  be  caught  : 

For  that  will  still  be  free 

In  spite  of  jealousy. " 

Cami'ION  in  BULLEN. 

«'  Come,  O  come,  my  life's  delight  ! 
Let  me  not  in  langour  pine  ! 
Love  ]<jves  no  delay  ;  thy  sight 

The  more  enjoyed,  the  more  divine. 
O  come,  and  take  from  me 
The  pain  of  being  deprived  of  lliee  1 


124  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

"  Thou  all  sweetness  dost  enclose 
Like  a  little  world  of  bliss  ; 
Beauty  guards  thy  looks,  the  rose 
In  them  pure  and  eternal  is  : 

Come,  then,  and  make  thy  flight 
As  swift  to  me  as  heavenly  light  ! " 

Campion. 

"  Follow  your  saint,  follow  with  accents  sweet  ! 
Ilaste  you,  sad  notes,  fall  at  her  flying  feet  ! 
There,  wrapped  in  cloud  of  sorrow,  pity  move, 
And  tell  the  ravisher  of  my  soul  I  perish  for  her  love. 
Eut  if  she  scorns  my  never-ceasing  pain. 
Then  burst  with  sighing  in  her  sight  and  ne'er  return  again. 

"  All  that  I  sang  still  to  her  praise  did  tend, 
Still  she  was  first,  still  she  my  songs  did  end  ; 
Yet  she  my  love  and  music  both  doth  fly, 
The  music  that  her  echo  is  and  beauty's  sympathy  : 
Then  let  my  notes  pursue  her  scornful  flight  ! 
It  shall  suffice  that  they  were  breathed  and  died  for  her  delight." 

Campion. 


(< 


What  if  a  day,  or  a  month,  or  a  year. 

Crown  thy  delights  with  a  thousand  sweet  contentings  ! 
Cannot  a  chance  of  a  night  or  an  hour 

Cross  thy  desires  with  as  many  sad  tormentings  ? 
Fortune,  Honour,  Beauty,  Youth,  are  but  blossoms  dying, 
Wanton  Pleasure,  doating  Love,  are  but  shadows  flying. 
All  our  joys  are  but  toys  !  idle  thoughts  deceiving  : 
None  have  power,  of  an  hour,  in  their  lives  bereaving. 

"  Earth's  but  a  point  to  the  world,  and  a  man 

Is  but  a  point  to  the  world's  compared  centre  ! 
Shall  then  a  point  of  a  point  be  so  vain 

As  to  triumph  in  a  silly  point's  adventure  ? 
All  is  hazard  that  we  have,  there  is  nothing  biding  ; 
Days  of  pleasure  are  like  streams  through  fair  meadows  gliding. 
Weal  and  woe,  time  doth  go  !  time  is  never  turning  ; 
Secret  fates  guide  our  states,  both  in  mirth  and  mourning." 

Campion. 

"  'Twas  I  that  paid  for  all  things, 
'Twas  others  drank  the  wine, 


IV  SONGS  AND  MADRIGALS— DYER— RALEIGH  125 

I  cannot  now  recall  things ; 

Live  but  a  fool,  to  jiine. 
'Twas  I  that  beat  the  bush, 

The  bird  to  others  flew ; 
For  she,  alas,  hath  left  me. 

Falero  !  lero  !  loo  ! 

"  If  ever  that  Dame  Nature 

(For  this  false  lover's  sake) 
Another  pleasing  creature 

Like  unto  her  would  make ; 
Let  her  remember  this, 

To  make  the  other  true  ! 
For  this,  alas  !  hath  left  me. 

Falero  !  lero  !  loo  ! 

"  No  riches  now  can  raise  me. 
No  want  makes  mc  despair, 
No  misery  amaze  me, 

Nor  yet  for  want  I  care  : 
I  have  lost  a  World  itself, 

My  earthly  Heaven,  adieu  ! 
Since  she,  alas  !  hath  left  me. 
Falero  !  lero  !  loo  ! " 

Anon,  in  Arrer. 

Beside  these  collections,  which  were  in  their  origin  and  incep- 
tion chiefly  musical,  and  literary,  as  it  were,  only  by  parergon, 
there  are  successors  of-  the  earlier  Mi.scellanies  in  which,  as  in 
En-^/amf's  Helicon  and  the  celebrated  Passionate  Pilgrim,  there 
is  some  of  the  most  exquisite  of  our  ver.se.  And,  yet  again, 
a  crowd  of  individual  writers,  of  few  of  whom  is  much  known, 
contributed,  not  in  all  cases  their  mites  by  any  means,  but 
often  very  respectable  sums,  to  the  vast  treasury  of  English  poetry. 
'I'iicre  is  Sir  Edward  Dyer,  the  friend  of  Raleigh  and  Sidney, 
who  has  been  immortalised  by  the  famous  "  My  mind  to  me 
a  kingdom  is,"  and  who  wrote  other  pieces  not  much  inferior. 
There  is  Raleigh,  to  whom  the  glorious  i)rci)aratory  sonnet  to 
Tlie  Faerie  Qiieene  would  sufficiently  justify  the  ascription  of 
"u  vein  most  lofty,  insolent,  and  i)assionate,"  if  a  very  con- 
siderable body  of  verse  (independent  of  the  fragmentary  Cynthia) 


126  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

did    not    justify  this    many  times  over,   as  two  brief  quotations 
in  addition  to  the  sonnet  will  show  : — 

"  Methought  I  saw  the  grave  where  Laura  lay, 

Within  that  temple  where  the  vestal  flame 
Was  wont  to  burn  :  and,  passing  by  that  way 

To  see  that  buried  dust  of  living  fame, 
Whose  tomb  fair  Love  and  fairer  Virtue  kept, 

All  suddenly  I  saw  the  Fairy  Queen, 
At  whose  approach  the  soul  of  Petrarch  wept ; 

And  from  henceforth  those  graces  were  not  seen, 
For  they  this  Queen  attended  ;  in  whose  stead 

Oblivion  laid  him  down  on  Laura's  hearse. 
Hercat  the  hardest  stones  were  seen  to  bleed. 

And  groans  of  buried  ghosts  the  heavens  did  pierce : 
Where  Homer's  spright  did  tremble  all  for  grief, 
And  curse  the  access  of  that  celestial  thief." 


"  Three  things  there  be  that  prosper  all  apace, 
And  flourish  while  they  are  asunder  far  ; 
But  on  a  day  they  meet  all  in  a  place. 

And  when  they  meet  they  one  another  mar. 

"  And  they  be  these — the  Wood,  the  Weed,  the  Wag : 
The  Wood  is  that  that  makes  the  gallows  tree ; 
The  Weed  is  that  that  strings  the  hangman's  bag  ; 
The  Wag,  my  pretty  knave,  betokens  thee. 

"  Now  mark,  dear  boy — while  these  assemble  not, 

Green  springs  the  tree,  hemp  grows,  the  Wag  is  wild  ; 
But  when  they  meet,  it  makes  the  timber  rot, 
It  frets  the  halter,  and  it  chokes  the  child. 

"  God  Bless  the  Child  !  " 


"  Give  me  my  scallop-shell  of  quiet, 
My  staff"  of  faith  to  walk  upon, 

My  scrip  of  joy,  immortal  diet, 
My  bottle  of  salvation, 

My  gown  of  glory,  hope's  true  gage  ; 

And  thus  I'll  take  my  pilgrimage. 

"  Blood  must  be  my  body's  balmer  ; 
No  other  balm  will  there  be  given  ; 


IV  LORD  OXFORD  127 

Wliilst  my  soul,  like  quiet  palmer, 

Travelleth  towards  the  land  of  heaven  ; 
,  Over  the  silver  mountains 
Where  spring  the  nectar  fountains  : 

There  will  I  kiss 

The  bowl  of  bliss  ; 
And  drink  mine  everlasting  fill 
Upon  every  milken  hill. 
My  soul  will  be  a-dry  before, 
But  after  it  will  thirst  no  more." 

There  is  Lord  Oxford,  Sidney's  enemy  (which  he  might  be  if 
he  chose),  and  apparently  a  coxcomb  (which  is  less  pardonable), 
but  a  charming  writer  of  verse,  as  in  the  following  : — 

"  Come  hither,  shepherd  swain  ! 
Sir,  what  do  you  require? 
I  pray  thee,  shew  to  me  thy  name  ! 
My  name  is  Fond  Desire. 

"  When  wert  thou  born.  Desire? 
In  pomp  and  prime  of  May. 
By  whom,  sweet  boy,  wert  thou  begot  ? 
By  fond  Conceit,  men  say. 

"  Tell  me,  who  was  thy  nurse 
Fresh  youth,  in  sugared  joy. 
What  was  thy  meat  and  daily  food  ? 
Sad  sighs,  with  great  annoy. 

"  What  hadst  thou  then  to  drink  ? 
Unfeigned  lovers'  tears. 
What  cradle  wert  thou  rocked  in? 
In  hope  devoid  of  fears. 

"  What  lulled  thee  then  asleep? 

Sweet  speech  which  likes  nic  l)cst. 
Tell  me,  where  is  thy  dwelling-place  ? 
In  gentle  hearts  I  rest. 

"  What  thing  doth  please  thee  most  ? 
To  gaze  on  beauty  still. 
Whom  dost  thou  tliink  to  be  thy  foe? 
Disdain  of  my  good  will. 


128  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

"  Doth  company  displease? 
Yes,  surely,  many  one. 
Where  doth  desire  delight  to  live  ? 
He  loves  to  live  alone. 

"  Doth  either  time  or  age 
Bring  him  unto  decay  ? 
No,  no  !  Desire  both  lives  and  dies 
A  thousand  times  a  day. 

"  Then,  fond  Desire,  farewell ! 
Thou  art  no  mate  for  me  ; 
I  should  be  loath,  methinks,  to  dwell 
With  such  a  one  as  thee. 


There  is,  in  the  less  exalted  way,  the  industrious  man  of  all  work, 
Nicholas  Breton,  whom  we  shall  speak  of  more  at  length 
among  the  pamphleteers,  and  John  Davies  of  Hereford,  no 
poet  certainly,  but  a  most  industrious  verse -writer  in  satiric 
and  other  forms.  Mass  of  production,  and  in  some  cases 
personal  interest,  gives  these  a  certain  standing  above  their 
fellows.  But  the  crowd  of  those  fellows,  about  many  of  whom 
even  the  painful  industry  of  the  modern  commentator  has  been 
able  to  tell  us  next  to  nothing,  is  almost  miraculous  when  we 
remember  that  printing  was  still  carried  on  under  a  rigid  cen- 
sorship by  a  select  body  of  monopolists,  and  that  out  of 
London,  and  in  rare  cases  the  university  towns,  it  was  impos- 
sible for  a  minor  poet  to  get  into  print  at  all  unless  he  trusted 
to  the  contraband  presses  of  the  Continent.  In  dealing  with 
this  crowd  of  enthusiastic  poetical  students  it  is  impossible  to 
mention  all,  and  invidious  to  single  out  some  only.  The  very 
early  and  interesting  Posy  of  Gillyflowers  of  Humphrey  Gifford 
(1580)  exhibits  the  first  stage  of  our  period,  and  might  almost 
have  been  referred  to  the  period  before  it ;  the  same  humpty- 
dumpty  measure  of  eights  and  sixes,  and  the  same  vestiges 
of  rather  infantine  alliteration  being  apparent  in  it,  though  some- 
thing of  the  fire  and  variety  of  the  new  age  of  poetry  appears 
beside  them,  notably  in  this  most  spirited  war-song : — 


IV  GIFFORD  129 

( For  Soldiers. ) 
"  Ye  buds  of  Brutus'  land,  courageous  youths  now  play  your  parts,i 
Unto  your  tackle  stand,  abide  the  brunt  with  valiant  hearts, 
For  news  is  carried  to  and  fro,  that  we  must  forth  to  warfare  go  : 
Then  muster  now  in  every  place,  and  soldiers  are  pressed  forth  apace. 
Faint  not,  spend  blood  to  do  your  Queen  and  country  good  : 
Fair  words,  good  pay,  will  make  men  cast  all  care  away. 

''  The  lime  of  war  is  come,  prepare  your  corslet,  spear,  and  shield  : 
Mcthinks  I  hear  the  drum  strike  doleful  marches  to  the  field. 
Tantara,   tantara   the  trumpets  sound,  which   makes   our   hearts  with  joy 

abound. 
The  roaring  guns  are  heard  afar,  and  everything  announcelh  war. 
Serve  God,  stand  stout ;  bold  courage  brings  this  gear  about  ; 
Fear  not,  forth  run  :  faint  heart  fair  lady  never  won, 

"  Ve  curious  carpet-knights  that  spend  the  time  in  sport  and  play. 
Abroad  and  see  new  sights,  your  country's  cause  calls  you  away  : 
Do  not,  to  make  your  ladies'  game,  bring  blemish  to  your  worthy  name. 
Away  to  field  and  win  renown,  with  courage  beat  your  enemies  down  ; 
Stout  hearts  gain  praise,  when  dastards  sail  in  slander's  seas. 
I  lap  what  hap  shall,  we  soon  shall  die  but  once  for  all. 

"  Alarm  !  methinks  they  cry.     Be  packing  mates,  begone  with  speed, 
Our  foes  are  very  nigh  :  shame  have  that  man  that  shrinks  at  need. 
Unto  it  boldly  let  us  stand,  God  will  give  right  the  upper  hand. 
Our  cause  is  good  we  need  not  doubt :  in  sign  of  courage  give  a  shout ; 
March  forth,  be  strong,  good  hap  will  come  ere  it  be  long. 
Shrink  not,  fight  well,  for  lusty  lads  must  bear  the  bell. 

"  All  you  that  will  shun  evil  must  dwell  in  warfare  every  day. 
The  world,  the  flesh,  the  devil  always  do  seek  our  souls'  decay. 
Strive  with  these  foes  with  all  your  might,  so  shall  you  fight  a  worthy  fight. 
That  conquest  dost  deserve  most  praise,  whose  vice  do[th]  yield  to  virtue's 

ways. 
Beat  down  foul  sin,  a  worthy  crown  then  shall  yc  win  : 
If  yc  live  well,  in  Heaven  with  Christ  our  souls  shall  dwell." 

Of  the  same  date,  or  indeed  earlier,  are  tlic  miscellaneous 
poems  of  Thomas   Howell,   entitled    The  Arbour  of  Ai/iify,  and 

'  I  print  thi.s  as  in  the  original,  but  iierhaps  tlic  rhythm,  wliicli  is  an  odd 
one,  would  be  better  marked  if  lines  I  and  2  were  divided  into  sixes  and 
eights,  lines  3  and  4  into  eights,  and  lines  5  and  G  into  fours  and  eights  as  tlie 
rhyme  ends. 

n  K 


I30  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP         chap. 

chiefly  of  an  ethical  character.  Less  excusable  for  the  uncouth- 
ness  of  his  verse  is  Matthew  Grove,  who,  writing,  or  at  least  pub- 
lishing, his  poems  in  15S7,  should  have  learnt  something,  but 
apparently  had  not.  It  has  to  be  said  in  excuse  of  him  that 
his  date  and  indeed  existence  are  shadowy,  even  among  the 
shadowy  Elizabethan  bards ;  his  editor,  in  worse  doggerel  than 
his  own,  frankly  confessing  that  he  knew  nothing  about  him, 
not  so  much  as  whether  he  was  alive  or  dead.  But  his  work, 
Howell's,  and  even  part  of  Gifford's,  is  chiefly  interesting  as 
giving  us  in  the  very  sharpest  contrast  the  differences  of  the 
poetry  before  and  after  the  melodious  bursts  of  which  Spenser, 
Sidney,  and  Watson  were  the  first  mouthpieces.  Except  an 
utter  dunce  (which  Grove  does  not  seem  to  have  been  by  any 
means)  no  one  who  had  before  him  The  Shepherd's  Calendar, 
or  the  Hecatompathia,  or  a  MS.  copy  of  Astrophel  and  Stella, 
could  have  written  as  Grove  wrote.  There  are  echoes  of  this 
earlier  and  woodener  matter  to  be  found  later,  but,  as  a  whole,  the 
passionate  love  of  beauty,  the  sense — if  only  a  groping  sense — 
of  form,  and  the  desire  to  follow,  and  if  possible  improve  upon 
the  models  of  melodious  verse  which  the  Sidneian  school  had 
given,  preserved  even  poetasters  from  the  lowest  depths. 

To  classify  the  miscellaneous  verse  of  15  90- 1600  (for  the 
second  decade  is  much  richer  than  the  first)  under  subjects 
and  styles  is  a  laborious  and,  at  best,  an  uncertain  business. 
The  semi-mythological  love-poem,  with  a  more  or  less  tragic 
ending,  had  not  a  few  followers ;  the  collection  of  poems  of 
various  character  in  praise  of  a  real  or  imaginary  mistress, 
similar  in  design  to  the  sonnet  collections,  but  either  more 
miscellaneous  in  form  or  less  strung  together  in  one  long  com- 
position, had  even  more ;  while  the  collection  pure  and  simple, 
resembling  the  miscellanies  in  absence  of  special  character,  but 
the  work  of  one,  not  of  many  writers,  was  also  })lentiful]y  re- 
presented. Satirical  allegory,  epigram,  and  other  kinds,  had 
numerous  examples.  But  there  were  two  classes  of  verse  which 
were  both  sufficiently  interesting  in   themselves   and  were  culti- 


IV  HISTORICAL  AND  SATIRIC  POETRY  131 

vated  by  persons  of  sufficient  individual  repute  to  deserve  sepa- 
rate and  detailed  mention.  These  were  the  historical  poem  or 
history — a  kind  of  companion  production  to  the  chronicle  play 
or  chronicle,  and  a  very  popular  one — which,  besides  the  names 
of  Warner,  Daniel,  and  Drayton,  counted  not  a  few  minor  ad- 
herents among  Elizabethan  bards.  Such  were  the  already-men- 
tioned Giles  Fletcher;  such  Fitz-Geoffrey  in  a  remarkable  poem 
on  Drake,  and  Gervase  Markham  in  a  not  less  noteworthy 
piece  on  the  last  fight  of  The  Rri'cnge ;  such  numerous  others, 
some  of  whom  are  hardly  remembered,  and  perhaps  hardly  de- 
serve to  be.  The  other,  and  as  a  class  the  more  interesting, 
though  nothing  actually  produced  by  its  practitioners  may  be 
quite  equal  to  the  best  work  of  Drayton  and  Daniel,  was  the 
l^eginning  of  English  satire.  This  beginning  is  interesting  not 
merely  because  of  the  apparent  coincidence  of  instinct  which  made 
four  or  five  writers  of  great  talent  simultaneously  hit  on  llie 
style,  so  that  it  is  to  this  day  difficult  to  award  exactly  the 
jKiIm  of  priority,  but  also  because  the  result  of  their  studies,  in 
some  peculiar  and  at  first  sight  rather  inexplicable  ways,  is  some 
of  the  most  characteristic,  if  very  far  from  being  some  of  the 
best,  work  of  the  whole  poetical  period  with  which  we  are  now 
busied.  In  passing,  moreover,  from  the  group  of  miscellaneous 
poets  to  these  two  schools,  if  we  lose  not  a  little  of  the  har- 
mony and  lyrical  sweetness  which  characterise  the  best  work 
of  the  Elizabethan  singer  proper,  we  gain  greatly  in  bulk  and 
dignity  of  work  and  in  intrinsic  value.  Of  at  least  one  of  the 
poets  mentioned  in  the  last  paragraph  his  modern  editor — a 
most  enthusiastic  and  tolerant  godfather  of  waifs  and  strays  of 
literature  —  confesses  that  he  really  does  not  quite  know  why 
he  should  be  reprinted,  except  that  the  original  is  unique,  and 
that  almost  every  scrap  of  literature  in  this  period  is  of  some 
value,  if  only  for  lexicographic  purposes.  No  one  would  dream 
of  speaking  thus  of  I)rayton  or  of  Daniel,  of  I.cjdge,  Hall, 
Donne,  or  Mansion;  while  even  AVarner,  the  weakest  <>f  llie 
names  to  which  wc  shall  jiroceed  to  give  separate  notice,  (an  be 


132  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE "  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

praised  without  too  much  allowance.  In  the  latter  case,  more- 
over, if  not  in  the  first  (for  the  history-poem,  until  it  was  taken  up 
in  a  very  different  spirit  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  never 
was  a  success  in  England),  the  matter  now  to  be  reviewed,  after 
being  in  its  own  kind  neglected  for  a  couple  of  generations, 
served  as  forerunner,  if  not  exactly  as  model,  to  the  magnificent 
satiric  work  of  Dryden,  and  through  his  to  that  of  Pope,  Young, 
Churchill,  Cowper,  and  the  rest  of  the  more  accomplished  English 
satirists.      The  acorn  of  such  an  oak  cannot  be  without  interest. 

The  example  of  The  Mirror  for  Magist7-ates  is  perhaps 
sufficient  to  account  for  the  determination  of  a  certain  number 
of  Ehzabethan  poets  towards  English  history ;  especially  if  we 
add  the  stimulating  effect  of  Holinshed's  Chronicle,  which  was 
published  in  1580.  The  first  of  the  so-called  historians,  William 
Warner,  belongs  in  point  of  poetical  style  to  the  pre-Spenserian 
period,  and  like  its  other  exponents  employs  the  fourteener ; 
while,  unlike  some  of  them,  he  seems  quite  free  from  any  Italian 
influence  in  phraseology  or  poetical  manner.  Nevertheless 
Albion^ s  England  is,  not  merely  in  bulk  but  in  merit,  far  ahead  of 
the  average  work  of  our  first  period,  and  quite  incommensurable 
with  such  verse  as  that  of  Grove.  It  appeared  by  instalments 
(1586-1606-16 1 2).  Of  its  author,  William  Warner,  the  old  phrase 
has  to  be  repeated,  that  next  to  nothing  is  known  of  him.  He 
was  an  Oxfordshire  man  by  birth,  and  an  Oxford  man  by  education ; 
he  had  something  to  do  with  Gary,  Lord  Hunsdon,  became  an 
Attorney  of  the  Gommon  Pleas,  and  died  at  Amwell  suddenly  in 
his  bed  in  1609,  being,  as  it  is  guessed  rather  than  known,  fifty 
years  old  or  thereabouts.  Albion's  England  was  seized  as  contra- 
band, by  orders  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury — a  proceeding 
for  which  no  one  has  been  able  to  account  (the  suggestion  that 
parts  of  it  are  indelicate  is,  considering  the  manners  of  the  time, 
quite  ludicrous),  and  which  may  perhaps  have  been  due  to  some 
technical  informality.  It  is  thought  that  he  is  the  author  of  a 
translation  of  Plautus's  iT/^«^r//w/;  he  certainly  produced  in  1585? 
a  prose  story,  or  rather  collection  of  stories,  entitled  Synnx,  which, 


IV  WARNER 


however,  is  scarcely  worth  reading.  Alhions  Eni;/and  is  in  no 
danger  of  incurring  that  sentence.  In  the  most  easily  accessible 
edition,  that  of  Chalmers's  "  Poets,"  it  is  spoilt  by  having  the 
fourteeners  divided  into  eights  and  sixes,  and  it  should  if  possible 
be  read  in  the  original  arrangement.  Considering  how  few 
persons  have  written  about  it,  an  odd  collection  of  critical  slips 
might  be  made.  Philips,  Milton's  nephew,  in  this  case  it  may  be 
hoped,  not  relying  on  his  uncle,  calls  Warner  a  "good  plain 
writer  of  moral  rules  and  precepts  " :  the  fact  being  that  though  he 
sometimes  moralises  he  is  in  the  main  a  story-teller,  and  much  more 
bent  on  narrative  than  on  teaching.  Meres  calls  him  "  a  refiner  of 
the  English  tongue,"  and  attributes  to  him  "  rare  ornaments  and 
resplendent  habiliments  of  the  pen":  the  truth  being  that  he  is 
(as  Philips  so  far  correctly  says)  a  singularly  plain,  straightforward, 
and  homely  writer.  Others  say  that  he  wrote  in  "  Alexandrines" 
— a  blunder,  and  a  serious  one,  which  has  often  been  repeated  up 
to  the  present  day  in  reference  to  other  writers  of  the  seven-foot 
verse.  He  brings  in,  according  to  the  taste  and  knowledge  of  his 
time,  all  the  fabulous  accounts  of  the  origins  of  Britain,  and 
diversifies  them  with  many  romantic  and  pastoral  histories, 
classical  tales,  and  sometimes  mere  Fabliaux,  down  to  his  own 
time.  The  chief  of  the  episodes,  the  story  of  Argentile  and 
Curan,  has  often,  and  not  undeservedly,  met  with  higli  praise,  and 
sometimes  in  his  declamatory  parts  Warner  achieves  a  really 
great  success.  Probably,  however,  what  commended  his  poem 
most  to  the  taste  of  the  day  was  its  promiscuous  admixture  of 
things  grave  and  gay — a  mixture  which  was  always  much  to  the 
taste  of  Elizabeth's  men,  and  the  popularity  of  which  produced 
and  fostered  many  things,  from  the  matchless  tragi -comedy  of 
Jlamld  and  Maclwth  to  the  singularly  formless  pamphlets  of 
which  we  shall  speak  hereafter.  The  main  interest  of  Warner  is 
his  insensibility  to  the  new  infiuences  which  Spenser  and  Sidney 
directed,  and  which  arc  found  producing  their  full  effect  on 
Daniel  and  Drayton.  There  were  those  in  his  own  day  who 
comiared  him  to  Homer  :   one  of  the  most  remarkable  instances 


134  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

of  thoroughly  unlucky  critical  extravagance  to  be  found  in  literary 
history,  as  the  following  very  fair  average  specimen  will  show : — 

"Henry  (as  if  by  miracle  preserved  by  foreigns  long, 
From  hence-meant  treasons)  did  arrive  to  right  his  natives'  wrong  : 
And  chiefly  to  Lord  Stanley,  and  some  other  succours,  as 
Did  wish  and  work  for  better  days,  the  rival  welcome  was. 
Now  Richard  heard  that  Richmond  was  assisted  and  ashore. 
And  like  unkennel'd  Cerberus,  the  crooked  tyrant  swore, 
And  all  complexions  act  at  once  confusedly  in  him  : 
He  studieth,  striketh,  threats,  entreats,  and  looketh  mildly  grim. 
Mistrustfully  he  trusteth,  and  he  dreadingly  did  dare, 
And  forty  passions  in  a  trice,  in  him  consort  and  square. 
But  when,  by  his  consented  force,  his  foes  increased  more, 
He  hastened  battle,  finding  his  co-rival  apt  therefore. 
When  Richmond,  orderly  in  all,  had  battled  his  aid, 
Inringed  by  his  complices,  their  cheerful  leader  said  : 
'  Now  is  the  time  and  place  (sweet  friends)  and  we  the  persons  be 
That  must  give  England  breath,  or  else  unbreathe  for  her  must  we. 
No  tyranny  is  fabled,  and  no  tyrant  was  in  deed 

Worse  than  our  foe,  whose  works  will  act  my  words,  if  well  he  speed  : 
For  ill  to  ills  superlative  are  easily  enticed, 
But  entertains  amendment  as  the  Gergesites  did  Christ. 
Be  valiant  then,  he  biddethso  that  would  not  be  outbid, 
For  courage  yet  shall  honour  him  though  base,  that  better  did. 
I  am  right  heir  Lancastrian,  he,  in  York's  destroyed  right 
Usurpeth  :  but  through  either  ours,  for  neither  claim  I  fight, 
But  for  our  countiy's  long-lack'd  weal,  for  England's  peace  I  war  : 
Wherein  He  speed  us  !  unto  W'hom  I  all  events  refer.' 
Meanwhile  had  furious  Richard  set  his  armies  in  array, 
And  then,  with  looks  even  like  himself,  this  or  the  like  did  say  : 
'  Why,  lads,  shall  yonder  Welshman  with  his  stragglers  overmatch  7 
Disdain  ye  not  such  rivals,  and  defer  ye  their  dispatch  ? 
Shall  Tudor  from  Plantagenet,  the  crown  by  cracking  snatch  ? 
Know  Richard's  veiy  thoughts '  (he  touch'd  the  diadem  he  wore) 
'  Be  metal  of  this  metal  :  then  believe  I  love  it  more 
Than  that  for  other  law  than  life,  to  supersede  my  claim, 
And  lesser  must  not  be  his  plea  that  counterpleads  the  same.' 
The  weapons  overtook  his  words,  and  blows  they  bravely  change, 
When,  like  a  lion  thirsting  blood,  did  moody  Richard  range. 
And  made  large  slaughters  where  he  went,  till  Richmond  he  espied, 
Whom  singling,  after  doubtful  swords,  the  valorous  tyrant  died." 


IV  DANIEL  13:5 

Of  the  sonnet  comix)sitions  of  Daniel  and  Drayton  something 
has  been  said  already.     But  Daniel's  sonnets  are  a  small   and 
Drayton's   an   infinitesimal   part   of  the  work   of  the   two   poets 
respectively.     Samuel    Daniel   was    a    Somersetshire    man,    born 
near  Taunton  in  1562.      He  is  said  to  have  been  the  son  of  a 
music  master,  but  was  educated  at  Oxford,  made  powerful  friends, 
and  died  an  independent  person  at  Beckington,  in  the  county  of 
his  birth,  in  the  year   1619.      He  was  introduced  early  to  good 
society  and  patronage,  became  tutor  to  Lady  Anne  Clifford,   a 
great  heiress  of  the  North,  was  favoured  by  the  Earl  of  South- 
ampton, and   became   a   member  of  the  Pembroke   or  Arcadia 
coterie.      His  friends  or  his  merits  obtained  for  him,  it  is  said, 
the    Mastership  of  the    Revels,   the  posts  of  Gentleman   Extra- 
ordinary to  James  I.,  and  Groom  of  the  Privy  Chamber  to  Anne 
of  Denmark.      His   literary  production   besides  Delia  was   con- 
siderable.     With  the    first   authorised  edition  of  that  collection 
he  published  The   Complaint  of  Rosamofid,  a  historical  poem  of 
great  grace  and  elegance  though  a  little  wanting  in  strength.      In 
1594  came  his  interesting  Senecan  tragedy  of  Cleopatra  ;  in  1595 
the  first  part  of  his  chief  work.  The  History  of  the   Civil  Wars, 
and  in  1601  a  collected  folio  of  "Works."     Then  he  rested,  at 
any  rate  from  publication,  till  1605,  when  he  produced  Fhilotas, 
anotlier  Senecan  tragedy  in  verse.     In  prose  he  wrote  the  admirable 
Defence  of Rhyme,\\\\\c\i  finally  smashed  the  fancy  for  classical  metres 
dear  even   to  such  a    man   as   Campion.      Hyjneti's  Triumph,  a 
masque  of  great  beauty,  was  not  printed  till  four  years  before  his 
death.      He  also  wrote  a  History  of  England  as  well  as  minor 
works.     The  poetical  value  of  Daniel  may  almost  be  summed  up 
in  two  words — sweetness  and  dignity.      He  is  decidedly  wanting 
in  strength,  and,  despite  Delia,  can  hardly  be  said  Ui  have  had  a 
spark  of  passion.      Even  in  his  own  day  it  was  doubted  whether 
he   had  not   overweighted  himself  with  his  choice  of  historical 
subjects,  though  the  epithet  of  "  well-languaged,"  given  to  him  at 
the  time,  evinces  a  real  comiirehension  of  one  of  his  best  claims 
to  attention.     No  writer  of  the  period  has  such  a  commanrl  of  pure 


r36  "  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE "  AND  ITS  GROUP         chaP. 

English,  unadulterated  by  xenomania  and  unweakened  by  purism, 
as  Daniel.  Whatever  unfavourable  things  have  been  said  of  him 
from  time  to  time  have  been  chiefly  based  on  the  fact  that  his 
chaste  and  correct  style  lacks  the  fiery  quaintness,  the  irregular 
and  audacious  attraction  of  his  contemporaries.  Nor  was  he  less 
a  master  of  versification  than  of  vocabulary.  His  Defence  of 
Rhytne  shows  that  he  possessed  the  theory  :  all  his  poetical  works 
show  that  he  was  a  master  of  the  practice.  He  rarely  attempted  and 
probably  would  not  have  excelled  in  the  lighter  lyrical  measures. 
But  in  the  grave  music  of  the  various  elaborate  stanzas  in  which 
the  Elizabethan  poets  delighted,  and  of  which  the  Spenserian, 
though  the  crown  and  flower,  is  only  the  most  perfect,  he  was  a 
great  proficient,  and  his  couplets  and  blank  verse  are  not  inferior. 
Some  of  his  single  lines  have  already  been  quoted^  and  many 
more  might  be  excerpted  from  his  work  of  the  best  Elizabethan 
brand  in  the  quieter  kind.  Quiet,  indeed,  is  the  overmastering 
characteristic  of  Daniel.  It  was  this  no  doubt  which  made  him 
prefer  the  stately  style  of  his  Senecan  tragedies,  and  the  hardly 
more  disturbed  structure  of  pastoral  comedies  and  tragi-comedies, 
like  the  Queen!s  Arcadia  and  Hymen's  Triumph,  to  the  boisterous 
revels  of  the  stage  proper  in  his  time.  He  had  something  of  the 
schoolmaster  in  his  nature  as  well  as  in  his  history.  Nothing  is 
more  agreeable  to  him  than  to  moralise ;  not  indeed  in  any  dull 
or  crabbed  manner,  but  in  a  mellifluous  and  at  the  same  time 
weighty  fashion,  of  which  very  few  other  poets  have  the  secret. 
It  is  perhaps  by  his  scrupulous  propriety,  by  his  anxious  decency 
(to  use  the  word  not  in  its  modern  and  restricted  sense,  but  in  its 
proper  meaning  of  the  generally  becoming),  that  Daniel  brought 
upon  himself  the  rather  hard  saying  that  he  had  a  manner  "  better 
suiting  prose." 

The  sentence  will  scarcely  be  echoed  by  any  one  who  has 
his  best  things  before  him,  however  much  a  reader  of  some 
of  the  duller  parts  of  the  historical  poems  proper  may  feel 
inclined  to  echo  it.  Of  his  sonnets  one  has  been  given.  The 
splendid  Epistle  to  the  Countess  of  Cumberland  is  not  surpassed 


IV  DANIEL  t37 

as  ethical  poetn'  by  anything  of  the  period,  and  often  as  it  has 
been  quoted,  it  must  be  given  again,  for  it  is  not  and  never  can 
be  too  well  known  : — - 

"  He  that  of  such  a  height  hath  buih  liis  niirnl, 
And  reared  the  dwelling  of  his  thoughts  so  strong, 
As  neither  fear  nor  hope  can  shake  the  frame 
Of  his  resolved  powers  ;  nor  all  the  wind 
Of  vanity  or  malice  pierce  to  wrong 
His  settled  peace,  or  to  disturb  the  same  : 
What  a  fair  seat  hath  he,  from  whence  lie  may 
The  boundless  wastes  and  wealds  of  man  survey  ! 

"  And  with  how  free  an  eye  doth  he  look  down 
Upon  these  lower  regions  of  turmoil  ! 
Where  all  the  storms  of  passion  mainly  beat 
On  flesh  and  blood  :  where  honour,  power,  renown, 
Are  only  gay  afflictions,  golden  toil ; 
Where  greatness  stands  upon  as  feeble  feet 
As  frailty  doth  ;  and  only  great  doth  seem 
To  little  minds,  who  do  it  so  esteem. 

"  He  looks  upon  the  mightiest  monarch's  wars 
But  only  as  on  stately  robberies  ; 
Where  evermore  the  fortune  that  prevails 
Must  be  the  right :  the  ill-succeeding  mars 
The  fairest  and  the  1)est  fac'd  enterprise. 
Great  pirate  Pompey  lesser  pirates  quails  : 
Justice,  he  sees  (as  if  seduced)  still 
Conspires  with  power,  whose  cause  must  not  be  ill. 

"He  sees  the  face  of  right  t' appear  as  nianifold 
As  are  the  passions  of  uncertain  man  ; 
Who  puts  it  in  all  colours,  all  attires. 
To  serve  his  ends,  and  make  his  courses  hold. 
He  sees,  that  let  deceit  work  what  it  can, 
riot  and  contrive  base  ways  t(j  high  desires, 
That  the  all-guiding  Providence  doth  yet 
All  disappoint,  and  mocks  the  smoke  of  wit. 

"  Nor  is  he  njov'd  with  all  the  thunder  cracks 
Of  tyrants'  threats,  or  with  the  surly  brow 
Of  Power,  that  proudly  sits  on  others'  crimes  ; 
Charg'd  with  more  crying  sins  than  those  he  checks. 


138  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP         chaP. 


The  storms  of  sad  confusion,  that  may  grow 
Up  in  the  present  for  the  coming  times 
Appal  not  him  ;  that  hath  no  side  at  all, 
But  of  himself,  and  knows  the  worst  can  fall. 

"  Although  his  heart  (so  near  allied  to  Earth) 
Cannot  but  pity  the  perplexed  state 
Of  troublous  and  distress'd  Mortality, 
That  thus  make  way  unto  the  ugly  birth 
Of  their  own  sorrows,  and  do  still  beget 
Affliction  upon  imbecility  : 
Yet  seeing  thus  the  course  of  things  must  run, 
He  looks  thereon  not  strange,  but  as  fore-done. 

"  And  whilst  distraught  ambition  compasses, 
And  is  encompass'd  ;  whilst  as  craft  deceives. 
And  is  deceiv'd  :  whilst  man  doth  ransack  man 
And  builds  on  blood,  and  rises  by  distress  ; 
And  th'  inheritance  of  desolation  leaves 
To  great-expecting  hopes  :  he  looks  thereon, 
As  from  the  shore  of  peace,  with  unwet  eye, 
And  bears  no  venture  in  impiety." 

In  sharp  contrast  with  this  the  passage  from  Hymen's  Triumph, 

"Ah,  I  remember  well,  and  how  can  I," 

shows  the  sweetness  without  namby-pambyness  which  Daniel  had 
at  constant  command.  Something  of  the  same  contrast  may  be 
found  between  the  whole  of  Hymoi's  Triumph  and  the  Queen's 
Arcadia  on  the  one  side,  and  Cleopatra  and  Philotas  on  the 
other.  All  are  written  in  mixed  blank  and  rhymed  verse, 
much  interlaced  and  "  enjambed."  The  best  of  the  historical 
poems  is,  by  common  consent,  Rosamond,  which  is  instinct  with 
a  most  remarkable  pathos,  nor  are  fine  passages  by  any  means  to 
seek  in  the  greater  length  and  less  poetical  subject  of  The  Civil 
Wars  of  York  and  Lancaster.  The  fault  of  this  is  that  the  too 
conscientious  historian  is  constantly  versifying  wliat  must  be 
called  mere  expletive  matter.  This  must  always  make  any  one 
who  speaks  wuth  critical  impartiality  admit  that  much  of  Daniel 
is  hard  reading ;  but  the  soft  places  (to  use  the  adjective  in  no 


IV  DRAVTOX  139 

ill  sense)  are  frequent  enough,  and  when  the  reader  comes  to 
them  he  must  have  little  appreciation  of  poetry  if  he  does 
not  rejoice  in  the  foliage  and  the  streams  of  the  poetical  oasis 
which  has  rewarded  him  after  his  pilgrimage  across  a  rather  arid 
wilderness. 

Michael  Drayton  was  much  better  fitted  for  the  arduous,  and 
perhaps  not  wholly  legitimate,  business  of  historical  poetry  than 
Daniel  If  his  genius  was  somewhat  less  fine,  it  was  infinitely 
better  thewed  and  sinewed.  His  ability,  indeed,  to  force  any 
subject  which  he  chose  to  treat  into  poetry  is  amazing,  and  can 
hardly  be  paralleled  elsewhere  except  in  a  poet  who  was  born 
but  just  before  Drayton's  death,  John  Pryden.  He  was  pretty 
certainly  a  gentleman  by  birth,  though  not  of  any  great  pos- 
sessions, and  is  said  to  have  been  born  at  Hartshill,  in  Warwick- 
shire, in  the  year  1563.  He  is  also  said,  but  not  known,  to 
have  been  a  member  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  appears  to 
have  been  fairly  provided  with  patrons,  in  the  family  of  some  one 
of  whom  he  served  as  page,  though  he  never  received  any  great 
or  permanent  preferment.^  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  not  a 
successful  dramatist  (the  only  literary  employment  of  the  time 
that  brought  in  much  money),  and  friend  as  he  was  of  nearly  all 
the  men  of  letters  of  the  time,  it  is  expressly  stated  in  one  of  the 
(c\v  personal  notices  we  have  of  him,  that  he  could  not  "  swagger 
an  a  tavern  or  domineer  in  a  hothouse  "  [house  of  ill-fame] — that 
is  to  say,  that  the  hail-fellow  well-met  Bohemianism  of  the  time, 
which  had  led  Marlowe  and  many  of  his  group  to  evil  ends, 
and  which  was  continued  in  a  less  outrageous  form  under  the 
patronage  of  Ben  Jonson  till  far  into  the  next  age,  had  no  charms 
for  him.  Vet  he  must  have  lived  somehow  and  to  a  good  age, 
for  he  did  not  die  till  the  23d  December  1631.  He  was 
buried  in  Westminster  Abbey,  a  fact  which  drew  from  Goldsmith, 
in  T/te  Citizen  of  the  World,  a  gibe  showing  only  the  lamentable 
ignorance  of  the  best  period  of  English   poetry,  in   which  Gold- 

'    Draytim  lias  heen  tliorni^hly  treatcl  liy  rrofi-ssor  Oliver  l-.lton  in  Mhluirl 
Drayton  (London,  1905),  enlarged  fioni  a  nionoginiili  for  ihc  Spender  Socii-ty. 


HO  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

smith  was  not  indeed  alone,  but  in  which  he  was  perhaps  pre- 
eminent among  contemporaries  eminent  for  it. 

Drayton's  long  life  was  as  industrious  as  it  was  long.  He 
began  in  1 5  9 1  with  a  volume  of  sacred  verse,  the  Harmony  of 
the  Church,  which,  for  some  reason  not  merely  undiscovered  but 
unguessed,  displeased  the  censors,  and  was  never  reprinted  with 
his  other  works  until  recently.  Two  years  later  appeared  Idea, 
The  Shepherd's  Garland — a  collection  of  eclogues  not  to  be 
confounded  with  the  more  famous  collection  of  sonnets  in  praise 
of  the  same  real  or  fancied  mistress  which  appeared  later.  In 
the  first  of  these  Drayton  called  himself  "Rowland,"  or  "Ro- 
land," a  fact  on  which  some  rather  rickety  structures  of  guesswork 
have  been  built  as  to  allusions  to  him  in  Spenser.  His  next 
work  was  Mortimeriados,  afterwards  refashioned  and  completed 
under  the  title  of  The  Barons'  Wars,  and  this  was  followed  in 
1597  by  one  of  his  best  works,  England's  Heroical  Epistles. 
The  Owl,  some  Lege?tds,  and  other  poems  succeeded ;  and  in 
1605  he  began  to  collect  his  Works,  which  were  frequently 
reprinted.  The  mighty  poem  of  the  Polyolbion  was  the  fruit 
of  his  later  years,  and,  in  strictness,  belongs  to  the  period  of  a 
later  chapter ;  but  Drayton's  muse  is  eminently  one  and  indi- 
visible, and,  notwithstanding  the  fruits  of  pretty  continual  study 
which  his  verses  show,  they  belong,  in  the  order  of  thought, 
to  the  middle  and  later  Elizabethan  period  rather  than  to  the 
Jacobean. 

Few  poets  of  anything  like  Drayton's  volume  (of  which  some 
idea  may  be  formed  by  saying  that  his  works,  in  the  not  quite 
complete  form  in  which  they  appear  in  Chalmers,  fill  five  hundred 
of  the  bulky  pages  of  that  work,  each  page  frequently  containing 
a  hundred  and  twenty-eight  lines)  show  such  uniform  mixture  of 
imagination  and  vigour.  In  the  very  highest  and  rarest  graces  of 
poetry  he  is,  indeed,  by  common  consent  wanting,  unless  one 
of  these  graces  in  the  uncommon  kind  of  the  war-song  be  allowed, 
as  perhaps  it  may  be,  to  the  famous  and  inimitable  though  often 
imitated  Ballad  of  Agincourt,   "To   the   brave   Cambro-Britons 


IV  DRAYTON— THE  "  POLYOLBION  "  141 

and    their    Harp,"    not    to    be    confounded    with    the    narrative 

"Battle  of  Agincourt,"  which  is  of  a  less  rare  merit.      The  Agin- 

court  ballad, 

"  Fair  stood  the  wind  for  France," 

is  quite  at  the  head  of  its  own  class  of  verse  in  England — 
Campbells  two  masterpieces,  and  Lord  Tennyson's  still  more 
direct  imitation  in  the  "Six  Hundred,"  falling,  the  first  somewhat, 
and  the  last  considerably,  short  of  it.  The  sweep  of  the  metre, 
the  martial  glow  of  the  sentiment,  and  the  skill  with  which  the 
names  are  wrought  into  the  verse,  are  altogether  beyond  praise. 
Drayton  never,  unless  the  enigmatical  sonnet  to  Idea  (see  ante)  be 
really  his,  rose  to  such  concentration  of  matter  and  such  elaborate 
yet  unforced  perfection  of  manner  as  here,  yet  his  great  qualities 
are  perceptible  all  over  his  work.  The  enormous  Polyolhion, 
written  in  a  metre  the  least  suitable  to  continuous  verse  of  any  in 
English — the  Alexandrine — Ciammed  with  matter  rebel  to  poetry, 
and  obliging  the  author  to  find  his  chief  poetical  attraction  rather 
in  superadded  ornament,  in  elaborately  patched -on  passages, 
than  in  tlie  actual  and  natural  evolution  of  his  theme,  is  still  a 
very  great  work  in  another  than  the  mechanical  sense.  Here 
is  a  fairly  representative  passage  : — 

"The  haughty  Cambrian  hills  enamoured  of  their  praise, 
(As  they  who  only  sought  ambitiously  to  raise 
The  blood  of  God-like  Brute)  their  heads  do  proudly  bear  : 
And  having  crown'd  themselves  sole  regents  of  the  air 
(Another  war  with  Heaven  as  though  they  meant  to  make) 
Did  seem  in  great  disdain  the  bold  affront  to  take, 
That  any  petty  hill  upon  the  English  side, 
Should  dare,  not  (with  a  crouch)  to  veil  unto  their  j)ride. 
When  Wrekin,  as  a  hill  his  proper  worth  that  knew, 
And  understood  from  whence  their  insolency  grow, 
For  all  that  they  appear'd  so  terrible  in  sight, 
Yet  would  not  once  forego  a  jot  that  was  his  riglit, 
And  when  they  star'd  on  him,  to  them  the  like  he  gave, 
And  answcr'd  glance  for  glance,  and  brave  for  brave  : 
That,  when  some  other  hills  which  l-'nglish  dwellers  were, 
The  lusty  Wrekin  saw  himself  so  well  to  bear 


142  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

Against  the  Cambrian  part,  respectless  of  their  power  ; 

His  eminent  disgrace  expecting  every  hour 

Tliose  flatterers  that  before  (with  many  cheerful  look) 

Had  grac'd  his  goodly  sight,  him  utterly  forsook, 

And  muffled  them  in  clouds,  like  mourners  veiled  in  black. 

Which  of  their  utmost  hope  attend  the  ruinous  wrack  : 

That  those  delicious  nymphs,  fair  Team  and  Rodon  clear 

(Two  brooks  of  him  belov'd,  and  two  that  held  him  dear  ; 

He,  having  none  but  them,  they  having  none  but  he 

Which  to  their  mutual  joy  might  cither's  object  be) 

Within  their  secret  breast  conceived  sundry  fears, 

And  as  they  mix'd  their  streams,  for  him  so  mix'd  their  tears. 

Vv'hom,  in  their  coming  down,  when  plainly  he  discerns, 

For  them  his  nobler  heart  in  his  strong  bosom  yearns  : 

But,  constantly  resolv'd,  that  dearer  if  they  were) 

The  Britons  should  not  yet  all  from  the  English  bear ; 

'Therefore,'  quoth  he,   'brave  flood,  tho'  forth  by  Cambria  brought, 

Yet  as  fair  England's  friend,  or  mine  thou  would'st  be  thought 

(O  Severn)  let  thine  ear  my  just  defence  partake.'  " 

Happy  phrases  abound,  and,  moreover,  every  now  and  then  there 
are  set  pieces,  as  they  may  be  called,  of  fanciful  description  which 
are  full  of  beauty ;  for  Drayton  (a  not  very  usual  thing  in  a  man 
of  such  unflagging  industry,  and  even  excellence  of  work)  was  full 
of  fancy.  The  fairy  poem  of  Nympliidia  is  one  of  the  most 
graceful  trifles  in  the  language,  possessing  a  dancing  movement 
and  a  felicitous  choice  of  imagery  and  language  which  triumphantly 
avoid  the  trivial  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  obviously  burlesque  on 
the  other.  The  singular  satirical  or  quasi-satirical  poems  of  The 
Mooncalf,  The  Owl,  and  The  Man  m  the  Moon,  show  a  faculty  of 
comic  treatment  less  graceful  indeed,  but  scarcely  inferior,  and 
the  lyrics  called  Odes  (of  which  the  Ballad  of  Agimourt  is  some- 
times classed  as  one)  exhibit  a  command  of  lyric  metre  hardly 
inferior  to  the  command  displayed  in  that  masterpiece.  In  fact,  if 
ever  there  was  a  poet  who  could  write,  and  write,  perhaps  beau- 
tifully, certainly  well,  about  any  conceivable  broomstick  in  almost 
any  conceivable  manner,  that  poet  was  Drayton.  His  historical 
poems,  which  are  inferior  in  bulk  only  to  the  huge  Polyolbion,  con- 
tain a  great  deal  of  most  admirable  work.     They  consist  of  three 


IV  DRAYTOX— MINOR  TOEMS  143 

divisions — The  Barons'  Wars  in  eight-lined  stanzas,  the  Heroic 
Epistles  (suggested,  of  course,  by  Ovid,  though  anything  but 
Ovidian)  in  heroic  couplets,  The  Miseries  of  Queen  Margaret  in 
the  same  stanza  as  The  Baj-ons'  Wars,  and  Four  Legends  in 
stanzas  of  various  form  and  range.  That  this  mass  of  work 
should  possess,  or  should,  indeed,  admit  of  the  charms  of  poetry 
which  distinguish  The  Faerie  Queene  would  be  impossible,  even  if 
Drayton  had  been  Spenser,  which  he  was  far  from  being.  But 
to  speak  of  his  "  dull  creeping  narrative,"  to  accuse  him  of  the 
"coarsest  vulgarities,"'  of  being  "flat  and  prosaic,"  and  so  on,  as 
was  done  by  eighteenth -century  critics,  is  absolutely  uncritical, 
unless  it  be  very  much  limited.  The  Barons^  Wars  is  somewhat 
dull,  the  author  being  too  careful  to  give  a  minute  history  of  a  not 
particularly  interesting  subject,  and  neglecting  to  take  the  only 
possible  means  of  making  it  interesting  by  bringing  out  strongly 
the  characters  of  heroes  and  heroines,  and  so  infusing  a  dramatic 
interest.  But  this  absence  of  character  is  a  constant  drawback  to 
the  historical  poems  of  the  time.  And  even  here  we  find  many 
passages  where  the  drawback  of  the  stanza  for  narrative  is  most 
skilfully  avoided,  and  where  the  vigour  of  the  single  lines  and 
phrases  is  unquestionable  on  any  sound  estimate. 

Still  the  stanza,  though  Drayton  himself  defends  it  (it  should 
be  mentioned  that  his  prose  prefaces  are  excellent,  and  constitute 
another  link  between  him  and  Dryden),  is  something  of  a  clog ; 
and  the  same  thing  is  felt  in  The  Miseries  of  Queen  Afargaret  and 
the  Legends,  where,  however,  it  is  again  not  difficult  to  pick  out 
beauties.  The  Lleroical Epistles  can  be  praised  with  less  allowance. 
Their  shorter  compass,  their  more  manageable  metre  (for  Drayton 
was  a  considerable  master  of  the  earlier  form  of  couplet),  and  the 
fact  that  a  personal  interest  is  infused  in  each,  give  them  a  great 
advantage ;  and,  as  always,  passages  of  great  merit  are  not 
infrequent.  Finally,  Drayton  must  have  the  i>raise  (surely  not  quite 
irrelevant)  of  a  most  ardent  and  lofty  spirit  of  patriotism.  Never 
was  there  a  better  Knglishman,  and  as  his  love  of  his  country 
spirited  him  up  to  the  briUiant  effort  of  the  Ballad  of  Agincourt, 


144  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

SO  it  sustained  him  through  the  "  strange  herculean  task  "  of  the 

Folyolbion,  and  often  put  Hght  and  Hfe  into  the  otherwise  hfeless 

mass  of  the  historic  poems.      Yet   I  have  myself  no  doubt  that 

these  historic  poems  were  a  mistake,  and  that  their  composition, 

though    prompted    by   a    most    creditable    motive,    the    burning 

attachment  to   England  which  won  the  fight  with  Spain,  and  laid 

the  foundation  of  the  English  empire,  was  not  altogether,  perhaps 

was  not  by  any  means,  according  to  knowledge. 

The  almost   invariable,  and  I  fear   it  must  be  said,  almost 

invariably  idle  controversy  about  priority  in  literary  styles  has  been 

stimulated,  in  the  case  of  English  satire,  by  a  boast  of  Joseph 

Hall's  made  in  his  own  Virgidemiarum — 

"  Follow  me  who  list, 
And  be  the  second  English  satirist. " 

It  has  been  pleaded  in  Hall's  favour  that  although  the  date 
of  publication  of  his  Satires  is  known,  the  date  of  their  composi- 
tion is  not  known.  It  is  not  even  necessary  to  resort  to  this 
kind  of  special  pleading ;  for  nothing  can  be  more  evident  than 
that  the  bravado  is  not  very  serious.  On  the  literal  supposition, 
however,  and  if  we  are  to  suppose  that  publication  immediately 
followed  composition,  Hall  was  anticipated  by  more  than  one  or 
two  predecessors,  in  the  production  of  work  not  only  specifically 
satirical  but  actually  called  satire,  and  by  two  at  least  in  the  adop- 
tion of  the  heroic  couplet  form  which  has  ever  since  been  con- 
secrated to  the  subject.  Satirical  poetry,  of  a  kind,  is  of  course 
nearly  if  not  quite  as  old  as  the  language,  and  in  the  hands  of 
Skelton  it  had  assumed  various  forms.  But  the  satire  proper — the 
following  of  the  great  Roman  examples  of  Horace,  Juvenal,  and 
Persius  in  general  lashing  of  vice  and  folly — can  hardly  trace  itself 
further  back  in  England  than  George  Gascoigne's  Steel  Glass,  which 
preceded  Hall's  Virgidemiarum  by  twenty  years,  and  is  interesting 
not  only  for  itself  but  as  being  ushered  in  by  the  earliest  known 
verses  of  Walter  Raleigh.  It  is  written  in  blank  verse,  and  is  a 
rather  rambling  commentary  on  tlie  text  vanitas  vanitatum,  but 
it  expressly  calls  itself  a  satire  and  answers  sufficiently  well  to  the 


IV  LODGE'S  SATIRES  145 

description.  More  immediate  and  nearer  examples  were  to  be 
found  in  the  Satires  of  Donne  and  Lodge.  The  first  named  were 
indeed,  like  the  other  poetical  works  of  their  marvellously  gifted 
writer,  not  published  till  many  years  after ;  but  universal  tra- 
dition ascribes  the  whole  of  Donne's  profane  poems  to  his  early 
youth,  and  one  document  exists  which  distinctly  dates  "John 
Donne,  his  Satires,"  as  early  as  1593.  We  shall  therefore  deal 
with  them,  as  with  the  other  closely  connected  work  of  their 
author,  here  and  in  this  chapter.  But  there  has  to  be  mentioned 
first  the  feebler  but  chronologically  more  certain  work  of  Thomas 
Lodge,  .-/  Fig  for  Momus,  which  fulfils  both  the  requirements  of 
known  date  and  of  composition  in  couplets.  It  appeared  in 
^595>  two  years  before  Hall,  and  is  of  the  latest  and  weakest  of 
Lodge's  verse  work.  It  was  written  or  at  least  produced  when 
he  was  just  abandoning  his  literary  and  adventurous  career  and 
settling  down  as  a  quiet  physician  with  no  more  wild  oats  to  sow, 
except,  perhaps,  some  participation  in  popish  conspiracy.  The 
style  did  not  lend  itself  to  the  display  of  any  of  Lodge's  strongest 
gifts — romantic  fancy,  tenderness  and  sweetness  of  feeling,  or 
elaborate  embroidery  of  precious  language.  He  follows  Horace 
pretty  closely  and  witli  no  particular  vigour.  Nor  does  the  book 
appear  to  have  attracted  much  attention,  so  that  it  is  just  possible 
that  Hail  may  not  have  heard  of  it.  If,  however,  he  had  not,  it  is 
certainly  a  curious  coincidence  that  he,  with  Donne  and  Lodge, 
should  all  have  hit  on  the  couplet  as  their  form,  obvious  as  its 
advantages  are  when  it  is  once  tried.  For  the  rhyme  points  the 
satirical  hits,  while  the  comparatively  brief  space  of  each  distich 
prevents  that  air  of  wandering  which  naturally  accompanies  satire 
in  longer  stanzas.  At  any  rate  after  the  work  (in  so  many  ways 
remarkable)  of  Donne,  Hall,  and  Marston,  there  couKl  hardly 
be  any  more  doubt  about  the  matter,  though  part  of  tl>e  method 
which  these  writers,  especially  Donne  and  Marston,  took  to  give 
individuality  and  "bite  "to  their  work  was  as  faulty  as  it  now 
seems  to  us  peculiar. 

Ben  Jotison,  the  least  gushing  of  <ritirs  to  his  contemporaries, 
11  I. 


146  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

said  of  John  Donne  that  he  was  "  the  first  poet  of  the  world  in 
some  things,"  and  I  own  that  without  going  through  the  long 
catalogue  of  singularly  contradictory  criticisms  which  have  been 
passed  on  Donne,  I  feel  disposed  to  fall  back  on  and  adopt  this 
earliest,  simplest,  and  highest  encomium.  Possibly  Ben  might 
not  have  meant  the  same  things  that  I  mean,  but  that  does  not 
matter.  It  is  sufficient  for  me  that  in  one  special  point  of  the 
poetic-  charm — the  faculty  of  suddenly  transfiguring  common 
things  by  a  flood  of  light,  and  opening  up  strange  visions  to  the 
capable  imagination — Donne  is  surpassed  by  no  poet  of  any 
language,  and  equalled  by  few.  That  he  has  obvious  and  great 
defects,  that  he  is  wholly  and  in  all  probability  deliberately 
careless  of  formal  smoothness,  that  he  adopted  the  fancy  of  his 
time  for  quaint  and  recondite  expression  with  an  almost  perverse 
vigour,  and  set  the  example  of  the  topsy-turvified  conceits  which 
came  to  a  climax  in  Crashaw  and  Cleveland,  that  he  is  almost 
impudently  licentious  in  thought  and  imagery  at  times,  that  he 
alternates  the  highest  poetry  with  the  lowest  doggerel,  the  noblest 
thought  with  the  most  trivial  crotchet — all  this  is  true,  and  all 
this  must  be  allowed  for ;  but  it  only  chequers,  it  does  not 
obliterate,  the  record  of  his  poetic  gifts  and  graces.  He  is,  more- 
over, one  of  the  most  historically  important  of  poets,  although 
by  a  strange  chance  there  is  no  known  edition  of  his  poems 
earlier  than  1633,  some  partial  and  privately  printed  issues  having 
disappeared  wholly  if  they  ever  existed.  His  influence  was  second 
to  the  influence  of  no  poet  of  his  generation,  and  completely 
overshadowed  all  others,  towards  his  own  latter  days  and  the 
decades  immediately  following  his  death,  except  that  of  Jonson. 
Thomas  Carew's  famous  description  of  him  as 

"  A  king  who  ruled  as  he  thought  lit 
The  universal  monarchy  of  wit," 

expresses  the  general  opinion  of  the  time ;  and  even  after  the 
revolt  headed  by  Waller  had  dethroned  him  from  the  position, 
Dryden,  his  successor  in  the  same  monarchy,  while  declining  to 


IV  DONNE 


147 


allow  him  the  praise  of  "  the  best  poet  "  (that  is,  the  most  exact 
follower  of  the  rules  and  system  of  versifying  which  Dryden  him- 
self preferred),  allowed  him  to  be  "  the  greatest  wit  of  the  nation." 
His  life  concerns  us  little,  and  its  events  are  not  disputed,  or 
rather,  in  the  earlier  part,  are  still  rather  obscure.  Born  in  1573, 
educated  at  both  universities  and  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  a  traveller,  a 
man  of  pleasure,  a  law-student,  a  soldier,  and  probably  for  a  time 
a  member  of  the  Roman  Church,  he  seems  just  before  reaching 
middle  life  to  have  experienced  some  religious  change,  took 
orders,  became  a  famous  preacher,  was  made  Dean  of  St.  Paul's, 
and  died  in  1631. 

It  has  been  said  that  tradition  and  probability  point  to  the 
composition    of    most,    and    that    all    but    certain    documentary 
evidence  points  to  the  composition  of  some,  of  his  poems  in  the 
earlier  part  of  his  life.     Unless  the  date  of  the  Harleian  MS.  is  a 
forgery,  some  of  his  satires  were  WTitten  in  or  before  1593,  when 
he  was  but   twenty  years  old.     The  boiling  passion,  without   a 
thought  of  satiety,  which  marks  many  of  his  elegies  would  also 
incline   us   to   assign   them   to  youth,  and   though    some  of  his 
epistles,  and   many  of  his  miscellaneous   poems,  are  penetrated 
with  a  quieter  and  more  reflective  spirit,  the  richness  of  fancy 
in   them,  as  well   as    the   amatory  character   of   many,  perhaps 
the    majority,   favour    a    similar    attribution.       All  alike   display 
Donne's  peculiar  poetical  quality — the  fiery  imagination  shining 
in  dark  places,  the  magical  illumination  of  obscure  and  shadowy 
thoughts  with  the  lightning  of  fancy.      In  one  remarkable  respect 
1  )onne  has  a  peculiar  cast   of  thought   as   well  as   of  manner, 
displaying  that  mixture  of  voluptuous  and  melancholy  meditation, 
that  swift  transition  of  thought  from   the  marriage  sheet  to  the 
shroud,  which  is  characteristic  of  F"rench  Renaissance  poets,  hut 
less  fully,  until  he  set  the  example,  of  English.    The  best  known  and 
most  exquisite  of  his  fanciful  flights,  the  i(k:i  of  the  discovery  of 

"  A  bracelet  of  Ijriglil  hair  about  ilic  hone-  " 

of  his  own  long  interred  skeleton  :   the  wish  — 


148  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

"  I  long  to  talk  with  some  old  lover's  ghost 
Who  died  before  the  god  of  love  was  born," 

and  Others,  show  this  peculiarity.  And  it  recurs  in  the  most 
unexpected  places,  as,  for  the  matter  of  that,  does  his  strong 
satirical  faculty.  In  some  of  his  poems,  as  the  Anatomy  of  the 
World,  occasioned  by  the  death  of  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Drury,  this 
melancholy  imagery  mixed  with  touches  (only  touches  here)  of  the 
passion  which  had  distinguished  the  author  earlier  (for  the 
Anatomy  is  not  an  early  work),  and  with  religious  and  philo- 
sophical meditation,  makes  the  strangest  amalgam — shot  through, 
however,  as  always,  with  the  golden  veins  of  Donne's  incomparable 
poetry.  Expressions  so  strong  as  this  last  may  seem  in  want  of 
justification.  And  the  three  following  piece.s,  the  "  Dream,"  a 
fragment  of  satire,  and  an  extract  from  the  Anatomy^  may  or  may 
not,  according  to  taste,  supply  it  : —  ' 

"  Dear  love,  for  nothing  less  than  thee 
Would  I  have  broke  this  happy  dream. 

It  was  a  theme 
For  reason,  much  too  strong  for  fantasy  : 
Therefore  thou  wak'dst  me  wisely  ;  yet 
My  dream  thou  brok'st  not,  but  conlinued'st  it  : 
Thou  art  so  true,  that  thoughts  of  thee  suffice 
To  make  dreams  true,  and  fables  histories  ; 
Enter  these  arms,  for  since  thou  thought'st  it  best 
Not  to  dream  all  my  dream,  let's  act  the  rest. 

"  As  lightning  or  a  taper's  light 

Thine  eyes,  and  not  thy  noise,  wak'd  me  ; 

Yet  I  thought  thee 
(For  thou  lov'st  truth)  an  angel  at  first  sight, 
But  when  I  saw  thou  saw'st  my  heart 
And  knew'st  my  thoughts  beyond  an  angel's  art, 
When  thou  knew'st  what  I  dreamt,  then  thou  knew'st  when 
Excess  of  joy  would  wake  me,  and  cam'st  then; 
/  must  confess,  it  could  not  choose  htd  he 
Profane  to  think  thee  anythitig  hut  thee. 

"  Coming  and  staying  show'd  thee  thee, 
But  rising  makes  me  doubt  that  now 
Thou  art  not  thou. 


IV  DONNE  149 

That  love  is  weak  where  fears  are  strong  as  he  ; 
'Tis  not  all  spirit,  pure  and  brave. 
If  mixture  it  of  fear,  shame,  honour,  have. 
Perchance  as  torches  which  must  ready  be 
Men  light,  and  put  out,  so  thou  deal'st  with  me. 
Thou  cam'st  to  kindle,  goest  to  come  :  then  I 
Will  dream  that  hope  again,  or  else  would  die." 


'  O  age  of  rusty  iron  !  some  better  wit 
Call  it  some  worse  name,  if  ought  equal  it. 
Th'  iron  age  was,  when  justice  was  sold  ;  now 
Injustice  is  sold  dearer  far  ;  allow 
All  claim'd  fees  and  duties,  gamesters,  anon 
The  money,  which  you  sweat  and  swear  for  's  gone 
Into  other  hands  ;  so  controverted  lands 
'Scape,  like  Angelica,  the  striver's  hands. 
If  law  be  in  the  judge's  heart,  and  he 
Have  no  heart  to  resist  letter  or  fee. 
Where  wilt  thou  appeal  ?  power  of  the  courts  below 
Flows  from  the  first  main  head,  and  these  can  throw 
Thee,  if  they  suck  thee  in,  to  misery, 
To  fetters,  halters.     But  if  th'  injury 
.Steel  thee  to  dare  complain,  alas  !  thou  go'st 
Against  the  stream  upwards  when  thou  art  most 
Heavy  and  most  faint ;  and  in  these  labours  they 
'Gainst  whom  thou  should'st  com|:)lain  will  in  thy  way 
Become  great  seas,  o'er  which  when  thou  shall  be 
Forc'd  to  make  golden  bridges,  thou  shalt  see 
That  all  thy  gold  was  drowned  in  them  before." 


"  She,  whose  fair  body  no  such  prison  was 
But  that  a  soul  might  well  Ije  pleased  to  pass 
An  age  in  her  ;  she,  whose  rich  beauty  lent 
Mintage  to  other  beauties,  for  they  went 
But  for  so  much  as  they  were  like  to  her  ; 
She,  in  whose  body  (if  we  dare  prefer 
This  low  world  to  so  high  a  mark  as  she}. 
The  western  treasure,  eastern  spicory, 
P^uropc  and  Afric,  and  the  unknown  rest 
Were  easily  found,  or  what  in  them  w.is  best ; 
And  when  we've  made  this  large  discovery 
Of  all,  in  her  .some  one  part  then  will  Ijc 


150  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP         chap. 

Twenty  such  parts,  whose  plenty  and  riches  is 
Enough  to  make  twenty  such  worlds  as  this ; 
She,  whom  had  they  known,  who  did  first  betroth 
The  tutelar  angels  and  assigned  one  both 
To  nations,  cities,  and  to  companies, 
To  functions,  offices,  and  dignities. 
And  to  each  several  man,  to  him  and  him. 
They  would  have  giv'n  her  one  for  every  limb ; 
She,  of  whose  soul  if  we  may  say  'twas  gold, 
Her  body  was  th'  electrum  and  did  hold 
Many  degrees  of  that ;  we  understood 
Her  by  her  sight ;  her  pure  and  eloquent  blood 
Spoke  in  her  cheeks,  and  so  distinctly  wrought 
That  one  might  alntost  say,  her  body  thought ; 
She,  she  thus  richly  and  largely  hous'd  is  gone 
And  chides  us,  slow-paced  snails  who  crawl  upon 
Our  prison's  prison  earth,  nor  think  us  well 
Longer  than  whilst  we  bear  our  brittle  shell." 

But  no  short  extracts  will  show  Donne,  and  there  is  no  room 
for  a  full  anthology.  He  must  be  read,  and  by  every  catholic 
student  of  English  literature  should  be  regarded  with  a  respect 
only  "this  side  idolatry,"  though  the  respect  need  not  carry  with 
it  blindness  to  his  undoubtedly  glaring  faults. 

Those  faults  are  not  least  seen  in  his  Satires,  though  neither 
the  unbridled  voluptuousness  which  makes  his  Elegies  shocking 
to  modern  propriety,  nor  the  far-off  conceit  which  appears 
in  his  meditative  and  miscellaneous  poems,  is  very  strongly  or 
specially  represented  here.  Nor,  naturally  enough,  is  the  extreme 
beauty  of  thought  and  allusion  distinctly  noteworthy  in  a  class 
of  verse  which  does  not  easily  admit  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
force  and  originality  of  Donne's  intellect  are  nowhere  better 
shown.  It  is  a  constant  fault  of  modern  satirists  that  in  their 
just  admiration  for  Horace  and  Juvenal  they  merely  paraphrase 
them,  and,  instead  of  going  to  the  fountainhead  and  taking  their 
matter  from  human  nature,  merely  give  us  fresh  studies  of  Ibam 
forte  via  sacra  or  the  Tenth  of  Juvenal,  adjusted  to  the  meridians 
of  Paris  or  London.      Although  Donne  is  not  quite  free  from 


IV  HALL  tsi 

this  fault,  he  is  much  freer  than  either  of  his  contemporaries, 
Regnier  or  Hall.  And  the  rough  vigour  of  his  sketches  and 
single  lines  is  admirable.  Yet  it  is  as  rough  as  it  is  vigorous  ;  and 
the  breakneck  versification  and  contorted  phrase  of  his  satires, 
softened  a  little  in  Hall,  roughened  again  and  to  a  much  greater 
degree  in  Marston,  and  reaching,  as  far  as  phrase  goes,  a  rare 
extreme  in  the  Transformed  Metamorphosis  of  Cyril  Tourneur, 
have  been  the  subject  of  a  great  deal  of  discussion.  It  is  now 
agreed  by  all  the  best  authorities  that  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
consider  this  roughness  unintentional  or  merely  clumsy,  and  that 
it  sprung,  at  any  rate  in  great  degree,  from  an  idea  that  the 
ancients  intended  the  Satura  to  be  written  in  somewhat  un- 
polished verse,  as  well  as  from  a  following  of  the  style  of  Persius, 
the  most  deliberately  obscure  of  all  Latin  if  not  of  all  classical 
poets.  In  language  Donne  is  not  (as  far  as  his  Satires  are  con- 
cerned) a  very  great  sinner ;  but  his  versification,  whether  by  his 
own  intention  or  not,  leaves  much  to  desire.  At  one  moment 
the  ten  syllables  are  only  to  be  made  out  by  a  Chaucerian 
lengthening  of  the  mute  e ;  at  another  the  writer  seems  to  be 
emulating  Wyatt  in  altering  the  accent  of  syllables,  and  coolly 
making  the  final  iambus  of  a  line  out  of  such  a  word  as  "answer." 
It  is  no  wonder  that  poets  of  the  "  correct "  age  thought 
him  in  need  of  rewriting  ;  though  even  they  could  not  mistake 
the  force  of  observation  and  expression  which  characterises  his 
.Satires,  and  which  very  frequently  reappears  even  in  his  dreamiest 
metaphysics,  his  most  recondite  love  fancies,  and  his  warmest 
and  most  passionate  hymns  to  Aphrodite  Pandemos. 

These  artificial  characteristics  are  supplemented  in  the  Eliza- 
bethan satirists,  other  than  Donne,  by  yet  a  third,  which  makes 
them,  I  confess,  to  me  rather  tedious  reading,  independently  of 
their  shambling  metre,  and  their  sometimes  almost  unconstruable 
syntax.  This  is  the  absurd  affectation  of  extreme  moral  wrath 
against  the  corruptions  of  their  time  in  which  they  all  indulge. 
Marston,  who  is  nearly  the  foulest,  if  not  quite  the  foulest  writer 
of  any  English  classic,  gives  himself  the  airs  of  the  most  sensitive 


152  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP  chap. 

puritan ;  Hall,  with  a  little  less  of  this  contrast,  sins  considerably 
in  the  same  way,  and  adds  to  his  delinquencies  a  most  petulant 
and  idle  attempt  to  satirise  from  the  purely  literary  point  of  view 
writers  who  are  a  whole  head  and  shoulders  above  himself  And 
these  two,  followed  by  their  imitator,  Guilpin,  assail  each  other 
in  a  fashion  which  argues  either  a  very  absurd  sincerity  of 
literary  jealousy,  or  a  very  ignoble  simulation  of  it,  for  the 
purpose  of  getting  up  interest  on  the  part  of  the  public.  Never- 
theless, both  Marston  and  Hall  are  very  interesting  figures  in 
English  literature,  and  their  satirical  performances  cannot  be 
passed  over  in  any  account  of  it. 

Joseph  Hall  was  born  near  Ashby  de  la  Zouch,  of  parents  in 
the  lower  yeoman  rank  of  life,  had  his  education  at  the  famous 
Puritan  College  of  Emanuel  at  Cambridge,  became  a  Fellow 
thereof,  proceeded  through  the  living  of  Hawstead  and  a  canonry 
at  Wolverhampton  to  the  sees  of  Exeter  and  Norwich,  of  the 
latter  of  which  he  was  violently  deprived  by  the  Parliament, 
and,  not  surviving  long  enough  to  see  the  Restoration,  died  (1656) 
in  a  suburb  of  his  cathedral  city.  His  later  life  was  important 
for  religious  literature  and  ecclesiastical  politics,  in  his  dealings 
with  the  latter  of  which  he  came  into  conflict,  not  altogether 
fortunately  for  the  younger  and  greater  man  of  letters,  with  John 
Milton.  His  Satires  belong  to  his  early  Cambridge  days,  and  to 
the  last  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century.  They  have  on  the 
whole  been  rather  overpraised,  though  the  variety  of  their  matter 
and  the  abundance  of  reference  to  interesting  social  traits  of  the 
time  to  some  extent  redeem  them.  The  worst  point  about  them, 
as  already  noted,  is  the  stale  and  commonplace  impertinence  with 
which  their  author,  unlike  the  best  breed  of  young  poets  and  men 
of  letters,  attempts  to  satirise  his  literary  betters ;  while  they  are 
to  some  extent  at  any  rate  tarred  with  the  other  two  brushes  of 
corrupt  imitation  of  the  ancients,  and  of  sham  moral  indignation. 
Indeed  the  want  of  sincerity — the  evidence  of  the  literary  exercise 
— injures  Hall's  satirical  work  in  different  ways  throughout.  We 
do   not,  as  we  read  him,  in  the  least  believe  in  his  attitude  of 


IV  MARSTON  is: 


Hebrew  prophet  crossed  with  Roman  satirist,  and  the  occasional 
presence  of  a  vigorous  couplet  or  a  Uvely  metaphor  hardly 
redeems  this  disbelief.  Nevertheless,  Hall  is  here  as  always  a 
literary  artist — a  writer  who  took  some  trouble  with  his  writings  ; 
and  as  some  of  his  satires  are  short,  a  whole  one  may  be  given : — 

"  A  gentle  squire  would  gladly  entertain 
Into  his  house  some  trencher-chaplain  ;  ^ 
Some  willins:  man  that  micfht  instruct  his  sons 
And  that  would  stand  to  good  conditions. 
First,  that  he  lie  upon  the  truckle  bed, 
Whiles  his  young  master  lieth  o'er  his  head. 
Second,  that  he  do,  on  no  default, - 
Ever  presume  to  sit  above  the  salt. 
Third,  that  he  never  cliange  his  trencher  twice. 
Fourth,  that  he  use  all  common  courtesies  ; 
Sit  l)are  at  meals,  and  one  half  rise  and  wait. 
Last,  that  he  never  his  young  master  beat, 
But  he  must  ask  his  mother  to  define, 
How  many  jerks  she  would  his  breech  should  line. 
All  these  obser\'d  he  could  contented  be 
To  give  five  marks  and  winter  livery." 

John  Marston,  who  out-Hailed  Hall  in  all  his  literary  mis- 
deeds, was,  it  would  appear,  a  member  of  a  good  Shropshire 
family  which  had  passed  into  Warwickshire.  He  was  educated 
at  Coventry  School,  and  at  Brasenose  College,  Oxford,  and  passed 
early  into  London  literary  society,  where  he  involved  himself  in 
the  inextricable  and  not-much-worth-extricating  quarrels  which 
have  left  their  mark  in  Jonson's  and  Dekker's  dramas.  In  the 
first  decade  of  the  seventeenth  century  he  wrote  several  remark- 
able plays,  of  much  greater  literary  merit  than  the  work  now  to 
be  criticised.  Then  he  took  orders,  was  presented  to  the 
living  of  Christchurch,  and,  like  others  of  his  time,  seems  to 
have  forsworn  literature  as  an  imholy  thing.  He  died  in  i  634. 
Here  we  are  concerned  only  with  two  youthful  works  of  his — 

>   "Chaplain"— trisyik-iblc  like  "capelian." 
"  Missing  syllable. 


154  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP         cliAf. 

Pigmalioiih  Image  and  some  Satires  in  1598,  followed  in  the 
same  year  by  a  sequel,  entitled  The  Scourge  of  Villainy.  In 
these  works  he  called  himself  "  W.  Kinsayder,"  a  pen-name  for 
which  various  explanations  have  been  given.  It  is  characteristic 
and  rather  comical  that,  while  both  the  earlier  Satires  and  The 
Scouige  denounce  lewd  verse  most  fullmouthedly,  Tigmalion  s 
Image  is  a  poem  in  the  Venus  and  Adonis  style  which  is  certainly 
not  inferior  to  its  fellows  in  luscious  descriptions.  It  was,  in 
fact,  with  the  Satires  and  much  similar  work,  formally  condemned 
and  burnt  in  1599.  Both  in  Hall  and  in  Marston  industrious 
commentators  have  striven  hard  to  identify  the  personages  of  the 
satire  with  famous  living  writers,  and  there  may  be  a  chance 
that  some  at  least  of  their  identifications  (as  of  Marston's  Tubrio 
with  Marlowe)  are  correct.  But  the  exaggeration  and  insincerity, 
the  deliberate  "  society-journalism  "  (to  adopt  a  detestable  phrase 
for  a  corresponding  thing  of  our  own  days),  which  characterise  all 
this  class  of  writing  make  the  identifications  of  but  little  interest. 
In  every  age  there  are  writers  who  delight  in  representing  that 
age  as  the  very  worst  of  the  history  of  the  world,  and  in  ransack- 
ing literature  and  imagination  for  accusations  against  their  fellows. 
The  sedate  philosopher  partly  brings  and  partly  draws  the  con- 
viction that  one  time  is  very  like  another.  Marston,  however, 
has  fooled  himself  and  his  readers  to  the  very  top  of  his  and 
their  bent ;  and  even  Churchill,  restrained  by  a  more  critical 
atmosphere,  has  not  come  quite  near  his  confused  and  only  half- 
intelligible  jumble  of  indictments  for  indecent  practices  and 
crude  philosophy  of  the  moral  and  metaphysical  kind.  A  vigor- 
ous line  or  phrase  occasionally  redeems  the  chaos  of  rant,  fustian, 
indecency,  ill-nature,  and  muddled  thought. 

"  Ambitious  Gorgons,  wide-mouth'd  Lamians, 
Shape-changing  Proteans,  damn'd  Briarians, 
Is  Minos  dead,  is  Radamanth  asleep, 
That  ye  thus  dare  unto  Jove's  palace  creep  ? 
What,  hath  Ramnusia  spent  her  knotted  whip, 
That  ye  dare  strive  on  Hebe's  cup  to  sip  ? 


IV  C.UILriN— TOURXEUR  155 


Ve  know  Apollo's  quiver  is  not  spent, 
But  can  abate  your  daring  hardiment. 
Python  is  slain,  yet  his  accursed  race 
Dare  look  divine  Astrca  in  the  face  ; 
Chaos  return  and  with  confusion 
Involve  the  world  with  strange  disunion  ; 
For  Pluto  sits  in  that  adored  chair 
Which  doth  belong  unto  Minerva"s  heir. 
O  hecatombs  !  O  catastrophe  ! 
From  Midas'  pomp  to  Trus'  beggary  ! 
Prometheus,  who  celestial  fire 
Did  steal  from  heaven,  therewith  to  inspire 
Our  earthly  bodies  with  a  sense-ful  mind, 
Whereby  we  might  the  depth  of  nature  find, 
Is  ding'd  to  hell,  and  vulture  eats  his  heart 
Which  did  such  deep  philosophy  impart 
To  mortal  men." 

The  contrast  of  this  so-called  satire,  and  the  really  satiric  touches 
of  Marston's  own  plays,  when  he  was  not  cramped  by  the  affecta- 
tions of  the  style,  is  very  curious. 

Edward  Gilpin  or  Guilpin,  author  of  the  rare  book  Skialetlieia, 
published  between  the  dates  of  Hall  and  Marston,  is,  if  not 
a  proved  plagiarist  from  either,  at  any  rate  an  obvious  follower 
in  the  same  track.  There  is  the  same  exaggeration,  the  same 
jietulant  ill-nature,  the  same  obscurity  of  phrase  and  ungainliness 
of  verse,  and  the  same  general  insincerity.  But  the  fine  flower 
of  the  whole  school  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  the  miraculous 
Transformed  Metamorphosis,  attributed  to  the  powerful  but  extra- 
vagant dramatist,  Cyril  Tourneur,  who  wrote  this  kind  of  thing: — 

"  From  out  the  lake  a  bridge  ascends  thereto, 
Whereon  in  female  shape  a  serpent  stands. 

Who  eyes  her  eye,  or  views  her  blue-vein'd  brow. 
With  sense-bereaving  glozes  she  enciiants. 
And  when  she  sees  a  worlilling  blind  that  haunts 

The  pleasure  that  doth  seem  there  to  be  found, 

She  soothes  with  Leucrocutani/ed  sound. 

"  Thence  leads  an  entry  to  a  shining  hall 

Bedecked  with  flowers  oCthc  fairest  hue; 


156  "THE  FAERIE  QUEENE"  AND  ITS  GROUP      chap,  iv 


The  Thrush,  the  Lark,  and  night's-joy  Nightingale 

Tliere  minuhze  their  pleasing  lays  anew. 

This  welcome  to  the  bitter  bed  of  rue  ; 
This  little  room  will  scarce  two  wights  contain 
T'  enjoy  their  joy,  and  there  in  pleasure  reign. 

"  But  next  thereto  adjoins  a  spacious  room, 

More  fairly  fair  adorned  than  the  other  : 
(O  woe  to  him  at  sin-awhaping  doom, 

That  to  these  shadows  hath  his  mind  given  over) 

For  (O)  he  never  shall  his  soul  recover  : 
If  this  sweet  sin  still  feeds  him  with  her  smack 
And  his  repentant  hand  him  hales  not  back."  ^ 

We  could   hardly  end  with  anything  farther  removed  from  the 
clear  philosophy  and  the  serene  loveliness  of  The  Faerie  Queene. 

1  Mr.  Churton  Collins  is  "tolerably  confident,"  and  perhaps  he  might 
have  been  quite  certain,  that  Leucrocutanised  refers  to  one  of  the  Fauna 
of  fancy,— a  monster  that  spoke  like  a  man.  "  Minulise,"  from  ^tfuptiw, 
"  I  sing."      "  To  awhape"=  "  to  confound." 


CHAPTER    V 

THE    SECONO    DRAMATIC    PERIOD  —  SHAKESPERE 

The  difficulty  of  writing  about  Shakespere  is  twofold  ;  and  though 
it  is  a  difficulty  which,  in  both  its  aspects,  presents  itself  when 
other  great  writers  are  concerned,  there  is  no  other  case  in  which 
it  besets  the  critic  to  quite  the  same  extent.  Almost  everything 
that  is  worth  saying  has  been  already  said,  more  or  less  happily. 
A  vast  amount  has  been  said  which  is  not  in  the  least  worth  say- 
ing, which  is  for  the  most  part  demonstrably  foolish  or  wrong. 
.As  Shakespere  is  by  far  the  greatest  of  all  writers,  ancient  or 
modern,  so  he  has  been  the  subject  of  commentatorial  folly  to 
an  extent  which  dwarfs  the  expense  of  that  folly  on  any  other 
single  subject.  It  is  impossible  to  notice  the  results  of  this  folly 
except  at  great  length ;  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  are  worth 
noticing  at  all ;  yet  there  is  always  the  danger  either  that  some 
mischievous  notions  may  be  left  undisturbed  by  the  neglect  to 
notice  tliem,  or  tliat  the  critic  himself  may  be  presumed  to  be 
ignorant  of  the  foolishness  of  his  predecessors.  These  incon- 
veniences, however,  must  here  be  risked,  and  it  may  perhaps  be 
thought  that  the  necessity  of  risking  them  is  a  salutary  one.  In 
no  other  case  is  it  so  desirable  that  an  autlior  should  be 
approached  by  students  with  the  minimum  of  apparatu.s. 

The  s<  anty  facts  and  the  abundant  fancies  as  to  .Shakespere's 
life  are  a  commonplace  of  literature.  He  was  baptized  on  the 
2Clh  of  .April   1564    at   Stralford-on-Avon,  .nid    inusl   have   l)een 


158        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

born  either  on  the  same  day,  or  on  one  of  those  immediately  pre- 
ceding. His  father  was  John  Shakespere,  his  mother  Mary 
Arden,  both  belonging  to  the  lower  middle  class  and  connected, 
personally  and  by  their  relations,  with  yeomanry  and  small 
landed  gentry  on  the  one  side,  and  with  well-to-do  tradesmen  on 
the  other.  Nothing  is  known  of  his  youth  and  little  of  his  educa- 
tion ;  but  it  was  a  constant  tradition  of  men  of  his  own  and  the 
immediately  succeeding  generation  that  he  had  little  school  learn- 
ing. Before  he  was  nineteen  he  was  married,  at  the  end  of 
November  1582,  to  Anne  Hathaway,  who  was  seven  years  his 
senior.  Their  first  child,  Susannah,  was  baptized  six  months 
later.  He  is  said  to  have  left  Stratford  for  London  in  1585, 
or  thereabouts,  and  to  have  connected  himself  at  once  with  the 
theatre,  first  in  humble  and  then  in  more  important  positions. 
But  all  this  is  mist  and  myth.  He  is  transparently  referred  to  by 
Robert  Greene  in  the  summer  or  autumn  of  1592,  and  the 
terms  of  the  reference  prove  his  prosperity.  The  same  passage 
brought  out  a  complimentary  reference  to  Shakespere's  intellectual 
and  moral  character  from  Chettle,  Greene's  editor.  He  published 
Venus  mid  Adonis  in  1593,  and  Lucrece  next  year.  His  plays 
now  began  to  appear  rapidly,  and  brought  him  money  enough  to 
buy,  in  1597,  the  house  of  New  Place  at  Stratford,  and  to  establish 
himself  there  after,  it  is  supposed,  twelve  years'  almost  complete 
absence  from  his  birthplace  and  his  family.  Documentary  refer- 
ences to  his  business  matters  now  become  not  infrequent,  but, 
except  as  showing  that  he  was  alive  and  prosperous,  they  are 
quite  uninteresting.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  marriages  and 
deaths  of  his  children.  In  1609  appeared  the  Sonnets^  some  of 
which  had  previously  been  printed  in  unauthorised  and  piratical 
publications.  He  died  on  the  23d  of  April  (supposed  generally 
to  be  his  birthday)  1616,  and  was  buried  at  Stratford.  His 
plays  had  been  only  surreptitiously  printed,  the  retention  of  a 
play  in  manuscript  being  of  great  importance  to  the  actors,  and 
the  famous  first  folio  did  not  appear  till  seven  years  after  his 
death. 


V  HISTORY  OF  SHAKESPERE'S  RErUTATIOX  159 

The  canon  of  Shakespere's  plays,  like  everything  else  con- 
nected with  him,  has  been  the  subject  of  endless  discussion. 
There  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  in  his  earlier  days  (the  first 
printed  play  among  those  ordinarily  assigned  to  him,  Romeo  and 
Juliet^  dates  from  1597)  he  had  taken  part  in  dramatic  work 
which  is  now  mostly  anonymous  or  assigned  to  other  men,  and 
there  is  also  no  doubt  that  there  may  be  passages  in  the  accepted 
plays  which  he  owed  to  others.  But  my  own  deliberate  judg- 
ment is  that  no  important  and  highly  probable  ascription  of 
extant  work  to  Shakespere  can  be  made  outside  the  canon  as 
usually  printed,  with  the  doubtful  exception  of  The  Tivo  Noble 
Kinsntt/i ;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  in  the  plays  usually  accepted, 
any  very  important  or  characteristic  portion  is  not  Shakespere's. 
As  for  ShakespcreTiacon  theories,  and  that  kind  of  folly,  they 
are  scarcely  worthy  even  of  mention.  Nor  among  the  numerous 
other  controversies  and  errors  on  the  subject  shall  I  meddle  with 
more  than  one — the  constantly  repeated  assertion  that  England 
long  misunderstood  or  neglected  Shakespere,  and  that  foreign 
aid,  chiefly  German  (though  some  include  Voltaire  !),  was  required 
to  make  her  discover  him.  A  very  short  way  is  possible  with 
this  absurdity.  It  would  be  difficult  to  name  any  men  more 
representative  of  cultivated  literary  opinion  and  accomplishment 
in  the  six  generations  (taking  a  generation  at  the  third  of  a  cen- 
tury) which  passed  between  Shakespere's  death  and  the  battle  of 
Waterloo  (since  when  English  admiration  of  Shakespere  will 
hardly  be  denied),  than  Ben  Jonson,  John  Milton,  John  Dryden, 
Alexander  Pope,  Samuel  Johnson,  and  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge. 
Their  lives  overlapped  each  other  considerably,  so  that  no  period 
is  left  uncovered.  They  were  all  typical  men  of  letters,  each  of 
his  own  time,  and  four  at  least  of  them  were  literary  dictators. 
Now,  lien  Jonson's  estimate  of  Shakespere  in  prose  and  verse  is 
on  record  in  more  places  than  (jne,  anil  is  as  authentic  as  the  silly 
stories  of  his  envy  are  mythical.  If  Milion,  to  his  eternal  dis- 
grace, flung,  for  party  purposes,  the  study  of  Shakespere  as  a  re- 
proach in  his  dead  king's  face,  he  had  iiimself  long  before  put  on 


i6o      THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD — SHAKESPERE      chap, 

record  his  admiration  for  him,  and  his  own  study  is  patent  to 
every  critical  reader  of  his  works.  Dryden,  but  a  year  or  two 
after  the  death  of  Shakespere's  daughter,  drew  up  that  famous  and 
memorable  eulogy  which  ought  to  be  familiar  to  all,  and  which, 
long  before  any  German  had  spoken  of  Shakespere,  and  thirty 
years  before  Voltaire  had  come  into  the  world,  exactly  and 
precisely  based  the  structure  of  Shakespere- worship.  Pope 
edited  Shakespere.  Johnson  edited  him.  Coleridge  is  acknow- 
ledged as,  with  his  contemporaries  Lamb  and  Hazlitt,  the  founder 
of  modern  appreciation.  It  must  be  a  curious  reckoning  Avhich, 
in  face  of  such  a  catena  as  this,  stretching  its  links  over  the  whole 
period,  maintains  that  England  wanted  Germans  to  teach  her 
how  to  admire  the  writer  whom  Germans  have  done  more  to 
mystify  and  distort  than  even  his  own  countrymen. 

The  work  of  Shakespere  falls  into  three  divisions  very 
unequal  in  bulk.  There  is  first  (speaking  both  in  the  order  of 
time  and  in  that  of  thought,  though  not  in  that  of  literary  import- 
ance and  interest)  the  small  division  of  poems,  excluding  the 
Sonnets,  but  including  Vemis  and  Adonis,  The  Rape  of  Lncrece, 
and  the  io-w  and  uncertain  but  exquisite  scraps,  the  Lover's 
Complaint,  The  Passionate  Pilgrim,  and  so  forth.  All  these  are 
likely  to  have  been  the  work  of  early  youth,  and  they  are  much 
more  like  the  work  of  other  men  than  any  other  part  of  Shakes- 
pere's work,  differing  chiefly  in  the  superior  sweetness  of  those 
wood-notes  wild,  which  Milton  justly,  if  not  altogether  adequately, 
attributed  to  the  poet,  and  in  the  occasional  appearance  of  the 
still  more  peculiar  and  unique  touches  of  sympathy  with  and 
knowledge  of  universal  nature  which  supply  the  main  Shakes- 
perian  note.  The  Venus  and  the  Lucrece  form  part  of  a  large 
collection  (see  last  chapter)  of  extremely  luscious,  not  to  say 
voluptuous,  poetry  which  the  imitation  of  Italian  models  intro- 
duced into  England,  which  has  its  most  perfect  examples  in  the 
earlier  of  these  two  poems,  in  numerous  passages  of  Spenser,  and 
in  the  Hero  and  Lcander  of  Marlowe,  but  which  was  written,  as 
will  have  been  seen  from  what  has  been  already  said,  with  extra- 


SlIAKESrERE'S  MINOR  POEMS  i6l 


ordinary  sweetness  and  abundance,  by  a  vast  number  of  Elizabethan 
writers.  There  are  extant  mere  adcspota,  and  mere  "minor  poems" 
(such  as  the  pretty  "  Britain's  Ida,"  which  used  to  be  printed  as 
Spenser's,  and  which  some  critics  have  rather  rashly  given  to 
Phineas  Fletcher),  good  enough  to  have  made  reputation,  if  not 
fortune,  at  other  times.  There  is  no  reason  to  attribute  to 
Shakespere  on  the  one  hand,  any  deliberate  intention  of  exe- 
cuting a  tour  de  force  in  the  composition  of  these  poems  or, 
in  his  relinquishment  of  the  style,  any  deliberate  rejection  of 
the  kind  as  unworthy  of  his  powers  on  the  other.  He  appears 
to  have  been  eminently  one  of  those  persons  who  care  neither 
to  be  in  nor  out  of  the  fashion,  but  follow  it  as  far  as  suits 
and  amuses  them.  Vet,  beautiful  as  these  poems  are,  they 
so  manifestly  do  not  present  their  author  at  tlie  full  of  his 
powers,  or  even  preluding  in  the  kind  wherein  the  best  of  those 
powers  were  to  be  shown,  that  they  require  comparatively  little 
critical  notice.  As  things  delightful  to  read  they  can  hardly  be 
placed  too  high,  especially  the  Venus;  as  evidences  of  the  poet's 
many-sided  nature,  they  are  interesting.  But  they  are  in  somewhat 
other  than  the  usual  sense  quite  "  simple,  sensuous,  and  passion- 
ate." The  misplaced  ingenuity  which,  neglecting  the  iiiiuin 
ttecessarium,  will  busy  itself  about  all  sorts  of  unnecessary  things, 
has  accordingly  been  rather  hard  put  to  it  with  them,  and  to  find 
any  pasture  at  all  has  had  to  browse  on  questions  of  dialect,  and 
date,  and  personal  allusion,  even  more  jejune  and  even  more 
unsubstantial  tlian  usual. 

It  is  quite  otherwise  with  the  Sonnets.  In  the  first  place  no- 
where in  Shakespere's  work  is  it  more  necessary  to  brush  away 
the  cobwebs  of  the  commentators.  This  side  of  madness,  no 
vainer  fancies  have  ever  entered  the  mind  of  man  than  those 
which  have  been  inspired  by  the  immaterial  part  of  the  matter. 
The  very  initials  of  the  dedicatee  "  W.  H."  have  had  volumes 
written  about  them  ;  the  Sonnets  themselves  have  JK-en  twisted 
and  classifieil  in  every  conceivable  sliape  ;  tlie  persons  to  whom 
they  are  addressed,  or  to  whom  they  refer,  have  been  identified 

11  M 


i62        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

with  half  the  gentlemen  and  ladies  of  Elizabeth's  court,  and  half 
the  men  of  letters  of  the  time ;  and  every  extremity  and  eccen- 
tricity of  non-natural  interpre'tation  has  been  applied  to  them. 
When  they  are  freed  from  this  torture  and  studied  rationally, 
there  is  nothing  mysterious  about  them  except  the  mystery  of  their 
poetical  beauty.  Some  of  them  are  evidently  addressed  in  the 
rather  hyperbolical  language  of  affection,  common  at  the  time,  and 
derived  from  the  study  of  Greek  and  Italian  writers,  to  a  man ;  others, 
in  language  not  hyperbolical  at  all,  to  a  woman.  Disdain,  rivalry, 
suspense,  short-lived  joy,  long  sorrow,  all  the  symptoms  and  con- 
comitants of  the  passion  of  love — which  are  only  commonplaces  as 
death  and  life  are  commonplace — -form  their  motives.  For  my  part 
I  am  unable  to  find  the  slightest  interest  or  the  most  rudimentary 
importance  in  the  questions  whether  the  Mr.  W.  H.  of  the  dedica- 
tion was  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  if  so,  whether  he  was  also 
the  object  of  the  majority  of  the  Sonnets ;  whether  the  "dark 
lady,"  the  "  woman  coloured  ill,"  was  Miss  Mary  Fitton  ;  whether 
the  rival  poet  was  Chapman.  Very  likely  all  these  things  are 
true  :  very  likely  not  one  of  them  is  true.  They  are  impossible 
of  settlement,  and  if  they  were  settled  they  would  not  in  the 
slightest  degree  affect  the  poetical  beauty  and  the  human  interest  of 
the  Sonnets,  which,  in  a  strange  rediictio  ad  absurduin  of  eighteenth 
century  common-sense  criticism,  Hallam  thought  it  impossible  not 
to  wish  that  Shakespere  had  not  written,  and  which  some  critics, 
not  perhaps  of  the  least  qualified,  have  regarded  as  the  high  water- 
mark of  English,  if  not  of  all,  poetry. 

This  latter  estimate  will  only  be  dismissed  as  exaggerated  by  those 
who  are  debarred  from  appreciation  by  want  of  sympathy  with  the 
subject,  or  distracted  by  want  of  comprehension  of  it.  A  harmony 
of  the  two  chief  opposing  theories  of  poetry  will  teach  us  that  we 
must  demand  of  the  very  highest  poetry  first — the  order  is  not 
material — a  certain  quality  of  expression,  and  secondly,  a  certain 
quality  of  subject.  What  that  quality  of  subject  must  be  has 
been,  as  it  seems  to  me,  crudely  and  wrongly  stated,  but  rightly 
indicated,  in  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  formula  of  the  "  Criticism  of 


V  SIIAKESPERE'S  SONNETS  163 

Life."  That  is  to  say,  in  less  debatable  words,  the  greatest  poet 
must  show  most  knowledge  of  human  nature.  Now  both  these 
conditions  are  fulfilled  in  the  sonnets  of  Shakespere  with  a  com- 
pleteness and  intensity  impossible  to  parallel  elsewhere.  The 
merits  of  the  formal  and  expressive  part  hardly  any  one  will  now 
question  ;  the  sonnets  may  be  opened  almost  at  random  with  the 
certainty  of  finding  everywhere  the  phrases,  the  verses,  the 
passages  which  almost  mechanically  recur  to  our  minds  when  we 
are  asked  to  illustrate  the  full  poetical  capacity  and  beauty  of  the 
English  tongue,  such  as  : 

"  The  painful  warrior,  famoused  for  fight, 
After  a  thousand  victories  once  foiled, 
Is  from  the  book  of  honour  razed  quite 
And  all  the  rest  forgot  for  wliich  he  toiled  ;  " 


or 


or 


or 


"  When  to  the  sessions  of  sweet  silent  tliought 
I  summon  up  remembrance  of  things  past ;" 

"  Was  it  the  proud  full  sail  of  his  great  verse, 
Bound  for  the  prize  of  all  too  precious  you?" 


"  Then  hate  mc  if  thou  wilt," 

with  the  whole  sonnet  which  it  opens  ;  or 

"  When  in  the  chronicle  of  wasted  time 
I  see  descriptions  of  the  fairest  wights, 
And  beauty  making  beautiful  old  rhyme 
In  [iraise  of  ladies  dead  and  lovely  knights  ;" 

or  that  most  magnificent  quatrain  of  all, 

"  Let  me  not  to  the  marriage  of  true  minds 
Admit  impediments.      Love  is  not  love 
Which  alters  wlien  it  alteraticjn  finds. 
Or  lii-nds  wiili  tlie  remover  lo  remove." 

.\ny  competent  judge  of  the  formal  part  of  ]wetry  must  admit 
that  its  force  can  no  farther  go.  Verse  and  phrase  cannot  be 
better  moulded  to  the  melodious  suggestion  of  beauty.      Nor,  as 


i64        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  TERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

even  these  scraps  show,  is  the  thought  below  the  verse.  Even 
if  Hallam's  postulate  of  misplaced  and  ill-regulated  passion  be 
granted  (and  I  am  myself  very  far  from  granting  it),  the  extra- 
ordinary wealth  of  thought,  of  knowledge,  of  nature,  of  self- 
knowledge,  of  clear  vision  of  others  in  the  very  midst  of  the 
circumstances  which  might  make  for  unclear  vision,  is  still 
unmistakable.  And  if  the  poet's  object  was  to  catch  up  the  sum 
of  love  and  utter  it  with  or  even  without  any  special  relation  to 
his  own  actual  feelings  for  any  actual  person  (a  hypothesis  which 
human  nature  in  general,  and  the  nature  of  poets  in  particular, 
makes  not  improbable),  then  it  can  only  be  said  that  he  has 
succeeded.  From  Sappho  and  Solomon  to  Shelley  and  Mr. 
Swinburne,  many  bards  have  spoken  excellently  of  love :  but 
what  they  have  said  could  be  cut  out  of  Shakespere's  sonnets 
better  said  than  they  have  said  it,  and  yet  enough  remain  to 
furnish  forth  the  greatest  of  poets. 

With  the  third  and  in  every  sense  chief  division  of  the  work, 
the  necessities  for  explanation  and  allowance  cease  altogether. 
The  thirty-seven  plays  of  the  "ordinary  Shakesperian  canon 
comprise  the  greatest,  the  most  varied,  the  most  perfect  work  yet 
done  by  any  man  in  literature ;  and  what  is  more,  the  work  of 
which  they  consist  is  on  the  whole  the  most  homogeneous  and 
the  least  unequal  ever  so  done.  The  latter  statement  is  likely 
to  be  more  questioned  than  the  former ;  but  I  have  no  fear  of 
failing  to  make  it  out.  In  one  sense,  no  doubt,  Shakespere  is 
unequal — as  life  is.  He  is  not  always  at  the  tragic  heights  of 
Othello  and  Hamlet,  at  the  comic  raptures  of  Falstaff  and  Sir  Toby, 
at  the  romantic  ecstasies  of  Romeo  and  Titania.  Neither  is  life. 
But  he  is  always — and  this  is  the  extraordinary  and  almost 
inexplicable  difference,  not  merely  between  him  and  all  his  con- 
temporaries, but  between  him  and  all  other  writers — at  the 
height  of  the  particular  situation.  This  unique  quality  is  uniquely 
illustrated  in  his  plays.  The  exact  order  of  their  composition  is  en- 
tirely unknown,  and  the  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  arrange 
it  into  periods,  much  more   to  rank    play  after  play  in  regular 


THE  SHAKESPERIAN  CHARACTER  165 


sequence,  are  obvious  failures,  and  are  discredited  not  merely  by 
the  inadequate  means — such  as  counting  syllables  and  attempting 
to  classify  the  cadence  of  lines — resorted  to  in  order  to  effect 
them,  but  by  the  hopeless  discrepancy  between  the  results  of 
different  investigators  and  of  the  same  investigator  at  different 
times.  We  know  indeed  pretty  certainly  that  Romeo  atid  Juliet 
was  an  early  play,  and  Cymbelinc  a  late  one,  with  other  general 
facts  of  the  same  kind.  We  know  pretty  certainly  that  the 
Henry  the  Sixth  series  was  based  on  a  previous  series  on  the  same 
subject  in  which  Shakespere  not  improbably  had  a  hand  ;  that 
King  John  and  The  Taming  of  the  Shren'  had  in  the  same  way 
first  draughts  from  the  same  or  other  hands,  and  so  forth.  But 
all  attempts  to  arrange  and  elucidate  a  chronological  development 
of  Shakespere's  mind  and  art  have  been  futile.  Practically 
the  Shakesperian  gifts  are  to  be  found  passim  in  the  Shake- 
sperian  canon — even  in  the  dullest  of  all  the  plays,  as  a 
whole,  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  even  in  work  so  alien 
from  his  general  practice,  and  so  probably  mixed  with  other 
men's  work,  as  Titus  Andronicus  and  Perieles.  There  are  rarely 
elsewhere — in  The  Maid's  Tragedy  of  Fletcher,  in  The  Duchess 
of  Malfy  of  Webster,  in  The  Changeling  of  Middleton  — 
passages  or  even  scenes  which  might  conceivably  have  been 
Shakespere's.  But  there  is,  with  the  doubtful  exception  of 
The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  no  play  in  any  other  man's  work 
which  as  a  whole  or  in  very  great  part  is  Shakesperian,  and 
there  is  no  play  usually  recognised  as  Shakespere's  which  would 
not  .seem  out  of  place  and  startling  in  the  work  of  any  con- 
temporary. 

This  intense,  or  rather  (for  intense  is  not  the  right  word)  this 
extraordinarily  diffused  character,  is  often  supposed  to  be  a  mere 
fancy  of  Shakespcre-worshippers.  It  is  not  so.  There  is  some- 
thing, not  so  mur  h  in  the  individual  flashes  of  poetry,  though  it 
is  there  too,  as  in  the  entire  scope  and  management  of  Shake- 
spere's plays,  histories,  tragedies,  and  comedies  alike,  whi(  h  dis- 
tinguishes   them,    and     it     is    exa<  lly    the    characdristic     noted 


i66        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

above,  and  well  put  by  Dryden  in  his  famous  definition  of 
Shakespere.  Perhaps  the  first  branch  or  phase  of  this  distinction 
is  that  Shakespere  is  never,  in  the  vulgar  sense  of  the  word, 
unnatural.  He  has  not  the  slightest  objection  to  horrors ;  the 
alarmed  foreign  critics  who  described  his  theatre  as  a  "  shambles  " 
need  not  have  gone  farther  than  his  greatest  plays  to  justify  them- 
selves literally.  But  with  barely  even  the  exception  which  has 
so  often  to  be  made  of  Titus  Afidronicus,  his  horrors  are  never 
sought  beyond  a  certain  usual  and  probable  round  of  circumstance, 
and  are  almost  always  tempered  and  humanised  by  touches  of 
humour  or  pathos,  or  both.  The  cool  sarcastic  villany  of  Aaron 
(a  mood  hit  off  nowhere  out  of  Shakespere,  except  in  Middleton's 
De  Flores,  and  not  fully  there)  is  the  point  on  which  I  should 
chiefly  put  the  finger  to  justify  at  least  a  partial  Shakesperian 
authorship.  Contrast  the  characterwith  the  nightmare  ghastlinesses 
and  extravagances  not  merely  of  Tourneur  and  Webster,  but  even 
of  Marlowe  in  Barabas,  and  the  difference  of  Shakespere's  handling 
will  be  felt  at  once.  Another  point  which  has  been  often,  yet 
perhaps  not  quite  fully,  noticed  is  the  distinct  and  pecuHar  attitude 
of  Shakespere  towards  what  is  in  the  common  sense  called  mor- 
ahty.  Nobody  can  possibly  call  him  squeamish  :  I  do  not  know 
that  even  any  French  naturalist  of  the  latest  school  has  charged 
the  author  of  Fericles,  and  Love's  Labour  Lost,  and  LLcmy  IV.^ 
with  that  pruderie  bete  of  which  they  accuse  Scott.  But  he 
never  makes  those  forms  of  vice  which  most  trouble  and  cor- 
rupt society  triumphant ;  he  never  diverges  into  the  morbid 
pathology  of  the  amatory  passion,  and  above  all,  and  most 
remarkably  of  all,  though  I  think  least  remarked,  he  never  makes 
his  personages  show  the  singular  toleration  of  the  most  despic- 
able immorality  which  almost  all  his  dramatic  contemporaries 
exhibit.  One  is  constantly  astonished  at  the  end  of  an  Eliza- 
bethan play,  when,  after  vice  has  been  duly  baffled  or  punished, 
and  virtue  rewarded  (for  they  all  more  or  less  follow  that  rule), 
reconciliations  and  forgivenesses  of  injuries  follow,  to  observe  the 
complacency  with  which   husbands  who   have  sold   their  wives' 


V  SHAKESPERE'S  HUMOUR  167 

favours,  wives  who  have  been  at  the  command  of  the  first  comer  or 
the  highest  bidder,  mix  cheek  by  jowl,  and  apparently  unrebuked, 
with  the  modest  maidens,  the  virtuous  matrons,  the  faithful  lovers 
of  the  piece.  Shakespere  never  does  this.  Mrs.  Quickly  is  indeed 
at  one  time  the  confidante  of  Anne  Fenton,  and  at  another  the  com- 
plaisant hostess  of  Doll  Tear-sheet,  but  not  in  the  same  play.  We 
do  not  find  Marina's  master  and  mistress  rewarded,  as  they  would 
very  likely  have  been  by  Fletcher  or  Middleton,  with  comfortable  if 
not  prominent  posts  at  the  court  of  Pericles,  or  the  Government- 
house  of  Mytilene.  The  ugly  and  artistically  unmanageable  situa- 
tion of  the  husband  who  trades  in  his  wife's  honour  simply  does 
not  occur  in  all  the  wide  license  and  variety  of  Shakespere's  forty 
plays.  He  is  in  his  own  sense  liberal  as  the  most  easy  going 
can  demand,  but  he  never  mixes  vice  and  virtue.  Yet  again, 
while  practising  this  singular  moderation  in  the  main  element,  in 
the  most  fertile  motives,  of  tragedy  and  comedy  respectively,  he  is 
equally  alone  in  his  use  in  both  of  the  element  of  humour.  And 
here  we  are  on  dangerous  ground.  To  many  excellent  persons  of 
all  times  since  his  own,  as  well  as  in  it,  Shakespere's  humour  and 
his  use  of  it  have  been  stumbling-blocks.  Some  of  them  have 
been  less  able  to  away  with  the  use,  some  with  the  thing. 
Shakesperian  clowns  are  believed  to  be  red  rags  to  some  experi- 
enced playwrights  and  accomplished  wits  of  our  own  days  :  the 
porter  in  Macbeth,  the  gravediggers  in  Ilamht,  the  fool  in  Lear, 
even  the  humours  in  Love's  Labour  Lost  and  The  Merchant  of 
Venice  have  offended.  I  avow  myself  an  impenitent  Shakesperian 
in  this  respect  also.  The  constant  or  almost  constant  presence 
of  that  humour  which  ranges  from  the  sarcastic  (juintessence  of 
lago,  and  the  genial  (luintessence  of  Falstaff,  through  the  fantasies 
of  Festc  and  I'Mgar,  down  to  the  sheer  nonsense  which  not  unfre- 
(jucntly  occurs,  seems  to  me  not  only  delightful  in  itself,  but,  as 
I  have  hinted  already,  one  of  the  chief  of  those  spells  by  which 
Shakespere  has  differenliated  his  work  in  the  sense  of  universality 
from  that  of  all  other  dramatists.  I  have  used  the  word  nonsense, 
and  I  may  be  thought  to  have  partly  given  up  my  case  by  it.    15ut 


i68         THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD-SHAKESPERE    chap. 

nonsense,  as  hardly  any  critic  but  Hazlitt  has  had  the  courage  to 
avow  openly,  is  no  small  part  of  life,  and  it  is  a  part  the  relish 
of  which  Englishmen,  as  the  same  great  but  unequal  critic  justly 
maintains,  are  almost  alone  in  enjoying  and  recognising.  It  is 
because  Shakespere  dares,  and  dares  very  frequently,  simply 
desipere,  simply  to  be  foolish,  that  he  is  so  pre-eminently  wise. 
The  others  try  to  be  always  wise,  and,  alas !  it  is  not  necessary  to 
complete  the  antithesis. 

These  three  things — restraint  in  the  use  of  sympathy  with 
suffering,  restraint  in  the  use  of  interest  in  voluptuous  excess,  and 
humour — are,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the  three  chief  distinguishing 
points  in  Shakespere's  handling  which  are  not  found  in  any  of 
his  contemporaries,  for  though  there  is  humour  in  not  a  few  of 
these,  none  of  them  is  a  perfect  humorist  in  the  same  sense. 
Here,  as  well  as  in  that  general  range  or  width  of  subject  and 
thought  which  attracted  Dryden's  eulogium,  he  stands  alone.  In 
other  respects  he  shares  the  qualities  which  are  perceptible  almost 
throughout  this  wonderfully  fertile  department  of  literature  ;  but 
he  shares  them  as  infinitely  the  largest  shareholder.  It  is 
difficult  to  think  of  any  other  poet  (for  with  Homer  we  are  de- 
prived of  the  opportunity  of  comparison)  who  was  so  completely 
able  to  meet  any  one  of  his  contemporaries  on  that  contemporary's 
own  terms  in  natural  gift.  I  say  natural  gift  because,  though  it  is 
quite  evident  that  Shakespere  was  a  man  of  no  small  reading, 
his  deficiencies  in  general  education  are  too  constantly  recorded 
by  tradition,  and  rendered  too  probable  by  internal  evidence,  to 
be  ignored  or  denied  by  any  impartial  critic.  But  it  is  difficult 
to  mention  a  quality  possessed  by  any  of  the  school  (as  it  is  loosely 
called),  from  Marlowe  to  Shirley,  which  he  had  not  in  greater 
measure  ;  while  the  infinite  qualities  which  he  had,  and  the  others 
each  in  one  way  or  another  lacked,  are  evident.  On  only  one 
subject — ^i-eligion — is  his  mouth  almost  closed  ;  certainly,  as  the 
few  utterances  that  touch  it  show,  from  no  incapacity  of  dealing 
with  it,  and  apparently  from  no  other  dislike  than  a  dislike  to 
meddle  with  anything  outside  of  the  purely  human   province  of 


V  MISTAKES  AS  TO  SIIAKESPERE  169 

which  he  felt  that  he  was  universal  master — m  short  from  an 
infinite  reverence. 

It  will  not  be  expected  that  in  a  book  like  the  present — the 
whole  space  of  which  might  very  well  be  occupied,  without  any  of 
the  undue  dilation  which  has  been  more  than  once  rebuked,  in 
dealing  with  Shakespere  alone — any  attempt  should  be  made  to 
criticise  single  plays,  passages,  and  characters.  It  is  the  less  of  a 
loss  that  in  reality,  as  the  wisest  commentators  have  always  either 
begun  or  ended  by  acknowledging,  Shakespere  is  your  only 
commentator  on  Shakespere.  Even  the  passages  which  corrupt 
printing,  or  the  involved  fashion  of  speaking  peculiar  to  the  time, 
make  somewhat  obscure  at  first,  will  in  almost  every  case  yield  to 
the  unassisted  cogitation  of  any  ordinarily  intelligent  person  ;  and 
the  results  so  reached  are  far  more  likely  to  be  the  true  results 
than  the  elaborate  emendations  which  delight  a  certain  class  of 
editors.  A  certain  amount  of  mere  glossary  is  of  course  necessary, 
but  otherwise  the  fewer  corks  and  bladders  the  swimmer  takes 
with  him  when  he  ventures  into  "the  ocean  wliich  is  Shakespere," 
the  better.  There  are,  however,  certain  common  errors,  some  of 
which  have  survived  even  the  last  century  of  Shakespere-study 
and  Shakespere-worship,  which  must  perhaps  be  discussed.  For 
in  the  case  of  the  greatest  writers,  the  business  of  the  critic 
is  much  more  to  shovel  away  the  rubbish  of  his  predecessors  than 
to  attemj)t  any  accumulation  of  his  own.  The  chief  of  these 
errors — or  rather  that  error  which  practically  swallows  up  all  the 
others  and  can  produce  them  again  at  any  time — is  that  Shakespere 
was,  if  not  exactly  an  inspired  idiot,  at  any  rate  a  mainly  tentative 
if  not  purely  unconscious  artist,  much  of  whose  work  is  only  not 
bad  as  art,  while  most,  if  not  all  of  it,  was  originally  produced  with 
a  minimum  of  artistic  consciousness  and  design.  This  enormous 
error,  which  is  i)rotean  in  form,  has  naturally  induced  the  counter 
error  of  a  too  great  insistence  on  the  consciousness  and  clai)oration 
of  Shakespere's  art.  The  most  elaborate  theories  of  this  art  have 
l)een  framed — theories  involving  the  construction  of  perha])s  as 
much  l)a.scless  fabric  as  anything  else  connected  with  the  subject, 


170        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

which  is  saying  a  great  deal.  It  appears  to  me  in  the  highest 
degree  improbable  that  Shakespere  had  before  him  consciously 
more  than  three  purposes ;  but  these  three  I  think  that  he  con- 
stantly had,  and  that  he  was  completely  successful  in  achieving 
them.  The  first  was  to  tell  in  every  play  a  dramatically  complete 
story ;  the  second  was  to  work  that  story  out  by  the  means  of 
purely  human  and  probable  characters ;  and  the  third  was  to 
give  such  form  and  ornaments  to  the  working  out  as  might  please 
the  playgoers  of  his  day.  In  pursuing  the  first  two  he  was  the 
poet  or  dramatist  of  all  time.  In  pursuing  the  third  he  was  the 
intelligent  playwright.  But  (and  here  is  the  source  of  the 
common  error)  it  by  no  means  follows  that  his  attention,  and  his 
successful  attention,  to  his  third  purpose  in  any  way  interferes  with, 
or  degrades,  his  excellence  as  a  pursuer  of  the  first  two.  In  the 
first  place,  it  can  escape  no  careful  student  that  the  merely  play- 
wright part  of  Shakespere's  work  is  (as  is  the  case  with  no  other 
dramatic  author  whatever)  singularly  separable.  No  generation 
since  his  death  has  had  the  slightest  difficulty  in  adapting  by  far 
the  greater  part  of  his  plays  to  use  and  popularity  in  its  own  day, 
though  the  adaptation  may  have  varied  in  liberty  and  in  good 
taste  with  the  standards  of  the  time.  At  the  present  day,  while 
almost  all  other  old  dramatists  have  ceased  to  be  acted  at  all, 
or  are  acted  merely  as  curiosities,  the  adaptation  of  Shakespere 
has  become  more  and  more  a  process  of  simple  omission  (without 
the  addition  or  alteration  of  anything)  of  parts  which  are  either 
unsuited  to  modern  manners  or  too  long  for  modern  patience. 
With  the  two  usual  exceptions,  Pericles  and  Titus  Andronicus 
(which,  despite  the  great  beauty  of  parts,  are  evidently  less  Shake- 
sperian  as  wholes  than  any  others),  there  is  not  a  single  play  of 
the  whole  number  that  could  not  be — there  are  not  many  that 
have  not  been — acted  with  success  in  our  time.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  stronger  differentia  from  the  work  of  the  mere 
playwright,  who  invariably  thinks  first  of  the  temporary  conditions 
of  success,  and  accordingly  loses  the  success  which  is  not 
temporary.      But  the  second   grait  difference   of  Shakespere  is, 


V  MISTAKES  AS  TO  SIIAKESPERE  171 

that  even  wliat  may  be  iii  comparison  called  the  ephemeral 
and  perishable  parts  of  him  have  an  extraordinary  vitality,  if 
not  theatrical  yet  literary,  of  their  own.  The  coarser  scenes 
oi  Measure  for  Measure  and  TJie  Comedy  of  Errors,  the  satire  on 
fleeting  follies  in  Lox'e's  Labour  Lost,  the  uncomelier  parts  of  All's 
Well  that  Ends  Well,  the  Doll  Tear-sheet  business  oi  Llenry  LV., 
the  comic  by-play  of  Trcilus  and  Cressida,  may  seem  mere  wood, 
hay,  and  stubble  in  comparison  with  the  nobler  portions.  Yet 
the  fire  of  time  has  not  consumed  them  :  they  are  as  delightful  as 
ever  in  the  library  if  not  on  the  stage. 

Little  or  nothing  need  be  said  in  defence  of  Shakespere  as  an 
artist  from  the  attacks  of  the  older  or  Unity  criticism.  That 
maleficent  giant  can  now  hardly  grin  at  the  ijilgrims  whom  he 
once  harassed.  But  there  are  many  persons  who,  not  dreaming 
of  the  Unities,  still  object  in  language  less  extravagant  than 
Voltaire's  or  George  the  Third's,  but  with  hardly  less  decision, 
to  the  "  sad  stuff,"  the  fumier  of  Shakespere's  admixture  of 
comedy  with  tragedy,  of  his  digressions  and  episodes,  of  his 
multifarious  underplots  and  minor  groups,  and  ramifications  of 
interest  or  intrigue.  The  reply  to  this  is  not  (as  it  might  be,  if 
any  reply  were  not  superfluous,  in  the  case  of  the  Unity  objection) 
a  reply  of  demonstration.  If  any  person  experienced  in  literature, 
and  with  an  interest  in  it,  experienced  in  life  and  with  an  interest 
in  that,  asserts  that  Caliban  and  Trinculo  interfere  with  his  en- 
joyment of  Ferdinand  and  Miranda ;  that  the  almost  tragedy 
of  Hero  is  marred  for  him  by  the  comedy  of  Beatrice  and  the 
farce  of  Dogberry ;  that  he  would  have  preferred  A  Midsummer 
Nii^ht's  Dream  without  the  tedious  brief  effort  of  Quince  and  his 
companions ;  that  tlie  solemnity  and  passion  of  Jfamlet  and 
Macbeth  cause  in  him  a  revulsion  against  the  porter  and  the 
gravedigger ;  that  the  Fool  and  Edgar  are  out  of  place  in  Lear, — 
it  is  impossible  to  prove  to  him  by  the  methods  of  any  luiclid 
or  of  any  .Mdrich  that  he  is  wrong.  The  thing  is  essentially,  if 
not  wholly,  a  matter  of  lasle.  ll  is  ])ossible,  indeeil,  to  i)oint 
out,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Unities,  llial  llie  objectors,  if  tiiey  will 


172         THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

maintain  their  objection,  must  deny  the  position  that  the  dramatic 
art  holds  up  the  mirror  to  Nature,  and  that  if  they  deny  it,  the 
burden — a  burden  never  yet  successfully  taken  up  by  any  one— of 
framing  a  new  definition  rests  upon  them.  But  this  is  only  a 
partial  and  somewhat  inconclusive  argument,  and  the  person 
who  genuinely  dislikes  these  peculiarities  of  Shakespere  is  like 
a  man  who  genuinely  dislikes  wine  or  pictures  or  human  faces, 
that  seem  delightful  and  beautiful  to  others.  I  am  not  aware  of 
any  method  whereby  I  can  prove  that  the  most  perfect  claret  is 
better  than  zoedone  in  flavour,  or  that  the  most  exquisite  creation 
of  Botticelli  or  Lionardo  is  more  beautiful  than  the  cuts  on  the 
sides  of  railway  novels.     Again,  it  is  matter  of  taste. 

It  will  be  seen  that  I  am  not  for  my  part  afraid  to  avow  myself 
a  thoroughgoing  Shakesperian,  who  accepts  the  weak  points  of  his 
master  as  well  as  the  strong.  It  is  often  forgotten  (indeed  I  do 
not  know  where  I  have  seen  it  urged)  that  there  is  in  Shakespere's 
case  an  excuse  for  the  thousand  lines  that  good  Ben  Jonson 
would  have  liked  him  to  blot, — an  excuse  which  avails  for  no  one 
else.  No  one  else  has  his  excuse  of  universality ;  no  one  else 
has  attempted  to  paint,  much  less  has  painted,  the  whole  of  life. 
It  is  because  Shakespere  has  attempted  this,  and,  in  the  judgment 
of  at  least  some,  has  succeeded  in  it,  that  the  spots  in  his  sun 
are  so  different  from  the  spots  in  all  other  suns.  I  do  not  know 
an  unnatural  character  or  an  unnatural  scene  in  Shakespere,  even 
among  those  which  have  most  evidently  been  written  to  the 
gallery.  Everything  in  him  passes,  in  some  mysterious  way,  under 
and  into  that  "  species  of  eternity "  which  transforms  all  the 
great  works  of  art,  which  at  once  prevents  them  from  being  mere 
copies  of  Nature,  and  excuses  whatever  there  is  of  Nature  in  them 
that  is  not  beautiful  or  noble.  If  this  touch  is  wanting  anywhere 
(and  it  is  wanting  very  seldom),  that,  I  take  it,  is  the  best, 
indeed  the  only,  sign  that  that  passage  is  not  Shakespere's, — that 
he  had  either  made  use  of  some  other  man's  work,  or  that  some 
other  man  had  made  use  of  his.  If  such  passages  were  of  more 
frequent  occurrence,  this  argument  might  be  called  a  circular  one. 


V  SHAKESPERE'S  GROUP  173 

But  the  proportion  of  such  passages  as  I  at  least  should  exclude 
is  so  small,  and  the  difference  between  them  and  the  rest  is 
so  marked,  that  no  improper  begging  of  the  question  can  be 
justly  .charged.  The  plays  in  the  Globe  edition  contain  just 
a  thousand  closely- printed  pages.  I  do  not  think  that  there 
are  fifty  in  all,  perhaps  not  twenty — putting  scraps  and  patches 
together — in  which  the  Shakesperian  touch  is  wanting,  and  I  do 
not  think  that  that  touch  appears  outside  the  covers  of  the 
volume  once  in  a  thousand  pages  of  all  the  rest  of  English 
literature.  The  finest  things  of  other  men,  —  of  Marlowe,  of 
Fletcher,  of  Webster  (who  no  doubt  comes  nearest  to  the  Shake- 
sperian touch,  infinitely  as  he  falls  short  of  the  Shakesperian 
range), — might  conceivably  be  the  work  of  others.  But  the  famous 
passages  of  Shakespere,  too  numerous  and  too  well  known  to 
quote,  could  be  no  one  else's.  It  is  to  this  point  that  aesthetic 
criticism  of  Shakespere  is  constantly  coming  round  with  an 
almost  monotonous  repetition.  As  great  as  all  others  in  their 
own  points  of  greatness ;  holding  points  of  greatness  which  no 
others  even  approach ;  such  is  Shakespere. 

There  is  a  certain  difficulty — most  easily  to  be  appreciated 
by  those  who  have  most  carefully  studied  the  literature  of  the 
jjeriod  in  (question,  and  have  most  fully  perceived  the  mistakes 
which  confusion  of  exact  date  has  induced  in  the  consideration 
of  the  very  complex  subject  before  us — in  selecting  dramatists  to 
group  with  Shakespere.  The  obvious  resource  of  taking  him  by 
himself  would  frustrate  the  main  purpose  of  this  volume,  which  is 
to  show  the  general  movement  at  the  same  time  as  the  individual 
developments  of  the  literature  of  1560 -1660.  In  one  sense 
Shakespere  might  be  included  in  any  one  of  three  out  of  the 
four  chapters  which  we  have  here  devoted  to  tlie  Elizabethan 
dramatists.  His  earliest  known,  and  probably  much  of  his  un- 
known work  coincides  with  the  period  of  tentative  ;  and  his  latest 
work  overlaps  very  much  of  that  period  of  ripe  and  somewhat 
over-ripe  performance,  at  the  head  of  whic  li  it  has  here  been 
thought  good   to  set    Beaumont  and    Fletcher.      Uul    there   is  a 


174        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

group  of  four  notable  persons  who  appear  to  have  especial  rights 
to  be  classed  with  him,  if  not  in  greatness,  yet  in  character  of 
work,  and  in  the  influences  which  played  on  that  work.  They  all, 
like  him,  took  an  independent  part  in  the  marvellous  wit-combat 
of  the  last  decade  of  Elizabeth,  and  they  all  like  him  survived, 
though  for  different  lengths  of  time,  to  set  an  example  to  the 
third  generation.  They  are  all,  even  the  meanest  of  them,  dis- 
tinctly great  men,  and  free  alike  from  the  immaturity,  visible 
even  in  Lyly  and  Marlowe,  which  marked  some  of  their  older 
contemporaries,  and  from  the  decadence,  visible  even  in  Fletcher 
and  Massinger,  which  marred  their  younger  followers.  Further- 
more, they  were  mixed  up,  as  regards  one  another,  in  an  inextric- 
able but  not  uninteresting  series  of  broils  and  friendships,  to  some 
part  of  which  Shakespere  himself  may  have  been  by  no  means 
a  stranger.  These  reasons  have  seemed  sufficient  for  separating 
them  from  the  rest,  and  grouping  them  round  the  captain.  They 
are  Benjamin  Jonson,  George  Chapman,  John  Marston,  and 
Thomas  Dekker. 

The  history  of  Ben  Jonson' (the  literary  history  that  is  to  say, 
for  the  known  facts  of  his  life  are  simple  enough)  is  curious  and 
perhaps  unique.  Nothing  is  really  known  of  his  family ;  but  as, 
at  a  time  when  Scotchmen  were  not  loved  in  England,  he  main- 
tained his  Annandale  origin,  there  should  be,  especially  after  Mr. 
Symonds's  investigations  as  to  his  career,  no  doubt  that  he  at 
least  believed  himself  to  be  of  Border  extraction,  as  was  also, 
it  may  be  remembered,  his  great  disciple,  panegyrist,  slanderer, 
and  (with  the  substitution  of  an  easy  for  a  rugged  temper), 
analogue,  John  Dryden.  The  fact  of  these  two  typical  English- 
men being  of  half  or  whole  Scotch  descent  will  not  surprise 
any  one  who  does  not  still  ignore  the  proper  limits  of  England. 
Nobody  doubts  that  his  father  (or  rather  stepfather,  for  he  was  a 
posthumous  child,  born  1573,  and  his  mother  married  again)  was 
a  bricklayer,  or  that  he  went  to  Westminster  School ;  it  seems 
much  more  dubious  whether  he  had  any  claim  to  anything  but 
an  honorary  degree  from  either  university,  though  he  received 


BEN  JONSON  175 


that  from  both.  Probably  he  worked  at  bricklaying,  though  the 
taunts  of  his  rivals  would,  in  face  of  the  undoubted  fact  of  his 
stepfathers  profession,  by  no  means  sufifice  to  prove  it  Cer- 
tainly he  went  through  the  chequered  existence  of  so  many 
Elizabethan  men  of  letters  ;  was  a  soldier  in  Flanders,  an  actor,  a 
duellist  (killing  his  man,  and  escaping  consequences  only  by 
benefit  of  clergy),  a  convert  to  Romanism,  a  "  revert "  to  the 
Anglican  Church,  a  married  man,  a  dramatist.  The  great  play 
of  Every  Man  in  /lis  Humour,  afterwards  very  much  altered,  was 
perhaps  acted  first  at  the  Rose  Theatre  in  1596,  and  it  established 
Jonson's  reputation,  though  there  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  he 
had  written  other  things.  His  complicated  associations  and 
quarrels  with  Dekker,  Marston,  Chapman,  and  others,  have 
occupied  the  time  of  a  considerable  number  of  persons  ;  they 
lie  quite  beyond  our  subject,  and  it  may  be  observed  without 
presumption  that  their  direct  connection,  even  with  the  literary 
work  {T/ie  Poetaster,  Satiro-mastix,  and  the  rest)  which  is  usually 
linked  to  them,  will  be  better  established  when  critics  have  left 
off  being  uncertain  whether  A  was  B,  or  B,  C.  Even  the  most 
famous  stor)'  of  all  (the  disgrace  of  Jonson  with  others  for 
Eastward  Ho  I  as  a  libel  against  the  Scots,  for  which  he  was 
imprisoned,  and,  being  threatened  with  mutilation,  was  by  his 
Roman  mother  supplied  with  poison),  though  told  by  him- 
self, does  not  rest  on  any  external  evidence.  What  is  certain 
is  that  Jonson  was  in  great  and  greater  request,  both  as  a  writer 
of  masks  and  other  divertissements  for  the  Court,  and  as  a  head 
and  chief  of  literary  conviviality  at  the  "  Mermaid,"  and  other 
famous  taverns.  Here,  as  he  grew  older,  there  grew  up  round 
him  that  "Tribe  of  15en,"  or  admiring  clique  of  young  literary 
men,  which  included  almost  all  the  most  remarkable  poets,  except 
Milton,  of  the  late  Jacobean  and  early  Caroline  period,  and 
which  helped  to  spread  his  fame  for  at  least  two  generations,  and 
(by  Waller's  influence  on  Saint-]'>remond)  lo  make  him  tiie  first 
English  man  of  letters  who  was  introduced  by  a  great  critic  of 
the  Continent  lo  continental  attention  as  a  worker  in  liie  English 


176        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

vernacular.  At  last  he  was  made  Poet  Laureate,  and  in  1618 
he  took  a  journey  to  Scotland,  and  stayed  there  for  some  time 
with  Drummond  of  Hawthornden.  The  celebrated  conversations 
noted  by  the  host  have  been  the  very  centre  battle-ground  of  all 
fights  about  Ben  Jonson's  character.  It  is  sufficient  here  to  say  that 
though  Ben's  chief  defender,  Gifford,  may  have  been  too  hard  on 
Drummond,  it  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  think  that  the 
"Notes  of  Conversations"  were  made  in  a  friendly  spirit.  They 
contain  for  their  bulk  an  extraordinary  amount  of  interesting 
matter,  and  much  sound  criticism  ;  but  which  of  us  in  modern 
days  would  care  to  have  such  "  notes  "  taken  ?  A  man  thinks 
that  there  are  faults  in  a  friend's  work,  and  in  the  usual  exaggera- 
tion of  conversation  he  says  that  it  is  "rubbish."  The  Drum- 
monds  of  this  world  note  it  down  and  it  passes  as  a  deliberate 
judgment.  He  must  be  a  fortunate  man,  or  an  exceptional  recluse, 
who  has  not  found  some  good-natured  friend  anticipate  Drum- 
mond, and  convey  the  crude  expression  (probably  heightened  in 
conveyance)  direct  to  the  person  concerned.  After  this  visit 
(which  must  have  been  at  the  end  of  16 18)  Jonson  suffered  the 
calamity  of  having  his  study  destroyed  by  fire,  and  lost  much 
MS.  work.  He  lived  many  years  longer  and  retained  his  literary 
primacy,  but  was  unfortunate  in  money  matters,  and  even  in 
reception  of  his  work  by  the  public,  though  the  literary  men  of 
his  day  made  no  mistake  about  him.  He  died  in  1637,  and  the 
last  of  the  many  stories  clustering  round  his  name  is  the  famous 
one  of  the  inscription,  "O  rare  Ben  Jonson  !"  A  year  later,  a 
tombeaii^  or  collection  of  funeral  poems,  ovAAXX^di  Jonsonus  Virbius, 
showed  the  estimate  entertained  of  him  by  the  best  and  brightest 
wits  of  the  time. 

His  life  was  thus  a  life  of  struggle,  for  he  was  never  rich,  and 
lived  for  the  most  part  on  the  most  unsatisfactory  of  all  sources 
of  income — casual  bounties  from  the  king  and  others.  It  is  not 
improbable  that  his  favour  with  the  Court  and  with  Templar  society 
(which  was  then  very  unpopular  with  the  middle  classes),  had 
something  to  do  with  the  ill-reception  of  his  later  plays.      But  his 


BEN   JONSON  177 


literary  influence  was  very  great,  and  witli  Donne  he  determined 
much  of  the  course  of  English  poetry  for  many  years,  and  retained 
a  great  name  even  in  the  comparative  eclipse  of  the  "  Giant 
Race "  after  the  Restoration.  It  was  only  when  the  study  of 
Shakespere  became  a  fiivourite  subject  with  persons  of  more 
industry  than  intelligence  in  the  early  eighteenth  century,  that  a 
singular  fabric  of  myth  grew  up  round  Ben  Jonson.  He  was 
pictured  as  an  incarnation  of  envy,  hatred,  malice,  and  all  un- 
charitableness,  directed  in  the  first  place  towards  Shakespere,  and 
then  towards  all  other  literary  craftsmen,  ^\'illiam  GifTord,  his 
first  competent  editor,  set  himself  to  work  to  destroy  this,  and 
undoubtedly  succeeded.  But  the  acrimony  with  which  Giflbrd 
tinctured  all  his  literary'  polemic  perhaps  rather  injured  his  treat- 
ment of  the  case ;  even  yet  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Ben 
Jonson  has  attained  anything  like  his  proper  place  in  English 
literary  history. 

Putting  aside  the  abiding  influence  of  a  good  long-continued 
course  of  misrepresentation,  it  is  still  not  difficult  to  discover  the 
source  of  this  under-estimate,  without  admitting  the  worst  view  or 
even  any  very  bad  view  of  Ben  Jonson's  character,  literary  and 
personal.  It  may  be  granted  that  he  was  rough  and  arrogant,  a 
scholar  who  pushed  scholarship  to  the  verge  of  pedantry,  a  critic 
who  sometimes  forgot  that  though  a  schoolmaster  may  be  a  critic, 
a  critic  should  not  be  merely  a  schoolmaster.  His  work  is 
saturated  with  that  contempt  of  the  profanum  vulgiis  which  the 
profanum  niii^us  (humanly  enough)  seldom  fails  to  return. 
Moreover,  it  is  extremely  voluminous,  and  it  is  by  no  means  equal. 
Of  his  eighteen  plays,  three  only — Every  Man  in  his  Hutnour^ 
The  A/chemist,  and  the  charming  fragment  of  The  Sad  Shepherd — 
can  be  praised  as  wholes.  His  lovely  Masques  are  probably  un- 
read f>y  all  but  a  few  scores,  if  so  many,  in  each  generation. 
His  noble  sinewy  prose  is,  for  the  most  part,  unattractive  in 
subject.  His  minor  i)Ocms,  though  not  a  few  of  them  are  known 
even  to  smattcrers  in  literature,  are  as  a  whole  (or  at  least  it 
wouhl  seem  so)  unknown.  Yet  his  merits  are  extraordinary. 
II  N 


178        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

"Never"  in  his  plays  (save  The  Sad  Shepherd)  "tender,"  and  still 
more  rarely  "  sublime,"  he  yet,  in  words  much  better  applied  to 
him  than  to  his  pupil  Dryden,  "wrestles  with  and  conquers  time." 
Even  his  enemies  admit  his  learning,  his  vigour,  his  astonishing 
power  of  work.  What  is  less  generally  admitted,  despite  in  one 
case  at  least  the  celebrity  of  the  facts  that  prove  it,  is  his  ob- 
servation, his  invention,  and  at  times  his  anomalous  and  seemingly 
contradictory  power  of  grace  and  sweetness.  There  is  no  more 
singular  example  of  the  proverb,  "  Out  of  the  eater  came  forth 
meat,  and  out  of  the  strong  sweetness,"  which  has  been  happily 
applied  to  Victor  Hugo,  than  the  composition,  by  the  rugged 
author  of  Sejanus  and  Catiline,  of  The  Devil  is  an  Ass  and 
Bartholomeiv  Fair,  of  such  things  as 

"  Here  lies  to  each  her  parents  ruth  ;" 

or  the  magnificent  song, 

"  Drink  to  me  only  with  thine  eyes  ;" 

or  the  crown  and  flower  of  all  epitaphs, 

"  Underneath  this  sable  herse. "  ^ 

But  these  three  universally-known  poems  only  express  in  quin- 
tessence a  quality  of  Jonson's  which  is  spread  all  about  his  minor 
pieces,  which  appears  again  perfectly  in  The  Sad  Shepherd,  and 
which  he  seems  to  have  kept  out  of  his  plays  proper  rather  from 
bravado  than  for  any  other  reason.  His  prose  will  be  noticed 
separately  in  the  next  chapter,  but  it  may  be  observed  here  that 
it  is  saturated  with  the  same  literary  flavour  which  pervades  all 
his  work.  None  of  his  dramatic  fellows  wTOte  anything  that 
can  compare  to  it,  just  as  none  of  them  wrote  anything  tha,t 
surpasses  the  songs  and  snatches  in  his  plays,  and  the  best  things 
in  his  miscellaneous  works.  The  one  title  which  no  con!petent 
criticism  has  ever  grudged  him  is  that  of  best  epitaph-writer  in 
the  English  language,  and  only  those  who  have  failed  to  consider 
the  difficulties  and  the  charm  of  that  class  of  composition  will 

■*  Ben  is  sometimes  deprived  of  this,  me  judice,  most  irreligiously. 


BEN  JONSON  179 


consider  this  faint  praise.  Nevertheless,  it  was  no  doubt  upon 
drama  that  Jonson  concentrated  his  powers,  and  the  unfavourable 
judgments  which  have  been  delivered  on  him  chiefly  refer  to 
this. 

A  good  deal  of  controversy  has  arisen  out  of  the  attribution 
to  him,  which  is  at  least  as  old  as  The  Return  from  Parnassus,  of 
being  minded  to  classicise  the  English  drama.  It  is  certain  that 
he  set  a  value  on  the  Unities  which  no  other  English  dramatist 
has  set,  and  that  in  The  Alchemist  at  least  he  has  given  some- 
thing like  a  perfect  example  of  them,  which  is  at  the  same  time 
an  admirable  play.  Whether  this  attention  is  at  all  responsible 
for  the  defects  which  are  certainly  found  in  his  work  is  a  very 
large  question.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  that  work,  with  perhaps 
the  single  exception  just  mentioned,  the  reader  (it  is,  except  in  the 
case  of  Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  generations  since  the  playgoer 
had  any  opportunity  of  judging)  finds  a  certain  absence  of  sym- 
pathetic attraction,  as  well  as,  for  all  the  formal  unity  of  the  pieces, 
a  lack  of  that  fusing  poetic  force  which  makes  detail  into  a  whole. 
The  amazing  strength  of  Jonson's  genius,  the  power  with  which 
he  has  compelled  all  manner  of  unlikely  elements  into  his  service, 
is  evident  enough,  but  the  result  usually  wants  charm.  The 
drawbacks  are  (always  excepting  The  Alchemist)  least  perceptible 
in  Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  the  first  sprightly  runnings  (unless 
The  Case  is  Altered  is  older)  of  Jonson's  fancy,  the  freshest 
example  of  his  sharp  observation  of  "humours."  Later  he  some- 
times overdid  this  observation,  or  rather  he  failed  to  bring  its  results 
sufficiently  into  poetic  or  dramatic  form,  and,  therefore,  is  too 
much  for  an  age  and  too  little  for  all  time.  But  Every  Man  in 
his  Humour  is  really  charming.  Bobadil,  Master  Slei)hen,  and 
Kitely  attain  to  the  first  rank  of  dramatic  characters,  and  others 
are  not  far  behind  them  in  this  respect.  The  next  play,  Evoy 
Man  out  of  his  Humour,  is  a  great  contrast,  being,  as  even  the 
doughty  (JifTord  admit.s,  distinctly  uninteresting  as  a  whole,  despite 
numerous  fine  passages.  Perhaps  a  little  of  its  want  of  attraction 
must  be  set  down  to  a  j^estilent  habit  of  Jonson'.s,  which  he  had 


i8o        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

at  one  time  thought  of  applying  to  Every  Man  in  his  Huvioiir, 
the  habit  of  giving  foreign,  chiefly  ItaUan,  appellations  to  his 
characters,  describing,  and  as  it  were  labelling  them  —  Deliro, 
Macilente,  and  the  like.  This  gives  an  air  of  unreality,  a  figure- 
head and  type  character.  Cynthia^s  Revels  has  the  same 
defects,  but  is  to  some  extent  saved  by  its  sharp  raillery  of 
euphuism.  With  The  Poetaster  Jonson  began  to  rise  again.  I 
think  myself  that  the  personages  and  machinery  of  the  Augustan 
Court  would  be  much  better  away,  and  that  the  implied  satire 
on  contemporaries  would  be  tedious  if  it  could  not,  as  it  fortunately 
can,  be  altogether  neglected.  But  in  spite  of  these  drawbacks, 
the  piece  is  good.  Of  Scjauus  and  Jonson's  later  Roman  play 
Catiline  I  think,  I  confess,  better  than  the  majority  of  critics 
appear  to  think.  That  they  have  any  very  intense  tragic  interest 
will,  indeed,  hardly  be  pretended,  and  the  unfortunate  but  in- 
evitable comparison  with  Coriolanus  and  Julius  Ccesar  has  done 
them  great  and  very  unjust  harm.  Less  human  than  Shakespere's 
"godlike  Romans"  (who  are  as  human  as  they  are  godlike), 
Jonson's  are  undoubtedly  more  Roman,  and  this,  if  it  is  not 
entirely  an  attraction,  is  in  its  way  a  merit.  But  it  was  not  till 
after  Sejanus  that  the  full  power  of  Jonson  appeared.  His  three 
next  plays,  Volpone,  Epicene,  and  The  Alchemist,  could  not  have 
been  written  by  any  one  but  himself,  and,  had  they  -not  been 
written,  would  have  left  a  gap  in  English  which  nothing  from  any 
other  literature  could  supply.  If  his  attitude  had  been  a  little 
less  virtuous  and  a  little  more  sarcastic,  Jonson  would  in  these 
three  plays  have  anticipated  Swift.  Of  the  three,  I  prefer  the 
first  and  the  last — the  last  being  the  best  of  all.  Epicene  or  the 
Silent  Woman  was  specially  liked  by  the  next  generation  because 
of  its  regularity,  and  of  the  skill  with  which  the  various  humours 
are  all  wrought  into  the  main  plot.  Both  these  things  are  un- 
deniable, and  many  of  the  humours  are  in  themselves  amusing 
enough.  But  still  there  is  something  wanting,  which  is  supplied 
in  Volpone  and  The  Alchemist.  It  has  been  asked  whether  that 
disregard  of  probabiHty,  which  is  one  of  Jonson's  greatest  faults, 


BEX  JONSON  iSi 


does  not  appear  in  the  recklessness  with  which  "The  Fox"  ex- 
poses himself  to  utter  ruin,  not  so  much  to  gratify  any  sensual 
desire  or  obtain  any  material  advantage,  as  simply  to  indulge  his 
combined  hypocrisy  and  cynicism  to  the  very  utmost.  The 
answer  to  this  question  will  very  much  depend  on  each  reader's 
taste  and  experience.  It  is  undeniable  that  there  have  been 
examples  of  perverse  indulgence  in  wickedness  for  wickedness' 
sake,  which,  rare  as  they  are,  go  far  to  justify  the  creation  of 
Volpone.  But  the  unredeemed  villany  of  the  hero,  with  whom 
it  is  impossible  in  any  way  to  sympathise,  and  the  sheer  brutality 
of  the  fortune-hunting  dupes  who  surround  him,  make  it  easier  to 
admire  than  to  like  the  play.  I  have  little  doubt  that  Jonson 
was  to  some  extent  sensible  of  this,  for  the  comic  episode  or 
underplot  of  Sir  Politick  and  Lady  Would-be  is  very  much  more 
loosely  connected  with  the  centre  interest  (it  is  only  by  courtesy 
that  it  can  be  said  to  be  connected  at  all),  than  is  usual  with 
him,  and  this  is  an  argument  in  favour  of  its  having  been  intro- 
duced as  a  makeweight. 

From  the  drawbacks  of  both  these  pieces  The  Alchemist  is 
wholly  free.  Jonson  here  escaped  his  usual  pitfall  of  the  un- 
sympathetic, for  the  vices  and  follies  he  satirises  are  not  loath- 
some, only  contemptible  at  worst,  and  not  always  that.  He 
found  an  opportunity  of  exercising  his  extraordinary  faculty  of 
concentration  as  he  nowhere  else  did,  and  has  given  us  in  Sir 
Epicure  Mammon  a  really  magnificent  picture  of  concupiscence, 
of  sensual  appetite  generally,  sublimed  by  heat  of  imagination 
into  something  really  poetic.  The  triumvirate  of  adventurers. 
Subtle,  Dol  and  Face  (for  Dol  has  virile  qualities),  are  not 
respectable,  but  one  does  not  hate  them  ;  and  the  gulls  are 
perfection.  If  any  character  could  be  spared  it  is  the  "Angry 
Hoy,"  a  young  person  whose  humours,  as  Jonson  himself 
admits  of  another  character  elsewhere,  are  '"  more  tedious  than 
diverting."  The  Alchemist  was  followed  by  Catiline,  and  Catiline 
l)y  liartholomeiu  Fair,  a  jilay  in  which  singularly  vivid  and 
minute  pictures  of  manners,  very  amusing  sketches  of  character, 


i82        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

and  some  capital  satire  on  the  Puritans,  do  not  entirely  redeem  a 
profusion  of  the  coarsest  possible  language  and  incident.  The  Devil 
is  an  Ass  comes  next  in  time,  and  though  no  single  character  is 
the  equal  of  Zeal -of- the- land  Busy  in  Bartholomew  Fair,  the 
play  is  even  more  amusing.  The  four  last  plays,  The  Staple 
of  News,  The  Magnetic  Lady,  The  New  Inn,  and  The  Tale  of  a 
Tub,  which  Jonson  produced  after  long  absence  from  the  stage, 
were  not  successful,  and  were  both  unkindly  and  unjustly  called 
by  Dryden  "Ben's  dotages."  As  for  the  charming  Sad  Shepherd, 
it  was  never  acted,  and  is  now  unfinished,  though  it  is  believed  that 
the  poet  completed  it.  It  stands  midway  as  a  pastoral  Fcerie 
between  his  regular  plays  and  the  great  collection  of  ingenious 
and  graceful  masques  and  entertainments,  which  are  at  the  top 
of  all  such  things  in  England  (unless  Cotnus  be  called  a  masque), 
and  which  are  worth  comparing  with  the  ballets  and  spectacle 
pieces  of  Moliere.  Perhaps  a  complete  survey  of  Jonson's  work 
indicates,  as  his  greatest  defect,  the  want  of  passion.  He  could 
be  vigorous,  he  could  be  dignified,  he  could  be  broadly  humorous, 
and,  as  has  been  said,  he  could  combine  with  these  the  apparently 
incompatible,  or,  at  least,  not  closely-connected  faculty  of  grace. 
Of  passion,  of  rapture,  there  is  no  trace  in  him,  except  in  the 
single  instance — in  fire  mingled  with  earth — of  Sir  Epicure 
Mammon.  But  the  two  following  passages — one  from  Sejanus, 
one  from  The  Sad  Shepherd — will  show  his  dignity  and  his 
pathos.      No  extract  in  brief  could  show  his  humour  : — 

Ar>:    "  I  would  begin  to  study  'em,i  if  I  thought 

They  would  secure  me.      May  I  pray  to  Jove 

In  secret  and  be  safe  ?  ay,  or  aloud, 

With  open  wishes,  so  I  do  not  mention 

Tiberius  or  Sejanus  ?     Yes  I  must, 

If  I  speak  out.      'Tis  hard  that.      May  I  think 

And  not  be  racked  ?     What  danger  is't  to  dream, 

Talk  in  one's  sleep  or  cough  ?     Who  knows  the  laws  ? 

May  I  shake  my  head  without  a  comment  ?     Say 

^  To  wit  the  "arts"  of  suffering  and  being  silent,  by  which  his  interlocutor 
Lepidus  has  explained  his  own  safety  from  delation. 


BEN  JONSOX-KXTRACTS  183 

It  rains,  or  it  holds  up,  and  not  be  thrown 

Upon  the  Genionies?    These  now  are  things, 

Whereon  men's  fortune,  yea,  their  fate  depends. 

Nothing  hath  privilege  "gainst  the  violent  ear. 

No  place,  no  day,  no  hour,  we  see,  is  free, 

Not  our  religious  and  most  sacred  times 

From  some  one  kind  of  cruelty  :  all  matter. 

Nay,  all  occasion  pleaseth.     Madmen's  rage, 

The  idleness  of  drunkards,  women's  nothing. 

Jester's  simplicity,  all,  all  is  good 

That  can  be  catcht  at.     Nor  is  now  the  event 

Of  any  person,  or  for  any  crime 

To  be  expected  ;  for  'tis  always  one  : 

Death,  with  some  little  difference  of  place 

Or  time.     What's  this  ?  Prince  Xcro,  guarded  !  " 


yH-g.    "  A  spring,  now  she  is  dead  I  of  what  ?  of  thorns. 
Briars  and  brambles  ?  thistles,  burs  and  docks  ? 
Cold  hemlock,  yews  ?  the  mandrake,  or  the  box  ? 
These  may  grow  still  ;  but  what  can  spring  beside? 
Did  not  the  whole  earth  sicken  when  she  died 
As  if  there  since  did  fall  one  drop  of  dew, 
But  what  was  wept  for  her  !  or  any  stalk 
Did  bear  a  flower,  or  any  branch  a  bloom. 
After  her  wreath  was  made  !     In  faith,  in  faith, 
You  do  not  fair  to  put  these  things  upon  me. 
Which  can  in  no  sort  be  :  Earine 
Who  had  her  very  being  and  her  name 
With  the  first  knots  or  buddings  of  the  spring. 
Born  with  the  primrose  and  the  violet 
Or  earliest  roses  blown  :  when  Cupid  smiled 
And  Venus  led  the  Graces  out  to  dance. 
And  all  the  flowers  and  sweets  in  nature's  lap 
Leaped  out  and  made  their  solemn  conjuration 
To  last  but  while  she  lived  !     Do  not  I  know 
How  the  vale  withered  the  same  day?  how  Dove, 
Dean,  Eye,  and  Erwash,  Idel,  Snite  and  Soare 
Each  broke  his  urn,  and  twenty  waters  more 
That  swelled  proud  Trent,  shrunk  themselves  dry,  that  since 
No  sun  (jf  moon,  or  other  cheerful  star. 
Looked  out  of  heaven,  but  all  the  cope  was  dark 
As  it  were  hung  so  for  her  exequies  ! 
And  not  a  voice  or  sound  to  ring  her  knell 


1^4        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPEkE     cHaP, 

But  of  that  dismal  pair,  the  screeching  owl 
And  buzzing  hornet  !     Hark  !  hark  !  hark  !  the  foul 
Bird  !  how  she  flutters  with  her  wicker  wings  ! 
Peace  !  you  shall  hear  her  screech. 
Cla.   Good  Karolin,  sing, 

Help  to  divert  this  phant'sy. 
Ka7'.   All  I  can  : 

Sings  while  ALg.  reads  the  song. 

'  Though  I  am  young  and  cannot  tell 
Either  what  Death  or  Love  is  well, 
Yet  I  have  heard  they  both  bear  darts 
And  both  do  aim  at  human  hearts  : 
And  then  again,  I  have  been  told, 
Love  wounds  with  heat,  as  Death  with  cold  ; 
So  that  I  fear  they  do  but  bring 
Extremes  to  touch  and  mean  one  thing. 

'  As  in  a  ruin  we  it  call 
One  thing  to  be  blown  up,  or  fall ; 
Or  to  our  end,  like  way  may  have, 
By  a  flash  of  lightning  or  a  wave  : 
So  Love's  inflamed  shaft  or  brand 
May  kill  as  soon  as  Death's  cold  hand, 
Except  Love's  fires  the  virtue  have 
To  fright  the  frost  out  of  the  grave. '  " 

Of  no  two  contemporary  men  of  letters  in  England  can  it  be 
said  that  they  were,  intellectually  speaking,  so  near  akin  as  Ben 
Jonson  and  George  Chapman.  The  translator  of  Homer  was  a 
good  deal  older  than  Jonson,  and  exceedingly  little  is  known  of 
his  life.  He  was  pretty  certainly  born  near  Hitchin  in  Hertford- 
shire, the  striking  situation  of  which  points  his  reference  to  it 
even  in  these  railroad  days.  The  date  is  uncertain — it  may  have 
been  1557,  and  was  certainly  not  later  than  1559 — so  that  he 
was  the  oldest  of  the  later  Elizabethan  school  who  survived  into 
the  Caroline  period.  He  perhaps  entered  the  University  of  Oxford 
in  1574.  His  first  known  work.  The  Shadow  of  Night,  dates  from 
1594  ;  and  a  reference  of  Meres's  shows  that  he  was  known  for 
tragedy  four  years  later.    In  1 6 1 3  he,  Jonson  (a  constant  friend  of  his 


CHAPMAN  iSs 


whose  mutual  fidelity  refutes  of  itself  the  silly  calumnies  as  to 
Jonson's  enviousness,  for  of  Chapman  only,  among  his  colleagues, 
was  he  likely  to  be  jealous),  and  Marston  were  partners  in  the 
venture  of  Eastward  Ho  !  which,  for  some  real  or  fancied  slight 
on  Scotland,  exposed  the  authors  to  danger  of  the  law.  He  was 
certainly  a  protege  of  Prince  Henry,  the  English  Marcellus,  and  he 
seems  to  have  received  patronage  from  a  much  less  blameless 
patron,  Carr,  Earl  of  Somerset  His  literary  activity  was  con- 
tinuous and  equal,  but  it  was  in  his  later  days  that  he  attempted 
and  won  the  crown  of  the  greatest  of  English  translators. 
"  Georgius  Chapmannus,  Homeri  metaphrastes  "  the  posy  of  his 
portrait  runs,  and  he  himself  seems  to  have  quite  sunk  any  ex- 
pectation of  fame  from  his  original  work  in  the  expectation  of 
remembrance  as  a  translator  of  the  Prince  of  Poets.  Many 
other  interesting  traits  suggest,  rather  than  ascertain,  themselves  in 
reference  to  him,  such  as  his  possible  connection  with  the  early 
despatch  of  English  troupes,  of  players  to  Germany,  and  his 
adoption  of  contemporary  French  subjects  for  English  tragedy. 
P>ut  of  certain  knowledge  of  him  we  have  very  little.  What  is 
certain  is  that,  like  Drayton  (also  a  friend  of  his),  he  seems  to 
have  lived  remote  and  afar  from  the  miserable  quarrels  and 
jealousies  of  his  time ;  that,  as  has  been  already  shown  by  dates, 
he  was  a  kind  of  English  Fontenelle  in  his  overlapping  of  both 
ends  of  the  great  school  of  English  poets ;  and  that  absolutely 
no  base  personal  gossip  tarnishes  his  poetical  fame.  The  splendid 
sonnet  of  Keats  testifies  to  the  influence  which  his  work  long  had 
on  those  Englishmen  wiio  were  unable  to  read  Homer  in  the 
original.  A  fine  essay  of  Mr.  Swinburne's  has  done,  for  the  first 
time,  justice  to  his  general  literary  powers,  and  a  very  ingenious 
and,  amoing  such  hazardous  things,  unusually  jjrobable  conjecture 
of  Mr.  Minto's  identifies  him  with  the  "  rival  poet  "  of  Shakcspere's 
Sonnets.  But  these  are  adventitious  claims  to  fame.  What  is 
not  subject  to  such  deduction  is  the  assertion  that  Chapman 
was  a  great  Englishman  who,  while  exemplifying  llie  traditional 
claim   of   great    ICnglishmen    t(j    originality,    independence,   and 


i86        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

versatility  of  work,  escaped  at  once  the  English  tendency  to 
lack  of  scholarship,  and  to  ignorance  of  contemporary  con- 
tinental achievements,  was  entirely  free  from  the  fatal  Philis- 
tinism in  taste  and  in  politics,  and  in  other  matters,  which  has  been 
the  curse  of  our  race,  was  a  Royalist,  a  lover,  a  scholar,  and  has 
left  us  at  once  one  of  the  most  voluminous  and  peculiar  collec- 
tions of  work  that  stand  to  the  credit  of  any  literary  man  of  his 
country.  It  may  be  that  his  memory  has  gained  by  escaping  the 
danger  of  such  revelations  or  scandals  as  the  Jonson  confessions 
to  Drummond,  and  that  the  lack  of  attraction  to  the  ordinary 
reader  in  his  work  has  saved  him  from  that  comparison  which  (it 
has  perhaps  been  urged  ad  nauseam)  is  the  bane  of  just  literary 
judgment.  To  those  who  always  strive  to  waive  all  such  con- 
siderations, these  things  will  make  but  little  difference. 

The  only  complete  edition  of  Chapman's  works  dates  from 
our  own  days,  and  its  three  volumes  correspond  to  a  real  division 
of  subject.  Although,  in  common  with  all  these  writers,  Chapman 
has  had  much  uncertain  and  some  improbable  work  fathered  on 
him,  his  certain  dramas  supply  one  of  the  most  interesting  studies 
in  our  period.  As  usual  with  every  one  except  Shakespere  and 
(it  is  a  fair  reason  for  the  relatively  disproportionate  estimate  of 
these  so  long  held)  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  they  are  extremely  un- 
equal. Not  a  certain  work  of  Chapman  is  void  of  interest.  The 
famous  Eastivard  Ho !  (one  of  the  liveliest  comedies  of  the  period 
dealing  with  London  life)  was  the  work  of  three  great  writers, 
and  it  is  not  easy  to  distribute  its  collaboration.  That  it  is  not 
swamped  with  "humours"  may  prove  that  Jonson's  learned  sock 
was  put  on  by  others.  That  it  is  neither  grossly  indecent  nor 
extravagantly  sanguinary,  shows  that  Marston  had  not  the  chief 
hand  in  it,  and  so  we  are  left  to  Chapman.  What  he  could  do 
is  not  shown  in  the  list  of  his  own  certain  plays  till  All  Fools. 
The  Blind  Beggar  of  Alexandria  (1596  ?)  and  An  Humorous  Day  s 
Mirth  show  that  singular  promiscuousness — that  heaping  together 
of  scenes  without  order  or  connection — which  we  have  noticed  in 
the  first  dramatic  period,  not  to  mention  that  the  way  in  which 


CHArNfAN— rLAVS  1S7 


the  characters  speak  of  themselves,  not  as  "  I  "  but  by  their 
names  in  the  third  person,  is  also  unmistakable.  But  All  Fools 
is  a  much  more  noteworthy  piece,  and  though  Mr.  Swinburne 
may  have  praised  it  rather  highly,  it  would  certainly  take  place 
in  a  collection  of  the  score  best  comedies  of  the  time  not  written 
by  Shakespere.  T/u-  Gentleman  ^V/tvand  Monsieur  lV Olive  belong 
to  the  same  school  of  humorous,  not  too  pedantic  comedy,  and 
then  we  come  to  the  strange  series  of  Chapman's  French  trage- 
dies, Bussy  (fAvibois,  The  Revenge  of  Bussy  if  Ambois,  Byron's 
Conspiracy,  The  Tragedy  of  Charles,  Duke  of  Byron,  and  The 
Tragedy  of  Philip  Chabot,  Admiral  of  France.  These  singular 
plays  stand  by  themselves.  Whether  the  strong  influence  which 
Marlowe  e.xercised  on  Chapman  led  the  later  poet  (who  it  must 
be  remembered  was  not  the  younger)  to  continue  The  Massacre  of 
Paris,  or  what  other  cause  begat  them,  cannot  now  be  asserted  or 
even  guessed  without  lost  labour.  A  famous  criticism  of  Dryden's 
attests  his  attention  to  them,  but  does  not,  perhaps,  to  those  who 
have  studied  Dryden  deeply,  quite  express  the  influence  which 
Chapman  had  on  the  leader  of  post-Restoration  tragedy.  As  plays, 
the  whole  five  are  models  of  what  plays  should  not  be ;  in  parts, 
they  are  models  of  what  plays  should  be.  Then  Chapman  re- 
turned to  the  humour-comedy  and  produced  two  capital  specimens 
of  it  in  May-Day  and  The  JFidow's  Tears.  Alphonsus,  Emperor  of 
Germany,  which  contains  long  passages  of  German,  and  Ra'cnge  for 
Honour,  two  tragedies  which  were  not  published  till  long  after  Chap- 
man's death,  are  to  my  mind  very  dubiously  his.  Mr.  Swinburne,  in 
dealing  with  them,  availed  himself  of  the  hypothesis  of  a  mellowing, 
but  at  the  same  time  weakening  of  power  by  age.  It  may  be  so, 
and  I  have  not  the  slightest  intention  of  pronouncing  decidedly 
on  the  subject.  They  bear  to  my  mind  mucli  more  mark  of 
the  decadent  period  of  Cliarles  I.,  when  the  secret  of  blank 
verse  was  for  a  time  lost,  and  when  even  men  who  had  lived  in 
personal  friendship  with  their  great  predecessors  lapsed  into  the 
slipshod  stuff  thai  we  find  in  Davcnant,  in  his  followers,  and 
among   them   even    in   the   earlier   plays   of   Dryden.      It   is,  of 


i88        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

course,  true  that  this  loosening  and  slackening  of  the  standard 
betrays  itself  even  before  the  death  of  Chapman,  which  happened 
in  1634.  But  I  cannot  believe  that  the  author  of  £ussy  (fAmbois 
(where  the  verse  is  rude  enough  but  never  lax)  and  the  contem- 
porary or  elder  of  Shakespere,  Marlowe,  and  all  the  great  race, 
could  ever  have  been  guilty  of  the  slovenliness  which,  throughout, 
marks  Revenge  for  Honour. 

The  second  part  of  Chapman's  work,  his  original  verse,  is 
much  inferior  in  bulk  and  in  interest  of  matter  to  the  first  and 
third.  Yet,  is  it  not  perhaps  inferior  to  either  in  giving  evidence 
of  the  author's  peculiarities ;  while  the  very  best  thing  he  ever 
wrote  (a  magnificent  passage  in  The  Tears  of  Peace)  is  contained 
in  it.  Its  component  parts  are,  however,  sufficiently  odd.  It 
opens  with  a  strange  poem  called  The  Shadow  of  Night,  which 
Mr.  Swinburne  is  not  wrong  in  classing  among  the  obscurest 
works  in  English.  The  mischievous  fashion  of  enigmatic  writing, 
already  glanced  at  in  the  section  on  satire,  was  perhaps  an 
offshoot  of  euphuism  ;  and  certainly  Chapman,  who  never  exhibits 
much  taint  of  euphuism  proper,  here  out-Herods  Herod  and  out- 
Tourneurs  Tourneur.  It  was  followed  by  an  equally  singular 
attempt  at  the  luscious  school  of  which  Venus  and  Adonis  is  the 
most  famous.  Ovid^s  Banquet  of  Sense  has  received  high  praise 
from  critics  whom  I  esteem.  For  my  own  part  I  should  say  that 
it  is  the  most  curious  instance  of  a  radically  unpassionate  nature, 
trying  to  lash  itself  into  passion,  that  our  language  contains.  Then 
Chapman  tried  an  even  bolder  flight  in  the  same  dialect — the 
continuation  of  Marlowe's  unfinished  Hero  and  Leander.  In  this 
attempt,  either  by  sheer  force  of  his  sinewy  athletics,  or  by 
some  inspiration  derived  from  the  "  Dead  Shepherd,"  his  pre- 
decessor, he  did  not  fail,  curious  as  is  the  contrast  of  the  two 
parts.  The  Tears  of  Peace,  which  contains  his  finest  work,  is  in 
honour  of  Prince  Henry — a  worthy  work  on  a  worthy  subject, 
which  was  followed  up  later  by  an  epicedium  on  the  prince's 
lamented  death.  Besides  some  epigrams  and  sonnets,  the  chief 
other  piece  of  this  division  is  the  disastrous  Andromeda  Liberata^ 


V  CHAPMAN— I'OEMS  AND  TRANSLATIONS  1S9 

which  unluckily  celebrates  the  nuptials- — stained  with  murder, 
adultery,  and  crime  of  all  sorts  —  of  Frances  Howard  and 
Robert  Carr.  It  is  in  Chapman's  most  allusive  and  thorniest 
style,  but  is  less  interesting  intrinsically  than  as  having  given 
occasion  to  an  indignant  prose  vindication  by  the  poet,  which, 
considering  his  self-evident  honesty,  is  the  most  valuable  document 
in  existence  for  explaining  the  apparently  grovelling  panegyric  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century.  It  makes  clear  (what 
indeed  an  intelligent  reader  might  gather  for  himself)  that  the 
traditional  respect  for  rank  and  station,  uniting  with  the  tendency 
to  look  for  patterns  and  precedents  in  the  classics  for  almost 
everything,  made  of  these  panegyrics  a  kind  of  school  exercise,  in 
which  the  excellence  of  the  subject  was  taken  for  granted,  and 
the  utmost  hyperbole  of  praise  was  only  a  "  common  form  ''  of 
composition,  to  which  the  poet  imparted  or  added  what  grace  of 
style  or  fancy  he  could,  with  hardly  a  notion  of  his  ascriptions 
being  taken  literally. 

But  if  Chapman's  dramas  have  been  greatly  undervalued,  and 
if  his  original  po'ems  are  an  invaluable  hel[)  to  the  study  of  the 
time,  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  is  as  a  translator  that  he  made  ajid 
kept  the  strongest  hold  on  the  English  mind.  He  himself  spoke 
of  his  Homeric  translations  (which  he  began  as  early  as  159S, 
doing  also  Hesiod,  some  Juvenal,  and  some  minor  fragments, 
Pseudo-\'irgilian,  Pctrarchian  and  others)  as  "  the  work  that  he 
was  born  to  do."  His  version,  with  all  its  faults,  outlived  the 
popularity  even  of  Pope,  was  for  more  than  two  centuries  the 
resort  of  all  who,  unable  to  read  Greek,  wi.shed  to  know  what  the 
Greek  was,  and,  despite  the  finical  scholarship  of  the  present  day, 
is  likely  to  survive  all  the  attemi)ts  made  with  us.  I  speak  with 
all  humility,  but  as  having  learnt  Homer  from  Homer  himself,  and 
not  from  any  translation,  prose  or  verse.  I  am  i)crfectly  aware  of 
Chapman's  outrageous  liberties,  of  his  occasional  unfaithfulness 
(for  a  libertine  need  not  necessarily  be  unfailliful  in  translation), 
and  of  the  condescension  to  his  own  fancies  and  the  fancies  of 
his  age,  w  hich  obscures  not  more  perhajts  than  some  condescen- 


I90     THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD — SHAKESPERE     chap. 

sions  which  nearness  and  contemporary  influences  prevent  some 
of  us  from  seeing  the  character  of  the  original.  But  at  the 
same  time,  either  ■  I  have  no  skill  in  criticism,  and  have  been 
reading  Greek  for  fifty  years  to  none  effect,  or  Chapman  is 
far  nearer  Homer  than  any  modern  translator  in  any  modern 
language.  He  is  nearer  in  the  Iliad  than  in  the  Odyssey — 
an  advantage  resulting  from  his  choice  of  vehicle.  In  the 
Odyssey  he  chose  the  heroic  couplet,  which  never  can  give  the 
rise  and  fall  of  the  hexameter.  In  the  Iliad,  after  some  hesitation 
between  the  two  (he  began  as  early  as  1598),  he  preferred  the 
fourteener,  which,  at  its  best,  is  the  hexameter's  nearest  substitute. 
With  Chapman  it  is  not  always  at  its  best — very  far  from  it.  If 
he  never  quite  relapses  into  the  sheer  doggerel  of  the  First  Period, 
he  sometimes  comes  perilously  near  to  it.  But  he  constantly  lifts 
his  wings  and  soars  in  a  quite  different  measure  which,  when 
he  keeps  it  up  for  a  little,  gives  a  narrative  vehicle  unsurpassed, 
and  hardly  equalled,  in  English  poetry  for  variation  of  movement 
and  steady  forward  flow  combined.  The  one  point  in  which  the 
Homeric  hexameter  is  unmatched  among  metres  is  its  combina- 
tion of  steady  advance  with  innumerable  ripples  and  eddies  in  its 
course,  and  it  is  here  that  Chapman  (though  of  course  not  fully) 
can  partly  match  it.  It  is,  however,  one  of  the  testimonies 
to  the  supreme  merit  of  the  Homeric  poems  that  every  age 
seems  to  try  to  imitate  them  in  its  own  special  mannerisms, 
and  that,  consequently,  no  age  is  satisfied  with  the  attempts 
of  another.  It  is  a  second,  that  those  who  know  the  original 
demur  at  all. 

The  characteristics  of  Chapman,  then,  are  very  much  those  of 
Jonson  with  a  difference.  Both  had  the  same  incapacity  of 
unlaboured  and  forceless  art,  the  same  insensibility  to  passion, 
the  same  inability  to  rise  above  mere  humours  and  contemporary 
oddities  into  the  region  of  universal  poetry.  Both  had  the  same 
extensive  learning,  the  same  immense  energy,  the  same  (if  it  must 
be  said)  arrogance  and  contempt  of  the  vulgar.  In  casual  strokes, 
though  not  in  sustained  grasp.  Chapman  was  Jonson's  superior ; 


CHAPMAN  191 


but  unlike  Jonson  he  had  no  lyric  gift,  and  unlike  Jonson  he  let  his 
learning  and  his  ambitious  thought  clog  and  obscure  the  flow  of 
his  English.  Nor  does  he  show  in  any  of  his  original  work  the 
creative  force  of  his  younger  friend,  ^^'ilh  the  highest  opinion 
reasonably  possible  of  Chapman's  dramas,  we  cannot  imagine  him 
for  a  moment  composing  a  I'oipoue  or  an  Alchemist — even  a 
Bart/io/omcw  Fair ;  wiiile  he  was  equally,  or  still  more,  incap- 
able of  Jonson's  triumphs  in  epigram  and  epitaph,  in  song  and 
ode.  A  certain  shapelessness  is  characteristic  of  everything  that 
Chapman  did — an  inability,  as  Mr.  Swinburne  (to  whom  every  one 
who  now  writes  on  Chapman  must  acknowledge  indebtedness), 
has  said,  ''  to  clear  his  mouth  of  pebbles,  and  his  brow  of  fog." 
His  long  literary  life,  which  must  have  exceeded  half  a  centur)', 
and  his  great  learning,  forbid  our  setting  this  down  as  it  may  be 
set  in  the  case  of  many  of  his  contemporaries,  and  especially  in 
the  case  of  those  two  to  wliom  we  arc  now  coming,  as  due  to 
youth,  to  the  imperfect  state  of  surrounding  culture,  to  want  of 
time  for  perfecting  his  work,  and  so  forth.  He  is  the  "  Begue 
de  Vilaines,"  the  heroic  Stammerer  of  English  literature — a  man 
who  evidently  had  some  congenital  defect  which  all  his  fire  and 
force,  all  his  care  and  curiosity,  could  not  overcome.  Yet  are 
his  doings  great,  and  it  is  at  least  probable  that  if  he  had  felt 
less  difficulty  in  original  work,  he  would  not  have  been  prompted 
to  set  about  and  finish  the  noble  work  of  translation  which  is 
among  the  best  products  of  an  unsatisfactory  kind,  and  which  will 
outlive  the  cavils  of  generations  of  etymologists  and  aorist-grinders. 
He  has  been  so  little  read  that  four  specimens  of  his  different 
manners — the  early  "  tenebrous  "  style  of  The  Shadmv  of  Nighty 
the  famous  passage  from  Bussy  d'Ambois  which  excited  Lamb's 
enthusiasm,  and  a  sample  from  both  Iliad  and  Odyssey — may  be 
given  : 

"  In  tliis  vast  thicket  (whose  description's  task 
The  pens  of  fairies  an<l  of  fiends  would  ask  : 
So  more  than  hinnanthoughted  horrible) 
The  souls  of  such  as  lived  implausible, 


192        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

In  happy  empire  of  this  goddess'  glories, 

And  scorned  to  crown  her  fanes  with  sacrifice,  ^ 

Did  ceaseless  walk  ;  exspiring  fearful  groans, 

Curses  and  threats  for  their  confusions. 

Her  darts,  and  arrows,  some  of  them  had  slain  : 

Others  her  dogs  eat,  painting  her  disdain. 

After  she  had  transformed  them  into  beasts  : 

Others  her  monsters  carried  to  their  nests, 

Rent  them  in  pieces,  and  their  spirits  sent 

To  this  blind  shade,  to  wail  their  banishment. 

The  huntsmen  hearing  (since  they  could  not  hear) 

Their  hounds  at  fault,  in  eager  chase  drew  near, 

Mounted  on  lions,  unicorns,  and  boars, 

And  saw  their  hounds  lie  licking  of  their  sores 

Some  yearning  at  the  shroud,  as  if  they  chid 

Her  stinging  tongues,  that  did  their  chase  forbid  : 

By  which  they  knew  the  game  was  that  way  gone. 

Then  each  man  forced  the  beast  he  rode  upon, 

T'  assault  the  thicket ;  whose  repulsive  thorns 

So  gall'd  the  lions,  boars,  and  unicorns, 

Dragons  and  wolves,  that  half  their  courages 

Were  spent  in  roars,  and  sounds  of  heaviness  : 

Yet  being  the  princeliest,  and  hardiest  beasts, 

That  gave  chief  fame  to  those  Ortygian  forests. 

And  all  their  riders  furious  of  their  sport, 

A  fresh  assault  they  gave,  in  desperate  sort : 

And  with  their  falchions  made  their  way  in  wounds. 

The  thicket  open'd,  and  let  in  the  hounds." 


Bti.    "  What  dismal  change  is  here  ;  the  good  old  Friar 

Is  murther'd,  being  made  known  to  serve  my  love  ; 

And  now  his  restless  spirit  would  forewarn  me 

Of  some  plot  dangerous  and  imminent. 

Note  what  he  wants  ?     He  wants  his  upper  weed. 

He  wants  his  life  and  body  ;  which  of  these 

Should  be  the  want  he  means,  and  may  supply  me 

With  any  fit  forewarning  ?     This  strange  vision 

(Together  with  the  dark  prediction 

Used  by  the  Prince  of  Darkness  that  was  raised 

By  this  embodied  shadow)  stir  my  thoughts 

With  reminiscion  of  the  spirit's  promise, 


1  The  rhyme,  bad  as  it  is,  is  not  unprecedented. 


CHAPMAN— EXTRACTS  193 

Who  told  me,  that  by  any  invocation 

I  should  have  power  to  raise  him,  though  it  wanted 

The  powerful  words  and  decent  rites  of  art ; 

Never  had  my  set  brain  such  need  of  spirit 

T'  instruct  and  cheer  it ;  now,  then,  I  will  claim 

Performance  of  his  free  and  gentle  vow 

T'  appear  in  greater  light  and  make  more  plain 

His  rugged  oracle.     I  long  to  know 

How  my  dear  mistress  fares,  and  be  inform'd 

What  hand  she  now  holds  on  the  troubled  blood 

Of  her  incensed  lord.     Methought  the  spirit 

(When  he  had  utter'd  his  perplex'd  presage) 

Threw  his  changed  countenance  headlong  into  clouds, 

His  forehead  bent,  as  it  would  hide  his  face, 

He  knock'd  his  cliin  against  his  darken'd  breast. 

And  struck  a  churlish  silence  through  his  powers. 

Terror  of  darkness  !  O,  thou  king  of  flames  ! 

That  with  thy  music-footed  horse  dost  strike 

The  clear  light  out  of  crystal  on  dark  earth, 

And  hurl'st  instructive  fire  about  the  world, 

Wake,  wake,  the  drowsy  and  enchanted  night 

That  sleeps  with  dead  eyes  in  this  heavy  riddle  ; 

Or  thou  great  prince  of  shades  where  never  sun 

Sticks  his  far  darted  beams,  whose  eyes  are  made 

To  shine  in  darkness,  and  see  ever  best 

Where  sense  is  blindest  :  open  now  the  heart 

Of  thy  abashed  oracle,  that  for  fear 

Of  some  ill  it  includes,  would  fain  lie  hid, 

And  rise  thou  with  it  in  thy  greater  light." 


'P'or  Hector's  glory  still  he  stood,  and  ever  went  about 
To  make  him  cast  the  fleet  such  fire,  as  never  should  go  out ; 
Heard  Thetis'  foul  petition,  and  wished  in  any  wise 
The  splendour  of  the  burning  ships  might  satiate  his  eyes.^ 
Prom  him  yet  the  repulse  was  then  to  be  on  Troy  conferred, 
The  honour  of  it  given  the  Greeks  ;  which  thinking  on,  he  stirr'd 
With  such  addition  of  his  spirit,  the  spirit  Hector  bore 
To  burn  the  fleet,  that  of  itself  was  hot  enough  before. 
Put  now  he  fared  like  Mars  himself,  so  brandishing  his  lance 
As,  through  the  deep  shades  of  a  wood,  a  raging  fire  sh<julil  glance, 


'  This  line  alone  would  suffice  to  exhibit  Chapman's  own  splendour  at  his 
\xsl. 

II  0 


194        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

Held  up  to  all  eyes  by  a  hill ;  about  his  lips  a  foam 

Stood  as  when  th'  ocean  is  enraged  ;  his  eyes  were  overcome 

With  fervour  and  resembled  flames,  set  off  by  his  dark  brows, 

And  from  his  temples  his  bright  helm  abhorred  lightnings  throws  ; 

For  Jove,  from  forth  the  sphere  of  stars,  to  his  state  put  his  own 

And  all  the  blaze  of  both  the  hosts  confined  in  him  alone. 

And  all  this  was,  since  after  this  he  had  not  long  to  live. 

This  lightning  flew  before  his  death,  which  Pallas  was  to  give 

(A  small  time  thence,  and  now  prepared)  beneath  the  violence 

Of  great  Pelides.     In  meantime,  his  present  eminence 

Thought  all  things  under  it ;  and  he,  still  where  he  saw  the  stands 

Of  greatest  strength  and  bravest  arm'd,  there  he  would  prove  his  hands. 

Or  no  where  ;  offering  to  break  through,  but  that  passed  all  his  power 

Although  his  will  were  past  all  theirs,  they  stood  him  like  a  tower 

Conjoined  so  firm,  that  as  a  rock,  exceeding  high  and  great, 

And  standing  near  the  hoary  sea,  bears  many  a  boisterous  threat 

Of  high-voiced  winds  and  billows  huge,  belched  on  it  by  the  storms  ; 

So  stood  the  Greeks  great  Hector's  charge,  nor  stirred  their  battellous  forms." 


"  This  the  Goddess  told, 
And  then  the  morning  in  her  throne  of  gold 
Surveyed  the  vast  world  ;  by  whose  orient  light 
The  nymph  adorn'd  me  with  attires  as  bright, 
Her  own  hands  putting  on  both  shirt  and  weed 
Robes  fine,  and  curious,  and  upon  my  head 
An  ornament  that  glittered  like  a  flame  ; 
Girt  me  in  gold  ;  and  forth  betimes  I  came 
Amongst  my  soldiers,  roused  them  all  from  sleep, 
And  bade  them  now  no  more  observance  keep 
Of  ease,  and  feast,  but  straight  a  shipboard  fall. 
For  now  the  Goddess  had  inform'd  me  all. 
Their  noble  spirits  agreed  ;  nor  yet  so  clear 
Could  I  bring  all  off",  but  Elpenor  there 
His  heedless  life  left.     He  was  youngest  man 
Of  all  my  company,  and  one  that  wan 
Least  fame  for  arms,  as  little  for  his  brain  ; 
Who  (too  much  steep'd  in  wine  and  so  made  fain 
To  get  refreshing  by  the  cool  of  sleep, 
Apart  his  fellows  plung'd  in  vapours  deep, 
And  they  as  high  in  tumult  of  their  way) 
Suddenly  waked  and  (quite  out  of  the  stay 
A  sober  mind  had  given  him)  would  descend 
A  huge  long  ladder,  forward,  and  an  end 


MARSTON  195 


Fell  from  the  very  roof,  full  pitching  on 
The  dearest  joint  his  head  was  placed  upon, 
Which  quite  dissolved,  let  loose  his  soul  to  hell." 

With  regard  to  Marston  (of  whose  Httle-known  personality 
something  has  been  said  in  connection  with  his  satires)  I  find 
niyseh"  somewhat  unable  to  agree  with  the  generahty  of  critics, 
who  seem  to  me  to  have  been  rather  taken  in  by  his  blood- 
and-thunder  work,  his  transpontine  declamation  against  tyrants, 
and  his  affectation  of  a  gloomy  or  furious  scorn  against  mankind. 
The  uncouthness,  as  well  as  the  suspicion  of  insincerity,  which 
we  noted  in  his  satirical  work,  e.xtend,  as  it  seems  to  me,  also  to 
his  dramas  ;  and  if  we  class  him  as  a  worker  in  horrors  with 
Marlowe  earlier,  and  with  Webster  and  Ford  later,  the  chief 
result  will  be  to  show  his  extreme  inferiority  to  them.  He  is 
even  below  Tourneur  in  this  respect,  while,  like  Tourneur,  he  is 
exposed  to  the  charge  of  utterly  neglecting  congruity  and  propor- 
tion. ^^'ith  him  we  relapse  not  merely  "from  the  luminous 
perfection  of  Shakespere,  from  the  sane  order  of  work  which  was 
continued  through  Fletcher,  and  the  best  of  Fletcher's  followers, 
but  from  the  more  artificial  unity  of  Jonson,  back  into  the  chaotic 
extravagances  of  the  First  Period.  Marston,  like  the  rest,  is  fond 
of  laughing  at  Jeronimo,  but  his  own  tragic  construction  and 
some  of  his  own  tragic  scenes  are  hardly  less  bombastic,  and 
scarcely  at  all  less  promiscuous  than  the  tangled  horrors  of  that 
famous  melodrama.  Marston,  it  is  true,  has  lucid  intervals — 
even  many  of  them.  Hazlitt  has  succeeded  in  quoting  many 
beautiful  passages,  one  of  which  was  curiously  echoed  in  the  next 
age  by  Nat.  Lee,  in  wliom,  indeed,  there  was  a  strong  vein  of 
Elizabethan  melodrama.  The  .sarcasm  on  philosophical  study  in 
What  You  If'///  is  one  of  the  very  best  things  of  its  own  kind  in 
the  range  of  English  drama, — light,  sustained,  not  too  long  nor  too 
short,  in  fact,  thoroughly  "  hit  off." 

^*  De/i^/it  my  spaniel  slept,  whilst  I  baused'  leaves, 
Tossed  o'er  the  dunces,  |iored  on  the  old  i)rnit 


^  Kissed. 


196        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

Of  titled  words,  and  still  my  spaniel  slept. 

Whilst  I  wasted  lamp  oil,  bated  my  flesh, 

Shrunk  up  my  veins,  and  still  my  spaniel  slept, 

And  still  I  held  converse  with  Zabarell, 

Aquinas,  Scotus,  and  the  musty  saws 

Of  antique  Donate  :  still  my  spaniel  slept. 

Still  on  went  I  :  first  an  sit  anhna. 

Then,  an'  'twere  mortal.     O  hold,  hold  ! 

At  that  they  are  at  brain  buffets,  fell  by  the  cars, 

Amain  [pell-mell]  together — still  my  spaniel  slept. 

Then  whether  'twere  corporeal,  local,  fixed, 

Ex  traduce  ;  but  whether 't  had  free  will 

Or  no,  hot  philosophers 

Stood  banding  factions  all  so  strongly  propped, 

I  staggered,  knew  not  which  was  firmer  part ; 

But  thought,  quoted,  read,  observed  and  pried. 

Stuffed  noting-books,  and  still  my  spaniel  slept. 

At  length  he  waked  and  yawned,  and  by  yon  sky 

For  aught  I  know,  he  knew  as  much  as  I." 

There  is  real  pathos  in  Antonio  and  Mellida^  and  real  satire  in 
Parasitaster  and  The  Malcontent.  HazUtt  (who  had  a  very  high 
opinion  of  Marston)  admits  that  the  remarkable  inequalities  of  this 
last  piece  "seem  to  show  want  of  interest  in  the  subject."  This  is 
an  odd  explanation,  but  I  suspect  it  is  really  only  an  anticipation 
in  more  favourable  words  of  my  own  theory,  that  Marston's  tragic 
and  satiric  moods  were  not  really  sincere  ;  that  he  was  a  clever  man 
who  found  a  fashion  of  satire  and  a  fashion  of  blood-and-thunder 
tragedy  prevailing,  and  threw  himself  into  both  without  much  or 
any  heart  in  the  matter.  This  is  supported  by  the  curious  fact 
that  almost  all  his  plays  (at  least  those  extant)  were  produced 
within  a  very  few  years,  1602— 1607,  though  he  lived  some  thirty 
years  after  the  latter  date,  and  quite  twenty  after  his  last  dated 
appearances  in  literature,  The  Insatiate  Countess,  and  Easttvard 
Ho!  That  he  was  an  ill-tempered  person  with  considerable 
talents,  who  succeeded,  at  any  rate  for  a  time,  in  mistaking  his 
ill-temper  for  sceva  indig?iatio,  and  his  talents  for  genius,  is  not, 
I  think,  too  harsh  a  description  of  Marston.  In  the  hotbed  of 
the  literary  influences  of  the  time,  these  conditions  of  his  produced 


MARSTON  197 


some  remarkable  fruit.  But  when  the  late  Professor  Minto 
attributes  to  him  "  amazing  and  almost  Titanic  energy,"  men- 
tions "  life  "  several  times  over  as  one  of  the  chief  character- 
istics of  his  personages  (I  should  say  that  they  had  as  much  life  as 
violently-moved  marionettes),  and  discovers "amiableand  admirable 
characters  "  among  them,  I  am  compelled  not,  of  course,  to  be 
positive  that  my  own  very  different  estimate  is  right,  but  to 
wonder  at  the  singularly  different  way  in  which  the  same  things 
strike  different  persons,  who  are  not  as  a  rule  likely  to  look  at 
them  from  very  different  points  of  view. 

Marston's  plays,  however,  are  both  powerful  enough  and 
famous  enough  to  call  for  a  somewhat  more  detailed  notice. 
Antonio  and  MelliJa,  the  earliest  and  if  not  the  best  as  a  whole, 
that  which  contains  the  finest  scenes  and  fragments,  is  in  two  parts 
— the  second  being  more  properly  called  The  Revenge  of  Antonio. 
The  revenge  itself  is  of  the  exaggerated  character  which  was  so 
popular  with  the  Elizabethan  dramatists,  but  in  which  (except  in 
the  famous  Cornwall  and  Gloucester  scene  in  Lear)  Shakespere 
never  indulged  after  his  earliest  days.  The  wicked  tyrant's 
tongue  is  torn  out,  his  murdered  son's  body  is  thrown  down  before 
him,  and  then  the  conspirators,  standing  round,  gibe,  curse,  and 
rant  at  him  for  a  couple  of  pages  before  they  plunge  their  swords 
into  his  body.  This  goodly  conclusion  is  led  up  to  by  a 
sufficient  quantity  of  antecedent  and  casual  crimes,  together  with 
much  not  very  excellent  fooling  by  a  court  gull,  Balurdo,  who 
might  be  compared  with  Shakespere's  fools  of  the  same  kind, 
to  the  very  great  advantage  of  those  who  do  not  appreciate  the 
latter.  The  beautiful  descriptive  and  rcllective  passages  which, 
in  Lamb's  Extracts,  gave  the  play  its  reputation,  chiefly  occur 
towards  the  beginning,  and  this  is  the  best  of  them  : — 

All,/.    "  \\  hy  man,  I  never  was  a  Prince  till  now. 
'lis  nol  the  bared  pate,  the  bended  knees, 
Ciilt  tipstaves,  Tyrian  puri)le,  chairs  of  state, 
Troops  of  pie<l  butterflies,  that  flutter  still 
In  yrcalness  summer,  that  confirm  a  prince  : 


198        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

'Tis  not  the  unsavoury  breath  of  multitudes, 
Shouting  and  clapping,  with  confused  din  ; 
That  makes  a  prince.     No,  Lucio,  he's  a  king, 
A  true  right  king,  that  dares  do  aught  save  wrong. 
Fears  nothing  mortal,  but  to  be  unjust, 
\Vho  is  not  blown  up  with  the  flattering  puffs 
Of  spungy  sycophants  :  who  stands  unmov'd 
Despite  the  jostling  of  opinion  : 
Who  can  enjoy  himself,  maugre  the  throng 
That  strive  to  press  his  quiet  out  of  him  : 
"Who  sits  upon  Jove's  footstool  as  I  do 
Adoring,  not  affecting  majesty  : 
Whose  brow  is  wreathed  with  the  silver  crown 
Of  clear  content :  this,  Lucio,  is  a  king, 
And  of  this  empire,  every  man's  possessed 
That's  worth  his  soul." 

Soplionisba,  which  followed,  is  much  less  rambling,  but  as 
bloody  and  extravagant.  The  scene  where  the  witch  Erichtho 
plays  Succubus  to  Syphax,  instead  of  the  heroine,  and  in 
her  form,  has  touches  which  partly,  but  not  wholly,  redeem 
its  extravagance,  and  the  end  is  dignified  and  good.  JV/ia/ 
You  Wi/l,  a  comedy  of  intrigue,  is  necessarily  free  from  Mar- 
ston's  worst  faults,  and  here  the  admirable  passage  quoted 
above  occurs.  But  the  main  plot — -which  turns  not  only  on 
the  courtship,  by  a  mere  fribble,  of  a  lady  whose  husband  is  sup- 
posed to  be  dead,  and  who  has  very  complacently  forgotten  all 
about  him,  but  on  a  ridiculous  plot  to  foist  a  pretender  off  as 
the  dead  husband  itself — is  simply  absurd.  The  lack  of  proba- 
bility, which  is  the  curse  of  the  minor  Elizabethan  drama, 
hardly  anywhere  appears  more  glaringly.  Parasitaster,  or  The 
Finvn,  a  satirical  comedy,  is  much  better,  but  the  jealous  hatred 
of  77^1?  Dutch  Courtesan  is  again  not  made  probable.  Then  came 
Marston's  completest  work  in  drama,  The  Afakonfetit,  an  anticipa- 
tion, after  Elizabethan  fashion,  of  Le  Misanthrope  and  The  Plain 
Dealer.  Though  not  free  from  Marston's  two  chief  vices  of 
coarseness  and  exaggerated  cynicism,  it  is  a  play  of  great  merit, 
and  much  the  best  thing  he  has  done,  though  the  reconciliation, 


V  MARSTON— DEKKER  199 

at  the  end,  of  such  a  husband  and  sucli  a  wife  as  Piero  and 
Aurelia,  between  whom  there  is  a  chasm  of  adultery  and  murder, 
again  lacks  verisimilitude.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  both  in  The 
Faicn  and  The  Malcontent  there  are  disguised  dukes — a  fact  not 
testifying  any  very  great  originality,  even  in  borrowing.  Of 
East-ward  Ho  !  we  ha\e  already  spoken,  and  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  The  Insatiate  Countess  is  Marston's.  His  reputation 
would  not  lose  much  were  it  not.  A  /a/>/iau-\ike  underplot  of 
the  machinations  of  two  light-o'-love  citizens'  wives  against  their 
husbands  is  not  unamusing,  but  the  main  story  of  the  Countess 
Isabella,  a  modern  Messalina  (except  that  slie  adds  cruelty  to  the 
vices  of  Messalina)  who  alternately  courts  lovers  and  induces  their 
successors  to  assassinate  them,  is  in  the  worst  style  of  the  whole 
time — the  tragedy  of  lust  that  is  not  dignified  by  the  slightest 
passion,  and  of  murder  that  is  not  excused  by  the  slightest  poetry 
of  motive  or  treatment.  Though  the  writing  is  not  of  the  lowest 
order,  it  might  have  been  composed  by  any  one  of  some  thirty  or 
forty  writers.  It  was  actually  attributed  at  the  time  to  William 
Barksted,  a  minor  poet  of  some  power,  and  I  am  inclined  to 
think  it  not  Marston's,  though  my  own  estimate  of  him  is,  as  will 
have  been  seen,  not  so  high  as  some  other  estimates.  It  is 
because  those  estimates  appear  to  me  unduly  high  that  I  have 
rather  accentuated  the  expression  of  my  own  lower  one.  For  the 
last  century,  and  perhaps  longer,  the  language  of  hyperbole  has 
been  but  too  common  about  our  dramatists,  and  I  have  known 
more  than  one  case  in  which  the  extravagant  praise  bestowed 
upon  them  has,  when  students  have  come  to  the  works  them- 
selves, had  a  very  disastrous  effect  of  disappointment  It  is, 
therefore,  all  the  more  necessary  to  be  candid  in  criticism  where 
criticism  seems  to  be  rec|uired. 

As  to  the  last  of  our  good  coiiipan),  there  is  fortunately  very 
little  risk  of  difference  of  opinion.  A  hundred  years  ago  Thomas 
Uekker  was  probably  little  more  than  a  name  to  all  but  professed 
students  of  Klizabcthan  literature,  and  he  waited  longer  than  any 
of  his  fellows  for  due   recognition  by  presentation  of  his  work  in 


20O      THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

a  complete  form.  It  was  not  until  the  year  1873  that  his  plays 
were  collected  ;  it  was  not  till  eleven  years  later  that  his  prose 
works  had  the  same  honour.  Yet,  since  attention  was  directed  to 
Dekker  in  any  way,  the  best  authorities  have  been  unanimous  in 
his  praise.  Lamb's  famous  outburst  of  enthusiasm,  that  he  had 
"  poetry  enough  for  anything,"  has  been  soberly  endorsed  by  two 
full  generations  of  the  best  judges,  and  whatever  differences  of 
detail  there  may  be  as  to  his  work,  it  is  becoming  more  and  more 
the  received,  and  correctly -received  opinion,  that,  as  his  col- 
laborator Webster  came  nearest  to  Shakespere  in  universalising 
certain  types  in  the  severer  tragedy,  so  Dekker  has  the  same 
honour  on  the  gently  pathetic  side.  Yet  this  great  honour  is 
done  to  one  of  the  most  shadowy  personalities  in  literature.  We 
have  four  goodly  volumes  of  his  plays  and  five  of  his  other  works  ; 
yet  of  Thomas  Dekker,  the  man,  we  know  absolutely  less 
than  of  any  one  of  his  shadowy  fellows.  We  do  not  know  when 
he  was  born,  when  he  died,  what  he  did  other  than  writing  in 
the  certainly  long  space  between  the  two  unknown  dates.  In 
1637  he  was  by  his  own  words  a  man  of  threescore,  which,  as 
it  has  been  justly  remarked,  may  mean  anything  between  fifty-five 
and  seventy.  He  was  in  circumstances  a  complete  contrast  to 
his  fellow-victim  in  Jonson's  satire,  Marston.  Marston  was  appa- 
rently a  gentleman  born  and  bred,  well  connected,  well  educated, 
possessed  of  some  property,  able  to  make  testamentary  disposi- 
tions, and  probably  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  when  Dekker 
was  still  toiling  at  journalism  of  various  kinds,  a  beneficed  clergy- 
man in  country  retirement.  Dekker  was,  it  is  to  be  feared,  what 
the  arrogance  of  certain  members  of  the  literary  profession  has 
called,  and  calls,  a  gutter-journalist — a  man  who  had  no  regular 
preparation  for  the  literary  career,  and  who  never  produced 
anything  but  hand-to-mouth  work.  Jonson  went  so  far  as  to 
say  that  he  was  a  "rogue;"  but  Ben,  though  certainly  not  a 
rogue,  was  himself  not  to  be  trusted  when  he  spoke  of  people 
that  he  did  not  like  ;  and  if  there  was  any  but  innocent  roguery 
in  Dekker  he   has  contrived  to  leave   exactly  the   opposite  im- 


DEKKER  201 


pression  stamped  on  every  piece  of  liis  work.  And  it  is  particu- 
larly interesting  to  note,  that  constantly  as  he  wrote  in  collabor- 
ation, one  invariable  tone,  and  that  the  same  as  is  to  be  found 
in  his  undoubtedly  independent  work,  appears  alike  in  plays 
signed  with  him  by  persons  so  different  as  Middleton  and  Webster, 
as  Chettle  and  Ford.  When  this  is  the  case,  the  inference  is 
certain,  according  to  the  strictest  rules  of  logic.  We  can  define 
Dekker's  idiosyncrasy  almost  more  certainly  than  if  he  had  never 
written  a  line  except  under  his  own  name.  That  idiosyncrasy 
consists,  first,  of  an  exquisite  lyrical  faculty,  which,  in  the  songs 
given  in  all  collections  of  extracts,  equals,  or  almost  equals,  that 
of  Shakespere  ;  secondly,  of  a  foculty  for  poetical  comedy,  for 
the  comedy  which  transcends  and  plays  with,  rather  than  grasps 
and  exposes,  the  vices  and  follies  of  men ;  thirdly,  for  a  touch  of 
pathos  again  to  be  evened  only  to  Shakespere's ;  and  lastly,  for 
a  knack  of  representing  women's  nature,  for  which,  except  in  the 
master  of  all,  we  may  look  in  vain  throughout  the  plentiful  dramatic 
literature  of  the  period,  though  touches  of  it  appear  in  Greene's 
Margaret  of  Fressingfield,  in  Heywood,  in  Middleton,  and  in 
some  of  the  anonymous  plays  which  have  been  fathered  indiffer- 
ently, and  with  indifferent  hopelessness  of  identification,  on  some 
of  the  greatest  of  names  of  the  period,  on  some  of  the  meanest, 
and  on  an  equal  number  of  those  that  are  neither  great  nor  mean. 
Dekker's  very  interesting  prose  works  we  shall  treat  in  the 
next  chapter,  together  with  the  other  tracts  into  whose  class  they 
fall,  and  some  of  his  plays  may  either  go  unnoticed,  or,  with  those 
of  the  dramatists  who  collaborated  with  him,  and  whose  (notably 
in  the  case  of  The  Roaring  Girl)  they  pretty  evidently  were  more 
than  his.  His  own  characteristic  pieces,  or  those  in  which  his 
touch  shows  most  clearly,  though  they  may  not  be  his  entirely, 
are  The  Shoemaker's  Holiday,  Old  Fortiinatus,  Satiro/nasii.x, 
I'atient  Grissil,  7'lu-  Jlonest  IVhore,  The  Whore  of  Babylon,  If  it 
he  tiot  Good  the  Dn-il  is  in  it.  The  Virgin  Martyr,  Match  vie  in 
London,  The  Sons  Darling,  and  The  Witch  of  Edmonton.  In 
every  one  of  these  the  same  characteristics  ap[)ear,  but  the  strangely 


202        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

composite  fashion  of  writing  of  the  time  makes  them  appear  in 
differing  measures.  TJie  Shoemaker'' s  Holiday  is  one  of  those 
innumerable  and  yet  singular  pieces  in  which  the  taste  of  the 
time  seems  to  have  so  much  delighted,  and  which  seem  so  odd 
to  modern  taste, — pieces  in  which  a  plot  or  underplot,  as  the  case 
may  be,  of  the  purest  comedy  of  manners,  a  mere  picture  of  the 
life,  generally  the  lower  middle-class  life  of  the  time,  is  united 
with  hardly  a  thought  of  real  dramatic  conjunction  to  another 
plot  of  a  romantic  kind,  in  which  noble  and  royal  personages, 
with,  it  may  be,  a  dash  of  history,  play  their  parts.  The  crown- 
ing instance  of  this  is  Middleton's  Mayor  of  Queenborough ;  but 
there  are  scores  and  hundreds  of  others,  and  Dekker  specially 
affects  it.  The  Shoemaker  s  Holiday  is  principally  distinguished  by 
the  directness  and  raciness  of  its  citizen  sketches.  Satiromastix 
(the  second  title  of  which  is  "  The  Untrussing  of  the  Humorous 
Poet")  is  Dekker's  reply  to  The  Poetaster,  in  which  he  endeavours 
to  retort  Jonson's  own  machinery  upon  him.  With  his  customary 
disregard  of  congruity,  however,  he  has  mixed  up  the  personages 
of  Horace,  Crispinus,  Demetrius,  and  Tucca,  not  with  a  Roman 
setting,  but  with  a  purely  romantic  story  of  William  Rufus  and  Sir 
Wiilter  Tyrrel,  and  the  king's  attempt  upon  the  fidelity  of  Tyrrel's 
bride.  This  incongruous  mixture  gives  one  of  the  most  charm- 
ing scenes  of  his  pen,  the  apparent  poisoning  of  Celestina  by  her 
father  to  save  her  honour.  But  as  Lamb  himself  candidly  con- 
fessed, the  effect  of  this  in  the  original  is  marred,  if  not  ruined, 
by  the  farcical  surroundings,  and  the  more  farcical  upshot  of  the 
scene  itself, — the  poisoning  being,  like  Juliet's,  a  mere  trick,  though 
very  differently  fortuned.  In  Patient  Grissil  the  two  exquisite 
songs,  "  Art  thou  poor  "  and  "  Golden  slumbers  kiss  thine  eyes," 
and  the  sympathetic  handling  of  Griselda's  character  (the  one 
of  all  others  to  appeal  to  Dekker)  mark  his  work.  In  all  the 
other  plays  the  same  notes  appear,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
Mr.  Swinburne  is  wholly  right  in  singling  out  from  The  Witch  of 
Edmotiton  the  feminine  characters  of  Susan,  Winifred,  and  the 
witch  herself,  as  showing  Dekker's  unmatched  command  of  the 


DEKKER  20; 


colours  in  which  to  paint  womanhood.  In  the  great  debate  as  to  the 
authorship  of  The  Virgin  Martyr,  everytliing  is  so  much  con- 
jecture that  it  is  hard  to  pronounce  authoritatively.  Gifford's  cool 
assumption  that  everything  bad  in  the  play  is  Dekker's,  and  every- 
thing good  Massinger's,  will  not  hold  for  a  moment ;  but,  on  the 
other  side,  it  must  be  remembered  that  since  Lamb  there  has 
been  a  distinct  tendency  to  depreciate  Massinger.  All  that  can 
be  said  is,  that  the  grace  and  tenderness  of  the  Virgin's  part  are 
much  more  in  accordance  with  what  is  certainly  Dekker's  than 
with  what  is  certainly  Massinger's,  and  that  either  was  quite  capable 
of  the  Hircius  and  Spungius  passages  which  have  excited  so  much 
disgust  and  indignation — disgust  and  indignation  which  perhaps 
overlook  the  fact  that  they  were  no  doubt  inserted  with  the 
express  purpose  of  heightening,  by  however  clumsily  designed  a 
contrast,  the  virgin  purity  of  Dorothea  the  saint. 

It  will  be  seen  that  I  have  reserved  Old  Foriunatus  and  The 
Honest  Whore  for  separate  notice.  They  illustrate,  respectively, 
the  power  which  Dekker  has  in  romantic  poetry,  and  his  com- 
mand of  vivid,  tender,  and  subtle  portraiture  in  the  characters, 
especially,  of  women.  Both,  and  especially  the  earlier  play,  ex- 
hibit also  his  rapid  careless  writing,  and  his  ignorance  of,  or 
indifference  to,  the  construction  of  a  clear  and  distinctly  outlined 
plot.  Old  Fortunattis  tells  the  well-known  story  of  the  wishing 
cap  and  purse,  with  a  kind  of  addition  showing  how  these  fare  in 
the  hands  of  Fortunatus's  sons,  and  with  a  wild  intermixture 
(according  to  the  luckless  habit  above  noted)  of  kings  and  lords, 
and  p.seudo-historical  incidents.  No  example  of  the  kind  is  more 
chaotic  in  movement  and  action.  l>ut  llie  interlude  of  Fortune 
with  which  it  is  ushered  in  is  conceived  in  the  highest  romantic 
spirit,  and  told  in  verse  of  wonderful  effectiveness,  not  to  mention 
two  beautiful  songs  ;  and  throughout  the  play  the  allegorical  or 
supernatural  passages  show  the  same  character.  Nor  arc  the 
more  prosaic  parts  inferior,  as,  for  instance,  the  pretty  dialogue 
of  Orleans  and  Oalloway,  cited  by  I.aiub,  and  the  fine  passage 
where  Andelocia  .says  what  he  will  do  "  lo-moriow." 


204        THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SHAKESPERE    chap. 

Fort.   "  No  more  :  curse  on  :  your  cries  to  me  are  music, 
And  fill  the  sacred  roundure  of  mine  ears 
With  tunes  more  sweet  than  moving  of  the  spheres. 
Curse  on  :  on  our  celestial  brows  do  sit 
Unnumbered  smiles,  which  then  leap  from  their  throne 
When  they  see  peasants  dance  and  monarchs  groan. 
Behold  you  not  this  Globe,  this  golden  bowl, 
This  toy  call'd  world  at  our  Imperial  feet? 
This  world  is  Fortune's  ball  wherewith  she  sports. 
Sometimes  I  strike  it  up  into  the  air, 
And  then  create  I  Emperors  and  Kings. 
Sometimes  I  spurn  it :  at  which  spurn  crawls  out 
That  wild  beast  multitude  :  curse  on,  you  fools. 
'Tis  I  that  tumble  Princes  from  their  thrones, 
And  gild  false  brows  with  glittering  diadems. 
'Tis  I  that  tread  on  necks  of  conquerors, 
And  when  like  semi-gods  they  have  been  drawn, 
In  ivory  chariots  to  the  capitol, 
Circled  about  with  wonder  of  all  eyes 
The  shouts  of  every  tongue,  love  of  all  hearts 
Being  swoll'n  with  their  own  greatness,  I  have  prick'd 
The  bladder  of  their  pride,  and  made  them  die. 
As  water  bubbles,  without  memory. 
I  thrust  base  cowards  into  honour's  chair, 
Whilst  the  true  spirited  soldier  stands  by 
Bare  headed,  and  all  bare,  whilst  at  his  scars 
They  scoff,  that  ne'er  durst  view  the  face  of  wars. 
I  set  an  Idiot's  cap  on  virtue's  head, 
Turn  learning  out  of  doors,  clothe  wit  in  rags 
And  paint  ten  thousand  images  of  loam 
In  gaudy  silken  colours  :  on  the  backs 
Of  mules  and  asses  I  make  asses  ride 
Only  for  sport,  to  see  the  apish  world 
WorshijD  such  beasts  with  sound  idolatry. 
This  Fortune  does,  and  when  this  is  done, 
She  sits  and  smiles  to  hear  some  curse  her  name, 
And  some  with  adoration  crown  her  fame. 


And.    "  To-morrow?  ay  to-morrow  thoU  shalt  buy  them. 
To-morrow  tell  the  Princess  I  will  love  her, 
To-morrow  tell  the  King  I'll  banquet  him. 
To-morrow,  Shadow,  will  I  give  thee  gold. 
To-morrow  pride  goes  bare,  and  lust  a-cold. 


V  DEKKER— CHARACTER  OF  BELLAFRONT  205 

To-morrow  will  the  rich  man  feed  the  poor, 
And  vice  to-morrow  virtue  will  adore. 
To-morrow  beggars  shall  be  crowned  kings. 
This  no-time,  morrow's  time,  no  sweetness  sings. 
I  pray  thee  hence  :  bear  that  to  Agripyne." 

The  whole  is,  as  a  whole,  to  the  last  degree  crude  and  un- 
digested, but  the  ill-matured  power  of  the  writer  is  almost  the 
more  apparent. 

The  Honest  Whore,  in  two  parts,  is,  as  far  as  general  character 
goes,  a  mi.\ed  comedy  of  intrigue  and  manners  combining,  or 
rather  uniting  (for  there  is  little  combination  of  them),  four  themes 
— first,  the  love  of  Hippolito  for  the  Princess  Infelice,  and  his  vir- 
tuous motions  followed  by  relapse;  secondly,  the  conversion  by  him 
of  the  courtesan  Bellafront,  a  damsel  of  good  family,  from  her  evil 
wavs,  and  her  marriage  to  her  first  gallant,  a  hairbrained  courtier 
named  Matheo  ;  thirdly,  Matheo's  ill-treatment  of  Bellafront,  her 
constancy  and  her  rejection  of  the  temptations  of  Hippolito,  who 
from  apostle  has  turned  seducer,  with  the  humours  of  Orlando 
Friscobaldo,  Bellafront's  father,  who,  feigning  never  to  forgive  her, 
watches  over  her  in  disguise,  and  acts  as  guardian  angel  to  her 
reckless  and  sometimes  brutal  husband ;  and  lastly,  the  other 
humours  of  a  certain  marvellously  patient  citizen  who  allows  his 
wife  to  hector  him,  his  customers  to  bully  and  cheat  him,  and 
who  pushes  his  eccentric  and  unmanly  patience  to  the  point 
of  enduring  both  madhouse  and  jail.  Lamb,  while  ranking  a 
single  speech  of  Bellafront's  very  high,  speaks  with  rather  oblicjue 
approval  of  the  play,  and  Hazlitt,  though  enthusiastic  for  it,  admires 
chiefly  old  Friscobaldo  and  the  ne'er-do-weel  Matheo.  My  own 
reason  for  preferring  it  to  almost  all  the  non-tragical  work  of  the 
time  out  of  Shakespere,  is  the  wonderful  character  of  Bellafront, 
both  in  her#unrc*claimed  and  her  reclaimed  condition.  In  both 
she  is  a  very  woman — not  as  conventional  satirists  and  (onven 
tional  encomiasts  praise  or  rail  at  women,  but  as  women  are.  It 
her  language  in  her  unrcgenerate  days  is  sometimes  coarser  than 
is  altogether  pleasant,  it  docs  not  disguise  her  nature, — the  very 


2o6    THE  SECOND  DRAMATIC  PERIOD— SIIAKESPERE    chap,  v 

nature  of  such  a  woman  misled  by  giddiness,  by  curiosity,  by  love 
of  pleasure,  by  love  of  admiration,  but  in  no  thorough  sense 
depraved.  Her  selection  of  Matheo  not  as  the  instrument  of  her 
being  "  made  an  honest  woman,"  not  apparently  because  she  had 
any  love  for  him  left,  or  had  ever  had  much,  but  because  he  was 
her  first  seducer,  is  exactly  what,  after  a  sudden  convincing  of  sin, 
such  a  woman  would  have  done;  and  if  her  patience  under  the  long 
trial  of  her  husband's  thoughtlessness  and  occasional  brutality  seem 
excessive,  it  will  only  seem  so  to  one  who  has  been  unlucky  in 
his  experience.  Matheo  indeed  is  a  thorough  good-for-nothing,  and 
the  natural  man  longs  that  Bellafront  might  have  been  better 
parted ;  but  Dekker  was  a  very  moral  person  in  his  OAvn  way,  and 
apparently  he  would  not  entirely  let  her — Imogen  gone  astray  as 
she  is — off  her  penance. 


CHAPTER    VI 

LATER    ELIZABETHAN    AND    JACOBEAN    PROSE 

One  name  so  far  dominates  the  prose  literature  of  the  last  years 
of  Elizabeth,  and   that  of  the  whole  reign  of  James,  that  it  has 
probably  alone  secured  attention  in  the  general  memory,  except 
such  as  may  be  given  to  the  purple  patches  (of  the  true  Tyrian 
dye,  but  not  extremely  numerous)  which  decorate  here  and  there 
the  somewhat  featureless  expanse  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  History 
of  the  World.     That  name,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say,  is  the 
name  of  Francis  Bacon.      Bacon's  eventful  life,  his  much  debated 
character,  his  philosophical  and  scientific  position,  are  all  matters 
beyond  our  subject.     But  as  it  is  of  the  first  importance  in  study- 
ing  that   subject  to  keep  dates  and  circumstances  generally,   if 
not  minutely,  in  view,  it  may  be  well  to  give  a  brief  summary  of 
his   career.      He  was   born    in    1561,   the   son   of  Sir   Nicholas 
Bacon,   Lord   Keeper  ;  he  went  very  young  to  Cambridge,  and 
though  early  put  to  the  study  of  the  law,  discovered  an  equally  early 
bent  in  another  direction.    He  was  unfortunate  in  not  obtaining  the 
patronage  then  necessary  to  all  men  not  of  independent  fortune. 
Though   Elizabeth  was  personally  familiar  with  him,  she  gave  him 
nothing  of  importance — whether  owing  to   the  jealousy   of  his 
uncle  and  cousin,  liurleigh  and  Robert  Cecil,  is  a  point  not  (juitc 
certain.     The  i)atronage  of  Essex  did  him  very  little  good,  and 
drew  him  into  the  worst   action  of  his  life.     But  after  I'-lizabcth's 
dtalhj  jjxl  when  a  man  of  middle  age,  he  at  last  began  to  mount 


2o8  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE        chap. 

the  ladder,  and  came  with  some  rapidity  to  the  summit  of  his 
profession,  being  made  Lord  Chancellor,  and  created  Baron 
Verulam  and  Viscount  St.  Alban.  The  title  Lord  Bacon  he  never 
bore  in  strictness,  but  it  has  been  consecrated  by  the  use  of  many 
generations,  and  it  is  perhaps  pedantry  to  object  to  it.  Entangled 
as  a  courtier  in  the  rising  hatred  of  the  Court  felt  by  the  popular 
party,  exposed  by  his  own  carelessness,  if  not  by  actual  venality 
in  office,  to  the  attacks  of  his  enemies,  and  weakly  supported,  if 
supported  at  all,  by  the  favourite  Buckingham  (who  seems  to  have 
thought  that  Bacon  took  too  much  upon  himself  in  state  affairs), 
he  lost,  in  1621,  all  his  places  and  emoluments,  and  was  heavily 
fined.  The  retirement  of  his  last  few  years  produced  much  literary 
fruit,  and  he  died  (his  death  being  caused  or  hastened  by  an 
injudicious  experiment)  in  1626. 

Great  as  is  the  place  that  Bacon  occupies  in  English  literature, 
he  occupies  it,  as  it  were,  vialgre  iiiL  Unlike  almost  all  the 
greatest  men  of  his  own  and  even  of  the  preceding  generation, 
he  seems  to  have  thought  little  of  the  capacities,  and  less  of 
the  chances  of  the  English  language.  He  held  (and,  unluckily 
for  him,  expressed  his  opinion  in  writing)  that  "  these  modern 
languages  will  at  one  time  or  the  other  play  the  bankrupt  with 
books,"  and  even  when  he  wrote  in  the  despised  vernacular  he 
took  care  to  translate  his  work,  or  have  it  translated,  into  Latin 
in  order  to  forestall  the  oblivion  he  dreaded.  Nor  is  this  his 
only  phrase  of  contempt  towards  his  mother-tongue — the  tongue 
which  in  his  own  lifetime  served  as  a  vehicle  to  a  literature 
compared  with  which  the  whole  literary  achievement  of  Latin 
antiquity  is  but  a  neat  school  exercise,  and  which  in  every  point 
but  accomplished  precision  of  form  may  challenge  comparison 
with  Greek  itself  This  insensibility  of  Bacon's  is  characteristic 
enough,  and  might,  if  this  were  the  place  for  any  such  subtlety,  be 
connected  with  the  other  defects  of  his  strangely  blended  character 
— his  pusillanimity,  his  lack  of  passion  (let  any  one  read  the  Essay 
on  Love,  and  remember  that  some  persons,  not  always  inmates 
of  lunatic   asylums,    have   held   that   Bacon   wrote   the   plays  of 


VI 


BACON'S  STYLE  209 


Shakespere),  his  love  of  empty  pomp  and  display,  and  so 
forth. 

But  the  English  language  which  he  thus  despised  had  a  noble 
and  worthy  revenge  on  Bacon.  Of  his  Latin  works  hardly  any- 
thing but  the  Ninum  Organum  is  now  read  even  for  scholastic 
purposes,  and  it  is  "not  certain  that,  but  for  the  saving  influences 
of  academical  study  and  prescription,  even  that  might  not  slip 
out  of  the  knowledge  of  all  but  specialists.  But  with  the  wider 
and  wider  spread  and  study  of  English  the  Essays  and  T/ie 
Advancement  of  Learning  are  read  ever  more  and  more,  and  the 
only  reason  that  The  History  of  Henty  VII.,  The  New  Atlantis,  and 
the  Syiva  Syharum  do  not  receive  equal  attention,  lies  in  the 
comparative  obsoleteness  of  their  matter,  combined  with  the  fact 
that  the  matter  is  the  chief  thing  on  which  attention  is  bestowed 
in  them.  Even  in  the  two  works  noted,  the  Essays  and  The 
Advancement,  which  can  go  both  together  in  a  small  volume. 
Bacon  shows  himself  at  his  very  greatest  in  all  respects,  and 
(ignorant  or  careless  as  he  was  of  the  fact)  as  one  of  the  greatest 
writers  of  English  prose  before  the  accession  of  Charles  I. 

The  characteristics  of  style  in  these  two  works  are  by  no 
means  the  same ;  but  between  them  they  represent  fairly  enough 
the  characteristics  of  all  Bacon's  English  prose.  It  might  indeed 
be  desirable  in  studying  it  to  add  to  them  the  Henry  the  Sa'enth, 
which  is  a  model  of  clear  historical  narration,  not  exactly 
picturesque,  but  never  dull  ;  and  though  not  exactly  erudite,  yet 
by  no  means  wanting  in  erudition,  and  exhibiting  conclusions 
which,  after  two  centuries  and  a  half  of  record-grubbing,  have  not 
been  seriously  impugned  or  greatly  altered  by  any  modern  his- 
torian. In  this  book,  which  was  written  late,  Ikicon  had,  of 
course,  the  advantage  of  his  long  previous  training  in  the  actual 
politics  of  a  school  not  very  greatly  altered  since  the  time  he  was 
describing,  but  this  does  not  diminish  the  credit  due  to  him  for 
formal  excellence. 

The  Essays — which  Bacon  issued  fur  the  first  time,  to  the 
numlx;r  of  ten,  in  1597,  when  he  was,  comparatively  speaking, 
U  1' 


2IO        LATER   ELIZABETHAN   AND  JACOBEAN   PROSE        chap 


a  young  man,  which  he  reissued  largely  augmented  in  1612,  and 
yet  again  just  before  his  death,  in  their  final  and  fullest  con- 
dition— are  not  so  much  in  the  modern  sense  essays  as  collec- 
tions of  thoughts  more  or  less  connected.  We  have,  indeed,  the 
genesis  of  them  in  the  very  interesting  commonplace  book  called 
the  Promiis  [butler  or  storekeeper]  of  Elegancies,  the  publication 
of  which,  as  a  whole,  was  for  some  reason  or  other  not  under- 
taken by  Mr..  Spedding,  and  is  due  to  Mrs.  Henry  Pott.  Here 
we  have  the  quaint,  but  never  merely  quaint,  analogies,  the  apt 
quotations,  the  singular  flashes  of  reflection  and  illustration,  which 
characterise  Bacon,  in  their  most  unformed  and  new-born  condi- 
tion. In  the  Essays  they  are  worked  together,  but  still  senten- 
tiously,  and  evidently  with  no  attempt  at  sustained  and  fluent 
connection  of  style.  That  Montaigne  must  have  had  some  influ- 
ence on  Bacon  is,  of  course,  certain  ;  though  few  things  can  be 
more  unUke  than  the  curt  severity  of  the  scheme  of  the  English 
essays  and  the  interminable  diffuseness  of  the  French.  Yet  here 
and  there  are  passages  in  Montaigne  which  might  almost  be  the 
work  of  a  French  Bacon,  and  in  Bacon  passages  which  might 
easily  be  the  work  of  an  English  Montaigne.  In  both  there  is 
the  same  odd  mixture  of  dignity  and  familiarity — the  familiarity 
predominating  in  Montaigne,  the  dignity  in  Bacon — and  in  both 
there  is  the  union  of  a  rich  fancy  and  a  profound  interest  in 
ethical  questions,  with  a  curious  absence  of  passion  and  enthusiasm 
— a  touch,  as  it  may  almost  be  called,  of  Philistinism,  which  in 
Bacon's  case  contrasts  most  strangely  with  his  frequently  gorgeous 
language,  and  the  evident  richness  of  his  imagination,  or  at  least 
his  fancy. 

The  scheme  and  manner  of  these  essays  naturally  induced  a 
sententious  and  almost  undeveloped  manner  of  writing.  An 
extraordinary  number  of  separate  phrases  and  sentences,  which 
have  become  the  common  property  of  all  who  use  the  language, 
and  are  probably  most  often  used  without  any  clear  idea  of  their 
author,  may  be  disinterred  from  them,  as  well  as  many  striking 
images  and  pregnant  thoughts,  which  have  had  less  general  cur- 


VI  BACON'S  CHARACTERISTICS  211 

rency.      But  the  compression  of  them  (which  is  often  so  great  that 
they  might  be  printed  sentence  by  sentence  Hke  verses  of  the 
Bible)  prevents  the  author  from  displaying  his  command  of  a 
consecutive,  elaborated,  and  harmonised  style.      What  command 
he  had  of  that   style   may  be  found,  without  looking  far,  in  the 
Henry  the  Seventh,  in   the  Atlantis,  and  in  various  minor  works, 
some   originally  written    in    Latin    and    translated,   such   as   the 
magnificent  passage  which  Dean  Church  has  selected  as  describ- 
ing the  purpose  and  crown  of  the  Baconian  system.      In  such 
passages  the  purely  oratorical  faculty  which  he  undoubtedly  had 
(though  like  all  the  earlier  oratory  of  England,  with  rare  exceptions, 
its  examples  remain  a  mere  tradition,  and  hardly  even  that)  dis- 
plays itself;  and  one  cannot  help  regretting  that,  instead  of  going 
into  the  law,  where  he  never  attained  to  much  technical  excel- 
lence, and  where  his  mere  promotion  was  at  first  slow,  and  was 
no  sooner  quickened  than  it  brought  him  into  difficulties  and 
dangers,  he  had  not  sought  the  safer  and  calmer  haven  of  the 
Church,  where  he  would  have  been  more  at  leisure  to  "take  all 
knowledge  to  be  his  province;"   would  have  been  less  tempted 
to  engage  in  the  treacherous,  and  to  him  always  but  half-con- 
genial, business  of  politics,  and  would  have  forestalled,  and  per- 
haps excelled,  Jeremy  Taylor  as  a  sacred  orator.      If  Bacon  be 
Jeremy's  inferior  in  exuberant  gorgeousness,  he  is  very  much  his 
superior  in  order  and  proportion,  and  quite  his  equal  in  sudden 
flashes  of  a  quaint  but  illuminative  rhetoric.      For  after  all  that 
has  been  .said  of  Bacon  and  his  philosophy,  lie  was  a  rhetorician 
rather  than  a  philo.sopher.      Half  the  puzzlement  which  has  arisen 
in  the  efforts  to  get  something  exact  out  of  the  stately  periods 
and  splendid  jjromises  of  the  Novum  Organutn  and  its  companions 
has  arisen  from  oversight  of  this  eminently  rhetorical  character ; 
and  this  character  is  the  chief  property    of  his  style.      It  may 
seem  ijre.suniptuous  to  extend  the  charges  of  want  of  depth  which 
were  formulated  by  g(Jod  authorities  in   law  and  physics  against 
iJacon  in  his  own  day,  yet  he  is  everywhere  "not  deep."      He  is 
stimulating  beyond  the  recorded  power  of  any  other  man  except 


212  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

Socrates ;  he  is  inexhaustible  in  analogy  and  illustration,  full  of 
wise  saws,  and  of  instances  as  well  ancient  as  modern.  But  he 
is  by  no  means  an  accurate  expositor,  still  less  a  powerful  reasoner, 
and  his  style  is  exactly  suited  to  his  mental  gifts;  now  luminously 
fluent,  now  pregnantly  brief;  here  just  obscure  enough  to  kindle 
the  reader's  desire  of  penetrating  the  obscurity,  there  flashing 
with  ornament  which  perhaps  serves  to  conceal  a  flaw  in  the  reason- 
ing, but  which  certainly  serves  to  allure  and  retain  the  attention 
of  the  student.  All  these  characteristics  are  the  characteristics 
rather  of  the  great  orator  than  of  the  great  philosopher.  His 
constant  practice  in  every  kind  of  literary  composition,  and  in  the 
meditative  thought  which  constant  literary  composition  perhaps 
sometimes  tempts  its  practitioners  to  dispense  with,  enabled  him 
to  write  on  a  vast  variety  of  subjects,  and  in  many  different  styles. 
But  of  these  it  will  always  be  found  that  two  were  most  familiar 
to  him,  the  short  sententious  apothegm,  parallel,  or  image,  which 
suggests  and  stimulates  even  when  it  does  not  instruct,  and  the 
half-hortatory  half-descriptive  discours  d^ouverhire,  where  the  writer 
is  the  unwearied  panegyrist  of  promised  lands  not  perhaps  to  be 
identified  with  great  ease  on  any  chart.^ 

A  parallel  in  the  Plutarchian  manner  between  Bacon  and  Raleigh 
would  in  many  ways  be  pleasant,  but  only  one  point  of  it  concerns 
us  here, — that  both  had  been  happier  and  perhaps  had  done  greater 
things  had  they  been  simple  men  of  letters.  Unlike  Bacon,  who, 
though  he  wrote  fair  verse,  shows  no  poetical  bent,  Raleigh  was  homo 
utrmsque  linguce,  and  his  works  in  verse,  unequal  as  they  are,  oc- 
casionally touch  the  loftiest  summits  of  poetry.  It  is  very  much  the 
same  in  his  prose.  His  minor  books,  mostly  written  hurriedly,  and 
for  a  purpose,  have  hardly  any  share  of  the  graces  of  style;  and  his 
masterpiece,  the  famous  Histoiy  of  the  World,  is  made  up  of  short 
passages  of  the  most  extraordinary  beauty,  and  long  stretches  of 
monotonous  narration  and  digression,  showing  not  much  grace 
of  style,  and  absolutely  no  sense  of  proportion  or  skill  in  arrange- 

^  Of  Bacon  in  prose,  as  of  .Spenser,  Shakespere,  and  Milton  in  verse,  it 
does  not  seem  necessary  to  give  extracts,  and  for  the  same  reason. 


VI 


RALEIGH'S  "HISTORY"  213 


ment.  'Ihc  contrast  is  so  strange  that  some  have  sought  to  see 
in  the  undoubted  facts  that  Raleigh,  in  his  tedious  prison  labours, 
had  assistants  and  helpers  (Ben  Jonson  among  others),  a  reason 
for  the  superior  excellence  of  such  set  pieces  as  the  Preface,  the 
Epilogue,  and  others,  which  are  scattered  about  the  course  of  the 
work.  But  independently  of  the  other  fact  that  excellence  of  the 
most  diverse  kind  meets  us  at  every  turn,  though  it  also  deserts  us 
at  ever)'  turn,  in  Raleigh's  varied  literary  work,  and  that  it  would 
be  absurd  to  attribute  all  these  passages  to  some  "affai:)le  familiar 
ghost,"  there  is  the  additional  difficulty  that  in  none  of  his 
reported  helpers'  own  work  do  the  peculiar  graces  of  the  purple 
passages  of  the  History  occur.  The  immortal  descant  on 
mortality  with  which  the  book  closes,  and  which  is  one  of  the 
highest  achievements  of  English  prose,  is  not  in  the  least  like 
Jonson,  not  in  the  least  like  Selden,  not  in  the  least  like  any 
one  of  whose  connection  with  Raleigh  there  is  record.  Donne 
might  have  written  it ;  but  there  is  not  the  smallest  reason  for 
supposing  that  he  did,  and  many  for  being  certain  that  he  did 
not.  Therefore,  it  is  only  fair  to  give  Raleigh  himself  the  credit 
for  this  and  all  other  passages  of  the  kind.  Their  character  and, 
at  the  same  time,  their  comparative  rarity  are  both  easily  explic- 
tble.  They  are  all  obviously  struck  off  in  moments  of  excitement 
— moments  when  the  writer's  variable  and  fanciful  temperament 
was  heated  to  flashing- point  and  gave  off  almost  spontaneously 
these  lightnings  of  prose  as  it  gave,  on  other  occasions,  such 
lightnings  of  poetry  as  The  Faerie  Queene  sonnet,  as  "the  Lie," 
and  as  the  other  strange  jewels  (cats'  eyes  and  opals,  rather  than 
pearls  or  diamonds),  which  are  strung  along  with  very  many 
common  pebbles  on  Raleigh's  poetical  necklace.  In  style  llicy 
anticipate  Browne  (who  probably  learnt  not  a  little  from  them) 
more  than  any  other  writer  ;  and  they  cannot  fairly  be  said  to 
have  been  anticipated  by  any  Englishman.  The  low  and  stately 
music  of  their  cadences  is  a  thing,  except  in  Browne,  almost 
um'qvie,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  trace  it  to  any  peculiar  mannerism 
of  vocaljulary  or  of  the  arrangement    of  words.      But    Raleigh's 


214  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

usual  style  differs  very  little  from  that  of  other  men  of  his  day, 
who  kept  clear  at  once  of  euphuism  and  burlesque.  Being  chiefly 
narrative,  it  is  rather  plainer  than  Hooker,  who  has  some  few 
points  of  resemblance  with  Raleigh,  but  considerably  freer  from 
the  vices  of  desultoriness  and  awkward  syntax,  than  most  writers  of 
the  day  except  Hooker.  But  its  most  interesting  characteristic  to 
the  student  of  literature  must  always  be  the  way  in  which  it  leads 
up  to,  without  in  the  least  foretelling,  the  bursts  of  eloquence  already 
referred  to.  Even  Milton's  alternations  of  splendid  imagery  with 
dull  and  scurrilous  invective,  are  hardly  so  strange  as  Raleigh's 
changes  from  jog-trot  commonplace  to  almost  inspired  declamation, 
if  only  for  the  reason  that  they  are  much  more  intelligible.  It 
must  also  be  mentioned  that  Raleigh,  like  Milton,  seems  to  have 
had  little  or  no  humour. 

The  opening  and  closing  passages  of  the  History  are  almost 
universally  known ;  a  quainter,  less  splendid,  but  equally  charac- 
teristic one  may  be  given  here  though  Mr.  Arber  has  already 
extracted  it : — 

"  The  four  complexions  resemble  the  four  elements  ;  and  the  seven  ages  of 
man,  the  seven  planets.  Whereof  our  infancy  is  compared  to  the  moon  ;  in 
which  we  seem  only  to  live  and  grow,  as  plants. 

"  The  second  age,  to  Mercury  ;  wherein  we  are  taught  and  instructed. 

"  Our  third  age,  to  Venus  ;  the  days  of  Love,  Desire  and  Vanity. 

"  The  fourth,  to  the  Sun  ;  the  strong,  flourishing  and  beautiful  age  of  man's 
life. 

"  The  fifth,  to  Mars  ;  in  which  we  seek  honour  and  victory  ;  and  in  which 
our  thoughts  travel  to  ambitious  ends. 

"  The  sixth  age  is  ascribed  to  Jupiter;  in  which  we  begin  to  take  account 
of  our  times,  judge  of  ourselves,  and  grow  to  the  perfection  of  our  under- 
standing. 

"  The  last  and  seventh,  to  Saturn  ;  wherein  our  days  are  sad  and  overcast; 
and  in  which  we  find  by  dear  and  lamentable  experience,  and  by  the  loss  which 
can  never  be  repaired,  that,  of  all  our  vain  passions  and  affections  past,  the 
sorrow  only  abideth.  Our  attendants  are  sicknesses  and  variable  infirmities  : 
and  by  how  much  the  more  we  are  accompanied  with  plenty,  by  so  much  the 
more  greedily  is  our  end  desired.  Whom,  when  Time  hath  made  unsociable  to 
others,  we  become  a  burden  to  ourselves  :  being  of  no  other  use  than  to  hold 
the  riches  we  have  from  our  successors.     In  this  time  it  is,  when  we,  for  the 


vr  THE  AUTHORISED  VERSION  215 

most  part  (and  never  before)  prepare  for  our  Eternal  Habitation,  which  we 
pass  on  unto  with  many  sighs,  groans  and  sad  thoughts  :  and  in  the  end  (by 
the  workmanship  of  Death)  finish  the  sorrowful  business  of  a  wretched  life. 
Towards  which  we  always  travel,  both  sleeping  and  waking.  Neither  have 
those  beloved  companions  of  honour  and  riches  any  power  at  all  to  hold  us  any 
one  day  by  tlie  glorious  promise  of  entertainments  :  but  by  what  crooked  path 
soever  we  walk,  the  same  leadeth  on  directly  to  the  House  of  Death,  whose 
doors  lie  open  at  all  hours,  and  to  all  persons. " 

But  great  as  are  Bacon  and  Raleigh,  they  cannot  approach,  as 
writers  of  prose,  the  company  of  scholarly  divines  who  produced 
— what  is  probably  the  greatest  prose  work  in  any  language — the 
Authorised  Version  of  the  Bible  in  English.  Now  that  there  is 
at  any  rate  some  fear  of  this  masterpiece  ceasing  to  be  what  it 
has  been  for  three  centuries — the  school  and  training  ground  of 
every  man  and  woman  of  English  speech  in  the  noblest  uses  of 
English  tongue — every  one  who  values  that  mother  tongue  is  more 
especially  bound  to  put  on  record  his  own  allegiance  to  it.  The 
work  of  the  Company  appears  to  liave  been  loyally  performed  in 
common  ;  and  it  is  curious  that  such  an  unmatched  result  should 
have  been  the  result  of  labours  thus  combined,  and  not,  as  far  as 
is  known,  controlled  by  any  one  guiding  spirit.  Among  the  trans- 
lators were  many  excellent  writers, — an  advantage  which  they 
possessed  in  a  much  higher  degree  than  their  revisers  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  of  whom  few  would  be  mentioned  among  the 
best  living  writers  of  English  by  any  competent  authority.  But, 
at  the  same  time,  no  known  translator  under  James  has  left  any- 
thing which  at  all  equals  in  strictly  literary  merit  the  Authorised 
Version,  as  it  still  is  and  as  long  may  it  be.  The  fact  is,  however, 
less  mysterious  after  a  little  examination  than  it  may  seem  at 
first  sight.  Putting  aside  all  (juestions  as  to  the  intrinsic  value  of 
the  subject-matter  as  out  of  our  province,  it  will  be  generally 
admitted  that  the  translators  had  in  the  greater  part  of  the  Old 
Testament,  in  a  large  part  of  the  Apocrypha,  and  in  no  small  part 
of  the  New  Testament,  matter  as  distinguished  from  form,  of  very 
high  literary  value  to  begin  with  in  their  originals.  In  the  second 
place,  they  had,  in  the  Septuaginl  and   in  the  Vulgate,  versions 


Si6  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  TROSE       chap. 

also  of  no  small  literary  merit  to  help  them.  In  the  third  place, 
they  had  in  the  earlier  English  versions  excellent  quarries  of  suit- 
able English  terms,  if  not  very  accomplished  models  of  style. 
These,  however,  were  not  in  any  way  advantages  peculiar  to 
■  themselves.  The  advantages  which,  in  a  manner  at  least,  were 
peculiar  to  themselves  may  be  divided  into  two  classes.  They 
were  in  the  very  centre  of  the  great  literary  ferment  of  which  in 
this  volume  I  am  striving  to  give  a  history  as  little  inadequate  as 
possible.  They  had  in  the  air  around  them  an  English  purged 
of  archaisms  and  uncouthnesses,  fully  adapted  to  every  literary 
purpose,  and  yet  still  racy  of  the  soil,  and  free  from  that  burden 
of  hackneyed  and  outworn  literary  platitudes  and  commonplaces 
with  which  centuries  of  voluminous  literary  production  have 
vitiated  and  loaded  the  English  of  our  own  day.  They  were  not 
afraid  of  Latinising,  but  they  had  an  ample  stock  of  the  pure  ver- 
nacular to  draw  on.  These  things  may  be  classed  together.  On 
the  other  side,  but  equally  healthful,  may  be  put  the  fact  that  the 
style  and  structure  of  the  originals  and  earlier  versions,  and 
especially  that  verse  division  which  has  been  now  so  unwisely 
abandoned,  served  as  safeguards  against  the  besetting  sin  of  all 
prose  writers  of  their  time,  the  habit  of  indulging  in  long  wander- 
ing sentences,  in  paragraphs  destitute  of  proportion  and  of  grace, 
destitute  even  of  ordinary  manageableness  and  shape.  The 
verses  saved  them  from  that  once  for  all ;  while  on  the  other 
hand  their  own  taste,  and  the  help  given  by  the  structure  of  the 
original  in  some  cases,  prevented  them  from  losing  sight  of  the 
wood  for  the  trees,  and  omitting  to  consider  the  relation  of  verse 
to  verse,  as  well  as  the  antiphony  of  the  clauses  within  the  verse. 
Men  without  literary  faculty  might  no  doubt  have  gone  wrong  ; 
but  these  were  men  of  great  literary  faculty,  whose  chief  liabilities 
to  error  were  guarded  against  precisely  by  the  very  conditions  in 
which  they  found  their  work.  The  hour  had  come  exactly,  and 
so  for  once  had  the  men. 

The  result  of  their  labours  is  so  universally  known  that  it  is 
not  necessary  to  say  very  much  about  it ;  but  the  mere  fact  of 


VI  THE  VERSIONS— AUTHORISED  AND  REVISED  217 

the  universal  knowledge  carries  with  it  a  possibility  of  under- 
valuation. In  another  place,  dealing  with  the  general  subject  of 
English  prose  style,  I  have  selected  the  sixth  and  seventh  verses  of 
the  eighth  chapter  of  Solomon's  Song  as  the  best  example  known  to 
me  of  absolutely  perfect  English  prose — harmonious,  modulated, 
yet  in  no  sense  trespassing  the  limits  of  prose  and  becoming 
poetry.  I  have  in  the  same  place  selected,  as  a  companion 
passage  from  a  very  different  original,  the  Charity  passage  of  the 
First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  which  has  been  so  miserably 
and  wantonly  mangled  and  spoilt  by  the  bad  taste  and  ignorance 
of  the  late  revisers.  I  am  tempted  to  dwell  on  this  because  it  is 
very  germane  to  our  subject.  One  of  the  blunders  which  spoils 
this  passage  in  the  Revised  Version  is  the  pedantic  substitution 
of  "mirror"  for  "glass,"  it  having  apparently  occurred  to  some 
wiseacre  that  glass  was  not  known  to  the  ancients,  or  at  least  used 
for  mirrors.  Had  this  wiseacre  had  the  slightest  knowledge  of 
English  literature,  a  single  title  of  Gascoigne's,  "The  Steel  Glass," 
would  have  dispensed  him  at  once  from  any  attempt  at  emen- 
dation ;•  but  this  is  ever  and  always  the  way  of  the  sciolist. 
Fortunately  such  a  national  possession  as  the  original  Authorised 
Version,  when  once  multiplied  and  dispersed  by  the  press,  is  out 
of  reach  of  vandalism.  The  improved  version,  constructed  on 
very  much  the  same  principle  as  Davenant's  or  Ravenscroft's 
improvements  on  Shakespere,  may  be  ordered  to  be  read  in 
churches,  and  substituted  for  purposes  of  taking  oaths.  But  the 
original  (as  it  may  be  called  in  no  burlesque  sense  such  as  that 
of  a  famous  story)  will  always  be  the  text  resorted  to  by  scholars 
and  men  of  letters  for  purposes  of  reading,  and  will  remain  the 
authentic  lexicon,  the  recognised  source  of  I'.nglish  words  and 
constructions  of  the  best  period.  The  days  of  creation  ;  the 
narratives  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren,  of  Ruth,  of  the  final 
defeat  of  Ahab,  of  the  discomfiture  of  the  Assyrian  host  of  Sen- 
nacherib ;  the  moral  discourses  of  Ecclesiastcs  and  Ecclesiasticus 
and  the  liook  of  ^^'isdom  ;  the  poems  of  the  Psalms  and  the 
prophets ;  the  visions  of  the  Revelation, — a  hundred  other  pas- 


2i8  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE      chap. 

sages  which  it  is  unnecessary  to  catalogue, — will  always  be  the 
ne  plus  ultra  of  English  composition  in  their  several  kinds,  and 
the  storehouse  from  which  generation  after  generation  of  writers, 
sometimes  actually  hostile  to  religion  and  often  indifferent  to  it, 
will  draw  the  materials,  and  not  unfrequently  the  actual  form  of 
their  most  impassioned  and  elaborate  passages.  Revision  after 
revision,  constructed  in  corrupt  following  of  the  transient  and 
embarrassed  phantoms  of  ephemeral  fashion  in  scholarship,  may 
sink  into  the  Great  Mother  of  Dead  Dogs  after  setting  right  a 
tense  here,  and  there  transferring  a  rendering  from  text  to  margin 
or  from  margin  to  text.  But  the  work  of  the  unrevised  version  will 
remain  unaffected  by  each  of  these  futile  exercitations.  All  the 
elements,  all  the  circumstances  of  a  translation  as  perfect  as  can 
be  accomplished  in  any  circumstances  and  with  any  elements, 
were  then  present,  and  the  workers  were  worthy  of  the  work.  The 
plays  of  Shakespere  and  the  Enghsh  Bible  are,  and  will  ever  be,  the 
twin  monuments  not  merely  of  their  own  period,  but  of  the  per- 
fection of  English,  the  complete  expressions  of  the  literary  capacities 
of  the  language,  at  the  time  when  it  had  lost  none  of  its  pristine 
vigour,  and  had  put  on  enough  but  not  too  much  of  the 
adornments  and  the  limitations  of  what  may  be  called  literary 
civilisation. 

The  boundary  between  the  prose  of  this  period  and  that  which 
we  shall  treat  later  as  "  Caroline  "  is  not  very  clearly  fixed.  Some 
men,  such  as  Hall  and  Donne,  whose  poetical  work  runs  parallel 
to  that  in  prose  which  we  are  now  noticing,  come  as  prose  writers 
rather  under  the  later  date ;  others  who  continued  to  write  till 
long  after  EUzabeth's  death,  and  even  after  that  of  James,  seem, 
by  their  general  complexion,  to  belong  chiefly  to  the  earlier  day. 
The  first  of  these  is  Ben  Jonson,  whose  high  reputation  in  other 
ways  has  somewhat  unduly  damaged,  or  at  least  obscured,  his 
merits  as  a  prose  writer.  His  two  chief  works  in  this  kind  are  his 
English  Grai)ima7\  in  which  a  sound  knowledge  of  the  rules  of 
English  writing  is  discovered,  and  the  quaintly  named  Explorata  or 
Discoveries  and  Tiinber — a  collection  of  notes  varying  from  a  mere 


I 


VI  JONSON'S  PROSE  WORK  219 

aphorism  to  a  respectable  essay.  In  these  latter  a  singular  power  of 
writing  prose  appears.  The  book  was  not  published  till  after 
Ben's  death,  and  is  thought  to  have  been  in  part  at  least  written 
during  the  last  years  of  his  life.  But  there  can  be  no  greater 
contrast  than  exists  between  the  prose  style  usual  at  that  time — a 
style  tourmente,  choked  with  quotation,  twisted  in  every  direction 
by  allusion  and  conceit,  and  marred  by  perpetual  confusions  of 
English  with  classical  grammar — and  the  straightforward,  vigorous 
English  of  these  Discoveries.  They  come,  in  character  as  in  time, 
midway  between  Hooker  and  Dryden,  and  they  incline  rather  to 
the  more  than  to  the  less  modern  form.  Here  is  found  the  prose 
character  of  Shakespere  which,  if  less  magniloquent  than  that  in 
verse,  has  a  greater  touch  of  sheer  sincerity.  Here,  too,  is  an 
admirable  short  tractate  on  Style  which  exemplifies  what  it 
preaches  ;  and  a  large  number  of  other  excellent  things.  Some, 
it  is  true,  are  set  down  in  a  short-hand  fashion  as  if  (which 
doubtless  they  were)  they  were  commonplace-book  notes  for 
working  up  in  due  season.  But  others  and  perhaps  the  majority 
(they  all  Baconian-wise  have  Latin  titles,  though  only  one  or  two 
have  the  text  in  Latin)  are  written  with  complete  attention  to 
literary  presentment;  seldom  though  sometimes  relapsing  into 
loose  construction  of  sentences  and  paragraphs,  the  besetting  sin 
of  the  day,  and  often  presenting,  as  in  the  following,  a  model  of 
sententious  but  not  dry  form  : — 

"  We  should  not  protect  our  sloth  with  the  patronage  of  difiiculty.  It  is 
a  false  quarrel  against  nature  that  she  helps  understanding  but  in  a  few,  when 
the  most  part  of  mankind  are  inclined  by  her  thither,  if  they  would  take  the 
pains  ;  no  less  than  birds  to  fly,  horses  to  run,  etc.,  which  if  they  lose  it  is 
through  their  own  sluggishness,  and  by  that  means  become  her  prodigies,  not 
her  children.  I  confess  nature  in  children  is  more  patient  of  labour  in  study 
than  in  age  ;  for  the  sense  of  the  pain,  the  judgment  of  the  labour  is  absent, 
they  do  nf>t  measure  what  they  have  done.  And  it  is  the  thouglit  and  con- 
sideration that  affects  us  more  than  the  weariness  itself  I'lalo  was  not  con- 
tent with  the  learning  that  Athens  could  give  him,  but  sailed  into  Italy,  for 
I'ythagoras'  knowledge  :  and  yet  not  thinking  himself  sufficiently  informed, 
went  into  Kgypt,  to  the  priests,  and  learned  their  mysteries.  He  laboured,  so 
must  We.      Many  things  may  be  learned   together  and  performed  in  one  point 


220  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE        chap. 


of  time  ;  as  musicians  exercise  their  memory,  their  voice,  their  fingers,  and 
sometimes  their  head  and  feet  at  once.  And  so  a  preacher,  in  the  invention 
of  matter,  election  of  vi^ords,  composition  of  gesture,  look,  pronunciation, 
motion,  useth  all  these  faculties  at  once  :  and  if  we  can  express  this  variety 
together,  why  should  not  divers  studies,  at  divers  hours,  delight,  when  the 
variety  is  able  alone  to  refresh  and  repair  us  ?  As  when  a  man  is  weary  of 
writing,  to  read  ;  and  then  again  of  reading,  to  write.  Wherein,  howsoever 
we  do  many  things,  yet  are  we  (in  a  sort)  still  fresh  to  what  we  begin  ;  we  are 
recreated  with  change  as  the  stomach  is  with  meats.  But  some  will  say,  this 
variety  breeds  confusion,  and  makes  that  either  we  lose  all  or  hold  no  more 
than  the  last.  Why  do  we  not  then  persuade  husbandmen  that  they  should 
not  till  land,  help  it  with  marie,  lime,  and  compost  ?  plant  hop  gardens,  prune 
trees,  look  to  beehives,  rear  sheep,  and  all  other  cattle  at  once  ?  It  is  easier 
to  do  many  things  and  continue,  than  to  do  one  thing  long." 

No  Other  single  writer  until  we  come  to  the  pamphleteers 
deserves  separate  or  substantive  mention  ;  but  in  many  divisions 
of  literature  there  were  practitioners  who,  if  they  have  not  kept 
much  notoriety  as  masters  of  style,  were  well  thought  of  even  in 
that  respect  in  their  day,  and  were  long  authorities  in  point  of 
matter.  The  regular  theological  treatises  of  the  time  present 
nothing  equal  to  Hooker,  who  in  part  overlapped  it,  though  the 
Jesuit  Parsons  has  some  name  for  vigorous  writing.  In  history, 
KnoUes,  the  historian  of  the  Turks,  and  Sandys,  the  Eastern 
traveller  and  sacred  poet,  bear  the  bell  for  style  among  their 
fellows,  such  as  Hayward,  Camden,  Spelman,  Speed,  and  Stow. 
Daniel  the  poet,  a  very  good  prose  writer  in  his  way,  was  also  a 
historian  of  England,  but  his  chief  prose  work  was  his  Defence  of 
Rhyme.  He  had  companions  in  the  critical  task  ;  but  it  is  curious 
and  by  no  means  uninstructive  to  notice,  that  the  immense  creative 
production  of  the  time  seems  to  have  to  a  great  extent  smothered 
the  theoretic  and  critical  tendency  which,  as  yet  not  resulting  in 
actual  performance,  betrayed  itself  at  the  beginning  of  the  period 
in  Webbe  and  Puttenham,  in  Harvey  and  Sidney.  The  example 
of  Eden  in  collecting  and  Enghshing  travels  and  voyages  was 
followed  by  several  writers,  of  whom  two,  successively  working  and 
residing,  the  elder  at  Oxford,  and  the  younger  at  Cambridge,  made 
the  two  greatest  collections  of  the  kind  in  the  language  for  interest 


VI  DANIEL  AND  OTHER  PROSE  WRITERS  221 

of  matter,  if  not  for  perfection  of  style.  These  were  Richard 
Hakluyt  and  Samuel  Purchas,  a  venerable  pair.  The  perhaps 
overpraised,  but  still  excellent  Characters  of  the  unfortunate  Sir 
Thomas  Overbur)-  and  the  prose  works,  such  as  the  Counterblast 
and  Dernonology,  of  James  I.,  are  books  whose  authors  have 
made  them  more  famous  than  their  intrinsic  merits  warrant,  and  in 
the  various  collections  of  "  works  "  of  the  day,  older  and  newer, 
we  shall  find  examples  nearly  as  miscellaneous  as  those  of  the 
class  of  writers  now  to  be  noticed.  Of  all  this  miscellaneous 
work  it  is  impossible  to  give  examples,  but  one  critical  passage 
from  Daniel,  and  one  descriptive  from  Hakluyt  may  serve  : — 

"  Methinks  we  should  not  so  soon  yield  up  our  consents  captive  to  the 
authority  of  antiquity,  unless  we  saw  more  reason  ;  all  our  understandings  are 
not  to  be  built  by  the  square  of  Greece  and  Italy.  We  are  the  children  of 
nature  as  Well  as  they,  we  are  not  so  placed  out  of  the  way  of  judgment  but 
that  the  same  sun  of  discretion  shineth  upon  us ;  we  have  our  portion  of  the 
same  virtues,  as  well  as  of  the  same  vices,  et  Catilinam  quocunque  in  populo 
videas,  quocunque  sub  axe.  Time  and  the  turn  of  things  bring  about  these 
faculties  according  to  the  present  estimation ;  and,  res  temporibus,  non  tempore 
rebus  servire  opportet.  So  that  we  must  never  rebel  against  use  ;  quem  penes 
arbitrium  est,  et  vis  et  norma  loquendi.  It  is  not  the  observing  of  trochaics 
nor  their  iaml)ics,  that  will  make  our  writings  aught  the  wiser  :  all  their  poesy 
and  all  their  philosophy  is  nothing,  unless  we  bring  the  discerning  light  of 
conceit  with  us  to  apply  it  to  use.  It  is  not  books,  but  only  that  great  book 
of  the  world,  and  the  all-overspreading  grace  of  Heaven  that  makes  men  truly 
judicial.  Nor  can  it  but  touch  of  arrogant  ignorance  to  hold  this  or  that  nation 
barl)arous,  these  or  those  times  gross,  considering  how  this  manifold  creature 
man,  wheresoever  he  stand  in  the  world,  hath  always  some  disposition  of  worth, 
entertains  the  or<ler  of  society,  affects  that  which  is  most  in  use,  and  is  eminent 
in  some  one  thing  or  other  that  fits  his  humour  or  the  times.  The  Grecians 
held  all  other  nations  barbarous  but  themselves  ;  yet  Pyrrhus,  when  he  saw 
the  well  ordered  marching  of  the  Romans,  which  made  them  see  their  pre- 
sumptuous error,  could  say  it  was  no  barbarous  manner  of  proceeding.  The 
<joth.s,  \'andals,  and  Longobards,  whose  coming  down  like  an  inundation 
overwhelmed,  as  they  say,  all  tl>e  glory  of  learning  in  Europe,  have  yet  left 
us  still  their  laws  an<l  customs,  as  the  originals  of  most  of  the  provincial  con- 
stitutions of  Christendom  ;  which,  well  considereil  with  their  other  courses  of 
g(<vernment,  may  serve  to  clear  tlicin  from  this  imputation  of  ignurance.  And 
though  the  vanquished  never  speak  well  of  the  conqueror,  yet  even  thmugh 


222  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

tlie  unsound  'coverings  of  malediction  appear  these  monuments  of  truth,  as 
argue  well  their  worth,  and  proves  them  not  without  judgment,  though  without 
Greek  and  Latin." 


"  To  speak  somewhat  of  these  islands,  being  called,  in  old  time,  Insuhv 
fortune,  by  the  means  of  the  flourishing  thereof.  The  fruitfulness  of  them  doth 
surely  exceed  far  all  other  that  I  have  heard  of  For  they  make  wine  better 
than  any  in  Spain  :  and  they  have  grapes  of  such  bigness  that  they  may  be 
compared  to  damsons,  and  in  taste  inferior  to  none.  For  sugar,  suckets, 
raisons  of  the  sun,  and  many  other  fruits,  abuntlance  :  for  rosin,  and  raw 
silk,  there  is  great  store.  They  want  neither  corn,  pullets,  cattle,  nor  yet 
wild  fowl. 

' '  They  have  many  camels  also  :  which,  being  young,  are  eaten  of  the 
people  for  victuals  ;  and  being  old,  they  are  used  for  carriage  of  necessities. 
Whose  property  is,  as  he  is  taught,  to  kneel  at  the  taking  of  his  load,  and  the 
unlading  again  ;  of  understanding  very  good,  but  of  shape  very  deformed  ; 
with  a  little  belly  ;  long  misshapen  legs  ;  and  feet  very  broad  of  flesh,  without 
a  hoof,  all  whole  saving  the  great  toe  ;  a  back  bearing  up  like  a  molehill,  a 
large  and  thin  neck,  with  a  little  head,  with  a  bunch  of  hard  flesh  which 
Nature  hath  given  him  in  his  breast  to  lean  upon.  This  beast  liveth  hardly, 
and  is  contented  with  straw  and  stubble  ;  but  of  strong  force,  being  well  able 
to  carry  five  hundredweight. 

"  In  one  of  these  islands  called  Ferro,  there  is,  by  the  reports  of  the 
inhabitants,  a  certain  tree  which  raineth  continually  ;  by  the  dropping  whereof 
the  inhabitants  and  cattle  are  satisfied  with  water  :  for  other  water  have  they 
none  in  all  the  island.  And  it  raineth  in  such  abundance  that  it  were  in- 
credible unto  a  man  to  believe  such  a  virtue  to  be  in  a  tree  ;  but  it  is  known 
to  be  a  Divine  matter,  and  a  thing  ordained  by  God  :  at  Whose  power  therein, 
we  ought  not  to  marvel,  seeing  He  did,  by  His  Providence  (as  we  read  in  the 
Scriptures)  when  the  Children  of  Israel  were  going  into  the  Land  of  Promise, 
feed  them  with  manna  from  heaven,  for  the  space  of  forty  years.  Of  these 
trees  aforesaid,  we  saw  in  Guinea  many  ;  being  of  great  height,  dropping  con- 
tinually ;  but  not  so  abundantly  as  the  other,  because  the  leaves  are  narrower 
and  are  like  the  leaves  of  a  pear  tree.  About  these  islands  are  certain  flitting 
islands,  which  have  been  oftentimes  seen  ;  and  when  men  approach  near  them, 
they  vanished  :  as  the  like  hath  been  of  these  now  known  (by  the  report  of 
the  inhabitants)  which  were  not  found  but  of  a  long  time,  one  after  the  other  ; 
and,  therefore,  it  should  seem  he  is  not  yet  Ixirn,  to  whom  God  hath  appointed 
the  finding  of  them. 

"  In  this  island  of  Teneriff,  there  is  a  hill  called  the  Pike,  because  it  is 
piked  ;  which  is,  in  height,  by  their  report,  twenty  leagues  :  having,  both 
winter  and  summer,  abundance  of  snow  on  the  top  of  it.      This  Pike  may  bt- 


VI  THE  PAMniLETEERS  223 

seen,  in  a  clear  day,  fifty  leagues  ofT ;  but  it  sheweth  as  though  it  were  a  black 
cloud  a  great  height  in  the  element.  I  have  heard  of  none  to  be  compared 
with  this  in  height  ;  but  in  the  Indies  I  have  seen  many,  and,  in  my  judg- 
ment, not  inferior  to  the  Pike  :  and  so  the  Spaniards  write." 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  developments  of  English  prose 
at  the  time,  and  one  which  has  until  very  recently  been  almost 
inaccessible,  except  in  a  few  examples,  to  the  student  who  has  not 
the  command  of  large  libraries,  while  even  by  such  students  it 
has  seldom  been  thoroughly  examined,  is  the  abundant  and  very 
miscellaneous  collection  of  what  are  called,  for  want  of  a  better 
name,  Pamphlets.    The  term  is  not  too  happy,  but  there  is  no  other 
(except  the  still  less  hapi)y  Miscellany)  which  describes  the  thing. 
It  consists  of  a  vast  mass  of  purely  popular  literature,   seldom 
written  with  any  other  aim  than  that  of  the  modern  journalist 
That  is  to  say,  it  was  written  to  meet  a  current  demand,  to  deal 
with  subjects  for  one  reason  or  other  interesting  at  the  moment, 
and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  bring  in  some  profit  to  the  writer. 
These  pamphlets  are  thus  as  destitute  of  any  logical  community  of 
subject  as  the  articles  which  compose  a  modern  newspaper — a 
production  the  absence  of  which  they  no  doubt  supplied,  and  of 
which  they  were  in  a  way  the  forerunners.      Attempts  to  classify 
their  subjects  could  only  end  in  a  ho})cless  cross  division.     'I'hey 
are  religious  very  often  ;  political  very  seldom  (tor  the  fate  of  the 
luckless  Stubbes  in  his  dealings  with  the  French  marriage  was  not 
suited  to  attract) ;  politico-religious  in  at  least  the  instance  of  one 
famous  group,  the  so-called  Martin  Marprelate  Controversy;  moral 
constantly;  in  very  many,  especially  the  earlier  instances,  narrative, 
and  following  to  a  large  extent  in  the  steps  of  Lyly  and  Sidney; 
besides  a  large  class  of  curious  tracts  dealing  with  the  manners, 
and  usually  the  bad  side  of  the  manners,  of  the  town.      Of  the 
vast  miscellaneous  mass  of  these  works  by  single  unimportant  or 
unknown  authors  it  is  almost  impossible  to  give  any  account  here, 
though  valuable  instances  will  be   foiiiid  of  them   in   Mr.  Arber's 
English  C<i>  /!(•/.    But  the  works  of  the  six  most  important  individual 
writers  of  them — Greene.  Nash,  Harvey,  Dekker,  Lodge,  IJreton 


224  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE        chap. 

(to  whom  might  be  added  the  verse-pamphleteer,  but  in  no  sense 
poet,  Rowlands) — are  luckily  now  accessible  as  wholes,  Lodge  and 
Rowlands  having  been  published,  or  at  least  privately  printed  for 
subscribers,  by  the  Hunterian  Club  of  Glasgow,  and  the  other 
five  by  the  prolific  industry  of  Dr.  Grosart.  The  reprints  of 
Petheram  and  of  Mr.  Arber,  with  new  editions  of  Lyly  and  others, 
have  made  most  of  the  Marprelate  tracts  accessible.  Some  notice 
of  these  collections  will  not  only  give  a  fair  idea  of  the  entire 
miscellaneous  prose  of  the  Elizabethan  period,  but  will  also  fill  a 
distinct  gap  in  most  histories  of  it.  It  will  not  be  necessary  to 
enter  into  much  personal  detail  about  their  authors,  for  most  of 
them  have  been  noticed  already  in  other  capacities,  and  of  Breton 
and  Rowlands  very  little  indeed  is  known.  Greene  and  Lodge 
stand  apart  from  their  fellows  in  this  respect,  that  their  work  is,  in 
some  respects  at  any  rate,  much  more  like  literature  and  less  like 
journalism,  though  by  an  odd  and  apparently  perverse  chance, 
this  difference  has  rather  hurt  than  saved  it  in  the  estimation  of 
posterit)'.  For  the  kind  of  literature  which  both  wrote  in  this 
way  has  gone  out  of  fashion,  and  its  purely  literary  graces  are 
barely  sufficient  to  save  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  form  ;  while 
the  bitter  personalities  of  Nash,  and  the  quaint  adaptations  of 
bygone  satire  to  contemporary  London  life  in  which  Dekker 
excelled,  have  a  certain  lasting  interest  of  matter.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  two  companions  of  Marlowe  have  the  advantage  (which 
they  little  anticipated,  and  would  perhaps  less  have  relished)  of 
surviving  as  illustrations  of  Shakespere,  of  the  Shakescene  who, 
decking  himself  out  in  their  feathers,  has  by  that  act  rescued 
Pandosto  and  Euphnes'  Golden  Legacy  from  oblivion  by  associating 
them  with  the  immortality  of  As  You  Like  It  and  The  WinJe7-'s 
Tale. 

Owing  to  the  different  forms  in  which  this  fleeting  and  unequal 
work  has  been  reprinted,  it  is  not  very  easy  to  decide  off-hand  on 
the  relative  bulk  of  the  autliors'  works.  But  the  palm  in  this 
respect  must  be  divided  between  Robert  Greene  and  Nicholas 
Breton,  the  former  of  whom  fills  eleven  volumes  of  loosely-printed 


VI  GREENE'S  PAMPHLETS  225 

crown  octavo,  and  the  latter  (in  prose  only)  a  thick  quarto  of  very 
small  and  closely-printed  double  columns.  Greene,  who  began 
his  work  early  under  the  immediate  inspiration  first  of  his  travels 
and  then  of  Lyly's  Euphucs,  started,  as  early  as  1583,  with 
Mamillia,  a  Looking-Glass  for  the  Ladies  of  England,  which,  both 
in  general  character  and  in  peculiarities  of  style,  is  an  obvious  copy 
of  Eiiphues,  The  Mirror  of  Modesty  is  more  of  a  lay  sermon, 
oased  on  the  story  of  Susanna.  The  Tritameron  of  Love  is  a 
dialogue  without  action,  but  Arbasto,  or  the  Anatomie  of  Fortune 
returns  to  the  novel  form,  as  does  Tiie  Card  of  Fancy.  Planeto- 
machia  is  a  collection  of  stories,  illustrating  the  popular  astrological 
notions,  with  an  introduction  on  astrology  generally.  Penelope's 
Web  is  another  collection  of  stories,  but  The  Spanish  Masquei-ado 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  series.  Written  just  at  the 
time  of  the  Armada,  it  is  pure  journalism — a  livrc  de  circonstance 
composed  to  catch  the  popular  temper  with  aid  of  a  certain  actual 
knowledge,  and  a  fair  amount  of  reading.  Then  Greene  returned 
to  euphuism  in  Menaphon,  and  in  Euphiics,  his  Censure  to 
Philautus  ;  nor  are  Perimcdes  the  Blacksmith  and  Tullfs  Love  much 
out  of  the  same  line.  The  Royal  Exchange  again  deviates,  being  a 
very  quaint  collection,  quaintly  arranged,  of  moral  maxims,  apoph- 
thegms, short  stories,  etc.,  for  the  use  of  the  citizens.  Next,  the 
author  began  the  curious  series,  at  first  perhaps  not  very  sincere, 
but  certainly  becoming  so  at  last,  of  half-personal  reminiscences 
and  regrets,  less  pointed  and  well  arranged  than  Villon's,  but 
remarkably  similar.  The  first  and  longest  of  these  was  Greetie's 
Nei'er  too  Late,  with  its  second  part  Francesco's  Fortunes.  Greenes 
Metamorphosis  is  Eui^huist  once  more,  and  Greene's  Mourning  Gar- 
ment and  Greene's  Farewell  to  Folly  are  the  same,  witii  a  touch  of 
personality.  Then  he  diverged  into  the  still  more  curious  series  on 
"conny-catching" — rooking,  gulling,  cheating,  as  we  should  call 
it.  There  are  five  or  si.K  of  these  tracts,  and  though  there  is  not 
a  little  bookmaking  in  them,  they  arc  unciuestionably  full  of 
instruction  as  to  the  ways  of  the  time.  Philomela  returns  once 
more  to  euphuism,  but  (ircene  is  soon  back  again  witii  A  Quip 
II  Q 


226  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

for  an  Upstart  Courtier,  a  piece  of  social  satire,  flying  rather 
higher  than  his  previous  attempts.  The  zigzag  is  kept  up  in 
Orpharion,  the  last  printed  (at  least  in  the  only  edition  now  known) 
of  the  author's  works  during  his  lifetime.  Not  till  after  his  death 
did  the  best  known  and  most  personal  of  all  his  works  appear,  the 
famous  Groat's  IVorth  of  Wit  Bought  with  a  Alillion  of  Repe7it- 
ance,  in  which  the  "Shakescene"  passage  and  the  exhortation  to 
his  friends  to  repentance  occur.  Two  more  tracts  in  somethin;. 
the  same  style — Greenes  Repentance  and  Greenes  Vision — fol- 
lowed. Their  genuineness  has  been  questioned,  but  seems  to  be 
fairly  certain. 

This  full  list— to  which  must  be  added  the  already  mentioned 
Pandosto,  the  Triumph  of  Time,  or  Dorastus  and  Fawnia,  and  the 
translated  Debate  between  Folly  and  Love — of  a  certainly  not  scanty 
life-work  (Greene  died  when  he  was  quite  a  young  man,  and  wrote 
plays  besides)  has  been  given,  because  it  is  not  only  the  earliest, 
but  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  of  the  whole.  Despite  the 
apparently  unsuitable  forms,  it  is  evident  that  the  writer  is  striving, 
without  knowing  it,  at  what  we  call  journalism.  But  fashion  and 
the  absence  of  models  cramp  and  distort  his  work.  Its  main 
features  are  to  be  found  in  the  personal  and  satirical  pieces,  in 
the  vivid  and  direct  humanity  of  some  touches  in  the  euphuist 
tract-romances,  in  the  delightful  snatches  of  verse  which  inter- 
sperse and  relieve  the  heterogeneous  erudition,  the  clumsy  dia- 
logue, and  the  rococo  style.  The  two  following  extracts  give, 
the  first  a  specimen  of  Greene's  ornate  and  Euphuist  style  from 
Orpharion,  the  second  a  passage  from  his  autobiographical  or 
semi-autobiographical  confesssions  in  the  Groafs  Worth : — 

"  I  am  Lydia  that  renowned  Princess,  whose  never  matched  beauty  seemed 
like  the  gorgeous  pomp  of  Phcebus,  too  bright  for  the  day :  rung  so  strongly  out 
of  the  trump  of  Fame  as  it  filled  every  ear  with  wonder  :  Daughter  to  Astolpho, 
the  King  of  Lydia  :  who  thought  himself  not  so  fortunate  for  his  diadem,  sith 
other  kings  could  boast  of  crowns,  nor  for  his  great  possessions,  although 
endued  with  large  territories,  as  happy  that  he  had  a  daughter  whose  excellency 
in  favour  stained  Venus,  whose  austere  chastity  set  Diana  to  silence  with  a 
blush.     Know  whatsoever  thou  art  that  standest  attentive  to  my  tale,  that  the 


VI 


GREENE'S  PAMPHLETS  227 


ruddiest  rose  in  all  Damasco,  the  whitest  lilies  in  the  creeks  of  Danuby,  might 
notifiheyhad  united  their  native  colours,  but  have  bashed  at  the  vermilion 
stain,  flourish'd  upon  the  pure  crystal  of  my  face  :  the  Marguerites  of  the 
western  Indies,  counted  more  bright  and  rich  than  that  which  Cleopatra 
quaffed  to  Anthony,  the  coral  highest  in  his  pride  upon  the  Afric  shores,  might 
well  be  graced  to  resemble  my  teeth  and  lips,  but  never  honoured  to  over- 
reach my  pureness.  Remaining  tlius  the  mirror  of  the  world,  and  nature's 
strangest  miracle,  there  arrived  in  our  Court  a  Thracian  knight,  of  personage 
tall,  proportioned  in  most  exquisite  form,  his  face  but  too  fair  for  his  qualities, 
for  he  was  a  brave  and  a  resolute  soldier.  Tliis  cavalier  coming  amongst 
divers  others  to  see  the  royalty  of  the  state  of  Lydia,  no  sooner  iiad  a  glance 
of  my  beauty,  but  he  set  down  his  staff,  resolving  either  to  perish  in  so  sweet 
a  labyrinth,  or  in  time  happily  to  stumble  out  with  Theseus.  He  had  not 
staved  long  in  my  father's  court,  but  he  shewed  such  knightly  deeds  of  chivalry 
amongst  the  nobility,  lightened  with  the  extraordinary  sparks  of  a  courageous 
mind,  that  not  only  he  was  liked  and  loved  of  all  the  chief  peers  of  the  realms, 
but  the  report  of  his  valour  coming  to  my  father's  ears,  he  was  highly  honoured 
of  him,  and  placed  in  short  time  as  General  of  his  warlike  forces  by  land. 
Resting  in  this  estimation  with  the  king,  preferment  was  no  means  to  quiet 
his  mind,  for  love  had  wounded  so  deep,  as  honour  by  no  means  might  remedy, 
that  as  the  elephants  can  hardly  be  haled  from  the  sight  of  the  waste,  or  the 
roe  buck  from  gazing  at  red  cloth,  so  there  was  no  object  that  could  so  much 
allure  the  wavering  eyes  of  this  Thracian  called  Acestes,  as  the  surpassing 
beauty  of  the  Princess  Lydia,  yea,  so  deeply  he  doted,  that  as  the  Chameleon 
gorgcth  herself  with  gazing  into  the  air,  so  he  fed  his  fancy  with  staring  on 
the  heavenly  face  of  his  Goddess,  so  long  dallying  in  the  flame,  that  he 
scorched  his  wings  and  in  time  consumed  his  whole  body.  Being  thus  passionate, 
having  none  so  familiar  as  he  durst  make  his  confidant  he  fell  thus  to  debate 
with  himself."  

"  On  the  other  side  of  the  hedge  sat  one  that  heard  his  sorrow,  who  getting 
over,  came  towards  him,  and  brake  off  his  passion.  When  he  approached,  he 
saluted  Roberto  in  this  sort :  Gentleman,  quoth  he  (for  so  you  seem)  I  have  by 
chance  heard  you  discourse  some  part  of  your  grief;  which  appcareth  to  be 
more  than  y<M  will  discover,  or  I  can  conceit.  But  if  you  vouchsafe  such 
simple  comfort  as  my  ability  will  yield,  assure  yourself,  that  I  will  endeavour 
to  do  the  best,  that  either  may  procure  your  profit,  or  bring  you  pleasure  :  the 
rather,  for  that  I  suppose  you  are  a  scholar,  and  pity  it  is  men  of  learning 
should  live  in  lack. 

"  Roberto  wondering  to  hear  such  good  words,  f(jr  that  this  iron  age  affords 
few  that  esteem  of  virtue  ;  returned  him  thankful  gralulations  and  (urged  by 
necessity)  uttered  his  present  grief,  beseeching  his  ailvicc  how  he  might  be 
employed.      '  Why,  easily,'  quoth  he,  'and  greatly  to  your  benefit  :  for  men  of 


228  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE        chap. 

my  profession  get  by  scholars  their  whole  living. '  '  What  is  your  profession  ?' 
said  Roberto.  'Truly,  sir,'  said  he,  'I  am  a  player.'  '  A  player  ! '  quoth 
Roberto.  '  I  took  you  rather  for  a  gentleman  of  great  living,  for  if  by  outward 
habit  men  should  be  censured,  I  tell  you,  you  would  be  taken  for  a  substantial 
man.'  '  So  am  I,  where  I  dwell '  (quoth  the  player)  '  reputed  able,  at  my  pro- 
per cost,  to  build  a  windmill.  What  though  the  world  once  went  hard  with 
me,  when  I  was  fain  to  cany  my  playing  fardel  a  foot-back  ;  Tempora  miitan- 
ttir,  I  know  you  know  the  meaning  of  it  better  than  I,  but  I  thus  construe  it ; 
it  is  otherwise  now  ;  for  my  very  share  in  playing  apparel  will  not  be  sold  for 
two  hundred  pounds.'  'Truly'  (said  Roberto)  'it  is  strange  that  you  should 
so  prosper  in  that  vain  practise,  for  that  it  seems  to  me  your  voice  is  nothing 
gracious.'  'Nay,  then,'  said  the  player,  '  I  mislike  your  judgment :  why,  I  am 
as  famous  for  Delphrigas,  and  the  King  of  Fairies,  as  ever  was  any  of  my  time. 
The  twelve  labours  of  Hercules  have  I  terribly  thundered  on  the  stage,  and 
placed  three  scenes  of  the  devil  on  the  highway  to  heaven.'  'Have  ye  so?' 
(said  Roberto)  'then  I  pray  you,  pardon  me.'  '  Nay  more'  (quoth  the  player) 
'  I  can  serve  to  make  a  pretty  speech,  for  I  was  a  country  author,  passing  at  a 
moral,  for  it  was  I  that  penn'd  the  moral  of  man's  wit,  the  Dialogue  of  Dives, 
and  for  seven  years'  space  was  absolute  interpreter  of  the  puppets.  But  now 
my  Almanach  is  out  of  date. 

The  people  make  no  estimation 
Of  morals  teaching  education. 

Was  not  this  pretty  for  a  plain  rhyme  extempore  ?  if  ye  will  ye  shall  have 
more.'  'Nay,  it  is  enough,'  said  Roberto,  'but  how  mean  you  to  use  me?' 
'  Why,  sir,  in  making  plays,'  said  the  other,  '  for  which  you  shall  be  well  paid, 
if  you  will  take  the  pains." 

These  same  characteristics,  though  without  the  prevailing 
and  in  part  obviously  sincere  melancholy  which  marks  Greene's 
regrets,  also  distinguish  Lodge's  prose  work  to  such  an  extent 
that  remarks  on  the  two  might  sometimes  be  made  simply  inter- 
changeable. But  fortune  was  kinder  to  Lodge  than  to  his  friend 
and  collaborator.  Nor  does  he  seem  to  have  had  any  occasion 
to  "tread  the  burning  marl "  in  company  with  conny-catchers  and 
their  associates.  Lodge  began  with  critical  and  polemical  work 
— an  academic  if  not  very  urbane  reply  to  Stephen  Gosson's 
School  of  Abuse;  but  in  the  A/ariini  ngai/ist  Usurers,  which 
resembles  and  even  preceded  Greene's  similar  work,  he  took  to 
the  satirical-story-form.      Indeed,  the  connection  between  Lodge 


VI  LODGE'S  PAMPHLETS  229 

and  Greene  was  so  close,  and  the  difficulty  of  ascertaining  the 
exact  dates  of  their  compositions  is  so  great,  that  it  is  impossible 
to  be  sure  which  was  the  precise  forerunner.  Certainly  if  Lodge 
set  Greene  an  example  in  the  Alarum  against  Usurers,  he  fol- 
lowed Greene's  lead  in  Farhonius  and  Prisccria  some  years  after- 
wards, having  written  it  on  shipboard  in  a  venture  against  the 
Spaniards.  Lodge  produced  much  the  most  famous  book  of  the 
euphuist  school,  next  to  Euphues  itself,  as  well  as  the  best  known 
of  this  pamphlet  series,  in  Rosalynde  or  Euphues^  Golden  Legacy, 
from  which  Shakespere  took  the  story  of  As  You  Like  It,  and  of 
which  an  example  follows  : — 

"  *  Ah  Phoebe,'  quoth  he,  'whereof  art  thou  made,  that  thou  regardest  not 
thy  malady?  Am  I  so  hateful  an  object,  that  thine  eyes  condemn  me  for  an 
abject  ?  or  so  base,  that  thy  desires  cannot  stoop  so  low  as  to  lend  me  a  graci- 
ous look  ?  My  passions  are  many,  my  loves  more,  my  thoughts  loyalty,  and 
my  fancy  faith  :  all  devoted  in  humble  devoir  to  the  service  of  Phoebe  ;  and 
shall  I  reap  no  reward  for  such  fealties  ?  The  swain's  daily  labours  is  quit  with 
the  evening's  hire,  the  ploughman's  toil  is  eased  with  the  hope  of  corn,  what 
the  ox  sweats  out  at  the  plough  he  fatteneth  at  the  crib ;  but  unfortunate 
Montanus'  hath  no  salve  for  his  sorrows,  nor  any  hope  of  recompense  for  the 
hazard  of  his  perplexed  passions.  If  Phoebe,  time  may  plead  the  proof  of  my 
truth,  twice  seven  winters  have  I  loved  fair  Phoebe  :  if  constancy  be  a  cause  to 
further  my  suit,  Montanus'  thoughts  have  been  sealed  in  the  sweet  of  Phoebe's 
excellence,  as  far  from  change  as  she  from  love  :  if  outward  passions  may  dis- 
cover inward  aflections,  the  furrows  in  my  face  may  discover  the  sorrows  of  my 
heart,  and  the  map  of  my  looks  the  grief  of  my  mind.  Thou  seest  (Phcebe) 
the  tears  of  despair  have  made  my  cheeks  full  of  wrinkles,  and  my  scalding 
sighs  have  made  the  air  echo  her  pity  conceived  in  my  plaints  ;  Philomel  hear- 
ing my  passions,  hath  left  her  mournful  tunes  to  listen  to  the  discourse  of 
miseries.  I  have  jiorlraycd  in  every  tree  the  licauty  of  my  mistress,  and  the 
despair  of  my  loves.  What  is  it  in  the  woods  cannot  witness  my  woes  ?  and 
who  is  it  would  not  pity  my  plaints?  only  Phoebe.  And  why?  Uecause  I  am 
Montanus,  and  she  Ph'jcbe  :  I  a  worthless  swain,  and  she  the  most  excellent  of 
all  fairies.  Ueautiful  Phfjebe  !  oh  might  I  say  pitiful,  then  happy  were  I  though 
I  tasted  but  one  minute  of  that  g(X)d  hap.  Measure  Montanus,  not  by  his 
f<jrlunes,  but  by  his  hjvcs,  and  balance  not  his  wealth  but  l)is  desires,  and  Icntl 
but  one  gracious  look  to  cure  a  heap  of  discjuieted  cares  :  if  not,  ah  if  l'h(i;be 
cannot  love,  let  a  storm  of  frowns  end  the  di.scontcnt  of  my  thoughts,  and  so 


'  The  Silvius,  it  may  Ijc  just  necessary  to  observe,  of  As  You  Like  It. 


230  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

let  me  perish  in  my  desires,  because  they  are  above  my  deserts  :  only  at  my 
death  this  favour  cannot  be  denied  me,  that  all  shall  say  Montanus  died  for 
love  of  hard  hearted  Phoebe. '  At  these  words  she  filled  her  face  full  of  frowns 
and  made  him  this  short  and  sharp  reply. 

"'Importunate  shepherd,  whose  loves  are  lawless  because  restless:  are 
thy  passions  so  extreme,  that  thou  canst  not  conceal  them  with  patience  ?  or 
art  thou  so  folly-sick,  that  thou  must  needs  be  fancy-sick,  and  in  thy  affection 
tied  to  such  an  exigent  as  none  serves  but  Phoebe  ?  Well,  sir,  if  your  market 
can  be  made  nowhere  else,  home  again,  for  your  mart  is  at  the  fairest.  Phoebe 
is  no  lettuce  for  your  lips,  and  her  grapes  hang  so  high,  that  gaze  at  them  you 
may,  but  touch  them  you  cannot.  Yet  Montanus  I  speak  not  this  in  pride, 
but  in  disdain  :  not  that  I  scorn  thee,  but  that  I  hate  love  ;  for  I  count  it  as 
great  honour  to  triumph  over  fancy  as  over  fortune.  Rest  thee  content  there- 
fore Montanus,  cease  from  thy  loves,  and  bridle  thy  looks,  quench  the  sparkles 
before  they  grow  to  a  farther  flame ;  for  in  loving  me,  thou  shalt  but  live  by 
loss,  and  what  thou  utterest  in  words  are  all  written  in  the  wind.  Wert  thou 
(Montanus)  as  fair  as  Paris,  as  hardy  as  Hector,  as  constant  as  Troilus,  as 
loving  as  Leander,  Phoebe  could  not  love,  because  she  cannot  love  at  all :  and 
therefore  if  thou  pursue  me  with  Phoebus,  I  must  flie  with  Daphne.'" 

This  book  seems  to  have  been  very  successful,  and  Lodge  began  to 
write  pamphlets  vigorously,  sometimes  taking  up  the  social  satire, 
sometimes  the  moral  treatise,  sometimes  (and  then  most  happily) 
the  euphuist  romance,  salted  with  charming  poems.  His  last 
prose  work  in  this  kind  (he  wrote  other  things  later)  was  the 
pretty  and  prettily-named  Margarite  of  America,  in  1596. 

The  names  of  Nash  and  Harvey  are  intertwined  even  more 
closely  than  those  of  Greene  and  Lodge ;  but  the  conjunction  is 
not  a  grasp  of  friendship  but  a  grip  of  hatred — a  wrestle,  not  an 
embrace.  The  fact  of  the  quarrel  has  attracted  rather  dispro- 
portionate attention  from  the  days  of  Isaac  Disraeli  onwards ; 
and  its  original  cause  is  still  extremely  obscure  and  very  unim- 
portant. By  some  it  is  connected,  causally  as  well  as  accidentally, 
with  the  Martin  Marprebte  business ;  by  some  with  the  foct  that 
Harvey  belonged  to  the  inner  Sidneian  clique,  Nash  to  the  outer 
ring  of  professional  journalists  and  Bohemians.  It  at  any  rate 
produced  some  remarkable  varieties  of  the  pamphlet,  and  demon- 
strated the  keen  interest  which  the  world  takes  in  the  proceedings 
of  any  couple  of  literary  men  who  choose  to  abuse  and  befoul 


VI  GABRIEL    HARVEY  231 

one  another.  Harvey,  though  no  mean  scholar,  was  in  mere 
writing  no  match  for  Nash  ;  and  his  chief  answer  to  the  latter. 
Pierces  Supererogation^  is  about  as  rambling,  incoherent,  and 
ineffective  a  combination  of  pedantry  and  insolence  as  need  be 
wished  for.  It  has  some  not  uninteresting,  though  usually  very 
obscure,  hints  on  literary  matters.  Besides  this,  Harvey  wrote 
letters  to  Spenser  with  their  well-known  criticism  and  recom- 
mendation of  classical  forms,  and  Fotire  Letters  Touching  Robert 
Greene  and  Others :  with  the  Trimming  of  Thomas  N'ash,  Gentle- 
man. A  sample  of  him,  not  in  his  abusive -dull,  but  in  his 
scholarly-dull  manner,  may  be  given  : — 

"  Mine  own  iiiles  and  precepts  of  art,  I  believe  will  fall  out  not  greatly 
repugnant,  though  peradventure  somewhat  different  :  and  yet  I  am  not  so 
resolute,  but  I  can  be  content  to  reserve  the  copying  out  and  publishing 
thereof,  until  I  have  a  little  better  consulted  with  my  pillow,  and  taken  some 
further  advice  of  Madame  Spericnza.  In  the  mean  time,  take  this  for  a  general 
caveat,  and  say  I  have  revealed  one  great  mystery  unto  you  :  I  am  of  opinion, 
there  is  no  one  more  regular  and  justifiable  direction,  either  for  the  assured 
and  infallible  certainty  of  our  English  artificial  prosody  particularly,  or  generally 
to  bring  our  language  into  art,  and  to  frame  a  grammar  or  rhetoric  thereof; 
than  first  of  all  universally  to  agree  upon  one  and  the  same  orthography  in 
all  points  conformable  and  proportionate  to  our  common  natural  prosody  : 
whether  Sir  Thomas  Smithies  in  that  respect  be  the  most  perfit,  as  surely 
it  must  needs  be  very  good  ;  or  else  some  other  of  profounder  learning  and 
longer  experience,  than  .Sir  Thomas  was,  shewing  by  necessary  demonstra- 
tion, wherein  he  is  defective,  will  undertake  shortly  to  supply  his  wants  and 
make  him  more  absolute.  Myself  dare  not  hope  to  hop  after  him,  till  I  see 
something  or  other,  to  or  fro,  publicly  and  authentically  established,  as  it 
were  by  a  general  council,  or  Act  of  Parliament  :  and  then  peradventure, 
standing  upon  firmer  ground,  for  company  sake,  I  may  adventure  to  do  as 
others  do.  Itttftim,  credit  me,  I  dare  give  no  precepts,  nor  set  ilowii  any 
certain  general  art :  and  yet  see  my  boldness,  I  am  not  greatly  squeamish  of 
my  Particular  Examples,  whereas  he  that  can  but  reasonably  skill  of  the  one, 
will  give  easily  a  shrcw<I  guess  at  the  other  :  considering  llial  the  one  fetcheth 
his  original  ami  offspring  from  the  other.  In  which  respect,  to  say  troth,  we 
l>cginners  liave  the  start,  and  advantage  of  our  followers,  who  are  tu  frame 
ami  conform  Iwth  their  cxam|)les  and  precepts,  according  to  precedent  which 
they  have  of  us  :  as  no  doubt  Homer  or  some  tither  in  (ireek,  and  Ennius,  or 
I  know  not  who  else  in  Latin,  did   prejudice,  and  overrule  ^osc  that  followed 


232  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE        chap. 

them,  as  well  for  the  quantities  of  syllables,  as  number  of  feet,  and  the  like : 
their  only  examples  going  for  current  payment,  and  standing  instead  of  laws, 
and  rules  with  the  posterity." 

In  Harvey,  more  perhaps  than  anywhere  else  in  prose,  ap- 
pears the  abusive  exaggeration,  not  humorous  or  Rabelaisian, 
but  simply  rancorous  and  dull,  which  mars  so  much  Elizabethan 
work.  In  order  not  to  fall  into  the  same  error  ourselves,  we 
must  abstain  from  repeating  the  very  strong  language  which  has 
sometimes  been  applied  to  his  treatment  of  dead  men,  and  such 
dead  men  as  Greene  and  Marlowe,  for  apparently  no  other  fault 
than  their  being  friends  of  his  enemy  Nash.  It  is  sufficient  to 
say  that  Harvey  had  all  the  worst  traits  of  "  donnishness,"  with- 
out having  apparently  any  notion  of  that  dignity  which  sometimes 
half  excuses  the  don.  He  was  emphatically  of  Mr.  Carlyle's 
"acrid-quack"  genus. 

Thomas  Nash  will  himself  hardly  escape  the  charge  of  acrid- 
ity, but  only  injustice  or  want  of  discernment  will  call  him  a 
quack.  Unlike  Harvey,  but  like  Greene  and  Lodge,  he  was  a 
verse  as  well  as  a  prose  writer.  But  his  verse  is  in  comparison 
unimportant.  Nor  was  he  tempted  to  intersperse  specimens  of 
it  in  his  prose  work.  The  absolutely  best  part  of  that  work — the 
Anti-Martin  ist  pamphlets  to  be  noticed  presently — is  onlyattributed 
to  him  conjecturally,  though  the  grounds  of  attribution  are  very 
strong.  But  his  characteristics  are  fully  evident  in  his  undoubted 
productions.  The  first  of  these  in  pamphlet  form  is  the  very 
odd  thing  called  Pierce  Pentiiless  [the  name  by  which  Nash 
became  known],  Ids  Supplication  to  the  Devil.  It  is  a  kind  of 
rambling  condemnation  of  luxury,  for  the  most  part  delivered  in  the 
form  of  burlesque  exhortation,  which  the  mediaeval  scj-mons  joyeux 
had  made  familiar  in  all  European  countries.  Probably  some  allu- 
sions in  this  refer  to  Harvey,  whose  pragmatical  pedantry  may  have 
in  many  ways  annoyed  Nash,  a  Cambridge  man  like  himself.  At 
any  rate  the  two  soon  plunged  into  a  regular  battle,  the  documents - 
of  which  on  Nash's  side  are,  first  a  prognostication,  something 
in  the  style  of  Rabelais,   then  a  formal  confutation  of  the  Four 


VI  NASH'S  ^A^f^IILETS  233 

Letters,  and  then  the  famous  lampoon  entitled  Have  with  you  to 
Saffron  Jl'alJen  [Harvey's  birthplace],  of  which  here  is  a  speci- 
men : — 

"His  father  he  undid  to  furnish  him  to  the  Court  once  more,  where  pre- 
senting himself  in  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow,  and  a  pair  of  moustaches 
like  a  black  horse  tail  tied  up  in  a  knot,  with  two  tufts  sticking  out  on  each 
side,  he  was  asked  by  no  mean  personage,  i'tuie  kite  insania  ?  whence  pro- 
ccedeth  this  folly  or  madness  ?  and  he  replied  with  that  weather-beaten  piece 
of  a  verse  out  of  the  Grammar,  Scniel  insanivimus  omues,  once  in  our  days 
there  is  none  of  us  but  have  played  the  idiots  ;  and  so  was  he  counted 
and  bade  stand  by  for  a  Nodgsconib.  He  that  most  patronized  him,  prying 
more  searchingly  into  him,  and  finding  that  he  was  more  meet  to  make 
sport  with  than  any  way  deeply  to  be  employed,  with  fair  words  shook  him 
off,  and  told  him  he  was  fitter  for  the  University,  than  for  the  Court  or  his 
turn,  and  so  bade  God  prosper  his  studies,  and  sent  for  another  Secretary  to 
Oxford. 

"  Readers,  be  merrj-;  for  in  me  there  shall  want  nothing  I  can  do  to  make 
you  merr)-.  Vou  see  I  have  brought  the  Doctor  out  of  request  at  Court,  and 
it  shall  cost  me  a  fall,  but  I  will  got  him  hooted  out  of  the  University  too,  ere 
I  give  him  over.  What  will  you  give  me  when  I  bring  him  upon  the  Stage  in 
one  of  the  principalest  Colleges  in  Cambridge  ?  Lay  any  wager  with  me,  and 
I  will  ;  or  if  you  lay  no  wager  at  all,  I'll  fetch  him  aloft  in  Pedantius,  that 
exquisite  Comedy  in  Trinity  College  ;  where  under  the  chief  part,  from  which 
it  took  his  name,  as  namely  the  concise  and  firking  fmicaldo  fine  School 
master,  he  was  full  drawn  and  delineated  from  the  sole  of  his  foot  to  the  crown 
of  his  head.  The  just  manner  of  his  phrase  in  his  Orations  and  Disputations 
they  stuffed  his  mouth  with,  and  no  Buffianisni  throughout  his  whole  books, 
but  they  bolstered  out  his  part  with  ;  as  those  ragged  remnants  in  his  four 
familiar  epistles  'twixt  him  and  Senior  Iiiimerito,  raptim  scripta,  twste 
manum  et  stylitvt,  with  innumerable  other  of  his  rabble-routs :  and  scoffing  his 
Musarum  Lcuhrymie  with  I'Ubo  amorem  tneum  eliani  musariim  lachrymis ; 
which,  to  give  it  his  due,  was  a  more  collachrymate  wretched  Treatise  than 
my  Piers  Penniiess,  being  the  pitifulcst  pangs  that  ever  any  man's  Muse 
breathed  forth.  I  leave  out  half;  not  the  carrying  up  of  his  gown,  his  nice 
gait  on  his  pantofllcs,  or  the  aflccted  accent  of  his  speech,  but  they  personated. 
.•\nd  if  I  should  reveal  all,  I  think  they  Iwrrowed  his  gown  to  play  the  part  in, 
the  more  to  flout  him.  Let  him  deny  this  (and  not  damn  himsclO  for  his  life 
if  he  can.  Let  him  deny  that  there  was  a  .Shew  made  at  Clare  Hall  uf  him 
and  his  two  brothers,  called, 

"  7'arni,  raiitaittara  tiirba  liitiiultuosa  Trigottiim 
7'ri- Ilarveyoruin  Tri-harmottia 


234  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

Let  him  deny  that  there  was  another  Shew  made  of  the  Httle  Minnow  his 
brother,  Dodrans  Dick,  at  Peter-house  called, 

"Dunsfmefis.     Dick  Harvey  in  a  frensy. 

Whereupon  Dick  came  and  broke  the  College  glass  windows ;  and  Doctor 
Perne  (being  then  either  for  himself  or  deputy  Vice-Chancellor)  caused  him  to 
be  fetched  in,  and  set  in  the  Stocks  till  the  Shew  was  ended,  and  a  great  part 
of  the  night  after. " 

The  Terrors  of  the  JVight,  a  discourse  of  apparitions,  for 
once,  among  these  oddly-named  pieces,  tells  a  plain  story.  Its 
successor,  Chrisfs  Tears  over  Jerusalem,  Nash's  longest  book, 
is  one  of  those  rather  enigmatical  expressions  of  repentance 
for  loose  life  which  were  so  common  at  the  time,  and  which, 
according  to  the  charity  of  the  reader,  may  be  attributed  to 
real  feeling,  to  a  temporary  access  of  Katzen -jammer,  or  to 
downright  hypocrisy,  bent  only  on  manufacturing  profitable 
"copy,"  and  varying  its  style  to  catch  different  tastes.  The 
most  unfavourable  hypothesis  is  probably  unjust,  and  a  cer- 
tain tone  of  sincerity  also  runs  through  the  next  book,  The 
Unfortunate  Traveller,  in  which  Nash,  like  many  others,  inveighs 
against  the  practice  of  sending  young  Englishmen  to  be  cor- 
rupted abroad.  It  is  noteworthy  that  this  (the  place  of  which  in 
the  history  of  the  novel  has  been  rather  exaggerated)  is  the  oldest 
authority  for  the  romance  of  Surrey  and  Geraldine  ;  but  it  is 
uncertain  whether  this  was  pure  invention  on  Nash's  part  or  not. 
Nash's  Lenten  Stuff  \s  very  interesting,  being  a  panegyric  on  Great 
Yarmouth  and  its  famous  staple  commodity  (though  Nash  was 
actually  born  at  Lowestoft). 

In  Nash's  work  we  find  a  style  both  of  treatment  and  lan- 
guage entirely  different  from  anything  of  Greene's  or  Lodge's. 
He  has  no  euphuism,  his  forte  being  either  extravagant  burlesque 
(in  which  the  influence  of  Rabelais  is  pretty  directly  perceptible, 
while  he  himself  acknowledges  indebtedness  to  some  other  sources, 
such  as  Bullen  or  Bullein,  a  dialogue  writer  of  the  preceding  gener- 
ation), or  else  personal  attack,  boisterous  and  unscrupulous,  but 
often  most  vigorous  and  effective.      Diffuseness  and  want  of  keep- 


VI  DEKKER'S  PAMPHLETS  235 

ing  to  the  point  too  frequently  mar  Xash's  work  ;  but  when  he 
shakes  himself  free  from  them,  and  goes  straight  for  his  enemy  or 
his  subject,  he  is  a  singularly  forcible  writer.  In  his  case  more 
than  in  any  of  the  others,  tlie  journalist  born  out  of  due  time  is 
perceptible.  He  had  perhaps  not  much  original  message  for  the 
world.  But  he  had  eminently  the  trick  both  of  damaging  con- 
troversial argument  made  light  to  catch  the  popular  taste,  and  of 
easy  discussion  or  narrative.  The  chief  defects  of  his  work  would 
probably  have  disappeared  of  themselves  if  he  had  had  to  write 
not  pamphlets,  but  articles.  He  did,  however,  what  he  could  ; 
and  he  is  worthy  of  a  place  in  the  history  of  literature  if  only  for 
the  sake  of  Have  with  you  to  Saffron  Waldcn — the  best  example 
of  its  own  kind  tQ  be  found  before  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  if  not  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth. 

Thomas  Dekker  was  much  less  of  a  born  prose  writer  than 
his  half-namesake,  Nash.  His  best  work,  unlike  Nash's,  was 
done  in  verse,  and,  while  he  was  far  Nash's  superior,  not  merely 
in  poetical  expression  but  in  creative  grasp  of  character,  he  was 
entirely  destitute  of  Nash's  incisive  and  direct  faculty  of  invective. 
Nevertheless  his  work,  too,  is  memorable  among  the  prose  work 
of  the  time,  and  for  special  reasons.  His  first  pamphlet  (accord- 
ing to  the  peculiarity  already  noted  in  Rowlands's  case)  is  not 
prose  at  all,  but  verse — yet  not  the  verse  of  which  Dekker  had  real 
mastery,  being  a  very  lamentable  ballad  of  the  destruction  of  Jeru- 
salem, entitled  Canaati's  Qr/aw/ty  (i^gS).  The  next,  T/ie  U'o/n/rr- 
ful  Year,  is  the  account  of  London  in  plague  time,  and  has  at 
lexst  the  interest  of  being  comparable  with,  and  perhaps  that  of 
having  to  some  extent  1ns{)ired,  Defoe's  famous  performance. 
Then,  and  of  the  same  date,  follows  a  very  curious  ])iccc,  the 
foreign  origin  of  which  has  not  been  so  generally  noticed  as  that 
of  Dekker's  most  famous  j)rose  production.  7V/i'  Junhclors 
Banquet  is  in  effect  only  a  free  rendering  of  the  immortal  fifteenth 
century  satire,  assigned  on  no  very  solid  evidence  to  Antoine  de 
la  Salle,  the  Quinze  Joyes  de  Manage,  the  resemblance  being 
kept  down   to  the  recurrence  at  the  end  of  each  .section  of  the 


236  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

same  phrase,  "  in  Lob's  pound,"  which  reproduces  the  less  gro- 
tesque "  dans  la  nasse  "  of  the  original.  But  here,  as  later,  the 
skill  with  which  Dekker  adapts  and  brings  in  telling  circum- 
stances appropriate  to  his  own  day  deserves  every  acknowledg- 
ment. Dekker' s  Di-eajiie  is  chiefly  verse  and  chiefly  pious ;  and 
then  at  a  date  somewhat  later  than  that  of  our  present  period, 
but  connected  with  it  by  the  fact  of  authorship,  begins  a  very 
interesting  series  of  pieces,  more  vivid  if  somewhat  less  well 
written  than  Greene's,  and  connected  with  his  "  conny-catching  " 
course.  The  Bellma7i  of  London,  LantJwrti  and  CandieligJit,  A 
Strange  Horse-Race,  The  Seven  Deadly  Sins  of  London,  Ne%vs  from 
LLell,  The  Double  P.P.,  and  The  GnlPs  Hornbook,  are  all  pam- 
phlets of  this  class  ;  the  chief  interest  resting  in  News  from  Hell 
(which,  according  to  the  author's  scheme,  connects  itself  with  Nash's 
Pierce  Penniless,  and  is  the  devil's  answer  thereto)  and  The  Gulfs 
Hornbook  (1609).  This  last,  the  best  known  of  Dekker's  work, 
is  an  Englishing  of  the  no  less  famous  Grobianus  of  Frederick 
Dedekind,  and  the  same  skill  of  adaptation  which  ^vas  noticed  in 
The  Bachelor's  Banquet  is  observable  here.  The  spirit  of  these 
works  seems  to  have  been  so  popular  that  Dekker  kept  it  up  in 
TJie  Dead  Term  [long  vacation],  Work  for  Armourers  (which,  how- 
ever, is  less  particular  and  connects  itself  with  Nash's  sententious 
work).  The  Raven's  Almanack,  and  A  Rod  for  Runaways  (1625). 
The  Four  Birds  of  Noah's  Ark,  which  Dr.  Grosart  prints  last,  is  of 
a  totally  different  character,  being  purely  a  book  of  piety.  It  is 
thus  inferior  in  interest  to  the  series  dealing  with  the  low  life  of 
London,  which  contains  most  curious  studies  of  the  ancient 
order  of  ragamuffins  (as  a  modern  satirist  has  pleasantly  called 
them),  and  bears  altogether  marks  of  greater  sincerity  than  the 
parallel  studies  of  other  writers.  For  about  Dekker,  hack  and 
penny-a-liner  as  he  undoubtedly  was,  there  was  a  simplicity,  a 
truth  to  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  a  faculty  of  dramatic  pre- 
sentation in  which  Greene,  Lodge,  and  Nash  were  wholly  want- 
ing ;  and  his  prose  pamphlets  smack  of  these  good  gifts  in  their 
measure  as  much  as  The  Honest  Whore.      Indeed,  on  the  whole. 


VI  DEKKER'S  PAMPHLETS  237 

he  seems  to  be  the  most  trustworthy  of  these  chroniclers  of  the 
Enghsh  picaroons ;  and  one  feels  disposed  to  believe  that  if  the 
things  which  he  tells  did  not  actually  happen,  something  very  like 
them  was  probably  happening  every  day  in  London  during  the 
time  of  "Eliza  and  our  James."  For  the  time  of  Eliza  and  our 
James  was  by  no  means  a  wholly  heroic  period,  and  it  only  loses, 
not  gains,  by  the  fiction  that  every  man  of  letters  was  a  Spenser 
and  every  man  of  affairs  a  Sidney  or  even  a  Raleigh.  Extracts 
from  The  Sci'en  Deadly  Sins  and  T/ie  GiilTs  Hornbook  may  be 
given  : — 

"  O  Candle-light  I  and  art  thou  one  of  the  cursed  crew?  hast  thou  been 
set  at  the  table  of  Princes  and  Noblemen  ?  have  all  sorts  of  people  done  rever- 
ence unto  thee,  and  stood  bare  so  soon  as  ever  they  have  seen  thee  ?  have 
thieves,  traitors,  and  murderers  been  afraid  to  come  in  thy  presence,  because 
they  knew  thee  just,  and  that  thou  wouldest  discover  them  ?  And  art  thou 
now  a  harbourer  of  all  kinds  of  vices  ?  nay,  dost  thou  play  the  capital  Vice 
thyself?  Hast  thou  had  so  many  learned  Lectures  read  before  thee,  and  is  the 
light  of  thy  understanding  now  clean  put  out,  and  have  so  many  profound 
scholars  profited  by  thee?  hast  thou  done  such  good  to  Universities,  been  such 
a  guide  to  the  lame,  and  seen  the  doing  of  so  many  good  works,  yet  dost  thou 
now  look  dimly,  and  with  a  dull  eye,  upon  all  goodness  ?  What  comfort  have 
sick  men  taken  (in  weary  and  irksome  nights)  but  only  in  thee?  thou  hast 
been  their  physician  and  apothecary,  and  when  the  relish  of  nothing  could 
please  them,  the  very  shadow  of  thee  hath  been  to  them  a  restorative  consola- 
tion. The  nurse  hath  stilled  her  wayward  infant,  shewing  it  but  to  thee  : 
NMiat  gladness  hast  thou  put  into  mariners'  bosoms  when  thou  hast  met  them 
on  the  sea  !  What  joy  into  the  faint  and  benighted  traveller  when  he  has  met 
ihce  on  the  land  I  How  many  poor  handicraftsmen  by  thee  have  earned  the 
best  part  (>(  tlicir  living  I  And  art  thou  now  become  a  companion  for  drunk- 
ards, for  leacliers,  and  for  prodigals ?  Art  thou  turned  reprobate?  thou  wilt 
burn  for  it  in  hell.  And  so  odious  is  this  thy  apostasy,  and  hiding  thyself  from 
the  light  of  the  truth,  that  at  thy  death  and  going  out  of  the  world,  even  they 
that  love  thee  best  will  tread  thee  under  their  feci  :  yea,  I  that  have  thus 
played  the  herald,  and  proclaimed  thy  good  parts,  will  now  play  the  crier  and 
call  thee  into  open  court,  to  arraign  thee  for  thy  misdemeanours." 

"  For  do  but  consi<lcr  what  an  excellent  thing  sleep  is  :  it  is  so  inestim- 
able a  jewel  that,  if  a  tyrant  would  give  his  crown  for  an  hour's  sluml>er,  it 
cannot  be  b^juyht  :  of  so  beautiful  a  shape  is  it,  that  though  a  man  lie  with  an 
Empress,  his  heart  cannot  Ix:  at  quiet  till  he  leaves  her  embraccmenls  to  be  at 


238  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

rest  with  the  other :  yea,  so  greatly  indebted  are  we  to  this  kinsman  of  death, 
that  we  owe  the  better  tributary,  half  of  our  life  to  him  :  and  there  is  good 
cause  why  we  should  do  so  :  for  sleep  is  that  golden  chain  that  ties  health  and 
our  bodies  together.  Who  complains  of  want  ?  of  wounds  ?  of  cares  ?  of  great 
men's  oppressions  ?  of  captivity  ?  whilst  he  sleepeth  ?  Beggars  in  their  beds 
take  as  much  pleasure  as  kings':  can  we  therefore  surfeit  on  this  delicate  Am- 
brosia ?  can  we  drink  too  much  of  that  whereof  to  taste  too  little  tumbles  us 
into  a  churchyard,  and  to  use  it  but  indifferently  throws  us  into  Bedlam?^  No, 
no,  look  upon  Endymion,  the  moon's  minion,  who  slept  three  score  and  fifieen 
years,  and  was  not  a  hair  the  worse  for  it.  Can  lying  abed  till  noon  (being 
not  the  three  score  and  fifteenth  thousand  part  of  his  nap)  be  hurtful? 

"  Besides,  by  the  opinion  of  all  philosophers  and  physicians,  it  is  not  good 
to  trust  the  air  with  our  bodies  till  the  sun  with  his  flame-coloured  wings  hath 
fanned  away  the  misty  smoke  of  the  morning,  and  refined  that  thick  tobacco- 
breath  which  the  rheumatic  night  throws  abroad  of  purpose  to  put  out  the  eye 
of  the  element  :  which  work  questionless  cannot  be  perfectly  finished  till  the 
sun's  car-horses  stand  prancing  on  the  very  top  of  highest  noon  :  so  that  then 
(and  not  till  then)  is  the  most  healthful  hour  to  be  stirring.  Do  you  require 
examples  to  persuade  you  ?  At  what  time  do  Lords  and  Ladies  use  to  rise  but 
then  ?  Your  simpering  merchants'  wives  are  tlie  fairest  lyers  in  the  world  : 
and  is  not  eleven  o'clock  their  common  hour?  they  find  (no  doubt)  unspeakable 
sweetness  in  such  lying,  else  they  would  not  day  by  day  put  it  so  in  practice. 
In  a  word,  mid-day  slumbers  are  golden  ;  they  make  the  body  fat,  the  skin 
fair,  the  flesh  plump,  delicate  and  tender ;  they  set  a  russet  colour  on  the 
cheeks  of  young  women,  and  make  lusty  courage  to  rise  up  in  men  ;  they  make 
us  thrifty,  both  in  sparing  victuals  (for  breakfasts  thereby  are  saved  from  the 
hell-mouth  of  the  belly)  and  in  preserving  apparel ;  for  while  we  warm  us  in 
our  beds  our  clothes  are  not  worn. 

"  The  casements  of  thine  eyes  being  then  at  this  commendable  time  of  the 
day  newly  set  open,  choose  rather  to  have  thy  wind-pipe  cut  in  pieces  than  to 
salute  any  man.  Bid  not  good-morrow  so  much  as  to  thy  father,  though  he 
be  an  emperor.  An  idle  ceremony  it  is  and  can  do  him  little  good  ;  to  thyself 
it  may  bring  much  harm  :  for  if  he  be  a  wise  man  that  knows  how  to  hold  his 
peace,  of  necessity  must  he  be  counted  a  fool  that  cannot  keep  his  tongue." 

The  voluminous  work  in  pamphlet  kind  of  Nicholas  Breton, 
still  more  the  verse  efforts  closely  akin  to  it  of  Samuel  Rowlands, 
John  Davies  of  Hereford  and  some  others,  must  be  passed  over 
with  very  brief  notice.  Dr.  Grosart's  elaborate  edition  of  the 
first-named  has  given  a  vast  mass  of  matter  very  interesting  to  the 
student  of  literature,  but  which  cannot  be  honestly  recommended 


VI  BRETONS  TAxMrilLETS  239 

to  the  general  reader.  Breton,  whose  long  life  and  perpetual 
literary  activity  fill  up  great  part  of  our  wliole  period,  was  an 
Essex  gentleman  of  a  good  family  (a  fact  which  he  never  forgot), 
and  apparently  for  some  time  a  dependent  of  the  well-known 
Countess  of  Pembroke,  Sidney's  sister.  A  much  older  man  than 
most  of  the  great  wits  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  he  also  survived  most 
of  them,  and  his  publications,  if  not  his  composition,  cover  a  full 
half  century,  though  he  was  ncl  mezzo  del  cammin  at  the  date  of 
the  earliest  He  was  probably  born  some  years  before  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  certainly  did  not  die  before  the  first 
year  of  Charles  I.  If  we  could  take  as  his  the  charming  lullaby  of 
The  Arbour  of  Amorous  Drciccs  he  would  stand  (if  only  as  a  kind 
of  "single-speech")  high  as  a  poet.  But  I  fear  that  Dr.  Grosart's 
attribution  of  it  to  him  is  based  on  little  external  and  refuted  by 
all  internal  evidence.  His  best  certain  thing  is  the  pretty 
"  Phillida  and  Corydon  "  idyll,  which  may  be  found  in  England's 
Helicon  or  in  Mr.  ^^'ard"s  Poets.  But  I  own  tliat  I  can  never 
read  this  latter  without  thinking  of  two  lines  of  Fulke  Greville's 
in  the  same  metre  and  on  no  very  different  theme — 

"  O'er  enamelled  meads  they  went, 
Quiet  she,  he  passion-rent," 

which  are  simply  worth  all  the  works  of  Breton,  prose  and  verse, 
unless  we  count  the  Lullaby,  put  together.  In  the  mots  rayon- 
nants,  the  mots  de  Inmi'ere,  he  is  sadly  deficient.  But  his  work 
(which  is  nearly  as  jdentiful  in  verse  as  in  prose)  is,  as  has  been 
said,  very  interesting  to  the  literary  student,  because  it  shows  better 
perhaps  than  anything  el.se  the  style  of  literature  wlii(  h  a  man,  dis- 
daining to  condescend  to  burlesciue  or  bawdry,  not  gifted  with  any 
extraordinary  talent,  either  at  prose  or  verse,  but  possessed  of  a 
(^ertain  literary  faculty,  could  then  produce  with  a  fair  <  hance  of 
being  published  and  bought.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  result 
shows  great  daintiness  in  Breton's  public.  The  verse,  with  an 
improvement  in  sweetness  and  fluency,  is  very  much  of  the 
doggerel  style  which  was  prevalent  before  Spenser  ;  and  the  prose, 


240  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

though  showing  considerable  faculty,  if  not  of  invention,  yet  of 
adroit  imitation  of  previously  invented  styles,  is  devoid  of  dis- 
tinction and  point.  There  are,  however,  exercises  after  Breton's 
own  fashion  in  almost  every  popular  style  of  the  time — euphuist 
romances,  moral  treatises,  packets  of  letters,  collections  of  jests 
and  short  tales,  purely  religious  tractates,  characters  (after  the 
style  later  illustrated  by  Overbury  and  Earle),  dialogues,  maxims, 
pictures  of  manners,  collections  of  notes  about  foreign  countries, 
— in  fact,  the  whole  farrago  of  the  modern  periodical.  The 
pervading  characteristics  are  Breton's  invariable  modesty,  his 
pious  and,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  use  the  word,  gentlemanly 
spirit,  and  a  fashion  of  writing  which,  if  not  very  pointed,  pictur- 
esque, or  epigrammatic,  is  clear,  easy,  and  on  tlie  whole  rather 
superior,  in  observance  of  the  laws  of  grammar  and  arrangement, 
to  the  work  of  men  of  much  greater  note  in  his  day. 

The  verse  pamphlets  of  Rowlands  (whom  I  have  not  studied 
as  thoroughly  as  most  others),  Davies,  and  many  less  volu- 
minous men,  are  placed  here  with  all  due  apology  for  the 
liberty.  They  are  seldom  or  never  of  much  formal  merit,  but 
they  are  interesting,  first,  because  they  testify  to  the  hold  which 
the  mediaeval  conception  of  verse,  as  a  general  literary  medium 
as  suitable  as  prose  and  more  attractive,  had  upon  men  even  at 
this  late  time ;  and  secondly,  because,  like  the  purely  prose  pam- 
phlets, they  are  full  of  information  as  to  the  manners  of  the 
time.  For  Rowlands  I  may  refer  to  Mr.  Gosse's  essay.  John 
Davies  of  Hereford,  the  writing-master,  though  he  has  been 
carefully  edited  for  students,  and  is  by  no  means  unworthy  of 
study,  has  had  less  benefit  of  exposition  to  the  general  reader. 
He  was  not  a  genius,  but  he  is  a  good  example  of  the  rather  dull 
man  who,  despite  the  disfavour  of  circumstance,  contrives  by 
much  assiduity  and  ingenious  following  of  models  to  attain  a 
certain  position  in  literature.  There  are  John  Davieses  of  Here- 
ford in  every  age,  but  since  the  invention  and  filing  of  news- 
papers their  individuality  has  been  not  a  little  merged.  The 
anonymous  journalist  of  our  days  is  simply  to  the  historian  such 


VI  MARTIN  MARPRELATE  241 

and  such  a  paper,  volume  so-and-so,  page  so  much,  cohnnn  tliis 
or  that.  The  good  John  Davies,  living  in  anotlier  age,  still 
stands  as  iwminis  umbra,  but  with  a  not  inconsiderable  body  of 
work  to  throw  the  shadow. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable,  and  certainly  one  of  not  the 
least  interesting  developments  of  the  Elizabethan  pamphlet 
remains  to  be  noticed.  This  is  the  celebrated  series  of  "  Martin 
Alarprelate "  tracts,  with  the  replies  which  they  called  forth. 
Indeed  the  popularity  of  this  series  may  be  said  to  have  given  a 
great  impulse  to  tlie  whole  pamphleteering  system.  Ii  is  some- 
what unfortunate  that  this  interesting  subject  has  never  been 
taken  up  in  full  by  a  dispassionate  historian  of  literature, 
sufficiently  versed  in  politics  and  in  theology.  In  mid-nineteenth 
century  most,  but  by  no  means  all  of  the  more  notable  tracts 
were  reprinted  by  John  Petheram,  a  London  bookseller,  whose 
productions  have  since  been  issued  under  the  well-known  im- 
print of  John  Russell  Smith,  the  publisher  of  the  Libraiy  of 
Old  Authors.  This  gave  occasion  to  a  review  in  The  Christiatt 
Remembrancer,  afterwards  enlarged  and  printed  as  a  book  by 
Mr.  Maskell,  a  High  Churchman  who  subsequently  seceded  to  the 
Church  of  Rome.  This  latter  accident  has  rather  unfavourably 
and  unfairly  affected  later  judgments  of  his  work,  which,  however, 
is  certainly  not  free  from  party  bias.  It  has  scarcely  been  less 
unlucky  that  the  chief  recent  dealers  with  the  matter,  Professor 
Arber  (who  projected  a  valuable  reprint  of  the  whole  series  in 
his  English  Scholars'  Library,  and  who  prefaced  it  with  a  (juite 
invaluable  introductory  sketch),  and  Dr.  Grosart,  who  also  included 
divers  .\nti -Martinist  tracts  in  his  privately  printed  Works  of 
Nashe,  are  very  strongly  prejudiced  on  the  Puritan  side.^  Between 
these  authorities  the  dispassionate  inquirer  who  attacks  the  te.xts 
for  himself  is  likely  to  feel  somewhat  \x\  the  position  of  a  man  who 
exposes  himself  to  a  cross  fire.  The  .Martin  Marprelate  contro- 
versy, looked  at  without  [)rejudice  but  with  sufficient  information, 

'  This    prcjiKlicc  U  naturally   still    stronger    in    some    American    writer.s, 
notably  Dr.  Dexter. 

II.  K 


242  LATER  FXIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

shows  itself  as  a  very  early  example  of  the  reckless  violence  of 
private  crotcheteers  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  rather  consider- 
able unwisdom  of  the  ofificial  defenders  of  order  on  the  other. 
"  Martin's  "  method  was  to  a  certain  extent  an  anticipation  of  the 
famous  move  by  which  Pascal,  fifty  years  later,  "  took  theology 
out  of  the  schools  into  drawing-rooms,"  except  that  Martin  and 
his  adversaries  transferred  the  venue  rather  to  the  tap-room  than 
to  the  drawing-room.  The  controversy  between  the  framers  of 
the  Church  of  England  in  its  present  state,  and  the  hot  gospellers 
who,  with  Thomas  Cartwright  at  their  head,  denied  the  proposi- 
tion (not  deniable  or  denied  now  by  any  sane  and  scholarly  dis- 
putant) that  church  discipline  and  government  are  points  left  to 
a  great  extent  undefined  in  the  Scriptures,  had  gone  on  for  years 
before  Martin  appeared.  Cartwright  and  Whitgift  had  fought, 
with  a  certain  advantage  of  warmth  and  eloquence  on  Cartwright's 
side,  and  with  an  immense  preponderance  of  logical  cogency  on 
Whitgift's.  Many  minor  persons  had  joined  in  the  struggle,  and 
at  last  a  divine,  more  worthy  than  wise,  John  Bridges,  Dean  of 
Salisbury,  had  produced  on  the  orthodox  side  one  of  those 
enormous  treatises  (it  had  some  fifteen  hundred  quarto  pages) 
which  are  usually  left  unread  by  the  side  they  favour,  and  which 
exasperate  the  side  they  oppose.  The  ordinary  law  of  the  time, 
moreover,  which  placed  large  powers  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops, 
and  especially  entrusted  them  with  a  rigid  and  complete  censor- 
ship of  the  press,  had  begun  to  be  put  in  force  severely  against 
the  more  outspoken  partisans.  Any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble 
to  read  the  examination  of  Henry  Barrow,  which  Mr.  Arber  has 
reprinted,^  or  even  the  "moderate"  tracts  of  Nicholas  Udall,  which 
in  a  manner  ushered  in  the  Marprelate  controversy,  will  probably 
be  more  surprised  at  the  long-suffering  of  the  judges  than  at  the 
sufferings   of  their    prisoners.      Barrow,   in   a   long    and   patient 

^  Arlier,  IntroJnctoyy  Sketch,  p.  40  sqq.  All  the  quotations  and  references 
which  follow  will  be  found  in  Arber's  and  Petheram's  reprints  or  in  Grosart's 
Nash,  vol.  I.  If  the  works  cited  are  not  given  as  wholes  in  them,  the  fact  will 
be  noted.     (See  also  Mr.  Bond's  Lyly.) 


VI  MARTIN  MARPRKLATE  243 

examination  before  the  council,  of  which  the  Bishop  of  London 
and  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  were  members,  called  them  to 
their  faces  the  one  a  '"wolf,"  a  "bloody  persecutor,"  and  an 
"apostate,"  the  other  "a  monster  "  and  "the  second  beast  that 
is  spoken  of  in  the  Revelations."  The  "moderate"  Udall,  after 
publishing  a  dialogue  (in  which  an  Anglican  bishop  calleil 
Diotrephes  is  represented,  among  other  things,  as  planning 
measures  against  the  Puritans  in  consort  with  a  papist  and  an 
usurer),  further  composed  a  Demonstration  of  Discipline  in 
which,  writing,  according  to  Mr.  Arber,  "without  any  satire  or 
invective,"  he  calls  the  bishops  merely  qua  bishops,  "  the  wretched 
fathers  of  a  filthy  mother,"  with  abundant  epithets  to  match,  and 
rains  down  on  every  practice  of  the  existing  church  government 
such  terms  as  "blasphemous,"  "damnable,"  "hellish,"  and  the 
like.  To  the  modern  reader  who  looks  at  these  things  with  the 
eyes  of  the  present  day,  it  may  of  course  seem  that  it  would  have 
been  wiser  to  let  the  dogs  bark.  But  that  was  not  the  principle 
of  the  time  :  and  as  Mr.  Arber  most  frankly  admits,  it  was  certainly 
not  the  principle  of  the  dogs  themselves.  The  Puritans  claimed 
for  themselves  a  not  less  absolute  right  to  call  in  the  secular  arm 
if  they  could,  and  a  much  more  absolute  certainty  and  righteous- 
ness for  their  tenets  than  the  very  hottest  of  their  adversaries. 

Udall  was  directly,  as  well  as  indirectly,  the  begetter  of  the 
Martin  Marprelate  controversy  :  though  after  he  got  into  trouble 
in  connection  with  it,  he  made  a  sufficiently  distinct  expression  of 
disapproval  of  the  Martinist  methods,  and  it  seems  to  have  been 
due  more  to  accident  and  his  own  obstinacy  than  anything  else 
that  he  died  in  prison  instead  of  being  obliged  with  the  honour- 
able banishment  of  a  (luinea  chajilaincy.  His  printer,  Walde- 
gravc,  had  had  his  press  seized  and  his  license  withdrawn  for 
Diotrephes,  and  resentment  at  this  threw  what,  in  the  existing 
arrangements  of  censorship  and  the  Stationers'  monopoly,  was  a 
very  diffK  ull  thing  to  obUiin — command  of  a  i)ractical  printer — 
into  the  hands  of  the  malcontents.  Chief  among  these  mal- 
contents was  a  certain  Reverend  John    Penry,  a  Welshman  by 


244  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

birth,  a  member,  as  was  then  not  uncommon,  of  both  universities, 
and  t»he  author,  among  other  more  dubious  publications,  of  a 
plea,  intemperately  stated  in  parts,  but  very  sober  and  sensible  at 
bottom,  for  a  change  in  the  system  of  allotting  and  administering 
the  benefices  of  the  church  in  Wales.  Which  plea,  be  it  observed 
in  passing,  had  it  been  attended  to,  it  would  have  been  better 
for  both  the  church  and  state  of  England  at  this  day.  The 
pamphlet  ^  contained,  however,  a  distinct  insinuation  against  the 
Queen,  of  designedly  keeping  Wales  in  ignorance  and  subjection 
— an  insinuation  which,  in  those  days,  was  equivalent  to  high 
treason.  The  book  was  seized,  and  the  author  imprisoned 
{1587).  Now  when,  about  a  year  after,  and  in  the  very  height 
of  the  danger  from  the  Armada,  Waldegrave's  livelihood  was 
threatened  by  the  proceedings  above  referred  to,  it  would  appear 
that  he  obtained  from  the  Continent,  or  had  previously  secreted 
from  his  confiscated  stock,  printing  tools,  and  that  he  and  Penry, 
at  the  house  of  Mistress  Crane,  at  East  Molesey,  in  Surrey,  printed 
a  certain  tract,  called,  for  shortness,  "The  Epistle."-  This  tract, 
of  the  authorship  and  character  of  which  more  presently,  created 
a  great  sensation.      It  was  immediately  followed,  the  press  being 

^  Large  extracts  from  it  are  given  by  Arber. 

^  As  the  titles  of  these  productions  are  highly  characteristic  of  the  style  of 
the  controversy,  and,  indeed,  are  sometimes  considerably  more  poignant  than 
the  text,  it  may  be  well  to  give  some  of  them  in  full  as  follows  : — 

The  Epistle. — Oh  read  over  D.  John  Bridges,  for  it  is  a  worthy  work  :  Or 
an  Epitome  of  the  first  book  of  that  right  worshipful  volume,  written  against  the 
Puritans,  in  the  defence  of  the  noble  Clergy,  by  as  worshipful  a  Priest,  John 
Bridges,  Presbyter,  Priest  or  Elder,  Doctor  of  Divillity  {sic),  and  Dean  of 
Sarum,  Wherein  the  arguments  of  the  Puritans  are  wisely  presented,  that 
when  they  come  to  answer  M.  Doctor,  they  must  needs  say  something  that 
hath  been  spoken.  Compiled  for  the  behoof  and  overthrow  of  the  Parsons 
Fyckers  and  Currats  [jA]  that  have  learnt  their  catechisms,  and  are  past 
grace  :  by  the  reverend  and  worthy  Martin  Marprelate,  gentleman,  and  dedi- 
cated to  the  Confocation  \_sic\  house.  The  Epitome  is  not  yet  published,  but 
it  shall  be  when  the  Bishops  are  at  convenient  leisure  to  view  the  same.  In 
the  mean  time  let  them  be  content  with  this  learned  Epistle.  Printed, 
oversea,  in  Europe,  within  two  furlongs  of  a  Bouncing  Priest,  at  the  cost 
and  charges  of  M.  Marprelate,  gentleman. 


VI  MARTIN  MARPRELATE 


245 


shifted  for  safety  to  the  houses  of  divers  Puritan  country  gentle- 
men, by  the  promised  Epitome.  So  great  was  the  stir,  that  a 
formal  answer  of  great  length  was  put  forth  by  "  T.  C."  (well 
known  to  be  Thomas  Cooper,  Bishop  of  Winchester),  entitled, 
An  Admonition  to  the  People  of  Eni^/and.  The  Martinists,  from 
their  invisible  and  shifting  citadel,  replied  with  perhaps  the 
cleverest  tract  of  the  whole  controversy,  named,  with  deliberate 
quaintness,  Ilav  any  Work  for  Cooper  1^  ("Have  You  any  Work 
for  the  Cooper  ?"  said  to  be  an  actual  trade  London  cry).  Thence- 
forward the  melee  of  pamphlets,  answers,  "  replies,  duplies,  quadru- 
plies,"  became  in  small  space  indescribalile.  Petheram's  prospectus 
of  reprints  (only  partially  carried  out)  enumerates  twenty-six,  almost 
all  printed  in  the  three  years  15SS-1590;  Mr.  Arber,  including 
preliminary  works,  counts  some  thirty.  The  perambulating  press 
was  once  seized  (at  Newton  Lane,  near  Manchester),  but  ^L'lrtin 
was  not  silenced.  It  is  certain  (though  there  are  no  remnants 
extant  of  the  matter  concerned)  that  Martin  was  brought  on  the 
stage  in  some  form  or  other,  and  though  the  duration  of  the 
controversy  was  as  short  as  its  character  was  hot,  it  was  rather 
suppressed  than  extinguished  by  the  death  of  Udall  in  prison, 
and  the  execution  of  Penry  and  Barrow  in  1593. 

The  actual  authorship  of  the  Martinist  Tracts  is  still  purely  a 
matter  of  hypothesis.  Penr)'  has  been  the  general  favourite,  and 
perhaps  the  argument  from  the  difference  of  style  in  his  known 
works  is  not  quite  convincing.     The  American  writer  Dr.  Dexter, 

'  I  lay  any  work  for  Cooper,  or  a  brief  pislle  directed  by  way  of  an  hul)lica- 
tion  [sic]  to  the  reverend  bishops,  counselling  them  if  they  will  needs  be  barrelled 
up  for  fear  of  smelling  in  the  nostrils  of  her  .Majesty  and  the  State,  that  ihcy 
would  use  the  advice  of  Reverend  Martin  for  the  providing  of  their  Cooper  ; 
l)ccause  the  Reverend  T.  C.  (by  which  mystical  letters  is  understood  either  the 
bouncing  ])arson  of  I'.ast  Meon  or  Tom  Cokes  his  cha|)lain),  hath  shewed  him- 
self in  his  late  admonition  to  the  people  of  England  to  be  an  unskilful  and 
l)eceitful  [sic]  tub-trimmer.  Wherein  worthy  Martin  ((uils  him  like  a  man,  I 
warrant  you  in  the  modest  defence  of  his  self  and  liis  learne<l  pistles,  and 
makes  the  C(x>\H:x'f.  hwjps  to  fly  ofT,  and  the  bishops'  tubs  to  leak  out  of  all  cry. 
I'enned  and  compiled  by  .M-irtin  the  metrcjpolilan.  I'rinted  in  Europe,  nut 
far  from  some  of  the  lK>uncing  priests. 


246         LATER    ELIZABETHAN    AND  JACOBEAN    PROSE     chap. 

a  fervent  admirer,  as  stated  above,  of  the  Puritans,  is  for 
Barrow.  Mr.  Arber  thinks  that  a  gentleman  of  good  birth  named 
Job  Throckmorton,  who  was  certainly  concerned  in  the  affair,  was 
probably  the  author  of  the  more  characteristic  passages.  Fantastic 
suggestions  of  Jesuit  attempts  to  distract  the  Anglican  Church  have 
also  been  made, — attempts  sufficiently  refuted  by  the  improba- 
bility of  the  persons  known  to  be  concerned  lending  themselves 
to  such  an  intrigue,  for,  hotheads  as  Penry  and  the  rest  were, 
they  were  transparently  honest.  On  the  side  of  the  defence, 
authorship  is  a  little  better  ascertained.  Of  Cooper's  work  there 
is  no  doubt,  and  some  purely  secular  men  of  letters  were  oddly 
mixed  up  in  the  affair.  It  is  all  but  certain  that  John  Lyly  wrote 
the  so-called  Pap  tmth  a  Hatchet,^  which  in  deliberate  oddity  of 
phrase,  scurrility  of  language,  and  desultoriness  of  method  out- 
vies the  wildest  Martinist  outbursts.  The  later  tract,  Ari  Almond 
for  a  Parrot^  which  deserves  a  very  similar  description,  may  not 
improbably  be  the  same  author's  ;  and  Dr.  Grosart  has  reasonably 
attributed  four  anti-Martinist  tracts  (^A  Coimtercuff  to  Martin  Junior 
[^Martin  Junior  was  one  of  the  Marprelate  treatises],  PasquiVs 
Return,  Martin's  MoiitKs  Mind,  and  Pasquil's  Apology),  to  Nash. 
But  the  discussion  of  such  questions  comes  but  ill  within  the 
limits  of  such  a  book  as  the  present. 

The  discussion  of  the  characteristics  of  the  actual  tracts,  as 

'  Pap  with  a  Hatchet,  alias  A  fig  for  my  godson  !  or  Crack  me  this  nut,  or 
A  country  cuff  that  is  a  sound  box  of  the  ear  for  the  idiot  Martin  for  to  hold  his 
peace,  seeing  the  patch  will  take  no  warning.  Written  by  one  that  dares  call 
a  dog  a  dog,  and  made  to  prevent  Martin's  dog-days.  Imprinted  by  John-a- 
noke  and  John-a-stile  for  the  baylive  \sic\  of  Withernam,  ctnn  privUegio 
ferennitatis  ;  and  are  to  be  sold  at  the  sign  of  the  crab-tree-cudgel  in  Thwack- 
coat  Lane.     A  sentence.     Martin  hangs  fit  for  my  mowing. 

"  An  Almond  for  a  Parrot,  or  Cuthbert  Curryknaves  alms.  Fit  for  the 
knave  Martin,  and  the  rest  of  those  impudent  beggars  that  cannot  be  content  to 
stay  their  stomachs  with  a  benefice,  but  they  will  needs  break  their  fasts  with 
our  bishops.  Ritnarum  sum  plemis.  Therefore  beware,  gentle  reader,  you 
catch  not  the  hicket  with  laughing.  Imprinted  at  a  place,  not  far  from  a  place, 
by  the  assigns  of  Signior  Somebody,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop  in  Trouble- 
knave  Street  at  the  sign  of  the  Standish. 


VI  MARTIN  MARrRELATE  247 

they  present  themselves  and  whosoever  wrote  them,  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  entirely  within  our  competence.  On  the  whole  the 
literar)'  merit  of  the  treatises  has,  I  think,  been  overrated.  The 
admirers  of  Martin  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  traverse  Penry's 
perfectly  true  statement  that  in  using  light,  not  to  say  ribald, 
treatment  of  a  serious  subject,  he  was  only  following  [Marnix  de 
Sainte  Aldegonde  and]  other  Protestant  writers,  and  have  attributed 
to  him  an  almost  entire  originality  of  method,  owing  at  most 
something  to  the  popular  "gags"  of  the  actor  Richard  Tarleton, 
then  recently  dead.  This  is  quite  uncritical.  An  exceedingly 
free  treatment  of  sacred  and  serious  affairs  had  been  characteristic 
of  the  Reformers  from  Luther  downward,  and  the  new  Martin 
only  introduced  the  variety  of  style  which  any  writer  of  consider- 
able talents  is  sure  to  show.  His  method,  at  any  rate  for  a  time, 
is  no  doubt  sufficiently  amusing,  though  it  is  hardly  effective. 
Serious  arguments  are  mixed  up  with  the  wildest  buffoonery,  and 
unconscious  absurdities  (such  as  a  solemn  charge  against  the 
unlucky  llishop  Aylmer  because  he  used  the  phrase  "  by  my  faith," 
and  enjoyed  a  game  at  bowls)  with  the  most  venomous  assertion 
or  insinuation  of  really  odious  offences.  The  official  answer  to 
the  Epistle  and  the  Epitome  has  been  praised  by  no  less  a  person 
than  Bacon'  for  its  gravity  of  tone.  Unluckily  Dr.  Cooper  was 
entirely  destitute  of  the  faculty  of  relieving  argument  with  humour. 
He  attacks  the  theology  of  the  Martinists  with  learning  and  logic 
that  leave  nothing  to  desire  ;  but  unluckily  he  proceeds  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  style  to  deal  laboriously  with  the  (iui[)s  assigned 
by  Martin  to  Mistress  Margaret  Lawson  (a  noted  Puritan  shrew 
of  the  day),  and  with  mere  idle  things  like  the. assertion  that  Whit- 
gift  "carried  Dr.  Perne's  cloakbag."  The  result  is  that,  as  has 
been  said,  the  rejoinder  Hay  any  Work  for  Cooper  shows  Martin, 
at  lea.st  at  the  beginning,  at  his  very  best.  The  artificial  simplicity 
of  his  distortions  of  Cooper's  really  simple  statements  is  not  un- 
worthy of  Swift,  or  of  the  best  of  the  more  recent  practitioners  of 

'   In  his  Advertiitmeitt  Tomhing  the  Controversies  of  the  Church  of  England 
(Works.     I-olio,  1753,  ii.  y.  375). 


±4^  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE       chap. 

the  grave  and  polite  kind  of  political  irony.  But  this  is  at  the 
beginning,  and  soon  afterwards  Martin  relapses  for  the  most  part 
into  the  alternation  between  serious  argument  which  will  not  hold 
water  and  grotesque  buffoonery  which  has  little  to  do  with  the 
matter.  A  passage  from  the  Epistle  lampooning  Aylmer,  Bishop 
of  London,  and  a  sample  each  of  Pap  with  a  Hatchet  and  the 
Almofid,  will  show  the  general  style.  But  the  most  characteristic 
pieces  of  all  are  generally  too  coarse  and  too  irreverent  to  be 
quotable  : — 

"  Well  now  to  mine  eloquence,  for  I  can  do  it  I  tell  you.      Who  made  the 
porter  of  his  gate  a  dumb  minister  ?     Dumb  John  of  London.     Who  abuseth 
her  Majesty's  subjects,  in  urging  them  to  subscribe  contrary  to  law?     John  of 
London.      Who  abuseth  the  high  commission,  as  much  as  any  ?     John  London 
(and  D.  Stanhope  too).      Who  bound  an  Essex  minister,  in  200/.  to  wear  the 
surplice  on  Easter  Day  last  ?    John  London.     Who  hath  cut 
down  the  elms  at  Fulham  ?    John  London.     Who  is  a  carnal     m  make  you 
defender  of  the  breach  of  the  Sabbath  in  all  the  places  of  his  '^^7 "i'l'^'""^ 
abode  ?      John    London.       Who   forbiddeth   men    to   humble      /^^j,^  fie^-se- 
themselves  in  fasting  and  prayer  before  the  Lord,  and  then  can  cuting. 

say  unto  the  preachers,  now  you  were  best  to  tell  the  people 
that  we  forbid  fasts  ?  John  London.  Who  goeth  to  bowls  upon  the  Sabbath  ? 
Dumb  Dunstical  John  of  good  London  hath  done  all  this.  I  will  for  this  time 
leave  this  figure,  and  tell  your  venerable  masterdoms  a  tale  worth  the  hearing: 
I  had  it  at  the  second  hand  :  if  he  that  told  it  me  added  anything,  I  do  not 
commend  him,  but  I  forgive  him  :  The  matter  is  this.  A  man  dying  in 
Fulham,  made  one  of  the  Bishop  of  London's  men  his  executor.  The  man  had 
bequeathed  certain  legacies  unto  a  poor  shepherd  in  the  town.  The  shepherd 
could  get  nothing  of  the  Bishop's  man,  and  therefore  made  his  moan  unto  a 
gentleman  of  Fulham,  that  belongeth  to  the  court  of  requests.  The  gentle- 
man's name  is  M.  Madox.  The  poor  man's  case  came  to  be  tried  in  the  Court 
of  Requests.  The  B.  man  desired  his  master's  help  :  Dumb  John  wrote  to 
the  masters  of  requests  to  this  effect,  and  I  think  these  were  his  words  : 

"  '  My  masters  of  the  requests,  the  bearer  hereof  being  my  man,  hath  a 
cause  before  you  :  inasmuch  as  I  understand  how  the  matter  standeth,  I  pray 
you  let  my  man  be  discharged  the  court,  and  I  will  see  an  agreement  made. 
Fare  you  well.'     The  letter  came  to  M.  D.  Dale,  he  answered  it  in  this  sort  : 

"  '  My  Lord  of  London,  this  man  delivered  your  letter,  I  pray  you  give 
him  his  dinner  on  Christmas  Day  for  his  labour,  and  fare  you  well.' 

"  Dumb  John  not  speeding  this  way,  sent  for  the  said  M.  Madox  :  he  came, 
some  rough  words  passed  on  both  sides.  Presbyter  John  said,  Master  Madox  was 


VI  MARTIN  MARPRELATE  249 

very  saucy,  especially  seeing  he  knew  before  whom  he  spake  :  namely,  the  Lord 
of  Fulham.  Whereunto  the  gentleman  answered  that  he  had  been  a  poor  free- 
holder in  Fulham,  before  Don  John  came  to  be  L.  there,  hoping  also  to  be  so, 
when  he  and  all  his  brood  (my  Lady  his  daughter  and  all)  should  be  gone.  At 
the  hearing  of  this  speech,  the  wasp  got  my  brother  by  the  nose,  which  made 
him  in  his  rage  to  afTirm,  that  he  would  be  L.  of  Fulham  as  long  as  he  lived  in 
despite  of  all  England.  Nay,  soft  there,  quoth  M.  Madox,  except  her  Majesty. 
I  pray  you,  that  is  my  meaning,  call  dumb  John,  and  I  tell  thee  Madox  that 
thou  art  but  a  Jack  to  use  me  so  :  Master  Madox  replying,  said  that  indeed  his 
name  was  John,  and  if  every  John  were  a  Jack,  he  was  content  to  be  a  Jack 
(there  he  hit  my  L.  over  the  thumbs).  The  B.  growing  in  choler,  said  that 
Master  Madox  his  name  did  shew  what  he  was,  for  saith  he,  thy  name  is  mad 
ox,  which  declareth  thee  to  be  an  unruly  and  mad  beast.  M.  Madox  answered 
again,  that  the  B.  name,  if  it  were  descanted  upon,  did  most  significantly  shew 
his  qualities.  For  said  he,  you  are  called  Elmar,  but  you  may  be  better  called 
niarelm,  for  you  have  marred  all  the  elms  in  Fulham  :  having  cut  tljem  all 
down.  This  far  is  my  worthy  story,  as  worthy  to  be  printed,  as  any  part  of 
Dean  John's  book,  I  am  sure." 


"  To  the  Father  and  the  two  Sons, 

"  IIuKF,  Ruff,  and  .Sxuir,' 

"the  three  tame  ruffians  of  the  Church,  which  take  pepper 

"  in  the  nose,  because  they  cannot 

"  mar  Prelates  : 

"  greeting. 

"  Room  for  a  royster ;  so  that's  well  said.  Ach,  a  little  farther  for  a  good 
fellow.  Now  have  at  you  all  my  gaflers  of  the  railing  religion,  'tis  I  lli.it 
must  take  you  a  peg  lower.  I  am  sure  yuu  look  for  more  work,  you  shall  have 
wood  enough  to  cleave,  make  your  tongue  the  wedge,  and  your  he.id  the 
beetle.  Fll  make  such  a  splinter  run  into  your  wits,  as  shall  make  them 
ramkle  till  you  Ix-come  fools.  Nay,  if  you  shoot  books  like  fools'  bolts,  Fll 
be  so  Ixild  as  to  make  your  judgments  quiver  with  my  thunderbolts.  If  you 
mean  to  gather  clouds  in  the  Commonwealth,  to  threaten  tempests,  for  your 
flakes  of  snow,  we'll  jiay  you  with  stones  of  hail  ;  if  with  an  easterly  wind  you 
bring  caterpillers  into  the  Church,  with  a  northern  wiml  we'll  drive  barrens 
into  your  wits. 

"  We  care  not  for  a  Scottish  mist,  though  it  wet  us  to  the  skin,  you  shall 
l>c  sure  your  cockscombs  shall  not  be  missed,  but  pierced  to  the  skulls.  I 
jjrofess  railing,  ami  think  it  as  gf)od  a  cudgel  for  a  martin,  as  a  stone  for  a  dog, 
or  a  whip  for  an  ape,  or  poison  for  a  rat. 

*  Well-known  stage  characters  in  Preston's  Camhyses. 


250  LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE      chap. 

"Yet  find  fault  with  no  broad  terms,  for  I  have  measured  yours  with  mine, 
and  I  find  yours  broader  just  by  the  list.  Say  not  my  speeches  are  light,  for 
I  have  weighed  yours  and  mine,  and  I  find  yours  lighter  by  twenty  grains  than 
the  allowance.  For  number  you  exceed,  for  you  have  thirty  ribald  words  for 
my  one,  and  yet  you  bear  a  good  spirit.  I  was  loth  so  to  write  as  I  have  done, 
but  that  I  learned,  that  he  that  drinks  with  cutters,  must  not  be  without  his  ale 
daggers  ;  nor  he  that  buckles  with  Martin,  without  his  lavish  terms. 

"  Who  would  curry  an  ass  with  an  ivory  comb?  Give  the  beast  thistles  for 
provender.  I  do  but  yet  angle  with  a  silken  fly,  to  see  whether  martins  will 
nibble  ;  and  if  I  see  that,  why  then  I  have  worms  for  the  nonce,  and  will  give 
them  line  enough  like  a  trout,  till  they  swallow  both  hook  and  line,  and  then, 
Martin,  beware  your  gills,  for  I'll  make  you  dance  at  the  pole's  end. 

"I  know  Martin  will  with  a  trice  bestride  my  shoulders.  Well,  if  he  ride 
me,  let  the  fool  sit  fast,  for  my  wit  is  very  hickish  ;  which  if  he  spur  with  his 
copper  reply,  when  it  bleeds,  it  will  all  to  besmear  their  consciences. 

"  If  a  martin  can  play  at  chess,  as  well  as  his  nephew  the  ape,  he  shall 
know  what  it  is  for  a  scaddle  pawn  to  cross  a  Bishop  in  his  own  walk.  Such 
diedappers  must  be  taken  up,  else  they'll  not  stick  to  check  the  king.  Rip  up 
my  life,  discipher  my  name,  fill  thy  answer  as  full  of  lies  as  of  lines,  swell  like 
a  toad,  hiss  like  an  adder,  bite  like  a  dog,  and  chatter  like  a  monkey,  my  pen 
is  prepared  and  my  mind ;  and  if  ye  chance  to  find  any  worse  words  than  you 
brought,  let  them  be  put  in  your  dad's  dictionary.  And  so  farewell,  and  be 
hanged,  and  I  pray  God  ye  fare  no  worse. 

"Yours  at  an  hour's  warning, 
' '  Double  V. " 

"By  this  time  I  think,  good-man  Puritan,  that  thou  art  persuaded,  that  I 
know  as  well  as  thy  own  conscience  thee,  namely  Martin  Makebate  of 
England,  to  be  a  most  scurvy  and  beggarly  benefactor  to  obedience,  and  per 
consequens,  to  fear  neither  men,  nor  that  God  Who  can  cast  both  body  and  soul 
into  unquenchable  fire.  In  which  respect  I  neither  account  you  of  the  Church, 
nor  esteem  of  your  blood,  otherwise  than  the  blood  of  Infidels.  Talk  as  long 
as  you  will  of  the  joys  of  heaven,  or  pains  of  hell,  and  turn  from  yourselves 
the  terror  of  that  judgment  how  you  will,  which  shall  bereave  blushing  iniquity 
of  the  fig-leaves  of  hypocrisy,  yet  will  the  eye  of  immortality  discern  of  your 
painted  pollutions,  as  the  ever-living  food  of  perdition.  The  humours  of  my 
eyes  are  the  habitations  of  fountains,  and  the  circumference  of  my  heart  the 
enclosure  of  fearful  contrition,  when  I  think  how  many  souls  at  that  moment 
shall  carry  the  name  of  Martin  on  their  foreheads  to  the  vale  of  confusion,  in 
whose  innocent  blood  thou  swimming  to  hell,  shalt  have  the  torments  of  ten 
thousand  thousand  sinners  at  once,  inflicted  upon  thee.  There  will  envy, 
malice,  and  dissimulation  be  ever  calling  for  vengeance  against  thee,  and  incite 
whole  legions  of  devils  to  thy  deathless  lamentation.      Mercy  will  say  unto 


VI  MARTIN  MARPRELATE  251 

thee,  I  know  thee  not,  and  Repentance,  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee  ?  All 
hopes  shall  shake  the  head  at  thee,  and  say  :  there  goes  the  poison  of  purity, 
the  perfection  of  impiety,  the  serpentine  seducer  of  simplicity.  Zeal  herself 
will  cry  out  upon  thee,  and  curse  the  time  that  ever  she  was  mashed  by  thy 
malice,  who  like  a  blind  leader  of  the  blind,  sufieredst  her  to  stumble  at  every 
step  in  Religion,  and  madest  her  seek  in  the  dimness  of  her  sight,  to  murder 
her  mother  the  Church,  from  whose  paps  thou  like  an  envious  dog  but  yester- 
day pluckedst  her.  However,  proud  scorner,  thy  whorish  impudency  may 
happen  hereafter  to  insist  in  the  derision  of  these  fearful  denunciations,  and 
sport  thy  jester's  pen  at  the  speech  of  my  soul,  yet  take  heed  least  despair  be 
predominant  in  the  day  of  thy  death,  and  thou  instead  of  calling  for  mercy  to 
thy  Jesus,  repeat  more  oftener  to  thyself.  Sic  nwrior  davniatits  ttt  Judas ! 
And  thus  much,  Martin,  in  the  way  of  compassion,  have  I  spoke  for  thy 
edification,  moved  thereto  by  a  brotherly  commiseration,  which  if  thou  be  not 
too  desperate  in  thy  devilish  attempts,  may  reform  thy  heart  to  remorse,  and 
thy  pamphlets  to  some  more  profitable  theme  of  repentance." 

If  Martin  Marprelate  is  compared  with  t\\QEpistohe  Obscurorum 
Virorum  earlier,  or  the  Satire  Menippee  very  little  later,  the  want 
of  polish  and  directness  about  contemporary  English  satire  will 
be  strikingly  apparent.  At  the  same  time  he  does  not  compare 
badly  with  his  own  antagonists.  The  divines  like  Cooper  are, 
as  has  been  said,  too  serious.  The  men  of  letters  like  Lyly  and 
Nash  are  not  nearly  serious  enough,  though  some  exception  may 
be  made  for  Nash,  especially  if  Pasqiiirs  Apology  be  his.  They 
out-Martin  Martin  himself  in  mere  abusiveness,  in  deliberate 
(juaintness  of  phrase,  in  fantastic  vapourings  and  promises  of  the 
dreadful  things  that  are  going  to  be  done  to  the  enemy.  They 
deal  some  shrewd  hits  at  the  glaring  faults  of  their  subject,  his 
outrageous  abuse  of  authorities,  his  profanity,  his  ribaldry,  his 
irrelevance ;  but  in  point  of  the  three  last  qualities  there  is  not 
much  to  choose  between  him  and  them.  One  line  of  counter  attack 
they  did  indeed  hit  uj)on,  which  was  followed  up  for  generations 
with  no  small  success  against  the  Nonconformists,  and  that  is  the 
charge  of  hypocritical  abuse  of  the  influence  which  the  Noncon- 
formist teachers  early  actjuired  over  women.  The  germs  of  the 
unmatched  passages  to  this  effect  in  The  Tale  of  a  Tub  may  be 
found    in    the    rough   horseplay  of   Pap  with   a  JIatclut  and  An 


252        LATER  ELIZABETHAN  AND  JACOBEAN  PROSE     chap,  vi 


Almond  for  a  Parrot.      But  the  spirit  of  the  whole  controversy  is 
in  fact  a  spirit  of  horseplay.     Abuse  takes  the  place  of  sarcasm, 
Rabelaisian  luxuriance  of  words  the  place  of  the  plain  hard  hit- 
ting, with   no   flourishes  or   capers,   but  with   every   blow  given 
straight  from  the  shoulder,  which  Dryden  and  Halifax,  Swift  and 
Bentley,  were  to  introduce  into  EngHsh  controversy  a  hundred 
years    later.       The    peculiar    exuberance   of   Elizabethan    Utera- 
ture,  evident  in   all   its   departments,   is  nowhere   more   evident 
than    in    this    department   of    the    prose    pamphlet,   and   in    no 
section  of  that  department  is  it  more  evident  than  in  the  Tracts 
of  the    Martin    Marprelate   Controversy.       Never   perhaps   were 
more  wild  and  whirling  words  used  about  any  exceedingly  serious 
and  highly  technical  matter  of  discussion;  and  probably  most  readers 
who  have  ventured  into  the  midst  of  the  tussle  will  sympathise 
with  the  adjuration  of  Plain  Percivall  the  Peacemaker  of  England 
(supposed  to  be  Richard  Harvey,  brother  of  Gabriel,  who  was 
himself  not  entirely  free  from  suspicion  of  concernment  in  the 
matter),  "My  masters,    that    strive  for    this  supernatural  art  of 
wrangling,  let  all  be  husht  and  quiet  a-God's  name."     It  is  need- 
less   to    say    that    the    disputants    did    not    comply    with    Plain 
Percivall's  request.     Indeed  they  bestowed  some  of  their  choicest 
abuse  on  him  in  return  for  his  advice.      Not  even  by  the  casting 
of  the  most  peacemaking  of  all  dust,  that  of  years  and  the  grave, 
can  it  be  said  that  these  jars  at  last  conipada  quiescunt.     For  it  is 
difficult  to  find  any  account  of  the  transaction  which  does   not 
break  out  sooner  or  later  into  strong  language. 


CHAPTER    VII 


THE    THIRD    DRAMATIC    PERIOD 


I  HAVE  chosen,  to  fill  the  third  division  of  our  dramatic  chapters, 
seven  chief  writers  of  distinguished  individuality,  reserving  a 
certain  fringe  of  anonymous  plays  and  of  less  famous  person- 
alities for  the  fourth  and  last.  The  seven  exceptional  persons 
are  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Webster,  Middleton,  Heywood,  Tour- 
neur,  and  Day.  It  would  be  perhaps  lost  labour  to  attempt  to 
make  out  a  severe  definition,  shutting  these  off  on  the  one  hand 
from  their  predecessors,  on  the  other  from  those  that  followed 
them.  We  must  be  satisfied  in  such  cases  with  an  approach 
to  exactness,  and  it  is  certain  that  while  most  of  the  men  just 
named  had  made  some  appearance  in  the  latest  years  of  Eliza- 
beth, and  while  one  or  two  of  them  lasted  into  the  earliest  years 
of  Charles,  they  all  represent,  in  their  period  of  flourishing  and 
in  the  character  of  their  work,  the  Jacobean  age.  In  some  of 
them,  as  in  Middleton  and  Day,  tlie  Elizabethan  type  prevails; 
in  others,  as  in  I'letcher,  a  distinctly  new  flavour — a  flavour  not 
perceptible  in  Shakespere,  much  less  in  Marlowe — appears.  Uut 
in  none  of  them  is  that  other  flavour  of  i)ronounced  decadence, 
which  ajjpears  in  the  work  of  men  so  great  as  Massinger  and 
J'ord,  at  all  ijcrrcptible.  \N'e  are  still  in  the  creative  period,  and 
in  some  of  the  work  to  be  now  noticed  we  are  in  a  comparatively 
iinfrjnned  stage  of  it.  It  has  been  said,  and  not  unjustly  said, 
that  the  work  of  Ueaumoni  and  Fletcher  belongs,  when  looked  at 


254 


THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 


on  one  side,  not  to  the  days  of  Elizabeth  at  all,  but  to  the  later 
seventeenth  century ;  and  this  is  true  to  the  extent  that  the  post- 
Restoration  dramatists  copied  Fletcher  and  followed  Fletcher 
very  much  more  than  Shakespere.  But  not  only  dates  but  other 
characteristics  refer  the  work  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  to  a  dis- 
tinctly earlier  period  than  the  work  of  their,  in  some  sense,  suc- 
cessors Massinger  and  Ford. 

It  will  have  been  observed  that  I  cleave  to  the  old-fashioned 
nomenclature,  and  speak  of  "Beaumont  and  Fletcher."  Until 
very  recently,  when  two  new  editions  have  made  their  appearance, 
there  was  for  a  time  a  certain  tendency  to  bring  Fletcher  into 
greater  prominence  than  his  partner,  but  at  the  same  time  and  on 
the  whole  to  depreciate  both.  I  am  in  all  things  but  ill-disposed 
to  admit  innovation  without  the  clearest  and  most  cogent  proofs  ; 
and  although  the  comparatively  short  life  of  Beaumont  makes  it 
impossible  that  he  should  have  taken  part  in  some  of  the  fifty-two 
plays  traditionally  assigned  to  the  partnership  (we  may  perhaps 
add  Mr.  Bullen's  remarkable  discovery  of  Sir  John  Barneveldt^ 
in  which  Massinger  probably  took  Beaumont's  place),  I  see  no 
reason  to  dispute  the  well-established  theory  that  Beaumont  con- 
tributed at  least  criticism,  and  probably  original  work,  to  a  large 
number  of  these  plays  ;  and  that  his  influence  probably  survived 
himself  in  conditioning  his  partner's  work.  And  I  am  also 
disposed  to  think  that  the  plays  attributed  to  the  pair  have 
scarcely  had  fair  measure  in  comparison  with  the  work  of  their 
contemporaries,  which  was  so  long  neglected.  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  kept  the  stage — kept  it  constantly  and  triumphantly — 
till  almost,  if  not  quite,  within  living  memory  ;  while  since  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  since  its  earlier  part,  I  believe  that  very 
few  plays  of  Dekker's  or  Middleton's,  of  Webster's  or  of  Ford's,  have 
been  presented  to  an  English  audience.  This  of  itself  constituted 
at  the  great  revival  of  interest  in  Elizabethan  literature  something 
of  a  prejudice  in  favour  of  ks  oublies  et  les  dedaignl's,  and  this 
prejudice  has  naturally  grown  stronger  since  all  alike  have  been 
banished  from  the  stage.     The  Copper  Captain  and  the  Humorous 


I 


VII  BEAUMONT  AND  FLETCHER  255 

Lieutenant,  Bessus  and  Monsieur  Thomas,  are  no  longer  on  the 
boards  to  plead  for  their  authors.  The  comparative  depreciation 
of  Lamb  and  others  is  still  on  the  shelves  to  support  their  rivals. 

Althoucfh  we  still  know  but  little  about  either  Beaumont  or 
Fletcher  personally,  they  differ  from  most  of  their  great  contem- 
poraries by  having  come  of  "kenned  folk,"  and  by  having  to  all 
appearance,  industrious  as  they  were,  had  no  inducement  to  write 
for  money.  Francis  Beaumont  was  born  at  Gracedieu,  in  Leices- 
tershire in  1584.  He  was  the  son  of  a  chief-justice;  his  family 
had  for  generations  been  eminent,  chiefly  in  the  law ;  his  brother, 
Sir  John  Beaumont,  was  not  only  a  poet  of  some  merit,  but  a  man 
of  position,  and  Francis  himself,  two  years  before  his  death  in 
1616,  married  a  Kentish  heiress.  He  was  educated  at  Broadgates 
Hall  (now  Pembroke  College),  Oxford,  and  seems  to  have  made 
acquaintance  with  John  Fletcher  soon  after  quitting  the  University. 
Fletcher  was  five  years  older  than  his  friend,  and  of  a  clerical 
family,  his  father  being  Bishop  of  London,  and  his  uncle,  Giles 
Fletcher  (the  author  of  Licia),  a  dignitary  of  the  Church.  The 
younger  Giles  Fletcher  and  his  brother  Phineas  were  thus  cousins 
of  the  dramatist  Fletcher  was  a  Cambridge  man,  having  been 
educated  at  Benet  College  (at  present  and  indeed  originally 
known  as  Corpus  Christi).  Little  else  is  known  of  him  except 
that  he  died  of  the  plague  in  1625,  nine  years  after  Beaumont's 
death,  as  he  had  been  born  five  years  before  him.  These  two 
men,  however,  one  of  whom  was  but  thirty  and  the  other  not  fifty 
when  he  died,  have  left  by  far  the  largest  collection  of  printed 
plays  attributed  to  any  English  author.  A  good  deal  of  dispute 
has  been  indulged  in  as  to  their  probable  shares, — the  most  likely 
opinion  being  that  Fletcher  was  the  creator  and  Beaumont  (whose 
abilities  in  ( ritic  ism  were  recognised  by  such  a  judge  as  Ben 
Jonson)  the  critical  and  revising  spirit.  .About  a  third  of  tlie 
whole  number  have  been  supposed  to  represent  Beaumont's 
influence  more  or  less  directly.  These  include  tlie  two  finest, 
yyie  AfaiiTs  Tnii^fJy  and  J*hilaster ;  while  as  to  the  third  play, 
which  may  be  put  on  the  same   level,  Th'-  Tuo  Xohle  Kinsmen^ 


256  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

early  assertion,  confirmed  by  a  constant  catena  of  the  best  critical 
authority,  maintains  that  Beaumont's  place  was  taken  by  no  less  a 
collaborator  than  Shakespere.  Fletcher,  as  has  been  said,  wrote 
in  conjunction  with  Massinger  (we  know  this  for  certain  from  Sir 
Aston  Cokaine),  and  with  Rowley  and  others,  while  Shirley  seems 
to  have  finished  some  of  his  plays.  Some  modern  criticism  has 
manifested  a  desire  to  apply  the  always  uncertain  and  usually 
unprofitable  tests  of  separation  to  the  great  mass  of  his  work. 
With  this  we  need  not  busy  ourselves.  The  received  collection 
has  quite  sufficient  idiosyncrasy  of  its  own  as  a  whole  to  make 
it  superfluous  for  any  one,  except  as  a  matter  of  amusement,  to 
try  to  split  it  up. 

Its  characteristics  are,  as  has  been  said,  sufficiently  marked, 
both  in  defects  and  in  merits.  The  comparative  depreciation 
which  has  come  upon  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  naturally  fixes  on 
the  defects.  There  is  in  the  work  of  the  pair,  and  especially  in 
Fletcher's  work  when  he  wrought  alone,  a  certain  loose  fluency, 
an  ungirt  and  relaxed  air,  which  contrasts  very  strongly  with  the 
strenuous  ways  of  the  elder  playwrights.  This  exhibits  itself  not 
in  plotting  or  playwork  proper,  but  in  style  and  in  versification 
(the  redundant  syllable  predominating,  and  every  now  and  then 
the  verse  slipping  away  altogether  into  the  strange  medley  between 
verse  and  prose,  which  we  shall  find  so  frequent  in  the  next  and 
last  period),  and  also  in  the  characters.  We  quit  indeed  the 
monstrous  types  of  cruelty,  of  lust,  of  revenge,  in  which  many 
of  the  Elizabethans  proper  and  of  Fletcher's  own  contem- 
poraries delighted.  But  at  the  same  time  we  find  a  decidedly 
lowered  standard  of  general  morality — a  distinct  approach  to- 
wards the  fay  ce  que  voiiiiras  of  the  Restoration.  We  are  also 
nearer  to  the  region  of  the  commonplace.  Nowhere  appears  that 
attempt  to  grapple  with  the  impossible,  that  wrestle  with  the 
hardest  problems,  which  Marlowe  began,  and  which  he  taught  to 
some  at  least  of  his  followers.  And  lastly — despite  innumerable 
touches  of  tender  and  not  a  few  of  heroic  poetry — the  actual 
poetical  value  of  the  dramas  at  their  best  is  below  that  of  the  best 


VII  BEAUMONT  AND  FLETCHER  257 

work  of  the  preceding  time,  and  of  such  contemporaries  as 
Webster  and  Dekker.  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  constantly  delight, 
but  they  do  not  ven*-  often  transport,  and  even  when  they  do,  it 
is  with  a  less  strange  rapture  than  that  which  communicates  itself 
to  the  reader  of  Shakespere/<?i\57>//,  and  to  the  readers  of  many 
of  Shakespere's  fellows  here  and  there. 

This,  I  think,  is  a  fair  allowance.  But,  when  it  is  made,  a 
goodly  capital  whereon  to  draw  still  remains  to  our  poets.  In 
the  first  place,  no  sound  criticism  can  possibly  overlook  the 
astonishing  volume  and  variety  of  their  work.  No  doubt  they 
did  not  often  (if  they  ever  did)  invent  their  fables.  But  they 
have  never  failed  to  treat  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them 
original,  and  this  of  itself  shows  a  wonderful  faculty  of  invention 
and  constitutes  an  inexhaustible  source  of  pleasure.  This  pleasure 
is  all  the  more  pleasurable  because  the  matter  is  always  presented 
in  a  thoroughly  workmanlike  form.  The  shapelessness,  the  inco- 
herence, the  necessity  for  endless  annotation  and  patching  together, 
which  mar  so  many  even  of  the  finest  Elizabethan  plays,  have  no 
place  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  Their  dramatic  construction 
is  almost  narrative  in  its  clear  and  easy  flow,  in  its  absence  of 
puzzles  and  piecings.  Again,  their  stories  are  always  interesting, 
and  their  characters  (especially  the  lighter  ones)  always  more  or 
less  attractive.  It  used  to  be  fashionable  to  praise  their  "  young 
men,"  probably  because  of  the  agreeable  contrast  which  they  pre- 
sent with  the  brutality  of  the  Restoration  hero;  but  their  girls  are 
more  to  my  fancy.  They  were  not  straightlaccd,  and  have  left  some 
sufficiently  ugly  and  (let  it  be  added)  not  too  natural  types  of 
sheer  impudence,  such  as  the  Megra  of  rhiUxstcr.  Nor  could 
they  ever  attain  to  the  romantic  perfection  of  Imogen  in  one 
kind,  of  Rosalind  in  another,  of  Juliet  in  a  third.  But  for  portraits 
of  pleasant  ICnglish  girls  not  too  siiueamish,  not  at  all  afraid  of 
love-making,  ijuitc  convinced  of  the  hackneyed  assertion  of  the 
myihologists  that  jests  and  jokes  go  in  the  train  of  \'enus,  but 
true-hearted,  affectionate,  and  of  a  sound,  if  not  a  very  nire 
morality,  commend  me  to  I-letcher's  Dorotheas,  and  Marys,  and 
11  s 


258  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

Celias.  Add  to  this  the  excellence  of  their  comedy  (there  is 
little  better  comedy  of  its  kind  anywhere  than  that  of  A  King  and 
no  King,  of  the  Huuiorons  Lieutenant,  of  Rule  a  Wife  and  have  a 
Wife),  their  generally  high  standard  of  dialogue  verse,  their 
charming  songs,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  if  they  have  not  the 
daemonic  virtue  of  a  few  great  dramatic  poets,  they  have  at  any 
rate  very  good,  solid,  pleasant,  and  plentiful  substitutes  for  it. 

It  is  no  light  matter  to  criticise  more  than  fifty  plays  in 
not  many  times  fifty  lines ;  yet  something  must  be  said  about 
some  of  them  at  any  rate.  The  play  which  usually  opens  the 
series.  The  Maid's  Tragedy,  is  perhaps  the  finest  of  all  on  the 
purely  tragic  side,  though  its  plot  is  a  little  improbable,  and  to 
modern  notions  not  very  agreeable.  Hazlitt  disliked  it  much  ;  and 
though  this  is  chiefly  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  monarchical  tone 
of  it,  it  is  certainly  faulty  in  parts.  It  shows,  in  the  first  place,  the 
authors'  greatest  dramatic  weakness — a  weakness  common  indeed 
to  all  their  tribe  except  Shakespere — the  representation  of  sudden 
and  quite  insufficiently  motived  moral  revolutions  ;  and,  secondly, 
another  fault  of  theirs  in  the  representation  of  helpless  and  rather 
nerveless  virtue  punished  without  fault  of  its  own  indeed,  but  also 
without  any  effort.  The  Aspatia  of  The  Maid's  Tragedy  and  the 
Bellario  of  Philaster,  pathetic  as  they  are,  are  also  slightly  irritat- 
ing. Still  the  pathos  is  great,  and  the  quarrel  or  threatened 
quarrel  of  the  friends  Amintor  and  Melantius,  the  horrible  trial 
put  upon  Amintor  by  his  sovereign  and  the  abandoned  Evadne, 
as  well  as  the  whole  part  of  Evadne  herself  when  she  has  once 
been  (rather  improbably)  converted,  are  excellent.  A  passage  of 
some  length  from  the  latter  part  of  the  play  may  supply  as  well 
as  another  the  sufficient  requirement  of  an  illustrative  extract : — 

Evad.    "  O  my  lord  ! 
Atnin.    How  now  ? 

Evad.   My  much  abused  lord  !     [A'fieets.) 
Amin.   This  cannot  be. 
Evad.   I  do  not  kneel  to  live,  I  dare  not  hope  it  ; 

The  wrongs  I  did  are  greater  ;  look  upon  me 

Though  I  appear  with  all  my  faults.     Amin.   Stand  up. 


VII  BEAUMONT  AND  FLETCHER  259 

This  is  a  new  way  to  beget  more  sorrow. 

Heav'n  knows,  I  have  too  many  ;  do  not  mock  me  ; 

Though  I  am  tame  and  bred  up  with  my  wrongs 

Which  are  my  foster-brothers,  I  may  leap 

Like  a  hand-wolf  into  my  natural  wildness 

And  do  an  outrage  :  pray  thee,  do  not  mock  me. 

Evad.   My  whole  life  is  so  leprous,  it  infects 

All  my  repentance  :  I  would  buy  your  pardon 

Though  at  the  highest  set,  even  with  my  life  : 

That  slight  contrition,  that's  no  sacrifice 

For  what  I  have  committed.     Amin.   Sure  I  dazzle. 

There  cannot  be  a  Faith  in  that  foul  woman 

That  knows  no  God  more  mighty  than  her  mischiefs  : 

Thou  dost  still  worse,  still  number  on  thy  faults 

To  press  my  poor  heart  thus.     Can  I  believe 

There's  any  seed  of  virtue  in  that  woman 

Left  to  shoot  up,  that  dares  go  on  in  sin 

Known,  and  so  known  as  thine  is?     O  Evadne  ! 

'Would,  there  were  any  safety  in  thy  sex, 

That  I  might  put  a  thousand  sorrows  off. 

And  credit  thy  repentance  !     But  I  must  not ; 

Thou'st  brought  me  to  that  dull  calamity, 

To  that  strange  misbelief  of  all  the  world 

And  all  things  that  are  in  it ;  that,  I  fear 

I  shall  fall  like  a  tree,  and  find  my  grave. 

Only  remembering  that  I  grieve. 

Evad.   My  lord, 

Give  me  your  griefs  :  you  are  an  innocent, 

A  soul  as  white  as  Heav'n.     Let  not  my  sins 

Perish  your  noble  youth  :  I  do  not  fall  here 

To  shadows  by  dissembling  with  my  tears 

(As,  all  say,  women  can)  or  to  make  less 

What  my  hot  will  hath  done,  which  Heav'n  ami  you 

Knows  to  be  tougher  than  the  hand  of  time 

Can  cut  from  man's  remembrance  ;  no,  I  do  not  ; 

I  do  appear  the  same,  the  same  Evadne 

Drest  in  the  shames  I  liv'd  in  ;  the  same  monster  : 

But  these  arc  names  of  honour,  to  what  I  am  ; 

I  do  ]ircsent  myself  the  foulest  creature 

Most  |)ois'nous,  dang'rous,  and  despisM  of  men, 

Lcrna  e'er  bred,  or  Nilus  :   I  am  hell, 

Till  you,  my  dear  lord,  shoot  your  light  into  nie 


j6o  the  third  dramatic  PERIOD  chap. 

The  beams  of  your  forgiveness  :  I  am  soul-sick  ; 

And  wither  with  the  fear  of  one  condemn'd, 

Till  I  have  got  your  pardon.     Amin.   Rise,  Evadne. 

Those  heavenly  Powers,  that  put  this  good  into  thee, 

Grant  a  continuance  of  it  :  I  forgive  thee  ; 

INIake  thyself  worthy  of  it,  and  take  heed. 

Take  heed,  Evadne,  this  be  serious  ; 

Mock  not  the  Pow'rs  above,  that  can  and  dare 

Give  thee  a  great  example  of  their  justice 

To  all  ensuing  eyes,  if  that  thou  playest 

With  thy  repentance,  the  best  sacrifice. 
Evad.   I  have  done  nothing  good  to  win  belief. 

My  life  hath  been  so  faithless  ;  all  the  creatures 

Made  for  Heav'n's  honours,  have  their  ends,'  and  good  ones, 

All  but  the  cozening  crocodiles,  false  women  ; 

They  reign  here  like  those  plagues,  those  killing  sores, 

Men  pray  against ;  and  when  they  die,  like  tales 

111  told,  and  unbeliev'd  they  pass  away 

And  go  to  dust  forgotten  :  But,  my  lord, 

Those  short  days  I  shall  number  to  my  rest, 

(As  many  must  not  see  me)  shall,  though  late 

(Though  in  my  evening,  yet  perceive  a  will,) 

Since  I  can  do  no  good,  because  a  woman, 

Reach  constantly  at  something  that  is  near  it  ; 

I  will  redeem  one  minute  of  my  age, 

Or,  like  another  Niobe,  I'll  weep 

Till  I  am  water. 
Amin.   I  am  now  dissolv'd. 

My  frozen  soul  melts  :  may  each  sin  thou  hast 

Find  a  new  mercy  !  rise,  I  am  at  peace  : 

Hadst  thou  been  thus,  thus  excellently  good, 

Before  that  devil  king  tempted  thy  frailty, 

Sure,  thou  hadst  made  a  star.      Give  me  thy  hand  ; 

From  this  time  I  will  know  thee,  and  as  far 

As  honour  gives  me  leave,  be  thy  Amintor. 

When  we  meet  next,  I  will  salute  thee  fairly 

And  pray  the  gods  to  give  thee  happy  days. 

My  charity  shall  go  along  with  thee 

Though  my  embraces  must  be  far  from  thee. 

I  should  ha'  kill'd  thee,  but  this  sweet  repentance 

Locks  up  my  vengeance,  for  which  thus  I  kiss  thee, 

The  last  kiss  we  must  take..'" 


VII  BEAUMONT  AND  FLETCHER  261 

The  beautiful  play  of  Philastcr  has  already  been  glanced  at ;  it 
is  suf^uicnt  to  add  that  its  detached  passages  are  deservedly  the 
most  famous  of  all.  The  insufficiency  of  the  reasons  of  Philaster's 
jealousy  may  be  considered  by  different  persons  as  affecting  to  a 
different  extent  the  merit  of  the  piece.  In  these  two  pieces  tra- 
gedy, or  at  least  tragi-comedy,  has  the  upper  hand  ;  it  is  in  the  next 
pair  as  usually  arranged  (for  the  chronological  order  of  these  plays 
is  hitherto  unsolved)  that  Fletcher's  singular  vis  comica  appears. 
A  King  and  no  King  has  a  very  serious  plot ;  and  the  loves  of 
Arbaces  and  Panthea  are  most  lofty,  insolent,  and  passionate. 
But  the  comedy  of  Bessus  and  his  two  swordsmen,  which  is  fresh 
and  vivid  even  after  Bobadil  and  ParoUes  (I  do  not  say  Falstaff, 
because  I  hold  it  a  vulgar  error  to  consider  Falstaff  as  really  a 
coward  at  all),  is  perhaps  more  generally  interesting.  As  for  IVie 
Scornful  Lady  it  is  comedy  pure  and  simple,  and  very  excellent 
comedy  too.  The  callousness  of  the  younger  Loveless — an  ugly 
forerunner  of  Restoration  manners — injures  it  a  little,  and  the 
instantaneous  and  quite  unreasonable  conversion  of  the  usurer 
Morecraft  a  little  more.  But  the  humours  of  the  Lady  herself  (a 
most  Molieresque  personage),  and  those  of  Roger  and  Abigail, 
with  many  minor  touches,  more  than  redeem  it.  The  plays  which 
follow^  are  all  comical  and  mostly  farcical.  The  situations,  rather 
than  the  expressions  of  The  Custom  of  the  Country,  bring  it  under 
the  ban  of  a  rather  unfair  condemnation  of  Drj'den's,  pronounced 
when  he  was  quite  unsuccessfully  trying  to  free  the  drama  of  him- 
self and  his  contemporaries  from  Collier's  damning  charges.  Jiut 
there  are  many  lively  traits  in  it.  The  Elder  Brother  is  one  of 
those  many  variations  on  cidant  anna  togic  which  men  of 
letters  have  always  been  somewhat  prone  to  overvalue  ;  but  the 
excellent  comedy  of  The  Spanish  Curate  is  not  impaired  by  the 
fact  that  Dryden  chose  to  adapt  it  after  his  own  fashion  in  The 
Spanish  Friar.  \n  Wit  Without  Money,  thougii  it  is  as  usual 
amusing,  the  stage  preference  for  a  "  roaring  boy,"  a  senseless 

'   It  may  perhaps  In:  well  to  mention  that  the  references  to  "  vohimes"  arc 
to  the  ten  vohmie  edition  of  1750,  Wy  'Iheobaltl,  Seward,  ami  others. 


262  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

crack-brained  spendthrift,  appears  perhaps  a  httle  too  strongly. 
The  Beggar'' s  Bush  is  interesting  because  of  its  early  indications 
of  cant  language,  connecting  it  with  Brome's  Jovial  Crew,  and 
with  Dekker's  thieves'  Latin  pamphlets.  But  the  faults  and  the 
merits  of  Fletcher  have  scarcely  found  better  expression  anywhere 
than  in  The  Hutiwroi/s  Lieutenant  Celia  is  his  masterpiece  in 
the  delineation  of  the  type  of  girl  outlined  above,  and  awkward  as 
her  double  courtship  by  Demetrius  and  his  father  Antigonus  is, 
one  somehow  forgives  it,  despite  the  nauseous  crew  of  go-betweens 
of  both  sexes  whom  Fletcher  here  as  elsewhere  seems  to  take  a 
pleasure  in  introducing.  As  for  the  Lieutenant  he  is  quite  charm- 
ing ;  and  even  the  ultra-farcical  episode  of  his  falling  in  love  with 
the  king  owing  to  a  philtre  is  well  carried  off!  Then  follows  the 
delightful  pastoral  of  The  Faithful  Shepherdess,  which  ranks  with 
Jonson's  Sad  Shepherd  and  with  Comus,  as  the  three  chiefs  of  its 
style  in  English.  The  Loyal  Subject  falls  a  little  behind,  as  also 
does  The  Mad  Lover;  but  Rule  a  Wife  and  have  a  Wife  again 
rises  to  the  first  class.  Inferior  to  Shakespere  in  the  power  of 
transcending  without  travestying  human  affairs,  to  Jonson  in 
sharply  presented  humours,  to  Congreve  and  Sheridan  in  rattling 
fire  of  dialogue,  our  authors  have  no  superior  in  half-farcical,  half- 
pathetic  comedy  of  a  certain  kind,  and  they  have  perhaps  nowhere 
shown  their  power  better  than  in  the  picture  of  the  Copper 
Captain  and  his  Wife.  The  flagrant  absurdity  of  The  Latvs  of 
Candy  (which  put  the  penalty  of  death  on  ingratitude,  and  appa- 
rently fix  no  criterion  of  what  ingratitude  is,  except  the  decision  of 
the  person  who  thinks  himself  ungratefully  treated),  spoils  a  play 
which  is  not  worse  written  than  the  rest.  But  in  The  False  One, 
based  on  Egyptian  history  just  after  Pompey's  death,  and  Valen- 
tinian,  which  follows  with  a  little  poetical  license  the  crimes  and 
punishment  of  that  Emperor,  a  return  is  made  to  pure  tragedy — 
in  both  cases  with  great  success.  The  magnificent  passage  which 
Hazlitt  singled  out  from  The  False  One  is  perhaps  the  author's  or 
authors'  highest  attempt  in  tragic  declamation,  and  may  be  con- 
sidered to  have  stopped  not  far  short  of  the  highest  tragic  poetry. 


VII  BEAUMONT  AND  FLETCHER  263 

' ' '  Oh  thou  conqueror, 

Tliou  glory  of  the  world  once,  now  the  pity  : 

Thou  awe  of  natit)ns,  wherefore  didst  thou  fall  thus? 

What  poor  fate  followed  thee,  and  plucked  thee  on 

To  trust  thy  sacred  life  to  an  Egyptian  ? 

The  life  and  light  of  Rome  to  a  blind  stranger, 

That  honourable  war  ne'er  taught  a  nobleness 

Nor  worthy  circumstance  show'd  what  a  man  was  ? 

That  never  heard  thy  name  sung  but  in  banquets 

And  loose  lascivious  pleasures  ?  to  a  boy 

That  had  no  faith  to  comprehend  thy  greatness 

No  study  of  thy  life  to  know  thy  goodness?  .... 

Egyptians,  dare  you  think  your  high  pyramidcs 

Built  to  out-dure  the  sun,  as  you  suppose, 

Where  your  unworthy  kings  lie  rak'd  in  ashes, 

Are  monuments  fit  for  him  I     No,  brood  of  Nilus, 

Nothing  can  cover  his  high  fame  but  heaven  ; 

No  pyramid  set  off  his  memories, 

But  the  eternal  substance  of  his  greatness, 

To  which  I  leave  him.'  " 

The  chief  fault  of  \'aleiitinian  is  that  the  character  of  Maxi- 
mus  is  very  indistinctly  drawn,  and  that  of  Eudoxia  nearly  un- 
intelligible. These  two  pure  tragedies  are  contrasted  with  two 
comedies,  The  Little  French  Lmvyer  and  Monsieur  Thomas,  which 
deserve  high  praise.  The  fabliau-motive  of  the  first  is  happily 
contrasted  with  the  character  of  Lamira  and  the  friendship  of 
Clerimont  and  Dinant ;  while  no  play  has  so  many  of  Fletcher's 
agreeable  young  women  as  Monsieur  Thomas.  The  Bloody 
Brother,  which  its  title  speaks  as  sufficiently  tragical,  comes 
between  two  excellent  comedies,  The  Chances  and  The  JVild  Goose 
Chase,  which  might  serve  as  well  as  any  others  for  samples  of  the 
whole  work  on  its  comic  side.  In  The  Chances  the  portrait  of  the 
hare-brained  Don  John  is  the  chief  thing;  in  7Vie  IVild  Goose 
Chase,  as  in  Monsieur  Thomas,  a  whole  bevy  of  lively  characters, 
male  and  female,  dispute  the  reader's  attention  and  divide  his  pre- 
ference. A  IVi/e  for  a  Month  sounds  comic,  but  is  not  a  little 
alloyed  with  tragedy ;  and  despite  the  pathos  of  its  central  situation, 
is  marred  by  some  of  Fletcher's  ugliest  characters — the  characters 


264  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

which  Shakespere  in  Pandarus  and  the  nurse  in  Romeo  and  Juliet 
took  care  to  touch  with  his  Hghtest  finger.      The  Lover's  Progress, 
a  doubtful  tragedy,  and  Tlie  Pilgrim,  a  good  comedy  (revived  at 
the  end  of  the  century,  as  was  The  Prophetess  with  certain  help 
from  Dryden),  do  not  require  any  special  notice.      Between  these 
two  last  comes  The  Captain,  a  comedy  neither  of  the  best  nor  yet 
of  the  worst.     The  tragi-comic  Queen  of  Corinth  is  a  little  heavy; 
but  in  Bonduca  we  have  one  of  the  very  best  of  the  author's 
tragedies,   the   scenes  with  Caratach   and   his    nephew,  the  boy 
Hengo,  being  full  of  touches  not  wholly  unworthy  of  Shakespere. 
The  Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle  (where  Fletcher,  forsaking  liis 
usual  fantastic  grounds  of  a  France  that  is  scarcely  French,  and 
an  Italy  that  is  extremely  un-Italian,  comes  to  simple  pictures  of 
London  middle-class  life,  such  as  those  of  Jonson  or  Middleton) 
is  a  very  happy  piece  of  work  indeed,  despite  the  difficulty  of 
working  out  its  double  presentment  of  burlesque  knight-errantry 
and  straightforward  comedy  of  manners.     In  Loves  Pilgtimage, 
with  a  Spanish  subject  and  something  of  a  Spanish  style,  there  is 
not  enough  central  interest,  and  the  fortunes  by  land  and  sea  of 
The  Double  Marriage  do  not  make  it  one  of  Fletcher's  most  inter- 
esting plays.      But  The  Maid  in  the  Mill  and  The  Martial  Maid 
are  good  farce,  which  almost  deserves  the  name  of  comedy ;  and 
The  Knight  of  Malta  is  a  romantic  drama  of  merit.      In  Women 
Pleased  the  humours  of  avarice  and  hungry  servility  are  ingeni- 
ously treated,  and   one  of  the   starveling   Penurio's   speeches  is 
among  the  best-known  passages  of  all  the  plays,  while  the  anti- 
Puritan  satire  of  Hope-on-High  Bomby  is  also  noteworthy.     The 
next  four  plays  are  less  noticeable,  and  indeed  for  two  volumes,  of 
the  edition  referred  to,  we  come  to  fewer  plays  that  are  specially 
good.      The  Night  Walker ;  or.  The  Little  Thief  though  not  very 
probable  in  its  incidents,  has  a  great  deal  of  lively  business,  and 
is  particularly  noteworthy  as  supplying  proof  of  the  singular  popu- 
larity of  bell -ringing  with  all   classes   of  the   population   in   the 
seventeenth  century, — a  popularity  which  probably  protected  many 
old  bells  in  the  mania  for  church  desecration.     Not  much  can 


VII  BEAUMONT  AND  FLETCHER  265 

be  said  for  The  Woman's  Prize,  or,  The  Tamer  Tamed,  an 
avowed  sequel,  and  so  to  speak,  antidote  to  The  Taming  of  the 
SJirac,  which  chiefly  proves  that  it  is  wise  to  let  Shakespere 
alone.  The  authors  have  drawn  to  some  extent  on  the  Lysistraia 
to  aid  them,  but  have  fallen  as  far  short  of  the  fun  as  of  the 
indecency  of  that  memorable  play,  ^\'ith  The  Island  Princess  we 
return  to  a  fair,  though  not  more  than  a  fair  level  of  romantic  tragi- 
coniedy,  but  The  ^Voh/e  Gentleman  is  the  worst  play  ever  attributed 
(even  falsely)  to  authors  of  genius.  The  subject  is  perfectly 
uninteresting,  the  characters  are  all  fools  or  knaves,  and  the 
means  adoi)ted  to  gull  the  hero  through  successive  promotions  to 
rank,  and  successive  deprivations  of  them  (the  genuineness  of 
neither  of  which  he  takes  the  least  trouble  to  ascertain),  are  pre- 
posterous. The  Coronation  is  much  better,  and  The  Sea  Voyage, 
with  a  kind  of  Amazon  story  grafted  upon  a  hint  of  The  Tempest, 
is  a  capital  play  of  its  kind.  Better  still,  despite  a  certain  loose- 
ness both  of  plot  and  moral,  is  The  Coxcomb,  where  the  heroine 
\'iola  is  a  very  touching  figure.  The  extravagant  absurdity  of 
the  traveller  Antonio  is  made  more  probable  than  is  sometimes 
the  case  with  our  authors,  and  the  situations  of  the  whole  join 
neatly,  and  pass  trippingly.  JFit  at  Severa/  1 J 'capons  deserves  a 
somewhat  similar  description,  and  so  does  The  Pair  Maid  of  the 
Jnn  ;  while  Cupid's  Revenge,  though  it  shocked  the  editors  of  1750 
as  a  pagan  kind  of  play,  has  a  fine  tragical  zest,  and  is  cjuite  true 
to  classical  belief  in  its  delineation  of  the  ruthlessness  of  the 
offended  Deity.  Undoubtedly,  however,  the  last  volume  of  this 
edition  supplies  the  most  interesting  material  of  any  except  the 
first.  Here  is  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  a  play  founded  on  the 
story  of  I'alamon  and  Arcite,  and  containing  what  I  think  irrefrag- 
able proofs  of  Shakespcre's  writing  and  versification,  though  I  am 
unable  to  di.scern  anything  very  Shakesperian  either  in  plot  or  char- 
acter. Then,  comes  the  fine,  though  horrible  tragedy  of  Thierry 
and  Theodoret,  in  which  the  misdeeds  of  Queen  IJrunehault  find 
chroniclers  who  are  neither  s<|ueamish  wox  feeble.  The  beaulifiil 
part  of  Ordella   in   this   play,   though   somewhat   sentimental  aiul 


266  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD         •  chap. 

improbable  (as  is  always  the  case  with  Fletcher's  very  virtuous 
characters)  ranks  at  the  head  of  its  kind,  and  is  much  superior  to 
that  of  Aspasia  in  The  Maids  Tragedy.  The  Woman  Hater,  said 
to  be  Fletcher's  earliest  play,  has  a  character  of  rare  comic,  or.  at 
least  farcical  virtue  in  the  smell-feast  Lazarillo  with  his  Odyssey  in 
chase  of  the  Umbrana's  head  (a  delicacy  which  is  perpetually 
escaping  him) ;  and  The  Nice  Valour  contains,  in  Chamont  and  his 
brother,  the  most  successful  attempts  of  the  English  stage  at 
the  delineation  of  the  point  of  honour  gone  rnad.  Not  so  much, 
perhaps,  can  be  said  for  An  Honest  Man's  Forttme^  which,  with 
a  mask  and  a  clumsy,  though  in  part  beautiful,  piece  entitled 
Four  Plays  in  One,  makes  up  the  tale.  But  whosoever  has  gone 
through  that  tale  will,  if  he  has  any  taste  for  the  subject,  admit 
that  such  a  total  of  work,  so  varied  in  character,  and  so  full  of 
excellences  in  all  its  variety,  has  not  been  set  to  the  credit  of  any 
name  or  names  in  English  literature,  if  we  except  only  Shake- 
spere.  Of  the  highest  and  most  terrible  graces,  as  of  the  sweetest 
and  most  poetical,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  may  have  little  to  set 
beside  the  masterpieces  of  some  other  men  ;  for  accomplished, 
varied,  and  fertile  production,  they  need  not  fear  any  com- 
petition. 

It  has  not  been  usual  to  put  Thomas  Middleton  in  the  front 
rank  among  the  dramatists  immediately  second  to  Shakespere ; 
but  I  have  myself  no  hesitation  in  doing  so.  If  he  is  not  such  a 
poet  as  Webster,  he  is  even  a  better,  and  certainly  a  more  versa- 
tile, dramatist ;  and  if  his  plays  are  inferior  as  plays  to  those  of 
Fletcher  and  Massinger,  he  has  a  mastery  of  the  very  highest 
tragedy,  which  neither  of  them  could  attain.  Except  the  best 
scenes  of  The  White  Devil,  and  The  Duchess  of  Malfi,  there  is 
nothing  out  of  Shakespere  that  can  match  the  best  scenes  of 
The  Changelitig ;  while  Middleton  had  a  comic  faculty,  in  which, 
to  all  appearance,  Webster  was  entirely  lacking.  A  little  more  is 
known  about  Middleton  than  about  most  of  his  fellows.  He  was 
the  son  of  a  gentleman,  and  was  pretty  certainly  born  in  London 
about  1570.      It  does  not   appear  that  he  was  a  university  man, 


vii  MIDDLKTON  iC; 


hut  he  seems  to  have  been  at  (iray's  Inn.  His  earliest  known 
work  was  not  dramatic,  and  was  exceedingly  bad.  In  1597  lie 
published  a  verse  paraphrase  of  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  which 
makes  even  that  admirable  book  unreadable  ;  and  if,  as  seems 
pretty  certain,  the  Microcynicon  of  two  years  later  is  his,  he  is 
responsible  for  one  of  the  worst  and  feeblest  exercises  in  the 
school — never  a  very  strong  one — of  Hall  and  Marston.  Some 
prose  tracts  of  the  usual  kind  are  not  better  ;  but  either  at  the 
extreme  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  or  in  the  very  earliest  years 
of  the  ne.xt,  Middleton  turned  his  attention  to  the  then  all  absorb- 
ing drama,  and  for  many  years  was  (chiefly  in  collaboration)  a 
busy  playwright.  We  have  some  score  of  plays  which  are  either 
his  alone,  or  in  greatest  part  his.  The  order  of  their  composition 
is  very  uncertain,  and  as  with  most  of  the  dramatists  of  the  period, 
not  a  few  of  them  never  api)eared  in  print  till  long  after  the 
author's  death.  He  was  frequently  employed  in  composing 
pageants  for  the  City  of  London,  and  in  1620  was  appointed  city 
chronologer.  In  1624  Middleton  got  into  trouble.  His  play.  The 
Game  of  CJiess,  which  was  a  direct  attack  on  Spain  and  Rome, 
and  a  personal  satire  on  (londomar,  was  immensely  popular,  but 
its  nine  days'  run  was  abruptly  stopped  on  the  complaint  of  the 
Spanish  ambassador  ;  the  poet's  son,  it  would  seem,  had  to  appear 
before  the  Council,  and  Middleton  himself  was  (according  to  tra- 
dition) imprisoned  for  .some  time.  In  this  same  year  he  was 
living  at  Newington  Butts.  He  died  there  in  the  summer  of 
1627,  and  was  succeeded  as  chronologer  by  Ben  Jonson.  His 
widow,  Magdalen,  received  a  gratuity  from  the  Common  Council, 
but  seems  to  have  followed  her  husband  in  a  little  over  a 
year. 

Middleton's  acknowledged,  or  at  least  accepted,  habit  of 
«  oUaboration  in  most  of  the  work  usually  attributetl  to  him,  and 
the  strong  suspicion,  if  not  more  than  suspicion,  that  he  collabor- 
ated in  other  plays,  afford  endless  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of 
a  certain  kind  of  criticism.  By  employing  another  kind  we  can 
di.sccrn  quite  sufficiently  a  strong  individuality  in   the  work  that 


268  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  ■   chap. 

is  certainly,  in  part  or  in  whole,  his  ;  and  we  need  not  go  farther. 
He  seems  to  have  had  three  different  kinds  of  dramatic  aptitude, 
in  all  of  which  he  excelled.  The  larger  number  of  his  plays 
consist  of  examples  of  the  rattling  comedy  of  intrigue  and  man- 
ners, often  openly  representing  London  life  as  it  was,  some- 
times transplanting  what  is  an  evident  picture  of  home  manners 
to  some  foreign  scene  apparently  for  no  other  object  than  to  make 
it  more  attractive  to  the  spectators.  To  any  one  at  all  acquainted 
with  the  Elizabethan  drama  their  very  titles  speak  them.  These 
titles  are  Blurt  Master  Constable,  MicJiaelmas  Term,  A  Trick  to 
Catch  the  Old  One,  The  Family  of  Love  [a  sharp  satire  on  the 
Puritans],  A  Mad  World,  my  Masters,  No  Wit  no  Help  Like  a 
Woma?i^s,  A  Chaste  Maid  in  Cheapside,  Anything  for  a  Quiet 
Life,  More  Dissemblers  besides  Women.  As  with  all  the  humour- 
comedies  of  the  time,  the  incidents  are  not  unfrequently  very 
improbable,  and  the  action  is  conducted  with  such  intricacy  and 
want  of  clearly  indicated  lines,  that  it  is  sometimes  very  difficult 
to  follow.  At  the  same  time,  Middleton  has  a  faculty  almost 
peculiar  to  himself  of  carrying,  it  might  almost  be  said  of  hustling, 
the  reader  or  spectator  along,  so  that  he  has  no  time  to  stop  and 
consider  defects.  His  characters  are  extremely  human  and  lively, 
his  dialogue  seldom  lags,  his  catastrophes,  if  not  his  plots,  arc 
often  ingenious,  and  he  is  never  heavy.  The  moral  atmosphere 
of  his  plays  is  not  very  refined, — by  which  I  do  not  at  all  mean 
merely  that  he  indulges  in  loose  situations  and  loose  language. 
All  the  dramatists  from  Shakespere  downwards  do  that ;  and 
Middleton  is  neither  better  nor  worse  than  the  average.  But  in 
striking  contrast  to  Shakespere  and  to  others,  Middleton  has  no 
kind  of  poetical  morality  in  the  sense  in  which  the  term  poetical 
justice  is  better  known.  He  is  not  too  careful  that  the  rogues 
shall  not  have  the  best  of  it ;  he  makes  his  most  virtuous  and  his 
vilest  characters  hobnob  together  Very  contentedly  ;  and  he  is, 
in  short,  though  never  brutal,  like  the  post-Restoration  school, 
never  very  delicate.  The  style,  however,  of  these  works  of  his 
did  not  easily  admit  of  such  delicacy,  except  in  the  infusion  of  a 


VII 


MIDDLETON  269 


strong  romantic  element  such  as  tliat  which  Shakespere  ahiiost 
always  infuses.  Middleton  has  hardly  done  it  more  than  once — 
in  the  charming  comedy  of  The  Spanish  Gipsy, — and  the  result 
there  is  so  agreeable  that  the  reader  only  wishes  he  had  done  it 
oftener. 

Usually,  however,  when  his  thoughts  took  a  turn  of  less  levity 

than  in  these  careless  humorous  studies  of  contemporary  life,  he 

devoted  himself  not  to  the  higher  comedy,  but  to  tragedy  of  a 

very  serious  class,  and  when  he  did  this  an  odd  phenomenon 

generally  manifested  itself.     In  Middleton's  idea  of  tragedy,  as  in 

that  of  most  of  the  playwrights,  and  probably  all  the  playgoers  of 

his  dav,  a  comic  underplot  was  a  necessity  ;  and,  as  we  have  seen, 

he  was  himself  undoubtedly  able  enough  to  furnish  such  a  plot. 

But  either  because  he  disliked  mixing  his  tragic  and  comic  veins, 

or  for  some  unknown  reason,  he  seems  usually  to  have  called  in 

on  such  occasions  the  aid  of  Rowley,  a  vigorous  writer  of  farce, 

who  had  sometimes  been  joined  with  him  even  in  his  comic  work. 

Now,  not  only  was  Rowley  little  more  than  a  farce  writer,  but  he 

seems  to  have  been  either  unable  to  make,  or  quite  careless  of 

making,  his  farce  connect  itself  in  any  tolerable  fashion  with  the 

tragedy  of  which  it  formed  a  nominal  part.     The  result  is  seen  in 

its  most  perfect  imperfection  in  tlie  two  plays  of  The  Mayor  of 

Qiieenborough  and  The  C/iangeiini;,  both  named  from  their  comic 

features,  and  yet  containing  tragic  scenes,  the  first  of  a  very  high 

order,  the  second  of  an  order  only  overtopped  by  Shakespere  at 

his  best.     The  humours  of  the  cobbler  Mayor  of  Queenborough 

in  the  one  case,  of  the  lunatic  asylum  and  the  courting  of  its 

keeper's  wife  in  the  other,  are  such  very  mean  things  that  they 

can  scarcely  be  criticised.      But  the  desperate  love  of  Vortiger  for 

Rowena  in  The  Mayor,  and  the  villainous  plots  against  his  chaste 

wife,  Casti/.a,  arc   real    tragedy.      ICven   these,   however,   (ixW    far 

IkIow  the  terrible  loves,  if  loves  they  are  to  be  called,  of  15eatrire- 

Joanna,  the  heroine  of  77/^'  Cha>i:^<-lin;^',  and  her  servant,  instrument, 

and  murderer,  De  l-lores.     The  pltJt  of  the  tragic  part  of  this  i)lay 

is  intricate  and  not  wholly  savoury.      It  is  sufficient  to  say  that 


270  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

Beatrice  having  enticed  De  Flores  to  murder  a  lover  whom  she 
does  not  love,  that  so  she  may  marry  a  lover  whom  she  does  love, 
is  suddenly  met  by  the  murderer's  demand  of  her  honour  as  the 
price  of  his  services.  She  submits,  and  afterwards  has  to  purchase 
fresh  aid  of  murder  from  him  by  a  continuance  of  her  favours 
that  she  may  escape  detection  by  her  husband.  Thus,  roughly 
described,  the  theme  may  look  like  the  undigested  horrors  of 
Lusfs  Dominion,  of  The  Insatiate  Countess,  and  of  The  Revenger's 
Tragedy.  It  is,  however,  poles  asunder  from  them.  The  girl, 
with  her  southern  recklessness  of  anything  but  her  immediate 
desires,  and  her  southern  indifference  to  deceiving  the  very  man 
she  loves,  is  sufficiently  remarkable,  as  she  stands  out  of  the 
canvas.  But  De  Flores, —  the  broken  gentleman,  reduced  to 
the  position  of  a  mere  dependant,  the  libertine  whose  want  of 
personal  comeliness  increases  his  mistress's  contempt  for  him,  the 
murderer  double  and  treble  dyed,  as  audacious  as  he  is  treacherous, 
and  as  cool  and  ready  as  he  is  fiery  in  passion, — is  a  study  worthy 
to  be  classed  at  once  with  lago,  and  interior  only  to  lago  in  their 
class.  The  several  touches  with  which  these  two  characters  and 
their  situations  are  brought  out  are  as  Shakesperian  as  their 
conception,  and  the  whole  of  that  part  of  the  play  in  which  they 
figure  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  triumphs  of  English  or  of  any 
drama.  Even  the  change  of  manners  and  a  bold  word  or  two 
here  and  there,  may  not  prevent  me  from  giving  the  latter  part  of 
the  central  scene  : — 

Beat.   "  Why,  'tis  impossible  thou  canst  be  so  wicked, 
Or  sheUer  such  a  cunning  crueUy, 
To  make  his  death  the  murderer  of  my  honour  ! 
Thy  language  is  so  bold  and  vicious, 
I  cannot  see  which  way  I  can  forgive  it 
With  any  modesty. 
De  F.   Pish  !  ^  you  forget  yourself : 

A  woman  dipped  in  blood,  and  talk  of  modesty  ! 
Beat.   O  misery  of  sin  !  would  I'd  been  bound 

^  ■*  '  ■ — ■ — • ■ ' 

1  Inorig.  "Push,"cf.  "Tush." 


VII  MIDDLETON  271 

Perpetually  unto  my  living  hate 

In  that  Pisaccjuo,  than  to  hear '  these  words. 

Think  but  upon  the  distance  that  creation 

Set  'twixt  thy  blood  and  mine,  and  keep  thee  there. 
De  F.   Look  but  unto  your  conscience,  read  me  there  ; 

'Tis  a  true  book,  you'll  find  me  there  your  equal : 

Pish  !  fly  not  to  your  birth,  but  settle  you 

In  what  the  act  has  made  you  ;  you're  no  more  now. 

Vou  must  forget  your  parentage  to  me ; 

Vou  are  the  deed's  creature  ;  -  by  that  name 

You  lost  your  first  condition,  and  I  shall  urge  •*  you 

As  peace  and  innocency  has  turn'd  you  out, 

And  made  you  one  with  me. 
Beat.   With  thee,  foul  villain  ! 
De  F.  Yes,  my  fair  murderess  :  do  you  urge  me  ? 

Though  thou  writ'st  maid,  thou  whore  in  thine  affection  ! 

'Twas  changed  from  thy  first  love,  and  that's  a  kind 

Of  whoredom  in  thy  heart :  and  he's  changed  now 

To  bring  thy  second  on,  thy  Alsemero, 

Whom  by  all  sweets  that  ever  darkness  tasted 

If  I  enjoy  thee  not,  thou  ne'er  enjoyest ! 

I'll  blast  the  hopes  and  joys  of  marriage, 

I'll  confess  all ;  my  life  I  rate  at  nothing. 
Beat.   De  Flores  ! 
De  F.   I  shall  rest  from  all  (lover's)''  plagues  then, 

I  live  in  pain  now  ;  that  [love]  shooting  eye 

Will  burn  my  heart  to  cinders. 
Beat.    O  sir,  hear  me  I 
De  F.   She  that  in  life  and  love  refuses  me, 

In  death  and  shame  my  partner  she  shall  be. 
Beat,  {kneeling).   Stay,  hear  me  once  for  all  :  I  make  thee  master 

Of^ll  the  wealth  I  have  in  gold  and  jewels  ; 

Let  me  go  p(K)r  unto  my  bed  with  honour 

And  I  am  rich  in  all  things. 
Ve  F.   Let  this  silence  thee  ; 

The  wealth  of  all  Valencia  shall  not  buy 

My  pleasure  fr<jm  me. 


'   Rather  than  hear.  -'  A  trisyllable,  as  in  strictness  it  ought  to  be. 

»   ="  claim." 

■•  This  omission  and   the  sultstitution  in  ihe  next  line  arc  <lue  to  Dyre,  ami 
may  In:  calJcd  lert'isima  emendatio. 


272  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

Can  you  weep  Fate  from  its  determined  purpose  ? 
So  soon  may  you  weep  me. 
Beat.   Vengeance  begins  ; 

Murder,  I  see,  is  followed  by  more  sins  : 
Was  my  creation  in  the  womb  so  curst 
It  must  engender  with  a  viper  first  ? 
De  F.  {j-aising  her).   Come,  rise  and  shroud  your  blushes  in  my  bosom, 
Silence  is  one  of  pleasure's  best  receipts. 
Thy  peace  is  wrought  for  ever  in  this  yielding. 
'Las,  how  the  turtle  pants  !   thou'lt  love  anon 
What  thou  so  fear'st  and  faint'st  to  venture  on." 

Two  other  remarkable  plays  of  Middleton's  fall  with  some 
differences  under  the  same  second  division  of  his  works. 
These  are  The  Witch  and  Women  Beware  Women.  Except 
for  the  inevitable  and  rather  attractive  comparison  with 
Macbeth,  The  Witch  is  hardly  interesting.  It  consists  of  three 
different  sets  of  scenes  most  inartistically  blended, — an  awkward 
and  ineffective  variation  on  the  story  of  Alboin,  Rosmunda  and 
the  skull  for  a  serious  main  plot,  some  clumsy  and  rather 
unsavoury  comic  or  tragi-comic  interludes,  and  the  witch  scenes. 
The  two  first  are  very  nearly  worthless ;  the  third  is  intrinsically, 
though  far  below  Macbeth,  interesting  enough  and  indirectly  more 
interesting  because  of  the  questions  which  have  been  started,  as 
to  the  indebtedness  of  the  two  poets  to  each  other.  The  best 
opinion  seems  to  be  that  Shakespere  most  certainly  did  not  copy 
Middleton,  nor  (a  strange  fancy  of  some)  did  he  collaborate  with 
jNIiddleton,  and  that  the  most  probable  thing  is  that  both  borrowed 
their  names,  and  some  details  from  Reginald  Scot's  Discovery  of 
Witchcraft.  Womcfi  Beware  Women  on  the  other  hand  is  one 
of  Middleton's  finest  works,  inferior  only  to  The  Changeling  in 
parts,  and  far  superior  to  it  as  a  whole.  The  temptation  of  Bianca, 
the  newly-married  wife,  by  the  duke's  instrument,  a  cunning  and 
shameless  woman,  is  the  title -theme,  and  in  this  part  again 
Middleton's  Shakesperian  verisimilitude  and  certainty  of  touch 
appear.  The  end  of  the  play  is  something  marred  by  a  slaughter 
more  wholesale  even  than  that  of  Hamlet,  and  by  no  means  so 


VI  r  WEBSTER  273 

well  justified.  Lastly,  A  Fair  Quarrel  must  be  mentioned,  because 
of  the  very  high  praise  which  it  has  received  from  Lamb  and  others. 
This  praise  has  been  directed  chiefly  to  the  situation  of  the 
quarrel  between  Captain  Ager  and  his  friend,  turning  on  a  question 
(the  point  of  family  honour),  finely  but  perhaps  a  little  tediously 
argued.  The  comic  scenes,  however,  which  are  probably  Rowley's, 
are  in  his  best  vein  of  bustling  swagger. 

I  have  said  that  Middleton,  as  it  seems  to  me,  has  not  been 
fully  estimated.      It  is  fortunately  impossible  to  say  the  same  of 
Webster,    and    the    reasons    of    the    difference    arc    instructive. 
Middleton's   great  fault   is   that   he   never   took   trouble   enough 
about  his  work.      A  little  trouble  would  have  made  The  Change- 
ling or  Women  Beware  Women,  or  even  The  Spanish  Gipsy,  worthy 
to  rank  with  all  but  Shakespere's  very  masterpieces.     Webster 
also  was  a  collaborator,  apparently  an  industrious  one ;   but  he 
never  seems  to  have  taken  his  work  lightly.      He  had,  moreover, 
that  incommunicable  gift  of  the  highest  poetry  in  scattered  phrases 
which,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  Middleton  had  not.      Next  to  nothing 
is  known  of  him.    He  may  have  been  parish  clerk  of  St.  Andrew's, 
Holborn  ;  but  the  authority  is  very  late,  and  the  commentators 
seemed  to  have  jumped  at  it  to  explain  Webster's  fancy  for  details 
of  death   and   burial  —  a   cause   and   effect  not   sufficiently  pro- 
portioned.     Mr.  Dyce  has  spent  much  trouble  in  proving  that  he 
could  not  have  been  the  author  of  some  Puritan  tracts  published 
a  full  generation  after  the  date  of  his  masterpieces.      Heywood 
tells  us  that  he  was  generally  called  "  Jack,"  a  not  uncommon 
thing  when  men  are  christened  John.      He  himself  has  left  us  a 
few  very  sententiously  worded  prefaces  which  do  not  argue  great 
critical   taste.       Wc   know  from   the   usual   sources   (Henslowe's 
1  >iaries)  that  he  was  a  working  furnisher  of  plays,  and  from  many 
rather  dubious  title-pages  we  suppose  or  know  some  of  the  plays 
he  worked  at.      Xor/hward  Ifo  f     Westward  I fo  !    ^nA  Sir  John 
Wyatt  arc  pieces  of  dramatic  journalism   in  which  he  seems  to 
have  helped  Dekkcr.     He  adapted,  with  additions,  ALarston's  ^fal- 
conlent,  which  is,  in  a  crude  way,  very  much  in  his  own  vein  ;  he 
n  r 


274  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 


contributed  (according  to  rather  late  authority)  some  charming 
scenes  (elegantly  extracted,  on  a  hint  of  Mr.  Gosse's,  by  a  recent 
editor)  to  A  Cure  for  a  Cuckold,  one  of  Rowley's  characteristic  and 
not  ungenial  botches  of  humour-comedy  ;  he  wrote  a  bad  pageant 
or  two,  and  some  miscellaneous  verses.  But  we  know  nothing 
of  his  life  or  death,  and  his  fame  rests  on  four  plays,  in  which 
no  other  writer  is  either  known  or  even  hinted  to  have  had  a 
hand,  and  which  are  in  different  ways  of  the  first  order  of  interest, 
if  not  invariably  of  the  first  order  of  merit.  These  are  The 
Duchess  of  Malfi,  The  White  £>evil,  The  DcviVs  Law  Case,  and 
Appius  and  Virginia. 

Of  Appius  and  Virginia  the  best  thing  to  be  said  is  to 
borrow  Sainte-Beuve's  happy  description  of  Moliere's  Do7i  Garde 
de  Navarre,  and  to  call  it  an  essai pale  et  noble.  Webster  is 
sometimes  very  close  to  Shakespere ;  but  to  read  Appius  and 
Virginia,  and  then  to  read  Julius  Ccesar  or  Coriolanus,  is  to 
appreciate,  in  perhaps  the  most  striking  wvay  possible,  the  uni- 
versality which  all  good  judges  from  Dryden  downwards  have 
recognised  in  the  prince  of  literature.  Webster,  though  he  was 
evidently  a  good  scholar,  and  even  makes  some  parade  of  scholar- 
ship, was  a  Romantic  to  the  core,  and  w^as  all  abroad  in  these 
classical  measures.  The  Devil's  Laiu  Case  sins  in  the  opposite 
way,  being  hopelessly  undigested,  destitute  of  any  central  interest, 
and,  despite  fine  passages,  a  mere  "  salmagundi."  There  remain 
the  two  famous  plays  of  The  White  Devil  or  Vittoria  Corombona 
and  The  Duchess  of  Afalfi — plays  which  were  rarely,  if  ever, 
acted  after  their  author's  days,  and  of  which  the  earlier  and,  to 
my  judgment,  better  was  not  a  success  even  then,  but  which 
the  judgment  of  three  generations  has  placed  at  the  very  head  of 
all  their  class,  and  which  contain  magnificent  poetry. 

I  have  said  that  in  my  judgment  The  White  Detnl  is  the  better 
of  the  two ;  I  shall  add  that  it  seems  to  me  very  far  the  better. 
Webster's  plays  are  comparatively  well  known,  and  tliere  is  no 
space  here  to  tell  their  rather  intricate  arguments.  It  need  only 
be  said  that  the  contrast  of  the  two  is  striking  and  unmistakable  ; 


VII         .  WEBSTER 


275 


and  that  Webster  evidently  meant  in  the  one  to  indicate  the 
punishment  of  female  vice,  in  the  other  to  draw  pity  and  terror  by 
the  exhibition  of  the  unprevented  but  not  unavenged  sufferings 
of  female  virtue.  Certainly  both  are  excellent  subjects,  and  if 
the  latter  seem  the  harder,  we  have  Imogen  and  Bellafront  to 
show,  in  the  most  diverse  material,  and  with  the  most  diverse 
setting  possible,  how  genius  can  manage  it.  With  regard  to  The 
White  De-ii/,  it  has  been  suggested  with  some  plausibility  that 
it  wants  expansion.  Certainly  the  action  is  rather  crowded,  and 
the  recourse  to  dumb  show  (which,  however,  "Webster  again 
permitted  himself  in  The  Duchess)  looks  like  a  kind  of  shorthand 
indication  of  scenes  that  might  have  been  worked  out.  Even 
as  it  is,  however,  the  sequence  of  events  is  intelligible,  and 
the  presentation  of  character  is  complete.  Indeed,  if  there  is 
any  fault  to  find  with  it,  it  seems  to  me  that  Webster  has  sinned 
rather  by  too  much  detail  than  by  too  little.  We  could  spare 
several  of  the  minor  characters,  though  none  are  perhaps  quite 
so  otiose  as  Delio,  Julio,  and  others  in  The  Duchess  of  Malfi. 
We  feel  (or  at  least  I  feel)  that  Vittoria's  villainous  brother 
Flamineo  is  not  as  lago  and  Aaron  and  De  Flores  are  each  in 
his  way,  a  thoroughly  live  creature.  We  ask  ourselves  (or  I  ask 
myself)  what  is  the  good  of  the  repulsive  and  not  in  the  least 
effective  presentment  of  the  Moor  Zanche.  Cardinal  Monticelso 
is  incontinent  of  tongue  and  singularly  feeble  in  deed, — for  no 
rational  man  would,  after  describing  Vittoria  as  a  kind  of  pest  to 
mankind,  have  condemned  her  to  a  punishment  which  was 
apparently  little  more  than  residence  in  a  rather  disreputable 
but  by  no  means  constrained  boarding-house,  and  no  omnipotent 
pope  would  have  let  Ludivico  loose  with  a  clear  inkling  of  his 
murderous  designs.  I!ut  when  these  criticisms  and  others  are 
made,  The  White  Devil  remains  one  of  the  most  glorious  works 
of  the  period.  Vittoria  is  perfect  throughout ;  and  in  the  justly- 
lauded  trial  scene  she  has  no  superior  on  any  stage.  Brachiano 
is  a  thoroughly  life  like  i)ortrait  of  the  man  who  is  completely 
besotted  with  an  evil  woman.      I'liiniiieo  I  have   spuken   of,   and 


276  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  TERIOD  chap. 

not  favourably ;  yet  in  literature,  if  not  in  life,  he  is  a  triumph  ; 
and  above  all  the  absorbing  tragic  interest  of  the  play,  which  it 
is  impossible  to  take  up  without  finishing,  has  to  be  counted  'in. 
But  the  real  charm  of  The  White  Dei'ii  is  the  wholly  miraculous 
poetry  in  phrases  and  short  passages  which  it  contains.  Vittoria's 
dream  of  the  yew-tree,  almost  all  the  speeches  of  the  unfortunate 
Isabella,  and  most  of  her  rival's,  have  this  merit.  But  the  most 
wonderful  flashes  of  poetry  are  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  scoundrel 
Flamineo,  where  they  have  a  singular  effect.  The  famous  dirge 
which  Cornelia  sings  can  hardly  be  spoken  of  now,  except  in 
Lamb's  artfully  simple  phrase  "  I  never  saw  anything  like  it,"  and 
the  final  speeches  of  Flamineo  and  his  sister  deserve  the  same 
endorsement.  Nor  is  even  the  proud  farewell  of  the  Moor 
Zanche  unworthy.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  "  whirl  of 
spirits  "  (as  the  good  old-fashioned  phrase  has  it)  into  which  the 
reading  of  this  play  sets  the  reader,  except  by  saying  that  the 
cause  of  that  whirl  is  the  secret  of  the  best  Elizabethan  writers, 
and  that  it  is  nowhere,  out  of  Shakespere,  better  exemplified  than 
in  the  scene  partly  extracted  from  Middleton,  and  in  such  passages 
of  Vittoria  Corombona  as  the  following  : — 

Cor.    "  Will  you  make  me  such  a  fool  ?  here's  a  white  hand  : 
Can  blood  so  soon  be  wash'd  out  ?  let  me  see ; 
When  screech-owls  croak  upon  the  chimney-tops 
And  the  strange  cricket  i'  the  oven  sings  and  hops, 
When  yellow  spots  do  on  your  hands  appear, 
Be  certain  then  you  of  a  corse  shall  hear. 
Out  upon  't,  how  'tis  speckled  !  'h'as  handled  a  toad,  sure. 
Cowslip-water  is  good  for  the  memory  : 
Pray,  buy  me  three  ounces  of  't. 
Flam.    I  would  I  were  from  hence. 
Cor.    Do  you  hear,  sir  ? 

I'll  give  you  a  saying  which  my  grand-mother 
Was  wont,  when  she  heard  the  bell  toll,  to  sing  o'er 
Unto  her  lute. 
Flatn.    Do,  an'  you  will,  do. 
Cor.    '  Call  for  the  robin-red-breast  and  the  wren, 

[Cornelia  doth  I  his  in  several  forms  of  distraction. 


vri  WEBSTER  277 

Since  o'er  shady  groves  they  hover, 

And  with  leaves  and  flowers  do  cover 

The  friendless  bodies  of  unburied  n>tn. 

Call  unto  his  funeral  dole 

The  ant,  the  field  mouse,  and  the  mole. 

To  rear  him  hillocks  that  shall  keep  him  warm 

And  (when  gay  tombs  are  robb'd)  sustain  no  harm, 

But  keep  the  wolf  far  thence,  that's  foe  to  men, 

For  with  his  nails  he'll  dig  them  up  again.' 

They  would  not  bury  him  'cause  he  died  in  a  (juaircl ; 

But  I  have  an  answer  for  them  : 

'  Let  holy  Church  receive  him  duly 

Since  he  paid  the  church-tithes  truly. ' 

His  wealth  is  summ'd,  and  this  is  all  his  store. 

This  jioor  mert  get,  and  great  men  get  no  more. 

Now  the  wares  are  gone,  we  may  shut  up  shop. 

Bless  you,  all  good  people. 

[Exeiml  Cornelia,  Zanchk,  a;/./ Ladies. 

Flam.    I  have  a  strange  thing  in  me,  to  the  which 
I  cannot  give  a  name,  without  it  be 
Compassion.     I  pray,  leave  me. 

[Exit  Fran'cisco  de  Meuicis. 

This  night  I'll  know  the  utmost  of  my  fate  ; 
I'll  be  resolved  what  my  rich  sister  means 
To  assign  me  for  my  service.     I  have  livM 
Riotously  ill,  like  some  that  live  in  court, 
And  sometimes  when  my  face  was  full  of  smiles 
Have  fell  the  maze  of  conscience  in  my  breast. 
Oft  gay  and  honoured  robes  those  tortures  try  : 
We  think  cag'd  birds  sing  when  indeed  they  cry. 

I'.itler  Brachiano  s  ghost,  in  his  leather  cassock  and  breeches,  and  hoots  ;  'with 
a  cowl ;  in  his  hand  a  pot  of  lily  Jlowers,  with  a  skull  in't. 

Ha  I  I  can  stand  thee  :  nearer,  nearer  it. 

What  a  mockery  hath  death  made  thee  !  thou  look'st  sad. 

In  what  j)lacc  art  thou?  in  yon  starry  gallery? 

Or  in  the  cursid  dungeon? — No?  not  speak? 

Pray,  sir,  resolve  me,  what  religion's  best 

For  a  man  to  die  in  ?  or  is  it  in  your  knowledge 

To  answer  me  h<jw  long  I  have  to  live  ? 

That's  the  most  necessary  question. 

Not  answer  ?  arc  you  still  like  some  great  men 


278  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

That  only  walk  like  shadows  up  and  down, 
And  to  no  purpose  ?     Say  : — 

\The  Ghost  throws  earth  upon  him  and  shows  him  the  skull. 
What's  that  ?     O,  fatal  !  he  throws  earth  upon  me  ! 
A  dead  man's  skull  beneath  the  roots  of  flowers  ! — 
I  pray  [you],  speak,  sir  :  our  Italian  Church-men 
Make  us  believe  dead  men  hold  conference 
With  their  familiars,  and  many  times 
Will  come  to  bed  to  them,  and  eat  with  them. 

[Exit  Ghost. 
He's  gone  ;  and  see,  the  skull  and  earth  are  vanished. 
This  is  beyond  melancholy.      I  do  dare  my  fate 
To  do  its  worst.      Now  to  my  sister's  lodging 
And  sum  up  all  these  horrors  :  the  disgrace 
The  prince  threw  on  me ;  next  the  piteous  sight 
Of  my  dead  brother ;  and  my  mother's  dotage  ; 
And  last  this  terrible  vision  :  all  these 
Shall  with  Vittoria's  bounty  turn  to  good, 
Or  I  will  drown  this  weapon  in  her  blood." 

[Exit. 

The  Duchess  of  Malfi  is  to  my  thinking  very  inferior — full  of 
beauties  as  it  is.  In  the  first  place,  we  cannot  sympathise  with 
the  duchess,  despite  her  misfortunes,  as  we  do  with  the  "  White 
Devil."  She  is  neither  quite  a  virtuous  woman  (for  in  that  case 
she  would  not  have  resorted  to  so  much  concealment)  nor  a  frank 
professor  of  "All  for  Love."  Antonio,  her  so-called  husband, 
is  an  unromantic  and  even  questionable  figure.  Many  of  the  minor 
characters,  as  already  hinted,  would  be  much  better  away.  Of 
the  two  brothers  the  Cardinal  is  a  cold-blooded  and  uninteresting 
debauchee  and  murderer,  who  sacrifices  sisters  and  mistresses 
without  any  reasonable  excuse.  Ferdinand,  the  other,  is  no  doubt 
mad  enough,  but  not  interestingly  mad,  and  no  attempt  is  made 
to  account  in  any  way  satisfactorily  for  the  delay  of  his  vengeance. 
By  common  consent,  even  of  the  greatest  admirers  of  the  play, 
the  fifth  act  is  a  kind  of  gratuitous  appendix  of  horrors  stuck  on 
without  art  or  reason.  But  the  extraordinary  force  and  beauty 
of  the  scene  where  the  duchess  is  murdered ;  the  touches  of 
poetry,  pure  and  simple,  which,  as  in  the   The  White  Devil.,  are 


VI!  WEBSTER  i70 

scattered  all  over  the  play  :  the  fantastic  accumulation  of  terrors 
before  the  climax  ;  and  the  remarkable  character  of  Bosola, — justify 
the  high  place  generally  assigned  to  the  work.  True,  Bosola 
wants  the  last  touches,  the  touches  which  Shakespere  would 
have  given.  He  is  not  wholly  conceivable  as  he  is.  But  as  a 
"  Plain  Dealer  "  gone  wrong,  a  "  Malcontent  ■'  (Webster's  work 
on  that  play  very  likely  suggested  him),  turned  villain,  a  man 
whom  ill-luck  and  fruitless  following  of  courts  have  changed  from 
a  cynic  to  a  scoundrel,  he  is  a  strangely  original  and  successful 
study.  The  dramatic  flashes  in  the  play  would  of  themselves 
save  it.  "  I  am  Uuchess  of  Malfi  still,"  anil  the  other  famous 
one  "  Cover  her  face ;  mine  eyes  dazzle ;  she  died  young," 
often  as  they  have  been  quoted,  can  only  be  quoted  again. 
They  are  of  the  first  order  of  their  kind,  and,  except  the 
"already  ?iiy  De  Flores  ! "  of  T/ie  Changi-ling,  there  is  nothing 
in  the  Elizabethan  drama  out  of  Shakespere  to  match  them. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  some  harm  has  been  done  to  Thomas 
Heywood  by  the  enthusiastic  phrase  in  which  Lamb  described 
him  as  "a  prose  Shakespere."  The  phrase  itself  is  in  the 
original  quite  carefully  and  sufficiently  explained  and  qualified. 
But  unluckily  a  telling  description  of  the  kind  is  sure  to  go  far, 
while  its  qualifications  remain  behind  ;  and  (especially  since  a 
reprint  by  Pearson  in  the  year  1874  made  the  plays  of  Heywood, 
to  which  one  or  two  have  since  been  added  more  or  less  con- 
jecturally  by  the  industry  of  Mr.  Bullen,  accessible  as  a  whole) 
a  certain  revolt  has  been  manifested  against  the  encomium.  This 
revolt  is  the  effect  of  haste.  "  A  prose  Shakespere  "  suggests  to 
incautious  readers  something  like  Swift,  like  Taylor,  like  Carlyle, 
— something  approaching  in  prose  the  supremacy  of  Shakespere 
in  verse.  ]5ut  obviously  that  is  not  what  Lamb  meant.  Indeed 
when  one  remembers  that  if  Shakespere  is  anything,  he  is  a  poet, 
the  phrase  may  run  the  risk  of  receiving  an  under — not  an  over — 
valuation.  It  is  evident,  however,  to  any  one  who  reads  Lamb's 
remarks  in  full  and  carefully — it  is  still  more  evident  to  any  one 
who  witlifHit  much  curing  what  Lamb  or  any  one  ebie  has  said, 


2^0  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

reads  Heywood  for  himself — what  he  did  mean.  He  was  looking 
only  at  one  or  two  sides  of  the  myriad-sided  one,  and  he  justly 
saw  that  Heywood  touched  Shakespere  on  these  sides,  if  only  in 
an  incomplete  and  unpoetic  manner.  What  Heywood  has  in 
common  with  Shakespere,  though  his  prosaic  rather  than  poetic 
treatment  brings  it  out  in  a  much  less  brilliant  way,  is  his  sym- 
pathy with  ordinary  and  domestic  character,  his  aversion  from  the 
fantastic  vices  which  many  of  his  fellows  were  prone  to  attribute 
to  their  characters,  his  humanity,  his  kindness.  The  reckless 
tragedy  of  blood  and  massacre,-the  reckless  comedy  of  revelry  and 
intrigue,  were  always  repulsive  to  him,  as  far  as  we  can  judge 
from  the  comparatively  scanty  remnant  of  the  hundreds  of  plays  in 
which  he  boasted  that  he  had  had  a  hand,  if  not  a  chief  hand. 
Besides  these  plays  (he  confesses  to  authorship  or  collaboration 
in  two  hundred  and  twenty)  he  was  a  voluminous  writer  in  prose 
and  verse,  though  I  do  not  myself  pretend  to  much  knowledge  of 
his  non-dramatic  work.  Its  most  interesting  part  would  have 
been  a  Lives  of  the  Poets,  which  we  know  that  he  intended, 
and  which  could  hardly  have  failed  to  give  much  information 
about  his  famous  contemporaries.  As  it  is,  his  most  remarkable 
and  best-known  work,  not  contained  in  one  of  his  dramas,  is  the 
curious  and  constantly  quoted  passage  half  complaining  that  all 
the  chief  dramatists  of  his  day  were  known  by  abbreviations  of 
their  names,  but  characteristically  and  good-humouredly  ending 
with  the  license — 

"  I  hold  he  loves  me  best  who  calls  me  Tom." 

We  have  unfortunately  no  knowledge  which  enables  us  to  call 
him  many  names  except  such  as  are  derived  from  critical  exam- 
ination of  his  works.  Little,  except  that  he  is  said  to  have  been  a 
Lincolnshire  man  and  a  Fellow  of  Peterhouse,  is  known  of  his 
history.  His  masterpiece.  The  Woman  killed  ivith  Kifidness 
(in  which  a  deceived  husband,  coming  to  the  knowledge  of 
his  shame,  drives  his  rival  to  repentance,  and  his  wife  to  re- 
pentance and  death,  by   his  charity),  is  not  wholly  admirable. 


VII  HEYWOOD  2S1 

Shakespcre  would  have  felt,  more  fully  tlian  Heywood,  the 
danger  of  presenting  his  hero  as  something  of  a  wittol  without 
sutticient  passion  of  religion  or  affection  to  justify  his  tolerance. 
But  the  pathos  is  so  great,  the  sense  of  "  the  pity  of  it  "  is  so 
simply  and  unaffectedly  rendered,  that  it  is  impossible  not  to 
rank  Heywood  very  high.  The  most  famous  "  beauties  "  arc  in 
the  following  passage  : — 

Annf.    "  O  with  what  face  of  brass,  what  brow  of  steel, 
Can  you  unblushing  speak  this  to  the  face 
Of  the  espoused  wife  of  so  dear  a  friend  ? 
.  It  is  my  husband  that  maintains  your  state, 
Will  you  dishonour  him  that  in  your  power 
Hath  left  his  whole  affairs?     I  am  his  wife. 
Is  it  to  me  you  speak  ? 

Wendoll.  "  O  speak  no  more  : 

For  more  than  this  I  know  and  have  recorded 

Within  the  red-leaved  table  of  my  heart. 

Fair  and  of  all  beloved,  I  was  not  fearful 

Bluntly  to  give  my  life  unto  your  hand, 

And  at  one  hazard  all  my  worldly  means. 

Go,  tell  your  husband  ;  he  will  turn  me  off 

And  I  am  then  undone  :  I  care  not,  I, 

'Twas  for  your  sake.     Perchance  in  rage  he'll  kill  me  ; 

I  care  not,  'twas  for  you.     Say  I  incur 

The  general  name  of  villain  through  the  world, 

Of  traitor  to  my  friend.      I  care  not,  I. 

Beggary,  shame,  death,  scandal  and  reproach 

For  you  I'll  hazard  all — why,  what  care  I  ? 

Foi  you  I'll  live  and  in  y(nir  love  I'll  die." 

Anne  capitulates  with  a  suddenness  whi(  h  has  been  generally 
and  rightly  pronounced  a  blot  on  the  play  ;  but  her  husband  is 
informed  by  a  servant  and  resolves  to  discover  the  pair.  Tlie 
action  is  prolonged  somewhat  too  much,  and  the  somewhat 
unmanly  strain  of  weakness  in  Frankford  is  too  perceptible ;  but 
these  scenes  are  full  of  fine  jtassages,  as  this  : — 

1  r.    "  A  general  silence  hath  surprised  the  house, 
And  tills  is  the  last  dtxjr.      Astonishment, 


282  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

Fear  and  amazement  beat  ■•  upon  my  heart 

Even  as  a  madman  beats  upon  a  drum. 

O  keep  my  eyes,  you  heavens,  before  I  enter, 

From  any  sight  that  may  transfix  my  soul  : 

Or  if  there  be  so  black  a  spectacle, 

O  strike  mine  eyes  stark  blind  !     Or  if  not  so, 

Lend  me  such  patience  to  digest  my  grief 

That  I  may  keep  this  Vi^hite  and  virgin  hand 

From  any  violent  outrage,  or  red  murder, 

And  with  that  prayer  I  enter." 

A  subsequent  speech  of  his — 

"O  God,  O  God  that  it  were  possible 
To  undo  things  done," 

hardly  comes  short  of  the  touch  which  would  have  given  us 
instead  of  a  prose  Shakespere  a  Shakespere  indeed ;  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  play,  as  far  as  the  main  plot  is  concerned,  is  full  of 
pathos. 

In  the  great  number  of  other  pieces  attributed  to  him,  written 
in  all  the  popular  styles,  except  the  two  above  referred  to,  merits 
and  defects  are  mixed  up  in  a  very  curious  fashion.  Never 
sinking  to  the  lowest  depth  of  the  Elizabethan  playwright,  in- 
cluding some  great  ones,  Heywood  never  rises  to  anything  like 
the  highest  height.  His  chronicle  plays  are  very  weak,  showing 
no  grasp  of  heroic  character,  and  a  most  lamentable  slovenliness 
of  rhythm.  Few  things  are  more  curious  than  to  contrast  with 
Henry  VI.  (to  which  some  critics  will  allow  little  of  Shakespere's 
work)  and  Richard  III.  the  two  parts  of  Edward  IK,  in  which 
Heywood,  after  a  manner,  fills  the  gap.  There  are  good  lines 
here  and  there,  and  touching  traits ;  but  the  whole,  as  a 
whole,  is  quite  ludicrously  bad,  and  "written  to  the  gallery," 
the  City  gallery,  in  the  most  innocent  fashion.  If  Yon  Know 
Not  Me  You  Knozv  Nobody,  or  The  Troubles  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
also  in  two  parts,  has  the  same  curious  innocence,  the  same 
prosaic   character,   but   hardly  as   many  redeeming   flashes.      Its 

^  First  ed.  "  Play,"  which  I  am  half  inclined  to  prefer. 


VII  IIEVWOOD  283 

first  part  deals  with  Elizabeth's  real  "  troubles,"  in  her  sister's 
days ;  its  second  with  the  Armada  period  ami  the  founding  of 
the  Royal  Exchange.  For  Heywood,  unlike  most  of  the  dra- 
matists, was  always  true  to  the  City,  even  to  the  eccentric  extent 
of  making,  in  The  Four  Prentices  of  London,  Godfrey  of  Bouillon 
and  his  brethren  members  of  the  prentice -brotherhood.  His 
classical  and  allegorical  pieces,  such  as  The  Golden  Age  and  its 
fellows,  are  most  tedious  and  not  at  all  brief.  The  four  of 
them  {The  Iron  Age  has  two  parts)  occupy  a  whole  volume  of 
the  reprint,  or  more  than  four  hundred  closely  printed  pages ; 
and  their  clumsy  dramatisation  of  Ovid's  Metamoi-phoses,  with 
any  other  classical  learning  that  Heywood  could  think  of  thrust 
in,  presents  (together  with  various  minor  pieces  of  a  some- 
what similar  kind)  as  striking  a  contrast  with  Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida,  as  Edward  IT.  does  with  Henry  VI.  His  spectacles  and 
pageants,  chiefly  in  honour  of  London  [Londoji's  Jus  Honorarium, 
with  other  metaphorical  Latin  titles  of  the  same  description) 
are  heavy,  the  weakness  of  his  versification  being  especially 
felt  in  such  pieces.  His  .strength  lies  in  the  domestic  and  con- 
temporary drama,  where  his  pathos  had  free  play,  unrestrained  by 
the  necessity  of  trying  to  make  it  rise  to  chivalrous  or  heroic 
height,  and  where  his  keen  observation  of  his  fellow-men  made  him 
true  to  mankind  in  general,  at  the  same  time  that  he  gave  a  vivid 
picture  of  contemporary  manners.  Of  this  class  of  his  plays  A 
lVo)nan  killed  with  Kindness  is  undoubtedly  the  chief,  but  it  has 
not  a  few  companions,  and  those  in  a  sufficiently  wide  and  varied 
class  of  subject.  The  Fair  Maid  of  the  Exchange  is,  perhaps, 
not  now  found  to  be  so  very  delectable  and  full  of  mirth  as  it  is 
asserted  to  be  on  its  title-page,  because  it  is  full  of  that  improb- 
ability and  neglect  of  verisimilitude  which  has  been  noted  as  the 
curse  of  the  minor  Elizabethan  drama.  The  "Crijjple  of  Fen- 
church,"  the  real  hero  of  the  piece,  is  a  very  unlikely  cripple  ; 
the  heroines  chop  and  change  their  affections  in  the  most  sur- 
prising manner;  and  the  characters  generally  indulge  in  that  curi- 
ous self-des(  ription  and  solilocjuising  in  dialogue  which  is  never 


284  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  char 

found  in  Shakespere,  and  is  found  everywhere  else.  But  it  is 
still  a  lively  picture  of  contemporary  manners.  We  should  be 
sorry  to  lose  The  Fair  Maid  of  the  West  with  its  picture  of 
Devonshire  sailors,  foreign  merchants,  kings  of  Fez,  Bashaws  of 
various  parts,  Italian  dukes,  and  what  not.  The  two  parts  make 
anything  but  a  good  play,  but  they  are  decidedly  interesting, 
and  their  tone  supports  Mr.  Bullen's  conjecture  that  we  owe  to 
Heywood  the,  in  parts,  admirable  play  of  Diclz  of  Devonshire,  a 
dramatisation  of  the  quarter- staff  feats  in  Spain  of  Richard 
Peake  of  Tavistock.  The  Etiglish  Tra%'eller  may  rank  with  A 
IVoman  hilled  with  Kindness  as  Heywood's  best  plays  (there  is, 
indeed,  a  certain  community  of  subject  between  them),  but  A 
Maidenhead  well  Lost,  and  77^1?  Witches  of  Lancashire,  are  not 
far  behind  it ;  nor  is  A  Challenge  for  Beauty.  We  can  hardly 
say  so  much  for  Love's  Mistress,  which  dramatises  the  story  of 
Cupid  and  Psyche,  or  for  The  Wise  Woman  of  LLogsdon  (Hoxton), 
a  play  rather  of  Middleton's  type.  But  in  The  Royal  King  and 
Loyal  Subject,  and  in  Fortwie  by  Land  and  Sea,  the  author  shows 
again  the  sympathy  with  chivalrous  character  and  adventure  which 
(if  he  never  can  be  said  to  be  fully  up  to  its  level  in  the  matter  of 
poetic  expression)  was  evidently  a  favourite  and  constant  motive 
with  him.  In  short,  Heywood,  even  at  his  worst,  is  a  writer 
whom  it  is  impossible  not  to  like.  His  very  considerable  talent, 
though  it  stopped  short  of  genius,  was  united  with  a  pleasant  and 
genial  temper,  and  little  as  we  know  of  his  life,  his  dedications 
and  prefaces  make  us  better  acquainted  with  his  personality  than 
we  are  with  that  of  much  more  famous  men. 

No  greater  contrast  is  possible  than  that  between  our  last  two 
names — Day  and  Tourneur.  Little  is  known  of  them :  Day  was 
at  Cambridge  in  1592-3  ;  Tourneur  shared  in  the  Cadiz  voyage  of 
1625  and  died  on  its  return.  Both,  it  is  pretty  certain,  were  young 
men  at  the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  and  were  influenced  strongly 
by  the  literary  fashions  set  by  greater  men  than  themselves.  But 
whereas  Day  took  to  the  graceful  fantasticalities  of  Lyly  and  to 
the  not  very  savage  social  satire  of  Greene,  Tourneur  (or  Turner) 


VII  TOURNEUR  285 

addressed  himself  to  the  most  ferocious  school  of  sub-Marlovian 
tragedy,  and  to  the  rugged  and  almost  unintelligible  satire  of 
Marston.  Something  has  been  said  of  his  effort  in  the  latter  vein, 
the  Transformed  Mdamorphosis.  His  two  tragedies,  TJie  Athcisfs 
Tragedy  and  The  Revenger  s  Tragedy,  have  been  rather  variously 
judged.  The  concentration  of  gloomy  and  almost  insane  vigour 
in  The  Rrt'engers  Tragedy,  the  splendid  poetr)'  of  a  few  passages 
which  have  long  ago  found  a  home  in  the  extract  books,  and  the 
less  separable  but  equally  distinct  poetic  value  of  scattered  lines 
and  phrases,  cannot  escape  any  competent  reader.  But,  at 
the  same  time,  I  find  it  almost  impossible  to  say  anything 
tor  either  play  as  a  whole,  and  here  only  I  come  a  long  way 
behind  Mr.  Swinburne  in  his  admiration  of  our  dramatists. 
The  Atheist's  Tragedy  is  an  inextricable  imbroglio  of  tragic 
and  comic  scenes  and  characters,  in  which  it  is  hardly  possible 
to  see  or  follow  any  clue  ;  while  the  low  extravagance  of  all 
the  comedy  and  the  frantic  rant  of  not  a  little  of  the  tragedy 
combine  to  stifle  the  real  pathos  of  some  of  the  characters.  The 
Rex'engers  Tragedy  is  on  a  distinctly  higher  level ;  the  determi- 
nation of  Vindice  to  revenge  his  wrongs,  and  the  noble  and  hap- 
less figure  of  Castiza,  could  not  have  been  presented  as  they  are 
presented  except  by  a  man  with  a  distinct  strain  of  genius,  both 
in  conception  and  execution.  But  the  effect,  as  a  whole,  is 
marred  by  a  profusion  of  almost  all  the  worst  faults  of  the  drama 
of  the  whole  period  from  Beele  to  Davenant.  The  incoherence 
and  improbability  of  the  action,  the  reckless,  inartistic,  butcherly 
prodigality  of  blood  and  horrors,  and  the  absence  of  any  kind  of 
redeeming  interest  of  contrasting  light  to  all  the  shade,  though 
very  characteristic  of  a  class,  and  that  no  small  one,  of  Eliza- 
bethan drama,  cannot  be  said  to  be  otherwise  than  characteristic 
of  its  faults.  As  the  best  example  (others  are  The  Insatiate 
Countess,  Chettle's  Jfoffniann,  Lust's  Dominion,  and  the  singular 
production  which  .Mr.  Bullen  has  jjrintcd  as  J'he  J)istracted 
Emperor)  it  is  very  well  W(jrth  reading,  and  contrasting  with 
the   really   great  plays   of  the   same   cla.ss,    such   as   The  Jew  of 


286  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

Malta  and  Titus  Andromciis,  where,  though  the  horrors  are  still 
overdone,  yet  genius  has  given  them  a  kind  of  passport.  But 
intrinsically  it  is  mere  nightmare. 

Of  a  very  different  temper  and  complexion  is  the  work  of 
John  Day,  who  may  have  been  a  Cambridge  graduate,  and  was 
certainly  a  student  of  Gonville  and  Caius,  as  he  describes  him- 
self on  the  title-page  of  some  of  his  plays  and  of  a  prose 
tract  printed  by  Mr.  Bullen.  He  appears  to  have  been  dead 
in  1640,  and  the  chief  thing  positively  known  about  him  is  that 
between  the  beginning  of  1598  and  1608  he  collaborated  in 
the  surprising  number  of  twenty-one  plays  (all  but  The  Blhid 
Beggar  of  Bcttmal  Green  unprinted)  with  Haughton,  Chettle, 
Dekker,  and  others.  The  Parliament  of  Bees,  his  most  famous 
and  last  printed  work,  is  of  a  very  uncommon  kind  in  English 
— being  a  sort  of  dramatic  allegory,  touched  with  a  singularly 
graceful  and  fanciful  spirit.  It  is  indeed  rather  a  masque  than 
a  play,  and  consists,  after  the  opening  Parliament  held  by  the 
Master,  or  Viceroy  Bee  (quaintly  appearing  in  the  original,  which 
may  have  been  printed  in  1607,  though  no  copy  seems  now  dis- 
coverable earlier  than  1641,  as  "Mr.  Bee"),  of  a  series  of 
characters  or  sketches  of  Bee-vices  and  virtues,  which  are  very 
human.  The  termination,  which  contains  much  the  best  poetry 
in  the  piece,  and  much  the  best  that  Day  ever  wrote,  introduces 
King  Oberon  giving  judgment  on  the  Bees  from  "  Mr.  Bee  "  down- 
wards and  banishing  offenders.  Here  occurs  the  often-quoted 
passage,  beginning  — 

"  And  wliither  must  these  flies  be  sent  ?  " 

and  including  the  fine  speech  of  Oberon — 

"  You  should  have  cried  so  in  your  youth." 

It  should  be  observed  that  both  in  this  play  and  elsewhere 
passages  occur  in  Day  which  seem  to  have  been  borrowed  or 
stolen  from  or  by  other  writers,  such  as  Dekker  and  Samuel 
Rowley ;  but  a  charitable  and  not  improbable  explanation  of  this 
has  been  found  in  the  known  fact  of  his  extensive  and  intricate 


VII  DAY  2S7 

collaboration.  The  Isle  of  Gulls,  suggested  in  ;i  way  by  the 
Arcadia,  though  in  general  plan  also  fantastic  and,  to  use  a 
much  abused  but  decidedly  convenient  word,  pastoral,  has  a 
certain  flavour  of  the  comedy  of  manners  and  of  contemporary 
satire.  Then  we  have  the  quaint  piece  of  Humour  out  of  Breath, 
a  kind  of  study  in  the  for  once  conjoined  schools  of  Shakespere 
and  Jonson — an  attempt  at  a  combination  of  humorous  and 
romantic  comedy  with  some  pathetic  writing,  as  here  : — 

"  [O]  Early  sorrow  art  got  up  so  soon  ? 
What,  ere  the  sun  ascenJeth  in  the  east  ? 
O  what  an  early  waker  art  thou  grown  ! 
But  cease  discourse  and  close  unto  thy  work. 
Unilcr  this  drooping  myrtle  will  I  sit, 
And  work  awhile  upon  my  corded  net ; 
And  as  I  work,  record  my  sorrows  past, 
Asking  old  Time  how  long  my  woes  shall  last. 
And  first — but  stay  I  alas  1  what  do  I  see  ? 
Moist  gum-like  tears  drop  from  this  mournful  tree  ; 
And  see,  it  sticks  like  birdlime  ;  'twill  not  part, 
Sorrow  is  even  such  birdlime  at  my  heart. 
Alas  !  poor  tree,  dost  thou  want  company  ? 
Thou  dost,  I  see't,  and  I  will  weep  with  thee ; 
Thy  sorrows  make  me  dumb,  and  so  shall  mine, 
It  shall  be  tongueless,  and  so  seem  like  thine. 
Thus  will  I  rest  my  head  unto  thy  bark. 
Whilst  my  sighs  ease  my  sorrows." 

Something  the  same  may  be  said  of  Laiv  Tricks,  or  IVIio  ^wuld 
have  Thought  it?  which  has,  however,  in  the  character  of  the 
Count  Horatio,  a  touch  of  tragedy.  Another  piece  of  Day's  is 
in  quite  a  different  vein,  being  an  account  in  dramatised  form 
of  the  adventures  of  the  three  brothers  Shirley — a  kind  of  play 
which,  from  Sir  Thomas  Stukeley  downwards,  appears  to  have 
been  a  ver}'  favourite  one  with  I'^lizabethan  audiences,  though 
(as  might  indeed  be  expected)  it  was  seldom  executed  in  a  very 
successful  manner.  I^istly,  or  first,  if  ( hronological  order  is 
taken,  comes  The  Jiliud  /'V.CC'/r  of  Jiethiial  Green,  written  by 
Day  in  conjunction  with  Chellle,  and  ranging  itself  with  the  half 


28S  THE  THIRD  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap,  vii 

historical,  half  romantic  plays  which  were,  as  has  been  pointed 
out  above,  favourites  with  the  first  school  of  dramatists.  It 
seems  to  have  been  very  popular,  and  had  a  second  and  third 
part,  not  now  extant,  but  is  by  no  means  as  much  to  modern 
taste  as  some  of  the  others.  Indeed  both  Day  and  Tourneur, 
despite  the  dates  of  their  pieces,  which,  as  far  as  known,  are 
later,  belong  in  more  ways  than  one  to  the  early  school,  and 
show  how  its  traditions  survived  alongside  of  the  more  perfect 
work  of  the  greater  masters.  Day  himself  is  certainly  not  a 
great  master — indeed  masterpieces  would  have  been  impossible, 
if  they  would  not  have  been  superfluous,  in  the  brisk  purveying 
of  theatrical  matter  which,  from  Henslowe's  accounts,  we  see 
that  he  kept  up.  He  had  fancy,  a  good  deal  of  wit,  considerable 
versatility,  and  something  of  the  same  sunshiny  temper,  with  less 
of  the  pathos,  that  has  been  noticed  in  Heywood.  If  he  wrote 
The  Maicfs  Metamorphosis  (also  ascribed  conjecturally  to  Lyly), 
he  did  something  less  dramatically  good,  but  perhaps  poetically 
better,  than  his  other  work ;  and  if,  as  has  sometimes  been 
thought,^  The  Return  from  Parnassus  is  his,  he  is  richer  still. 
But  even  without  these,  his  existing  poetical  baggage  (the  least 
part  of  the  work  which  we  know  he  accomplished)  is  more  than 
respectable,  and  shows  more  perhaps  than  that  of  any  other 
distinctly  minor  writer  the  vast  amount  of  loose  talent  —  of  mis- 
cellaneous inspiration — which  was  afloat  in  the  air  of  his  time. 

'  I  agree  with  Professor  Hales  in  thinking  it  very  improbable. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

THE    SCHOOL    OF    SPENSER    AND    THE    TRIBE    OF    BEN 

The  reign  of  James  I.  is  not,  in  mere  poetry,  quite  such  a 
brilliant  period  as  it  is  in  drama.  The  full  influence  of  -Donne 
and  of  Jonson,  which  combined  to  produce  the  exquisite  if  not 
extraordinarily  strong  school  of  Caroline  poets,  did  not  work  in 
it.  Of  its  own  bards  the  best,  such  as  Jonson  himself  and  Dray- 
ton, were  survivals  of  the  Elizabethan  school,  and  have  accord- 
ingly been  anticipated  here.  Nevertheless,  there  were  not  a  few 
verse-writers  of  mark  who  may  be  most  conveniently  assigned  to 
this  time,  though,  as  was  the  case  with  so  man)-  of  their  contem- 
poraries, they  had  sometimes  produced  work  of  note  before  the 
accession  of  the  British  Solomon,  and  sometimes  continued  to 
produce  it  until  far  into  the  reign  of  his  son.  Especially  there 
are  some  of  much  mark  who  fall  to  be  noticed  here,  because 
their  work  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  of  the  schools  that  flourished 
under  Elizabeth,  or  of  the  schools  that  flourished  under  Charles. 
We  shall  not  fmd  anything  of  the  first  interest  in  them  ;  yet  in 
one  way  or  in  another  there  were  few  of  them  wlio  were  unworthy 
to  be  contemporaries  of  .Shakespere. 

Joshua  Sylvester  is  one  of  those  men  of  letters  whom  accident 
rather  than  property  seems  to  have  made  absurd.  He  has  existed 
in  English  literature  chiefly  as  an  Knglisher  of  the  Frenchman  Du 
I'artas,  whom  an  even  greater  ignorance  has  chosen  to  regard  as 
something  grotesfjue.  I  )u  l»artas  is  one  of  the  grandest,  if  also  one 
11  U 


290  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 

of  the  most  unequal,  poets  of  Europe,  and  Joshua  Sylvester,  his 
translator,  succeeded  in  keeping  some  of  his  grandeur  if  he  even 
added  to  his  inequality.  His  original  work  is  insignificant  compared 
with  his  translation ;  but  it  is  penetrated  with  the  same  qualities. 
He  seems  to  have  been  a  little  deficient  in  humour,  and  his  portrait 
— crowned  with  a  singularly  stiff  laurel,  throated  with  a  stiffer  ruff, 
and  clothed,  as  to  the  bust,  with  a  doublet  so  stiff  that  it  looks  like 
textile  armour — is  not  calculated  to  diminish  the  popular  ridicule. 
Yet  is  Sylvester  not  at  all  ridiculous.  He  was  certainly  a  Kent- 
ish man,  and  probably  the  son  of  a  London  clothier.  His  birth 
is  guessed,  on  good  grounds,  at  1563  ;  and  he  was  educated  at 
Southampton  under  the  famous  refugee,  Saravia,  to  whom  he 
owed  that  proficiency  in  French  which  made  or  helped  his  fame. 
He  did  not,  despite  his  wishes,  go  to  either  university,  and  was 
put  to  trade.  In  this  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  prosperous ; 
perhaps  he  gave  too  much  time  to  translation.  He  was  probably 
patronised  by  James,  and  by  Prince  Henry  certainly.  In  the 
last  years  of  his  life  he  was  resident  secretary  to  the  English  com- 
pany of  Merchant  Venturers  at  Middleburgh,  where  he  died  on 
the  28th  September  16 18.  He  was  not  a  fortunate  man,  but 
his  descendants  seem  to  have  flourished  both  in  England,  the 
West  Indies  and  America.  As  for  his  literary  work,  it  requires 
no  doubt  a  certain  amount  of  good  will  to  read  it.  It  is  volu- 
minous, even  in  the  original  part  not  very  original,  and  constantly 
marred  by  that  loquacity  which,  especially  in  times  of  great 
inspiration,  comes  upon  the  uninspired  or  not  very  strongly  in- 
spired. The  point  about  Sylvester,  as  about  so  many  others  of 
his  time,  is  that,  unlike  the  minor  poets  of  our  day  and  of  some 
others,  he  has  constant  flashes — constant  hardly  separable,  but 
quite  perceivable,  scraps,  which  show  how  genially  heated  the 
brain  of  the  nation  was.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  his  Du 
Bartas  had  a  great  effect  for  generations.  The  man  of  pure 
science  may  regret  that  generations  should  have  busied  them- 
selves about  anything  so  thoroughly  unscientific ;  but  with  that 
point  of  view  we  are  unconcerned.     The  important  thing  is  that 


VIII  SVLVKSTKR-DAVIKS  OF  HEREFORD  291 

the   generations    in   question    learnt   from    Sylvester    to    take    a 
poetical  interest  in  the  natural  world. 

John  Davies  of  Hereford,  who  must  have  been  born  at  about 
the  same  time  as  Sylvester,  and  who  certainly  died  in  the  same 
year,  is  another  curiosity  of  literature.  He  was  only  a  writing- 
master, — a  professor  of  the  curious,  elaborate  penmanship  which 
is  now  quite  dead, — and  he  seems  at  no  time  to  have  been  a  man 
of  wealth.  But  he  was,  in  his  vocation  or  otherwise,  familiar  with 
very  interesting  people,  both  of  the  fashionable  and  the  literary 
class.  He  succeeded,  poor  as  he  was,  in  getting  thrice  married 
to  ladies  born  ;  and,  though  he  seems  to  have  been  something  of 
a  coxcomb,  he  was  apparently  as  little  of  a  fool  as  coxcombry 
will  consist  with.  His  work  (of  the  most  miscellaneous  character 
and  wholly  in  verse,  though  in  subject  as  well  as  treatment  often 
better  suiting  prose)  is  voluminous,  and  he  might  have  been 
wholly  treated  (as  he  has  already  been  referred  to)  with  the  verse 
pamphleteers,  especially  Rowlands,  of  an  earlier  chapter.  But 
fluent  and  unequal  as  his  verse  is — obviously  the  production  of 
a  man  who  had  little  better  to  offer  than  journalism,  but  for 
whom  the  times  did  not  provide  the  opening  of  a  journalist — 
there  is  a  certain  salt  of  wit  in  it  which  puts  him  above  the  mere 
pamphleteers.  His  epigrams  (most  of  which  are  contained  in 
The  Scour^^e  of  Folly,  undated,  like  others  of  his  books)  are  by 
no  means  despicable ;  the  Welsh  ancestors,  whom  he  did  not 
fail  to  commemorate,  seem  to  have  endowed  him  with  some 
of  that  faculty  for  lampooning  and  "flyting"  which  distin- 
guished the  Celtic  race.  That  they  are  frequently  lacking  in 
point  ought  hardly  to  be  objected  to  him ;  for  the  age  had 
construed  the  miscellaneous  examples  of  Martial  indulgently, 
and  Jonson  in  his  own  generation,  and  Herri(  k  after  him  (two 
men  with  whom  Davies  cannot  compare  for  a  moment  in  general 
pr)wer),  arc  in  their  epigrams  frecjuently  as  pointless  and  a  good 
deal  coarser.  His  variations  on  English  proverbs  are  also  remark- 
able. He  had  a  respectable  vein  of  religious  moralising,  as  the 
following  sonnet  from   WiCs  J'ilj^rimai^e  will  show  : — 


292  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 

"  When  Will  doth  long  to  effect  her  own  desires, 
She  makes  the  Wit,  as  vassal  to  the  will, 
To  do  what  she,  howe'er  unright,  requires, 
Which  wit  doth,  though  repiningly,  fulfil. 
Yet,  as  well  pleased  (O  languishing  wit  !) 
He  seems  to  effect  her  pleasure  willingly, 
And  all  his  reasons  to  her  reach  doth  fit ; 
So  like  the  world,  gets  love  by  flattery. 
That  this  is  true  a  thousand  witnesses, 
Impartial  conscience,  will  directly  prove; 
Then  if  we  would  not  willingly  transgress. 
Our  will  should  swayed  be  by  rules  of  love, 
Which  holds  the  multitude  of  sins  because 
Her  sin  morally  to  him  his  servants  draws." 

The  defect  of  Davies,  as  of  not  a  few  of  his  contemporaries,  is 
that,  having  the  power  of  saying  things  rememberable  enough,  he 
set  himself  to  wrap  them  up  and  merge  them  in  vast  heaps  of 
things  altogether  unrememberable.  His  successors  have  too 
often  resembled  him  only  in  the  latter  part  of  his  gift. 
His  longer  works  {JSIirum  in  Modum,  Summa  Totalis,  Micro- 
costnus,  The  Holy  Rood,  Humours  Heaven  on  Earth,  are  some 
of  their  eccentric  titles)  might  move  simple  wonder  if  a 
century  which  has  welcomed  The  Course  of  Time,  and  Yesterday, 
To-day,  and  For  Ever,  not  to  mention  examples  even  more  recent 
than  these,  had  any  great  reason  to  throw  stones  at  its  fore- 
runners. But  to  deal  with  writers  like  Davies  is  a  little  difficult  in 
a  book  which  aims  both  at  being  nothing  if  not  critical,  and  at 
doing  justice  to  the  minor  as  well  as  to  the  major  luminaries  of 
the  time :  while  the  difficulty  is  complicated  by  the  necessity  of 
«^/ saying  ditto  to  the  invaluable  labourers  who  have  reintroduced 
him  and  others  like  him  to  readers.  I  am  myself  full  of  the 
most  unfeigned  gratitude  to  my  friend  Dr.  Grosart,  to  Professor 
Arber,  and  to  others,  for  sparing  students,  whose  time  is  the  least 
disposable  thing  they  have,  visits  to  public  libraries  or  begging  at 
rich  men's  doors  for  the  sight  of  books.  I  should  be  very  sorry 
both  as  a  student  and  as  a  lover   of  literature  not  to  possess 


viii  SIR  JOHN  DAVIES  293 

Davies,  Breton,  Sylvester,  Quarles,  and  the  rest,  and  not  to  read 
them  from  time  to  time.  But  I  cannot  help  warning  those  who 
are  not  professed  students  of  the  subject  that  in  such  writers  they 
have  little  good  to  seek ;  I  cannot  help  noting  the  difference 
between  them  and  other  writers  of  a  very  different  order,  and 
above  all  I  cannot  help  raising  a  mild  protest  against  the  en- 
comiums which  are  sometimes  passed  on  them.  Southey,  in  that 
nearly  best  of  modern  books  unclassified,  The  Doctor,  has  a  story 
of  a  glover  who  kept  no  gloves  that  were  not  "  Best."  But  when 
the  facts  came  to  be  narrowly  inquired  into,  it  was  found  that 
the  ingenious  tradesman  had  no  less  than  five  qualities — "  Best," 
"  Better  than  Best,''  "  Better  than  better  than  Best,"  "  Best  of 
All,"  and  the  "  Real  Best."  Such  Language  is  a  little  delusive, 
and  when  I  read  the  epithets  of  praise  which  are  sometimes 
lavished,  not  by  the  same  persons,  on  Breton  and  Watson,  I  ask 
myself  what  we  are  to  say  of  Spenser  and  Shakespere. 

Dayies  has  no  doubt  also  suffered  from  the  fact  that  he  had  a 
contemporary  of  the  same  name  and  surname,  who  was  not  only 
of  higher  rank,  but  of  considerably  greater  powers.  Sir  John 
Davies  was  a  Wiltshire  man  of  good  family  :  his  mother,  Mary 
Bennet  of  Pyt-house,  being  still  represented  by  the  Benett-Stan- 
fords  of  Dorsetshire  and  Brighton.  Born  about  1569,  he  was  a 
member  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  a  Templar  ;  but  appears 
to  have  been  anything  but  a  docile  youth,  so  that  both  at 
Oxford  and  the  Temple  he  came  to  blows  with  the  authorities. 
He  seems,  however,  to  have  gone  back  to  Oxford,  and  to  have 
resided  there  till  close  of  middle  life;  some  if  not  most  of  his 
poems  dating  thence.  He  entered  Parliament  in  1 601,  and  after 
figuring  in  the  Opposition  during  Elizabeth's  last  years,  was  taken 
into  favour,  like  others  in  similar  circumstances,  by  James.  Im- 
mediately after  the  latter's  accession  Davies  became  a  law  ofliccr 
for  Ireland,  and  did  good  and  not  unperilous  service  there.  He 
was  mainly  resident  in  Ireland  for  some  thirteert  years,  producing 
during  the  time  a  valuable  "  Discovery  of  the  Causes  of  tin-  Irish 
Discontent."      I'or  the  last  ten   years  of  his  life  he  seems  to  have 


294  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 

practised  as  serjeant-at-law  in  England,  frequently  serving  as 
judge  or  commissioner  of  assize,  and  he  died  in  1626.  His 
poetical  work  consists  chiefly  of  three  things,  all  written  before 
1600.  These  are  Nosce  Teipsut/i,  or  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  in  quatrains,  and  as  light  as  the  unsuitableness  of  the  subject 
to  verse  will  allow  ;  a  singularly  clever  collection  of  acrostics 
called  Asfraea,  all  making  the  name  of  Elizabetha  Regina ;  and 
the  Orchestra,  or  poem  on  dancing,  which  has  made  his  fame. 
Founded  as  it  is  on  a  mere  conceit — the  reduction  of  all  natural 
phenomena  to  a  grave  and  regulated  motion  which  the  author 
calls  dancing — it  is  one  of  the  very  best  poems  of  the  school  of 
Spenser,  and  in  harmony  of  metre  (the  seven-lined  stanza)  and 
grace  of  illustration  is  sometimes  not  too  far  behind  Spenser 
himself  An  extract  from  it  may  be  fitly  followed  by  one  of  the 
acrostics  of  Astraea  : — 

"  As  the  victorious  twins  of  Leda  and  Jove, 
(That  taught  the  Spartans  dancing  on  the  sands 
Of  swift  Eurotas)  dance  in  heaven  above, 
Knit  and  united  with  eternal  bands  ; 
Among  the  stars,  their  double  image  stands, 
Where  both  are  carried  with  an  equal  pace, 
Together  jumping  in  their  turning  race. 

"  This  is  the  net,  wherein  the  sun's  bright  eye, 
Venus  and  Mars  entangled  did  behold  ; 
For  in  this  dance,  their  arms  they  so  imply, 
As  each  doth  seem  the  other  to  enfold. 
What  if  lewd  wits  another  tale  have  told 
Of  jealous  Vulcan,  and  of  iron  chains  ! 
Yet  this  true  sense  that  forged  lie  contains. 

"  These  various  forms  of  dancing  Love  did  frame, 
And  besides  these,  a  hundred  millions  more  ; 
And  as  he  did  invent,  he  taught  the  same  : 
With  goodly  gesture,  and  with  comely  show. 
Now  keeping  state,  now  humbly  honouring  low. 
And  ever  for  the  persons  and  the  place 
He  taught  most  fit,  and  best  according  grace.'" 


viit  (;iLi:S  FLETCHER  295 

"  Each  day  of  thine,  sweet  month  of  May, 
Love  makes  a  solemn  Holy  Day. 
I  will  perform  like  duty  ; 
Since  thou  resemblest  every  way 
Astraea,  Queen  of  Beauty. 
l>oth  you,  fresh  beauties  do  partake, 
Either 's  aspect,  doth  summer  make, 
Thoughts  of  young  Love  awaking, 
I  learts  you  both  do  cause  to  ache  ; 
And  yet  be  pleased  with  aching. 
Right  dear  art  thou,  and  so  is  She, 
Even  like  attractive  sympathy 
Gains  unto  both,  like  dearness. 
I  ween  this  made  antiquity 
Name  thee,  sweet  May  of  majesty, 
As  being  both  hke  in  clearness." 

The  chief  direct  followers  of  Spenser  were,  however,  Giles 
and  Phineas  Fletcher,  and  William  Browne.  The  two  first 
were,  as  has  been  said,  the  cousins  of  John  Fletcher  the  dramatist, 
and  the  sOns  of  Dr.  Giles  Fletcher,  the  author  of  Licia.  The 
exact  dates  and  circumstances  of  their  lives  are  little  known. 
Both  were  probably  born  between  1580  and  1590.  Giles,  though 
the  younger  (?),  died  vicar  of  Alderton  in  Suffolk  in  1623  :  Phineas, 
the  elder  (?),  who  was  educated  at  Eton  and  King's  College, 
Cambridge  (Giles  was  a  member  of  Trinity  College  in  the  same 
university),  also  took  orders,  and  was  for  nearly  thirty  years 
incumbent  of  Hilgay-in-the-Fens,  dying  in  1650. 

Giles's  extant  work  is  a  poem  in  four  cantos  or  parts,  generally 
entitled  Christ's  Victory  and  Triumph.  He  chose  a  curious  and 
rather  infelicitous  variation  on  the  Spenserian  stanza  ahabbccc,  keep- 
ing the  Alexandrine  but  missing  the  seventh  line,  with  a  lyrical 
interlude  here  and  there.  The  whole  treatment  is  highly  allegori- 
cal, and  the  lusciousness  of-  Spenser  is  imitated  and  overdone. 
Nevertheless  the  versification  and  imagery  are  often  very  beauti- 
ful, as  samjiles  of  the  two  kinds  will  show  : — 

"  Tlic  garden  like  a  la<ly  fair  was  cut 
That  lay  as  if  she  slumbcr'd  in  delight, 


296  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 


And  to  the  open  skies  her  eyes  did  shut ; 

The  azure  fields  of  Heav'n  were  'sembled  right 

In  a  large  round,  set  with  the  flow'rs  of  light  : 

The  flow'rs-de-luce,  and  the  round  sparks  of  dew, 

That  hung  upon  their  azure  leaves  did  shew 

Like  twinkling  stars,  that  sparkle  in  the  evening  blue. 

•'  Upon  a  hilly  bank  her  head  she  cast. 
On  which  the  bower  of  Vain-delight  was  built, 
White  and  red  roses  for  her  face  were  placed, 
And  for  her  tresses  marigolds  were  spilt  : 
Them  broadly  she  displayed  like  flaming  gilt, 
Till  in  the  ocean  the  glad  day  were  drowned  : 
Then  up  again  her  yellow  locks  she  wound, 
And  with  green  fillets  in  their  pretty  cauls  them  bound. 

"What  should  I  here  depaint  her  lily  hand, 
Her  veins  of  violets,  her  ermine  breast. 
Which  there  in  orient  colours  living  stand  : 
Or  how  her  gown  with  living  leaves  is  drest, 
Or  how  her  watchman,  armed  with  boughy  crest, 
A  wall  of  prim  hid  in  his  bushes  bears 
Shaking  at  every  wind  their  leafy  spears 
While  she  supinely  sleeps,  nor  to  be  waked  fears." 


"  See,  see  the  flowers  that  below, 
Now  as  fresh  as  morning  blow, 
And  of  all  the  virgin  rose, 
That  as  bright  Aurora  shows  : 
How  they  all  unleaved  die, 
Losing  their  virginity ; 
Like  unto  a  sunmier  shade, 
But  now  born  and  now  they  fade. 
Everything  doth  pass  away, 
There  is  danger  in  delay. 
Come,  come  gather  then  the  rose, 
Gather  it,  or  it  you  lose. 
All  the  sand  of  Tagus'  shore 
Into  my  bosom  casts  his  ore  : 
All  the  valleys'  swimming  corn 
To  my  house  is  yearly  borne  : 
Every  grape  of  every  vine 
Is  gladly  bruis'd  to  make  me  wine, 


VIII 


PIIIXEAS  FLETCIIKR  297 


While  ten  thousand  kings,  as  proud, 
To  carry  up  my  train  ha%'e  bow'd, 
And  a  world  of  ladies  send  me 
In  my  chambers  to  attend  me. 
All  the  stars  in  Heaven  that  shine. 
And  ten  thousand  more,  are  mine  : 
Only  bend  thy  knee  to  me. 
Thy  wooing  shall  thy  winning  be." 

The  Purple  Island,  Phineas  Fletcher's  chief  work,  is  an  alle- 
gorical poem  of  the  htiman  body,  written  in  a  stanza  different  only 
from  that  of  C/irisfs  Victon>  in  being  of  seven  lines  only,  the 
quintett  of  Giles  being  cut  down  to  a  regular  elegiac  quatrain. 
This  is  still  far  below  the  Spenserian  stanza,  and  the  colour  is 
inferior  to  that  of  Giles.  Phineas  follows  Spenser's  manner, 
or  rather  his  mannerisms,  very  closely  indeed,  and  in  detached 
passages  not  unsuccessfully,  as  here,  where  the  transition  from 
Spenser  to  Milton  is  marked  : — 

"  The  early  morn  lets  out  the  peeping  day, 
And  strew'd  his  path  with  golden  marigolds  : 
The  Moon  grows  wan,  and  stars  fly  all  away. 
Whom  Lucifer  locks  up  in  wonted  folds 
Till  light  is  quench'il,  an<l  Heaven  in  seas  hath  flung 
The  headlong  day  :  to  th'  hill  the  shepherds  throng 
And  Thirsil  now  began  to  end  his  task  and  song  : 

"  '  Who  now,  alas  !  shall  teach  my  humble  vein, 
That  never  yet  durst  peep  from  covert  glade, 
But  softly  learnt  for  fear  to  sigh  and  plain 
And  vent  her  griefs  to  silent  myrtle's  shade? 
Who  now  shall  Icich  to  change  my  oaten  quill 
For  trumpet  Marnis,  or  hund)le  verses  fill 
With  graceful  majesty,  and  lofty  rising  skill  ? 

"  '  Ah,  thou  dread  Spirit  !  shed  thy  holy  fire, 
Thy  holy  flame,  into  my  frozen  heart  ; 
Teach  thou  my  creeping  measures  to  aspire 
.And  swell  in  bigger  notes,  ami  liigher  art  : 
Teach  my  low  Muse  thy  fierce  alarms  to  ring, 
.And  raise  my  soft  strain  to  high  thundering, 
Tune  thou  my  lofty  song  ;  thy  battles  must  I  sing. 


2q8  school  of  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 

"  '  Such  as  thou  wert  within  the  sacred  breast 
Of  that  thrice  famous  poet,  shepherd,  king  ; 
And  taught'st  his  heart  to  frame  his  cantos  best 
Of  all  that  e'er  thy  glorious  works  did  sing  ; 
Or  as,  those  holy  fishers  once  among, 
Thou  flamedst  bright  with  sparkling  parted  tongues  ; 
And  brought'st  down  Heaven  to  Earth  in  those  all-conquering  songs.'" 

But  where  both  fail  is  first  in  the  adjustment  of  the  harmony  of 
the  individual  stanza  as  a  verse  paragraph,  and  secondly  in  the 
management  of  their  fable.  Spenser  has  everywhere  a  certain 
romance-interest  both  of  story  and  character  which  carries  off  in  its 
steady  current,  where  carrying  off  is  needed,  both  his  allegorising 
and  his  long  descriptions.  The  Fletchers,  unable  to  impart  this 
interest,  or  unconscious  of  the  necessity  of  imparting  it,  lose  them- 
selves in  shallow  overflowings  like  a  stream  that  overruns  its  bank. 
But  Giles  was  a  master  of  gorgeous  colouring  in  phrase  and 
rhythm,  while  in  The  Purple  Island  there  are  detached  passages  not 
quite  unworthy  of  Spenser,  when  he  is  not  at  his  very  best — that 
is  to  say,  worthy  of  almost  any  English  poet.  Phineas,  moreover, 
has,  to  leave  Britain's  Ida  alone,  a  not  inconsiderable  amount 
of  other  work.  His  Piscatory  Eclogues  show  the  influence  of 
The  Shepherd's  Calendar  as  closely  as,  perhaps  more  happily  than. 
The  Purple  Island  shows  the  influence  of  The  Faerie  Queene,  and 
in  his  miscellanies  there  is  much  musical  verse.  It  is,  however, 
very  noticeable  that  even  in  these  occasional  poems  his  vehicle  is 
usually  either  the  actual  stanza  of  the  Island,  or  something 
equally  elaborate,  unsuited  though  such  stanzas  often  are  to  the 
purpose.  These  two  poets  indeed,  though  in  poetical  capacity 
they  surpassed  all  but  one  or  two  veterans  of  their  own  generation, 
seem  to  have  been  wholly  subdued  and  carried  away  by  the 
mighty  flood  of  their  master's  poetical  production.  It  is  probable 
that,  had  he  not  written,  they  would  not  have  written  at  all ;  yet 
it  is  possible  that,  had  he  not  written,  they  would  have  produced 
something  much  more  original  and  valuable.  It  ought  to  be 
mentioned  that  the  influence  of  both  upon  Milton,  directly  and 


VIII  WILLIAM  BROWNE  299 

as  handing  on  the  tradition  of  Spenser,  was  evidently  very  great. 
The  strong  Cambridge  flavour  (not  very  perceptible  in  Spenser 
himself,  but  of  which  Milton  is,  at  any  rate  in  his  early  poems, 
full)  comes  out  in  them,  and  from  C/irisfs  J'iclory  at  any  rate  the 
poet  of  Lycidas,  the  Ode  on  the  Nativity,  and  Paradise  Regained, 
apparently  "  took  up,"'  as  the  phrase  of  his  own  day  went,  not  a 
few  commodities. 

The  same  rich  borrower  owed  something  to  ^^'illiam  Browne, 
who,  in  his  turn,  like  the  Fletchers,  but  with  a  much  less  extensive 
indebtedness,  levied  on  Spenser.  Browne,  however,  was  free  from 
the  genius  loci,  being  a  Devonshire  man  born  and  of  Exeter 
College,  Oxford,  by  education.  He  was  born,  they  say,  in 
1 591,  published  the  first  part  of  Britannia's  Pastorals  in  1613, 
made  many  literary  and  some  noble  acquaintances,  is  thought 
to  have  lived  for  some  time  at  Oxford  as  a  tutor,  and  either  in 
Surrey  or  in  his  native  county  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  which 
is  (not  certainly)  said  to  have  ended  about  1643.  Browne  was 
evidently  a  man  of  very  wide  literary  sympathy,  which  saved  him 
from  falling  into  the  mere  groove  of  the  Fletchers.  He  was  a 
personal  friend  and  an  enthusiastic  devotee  of  Jonson,  Drayton, 
Chapman.  He  was  a  student  of  Chaucer  and  Occleve.  He  was 
the  dear  friend  and  associate  of  a  poet  more  gifted  but  more  un- 
equal than  himself,  George  Wither.  All  this  various  literary 
cultivation  had  the  advantage  of  keeping  him  from  being  a 
mere  mocking-bird,  though  it  did  not  quite  provide  him  with 
any  prevailing  or  wiiolly  original  pipe  of  his  own.  Britannia  s 
Pastorals  (the  third  book  of  which  remained  in  MS.  for  more 
than  two  centuries)  is  a  narrative  but  extremely  desultory  poem, 
in  fluent  and  somewhat  loose  couplets,  diversified  with  lyrics 
full  of  local  colour,  and  extremely  pleasant  to  read,  though  hope- 
lessly difficult  to  analyse  in  any  short  space,  or  indeed  in  any 
space  at  alL  lirowne  seems  to  have  meandered  on  exactly  as 
the  fancy  took  him  ;  and  his  ardent  love  for  the  country,  his 
really  artistic  th(;ugh  somewhat  unrhastencd  gift  of  poetical  de- 
scription  and    presentment    enabled    him    to   go   on   just    as    he 


300  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 

pleased,  after   a   fashion,  of  which  here   are   two   specimens  in 
different  measures  : — 

"  'May  first 
(Quoth  Marin)  swains  give  lambs  to  thee  ; 
And  may  thy  flood  have  seignory 
Of  all  floods  else  ;  and  to  thy  fame 
Meet  greater  springs,  yet  keep  thy  name. 
May  never  newt,  nor  the  toad 
Within  thy  banks  make  their  abode  ! 
Taking  thy  journey  from  the  sea 
May'st  thou  ne'er  happen  in  thy  way 
On  nitre  or  on  brimstone  mine. 
To  spoil  thy  taste  !    This  spring  of  thine, 
I-et  it  of  nothing  taste  but  earth, 
And  salt  conceived  in  their  birth. 
Be  ever  fresh  !     Let  no  man  dare 
To  spoil  thy  fish,  make  lock  or  wear. 
But  on  thy  margent  still  let  dwell 
Those  flowers  which  have  the  sweetest  smell. 
And  let  the  dust  upon  thy  strand 
Become  like  Tagus'  golden  sand. 
Let  as  much  good  betide  to  thee 
As  thou  hast  favour  shew'd  to  me.' " 


'  Here  left  the  bird  the  cherry,  and  anon 
Forsook  her  bosom,  and  for  more  is  gone. 
Making  such  speedy  flights  into  the  thick 
That  she  admir'tl  he  went  and  came  so  quick. 
Then,  lest  his  many  cherries  should  distaste. 
Some  other  fruit  he  brings  than  he  brought  last. 
Sometime  of  strawberries  a  little  stem 
Oft  changing  colours  as  he  gather'd  them. 
Some  green,  some  white,  some  red,  on  them  infus'd. 
These  lov'd,  these  fear'd,  they  blush'd  to  be  so  us'd. 
The  peascod  green,  oft  with  no  little  toil 
He'd  seek  for  in  the  fattest,  fertil'st  soil 
And  rend  it  from  the  stalk  to  bring  it  to  her. 
And  in  her  bosom  for  acceptance  woo  her. 
No  berry  in  the  grove  or  forest  grew 
That  fit  for  nourishment  the  kind  bird  knew, 
Nor  any  powerful  herb  in  open  field 
To  serve  her  brood  the  teeming  earth  did  yield, 


VIII  WILLIAM    BROWNE  301 

But  with  his  utmost  industry  he  sought  it, 
And  to  the  cave  for  chaste  Marina  brought  it." 

The  Shepherd's  Pipe,  besides  reproducing  Occleve,  is  in  parts 
reminiscent  of  Chaucer,  in  parts  of  Spenser,  but  always  character- 
ised by  the  free  and  unshackled  movement  which  is  Browne's 
great  charm  ;  and  the  same  characteristics  appear  in  the  few 
minor  poems  attributed  to  him.  Browne  has  been  compared  to 
Keats,  who  read  and  loved  him,  and  there  are  certainly  not  a  few 
points  of  resemblance.  Of  Keats's  higher  or  more  restrained 
excellences,  such  as  appear  in  the  finest  passages  of  St.  Agnes'  Eve, 
and  Hyperion,  in  the  Ode  to  a  Grecian  Urn,  and  such  minor 
pieces  as  In  a  Drear-Nighted  December,  Browne  had  nothing. 
But  he,  like  Keats,  had  that  kind  of  love  of  Nature  which  is 
really  the  love  of  a  lover ;  and  he  had,  like  Keats,  a  wonderful 
gift  of  expression  of  his  love.^  Nor  is  he  ever  prosaic,  a  praise 
which  certainly  cannot  be  accorded  to  some  men  of  far  greater 
repute,  and  perhaps  of  occasionally  higher  gifts  both  in  his  own 
time  and  others.  The  rarest  notes  of  Apollo  he  has  not,  but  he 
is  never  driven,  as  the  poet  and  friend  of  his,  to  whom  we  next 
come,  was  often  driven,  to  the  words  of  Mercury.  This  special 
gift  was  not  very  common  at  the  time  ;  and  though  tlint 
time  produced  better  poets  than  Browne,  it  is  worth  noting  in 

'  Sometliing  of  the  same  i(jvc',  hut  unluckily  nnich  less  of  the  same  gift, 
occurs  in  the  poems  of  a  friend  of  Browne's  once  hardly  known  except  hy  snme 
fair  verses  on  Shakespere  ("Renowned  Sjienser,"  etc.),  but  made  fully 
accessible  by  Mr.  K.  Warwick  Bond  in  1893.  This  was  William  Basse,  a 
retainer  of  the  Weiiman  family  near  Thame,  the  author,  pr.ihably  or  certainly, 
of  a  quaint  defence  of  retainership,  SwoiJ  and  lUickler  (1602),  and  ol  other 
poems — Pastoral  Elegies,  Urania,  Polyhymttia,  etc. — together  with  an  exceed- 
ingly odd  piece.  The  Melatiiorphosis  of  the  Walutit-  Tree  of  Boarslall,  whicii 
is  not  quite  like  anything  else  of  the  time.  Basse,  who  seems  also  to  have 
spelt  his  name  "  Bits,"  an<l  perhaps  lived  and  wrote  through  the  first  forty  or 
fifty  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  is  but  a  moderate  poet.  Still  he  is  not 
contemptible,  and  deserves  to  rank  as  a  member  of  the  Sjienserian  family  on 
the  pastoral  side;  while  the  Waluut-Tree,  though  it  niny  owe  something  to 
The  Oak  and  the  Hrere,  has  a  (piaintness  which  is  not  in  Spenser,  and  not 
perhaps  exactly  anywhere  else. 


302  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 

him.      He  may  never  reach  the  highest  poetry,  but  he  is  always 
a  poet. 

The  comparative  impotence  of  even  the  best  criticism  to 
force  writers  on  pubHc  attention  has  never  been  better  illustrated 
than  in  the  case  of  George  Wither  himself.  The  greater  part  of  a 
century  has  passed  since  Charles  Lamb's  glowing  eulogy  of  him 
was  written,  and  the  terms  of  that  eulogy  have  never  been  con- 
tested by  competent  authority.  Yet  there  is  no  complete  col- 
lection of  his  work  in  existence,  and  there  is  no  complete  collection 
even  of  the  poems,  saving  a  privately  printed  one  which  is  in- 
accessible except  in  large  libraries,  and  to  a  few  subscribers. 
His  sacred  poems,  which  are  not  his  best,  were  indeed  reprinted 
in  the  Library  of  Old  Authors ;  and  one  song  of  his,  the  famous 
"  Shall  I  Wasting  in  Despair,"  is  universally  known.  But  the 
long  and  exquisite  poem  of  Philarete  was  not  generally  known 
(if  it  is  generally  known  now,  which  may  be  doubted)  till  Mr. 
Arber  reprinted  it  in  the  fourth  volume  of  his  English  Garner. 
Nor  can  Fidelia  and  The  Shepherd's  Huntings  things  scarcely 
inferior,  be  said  to  be  familiar  to  the  general  reader.  For  this 
neglect  there  is  but  one  excuse,  and  that  an  insufficient  one,  con- 
sidering the  immense  quantity  of  very  indifferent  contemporary 
work  which  has  had  the  honour  of  modern  publication.  What 
the  excuse  is  we  shall  say  presently.  Wither  was  born  at  Brent- 
worth,  in  the  Alresford  district  of  Hampshire  (a  district  after- 
wards delightfully  described  by  him),  on  nth  June  1588.  His 
family  was  respectable ;  and  though  not  the  eldest  son,  he  had  at 
one  time  some  landed  property.  He  was  for  two  years  at  Magdalen 
College,  Oxford,  of  which  he  speaks  with  much  affection,  but 
was  removed  before  taking  his  degree.  After  a  distasteful  ex- 
perience of  farm  work,  owing  to  reverses  of  fortune  in  his  family 
he  came  to  London,  entered  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  and  for  some  years 
haunted  the  town  and  the  court.  In  1 6 1 3  he  published  his  Abuses 
Stript  and  IVhipt,  one  of  the  general  and  rather  artificial  satires 
not  unfashionable  at  the  time.  For  this,  although  the  book  has 
no  direct  personal  reference  that  can  be  discovered,  he  was  im- 


VIII  WITHER 


prisoned  in  iho  Marshalsca ;  and  there  wrote  the  charming  poem 
of  The  Shepherd's  Hunting,   1615,  and  probably  also  Fidelia,  an 
address  from  a  faithful  nymph  to   an  inconstant  swain,  which, 
though  inferior  to  The  Shepherd's  Hunting  and  to  Philarete  in  tiie 
highest  poetical  worth,  is  a  signal   example  of  Wither's  copious 
and  brightly-coloured  style.      Three  years  later  came  the  curious 
personal  poem  of  the  Motto,  and  in  1622  Philarete  itself,  which 
was  followed  in  the  very  next  year  by  the  Hymns  and  Songs  of  the 
Church.      Although  Wither  lived  until   2d   May  1667,  and  was 
constantly  active  with   his    pen,  his  Hallelujah,    1641,   another 
book  of  sacred  verse,   is   the  only  production   of  his   that   has 
received  or  that  deserves  much  praise.     The  last  thirty  years  of 
his    long   life   were   eventful    and   unfortunate.     After    being    a 
somewhat  fervent  Royalist,  he  suddenly  changed  his  creed  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  great  rebellion,  sold  his  estate  to  raise  men  for 
the  Parliament,  and  was  active  in  its  cause  with  pen  as  well  as 
with  sword.      Naturally  he  got  into  trouble  at  the   Restoration 
(as    he    had    previously    done    with    Cromwell),    and    was    im- 
prisoned again,   though   after  a   time  he   was  released.      At   an 
earlier  period  he  had    been   in  difficulties  with   the   Stationers' 
Company  on  the  subject  of  a  royal  patent  which  he  had  received 
from  James,  and  which  was  afterwards  (though   still   fruitlessly) 
confirmed  by  Charles,  for  his  Hymns.      Indeed,  Wither,  though  a 
man  of  very  high  character,  seems  to  have  had  all   his  life  what 
men  of  high  character  not  unfrequently  have,  a  certain  facility  for 
getting  into  what  is  vulgarly  called  hot-water. 

The  defect  in  his  work,  which  has  been  referred  to  above,  and 
which  is  somewhat  passed  over  in  the  criticisms  of  Lamb  and  others, 
is  its  amazing  inequality.  This  is  the  more  remarkable  in  that 
evidence  exists  of  not  infrequent  retouching  on  his  part  with 
the  rather  unusual  result  of  improvement — a  fact  which  would 
.seem  to  show  that  he  possessed  some  critical  faculty.  Such 
po.ssession,  however,  seems  on  the  other  hand  to  be  quite  incom- 
patible with  the  i)rodu<  tion  of  the  hopeless  doggerel  which  he  not 
infrequently  signs.      The  felicity  of   language  and   the  <  onimand 


304  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 

of  rhythmical  effect  which  he  constantly  displays,  are  extraordinary, 
as  for  instance  in  the  grand  opening  of  his  first  Canticle  : — 

"  Come  kiss  me  with  those  Hps  of  thine, 
For  better  are  thy  loves  than  wine  ; 

And  as  the  poured  ointments  be 
Such  is  the  savour  of  thy  name, . 

And  for  the  sweetness  of  the  same 
The  virgins  are  in  love  with  thee." 

Compare  the  following  almost  unbelievable  rubbish — 

"  As  we  with  water  wash  away 
Uncleanness  from  our  flesh, 
And  sometimes  often  in  a  day 
Ourselves  are  fain  to  wash. " 

Even  in  his  earlier  and  purely  secular  work  there  is  something, 
though  less  of  this  inequality,  and  its  cause  is  not  at  all  dubious. 
No  poet,  certainly  no  poet  of  merit,  seems  to  have  written  with 
such  absolute  spontaneity  and  want  of  premeditation  as  Wither. 
The  metre  which  was  his  favourite,  and  which  he  used  with  most 
success — the  trochaic  dimeter  catalectic  of  seven  syllables — lends 
itself  almost  as  readily  as  the  octosyllable  to  this  frequently  fatal 
fluency ;  but  in  Wither's  hands,  at  least  in  his  youth  and  early 
manhood,  it  is  wonderfully  successful,  as  here  : — ■ 

"And  sometimes,  I  do  admire 
All  men  burn  not  with  desire. 
Nay,  I  muse  her  servants  are  not 
Pleading  love  :  but  O  they  dare  not : 
And  I,  therefore,  wonder  why 
They  do  not  grow  sick  and  die. 
Sure  they  would  do  so,  but  that, 
By  the  ordinance  of  Fate, 
There  is  some  concealed  thing 
So  each  gazer  limiting. 
He  can  see  no  more  of  merit 
Than  beseems  his  worth  and  spirit. 
For,  in  her,  a  grace  there  shines 
That  o'erdaring  thoughts  confines, 


VIII  WITHER  305 

Making  worthless  men  despair 

To  be  loved  of  one  so  fair. 

Yea  the  Destinies  agree 

Some  good  judgments  blind  should  be  : 

And  not  gain  the  power  of  knowing 

Those  rare  beauties,  in  her  growing. 

Reason  doth  as  much  imply, 

For,  if  every  judging  eye 

Which  1)choldeth  her  should  there 

Find  what  excellences  are  ; 

All,  o'ercome  by  those  perfections 

Would  be  captive  to  affections. 

So  (in  happiness  unblcst) 

She  for  lovers  should  not  rest." 

Nor  had  he  at  times  a  less  original  and  liappy  command  of 
the  rhymed  decasyllabic  couplet,  which  he  sometimes  handles 
after  a  fashion  which  makes  one  almost  think  of  Dryden,  and 
sometimes  after  a  fashion  (as  in  the  lovely  description  of  Alresford 
Pool  at  the  opening  of  P/iilarefe)  which  makes  one  think  of  more 
modern  poets  still.  Besides  this  metrical  proficiency  and  gift, 
Wither  at  this  time  (he  thought  fit  to  apologise  for  it  later)  had  a 
very  happy  knack  of  blending  the  warm  amatory  enthusiasm  of  his 
time  with  sentiments  of  virtue  and  decency.  There  is  in  him 
absolutely  nothing  loose  or  obscene,  and  yet  he  is  entirely  free 
from  the  milk-and-water  propriety  which  sometimes  irritates  the 
reader  in  such  books  as  Habington's  Castara.  Wither  is  never 
mawkish,  though  he  is  never  loose,  and  the  swing  of  his  verse  at 
its  best  is  only  equalled  by  the  rush  of  thought  and  feeling  which 
animates  it.  As  it  is  perhaps  necessary  to  justify  this  high  opinion, 
\vc  may  as  well  give  the  "  Alresford  Pool  "  above  noted.  It  is 
like  Browne,  but  it  is  better  tlian  anything  Prowne  ever  did  ; 
being  like  Browne,  it  is  not  unlike  Keats  ;  it  is  also  singularly 
like  Mr.  William  Morris. 

"  For  pleasant  was  that  Pool ;  an<l  near  it,  then, 
Was  neither  rotten  marsh  nor  Ix^ggy  ^^y\. 
It  was  not  overgrown  with  boisterous  sedge, 
Nor  yrew  there  rudely,  then,  along  the  edge 

II  X 


3o6  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 


A  bending  willow,  nor  a  prickly  bush, 
Nor  broad-leafed  flag,  nor  reed,  nor  knotty  rush  : 
But  here,  well  ordered,  was  a  grove  with  bowers  ; 
There,  grassy  plots,  set  round  about  with  flowers. 
Here,  you  might,  through  the  water,  see  the  land 
Appear,  strewed  o'er  with  white  or  yellow  sand. 
Yon,  deeper  was  it  ;  and  the  wind,  by  whiffs. 
Would  make  it  rise,  and  wash  the  little  cliffs  ; 
On  which,  oft  pluming,  sate,  unfrighted  then 
The  gagling  wild  goose,  and  the  snow-white  swan. 
With  all  those  flocks  of  fowl,  which,  to  this  day 
Upon  those  quiet  waters  breed  and  play. " 

When  to  this  gift  of  description  is  added  a  frequent  inspiration  of 
pure  fancy,  it  is  scarcely  surprising  that — 

"  Such  a  strain  as  might  befit 
Some  brave  Tuscan  poet's  wit," 

to  borrow  a  couplet  of  his  own,  often  adorns  Wither's  verse. 

Two  other  poets  of  considerable  interest  and  merit  belong  to 
this  period,  who  are  rather  Scotch  than  English,  but  who  have 
usually  been  included  in  histories  of  English  literature — Drum- 
mond  of  Hawthornden,  and  Sir  William  Alexander,  Earl  of 
Stirling.  Both,  but  especially  Drummond,  exhibit  equally  with 
their  English  contemporaries  the  influences  which  produced  the 
Elizabethan  Jacobean  poetry;  and  though  I  am  not  myself 
disposed  to  go  quite  so  far,  the  sonnets  of  Drummond  have 
sometimes  been  ranked  before  all  others  of  the  time  except 
Shakespere's. 

William  Drummond  was  probably  born  at  the  beautiful  seat 
whence  he  derived  his  designation,  on  13th  December  1585. 
His  father  was  Sir  John  Drummond,  and  he  was  educated  in 
Edinburgh  and  in  France,  betaking  himself,  like  almost  all  young 
Scotchmen  of  family,  to  the  study  of  the  law.  He  came  back  to 
Scotland  from  France  in  i6ro,  and  resided  there  for  the  greater 
part  of  his  life,  though  he  left  it  on  at  least  two  occasions  for  long 
periods,  once  travelling  on  the  continent  for  eight  years  to  recover 
from  the  grief  of  losing  a  lady  to  whom  he  was  betrothed,  and 


VIII  DKUMMOND  307 

once  retiring  to  avoid  tlie  inconveniences  of  tlic  Civil  War. 
Though  a  Royalist,  Drummond  submitted  to  be  requisitioned 
against  the  Crown,  but  as  an  atonement  he  is  said  to  have  died 
of  grief  at  Charles  I.'s  execution  in  1649.  The  most  famous  in- 
cidents of  his  life  are  the  visit  that  Ben  Jonson  paid  to  him,  and 
the  much  discussed  notes  of  that  visit  which  Drummond  left  in 
manuscript.  It  would  appear,  on  the  whole,  that  Drummond  was 
an  example  of  a  well-known  type  of  cultivated  dilettante,  rather 
effeminate,  equally  unable  to  appreciate  Jonson's  boisterous  ways 
and  to  show  open  offence  at  them,  and  in  the  same  way  equally 
disinclined  to  take  the  popular  side  and  to  endure  risk  and  loss 
in  defending  his  principles.  He  shows  better  in  his  verse.  His 
sonnets  are  of  the  true  Elizabethan  mould,  exhibiting  the 
Petrarchian  grace  and  romance,  informed  with  a  fire  and  aspiring 
towards  a  romantic  ideal  beyond  the  Italian.  Dike  the  older 
writers  of  the  sonnet  collections  generally,  Drummond  intersperses 
his  quatorzains  with  madrigals,  lyrical  pieces  of  various  lengths, 
and  even  with  what  he  calls  "  songs," — that  is  to  say,  long  poems 
in  the  heroic  couplet.  He  was  also  a  skilled  writer  of  elegies, 
and  two  of  his  on  Gustavus  Adolphus  and  on  Prince  Henry  have 
much  merit.  Besides  the  madrigals  included  in  his  sonnets  he 
has  left  another  collection  entitled  "  Madrigals  and  Epigrams,' 
including  pieces  both  sentimental  and  satirical.  As  might  be 
expected  the  former  are  much  better  than  the  latter,  which  have 
the  coarseness  and  the  lack  of  point  noticeable  in  most  of  the 
similar  work  of  this  time  from  Jonson  to  Herrick.  We  have  also 
of  his  a  sacred  collection  (again  very  much  in  accordance  with 
the  practice  of  his  models  of  the  preceding  generation),  entitled 
Fhnvers  0/ Sion,  and  consisting,  like  the  sonnets,  of  poems  of  various 
metres.  One  of  these  is  noticeable  as  suggesting  the  metre  of 
Milton's  "  Nativity,"  but  with  an  alteration  of  line  number  and 
rhyme  order  which  spoils  it.  Yet  a  fourth  collection  of  miscel- 
lanies differs  not  much  in  constitution  from  the  others,  and  Drum- 
inond's  poetical  work  is  completed  by  .some  local  pieces,  such  as 
J-brlh  I'caitin^^  some  hymns  and  divine  poems,  and  an  attempt 


3o8  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 

in  Macaronic  called  Polemo-Middenia,  which  is  perhaps  not  his 
He  was  also  a  prose  writer,  and  a  tract,  entitled  The  Cypress  Grove, 
has  been  not  unjustly  ranked  as  a  kind  of  anticipation  of  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  both  in  style  and  substance.  Of  his  verse  a 
sonnet  and  a  madrigal  may  suffice,  the  first  of  which  can  be 
compared  with  the  Sleep  sonnet  given  earlier  : — 

"  Sleep,  Silence'  child,  sweet  father  of  soft  rest, 
Prince  whose  approach  peace  to  all  mortals  brings, 
Indifferent  host  to  shepherds  and  to  kings. 
Sole  comforter  of  minds  which  are  oppressed  ; 
Lo,  by  thy  charming  rod,  all  breathing  things 
Lie  slumb'ring,  with  forgetfulness  possess'd, 
And  yet  o'er  me  to  spread  thy  drowsy  wings 
Thou  spar'st,  alas  !  who  cannot  be  thy  guest. 
Since  I  am  thine,  O  come,  but  with  that  face 
To  inward  light,  which  thou  art  wont  to  show, 
With  feigned  solace  ease  a  true  felt  woe  ; 
Or  if,  deaf  god,  thou  do  deny  that  grace, 
Come  as  thou  wilt,  and  what  thou  wilt  bequeath  : 
I  long  to  kiss  the  image  of  my  death. " 


I 


"  To  the  delightful  green 
Of  you,  fair  radiant  een, 

Let  each  black  yield,  beneath  the  starry  arch. 
Eyes,  burnish'd  Heavens  of  love, 
Sinople  '  lamps  of  Jove, 

Save  all  those  hearts  which  with  your  flames  you  parch 
Two  burning  suns  you  prove  ; 
All  other  eyes,  compared  with  you,  dear  lights 
Are  Hells,  or  if  not  Hells,  yet  dumpish  nights. 
The  heavens  (if  we  their  glass 
The  sea  believe)  are  green,  not  perfect  blue ; 
They  all  make  fair,  whatever  fair  yet  was, 
And  they  are  fair  because  they  look  like  you." 

Sir  William  Alexander,  a  friend  and  countryman  of  Drum- 
mond  (who  bewailed  him  in  more  than  one  mournful  rhyme  of 
great  beauty),  was  born  in  1580  of  a  family  which,  though  it  had 
for  some  generations  borne  the  quasi-surname  Alexander,  is  said 

^  In  heraldry  (but  not  English  heraldry)  =  "green." 


VIII  STIRLING  309 

to  have  been  a  branch  of  the  Clan  Macdonald.  Alexander  early 
took  to  a  court  life,  was  much  concerned  in  the  proposed  planting 
of  Nova  Scotia,  now  chiefly  remembered  from  its  connection  with 
the  Order  of  Baronets,  was  Secretar)'  of  State  for  Scotland,  and 
was  raised  to  the  peerage.  He  died  in  1640.  Professor  Masson 
has  called  him  "  the  second-rate  Scottish  sycophant  of  an  in- 
glorious despotism."  He  might  as  well  be  called  "  the  faithful 
servant  of  monarchy  in  its  struggle  with  the  encroachments  of 
Republicanism,"  and  one  description  would  be  as  much  question- 
begging  as  the  other.  But  we  are  here  concerned  only  with  his 
literary  work,  which  was  considerable  in  bulk  and  quality.  It 
consists  chiefly  of  a  collection  of  sonnets  (varied  as  usual  with 
madrigals,  etc.),  entitled  Aurora;  of  a  long  poem  on  J^oomsday 
in  an  eight-lined  stanza  ;  of  a  Paraenesis  to  Prince  Henry ;  and 
of  four  "monarchic  tragedies"  on  Darius,  Croesus,  Alexajider, 
and  Ciesar,  equipped  with  choruses  and  other  appliances  of  the 
literar}'  rather  than  the  theatrical  tragedy.  It  is  perhaps  in  these 
choruses  that  Alexander  appears  at  his  best ;  for  his  special  forte 
was  grave  and  stately  declamation,  as  the  second  of  the  follow- 
ing extracts  will  prove.     The  first  is  a  sonnet  from  Aurora : — 

"  Let  some  bewitched  with  a  deceitful  show, 
Love  eartlily  things  unworthily  esteem'il, 
And  losing  that  which  cannot  be  redeemed 
Pay  back  with  pain  according  as  they  owe  : 
But  I  disdain  to  cast  my  eyes  so  low, 
That  fur  my  thoughts  o'er  base  a  sul)ject  seemM, 
Which  still  the  vulgar  course  too  beaten  deem'd ; 
Ami  loftier  things  delighted  for  to  know. 
Though  i)resently  this  plague  me  but  with  pain, 
And  vex  the  world  with  wondering  at  my  woes : 
Yet  having  gained  that  long  desired  repose 
My  mirth  may  more  miraculous  remain. 
That  for  the  which  long  languishing  I  pino. 
It  is  a  show,  but  yet  a  show  divine." 


"  Those  who  command  above, 
High  presidents  of  Iliavm, 


310  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chap. 


By  whom  all  things  do  move, 
As  they  have  order  given, 
What  worldling  can  arise 
Against  them  to  repine  ? 
Whilst  castled  in  the  skies 
With  providence  divine  ; 
They  force  this  peopled  round, 
Their  judgments  to  confess, 
And  in  their  wrath  confound 
Proud  mortals  who  transgress 
The  bounds  to  them  assigned 
By  Nature  in  their  mind. 

'  Base  brood  of  th'  Earth,  vain  man. 
Why  brag'st  thou  of  thy  might  ? 
The  Heavens  thy  courses  scan, 
Thou  walk'st  still  in  their  sight ; 
Ere  thou  wast  born,  thy  deeds 
Their  registers  dilate, 
And  think  that  none  exceeds 
The  bounds  ordain'd  by  fate  ; 
What  heavens  would  have  thee  to. 
Though  they  thy  ways  abhor. 
That  thou  of  force  must  do, 
And  thou  canst  do  no  more  : 
This  reason  would  fulfil. 
Their  work  should  serve  their  will. 

'  Are  we  not  heirs  of  death. 
In  whom  there  is  no  trust  ? 
Who,  toss'd  with  restless  breath, 
Are  but  a  drachm  of  dust ; 
Yet  fools  whenas  we  err. 
And  heavens  do  wrath  contract, 
If  they  a  space  defer 
Just  vengeance  to  exact, 
Pride  in  our  bosom  creeps, 
And  misinforms  us  thus 
That  love  in  pleasure  sleeps 
Or  takes  no  care  of  us  : 
'  The  eye  of  Heaven  beholds 
What  every  heart  enfolds.'  " 


VIII  MIXOR  JACOBEAN  rOETS  311 

Not  a  few  of  his  other  sonnets  are  also  worth  reading,  and 
the  unpromising  subject  of  Doomsday  (which  connects  itself  in 
style  partly  with  Spenser,  but  perhaps  still  more  with  The  Mirror 
for  Magistrates),  does  not  prevent  it  from  containing  fine  pas- 
sages. Alexander  had  indeed  more  power  of  sustained  versifica- 
tion than  his  friend  Drummond,  though  he  hardly  touches  the 
latter  in  point  of  the  poetical  merit  of  short  isolated  passages 
and  poems.  Both  bear  perhaps  a  little  too  distinctly  the  com- 
plexion of  "  Gentlemen  of  the  Press  " — men  who  are  composing 
poems  because  it  is  the  foshion,  and  because  their  education, 
leisure,  and  elegant  tastes  lead  them  to  prefer  that  form  of  occupa- 
tion. But  perhaps  what  is  most  interesting  about  them  is  the  way 
in  which  they  reproduce  on  a  smaller  scale  the  phenomenon  pre- 
sented by  the  Scotch  poetical  school  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
That  school,  as  is  well  known,  was  a  direct  offshoot  from,  or  fol- 
lowing of  the  school  of  Chaucer,  though  in  Dunbar  at  least  it 
succeeded  in  producing  work  almost,  if  not  quite,  original  in 
form.  In  the  same  way,  Drummond  and  Alexander,  while  able 
to  the  full  to  experience  directly  the  foreign,  and  especially 
Italian  influences  which  had  been  so  strong  on  the  Elizabethans, 
were  still  in  the  main  followers  of  the  Elizabethans  themselves, 
and  formed,  as  it  were,  a  Scottish  moon  to  the  English  sun  of 
poetry.  There  is  little  or  nothing  that  is  distinctively  national 
about  them,  though  in  their  following  of  the  English  model  they 
show  talent  at  least  equal  to  all  but  the  best  of  the  school  they 
followed.  But  this  fact,  joined  to  those  above  noted,  helps,  no 
doubt,  to  give  an  air  of  want  of  spontaneity  to  their  verse — an  air 
as  of  the  literan,'  exercise. 

There  are  other  writers  who  might  indifferently  come  in  this 
chapter  or  in  that  on  Caroline  poetry,  for  the  reign  of  James  was 
as  much  overlapped  in  this  respect  by  his  son's  as  by  Elizabeth's, 
and  there  are  others  who  need  but  slight  notice,  besides  yet 
others — a  great  multitude — who  can  receive  no  notice  at  all. 
The  doggerel  of  Taylor,  the  water-poet  (not  a  bad  prose  writer),  re- 
ceived both  patronage  and  attention,  which  seem  to  have  annoyed 


312  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN  chaP. 

his  betters,  and  he  has  been  resuscitated  even  in  our  own 
timei  Francis  Beaumont,  the  coadjutor  of  Fletcher,  has  left 
independent  poetical  work  which,  on  the  whole,  confirms  the 
general  theory  that  the  chief  execution  of  the  joint  plays  must 
have  been  his  partner's,  but  which  (as  in  the  Letter  to  Ben  Jonson 
and  the  fine  stoicism  of  The  Honest  Alan's  Fortune)  contains 
some  very  good  things.  His  brother.  Sir  John  Beaumont,  who 
died  not  so  young  as  Francis,  but  at  the  comparatively  early  age 
of  forty-four,  was  the  author  of  a  historical  poem  on  Bosworth 
Field,  as  w^ell  as  of  minor  pieces  of  higher  merit,  including  some 
remarkable  critical  observations  on  English  verse.  Two  famous 
poems,  which  every  one  knows  by  heart,  the  "  You  Meaner 
Beauties  of  the  Night"  of  Sir  Henry  Wotton  and  the  "Tell  Me 
no  more  how  fair  She  is  "  of  Bishop  Henry  King,  are  merely  per- 
fect examples  of  a  style  of  verse  which  was  largely  if  not  often 
quite  so  perfectly  practised  by  lesser  or  less  known  men,  as  well 
as  by  greater  ones.^ 

There  is,  moreover,  a  class  of  verse  which  has  been  referred 
to  incidentally  before,  and  which  may  very  likely  be  referred  to  in- 
cidentally again,  but  which  is  too  abundant,  too  characteristic,  and 
too  charming  not  to  merit  a  place,  if  no  very  large  one,  to  itself 
I  refer  to  the  delightful  songs  which  are  scattered  all  over  the  plays 
of  the  period,  from  Greene  to  Shirley.  As  far  as  Shakespere  is 
concerned,  these  songs  are  well  enough  known,  and  Mr.  Palgrave's 
Treasury,  with  Mr.  Bullen's  and  Bell's  Songs  from  the  Dramatists, 
have  given  an  inferior  currency,  but  still  a  currency,  to  the  best  of 
the  remainder.  The  earlier  we  have  spoken  of.  But  the  songs 
of  Greene  and  his  fellows,  though  charming,  cannot  compare  with 
those  of  the  more  properly  Jacobean  poets.     To  name  only  the 

1  The  most  interesting  collection  and  selection  of  verse  of  this  class  and  time 
is  undoubtedly  Dr.  Hannah's  well-known  and  charming  but  rather  oddly 
entitled  Poems  of  Raleigh,  Wotton,  and  other  Courtly  Poets  in  the  Aldine  Series. 
I  say  oddly  entitled,  because  though  Raleigh  and  Wotton  were  certainly 
courtiers,  it  would  be  hard  to  make  the  name  good  of  some  of  the  minor 
contributors. 


VIII  SONGS  FROM  THE  DRAMATISTS  313 

best  of  each,  Ben  Jonson  gives  us  the  exquisite  "Queen  and 
Huntress,"  which  is  perhaps  the  best-known  piece  of  his  whole 
work  ;  the  pleasant  ''  If  I  freely  may  discover,"  and  best  of  all 
—  unsurpassed  indeed  in  any  language  for  rolling  majesty  of 
rhythm  and  romantic  charm  of  tone — "  Drink  to  me  only  with 
thine  eyes."  Again  the  songs  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  stand 
ver)'  high,  perhaps  highest  of  all  next  to  Shakespere's  in  respect 
of  the  "  woodnote  wild."  If  the  snatch  of  only  half  articulate 
poetry  of  the  "  Lay  a  garland  on  my  hearse,"  of  The  Maid's 
Tragedy,  is  really  Fletcher's,  he  has  here  equalled  Shakespere 
himself.  We  may  add  to  it  the  fantastic  and  charming  "  Beauty 
clear  and  fair,"  of  The  Elder  Brother,  the  comic  swing  of  "  Let 
the  bells  ring, '  and  "The  fit's  upon  me  now  ;"  all  the  songs  with- 
out exception  in  The  Faithful  Shepherdess,  which  is  much  less  a 
drama  than  a  miscellany  of  the  most  delightful  poetry  ;  the  lively 
war-song  in  The  Mad  Lover,  to  which  Dryden  owed  not  a  little;  the 
catch,  "  Drink  to-day  and  drown  all  sorrow  ;"  the  strange  song  of 
the  dead  host  in  The  Lover's  Progress  ;  the  exquisite  "  Weep  no 
more,"  of  The  Queen  of  Corinth  ;  the  spirited  "Let  the  mill  go 
round,"  of  The  Maid  in  the  Mill ;  the  "  Lovers  rejoice,"  of 
Cupid's  Rrcenge ;  the  "  Roses,  their  sharp  spines  being  gone," 
which  is  one  of  the  most  Shakesperean  things  of  The  Two  Noble 
Kinsmen  ;  the  famous  "  Hence,  all  you  vain-delights,"  of  The  Nice 

Valour,  which  Milton  expanded  into  //  Penseroso,  and  the  laugh- 
ing song  of  the  same  play.  This  long  catalogue  only  contains  a 
part  of  the  singularly  beautiful  song  work  of  the  great  pair  of 
dramatists,   and  as  an   example  we   may  give   one  of  the  least 

known  from  The  Captain  : — 

"  Tell  me,  dearest,  what  is  love? 
'Tis  a  lightning  from  ahove  ; 
'Tis  an  arrow,  'tis  a  fire, 
'Tis  a  boy  they  call  Desire-. 

'Tis  a  grave, 

Gapes  to  have 
Those  jxxjr  fools  that  long  to  prove. 


314  SCHOOL  OF  SPENSER  AND  TRIBE  OF  BEN     chap,  vin 

"  Tell  me  more,  are  women  true? 
Yes,  some  are,  and  some  as  you. 
Some  are  willing,  some  are  strange 
Since  you  men  first  taught  to  change. 
And  till  troth 
Be  in  both, 
All  shall  love  to  love  anew. 

"  Tell  me  more  yet,  can  they  grieve? 
Yes,  and  sicken  sore,  but  live. 
And  be  wise,  and  delay 
When  you  men  are  as  wise  as  they. 

Then  I  see. 

Faith  will  be 
Never  till  they  both  believe." 

The  dirge  of  Vittoria  Corombona  and  the  preparation  for  death 
of  The  Duchess  of  Malfi  are  Webster's  sole  but  sufficient  contribu- 
tions to  the  list.  The  witch  songs  of  Middleton's  Witch,  and  the 
gipsy,  or  rather  tramp,  songs  of  More  Dissemblers  besides  Women 
and  The  Spanish  Gipsy,  have  very  high  merit.  The  songs  oi  Patient 
Grissell,  which  are  pretty  certainly  Dekker's,  have  been  noticed 
already.  The  otherwise  worthless  play  of  The  Thracian  Wonder, 
attributed  to  Webster  and  Rowley,  contains  an  unusual  number 
of  good  songs.  Heywood  and  Massinger  were  not  great  at  songs, 
and  the  superiority  of  those  in  The  Sun's  Darling  over  the  songs 
in  Ford's  other  plays,  seems  to  point  to  the  authorship  of  Dekker. 
Finally,  James  Shirley  has  the  song  gift  of  his  greater  predecessors. 
Every  one  knows  "  The  glories  of  our  blood  and  state,"  but  this  is 
by  no  means  his  only  good  song  ;  it  worthily  closes  the  list  of  the 
kind — a  kind  which,  when  brought  together  and  perused  sepa- 
rately, exhibits,  perhaps,  as  well  as  anything  else  of  equal  com- 
pass, the  extraordinary  abundance  of  poetical  spirit  in  the  age. 
For  songs  like  these  are  not  to  be  hammered  out  by  the  most 
diligent  ingenuity,  not  to  be  spun  by  the  light  of  the  most  assidu- 
ously fed  lamp.  The  wind  of  such  inspiration  blows  where,  and 
only  where,  it  listeth. 


CHAPTER  IX 

MILTON,   TAYLOR,   CLARENDON,   BROWNE,  HOBBES 

During  the  second  and  third  quarters  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
or  (to  take  Hterary  rather  than  chronological  dates)  between  the 
death  of  Bacon  and  the  publication  oi Absalom  and  Ac/titop/iel,  there 
existed  in  England  a  quintet  of  men  of  letters,  of  such  extraordi- 
nary power  and  individuality,  that  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
any  other  period  of  our  own  literature  can  show  a  group  equal  to 
them  ;  while  it  is  certain  that  no  other  literature,  except,  perhaps, 
in  the  age  of  Pericles,  can  match  them.  They  were  all,  except 
Hobbes  (who  belonged  by  birth,  though  not  by  date  and  character 
of  writing,  to  an  earlier  generation  than  the  rest),  born,  and  they 
all  died,  within  a  very  few  years  of  each  other.  All  were  prose 
writers  of  the  very  highest  merit ;  and  though  only  one  was  a  poet, 
yet  he  had  poetry  enough  to  spare  for  all  the  five.  Of  the  others, 
Clarendon,  in  some  of  the  greatest  characteristics  of  the  historian, 
has  been  equalled  by  no  Englishman,  and  surpassed  by  few 
foreigners.  Jeremy  Taylor  has  been  called  the  most  eloquent  of 
men  ;  and  if  this  is  a  bold  saying,  it  is  scarcely  too  bold.  Hobbes 
stands  with  Bacon  and  Berkeley  at  the  head  of  I'.nglish-speaking 
philosophers,  and  is,  if  not  in  general  grasp,  in  range  of  ideas,  or 
in  literary  polish,  yet  in  acuteness  of  thought  and  originality  of 
expression,  perhaps  the  superior  of  both  his  companions.  The 
excellence  of  P^rowne  is  indeed  more  purely  literary  and  intensely 
artistic  first  of  all  -  a  matter  of   cx])rcssion  rather  liian  of   sub- 


3i6     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  IIOBBES    chap. 

stance, — while  he  is  perhaps  more  flawed  than  any  of  them  by 
the  fashionable  vices  of  his  time.  Yet,  as  an  artist,  or  rather 
architect,  of  words  in  the  composite  and  florid  style,  it  is  vain  to 
look  anywhere  for  his  superior. 

John  Milton — the  greatest,  no  doubt,  of  the  five,  if  only  be- 
cause of  his  mastery  of  either  harmony — was  born  in  London  on 
9th  December  1608,  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  studied  at  home 
with  unusual  intensity  and  control  of  his  own  time  and  bent ; 
travelled  to  Italy,  returned,  and  engaged  in  the  somewhat  unex- 
pected task  of  school-keeping  ;  was  stimulated,  by  the  outbreak  of 
the  disturbances  between  king  and  parliament,  to  take  part  with 
extraordinary  bitterness  in  the  strife  of  pamphlets  on  the  repub- 
lican and  anti-prelatical  side,  defended  the  execution  of  the  king 
in  his  capacity  of  Latin  secretary  to  the  Government  (to  which  he 
had  been  appointed  in  1649);  was  struck  with  blindness,  lay  hid 
at  the  Restoration  for  some  time  in  order  to  escape  the  RoyaHst 
vengeance  (which  does  not  seem  very  seriously  to  have  threatened 
him),  composed  and  published  in  1667  th^  great  poem  oi Paradise 
Lost,  followed  it  with  that  of  Paradise  Pegaijied,  did  not  a  little 
other  work  in  prose  and  poetry,  and  died  on  8th  November  1674. 
He  had  been  thrice  married,  and  his  first  wife  had  left  him  within 
a  month  of  her  marriage,  thereby  occasioning  the  singular  series 
of  pamphlets  on  divorce,  the  theories  of  which,  had  she  not  re- 
turned, he  had,  it  is  said,  intended  to  put  into  practice  on  his  own 
responsibility.  The  general  abstinence  from  all  but  the  barest 
biographical  outline  which  the  scale  of  this  book  imposes  is 
perhaps  nowhere  a  greater  gain  than  in  the  case  of  Milton, 
His  personal  character  was,  owing  to  political  motives,  long 
treated  with  excessive  rigour.  The  reaction  to  Liberal  politics 
early  in  the  nineteenth  century  substituted  for  this  rigour  a  some- 
what excessive  admiration,  and  even  now  the  balance  is  hardly 
restored,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  a  late  biographer  of 
his  stigmatises  his  first  wife,  the  unfortunate  Mary  Powell,  as  "a 
dull  and  common  girl,"  without  a  tittle  of  evidence  except  the  bare 
fact  of  her  difference  with  her  husband,  and  some  innuendoes 


IX  MILTON  317 

(indirect  in  themselves,  and  clearly  tainted  as  testimony)  in 
Milton's  own  divorce  tracts.  On  the  whole,  Milton's  character 
was  not  an  amiable  one,  nor  even  wholly  estimable.  It  is  prob- 
able that  he  never  in  the  course  of  his  whole  life  did  anything 
that  he  considered  wrong  ;  but  unfortunately,  examples  are  not 
far  to  seek  of  the  facility  with  which  desire  can  be  made  to  con- 
found itself  with  deliberate  approval.  That  he  was  an  exacting, 
if  not  a  tyrannical  husband  and  father,  that  he  held  in  the  most 
peremptory  and  exaggerated  fashion  the  doctrine  of  the  superi- 
ority of  man  to  woman,  that  his  egotism  in  a  man  who  had  actu- 
ally accomplished  less  would  be  half  ludicrous  and  half  disgusting, 
that  his  faculty  of  appreciation  beyond  his  own  immediate  tastes 
and  interests  was  small,  that  his  intolerance  surpassed  that  of  an 
inquisitor,  and  that  his  controversial  habits  and  manners  outdid  the 
license  even  of  that  period  of  controversial  abuse, — these  are  propo- 
sitions which  I  cannot  conceive  to  be  disputed  by  any  competent 
critic  aware  of  the  facts.  If  they  have  ever  been  denied,  it  is 
merely  from  the  amiable  but  uncritical  point  of  view  which  blinks 
all  a  man's  personal  defects  in  consideration  of  his  literary  genius. 
That  we  cannot  afford  to  do  here,  especially  as  Milton's  personal 
defects  had  no  small  influence  on  his  literary  character.  But 
having  honestly  set  down  his  faults,  let  us  now  turn  to  the  plea- 
santer  side  of  the  subject  without  fear  of  having  to  revert,  except 
cursorily,  to  the  uglier. 

The  same  prejudice  and  partisanship,  however,  which  have 
coloured  the  estimate  of  Milton's  personal  character  have  a  little 
injured  the  literary  estimate  of  him.  It  is  agreed  on  all  hands 
that  Johnson's  acute  but  unjust  criticism  was  directed  as  much  by 
political  and  religious  prejudice  as  by  the  operation  of  narrow  and 
mistaken  rules  of  prosody  and  poetry ;  and  all  these  causes 
worked  together  to  produce  that  extraordinary  verdict  on  LyciJas, 
which  has  been  thought  unintelligible.  But  it  would  be  idle  to 
contend  that  there  is  not  nearly  as  much  bias  on  the  other  side 
in  the  most  glowing  of  his  modern  panegyrists — Macaulay  and 
I^andor.     It  is,  no  doubt,  in  regard  to  a  champion  so  formidable, 


3i8     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 

both  as  ally  and  as  enemy,  difficult  to  write  without  fear  or  favour, 
but  it  must  be  attempted. 

Milton's  periods  of  literary  production  were  three.  In  each  of 
them  he  produced  work  of  the  highest  literary  merit,  but  at  the 
same  time  singularly  different  in  kind.  In  the  first,  covering  the 
first  thirty  years  of  his  life,  he  wrote  no  prose  worth  speaking  of,  but 
after  juvenile  efforts,  and  besides  much  Latin  poetry  of  merit,  pro- 
duced the  exquisite  poems  of  L Allegro  and  //  Faiseroso,  the  Hymn 
on  the  Nativity,  the  incomparable  Lycidas,  the  Comiis  (which  I  have 
the  audacity  to  think  his  greatest  work,  if  scale  and  merit  are  con- 
sidered), and  the  delicious  fragments  of  the  Arcades.  Then  his 
style  abruptly  changed,  and  for  another  twenty  years  he  devoted 
himself  chiefly  to  polemical  pamphlets,  relieved  only  by  a  few 
sonnets,  whose  strong  originality  and  intensely  personal  savour 
are  uniform,  while  their  poetical  merit  varies  greatly.  The  third 
period  of  fifteen  years  saw  the  composition  of  the  great  epics  of 
Paradise  Lost  and  Paradise  Regained,  and  of  the  tragedy  of  Samson 
Agonistes,  together  with  at  least  the  completion  of  a  good  deal  of 
prose,  including  a  curious  History  of  England,  wherein  Milton 
expatiates  with  a  singular  gusto  over  details  which  he  must  have 
known,  and  indeed  allows  that  he  knew,  to  be  fabulous.  The 
production  of  each  of  these  periods  may  be  advantageously  dealt 
with  separately  and  in  order. 

Milton's  Latin  compositions  both  in  prose  and  verse  lie 
rather  outi=i(le  of  our  scope,  though  they  afford  a  very  interesting 
subject.  It  is  perhaps  sufficient  to  say  that  critics  of  such 
different  times,  tempers,  and  attitudes  towards  their  subject  as 
Johnson  and  the  late  Rector  of  Lincoln, — critics  who  agree  in 
nothing  except  literary  competence, — are  practically  at  one  as  to 
the  remarkable  excellence  of  Milton's  Latin  verse  at  its  best.  It 
is  little  read  now,  but  it  is  a  pity  that  any  one  who  can  read 
Latin  should  allow  himself  to  be  ignorant  of  at  least  the  beautiful 
Epitaphium  Datnonis  on  the  poet's  friend,  Charles  Diodati. 

The  dates  of  the  few  but  exquisite  poems  of  the  first  period 
are  known  with  some  but  not  complete  exactness.      Milton  was 


IX  MILTON  319 

not  an  extremely  precocious  poet,  and  such  early  exercises  as  he 
has  preserved  deserve  the  description  of  being  rather  meritorious 
than  remarkable.  But  in  1629,  his  year  of  discretion,  he  struck 
his  own  note  first  and  firmly  with  the  hymn  on  the  "  Nativity." 
Two  years  later  the  beautiful  sonnet  on  his  three-and-twentieth 
year  followed.  L Allegro  and  //  Pcnseroso  date  not  before,  but 
probably  not  much  after,  1633  ;  Comus  dating  from  1634,  and 
Lycidas  from  1637.  All  these  were  written  either  in  the  later 
years  at  Cambridge,  or  in  the  period  of  independent  study  at 
Horton  in  Buckinghamshire  —  chiefly  in  the  latter.  Almost 
every  Hne  and  word  of  these  poems  has  been  commented  on  and 
fought  over,  and  I  cannot  undertake  to  summarise  the  criticism 
of  others.  Among  the  greater  memorabilia  of  the  subject  is 
that  wonderful  Johnsonism,  the  description  of  Lycidas  as  "  harsh, 
the  rhymes  uncertain,  and  the  numbers  unpleasing ; "  among  the 
minor,  the  fact  that  critics  have  gravely  quarrelled  among  them- 
selves over  the  epithet  "  monumental "  applied  to  the  oak  in 
//  Penseroso,  when  Spenser's  "  Builder  Oak "  (Milton  was  a 
passionate  student  of  Spenser)  would  have  given  them  the  key  at 
once,  even  if  the  same  phrase  had  not  occurred,  as  I  believe  it 
does,  in  Chaucer,  also  a  favourite  of  Milton's.  We  have  only 
space  here  for  first-hand  criticism. 

This  body  of  work,  then,  is  marked  by  two  qualities  :  an  extra- 
ordinar)'  degree  of  poetic  merit,  and  a  still  more  extraordinary  ori- 
ginality of  poetic  kind.  Although  Milton  is  always  Milton,  it  would 
be  difficult  to  find  in  another  writer  five  poems,  or  (taking  the 
Allegro  and  its  companion  together)  four,  so  different  from  eacii 
other  and  yet  of  such  high  merit.  And  it  would  be  still  more  diffi- 
cult to  find  poems  so  independent  in  their  excellence.  Neither 
the  influence  of  Jonson  nor  the  influence  of  Donne — the  two 
poetical  influences  in  the  air  at  the  time,  and  the  latter  especially 
strong  at  Cambridge — produced  even  the  faintest  effect  on  Milton. 
We  know  from  his  own  words,  and  should  have  known  even  if  he 
had  not  mentioned  it,  that  Shakespere  and  Spenser  were  his 
favourite  studies  in  ICnglish  ;  yet,  .save  in  mere  scattered  phrases. 


320     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 

none  of  these  poems  owes  anything  to  either.  He  has  teachers 
but  no  models ;  masters,  but  only  in  the  way  of  learning  how  to 
do,  not  what  to  do.  The  "  certain  vital  marks,"  of  which  he 
somewhat  arrogantly  speaks,  are  indeed  there.  I  do  not  myself 
see  them  least  in  the  poem  on  the  "  Nativity,"  which  has  been  the 
least  general  favourite.  It  shows  youth  in  a  certain  inequality,  in 
a  slight  overdose  of  ornament,  and  especially  in  a  very  inartistic 
conclusion.  But  nowhere  even  in  Milton  does  the  mastery  of 
harmonies  appear  better  than  in  the  exquisite  rhythmical  arrange- 
ment of  the  piece,  in  the  almost  unearthly  beauty  of  the  exordium, 
and  in  the  famous  stanzas  beginning  "  The  oracles  are  dumb."  It 
must  be  remembered  that  at  this  time  English  lyric  was  in  a  very 
rudimentary  and  ill-organised  condition.  The  exquisite  snatches 
in  the  dramatists  had  been  snatches  merely ;  Spenser  and  his 
followers  had  chiefly  confined  themselves  to  elaborate  stanzas  of 
full  length  lines,  and  elsewhere  the  octo-syllabic  couplet,  or  the 
quatrain,  or  the  dangerous  "eights  and  sixes,"  had  been  chiefly 
affected.  The  sestines  and  canzons  and  madrigals  of  the  sonnet- 
eers, for  all  the  beauty  of  their  occasional  flashes,  have  nothing 
like  the  gracious  and  sustained  majesty  of  the  "Nativity  "  piece. 
For  technical  perfection  in  lyric  metre,  that  is  not  so  much  to  be 
sung  as  said,  this  ode  has  no  precedent  rival.  As  for  L Allegro 
and  II  Penseroso,  who  shall  praise  them  fitly  ?  They  are  among  the 
few  things  about  which  there  is  no  difference  of  opinion,  which 
are  as  delightful  to  childhood  as  to  criticism,  to  youth  as  to  age. 
To  dwell  on  their  technical  excellences  (the  chief  of  which  is 
the  unerring  precision  with  which  the  catalectic  and  acatalectic 
lines  are  arranged  and  interchanged)  has  a  certain  air  of  imper- 
tinence about  it.  Even  a  critical  King  Alfonso  El  Sabio  could 
hardly  think  it  possible  that  Milton  might  have  taken  a  hint  here, 
although  some  persons  have,  it  seems,  been  disturbed  because 
skylarks  do  not  come  to  the  window,  just  as  others  are  troubled 
because  the  flowers  in  Lycidas  do  not  grow  at  the  same  time,  and 
because  they  think  they  could  see  stars  through  the  "starproof" 
trees  of  the  Arcades, 


IX  MILTON 


The  fragments  of  the  masque  just  mentioned  consist  only  of 
three  songs  and  an  address  in  rhymed  couplets.  Of  the  songs, 
those  ending — 

SiK'h  a  rural  cjuoen, 
All  Arcadia  hath  not  seen, 

are  equal  to  anything  that  Milton  has  done ;  the  first  song  and 
the  address,  especially  the  latter,  do  not  fall  far  below  them. 
But  it  is  in  Co/niis  that,  if  I  have  any  skill  of  criticism,  Milton's 
poetical  power  is  at  its  greatest  height.  Those  wiio  judge  poetry 
on  the  ground  of  bulk,  or  of  originality  of  theme,  or  of  anything 
else  e.\tra-poetical, — much  more  those  (the  greater  number)  who 
simply  vary  transmitted  ideas, — may  be  scandalised  at  thi^  assertion, 
but  that  will  hardly  matter  much.  And  indeed  the  indebtedness 
of  Comus  in  point  of  subject  (it  is  probably  limited  to  the  Odyssey, 
which  is  public  property,  and  to  George  Peele's  0/d  IVivt's'  Tale, 
which  gave  little  but  a  few  hints  of  story)  is  scarcely  greater  than 
that  of  Paradise  Lost ;  while  the  form  of  the  drama,  a  kind  nearly 
as  venerable  and  majestic  as  that  of  the  epic,  is  completely  filled. 
And  in  Comus  there  is  none  of  the  stiffness,  none  of  the  longueurs, 
none  of  the  almost  ludicrous  want  of  humour,  which  mar  the  larger 
poem.  Humour  indeed  was  what  Milton  always  lacked;  had  he 
had  it,  Shakcspere  himself  might  hardly  have  been  greater.  The 
plan  is  not  really  more  artificial  than  that  of  the  epic;  though  in 
the  latter  case  it  is  masked  to  us  by  the  scale,  by  the  grandeur  of 
the  personages,  and  by  the  familiarity  of  the  images  to  all  men 
who  have  been  brought  up  on  the  Bible.  The  versification,  as 
even  Johnson  saw,  is  the  versification  of  Paradise  Lost,  and  to  my 
fancy  at  any  rate  it  has  a  siiring,  a  variety,  a  sweep  and  rush  of 
genius,  which  are  but  rarely  present  later.  As  for  its  beauty  in 
parts,  quis  vituperavit  i  It  is  imixjssible  to  single  out  passages,  for 
the  whole  is  golden.  The  entering  address  of  Comu.s,  the  song 
"  Sweet  Echo,"  the  descrii>tive  speech  of  the  Spirit,  and  the 
magnificent  eulogy  of  the  "sun-clad  power  of  chastity,"  would  be 
the  most  beautiful  things  where  all  is  beautiful,  if  the  unapproach- 
able "  Sabrina  fair  "  did  not  come  later,  and  were  nijt  sustained 
11  Y 


322     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 

before  and  after,  for  nearly  two  hundred  lines  of  pure  nectar.  If 
poetry  could  be  taught  by  the  reading  of  it,  then  indeed  the 
critic's  advice  to  a  poet  might  be  limited  to  this  :  "  Give  your  days 
and  nights  to  the  reading  of  Cottms." 

The  sole  excuses  for  Johnson's  amazing  verdict  on  Lycidas  are 
that  it  is  not  quite  so  uniformly  good,  and  that  in  his  strictures 
on  its  "  rhyme  "  and  "  numbers  "  he  was  evidently  speaking  from 
the  point  of  view  at  which  the  regular  couplet  is  regarded  as 
the  ne  plus  ultra  of  poetry.  There  are  indeed  blotches  in  it. 
The  speech  of  Peter,  magnificently  as  it  is  introduced,  and 
strangely  as  it  has  captivated  some  critics,  who  seem  to  think  that 
anything  attacking  the  Church  of  England  must  be  poetry,  is  out 
of  place,  and  in  itself  is  obscure,  pedantic,  and  grotesque.  There 
is  some  over-classicism,  and  the  scale  of  the  piece  does  not  admit 
the  display  of  quite  such  sustained  and  varied  power  as  in  Comus. 
But  what  there  is,  is  so  exquisite  that  hardly  can  we  find  fault 
with  Mr.  Pattison's  hyperbole  when  he  called  Lycidas  the  "  high- 
water  mark  of  English  poetry."  High-water  mark  even  in  the 
physical  world  is  a  variable  limit.  Shakespere  constantly,  and 
some  other  poets  here  and  there  in  short  passages  go  beyond 
Milton.  But  in  the  same  space  we  shall  nowhere  find  anything 
that  can  outgo  the  passage  beginning  "Alas  what  boots  it,"  down 
to  "head  of  thine,"  and  the  whole  conclusion  from  "Return 
Alpheus."  For  melody  of  versification,  for  richness  of  images, 
for  curious  felicity  of  expression,  these  cannot  be  surpassed. 

"  But  O  the  heavy  change  " — to  use  an  irresistible  quotation, 
the  more  irresistible  that  the  change  is  foreshadowed  in  Lycidas 
itself — from  the  golden  poetry  of  these  early  days  to  the  prose  of 
the  pamphlets.  It  is  not  that  Milton's  literary  faculty  is  less 
conspicuous  here,  or  less  interesting.  There  is  no  English  prose 
before  him,  none  save  Taylor's  and  Browne's  in  his  time,  and 
.absolutely  none  after  him  that  can  compare  with  the  finest 
passages  of  these  singular  productions.  The  often  quoted 
personal  descriptions  of  his  aims  in  life,  his  early  literary  studies, 
his  views  of  poetry  and  so  forth,  are  almost  equal  in  the  "  other 


IX  >riLTON  323 

harmony  of  prose  "  to  Coinus  and  Lycidas.  The  deservedly  famous 
Areopiii^itita  is  full  of  the  most  splendid  concerted  pieces  of  prose- 
music,  and  hardly  anywhere  from  the  Tractate  of  Rcforviation 
Touching  Church  Discipline  to  the  History  of  Britain,  which  he 
revised  just  before  his  death,  is  it  possible  to  read  a  page  without 
coming  across  phrases,  passages,  and  even  whole  paragraphs,  which 
are  instinct  with  the  most  splendid  life.  But  the  difference 
between  Milton's  poetry  and  his  prose  is,  that  in  verse  he  is 
constantly  under  the  restraint  (sometimes,  in  his  later  work 
especially,  too  much  under  the  restraint)  of  the  sense  of  style  ; 
while  in  his  prose  he  seems  to  be  wholly  emancipated  from  it. 
Even  in  his  finest  passages  he  never  seems  to  know  or  to  care 
how  a  period  is  going  to  end.  He  piles  clause  on  clause,  links 
conjunction  to  conjunction,  regardless  of  breath,  or  sense,  or  the 
most  ordinary  laws  of  grammar.  The  second  sentence  of  his  first 
prose  work  contains  about  four  hundred  words,  and  is  l^roken  in 
the  course  of  them  like  a  wounded  snake.  In  his  very  highest 
flights  he  will  suddenly  drop  to  grotesque  and  bathos  ;  and  there 
is  no  more  difficult  task  ijiaud  inexpertus  /o(juor)  than  the  selection 
from  Milton  of  any  passage  of  length  which  shall  not  contain 
faults  of  which  a  modern  schoolboy  or  gutter-journalist  would  be 
ashamed.  Nor  is  the  matter  made  much  better  by  the  considera- 
tion that  it  is  not  so  much  ignorance  as  temper  which  is  the 
cause  of  this  deformity.  Lest  it  be  thought  that  I  speak  harshly, 
let  me  quote  from  the  late  Mr.  Mark  Patti.son,  a  strong  sympathiser 
with  Milton's  politics,  in  complete  agreement  if  not  with  his 
religious  views,  yet  with  his  attitude  towards  dominant  ecclesi- 
asticism,  and  almost  an  idolater  of  him  from  the  purely  literary 
point  of  view.  "  In  Eikonoclastcs,''  Miltf)n's  reply  to  Kikon 
JnisilikCy  Mr.  Patlison  says,  and  I  do  not  care  to  attempt  any 
improvement  on  the  words,  "Milton  is  worse  than  tedious:  his 
reply  is  in  a  tone  of  rude  railing  and  insolent  swagger  which 
would  have  been  always  unbecoming,  but  wliic  h  at  this  moment 
was  grossly  indecent"  IClsewhere  (and  again  I  have  nothing 
to  add)  Mr.   I'altisf)n  describes  Milton's  prose  pamphlets  as  "a 


324      MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 

plunge  into  the  depths  of  vulgar  scurrility  and  libel  below  the 
level  of  average  gentility  and  education."  But  the  Rector  of 
Lincoln  has  not  touched,  or  has  touched  very  lightly,  on  the 
fault  above  noted,  the  profound  lack  of  humour  that  these 
pamphlets  display.  Others  have  been  as  scurrilous,  as  libellous, 
as  unfair;  others  have  prostituted  literary  genius  to  the  composition 
of  paid  lampoons ;  but  some  at  least  of  them  have  been  saved  by 
the  all-saving  sense  of  humour.  As  any  one  who  remembers  the 
dreadful  passage  about  the  guns  in  Paradise  Lost  must  know,  the 
book  of  humour  was  to  Milton  a  sealed  book.  He  has  flashes  of 
wit,  though  not  many ;  his  indignation  of  itself  sometimes  makes 
him  really  sarcastic.      But  humorous  he  is  never. 

Destitute  of  this,  the  one  saving  grace  of  polemical  literature, 
he  plunged  at  the  age  of  thirty-three  into  pamphlet  writing.  With 
a  few  exceptions  his  production  in  this  kind  may  be  thrown  into 
four  classes, — the  Areopagitica  and  the  Letter  to  LLartlib  (much  the 
best  of  the  whole)  standing  outside.  The  first  class  attacks  prelatical 
government,  and  by  degrees  glides,  under  the  guise  of  apologetics 
for  the  famous  Smectymmms,  into  a  fierce  and  indecent  controversy 
with  Bishop  Hall,  containing  some  of  the  worst  examples  of  the 
author's  deplorable  inability  to  be  jocular.  Then  comes  the  divorce 
series,  which,  with  all  its  varied  learning,  is  chiefly  comic,  owing  to 
Milton's  unfortunate  bUndness  to  the  fact  that  he  was  trying  to 
make  a  public  question  out  of  private  grievances  of  the  particular 
kind  which  most  of  all  demand  silence.  Next  rank  the  pieces 
composing  the  Apologia  of  regicide,  the  Eikonodastes,  the  con- 
troversy with  Salmasius  (written  in  Latin),  and  the  postscript 
thereto,  devoted  to  the  obscure  Morus.  And  lastly  come  the 
pamphlets  in  which,  with  singular  want  of  understanding  of  the 
course  of  events,  Milton  tried  to  argue  Monk  and  the  weary 
nation  out  of  the  purpose  to  shake  off  the  heavy  yoke  of  so-called 
liberty.  The  Llistory  of  Britain^  the  very  agreeable  fragment  on 
the  LListory  of  Muscovy,  the  late  Treatise  Against  Popery,  in  which 
the  author  holds  out  a  kind  of  olive  branch  to  the  Church  of 
England,  in  the  very  act  of  proclaiming  his  Arianism,  and  the 


IX  MILTON 


two  little  masterpieces  already  referred  to,  are  independent  of  anv 
such  classification.  Vet  even  in  theni  sometimes,  as  always  in  the 
oihexs,  furor  a rf/ia  ministrat ;  and  supplies  them  as  badly  as  if  he 
were  supplying  by  contract. 

Nevertheless  both  Milton's  faults  and  his  merits  as  a  prose 
writer  are  of  the  most  remarkable  and  interesting  character.  The 
former  consist  chiefly  in  the  reckless  basic  w  iih  which  he  con- 
structs (or  rather  altogether  neglects  the  construction  of)  his 
periods  and  sentences,  in  an  occasional  confusion  of  those  rules 
of  I^tin  syntax  which  are  only  applicable  to  a  fully  inflected 
language  with  the  rules  necessary  in  a  language  so  destitute  of 
inflections  as  English,  and  in  a  lavish  and  sometimes  both  need- 
less and  tasteless  adaptation  of  Latin  words.  All  these  were 
faults  of  the  time,  but  it  is  true  that  they  are  faults  which  Milton, 
like  his  contemporaries  Taylor  and  Browne,  aggravated  almost 
wilfully.  Of  the  three  Milton,  owing  no  doubt  to  the  fury  which 
animated  him,  is  by  far  the  most  faulty  and  uncritical.  Taylor 
is  the  least  remarkable  of  the  three  for  classicisms  either  of 
syntax  or  vocabular)'  •  and  Browne's  excesses  in  this  respect  are 
deliberate.  Milton's  are  the  efl"ect  of  blind  passion.  Vet  tlie 
passages  which  diversify  and  relieve  his  prose  works  are  far  more 
beautiful  in  their  kind  than  anything  to  be  fcnmd  elsewhere  in 
English  prose.  Though  he  never  trespasses  into  purely  i)oetical 
rhythm,  the  solemn  music  of  his  own  best  verse  is  paralleled  in 
these  ;  and  the  rugged  and  grandiose  vocabulary  (it  is  particularly 
characteristic  of  Milton  that  he  mixes  the  extremest  vernacular 
with  the  ijiost  exquisite  and  scholarly  phrasing)  is  fused  and 
moulded  with  an  altogether  extraordinary  power.  Nor  can  we 
notice  less  the  abundance  of  striking  phrase,  now  (juaiiU,  now 
grand,  now  forcible,  which  in  short  clauses  and  "jewels  five  words 
long "  occurs  constantly,  even  in  the  passages  least  artistically 
finished  as  wholes.  There  is  no  ]-"ngIish  prose  author  whose 
prose  is  so  constantly  racy  with  such  a  distinc  t  and  varied  savour 
as  .Milton's.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  open  him  anywhere  after 
the   fashion   of  the  Sortes   Viri^iliaihv  without  lighting  on   a   line 


326      MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 

or  a  couple  of  lines,  which  for  the  special  purpose  it  is  impossible 
to  improve.  And  it  might  be  contended  with  some  plausibility 
that  this  abundance  of  jewels,  or  purple  patches,  brings  into 
rather  unfair  prominence  the  slips  of  grammar  and  taste,  the 
inequalities  of  thought,  the  deplorable  attempts  to  be  funny,  the 
rude  outbursts  of  bargee  invective,  which  also  occur  so  numerously. 
One  other  peculiarity,  or  rather  one  result  of  these  peculiarities, 
remains  to  be  noticed  ;  and  that  is  that  Milton's  prose  is  essen- 
tially inimitable.  It  would  be  difificult  even  to  caricature  or  to 
parody  it ;  and  to  imitate  it  as  his  verse,  at  least  his  later  verse, 
has  been  so  often  imitated,  is  simply  impossible. 

The  third  and,  in  popular  estimation,  the  most  important 
period  of  Milton's  production  was  again  poetical.  The  character- 
istics of  the  poetry  of  the  three  great  works  which  illustrate  it 
are  admittedly  uniform,  though  in  Satnsofi  Agonistes  they  exhibit 
themselves  in  a  harder,  drier,  more  ossified  form  than  in  the  two 
great  epics.  This  relation  is  only  a  repetition  of  the  relation 
between  Paradise  Lost  and  Pai'adise  Regained  themselves  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  poems  of  twenty  years  earlier,  especially  Comus 
and  Lycidas,  on  the  other.  The  wonderful  Miltonic  style,  so  arti- 
ficial and  yet  such  a  triumph  of  art,  is  evident  even  so  early 
as  the  ode  on  the  "  Nativity,"  and  it  merely  developed  its  own 
characteristics  up  to  the  Samson  of  forty  years  later.  That  it  is 
a  real  style  and  not  merely  a  trick,  like  so  many  others,  is  best 
shown  by  the  fact  that  it  is  very  hard,  if  not  impossible,  to 
analyse  it  finally  into  elements.  The  common  opinion  charges 
Milton  with  Latinising  heavily  ;  and  so  he  does.  But  we  open 
Paradise  Lost  at  random,  and  we  find  a  dozen  lines,  and  not  the 
least  beautiful  (the  Third  Day  of  Creation),  without  a  word  in 
them  that  is  not  perfectly  simple  English,  or  if  of  Latin  origin, 
naturalised  long  before  Milton's  time,  while  the  syntax  is  also 
quite  vernacular.  Again  it  is  commonly  thought  that  the  habits 
of  antithesis  and  parallelism,  of  omission  of  articles,  of  reversing 
the  position  of  adjectives  and  adverbs,  are  specially  Miltonic. 
Certainly  Milton   often  indulges  in  them  ;  yet   in   the  same  way 


IX  MILTON 


327 


the  '.-nost  random  (li[)piiig  will  find  passages  (and  any  number  of 
them)  where  no  one  of  these  habits  is  particularly  or  eminently 
present,  and  yet  which  every  one  would  recognise  as  Miltonic. 
As  far  as  it  is  possible  to  put  the  finger  on  one  peculiarity  which 
explains  part  of  the  secret  of  Milton's  pre-eminence,  I  should 
myself  select  his  unapproached  care  and  felicity  in  building  what 
may  be  called  the  verse-paragraph.  The  dangers  of  blank  verse 
(Milton's  preference  for  which  over  rhyme  was  only  one  of  his 
numerous  will-worships)  are  many  ;  but  the  two  greatest  lie  in 
easily  understood  directions.  Whh  the  sense  generally  or  fre- 
tjuently  ending  as  the  line  ends  (as  may  be  seen  in  the  early 
dramatists  and  in  many  bad  poets  since),  it  becomes  intolerably  stiff 
and  monotonous.  With  the  process  of  etijambcmcnt  or  over- 
lapping, promiscuously  and  unskilfully  indulged  (the  commonest 
fault  during  the  last  two  centuries),  it  is  apt  to  degenerate  into 
a  kind  of  metrical  and  barely  metrical  prose,  distinguished  from 
prose  proper  by  less  variety  of  cadence,  and  by  an  occasional 
awkward  sacrifice  of  sense  and  natural  arrangement  to  the 
restrictions  which  the  writer  accepts,  but  by  which  he  knows 
not  how  to  profit.  Milton  has  avoided  both  these  dangers  by 
adhering  to  what  I  have  ventured  to  call  the  verse-paragraph — 
that  is  to  say,  by  arranging  the  divisions  of  his  sense  in  divisions 
of  verse,  which,  albeit  identical  and  not  different  in  their  verse 
integers,  are  constructed  with  as  much  internal  concerted  variety 
as  the  stanzas  or  strophes  of  a  so-called  Pindaric  ode.  Of  the 
apparently  unihjrm  and  monotonous  blank  verse  he  has  made  an 
instrument  of  almo.st  protean  variety  by  availing  himself  of  the 
infinite  jiermutations  of  cadence,  syllabic  sound,  variety  of  feet, 
and  adjustment  of  sense  to  verse.  The  result  is  that  he  has,  it 
may  almost  be  said,  made  for  himself  out  of  simple  blank  verse 
all  the  conveniences  of  the  line,  the  couplet,  and  the  stanza, 
punctuating  and  dividing  by  cadence,  not  rhyme.  No  device  that 
is  possible  within  his  limits — even  to  that  most  dangerous  one  of 
the  pause  after  the  first  syllable  of  a  line  which  has  "  enjambed  " 
from  the  previous  one — is  strange  to  him,  or  sparingly  used  by 


328     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 


him,  or  used  without  success.  And  it  is  only  necessary  to  con- 
trast his  verse  with  the  blank  verse  of  the  next  century,  especially 
in  its  two  chief  examples,  Thomson  and  Young, — great  verse-smiths 
both  of  them, — to  observe  his  superiority  in  art.  These  two, 
especially  Thomson,  try  the  verse-paragraph  system,  but  they 
do  it  ostentatiously  and  clumsily.  Thomson's  trick  of  ending 
such  paragraphs  with  such  lines  as  "  And  Thule  bellows  through 
her  utmost  isles,"  often  repeated  with  only  verbal  substitutions, 
is  apt  to  make  the  reader  think  widi  a  smile  of  the  breath  of 
relief  which  a  man  draws  after  a  serious  effort.  "  Thank  heaven 
that  paragraph's  done  !  "  the  poet  seems  to  be  saying.  Nothing 
of  the  kind  is  ever  to  be  found  in  Milton.  It  is  only, on  examin- 
ation that  the  completeness  of  these  divisions  is  perceived.  They 
are  linked  one  to  another  with  the  same  incomparably  artful 
concealment  of  art  which  links  their  several  and  internal  clauses. 
And  thus  it  is  that  Milton  is  able  to  carry  his  readers  through 
(taking  both  poems  together)  sixteen  books  of  epic,  without  much 
narrative  interest,  with  foregone  conclusions,  with  long  passages 
which  are  merely  versifications  of  well-known  themes,  and  with 
others  which  the  most  favourable  critics  admit  to  be,  if  not  exactly 
dull,  yet  certainly  not  lively.  Something  the  same  may  be  said 
of  Samson,  though  here  a  decided  stiffening  and  mannerising  of 
the  verse  is  to  some  extent  compensated  by  the  pathetic  and 
human  interest  of  the  story.  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that 
Milton  has  here  abused  the  redundant  syllable  (the  chief  purely 
poetical  mistake  of  which  he  has  been  guilty  in  any  part  of  his 
work,  and  which  is  partly  noticeable  in  Comns),  and  that  his 
choric  odes  are  but  dry  sticks  in  comparison  with  Lycidas. 

It  may  be  thought  strange  that  I  should  say  little  or  nothing 
of  the  subject  of  these  immortal  poems.  But,  in  the  first  place, 
those  critics  of  poetry  who  tell  us  that  "all  depends  on  the  sub- 
ject "  seem  to  forget  that,  according  to  this  singular  dictum,  there 
is  no  difference  between  poetry  and  prose — between  an  epic  and 
a  blue-book.  I  prefer — having  been  brought  up  at  the  feet  of 
Logic — to  stick  to  the  genus  and  differentia  of  poetry,  and  not  to 


IX  MILTON  329  . 

its  accidents.  Moreover,  tlie  matter  of  Puraiiisc  Lost  and  its 
sequel  is  so  universally  known  that  it  becomes  unnecessary,  and 
has  been  so  much  discussed  that  it  seems  superfluous,  to  rediscuss 
it.  The  inquiries  into  Milton's  indebtedness  to  forerunners 
strike  me  as  among  the  idlest  inquiries  of  the  kind — which  is 
saying  a  great  deal.  Italians,  Frenchmen,  Dutchmen,  English- 
men even,  had  doubtless  treated  the  Creation  and  the  Fall,  Adam 
and  .Satan,  before  him.  Perhaps  he  read  them  ;  perhaps  he 
borrowed  from  them.  What  then?  Does  any  one  believe 
that  Andreini  or  A'ondel,  Sylvester  or  Du  Bartas,  could  have 
written,  or  did  in  any  measurable  degree  contribute  to  the 
writing  of  ]\uadise  Lost  1  If  he  does  he  must  be  left  to  his 
opinion. 

Reference  may  perhaps  be  made  to  some  remarks  in  Chapter 
IV.  on  the  comparative  position  of  Milton  in  English  poetry  with 
the  only  two  writers  who  can  l)e  compared  to  him,  if  bulk  and 
majesty  of  work  be  taken  into  consideration,  and  not  merely  occa- 
sional bursts  of  poetry.  Of  his  own  poetical  powers  I  trust  that 
I  shall  not  be  considered  a  niggard  admirer,  because,  both  in  the 
charactei  of  its  subject  (if  we  are  to  consider  subjects  at  all)  and 
in  its  employment  of  rhyme,  that  greatest  mechanical  aid  of 
the  poet,  The  Faerie  Queene  seems  to  me  greater,  or  because 
Milton's  own  earlier  work  seems  to  me  to  rank  higher  than 
Jhiradise  Lost.  The  general  opinion  is,  of  course,  different ;  and 
one  critic  of  no  mean  repute,  Christopher  North,  has  argued  that 
J'aradise  L^st  is  the  only  "great  poem"  in  existence.  That 
(juestion  need  not  be  argued  here.  It  is  suflicient  to  say  that 
.Milton  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  few  great  jjoets  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  and  that  if  he  falls  short  of  Homer,  Dante,  and 
Shakespere,  it  is  chiefly  becau.sc  he  expresses  less  of  that 
humanity,  both  universal  and  quintes.sential,  which  tiiey,  and 
especially  the  last,  put  into  verse.  Narrowness  is  his  fault  JUit 
the  intense  individuality  which  often  accompanies  narrowness  is 
his  great  virtue — a  virtue  whi(  h  no  poet,  which  no  writer  either 
in  verse  or  prose,  has  ever  had   in  greater  measure  than  he,  and 


330     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES    chap. 

which  hardly  any  has  been  able  to  express  with  more  varied  and 
exquisite  harmony. 

Jeremy  Taylor,  the  ornament  and  glory  of  the  English  pulpit, 
was  born  at  Cambridge  in  1613.  He  was  the  son  of  a  barber, 
but  was  well  educated,  and  was  able  to  enter  Caius  College  as  a 
sizar  at  thirteen.  He  spent  seven  years  there,  and  took  both 
degrees  and  orders  at  an  unusually  early  age.  Apparently,  how- 
ever, no  solid  endowment  was  offered  him  in  his  own  university, 
and  he  owed  such  preferment  as  he  had  (it  was  never  very  great) 
to  a  chance  opportunity  of  preaching  at  St.  Paul's  and  a  recom- 
mendation to  Laud.  That  prelate  —  to  whom  all  the  infinite 
malignity  of  political  and  sectarian  detraction  has  not  been  able 
to  deny  the  title  of  an  encourager,  as  few  men  have  encouraged 
them,  of  learning  and  piety — took  Taylor  under  his  protection, 
made  him  his  chaplain,  and  procured  him  incorporation  at  Oxford, 
a  fellowship  at  All  Souls,  and  finally  the  rectory  of  Uppingham. 
To  this  Taylor  was  appointed  in  1658,  and  next  year  he  married 
a  lady  who  bore  him  several  sons,  but  died  young.  Taylor  early 
joined  the  king  at  Oxford,  and  is  supposed  to  have  followed  his 
fortunes  in  the  field ;  it  is  certain  that  his  rectory,  lying  in  a 
Puritan  district,  was  very  soon  sequestrated,  though  not  by  any 
form  of  law.  What  took  him  into  Wales  and  caused  him  to 
marry  his  second  wife,  Joanna  Brydges  (an  heiress  on  a  small 
scale,  and  said  to  have  been  a  natural  daughter  of  Charles  I.), 
is  not  known.  But  he  sojourned  in  the  principality  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  Commonwealth  period,  and  was  much  patron- 
ised by  the  Earl  of  Carbery,  who,  while  resident  at  Golden 
Grove,  made  him  his  chaplain.  He  also  made  the  acquaintance 
of  other  persons  of  interest,  the  chief  of  whom  were,  in  London 
(which  he  visited  not  always  of  his  own  choice,  for  he  was  more 
than  once  imprisoned),  John  Evelyn,  and  in  Wales,  Mrs.  Kathe- 
rine  Philips,  "the  matchless  Orinda,"  to  whom  he  dedicated  one 
of  the  most  interesting  of  his  minor  works,  the  Measure  and 
Offices  of  Friendship.  Not  long  before  the  Restoration  he  was 
offered,  and  strongly  pressed   to  accept,  the  i)Ost  of   lecturer  at 


IX  JEREMY  TAYLOR  331 

Lisburn,  in  Irclaml.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  taken  at  all 
kindly  to  the  notion,  but  was  over-persuaded,  and  crossed  the 
Channel.  It  was  perhaps  owing  to  this  false  step  that,  when  the 
Restoration  arrived,  the  preferment  which  he  had  in  so  many 
ways  merited  only  came  to  him  in  the  tents  of  Kedar.  He  was 
made  Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor,  held  that  see  for  seven  years, 
and  died  (after  much  wrestling  with  Ulster  Presbyterians  ajiil 
some  domestic  misfortune)  of  fever  in  1667. 

His  work  is  voluminous  and  always  interesting  ;  but  only  a 
small  part  of  it  concerns  us  directly  here,  as  exhibiting  him  at 
his  best  and  most  peculiar  in  the  management  of  English  prose. 
He  wrote,  it  should  be  said,  a  few  verses  by  no  means  destitute 
of  merit,  but  they  are  so  few,  in  comparison  to  the  bulk  of  his 
work,  that  they  may  be  neglected.  Taylor's  strong  point  was  not 
accuracy  of  statement  or  logical  precision.  His  longest  work,  the 
Ditctor  Dubilantiuni,  an  elaborate  manual  of  casuistry,  is  con- 
stantly marred  by  the  author's  inability  to  fix  on  a  single  point, 
and  to  keep  his  argumentation  close  to  that.  In  another,  the 
Union  Necessariian,  or  Discourse  on  Repentance,  his  looseness 
of  statement  and  want  of  care  in  driving  several  horses  at  once, 
involved  him  in  a  charge  of  Pelagianism,  or  something  like  it, 
which  he  wrote  much  to  disjirove,  but  which  has  so  far  lasted  as 
to  justify  modern  theologians  in  regarding  his  ideas  on  this  and 
other  theological  points  as,  to  say  the  least,  confused.  All  over 
his  work  inexact  quotation  friMii  memory,  illicit  argumentation, 
and  an  abiding  inconsistency,  mar  the  intellectual  value,  affecting 
not  least  his  famous  Liberty  of  J'fop/iesying,  or  plea  for  tolera- 
tion against  the  new  Presbyterian  uniformity, — the  conformity  of 
which  treati.se  with  modern  ideas  has  perhaps  made  some  jjcrsons 
slow  to  recognise  its  faults.  The.se  shoric  oinings,  however,  are 
not  more  constant  in  Taylor's  work  than  his  genuine  piety,  hi.^ 
fervent  charity,  his  freedom  from  personal  arrogance  and  i)relen- 
tiousncss,  and  his  ardent  love  for  souls  ;  while  neitlier  shortcom- 
ings nor  virtues  of  this  kind  concern  us  here  so  much  as  the  extra- 
ordinary rhetorical  nierils  whi<  h  distinguish  all  his  work  iiwjre  or 


332     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES    chap. 

less,  and  ^Yhich  are  chiefly  noticeable  in  his  .S'tvwrw^,,  especially 
the  Golden  Grove  course,  and  the  funeral  sermon  on  Lady 
Carbery,  in  his  Contemplations  of  the  State  of  Mail,  and  in  parts 
of  liis  Life  of  Christ,  and  of  the  uniyersally  popular  and  admirable 
tractates  on  Holy  Living  and  Holy  Dying. 

Jeremy  Taylor's  style  is  emphatically  and  before  all  things 
florid  and  ornate.  It  is  not  so  elaborately  quaint  as  Browne's ; 
it  is  not  so  stiffly  splendid  as  Milton's ;  it  is  distinguished  from 
both  by  a  much  less  admixture  of  Latinisms  ;  but  it  is  impossible 
to  call  it  either  verbally  chastened  or  syntactically  correct.  Cole- 
ridge— an  authority  always  to  be  diff'ered  with  cautiously  and 
under  protest — holds  indeed  a  different  opinion.  He  will  have 
it  that  Browne  was  the  corruptor,  though  a  corruptor  of  the 
greatest  genius,  in  point  of  vocabulary,  and  that,  as  far  as  syntax 
is  concerned,  in  Jeremy  Taylor  the  sentences  are  often  extremely 
long,  and  yet  are  generally  so  perspicuous  in  consequence  of  their 
logical  structure  that  they  require  no  reperusal  to  be  understood. 
And  he  will  have  the  same  to  be  true  not  only  of  Hooker  (which 
may  pass),  but  of  Milton,  in  reference  to  whom  admirers  not  less 
strong  than  Coleridge  hold  that  he  sometimes  forgets  the  period 
altogether. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Coleridge  in  these  remarks  was 
fighting  the  battle  of  the  recoverers  of  our  great  seventeenth 
century  writers  against  the  devotees  of  "  correctness,"  and  that  in 
the  very  same  context  he  makes  the  unpardonable  assertion  that 
Gibbon's  manner  is  "the  worst  of  all,"  and  that  Tacitus  "writes 
in  falsetto  as  compared  to  Tully."  This  is  to  "  fight  a  prize  "  in 
the  old  phrase,  not  to  judge  from  the  catholic  and  universal 
standpoint  of  impartial  criticism ;  and  in  order  to  reduce  Cole- 
ridge's assertions  to  that  standard  we  must  abate  nearly  as  much 
from  his  praise  of  Taylor  as  from  his  abuse  of  Gibbon — an  abuse, 
by  the  way,  which  is  strangely  contrasted  with  praise  of  "Junius." 
It  is  not  true  that,  except  by  great  complaisance  of  the  reader, 
Jeremy  Taylor's  long  sentences  are  at  once  understandable.  They 
may,  of  course,  and  generally  can  be  understood  kata  to  semaino 


IX  JEREMY  TAYLOR  333 

menofi,  as  a  tele£rram  with  half  the  words  left  out  mav  at  the  other 
end  of  the  scale  be  understood.  But  they  constantly  withstand 
even  a  generous  parser,  even  one  who  is  to  the  fullest  extent 
ready  to  allow  for  idiom  and  individuality.  They  abuse  in  parti- 
cular the  conjunction  to  a  most  enormous  extent — coupling  by 
its  means  propositions  which  have  no  logical  connection,  which 
start  entirely  different  trains  of  thought,  and  which  are  only 
united  because  carelessness  and  foshion  combined  made  it  un- 
necessary for  the  writer  to  take  the  little  extra  trouble  necessary 
for  their  separation.  Taylor  will,  in  the  very  middle  of  his  finest 
passages,  and  with  hardly  so  much  as  a  comma's  break,  change 
oraiio  obliqua  to  oratio  recta,  interrupt  the  sequence  of  tenses, 
make  his  verbs  agree  with  the  nearest  noun,  irrespective  of 
the  connection,  and  in  short,  though  he  was,  while  in  Wales, 
a  schoolmaster  for  some  time,  and  author  of  a  grammatical 
treatise,  will  break  Priscian's  head  with  the  calmest  uncon- 
cern. It  is  quite  true  that  these  faults  mainly  occur  in  his  more 
rhetorical  passages,  in  his  exercises  rather  of  spoken  than  of 
written  prose.  But  that,  as  any  critic  who  is  not  an  advocate 
must  see,  is  no  palliation.  The  real  palliation  is  that  the  time 
had  not  yet  aroused  itself  to  the  consciousness  of  the  fact  that 
letting  English  grammar  at  one  moment  go  to  the  winds 
altogether,  and  at  the  next  subjecting  it  to  the  most  inappropriate 
rules  and  licenses  of  Latin,  was  not  the  way  to  secure  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  accomplished  and  generally  useful  English  prose. 
No  stranger  instance  of  prejudice  can  be  given  than  that  Cole- 
ridge, on  the  point  of  asking,  and  justly,  from  Dryden  "  a  stric  ter 
grammar,"  shduUl  exalt  to  the  skies  a  writer  compared  to  whom 
Dryden  is  grammatically  impeccable. 

liut  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  Taylor  distinctly  belongs  to 
the  antinomians  of  English  prose,  or  at  least  to  those  guiltless 
heathens  who  lived  before  the  laws  of  it  had  been  asserted,  ( an 
not  in  any  competent  critic  dull  the  sense  of  the  wonderful  beauty 
of  his  style.  It  has  been  said  that  this  beauty  is  entirely  of  the 
florid  and  ornate  order,  lending  itself  in  this  way  easily  enough  to 


334      MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  IIOBBES     chap. 

the  witty  and  well-worded,  though  unjust  and  ungenerous  censure 
which  South  pronounced  on  it  after  the  author's  death.  It  may 
or  may  not  be  that  the  phrases  there  censured,  "  The  fringes  of  the 
north  star,"  and  "The  dew  of  angels'  wings,"  and  "Thus  have  I 
seen  a  cloud  rolling  in  its  airy  mansion,"  are  not  of  that  "apos- 
tolic plainness  "  that  a  Christian  minister's  speech  should  have. 
But  they  and  their  likes  are  extremely  beautiful — save  that  in 
literature  no  less  than  in  theology  South  has  justly  perstringed 
Taylor's  constant  and  most  unworthy  affectation  of  introducing  a 
simile  by  "  so  I  have  seen."  In  the  next  age  the  phrase  was 
tediously  abused,  and  in  the  age  after,  and  ever  since,  it  became 
and  has  remained  mere  burlesque ;  but  it  was  never  good  ;  and 
in  the  two  fine  specimen  passages  which  follow  it  is  a  distinct 
blot :— 

The  Prayers  of  Atrger  and  of  Lust. 

"  Prayer  is  the  peace  of  our  spirit,  the  stillness  of  our  thoughts,  the  even- 
ness of  recollection,  the  seat  of  meditation,  the  rest  of  our  cares,  and  the  calm 
of  our  tempest.  Prayer  is  the  issue  of  a  quiet  mind,  of  untroubled  thoughts  ; 
it  is  the  daughter  of  charity  and  the  sister  of  meekness ;  and  he  that  prays  to 
God  with  an  angry — that  is  a  troubled  and  discomposed — spirit,  is  like  him 
that  retires  into  a  battle  to  meditate  and  sets  up  his  closet  in  the  outquarters  of 
an  army,  and  chooses  a  frontier  garrison  to  be  wise  in.  Anger  is  a  perfect 
alienation  of  the  mind  from  prayer,  and  therefore  is  contrary  to  that  attention 
which  presents  our  prayers  in  a  right  line  to  God.  For  so  have  I  seen  a  lark 
rising  from  his  bed  of  grass,  soaring  upwards  and  singing  as  he  rises  and  hopes 
to  get  to  Heaven  and  climb  above  the  clouds  ;  but  the  poor  l^ird  was  beaten 
back  with  the  loud  sighings  of  an  eastern  wind  and  his  motion  made  irregular 
and  inconstant,  descending  more  at  every  breath  of  the  tempest  than  it  could 
recover  by  the  vibration  and  frequent  weighing  of  his  wings  ;  till  the  little  crea- 
ture was  forced  to  sit  down  and  pant  and  stay  till  the  storm  was  over  ;  and 
then  it  made  a  prosperous  flight  and  did  rise  and  sing  as  if  it  had  learned  music 
and  motion  from  an  angel  as  he  passed  sometimes  through  the  air  about  his 
ministries  here  below.  So  is  the  prayer  of  a  good  man  :  when  his  affairs  have 
required  business,  and  his  business  was  matter  of  discipline,  and  his  discipline 
was  to  pass  upon  a  sinning  person,  or  had  a  design  of  charity,  his  duty  met 
with  infirmities  of  a  man  and  anger  was  its  instrument,  and  the  instrument 
became  stronger  than  the  prime  agent  and  raised  a  tempest  and  overruled  the 
man ;  and  then  his  prayer  was  broken  and  his  thoughts  troubled. 


IX  JEREMY  TAYLOR  335 

"  For  so  an  impure  vapour — begotten  of  the  bliine  of  the  earth  by  the 
fevers  and  adulterous  heats  of  nn  intemperate  summer  sun,  striving  by  the 
ladder  of  a  mountain  to  climl)  to  heaven  and  rolling  into  various  figures  by  an 
uneasy,  unfixed  revolution,  and  stopped  at  the  middle  region  of  the  air,  being 
thrown  from  his  pride  and  attempt  of  passing  towards  the  seat  of  the  stars — 
turns  into  an  unwholesome  flame  and,  like  the  breath  of  hell,  is  confined  into 
a  prison  of  darkness  and  a  cloud,  till  it  breaks  into  diseases,  plagues  and  mil- 
dews, stinks  anil  blastings.  So  is  the  prayer  of  an  unchaste  person.  It  strives 
to  clirr.b  the  battlements  of  heaven,  but  because  it  is  a  llame  of  sulphur  salt 
and  bitumen,  and  was  kindled  in  the  dishonourable  regions  below,  derived  from 
Hell  and  contrary  to  Gotl,  it  cannot  pass  forth  to  the  element  of  love;  but 
ends  in  barrenness  and  murmurs,  fantastic  expectations  and  trifling  imaginative 
confidences  ;  and  they  at  last  end  in  sorrows  and  despair. " 

Indeed,  like  all  very  florid  writers,  Taylor  i.s  liable  to  eclipses  of 
taste  ;  yet  both  the  wording  of  his  flights  and  the  occasion  of  them 
(they  are  to  be  found  />assi»i  in  the  Sermons)  are  almost  wholly 
admirable.  It  is  always  a  great  and  universal  idea — never  a  mere 
conceit — that  fires  him.  The  shortness  and  dangers  of  life,  the 
weakness  of  children,  the  fragility  of  women's  beauty  and  men's 
strength,  the  change  of  the  seasons,  the  vicissitudes  of  empires, 
the  impossibility  of  satisfying  desire,  the  disgust  which  follows 
satiety — these  are,  if  any  one  chooses,  commonplace  enough  ;  yet 
it  is  the  observation  of  all  who  have  carefully  studied  literature, 
and  the  experience  of  all  who  have  observed  their  own  thoughts, 
that  it  is  always  in  relation  to  these  commonplaces  that  the  most 
beautiful  expressions  and  the  noblest  sentiments  arise.  The 
uncommon  thought  is  too  likely  if  not  too  certain  to  be  an  un- 
common conceit,  and  if  not  worthless,  yet  of  inferior  worth. 
Among  prose  writers  Taylor  is  unequalled  for  his  touches  of  this 
universal  material,  for  the  genius  with  which  he  makes  the  conunon 
uncommon.  Kor  instance,  he  has  the  supreme  faculty  of  always 
making  the  verbal  and  the  intellectual  presentation  of  the  thought 
alike  beautiful,  of  appealing  to  the  ear  and  the  mind  at  the  same 
time,  of  never  depriving  the  apple  of  gold  of  its  pic  ture  tjf  silver. 
Vet  for  all  this  the  charge  of  over-clal)orati<jn  whi<  h  may  justly  i)e 
brought  against  iJrowne  very  rarely  hits  Taylor.  He  seldom  or 
never  has  the  appearance  which  ornate  writers  of  all  times,  and  of 


336      MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  liOBBES     cuAr. 

his  own  more  especially,  so  often  have,  of  going  back  on  a  thought 
or  a  phrase  to  try  to  better  it — of  being  stimulated  by  actual  or 
fancied  applause  to  cap  the  climax.  His  most  beautiful  passages 
come  quite  suddenly  and  naturally  as  the  subject  requires  and  as 
the  thought  strikes  light  in  his  mind.  Nor  are  they  ever,  as 
Milton's  so  often  are,  marred  by  a  descent  as  rapid  as  their  rise. 
He  is  never  below  a  certain  decent  level ;  he  may  return  to 
earth  from  heaven,  but  he  goes  no  lower,  and  reaches  even  his 
lower  level  by  a  quiet  and  equable  sinking.  As  has  been  fully 
allowed,  he  has  grave  defects,  the  defects  of  his  time.  But  from 
some  of  these  he  was  conspicuously  free,  and  on  the  whole  no  one 
in  English  prose  (unless  it  be  his  successor  here)  has  so  much 
command  of  the  enchanter's  wand  as  Jeremy  Taylor. 

Sir  Thomas  Browne  was  born  in  the  heart  of  London  in  1605, 
his  father  (of  whom  little  is  known  except  one  or  two  anecdotes 
corresponding  with  the  character  of  the  son)  having  been  a 
merchant  of  some  property,  and  claiming  descent  from  a  good 
family  in  Cheshire.  This  father  died  when  he  was  quite  young, 
and  Browne  is  said  to  have  been  cheated  by  his  guardians ;  but 
he  was  evidently  at  all  times  of  his  life  in  easy  circumstances,  and 
seems  to  have  had  no  complaint  to  make  of  his  stepfather,  Sir 
Thomas  Button.  This  stepfather  may  at  least  possibly  have 
been  the  hero  of  the  duel  with  Sir  Hatton  Cheeke,  which  Mr. 
Carlyle  has  made  famous.  With  him  Browne  visited  Ireland, 
having  previously  been  brought  up  at  AVinchester  and  at  Broad- 
gates  Hall,  which  became,  during  his  own  residence,  Pembroke 
College,  at  Oxford.  Later  he  made  the  usual  grand  tour.  Then 
he  took  medical  degrees ;  practised  it  is  said,  though  on  no  very 
precise  evidence,  both  in  Oxfordshire  and  Yorkshire ;  settled,  why 
is  not  known,  at  Norwich;  married  in  1641  Dorothy  Mileham,  a 
lady  of  good  family  in  his  adopted  county  ;  was  a  steady  Royalist 
through  the  troubles ;  acquired  a  great  name  for  medical  and 
scientific  knowledge,  though  he  was  not  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal 
Society;  was  knighted  by  Charles  H.  in  1662,  and  died  in  1682. 
His  first  literary  appearance  had  been  made  forty  years  earlier  in 


IX  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  337 

a  way  very  common  in  French  literary  history,  but  so  uncommon 
in  Enghsh  as  to  have  drawn  from  Johnson  a  rather  unwontedly 
ilHberal  sneer.  At  a  time  unknown,  but  by  his  own  account 
before  his  thirtieth  year  (therefore  before  1635),  Browne  had 
written  the  Rf/igio  Miiiici.  It  was,  according  to  the  habit  of  the 
time,  copied  and  handed  about  in  MS.  (there  exist  now  five  MS. 
copies  showing  remarkable  differences  with  each  other  and  llie 
printed  copies),  and  in  1642  it  got  into  print.  A  copy  was  sent 
by  Lord  Dorset  to  the  famous  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  then  under 
confinement  for  his  opinions,  and  the  husband  of  Venetia  wrote 
certain  not  very  forcible  and  not  wholly  complimentary  remarks 
which,  as  Browne  was  informed,  were  at  once  put  to  press.  A 
correspondence  ensued,  and  Browne  published  an  authorised 
copy,  in  which  perhaps  a  little  "economy"  might  be  noticed. 
The  book  made  an  extraordinary  impression,  and  was  widely 
translated  and  commented  on  in  foreign  languages,  though  its 
vogue  was  purely  due  to  its  intrinsic  merits,  and  not  at  all  to  the 
circumstances  which  enabled  Milton  (ratlicr  arrogantly  and  not 
with  absolute  truth)  to  boast  that  "  Europe  rang  from  side  to 
side"  with  his  defence  of  the  execution  of  Charles  I.  Four 
years  later,  in  1646,  Browne  published  his  largest  and  in  every 
sense  most  popular  book,  tlie  Pseudodoxia  Epidcinica  or  Enquiry 
into  Vu/gar  Errors.  Twelve  more  years  passed  before  the 
greatest,  from  a  literary  point  of  view,  of  his  works,  the  Ilydrio- 
taphia  or  Urn-Burial., — a  magnificent  descant  on  the  vanity  of 
human  life,  based  on  the  discovery  of  certain  cinerary  urns  in 
Norfolk, — appeared,  in  company  witii  the  fjuaint  Garden  of  Cyrus, 
a  half-learned,  half-fanciful  discussion  of  the  mysteries  of  the 
(juincunx  and  the  number  five.  Nor  did  he  publish  anything  more 
himself;  but  two  collections  of  posthumous  works  were  issued 
after  his  death,  the  most  important  item  of  which  is  the  Christian 
Afora/s,  and  the  total  has  been  swelled  since  by  extracts  from  his 
MSS.,  which  at  the  death  of  his  grandson  and  namesake  in  17  10 
were  sold  by  auction.  .Most  fortunately  they  were  nearly  all 
bought  by  Sir  Mans  Sloane,  and  are  to  this  day  in  the  British 
11  y. 


338     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES    chap. 

Museum.  Browne's  good  luck  in  this  respect  was  completed  by 
the  devotion  of  his  editor,  Simon  AVilkin,  a  Norwich  bookseller 
of  gentle  blood  and  good  education,  who  produced  (1835)  after 
twelve  years'  labour  of  love  what  Southey  has  justly  called  the 
best  edited  book  in  the  English  language.  Not  to  mention  other 
editions,  the  Religio  Medici,  which  exhibits,  owing  to  its  history, 
an  unusual  variation  of  text,  has  been,  together  with  the  Christian 
Afoj-als,  separately  edited  with  great  minuteness  by  Dr.  Greenhill. 
Nor  is  it  unimportant  to  notice  that  Johnson,  during  his  period 
of  literary  hack-work,  also  edited  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  and  wrote 
what  Wilkin's  good  taste  has  permitted  to  be  still  the  standard 
text  of  his  Life. 

The  work  of  this  country  doctor  is,  for  personal  savour,  for 
strangeness,  and  for  delight,  one  of  the  most  notable  things  in 
English  literature.  It  is  not  of  extraordinary  voluminousness, 
for  though  swollen  in  Wilkin's  edition  by  abundant  editorial 
matter,  it  fills  but  three  of  the  well-known  volumes  of  Bohn's 
series,  and,  printed  by  itself,  it  might  not  much  exceed  two 
ordinary  library  octavos ;  but  in  character  and  interest  it  yields 
to  the  work  of  no  other  English  prose  writer.  It  may  be 
divided,  from  our  point  of  view,  into  two  unequal  parts,  the 
smaller  of  which  is  in  truth  of  the  greater  interest.  The  Vulgar 
Errors,  those  of  the  smaller  tracts  which  deal  with  subjects  of 
natural  history  (as  most  of  them  do),  many  of  the  commonplace 
book  entries,  the  greater  part  of  the  Garden  of  Cyrus,  and  most 
of  the  Letters,  are  mainly  distinguished  by  an  interest  of  matter 
constantly  increased,  it  is  true,  by  the  display  of  the  author's 
racy  personality,  and  diversified  here  and  there  by  passages  also 
displaying  his  style  to  the  full,  but  in  general  character  not  differ- 
ing from  the  works  of  other  curious  writers  in  the  delightful 
period  which  passed  between  the  childish  credulity  of  mediaeval 
and  classical  physics  and  the  arid  analysis  of  the  modern 
"scientist."  Sir  Thomas  Browne  was  of  a  certain  natural 
scepticism  of  temperament  (a  scepticism  which,  as  displayed  in 
relation   to   other   matters   in   the    Religio   Medici,  very  unjustly 


IX  BROWNE'S  MANXKR 


339 


brought  upon  him  the  reproach  of  rehgious  unorthodoxv)  ;  he 
was  a  trained  and  indefatigable  observer  of  facts,  and  he  was  by 
no  means  prepared  to  receive  authority  as  final  in  any  extra- 
religious  matters.  But  he  had  a  thoroughly  literary,  not  to  say 
poetical  idiosyncrasy;  he  was  both  by  nature  and  education  disposed 
to  seek  for  something  more  than  that  physical  explanation  which, 
as  the  greatest  of  all  anti-supernatural  philosophers  has  observed, 
merely  pushes  ignorance  a  little  farther  back  ;  and  he  was  pos- 
sessed of  an  extraordinary  fertility  of  imagination  which  made 
comment,  analogy,  and  amplification  both  easy  and  delightful  to 
him.  He  was,  therefore,  much  more  disposed — except  in  the  face 
of  absolutely  conclusive  evidence — to  rationalise  than  to  deny  a 
vulgar  error,  to  bring  explanations  and  saving  clauses  to  its  aid, 
than  to  cut  it  adrift  utterly.  In  this  part  of  his  work  his  dis- 
tinguishing graces  and  peculiarities  of  style  appear  but  sparinglv 
and  not  eminently.  In  the  other  division,  consisting  of  the 
Re/igio  Medici,  the  Urn-Burial^  the  Christian  Morals,  and  the 
Letter  to  a  Friend,  his  strictly  literary  peculiarities,  as  being  less 
hampered  by  the  exposition  of  matter,  have  freer  scope  ;  and  it 
must  be  recollected  that  these  literary  peculiarities,  independently 
of  their  own  interest,  have  been  a  main  influence  in  determinin-r 
the  style  of  two  of  the  most  remarkable  writers  of  English  prose  in 
the  two  centuries  immediately  succeeding  Browne.  It  has  been 
said  that  Johnson  edited  him  somewhat  early  ;  and  all  the  best 
authorities  are  in  accord  that  the  Johnsonian  Latinisms,  differ- 
ently managed  as  they  are,  are  in  all  probability  due  more  to  the 
fcillowing — if  only  to  the  unconscious  following — of  Browne  than 
to  anything  el.se.  The  second  instance  is  more  indubitable  still 
and  more  hajjpy.  It  detracts  nothing  from  the  unicjuc  charm  of 
"  Klia,'  and  it  will  be  most  clearly  recognised  by  those  who 
know  "  Elia  "  Ik-sI,  that  I. amb  constantly  borrows  from  Browne, 
that  the  mould  and  shape  of  his  most  characteristic  phrases  is 
Irequently  suggested  directly  by  Sir  Thomas,  an<l  that  though  tlicre 
seldom  can  have  liecn  a  follower  who  put  uKjre  ui  his  own  in  iiis 
following,  it  may  be  pronounced  with  confidence,  "  iiu  Browne,  no 


340     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 

Lamb,"  at  least  in  the  forms  in  which  we  know  the  author  of 
"  EUa  "  best,  and  in  which  all  those  who  know  him  best,  though 
they  may  love  him  always,  love  him  most.  Yet  Browne  is  not  a 
very  easy  author  to  "sample."  A  few  splendid  sustained  pas- 
sages, like  the  famous  one  in  the  Urfi-Burial,  are  universally 
known,  but  he  is  best  in  flashes.  The  following,  from  the 
Cliristian  Morals^  is  characteristic  enough  : — 

"  Punish  not  thyself  with  pleasure  ;  glut  not  thy  sense  with  palative  de- 
lights ;  nor  revenge  the  contempt  of  temperance  by  the  penalty  of  satiety. 
Were  there  an  age  of  delight  or  any  pleasure  durable,  who  would  not  honour 
Volupia?  but  the  race  of  delight  is  short,  and  pleasures  have  mutable  faces. 
The  pleasures  of  one  age  are  not  pleasures  in  another,  and  their  lives  fall  short 
of  our  own.  Even  in  our  sensual  days  the  strength  of  delight  is  in  its  seldom- 
ness  or  rarity,  and  sting  in  its  satiety  :  mediocrity  is  its  life,  and  immoderacy 
its  confusion.  The  luxurious  emperors  of  old  inconsiderately  satiated  them- 
selves with  the  dainties  of  sea  and  land  till,  wearied  through  all  varieties,  their 
refections  became  a  study  with  them,  and  they  were  fain  to  feed  by  invention  : 
novices  in  true  epicurism  !  which  by  mediocrity,  paucity,  quick  and  healthful 
appetite,  makes  delights  smartly  acceptable  ;  whereby  Epicurus  himself  found 
Jupiter's  brain  in  a  piece  of  Cytheridian  cheese,  and  the  tongues  of  nightingales 
in  a  dish  of  onions.  Hereby  healthful  and  temperate  poverty  hath  the  start  of 
nauseating  luxury  ;  unto  whose  clear  and  naked  appetite  every  meal  is  a  feast, 
and  in  one  single  dish  the  first  course  of  Metellus  ;  who  are  cheaply  hungry, 
and  never  lose  their  hunger,  or  advantage  of  a  craving  appetite,  because  obvious 
food  contents  it ;  while  Nero,  half  famish'd,  could  not  feed  upon  a  piece  of 
bread,  and,  lingering  after  his  snowed  water,  hardly  got  down  an  ordinary  cup 
of  Calda.  By  such  circumscriptions  of  pleasure  the  contemned  philosophers 
reserved  unto  themselves  the  secret  of  delight,  which  the  Helluos  of  those  days 
lost  in  their  exorbitances.  In  vain  we  study  delight  :  it  is  at  the  command  of 
every  sober  mind,  and  in  every  sense  born  with  us  ;  but  Nature,  who  teacheth 
us  the  rule  of  pleasure,  instructeth  also  in  the  bounds  thereof  and  where  its  line 
expireth.  And  therefore  temperate  minds,  not  pressing  their  pleasures  until 
the  sting  appeareth,  enjoy  their  contentations  contentedly  and  without  regret, 
and  so  escape  the  folly  of  excess,  to  be  pleased  unto  displacency. " 

"  Bring  candid  eyes  unto  the  perusal  of  men's  works,  and  let  not  Zoilism 
or  detraction  blast  well-intended  labours.  He  that  endureth  no  faults  in  men's 
writings  must  only  read  his  own,  wherein  for  the  most  part  all  appeareth  white. 
Quotation  mistakes,  inadvertency,  expedition  and  human  lapses,  may  make  not 
only  moles  but  warts  in  learned  authors,  who  notvvithstantling,  being  judged  by 


IX  BROWNE'S  SYNTAX  341 

the  capital  matter,  admit  not  of  liisparagcmcnt.  I  should  unwillingly  atVirm 
that  Cicero  was  but  slightly  versed  in  Homer,  because  in  his  work  De  Gloria 
he  ascribed  those  verses  unto  Ajax  which  were  delivered  by  Hector.  What  if 
I'lautus,  in  the  account  of  Hercules,  mistaketh  nativity  for  conception  ?  \\ho 
would  have  mean  thoughts  of  Apollinaris  Sidonius,  who  seems  to  mistake  the 
river  Tigris  for  Euphrates  ;  and,  though  a  good  historian  and  learned  Bishop 
of  Auvergne,  had  the  misfortune  to  be  out  in  the  story  of  David,  making  men- 
tion of  him  when  the  ark  was  sent  back  by  the  Philistines  upon  a  cart,  which 
was  before  his  time  ?  Though  I  have  no  great  opinion  of  Machiavel's  learn- 
ing, yet  I  shall  not  presently  say  thai  he  was  but  a  novice  in  Roman  History, 
because  he  was  mistaken  in  placing  Commodus  after  the  Emperor  Severus. 
Capital  truths  are  to  be  narrowly  eyed,  collateral  lapses  and  circumstantial  de- 
liveries not  to  be  too  strictly  sifted.  And  if  the  substantial  subject  be  well 
forged  out,  we  need  not  examine  the  sparks  which  irregularly  tly  from  it." 

Coleridge,  as  we  have  seen,  charges  Browne  with  corrupting 
the  style  of  the  great  age.  The  charge  is  not  ju.st  in  regard  to 
either  of  the  two  great  faults  which  are  urged  against  the  style, 
strictly  speaking ;  while  it  is  hardly  just  in  reference  to  a  minor 
charge  which  is  brought  against  wliat  is  not  quite  style,  namely, 
the  selection  and  treatment  of  the  thought.  The  two  charges 
first  referred  to  are  Latinising  of  vocabulary  and  disorderly  syntax 
of  sentence.  In  regard  to  the  first,  Browne  Latinises  somewhat 
more  than  Jeremy  Taylor,  hardly  at  all  more  than  Milton,  though 
he  does  not,  like  Milton,  contrast  and  relieve  his  Latinisms  hy 
indulgence  in  vernacular  terms  of  the  most  idiomatic  kind  ;  and 
he  is  conspicuously  free  from  the  great  fault  botii  of  Milton  and 
of  Taylor — the  clumsy  conglomeration  of  clauses  which  turns  a 
sentence  into  a  paragraph,  and  makes  a  badly  ordered  paragraph 
of  it  after  all.  Browne's  sentences,  especially  those  of  the  hooks 
regularly  prepared  for  the  press  by  him,  are  by  no  means  long 
and  are  usually  very  perspicuous,  being  separable  in  some  cases 
into  shorter  sentences  by  a  mere  mechanical  rcpunctuation  which, 
if  tried  on  'i'aylor  or  Milton,  would  make  nonsense.  To  say  that 
they  are  sometimes  longer  than  they  should  be,  and  often 
awkwardly  co-ordinated,  is  merely  to  say  that  he  wrote  when  he 
wrote;  but  he  by  no  means  sins  beyond  his  fellows.  In  regard 
t(;   I^itinisms  his  case  is  not  so  good.      lb-  (onstanlly  uses  such 


342     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 

words  as  "clarity"  for  "clearness,"  "ferity"  for  "fierceness"  or 
"wildness,"  when  nothing  is  gained  by  the  exotic  form.  Dr. 
Greenhill's  useful  glossary  to  the  Religio  and  the  Morals  exhibits 
in  tabular  form  not  merely  such  terms  as  "  abbreviatures," 
"  aequilibriously,"  "  bivious,"  "convincible,"  "  exantlation,"  and 
hundreds  of  others  with  which  there  is  no  need  to  fill  the  page, 
but  also  a  number  only  less  considerable  of  those  far  more  objec- 
tionable usages  which  take  a  word  generally  understood  in  one 
sense  (as,  for  instance,  "  equable,"  "  gratitudes,"  and  many  others), 
and  by  twisting  or  translation  of  its  classical  equivalents  and 
etymons  give  it  some  quite  new  sense  in  English.  It  is  true 
that  in  some  case  the  usual  sense  was  not  then  firmly  established, 
but  Browne  can  hardly  be  acquitted  of  wilfully  preferring  the 
obscurer. 

Yet  this  hybrid  and  bizarre  vocabulary  is  so  admirably  married 
to  the  substance  of  the  writing  that  no  one  of  taste  can  find  fault 
with  it.  For  Browne  (to  come  to  the  third  point  mentioned 
above),  though  he  never  descends  or  diverges — whichever  word 
may  be  preferred — to  the  extravagant  and  occasionally  puerile 
conceits  which  even  such  writers  as  Fuller  and  Glanville  cannot 
resist,  has  a  quaintness  at  least  equal  to  theirs.  In  no  great 
writer  is  the  unforeseen  so  constantly  happening.  Every  one  who 
has  written  on  him  has  quoted  the  famous  termination  of  the 
Garden  of  Cyrus,  where  he  determines  that  it  is  time  to  go  to 
bed,  because  "  to  keep  our  eyes  open  longer  were  but  to  act  our 
antipodes.  The  huntsmen  are  up  in  America,  and  they  are  al- 
ready past  their  first  sleep  in  Persia."  A  fancy  so  whimsical  as 
this,  and  yet  so  admirable  in  its  whimsies,  requires  a  style  in 
accordance  ;  and  the  very  sentence  quoted,  though  one  of  the 
plainest  of  Browne's,  and  showing  clearly  that  he  does  not  always 
abuse  Latinising,  would  hardly  be  what  it  is  without  the  word 
"  antipodes."  So  again  in  the  Christian  Morals,  "  Be  not  stoically 
mistaken  in  the  quality  of  sins,  nor  commutatively  iniquitous  in 
the  valuation  of  transgressions."  No  expression  so  terse  and  yet 
so  striking  could  dispense  with  the  classicism  and  the  catachresis 


IX  CLARENDON  343 

of  "stoically."  And  so  it  is  everywhere  with  Browne.  His  manner 
is  exactly  proportioned  to  his  matter  ;  his  exotic  and  unfamiliar 
vocabulary  to  the  strangeness  and  novelty  of  his  thoughts.  He 
can  never  be  really  popular ;  but  tor  the  meditative  reading  of 
instructed  persons  he  is  perhaps  the  most  delightful  of  English 
prosemen. 

There  are  probably  few  English  writers  in  regard  to  whom 
the  judgment  of  critics,  usually  ranked  as  competent,  has  varied 
more  than  in  regard  to  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of  Clarendon.  To  some 
extent  this  is  easily  intelligible  to  any  one  who,  with  some  equip- 
ment, reads  any  considerable  quantity  of  his  work  ;  but  it  would 
be  idle  to  pretend  that  the  great  stumbling-block  of  all  criti- 
cism— the  attention  to  matter  rather  than  to  form — has  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  Clarendon,  at  first  not  a  very  zealous 
Royalist,  was  the  only  man  of  decided  literary  genius  who,  with 
contemporary  knowledge,  wrote  the  history  of  the  great  debate 
between  king  and  commonwealth.  The  effect  of  his  history  in 
deciding  the  question  on  the  Royalist  side  was  felt  in  England  for 
more  than  a  century  ;  and  since  popular  judgment  has  somewhat 
veered  round  to  the  other  side,  its  chief  exponents  have  found  it 
necessary  either  to  say  as  little  as  possible  about  Clarendon  or  to 
depreciate  him.  His  interesting  political  history  cannot  be  de- 
tailed here.  Of  a  good  Cheshire  family,  but  not  originally 
wealthy,  he  was  educated  as  a  lawyer,  was  early  adoi)ted  into  the 
"tribe  of  Ben,"  and  was  among  the  first  to  take  advantage  of  the 
opening  which  the  disputes  between  king  and  parliament  gave  to 
men  of  his  birth,  education,  and  gifts.  At  first  he  was  a  moderate 
o[jponent  of  the  king's  attempts  to  dispense  with  parliament ;  but 
the  growing  evidence  that  the  House  of  Commons  was  seeking 
to  increase  its  own  constitutional  power  at  the  expense  of  the 
prerogative,  and  especially  the  anti -Church  tendencies  of  the 
parliamentary  leaders,  converted  him  at  first  into  a  moderate  and 
then  into  a  strong  Royalist.  One  of  the  ( hicf  of  the  king's  con- 
stitutional advisers,  he  was  after  the  Restoration  the  most  dis- 
tinguished by  far  of  those  Cavaliers  who  had  parliamentary  and 


344    MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES    chap. 

constitutional  experience  ;  and  with  the  title  and  office  of  Chan- 
cellor, he  exercised  a  practical  premiership  during  the  first  seven 
years  of  the  Restoration.  But  ill-fortune,  and  it  must  be  confessed 
some  unwisdom,  marked  his  government.  He  has  been  often 
and  truly  said  to  have  been  a  statesman  of  Ehzabeth,  born  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  too  late.  He  was  thought  by  the  public  to 
be  arbitrary,  a  courtier,  and  even  to  some  extent  corrupt.  He 
seemed  to  the  king  to  be  a  tiresome  formalist  and  censor,  who 
was  only  scrupulous  in  resisting  the  royal  will.  So  he  was 
impeached ;  and,  being  compelled  to  quit  the  kingdom,  spent 
the  last  seven  years  of  his  life  in  France.  His  great  works, 
begun  during  his  first  exile  and  completed  during  his  second, 
are  the  History  of  the  Rebellion  and  his  own  Life^  the  former 
being  by  much  the  more  important  though  the  latter  (divided 
into  a  "  Life "  and  a  "  Continuation,"  the  last  of  which  starts 
from  the  Restoration)  contains  much  interesting  and  important 
biographical  and  historical  matter.  The  text  of  these  works  was 
conveyed  by  his  heirs  to  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  long 
remained  an  exception  to  the  general  rule  of  the  terminableness 
of  copyright. 

Clarendon  is  a  very  striking  example  of  the  hackneyed  remark, 
that  in  some  cases  at  any  rate  men's  merits  are  their  own  and  their 
faults  those  of  their  time.  His  literary  merits  are,  looked  at  by 
themselves,  of  nearly  the  highest  kind.  He  is  certainly  the  best 
English  writer  (and  may  challenge  any  foreigner  without  much 
fear  of  the  result)  in  the  great,  difficult,  and  now  almost  lost  art 
of  character-  (or,  as  it  was  called  in  his  time,  portrait-)  drawing — 
that  is  to  say,  sketching  in  words  the  physical,  moral,  and  mental, 
but  especially  the  moral  and  mental,  peculiarities  of  a  given 
person.  Not  a  few  of  these  characters  of  his  are  among  the 
well-known  "beauties"  justified  in  selection  by  the  endorse- 
ment of  half  a  dozen  generations.  They  are  all  full  of  life ;  and 
even  where  it  may  be  thought  that  prejudice  has  had  something 
to  do  with  the  picture,  still  the  subject  lives,  and  is  not  a  mere 
bundle  of  contradictory  or  even  of  superficially  compatible  char- 


IX  CLARENDON'S  PORTRAITS  345 

acteristics.  Secondly,  Clarendon  is  at  his  best  an  incomparable 
narrator.  Many  of  his  battles,  though  related  with  ai)parent 
coolness,  and  without  the  slightest  attempt  to  be  picturesque, 
may  rank  as  works  of  art  with  his  portraits,  just  as.  the  portraits 
and  battle  pieces  of  a  great  painter  may  rank  together.  The 
sober  vivid  touches,  the  little  bits  of  what  the  French  call  repor- 
tage or  mere  reproduction  of  the  actual  words  and  deeds  of  the 
personages,  the  elaborate  and  carefully-concealed  art  of  the  com- 
position, all  deser\-e  the  highest  praise.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a 
fair  average  passage,  showing  Clarendon's  masterly  skill  in  sum- 
mary narration  and  his  ecjually  masterly,  though,  as  some  hold, 
rather  unscrupulous  faculty  of  insinuating  depreciation  : — 

"  Since  there  will  be  often  occasion  to  mention  this  gentleman,  Sir  Richanl 
Granvil,  in  the  ensuing  discourse,  and  because  many  men  believed  that  he  was 
hardly  dealt  with  in  the  next  year,  where  ail  the  proceedings  will  be  set  down 
at  large,  it  will  not  l>e  unfit  in  this  place  to  say  somewhat  of  him,  and  of  the 
manner  and  merit  of  his  entering  into  the  king's  service  some  months  before 
the  time  we  are  now  upon.  lie  was  of  a  very  ancient  and  worthy  family  in 
Cornwall  which  had  in  several  ages  produced  men  of  great  courage,  and  very 
signal  in  their  fidelity  to  and  service  of  the  crown  ;  and  was  himself  younger 
brother  (though  in  his  nature  or  humour  not  of  kin  to  him)  to  the  brave  Sir 
Hasil  Granvil  who  so  courageously  lost  liis  life  at  the  battle  of  Lansdowne. 
Ueing  a  younger  brother  and  a  very  young  man,  he  went  into  the  Low  Coun- 
tries to  learn  the  profession  u{  a  soldier ;  to  which  he  had  devoted  himself 
under  the  greatest  general  of  that  age,  Prince  Maurice,  and  in  the  regiment  of 
my  Lfjrd  Vere,  who  was  general  of  all  the  Knglish.  In  that  service  he  was 
looke<l  upon  as  a  man  of  courage  and  a  diligent  ofticer,  in  the  ([ualily  of  a  cap- 
tain, to  which  he  attained  after  four  years'  service.  About  this  time,  in  the 
end  of  the  reign  of  King  James,  the  war  broke  out  between  Kngland  an<l  Spain  ; 
and  in  the  expedition  to  Cadiz  this  gentleman  .served  as  a  major  to  a  regiment 
<jf  foot,  and  continued  in  the  same  command  in  the  war  that  shortly  after  fol- 
lowed against  France  ;  antl  at  the  Isle  of  Khe  insinuated  hini.self  into  the  very 
goo<l  graces  of  the  Duke  of  Huckingham,  who  was  the  general  in  that  mission  ; 
and  after  liie  unfortunate  retreat  from  thence  was  made  cdIimkI  of  a  r<gimint 
with  general  approbation  and  as  an  officer  that  well  tlcscrved  it. 

"  His  credit  increased  every  day  with  the  duke  :  who,  out  of  the  generosity 
of  his  nature,  as  a  most  generous  j)crson  he  was,  resolve<l  to  raise  his  fortune  ; 
towanls  the  l>eginniiig  of  which,  by  his  couiilenanrc  and  solicitation,  he  pre- 
vailed with  a  rich  widow  to  marry  him,  who  had  l>een  a  lady  of  extraor<linary 


346     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     ciiaP. 

beauty,  which  she  had  not  yet  outlived  ;  and  though  she  had  no  great  dower 
by  her  husband,  a  younger  brother  of  the  Earl  of  Suffolk,  yet  she  inherited  a 
fair  fortime  of  her  own  near  Plymouth,  and  was  besides  very  rich  in  a  personal 
estate,  and  was  looked  upon  as  the  richest  marriage  of  the  West.  This  lady, 
by  the  duke's  credit.  Sir  Richard  Granvil  (for  he  was  now  made  a  knight  and 
baronet)  obtained,  and  was  thereby  possessed  of  a  plentiful  estate  upon  the 
borders  of  his  own  country,  and  where  his  own  family  had  great  credit  and 
authority.  The  war  being  now  at  an  end  and  he  deprived  of  his  great  patron, 
[he]  had  nothing  to  depend  upon  but  the  fortune  of  his  wife  :  which,  though 
ample  enough  to  have  supported  the  expense  a  person  of  his  quality  ought  to 
have  made,  was  not  large  enough  to  satisfy  his  vanity  and  ambition,  nor  so 
great  as  he  upon  common  reports  had  possessed  himself  by  her.  By  being  not 
enough  pleased  with  her  fortune  he  grew  displeased  with  his  wife,  who,  being 
a  woman  of  a  haughty  and  imperious  nature  and  of  a  wit  superior  to  his,  quickly 
resented  the  disrespect  she  received  from  him  and  in  no  respect  studied  to  make 
herself  easy  to  him.  After  some  years  spent  together  in  those  domestic  un- 
sociable contestations,  in  which  he  possessed  himself  of  all  her  estate  as  the 
sole  master  of  it,  without  allowing  her  out  of  her  own  any  competency  for  her- 
self, and  indulged  to  himself  all  those  licenses  in  her  own  house  which  to 
women  are  most  grievous,  she  found  means  to  withdraw  herself  from  him  ;  and 
was  with  all  kindness  received  into  that  family  in  which  she  had  before  been 
married  and  was  always  very  much  respected." 

To  superficial  observers,  or  observers  who  have  convinced 
themselves  that  high  lights  and  bright  colourings  are  of  the 
essence  of  the  art  of  the  prose  writer,  Clarendon  may  seem 
tame  and  jejune.  He  is  in  reality  just  the  contrary.  His 
wood  is  tough  enough  and  close-grained  enough,  but  there 
is  plenty  of  sap  coursing  through  it.  In  yet  a  third  respect, 
which  is  less  closely  connected  with  the  purely  formal  aspect 
of  style.  Clarendon  stand.s,  if  not  pre-eminent,  very  high  among 
historians.  This  is  his  union  of  acute  penetration  and  vigor- 
ous grasp  in  the  treatment  of  complicated  events.  It  has  been 
hinted  that  he  seems  to  have  somewhat  lost  grasp,  if  not  pene- 
tration, after  the  Restoration.  But  at  the  time  of  his  earlier 
participation  in  public  affairs,  and  of  his  composition  of  the 
greater  part  of  his  historical  writings,  he  was  in  the  very  vigour 
and  prime  of  life  ;  and  though  it  may  be  that  he  was  "  a  Janus  of 
one  face,"  and  looked  rather  backward  than  forward,  even  then 


IX  CUMBROUSNESS  OF  CLARENDON'S  STYLE  347 

he  was  profoundly  acquainted  with  the  fiicts  of  Enghsh  history, 
with  tlie  cliaracter  of  his  countrymen,  and  witii  the  relations  of 
events  as  they  happened.  It  may  even  be  contended  by  those 
who  care  for  might-have-beens,  that  but  for  the  headlong  revolt 
against  Puritanism,  which  inspired  the  majority  of  the  nation 
with  a  kind  of  carnival  madness  for  many  years  after  1660,  and 
the  strange  deficiency  of  statesmen  of  even  moderately  respectable 
character  on  both  sides  (except  Clarendon  himself,  and  the  f:iirly 
upright  though  timeserving  Temple,  there  is  hardly  a  respectable 
man  to  be  found  on  any  side  of  i)olitics  for  forty  years),  Claren- 
don's post-Restoration  policy  itself  would  not  have  been  the  failure 
that  it  was.  But  it  is  certain  that  on  the  events  of  his  own 
middle  age  he  looked  with  the  keenest  discernment,  and  with  the 
widest  comprehension. 

Against  these  great  merits  must  be  set  a  treble  portion  of  the 
great  defect  which,  as  we  have  said,  vitiates  all  the  English  prose 
work  of  his  time,  the  unconscious  or  wilful  ignoring  of  the  very 
fundamental  principles  of  sentence-  and  paragraph-architecture. 
His  mere  syntax,  in  the  most  restricted  sense  of  that  word,  is  not 
very  bad  ;  he  seldom  indulges  out  of  mere  iticuria  in  false  con- 
cords or  blunders  over  a  relative.  But  he  is  the  most  offending 
soul  alive  at  any  time  in  English  literature  in  one  grave  point. 
No  one  has  put  together,  or,  to  adopt  a  more  expressive  phrase, 
heaped  together  such  enormous  paragraphs;  no  one  has  linked 
clause  on  clause,  parenthesis  on  parenthesis,  epexegesis  on  exegesis, 
in  such  a  bewildering  concatenation  of  inextricable  entanglement. 
Sometimes,  of  course,  the  difficulty  is  more  apparent  than  real,  and 
by  simply  substituting  /ull  slops  and  capitals  fur  his  colons  and 
conjunctions,  one  may,  to  some  extent,  simplify  the  chaos.  But 
it  is  seldom  that  this  is  really  effective  :  it  never  produces  really 
well  balanced  sentences  and  really  well  constructed  paragrai)hs  ; 
and  there  are  constant  instances  in  \\lii<h  it  is  not  appli- 
cable at  all.  It  is  not  that  the  jostling  and  confused  relatives 
are  as  a  rule  grammatically  wrong,  like  the  common  blunder 
of  putting  an  "and  which"  where   there   is  no  previous  "which" 


348     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 

expressed  or  implied.  They,  simply,  put  as  they  are,  bewilder 
and  muddle  the  reader  because  the  writer  has  not  taken  the 
trouble  to  break  up  his  sentence  into  two  or  three.  This 
is,  of  course,  a  very  gross  abuse,  and  except  when  the  talents 
above  noticed  either  fuse  his  style  into  something  better,  or  by 
the  interest  they  excite  divert  the  attention  of  the  reader,  it  con- 
stantly makes  Clarendon  anything  but  agreeable  reading,  and 
produces  an  impression  of  dryness  and  prolixity  with  which  he  is 
not  quite  justly  chargeable.  The  plain  truth  is  that,  as  has  been 
said  often  before,  and  may  have  to  be  said  more  than  once  again, 
the  sense  of  proportion  and  order  in  prose  composition  was  not 
born.  The  famous  example — the  awful  example — of  Oliver 
Cromwell's  speeches  shows  the  worst-known  instance  of  this  ;  but 
the  best  writers  of  Cromwell's  own  generation — far  better  educated 
than  he,  professed  men  of  letters  after  a  fashion,  and  without  the 
excuse  of  impromptu,  or  of  the  scurry  of  unnoted,  speech — some- 
times came  not  far  behind  him. 

Against  one  great  writer  of  the  time,  however,  no  such  charge 
can  be  justly  brought.  Although  much  attention  has  recently  been 
given  to  the  philosophical  opinions  of  Hobbes,  since  the  unjust  pre- 
judice against  his  religious  and  political  ideas  wore  away,  and 
since  the  complete  edition  of  his  writings  published  at  last  in 
1843  by  Sir  William  Molesworth  made  him  accessible,  the  extra- 
ordinary merits  of  his  style  have  on  the  whole  had  rather  less  than 
justice  done  to  them.  He  was  in  many  ways  a  very  singular 
person.  Born  at  Malmesbury  in  the  year  of  the  Armada,  he  was 
educated  at  Oxford,  and  early  in  the  seventeenth  century  was 
appointed  tutor  to  the  eldest  son  of  Lord  Hardwick,  afterwards 
Earl  of  Devonshire.  For  full  seventy  years  he  was  on  and  off  in 
the  service  of  the  Cavendish  family  ;  but  sometimes  acted  as 
tutor  to  others,  and  both  in  that  capacity  and  for  other  reasons 
lived  long  abroad.  In  his  earlier  manhood  he  was  much  in  the 
society  of  Bacon,  Jonson,  and  the  literary  folk  of  the  English 
capital ;  and  later  he  was  equally  familiar  with  the  society  (rather 
scientific  than   literary)   of  Paris.      In    1647   he   was   appointed 


IX  HOBBES 


349 


mathematical  tutor  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  ;  but  his  mathematics 
were  not  his  most  fortunate  acquirement,  and  they  involved  him 
in  long  and  acrimonious  disputes  with  Wallis  and  others — disputes, 
it  may  be  said,  where  Hobbes  was  quite  wrong.  The  publication 
of  his  philosophical  treatises,  and  especially  of  the  Lrciathan, 
brought  him  into  very  bad  odour,  not  merely  on  political  grounds 
(which,  so  long  as  the  Commonwealth  lasted,  would  not  have  been 
surprising),  but  for  religious  reasons  ;  and  during  the  last  years 
of  his  life,  and  for  long  afterwards,  "  Hobbist "  was,  certainly 
with  very- little  warrant  from  his  writings,  used  as  a  kind  of  polite 
equivalent  for  atheist.  He  was  pensioned  after  the  Restoration, 
and  the  protection  of  the  king  and  the  Earl  of  Devonshire  kept 
him  scatheless,  if  ever  there  was  any  real  danger.  Hobbes,  how- 
ever, was  a  timid  and  very  much  self-centred  person,  always  fancying 
that  plots  were  being  laid  against  him.  He  died  at  the  great  age 
of  ninety-two. 

This  long  life  was  wholly  taken  up  with  study,  but  did  not 
I)roduce  a  very  large  amount  of  original  composition.  It  is  true 
that  his  collected  works  fill  sixteen  volumes  ;  but  they  are  loosely 
jirinted,  and  much  space  is  occupied  with  diagrams,  indices,  and 
such  like  things,  while  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  matter 
appears  twice  over,  in  I^tin  and  in  English.  In  the  latter  ca.se 
Hobbes  usually  wrote  first  in  Latin,  and  was  not  always  his 
own  tran.slator ;  but  it  would  apjiear  that  he  generally  revised 
the  work,  though  he  neither  succeeded  in  obliterating  nor  per- 
haps attempted  to  obliterate  the  marks  of  the  original  vehicle. 
His  earliest  publication  was  a  singularly  vigorous,  if  not  always 
scholastically  exact,  translation  of  Thucydides  into  English,  which 
appeared  in  1629.  Tiiirteen  years  later  he  published  in  Paris 
tlic  De  Civt\  which  was  shortly  followed  by  the  treatise  on  Jliiman 
Xature  and  the  De  Corpore  Politico.  The  latter  of  these  was  to  a 
great  extent  worked  up  in  the  famous  f.a'iiithan,  f)r  the  Matter, 
J'au'er,  and  Form  of  a  Coinmotiwealth,  whi<  h  appeared  in  165  i. 
'I'lie  important  De  Corpore,  which  corresfjonds  to  the  I.n'iatlum 
on  the  philosophical  side,  appeared  in  Latin   in  1^)55,  in  l-Jiglish 


350     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 

next  year.  Besides  minor  works,  Hobbes  employed  his  old  age 
on  a  translation  of  Homer  into  verse,  and  on  a  sketch  of  the 
Civil  Wars  called  Behemoth. 

His  verse  is  a  mere  curiosity,  though  a  considerable  curiosity. 
The  chief  of  it  (the  translation  of  Homer  written  in  the  quatrain, 
which  his  friend  Davenant's  Gondibert  had  made  popular)  is  com- 
pletely lacking  in  poetical  quahty,  of  which,  perhaps,  no  man  ever 
had  less  than   Hobbes ;    and  it  is  written  on  a  bad  model.      But 
it  has  so  much  of  the  nervous  bull-dog  strength  which,  in  literature 
if  not   in  life,  was  Hobbes's  main  characteristic,  that  it  is  some- 
times both  a  truer  and  a  better  representative  of  the  original  than 
some  very  mellifluous  and  elegant   renderings.      It  is  as  a  prose 
writer,  however,   that  Hobbes  made,  and  that  he  will  keep,  his 
fame.     With  his  principles  in  the  various  branches  of  philosophy 
we  have  little  or  nothing  to  do.     In  choosing  them  he  manifested, 
no  doubt,  something  of  the  same  defiance  of  authority,  and  the  same 
self-willed  preference  for  his  own  not  too  well-educated  opinion, 
which   brought  him  to  grief  in  his  encounter  with  Wallis.      But 
when  he  had  once  left  his  starting  points,  his  sureness  of  reasoning, 
his  extreme  perspicacity,  and  the  unerring  clearness  and  certainty 
with  which  he  kept  before  him,  and  expressed  exactly  what  he 
meant,  made  him  at  once  one  of  the  greatest  thinkers  and  one  of 
the  greatest  writers  of  England.      Hobbes  never  "pays  himself 
with  words,"  never  evades  a  difficulty  by  becoming  obscure,  never 
meanders  on  in  the  graceful  allusive  fashion  of  many  philosophers, 
— a  fashion  for  which  the  prevalent  faults  of  style  were  singularly 
convenient  in  his  time.      He  has  no  ornament,  he  does  not  seem 
to   aim   at   anything   more   than   the  simplest  and  most  straight- 
forward presentation  of  his  view^s.      But  this  very  aim,  assisted  by 
his  practice   in  writing  the  terse  and  clear,  if  not  very  elegant, 
Latin  which  was  the  universal  language  of  the  literary  Europe  of 
his  time,  suffices  to  preserve  him   from  most  of  the  current  sins. 
Moreover,   it  is   fair   to  remember  that,   though  the   last   to   die, 
he  was   the   first   to    be  born    of  the    authors  mentioned   in   this 
chapter,  and   that   he  may  be  supposed,  late  as  he  wrote,  to  have 


IX  SPECIMENS  OF  IIOBBES  351 

farmed  his   style  before   the   period   of  Jacobean   and   Carohne 
luxuriance. 

Almost  any  one  of  Hobbes's  books  would  suffice  to  illustrate 
his  style  ;  but  the  short  and  interesting  treatise  on  JIuiiian  Xature, 
perhaps,  shows  it  at  its  best.  The  author's  exceptional  clearness 
may  be  assisted  by  his  lavish  use  of  italics  ;  but  it  is  not 
necessary  to  read  far  in  order  to  see  that  it  is  in  reality  quite 
independent  of  any  clumsy  mechanical  device.  The  crabbed  but 
sharply  outlined  style,  the  terse  phrasing,  the  independence  of 
all  after-thoughts  and  tackings-on,  manifest  themselves  at  once  to 
any  careful  observer.  Here  for  instance  is  a  i)as.sage,  perhaps  his 
finest,  on  Love,  followed  by  a  political  extract  from  another 
work  : — 

"  Of  love,  by  wliich  is  to  he  understood  the  joy  man  takolh  in  the  fruition 
of  any  present  good,  hath  been  spoken  already  in  the  first  section,  chapter 
seven,  under  which  is  contained  the  love  men  bear  to  one  another  or  plc.isure 
they  take  in  one  another's  company  :  and  by  which  nature  men  are  said  to  be 
sociable.  But  there  is  another  kind  of  love  which  the  Greeks  call'Epws,  ami 
is  that  which  we  mean  when  we  say  that  a  man  is  in  love  :  forasmuch  as  this 
passion  cannot  be  without  diversity  of  sex,  it  cannot  l)e  denied  but  that  it  par- 
ticipateth  of  that  indefinite  love  mentioned  in  the  former  section.  But  there  is 
a  great  diflerence  lietwixt  the  desire  of  a  man  indefinite  and  the  same  desire 
limited  ad htntc :  and  this  is  that  love  which  is  the  great  theme  of  poets  :  but, 
nijlwithstanding  their  praises,  it  must  be  defined  by  the  word  need  :  for  it  is  a 
conception  a  man  hath  of  his  need  of  that,  one  person  desired.  The  cause  of 
this  passion  is  not  always  nor  for  the  most  part  beauty,  or  other  quality  in  the 
l)eloved,  unless  there  be  withal  hope  in  the  person  that  loveth  :  which  may  be 
gathered  from  this,  that  in  great  diflference  of  persons  the  greater  have  often 
fallen  in  love  with  the  meaner,  but  not  contrary.  And  from  hence  it  is  that 
for  the  most  part  they  have  much  l>etter  fortune  in  love  whose  hojies  are  built 
on  something  in  their  person  than  tho>e  that  trust  to  their  expressions  and  ser- 
vice ;  and  they  that  care  less  than  they  that  care  more  :  which  not  perceiving, 
niar.y  men  cast  away  their  services  as  one  arrow  after  another,  till,  in  the  eml, 
together  with  their  hopes,  they  lose  their  wits." 

"There  arc  some  who  iherelore  imagine  monaitli)'  lo  be  more  grievous 
than  ilennx:racy,  liecause  there  !■>  less  lii)erly  in  that  than  in  this.  If  by  liberty 
fhcy  mean  an  exemption  from  that  subjection  which  is  due  to  the  laws,  that  is, 
ihc  commamU  uf  the  jK-ople  ;  nrither  in  democrary  nor  in  any  other  stale  of 


352     MILTON,  TAYLOR,  CLARENDON,  BROWNE,  HOBBES     chap. 
/ 

government  whatsoever  is  there  any  such  kind  of  liberty.  If  they  suppose 
liberty  to  consist  in  this,  that  there  be  few  laws,  few  prohibitions,  and  those 
too  such  that,  except  they  were  forbidden,  there  could  be  no  peace  ;  then  I 
deny  that  there  is  more  liberty  in  democracy  than  in  monarchy ;  for  the  one  as 
truly  consisteth  with  such  a  liberty  as  the  other.  For  although  the  word 
liberty  may  in  large  and  ample  letters  be  written  over  the  gates  of  any  city 
whatsoever,  yet  it  is  not  meant  the  subjects'  but  the  city's  liberty  ;  neither  can 
that  word  with  better  right  be  inscribed  on  a  city  which  is  governed  by  the 
people  than  that  which  is  ruled  by  a  monarch.  But  when  private  men  or  sub- 
jects demand  liberty  under  the  name  of  liberty,  they  ask  not  for  liberty  but 
domination  :  which  yet  for  want  of  understanding  they  little  consider.  For  if 
every  man  would  grant  the  same  liberty  to  another  which  he  desires  for  him- 
self, as  is  commanded  by  the  law  of  nature,  that  same  natural  state  would  re- 
turn again  in  which  all  men  may  by  right  do  all  things  ;  which  if  they  knew 
they  would  abhor,  as  being  worse  than  all  kinds  of  civil  subjection  whatsoever. 
But  if  any  man  desire  to  have  his  single  freedom,  the  rest  being  bound,  what 
does  he  else  demand  but  to  have  the  dominion?" 

It  may  be  observed  that  Hobbes's  sentences  are  by  no  means 
very  short  as  far  as  actual  length  goes.  He  has  some  on  a 
scale  which  in  strictness  is  perhaps  hardly  justifiable.  But  what 
may  generally  be  asserted  of  them  is  that  the  author  for  the  most 
part  is  true  to  that  great  rule,  of  logic  and  of  style  alike,  which 
ordains  that  a  single  sentence  shall  be,  as  far  as  possible,  the 
verbal  presentation  of  a  single  thought,  and  not  the  agglomeration 
and  sweeping  together  of  a  whole  string  and  tissue  of  thoughts. 
It  is  noticeable,  too,  that  Hobbes  is  very  sparing  of  the  adjective 
— the  great  resource  and  delight  of  flowery  and  discursive  writers. 
Sometimes,  as  in  the  famous  comparison  of  human  life  to  a  race 
(where,  by  the  way,  a  slight  tendency  to  conceit  manifests  itself, 
and  makes  him  rather  force  some  of  his  metaphors),  his  concise- 
ness assumes  a  distinctly  epigrammatic  form ;  and  it  is  constantly 
visible  also  in  his  more  consecutive  writings. 

In  the  well-known  passage  on  Laughter  as  "a  passion  of 
sudden  glory "  the  writer  may  be  charged  with  allowing  his 
fancy  too  free  play ;  though  I,  for  my  part,  am  inclined  to  con- 
sider the  explanation  the  most  satisfactory  yet  given  of  a  difficult 
phenomenon.       But    the    point   is   the    distinctness    with    which 


IX  HOBBES'S  CLEARNESS 


353 


Hobbes  puts  this  novel  and,  at  first  sight,  improbable  idea,  the 
apt  turns  and  illustrations  (standing  at  the  same  time  far  from  the 
excess  of  illustration  and  analog)-,  by  which  many  writers  of  his 
time  would  have  spun  it  out  into  a  chapter  if  not  into  a  treatise), 
the  succinct,  forcible,  economical  adjustment  of  the  fewest  words 
to  the  clearest  exposition  of  thought  Perhaps  these  things  strike 
the  more  as  they  are  the  more  unlike  the  work  in  juxtaposition 
with  which  one  finds  them ;  nor  can  it  be  maintained  that 
Hobbes's  style  is  suitable  for  all  purposes.  Admirable  for  argu- 
ment and  exposition,  it  is  apt  to  become  bald  in  narration,  and 
its  abundance  of  clearness,  when  translated  to  less  purely  intel- 
lectual subjects,  may  even  expose  it  to  the  charge  of  being  thin. 
Such  a  note  as  that  struck  in  the  Love  passage  above  given  is 
rare,  and  sets  one  wondeiing  whether  the  dry-as-dust  philosopher 
of  Malmesbury,  the  man  who  seems  to  have  had  hardly  any 
human  frailties  except  vanity  and  timidity,  had  himself  felt  the 
bitterness  of  counting  on  expressions  and  services,  the  madness 
of  throwing  away  one  effort  after  another  to  gain  the  favour  of 
the  beloved.  But  it  is  very  seldom  that  any  such  suggestion  is 
provoked  by  remarks  of  Hobbes's.  His  light  is  almost  always 
dr)" ;  and  in  one  sense,  though  not  in  another,  a  little  malignant. 
Vet  nowhere  is  there  to  be  found  a  style  more  absolutely  suited, 
not  merely  to  the  author's  intentions  but  to  his  performances — a 
form  more  exactly  married  to  matter.  Nor  anywhere  is  there  to 
be  found  a  writer  who  is  more  independent  of  others.  He  may 
have  owed  something  to  his  friend  Jonson,  in  whose  Timber  there 
are  resemblances  to  Hobbes ;  but  he  certainly  owed  nothing,  and 
in  all  probability  lent  much,  to  the  Dr}dens,  and  Tillotsons,  and 
I'emples,  who  in  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  own  life  reformed 
Knglish  prose. 


II  2   A 


CHAPTER    X 


CAROLINE   POETRY 


There  are  few  periods  of  poetical  development  in  English  literary 
history  which  display,  in  a  comparatively  narrow  compass,  such 
well-marked  and  pervading  individuality  as  the  period  of  Caroline 
poetry,  beginning,  it  may  be,  a  little  before  the  accession  of 
Charles  I.,  but  terminating  as  a  producing  period  almost  before 
the  real  accession  of  his  son.  The  poets  of  this  period,  in  which 
but  not  of  which  Milton  is,  are  numerous  and  remarkable,  and 
at  the  head  of  them  all  stands  Robert  Herrick. 

Very  little  is  really  known  about  Herrick's  history.  That  he 
was  of  a  family  which,  distinguished  above  the  common,  but  not 
exactly  reaching  nobility,  had  the  credit  of  producing,  besides 
himself,  the  indomitable  Warden  Heyrickofthe  Collegiate  Church 
of  Manchester  in  his  own  times,  and  the  mother  of  Swift  in  the 
times  immediately  succeeding  his,  is  certain.  That  he  was  born 
in  London  in  1591,  that  he  went  to  Cambridge,  that  he  had  a 
rather  stingy  guardian,  that  he  associated  to  some  extent  with  the 
tribe  of  Ben  in  the  literary  London  of  the  second  decade  of  the 
century,  is  also  certain.  At  last  and  rather  late  he  was  appointed 
to  a  living  at  Dean  Prior  in  Devonshire,  on  the  confines  of  the 
South  Hams  and  Dartmoor.  He  did  not  like  it,  being  of  that 
class  of  persons  who  cannot  be  happy  out  of  a  great  town.  After 
the  Civil  War  he  was  deprived,  and  his  successor  had  not  the 
decency  (the  late  Dr.  Grosart,  constant  to  his  own  party,  made 


CHAP.  X  HERRICK 


355 


a  very  unsuccessful  attempt  to  defend  the  delinquent)  to  pay  hhn 
the  shabby  pittance  which  the  intruders  were  supposed  to  fur- 
nish to  the  rightful  owners  of  benefices.  At  the  Restoration  he 
too  was  restored,  and  survived  it  fifteen  years,  dying  in  1674  ;  but 
his  whole  literary  fame  rests  on  work  published  a  quarter  of  a 
century  before  his  death,  and  pretty  certainly  in  great  part  written 
many  years  earlier. 

The  poems  which  then  appeared  were  divided,  in  the 
published  form,  into  two  classes :  they  may  be  divided,  for 
purposes  of  poetical  criticism,  into  three.  The  ITcspcrides 
(they  are  dated  1C48,  and  the  Noble  Numbers  or  sacred 
poems  1647  ;  but  both  appeared  together)  consist  in  the 
first  place  of  occasional  poems,  sometimes  amatory,  sometimes 
not ;  in  the  second,  of  personal  epigrams.  Of  this  second  class 
no  human  being  who  has  any  faculty  of  criticism  can  say  any 
good.  They  are  supposed  by  tradition  to  have  been  composed 
on  parishioners  :  they  may  be  hoped  by  charity  (which  has  in  this 
case  the  support  of  literary  criticism)  to  be  merely  literary  exer- 
cises— bad  imitations  of  Martial,  through  Ben  Jonson.  They 
are  nastier  than  the  nastiest  work  of  Swift ;  they  are  stupider 
than  the  stupidest  attempts  of  Davies  of  Hereford ;  they  are 
farther  from  the  authors  best  than  the  worst  i)arts  of  Young's 
Odes  are  from  the  best  part  of  the  Ni\:;/it  TJioughts.  It  is 
impossible  without  producing  specimens  (which  God  forbid  that 
any  one  who  has  a  respect  for  Herrick,  for  literature,  and  fur 
decency,  should  do)  to  show  Ikjw  bad  they  are.  Let  it  only  he 
said  that  if  the  worst  epigram  of  Martial  were  stripped  of  Martial's 
wit,  sense,  and  literary  form,  it  would  be  a  kind  of  example  of 
Herrick  in  this  vein. 

In  his  two  other  vein.s,  but  for  certain  tricks  of  speech,  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  recognise  him  for  the  .same  man.  The 
secular  vigour  of  the  J/esperides,  the  spiritual  vigour  of  the  Noble 
Numbers,  has  rarely  been  equalled  and  never  surjiassed  by  any 
other  writer.  I  cannot  agree  with  Mr.  (iossc  that  Herrick  is  in 
any  sense  **a  Pagan."    They  had  in  his  day  shaken  off  the  merely 


356  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

ascetic  temper  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  had  not  taken  upon 
them  the  mere  materiahsm  of  the  Aufkliirung^  or  the  remorse- 
ful and  satiated  attitude  of  .the  late  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
century.  I  believe  that  the  warmest  of  the  Julia  poems  and 
the  immortal  "  Litany "  were  written  with  the  same  integrity  of 
feeling.  Here  was  a  man  who  was  grateful  to  the  upper  powers 
for  the  joys  of  life,  or  who  was  sorrowful  and  repentant  towards 
the  upper  powers  when  he  felt  that  he  had  exceeded  in  enjoying 
those  joys,  but  who  had  no  doubt  of  his  gods,  and  no  shame 
in  approaching  them.  The  last — the  absolutely  last  if  we  take 
his  death-date — of  those  poets  who  have  relished  this  life  heartily, 
while  heartily  believing  in  another,  was  Robert  Herrick.  There 
is  not  the  slightest  reason  to  suppose  that  the  Hesperides  were 
wholly  pecMs  de  jeunesse  and  the  Noble  JVufnbers  wholly  pious 
palinodes.  Both  simply  express,  and  express  in  a  most  vivid  and 
distinct  manner,  the  alternate  or  rather  varying  moods  of  a  man 
of  strong  sensibihties,  religious  as  well  as  sensual. 

Of  the  religious  poems  the  already-mentioned  "  Litany,"  while 
much  the  most  familiar,  is  also  far  the  best.  There  is  nothing  in 
English  verse  to  equal  it  as  an  expression  of  religious  fear ;  while 
there  is  also  nothing  in  English  verse  to  equal  the  "Thanksgiv- 
ing," also  well  known,  as  an  expression  of  religious  trust.  The 
crystalline  simplicity  of  Herrick's  style  deprives  his  religious  poems 
of  that  fatal  cut-and-dried  appearance,  that  vain  repetition  of 
certain  phrases  and  thoughts,  which  mars  the  work  of  sacred 
poets  generally,  and  which  has  led  to  an  unjustly  strong  censure 
being  laid  on  them  by  critics,  so  different  from  each  other  as  Dr. 
Johnson  and  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold.  As  the  alleged  Paganism  of 
some  of  Herrick's  sacred  poems  exists  only  in  the  imagination  of 
readers,  so  the  alleged  insincerity  is  equally  hypothetical,  and 
can  only  be  supported  by  the  argument  (notoriously  false  to 
history  and  to  human  nature)  that  a  man  who  could  write  the 
looser  Hesperides  could  not  sincerely  write  the  Noble  Numbers. 
Every  student  of  the  lives  of  other  men — every  student  of  his 
own  heart — knows,  or  should  know,  that  this  is  an  utter  mistake. 


IIERRICK 


357 


Undoubtedly,  however,  Herrick's  most  beautiful  work  is  to 
be  found  in  the  profane  division,  despite  the  admixture  of  the 
above-mentioned  epigrams,  the  dull  foulness  of  which  soils  the 
most  delightful  pages  to  such  an  extent  that,  if  it  were  ever  allow- 
able to  take  liberties  with  an  author's  disposition  of  his  own  work, 
it  would  be  allowable  and  desirable  to  pick  these  ugly  weeds  out 
of  the  garden  and  stow  them  away  in  a  rubbish  heap  of  appendix 
all  to  themselves.  Some  of  the  best  pieces  of  the  Hespcrides  are 
even  better  known  than  the  two  well-known  Noble  Numbers  above 
quoted.  The  "Night  Piece  to  Julia,"  the  "  Daffodils,"  the 
splendid  "  To  Anthea,"  ("  Bid  me  to  live  "),  "  The  Mad  Maid's 
Song"  (worthy  of  the  greatest  of  the  generation  before  Hcrrick), 
the  verses  to  Ben  Jonson,  those  to  Electra  ("I  dare  not  ask  a 
kiss  "),  the  wonderful  "  Burial  Piece  to  Perilla,"  the  "  Grace  for 
a  Child,"  the  "  Corinna  Maying  "  (the  chief  of  a  large  division  of 
Herrick's  poems  which  celebrate  rustic  festivals,  superstitions, 
and  folklore  generally),  the  epitaph  on  Prudence  Baldw^in,  and 
many  others,  are  justly  included  in  nearly  all  selections  of  Eng- 
lish poetry,  and  many  of  them  are  known  by  heart  to  every  one 
who  knows  any  poetry  at  all.  One  or  two  of  the  least  well  known 
of  them  may  jjcrhaps  be  welcome  again  : — 

"  Good  morrow  to  the  ilay  so  fair, 
Good  morning,  sir,  to  you  ; 
Goo<i  morrow  to  mine  own  torn  hair 
Ik-dabbled  with  the  dew. 

"  (iitr«l  morning  to  tliis  jirimrose  too, 
(juod  morrow  to  each  maid  ; 
That  will  with  flowers  the  tomb  bestrew 
Wherein  my  love  is  laid. 

"  Ah,  Wfx;  is  mc,  woe,  woe  is  nic, 
Al.ick  and  wdl-a-clay  ! 
Kor  |>ity,  sir,  find  out  that  iK-e 
That  l)ore  my  love  away. 

"  I'll  seek  him  in  your  lM»nnet  brave ; 
I'll  seek  him  in  your  eyes  ; 


358  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

Nay,  now  I  think,  they've  made  his  grave 
r  th'  bed  of  strawberries. 

"  I'll  seek  him  there  :  I  know  ere  this 

The  cold,  cold  earth  doth  shake  him  ; 
But  I  will  go,  or  send  a  kiss 
By  you,  sir,  to  awake  him. 

"  Pray  hurt  him  not ;  though  he  be  dead 
He  knows  well  who  do  love  him, 
And  who  with  green  turfs  rear  his  head, 
And  who  do  rudely  move  him. 

"  He's  soft  and  tender,  pray  take  heed, 
With  bands  of  cowslips  bind  him, 
And  bring  him  home  ;  but  'tis  decreed 
That  I  shall  never  find  him." 


"  I  dare  not  ask  a  kiss  ; 

I  dare  not  beg  a  smile  ; 
Lest  having  that  or  this, 

I  might  grow  proud  the  while. 

"  No,  no — the  utmost  share 
Of  my  desire  shall  be 
Only  to  kiss  that  air 

That  lately  kissed  thee." 


"  Here,  a  little  child,  I  stand 
Heaving  up  my  either  hand  : 
Cold  as  paddocks  though  they  be 
Here  I  lift  them  up  to  Thee, 
For  a  benison  to  fall 
On  our  meat  and  on  us  all. 

Amen. " 

But  Herrick's  charm  is  everywhere — except  in  the  epigrams. 
It  is  very  rare  to  find  one  of  the  hundreds  of  httle  poems  which 
form  his  book  destitute  of  the  pecuhar  touch  of  phrasing,  the 
eternising  influence  of  style,  which  characterises  the  poetry  of  this 
particular  period  so  remarkably.  The  subject  may  be  the  merest 
trifle,  the  thought  a  hackneyed  or  insignificant  one.  But  the 
amber  to  enshrine  the  fly  is  always  there  in  larger  or  smaller,  in 


CAREW 


359 


clearer  or  more  clouded,  shape.  There  has  often  been  a  certain 
contempt  (connected  no  doubt  with  certain  general  critical  errors 
as  they  seem  to  me,  with  which  I  shall  deal  at  the  end  of  this 
chapter)  flavouring  critical  notices  of  Herrick.  I  do  not  think 
that  any  one  who  judges  poetry  as  poetry,  who  keeps  its  several 
kinds  apart  and  does  not  demand  epic  graces  in  lyric,  dramatic 
substance  in  an  anthologia,  could  ever  feel  or  hint  such  a  con- 
tempt. \\'hatever  Herrick  may  have  been  as  a  man  (of  which 
we  know  ver)-  little,  and  for  which  we  need  care  less),  he  was  a 
most  exquisite  and  complete  poet  in  his  own  way,  neither  was 
that  way  one  to  be  lightly  spoken  of 

Indissolubly  connected  with  Herrick  in  age,  in  character,  and 
in  the  singularly  unjust  criticism  which  has  at  various  times  been 
bestowed  on  him,  is  Thomas  Carew.  His  birth-date  has  been 
very  differently  given  as  1587  and  (that  now  preferred)  1598; 
but  he  died  nearly  forty  years  before  the  author  of  the  Hesperides, 
and  nearly  ten  before  the  Hesperides  themselves  were  jjublished, 
while  his  own  poems  were  never  collected  till  after  his  own  death. 
He  was  of  a  Gloucestershire  branch  of  the  famous  Devon- 
shire family  of  Carew,  Gary,  or  Gruwys,  was  of  Merton  Gollegc, 
Oxford,  and  the  Temple,  travelled,  followed  the  Gourt,  was  a 
disciple  of  Ben  Jonson,  and  a  member  of  the  learned  and 
accomplished  society  of  Clarendon's  earlier  days,  obtained  a 
place  in  the  household  of  Charles  I.,  is  said  by  his  friend 
Hyde  to  have  turned  to  devotion  after  a  somewhat  libertine 
life,  and  died  in  1639,  before  the  evil  days  of  triunij)hant 
Puritanism,  yJ//.v  opportunitate  mortis.  He  wrote  little,  and  the 
scantiness  of  his  production,  together  with  the  supposed  pains  it 
cost  him,  is  ridiculed  in  Suckling's  doggerel  "  Sessions  of  the 
Poets."  Hut  this  reproach  (which  Carew  shares  with  Gray,  ;uul 
with  not  a  few  others  of  the  most  admirable  names  in  literature), 
unjust  as  it  is,  is  less  unjust  than  the  general  tone  of  criticism  on 
Carew  since.  The  locus  classicus  of  depreciation  both  in  regard 
to  him  and  to  Herrick  is  to  be  found,  as  might  be  expected,  in 
one  of  the  greatest,  and  one  of  llic   most  wilfully  <  apri(  ious  ;uul 


36o  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

untrustworthy  of  English  critics,  in  HazUtt.  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  there  can  be  httle  hesitation  in  setting  down  the  extraordi- 
nary misjudgment  of  the  passage  in  question  (it  occurs  in  the 
sixth  Lecture  on  EUzabethan  Literature),  in  part,  at  least,  to  the 
fact  that  Herrick,  Carew,  and  Crashaw,  who  are  summarily  damned 
in  it,  were  Royalists.  If  there  were  any  doubt  about  the  matter, 
it  would  be  settled  by  the  encomium  bestowed  in  the  very  same 
passage  on  Marvell,  who  is,  no  doubt,  as  Hazlitt  says,  a  true  poet, 
but  who  as  a  poet  is  but  seldom  at  the  highest  height  of  the 
authors  of  "The  Litany,"  "The  Rapture,"  and  "The  Flaming 
Heart."  Hazlitt,  then,  while  on  his  way  to  tell  us  that  Herrick's 
two  best  pieces  are  some  trivial  anacreontics  about  Cupid  and  the 
Bees — things  hackneyed  through  a  dozen  literatures,  and  with  no 
recommendation  but  a  borrowed  prettiness — while  about,  I  say,  to 
deny  Herrick  the  spirit  of  love  or  wine,  and  in  the  same  breath 
with  the  dismissal  of  Crashaw  as  a  "  hectic  enthusiast,"  informs 
us  that  Carew  was  "an  elegant  Court  trifler,"  and  describes  his 
style  as  a  "  frequent  mixture  of  the  superficial  and  common- 
place, with  far-fetched  and  improbable  conceits." 

What  Carew  really  is,  and  what  he  may  be  peremptorily 
declared  to  be  in  opposition  even  to  such  a  critic  as  Hazlitt,  is 
something  quite  different.  He  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  masters 
of  lyrical  form  in  English  poetry.  He  possesses  a  command  of 
the  overlapped  heroic  couplet,  which  for  sweep  and  rush  of 
rhythm  cannot  be  surpassed  anywhere.  He  has,  perhaps  in  a 
greater  degree  than  any  poet  of  that  time  of  conceits,  the 
knack  of  modulating  the  extravagances  of  fancy  by  the  control  of 
reason,  so  that  he  never  falls  into  the  unbelievableness  of  Donne, 
or  Crashaw,  or  Cleveland.  He  had  a  delicacy,  when  he  chose 
to  be  delicate,  which  is  quintessential,  and  a  vigour  which  is 
thoroughly  manly.  Best  of  all,  perhaps,  he  had  the  intelligence 
and  the  self-restraint  to  make  all  his  poems  wholes,  and  not 
mere  congeries  of  verses.  There  is  always,  both  in  the  scheme 
of  his  meaning  and  the  scheme  of  his  metre,  a  definite  plan  of 
rise  and  fall,  a  concerted  effect.     That  these  great  merits  were 


X  CAREW  361 

accompanied  by  not  inconsiderable  defects  is  true.  Carew  lacks 
the  dewy  freshness,  the  unstudied  grace  of  Hcrrick.  He  is  even 
more  frankly  and  uncontrolledly  sensual,  and  has  paid  the  usual 
and  inevitable  penalty  that  his  best  poem,  The  Rapture^  is,  for 
the  most  part,  unquotable,  while  another,  if  he  carried  out  its 
principles  in  this  present  year  of  grace,  would  run  him  the  risk  of 
imprisonment  with  hard  labour.  His  largest  attempt — the  masque 
called  Ccclum  Britaunicum — is  heavy.  His  smaller  poems,  beau- 
tiful as  they  are,  suffer  somewhat  from  want  of  variety  of  subject. 
There  is  just  so  much  truth  in  Suckling's  impertinence  that  the 
reader  of  Carew  sometimes  catches  himself  repeating  the  lines  of 
Carew's  master,  "  Still  to  be  neat,  still  to  be  drest,"  not  indeed 
in  full  agreement  with  them,  but  not  in  exact  disagreement.  One 
misses  the  "  wild  civility  "  of  Herrick.  This  acknowledgment,  I 
trust,  will  save  me  from  any  charge  of  overvaluing  Carew. 

A  man  might,  however,  be  easily  tempted  to  overvalue  him, 
who  observes  his  beauties,  and  who  sees  how,  preserving  the  force, 
the  poetic  spell,  of  the  time,  he  was  yet  able,  without  in  the  least 
descending  to  the  correctness  of  Waller  and  his  followers,  to  intro- 
duce into  his  work  something  also  preserving  it  from  the  weaknesses 
and  inequalities  which  deface  that  of  almost  all  his  contempo- 
raries, and  which,  as  we  shall  see,  make  much  of  the  dramatic 
and  poetical  work  of  1 630-1  660  a  chaos  of  slipshod  deform- 
ity to  any  one  who  has  the  sense  of  poetical  form.  It  is  an  un- 
wear>ing  delight  to  read  and  re-read  the  second  of  his  poems,  the 
"  Persuasions  to  Love,"  addressed  to  a  certain  .\.  I,.  That  the  sen- 
timent is  common  enough  matters  little  ;  the  commonest  things  in 
poetry  are  always  the  best.  IJut  the  delicate  inten  hange  of  the 
catalectic  and  acatalectic  dimeter,  the  wonderful  plays  and  changes 
of  cadence,  the  opening,  as  it  were,  of  fresii  slops  at  the  beginning 
of  each  new  paragraph  of  the  verse,  so  that  the  music-  accjuires  a 
new  colour,  the  felicity  of  the  several  phrases,  the  cunning  heighten- 
ing of  the  pa.ssion  as  the  poet  comes  to  "Oh  !  love  me  then,  and 
now  begin  it,"  and  the  dying  fall  of  the  clcjse,  make  up  to  me,  at  lea.st, 
most  charming  |)astime.      It  is  not  the  same  kind  <if  pleasure,  no 


362  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

doubt,  as  that  given  by  such  an  outburst  as  Crashaw's,  to  be 
mentioned  presently,  or  by  such  pieces  as  the  great  soUloquies  of 
Shakespere,  Any  one  may  say,  if  he  likes  to  use  words  which 
are  question-begging,  when  not  strictly  meaningless,  that  it  is  not 
such  a  "  high  "  kind.  But  it  is  a  kind,  and  in  that  kind  perfect. 
Carew's  best  pieces,  besides  The  Rapture^  are  the  beautiful 
"x\sk  me  no  more,"  the  first  stanza  of  which  is  the  weakest;  the 
fine  couplet  poem,  "  The  Cruel  Mistress,"  whose  closing  distich — 

"  Of  such  a  goddess  no  times  leave  record, 

That  burned  the  temple  where  she  was  adored  " — 

Dryden  conveyed  with  the  wise  and  unblushing  boldness  which 
great  poets  use;  the  "Deposition  from  love,"  written  in  one  of 
those  combinations  of  eights  and  sixes,  the  melodious  charm  of 
which  seems  to  have  died  with  the  seventeenth  century  ;  the 
song,  "  He  that  loves  a  rosy  cheek,"  which,  by  the  unusual  mor- 
ality of  its  sentiments,  has  perhaps  secured  a  fame  not  quite  due 
to  its  poetical  merits ;  the  epitaph  on  Lady  Mary  Villers ;  the 
song  "  Would  you  know  what's  soft  ?  "  the  song  to  his  inconstant 
mistress  : 

"  When  thou,  poor  excommunicate 

From  all  the  joys  of  love,  shalt  see 

The  full  reward,  and  glorious  fate 

Which  my  strong  faith  shall  purchase  me, 

Then  curse  thine  own  inconstancy. 

"  A  fairer  hand  than  thine  shall  cure 

That  heart  which  thy  false  oaths  did  wound  ; 
And  to  my  soul,  a  soul  more  pure 
Than  thine,  shall  by  love's  hand  be  bound, 
And  both  with  equal  glory  crown'd. 

"  Then  shalt  thou  weep,  entreat,  complain 
To  Love,  as  I  did  once  to  thee  ; 
When  all  thy  tears  shall  be  as  vain 
As  mine  were  then,  for  thou  shalt  be 
Damn'd  for  thy  false  apostacy. " — 

the  pleasant  pictures  of  the  country  houses  of  Wrest  and  Sax- 
ham  ;  the  charming  conceit  of  "  Red  and  white  roses  " : 


X  CARKW  363 

' '  Read  in  these  roses  the  sad  story 
Of  my  bard  fate  and  your  own  glory  : 
In  the  white  you  may  discover 
The  paleness  of  a  fainting  lover  ; 
In  the  red,  the  flames  still  feeding 
On  my  heart  with  fresh  wounds  bleeding. 
The  white  will  tell  you  how  I  languish, 
And  the  red  express  my  anguish  : 
The  white  my  innocence  displaying 
The  red  my  martyrdom  betraying. 
The  frowns  that  on  your  brow  resided 
Have  those  roses  thus  divided  ; 
Oh  I  let  your  smiles  but  clear  the  weather 
And  then  they  both  shall  grow  together." — 

and  lastly,  though  it  would  be  easy  to  extend  this  already  long 
list  of  selections  from  a  by  no  means  extensive  collection  of 
poems,  the  grand  elegy  on  Donne.  By  this  last  the  reproach  of 
vain  and  amatorious  trifling  which  has  been  so  often  levelled  at 
Carew  is  at  once  thrown  back  and  blunted.  No  poem  shows 
so  great  an  influence  on  the  masculine  jianegyrics  with  which 
Dryden  was  to  enrich  the  English  of  the  next  generation,  and 
few  are  fuller  of  noteworthy  phrases.  The  splendid  epitaph 
which  closes  it — 

"  Here  lies  a  king  that  ruled  as  he  thought  (it 
The  universal  monarchy  of  wit  " — 

is  only  the  best  passage,  not  the  only  good  one,  and  it  may  be 
matched  with  a  fine  and  just  description  of  English,  ushered  by 
a  touch  of  acute  criticism. 

"  Thou  shall  yicM  no  precedence,  but  of  time, 
And  the  blind  fate  of  language,  whose  tuiieii  chime 
More  charms  the  outward  sense  :  yet  thou  mayst  claim 
From  so  great  disadvantage  greater  fame. 
Since  to  the  awe  of  thine  imperious  wit 
Our  troublesome  language  beii<l>,  made  only  fit 
With  her  lough  thick-ribbed  hoops  to  gird  alKiut 
Thy  giant  fancy,  which  had  proved  too  stout  ' 

For  their  soft  mrliin^;  phras<-s. " 


364  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

And  it  is  the  man  who  could  write  like  this  that  Hazlitt  calls  an 
"  elegant  Court  trifler  !" 

The  third  of  this  great  trio  of  poets,  and  with  them  the  most 
remarkable  of  our  whole  group,  was  Richard  Crashaw.  He  com- 
pletes Carew  and  Herrick  both  in  his  qualities  and  (if  a  kind  of 
bull  may  be  permitted)  in  his  defects,  after  a  fashion  almost  unex- 
ampled elsewhere  and  supremely  interesting.  Hardly  any  one  of 
the  three  could  have  appeared  at  any  other  time,  and  not  one  but  is 
distinguished  from  the  others  in  the  most  marked  way.  Herrick, 
despite  his  sometimes  rather  obtrusive  learning,  is  emphatically 
the  natural  man.  He  does  not  show  much  sign  of  the  influence 
of  good  society,  his  merits  as  well  as  his  faults  have  a  singular 
unpersonal  and,  if  I  may  so  say,  terrcefiUan  connotation.  Carew 
is  a  gentleman  before  all ;  but  a  rather  profane  gentleman. 
Crashaw  is  religious  everywhere.  Again,  Herrick  and  Carew, 
despite  their  strong  savour  of  the  fashion  of  the  time,  are  eminently 
critics  as  well  as  poets.  Carew  has  not  let  one  piece  critically 
unworthy  of  him  pass  his  censorship  :  Herrick  (if  we  exclude  the 
filthy  and  foolish  epigrams  into  which  he  was  led  by  corrupt 
following  of  Ben)  has  been  equally  careful  These  two  bards 
may  have  trouble  with  the  censor  morum, — the  censor  literarum 
they  can  brave  with  perfect  confidence.  It  is  otherwise  with 
Crashaw.  That  he  never,  as  far  as  can  be  seen,  edited  the  bulk 
of  his  work  for  press  at  all  matters  little  or  nothing.  But  there  is 
not  in  his  work  the  slightest  sign  of  the  exercise  of  any  critical  faculty 
before,  during,  or  after  production.  His  masterpiece,  one  of  the 
most  astonishing  things  in  English  or  any  other  literature,  comes 
without  warning  at  the  end  of  Tlie  Flaming  Heart.  For  page 
after  page  the  poet  has  been  poorly  playing  on  some  trifling 
conceits  suggested  by  the  picture  of  Saint  Theresa  and  a  seraph. 
First  he  thinks  the  painter  ought  to  have  changed  the  attributes ; 
then  he  doubts  whether  a  lesser  change  will  not  do ;  and  always 
he  treats  his  subject  in  a  vein  of  grovelling  and  grotesque  conceit 
which  the  boy  Dryden  in  the  stage  of  his  elegy  on  Lord 
Hastings   would  have  disdained.     And   then   in   a  moment,    in 


CRASH  AW  36s 


the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  without  warning  of  any  sort,  the 
metre  changes,  the  poet's  inspiration  catches  fire,  antl  there 
rushes  up  into  the  heaven  of  poetry  this  marvellous  rocket 
of  song  : — 


'o 


"  Live  in  these  conquering  leaves  :  live  all  the  same  ; 
And  walk  through  all  tongues  one  triumiihant  llaine  ; 
Live  here,  great  heart  ;  and  love,  and  die,  and  kill  ; 
And  bleed,  and  wound,  and  yield,  and  conquer  still. 
Let  this  immortal  life  where'er  it  comes 
Walk  in  a  crowd  of  loves  and  martyrdoms. 
Let  mystic  deaths  wait  on't  ;  and  wise  souls  l)e 
The  love-slain  witnesses  of  this  life  of  thee. 
O  sweet  incendiary  !  show  here  thy  art. 
Upon  this  carcase  of  a  hard  cold  heart ; 
Let  all  thy  scatter'd  shafts  of  light,  that  play 
Among  the  leaves  of  thy  large  books  of  day, 
Combin'd  against  this  breast  at  once  break  in, 
And  take  away  from  me  myself  and  sin  ; 
This  gracious  robbery  shall  thy  bounty  be 
And  my  best  fortunes  such  fair  spoils  of  mc. 
O  thou  undaunted  daughter  of  desires  ! 
By  all  thy  pow'r  of  lights  and  fires  ; 
I{y  all  the  eagle  in  thee,  .ill  the  dove  ; 
by  all  thy  lives  and  deaths  of  love  ; 
By  thy  large  draughts  of  intellectual  day  ; 
And  by  thy  thirsts  of  love  more  large  than  they  ; 
By  all  thy  brim-fill'd  bowls  of  fierce  desire  ; 
By  thy  last  morning's  draught  of  liipiid  fire  ; 
By  the  full  kingdom  of  that  final  kiss 
That  seized  thy  parting  soul,  and  seal'd  thee  his  ; 
By  all  the  heavens  thou  hxst  in  him, 
(Fair  sister  of  the  seraphim) 
By  all  of  him  we  have  in  thee  ; 
Leave  nothing  <jf  myself  in  me. 
Let  n>e  .w  read  thy  life,  that  I 
Unto  all  life  of  mine  may  die." 

The  contrast  is  i)erhaps  unique  as  regards  the  dead  colourless- 
ness of  the  beginning,  and  the  splendid  ( ol<jur  of  the  end.  Hut 
contrasts  like  it  occur  all  over  Crashaw's  work. 


366  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

He  was  a  much  younger  man  than  either  of  the  poets  with 
whom  we  have  leashed  him,  and  his  birth  year  used  to  be  put 
at  1616,  though  Dr.  Grosart  has  made  it  probable  that  it  was 
three  years  earlier.  His  father  was  a  stern  Anglican  clergyman  of 
extremely  Protestant  leanings,  his  mother  died  when  Crashaw 
was  young,  but  his  stepmother  appears  to  have  been  most  un- 
novercal.  Crashaw  was  educated  at  Charterhouse,  and  then  went 
to  Cambridge,  where  in  1637  he  became  a  fellow  of  Peterhouse,  and 
came  in  for  the  full  tide  of  high  church  feeling,  to  which  (under 
the  mixed  influence  of  Laud's  policy,  of  the  ascetic  practices  of  the 
Ferrars  of  Gidding,  and  of  a  great  architectural  development  after- 
wards defaced  if  not  destroyed  by  Puritan  brutality)  Cambridge 
was  even  more  exposed  than  Oxford.  The  outbreak  of  the  civil 
war  may  or  may  not  have  found  Crashaw  at  Cambridge  ;  he  was 
at  any  rate  deprived  of  his  fellowship  for  not  taking  the  covenant 
in  1643,  and  driven  into  exile.  Already  inclined  doctrinally 
and  in  matters  of  practice  to  the  older  communion,  and  despair- 
ing of  the  resurrection  of  the  Church  of  England  after  her  suffer- 
ings at  the  hands  of  the  Parliament,  Crashaw  joined  the  Church  of 
Rome,  and  journeyed  to  its  metropolis.  He  was  attached  to  the 
suit  of  Cardinal  Pallotta,  but  is  said  to  have  been  shocked  by 
Italian  manners.  The  cardinal  procured  him  a  canonry  at 
Loretto,  and  this  he  hastened  to  take  up,  but  died  in  1649  with 
suspicions  of  poison,  which  are  not  impossibly,  but  at  the  same 
time  by  no  means  necessarily  true.  His  poems  had  already 
appeared  under  the  double  title  of  Steps  to  the  Temple  (sacred), 
and  Delights  of  the  Muses  (profane),  but  not  under  his  own  editor- 
ship, or  it  would  seem  with  his  own  choice  of  title.  Several  other 
editions  followed, — one  later  than  his  death,  with  curious  illus- 
trations said  to  be,  in  part  at  least,  of  his  own  design.  Manu- 
script sources,  as  in  the  case  of  some  other  poets  of  the  time, 
have  considerably  enlarged  the  collection  since.  But  a  great 
part  of  it  consists  of  epigrams  (in  the  wide  sense,  and  almost 
wholly  sacred)  in  the  classical  tongues,  which  were  sometimes 
translated  by  Crashaw  himself     These  are  not  always  correct  in 


X  CRASHAW  367 

style  or  prosody,  but  are  often  interesting.  The  famous  line  in 
reference  to  the  miracle  of  Cana, 

"  Vidit  et  erubuit  nympha  pudica  Deum," 

is  assigned  to  Crashaw  as  a  boy  at  Cambridge ;  of  his  later 
f;\culty  in  the  same  way  the  elaborate  and,  in  its  way,  beautiful 
poem  entitled  Bulla  (the  Bubble)  is  the  most  remarkable. 

Our  chief  subject,  however,  is  the  English  poems  proper,  sacred 
and  profane.  In  almost  all  of  these  there  is  noticeable  an  extraordi- 
nary inequality,  the  same  in  kind,  if  not  in  degree,  as  that  on  which 
we  have  commented  in  the  case  of  The  J'lamuig  Jlcart.  Crashaw 
is  never  quite  so  great  as  there  ;  but  he  is  often  quite  as  small. 
His  exasperating  lack  of  self-criticism  has  sometimes  led  selectors 
to  make  a  cento  out  of  his  poems — notably  in  the  case  of  the 
exceedingly  pretty  "  Wishes  to  His  Unknown  Mistress,"  beginning, 
"  Whoe'er  she  be,  That  not  impossible  she.  That  shall  command 
my  heart  and  me  " — a  poem,  let  it  be  added,  which  excuses  this 
dubious  process  much  less  than  most,  inasmuch  as  nothing  in  it 
is  positively  bad,  though  it  is  rather  too  long.  Here  is  the  oi)en- 
ing,  preceded  by  a  piece  from  another  poem,  "  A  Hymn  to  Saint 
Theresa  " : — 

"  Those  rare  works,  where  th«iu  shall  leave  writ 
Love's  noble  history,  with  wit 
Taught  thee  by  none  but  him,  while  here 
They  feed  our  souls,  shall  clothe  thine  there. 
Each  heavenly  word  by  whose  hid  flame 
Our  hard  hearts  shall  strike  fire,  the  same 
Shall  flourish  on  thy  brows  and  be 
I{<)th  fire  to  us  and  flame  to  thee  : 
Whose  liyht  shall  live  brifiht,  in  thy  face 
Uy  tjlor)",  in  our  hearts  by  grace. 

"  Thou  slialt  look  round  alx)ut,  and  sec 
Thousands  of  crown'd  souls  throng  to  !« 
Themselves  thy  crown,  suns  of  thy  vows: 
The  virgin  births  with  which  thy  siM)use 
Made  fruitful  thy  fair  wjul  ;  go  now 
And  with  them  all  al>out  thee,  Ixjw 


368  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

To  Him,  '  Put  on'  (He'll  say)  '  put  on, 
My  rosy  love,  that  thy  rich  zone, 
Sparkling  with  the  sacred  flames, 
Of  thousand  souls  whose  happy  names 
Heaven  heaps  upon  thy  score,  thy  bright 
Life  brought  them  first  to  kiss  the  light 
That  kindled  them  to  stars.'     And  so 
Thou  with  the  Lamb  thy  Lord  shall  go, 
And  whereso'er  He  sets  His  white 
Steps,  walk  with  Him  those  ways  of  light. 
Which  who  in  death  would  live  to  see 
Must  learn  in  life  to  die  like  thee. " 


"  Whoe'er  she  be, 
That  not  impossible  she, 
That  shall  command  my  heart  and  me  ; 

"  Where'er  she  lie, 

Lock'd  up  from  mortal  eye, 
In  shady  leaves  of  destiny  ; 

"  Till  that  ripe  birth 
Of  studied  Fate  stand  forth. 
And  teach  her  fair  steps  to  our  earth  : 

"  Till  that  divine 
Idea  take  a  shrine 
Of  crystal  flesh,  through  which  to  shine  : 

"  Meet  you  her,  my  wishes 
Bespeak  her  to  my  blisses, 
And  be  ye  call'd,  my  absent  kisses." 

The  first  hymn  to  Saint  Theresa,  to  which  The  Flaming  Heart 
is  a  kind  of  appendix,  was  written  when  Crashaw  was  still  an 
Anglican  (for  which  he  did  not  fail,  later,  to  make  a  characteristic 
and  very  pretty,  though  quite  unnecessary,  apology).  It  has  no 
passage  quite  up  to  the  Invocation — Epiphonema,  to  give  it  the 
technical  term — of  the  later  poem.  But  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  good 
almost  throughout,  and  is,  for  uniform  exaltation,  far  the  best  of 
Crashaw's  poems.  Yet  such  uniform  exaltation  must  be  seldom 
sought  in  him.  It  is  in  his  little  bursts,  such  as  that  in  the 
stanza  beginning,  "  O  mother  turtle  dove,"  that  his  charm  consists. 


CRASIIAW  369 


Often,  as  in  verse  after  verse  of  The  Weeper,  it  lias  an  unearthly 
delicacy  and  witchery  which  only  Blake,  in  a  few  snatches,  has 
ever  etiualled  ;  while  at  other  times  the  poet  seems  to  invent,  in 
the  most  casual  and  unthinking  lashion,  new  metrical  effects  and 
new  jewelries  of  diction  which  the  greatest  lyric  i)oets  since — 
Coleridge,  Shelley,  Lord  Tennyson,  Mr.  Swinburne — have  rather 
deliberately  imitated  than  spontaneously  recovered.  Vet  to  all 
this  charm  there  is  no  small  drawback.  The  very  maddest  and 
most  methodless  of  the  "  Metaphysicals  "  cannot  touch  Crashaw 
in  his  tasteless  use  of  conceits.  When  he,  in  The  Weeper  just 
above  referred  to,  calls  the  tears  of  Magdalene  "  Wat'ry  brothers," 
md  '•  Simpering  sons  of  those  fair  eyes,"  and  when,  in  the  most 
intolerable  of  all  the  poet's  excesses,  the  same  eyes  are  called 
•'I'wo  waking  baths,  two  weeping  motions.  Portable  and  com- 
pendious oceans,"  which  follow  our  I^rd  about  the  hills  of  Galilee, 
it  is  almost  difficult  to  know  whether  to  feel  most  contempt  or 
indignation  for  a  man  who  could  so  write.  It.  is  f:iir  to  say  that 
there  are  various  readings  and  'omissions  in  the  different  edi- 
tions which  affect  both  these  passages.  Vet  the  offence  is  that 
Crashaw  should  ever  have  written  them  at  all.  Amends,  however, 
are  sure  to  be  made  before  the  reader  has  read  much  farther. 
Crashaw's  longest  poems — a  version  of  Marini's  Sospetto  tV IJeroJe, 
and  one  of  the  rather  overpraised  "  Lover  and  Nightingale " 
story  of  Strada — are  not  his  best ;  the  metre  in  which  both  are 
written,  though  the  poet  manages  it  well,  lacks  the  extraordinary 
charm  of  his  lyric  measures.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  "  Not 
imjiossible  she  "  ever  made  her  aj^pearancc,  and  probably  for  a 
full  half  of  his  short  life  Crashaw  burnt  only  with  religious  fire. 
But  no  Englishman  ha.s  expressed  that  fire  as  he  has,  and  none  in 
his  exprcs.sion  of  any  sentiment,  sacre<l  and  profane,  has  dropped 
such  notes  of  ethereal  music.  .At  his  best  he  is  far  above  singing, 
at  his  worst  he  is  below  a  very  childish  prattle.  But  even  then 
he  is  never  coarse,  never  offensive,  not  very  often  actually  dull ; 
ind  everywhere  he  makes  amends  by  flowers  of  the  divinest 
poetry.  Mr.  Pope,  who  borrowed  not  a  little  frcjm  him,  thought, 
11  i.  1; 


370  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

indeed,  that  you  could  find  nothing  of  "  The  real  part  of  poetry  " 
(correct  construction  and  so  forth)  in  Crashaw ;  and  Mr.  Hayley 
gently  rebukes  Cowley  (after  observing  that  if  Pope  borrowed  from 
Crashaw,  it  was  "  as  the  sun  borrows  from  the  earth  ")  for  his  "glow- 
ing panegyrick."  Now,  if  the  real  part  of  poetry  is  anywhere  in 
Hayley,  or  quintessentially  in  Pope,  it  certainly  is  not  in  Crashaw. 
The  group  or  school  (for  it  is  not  easy  to  decide  on  either 
word,  and  objections  might  be  taken  to  each)  at  the  head  of 
which  Herrick,  Carew,  and  Crashaw  must  be  placed,  and  which 
included  Herbert  and  his  band  of  sacred  singers,  included  also 
not  a  few  minor  groups,  sufficiently  different  from  each  other,  but 
all  marked  off  sharply  from  the  innovating  and  classical  school  of 
Waller  and  his  followers,  which  it  is  not  proposed  to  treat  in  this 
volume.  All,  without  exception,  show  the  influence  in  different 
ways  of  Ben  Jonson  and  of  Donne.  But  each  has  its  own 
peculiarity.  We  find  these  peculiarities,  together  with  anticipations 
of  post-Reformation  characteristics,  mixed  very  curiously  in  the 
miscellanies  of  the  time.  These  are  interesting  enough,  and  may 
be  studied  with  advantage,  if  not  also  with  pleasure,  in  the  principal 
of  them,  JP7^'s  Recreations  ( 1 640).  This,  with  certain  kindred  works 
( Wit  Restored,  and  the  very  unsavoury  Aliisanan  Deliciiz  of  Sir 
John  Mennis  and  Dr.  Smith),  has  been  more  than  once  repub- 
lished. In  these  curious  collections,  to  mention  only  one  instance, 
numerous  pieces  of  Herrick's  appeared  with  considerable  vari- 
ants from  the  text  of  the  Hesperides  ;  and  in  their  pages  things 
old  and  new,  charming  pastoral  poems,  vers  de  societe  of  very 
unequal  merit,  ballads,  satires,  epigrams,  and  a  large  quantity 
of  mere  scatology  and  doggerel,  are  heaped  together  pell-mell. 
Songs  from  the  dramatists,  especially  Fletcher,  make  their  ap- 
pearance, sometimes  with  slight  variants,  and  there  are  forms  of 
the  drinking  song  in  Gammer  Gurton^s  Needle  long  after,  and  of 
Sir  John  Suckling's  "Ballad  on  a  Wedding,"  apparently  some- 
what before,  their  respective  publication  in  their  proper  places. 
Here  is  the  joke  about  the  wife  and  the  almanack  which  reckless 
tradition   has  told  of   Dryden ;    printed    when    Lady    Elizabeth 


X  CAROLINE  MISCELLAMKS  371 

Howard  was  in  the  nursery,  and  Dryden  was  not  yet  at  AN'est- 
minster.  Here  we  learn  how,  probably  about  the  second  or  third 
decade  of  the  century,  the  favourite  authors  of  learned  ladies  were 
"Wither,  Draiton,  and  Balzack  "  ((niez  de  Balzac  of  the  Ldftrs), 
a  ver>-  singular  trio ;  and  how  some  at  least  loved  the  "  easy 
ambling"  of  Heywood's  prose,  but  thought  that  he  "grovelled  on 
the  stage,"  which  it  must  be  confessed  he  not  uncommonly  did. 
//'//  Restored  contains  the  charming  "  Phillida  flouts  Me,"  with 
other  real  "  delights."  Even  Milton  makes  his  appearance  in  these 
collections,  which  continued  to  be  popular  for  more  than  a  century, 
and  acquired  at  intervals  fresh  vogue  from  the  great  names  of 
Dryden  and  Pope. 

Neglecting  or  returning  from  these,  we  may  class  the  minor 
Caroline  poets  under  the  following  heads.  There  are  belated 
Elizabethans  like  Habington,  sacred  poets  of  the  school  of  Herbert, 
translators  like  Stanley,  Sherburne,  and  Quarles,  i)hilosophico- 
theological  poets  like  Joseph  Beaumont  and  More,  and  poets 
of  society,  such  as  Lovelace  and  Suckling,  whose  class  degener- 
ated into  a  class  of  boon  companion  song  -  writers,  such  as 
Alexander  Brome,  and,  at  the  extremity  of  our  present  period, 
Charles  Cotton,  in  whose  verse  (as  for  the  matter  of  that  in  the 
famous  muses  of  Ix)velace  and  Suckling  themselves)  the  rapidly 
degenerating  prosody  of  the  time  is  sometimes  painfully  evident. 
This  is  also  apparent  (though  it  is  compensated  by  nuich  exquisite 
poetry,  and  on  the  strictly  lyric  side  rarely  ofTends)  in  the  work  of 
Randolph,  Corbet,  Cartwright,  Chamberlayne  of  the  Pharonnida, 
Sidney  Codolphin,  Shakcrley  Marmion,  Cleveland,  Benlowe.s, 
Kynaston,  John  Hall,  the  enigmatic  Chalkhill,  i'atrick  Carey, 
Bishop  King.  These  about  exhaust  the  list  of  poets  who  must 
Ijc  characterised  here,  though  it  could  be  extended.  Cowley, 
Marvell,  and  Waller  fall  outside  our  limits.. 

(ieorge  Herbert,  the  one  popular  name,  if  we  except  Lovelace 
and  Suckling,  of  the  last  paragraph,  was  born  at  Montgoniery  Castle 
in  ^59.V  ^^  ^h<-*  grtat  house  now  represented  in  the  ICnglish  peerage 
bv  the  holders  of  the  lilies  of  I'cinbroki-,  ( "amarvfjn,  and  I'owis. 


372  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

George  was  the  younger  brother  of  the  equally  well-known  Lord  Her- 
bert of  Cherbury ;  and  after  being  for  some  years  public  orator  at 
Cambridge,  turned,  it  is  said,  on  some  despite  or  disappointment, 
from  secular  to  sacred  business,  accepted  the  living  of  Bemer- 
ton,  and  after  holding  it  for  a  short  time,  died  in  1633.  Walton's 
Life  was  hardly  needed  to  fix  Herbert  in  the  popular  mind,  for 
his  famous  volume  of  sacred  poems,  The  Temple,  would  have  done 
so,  and  has  done  so  far  more  firmly.  It  was  not  his  only  book 
by  any  means ;  he  had  displayed  much  wit  as  quite  a  boy  in 
counter-lampooning  Andrew  Melville's  ponderous  and  impudent 
Anti-Ta/ni-Cami-Categoria,  an  attack  on  the  English  universities; 
and  afterwards  he  wrote  freely  in  Greek,  Latin,  and  English, 
both  in  prose  and  verse.  Nothing,  however,  but  The  Temple  has 
held  popular  estimation,  and  that  has  held  it  firmly,  being  as 
much  helped  by  the  Tractarian  as  by  the  Romantic  movement. 
It  may  be  confessed  without  shame  and  without  innuendo  that 
Herbert  has  been  on  the  whole  a  greater  favourite  with  readers 
than  with  critics,  and  the  reason  is  obvious.  He  is  not  prodigal 
of  the  finest  strokes  of  poetry.  To  take  only  his  own  contem- 
poraries, and  undoubtedly  pupils,  his  gentle  moralising  and 
devotion  are  tame  and  cold  beside  the  burning  glow  of  Crashaw, 
commonplace  and  popular  beside  the  intellectual  subtlety  and,  now 
and  then,  the  inspired  touch  of  Vaughan.  But  he  never  drops  into 
the  flatness  and  the  extravagance  of  both  these  writers,  and  his 
beauties,  assuredly  not  mean  in  themselves,  and  very  constantly 
present,  are  both  in  kind  and  in  arrangement  admirably  suited  to 
the  average  comprehension.  He  is  quaint  and  conceited ;  but 
his  quaintnesses  and  conceits  are  never  beyond  the  reach  of  any 
tolerably  intelligent  understanding.  He  is  devout,  but  his  devo- 
tion does  not  transgress  into  the  more  fantastic  regions  of  piety. 
He  is  a  mystic,  but  of  the  more  exoteric  school  of  mysticism. 
He  expresses  common  needs,  common  thoughts,  the  everyday 
emotions  of  the  Christian,  just  sublimated  sufficiently  to  make 
them  attractive.  The  fashion  and  his  own  taste  gave  him  a 
pleasing  quaintness,  which  his  good  sense  kept  from  being  ever 


GEORGE  SANDYS  373 


obscure  or  offensive  or  extravagant.  The  famous  "  Sweet  day  so 
cool,  so  calm,  so  bright,"  and  many  short  passages  \vhi<  h  are 
known  to  every  one,  express  Herbert  perfectly.  The  thought  is 
obvious,  usual,  in  no  sense  far  fetched.  The  morality  is  plain  and 
simple.  The  expression,  with  a  sufficient  touch  of  the  daintiness 
of  the  time,  has  nothing  that  is  extraordinarily  or  ravishingly 
felicitous  whether  in  phrasing  or  versing.  He  is,  in  short,  a  poet 
whom  all  must  respect ;  whom  those  that  are  in  sympathy  with  his 
vein  of  thought  cannot  but  revere ;  who  did  England  an  inestim- 
able service,  by  giving  to  the  highest  and  purest  thoughts  that 
familiar  and  abiding  poetic  garb  which  contributes  so  much  to  fix 
any  thoughts  in  the  mind,  and  of  which,  to  tell  the  truth,  poetry 
has  been  much  more  prodigal  to  other  departments  of  thought  by 
no  means  so  well  deserving.  But  it  is  impossible  to  call  him  a 
great  poet  even  in  his  own  difficult  class.  'Ihe  early  Latin  h\nin 
writers  are  there  to  show  what  a  great  religious  poet  must  be  like. 
Crashaw,  if  his  genius  had  been  less  irregular  and  jaculative,  might 
have  been  such.  Herbert  is  not,  and  could  not  have  been. 
With  him  it  is  an  almost  invariable  custom  to  class  Vaughan  the 
"Silurist,"  and  a  common  one  to  unite  George  Sandys,  the 
traveller,  translator  of  Ovid,  and  paraphrast  of  the  Psalms  and 
other  parts  of  the  Bible.  Sandys,  an  older  man  than  Herbert  by 
fifteen,  and  than  Vaughan  by  more  than  forty  years,  published 
rather  late,  so  that  he  came  as  a  sacred  poet  after  Herbert,  nntl 
not  long  before  Vaughan.  He  was  son  of  the  Archbishop  of  York, 
and  brother  of  that  Edwin  Sandys  who  was  a  pupil  of  Hooker, 
and  who  is  said  to  have  been  jiresent  on  the  melancholy  occasion 
when  the  judicious  one  was  "called  to  rock  the  cradle."  He  is 
interesting  for  a  singular  and  early  mastery  of  the  couplet,  which 
the  following  extract  will  show  : — 

"O  Thou,  who  .tII  thinjjs  h.ist  of  nothinj;  m.idc, 
Whose-  hand  the  radiant  firmamc-nt  ilisplayctl, 
Wilh  such  an  undisccrncd  swiftness  hurled 
About  the  steadfast  centre  of  the  world  ; 
Af;ainsl  whov.-  rajiid  rourse  the  restless  sun, 
fl^iiiii's  in  \.iiircl  iiiolimis  run. 


374  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

Which  heat,  light,  life  infuse  ;  time,  night,  and  day 
Distinguish  ;  in  our  human  bodies  sway  : 
That  hung'st  the  solid  earth  in  fleeting  air 
Veined  with  clear  springs  which  ambient  seas  repair. 
In  clouds  the  mountains  wrap  their  hoary  heads  ; 
Luxurious  valleys  clothed  with  flowery  meads ; 
Her  trees  yield  fruit  and  shade  ;  with  liberal  breasts 
All  creatures  she,  their  common  mother,  feasts." 

Henry  Vaughan  was  born  in  1622,  published  Poems  in  1646  (for 
some  of  which  he  afterwards  expressed  a  not  wholly  necessary 
repentance),  Olor  Iscanus  (from  Isca  Silurura)  in  165 1,  and 
Silex  Scintillans,  his  best-known  book,  in  1650  and  1655.  He 
also  published  verses  much  later,  and  did  not  die  till  1695,  being 
the  latest  lived  of  any  man  who  has  a  claim  to  appear  in  this  book, 
but  his  aftergrowths  were  not  happy.  To  say  that  Vaughan  is  a 
poet  of  one  poem  would  not  be  true.     But  the  universally  known 

"  They  are  all  gone  into  the  world  of  light  " 

is  so  very  much  better  than  anything  else  that  he  has  done  that 
it  would  be  hardly  fair  to  quote  anything  else,  unless  we  could 
quote  a  great  deal.  Like  Herbert,  and  in  pretty  obvious  imita- 
tion of  him,  he  set  himself  to  bend  the  prevailing  fancy  for  quips 
and  quaintnesses  into  sacred  uses,  to  see  that  the  Devil  should  not 
have  all  the  best  conceits.  But  he  is  not  so  uniformly  successful, 
though  he  has  greater  depth  and  greater  originality  of  thought. 

Lovelace  and  Suckling  are  inextricably  connected  together, 
not  merely  by  their  style  of  poetry,  but  by  their  advocacy  of 
the  same  cause,  their  date,  and  their  melancholy  end.  Both 
(Suckling  in  1609,  Lovelace  nine  years  later)  were  born  to 
large  fortunes,  both  spent  them,  at  least  partially,  in  the 
King's  cause,  and  both  died  miserably,  —  Suckling,  in  1642, 
by  his  own  hand,  his  mind,  according  to  a  legend,  unhinged 
by  the  tortures  of  the  Inquisition  ;  Lovelace,  two  years  before 
the  Restoration,  a  needy  though  not  an  exiled  cavalier,  in 
London  purlieus.  Both  have  written  songs  of  quite  marvellous 
and  unparalleled  exquisiteness,  and  both  have  left  doggerel  which 


X  LOVELACE  AND  SUCKLING  375 

would  disgrace  a  schoolboy.  Both,  it  may  be  suspected,  held 
the  doctrine  which  Suckling  openly  champions,  that  a  gentleman 
should  not  take  too  much  trouble  about  his  verses.  The  result, 
however,  was  in  Lovelace's  case  more  disastrous  than  in  Suck- 
ling's. It  is  not  quite  true  that  Lovelace  left  nothing  worth  read- 
ing but  the  two  immortal  songs,  ''To  Lucasta  on  going  to  the 
Wars  "  and  "  To  Althea  from  Prison  ; "  and  it  is  only  fair  to  say 
that  the  corrupt  condition  of  his  text  is  evidently  due,  at  least  in 
part,  to  incompetent  printing  and  the  absence  of  revision.  "  The 
Grasshoi)per  "  is  almost  worthy  of  the  two  better-known  pieces, 
and  there  are  others  not  far  below  it.  But  on  the  whole  any  one 
who  knows  those  two  (and  who  does  not?)  may  neglect  Lovelace 
with  safety.  Suckling,  even  putting  his  dramatic  work  aside,  is 
not  to  be  thus  treated.  True,  he  is  often  careless  in  the  bad 
sense  as  well  as  in  the  good,  though  the  doggerel  of  the  "  Sessions  " 
and  some  other  pieces  is  probably  intentional.  Bui  in  his  own 
vein,  that  of  coxcombry  that  is  not  quite  cynical,  and  is  quite  in- 
telligent, he  is  marvellously  hajjpy.  The  famous  song  in  Ai^/aura, 
the  Allegro  to  Lovelace's  Penseroso,  "  A\'hy  so  pale  and  wan, 
fond  lover?"  is  scarcely  better  than  " 'Tis  now  since  I  sat  down 
before  That  foolish  fort  a  heart,"  or  "Out  upon  it !  I  have  loved 
Three  whole  days  together."  Nor  in  more  serious  veins  is  the 
author  to  be  slighted,  as  in  "The  Dance;"  while  as  for  the 
"  Ballad  on  a  Wedding,"  the  best  parts  of  this  are  by  common 
consent  incomparable.  Side  by  side  by  these  are  to  be  found,  as 
in  Ix)velace,  pieces  that  will  not  even  scan,  and,  as  not  in  Lovelace 
(who  is  not  seldom  loose  but  never  nasty),  pieces  of  a  dull  and 
disgusting  obscenity.  But  wc  do  not  go  to  .Suckling  for  these ; 
we  go  to  him  for  his  easy  grace,  his  agreeable  impudence,  his 
scandalous  mock-disloyalty  (for  it  is  only  mock -disloyally  after 
all)  to  the  "Lord  of  Terrible  As|)ect,"  whom  all  his  elder  con- 
temiKjraries  worshipped  so  piously.  Suckling's  inconstancy  and 
Ix)velace*s  constancy  may  or  may  not  be  equally  poetical, — there 
is  some  rea.son  for  thinking  that  the  Iovlt  of  Althea  was  actually 
driven  to  something  like  despair  by  the  loss  of  his  mistress.      I'.ui 


376  CAROLINE  POETRY  ciiAf. 

that  matters  to  us  very  little.  The  songs  remain,  and  remain  yet 
unsurpassed,  as  the  most  perfect  celebrations,  in  one  case  of 
chivalrous  devotion,  in  the  other  of  the  coxcomb  side  of  gallantry, 
that  literature  contains  or  is  likely  ever  to  contain.  The  song- 
writing  faculty  of  the  English,  which  had  broken  out  some  half 
century  before,  and  had  produced  so  many  masterpieces,  was  near 
its  death,  or  at  least  near  the  trance  from  which  Burns  and  Blake 
revived  it  more  than  a  century  later,  which  even  Dryden's  super- 
human faculty  of  verse  could  only  galvanise.  But  at  the  last  it 
threw  off  by  the  mouths  of  men,  who  otherwise  seem  to  have  had 
very  ordinary  poetical  powers,  this  little  group  of  triumphs  in  song, 
to  which  have  to  be  added  the  raptures — equally  strange  and  sweet, 
equally  unmatched  of  their  kind,  but  nobler  and  more  masculine 
— of  the  "  Great  Marquis,"  the  few  and  wonderful  lines  of  Mon- 
trose. To  quote  "My  dear  and  only  love,  I  pray,"  or  "Great, 
good,  and  just,  could  I  but  rate,"  would  be  almost  as  much  an 
insult  to  the  reader  as  to  quote  the  above-mentioned  little  master- 
pieces of  the  two  less  heroic  English  cavaliers. 

Quarles,  More,  and  Joseph  Beaumont  form,  as  it  were,  a  kind 
of  appendix  to  the  poetry  of  Herbert  and  Vaughan— an  appendix 
very  much  less  distinguished  by  poetical  power,  but  very  interest- 
ing as  displaying  the  character  of  the  time  and  the  fashion  (strange 
enough  to  us  moderns)  in  which  almost  every  interest  of  that  time 
found  its  natural  way  into  verse.  The  enormous  popularity  of 
Francis  Quarles's  Emblems  and  Enchiridion  accounts  to  some 
extent  for  the  very  unjust  ridicule  which  has  been  lavished  on 
him  by  men  of  letters  of  his  own  and  later  times.  But  the  silly 
antithesis  of  Pope,  a  writer  who,  great  as  he  was,  was  almost  as 
ignorant  of  literary  history  as  his  model,  Boileau,  ought  to  pre- 
judice no  one,  and  it  is  strictly  true  that  Quarles's  enormous 
volume  hides,  to  some  extent,  his  merits.  Born  in  1592  at 
Romford,  of  a  gentle  though  not  very  distinguished  family,  which 
enters  into  that  curious  literary  genealogy  of  Swift,  Dryden,  and 
Herrick,  he  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  became  cup-bearer  to 
the  ill-fated  and  romantically  renowned  "  Goody  Palsgrave,"  held 


X  MORE  377 

the  post  which  Middleton  and  Jonson  had  held,  of  chronologer  to 
the  city  of  London,  followed  the  King  to  Oxford  lo  his  loss, 
having  previously  had  losses  in  Ireland,  and  died  early  in  1644, 
leaving  his  memory  to  be  defended  in  a  rather  aflecting  document 
by  his  widow,  Ursula.  Quarles  was  a  kind  of  journalist  to  whom 
the  vehicle  of  verse  came  more  easily  than  the  vehicle  of  prose, 
and  the  dangers  of  that  slate  of  things  are  well  known.  A  mere 
list  of  his  work  (the  Enchiridion  is  in  prose,  and  a  good  thing  too) 
would  far  exceed  any  space  that  can  be  given  to  him  here.  All 
Quarles's  work  is  journey-work,  but  it  is  only  fair  to  note  the 
frequent  wealth  of  fancy,  the  occasional  felicity  of  exjjression, 
which  illustrate  this  wilderness. 

More  and  Beaumont  were  not,  like  Quarles,  ])oetica'i  mis- 
cellanists  and  periodical  writers;  hut  they  seem  to  have  shared 
with  him  the  delusion  that  poetry  is  an  instrument  of  all  work. 
Henry  More,  a  man  well  connected  and  who  might  have  risen, 
but  who  preferred  to  pass  the  greater  part  of  a  long  and  studious 
life  as  a  fellow  of  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  is  best  known  as 
a  member  of  the  theological  school,  indifferently  called  the  Cam- 
bridge Platonists  and  the  Cambridge  I.atitudinarians.  His  chief 
work  in  verse  is  a  great  philosophical  poem,  entitled  the  .SV'//j,' 
of  the  Sinil,  with  such  engaging  sub-titles  as  rsyc/iozoin,  Psycha- 
thanasia,  Antipsychopannyihin^  and  Antimouopsychia.  I  shall  not, 
I  hope,  be  suspected  of  being  ignorant  of  Grei;k,  or  disinclined  to 
metaphysics,  if  I  say  that  the  Sim^  of  the  Soul  appears  to  mo  a 
venerable  mistake.       A   philo.sophical   controversy  carried  on  in 

this  fashion — 

'•  But  contradiction,  can  that  have  place 
In  any  soul  ?     I'lato  affirms  itlcis  ; 
IJut  .\ri.stotlc,  with  his  iiugnacious  ran-, 
As  i<llc  figments  stiffly  them  denies," 

seems  to  me  to  Ik:  a  signal  instance  of  the  wrong  thing  in  the 
wrong  place.  It  is  quite  true  that  More  ha.s,  as  Southey  says, 
"lines  and  passages  of  sublime  beauty."  .\  man  of  his  time, 
actuated  by  its  noble  thought,  trained  as  we  know  .More  to  have 


378  CAROLINE  POETRY 


CHAP. 


been  in  the  severest  school  of  Spenser,  and  thus  habituated  to  the 
heavenly  harmonies  of  that  perfect  poet,  could  hardly  fail  to 
produce  such.     But  his  muse  is  a  chaotic  not  a  cosmic  one.  j 

Something  the    same   may  be  said  of  Joseph  Beaumont,  a 
friend  of  Crashaw,  and  like  him  ejected  from  Peterhouse,  son-in-        M 
lawof  Bishop  Wren,  and,  later,  head  of  Jesus  College.     Beaumont,        I 
a  strong  cavalier  and   an  orthodox  churchman,  was   a   kind   of       " 
adversary  of  More's,  whose  length  and  quaintness  he  has  exceeded, 
while   he   has  almost   rivalled    his    learning  in  Fsyc/ie  or  Love's 
iMystery,  a  religious  poem  of  huge  dimensions,  first  published  in 
1648  and  later  in  1702.     Beaumont,  as  both  fragments  of  this  vast 
thing  and  his  minor  poems  show,  had  fancy,  taste,  and  almost 
genius  on  opportunity ;  but  the  prevailing  mistake  of  his  school, 
the  idea  that  poetry  is  a  fit  vehicle  for  merely  prosaic  expression, 
is  painfully  apparent  in  him. 

First,  for  various  reasons,  among  the  nondescripts  of  the 
Caroline  school,  deserves  to  be  mentioned  William  Habington, 
a  Roman  Catholic  gentleman  of  good  upper  middle-class  station, 
whose  father  was  himself  a  man  of  letters,  and  had  some  trouble 
in  the  Gunpowder  Plot.  He  was  born  at  Hindlip  Hall,  near 
Worcester,  in  the  year  of  the  plot  itself,  courted  and  married 
Lucy  Herbert,  daughter  of  his  neighbour,  Lord  Powis,  and 
published  her  charms  and  virtues  in  the  collection  called  Castara, 
first  issued  in  1634.  Habington  also  wrote  a  tragic  comedy, 
The  Queen  of  Aragon,  and  some  other  work,  but  died  in  middle 
life.  It  is  upon  Castara  that  his  fame  rests.  To  tell  the  truth 
it  is,  though,  as  had  been  said,  an  estimable,  yet  a  rather  irritating 
work.  That  Habington  was  a  true  lover  every  line  of  it  shows ; 
that  he  had  a  strong  infusion  of  the  abundant  poetica'i  inspiration 
then  abroad  is  shown  by  line  after  line,  though  hardly  by  poem 
after  poem,  among  its  pieces.  His  series  of  poems  on  the  death 
of  his  friend  Talbot  is  full  of  beauty.  His  religion  is  sincere, 
fervent,  and  often  finely  expressed;  though  he  never  rose  to 
Herbert's  pure  devotion,  or  to  Crashaw's  flaming  poetry.  One  of 
the  later  Castara  poems  may  be  given  : — 


HABINC.TON 


"  We  saw  and  wooM  each  other's  eyes, 
My  soul  contracted  then  with  thine, 
And  both  burnt  in  one  sacrifice, 
By  whicli  our  marriage  grew  divine. 

"  Let  wilder  youths,  whose  soul  is  sense, 
Profane  the  temple  of  delight, 
And  |>urchase  endless  penitence. 

With  the  stolen  i)leasure  of  one  night. 

"  Time's  ever  ours,  while  we  despise 
The  sensual  idol  of  our  clay, 
For  tiiough  the  sun  do  set  and  rise, 
We  joy  one  everlasting  day. 

"  Whose  light  no  jealous  clouds  obscure. 
While  each  of  us  shine  innocent, 
The  troul>led  stream  is  still  impure  ; 
With  virtue  tlies  away  content. 

'*  .And  though  opinions  often  err, 

We'll  court  the  motlest  smile  of  fame, 
For  sin's  black  danger  circles  her. 
Who  hath  infection  in  her  name. 

"  Thus  when  to  one  dark  silent  room 

Death  siiall  our  loving  roftins  thrust  : 
Fame  will  build  columns  on  our  tomb, 
And  add  a  perfume  to  our  dust." 

But  Ciisfara  is  a  real  instance  of  what  some  foreign  critics  very 
unjustly  charge  on  English  literature  as  a  whole — a  foolish  and 
almost  canting  prudery.  The  poet  dins  the  chastity  of  his 
mistress  into  his  readers'  heads  imtil  the  readers  in  self-defence 
are  driven  to  say,  "Sir,  did  any  one  doubt  it?"  He  protests 
the  freedom  of  his  own  passion  from  any  admixture  of  fleshly 
influence,  till  half  a  suspicion  of  hypocrisy  and  more  than  half  a 
feeling  of  contempt  force  themselves  on  the  hearer.  .\  relentless 
critic  might  connect  these  unpleasant  features  with  the  imcharit- 
ablc  and  more  than  orthodox  bigotry  of  his  religious  poems.  Yet 
Habington,  Ix.*sides  contributing  much  agreeable  verse  to  tin- 
literature  of  the  period,  is  invaluable  as  showing  the  <  ounterside 
to  Milton,  the  Catholic  Puritanism  which  is  no  doubt  inherent  in 


38o  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 


the  English  nature,  and  which,  had  it  not  been  for  the  Reforma- 
tion, would  probably  have  transformed  Catholicism  in  a  very 
strange  fashion. 

There  is  no  Puritanism  of  any  kind  in  a  group  —  it  would 
hardly  be  fair  to  call  them  a  school — of  "  Heroic  "  poets  to  whom 
very  little  attention  has  been  paid  in  histories  of  literature  hitherto, 
but  who  lead  up  not  merely  to  Davenant's  Gondiberi  and  Cowley's 
Davideis,  but  to  Paradise  Lost  itself.  The  "  Heroic  "  poem  was 
a  kind  generated  partly  by  the  precepts  of  the  Italian  criticism, 
including  Tasso,  partly  by  the  practice  of  Tasso  himself,  and 
endeavouring  to  combine  something  of  the  unity  of  Epic  with 
something  and  more  of  the  variety  of  Romance.  It  may  be 
represented  here  by  the  work  of  Chalkhill,  Chamberlayne, 
Marmion,  and  Kynaston.  John  Chalkhill,  the  author  of  Theabna 
and  Ckanhus,  was,  with  his  work,  introduced  to  the  public  in 
1683  by  Izaak  Walton,  who  styles  him  "an  acquaintant  and  friend 
of  Edmund  Spenser."  If  so,  he  must  have  been  one  of  the  first 
of  English  poets  to  adopt  the  very  loose  enjambed  decasyllabic 
couplet  in  which  his  work,  like  that  of  Marmion  and  still  more 
Chamberlayne,  is  written.  His  poem  is  unfinished,  and  the 
construction  and  working-up  of  the  story  are  looser  even  than 
the  metre ;  but  it  contains  a  great  deal  of  charming  description 
and  some  very  poetical  phrase. 

Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  Cupid  and  Psyche  (1637) 
of  the  dramatist  Shakerley  Marmion  {v.  inf.),  which  follows  the 
original  of  Apuleius  with  alternate  closeness  and  liberty,  but  is 
always  best  when  it  is  most  original.  The  Leoline  and  Sydanis 
(1642)  of  Sir  Francis  Kynaston  is  not  in  couplets  but  in  rhyme- 
royal — a  metre  of  which  the  author  was  so  fond  that  he  even 
translated  the  Troiliis  and  Cress ida  of  Chaucer  into  Latin,  retain- 
ing the  seven-line  stanza  and  its  rhymes.  Kynaston,  who  was  a 
member  of  both  universities  and  at  one  time  proctor  at  Cambridge, 
was  a  man  interested  in  various  kinds  of  learning,  and  even  started 
an  Academy  or  Museum  MinervcB  of  his  own.  In  Leoline  and 
Sydanis  he  sometimes  comes  near  to  the  mock  heroic,  but  in  his 


EDWARD  BENLOWES  381 


l)Tics  called  Cv/i/Z/nii/fshe  comes  nearer  still  to  the  best  Caroline  cry. 
One  or  two  of  his  pieces  have  found  their  way  into  anthologies,  but 
until  the  present  writer  reprinted  his  works'  he  was  almost  unknown. 

The  most  important  by  far,  however,  of  this  group  is  ^\'illiam 
Chamberlayne,  a  physician  of  Shaftesbur>',  who,  before  or  during 
the  Civil  War,  began  and  afterwards  finished  (publishing  it  in 
1659)  the  ver)'  long  heroic  romance  of  f/niro/z/i/i/a,  a  story  of  the 
most  involved  and  confused  character  but  with  episodes  of  great 
vividness  and  even  sustained  power :  a  piece  of  versification 
straining  the  liberties  of  etija>nba)ient  in  line  and  want  of  con- 
nection in  synta.x  to  the  utmost ;  but  a  very  mine  of  poetical 
expression  and  imagery.  Jewels  are  to  be  picked  up  on  every  page 
by  those  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  do  so,  and  who  are  not 
offended  by  the  extraordinary  nonchalance  of  the  composition. 

The  Theophila  of  Edward  Benlowes  (1603?-!  676)  was  printed 
in  1652  with  elaborate  and  numerous  engravings  by  Hollar,  which 
have  made  it  rare,  and  usually  imperfect  when  met  with.  Ben- 
lowes was  a  Cambridge  man  (of  St.  John's  College)  by  education, 
but  lived  latterly  and  died  at  Oxford,  having  been  reduced  from 
wealth  to  poverty  by  the  liberality  which  made  his  friends 
anagrammatise  his  name  into  "Benevolus."  His  work  was 
abused  as  an  awful  example  of  the  extravagant  style  by  l^utler 
{Character  of  a  Small  Poet),  and  by  Warburton  in  the  next  century ; 
but  it  was  never  reprinted  till  the  date  of  the  collection  just  noted. 
It  is  a  really  curious  book,  disi)laying  the  extraordinary  diffusion 
of  poetical  spirit  still  existing,  but  in  a  hectic  and  decadent  con- 
dition. Benlowes — a  Cleveland  with  more  poetry  and  less  clever- 
ness, or  a  very  much  weaker  Crashaw — uses  a  monorhymed  triplet 
made  up  of  a  heroic,  an  octosyllabic,  and  an  Alexandrine  whi(  h 
is  as  wilfully  odd  as  the  rest  of  him. 

Randolph,  the  youngest  and  not  the  least  gifted  of  the  tribe 

'  In  Minor  Caroline  Poets,  vols.  i.  .in<l  ii.  (Oxfonl,  1905-6).  An  im|M.rlant 
arldilion  to  the  rcli^;ious  verse  of  ihc  liinc  was  made  liy  Mr.  I)<«1k1I  with  ilie 
Potnii  fl-ondon,  1903)  of 'Iliomas  Trahtrm-,  a  follower  of  II'  ilxri,  \\\\\\  v.mi- 
strange  anlici|»alions  of  Hlakc. 


382  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

of  Ben,  died  before  he  was  thirty,  after  writing  some  noteworthy 
plays,  and  a  certain  number  of  minor  poems,  which,  as  it  has 
been  well  observed,  rather  show  that  he  might  have  done  anything, 
than  that  he  did  actually  do  something.  Corbet  was  Bishop  first 
of  Oxford  and  then  of  Norwich,  and  died  in  1635.  Corbet's  work 
is  of  that  peculiar  class  which  is  usually,  though  not  always,  due 
to  "  University  Wits,"  and  which  only  appeals  to  people  with  a  con- 
siderable appreciation  of  humour,  and  a  large  stock  of  general 
information.  It  is  always  occasional  in  character,  and  rarely 
succeeds  so  well  as  when  the  treatment  is  one  of  distinct  J>ers2yiagt'. 
Thus  the  elegy  on  Donne  is  infinitely  inferior  to  Carew's,  and 
the  mortuary  epitaph  on  Arabella  Stuart  is,  for  such  a  subject  and 
from  the  pen  of  a  man  of  great  talent,  extraordinarily  feeble.  The 
burlesque  epistle  to  Lord  Mordaunt  on  his  journey  to  the  North 
is  great  fun,  and  the  "Journey  into  France,"  though,  to  borrow 
one  of  its  own  jokes,  rather  "strong,"  is  as  good.  The 
"  Exhortation  to  Mr.  John  Hammond,"  a  ferocious  satire  on  the 
Puritans,  distinguishes  itself  from  almost  all  precedent  work  of  the 
kind  by  the  force  and  directness  of  its  attack,  which  almost 
anticipates  Dryden.  And  Corbet  had  both  pathetic  and 
imaginative  touches  on  occasion,  as  here : — 

"What  I  shall  leave  thee  none  can  tell, 
But  all  shall  say  I  wish  thee  well, 
I  wish  thee,  Vin,  before  all  wealth, 
Both  bodily  and  ghostly  health  ; 
Nor  too  much  wealth,  nor  wit,  conie  to  thee, 
So  much  of  either  may  undo  thee. 
I  wish  thee  learning,  not  for  show, 
Enough  for  to  instruct  and  know ; 
Not  such  as  gentlemen  require 
To  prate  at  table,  or  at  fire. 
I  wish  thee  all  thy  mother's  graces, 
Thy  father's  fortunes,  and  his  places, 
I  wish  thee  friends,  and  one  at  court, 
Not  to  build  on,  but  support 
To  keep  thee,  not  in  doing  many 
Oppressions,  but  from  suffering  any. 


X                                           THOMAS  STANLEY                                        383 
t 

I  wish  thee  peace  in  all  thy  ways, 
Nor  lazy  nor  contentious  days  ; 
And  when  thy  soul  and  body  part 
As  innocent  as  now  those  art." 

Cartwright,  a  short-lived  man  hut  a  hard  student,  shows  best 
in  his  dramas.  In  his  occasional  poems,  strongly  influenced  by 
Donne,  he  is  best  at  panegyric,  worst  at  burlescjue  and  epigram. 
In  "On  a  ('lentlewoman's  Silk  Hood"'  and  some  other  pieces  he 
may  challenge  comparison  with  the  most  futile  of  the  meta- 
physicals ;  but  no  one  who  has  read  his  noble  elegy  on  Sir  Bevil 
(Jrenvil,  unecjual  as  it  is,  will  think  lightly  of  Cartwright.  Sir 
Edward  Sherburne  was  chiefly  a  translator  in  the  fashionable 
style.  His  original  poems  were  those  of  a  very  inferior  Carcw 
(he  even  copies  the  name  Celia),  but  they  are  often  pretty. 
Alexander  Brome,  of  whom  very  little  is  known,  and  who  must  not 
be  confounded  with  the  dramatist,  was  a  lawyer  and  a  cavalier 
song-writer,  who  too  frequently  wrote  mere  doggerel ;  but  on  the 
other  hand,  he  sometimes  did  not,  and  when  he  escaped  the  evil 
influence,  as  in  the  stanzas  "Come,  come,  let  us  drink,"  "The 
Trooper,"  and  not  a  few  others,  he  has  the  right  anacreontic  vein. 

As  for  Charles  Cotton,  his  "\'irgil  Travesty"  is  deader  than 
Scarron's,  and  deserves  to  be  so.  The  famous  lines  which  Lamb 
has  made  known  to  every  one  in  the  essay  on  "  New  Year's  1  )ay  " 
are  the  best  thing  he  did.  Hut  there  are  many  excellent  things 
scattered  about  his  work,  despite  a  strong  taint  of  the  mere 
coarseness  and  nastiness  which  have  been  spoken  of  And  though 
he  was  also  much  tainted  with  the  hopeless  indifference  to  pro- 
sody which  distinguished  all  these  belated  cavaliers,  it  is  note- 
worthy that  he  was  one  of  the  few  Knglishmen  for  renturii-s  to 
adopt  the  strict  French  forms  and  write  rondeaiix  and  the  like. 
On  the  whole  his  poetical  power  has  been  a  little  undervalued, 
while  he  was  also  dexterous  in  prose. 

Thomas  Stanley  has  been  classed  above  as  a  translator  because 
he  would  proi^ably  have  liked  to  have  his  scholarship  thus  brought 
into  prominence.      It  was,  both  in   an<  ieiit  and  modern  tongues. 


384  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

very  considerable.      His  History  of  Philosophy  was  a  classic  for 
a  very  long  time ;  and  his  edition  of  ^schylus  had  the  honour  of 
revision  within  the  nineteenth  century  by  Porson  and  by  Butler. 
It  is  not  certain  that  Bentley  did  not  borrow  from  him ;  and  his 
versions  of  Anacreon,  of  various  other  Greek  lyrists,  of  the  later 
Latins,  and  of  modern  writers  in  Spanish  and  Italian  are  most 
remarkable.       But   he   was   also   an    original    poet    in   the   best 
Caroline  style  of  lyric ;  and  his  combination  of  family  (for  he  was 
of  the  great  Stanley  stock),  learning,  and  genius  gave  him  a  high 
position  with  men  of  letters  of  his  day.     Sidney  Godolphin,  who 
died  very  young  fighting  for  the  King  in  Hopton's  army,  had  no 
time  to  do  much  ;   but  he  has  been  magnificently  celebrated  by 
no  less  authorities  than  Clarendon  and  Hobbes,  and  fragments  of 
his  work,  which  has  only  recently  been  collected,  have  long  been 
known.      None  of  it,  except  a  commendatory  poem  or  two,  was 
printed  in  his  own  time,  and  very  little  later ;    while  the  MSS. 
are  not  in  very  accomplished  form,  and  show  few  or  no  signs  of 
revision  by  the  author.     Some,  however,  of  Godolphin's  lyrics  are 
of  great  beauty,  and  a  couplet  translation  of  the  Fourth  ALneid 
has  as  much  firmness  as  Sandys  or  Waller.     Another  precocious 
poet  whose  life  also  was  cut  short,  though  less  heroically,  and  on 
the  other  side  of  politics,  was  John  Hall,  a  Cambridge  man,  who 
at  barely  twenty  (1645-6)  issued  a  volume  of  poems  and  another, 
Horcz  VacivcB,  of  prose  essays,  translated  Longinus,  did  hack-work 
on  the  Cromwelhan  side,  and  died,  it  is  said,  of  loose  and  lazy 
living.     Hall's  poems  are  of  mixed  kinds — sacred  and  profane, 
serious  and  comic — and  the  best  of  them,  such  as  "  The  Call  " 
and    "The   Lure,"  have    a    slender  but  most  attractive  vein  of 
fantastic  charm.     Patrick  Carey,  again,  a  Royalist  and  brother  of 
the  famous  Lord  Falkland,  brought  up  as  a  Roman  Catholic  but 
afterwards  a  convert  to  the  Church  of  England,  left  manuscript 
pieces,  human  and  divine,  which  were  printed  by  Sir  Walter  Scott 
in  1819,  and  are  extremely  pleasant;  while  Bishop  King,  though 
not  often  at  the  height  of  his  well-known  "  Tell  me  no  more  how 
fair  she  is,"  never  falls  below  a  level   much  above  the  average. 


JOHN  CLEVELANh  -?S; 


The  satirist  John  Cleveland,  whose  poems  were  extremely  popular 
and  exist  in  numerous  editions  (much  blended  with  other  men's 
work  and  hard  to  disentangle),  was  made  a  sort  of  "  metaphysical 
helot"  by  a  reference  in  Dryden's  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy  and 
quotations  in  Johnson's  Life  of  Coivley.  He  partly  deserves  this, 
though  he  has  real  originality  of  thought  and  jihrase  ;  but  much  of 
his  work  is  political  or  occasional,  and  he  docs  not  often  rise  to 
the  (juintessential  exquisiteness  of  some  of  those  who  have  been 
mentioned.     A  few  examples  of  this  class  may  be  given  : — 

'*  Through  a  low 
Dark  vale,  where  shade-affecting  walks  ilid  gruw 
Eternal  strangers  to  the  sun,  did  lie 
The  narrow  path  frequented  only  by 
The  forest  tyrants  when  they  bore  their  prey 
From  open  dangers  of  discovering  day. 
Passed  through  this  desert  valley,  they  were  now 
Climbing  an  easy  hill,  whose  every  bough 
Maintained  a  feathered  chorister  to  sing 
Soft  panegyrics,  and  the  rude  winds  bring 
Into  a  murmuring  slumber  ;  whilst  the  calm 
Mom  on  each  leaf  did  hang  the  liquid  balm 
With  an  intent,  before  the  next  sun's  birth 
To  drop  it  in  those  wounds  which  the  cleft  earth 
Received  from's  last  day's  beams.     The  hill's  ascent 
Wound  up  by  action,  in  a  large  extent 
Of  leafy  plains,  shows  them  the  canojiy 
Beneath  whose  shadow  their  large  way  did  lie." 

ClCAMIiEKIAYNK,  Pharoiiiiida,  iv.  I.   199-216. 

It  will  be  observed  that  of  these  eighteen  lines  all  but  four 
are  overrun  ;  and  the  resemblance  to  the  couplet  of  Keat.s's 
llndymion  should  not  be  missed. 

"  April  is  past,  then  do  not  shed, 
And  do  not  waste  in  vain, 
U|»on  thy  mother's  earthy  bed 
Thy  tears  of  silver  rain. 

"Thou  canst  not  hojie  that  the  cold  earth 
Hy  wat'ring  will  bring  forth 
A  flower  like  thee,  or  will  give  birth 
To  one  of  the  like  worth. 
11  •  2  C 


386  CAROLINE  TOETRY  chap. 

'"Tis  true  the  rain  fall'n  from  the  sky 
Or  from  the  clouded  air, 
Doth  make  the  earth  to  fructify, 
And  makes  the  heaven  more  fair. 

"  With  thy  dear  face  it  is  not  so, 
Which,  if  once  overcast, 
If  thou  rain  down  thy  showers  of  woe, 
They,  Hke  the  sirens,  blast. 

"  Therefore,  when  sorrow  shall  becloud 
Thy  fair  serenest  day, 
Weep  not :  thy  sighs  shall  be  allow'd 
To  chase  the  storm  away. 

"  Consider  that  the  teeming  vine, 
If  cut  by  chance  [it]  weep, 
Doth  bear  no  grapes  to  make  the  wine, 
But  feels  eternal  sleep." 

Kynaston. 

"  Be  conquer'd  by  such  charms  ;  there  shall 
Not  always  such  enticements  fall. 
What  know  we  whether  that  rich  spring  of  light 
Will  staunch  his  streams 
Of  golden  beams 
Ere  the  approach  of  night  ? 

"  How  know  we  whether't  shall  not  be 
The  last  to  either  thee  or  me  ? 
He  can  at  will  his  ancient  brightness  gain. 
But  thou  and  I 
When  we  shall  die 
Shall  still  in  dust  remain." 

John  Hall. 

This  group  of  poets  seems  to  demand  a.litde  general  criticism. 
They  stand  more  by  themselves  than  almost  any  other  group  in 
English  literary  history,  marked  off  in  most  cases  with  equal 
sharpness  from  predecessors,  followers,  and  contemporaries.  The 
best  of  them,  Herrick  and  Carew,  with  Crashaw  as  a  great 
thirdsman,  called  themselves  "  sons  "  of  Ben  Jonson,  and  so  in 
a   way  they  were ;    but   they  were  even   more  sons  of  Donne. 


X  ATOLOGY  FOR  CAROLINE  TOKTRV         3S7 


That  great  writer's  burning  passion,  his  strange  and  labyrinthine 
conceits,  the  union  in  him  of  spiritual  and  sensual  fire,  influenced 
the  idiosyncrasies  of  each  as  hardly  any  other  writer's  influence 
has  done  in  other  times ;  while  his  technical  shortcomings  had 
unquestionably  a  fatal  eflect  on  the  weaker  members  of  the 
school.  But  there  is  also  noticeable  in  them  a  separate  and 
hardly  definable  influence  which  circumscribes  their  class  even 
more  distinctly.  They  were,  as  I  take  it,  the  last  set  of  poets 
anywhere  in  Europe  to  exhibit,  in  that  most  fertile  department  of 
poetry  which  seeks  its  inspiration  in  the  love  of  man  for  woman, 
the  frank  expression  of  i)hysical  afl*ection  united  with  the  spirit 
of  chivalry,  tempered  by  the  consciousness  of  the  fading  of  all 
natural  delights,  and  foreshadowed  by  that  intellectual  introspec- 
tion which  has  since  developed  itself  in  such  great  measure — 
some  think  out  of  all  measure — in  poetry.  In  the  best  of  them 
there  is  no  cynicism  at  all.  Herrick  and  Carew  are  only  sorry 
that  the  amatory  fashion  of  this  world  pa.sseth  ;  they  do  not  in 
the  least  undervalue  it  while  it  lasts,  or  sneer  at  it  when  it  is  gone. 
There  is,  at  least  to  my  thinking,  little  coarseness  in  them  (I 
must  perpetually  except  Herrick's  epigrams),  though  there  is, 
according  to  modern  standards,  a  great  deal  of  very  plain  speaking. 
They  have  as  much  frank  enjoyment  of  physical  pleasures  as 
any  classic  or  any  media.'valist ;  but  they  have  what  no  classic 
e.xcept  Catullus  and  i)erhaps  Sappho  had,  —  the  fine  rapture, 
the  passing  but  transforming  madness  which  brings  merely 
physical  passion  sub  spfcie  irternitads  ;  and  they  have  in  addition 
a  faint  preliminary  touch  of  that  analytic  and  self-cjuestioning 
spirit  which  refines  even  further  upon  the  chivalric  rapture  and 
the  cla.ssical- renaissance  mysticism  of  the  shadow  of  death,  but 
which  since  their  time  has  eaten  wy  the  simpler  and  franker 
moods  of  passion  itself  With  them,  as  a  necessary  consequence, 
the  physical  is  (to  anticipate  a  famous  word  of  whi(  h  more 
presently)  always  blended  with  the  metaphysical.  It  is  curious 
that,  as  one  result  of  the  change  of  manner,  this  should  have 
even  been  made  a  reproach  to  ihcm — that  the  ecstasy  of  tln.nr 


388  CAROLINE    POETRY  chap. 

ecstasies  should  apparently  have  become  not  an  excuse  but  an 
additional  crime.  Yet  if  any  grave  and  precise  person  will  read 
Carew's  Rapture,  the  most  audacious,  and  of  course  wilfully  auda- 
cious expression  of  the  style,  and  then  turn  to  the  archangel's 
colloquy  with  Adam  in  Paradise  Lost,  I  should  like  to  ask  him 
on  which  side,  according  to  his  honour  and  conscience,  the  coarse- 
ness lies.  I  have  myself  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  it  lies  with 
the  husband  of  Mary  Powell  and  the  author  of  Tetrachordon,  not 
with  the  lover  of  Celia  and  the  author  of  the  lines  to  "  A.  L." 

There  are  other  matters  to  be  considered  in  the  determination 
of  the  critical  fortunes  of  the  Caroline  school.  Those  fortunes 
have  been  rather  odd.  Confounded  at  first  in  the  general  oblivion 
which  the  Restoration  threw  on  all  works  of  "the  last  age,"  and 
which  deepened  as  the  school  of  Dryden  passed  into  the  school 
of  Pope,  the  writers  of  the  Donne -Cowley  tradition  were  first 
exhumed  for  the  purposes  of  post-mortem  examination  by  and  in 
the  remarkable  "  Life  "  of  Johnson,  devoted  to  the  last  member 
of  the  class.  It  is  at  this  time  of  day  alike  useless  to  defend  the 
Metaphysical  Poets  against  much  that  Johnson  said,  and  to  defend 
Johnson  against  the  charge  of  confusion,  inadequacy,  and  haste 
in  his  generalisations.  The  term  metaphysical,  originating  with 
Dryden,  and  used  by  Johnson  with  a  slight  difference,  may  be 
easily  miscomprehended  by  any  one  who  chooses  to  forget  its 
legitimate  application  both  etymologically  and  by  usage  to  that 
which  comes,  as  it  were,  behind  or  after  nature.  Still  Johnson 
undoubtedly  confounded  in  one  common  condemnation  writers 
who  have  very  little  in  common,  and  (which  was  worse)  criticised 
a  peculiarity  of  expression  as  if  it  had  been  a  deliberate  substi- 
tution of  alloy  for  gold.  The  best  phrases  of  the  metaphysical 
poets  more  than  justify  themselves  to  any  one  who  looks  at  poetry 
with  a  more  catholic  appreciation  than  Johnson's  training  and 
associations  enabled  him  to  apply ;  and  even  the  worst  are  but 
mistaken  attempts  to  follow  out  a  very  sound  principle,  that  of 
"  making  the  common  as  though  it  were  not  common."  Towards 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  some  of  these  poets,  especially 


ArOLOf.Y    FOR    CAROLINE    POETRY  389 


Herrick,  were  revived  with  taste  and  success  by  Headly  and  other 
men  of  letters.     But  it  so  happened  that  the  three  great  critics 
of  the  later  Romantic  revival,  Hazlitt,  I^amb,  and  Coleridge,  were 
all  strongly  attracted  to  the  bolder  and  more  irregular  graces  of 
the   great   dramatic    poets,    to    the   not    less    quaint    but    less 
"  mignardised  "  quaintnesses  of  prose  writers  like  Burton,  Browne, 
and  Taylor,  or  to  the  massive  splendours  of  the  Elizabethan  poets 
proper.     The  poetry  of  the  Caroline  age  was,  therefore,  a  little 
slurred,   and    this    mishap   of  falling   between    two    schools   has 
constantly  recurred  to  it.     Some  critics  even  who  have  done  its 
separate  authors  justice,  have  subsetiuently  indulged  in  palinodes, 
have  talked  about  decadence  and  Ale.xandrianism  and  what  not 
The   majority  have  simply  let  the  Cavalier  Poets   (as   they  are 
sometimes  termed  by  a  mere  historical  coincidence)  be  something 
more  than  the  victims  of  the  schools  that  preceded  and  followed 
them.     The  lovers  of  the  school    of  good  sense   which  Waller 
founded  regard  the  poets  of  this  chapter  as  extravagant  concettists  ; 
the   lovers   of  the    Elizabethan    school    jiroper   regard    them    as 
efieminate   triflers.       One    of   Milton's   gorgeous  but   constantly 
illogical  phrases  about  the  poets  of  his  day  may  jierhaps  have 
created   a   prejudice   against    these   i)oets.      But    Milton    was   a 
politician  as  well  as  a  poet,  a  fanatic  as  well  as  a  man  of  letters 
of  seldom  equalled,  and  never,  save  in  two  or  three  cases,  surpassed 
powers.     He  was  also  a  man  of  a  more  morose  and  unamiable 
private  character  than  any  other  great  poet  the  world  has  known 
except  Racine.     The  easy  bonhomie  of  the  Caroline  muse  repelled 
his  austerity  ;  its  careless  good-breeding  shocked  his  middle-class 
and    Puritan    Philistinism ;    its    laxity  revolted   his   princ  iples  of 
morality.     Not  improbably  the  vein  of  sympathy  which  discovers 
itself  in  the  exfiuisite  verse  of  the   Comus,  of  the   A/lfi^ro   and 
J'cnseroso,    of  /.ya'dns   itself,   infuriated   him    (as   such    veins   of 
sympathy  when  they  are  rudely  checked  and  turned  from  their 
course  will  often  d<j)  with  those  who  indulged  instead  of  check- 
ing it.     But    because   Lycidas   is    magnificent,  and  //  Pniscroso 
chanuing  poetry,  wc  are  not  to  think  nieanly  of  "  lair  Daffodils," 


390  CAROLINE    POETRY  chap. 

or  "  Ask  me  no  more,"  of  "  Going  to  the  Wars,"  or  "  Tell  me  no 

more  how  fair  she  is." 

Let  us  clear  our  minds  of  this  cant,  and  once  more  admit,  as 

the  student  of  literature  always  has  to    remind    himself,  that   a 

sapphire  and  diamond  ring  is  not  less  beautiful  because  it  is  not  a 

marble  palace,  or  a  bank  of  wild  flowers  in  a  wood  because  it  is  not 

a  garden  after  the  fashion  of  Lenotre.     In  the  division  of  English 

poetry  which  we  have  been  reviewing,  there  are  to  be  found  some 

of  the  most  exquisite  examples  of  the  gem  and  flower  order  of 

beauty  that  can  be  found  in  all  literature.     When  Herrick  bids 

Perilla 

"  Wind  me  in  that  very  sheet 
Which  wrapt  thy  smooth  limbs  when  thou  didst  implore 
The  gods'  protection  but  the  night  before  : 
Follow  me  weeping  to  my  turf,  and  there 
Let  fall  a  primrose  and  with  it  a  tear  ; 
Then  lastly,  let  some  weekly  strewings  be 
Devoted  to  the  memoiy  of  me. 
The7t  shall  my  ghost  not  walk  about ;  but  keep 
Still  in  the  cool  and  silent  shades  of  sleep  ;  " 

or  when  he  writes  that  astonishing  verse,   so   unlike  his  usual 

style — 

"  In  this  world,  the  Isle  of  Dreams, 

While  we  sit  by  sorrow's  streams, 

Tears  and  terrors  are  our  themes  ;  " 

when  Carew,  in  one  of  those  miraculous  closing  bursts,  carefully 
led  up  to,  of  which  he  has  almost  the  secret,  cries 

"  Oh,  love  me  then,  and  now  begin  zty 
Let  ns  not  lose  this  present  minute  ; 
For  time  and  age  will  work  that  wrack 
IVhicJi  time  nor  age  shall  necr  call  back  ;  " 

when  even  the  sober  blood  in  Habington's  decent  veins  spurts 
in  this  splendid  sally — • 

"  So,  'mid  the  ice  of  the  far  northern  sea, 
A  star  about  the  Arctic  circle  may 
Than  ours  yield  clearer  light  ;  yet  that  hut  shall 
Serve  at  the  frozen  pilot's  funeral ;  " 


X  APOLOGY    FOR    CAROLINE    POETRY  391 

when  Crashaw  writes  as  if  caught  by  the  very  firo  of  wliich  he 
speaks, — the  fire  of  the  tlaining  heart  of  Saint  'I'horesa  ;  when 
Lovelace,  most  careless  and  unliterary  of  all  men,  breaks  out  as 
if  by  simple  instinct  into  those  perfect  verses  which  hardly  even 
Burns  and  Shelley  have  equalled  since, — it  is  impossible  for  any  one 
who  feels  for  poetry  at  all  not  to  feel  more  than  appreciation,  not 
to  feel  sheer  enthusiasm.  Putting  aside  the  very  greatest  poets 
of  all,  I  hardly  know  any  group  of  poetical  workers  who  so  often 
cause  this  enthusiasm  as  our  present  group,  with  their  wonderful 
felicity  of  language;  with  their  command  of  those  lyrical  measures 
which  seem  so  easy  and  are  so  difficult ;  with  their  almost  un- 
paralleled blend  of  a  sensuousness  that  does  not  make  the 
intellect  sluggish  and  of  the  loftiest  spirituality. 

When  we  examine  what  is  said  against  them,  a  great  deal  of 
it  is  found  to  be  based  on  that  most  treacherous  of  all  founda- 
tions, a  hard-driven  metaphor.  Because  they  come  at  the  end 
of  a  long  and  fertile  period  of  literature,  because  a  colder  and 
harder  kind  of  poetry  followed  them,  they  are  said  to  be  "de- 
cadence,"' "autumn,"  "over-ripe  fruit,"  "sunset,"  and  so  forth. 
These  pretty  analogies  have  done  much  harm  in  literary  history. 
Of  the  Muse  it  is  most  strictly  and  soberly  true  that  "  Boc(:-a 
bacciata  non  perde  ventura,  anzi  rinuova  come  fa  la  luna."  If 
there  is  any  meaning  about  the  jjhrases  of  decadence,  autumn, 
and  the  like,  it  is  derived  from  the  idea  of  approaching  death 
and  cessation,  'i'here  is  no  death,  no  cessation,  in  literature ; 
and  the  sadness  and  decay  of  certain  periods  is  mere  fiction. 
An  autumn  day  would  not  be  .sad  if  the  average  human  being 
did  not  (ver)'  proj)erly)  take  from  it  a  warning  of  the  shortness  of 
his  own  life.  But  literature  is  not  shortlived.  There  was  no  sign 
of  i>oetry  dying  when  Shelley  lived  two  thousand  five  hundred 
years  after  Sajjpho,  when  Shakcspcre  lived  as  long  after  Homer. 
Periods  like  the  periods  of  the  (Ireek  Anthology  or  of  our  Caro- 
line poetry  are  not  periods  of  decay,  but  simply  j)eriods  of  differ- 
ence. There  are  no  periods  of  decay  in  literature  so  long  as 
anything  good  is  produt  eil ;  and  when  nothing  good  is  produced, 


392  CAROLINE  POETRY  chap. 

it  is  only  a  sign  that  the  field  is  taking  a  healthy  turn  of  fallow. 
In  this  time  much  that  was  good,  with  a  quite  wonderful  and 
charming  goodness,  was  produced.  What  is  more,  it  was  a  good- 
ness which  had  its  own  distinct  characteristics,  some  of  which  I 
have  endeavoured  to  point  out,  and  which  the  true  lover  of 
poetry  would  be  as  unwilling  to  lose  as  to  lose  the  other  good- 
nesses of  all  the  great  periods,  and  of  all  but  the  greatest  names 
in  those  periods.  For  the  unapproachables,  for  the  first  Three, 
for  Homer,  for  Shakespere,  for  Dante,  I  would  myself  (though  I 
should  be  very  sorry)  give  up  all  the  poets  we  have  been  review- 
ing. I  should  not  like  to  have  to  choose  between  Herrick  and 
Milton's  earlier  poems ;  between  the  Caroline  poets,  major  and 
minor,  as  just  reviewed  on  the  one  hand,  and  The  Faerie  Qiieene 
on  the  other.  But  I  certainly  would  give  Paradise  Regained 
for  some  score  of  poems  of  the  writers  just  named ;  and 
for  them  altogether  I  would  give  all  but  a  few  passages  (I  would 
not  give  those)  of  Paradise  Lost.  And,  as  I  have  endeavoured  (per- 
haps to  my  readers'  satiety)  to  point  out,  this  comparative  estimate 
is  after  all  a  radically  unsound  one.  We  are  not  called  upon  to 
weigh  this  kind  of  poetry  against  that  kind  ;  we  are  only  incident- 
ally, and  in  an  uninvidious  manner,  called  upon  to  weigh  this  poet 
against  that  even  of  the  same  kind.  The  whole  question  is, 
whether  each  is  good  in  his  own  kind,  and  whether  the  kind  is 
a  worthy  and  delightful  one.  And  in  regard  of  most  of  the  poets 
just  surveyed,  both  these  questions  can  be  answered  with  an  un^ 
hesitating  affirmative.  If  we  had  not  these  poets,  one  particular 
savour,  one  particular  form,  of  the  poetical  rapture  would  be  lack- 
ing to  the  poetical  expert ;  just  as  if  what  Herrick  himself  calls 
"the  brave  Burgundian  wine"  were  not,  no  amount  of  claret 
and  champagne  could  replace  it.  For  passionate  sense  of  the 
good  things  of  earth,  and  at  the  same  time  for  mystical  feeling  of 
their  insecurity,  for  exquisite  style  without  the  frigidity  and  the 
over-correctness  which  the  more  deliberate  stylists  frequently  dis- 
play, for  a  blending  of  Nature  and  art  that  seems  as  if  it  must 
have  been  as  simply  instinctive  in  all  as  it  certainly  was  in  some, 


ArOLOGV  FOR  CAROLINE  POETRY 


the  poets  of  the  Tribe  of  Ben,  of  the  Tribe  of  Donne,  who  illus- 
trated the  period  before  ruritanisni  and  RepubHtanism  toni- 
bined  had  changed  England  from  merriment  to  sadness,  stand 
alone  in  letters.  We  have  had  as  good  since,  but  never  the 
same — never  any  such  blending  of  classical  frankness,  of  medi- 
reval  simplicity  and  chivalr)-,  of  modern  reflection  and  thought.' 

^  Since  this  Ixiok  first  appeared,  some  persons  whose  judgment  I  res]X!Ct 
have  expressed  to  me  surprise  and  regret  that  I  have  not  given  a  hij;hcr  and 
larger  place  to  Henrj-  Vaughan.  A  higher  I  cannot  give,  l)ecause  I  think  him, 
despite  the  extreme  lieauty  of  his  tliought  and  (more  rarely)  of  his  expression, 
a  most  imperfect  poet  ;  nor  a  larger,  because  that  would  involve  a  critical 
arguing  out  of  the  matter,  which  would  \x  unsuitable  to  the  plan  and  scale  of 
this  lKX)k.  Had  he  oftener  written  .is  he  wrote  in  the  famous  poem  referred 
to  in  the  text,  or  as  in  the  magnilicent  opening  of  "  Tlic  Worlil  " — 

"  I  saw  Eternity  the  other  night, 
Ltie  a  ^eat  ring  of  pure  and  ftidUss  light. 
All  calm  as  it  was  bright," 

there  would  be  much  more  to  say  of  him.  But  he  is  not  master  of  the  expression 
suitable  to  his  noble  an<l  precious  thought  except  in  the  briefest  bursts—bursts 
compared  to  which  even  Cr.i.shaw's  are  su.staine<l  ami  methodical.  His  ad- 
mirers claim  for  "The  Retreat"  the  germ  of  Wordsworth's  great  o<Ie,  l)Ul  if 
any  one  will  compare  the  two  he  will  hanlly  complain  that  \'aughan  has  to(j 
little  space  here. 


CHAPTER   XI 


THE    FOURTH    DRAMATIC    PERIOD 


Two  great  names  remain  to  be  noticed  in  the  Elizabethan  drama 
(though  neither  produced  a  play  till  after  Elizabeth  was  dead), 
some  interesting  playwrights  of  third  or  fourth -rate  importance 
have  to  be  added  to  them,  and  in  a  postscript  we  shall  have  to 
gather  up  the  minor  or  anonymous  work,  some  of  it  of  very  high 
excellence,  of  the  second  division  of  our  whole  subject,  including 
plays  of  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  periods.  But  with  this 
fourth  period  we  enter  into  what  may  really  be  called  by  com- 
parison {remembering  always  what  has  been  said  in  the  last 
chapter)  a  period  of  decadence,  and  at  its  latter  end  it  becomes 
very  decadent  indeed.  Only  in  Ford  perhaps,  of  our  named 
and  individual  authors  in  this  chapter,  and  in  him  very  rarely, 
occur  the  flashes  of  sheer  poetry  which,  as  we  have  seen  in  each 
of  the  three  earlier  chapters  on  the  drama,  lighten  the  work  of  the 
Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  dramatists  proper  with  extraordinary 
and  lavish  brilliance.  Not  even  in  Ford  are  to  be  found  the 
whole  and  perfect  studies  of  creative  character  which,  even  leaving 
Shakespere  out  of  the  question,  are  to  be  found  earlier  in  plays  and 
playwrights  of  all  kinds  and  strengths,  from  The  Maid's  Tragedy 
and  Vittoria  Corombona,  to  The  Merry  Devil  of  Edmonton  and  A 
Cure  for  a  Cuckold.  The  tragedies  have  Ben  Jonson's  labour 
without  his  force,  the  comedies  his  coarseness  and  lack  of  inspirit- 
ing life  without  his  keen  observation  and  incisive  touch.     As  the 


CHAP.  XI  MASSINGER  •  395 

taste  indeed  turned  more  and  more  from  tragedy  to  comedy,  we 
get  attempts  on  tlie  part  of  playwrights  to  win  it  hac  k  by  a  return 
to  the  bloody  and  monstrous  conceptions  of  an  earlier  time, 
treated,  however,  without  the  redeeming  features  of  that  time, 
though  with  a  little  more  coherence  and  art.  Massinger's 
Unnatural  Combat^  and  Ford's  '7/V  Pity  She's  a  Whore,  among 
great  plays,  are  examples  of  this  :  the  numerous  minor  examples 
are  hardly  worth  mentioning.  But  the  most  curious  symptom  of 
all  was  the  gradual  and,  as  it  were,  imperceptible  loss  of  the  secret 
of  blank  verse  itself,  which  hatl  been  the  instrument  of  the  great 
triumphs  of  the  stage  from  Marlowe  to  I  )ekker.  Something  of 
this  loss  of  grasp  may  have  been  noticed  in  the  looseness  of 
Fletcher  and  the  over- stiffness  of  Jonson  :  it  is  perceptible 
distinctly  even  in  Ford  and  Massinger.  lint  as  the  Restoration, 
or  rather  the  silencing  of  the  theatres  by  the  Commonwealth 
approaches,  it  becomes  more  and  more  evident  until  we  reac  h 
the  chaotic  and  hideous  jumble  of  downright  jirose  and  verse 
that  is  neither  prose  nor  verse,  noticeable  even  in  the  early 
plays  of  Dryden,  and  chargeable  no  doubt  wiih  the  twenty 
years'  return  of  the  English  drama  to  the  comparative  bar- 
barism of  the  couplet.  This  apparent  loss  of  ear  and  rhythm- 
sense  has  been  commented  on  already  in  reference  to  Lovelace, 
Suckling  (himself  a  dramatist),  and  others  of  the  minor  Caro- 
line poets ;  but  it  is  far  more  noticeable  in  drama,  and 
resulted  in  tiie  production,  by  some  of  the  playwrights  of  the 
transition  period  under  Charles  I.  and  Charles  II.,  of  some 
of  the  most  amc^rphous  b()t<  lies  in  the  way  of  style  that  disfigure 
Knglish  literature. 

With  the  earliest  and  best  work  of  Philip  Massinger,  however, 
we  are  at  any  rate  chronologically  still  at  a  distance  from  the 
lamentable  close  of  a  great  period.  He  was  born  in  15 S3,  being 
the  son  of  Arihur  Massinger,  a  "  servant  "  (pretty  certainly  in  the 
gentle  sense  of  service)  to  the  Pembroke  family.  In  \Uo2  he 
was  entered  at  St.  Alban's  Hall  in  Oxford  :  lie  is  supposed  to  have 
left  the  university  about  1609,  and  m.iy  h.ive  begun  writing  plays 


396  *•  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

soon.  But  the  first  definite  notice  of  his  occupation  or  indeed 
of  his  life  that  we  have  is  his  participation  (about  1614)  with 
Daborne  and  Field  in  a  begging  letter  to  the  well-known  manager 
Henslowe  for  an  advance  of  five  pounds  on  "  the  new  play,"  nor 
was  anything  of  his  printed  or  positively  known  to  be  acted  till 
1622,  the  date  of  The  Virgin  Martyr.  From  that  time  onwards 
he  appears  frequently  as  an  author,  though  many  of  his  plays 
were  not  printed  till  after  his  death  in  1640.  But  nothing  is 
known  of  his  life.  He  was  buried  on  i8th  March  in  St.  Saviour's, 
Southwark,  being  designated  as  a  "stranger," — that  is  to  say,  not 
a  parishioner. 

Thirty-seven  plays  in  all,  or  thirty-eight  if  we  add  Mr.  Bullen's 
conjectural  discovery.  Sir  John  Barneveldt,  are  attributed  to 
Massinger ;  but  of  these  many  have  perished,  Massinger  having 
somehow  been  specially  obnoxious  to  the  ravages  of  Warburton's 
cook.  Eighteen  survive ;  twelve  of  which  were  printed  during 
the  author's  life.  Massinger  was  thus  an  industrious  and  volu- 
minous author,  one  of  many  points  which  make  Professor  Minto's 
comparison  of  him  to  Gray  a  little  surprising.  He  was,  both  at 
first  and  later,  much  given  to  collaboration, — indeed,  there  is  a 
theory,  not  without  colour  from  contemporary  rumour,  that  he  had 
nearly  if  not  quite  as  much  to  do  as  Beaumont  with  Fletcher's 
great  work.  But  oddly  enough  the  plays  which  he  is  known  to 
have  written  alone  do  not,  as  in  other  cases,  supply  a  very  sure 
test  of  what  is  his  share  in  those  which  he  wrote  conjointly.  The 
Old  Law,  a  singular  play  founded  on  a  similar  conception  to 
that  in  the  late  Mr.  Anthony  Trollope's  Fixed  Period,  is  attributed 
also  to  Rowley  and  Dekker,  and  has  sometimes  been  thought  to 
be  so  early  that  Massinger,  except  as  a  mere  boy,  could  have  had  no 
hand  in  it.  The  contradictions  of  critics  over  The  Virgin  Martyr 
(by  Massinger  and  Dekker)  have  been  complete;  some  peremptorily 
handing  over  all  the  fine  scenes  to  one,  and  some  declaring  that 
these  very  scenes  could  only  be  written  by  the  other.  It  is  pretty 
certain  that  the  argumentative  theological  part  is  Massinger's ;  for 
he  had  a  strong  liking  for  such  things,  while  the  passages  between 


XI  MASSINC.ER  397 

Dorothea  and  her  servant  Angelo  are  at  once  more  delicate  than 
most  of  his  work,  and  more  regular  and  even  than  Dekker's.  'So 
companion  is,  however,  assigned  to  him  in  7'//<-  L'nnatural  Combat, 
which  is  probably  a  pretty  early  and  certainly  a  characteristic 
example  of  his  style.  His  demerits  appear  in  the  exaggerated 
and  crude  devilry  of  the  wicked  hero,  old  Malefort  (who  cheats 
his  friend,  makes  away  with  his  wife,  kills  his  son  in  single  combat, 
and  conceives  an  incestuous  passion  for  his  daughter),  in  the  jerky 
alternation  and  improbable  conduct  of  the  plot,  and  in  the  merely 
extraneous  connection  of  the  farcical  scenes.  His  merits  apjicar 
in  the  stately  versification  and  ethical  interest  of  the  debate  which 
precedes  the  unnatural  duel,  and  in  the  spirited  and  well -told 
apologue  (for  it  is  almost  that)  of  the  needy  .soldier,  Relgarde,  who 
is  bidden  not  to  appear  at  the  governor's  table  in  his  shabby 
clothes,  and  makes  his  appearance  in  full  armour.  The  debate 
between  father  and  son  may  be  given  : — 

Maltf.  sen.   "  Now  we  are  alone,  sir ; 

.\n(l  thou  ha.st  liberty  to  unload  the  burthen 
Which  thou  groan 'st  under.     Speak  thy  griefs. 
MaUf.  Jim.   I  shall,  sir  ; 

Hut  in  a  perplex'd  form  and  metho<l,  which 

You  only  can  interpret  :   Woukl  you  had  not 

A  giiilty  knowledge  in  your  l>osom,  of 

The  language  which  you  force  me  to  deliver 

•So  I  were  nothing  I     As  you  .ire  my  father 

I  l)end  my  knee,  and,  uncompellVi  profess 

My  life,  and  all  that's  mine,  to  l>c  your  gift  ; 

And  that  in  a  son's  duty  I  stand  lM)und 

To  lay  this  head  beneath  your  feet  and  run 

All  desperate  hazards  for  your  ease  and  safety  : 

Hut  this  confest  on  my  part,  I  rise  up, 

And  not  as  with  a  father  (all  resjK'Ct, 

Love,  fear,  and  reverence  cast  off)  but  aa 

A  wickeil  man  I  thus  exix>stulate  with  you. 

Why  have  y«)u  done  that  which  I  dare  not  speak, 

And  in  ihc  action  changed  the  humble  sli.ipc 

Of  my  ol)edicnce,  lu  rcl>clli<jus  rage 

And  insolent  pride?  and  with  shut  eyes  constrain'd  me, 


398  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  TERIOD  chap. 


II 


I  must  not  see,  nor,  if  I  saw  it,  shun  it. 
In  my  wrongs  nature  suffers,  and  looks  backward. 
And  mankind  trembles  to  see  me  pursue 
What  beasts  would  fly  from.     For  when  I  advance 
This  sword  as  I  must  do,  against  your  head. 
Piety  will  weep,  and  tilial  duty  mourn, 
To  see  their  altars  which  you  built  up  in  me 
In  a  moment  razed  and  ruined.     That  you  could 
(From  my  grieved  soul  I  wish  it)  but  produce 
To  qualify,  not  excuse  your  deed  of  horror, 
One  seeming  reason  that  I  might  fix  here 
And  move  no  farther  ! 
Malcf.  sen.   Have  I  so  far  lost 

A  father's  power,  that  I  must  give  account 
Of  my  actions  to  my  son  ?  or  must  I  plead 
As  a  fearful  prisoner  at  the  bar,  while  he 
That  owes  his  being  to  me  sits  a  judge 
To  censure  that  which  only  by  myself 
Ought  to  be  question'd  ?  mountains  sooner  fall 
Beneath  their  valleys  and  the  lofty  pine 
Pay  homage  to  the  bramble,  or  what  else  is 
Preposterous  in  nature,  ere  my  tongue 
In  one  short  syllable  yield  satisfaction 
To  any  doubt  of  thine  ;  nay,  though  it  were 
A  certainty  disdaining  argument  ! 
Since  though  my  deeds  wore  hell's  black  lining. 
To  thee  they  should  appear  triumphal  robes, 
Set  off  with  glorious  honour,  thou  being  bound, 
To  see  with  my  eyes,  and  to  hold  that  reason 
That  takes  or  birth  or  fashion  from  my  will. 
Malcf.  Jim.   This  sword  divides  that  slavish  knot. 
Malef.  sen.    It  cannot  : 

It  cannot,  wretch,  and  if  thou  but  remember 

From  whom  thou  had'st  this  spirit,  thou  dar'st  not  hope  it. 

"Who  trained  thee  up  in  arms  but  I  ?     Who  taught  thee 

Men  were  men  only  when  they  durst  look  down 

With  scorn  on  death  and  danger,  and  contemn'd 

All  opposition  till  plumed  Victory 

Had  made  her  constant  stand  upon  their  helmets? 

Under  my  sliield  thou  hast  fought  as  securely 

As  the  young  eaglet  covered  with  the  wings 

Of  her  fierce  dam,  learns  how  and  where  to  prey. 


Xf  >rASSI\r.ER  399 

All  that  is  manly  in  thee  I  call  mine  ; 

But  what  is  weak  and  womanish,  thine  own. 

And  what  I  gave,  since  thou  art  proud,  ungrateful, 

Presuming  to  contend  with  him  to  whom 

Submission  is  due,  I  will  take  from  thee. 

Look  therefore  for  extremities  and  expect  not 

I  will  correct  thee  as  a  son,  but  kill  ihce 

As  a  serpent  swollen  with  poison  ;  who  surviving 

A  little  longer  with  infectious  breath, 

Would  render  all  things  near  him  like  itself 

Contagious.      Nay,  now  my  anger's  up. 

Ten  thousand  virgins  kneeling  at  my  feet. 

And  with  one  general  cry  howling  for  mercy. 

Shall  not  redeem  thee. 
MaUf.  jtin.  Thou  incensetl  Power 

Awhile  forlHjar  thy  thunder  !  let  me  have 

No  aid  in  my  revenge,  if  from  the  grave 

My  mother 

Male/,  sen.   Thou  shalt  never  name  her  more." 

f  Thcyfis^ht. 

The  Duke  of  Milan  is  sonielimes  considered  Massingcr's  master- 
piece ;  and  here  again  there  are  numerous  fine  scenes  and  noble 
tirades.  But  the  irrationality  of  the  tionnee  (Sforza  the  duke  charges 
his  favourite  not  to  let  the  duchess  sur\ive  his  own  death,  and 
the  abuse  of  the  authority  thus  given  leads  to  horrible  injustice 
and  the  death  of  both  duchess  and  duke)  mars  the  whole.  The 
predilection  of  the  author  for  sudden  turns  and  twists  of  situation, 
his  neglect  to  make  his  plots  and  characters  acceptable  and  con- 
ceivable as  wholes,  ap|)ear  indeed  everywhere,  even  in  what  I 
have  no  doubt  in  calling  his  real  masterpiece  by  far,  the  fine 
tragi-romedy  of  A  Neiu  Way  to  J*ay  Oid  Debts.  The  revengeful 
trick  by  which  a  satellite  of  the  great  extortioner.  Sir  (lilcs  Over- 
reach, brings  about  his  employer's  discomfiture,  regardless  of  his 
own  ruin,  is  very  like  the  denouement  o[  the  lirass  and  (Jiiilp  part 
of  the  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  may  have  suggested  it  (for  .-/  Xcmi 
Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts  laste<l  as  an  ading  play  well  into  I)i<kens's 
lime),  and,  like  it,  is  a  little  improbable.  Htit  the  play  is  an 
admirable    one,    and    ()v.  rri  i<  h    ^who,    as    is    well    known,    w;ls 


400  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 


supposed  to  be  a  kind  of  study  of  his  half  namesake,  Mompesson, 
the  notorious  monopolist)  is  by  far  the  best  single  character  that 
Massinger  ever  drew.  He  again  came  close  to  true  comedy  in 
The  City  Afada/ii,  another  of  the  best  known  of  his  plays,  where 
the  trick  adopted  at  once  to  expose  the  \illainy  of  the  apparently 
reformed  spendthrift  Luke,  and  to  abate  the  ruinous  extravagance 
of  Lady  Frugal  and  her  daughters,  is  perhaps  not  beyond  the 
limits  of  at  least  dramatic  verisimilitude,  and  gives  occasion  to 
some  capital  scenes.  The  Bondman,  The  Renegade,  the  curious 
Parliament  of  Love,  which,  like  others  of  Massinger's  plays,  is  in 
an  almost  .^schylean  state  of  text-corruptness.  The  Great  Duke  of 
Florence,  The  Maid  of  Honour  (one  of  the  very  doubtful  evidences 
of  Massinger's  supposed  conversion  to  Roman  Catholicism),  The 
Picture  (containing  excellent  passages,  but  for  improbability  and 
topsy-turviness  of  incident  ranking  with  The  Duke  of  Milan),  The 
Emperor  of  the  East,  The  Guardian,  A  Very  Woman,  The  Bashful 
Lover,  are  all  plays  on  which,  if  there  were  space,  it  would  be 
interesting  to  comment ;  and  they  all  display  their  author's 
strangely  mixed  merits  and  defects.  The  Roman  Actor  and  The 
Fatal  Dowry  must  have  a  little  more  attention.  The  first  is,  I 
think,  Massinger's  best  tragic  effort ;  and  the  scene  where 
Domitian  murders  Paris,  with  his  tyrannical  explanation  of  the 
deed,  shows  a  greater  conception  of  tragic  poetry — a  little  cold 
and  stately,  a  little  Racinish  or  at  least  Cornelian  rather  than 
Shakesperian,  but  still  passionate  and  worthy  of  the  tragic  stage — 
than  anything  that  Massinger  has  done.  T)ic  Fatal  Dotvry, 
written  in  concert  with  Field  and  unceremoniously  pillaged  by 
Rowe  in  his  once  famous  Fair  Penitent,  is  a  purely  romantic 
tragedy,  injured  by  the  unattractive  character  of  the  light-of-love 
Beaumelle  before  her  repentance  (Massinger  never  could  draw  a 
woman),  and  by  not  a  few  of  the  author's  favourite  improbabilities 
and  glaring  or  rather  startling  non-sequiturs  of  action,  but  full 
also  of  fine  passages,  especially  of  the  quasi-forensic  kind  in  which 
Massinger  so  much  delights. 

To  sum  up,    it    may   seem   inconsistent    that,   after   allowing- 


XI  MASSINGER— FORD  401 


so  many  faults  in  Massinger,  I  should  protest  against  the  rather 
low  estimate  of  him  which  critics  from  I^imb  downwards  have 
generally  given.  Vet  I  do  so  protest  It  is  true  tiiat  he  has 
not  the  highest  flashes  either  of  verbal  poetry  or  of  dramatic 
character-drawing ;  and  though  Hartley  Coleridge's  dictum  that 
he  had  no  humour  has  been  exclaimed  against,  it  is  only  verbally 
wrong.  It  is  also  true  that  in  him  perhaps  for  the  first  time  we 
perceive,  what  is  sure  to  appear  towards  the  close  of  a  period, 
a  distinct  touch  of  literary  borrowing — evidence  of  knowledge 
and  following  of  his  forerunners.  Yet  he  had  a  high,  a  varied, 
and  a  fertile  imagination.  He  had,  and  was  the  last  to  have,  an 
extensive  and  versatile  command  of  blank  verse,  never  perhai)s 
reaching  the  most  perfect  mastery  of  Marlowe  or  of  Shakespere, 
but  singularly  free  from  monotony,  ami  often  both  harmonious 
and  dignified.  He  could  deal,  and  deal  well,  with  a  large  range 
of  subjects  ;  and  if  he  never  ascends  to  the  height  of  a  De  Klores 
or  a  I>ellafront,  he  never  descends  to  the  depths  in  which  both 
Middleton  and  Dekkcr  too  often  complacently  wallow.  Unless 
we  are  to  count  by  mere  flashes,  he  must,  I  think,  rank  after 
Shakespere,  Fletcher,  and  Jonson  among  his  fellows  ;  and  this 
i  say,  honestly  avowing  that  I  have  nothing  like  the  enthusiasm 
fur  him  that  I  have  for  Webster,  or  for  Dekker,  or  for  Middleton. 
W'e  may  no  doubt  allow  too  much  for  bulk  of  work,  for  sustained 
excellence  at  a  certain  level,  and  for  general  competence  as  against 
momentary  excellence.  Hut  we  may  also  allow  far  too  little  ;  and 
this  has  perhaps  been  the  general  tendency  of  later  criticism  in 
regard  to  Massinger.  It  is  unfortunate  that  he  never  succeeded 
in  making  as  perfect  a  single  expression  of  his  tragic  ability  as 
he  did  of  his  comic,  for  the  fonner  was,  I  incline  to  think,  the 
higher  of  the  two.  Ihit  many  of  his  plays  are  lost,  and  many 
of  those  which  remain  come  near  to  su(  h  cxcelK-nce.  It  is  by 
no  means  im|Mjssiblc  that  Massinger  may  have  lost  incomparably 
by  the  misdeeds  of  the  constantly  execrated,  but  never  to  be 
execrated  enough,  minifjn  of  that  « areless  herald. 

\i,  in  tti»-  I  isi-  i.f  ("larcndon,  almost   il.s..lni.tv  < --ntradif  lory 


402  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

opinions  have  been  delivered,  by  critics  of  great  authority,  about 
John  Ford.  In  one  of  the  most  famous  outbursts  of  his  generous 
and  enthusiastic  estimate  of  the  Elizabethan  period.  Lamb  has 
pronounced  Ford  to  be  of  the  first  order  of  poets.  Mr  Swin- 
burne, while  bringing  not  a  few  limitations  to  this  tremendous 
eulogy,  has  on  the  whole  supported  it  in  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
of  his  prose  essays ;  and  critics  as  a  rule  have  bowed  to  Lamb's 
verdict.  On  the  other  hand,  Hazlitt  (who  is  "gey  ill  to  differ 
with  "  when  there  are,  as  here,  no  extra-literary  considerations  to 
reckon)  has  traversed  that  verdict  in  one  of  the  most  damaging 
utterances  of  commonsense,  yet  not  commonplace,  criticism  any- 
where to  be  found,  asking  bluntly  and  pointedly  whether  the 
exceptionableness  of  the  subject  is  not  what  constitutes  the  merit 
of  Ford's  greatest  play,  pronouncing  the  famous  last  scene  of  Tlic 
Broken  Heart  extravagant,  and  fixing  on  "a  certain  perversity  of 
spirit  "  in  Ford  generally.  It  is  pretty  clear  that  Hartley  Coleridge 
(who  might  be  paralleled  in  our  own  day  as  a  critic,  who  seldom 
went  wrong  except  through  ignorance,  though  he  had  a  sublime 
indifference  as  to  the  ignorance  that  sometimes  led  him  wrong) 
was  of  no  different  opinion.  It  is  not  easy  to  settle  such  a 
quarrel.  But  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  read  Ford  before  I  had 
read  anything  except  Hartley  Coleridge's  rather  enigmatic  verdict 
about  him,  and  in  the  many  years  that  have  passed  since  I  have 
read  him  often  again.  The  resulting  opinion  may  not  be  excep- 
tionally valuable,  but  it  has  at  least  stood  the  test  of  frequent 
re-reading  of  the  original,  and  of  reading  of  the  main  authorities 
among  the  commentators. 

John  Ford,  like  Fletcher  and  Beaumont,  but  unlike  almost  all 
others  of  his  class,  was  a  person  not  compelled  by  need  to  write 
tragedies, — comedies  of  any  comic  merit  he  could  never  have 
written,  were  they  his  neck  verse  at  Hairibee.  His  father  was  a  man 
of  good  family  and  position  at  Ilsington  in  Devon.  His  mother 
was  of  the  well-known  west-country  house  of  the  Pophams.  He 
was  born  (?)  two  years  before  the  Armada,  and  three  years  after 
Massinger.     He  has  no  university  record,  but  was  a  member  of  the 


XI  FORD  40J 

Middle  Temple,  and  takes  at  least  some  pains  to  assure  us  that  he 
never  wrote  for  money.  Nevertheless,  for  the  best  part  of  thirty 
years  he  was  a  playwright,  and  he  is  frequently  found  collaborat- 
ing with  Dekker,  the  neediest  if  nearly  the  most  gifted  gutter-play- 
wright of  the  time.  Once  he  worked  with  Webster  in  a  play  {The 
Murder  of  the  Son  upon  the  Mother)  which  must  have  given  the 
fullest  possible  opportunity  to  the  appetite  of  both  for  horrors. 
Once  he,  Rowley,  and  Dekker  combined  to  produce  the  strange 
masterpiece  (for  a  masterpiece  it  is  in  its  own  undisciplined  way) 
of  the  Witch  of  Edmonton,  where  the  obvious  signs  of  a  play 
hastily  cobbled  up  to  meet  a  popular  demand  do  not  obscure  the 
talents  of  the  cobblers.  It  must  be  confessed  that  tliere  is  much 
less  of  Ford  than  of  Rowley  and  Dekker  in  the  piece,  except 
perhaps  its  comparative  regularity  and  the  (juite  unreasonable 
and  unintelligible  bloodiness  of  the  murder  of  Susan.  In  71ic 
Suns  Darling;,  due  to  Ford  and  Dekker,  the  numerous  and 
charming  lyrics  are  pretty  certainly  Dekker's;  though  we  could 
pronounce  on  this  point  with  more  confidence  if  we  had  the  two 
lost  plays,  The  Juiiry  Knii^hi  :iy\d  The  Bristo'd'C  Minhant,  in  whicli 
the  same  collalx)rators  arc  known  to  have  been  engaged,  l^ic 
Fancies,  Chaste  and  Noble,  and  The  Lady's  Trial  which  we  ha\e, 
and  which  are  known  to  be  Ford's  only,  are  but  third-rate  work 
by  common  consent,  and  Lcnr's  Sacrifice  has  excited  still  stronger 
opinions  of  condemnation  from  persons  favourable  to  Ford.  This 
leaves  us  practically  four  plays  upon  which  to  base  our  estimate 
— 'Tis  Pity  Shes  a  Whore,  The  /.(nrr's  Melancholy,  The  Broken 
Heart,  and  Perkin  Warbeck.  The  last-named  I  shall  take  the 
liberty  of  dismissing  sunmiarily  with  the  same  borrowed  des<rip- 
tion  a.s  Webster's  Appius  and  I'irf^inia.  Hartley  Coleridge, 
perhajjs  willing  to  make  up  if  he  could  for  a  general  distaste 
for  Ford,  volunteered  the  strange  judgment  that  it  is  the  best 
specimen  of  the  historic  drama  to  be  found  out  of  Shakespcre  ; 
and  Hazlitt  .says  nothing  savage  about  it.  I  shall  say  nothing 
more,  .s:ivage  or  otherwise.  The  Jjri'er's  Melancholy  has  been  to 
almost  all  its  critics  a  kind  of  luie-ca.se  for  the  very  pretty  version 


404  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

of  Strada's  fancy  about  the  nightingale,  which  Crashaw  did  better  ; 
otherwise  it  is  naught.  We  are,  therefore,  left  with  '  Tts  Pity  She's 
a  Whore  and  The  Broken  Heart.  For  myself,  in  respect  to  the 
first,  after  repeated  readings  and  very  careful  weighings  of  what 
has  been  said,  I  come  back  to  my  first  opinion — to  wit,  that  the 
Annabella  and  Giovanni  scenes,  with  all  their  perversity,  all  their 
availing  themselves  of  what  Hazlitt,  with  his  unerring  instinct, 
called  "unfair  attractions,"  are  among  the  very  best  things  of 
their  kind.  Of  what  may  be  thought  unfair  in  them  I  shall 
speak  a  little  later ;  but  allowing  for  this,  the  sheer  effects  of 
passion — the  "All  for  love  and  the  world  well  lost,"  the  shut- 
ting out,  not  instinctively  or  stupidly,  but  deliberately,  and  with 
full  knowledge,  of  all  other  considerations  except  the  dictates  of 
desire — have  never  been  so  rendered  in  English  except  in  Ronico 
and  Juliet  and  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  The  comparison  of  course 
brings  out  Ford's  weakness,  not  merely  in  execution,  but  in 
design ;  not  merely  in  accomplishment,  but  in  the  choice  of 
means  for  accomplishment.  Shakespere  had  no  need  of  the 
haul  gout  of  incest,  of  the  unnatural  horrors  of  the  heart  on  the 
dagger.  But  Ford  had ;  and  he  in  a  way  (I  do  not  say  fully) 
justified  his  use  of  these  means. 

The  Broken  Heart  stands  far  lower.  I  own  that  I  am  with 
Hazlitt,  not  Lamb,  on  the  question  of  the  admired  death  scene 
of  Calantha.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  certainly  borrowed  from 
M.2iXS\.ovLS  Malcontent ;  in  the  second,  it  is  wholly  unnatural ;  in 
the  third,  the  great  and  crowning  point  of  it  is  not,  as  Lamb 
seemed  to  think,  Calantha's  sentimental  inconsistency,  but  the 
consistent  and  noble  death  of  Orgilus.  There  Ford  was  at 
home,  and  long  as  it  is  it  must  be  given  : — 

Cat.   "  Bloody  relator  of  thy  stains  in  blood, 

For  that  thou  hast  reported  him,  whose  fortunes 
And  life  by  thee  are  both  at  once  snatch'd  from  him, 
Willi  honcnirable  mention,  make  thy  choice 
Of  what  death  likes  thee  best,  there's  all  our  bounty. 
]Uit  to  excuse  delays,  let  me,  dear  cousin. 


XI  FORD  405 

Inlreat  you  ami  these  lords  see  execution 
Instant  before  you  part. 
AVi/r.   Vour  will  cunimamls  us. 
(Vj,'.   One  suit,  just  queen,  my  last  :  vouchsafe  your  clemency 
That  by  no  common  hand  I  be  divided 
From  this  my  humble  frailty. 
Cal.   To  their  wisdoms 

Who  are  to  be  spectators  of  thine  end 

I  make  the  reference  :  those  that  are  dead 

Are  dead  ;  had  they  not  now  died,  of  necessity 

They  must  have  paid  the  debt  they  owed  to  nature, 

One  time  or  other.      Use  dispatch,  my  lords  ; 

\Ve'll  suddenly  prepare  our  coronation. 

[Exeunt  Cal.,  Pim..,  and  Ciikis. 
Ann.   'Tis  strange,  these  tragedies  should  never  touch  on 

Ilcr  female  pity. 
Bass.   She  has  a  masculine  spirit. 

And  wherefore  should  I  pule,  and,  like  a  girl, 
I'ut  fmger  in  the  eye  ?     Let's  be  all  toughness 
Without  distinction  betwixt  sex  and  sex. 
Near.   Now,  Orgilus,  thy  choice  ? 

Org.  To  bleed  to  death. 
Ann.  The  executioner  ? 
Org.   Myself,  no  surgeon  ; 

I  am  well  skilled  in  letting  blood.      Bind  fast 

This  arm,  that  so  the  pipes  may  from  their  conduits 

Convey  a  full  stream  ;  here's  a  skilful  instrument  : 

[.Sho~Li>s  his  dagger. 
Only  I  am  a  beggar  to  some  charity 
To  speed  me  in  this  execution 
Hy  lending  the  other  prick  to  the  other  arm 
When  this  is  bubbling  life  out. 
/iass.   I  am  for  you. 

It  most  concerns  my  art,  my  care,  my  credit, 
Quick,  fillet  both  his  arms. 
Org.  Graniercy,  friendship  ! 

Such  courtesies  are  real  which  flow  cheerfully 

Without  an  expectation  of  requital. 

Reach  me  a  staff  in  this  hand.      If  a  proneness 

L  ^^"y  i'''*'  ^'""  "  ^f<'JJ^- 
Or  custom  in  my  nature,  from  my  cradle 
Had  been  inclined  to  fierce  and  eager  bloodshed, 


4o6  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

A  coward  guilt  hid  in  a  coward  quaking, 

Would  have  betray'd  me  to  ignoble  flight 

And  vagabond  pursuit  of  dreadful  safety  : 

But  look  upon  my  steadiness  and  scorn  not 

The  sickness  of  my  fortune  ;  which  since  Bassanes 

Was  husband  to  Penthea,  had  lain  bed-rid. 

We  trifle  time  in  words  :  thus  I  show  cunning 

In  opening  of  a  vein  too  full,  too  lively. 

\_Pierces  the  vein  -with  his  dagger. 
Arm.   Desperate  courage  ! 
Near.    Honourable  infamy  ! 
Hem.   I  tremble  at  the  sight. 
Gron.    Would  I  were  loose  ! 
Bass.   It  sparkles  like  a  lusty  wine  new  broach'd  ; 

The  vessel  must  be  sound  from  which  it  issues. 

Grasp  hard  this  other  stick — I'll  be  as  nimble — 

But  prithee  look  not  pale — Have  at  ye  !  stretch  out 

Thine  arm  with  vigour  and  unshaken  virtue. 

\Opens  the  vein. 

Good  !  oh  I  envy  not  a  rival,  fitted 
To  conquer  in  extremities  :  this  pastime 
Appears  majestical  ;  some  high-tuned  poem 
Hereafter  shall  deliver  to  posterity 
The  writer's  glory,  and  his  subjects  triumph. 
How  is't  man  ? — droop  not  yet. 
07-g.   I  feel  no  palsies. 

On  a  pair-royal  do  I  wait  in  death  : 
My  sovereign  as  his  liegeman  ;  on  my  mistress 
As  a  devoted  servant  ;  and  on  Ithocles 
As  if  no  brave,  yet  no  unworthy  enemy  : 
Nor  did  I  use  an  engine  to  entrap 
His  life  out  of  a  slavish  fear  to  combat 
Youth,  strength,  or  cunning  ;  but  for  that  I  durst  not 
Engage  the  goodness  of  a  cause  on  fortune 
By  which  his  name  might  have  outfaced  my  vengeance. 
Oh,  Tecnicus,  inspired  with  Phoebus'  fire  ! 
I  call  to  mind  thy  augury,  'twas  perfect ; 
Jievenge  proves  its  own  executioner. 
When  feeble  man  is  lending  to  his  mother 
The  dust  he  was  first  framed  in,  thus  he  totters. 
Bass.   Life's  fountain  is  dried  up. 
Org.   So  falls  the  standard 


XI  FORD  407 

Of  my  jirerogativc  in  being  a  creature, 

A  mist  hangs  o'er  mine  eyes,  the  siin's  V)righl  splcndoHr 

Is  clouilod  in  an  everlasting  shadow. 

Welcome,  thou  ice  that  sit'st  about  my  heart. 

No  heat  can  ever  thaw  thee. 

[Dies. 

The  pei-^erse  absurdity  of  a  man  like  Orgilus  letting  Pen- 
thea  die  by  the  most  horrible  of  deaths  must  be  set  aside  :  his 
vengeance  (the  primarj'  absurdity  granted),  is  exactly  and  wholly 
in  character.  But  if  anything  could  be  decisive  against  Ford 
being  "of  the  first  order  of  poets,"  even  of  dramatic  poets,  it 
wotjld  be  the  total  lack  of  interest  in  the  characters  of  Calantha 
and  Ithocles.  Fate-disappointed  love  seems  (no  doubt  from 
something  in  his  own  history)  to  have  had  a  singular  attraction 
for  I^mb;  and  the  glorification,  or,  as  it  were,  apotheosis  of  it 
in  Calantha  must  have  appealed  to  him  in  one  of  those  curious 
and  illegitimate  ways  which  every  critic  knows.  But  the  mere 
introduction  of  Bassanes  would  show  that  Ford  is  not  of  the  first 
order  of  poets.  He  is  a  purely  contemptible  character,  neither 
sublimed  by  passion  of  jealousy,  nor  kept  whole  by  salt  of  comic 
exposition  ;  a  mischievous  j)oisonous  idiot  who  ought  to  have  had 
his  brains  knocked  out,  and  whose  brains  would  assuredly  have 
been  knocked  out,  by  any  Orgilus  of  real  life.  He  is  absolutely 
unequal  to  the  place  of  central  personage,  and  causer  of  the 
harms,  of  a  romantic  tragedy  such  as  The  Broken  Heart. 

I  have  said  '"  by  any  Orgilus  of  real  life,"  but  Ford  has  little 
to  do  with  real  life  ;  and  it  is  m  this  fact  that  the  insufficiency  of 
his  claim  to  rank  among  the  first  order  of  potts  lies.  He  was, 
it  is  evident,  a  man  of  the  greatest  talent,  even  of  great  genius, 
who,  coming  at  the  end  of  a  long  literary  movement,  exemplified 
the  defects  of  its  decadence.  I  could  compare  him,  if  there  was 
here  any  space  for  such  a  comparison,  to  Baudelaire  or  Flaubert 
with  some  profit  ;  except  that  he  never  had  Baudelaire's  perfect 
sense  of  art,  and  that  he  does  not  seem,  like  Flaubert,  to  have 
laid  in,  before  melancholy  marked  him  lor  her  own,  a  sufficient 
slCH:k  of  living  types  to  save  him  from  the  charge  of  being  a  mere 


4o8  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chai>. 

study -student.  There  is  no  P>ederic,  no  M.  Homais,  in  his 
repertory.  Even  Giovanni — -even  Orgilus,  his  two  masterpieces, 
are,  if  not  exactly  things  of  shreds  and  patches,  at  any  rate 
artificial  persons,  young  men  who  have  known  more  of  books 
than  of  life,  and  who  persevere  in  their  eccentric  courses  with 
almost  more  than  a  half  knowledge  that  they  are  eccentric. 
Annabella  is  incomplete,  though  there  is  nothing,  except  her  love, 
unnatural  in  her.  The  strokes  which  draw  her  are  separate 
imaginations  of  a  learned  draughtsman,  not  fresh  transcripts  from 
the  living  model.  Penthea  and  Calantha  are  wholly  artificial ; 
a  live  Penthea  would  never  have  thought  of  such  a  fantastic 
martyrdom,  unless  she  had  been  insane  or  suffering  from  green- 
sickness, and  a  live  Calantha  would  have  behaved  in  a  perfectly 
different  fashion,  or  if  she  had  behaved  in  the  same,  would  have 
been  quit  for  her  temporary  aberration.  We  see  (or  at  least  I 
think  I  see)  in  Ford  exactly  the  signs  which  are  so  familiar  to  us 
in  our  own  day,  and  which  repeat  themselves  regularly  at  the  end 
of  all  periods  of  distinct  literary  creativeness — the  signs  of  excen- 
tricite  voidue.  The  author  imagmes  that  "  all  is  said "  in  the 
ordinary  way,  and  that  he  must  go  to  the  ends  of  the  earth 
to  fetch  something  extraordinary.  If  he  is  strong  enough,  as 
Ford  was,  he  fetches  it,  and  it  is  something  extraordinary,  and 
we  owe  him,  with  all  his  extravagance,  respect  and  honour  for  his 
labour.  But  we  can  never  put  him  on  the  level  of  the  men  who, 
keeping  within  ordinary  limits,  achieve  masterpieces  there. 

Ford — an  Elizabethan  in  the  strict  sense  for  nearly  twenty 
years — did  not  suffer  from  the  decay  which,  as  noted  above,  set  in 
in  regard  to  versification  and  language  among  the  men  of  his  own 
later  day.  He  has  not  the  natural  trick  of  verse  and  phrase 
which  stamps  his  greatest  contemporaries  unmistakably,  and  even 
such  lesser  ones  as  his  collaborator,  Dekker,  with  a  hardly  mistak- 
able  mark ;  but  his  verse  is  nervous,  well  proportioned,  well 
delivered,  and  at  its  best  a  noble  medium.  He  was  by  general 
consent  utterly  incapable  of  humour,  and  his  low-comedy  scenes 
are    among  the  most   loathsome   in   the    English   theatre.      His 


XI  FORD— SHIRLEY  409 

lyrics  are  not  equal  to  Shakespere's  or  Fletcher's,  Dokkcr's  or 
Shirley's,  but  they  are  better  than  Massinger's.  ■  Although  he 
frequently  condescended  to  the  Fletcherian  license  of  the  re- 
dundant syllable,  he  never  seems  to  have  dropped  (as  Fletcher 
did  sometimes,  or  at  least  allowed  his  collaborators  to  drop) 
floundering  into  the  Serbonian  bog  of  stufl"  that  is  neither  verse 
nor  prose.  He  showed  indeed  (and  Mr.  Swinburne,  with  his  usual 
insight,  has  noticed  it,  though  perhaps  he  has  laid  rather  too  much 
stress  on  it)  a  tendency  towards  a  severe  rule-and-line  form  both 
of  tragic  scheme  and  of  tragic  versification,  which  may  be  taken 
to  correspond  in  a  certain  fashion  (though  Mr.  Swinburne  does 
not  notice  this)  to  the  "  correctness  "  in  ordinary  poetry  of  Waller 
and  his  followers.  Yet  he  shows  no  sign  of  wishing  to  discard 
either  the  admixture  of  comedy  with  tragedy  (save  in  The  Broken 
Heart,  which  is  perhaps  a  crucial  instance),  or  blank  verse,  or  the 
freedom  of  the  English  stage  in  regard  to  the  unities.  In  short, 
Ford  was  a  person  distinctly  deficient  in  initiative  and  planning 
genius,  but  endowed  with  a  great  executive  faculty.  He  wanted 
guidance  in  all  the  greater  lines  of  hLs  art,  and  he  had  it  not ; 
the  result  being  that  he  produced  unwholesome  and  undecided 
work,  only  saved  by  the  unmistakable  presence  of  poetical  faculty. 
I  do  not  think  that  Webster  could  ever  have  done  anything 
better  than  he  did  :  I  think  that  if  Ford  had  been  born  twenty 
years  earlier  he  might  have  been  second  to  Shakespere,  and  at 
any  rate  the  e(iual  of  Ben  Jonson  and  ui  lletcher.  But  the 
flagging  genius  of  the  time  made  its  imprint  on  his  own  genius, 
which  was  of  the  second  order,  not  the  first. 

The  honour  of  being  last  in  the  great  succession  of 
Elizabethan  dramatists  is  usually  assigned  to  James  Shirley.' 
Though  last,  Shirley  is  only  in  part  least,  and  his  plays 
deserve  more  reading  than  has  usually  fallen  to  their  lot. 
Not    only   in    the    general    character  of  his   plays — a  character 

'  There  was  a  conlirm|>orary,  Ilcnry  .Shirley,  who  was  also  a  playwright. 
I  lis  only  extant  play,  7'hc  Martyred  Soldier,  a  piece  of  little  merit,  has  heeu 
reprinic<l  by  Mr.  I'.ullcii. 


4IO  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 


hardly  definable,  but  recognisable  at  once  by  the  reader — but  by 
the  occurrence  of  such  things  as  the  famous  song,  "The  glories 
of  our  blood  and  state,"  and  not  a  few  speeches  and  tirades, 
Shirley  has  a  right  to  his  place ;  as  he  most  unquestionably  has 
also  by  date.  He  was  born  in  London  in  1596,  was  educated 
at  Merchant  Tailors'  School,  and  was  a  member  of  both  univer- 
sities, belonging  to  St.  John's  College  at  Oxford,  and  to  Catherine 
Hall  at  Cambridge.  Like  other  dramatists  he  vacillated  in  religion, 
with  such  sincerity  as  to  give  up  a  living  to  which,  having  been 
ordained,  he  had  been  presented.  He  was  a  schoolmaster  for  a 
time,  began  to  write  plays  about  the  date  of  the  accession  of 
Charles  I.,  continued  to  do  so  till  the  closing  of  the  theatres,  then 
returned  to  schoolmastering,  and  survived  the  Restoration  nearly 
seven  years,  being  buried  at  St.  Giles's  in  1666.  He  appears  to 
have  visited  Ireland,  and  at  least  one  monument  of  his  visit 
remains  in  the  eccentric  play  of  Sf.  Pat7-ick  for  Ireland.  He 
is  usually  credited  with  thirty-nine  plays,  to  which  it  is  under- 
stood that  others,  now  in  MS.,  have  to  be  added,  while  he 
may  also  have  had  a  hand  in  some  that  are  printed  but 
not  attributed  to  him.  Shirley  was  neither  a  very  great  nor 
a  very  strong  man  ;  and  without  originals  to  follow,  it  is  prob- 
able that  he  would  have  done  nothing.  But  with  Fletcher  and 
Jonson  before  him  he  was  able  to  strike  out  a  certain  line  of 
half-humorous,  half-romantic  drama,  and  to  follow  it  with  curious 
equality  through  his  long  list  of  plays,  hardly  one  of  which  is 
very  much  better  than  any  other,  hardly  one  of  which  falls  below 
a  very  respectable  standard.  He  has  few  or  no  single  scenes  or 
passages  of  such  high  and  sustained  excellence  as  to  be  specially 
quotable ;  and  there  is  throughout  him  an  indefinable  flavour  as 
of  study  of  his  elders  and  betters,  an  appearance  as  of  a  highly 
competent  and  gifted  pupil  in  a  school,  not  as  of  a  master  and 
leader  in  a  movement.  The  palm  is  perhaps  generally  and  rightly 
assigned  to  The  Lady  of  Pleasure,  1635,  a  play  bearing  some  faint 
resemblances  to  Massinger's  City  Madam,  and  Fletcher's  Noble 
Getitlevian  (Shirley  is  known  to  have  finished  one  or  two  plays  of 


XI  SHIRLEY  411 

Fletcher's),  and  in  its  turn  the  original,  or  at  least  the  forerunner 
of  a  long  line  of  late  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  century  plays 
on  the  extravagance  and  haughtiness  and  caprice  of  line  ladies. 
Shirley  indeed  was  much  acted  after  the  Restoration,  and  exhibits, 
though  on  the  better  side,  the  transition  of  the  older  into  the 
newer  school  very  well.  Of  his  tragedies  The  Traitor  has  the 
general  suffrage,  and  perhaps  justly.  One  of  Shirley's  most 
characteristic  habits  was  that  not  of  exactly  adapting  an  old  play, 
but  of  writing  a  new  one  on  similar  lines  accommodated  to  the 
taste  of  his  own  day.  He  constantly  did  this  with  Fletcher,  and 
once  in  The  Cardinal  he  was  rash  enough  to  endeavour  to  im- 
prove upon  ^^'ebster.  His  excuse  may  have  been  that  he  was 
evidently  in  close  contact  with  the  last  survivors  of  the  great 
school,  for  besides  his  work  with  or  on  Fletcher,  he  collaborated 
with  Chapman  in  the  tragedy  of  Chabot  and  the  comedy  of  The 
Ball — the  latter  said  to  be  one  of  the  earliest  loci  for  the  use  of  the 
word  in  the  sense  of  an  entertainment.  His  versification  profited 
by  this  personal  or  literary  familiarity.  It  is  occasionally  lax,  and 
sins  especially  by  the  redundant  syllable  or  syllables,  and  by  the  ugly 
break  between  auxiliary  verbs  and  their  complements,  prepositions 
and  their  nouns,  and  so  forth.  But  it  never  falls  into  the  mere 
shapelessness  which  was  so  common  with  his  immediate  and  younger 
contemporaries.  Although,  as  has  been  said,  long  passages  of  high 
sustained  poetry  are  not  easily  producible  from  him,  two  short 
extracts  from  The  Traitor  will  show  his  style  favourably,  but  not 
to(j  favourably.     Amidea,  the  heroine,  declares  her  intention — 

"  To  have  my  name 
Stand  in  the  ivory  register  of  virgins, 
When  I  am  dead.     Before  one  factious  thought 
Should  lurk  within  me  to  betray  my  fame 
T<i  such  a  l)l<jt,  my  hands  shall  nuitiny 
And  boldly  with  a  poniard  teach  my  heart 
To  weep  out  a  repentance." 

And  this  of  her  brother  Florio's  is  better  still — 

"  Let  me  l<Jok  upim  my  sister  now  : 
Still  she  retains  her  beauty. 


412  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

Death  has  been  kind  to  leave  her  all  this  sweetness. 

Thus  in  a  morning  have  I  oft  saluted 

My  sister  in  her  chamber  :  sat  upon 

Her  bed  and  talked  of  many  harmless  passages. 

But  now  'tis  night,  and  a  long  night  with  her: 

I  shall  ne'er  see  these  curtains  drawn  again 

Until  7ue  meet  in  heaven. " 

Here  the  touch,  a  little  weakened  it  may  be,  but  still  the 
touch  of  the  great  age,  is  perceptible,  especially  in  the  last  lines, 
where  the  metaphor  of  the  "curtains,"  common  enough  in  itself 
for  eyelids,  derives  freshness  and  appositeness  from  the  previous 
mention  of  the  bed.      But  Shirley  is  not  often  at  this  high  tragic 
level.      His  supposed  first  play,  Love  Tricks,  though  it  appeared 
nearly  forty  years  before  the  Restoration,  has  a  curious  touch  of 
post -Restoration  comedy   in   its   lively,   extravagant,   easy   farce. 
Sometimes,  as  in  The  Witty  Fair  One,  he  fell  in  with  the  grow- 
ing habit  of  writing  a  play  mainly  in  prose,  but  dropping  into 
verse  here  and  there,  though  he  was  quite  as  ready  to  write,  as  in 
The   Wedding,  a  play  in  verse  with   a   little    prose.       Once   he 
dramatised  the  Arcadia  bodily  and  by  name.     At  another  time 
he  would  match  a  downright  interlude  like  the   Contention  for 
Honotir  and  Riches  with  a  thinly-veiled  morality  like  Honotia  and 
Mammon.       He   was   a   proficient   at   masques.       The    Grateful 
Servajit,  The  Royal  Master,  The  Diike^s  Mistress,   The  Doubtful 
Heir,    The   Constant  Maid,    The  Htimoroiis    Cotirtier,   are   plays 
whose  very  titles  speak  them,  though  the  first  is  much  the  best. 
The  Changes  or  Love  in  a  Maze  was  slightly  borrowed  from  by 
Dryden  in  The  Maiden  Queen,  and  LLyde  Park,  a  very  lively  piece, 
set   a  fashion   of  direct   comedy  of  manners  which  was  largely 
followed,  while   The  Brothers  and   The  Gamester  are  other  good 
examples  of  different  styles.     Generally  Shirley  seems  to  have 
been  a  man  of  amiable  character,  and  the  worst  thing  on  record 
about  him  is  his  very  ungenerous  gibing  dedication  of  The  Bird 
in  a   Cage  to  Prynne,  then  in  prison,  for  his  well-known  attack 
on  the  stage,  a  piece  of  retaliation  which,  if  the  enemy  had  not 
been  "  down,"  would  have  been  fair  enough. 


XI  SITIRLFA'— RANDOLm  4'.5 


Perhaps  Shirley's  comedy  deser\es  as  a  whole  to  be  better 
spoken  of  than  his  tragedy.  It  is  a  later  variety  of  the  same  kind 
of  comedy  which  we  noted  as  written  so  largely  by  Middleton, — 
a  comedy  of  mingled  manners,  intrigue,  and  humours,  improved 
a  good  deal  in  coherence  and  in  stage  management,  but  destitute 
of  the  greater  and  more  romantic  touches  which  emerge  from 
the  chaos  of  the  earlier  style.  Nearly  all  the  writers  whom  I 
shall  now  proceed  to  mention  practised  this  comedy,  some  better, 
some  worse ;  but  no  one  with  quite  such  success  as  Shirley  at  his 
best,  and  no  one  with  anything  like  his  industry,  versatility,  and 
generally  high  level  of  accomplishment.  It  should  perhaps  be 
said  that  the  above-mentioned  song,  the  one  piece  of  Shirley's 
generally  known,  is  not  from  one  of  his  more  characteristic 
pieces,  but  from  The  Contention  of  Ajax  and  Ulysses,  a  work  of 
quite  the  author's  latest  days. 

Thomas  Randolph,  the  most  gifted  (according  to  general  esti- 
mate rather  than  to  specific  performance)  of  the  Tribe  of  Ben, 
was  a  much  younger  man  than  Shirley,  though  he  died  more  than 
thirty  years  earlier.      Randolph  was  born  near  Daventry  in  1605, 
his  father  being  a  gentleman,  and  Lord  Zouch's  steward.     He  was 
educated  at  Westminster,  and  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  of 
which  he  became  a  fellow,  and  he  was  also  incorporated  at  Oxford. 
His  life  is  supposed  to  have  been  merr)',  and  was  certainly  short, 
for  he  died,  of  what  disease  is  not  known,  in  his  thirtieth  year. 
He   left,  however,  no  inconsiderable  literary  results  ;  and   if  his 
dramas  are  not  quite  so  relatively  good  as  his   poems  (there  is 
certainly  none  of  them  which  is  in  its  own  kind  the  e<iual  of  the 
fine  answer  to  Ben  Jonson's  threat  to  leave  the  stage  and  the  Ode 
to  Anthony  Stafford),  still  they  are  interesting  and  show  a  strong 
intellect  and  great  literar)'  facility.     The  two  earliest,  Aristippns 
and  T/ie  Conceited  Pedlar,  the  first  a  slight  dramatic  sketch,  the 
second    a   monologue,   arc    eminent   examples   of    ilie   class   of 
university,  not  to  say  of  undergraduate,  wit ;  but  far  stronger  and 
rulkr  of  i)romise  than  most  specimens  of  that  class.      'J'lw  Jealous 
Lm'ers,  a  play   with  classical   nomenclature,  and  at  first   seeming 


414  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

to  aim  at  the  Terentian  model,  drifts  off  into  something  Hke  the 
Jonsonian  humour-comedy,  of  which  it  gives  some  good  studies, 
but  hardly  a  complete  example.  Much  better  are  TJie  Muses' 
Looking- Glass  and  Aviyntas,  in  which  Randolph's  academic 
schemes  and  names  do  not  hide  his  vivid  and  fertile  imagination. 
The  Muses'  Looking-Glass,  a  play  vindicating  the  claim  of  the 
drama  in  general  to  the  title,  is  a  kind  of  morality,  but  a  morality 
carried  off  with  infinite  spirit,  which  excuses  the  frigid  nature  of 
the  abstractions  presented  in  it,  and  not  seldom  rises  to  the  height 
of  real  comedy.  The  scene  between  Colax  and  Dyscolus,  the  pro- 
fessional flatterer  and  the  professional  snarler,  is  really  excellent : 
and  others  equally  good  might  be  picked  out.  Of  the  two  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  this  play  shows  more  natural  genius  in  the 
writer  for  its  style,  than  the  pretty  pastoral  of  Amyntas,  which  has 
sometimes  been  preferred  to  it.  The  same  penchant  for  comedy 
appears  in  Down  with  Knavery^  a  very  free  and  lively  adaptation 
of  the  Pliitus  of  Aristophanes.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Randolph's 
work  gives  the  impression  of  considerable  power.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  fair  tp  remember  that  the  author's  life  was  one  very  con- 
ducive to  precocity,  inasmuch  as  he  underwent  at  once  the  three 
stimulating  influences  of  an  elaborate  literary  education,  of  en- 
dowed leisure  to  devote  himself  to  what  literary  occupations  he 
pleased,  and  of  the  emulation  caused  by  literary  society.  Jonson's 
friendship  seems  to  have  acted  as  a  forcing-house  on  the  literary 
faculties  of  his  friends,  and  it  is  quite  as  possible  that,  if  Randolph 
had  lived,  he  would  have  become  a  steady-going  soaker  or  a 
diligent  but  not  originally  productive  scholar,  as  that  he  would 
have  produced  anything  of  high  substantive  and  permanent  value. 
It  is  true  that  many  great  writers  had  not  at  his  age  done  such  good 
work ;  but  then  it  must  be  remembered  that  they  had  also  pro- 
duced little  or  nothing  in  point  of  bulk.  It  may  be  plausibly 
argued  that,  good  as  what  Randolph's  first  thirty  years  gave  is,  it 
ought  to  have  been  better  still  if  it  was  ever  going  to  be  of  the 
best.  But  these  excursions  into  possibilities  are  not  very  profit- 
able, and  the  chief  excuse  for  indulging  in  them  is  that  Randolph's 


XI  BROME  415 

critics  and  editors  have  generally  done  the  same,  and  have  as  a 
rule  perhaps-  pursued  the  indulgence  in  a  rather  too  enthusiastic 
and  sanguine  spirit.  What  is  not  disputable  at  all  is  the  example 
given  by  Randolph  of  the  powerful  influence  of  Ben  on  his 
"  tribe." 

Ver)'  little  is  known  of  another  of  that  tribe,  Richard  Erome. 
He  was  once  servant  to  Ben  Jonson,  who,  though  in  his  own  old 
age  he  was  himself  an  unsuccessful,  and  Brome  a  very  successful, 
dramatist,  seems  always  to  have  regarded  him  with  favour,  and  not 
to  have  been  influenced  by  the  rather  illiberal  attempts  of 
Randolph  and  others  to  stir  up  bad  blood  between  them.  Ikome 
deserved  this  favour,  and  spoke  nobly  of  his  old  master  even  after 
Ben's  death.  He  himself  was  certainly  dead  in  1653,  when  some 
of  his  plays  were  first  collected  by  his  namesake  (but  it  would 
seem  not  relation),  Alexander  Brome.  The  modern  reprint  of  his 
dramas  takes  the  liberty,  singular  in  the  collection  to  which  it 
belongs,  of  not  attempting  any  kind  of  critical  or  biographical 
introduction,  and  no  book  of  reference  that  I  know  is  much  more 
fertile,  the  latest  authority — the  Diciio7iary  of  National  Biography, 
in  which  Brome  is  dealt  with  by  the  very  competent  hand  of 
the  Master  of  Peterhouse — having  little  enough  to  tell.  Brome's 
work,  however,  speaks  for  itself  and  pretty  distinctly  to  all  who 
care  to  read  it.  It  consists,  as  printed  (for  there  were  others  now 
lost  or  uncollected),  of  fifteen  plays,  all  comedies,  all  bearing  a 
strong  family  likeness,  and  all  belonging  to  the  class  of  comedy 
just  referred  to — that  is  to  say,  a  cross  between  the  style  of  Jonson 
and  that  of  Fletcher.  Of  the  greater  number  of  these,  even  if 
there  were  space  here,  there  would  be  very  little  to  say  beyond  this 
general  description.  Not  one  of  them  is  rubbish  ;  not  one  of  them 
is  very  good  ;  but  all  are  readable,  or  would  be  if  they  had  re- 
ceived the  trouble  spent  on  mu(  h  far  inferior  w(jik,  of  a  little 
editing  to  put  the  mechanical  part  of  tiieir  presentation,  such  as 
the  division  of  scenes,  stage  directions,  etc.,  in  a  uniform  .ind 
intelligible  condition.  Their  names  {A  Afad  Coiiplr  ictil  Matclied, 
Tlie  Sparai^iis  Ciardni,  'J7ir  C'i/y  //V7,  aiidso  forth)  tell  a  good  deal 


4i6  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

about  their  most  common  form;  while  in  The  Lovesick  Court,  and 
one  or  two  others,  the  half-courtly,  half-romantic  comedy  of 
Fletcher  takes  the  place  of  urban  humours.  One  or  two,  such  as 
The  Queen  and  Concubine,  attempt  a  stateher  and  tragi-comic 
style,  but  this  was  not  Brome's  forte.  Sometimes,  as  in  Tlie  Anti- 
podes, there  is  an  attempt  at  satire  and  comedy  with  a  purpose. 
There  are,  however,  two  plays  which  stand  out  distinctly  above 
the  rest,  and  which  are  the  only  plays  of  Brome's  known  to  any 
but  diligent  students  of  this  class  of  literature.  These  are  The 
Northern  Lass  and  A  Jovial  Crew.  The  first  differs  from  its 
fellows  only  as  being  of  the  same  class,  but  better ;  and  the  dialect 
of  the  ingenue  Constance  seems  to  have  been  thought  interesting 
and  pathetic.  The  Jovial  Crew,  with  its  lively  pictures  of  gipsy 
life,  is,  though  it  may  have  been  partly  suggested  by  Fletcher's 
Beggar's  Bush,  a  very  pleasant  and  fresh  comedy.  It  seems  to 
have  been  one  of  its  author's  last  works,  and  he  speaks  of  himself 
in  it  as  "old." 

Our  two  next  figures  are  of  somewhat  minor  importance.  Sir 
Aston  Cokain  or  Cockaine,  of  a  good  Derbyshire  family,  was  born 
in  1 60S,  and  after  a  long  hfe  died  just  before  the  accession  of 
James  II.  He  seems  (and  indeed  positively  asserts  himself)  to 
have  been  intimate  with  most  of  the  men  of  letters  of 
Charles  I.'s  reign;  and  it  has  been  unkindly  suggested  that 
posterity  would  have  been  much  more  indebted  to  him  if  he  had 
given  us  the  biographical  particulars,  which  in  most  cases  are  so 
much  wanted  concerning  them,  instead  of  wasting  his  time  on 
translated  and  original  verse  of  very  little  value,  and  on  dramatic 
composition  of  still  less.  As  it  is,  we  owe  to'  him  the  knowledge 
of  the  not  unimportant  fact  that  Massinger  was  a  collaborator  of 
Fletcher.  His  own  plays  are  distinctly  of  the  lower  class,  though 
not  quite  valueless.  The  Obstitiate  Lady  is  an  echo  of  Fletcher 
and  Massinger ;  Trappolifi  Creduto  Principe,  an  adaptation  of  an 
Italian  farce,  is  a  good  deal  better,  and  is  said,  with  various  stage 
alterations,  to  have  held  the  boards  till  within  the  present  century 
under  the   title   of  A  Duke  and  no  Duke,  or  The  Duke  and  the 


XI  GLAPTHORNE  417 

Drcil.  It  is  in  fact  a  not  unskilful  working  up  of  some  well-tried 
theatrical  motives,  but  has  no  great  literary  merit.  The  tragedy 
of  Ovid,  a  regular  literary  tragedy  in  careful  if  not  very  powerful 
blank  verse,  is  Cokain's  most  ambitious  effort.  Like  his  other 
work  it  is  clearly  an  "  echo  "  in  character. 

A  more  interesting  and  characteristic  example  of  the  "  deca- 
dence "  is  Henry  Glapthorne.      When  the  enthusiasm  excited  by 
Lamb's   specimens,    Hazlitt's,   and    Coleridge's    lectures   for   the 
Elizabethan  drama,  was  fresh,  and  everybody  was  hunting  for  new 
examples  of  the  style,  Glapthorne  had  the  doubtful  luck  to  be  made 
the  subject  of  a  very  laudatory  article  in  the  Retrospective  Revieic, 
and  two  of  his  plays  were  reprinted.     He  was  not  left  in  this  hon- 
ourable but  comparatively  safe  seclusion,  and  many  years  later,  in 
1874,  all  his  plays  and  poems  as  known  were  issued  by  them- 
selves in   Mr.  Pearson's  valuable  series  of  reprints.     Since  then 
Glapthorne  has  become  something  of  a  butt ;   and  Mr.  Bullen,  in 
conjecturally  attributing  to  him  a  new  play,  T/ie  Lady  Mother,  takes 
occasion  to  speak  rather  unkindly  of  him.    As  usual  it  is  a  case  of 
ni  cet  cxces  d^/ionneur  tii  cette  indii:;nite.    Personally,  Glapthorne  has 
some   of  the  interest  that  attaches  to  the  unknown.      Between 
1639  '^"^  j643>  or  for  the  brief  space  of  four  years,  it  is  clear 
that  he  was  a  busy  man  of  letters.      He  published  five  plays  (six 
if  we  admit  T/ie  Lady  Mot/ier),  which  had  some  vogue,  and  sur- 
vived   as  an  acted  poet  into  the  Restoration  period ;    he    i)ro- 
duced  a  small  but  not  despicable  collection  of  poems  of  his  own  ; 
he  edited  those  of  his  friend  Thomas  Beedome  ;  he  was  himself  a 
friend  of  Cotton  and  of  Lovelace.     But  of  his  antecedents  and  of 
the  life  that  followed  this  short  period  of  literary  activity  we  know 
ab.solutely  nothing.     The  guess  that  he  was  at  St.  Paul's  School 
is  a  mere  guess ;  and  in  the  utter  and  total  absence  of  the  least 
scrap  of  biographical  information  about  him,  his  editor  has  thought 
it  worth  while  to  print  in  full  some  not  unanuising  but  perfectly 
irrelevant  documents   concerning    the    peccadillos  of  a    certain 
George  Glapthorne  of  Whittlesca,  who   was  certainly  a  contem- 
porary and  perhaps  a  relation.      Henry  Glapthorne  as  a  writer  is 
II  2   K 


4i8  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

certainly  not  great,  but  he  is  as  certainly  not  contemptible.  His 
tragedy  of  Albertus  Wallensiehi  is  not  merely  interesting  as  show- 
ing a  reversion  to  the  practice,  almost  dropped  in  his  time  (per- 
haps owing  to  censorship  difficulties),  of  handling  contemporary 
historical  subjects,  but  contains  passages  of  considerable  poetical 
merit.  His  Argalus  a  fid  Farthenia,  a  dramatisation  of  part 
of  the  Arcadia,  caught  the  taste  of  his  day,  and,  like  the  U^al- 
lenstein,  is  poetical  if  not  dramatic.  The  two  comedies,  T/ie 
Hollander  and  Wit  iti  a  Constable,  are  of  the  school  which 
has  been  so  frequently  described,  and  not  of  its  strongest,  but  at 
the  same  time  not  of  its  weakest  specimens.  Lovers  Privilege, 
sometimes  held  his  best  play,  is  a  rather  flabby  tragi -comedy  of 
the  Fletcher-Shirley  school.  In  short,  Glapthorne,  without  being 
positively  good,  is  good  enough  to  have  made  it  surprising  that 
he  is  not  better,  if  the  explanation  did  not  present  itself  pretty 
clearly.  Though  evidently  not  an  old  man  at  the  time  of  writing 
(he  has  been  guessed,  probably  enough,  to  have  been  a  contem- 
porary of  Milton,  and  perhaps  a  little  older  or  a  little  younger), 
his  work  has  the  clear  defects  of  age.  It  is  garrulous  and  given 
to  self-repetition  (so  much  so  that  one  of  Mr.  BuUen's  reasons 
for  attributing  The  Lady  Mother  to  Glapthorne  is  the  occurrence 
in  it  of  passages  almost  literally  repeated  in  his  known  work) ;  it 
testifies  to  a  relish  of,  and  a  habituation  to,  the  great  school, 
coupled  with  powers  insufficient  to  emulate  the  work  of  the  great 
school  itself;  it  is  exactly  in  flavour  and  character  the  last  not 
sprightly  runnings  of  a  generous  liquor.  There  is  nowhere  in  it 
the  same  absolute  flatness  that  occurs  in  the  lesser  men  of  the 
Restoration  school,  like  the  Howards  and  Boyle  ;  the  ancient  gust 
is  still  too  strong  for  that.  It  does  not  show  the  vulgarity  which 
even  Davenant  (who  as  a  dramatist  was  ten  years  Glapthorne's 
senior)  too  often  displays.  But  we  feel  in  reading  it  that  the 
good  wine  has  gone,  that  we  have  come  to  that  which  is  worse. 

I  have  mentioned  Davenant ;  and  though  he  is  often  classed 
with,  and  to  some  extent  belongs  to  the  post-Reformation  school, 
he  is  ours  for  other  purposes  than  that  of  mere  mention.      His 


I 


XI  DAVENANT  419 

Shakespere    travesties  (in  one  of  wliich   he   was  assisted    by  a 

greater  than    he),   and   even   the  operas   and  "entertainments" 

with  which  he  not  only  evaded   the  prohibition   of  stage  plays 

under  the  Commonwealth,  but  helped  to  produce  a  remarkable 

change  in  the  English  drama,  do  not  concern  us.      But  it  must 

be  remembered  that   Davenant's  earlier,  most  dramatic,  and  most 

original   playmaking  was  done  at  a  time  far  within  our  limits. 

When    the    tragedy    of    A/bcrrinc    (Alboin)    was    produced,    the 

Restoration   was   more    than   thirty   years   distant,   and    Jonson, 

Chapman,  Dekker,  and  Marston — men   m  the  strictest  sense  of 

the  Elizabethan  school — were  still  living,  and,  in  the  case  of  all 

but  Marston,  writing.     The  Cruel  Brother,  which,  though  printed 

after,  was  licensed  before,  dates  three  years  earlier ;  and  between 

this  time  and  the  closing  of  the  theatres  Davenant  had  ten  plays 

acted  and  printed  coincidently  with  the  best  work  of  Massinger, 

Shirley,  and  Ford.      Nor,  though  his  fame  is  far  below  theirs,  is  the 

actual  merit  of  these  pieces  (the  two  above  mentioned,  TJie  Wits, 

News  from  F/y mouth,  The  Fair  Favourite,  The  Unfortunate  Lovers, 

etc.),  so  much  inferior  as  the  fame.     The  chief  point  in  which 

Davenant  fails  is  in  the  failing  grasp  of  verse  above  noted.     This 

is  curious  and  so  characteristic  that  it  is  worth  while  to  give  an 

example  of  it,  which  shall  be  a  fair  average  specimen  and  not  of 

the  worst  : — 

"  O  noble  maid,  what  expiation  can 

Make  fit  this  young  and  cruel  soldier  for 
Society  of  man  that  hath  defiled 
Tlie  genius  of  triumphant  glorious  war 
With  such  a  rape  upon  thy  liberty  ! 
Or  what  less  hard  than  marble  (jf 
The  Parian  rock  can'st  thou  believe  my  heart, 
That  nurst  and  bred  him  my  disciple  in 
The  camp,  and  yet  could  teach  his  valour  no 
More  tenderness  than  injured  Scytheans'  use 
When  they  are  wroth  to  a  revenge  ?     Hut  he 
Hath  mourned  for  it :  and  now  Kvanflra  thou 
Art  strongly  pitiful,  that  dost  so  long 
Conceal  an  anger  that  wouM  kill  us  both." 

Love  and  IJonoui,  i()4f). 


420  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

Here  we  have  the  very  poetical  counterpart  of  the  last  of  Jaques' 
ages,  the  big  manly  voice  of  the  great  dramatists  sinking  into  a 
childish  treble  that  stutters  and  drivels  over  the  very  alphabet  of 
the  poetical  tongue. 

In  such  a  language  as  this  poetry  became  impossible,  and  it 
is  still  a  matter  for  wonder  by  what  trick  of  elocution  actors  can 
have  made  it  tolerable  on  the  stage.  Yet  it  was  certainly  tolerated. 
And  not  only  so,  but,  when  the  theatre  came  to  be  open  again, 
the  discontent  with  blank  verse,  which  partly  at  least  drove  Dryden 
and  others  into  rhyme,  never  seems  to  have  noticed  the  fact  that 
the  blank  verse  to  which  it  objected  was  execrably  bad.  When 
Dryden  returned  to  the  more  natural  medium,  he  wrote  it  not  in- 
deed with  the  old  many-voiced  charm  of  the  best  Elizabethans, 
but  with  admirable  eloquence  and  finish.  Yet  he  himself  in  his 
earliest  plays  staggered  and  slipped  about  with  the  rest,  and  I  do 
not  remember  in  his  voluminous  critical  remarks  anything  going 
to  show  that  he  was  consciously  aware  of  the  slovenliness  into 
which  his  master  Davenant  and  others  had  allowed  themselves 
and  their  followers  to  drop. 

One  more  example  and  we  shall  have  finished  at  once  with 
those  dramatists  of  our  time  whose  work  has  been  collected,  and 
with  the  chief  names  of  the  decadence.  Sir  John  Suckling,  who, 
in  Mr.  Swinburne's  happy  phrase — 

"  Stumbled  from  above 
And  reeled  in  slippery  roads  of  alien  art," 

is  represented  in  the  English  theatre  by  four  plays,  Aglaura, 
Bremioralt,  The  Sad  One,  and  the  comedy  of  The  Goblins.  Of 
the  tragedies  some  one,  I  forget  who,  has  said  truly  that  their  names 
are  the  best  thing  about  them.  Suckling  had  a  fancy  for 
romantic  names,  rather  suggesting  sometimes  the  Minerva  press 
of  a  later  time,  but  still  i)retty.  His  serious  plays,  however,  have 
all  the  faults,  metrical  and  other,  which  have  been  noticed  in 
Davenant,  and  in  speaking  of  his  own  non-dramatic  verse ;  and 
they  possess  as  well  serious  faults  as   dramas — a  combination  of 


XI  SUCKLING  421 

extravagance  and  dulness,  a  lack  of  playwright's  grasp,  an  absence 
in  short  of  the  root  of  the  matter.  I  low  far  in  other  directions 
besides  mere  versification  he  and  his  fellows  had  slipped  from 
the  right  way,  may  be  perhaps  most  pleasantly  and  quite  fully 
discovered  from  the  perusal,  which  is  not  very  difficult,  of  his 
tragicomedy  or  extravaganza,  The  Goblins.  There  are  several 
good  points  about  this  play — an  abundance  of  not  altogether 
stagey  noble  sentiment,  an  agreeable  presentment  of  fresh  and 
gallant  youths,  still  smacking  rather  of  Hetcher's  madcap  but 
heart-sound  gallants,  and  not  anticipating  the  heartless  crudity  of 
the  cubs  of  the  Restoration,  a  loveable  feminine  character,  and  so 
forth.  But  hardly  a  clever  boy  at  school  ever  devised  anything 
so  extravagantly  puerile  as  the  plot,  which  turns  on  a  set  of 
banished  men  playing  at  hell  and  devils  in  caverns  close  to  a 
populous  city,  and  brings  into  the  action  a  series  of  the  most 
absurd  escapes,  duels,  chance-meetings,  hidings,  findings,  and  all 
manner  of  other  devices  for  spinning  out  an  unnatural  story.  Many 
who  know  nothing  more  of  Suckling's  plays  know  that  Aglaura 
enjoys  the  eccentric  possession  of  two  fifth  acts,  so  that  it  can  be 
made  a  tragedy  or  a  tragi-comedy  at  pleasure.  The  Sad  One, 
which  is  unfinished,  is  much  better.  The  tragedy  of  Ih-cnnoralt 
has  some  pathos,  some  pretty  scenes,  and  some  charming  songs  ; 
but  here  again  we  meet  with  the  most  inconceivably  bad  verse, 
as  here — a  passage  all  the  more  striking  because  of  its  attempt, 
wilfiil  or  unconscious,  to  echo  Shakespere  : — 

"  Sleep  is  as  nice  as  woman  ; 

Tlic  more  I  court  it,  the  more  it  flies  me. 

Thy  ciiler  brother  will  lie  kinder  yet, 

Unsenl-for  death  will  come.     To-morrow  ! 

Well,  what  can  to-morrow  do  ? 

'Twill  cure  the  sense  of  honf)ur  lost  ; 

I  and  my  discontents  sliall  rest  tojjetlier, 

What  hurt  is  there  in  this  ?     liut  death  against 

The  will  is  but  a  slovenly  kind  of  jxjlion  ; 

Anil  th()U(;h  prescribed  by  Heaven,  it  jjoes  against  nu-n's  stomachs. 

So  does  it  at  fourscore  too,  when  the  soul's 


422  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

Mewed  up  in  narrow  darkness  :  neither  sees  nor  hears. 

Pish  !  'tis  mere  fondness  in  our  nature. 

A  certain  clownish  cowardice  that  still 

Would  stay  at  home  and  dares  not  venture 

Into  foreign  countries,  though  better  than 

Its  own.     Ha  !  what  countries  ?  for  we  receive 

Descriptions  of  th'  other  world  from  our  divines 

As  blind  men  take  relations  of  this  from  us  : 

My  thoughts  lead  me  into  the  dark,  and  there 

They'll  leave  me.      I'll  no  more  on  it.      Within  !  " 

Such  were  the  last  notes  of  the  concert  which  opened  with  the 
music,  if  not  at  once  of  Hamlet  and  Othello^  at  any  rate  of 
Tatnburlaiue  and  Faustiis. 

To  complete  this  sketch  of  the  more  famous  and  fortunate 
dramatists  who  have  attained  to  separate  presentation,  we  must 
give  some  account  of  lesser  men  and  of  those  wholly  anonymous 
works  which  are  still  to  be  found  only  in  collections  such  as 
Dodsley's,  or  in  single  publications.  As  the  years  pass,  the  list  of 
independently  published  authors  increases.  Mr.  Bullen,  who 
issued  the  works  of  Thomas  Nabbes  and  of  Davenport,  has 
promised  those  of  W.  Rowley.  Nabbes,  a  member  of  the  Tribe 
of  Ben,  and  a  man  of  easy  talent,  was  successful  in  comedy  only, 
though  he  also  attempted  tragedy.  Microcosmus  (1637),  his 
best-known  work,  is  half-masque,  half-morality,  and  has  consider- 
able merit  in  a  difficult  kind.  The  Bride,  Covent  Garden, 
Tottenham  Court,  range  with  the  already  characterised  work  of 
Brome,  but  somewhat  lower.  Davenport's  range  was  wider,  and 
the  interesting  history  of  King  John  and  Matilda,  as  well  as  the 
lively  comedy  of  The  City  Nightcap,  together  with  other  work, 
deserved,  and  have  now  received,  collection.  William  Rowley  was 
of  a  higher  stamp.  His  best  work  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the 
plays  wherein,  as  mentioned  more  than  once,  he  collaborated  with 
Middleton,  with  Massinger,  with  Webster,  with  Fletcher,  with 
Dekker,  and  in  short  with  most  of  the  best  men  of  his  time.  It 
would  appear  that  he  was  chiefly  resorted  to  for  comic  under- 
plots, in  which  he  brought  in  a  good  deal  of  horse-play,  and 


XI  MINOR  AND  ANONYMOUS  TLAVS  423 

a  power  of  reporting  the  low-life  humours  of  the  London  of  liis 
day  more  accurate  than  refined,  together  with  not  a  little  stock- 
stage  wit,  such  as  raillery  of  Welsh  and  Irish  dialect.  But  in 
the  plays  which  are  attributed  to  him  alone,  such  as  A  JVnc 
Wonder.,  a  ]]'oman  Xt-iCr  J'lwrJ,  and  A  Match  at  Midnight^  ho 
shows  not  merely  this  same  vis  comica  an<.l  rough  and  ready 
faculty  of  hitting  oft"  dramatic  situations,  but  an  occasional  touch 
of  true  pathos,  and  a  faculty  of  knitting  the  whole  action  well 
together.  He  has  often  been  confused  with  a  half  namesake, 
Samuel  Rowley,  of  whom  very  little  is  known,  but  who  in  his 
chronicle  play  When  you  see  Me  you  know  Me,  and  his  romantic 
drama  of  The  Noble  Spanish  Soldier,  has  distinctly  outstripped 
the  ordinary  dramatists  of  the  time.  Yet  another  collected  drama- 
tist, who  has  long  had  a  home  in  Dodsley,  and  who  figures  rather 
curiously  in  a  later  collection  of  "  Dramatists  of  the  Restora- 
tion," though  his  dramatic  fame  was  obtained  many  years  before, 
was  Shakerley  Marmion,  author  of  the  pretty  poem  of  Cupid  and 
Psyche,  and  a  "  son  "  of  Ben  Jonson.  Marmion's  three  plays,  of 
which  the  best  known  is  The  Antiquary,  are  f^iir  but  not  exces- 
sively favourable  samples  of  the  favourite  play  of  the  time,  a 
rather  broad  humour-comedy,  which  sometimes  conjoined  itself 
with,  and  sometimes  stood  aloof  from,  either  a  romantic  and  tragi- 
comical story  or  a  downright  tragedy. 

Among  the  single  plays  comparatively  few  are  of  the  latter 
kind.  The  Miseries  of  Enforced  Marriai^e,  a  domestic  tragi- 
comedy, connects  itself  with  the  wholly  tragical  Yorkshire  Tragedy, 
and  is  a  kind  of  introduction  to  it.  These  domestic  tragedies  (of 
which  another  is  A  Warning  to  Fair  Women)  were  very  popular 
at  the  time,  and  large  numbers  now  lost  seem  to  have  been  pro- 
duced by  the  dramatisation  of  notable  crimes,  past  and  present. 
Their  class  is  very  curiously  mixed  up  with  the  remarkable  and, 
in  one  sense  or  another,  very  interesting  class  of  the  dramas  attri-' 
buted,  and  in  general  estimation  falsely  attributed,  to  Shakespere. 
According  to  the  fullest  list  these  pseudo-Shakesperian  plays 
number   seventeen.       I'hey  are  Fair  Em,    The  Merry  Devil  oj 


424  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

Edmonton^  Edivard  III.,  The  Birth  of  Merli/i,  The  IVoublesome 
Reign  of  King  John,  A  Warning  to  Fair  Women,  The  Arraign- 
ment of  Paris,  Arden  of  Eeversha?n,  Mucedorus,  George  a  Green 
the  Pinner  of  Wakefield,  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  The  London- 
Prodigal,  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell,  Sir  John  O Ideas  tie,  The  Puritan 
or  the  Wido7v  of  Watling  Street,  The  Yorkshire  T?-agcdy,  and 
Locrine.  Four  of  these,  Edward  ILL,  The  Merry  Devil  of  Edmon- 
ton, Arden  of  Feversham,  and  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  are  in 
whole  or  parts  very  far  superior  to  the  rest.  Of  that  rest  TJie 
Yorkshire  Tragedy,  a  violent  and  bloodthirsty  little  piece  showing 
the  frantic  cruelty  of  the  ruined  gambler,  Calverley,  to  his  wife  and 
children,  is  perhaps  the  most  powerful,  though  it  is  not  in  the 
least  Shakesperian.  But  the  four  have  claims,  not  indeed  of 
a  strong,  but  of  a  puzzling  kind.  In  Edicard  ILL  and  The 
Two  Noble  Kinsmen  there  are  no  signs  of  Shakespere  either  in 
plot,  character-drawing,  or  general  tone.  But,  on  the  contrary, 
there  are  in  both  certain  scenes  where  the  versification  and 
dialogue  are  so  astonishingly  Shakesperian  that  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  account  for  the  writing  of  them  by  any  one  else  than 
Shakespere.  By  far  the  larger  majority  of  critics  declare  for  the 
part  authorship  of  Shakespere  in  The  Tivo  Noble  Kinsmen;  I  avow 
myself  simply  puzzled.  On  the  other  hand,  I  am  nearly  sure  that 
he  did  not  write  any  part  of  Edicard  ILL,  and  I  should  take  it 
to  be  a  case  of  a  kind  not  unknown  in  literature,  where  some 
writer  of  great  but  not  very  original  faculty  was  strongly  affected 
by  the  Shakesperian  influence,  and  wrote  this  play  while  under  it, 
but  afterwards,  either  by  death  or  diversion  to  non-literary  employ- 
ments, left  no  other  monument  of  himself  that  can  be  traced  or 
compared  witli  ft.  The  difficulty  with  Arden  of  Feversham  and 
The  Merry  Devil  is  different.  We  shall  presently  speak  of  the 
latter,  which,  good  as  it  is,  has  nothing  specially  Shakesperian 
about  it,  except  a  great  superiority  in  sanity,  compactness,  pleasant 
human  sentiment,  and  graceful  verse,  to  the  ordinary  anonymous 
or  named  work  of  the  time.  But  Arden  of  Feversham  is  a  very 
different  piece  of  work.      It  is  a  domestic  tragedy  of  a  peculiarly 


XI  THE  SHAKESPERIAN  APOCRYPHA  425 

atrocious  kind,  Alice  Arden,  the  wife,  being  led  by  her  passion  for  a 
base  paramour,  Mosbie,  to  plot,  and  at  last  carry  out,  the  murder  of 
her  husbaml.  Here  it  is  not  that  the  versification  has  much 
resemblance  to  Shakespere's,  or  that  single  speeches  smack  of 
him,  but  that  the  dramatic  grasp  of  cliaracter  both  in  principals 
and  in  secondary  characters  has  a  distinct  touch  of  his  almost 
unmistakable  hand.  Vet  both  in  the  selection  and  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  the  play  defmitely  transgresses  those  principles 
which  have  been  said  to  exhibit  themselves  so  uniformly  and  so 
strongly  in  the  whole  great  body  of  his  undoubted  plays.  There 
is  a  per\-ersity  and  a  dash  of  sordidness  which  are  both  wholly 
un-Shakesperian.  The  only  possible  hypothesis  on  which  it 
could  be  admitted  as  Shakespere's  would  be  that  of  an  early 
experiment  thrown  off  while  he  was  seeking  his  way  in  a 
direction  where  he  found  no  thoroughfare.  But  the  play  is  a 
remarkable  one,  and  deserves  the  handsome  and  exact  reproduc- 
tion which  Mr.  Bullen  has  given  it.  The  Second  Maidens  Tra- 
!^eJy,  licensed  161*1,  but  earlier  in  type,  is  one  of  the  gloomy 
pity-and-terror  pieces  which  were  so  much  affected  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  period,  but  which  seem  to  have  given  way  later  in 
the  public  taste  to  comedy.  It  is  black  enough  to  have  been 
attributed  to  Tourneur.  T/ie  Queen  of  Aragon,  by  Habington, 
though  in  a  different  key,  has  something  of  the  starchness  rather 
than  strength  which  characterises  Castara.  A  much  higher  level 
is  reached  in  the  fine  anonymous  tragedy  of  Arrt?,  where  at  least 
one  character,  that  of  Petronius,  is  of  great  excellence,  and  where 
the  verse,  if  a  little  declamatory,  is  of  a  very  high  order  of  decla- 
mation. The  strange  piece,  first  published  by  Mr.  Ikillen,  and 
called  by  him  The  Distracted  Emperor,  a  tragedy  based  partly  on 
the  legend  of  Charlemagne  and  Fastrada,  again  gives  us  a  speci- 
men of  liorror-mongering.  The  Return  from  Parnassus  (see  note,  p. 
81),  famous  for  its  jjcrsonal  touches  and  its  contribution  to  Shakc- 
sf)erc  literature,  is  interesting  first  for  the  judgments  of  contempo- 
rary writers,  of  which  the  Shakes|)ere  passages  are  only  the  chief; 
secondly,  for  its  evidence  of  the  jcahjusy  between  the  universities 


426  THE  FOURTH  DRAMATIC  PERIOD  chap. 

and  the  players,  who  after,  in  earher  times,  coming  chiefly  on  the 
university  wits  for  their  suppUes,  had  latterly  taken  to  provide  for 
themselves  ;  and  thirdly,  for  its  flashes  of  light  on  university  and 
especially  undergraduate  life.  The  comedy  of  IFt'/y  Beguiled  has 
also  a  strong  university  touch,  the  scholar  being  made  triumphant 
in  it ;  and  Lingua,  sometimes  attributed  to  Anthony  Brewer,  is 
a  return,  though  a  lively  one,  to  the  system  of  personification  and 
allegory.  The  Dumb  Knight,  of  or  partly  by  Lewis  Machin,  belongs 
to  the  half-romantic,  half-farcical  class  ;  but  in  The  Merry  Devil  of 
Edmonton,  the  authorship  of  which  is  quite  unknown,  though 
Shakespere,  Drayton,  and  other  great  names  have  been  put 
forward,  a  really  delightful  example  of  romantic  comedy,  strictly 
English  in  subject,  and  combining  pathos  with  wit,  appears.  The 
Merry  Devil  probably  stands  highest  among  all  the  anonymous 
plays  of  the  period  on  the  lighter  side, -as  Arden  of  Feversham 
does  on  the  darker.  Second  to  it  as  a  comedy  comes  Porter's 
T7V0  Angry  Women  of  Abingdon  (1599),  with  less  grace  and 
fancy  but  almost  equal  lightness,  and  a  singularly  exact  picture 
of  manners.  With  J^am  Alley,  attributed  to  the  Irishman 
Lodowick  Barry,  we  come  back  to  a  much  lower  level,  that  of 
the  bustling  comedy,  of  which  something  has  been  said  generally 
in  connection  with  Middleton.  To  the  same  class  belong  Haugh- 
ton's  pleasant  Englishmen  for  my  Money,  a  good  patriot  play,  where 
certain  foreigners,  despite  the  father's  favour,  are  ousted  from 
the  courtship  of  three  fair  sisters ;  Woman  is  a  Weathercock,  and 
Amends  for  Ladies  (invective  and  palinode),  by  Nathaniel  Field 
(first  one  of  the  little  eyasses  who  competed  with  regular  actors, 
and  then  himself  an  actor  and  playwright) ;  "  Green's  Tu 
Quoque"  or  The  City  Gallant,  attributed  to  the  actor  Cook,  and 
deriving  its  odd  first  title  from  a  well-known  comedian  of  the 
time,  and  the  catchword  which  he  had  to  utter  in  the  play  itself; 
The  LLog  hath  Lost  his  Pearl,  a  play  on  the  name  of  a  usurer  whose 
daughter  is  married  against  his  will,  by  Taylor ;  The  LLeir  and  The 
Old  Couple,  by  Thomas  May,  more  famous  still  for  his  Latin 
versification  ;  the  rather  over-praised  Ordinary  of  Cartwright,  Ben 


XI  MINOR  AND  ANONYMOUS  PLAYS  427 

Jonson's  most  praised  son  ;  The  City  Match  by  Dr.  Jasper  Mayne. 
All  these  figure  in  the  last,  and  most  of  them  have  figured  in  the 
earlier  editions  of  Dodsley,  with  a  few  others  hardly  worth  sepa- 
rate notice.  Mr.  Bullen's  delightful  volumes  of  Old  Plays  add 
the  capital  ])lay  of  Dick  of  Dci'onshire  (see  ante\  the  strange 
Two  Tra^::;cdics  in  One  of  Robert  Yarington,  three  lively  comedies 
deriving  their  names  from  originals  of  one  kind  or  another, 
Captain  Undemnt,  Sir  Gi/cs  Goosecap^  and  Dr.  Dodipoll,  with 
one  or  two  more.  One  single  play  remains  to  be  mentioned, 
both  because  of  its  intrinsic  merit,  and  because  of  the  con- 
troversy which  has  arisen  respecting  the  question  of  priority 
between  it  and  Ben  Jonson's  Alchemist.  This  is  Albumazar,  attri- 
buted to  one  Thomas  Tomkis,  and  in  all  probability  a  university 
play  of  about  the  middle  of  James's  reign.  There  is  nothing  in 
it  equal  to  the  sjjlendid  bursts  of  Sir  Epicure  Mammon,  or  the  all 
but  first-rate  comedy  of  Face,  Dol,  and  Subtle,  and  of  .\bel 
Drugger ;  but  Gifford,  in  particular,  does  injustice  to  it,  and  it  is 
on  the  whole  a  very  fair  specimen  of  the  work  of  the  time. 
Nothing  indeed  is  more  astonishing  than  the  average  goodness 
of  that  work,  even  when  all  allowances  are  made  ;  and  unjust  as 
such  a  mere  enumeration  as  these  last  paragraphs  have  given 
must  be,  it  would  be  still  more  unjust  to  pass  over  in  silence 
work  so  varied  and  so  full  of  talent.^ 

'  A  note  may  best  serve  for  the  plays  of  Thomas  Goff  (1591-1629),  acted 
at  his  own  college,  Christ  Church,  but  not  published  till  after  his  death. 
The  three  most  noteworthy,  Tlie  Raging  Turk,  The  Courageous  Turk,  and  the 
Tragedy  of  Orestes,  were  republished  together  in  1656,  and  a  comedy,  IVie 
Careless  Shepherdess,  appeared  in  the  same  year.  The  tragedies,  and  especi- 
ally The  Raging  Turk,  have  been  a  byword  for  extravagant  frigidity,  though, 
as  they  have  never  been  printed  in  modern  times,  and  as  the  originals  are  rare, 
they  have  not  been  widely  known  at  first  hand.  A  i>erusal  justifies  the  worst 
that  has  l)cen  said  of  them:  though  (joff  wrote  early  enough  to  escape  the 
Caroline  dry-rot  in  dramatic  versification.  His  lines  arc  stiff,  but  they  usually 
scan. 


CHAPTER   XII 

MINOR    CAROLINE    PROSE 

The  greatest,  beyond  all  doubt,  of  the  minor  writers  of  the  Caroline 
period  in  prose  is  Robert  Burton.  Less  deliberately  quaint  than 
Fuller,  he  is  never,  as  Fuller  sometimes  is,  puerile,  and  the  greater 
concentration  of  his  thoughts  and  studies  has  produced  what 
Fuller  never  quite  produced,  a  masterpiece.  At  the  same  time 
it  must  be  confessed  that  Burton's  more  leisurely  life  assisted  to 
a  great  extent  in  the  production  of  his  work.  The  English  colle- 
giate system  would  have  been  almost  sufficiently  justified  if  it  had 
produced  nothing  but  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy ;  though  there 
is  something  ironical,  no  doubt,  in  the  fact  that  this  ideal  fruit  of 
a  studious  and  endowed  leisure  was  the  work  of  one  who,  being 
a  beneficed  clergyman,  ought  not  in  strictness  to  have  been  a 
resident  member  of  a  college.  Yet,  elsewhere  than  in  Oxford 
or  Cambridge  the  book  could  hardly  have  grown,  and  it  is  as 
unique  as  the  institutions  which  produced  it. 

The  author  of  the  Anatomy  was  the  son  of  Ralph  Burton  of 
Lindley  in  Leicestershire,  where  he  was  born  on  the  8th  of  Feb- 
ruary 1577.      He  was  educated  at  Sutton  Coldfield  School,  and 
/  thence  went  to  Brasenose  College,  Oxford.      He  became  a  student 

of  Christchurch- — the  equivalent  of  a  fellow — in  1599,  and  seems 
to  have  passed  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  his  life  there,  though  he 
took  orders  and  enjoyed  together  or  successively  the  living  of  St. 
Thomas  in  Oxford,  the  vicarage  of  Walsby  in  Lincolnshire,  and 


CHAP.  XII  BURTON  4^9 


the  rectory  of  Segrave  in  Leicestershire,  at  both  of  which  latter 
places  he  seems  to  have  kept  the  minimum  of  residence,  though 
tradition  gives  him  the  character  of  a  good  churchman,  and 
though  there  is  certainly  nothing  inconsistent  with  that  character 
in  the  Anatomy.  The  picture  of  him  which  Anthony  ii  Wood 
gives  at  a  short  second  hand  is  very  favourable;  and  the  attempts 
to  harmonise  his  "horrid  disorder  of  melancholy  "  with  his  "very 
merrv,  faccte,  and  juvenile  company,"  arise  evidently  from  almost 
ludicrous  misunderstanding  of  what  melancholy  means  and  is. 
As  absurd,  though  more  serious,  is  the  traditionary  libel  obviously 
founded  on  the  words  in  his  epitaph  {Cid  vitam  et  mortem  dedit 
melatiiholiix),  that  having  cast  his  nativity,  he,  in  order  not  to  be  out 
as  to  the  time  of  his  death,  committed  suicide.  As  he  was  sixty- 
three  (one  of  the  very  commonest  periods  of  death)  at  the  time, 
the  want  of  reason  of  the  suggestion  equals  its  want  of  charity. 

The  offspring  in  English  of  Burton's  sixty -three  years  of 
humorous  study  of  men  and  books  is  The  Anatomy  of  Mda7ichol}\ 
first  printed  in  1621,  and  enlarged  afterwards  by  the  author. 
A  critical  edition  of  the  Anatomy^  giving  these  enlargements 
exactly  with  other  editorial  matter,  is  very  much  wanted  ;  but 
even  in  the  rather  inedited  condition  in  which  the  book,  old  and 
new,  is  usually  found,  it  is  wholly  acceptable.  Its  literary  history 
is  rather  curious.  Eight  editions  of  it  appeared  in  half  a  century 
from  the  date  of  the  first,  and  then,  with  other  books  of  its  time, 
it  dropped  out  of  notice  except  by  the  learned.  Early  in  the  pre- 
sent centur)'  it  was  revived  and  reprinted  with  certain  modern- 
isations, and  four  or  five  editions  succeeded  each  other  at  no 
long  interval.  The  copies  thus  circulated  seem  to  have  satisfied 
the  demand  for  many  years,  and  have  been  followed  without 
much  alteration  in  some  later  issues. 

The  book  itself  has  been  very  variously  judged.  Fuller,  in 
one  of  his  least  worthy  moments,  called  it  "  a  book  of  philology." 
Anthony  Wood,  hitting  on  a  notion  which  has  often  been  borrowed 
since,  held  that  it  is  a  convenient  commonplace  book  of  classical 
cjuotations,  which,  with  all  respect  to   Anthony's  memory  (whom 


430  MINOR  CAROLINE  PROSE  chap. 

I  am  more  especially  bound  to  honour  as  a  Merton  man),  is  a 
gross  and  Philistine  error.  Johnson,  as  was  to  be  expected, 
appreciated  it  thoroughly.  Ferriar  in  his  lUustratmis  of  Sterne 
pointed  out  the  enormous  indebtedness  of  Tristram  Shandy  to 
Democritus  Junior.  Charles  Lamb,  eloquently  praising  '  the 
"  fantastic  great  old  man,"  exhibited  perhaps  more  perversity  than 
sense  in  denouncing  the  modern  reprints  which,  after  all,  are  not 
like  some  modern  reprints  (notably  one  of  Burton's  contempo- 
rary, Felltham,  to  be  noticed  shortly),  in  any  real  sense  garbled. 
Since  that  time  Burton  has  to  some  extent  fallen  back  to  the  base 
uses  of  a  quarry  for  half- educated  journalists  ;  nevertheless,  all 
fit  readers  of  English  literature  have  loved  him. 

The  book  is  a  sufficiently  strange  one  at  first  sight  ;  and  it  is 
perhaps  no  great  wonder  that  uncritical  readers  should  have  been 
bewildered  by  the  bristling  quotations  from  utterly  forgotten 
authorities  which,  with  full  and  careful  reference  for  the  most 
part,  stud  its  pages,  by  its  elaborate  but  apparently  futile 
marshalling  in  "  partitions  "  and  "members,"  in  "  sections  "  and 
*'  subsections,"  and  by  the  measureless  license  of  digression  which 
the  author  allows  himself.  It  opens  with  a  long  epistle,  filling 
some  hundred  pages  in  the  modern  editions,  from  Democritus 
Junior,  as  the  author  calls  himself,  to  the  reader — an  epistle  which 
gives  a  true  foretaste  of  the  character  and  style  of  the  text,  though, 
unlike  that  text,  it  is  not  scholastically  divided.  The  division 
begins  with  the  text  itself,  and  even  the  laziest  reader  will  find 
the  synopses  of  Burton's  "  partitions "  a  curious  study.  It  is 
impossible  to  be,  at  least  in  appearance,  more  methodical,  and 
all  the  typographical  resources  of  brackets  (sub-bracketed  even 
to  the  seventh  or  eighth  involution)  and  of  reference  letters 
are  exhausted  in  order  to  draw  up  a  conspectus  of  the  causes, 
symptoms,  nature,  effects,  and  cure  of  melancholy.  This  method 
is  not  exactly  the  method  of  madness,  though  it  is  quite  possible 
for  a  reader  to  attach  more  (as  also  less)  importance  to  it  than 
it  deserves.  It  seems  probable  on  the  whole  that  the  author, 
with  the  scholastic  habits  of  his  time,   did  actually  draw  out  a 


xii  BURTON 


431 


programme  for  the  treatment  of  his  subject  in  some  form  not 
very  different  from  these  wonderful  synoj^ses,  and  did  actually 
endeavour  to  keep  to  it,  or  at  any  rate  to  work  on  its  lines  within 
the  general  compass  of  the  scheme.  But  on  each  several  head 
(and  reducing  them  to  their  lowest  terms  the  heads  are  legion) 
he  allowed  himself  the  very  widest  freedom  of  digression,  not 
merely  in  extracting  and  applying  the  fruits  of  his  notebook,  but 
in  developing  his  own  thoughts, — a  mine  hardly  less  rich  if  less 
extensive  than  the  treasures  of  the  Bodleian  Library  which  are 
said  to  have  been  put  at  his  disposal. 

The  consequence  is,  that  the  book  is  one  quite  impossible  to 
describe  in  brief  space.  The  melancholy  of  which  the  author 
treats,  and  of  which,  no  doubt,  he  was  in  some  sort  the  victim,  is 
ver>'  far  from  being  the  mere  Byronic  or  A\'ertherian  disease  whicli 
became  so  familiar  some  hundred  years  ago.  On  the  other  hand, 
Burton  being  a  practical,  and,  on  the  whole,  very  healthy  English- 
man, it  came  something  short  of  "The  Melencolia  that  trans- 
cends all  wit,"  the  incurable  pessimism  and  quiet  despair  which 
have  been  thought  to  be  figured  or  prefigured  in  Durer's  famous 
print.  Yet  it  approaches,  and  that  not  distantly,  to  this  latter. 
It  is  the  Vanity  of  Vanities  of  a  man  who  has  gone,  in  thought  at 
least,  over  the  whole  round  of  human  pleasures  and  interests,  and 
who,  if  he  has  not  exactly  found  all  to  be  vanity,  has  found  each 
to  be  accompanied  by  some  amari  aliqiiid.  It  is  at  the  same 
time  the  frankly  expressed  hypochondria  of  a  man  whose  bodily 
health  was  not  quite  so  robust  as  his  mental  constitution.  It  is 
the  satiety  of  learning  of  a  man  who,  nevertheless,  knows  that 
learning,  or  at  least  literature,  is  the  only  cure  for  his  disease. 

In  mere  style  there  is  perhaps  nothing  very  strongly  character- 
L->tic  in  Burton,  though  there  is  mucii  that  is  noteworthy  in  the 
way  in  which  he  adapts  his  style  to  the  peculiar  character  of  his 
book.  Like  Rabelais,  he  has  but  rarely  oc(  asion  to  break  through 
his  fantastic  habit  of  stringing  others'  pearls  on  a  mere  string  of 
his  own,  and  to  set  seriously  to  the  composition  of  a  paragraph 
!"    wholly    original    prose.       But    when    he    docs,    tlie    effect    is 


432  MINOR  CAROLINE  PROSE  chap. 

remarkable,  and  shows  that  it  was  owing  to  no  poverty  or 
awkwardness  that  he  chose  to  be  so  much  of  a  borrower.  In 
his  usual  style,  where  a  mere  framework  of  original  may  enclose  a 
score  or  more  quotations,  translated  or  not  (the  modern  habit  of 
translating  Burton's  quotations  spoils,  among  other  things,  the 
zest  of  his  own  quaint  habit  of  adding,  as  it  were,  in  the  same 
breath,  a  kind  of  summary  or  paraphrase  in  English  of  what  he 
has  said  in  Latin  or  Greek),  he  was  not  superior  to  his  time  in 
the  loose  construction  of  sentences ;  but  the  wonder  is  that  his 
fashion  of  writing  did  not  make  him  even  inferior  to  it.  One  of  his 
peculiar  tricks — the  only  one,  perhaps,  which  he  uses  to  the 
extent  of  a  mannerism — is  the  suppression  of  the  conjunctions 
"  or  "  and  "  and,"  which  gives  a  very  quaint  air  to  his  strings  of 
synonyms.  But  an  example  will  do  more  here  than  much 
analysis  :— 

"  And  why  ihen  should  baseness  of  birth  be  objected  to  any  man?  Who 
thinks  worse  of  Tully  for  being  Arpinas,  an  upstart  ?  or  Agathocles,  that 
Sicilian  King,  for  being  a  potter's  son  ?  Iphicrates  and  Marius  were  meanly 
born.  What  wise  man  thinks  better  of  any  person  for  his  nobility?  as  he'' 
said  in  Machiavel,  omites  codem  patre  nati,  Adam's  sons,  conceived  all  and 
born  in  sin,  etc.  IVe  are  by  nature  all  as  one,  all  alike,  if  you  see  us  naked ; 
let  us  wear  theirs,  a7id  they  our  clothes,  and  what's  the  difference  ?  To  speak 
truth,  as  Bale  did  of  P.  Schalichius,  /  more  esteem  thy  worth,  learning,  honesty, 
than  thy  nobility  ;  honour  thee  more  that  thou  art  a  writer,  a  doctor  of  divinity, 
than  carl  of  the  Hunnes, baron  of  Skradi}ie,or  hast  titleto  such  and  such  provinces, 
etc.  Thoti  art  inore  fortunate  and  great  (so  Jovius  writes  to  Cosmus  Medices,  then 
Duke  of  Florence)  yi'r  thy  virtues  than  for  thy  lovely  wife  and  happy  children^ 
friends,  fortunes,  or  great  Duchy  of  Tuscajiy.  So  I  account  thee,  and  who  doth 
not  so  indeed?  Abdalonymus  was  a  gardener,  and  yet  by. Alexander  for  his 
virtues  made  King  of  Syria.  How  much  better  is  it  to  be  born  of  mean 
parentage  and  to  excel  in  worth,  to  be  morally  noble,  which  is  preferred  before 
that  natural  nobility  by  divines,  philosophers,  and  politicians,  to  be  learned, 
honest,  discreet,  well  qualified  to  be  fit  for  any  manner  of  employment  in 
country  and  commonwealth,  war  and  peace,  than  to  be  degeneres  Neoptolenii  as 
so  many  brave  nobles  are,  only  wise  because  rich,  otherwise  idiots,  illiterate, 

^  Burton,  with  others  of  the  time,  constantly  wrote  "he"  as  the  equivalent 
of  the  classical  demonstratives.  Modern,  but  not  better,  use  prefers  "  the 
man,"  or  something  similar. 


XII  BURTON— FULLER  433 

unlit  for  :iny  manner  of  service?  Udalricus,  Earl  of  Cilia,  upbraided  John 
Huniades  with  the  baseness  of  his  birth  ;  but  he  replied,  In  tc  Ciliensis  coiiii- 
talus  turpiter  exstingtiilur,  in  vie  gloriose  Bistricensis  exoritur  ;  thine  earldom 
is  consumed  with  riot  ;  mine  begins  with  honour  and  renown.  Thou  hast  had 
so  many  noble  ancestors;  what  is  that  to  thee?  Vix  ea  nostra  voco ;  when 
thou  art  a  disani'  thyself,  quid  proacst  Pont  ice  longo  stemviatc  ccnscri  ?  etc. 
I  conclude,  hast  thou  a  sound  lx)dy  and  a  good  sou'.,  good  bringing  up  ?  Art 
thou  virtuous,  honest,  learned,  well  qualified,  religious?  Are  thy  conditions 
good?  Thou  art  a  true  nobleman,  perfectly  noble  though  l)orn  of  Thersites, 
dummoiio  lit  sis  AeiiciJiC  sintilis  non  not  lis  sed  /actus,  noble  Kar  i^oxr\v,for 
neither  nvord,  nor  Jin',  nor  water,  nor  sicl-ness,  nor  outward  violence,  nor  the 
dcz'il  himself  can  take  thy  good  parts  from  thee.  Be  not  ashamed  of  thy  birth 
then  ;  thou  art  a  gentleman  all  the  world  over,  and  shah  be  honoured,  whenas 
he,  strip  him  of  his  fine  clothes,  dispossess  him  of  his  wealth,  is  a  funge^ 
(which  Polynices  in  his  banishment  found  true  by  experience,  gentry  was  not 
esteemed),  like  a  piece  of  coin  in  another  countiy,  that  no  man  will  take,  and 
shall  be  contemned.  Once  more,  though  thou  be  a  barbarian  born  at  Tonton- 
teac,  a  villain,  a  slave,  a  Saldanian  negro,  or  a  rude  \'irginian  in  Dasamon- 
quepeuc,-*  he  a  French  monsieur,  a  Spanish  don,  a  seignior  of  Italy,  I  care 
not  how  descended,  of  what  family,  of  what  order — baron,  count,  prince — if 
thou  be  well  qualified  and  he  not  but  a  degenerate  Neoptolemus,  I  tell  thee  in 
a  word  thou  art  a  man  and  he  is  a  beast." 

Such,  in  his  outward  aspects,  is  Burton  ;  but  of  him,  even 
more  than  of  most  writers,  it  may  be  said  that  a  brick  of  tlie 
house  is  no  sample.  Only  by  reading  him  in  the  proper  sense, 
and  that  with  diligence,  can  his  great  learning,  his  singular  wit 
and  fancy,  and  the  general  view  of  life  and  of  things  belonging  to 
life,  which  informs  and  converts  to  a  whole  his  learning,  his  wit, 
and  his  fancy  alike,  be  properly  conceived.  For  reading  either  con- 
tinuous or  desultory,  either  grave  or  gay,  at  all  times  of  life  and 
in  all  moods  of  temper,  there  are  few  authors  who  stand  the  test  of 
practice  so  well  as  the  author  of  'J'he  Anatomy  of  MdaticJwly. 

Probably,  however,  among  those  who  can  taste  old  authors, 
there  will  always  be  a  friendly  but  irreconcilable  difference  as  to 

'  A  "dizzard"  =  a  blockhead.      Said  to  be  connected  with  "diz/y." 

*  Fungu.s,  mushroom. 

*  .Saldania  is  .Saldanha  Hay.  .As  for  Tontonte.ic  and  I)a>:ain(inquepcuc,  I 
shall  imitate  the  manly  frankness  of  the  iM)y  in  Henry  I'.,  and  say,  "  I  do  not 
know  what  is  the  French  for  fcr,  ami  ferret,  and  firk." 

II  2   F 


434  MINOR  CAROLINE  PROSE  chap. 

the  merits  of  Fuller  and  Burton,  when  compared  together.  There 
never  can  be  any  among  such  as  to  the  merits  of  Fuller,  con- 
sidered in  himself.  Like  Burton,  he  was  a  clerk  in  orders ;  but 
his  literary  practice,  though  more  copious  than  that  of  the  author 
of  Tlie  Anatomy,  divorced  him  less  from  the  discharge  of  his 
professional  duties.  He  was  born,  like  Dryden,  but  twenty-two 
years  earlier,  in  1608,  at  Aldwinkle  in  Northamptonshire,  and  in 
a  parsonage  there,  but  of  the  other  parish  (for  there  are  two  close 
together).  He  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  and,  being  made 
prebendary  of  Salisbury,  and  vicar  of  Broadwindsor,  almost  as 
soon  as  he  could  take  orders,  seemed  to  be  in  a  fair  way  of 
preferment.  He  worked  as  a  parish  priest  up  to  1640,  the  year 
of  the  beginning  of  troubles,  and  the  year  of  his  first  important 
book.  The  Holy  War.  But  he  was  a  staunch  Royalist,  though 
by  no  means  a  bigot,  and  he  did  not,  like  other  men  of  his  time, 
see  his  way  to  play  Mr.  Facing-both-ways.  For  a  time  he  was  a 
preacher  in  London,  then  he  followed  the  camp  as  chaplain  to 
the  victorious  army  of  Hopton,  in  the  west,  then  for  a  time  again 
he  was  stationary  at  Exeter,  and  after  the  ruin  of  the  Royal  cause 
he  returned  to  London,  where,  though  he  did  not  recover  his 
benefices,  he  was  leniently  treated,  and  even,  in  1655,  obtained 
license  to  preach.  Nevertheless,  the  Restoration  would  probably 
have  brought  him  promotion,  but  he  lived  not  long  enough  to 
receive  it,  dying  on  the  15  th  of  August  1661.  He  was  an 
extremely  industrious  writer,  publishing,  besides  the  work  already 
mentioned,  and  not  a  few  minor  pieces  {The  Holy  and  Profane 
State,  Thoughts  and  Contemplations  in  Good,  Worse,  and  Better 
Times,  A  Fisgah-sight  of  Palestine),  an  extensive  Church  History 
of  Britaiti,  and,  after  his  death,  what  is  perhaps  his  masterpiece. 
The  IVorthies  of  England,  an  extraordinary  miscellany,  quartering 
the  ground  by  counties,  filling,  in  the  compactest  edition,  two 
mighty  quartos,  and  containing  perhaps  the  greatest  account  of 
miscellaneous  fact  to  be  found  anywhere  out  of  an  encyclopedia, 
conveyed  in  a  style  the  quaintest  and  most  lively  to  be  found 
anywhere  out  of  the  choicest  essayists  of  the  language. 


XII  FULLER  435 

A  man  of  genius  who  adored  Fuller,  and  who  owes  to  him  more 
than  to  any  one  else  except  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  has  done,  in  small 
compass,  a  service  to  his  memory  which  is  not  easily  to  be  paralleled. 
Lamb's  specimens  from  Fuller,  most  of  which  are  only  two  or 
three  lines  long,  and  none  a  pageful,  for  once  contradict  the 
axiom  quoted  above  as  to  a  brick  and  a  house.  So  perfectly  has 
the  genius  of  selector  and  author  coincided,  that  not  having  myself 
gone  through  the  verification  of  them,  I  should  hardly  be  sur- 
prised to  find  that  Lamb  had  used  his  faculty  of  invention.  Yet 
this  would  not  matter,  for  they  are  perfectly  Fullerian.  Although 
Fuller  has  justly  been  praised  for  his  method,  and  although  he 
never  seems  to  have  suffered  his  fancy  to  run  away  with  him  to 
the  extent  of  forgetting  or  wilfully  misrepresenting  a  fact,  the 
conceits,  which  are  the  chief  characteristic  of  his  style,  are 
comparatively  independent  of  the  subject.  Coleridge  has  asserted 
that  "  Wit  was  the  stuff  and  substance  of  his  intellect,"  an  asser- 
tion which  (with  all  the  respect  due  to  Coleridge)  would  have 
been  better  phrased  in  some  such  way  as  this, — that  nearly  the 
whole  force  of  his  intellect  concentrated  itself  upon  the  witty 
presentation  of  things.  He  is  inimitably  figurative,  and  though 
his  figures  seldom  or  never  fail  to  carry  illumination  of  the 
subject  with  them,  their  peculiar  character  is  sufficiently  indicated 
by  the  fact  that  they  can  almost  always  be  separated  from  the 
subject  and  from  the  context  in  which  they  occur  without  any 
damage  to  their  own  felicity.  To  a  thoroughly  serious  person,  to 
a  person  like  Lord  Chesterfield  (who  was  indeed  very  serious  in 
his  own  way,  and  abhorred  proverbial  philosophy),  or  to  one  who 
cannot  away  with  the  introduction  of  a  (juip  in  connection  wiili  a 
solemn  subject,  and  who  thinks  that  indulgence  in  a  gibe  is  a  clear 
I^roof  that  the  writer  has  no  solid  argument  to  produce.  Fuller 
must  be  nothing  but  a  puzzle  or  a  disgust.  That  a  pious  and 
earnest  divine  should,  even  in  that  day  of  (juaintness,  compare 
the  gradual  familiarisation  of  Christians  with  the  sacraments  of 
the  Church  to  the  habit  of  children  first  taking  care  of,  and  then 
neglecting  a  pair  of  new  boots,  or  should  describe  a  brother  clerk 


436  MINOR  CAROLINE  PROSE  chap. 

as  "  pronouncing  the  word  damn  with  such  an  emphasis  as  left  a 
dismal  echo  in  his  auditors'  ears  a  good  while  longer,"  seems, 
no  doubt,  to  some  excellent  people,  unpardonable,  and  almost 
incomprehensible.     Yet  no  one  has  ever  impeached  the  sincerity 
of  Fuller's  convictions,  and  the  blamelessness  of  his  life.     That  a 
grave  historian  should  intersperse  the  innumerable  trivialities  of 
the  Worthies  may  be  only  less  shocking.     But  he  was  an  eminent 
proof  of  his  own  axiom,  "  That  an  ounce  of  mirth,  with  the  same 
degree  of  grace,  will  serve  God  farther  than  a  pound  of  sadness." 
Fuller  is  perhaps  the  only  writer  who,  voluminous  as  he  is,  will 
not   disappoint   the   most    superficial   inquirer   for  proofs  of  the 
accuracy  of  the  character  usually  given  to  him.      Nobody  perhaps 
but  himself,  in  trying  to  make  the  best  of  the  Egyptian  bondage 
of  the  Commonwealth,  would  have  discovered  that  the  Church, 
being  unrepresented  by  any  of  the  four  hundred  and  odd  members 
of  Cromwell's   Parliament,    was   better   off  than   when   she   had 
Archbishops,   Bishops,   and  a  convocation  all  to  herself,  urging, 
"  what  civil  Christian  would  not  plead  for  a  dumb  man,"  and  so 
enlisting  all  the  four  hundred  and  odd  enemies  as  friends  and 
representatives.     But  it  is  impossible  to  enter  fully  on  the  subject 
of  Fuller's  quips.      What  may  fairly  be  said  of  them  is,  that  while 
constantly  fantastic,  and  sometimes  almost  childish,  they  are  never 
really  silly ;  that  they  are  never,  or  hardly  ever  in  bad  taste ;  and 
that,  quaint  and  far  fetched  as  they  are,  there  is  almost  'always 
some  application  or  suggestion  which  saves  them  from  being  mere 
intellectual  somersaults.      The  famous  one  of  the  "  Images  of  God 
cut   in  ebony,"  is  sufficient  of  itself  to  serve  as  a  text.      There  is 
in  it  all  the  good  side  of  the  emancipation  propaganda  with  an 
entire    freedom    from   the    extravagance,    the    vulgarity,    the    in- 
justice, the  bad  taste  which  marked  that  propaganda  a  century 
and  more  afterwards,  when  taken  up  by  persons  very  different 
from  Fuller.      Perhaps  it  may  be  well  to  give  an  extract  of  some 
length  from  him  : — 

"  A  lady  big  wilh  child  was  condemned  to  perpetual  imprisonment,  and  in 
the  dnngeon  was  delivered  of  a  son,  who  continued  with  her  till  a  boy  of  some 


XII  FULLER  437 

bigness.  It  happened  at  one  time  he  heart!  his  mother  (for  see  neither  of  them 
could,  as  to  decern  in  so  dark  a  place)  bemoan  her  condition. 

"  Why,  nioiher  (said  the  child)  do  you  complain,  sccinjj  you  waiu  nothing 
you  can  wish,  having  clothes,  meat,  and  drink  sufficient  ?  Alas  !  child  (re- 
turned the  mother),  I  lack  liberty,  converse  with  Christians,  the  light  of  the 
sun,  and  many  things  more,  which  thou,  being  prison-born,  neither  art  nor  can 
be  sensible  of  in  thy  condition. 

"  The/«7j/-«rt//,  understand  thereby  such  striplings  born  in  England  since 
the  death  of  monarchy  therein,  conceive  this  land,  their  mother,  to  be  in  a  good 
estate.  For  one  fruitful  harvest  followeth  another,  commodities  are  sold  at 
reasonable  rates,  abundance  of  brave  clothes  arc  worn  in  the  city,  though  not 
by  such  persons  whose  birth  doth  best  become,  but  whose  purses  can  best 
bestow  them. 

"  But  their  mother,  England,  doth  justly  bemoan  the  sad  difference  betwixt 
her  present  and  former  condition  ;  when  she  enjoyed  full  and  free  trade  with- 
out payment  of  taxes,  save  so  small  they  seemed  rather  an  acknowledgment  of 
their  allegiance  than  a  burden  to  their  estate  ;  when  she  had  the  court  of  a 
king,  the  House  of  Lords,  yea,  and  the  Lord's  house,  decently  kept,  constantly 
frequented,  without  falsehood  in  doctrine,  or  faction  in  discipline.  God  of 
His  goodness  restore  unto  us  so  much  of  these  things  as  may  consist  with  His 
glor)'  and  our  good." 

"  I  saw  a  ser\'ant  maid,  at  the  command  of  her  mistress,  make,  kindle,  and 
blow  a  fire.  Which  done,  she  was  posted  away  about  other  business,  whilst 
her  mistress  enjoyed  the  beneHt  of  the  fire.  Yet  I  observed  that  this  servant, 
whilst  industriously  employed  in  the  kindling  thereof,  got  a  more  general, 
kindly,  and  continuing  heat  than  her  mistress  herself.  Her  heat  was  only  by 
her,  and  not  in  her,  staying  with  her  no  longer  than  she  stayed  by  the  chimney ; 
whilst  the  warmth  of  the  maid  was  inlaid,  and  equally  diffused  through  the 
whole  Ixjdy. 

"An  estate  suddenly  gotten  is  not  so  lasting  to  the  owner  thereof  as  what 
is  duly  got  by  industry.  The  substance  of  the  diligent,  sailh  Solomon,  I'rov. 
xii.  27,  is  precious.  He  cannot  be  counted  poor  that  hath  so  many  jiearls, 
precious  brown  bread,  precious  small  beer,  jirecious  jjlain  clothes,  etc.  A 
comfortable  consideraticjn  in  this  our  age,  wherein  many  hands  have  learned 
their  lesson  of  labour,  who  were  neither  born  nor  bred  with  it." 

The  best  judges  have  admitted  that,  in  contrath'sliiK  tion  to 
this  pcrjietual  c}uipping,  which  is,  as  far  as  it  goes,  of  his  time,  the 
general  style  of  I'uUer  is  on  the  whole  rather  more  modern  than 
the  styles  of  his  rontemporaries.  It  does  not  seem  that  this  is 
due  to  deliberate  intention  of  shortening  and  prop(jrtioning  his 


438  MINOR  CAROLINE  PROSE  chap. 

prose ;  for  he  is  as  careless  as  any  one  of  the  whole  century 
about  exact  grammatical  sequence,  and  seems  to  have  had 
no  objection  on  any  critical  grounds  to  the  long  disjointed 
sentence  which  was  the  curse  of  the  time.  But  his  own  rulins: 
passion  insensibly  disposed  him  to  a  certain  brevity.  He  liked 
to  express  his  figurative  conceits  pointedly  and  antithetically ; 
and  point  and  antithesis  are  the  two  things  most  incompatible 
with  clauses  jointed  ad  ififinituni  in  Clarendon's  manner,  with 
labyrinths  of  "  whos "  and  "whiches"  such  as  too  frequently 
content  Milton  and  Taylor.  Poles  asunder  from  Hobbes,  not 
merely  in  his  ultimate  conclusions  but  in  the  general  quality  of 
his  mind,  he  perhaps  comes  nearest  to  the  author  of  the  treatise 
on  Hianan  Nature  in  clear,  sensible,  unambiguous  presentation 
of  the  thing  that  he  means  to  say;  and  this,  joined  to  his  fecundity 
in  illustration  of  every  kind,  greatly  helps  the  readableness  of  his 
books.  No  work  of  his  as  a  working  out  of  an  original  concep- 
tion can  compete  with  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  ;  but  he  is  as 
superior  in  minor  method  to  Burton  as  he  is  inferior  in  general 
grasp. 

The  remainder  of  the  minor  Carolines  must  be  dismissed 
rapidly.  A  not  unimportant  position  among  the  prose  writers 
of  this  time  is  occupied  by  Edward  Herbert,  Lord  Herbert  of 
Cherbury,  the  elder  brother  of  George  Herbert  the  poet.  He 
was  born  in  1583,  and  finished  his  life  ingloriously,  and  indeed 
discreditably,  during  the  troubles  of  the  civil  war,  on  the  20th  of 
August  1648.  His  earlier  career  is  elaborately  if  not  exactly 
truthfully  recorded  in  his  Autobiography,  and  its  details  have  been 
carefully  supplemented  by  his  latest  editor,  Mr.  Lee.  His  literary 
activity  was  various  and  considerable.  His  greatest  work  —  a 
treatise  which  has  been  rashly  called  the  foundation  of  English 
deism,  but  which  rather  expresses  the  vague  and  not  wholly 
unorthodox  doubt  expressed  earlier  by  Montaigne,  and  by  con- 
temporaries of  Herbert's  own,  such  as  La  Mothe  le  Vayer — was 
written  in  Latin,  and  has  never  been  translated  into  English. 
He  was  an   English  verse  writer  of  some  merit,  though  inferior 


XII  LORD  HERBERT  OF  CHERBURY  439 

to  his  brother.  His  ambitious  and  academic  History  of  Hentj 
VII I.  is  a  regular  and  not  unsuccessful  effort  in  English  prose,  ' 
prompted  no  doubt  by  the  thorough-going  courtiership  which 
ranks  with  his  vanity  and  want  of  stability  on  the  most  unfavour- 
able aspect  of  Herbert's  character.  But  posterity  has  agreed 
to  take  him  as  an  English  writer  chiefly  on  the  strength  of  the 
Autobiograpliy,  whii  h  remained  in  manuscript  for  a  century  and 
more,  and  was  published  by  Horace  Walpole,  rather  against  the 
will  of  Lord  Powis,  its  i^ossessor  and  its  author's  representative. 
It  is  difficult  to  say  that  Lord  Powis  was  wrong,  especially  con- 
sidering that  Herbert  never  published  these  memoirs,  and  seems 
to  have  written  them  as  much  as  anything  else  for  his  own 
private  satisfaction.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  there  is  any 
more  astounding  monument  of  coxcombry  in  literature.  Herbert 
is  sometimes  cited  as  a  model  of  a  modern  knight-errant,  of  an 
Amadis  born  too  late.  Certainly,  according  to  his  own  account, 
all  women  loved  and  all  men  feared  him ;  but  for  the  former 
fact  we  have  nothing  but  his  own  authority,  and  in  regard  to  the 
latter  we  have  counter  evidence  which  renders  it  exceedingly 
doubtful.  He  was,  according  to  his  own  account,  a  desperate 
duellist.  But  even  by  this  account  his  duels  had  a  curious  habit 
of  being  interrupted,  in  the  immortal  phrase  of  Mr.  Winkle,  by 
"several  police  constables;"  while  in  regard  to  actual  war  the 
exploits  of  his  youth  seem  not  to  have  been  great,  and  those  of 
his  age  were  wholly  discreditable,  inasmuch  as  being  by  pro- 
fession an  ardent  Royalist,  he  took  the  first  opportunity  to  make, 
without  striking  a  blow,  a  profitable  composition  with  the  Par- 
liament. Xeverthekss,  despite  the  drawbacks  of  subject-matter, 
the  autobiography  is  a  very  interesting  piece  of  Englisii  prose. 
The  narrative  style,  for  all  its  coxcombry  and  its  insistence  on 
petty  details,  has  a  singular  vivacity  ;  the  constructions,  though 
sometimes  incorrect  ("  the  edict  was  so  severe  as  they  who  trans- 
gressed were  to  lose  their  heads  "),  are  never  merely  slovenly;  and 
the  writer  displays  an  art,  very  uncommon  in  his  time,  in  the  alter- 
nation of  short  and  long  sentences  and  the  general  adjustment 


440  MINOR  CAROLINE  TROSE  chap. 

of  the  paragraph.  Here  and  there,  too,  there  are  passages  of 
more  elevated  style  which  give  reason  for  regretting  that  the 
De  Veritate  was  not  written  in  English.  It  is  very  much  to  be 
feared  that  the  chief  reason  for  its  being  written  in  Latin  was  a 
desire  on  the  author's  part  to  escape  awkward  consequences  by 
an  appearance  of  catering  for  philosophers  and  the  learned  only. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  neither  of  the  two  great  free-thinking 
Royalists,  Hobbes  and  Herbert,  is  a  wholly  pleasant  character ; 
but  it  may  be  at  least  said  for  the  commoner  (it  cannot  be  said 
for  the  peer)  that  he  was  constant  to  his  principles,  and  that  if 
somewhat  careful  of  his  skin,  he  never  seems  to  have  been 
tempted  to  barter  his  conscience  for  it  as  Herbert  did. 

Hardly  any  other  writer  among  the  minor  Caroline  prosaists 
is  important  enough  to  justify  a  substantive  notice  in  a  work 
which  has  already  reached  and  almost  exceeded  the  limits 
accorded  to  it.  The  excellent  style  of  Cowley's  Essays,  which 
is  almost  more  modern  than  the  work  of  Dryden  and  Tillotson, 
falls  in  great  part  actually  beyond  the  limits  of  our  time ;  and 
by  character,  if  not  by  date,  Cowley  is  left  for  special  treatment 
in  the  following  volume.  He  sometimes  relapses  into  what 
may  be  called  the  general  qualities  with  their  accompanying 
defects  of  Elizabethan  prose — a  contempt  of  proportion,  clear- 
ness, and  order ;  a  reckless  readiness  to  say  everything  that  is  in 
the  waiter's  mind,  witliout  considering  whether  it  is  appropriate  or 
not ;  a  confusion  of  English  and  classical  grammar,  and  occasion- 
ally a  very  scant  attention  even  to  rules  which  the  classical  gram- 
mars indicate  yet  more  sternly  than  the  vernacular.  But  as  a  rule 
he  is  distinguished  for  exactly  the  opposite  of  all  these  things.  Much 
less  modern  than  Cowley,  but  still  of  a  chaster  and  less  fanciful 
style  than  most  of  his  contemporaries,  is  the  famous  Protestant 
apologist,  Chillingworth — a  man  whose  orderly  mind  and  freedom 
from  anything  like  enthusiasm  reflected  themselves  in  the  easy 
balance  of  his  style.  Sanderson,  Pearson,  Baxter,  the  two  former 
luminaries  of  the  Church,  the  latter  one  of  the  chief  literary 
lights  of  Nonconformity,  belong  more  or  less  to  the  period,  as  does 


XH  WALTON  — HOWELL  441 


Bisliop  Hall.  Baxter  is  the  most  colloquial,  the  most  fanciful, 
and  the  latest,  of  the  three  grouped  together ;  the  other  two  are 
nearer  to  the  plainness  of  Chillingworth  than  to  the  ornateness 
of  Jeremy  Taylor.  Few  English  prose  writers  again  are  better 
known  than  Izaak  ^^'alton,  though  it  might  be  difficult  to  prove 
iliat  in  matter  of  pure  literature  he  stands  very  high.  The  engag- 
ing character  of  his  subjects,  and  the  still  more  engaging  display 
of  his  own  temper  and  mode  of  thought  which  he  makes  in 
almost  every  sentence,  both  of  his  Complete  Angler  and  of  his 
hardly  less  known  Lives,  account  for  the  survival  and  constant 
jiopularity  of  books  which  arc  neither  above  nor  below  the  better 
work  of  their  time  in  literary  form.  Walton  was  born  in  1593 
and  died  ninety  years  later.  His  early  manhood  was  spent  in 
London  as  a  "  linen-draper,"  but  in  friendly  conversation  with 
the  best  clerical  and  literary  society.  In  1643  he  retired  from 
London  to  avoid  the  bustle  of  the  Civil  War,  and  the  Complete 
Angler  appeared  in  1653.  Another  writer  contemporary  with 
Walton,  though  less  long-lived,  James  Howell,  has  been  the  sub- 
ject of  very  varying  judgments ;  his  appeal  being  very  much  of 
the  same  kind  as  Walton's,  but  addressed  to  a  different  and 
narrower  class  of  persons.  He  was  born  in  i594(?)  of  a  fair  Welsh 
family,  was  educated  at  Jesus  College,  Oxford,  was  employed 
more  than  once  on  confidential  business  errands  on  the  Con- 
tinent, entered  Parliament,  was  made  Clerk  of  the  Council,  was 
imprisoned  for  years  in  the  Fleet  during  the  Civil  War,  received  at 
the  Restoration  the  post  of  Historiographer,  and  died  in  1666. 
He  wrote  all  manner  of  things,  but  has  chiefly  survived  as  ilic 
author  of  a  large  collection  of  Familiar  Letters,  which  have  been 
great  favourites  with  some  excellent  judges.  'J'hey  have  some- 
thing of  the  agreeable  garrulousness  of  Walton.  But  Howell 
was  not  only  much  more  of  a  gossij)  than  Izaak  ;  he  was  also 
a  good  deal  of  a  coxcomb,  while  Walton  was  destitute  of  even 
a  trace  of  coxcombrj'.  In  one,  however,  as  in  the  other,  the 
attra*  tion  of  matter  completely  outdoes  the  purely  literary  attrac- 
tion.     The  reader  is  glad  to  hear  at  first  hand  what  men  thought 


442  MINOR  CAROLINE  PROSE  chap. 

of  Raleigh's  execution  ;  how  Ben  Jonson  behaved  in  his  cups  ; 
how  foreign  parts  looked  to  a  genuine  English  traveller  early  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  so  forth.  Moreover,  the  book  was 
long  a  very  popular  one,  and  an  unusual  number  of  anecdotes 
and  scraps  passed  from  it  into  the  general  literary  stock  of  Eng- 
lish writers.  But  Howell's  manner  of  telling  his  stories  is  not 
extraordinarily  attractive,  and  has  something  self-conscious  and 
artificial  about  it  which  detracts  from  its  interest.  The  Charac- 
ters of  Overbury  were  followed  and,  no  doubt,  imitated  by  John 
Earle,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  and  a  man  of  some  im- 
portance. Earle,  who  was  a  fellow  of  Merton,  called  his  sketches 
Microcosmography.  Nothing  in  them  approaches  the  celebrated 
if  perhaps  not  quite  genuine  milkmaid  of  Overbury ;  but  they 
give  evidence  of  a  good  deal  of  direct  observation  often  expressed 
in  a  style  that  is  pointed,  such  as  the  description  of  a  bowling  green 
as  a  place  fitted  for  "  the  .expense  of  time,  money,  and  oaths." 
The  church  historian  and  miscellanist  Heylin  belongs  also  to  the 
now  fast  multiplying  class  of  professional  writers  who  dealt  with 
almost  any  subject  as  it  might  seem  likely  to  hit  the  taste  of  the 
public.  The  bold  and  fantastic  speculations  of  Bishop  Wilkins  and 
Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  and  the  Oceana  or  Ideal  Republic  (last  of  a  long 
line)  of  James  Harrington  (not  to  be  confounded  with  the  earlier  Sir 
John  Harington,  translator  of  Ariosto),  deserve  some  notice.  The 
famous  Eikon  Basilike  (the  authorship  of  which  has  perhaps  of  late 
years  been  too  confidently  ascribed  to  Dr.  Gauden  independently, 
rather  than  to  the  king,  edited  by  Gauden)  has  considerable  literary 
merit.  Last  of  all  has  to  be  mentioned  a  curious  book,  which 
made  some  noise  at  its  appearance,  and  which,  though  not 
much  read  now,  has  had  two  seasons  of  genuine  popularity, 
and  is  still  highly  thought  of  by  a  few  good  judges.  This  is  the 
Resolves  of  Owen  Feltham  or  Felltham.  Not  much  is  known  of 
the  author  except  that  he  was  of  a  respectable  family  in  East 
Anglia,  a  family  which  seems  to  have  been  especially  seated  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Lowestoft.  Besides  the  Resolves  he  wrote 
some  verse,  of  which  the  most  notable  piece  is  a  reply  to  Ben 


XII  FELLTHAM  443 

Jonson's  famous  ode  to  himself  ("Come  Leave  the  Loathed  Stage  '") 
— a  reply  which  even  such  a  sworn  partisan  as  Gifford  admits  to 
be  at  least  just  if  not  very  kind.  Felltham  seems  also  to  have 
engaged  in  controversy  with  another  Johnson,  a  Jesuit,  on  theo- 
logical subjects.  But  save  for  the  J^esohes  he  would  be  totally, 
forgotten.  The  estimate  of  their  value  will  differ  very  much,  as 
the  liking  for  not  very  original  discussion  of  ethical  subjects  and 
sound  if  not  very  subtle  judgment  on  them  overpowers  or  not  in 
the  reader  a  distaste  for  style  that  lias  no  particular  distinction, 
and  ideas  which,  though  often  wholesome,  are  seldom  other  than 
obvious.  Wordsworth's  well-known  description  of  one  of  his  own 
poems,  as  being  "  a  chain  of  extremely  valuable  thoughts,"  applies 
no  doubt  to  the  Jiesolves,  which,  except  in  elegance,  rather  re- 
semble the  better-known  of  Cicero's  philosophical  works.  More- 
over, though  possessing  no  great  elegance,  they  are  not  inelegant ; 
though  it  is  difficult  to  forget  how  differently  Bacon  and  Browne 
treated  not  dissimilar  subjects  at  much  the  same  time.  So 
popular  were  they  that  besides  the  first  edition  (which  is  undated, 
but  must  have  appeared  in  or  before  162S,  the  date  of  the 
second),  eleven  others  were  called  for  up  to  i  709.  But  it  was  not 
for  a  hundred  years  that  they  were  again  printed,  and  then  the 
well-meaning  but  misguided  zeal  of  their  resuscitator  led  him  not 
merely  to  modernise  their  spelling,  etc.  (a  venial  sin,  if,  which 
I  am  not  inclined  very  positively  to  lay  down,  it  is  a  sin  at  all), 
but  to  "improve"'  their  style,  sense,  and  sentiment  by  omission, 
alteration,  and  other  tamperings  with  the  text,  so  as  to  give 
the  reader  not  what  Mr.  Felltham  wrote  early  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  but  what  Mr.  Cummings  thought  he  ought  to  have  written 
early  in  the  nineteenth. 

This  chapter  might  easily  be  enlarged,  and  indeed,  as  Dryden 
says,  shame  must  invade  the  breast  of  every  writer  of  literary 
history  on  a  small  scale  who  is  fairly  acquainted  with  his  subject, 
when  he  thinks  how  many  worthy  men — men  much  worthier  tlian 
he  can  himself  ever  pretend  to  be — he  has  perfurce  omitted.  An) 
critic  inclined  U)  find  fault  may  ask  me  where  is  the  ever-memor- 


444  MINOR  CAROTJXE  PROSE  chap,  xii 

able  John  Hales  ?  Where  is  Tom  Coryat,  that  most  egregious 
Odcombian  ?  and  Barnabee  of  the  unforgotten,  though  scandal- 
ous, Itinerary  ?  Where  is  Sir  Thomas  Urquhart,  quaintest  of 
cavaliers,  and  not  least  admirable  of  translators,  who  not  only 
rendered  Rabelais  in  a  style  worthy  of  him,  who  not  only  wrote 
in  sober  seriousness  pamphlets  with  titles,  which  Master  Francis 
could  hardly  have  bettered  in  jest,  but  who  composed  a  pedi- 
gree of  the  Urquhart  family  nominatim  up  to  Noah  and  Adam, 
and  then  improvised  chimney  pieces  in  Cromarty  Castle,  com- 
memorating the  prehistoric  ancestors  whom  he  had  excogitated  ? 
Where  are  the  great  Bishops  from  Andrewes  and  Cosin  onwards, 
and  the  lesser  Theologians  who  wrangled,  and  the  Latitudi- 
narians  who  meditated,  and  the  historians  with  Whitelocke  at 
their  head,  and  the  countless  writers  of  countless  classes  of  books 
who  multiplied  steadily  as  time  went  on  ?  It  can  only  be 
answered  that  they  are  not,  and  that  almost  in  the  nature  of 
things  they  cannot  be  here.  It  is  not  that  they  are  not  intrin- 
sically interesting ;  it  is  not  merely  that,  being  less  intrinsically 
interesting  than  some  of  their  forerunners  or  contemporaries,  they 
must  give  way  when  room  is  limited.  It  is  that  even  if  their 
individual  performance  were  better  than  that  of  earlier  men,  even 
if  there  were  room  and  verge  enough  for  them,  they  would  less 
concern  the  literary  historian.  For  to  him  in  all  cases  the  later 
examples  of  a  style  are  less  important  than  the  earlier,  merely 
because  they  are  late,  because  they  have  had  forerunners  whom, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  they  have  (except  in  the  case  of  a 
great  genius  here  and  there)  imitated,  and  because  as  a  necessary 
consequence  they  fall  into  the  Jiumerus — into  the  gross  as  they 
would  themselves  have  said — who  must  be  represented  only  by 
choice  examples  and  not  enumerated  or  criticised  in  detail. 


CONCLUSION 

A  CONCLUSION,  like  a  preface,  is  perhaps  to  some  extent  an  old- 
fashioned  thing ;  and  it  is  sometimes  held  that  a  writer  does 
better  not  to  sum  up  at  all,  but  to  leave  the  facts  which  he  has 
accumulated  to  make  their  own  way  into  the  intelligence  of  his 
readers.  I  am  not  able  to  accept  this  view  of  the  matter.  In 
dealing  with  such  a  subject  as  that  which  has  been  handled  in  tlic 
foregoing  pages,  it  is  at  least  as  necessary  that  the  writer  should 
have  something  of  ^//i^////^/(?  in  his  mind  as  that  he  should  look 
carefully  into  facts  and  dates  and  names.  And  he  can  give  no 
such  satisfactory  evidence  of  his  having  possessed  this  ensemble^ 
as  a  short  summary  of  what,  in  his  idea,  the  whole  period  looks 
like  when  taken  at  a  bird's-eye  view.  For  he  has  (or  ought  to 
have)  given  the  details  already ;  and  his  summary,  without  in 
the  least  compelling  readers  to  accept  it,  must  give  them  at  least 
some  means  of  judging  wliether  he  has  been  wandering  over  a 
plain  trackless  to  him,  or  has  been  pursuing  with  confidence  a 
well-planned  and  well-laid  road. 

At  the  time  at  which  our  period  begins  (and  which,  though 
psychological  epochs  rarely  coincide  exactly  with  chronological, 
is  sufficiently  coincident  with  the  accession  of  Elizabeth),  it  can- 
not be  said  with  any  precision  that  there  was  an  ICnglish  literature 
at  all.  There  were  eminent  English  writers,  though  perhaps  one 
only  to  whom  the  first  rank  could  even  by  the  utmost  complai- 
sance be  opened  or  allowed,      liut  there  was  no  literature,  in  ilie 


446  CONCLUSION 


sense  of  a  system  of  treating  all  subjects  in  the  vernacular,  accord- 
ing to  methods  more  or  less  decidedly  arranged  and  accepted  by 
a  considerable  tradition  of  skilled  craftsmen.  Something  of  the 
kind  had  partially  existed  in  the  case  of  the  Chaucerian  poetic ; 
but  it  was  an  altogether  isolated  something.  Efforts,  though 
hardly  conscious  ones,  had  been  made  in  the  domain  of  prose  by 
romancers,  such  as  the  practically  unknown  Thomas  Mallory,  by 
sacred  orators  like  Latimer,  by  historians  like  More,  by  a  few 
struggling  miscellaneous  writers.  Men  like  Ascham,  Cheke, 
Wilson,  and  others  had,  perhaps  with  a  little  touch  of  patronage, 
recommended  the  regular  cultivation  of  the  English  tongue ;  and 
immediately  before  the  actual  accession  of  Elizabeth  the  publica- 
tion of  Tottel's  Miscellafiy  had  shown  by  its  collection  of  the  best 
poetical  work  of  the  preceding  half  century  the  extraordinary  effect 
which  a  judicious  xenomania  (if  I  may,  without  scaring  the  purists 
of  language,  borrow  that  useful  word  from  the  late  Karl  Hille- 
brand)  may  produce  on  English.  It  is  to  the  exceptional  fertilising 
power  of  such  influences  on  our  stock  that  we  owe  all  the  marvel- 
lous accomplishments  of  the  English  tongue,  which  in  this  respect 
— itself  at  the  head  of  the  Teutonic  tongues  by  an  almost  un- 
approachable distance — stands  distinguished  with  its  Teutonic 
sisters  generally  from  the  groups  of  languages  with  which  it  is 
most  likely  to  be  contrasted.  Its  literary  power  is  originally  less 
conspicuous  than  that  of  the  Celtic  and  of  the  Latin  stocks ;  the 
lack,  notorious  to  this  day,  of  one  single  original  English  folk-song 
of  really  great  beauty  is  a  rough  and  general  fact  which  is  per- 
fectly borne  out  by  all  other  facts.  But  the  exquisite  folk- 
literature  of  the  Celts  is  absolutely  unable  either  by  itself  or  with 
the  help  of  foreign  admixture  to  arrive  at  complete  literary  perfec- 
tion. And  the  profound  sense  of  form  which  characterises  the 
Latins  is  apparently  accompanied  by  such  a  deficiency  of  origi- 
nality, that  when  any  foreign  model  is  accepted  it  receives  hardly 
any  colour  from  the  native  genius,  and  remains  a  cultivated  exotic. 
The  less  promising  soil  of  Anglo-Saxon  idiom  waited  for  the 
foreign  influences,  ancient  and  modern,  of  the  Renaissance  to  act 


CONCLUSION  447 


upon  it,  and  then  it  produced  a  crop  which  has  dwarfed  all  the 
produce  of  the  modern  world,  and  has  nearly,  if  not  quite,  equalled 
in  perfection,  while  it  has  much  exceeded  in  bulk  and  length  of 
flowering  time,  the  produce  of  Greece. 

The  rush  of  foreign  influences  on  the  England  of  Elizabeth's 
time,  stimulated  alike  by  the  printing  press,  by  religious  move- 
ments, by  the  revival  of  ancient  learning,  and  by  the  habits  of  travel 
and  commerce,  has  not  been  equalled  in  force  and  volume  by 
anything  else  in  history.  But  the  different  influences  of  different 
lanjzuatres  and  countries  worked  with  very  different  force.  To 
the  easier  and  more  generally  known  of  the  classical  tongues 
must  be  assigned  by  far  the  largest  place.  This  was  only  natural 
at  a  time  when  to  the  inherited  and  not  yet  decayed  use  of 
colloquial  and  familiar  Latin  as  the  vehicle  of  business,  of  litera- 
ture, ard  of  almost  everything  that  required  the  committal  of 
written  words  to  paper,  was  added  the  scholarly  study  of  its 
classical  period  from  the  strictly  humanist  point  of  view.  If  we 
could  assign  marks  in  the  competition,  Latin  would  have  to 
receive  nearly  as  many  as  all  its  rivals  put  together;  but  Greek 
would  certainly  not  be  second,  though  it  affected,  especially  in  the 
channel  of  the  Platonic  dialogues,  many  of  the  highest  and  most 
gifted  souls.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  present  period  there  were 
probably  scholars  in  England  who,  whether  their  merely  philological 
attainments  might  or  might  not  pass  muster  now,  were  far  better 
read  in  the  actual  literature  of  the  Greek  classics  than  the  very 
l)hilologists  who  now  disdain  them.  Not  a  few  of  the  chief  matters 
in  (ireek  literature — the  epical  grandeur  of  Ilunicr,  the  tragic 
principles  of  the  three  poets,  and  so  forth — made  themselves,  at 
first  or  second  hand,  deeply  felt.  Hut  on  the  whole  Greek  did 
not  occupy  the  second  place.  That  place  was  occupied  by 
Italian.  It  was  Italy  which  had  touched  the  spring  that  let  loose 
the  poetry  of  Surrey  and  Wyatt ;  Italy  was  the  chief  resort  of 
travelled  I^nglishmen  in  the  susceptible  time  of  youth ;  Italy  jiro- 
vided  in  I'elrarch  (Dante  was  much  less  read)  and  Boccaccio,  in 
.\riosto  and  Tasso,  an  inexhaustible  supjily  of  models,  both  in 


448  CONCLUSION 


prose  and  verse.  Spain  was  only  less  influential  because  Spanish 
literature  was  in  a  much  less  finished  condition  than  Italian, 
and  perhaps  also  because  political  causes  made  tlie  following  of 
Spaniards  seem  almost  unpatriotic.  Yet  the  very  same  causes 
made  the  Spanish  language  itself  familiar  to  far  more  English- 
men than  are  familiar  with  it  now,  though  the  direct  filiation 
of  euphuism  on  Spanish  originals  is  no  doubt  erroneous,  and 
though  the  English  and  Spanish  dramas  evolved  themselves  in 
lines  rather  parallel  than  connected. 

France  and  Germany  were  much  {indeed  infinitely)  less  in- 
fluential, and  the  fact  is  from  some  points  of  view  rather  curious. 
Both  were  much  nearer  to  England  than  Spain  or  Italy ;  there 
was  much  more  frequent  communication  with  both ;  there  was 
at  no  time  really  serious  hostility  with  either ;  and  the  genius  of 
both  languages  was,  the  one  from  one  side,  the  other  from  the 
other,  closely  connected  with  that  of  English.  Yet  in  the  great 
productions  of  our  great  period,  the  influence  of  Germany  is  only 
perceptible  in  some  burlesque  matter,  such  as  Eulenspiegel  and 
Grobianus,  in  the  furnishing  of  a  certain  amount  of  supernatural 
subject-matter  like  the  Faust  legend,  and  in  details  less  important 
still.  French  influence  is  little  greater  ;  a  few  allusions  of  "  E. 
K."  to  Marot  and  Ronsard ;  a  few  translations  and  imitations  by 
Spenser,  Watson,  and  others  ;  the  curious  sonnets  of  Zepheria  ;  a 
slight  echo  of  Rabelais  here  and  there ;  some  adapted  songs  to 
music ;  and  a  translated  play  or  two  on  the  Senecan  model. ^ 

But  France  had  already  exercised  a  mighty  influence  upon 
England ;  and  Germany  had  very  little  influence  to  exercise 
for  centuries.  Putting  aside  all  pre-Chaucerian  influence  which 
may  be  detected,  the  outside  guiding  force  of  literary  English 
literature  (which  was  almost  exclusively  poetry)  had  been  French 
from  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  to  the  last  survivals  of  the 

^  Some,  like  my  friend  Mr.  Lee,  would  demur  to  this,  especially  as  regards 
the  sonnet.  But  Desportes,  the  chief  creditor  alleged,  was  himself  an  in- 
finite borrower  from  the  Italians.  Soothern,  an  early  but  worthless  sonneteer, 
c.  1584,  did  certainly  imitate  the  French, 


CONCLUSION  449 


Scoto-Chaucerian  school  in  Hawes,  Skellon,  and  l>indsay.  True, 
France  had  now  something  else  to  give ;  though  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  her  great  school  coincided  with  rather  than  pre- 
ceded the  great  school  of  England,  that  the  Defense  et  Illustration 
de  la  Langiie  Francaisc  was  but  a  few  years  anterior  to  Tottel's 
Miscellany,  and  that,  except  Marot  and  Rabelais  {neither  of 
whom  was  neglected,  though  neither  exercised  much  formal  in- 
lluence),  the  earlier  French  writers  of  the  sixteentli  century  had 
nothing  to  teach  England.  On  the  other  hand,  Germany  was 
utterly  unable  to  supply  anything  in  the  way  of  instruction  in 
literary  form  ;  and  it  was  instruction  in  literary  form  which  was 
needed  to  set  the  beanstalk  of  English  literature  growing  even 
unto  the  heavens.  Despite  the  immense  advantage  which  the 
]"'nglish  adoption  of  German  innovations  in  religion  gave  the 
country  of  Luther,  that  country's  backwardness  made  imitation 
impossible.  Luther  himself  had  not  elaborated  anything  like  a 
German  style ;  he  had  simi>ly  cleared  the  vernacular  of  some  of 
its  grossest  stumbling-blocks  and  started  a  good  plain  fixshion  of 
sentence.  That  was  not  what  England  wanted  or  was  likely  to 
want,  but  a  far  higher  literary  instruction,  which  Germany  could 
not  give  her  and  (for  the  matter  of  that)  has  never  been  in  a 
position  to  give  her.  The  models  which  she  sought  had  to  be 
sought  elsewhere,  in  Athens,  in  old  Rome,  in  modern  Tuscany. 

But  it  would  probably  be  unwise  not  to  make  allowance  for  a 
less  commonplace  and  more  "  metaphysical"  explanation.  It  was 
precisely  because  French  and  German  had  certain  affinities  wiih 
l^nglish,  while  Italian  and  Spanish,  not  to  mention  the  classical 
tongues,  were  strange  and  exotic,  that  the  influence  of  the  latter 
group  was  preferred.  The  craving  for  something  not  flimiliar, 
for  something  new  and  strange,  is  well  known  enough  in  the 
individual ;  and  nations  are,  after  all,  only  aggregates  of  indi- 
viduals. It  was  exactly  because  the  models  of  the  south  were  so 
utterly  divided  from  the  isolated  Briton  in  style  and  character 
that  he  took  so  kindly  to  them,  and  that  their  study  inspired  him 
so  well.  There  were  not,  indeed,  wanting  signs  of  what  mischief 
11  2  G 


450  CONCLUSION 


might  have  been  done  if  Enghsh  sense  had  been  less  robust  and 
the  English  genius  of  a  less  stubborn  idiosyncrasy.  Euphuism, 
the  occasional  practice  of  the  Senecan  drama,  the  preposterous 
and  almost  incredible  experiments  in  classical  metre  of  men  not 
merely  like  Drant  and  Harvey,  but  like  Sidney  and  Spenser, 
were  sufificiently  striking  symptoms  of  the  ferment  which  was 
going  on  in  the  literary  constitution  of  the  country.  But  they 
were  only  harmless  heat-rashes,  not  malignant  distempers,  and 
the  spirit  of  England  won  through  them,  with  no  loss  of  general 
health,  probably  with  the  result  of  the  healthy  excretion  of  many 
peccant  humours  which  might  have  been  mischievous  if  driven 
in.  Even  the  strongest  of  all  the  foreign  forces,  the  just  admira- 
tion of  the  masterpieces  of  classical  antiquity,  was  not  in  any  way 
hurtful ;  and  it  is  curious  enough  that  it  is  only  in  what  may  be 
called  the  autumn  and,  comparatively  speaking,  the  decadence  of 
the  period  that  anything  that  can  be  called  pedantry  is  observed. 
It  is  in  Milton  and  Browne,  not  in  Shakespere  and  Hooker,  that 
there  is  an  appearance  of  undue  domination  and  "  obsession " 
by  the  classics. 

The  subdivisions  of  the  period  in  which  these  purely  literary 
influences  worked  in  combination  with  those  of  the  domestic  and 
foreign  policy  of  England  (on  which  it  is  unnecessary  here  to  dilate), 
can  be  drawn  with  tolerable  precision.  They  are  both  better 
marked  and  more  important  in  verse  than  in  prose.  For  it  can- 
not be  too  often  asserted  that  the  age,  in  the  wide  sense,  was, 
despite  many  notable  achievements  in  the  sermo  pedestris,  not  an 
age  of  prose  but  an  age  of  poetry.  The  first  period  extends  (tak- 
ing literary  dates)  from  the  publication  of  Tottel's  Miscellany  to 
that  of  The  Shepherd'' s  Calenda?-.  It  is  not  distinguished  by  much 
production  of  positive  value.  In  poetry  proper  the  writers  pur- 
sue and  exercise  themselves  upon  the  track  of  Surrey,  Wyatt,  and 
the  other  authors  whom  Grimoald,  or  some  other,  collected; 
acquiring,  no  doubt,  a  certain  facility  in  the  adjustment  to  iambic 
and  other  measures  of  the  altered  pronunciation  since  Chaucer's 
time ;  practising  new  combinations  in  stanza,   but  inclining  too 


CONCLUSION  451 


much  to  the  doggerel  Alexandrines  and  fourteeners  (more  dog- 
gerel still  when  chance  or  design  divided  them  into  eights  and 
sixes) ;   repeating,   without    much   variation,   images  and  phrases 
directly  borrowed  from  foreign  models  ;  and  displaying,  on  the 
whole,  a  singular  lack  of  inspiration  which  half  excuses  the  mis- 
taken attempt  of  the  younger  of  them,  and  of  their  immediate 
successors,  to  arrive  at  the  desired  poetical  medium  by  the  use  of 
classical  metres.      Among  men  actually  living  and  writing  at  this 
time  Lord  Buckhurst  alone  displays  a  real  poetical  faculty.      Nor 
is  the  case  much  better  in  respect  of  drama,  though  here  the 
restless  variety  of  tentative  displays  even  more  clearly  the  vigor- 
ous   life    which    underlay   incomplete    performance,   and    which 
promised  better  things  shortly.     The  attempt  of  GorboJuc  and 
a  few  other  plays  to  naturalise  the  artificial  tragedy,  though  a 
failure,  was  one  of  those  failures  which,  in  the  great  literary  "  rule 
of  false,"  help  the  way  to  success  ;  the  example  of  Ralph  Roister 
Doister  and  Gammer  Giirtotis  Needle  could  not  fail  to  stimulate 
the  production  of  genuine  native  farce  which  might  any  day  be- 
come la  bonne  comedie.      And  even  the  continued  composition  of 
Moralities  showed  signs  of  the  growing  desire  for  life  and  indi- 
viduality of  character.       Moreover,    the   intense   and   increasing 
liking   for  the  theatre  in  all  classes  of  society,  despite  the  dis- 
couragement of  the  authorities,  the  miserable  reward  offered  to 
actors  and  jtlaywrights,   and   the  discredit  which  rested  on  tlie 
vocations  of  both,  was  c  crtain   in  the  ordinary  course  of  things 
to  improve  the  supply.      The  third  division  of  literature  made 
slower  progress  under  less  powerful  stimulants.      No  emulation, 
like  that  which  tempted  the  individual  graduate  or  templar  to 
rival  Surrey  in  addressing  his  mistress's  eyebrow,  or  Sackville  in 
stately  rhyming  on  English  history,  acted  on  the  writers  of  prose. 
No  public  demand,  like  that  which  produced  the  few  known  and 
the  hundred  forgotten  playwrights  of  the  first  half  of  ICIizabeth's 
reign,  served  as  a  hotbed.      Hut  it  is  the  great  secret  of  prose 
that    it    can    dispense    with    such    stimulants.       I-Aerj'body   who 
wished  to  make  his  thoughts   known   began,  with  the  help  of  the 


452  CONCLUSION 


printing  press,  to  make  them  known  ;  and  the  informal  use  of 
the  vernacular,  by  dint  of  this  unconscious  practice  and  of  tlie 
growing  scholarship  both  of  writers  and  readers,  tended  insen- 
sibly to  make  itself  less  of  a  mere  written  conversation  and  more 
of  a  finished  prose  style.  Preaching  in  English,  the  prose  pam- 
phlet, and  translations  into  the  vernacular  were,  no  doubt,  the 
three  great  schoolmasters  in  the  disciplining  of  English  prose. 
But  by  degrees  all  classes  of  subjects  were  treated  in  the  natural 
manner,  and  so  the  various  subdivisions  of  prose  style— ora- 
torical, narrative,  expository,  and  the  rest — slowly  evolved  and 
separated  themselves,  though  hardly,  even  at  the  close  of  the 
time,  had  they  attained  the  condition  of  finish. 

The  year  1580  may  be  fixed  on  with  almost  mathematical 
accuracy  as  the  date  at  which  the  great  generation  of  Elizabethan 
writers  first  showed  its  hand  with  Lyly's  Euphucs  in  prose  and 
Spenser's  Shepherd's  Calendar  in  verse.  Drama  was  a  little, 
but  not  more  than  a  little,  later  in  showing  the  same  signs  of 
rejuvenescence  ;  and  from  that  time  forward  till  the  end  of  the 
century  not  a  year  passed  without  the  appearance  of  some 
memorable  work  or  writer ;  while  the  total  production  of  the 
twenty  years  exceeds  in  originality  and  force,  if  not  always  in 
artistic  perfection  of  form,  the  production  of  any  similar  period 
in  the  world's  history.  The  group  of  University  Wits,  following 
the  example  of  Lyly  (who,  however,  in  drama  hardly  belongs  to 
the  most  original  school),  started  the  dramas  of  history,  of 
romance,  of  domestic  life  ;  and,  by  fashioning  through  their 
leader  Marlowe  the  tragic  decasyllabic,  put  into  the  hands  of  the 
still  greater  group  who  succeeded  them  an  instrument,  the  power 
of  which  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate.  Before  the  close  of  the 
century  they  had  themselves  all  ceased  their  stormy  careers ;  but 
Shakespere  was  in  the  full  swing  of  his  activity;  Ben  Jonson 
had  achieved  the  freshest  and  perhaps  capital  fruit  of  his  study  of 
humours  ;  Dekker,  Webster,  Middleton,  Chapman,  and  a  crowd  of 
lesser  writers  had  followed  in  his  steps.  In  poetry  proper  the  mag- 
nificent success  of  The  Faerie  Queene  had  in  one  sense  no  second  \ 


CONCLUSION  453 


but  it  was  surrounded  with  a  crowd  of  productions  hardly  inferior 
in  their  own  way,  the*  chief  being  the  result  of  the  great  and 
remarkable  sonnet  outburst  of  the  last  decade  of  the  century. 
The  doggerel  of  the  earlier  years  had  almost  entirely  disappeared, 
and  in  its  place  appeared  the  perfect  concerted  music  of  the 
stanzas  (from  the  sonnet  and  the  Spenserian  downwards),  the 
infinite  variety  of  the  decasyllabic,  and  the  exquisite  lyric  snatches 
of  song  in  the  dramatists,  pamphleteers,  and  music-book  writers. 
Following  the  general  law  already  indicated,  the  formal  advance 
in  prose  was  less,  but  an  enormous  stride  was  made  in  the  direc- 
tion of  applying  it  to  its  various  uses.  The  theologians,  with 
Hooker  at  their  head,  produced  almost  the  first  examples  of  the 
measured  and  dignified  treatment  of  argument  and  exposition. 
Bacon  (towards  the  latter  end  it  is  true)  produced  the  earliest 
specimens  of  his  singular  mixture  of  gravity  and  fancy,  pregnant 
thought  and  quaint  expression.  History  in  the  proper  sense  was 
hardly  written,  but  a  score  of  chroniclers,  some  not  deficient  in 
narrative  power,  paved  the  way  for  future  historians.  In  imagina- 
tive and  miscellaneous  literature  the  fantastic  extravagances  of 
Lyly  seemed  as  though  they  might  have  an  evil  effect.  In  reality 
they  only  spurred  ingenious  souls  on  to  effort  in  refining  prose, 
and  in  one  particular  direction  they  had  a  most  unlooked  for 
result.  The  imitation  in  little  by  Greene,  Lodge,  and  others,  of 
their  long-winded  graces,  helped  to  popularise  the  pamphlet,  and 
the  popularisation  of  the  pamphlet  led  the  way  to  periodical 
writing — an  introduction  jjerhaps  of  doubtful  value  in  itself, 
but  certainly  a  matter  of  no  small  importance  in  the  history  of 
literature.  And  so  by  degrees  professional  men  of  letters  arose — 
men  of  letters,  professional  in  a  sense,  which  had  not  existed 
since  the  days  of  the  travelling  Jongleurs  of  the  early  Middle 
Ages.  These  men,  by  working  for  the  actors  in  drama,  or  by 
working  for  the  publishers  in  the  prose  and  verse  pamphlet  (for 
the  latter  form  still  held  its  ground),  earned  a  subsistence  which 
would  seem  scjmetinies  to  have  been  not  a  mere  i)ittanrc,  and 
which  at  any  rate,  when  folly  and  vice  did  not  dissipate  it,  kept 


454  CONCLUSION 

'1 
them  alive.      Much  nonsense  no  doubt  has  been  talked  about 

the  Fourth  Estate ;  but  such  as  it  is,  for  good  or  for  bad,  it  prac- 
tically came  into  existence  in  these  prolific  years.  ,4 

The  third  period,  that  of  vigorous  manhood,  may  be  said  to 
coincide  roughly  with  the  reign  of  James  I.,  though  if  literary 
rather  than  political  dates  be  preferred,  it  might  be  made  to 
begin  with  the  death  of  Spenser  in  1599,  and  to  end  with  the 
damnation  of  Ben  Jonson's  New  Inn  just  thirty  years  later.  In 
the  whole  of  this  period  till  the  very  last  there  is  no  other  sign  of 
decadence  than  the  gradual  dropping  off  in  the  course  of  nature 
of  the  great  men  of  the  preceding  stage,  not  a  few  of  whom, 
however,  survived  into  the  next,  while  the  places  of  those  who  fell 
were  taken  in  some  cases  by  others  hardly  below  the  greatest,  such 
as  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  Many  of  the  very  greatest  works  of 
what  is  generally  known  as  the  Elizabethan  era — the  later  dramas 
of  Shakespere,  almost  the  whole  work  of  Ben  Jonson,  the  later 
poems  of  Drayton,  Daniel,  and  Chapman,  the  plays  of  Webster 
and  Middleton,  and  the  prose  of  Raleigh,  the  best  work  of 
Bacon,  the  poetry  of  Browne  and  Wither — date  from  this  time, 
while  the  astonishingly  various  and  excellent  work  of  the  two 
great  dramatists  above  mentioned  is  wholly  comprised  within  it. 
And  not  only  is  there  no  sign  of  weakening,  but  there  is  hardly  a 
sign  of  change.  A  slight,  though  only  a  slight,  depression  of  the 
imaginative  and  moral  tone  may  be  noticed  or  fancied  in  those  who, 
like  Fletcher,  are  wholly  of  the  period,  and  a  certain  improvement  in 
general  technical  execution  testifies  to  longer  practice.  But  Webster 
might  as  well  have  written  years  earlier  (hardly  so  well  years  later) 
than  he  actually  did  ;  and  especially  in  the  case  of  numerous 
anonymous  or  single  works,  the  date  of  which,  or  at  least  of  their 
composition,  is  obscure,  it  is  very  difficult  from  internal  evidence 
of  style  and  sentiment  to  assign  them  to  one  date  rather  than  to 
another,  to  the  last  part  of  the  strictly  Elizabethan  or  the  first 
part  of  the  strictly  Jacobean  period.  Were  it  not  for  the  occasional 
imitation  of  models,  the  occasional  reference  to  dated  facts,  it 
would  be  not  so  much  difficult  as  impossible.      If  there  seems  to 


CONCLUSION  455 


be  less  audacity  of  experiment,  less  of  the  fire  of  youth,  less  of 
the  unrestrainable  restlessness  of  genius  eager  to  burst  its  way, 
that,  as  has  been  already  remarked  of  another  difference,  may  not 
improbably  be  mainly  due  to  fancy,  and  to  the  knowledge  that 
the  later  efforts  actually  were  later  as  to  anything  else.  In  prose 
more  j^articularly  there  is  no  change  whatever.  Few  new  experi- 
ments in  style  were  tried,  unless  the  Characters  of  Overbury  and 
Earle  may  be  called  such.  The  miscellaneous  pamphlets  of  the 
time  were  written  in  much  the  same  fashion,  and  in  some  cases 
by  the  same  men,  as  when,  forty  years  before  Jonson  summoned 
himself  to  "  tjuit  the  loathed  stage,"  Nash  had  alternately  laughed 
at  Gabriel  Harvey,  and  savagely  lashed  the  ^^artinists.  The 
graver  writers  certainly  had  not  improved  upon,  and  had  not 
greatly  changed,  the  style  in  which  Hooker  broke  his  lance  with 
Travers,  or  descanted  on  the  sanctity  of  law.  The  humour-comedy 
of  Jonson,  the  romantic  drame  of  Fletcher,  witii  the  marmoreally- 
finished  minor  jjoems  of  lien,  were  the  nearest  approaches  of 
any  product  of  the  time  to  novelty  of  general  stylo,  and  all  three 
were  destined  to  be  constantly  imitated,  though  only  in  the  last 
case  with  much  real  success,  during  the  rest  of  our  present  period. 
Vet  the  post- Restoration  comedy  is  almost  as  much  due  to 
Jonson  and  Fletcher  as  to  foreign  models,  and  the  influence  of 
both,  after  long  failing  to  produce  anything  of  merit,  was  not  im- 
perceptible even  in  Congreve  and  Vanbrugh. 

Of  the  fourth  period,  which  practically  covers  the  reign  of 
Charles  I.  and  the  interregnum  of  the  CommonweaUli,  no 
one  can  say  that  it  shows  no  signs  of  decadence,  when  the 
meaning  of  that  word  is  calculated  according  to  the  cautions 
given  ab(jve  in  noticing  its  poets.  Yet  the  decadence  is  not 
at  all  i){  the  kind  whif:h  announces  a  long  literary  dead 
sea.son,  but  only  of  that  which  shows  that  the  old  order  is 
changing  to  a  new.  Nor  if  regard  be  merely  had  to  the  great 
names  which  adorn  the  time,  may  it  seem  pnjper  to  use  the 
word  decadence  at  all.  To  tliis  period  belong  not  only  Milton, 
but    Taylor,    lirowne,   Clarendon,    Hobbcs    (four  of  the  greatest 


456  CONCLUSION 


names  in  English  prose),  the  strange  union  of  learning  in  matter 
and  quaintness  in  form  which  characterises  Fuller  and  Burton, 
the  great  dramatic  work  of  Massinger  and  Ford.  To  it  also  be- 
longs the  exquisite  if  sometimes  artificial  school  of  poetry  which 
grew  up  under  the  joint  inspiration  of  the  great  personal  influence 
and  important  printed  work  of  Ben  Jonson  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  subtler  but  even  more  penetrating  stimulant  of  the  unpub- 
lished poetry  of  Donne  on  the  other — a  school  which  has  pro- 
duced lyrical  work  not  surpassed  by  that  of  any  other  school  or 
time,  and  which,  in  some  specially  poetical  characteristics,  may 
claim  to  stand  alone. 

If,  then,  we  speak  of  decadence,  it  is  necessary  to  describe 
with  some  precision  what  is  meant,  and  to  do  so  is  not  difficult, 
for  the  signs  of  it  are  evident,  not  merely  in  the  rank  and  file  of 
writers  (though  they  are  naturally  most  prominent  here),  but  to 
some  extent  in  the  great  illustrations  of  the  period  themselves. 
In  even  the  very  best  work  of  the  time  there  is  a  want  of  the  pecu- 
liar freshness  and  spontaneity,  as  of  spring  water  from  the  rock, 
which  characterises  earlier  work.  The  art  is  constantly  admirable, 
but  it  is  almost  obtrusively  art — a  proposition  which  is  universally 
true  even  of  the  greatest  name  of  the  time,  of  Milton,  and  which 
applies  equally  to  Taylor  and  to  Browne,  to  Massinger  and  to  Ford, 
sometimes  even  to  Herrick  (extraordinary  as  is  the  grace  which  he 
manages  to  impart),  and  almost  always  to  Carew.  The  lamp  is 
seldom  far  off,  though  its  odour  may  be  the  reverse  of  disagreeable. 
But  in  the  work  which  is  not  quite  so  excellent,  other  symptoms 
appear  which  are  as  decisive  and  less  tolerable.  In  the  poetry 
of  the  time  there  appear,  side  by  side  with  much  exquisite 
melody  and  much  priceless  thought,  the  strangest  blotches,  already 
more  than  once  noticed,  of  doggerel,  of  conceits  pushed  to  the 
verge  of  nonsense  and  over  the  verge  of  grotesque,  of  bad 
rhyme  and  bad  rhythm  which  are  evidently  not  the  result  of 
mere  haste  and  creative  enthusiasm  but  of  absolutely  .defective 
ear,  of  a  waning  sense  of  harmony.  In  the  drama  things  are  much 
worse.      Only  the   two    dramatists  already   mentioned,   with  the 


CONCLUSION  457 


doubtful  addition  of  Shirley,  (jisplay  anything  like  great  or  original 
talent.  A  few  clever  playwrights  do  their  journey-work  with 
creditable  craftsmanship.  But  even  this  characteristic  is  wanting 
in  the  majority.  The  plots  relapse  into  a  chaos  almost  as  great 
as  that  of  the  drama  of  fifty  years  earlier,  but  with  none  of  its 
excuse  of  inexperience  and  of  redeeming  purple  patches.  The 
characters  are  at  once  uninteresting  and  unpleasant ;  the  measure 
hobbles  and  staggers ;  the  dialogue  varies  between  passages  of 
dull  declamation  and  passages  of  almost  duller  repartee.  Per- 
haps, though  the  prose  names  of  the  time  are  greater  than  those 
of  its  dramatists,  or,  excluding  Milton's,  of  its  poets,  the  signs  of 
something  wrong  are  clearest  in  prose.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
find  in  any  good  prose  writer  between  1580  and  1625  the  shame- 
less anomalies  of  arrangement,  the  clumsy  distortions  of  grammar, 
which  the  very  greatest  Caroline  writers  permit  themselves  in  the 
intervals,  and  sometimes  in  the  very  course  of  their  splendid 
eloquence  ;  while,  as  for  lesser  men,  the  famous  incoherences  of 
Cromwell's  speeches  are  hardly  more  than  a  caricature  of  the 
custom  of  the  day. 

Something  has  yet  to  be  said  as  to  the  general  characteristics 
of  this  time — characteristics  which,  scarcely  discernible  in  the 
first  period,  yet  even  there  to  be  traced  in  such  work  as  that  of 
Surrey  and  Sackville,  emerge  into  full  prominence  in  the  next, 
continue  with  hardly  any  loss  in  the  third,  and  are  discernible 
even  in  the  "  decadence  "  of  the  fourth.  Even  yet  they  are  not 
universally  recognised,  and  it  appears  to  be  sometimes  thought  that 
because  critics  speak  with  enthusiasm  of  periods  in  which,  save  at 
rare  intervals,  and  as  it  were  by  accident,  they  are  not  discern- 
ible at  all,  such  critics  are  insensible  to  them  where  they  occur. 
Never  was  there  a  grosser  mistake.  It  is  said  that  M.  Taine,  in 
private  conversation,  once  said  to  a  literary  novice  who  rashly 
asked  him  whether  he  liked  this  or  that,  "  Monsieur,  en  littera- 
ture  j'aime  tout."  It  was  a  noble  and  correct  sentiment,  though 
it  might  be  a  little  difficult  for  the  particular  critic  wlio  formulated 
it  to  make  good  his  claim  to  it  as  a  motto.     The  ideal  critic  un- 


458  CONCLUSION 


doubtedly  does  like  everything  in  literature,  provided  that  it  is 
good  of  its  kind.      He  likes  the  unsophisticated  tentatives  of  the 
earliest  minstrel  poetry,  and  the  cultivated  perfection  of  form  of 
Racine  and  Pope ;  he  likes  the  massive  vigour  of  the  French  and 
English   sixteenth   centuries,   and   the  alembicated  exquisiteness 
of  Catullus  and  Carew ;    he  does  not  dislike  Webster  because 
he  is  not  Dryden,   or  Young   because   he   is   not   Spenser ;    he 
does  not  quarrel  with  Sophocles  because  he  is  not  ^Eschylus,  or 
with  Hugo   because   he   is  not   Heine.      But  at  the  same  time 
it  is  impossible  for  him  not  to  recognise  that  there  are  certain 
periods  where  inspiration  and  accomplishment  meet  in  a  fashion 
which  may  be  sought  for  in  vain  at  others.     These  are  the  great 
periods  of  literature,  and  there  are  perhaps  only  five  of  them, 
with  five  others  which  may  be  said  to  be  almost  level.     The  five 
first  are  the  great  age  of  Greek  literature  from  ^schylus  to  Plato, 
the  great  ages  of  English  and  French  literature  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  the  whole   range  of  Italian  literature 
from  Dante  to  Ariosto,  and  the  second  great  age  of  English  from 
the  Lyrical  Ballads  to  the  death  of  Coleridge.     It  is  the  super- 
eminent  glory  of  English  that  it  counts  twice  in  the  reckoning. 
The  five  seconds  are  the  Augustan  age  of  Latin,  the  short  but 
brilliant  period  of  Spanish  literary  development,   the  Romantic 
era  in  France,  the  age  of  Goethe  in  Germany,  including  Heine's 
earlier  and  best   work,  and   (with   difficulty,  and   by  allowance 
chiefly  of  Swift  and  Dryden)  the  half  century  from  the  appearance 
of  Absalotn  ami  Achitophel  to  the  appearance  of  Gulliver  and  The 
Dunciad  in  England.      Out  of  these  there  are  great  men  but  no 
great  periods,  and  the  first  class  is  distinguished  from  the  second, 
not   so   much   by   the   fact   that   almost  all  the  greatest  literary 
names  of  the  world  are  found   in  it,  as   because   it  is  evident 
to  a  careful  reader   that   there  was   more  of  the  general  spirit 
of  poetry  and   of  literature   diffused  in  human  brains  at  these 
times   than    at   any   other.       It    has   been   said  more  than  once 
that    English    Elizabethan    literature    may,    and    not    merely   in 
virtue  of  Shakespere,  claim  the  first   place  even  among  the  first 


CONCLUSION  459 


class.      The  full  justification  of  this  assertion  could  only  be  given 
by  actually  going  through  the  whole  range  of  the  literature,  book 
in  hand.     The  foregoing  pages  have  given  it  as  it  were  in  /;vV/V, 
rather  than  in  any  fuller  fashion.     And  it  has  been  thought  bettor 
to  devote  some  of  the  space  permitted  to  extract  as  the  only  pos- 
sible substitute  for  this  continual  book-in-hand  exemplification. 
Many  subjects  which  might  properly  form  the  subject  of  excursus 
in  a  larger  history  have  been  perforce  omitted,  the  object  being  to 
give,  not  a  scries  of  interesting  essays  on  detached  ix)ints,  but  a  con- 
spectus of  the  actual  literary  progress  and  accomplishment  of  the 
centur)-,  from  1557  to  1660.      Such  essays  exist  already  in  great 
numbers,  though   some  no  doubt  are  yet  to  write.     The  extra- 
ordinary influence  of  Plato,  or  at  least  of  a  more  or  less  indistinctly 
understood  Platonism,  on  many  of  the  finer  minds  of  the  earlier 
and  middle  period,  is  a  very  interesting  point,  and  it  has  been 
plausibly  connected  with  the  fact  that  Giordano  Bruno  was  for 
some  years  a  resident  in  England,  and  was  acquainted  with  the 
Greville-Sidney  circle  at  the  ver)'  time  that  that  circle  was  almost 
the  cradle  of  the  new  English  literature.      The  stimulus  given  not 
merely  by  the  popular  fancy  for  rough  dramatic  entertainments, 
but  by  the  taste  of  courts  and  rich  nobles  for  masques — a  taste 
which  favoured  the  composition  of  such  exquisite  literature  as 
Ben  Jonson's  and  Milton's  masterpieces — is  another  side  subject 
of  the  same  kind.      I  do  not  know  that,  much  as  has  been  written 
on  the  Reformation,  the  direct  influence  of  the  form  which  the 
Reformation  took  in  England  on  the  growth  of  English  literature 
has  ever  been  estimated  and  summarised  fully  and  yet  briefly, 
so   as  to   show  the   contrast  between   the   distinctly  anti-literary 
character   of  most   of  the   foreign    Protestant    and   the   English 
Puritan  movement  on  the  one  side,  and  the  literary  tendencies  of 
Anglicanism  on  the  other.     The  origins  of  Euphuism  and  of  that 
later  form  of  preciousness  which  is  sometimes  called  Gongorism 
and  sometimes  Marinism  have  been  much  discussed,  but  the  last 
word  has  certainly  nol   been   said   on   them.      For  these   things, 
however  (which  are  merely  (|uoted  as  examples  of  a  very  numer- 


46o  CONCLUSION 


ous  class),  there  could  be  found  no  place  here  without  excluding 
other  things  more  centrally  necessary  to  the  unfolding  of  the 
history.  And  therefore  I  may  leave  what  I  have  written  with  a 
short  final  indication  of  what  seems  to  me  the  distinguishing  mark 
of  Elizabethan  literature.  That  mark  is  not  merely  the  presence 
of  individual  works  of  the  greatest  excellence,  but  the  diffusion 
throughout  the  whole  work  of  the  time  of  a  vivida  vis,  of  flashes 
of  beauty  in  prose  and  verse,  which  hardly  any  other  period  can 
show.  Let  us  open  one  of  the  songbooks  of  the  time,  Dowland's 
Second  Book  of  Airs,  published  in  the  central  year  of  our  period, 
1600,  and  reprinted  by  Mr.  Arber.  Here  almost  at  random  we 
hit  upon  this  snatch — 

'•'  Come  ye  heavy  states  of  night, 
Do  my  father's  spirit  right ; 
Soundings  baleful  let  me  borrow, 
Burthening  my  song  with  sorrow  : 
Come  sorrow,  come  !     Her  eyes  that  sings 
By  thee,  are  turned  into  springs. 

"  Come  you  Virgins  of  the  night 
That  in  dirges  sad  delight, 
Quire  my  anthems  ;  I  do  borrow 
Gold  nor  pearl,  but  sounds  of  sorrow. 
Come  sorrow,  come  !     Her  eyes  that  sings 
By  thee,  are  turned  into  springs." 

It  does  not  matter  who  wrote  that — the  point  is  its  occurrence  in 
an  ordinary  collection  of  songs  to  music  neither  better  nor  worse 
than  many  others.  When  we  read  such  verses  as  this,  or  as  the 
still  more  charming  Address  to  Love  given  on  page  122,  there  is 
evident  at  once  the  Jio?i  so  c/ie  which  distinguishes  this  period. 
There  is  a  famous  story  of  a  good-natured  conversation  between 
Scott  and  Moore  in  the  latter  days  of  Sir  Walter,  in  which 
the  two  poets  agreed  that  verse  which  would  have  made  a  fortune 
in  their  young  days  appeared  constantly  in  magazines  without 
being  much  regarded  in  their  age.  No  sensible  person  will  mis- 
take the  meaning  of  the  apparent  praise.  It  meant  that  thirty 
years   of  remarkable   original   production  and  of  much  study  of 


CONCLUSION  461 


models  had  made  possible  and  common  a  standard  of  formal 
merit  which  was  very  rare  at  an  earlier  time.  Now  this  standard 
of  formal  merit  undoubtedly  did  not  generally  exist  in  the  days 
of  Elizabeth.  But  what  did  generally  exist  was  the  "  wind  blowing 
where  it  listeth,"  the  presence  and  the  influence  of  which  are 
least  likely  to  be  mistaken  or  denied  by  those  who  are  most 
strenuous  in  insisting  on  the  importance  and  the  necessity  of 
formal  excellence  itself  I  once  undertook  for  several  years  the 
criticism  of  minor  poe*^ry  for  a  literary  journal,  which  gave  more 
room  than  most  to  such  things,  and  during  the  time  I  think  I 
must  have  read  through  or  looked  over  probably  not  much  less 
than  a  thousand,  certainly  not  less  than  five  or  six  hundred 
volumes.  I  am  speaking  with  seriousness  when  I  say  that  nothing 
like  the  note  of  the  merely  casual  pieces  quoted  or  referred  to 
above  was  to  be  detected  in  more  than  at  the  outside  two  or  three 
of  these  volumes,  and  that  where  it  seemed  to  sound  faintly  some 
second  volume  of  the  same  author's  almost  always  came  to  smother 
it  soon  after.  There  was  plenty  of  quite  respectable  poetic 
learning  :  next  to  nothing  of  the  poetic  spirit.  Now  in  the  period 
dealt  with  in  this  volume  that  spirit  is  everywhere,  and  so  are  its 
sisters,  the  spirits  of  drama  and  of  prose.  They  may  appear  in 
full  concentration  and  lustre,  as  in  Hamlet  or  The  Faerie  Queene ; 
or  in  fitful  and  intermittent  flashes,  as  in  scores  and  hundreds  of 
sonneteers,  pamphleteers,  playwrights,  madrigalists,  preachers.  But 
they  are  always  not  far  off".  In  reading  other  literatures  a  man 
may  lose  little  by  obeying  the  advice  of  those  who  tell  him  only 
to  read  the  best  things  :  in  reading  Elizabethan  literature  by 
obeying  he  can  only  disobey  that  advice,  for  the  best  things  are 
everywhere.' 

'  In  the  twenty  years  which  liave  passed  since  this  Ijook  was  first  published, 
monographs  on  most  <jf  the  points  indicated  on  p.  459  have  aiipcarcd,  Ixjth  in 
Engbnd  and  America. 


INDEX 


L— BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 

Single  pla>-s,  poems,  etc.,  not  mentioned  in  this  Index  will  be  found  in  the  collections  referred 
to  under  the  headings  Arber,  Bullen,  Farmer,  Grosart,  Hazlitt,  Park,  Simpson. 

Alexander,  Sir  William.     See  Stirling. 

Arber,  E. ,  English  Gamer,  vols,   i.-viii.,  Birmingham  and  London,  1877-96. 

Also  new  editions  in  redistributed  volumes  by  Lee,  Collins,  and  others. 
Ascham,  Roger,  To.xophilus.      Ed.  Arber,  London,  1868. 

The  Schoolmaster.      Ed.  Arber,  London,  1870. 

Works.      Ed.  Giles,  4  vols. ,  London,  1865. 

Bacon,  Francis,  Works  of.      3  vols,  folio,  London,  1753. 

Barnabee's  Journal.      By  R.  Braithwaite.      Ed.  Haslewood  and  Hazlitt,  London, 

1876. 
Barnes,     Barnabe,     Parthenophil    and     Parthenophe.      In    Gosarts    Occasional 
Issues,  vol.  i. 
The  Devils  Charter.      Exl.  M'Kerrow,  Louvain. 
fiamfield,  Richard,  Poems.      Ed.  Arber,  Birmingham,  1882. 
Basse,  William,  Poems  of.      Ed.  Bond,  London,  1893. 
Beaumont,  Francis,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  vi. 
Beaumont,  Sir  John,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  vi. 
Beaumont,  Joseph,  Poems  of.      Ed.  Grosart,  2  vols.      Privately  printed,  1880. 
lieaumont  and  Fletcher,  Dramatic  Works  of.      10  vols.,  London,  1750.     2  vols., 
Ed.    Darley,    London,    1859.      11  vols.,  Ed.   Dyce,  London,  1843.      Two 
new  editions  in  progress  now  (1907) — one  Ed.  Bullen,  London,  the  other 
Ed.  Waller,  ("ambridge. 
lienlowes,  F-dward,  Theophila.      In  Minor  Caroline  Poets,  vol.  i. ,  Oxford,  1905. 
Bible.      The  Holy  Bible,  Authorised  Version,  O-xford,  185 1. 

Revised  Version,  O.xford,   1885. 
Breton,  Nicholas,  Works  of.      Ed.  Grosart,  2  vols.      Privately  printed,  1879. 
Brome,  Alexander,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  Poets,  vol.  vi. 
Brome,  Richard,  Plays  of.      3  vols. ,  London,  1873. 
Brooke,    Fulke   Greville,    Lord,    Works    of.      Ed.    Grosart,    4    vols.      Privately 

printed,  1870. 
Browne,  .Sir  Thomas,  Works  of.      Fxl.  Wilkin,  3  vols. ,  London,  1880. 

Keligio  Medici.      Ed.  (Jrctnhill,  London,   1881. 
Browne,  \N'illiain,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  vi. 
Alio  2  vols.      F-d.  Hazlitt,  London,   1868. 
Alio  lid.  Gootlwin,  2  vols.,  London,  1894. 


464  INDEX— BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 


BuUeu,  A.  H.,  Old  "Plays,  4  vols. ,  London,  1882-85. 

Ditto,  New  Series.      Vols.  i.  ii.  iii. ,  London,  1887-90. 

Lyrics  from   Elizabethan  Song-books,   2  vols.,  1887-88.      Ditto,  Romances, 
1890.      Ditto,  Dramatists,  1890. 

Speculum  Amantis,  1891. 

Davison's  Poetical  Rhapsody,  2  vols.,  1891. 

England's  Helicon.      London,  1887. 

Arden  of  Feversham.      London,  1887. 
Burton,  Robert,  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy.      2  vols. ,  London,  1821. 

Carey,  Patrick.      In  Minor  Caroline  Poets,  vol.  ii. ,  Oxford,  1906. 
Carew,  Thomas,  Poems  of.      Edinburgh,  1824. 

Also  in  Chalmers's  Poets,  vol.  v. 

Also  Ed.  Hazlitt,  London,  1868. 
Cartvvright,  William,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  Poets,  vol.  vi. 
Chalkhill,  John,  Thealma  and  Clearchus.      In  Minor  Caroline  Poets,  vol.  ii. 
Chalmers,  A.,  British  Poets,  21  vols.,  London,  1810. 
Chamberlayne,  William,  Pharonnida.      In  Minor  Caroline  Poets,  vol.  i. 
Chapman,  George,  Works  of.      3  vols.,  London,  1875. 
Chmchyard,  T.      No  complete  edition.     Some  things  reprinted  by  Collier  and  in 

Heliconia. 
Clarendon,  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of.     Works,  i  vol.,  O.xford,  1843. 
Cleveland,  John.      Contemporary  edd.  numerous  but  puzzling  and  untrustworthy. 

A  recent  one  by  J.  M.  Berdan,  New  York,  n.d. 
Cokain,  Sir  Aston,  Plays  of.      Edinburgh,  1874. 
Constable,  Henry,  Diana.      In  Arber's  English  Garner,  vol.  ii. 
Corbet,  Bishop,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  Poets,  vol.  v. 
Cotton,  Charles,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  Poets,  vol.  vi. 
Crashaw,    Richard,    Poems    of.     Ed.  Grosart,   2  .vols.      Privately  printed,    1872. 

Also  in  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  vi. 

Also  Ed.  Waller,  Cambridge,  1904. 

Daniel,  Samuel,  Delia.      In  Arber's  English  Garner,  vol.  iii. 

Also  Works  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  iii. 

Also  Works  of.      Ed.  Grosart,  5  vols.      Privately  printed,  1885-96. 
Davenant,  Sir  William,  Dramatic  Works  of.      5  vols.,  Edinburgh,  1872-73. 

Poems  of.      Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  iv. 
Davies,  Sir  John,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  v. 
Davies,  John,  of  Hereford,  Works.     Ed.  Grosart,  2  vols.     Privately  printed,  1878. 
Day,  John,  Works  of.      Ed.  Bullen.      Privately  printed,  188 1. 
Dekker,  Thomas,  Dramatic  Works  of.      4  vols.,  London,  1873. 

Prose  Works  of.      5  vols.      Ed.  Grosart.      Privately  printed,  1884-86. 
Donne,  John,  Poems  of.      Ed.  Grosart,  2  vols.      Privately  printed,  1872. 

Also  Ed.  Chambers,  2  vols.,  London,  1896. 
Drayton,  Michael,  Idea.      In  Arber's  English  Garner,  vol.  vi. 

Works  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  iv. 
Drummond,  William,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  v. 

Also  Published  for  the  Maitland  Club.      Edinburgh,  1832. 
Dyer,  Sir  Edward,  Poems  of      In  Hannah's  Courtly  Poets. 

Early  English  Dramatists.      Ed.  Farmer,  vols,  i.-i.x. ,  London,  1905-6. 

Eden,    Richard,    The    First    Three    English    Books    on    America.       Ed.    Arber, 

Birmingham,  1885. 
Elizabethan  Critical  Essays.      Ed.  G.  Smith,  2  vols.,  Oxford,  1904. 
Elizabethan  Sonnets.      Ed.  Lee,  2  vols. ,  London,  1904. 


INDEX— BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  465 

Felltbam,  Owen,  Resolves.      London,  1820  (but  see  p.  443). 

Fletcher,  Giles,  Licia.      In  Grosarts  Occasional  Issues,  vol.  ii. 

Fletcher,  Giles,  the  younger.  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  vi. 

Fletcher,  Phineas,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  vi. 

Ford,  John,  Works  of.      Ed.  Hartley  Coleridge,  London,  1859. 

Fuller,  Thomas,  Worthies  of  England.     Ed.  Nichols,  2  vols.  4to,  London,  1811. 

Thoughts  in  Good  Times.      London,  1885. 

Holy  and  Profane  State.      London,  1642. 

Church  History.      London,  1655. 

Gascoigne,  George,  Works  of.      Ed.  Hazliit,  London,  1868. 

Also  in  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  ii. 
Gifford.   Humphrey,  A  Posy  of  Gillyflowers.      In  Grosarts  Occasional  Issues, 

vol.  i. 
Glapthorne,  Henry,  Works  of.      2  vols.,  London,  1874. 
Godolphin,  Sidney,  Poems  of.      In  Minor  Caroline  Poets,  vol.  ii. 
Goff,  Thomas,  Plays.      London,  1656. 

Googe,  Barnabe,  Eclogues,  Epitaphs,  and  Sonnets.    Ed.  Arber,  London,  1871. 
Greene.  Robert,  Dramatic  Works  of.      Ed.  Dyce,  London,  1883. 

Also  Ed.  Collins,  2  vols.,  O.xford,  1905. 

^/jt>  Complete  Works  of.     Ed.  Grosart,  13  vols.     Privately  printed,  1881-86. 
Griffin,  Bartholomew,  Fidessa.      In  Grosart's  Occasional  Issues,  vol.  ii. 
Grosart,  X.  B. ,  Fuller  Worthies  Library.      Chertsey  W^orthies  Library. 

Occasional  Issues.      Privately  printed,  v.d. 
Guilpin,  Edward,  Skialetheia.      In  Grosart's  Occasional  Issues,  vol.  vi. 

Habington,  William,  Castara.      Ed.  Arber,  London,  1870. 

Also  in  Chalmers's  Poets,  vol.  vi. 
Hakluyt,  Richard,  The  Voyages,  etc.,  of  the  English  Nation  :   Edinburgh. 

Also  a  later  edition,  Glasgow. 
Hales,  John,  Works  of.     3  vols.,  Glasgow,  1765. 
Hall,  John,  Poems  of.      In  Minor  Caroline  Poets,  vol.  ii. 
Hall,  Joseph,  Virgidemiarum,  etc.      In  Grosart's  Occasional  Issues,  vol.  i.v. 

Also  in  Cha'mers's  Poets,  vol.  v. 
Hannah,   Dr.,    Poems  of  Raleigh,   Wotton,   and   other  Courtly   Poets.      Aldine 

Series,  London,  1885. 
Harvey,  Gabriel,  Works.      Ed.  Grosart,  3  vols.      Privately  printed,  1884-85. 
Hazlitt,  W.  C,  Dodsleys  Old  Plays,  13  vols.,  London,  1874-76. 

.Shakespere's  Library.      6  vols. ,  London,  1875. 
Herbert,  Edward,  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Autobiography.     Ed.  Lee,  London, 

1886. 
Herbert,  George,  Poems  of.      Ed.  Grosart,  London,  1876. 
Herrick,  Rolx:rt,  Poems  of.      Ed.  Gros;irt,  3  vols.,  London,  1876. 

Also  VA.    Pollard.   2  vols.,   London,    1891  ;    and  Ed.    Saintsbury,   2  vols., 
Lonfion,  1893. 
Hcywood,  Thomas,  Dramatic  Works  of.      6  vols. ,  London,  1874. 

Pleasant  Dialogues,  etc.      Ed.  liing,  I^uvain,  1903. 
Hoblx.-s,  Thomas,  U'orks.      Ed.  Molesworth,   16  vols.,  London,  1839-45. 
Hooker,  Richard,  Ecclc-siaslical  Polity.      3  vols.,  Oxford,  1820. 
Howell,  James,  Familiar  Letters.     The  Eleventh  Itdition,  Ix)ndon,  1754. 
Howell,  Thomas,  The  Arljour  of  Amity.     In  Grosart's  Occasional  Issues,  vol.  viii. 

J.  C,  Alcilia.     In  Grosart's  Occasional  l&.sucs,  vol.  viii. 

Also  in  .Arljer's  English  (jarncr,  vol.  iv. 
Jonson,  Ben,  Works  of.      Ed.  Cunningham,  3  vols.,  London,  n.d. 

II  211 


466  INDEX— BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 

Knolles,  Richard,  History  of  the  Turks.     Third  Edition,  London,  1621. 
Kyd,  Thomas,  Cornelia.      In  Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  vol.  v. 

Jeronimo,  {?)  in  do.  vol.  iv. 

The  Spanish  Tragedy,  in  do.  vol.  v. 

Works.      Ed.  Boas,  Oxford,  1900. 
Kynaston,  Sir  Francis,  Poems  of.      In  Minor  Caroline  Poets,  vol.  ii. 

Lodge,    Thomas,    Euphues'    Golden    Legacy   in  Shakespere's  Library,   vol.  ii., 

London,  1875. 
Lovelace,  Richard,  Poems  of.      Ed.  Hazlitt,  London,  1864. 
Lyly,  John,  Euphues.      Ed.  Arber,  London,  1868. 

Dramatic  Works.      Ed.  Fairholt,  2  vols.,  London,  1858. 

Complete  Works.     Ed.  Bond,  3  vols. ,  O.xford,  1902. 
Lynch,  Diella.    ■  In  Grosart's  Occasional  Issues,  vol.  iv. 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  Works  of.      Ed.  Dyce,  London,  1859. 

A/so  Kd.  Bullen,  3  vols.,  London,  1887. 
Marmion,  Shakerley,  Plays  of.      Edinburgh,  1874. 

Cupid  and  Psyche.      In  Minor  Caroline  Poets,  vol.  ii. 
Marprelate,  Martin,  Tracts  by  and  against.     See  text. 

The  Epistle.      Ed.  Petheram. 

Also  Ed.  Arber,  The  English  Scholars'  Library. 

Diotrephes,  by  N.  Udall.      Ed.  Arber. 

Demonstration  of  Discipline,  by  N.  Udall.      Ed.  Arber. 

An  Admonition  to  the  People  of  England,  by  T.  C.      Ed.  Petheram. 

A  ho  Ed.  Arber. 

Hay  any  Work  for  Cooper.      Ed.  Petheram. 

Pap  with  a  Hatchet.      Ed.   Petheram. 

An  Almond  for  a  Parrot.      Ed.  Petheram. 

A  Counter-Cuff  to  Martin  Junior,  etc.,  in  Works  of  Nash.     Ed.  Grosart. 

Plain  Percival,  the  Peacemaker  of  England.      Ed.  Petheram. 
Marston,  John,  Works  of.      Ed.  Halliwell,  3  vols.,  London,  1856. 

Also  Ed.  Bullen,  3  vols.,  London,  1885. 

Poems  of.      In  Grosart's  Occasional  Issues,  vol.  xi. 
Massinger,  Philip.      Ed.  Hartley  Coleridge,  London,  1859. 
Middleton,  Thomas,  Dramatic  Works  of.      Ed.  Bullen,  8  vols.,  London,  1886. 
Milton,  John,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  vii. 

Prose  Works  of.      2  vols.,  Philadelphia,  1847. 

Ed.  Masson,  3  vols.,  London,  1890. 
Minor  Caroline  Poets,  vols.  i.  and  ii.,  Oxford,  1905-6. 
Mirror  for  Magistrates,  The.      Ed.  Hazlewood,  3  vols.,  London,  1813. 
Miscellanies,  Seven  Poetical.      Ed.  Collier,  London,  1867. 

Some  in  Heliconia. 
More,  Henry,  Poems  of.      Ed.  Grosart.      Privately  printed,  1878. 
Mulcaster,  Richard,  Positions.      Ed.  Quick,  London,  1888. 

Nabbes,  Thomas,  Works  of.      In  Bullen's  Old  Plays,  New  Series,  vols.  i.  and  ii. 
Nash,  Thomas,  Works  of.      Ed.  Grosart,  6  vols.      Privately  printed,  1883-85. 
Ed.  M'Kerrow,  4  vols. ,  London,  1904. 

Park,  T. ,  Heliconia.      3  vols. ,  London,  1814. 
Peele,  George,  Works  of.      Ed.  Dyce,  London,  1883. 
Percy,  W. ,  Coelia.      In  Grosart's  Occasional  Issues,  vol.  iv. 
Puttenham,  George,  The  Art  of  English  Poesy.      Ed.  Arber,  London,  1869. 
A/so  in  G.  Smith,  Elizabethan  Critical  Essays. 


INDEX— BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  467 

Quarles,  Francis.     Ed.  Grosart,  3  vols.     Privately  printed,  1880-81. 

Raleigh,  Sir  \\ 'alter,  History  of  the  World.     6  vols. ,  London,  1820. 

Poems  of.     In  Hannah's  Courtly  Poets. 
Randolph,  Thomas,  Works  of.      Ed.  Hazlitt.      2  vols. ,  London,  1875. 
Return  from  Parnassus,  The.      Edited  by  W.  Macray,  O.xford,  1886. 
Rowlands,  Samuel,  Works  of.     Ed.  Gosse,  3  vols.,  Glasgow,    1880  (Hunterian 

Club). 

Sackville,   Thomas,   Lord  Buckhurst,  Works  of.      Ed.  Sackville-West,  London, 

1859. 
Sandys,   George,   [Sacred]  Poetical  Works  of.      Ed.    Hooper,   2  vols.,   London, 

1872. 
Shakespere,  William,  Works  of.     Globe  edition,  London,  1866. 

Doubtful  plays.      Ed.  Warnke  and  Proescholdt,  Halle. 

Also  Ed.  Hazlitt,  London,  n.d. 
Sherburne,  Sir  Edward,  Poems  of.      In  Chalmers's  Poets,  vol.  vi. 
Shirley,  James,  Plays  of.      Ed.  Gifford  and  Dyce,  6  vols.,  London,  1833. 
Sidney,  Philip,  Poetical  Works.      Ed.  Grosart,  2  vols.,  London,  1873. 

An  .Apolog)'  for  Poetry.      Ed.  Arber,  London,  1868. 

Arcadia.      Ed.  Sommer,  London,  1891. 
Simpson,  R. ,  The  School  of  Shakespere,  2  vols. ,  London,  1878. 
Smith,  T. ,  Chloris.      In  Grosart's  Occasional  Issues,  vol.  iv. 
Southwell,  Robert,  Poems.      Ed.  Grosart.      Printed  for  private  circulation. 
Sp)enser,  Edmund.      Ed.  Todd,  London,  1853. 

Also  Ed.  Morris  and  Hales,  London,  1873. 

Also  Ed.  (jrosart,  vols.  i.-i.\.      Privately  printed,  1882-87. 
Stanley,  T. ,  Poems.      Partly  reprinted,  London,  1814. 
Stanyhurst,  Richard,  The  First  I'our  Books  of  the  ^neid.      Ed.  Arber,  London, 

1880. 
•Still.  John.  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle.      In  Hazlitt's  Dodslcy,  vol.  iii. 
.Stirling,  William  .Alexander,  Earl  of,    Poi-ms  of.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets, 

vol.  V. 
Suckling,  .Sir  John,  Works  of.      Ed.  Hazlitt,  2  vols.,  London,  1874. 
Surrey,  Earl  of.      See  Tottel's  Miscellany. 

Also  in  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  ii. 
Sylvester,  Joshua,  Works  of.      VA.  Grosart,  2  vols.      Privately  printed,  1880. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  Works  of.      3  vols.,  Ixindon,  1844. 
Tottel's  Mi.sccllany.      Ed.  Arlicr.  London,  1870. 
Tourneur,  Cyril,  Works  of.      I-xl.  Collins,  2  vols.,  London,  1878. 
Trahern<',  Thomas,  Poems.      Ed.  Dolx-ll,  London,  1903. 
Turberville,  George,  Poems  of.      In  Cli.ilmcrs's  iiritish  Poets,  vol.  ii. 
Tusser,  Thomas.      Ed.  Mavor,  I^ondon,  1812. 
Also  by  English  Dialect  .Society,  1878. 

L'dall,  N.,  Ralph  Roister  Doister.      In  Hazlitt's  Dotlsley,  vol.  iii. 

Vaiighan,  Henry.      Fvl.  CJrosart.      Privatfly  printed.      4  vols. ,  1868-71. 

y^Ao  .SiUrx  Stintillans.      Facsimile  of  ist  edition.      VA.  Clare,  London,  1885. 
Also  z  \o\s.,  EA.  Chamljers,  Ix)n<lon,  1896. 

Walton,  Izaak,  The  CompU'Hr  Angler.      London,  1825. 

Lives.      Ixjndon,  1842. 
Warner,  William,  Albion's  England.      In  Chalmers's  British  Poets,  vol.  iv. 


468  INDEX— BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 


Watson,  Thomas,  Poems.      Ed.  Arber,  London,  1870. 

Webbe,  William,  A  Discourse  of  English  Poetry.      Ed.  Arber,  London,  1870. 

Also  in  G.  Smith,  Elizabethan  Critical  Essays. 
Webster,  John,  Works  of.     Ed.  Dyce,  London,  1859. 
Wither,  George,  Hymns  and  Songs  of  the  Church.      Ed.  Farr,  London,  1856. 

Hallelujah.      Ed.  Farr,  London,  1857. 

Philarete,  in  Arber's  English  Garner,  vol.  iv. 

Fidelia,  in  Arber's  English  Garner,  vol.  vi. 

Poems  generally  in  Spenser  Society's  issues. 
Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  Poems  of.      In  Hannah's  Courtly  Poets. 
Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas.     See  Tottel's  Miscellany. 


M 


INDEX— GENERAL 


469 


II.— GENERAL 


Albiimatar,  427. 

Alexander,  Sir  William.      See  Stirling. 

Andrewcs,  Bishop  Lancelot  (1555-1626), 

444- 
ArJen  of  Fez'trsham,  425. 
Ascham,  Roger  (1515-1568),  30-33. 

Bacon,  Francis,  Lord  (1561-1626),  207- 

212. 
Barnabee's  Journal,  444. 
Barnes,  Baniabe(  1569?- 1609),  108,  109. 
liarnfield,     Richard     (1574-1627),      his 

Boems,  117,  118. 
Rosse.  William  (d.   1653?),  301. 
Biixlcr,  Richard  (1615-1691),  440. 
Beaumont,    Francis    (1584-1616),    his 

Boems,  312.     See  also  Beaumont  and 

Fletcher, 
lieaumont,    Sir   John   (1583-1627),   his 

Boems,  312. 
Beaumont,  Joseph  (1616-1699),  378. 
IV.aumont  an<l  Fletcher,  255-266. 
lienlowes,  ICdward  (1603  ?- 1676),  381. 
Bible,  The  Lnglish,  .\uthorised  and  Re- 
vised versions,  215-218. 
Breton,    Nicholas    ( 1545  ?- 1626?),    his 

verse,     128  ;      his    prose    pamphlets, 

238-240. 
Brome,    Richard    (  ?-i652?),    415, 

416. 
Brfxjke,    Fulkc   Greville,    Lord    (1554- 

1628),  98-100. 
Browne,  Sir    Thom-rs  (1605-1682),  336- 

343  ;  his   Life,  336,  337  ;  his  Works 

and  Style,   338-343. 
Browne,     Willi.im    ( 1 591  - 1643?),     his 

Life  and  Booms,  299-302. 
Bruno,    (jiordano,    his    inHuence,    102, 

459- 
Burton,  RoU-rl  (1577- 1640),  428-433. 

Cambyiti,  62,  249,  note. 


Translations,   184- 
(1602- 1644), 


Campion,    Thomas   (  ?- 1619),    34, 

\'20  sq.,  156,  note. 
Carew,  Thomas  (1598  7-1639),  359-364. 
Carey,  Patrick  (  ?-  ?),  384. 

Caroline   Poetry,    A    Discussion   of  the 

Merits  and  Defects  of,  386-393. 
Cartwright,    William    (161 1-1643),    his 

Poems,  383  ;  his  Plays.  427. 
Chalkhill,  John  (  ?-  ?),  380. 

Chamberlayne,    William    (1619-1689), 

381. 
Chapman,    George    ( 1 559  ?- 1634),    his 
Life,   Poems,  and 

195- 
Chillingworth,     William 

440. 
Churchyard,  Thomas  (i520?-i6o4),  17- 

18,  27,  jiole. 
Clarendon,  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of  (1609- 

1674),    his    Life,    Works,   an<l  Style, 

343-348. 
Cleveland,  John  (161 3- 1658),  385 
Cokain,    Sir   Aston   (1608-1684),    416, 

417. 
Constable,  Henry  (1562-1613),  113. 
Corljet,  Bishop  (1582-1635),  his  Poems, 

382-384. 
Coryat,  Thomas  (1577 ?-i6i7),  444. 
Cosin,  Bishop  ( 1594-1672),  444. 
Cotton,  Charles  (1630- 1687),  his  Poents, 

383.  384- 
<"!owley's  Prose,  440. 
Crashaw,     Richard     (16137-1649),     his 

Life  and  I'ooms,  364-370. 
C'ritics,  Eli/.alx-than,  33-35. 

Daniel,  Samuel  (1562-1619),  his  Son- 
nets, 113,  114;  his  othi;r  Poi-nis, 
135-139  ;   his  Prose,  220-222. 

Davenant,    Sir    William    (1^06-1668), 

4»9.  42" 
i  Davetiporl,  Rolx-rt  (  "*■  •'^'55  ?).  432. 


470 


INDEX— GENERAL 


Davies,  John,  of  Hereford  (1565  ?-i6i8), 
291-293. 

Davies,  Sir  John  (1569-1626),  his  Life 
and  Poems,  293-295. 

Day,    John   (  ?-  ?),    his    Plays, 

286-288. 

"Decadence,"  391,  394,  455-457. 

Dekker,  Thomas  (i570?-i64i  ?),  his 
Plays  and  Songs,  201-206;  his 
Pamphlets,  235-238. 

Distracted  Emperor,  The,  425. 

Donne,  John  ( 1573-163 1),  his  Satires 
and  other  Poems,  144-150. 

Drama,  Elizabethan,  general  character- 
istics, 50-53. 

Dramatic  Periods,  Division  of,  50,  51. 

Drayton,  Michael  (1563-1631),  his  Son- 
nets, 114,  115;  his  other  Poems,  139- 
144. 

Drummond,  William,  of  Hawthornden 
(1585-1649),  306-308. 

Earle,  Bishop  (160 1  ?- 1665 )^  442. 

Ecclesiastical  Polity,  the,  46  sq. 

Eden,  Richard  (1521  ?-i576),  his  geo- 
graphical work,  33. 

Edward  III.  ,424. 

Edwards,  Richard  (i523?-i566),  drama- 
tist and  miscellanist,  25,  26,  62. 

Eikon  Basilike,  442. 

Euphues  and  Euphuism,  37-40. 

Fair  Em,  73,  424. 

Felltham,   Owen   (1602  ?- 1668  ?),    442, 

443- 
Field,  Nathaniel  (1587-1633),  his  Plays, 

426. 
Fitz-Geoffrey,   Charles  (1575-1638),  his 

Poem  on  Drake,  131. 
Fletcher,   Giles,  the  elder  (1549-1611), 

109. 
Fletcher,  Giles  and  Phineas,  Poems  of, 

295-298. 
Fletcher,  John  (1579-1625).      See  Beau- 
mont and  Fletcher. 
Ford,  John  (1586?-  ?),   his    Plays, 

401-409. 
Fuller,  Thomas  (1608-1661),  433-438. 

Gammer  Gurtott  s  Needle,  55-57. 
Gascoigne,  George  (1525  7-1577),  16-18. 
Gifford,  ffntnphrpy   (  ?-  ?),   his 

Posy  of  Gillyflowers,  129. 


Gilpin    or     Guilpin,     Edward    (  ?- 

?),  his  Skialetheia,  155. 
Glapthorne,  Henry  (  ?-  ?),  417, 

418. 
Godolphin,  Sidney  (1610-1643),  384. 
Goff,  Thomas  (1591-1629),  427,  note. 
Googe,  Barnabe  (i54o?-i594),  18-20. 
Gosson,  Stephen  (1554-1624),  34. 
Greene,   Robert   (1560- 1592),    Life  and 

Plays,  72-74  ;   Prose,  224-228. 
Griffin,     Bartholomew    (  ?-i6o2?), 

his  Fidessa,  ii6. 
Grimald  or  Grimoald,  Nicholas  (1519?- 

1562?),  3-8. 
Grove,     Matthew    (  ?-  ?),     his 

Poems,  130. 

Habington,  Wilham  (1605 -1654),  his 
Castara,  378  -  380  ;  his  Queen  of 
Aragon,  425. 

Hakluyt,  Richard  (1552  ?- 1616),  his 
Voyages,  220-222. 

Hales,  John  (1584- 1656),  444. 

Hall,  John  (1627-1656),  384. 

Hall,  Joseph  (15747-1650),  his  Satires, 

151-153- 
Herbert,  George  (1593-1633),  371-373. 
Herbert ,  Lord ,  of  Cherbury  ( 1 583- 1 648 ) , 

438-440. 
Heroic  Poem,  the,  380. 
Herrick,    Robert   (1591-1674),    his   Life 

and  Poems,  354-359. 
Heywood,   Thomas  (  7-1650?),  his 

Life  and  Works,  270-284. 
Historical  Poems,  131. 
Hobbes,  Thomas  (1588-1679),  his  Life, 

Works,  and  Style,  348-353. 
Hooker,  Richard  (1554  7-i6oo),  44-49; 

his  Life,  44  ;  his  Prose  Style,  46-48. 
Howell,  James  (1594  7- 1666),  441,  442. 
Howell,     Thomas    (  7-         7),     his 

Poems,  130. 

J.  C. ,  h.\s  A  lei  Ha,  115. 

Jeronimo,  and  The  Spanish  Tragedy,  74, 

75- 
Jonson,    Ben    (1573- 1637),     his     Life, 
Poems,     and    Plays,    174-184 ;     his 
Prose,  216. 

Kyd,  Thomas  (iS57?-iS9S  ?)•    74.   75. 

81,  note. 
Kynaston,     Sir     Francis    (1587-1642), 

380,  381. 


INDEX— GENERAL 


471 


Lodge,  Thomas  (1558  ?-i625K  his  Plays, 
70  ;  his  Poems,  109-111  ;  his  Satires, 
145  ;  his  Prose  Pamphlets,  228-230. 

Lovelace.  Richard  (16 18-1658),  his 
Poems,  374-376. 

Lyly,  John  (1554?- 1606?),  36-40,  65- 
68  ;  his  Life,  36  ;  Euphucs  a.nd  Euphu- 
ism, 37-40  ;  his  Plays,  65-68. 

Lynch,    Richard     (  ?-  ?),      his 

Diella,  116. 

Manuscript,  habit  of  keeping  Poems  in,  2. 
Markhani,    Gervase    (1568  ?-i637),    his 

Poem  on  The  Kcirnge,  131. 
Marlowe,  Christopher  (1564-1593),  his 

Life  and  Plays,  76-79. 
Marmion,    Shakerley    (1603-1639),    his 

Poems  and  Plays,  380,  423. 
Marston,   John   (1575  ?- 1634),   his   Life 

and  Satires,  153-155  ;   his  Plays,  195- 

199. 
Martin  Marprelate,  sketch  of  the  Contro- 
versy  and    account  of   the   principal 

tracts,  241-252. 
Massinger,  Philip  ( 1 583-1640),  his  Plays, 

395-401- 
Merry  Devil  of  Edmonton,   The,  426. 

Metre,  Classical,  the  fancy  for,  and  its 
reasons,  22,  25. 

Metre,  English,  must  be  scanned  by 
Classical  Rules,  14. 

Middleton,  Thomas  (1570  ?-i627),  his 
Life  and  Works,  266-273. 

Milton,  John  (1608-1674),  316-330;  his 
Life  and  Character,  316,  317; 
Divisions  of  his  Work,  318  ;  his  early 
Poems,  318-322;  his  Prose,  322- 
326  ;   his  later  Poems,  326-329. 

Mirror  for  Miif^istrales,   The,  11- 15. 

Miscellany,  Tottel's,  i-io;  a  starting- 
point,  2;  its  Authorship  and  Composi- 
tion, 3  ;  Wyatts  and  Surrey's  Con- 
tributions to  it,  4-8  ;  Grimald  an<l 
minor  authors.  8-9  ;  Metrical  and 
Material  (Jharactcri.stics,  9,  10. 

Miscelhuiies,  the  early  IClizabethan,  sub- 
sequent to  Tottel's,  25-27. 

Miscellanies,  Caroline  and  later.  370. 

Miieriei  of  Enforced  Marriage,  The,  423. 

More,  Henry  (1614-1687),  his  Song  of 
the  Soul,  277 •  378. 


Nablies,    Thomas    { 
I'lays,  423. 


? 


?).    his 


N'ash,  Thomas  (i 567-1601),  his  Plays, 

70  ;  his  Prose  \Vorks,  232-235. 
Xero,  425. 
North's  Plutarch,  33. 

O.xford,  Edward,  Earl  of  (1550-1604), 
his  Poems,  127-128. 

Pearson,  Bishop  (1613-1686),  440. 

Pcele,  George  (i558?-i597),  his  Life 
and  Plays,  70-72. 

Percy,  William  (1575-1648),  his  Ccclia, 
III. 

Pharonnida,  381. 

Plays,  early  nondescript,  62. 

Poetry,  95-96. 

Prose,  the  Beginnings  of  Modern 
English,  28-30. 

Prosody,  Weakness  of  the  Early  Eliza- 
bethans in,  9. 

Pseudo-Shakesperian  Plays,  424,  425. 

Puttenham,  George  (15327-1590),  34. 

Quarles,  Francis  (1592-1644),  376,  377. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter  (i552?-i6i8),   his 

Verse,  125-127  ;  his  Prose,  212-215. 
Ralph  Roister  Doistcr,  54,  55. 
Randolph,    Thomas    (1605-1635),    his 

Poems,  382;  his  Plays,  413-415. 
Return  from  Parnassus,   The,  81,  426. 
Rowlands,  Samuel  (1570?- 1630?),  238, 

240. 
Rowley,  Samuel  (  ?-  ?),  423. 

Rowley,    William    (1585?- 1642  ?),    his 

Plays,  422. 

Sackville,  Thomas,  Ix)rd  Huckhurst 
(1536-1608),  his  Life  and  Works,  11- 
15  ;  the  Induction  and  Complaint  of 
liuckingham,  12-15;  Ciorhoduc,  57-60. 

Sanderson,  Bishop  ( 1587-1663),  440. 

Sandys,  George  (1578-1644),  373. 

.Satirists,  the  Iviizaljethan,  144-156. 

Second  Maiden's  Tragedy,   The,  425. 

Senecan  Drama,  the,  58-61. 

Shakespere,  William  (1564-1616),  157- 
173;  his  Life,  158;  his  Works  and 
their  Reputation,  159.  160;  tluir 
divisions,  160,  161  (1573-1636);  the 
Early  Pfx-ms,  161  ;  tin- Sonnets.  161- 
164  ;  the  I'lays.  164-173  ;  tin-  "  Doubt- 
ful "  I'lays,  424-425. 

Sherburne,  Sir  I-^Jward  (1618-1702),  his 
Poems,  383. 


472 


INDEX— GENERAL 


Shirley,  Henry  (  ?-i627),  409,  note. 

Shirley,   James  (1596-1666),   his  Plays, 

409-413. 
Sidney,     Sir    Philip    (1554- 1586),    his 

Prose,   40-43  ;    his   Prose   style,    42  ; 

his  Verse,  100-105. 
Smith,     William     (1546?- 1618  ?),     his 

Chloris,  116. 
Songs,  Miscellaneous,  from  the  Drama- 
tists and  Madrigal  Writers,  1 21-125, 

312-314. 
Sonneteers,  the  Elizabethan,  97. 
Southwell,    Robert    (1561  ?-i595),    his 

Poems,  119. 
Spenser,  Edmund  (i552?-i599),  82-96; 

his  Life,  83-85  ;  The  Shepherd's  Caleti- 

dar,  86 ;  the  Minor  Poems,  87  ;    The 

Faerie  Queene,  88-93  I  'he  Spenserian 

Stanza,  90  ;  Spenser's  Language,  91  ; 

his    Comparative    Rank    in    English 

Poetry,  93-96. 
Stanley,  Thomas  (1625-1678),  383,  384. 
Stanyhurst,  Richard  (1547-1618),  23-25. 
Still,   John  (i543?-i6o8),   his   Gammer 

Giirton  s  Needle,  55-57. 
Stirling,  Sir  William  Alexander,  Earl  of 

(1567  7-1640),  308-311. 
Suckling,    Sir    John    (1609-1642),    his 

Poems,  374-376  ;  his  Plays,  420-422. 
Surrey,   Lord    Henry  Howard,   Earl  of 

(i5i7?-i547).  6-8- 
Sylvester,  Joshua  (1563-1618),   his  Du 
Bartas,  etc.,  289-291. 

Taylor,  Jeremy  (1613-1667),   330-336; 
his  Life,   330,   331  ;  his  Works  and 
Style,  331-336. 
Theophila,  381. 


Tottel's  Miscellany.      See  Miscellany. 
Tourneur,     Cyril     (1575  ?- 1626?),     his 

Poems,  155-156  ;  his  Plays,  284,  285. 
Traherne,  Thomas  (16367-1674),   381, 

note. 
Translators,  the  Early  Elizabethan,  21, 

33- 
Turberville,  George(  15407-1610),  18-19. 
Two  Angry   VVofnen,  The,  426. 
Two  Noble  Kinsmen,   The,  i\2.if. 

Udall,  Nicholas  (1505- 1556),  his  Ralph 

Roister  Doister,  54,  55. 
University  Wits,  the,  60-81. 
Urquhart,    Sir    Thomas    (1611-1660), 

444. 

Vaughan,  Henry  (1622-1695),  374-375, 

393,  note. 
Version,  the  Authorised,  215-218. 

Walton,  Izaak  (1593-1683),  441. 
Warner,    William    (1558 -1609),     122- 

134- 
Watson,    Thomas    (1557  7- 1592),    105- 

107. 
Webbe,  William  (  7-  7),  34. 

Webster,  John  (1580  7-1625  7),  his  Life 

and  Works,  273-279. 
Willoughby's  ^wwfl,  no,  in. 
Wither,  George  (1588-1667),    Life  and 

Poems,  302-306. 
Wit's  Recreations,  370. 
Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas  (1503  7-1542),  4-6. 

Yorkshire  Tragedy,   The,  424. 

Zepheria,  112. 


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