Note 260 — Chapter V · ELIZABETHAN CRITICISM.

Bolton’s criticism of his contemporaries is extracted in Warton (iv. 204 sq., ed. Hazlitt). The writer, who is dealing with History, and speaking directly of language, disallows most of Spenser (excepting the Hymns) and all Chaucer, Lydgate, Langland, and Skelton, can “endure” Gascoigne, praises Elizabeth and James (of course), Chapman, Daniel, Drayton, Constable, Southwell, Sackville, Surrey, Wyatt, Raleigh, Donne, and Greville, but gives the palm for “vital, judicious, and practicable” language to Jonson.