Part 2 — CHAPTER II.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and in Romeo and Juliet, Lady Capulet observes,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

observes that he

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

adds with great truth and good sense,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reverting to the subject of National Literature, we proceed to notice the progress which History, General, Local and Personal, may be deemed to have made, during the era to which we are limited.

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

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