SHIRLEY. Me in a partial scale, my heart is honest, Nay study, ways of pride and costly ceremony. Fourscore pound suppers for my lord, your kinsman; More motley than the French or the Venetian, Must pester every narrow lane, till passengers And tradesmen curse your choking up their stalls, For hind'ring o' the market. Aret. Have you done, sir? Born. I could accuse the gaiety of your wardrobe And prodigal embroideries, under which Rich satins, plushes, cloth of silver, dare Not shew their own complexions. Your jewels, And shew like bonfires on you by the tapers. Aret. Pray do; I like Your homily of thrift. Born. I could wish, madam, You would not game so much. Aret. A gamester too? Born. But you are not to that repentance yet Charge with the box, buy petticoats and pearls, Nor do I wish you should. My poorest servant Shall not upbraid my tables, nor his hire, Purchas'd beneath my honour. You may play, Yourself and my estate by 't. Aret. Good,-proceed. Born. Another game you have, which consumes more Your fame than purse; your revels in the night, Your meetings called the ball, to which appear, As to the court of pleasure, all your gallants And ladies, thither bound by a subpoena Into a more costly sin. There was a play on 't, 63 Some deeds had been discover'd, and the deeds too Aret. Have you concluded Your lecture? Born. I have done; and howsoever To your delights, without curb to their fair Among the inferior dramatists of the age may be mentioned, George Wilkins, author of The Miseries of Enforced Marriage; Robert Tailor, author of The Hog hath Lost his Pearl; Thomas Heywood, a player, and very voluminous play-writer, having assisted in the composition of no fewer than two hundred and twenty different pieces; Dr. Jasper Fisher, author of The Two Trojans; Thomas May, author of The Heir, a comedy, The Tragedy of Cleopatra, and other dramas; Brome, Nabbes, Randolph, Mayne, Habington, Marmion, Cartwright, Davenport, and Barry. Of all these writers specimens may be found in Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, of which a third enlarged edition appeared in 1825, in twelve volumes. At the close of the reign of Charles I., the drama sank with the party which chiefly supported it, and did not revive till the restoration of monarchy in 1660. As it arose in a form considerably different, the class of dramatists whom we have been describing stand almost entirely by themselves in English literature, being only connected with their successors by SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT, who wrote plays both before and after the civil war and the Commonwealth, and partook of the merits of the one period, with the faults (hereafter to be pointed out) of the other. PROSE WRITERS. The prose writers of this age rank chiefly in the departments of theology, philosophy, and historical and antiquarian information. There was as yet hardly any vestige of prose employed with taste in fiction, or even HOOKER.CAMDEN. 65 in observations upon manners; though it must be observed, that one of the first prose works of the time was the pastoral romance of Arcadia by Sir Philip Sydney, which was written in the year 1580, and has been already alluded to. One of the earliest, and also one of the greatest of the prose writers of the period, was RICHARD HOOKER (1554-1600), a man of obscure birth, educated by the charity of individuals, and who spent the better part of his days in an obscure situation in the Church. He wrote a work of immense learning, reflection, and eloquence, which was published in 1594, under the title Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, being a defence of the Church to which he belonged, against the sect called Puritans. This work is not to be regarded simply as a theological treatise; it is still referred to as a great authority upon the whole range of moral and political principles. It also bears a value as the first treatise in the English language which observed a strict methodical arrangement, and clear logical reasoning. The style perspicuous, forcible, and manly, evidently flows from the pure source of an ingenuous and upright mind. WILLIAM CAMDEN (1551-1623) was also of humble birth, and owed his education to charity. Like Leland, he travelled over the greater part of England, with a view to the composition of a topographical work, which appeared in 1586, under the title of Britannia, and was soon after translated from the original Latin into English. The Britannia is a description of England, Ireland, and Scotland, such as they were in the time of the writer, and is a compilation of great value. It occupied the author ten years, and he had to study the British and Saxon tongues before commencing it. Camden also wrote a Greek Grammar, and some works of inferior importance. In the latter part of his life he attained the dignity of a prebend of Sarum, and was one of the kings-at-arms. He was much respected for his learning and industry, both in England and in foreign countries. Next to Sir Philip Sydney, the most favourite personage of this period of English history is SIR WALTER RALEIGH, (born of an honourable family in Devonshire, 1552; beheaded 1618,) who is distinguished as a soldier, as a courtier, as an adventurous colonizer of barbarous countries, and as a poet and historian. Raleigh spent many of his early years in foreign wars, and, in 1580, was very serviceable to Queen Elizabeth, in quelling a rebellion in Ireland. Between 1584 and 1595, he conducted several nautical expeditions of importance, some of which were designed for the colonization of Virginia -an object upon which he spent forty thousand pounds. On the accession of King James in 1603, he was, with apparent injustice, condemned for high treason, and committed to the tower, where he remained for fourteen years. Part of this time he spent in the composition of his principal work, entitled The History of the World, the first part of which appeared in 1614, bringing down the narrative nearly to the birth of Christ: the portions which refer to the history of Greece and Rome are much admired. Sir Walter wrote several political treatises, which were not published till after his death. His poetry was the production of his earlier years, and possesses great merits. After his long imprisonment, he was allowed by the king to proceed upon an expedition to South America, in which he failed; and he was then executed upon his former sentence. FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626), Lord Chancellor of England, and latterly created Viscount of St. Alban's, was one of the greatest men of this, or of any other age. He wrote upon history and law, the advancement of learning, and nearly all matters relating to the cultivation of the mind. Of his works, which extend to ten volumes, the most remarkable are, The Proficience and Advancement of Learning, published in 1605, and afterwards enlarged, and his Novum Organum, published in 1620; which, with the former book in its extended shape, forms one grand work, under the title of The Instauration of the Sciences. In this magnificent production, he first answers the objections made to the progress of knowledge, and then proceeds to divide human learning into three parts, history, poesy, and philosophy, respectively referring to memory, imagination, and reason, which he conceived to be the proper distribution of the intellectual faculties. He next explains his new method (novum organum) of employing these faculties for the increase of real knowledge; namely, the ascertainment, in the first place, of facts, and then reasoning upon these towards conclusions-a mode of arriving at truth which may appear very obvious, but which was nevertheless unknown to the predecessors of this illustrious person. Formerly, men reasoned in a quibbling manner, without regard to facts, according to a plan laid down by Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher. It was Bacon who first showed that nothing pretending to the character of human knowledge could be considered as ascertained, unless it had been subjected to the test of experiment, or drawn from observations patent to the senses. A subsequent portion of the Instauration contained a history of Nature, intended as a pattern of the method of employing his novum organum; and in a still farther section, he showed the steps, as he called them, by which the human intellect might regularly ascend in its philosophical inquiries. He had intended to write something more, which should complete his design, but was prevented by want of time. This splendid work, which has given a new turn to the mind of man, and been of incomprehensible utility in promoting knowledge, was planned by its author at twenty-six years of age, when he was a student of law in Gray's Inn; and it was prosecuted under the pressure of many heavy duties. It can never be told without shame, that its author, notwithstanding the skill with which he surveyed past knowledge, and pointed the way to much more important acquisitions, was inferior in practical virtue to many humbler men, being found guilty by Parliament of receiving bribes as Lord Chancellor, for the infamous purpose of perverting justice. His style of writing is almost as much ornamented by figures of rhetoric as the contemporary poetry, yet it is never on that account found wanting in precision. As a specimen, may be given a few passages from his chapter on the USES OF KNOWLEDGE. Learning taketh away the wildness, barbarism, and fierceness of men's minds; though a little of it doth rather work a contrary effect. It |