English Literature
times, especially in his early or "Lylian" comedies. Lyly, by the way, did
not invent the style, but did more than any other to diffuse it.
Footnote 139: See Schelling, I, 211.
Footnote 140: See p. 114.
Footnote 141: In 1587 the first history of Johann Faust, a half-legendary
German necromancer, appeared in Frankfort. Where Marlowe found the story is
unknown; but he used it, as Goethe did two centuries later, for the basis
of his great tragedy.
Footnote 142: We must remember, however, that our present version of
_Faustus_ is very much mutilated, and does not preserve the play as Marlowe
wrote it.
Footnote 143: The two dramatists may have worked together in such
doubtful plays as _Richard III_, the hero of which is like Timur in an
English dress, and _Titus Andronicus_, with its violence and horror. In
many strong scenes in Shakespeare's works Marlowe's influence is manifest.
Footnote 144: _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ appeared _c_. 1562; _Love's
Labour's Lost, c_. 1591.
Footnote 145: _King John_, IV, 2.
Footnote 146: Queen Mab, in _Romeo and Juliet_.
Footnote 147: By Archdeacon Davies, in the seventeenth century.
Footnote 148: In 1709, nearly a century after the poet's death.
Footnote 149: Robert Greene, one of the popular playwrights of the time,
who attacked Shakespeare in a pamphlet called "A Groat's Worth of Wit
Bought with a Million of Repentance." The pamphlet, aside from its jealousy
of Shakespeare, is a sad picture of a man of genius dying of dissipation,
and contains a warning to other playwrights of the time, whose lives were
apparently almost as bad as that of Greene.
Footnote 150: _Love's Labour's Lost, Comedy of Errors, Two Gentlemen of
Verona_.
Footnote 151: _Henry VI, Richard III, Richard II, King John_. Prior to
1588 only three true Chronicle plays are known to have been acted. The
defeat of the Armada in that year led to an outburst of national feeling
which found one outlet in the theaters, and in the next ten years over
eighty Chronicle plays appeared. Of these Shakespeare furnished nine or
ten. It was the great popular success of _Henry VI_, a revision of an old
play, in 1592 that probably led to Greene's jealous attack.
Footnote 152: See Lee's _Life of William Shakespeare_, pp. 188-196.
Footnote 153: Like _Henry VIII_, and possibly the lost _Cardenio_.
Footnote 154: A name given to the privilege--claimed by the mediæval
Church for its clergy--of being exempt from trial by the regular law
courts. After the Reformation the custom survived for a long time, and
special privileges were allowed to ministers and their families. Jonson
claimed the privilege as a minister's son.
Footnote 155: A similar story of quackery is found in Chaucer, "The
Canon's Yeoman's Tale."
Footnote 156: In this and in _A Fair Quarrel_ Middleton collaborated with
William Rowley, of whom little is known except that he was an actor from
_c_. 1607-1627.
Footnote 157: The reader will find wholesome criticism of these writers,
and selections from their works, in Charles Lamb's _Specimens of English
Dramatic Poets_, an excellent book, which helps us to a better knowledge
and appreciation of the lesser Elizabethan dramatists.
Footnote 158: The first five books were published 1594-1597, and are as
Hooker wrote them. The last three books, published after his death, are of
doubtful authorship, but they are thought to have been completed from
Hooker's notes.
Footnote 159: For titles and publishers of reference works see General
Bibliography at the end of this book.
Footnote 160: See, for instance, the "Hymn to St. Theresa" and "The
Flaming Heart."
Footnote 161: So called from Pindar, the greatest lyric poet of Greece.
Footnote 162: See, for instance, "Childhood," "The Retreat,"
"Corruption," "The Bird," "The Hidden Flower," for Vaughan's mystic
interpretation of childhood and nature.
Footnote 163: There is some doubt as to whether he was born at the
Castle, or at Black Hall. Recent opinion inclines to the latter view.
Footnote 164: "On his being arrived to the Age of Twenty-three."
Footnote 165: "It is remarkable," says Lamartine, "how often in the
libraries of Italian princes and in the correspondence of great Italian
writers of this period you find mentioned the name and fame of this young
Englishman."
Footnote 166: In Milton's work we see plainly the progressive influence
of the Puritan Age. Thus his Horton poems are joyous, almost Elizabethan in
character; his prose is stern, militant, unyielding, like the Puritan in
his struggle for liberty; his later poetry, following the apparent failure
of Puritanism in the Restoration, has a note of sadness, yet proclaims the
eternal principles of liberty and justice for which he had lived.
Footnote 167: Of these sixty were taken from the Bible, thirty-three from
English and five from Scotch history.
Footnote 168: The latter was by Lewis Bayly, bishop of Bangor. It is
interesting to note that this book, whose very title is unfamiliar to us,
was speedily translated into five different languages. It had an enormous
sale, and ran through fifty editions soon after publication.
Footnote 169: Abridged from _Grace Abounding_, Part 3; _Works_ (ed.
1873), p. 71.
Footnote 170: For titles and publishers of reference works, see General
Bibliography at the end of this book.
Footnote 171: Guizot's _History of the Revolution in England_.
Footnote 172: Jeremy Collier (1650-1726), a clergyman and author, noted
for his scholarly _Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain_ (1708-1714) and
his _Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_
(1698). The latter was largely instrumental in correcting the low tendency
of the Restoration drama.
Footnote 173: The Royal Society, for the investigation and discussion of
scientific questions, was founded in 1662, and soon included practically
all of the literary and scientific men of the age. It encouraged the work
of Isaac Newton, who was one of its members; and its influence for
truth--at a time when men were still trying to compound the philosopher's
stone, calculating men's actions from the stars, and hanging harmless old
women for witches--can hardly be overestimated.
Footnote 174: If the reader would see this in concrete form, let him read
a paragraph of Milton's prose, or a stanza of his poetry, and compare its
exuberant, melodious diction with Dryden's concise method of writing.
Footnote 175: Edmund Waller (1606-1687), the most noted poet of the
Restoration period until his pupil Dryden appeared. His works are now
seldom read.
Footnote 176: From _Divine Poems_, "Old Age and Death."
Footnote 177: Following the advice of Boileau (1676-1711), a noted French
critic, whom Voltaire called "the lawgiver of Parnassus."
Footnote 178: By a critic we mean simply one who examines the literary
works of various ages, separates the good from the bad, and gives the
reasons for his classification. It is noticeable that critical writings
increase in an age, like that of the Restoration, when great creative works
are wanting.
Footnote 179: Two other principles of this book should be noted: (1) that
all power originates in the people; and (2) that the object of all
government is the common good. Here evidently is a democratic doctrine,
which abolishes the divine right of kings; but Hobbes immediately destroys
democracy by another doctrine,--that the power given by the people to the
ruler could not be taken away. Hence the Royalists could use the book to
justify the despotism of the Stuarts on the ground that the people had
chosen them. This part of the book is in direct opposition to Milton's
_Defense of the English People_.
Footnote 180: Locke's _Treatises on Government_ should also be mentioned,
for they are of profound interest to American students of history and
political science. It was from Locke that the framers of the Declaration of
Independence and of the Constitution drew many of their ideas, and even
some of their most striking phrases. "All men are endowed with certain
inalienable rights"; "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; "the
origin and basis of government is in the consent of the governed,"--these
and many more familiar and striking expressions are from Locke. It is
interesting to note that he was appointed to draft a constitution for the
new province of Carolina; but his work was rejected,--probably because it
was too democratic for the age in which he lived.
Footnote 181: A few slight changes and omissions from the original text,
as given in Wheatley's edition of Pepys (London, 1892, 9 vols.), are not
indicated in these brief quotations.
Footnote 182: The first daily newspaper, _The Daily Courant_, appeared in
London in 1702.
Footnote 183: See Lecky, _England in the Eighteenth Century_.
Footnote 184: Addison's "Campaign" (1704), written to celebrate the
battle of Blenheim.
Footnote 185: Great writers in every age, men like Shakespeare and
Milton, make their own style. They are therefore not included in this
summary. Among the minor writers also there are exceptions to the rule; and
fine feeling is often manifest in the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Vaughan,
and Herrick.
Footnote 186: We have endeavored here simply to show the meaning of terms
in general use in our literature; but it must be remembered that it is
impossible to classify or to give a descriptive name to the writers of any
period or century. While "classic" or "pseudo-classic" may apply to a part
of eighteenth-century literature, every age has both its romantic and its
classic movements. In this period the revolt against classicism is shown in
the revival of romantic poetry under Gray, Collins, Burns, and Thomson, and
in the beginning of the English novel under Defoe, Richardson, and
Fielding. These poets and novelists, who have little or no connection with
classicism, belong chronologically to the period we are studying. They are
reserved for special treatment in the sections following.
Footnote 187: Pope's satires, for instance, are strongly suggested in
Boileau; his _Rape of the Lock_ is much like the mock-heroic _Le Lutrin;_
and the "Essay on Criticism," which made him famous, is an English edition
and improvement of _L'Art Poétique_. The last was, in turn, a combination
of the _Ars Poetica_ of Horace and of many well-known rules of the
classicists.
Footnote 188: These are the four kinds of spirits inhabiting the four
elements, according to the Rosicrucians,--a fantastic sect of spiritualists
of that age. In the dedication of the poem Pope says he took the idea from
a French book called _Le Comte de Gabalis_.
Footnote 189: Compare this with Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage,"
in _As You Like it_, II, 7.
Footnote 190: It is only fair to point out that Swift wrote this and two
other pamphlets on religion at a time when he knew that they would damage,
if not destroy, his own prospects of political advancement.
Footnote 191: See Tennyson's "Merlin and the Gleam."
Footnote 192: Of the _Tatler_ essays Addison contributed forty-two;
thirty-six others were written in collaboration with Steele; while at least
a hundred and eighty are the work of Steele alone.
Footnote 193: From "The Vanity of Human Wishes"
Footnote 194: A very lovable side of Johnson's nature is shown by his
doing penance in the public market place for his unfilial conduct as a boy.
(See, in Hawthorne's _Our Old Home_, the article on "Lichfield and
Johnson.") His sterling manhood is recalled in his famous letter to Lord
Chesterfield, refusing the latter's patronage for the _Dictionary_. The
student should read this incident entire, in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_.