English Literature
Established Church, an incomprehensible genius, given to broodings and
melancholy and to reading of every conceivable kind of literature. Thanks
to his wonderful memory, everything he read was stored up for use or
ornament, till his mind resembled a huge curiosity shop. All his life he
suffered from hypochondria, but curiously traced his malady to the stars
rather than to his own liver. It is related of him that he used to suffer
so from despondency that no help was to be found in medicine or theology;
his only relief was to go down to the river and hear the bargemen swear at
one another.
Burton's _Anatomy_ was begun as a medical treatise on morbidness, arranged
and divided with all the exactness of the schoolmen's demonstration of
doctrines; but it turned out to be an enormous hodgepodge of quotations and
references to authors, known and unknown, living and dead, which seemed to
prove chiefly that "much study is a weariness to the flesh." By some freak
of taste it became instantly popular, and was proclaimed one of the
greatest books in literature. A few scholars still explore it with delight,
as a mine of classic wealth; but the style is hopelessly involved, and to
the ordinary reader most of his numerous references are now as unmeaning as
a hyper-jacobian surface.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682). Browne was a physician who, after much study
and travel, settled down to his profession in Norwich; but even then he
gave far more time to the investigation of natural phenomena than to the
barbarous practices which largely constituted the "art" of medicine in his
day. He was known far and wide as a learned doctor and an honest man, whose
scientific studies had placed him in advance of his age, and whose
religious views were liberal to the point of heresy. With this in mind, it
is interesting to note, as a sign of the times, that this most scientific
doctor was once called to give "expert" testimony in the case of two old
women who were being tried for the capital crime of witchcraft. He
testified under oath that "the fits were natural, but heightened by the
devil's coöperating with the witches, at whose instance he [the alleged
devil] did the villainies."
Browne's great work is the _Religio Medici_, i.e. The Religion of a
Physician (1642), which met with most unusual success. "Hardly ever was a
book published in Britain," says Oldys, a chronicler who wrote nearly a
century later, "that made more noise than the _Religio Medici_." Its
success may be due largely to the fact that, among thousands of religious
works, it was one of the few which saw in nature a profound revelation, and
which treated purely religious subjects in a reverent, kindly, tolerant
way, without ecclesiastical bias. It is still, therefore, excellent
reading; but it is not so much the matter as the manner--the charm, the
gentleness, the remarkable prose style--which has established the book as
one of the classics of our literature.
Two other works of Browne are _Vulgar Errors_ (1646), a curious combination
of scientific and credulous research in the matter of popular superstition,
and _Urn Burial_, a treatise suggested by the discovery of Roman burial
urns at Walsingham. It began as an inquiry into the various methods of
burial, but ended in a dissertation on the vanity of earthly hope and
ambitions. From a literary point of view it is Browne's best work, but is
less read than the _Religio Medici_.
THOMAS FULLER (1608-1661). Fuller was a clergyman and royalist whose lively
style and witty observations would naturally place him with the gay
Caroline poets. His best known works are _The Holy War, The Holy State and
the Profane State, Church History of Britain_, and the _History of the
Worthies of England. The Holy and Profane State_ is chiefly a biographical
record, the first part consisting of numerous historical examples to be
imitated, the second of examples to be avoided. The _Church History_ is not
a scholarly work, notwithstanding its author's undoubted learning, but is a
lively and gossipy account which has at least one virtue, that it
entertains the reader. The _Worthies_, the most widely read of his works,
is a racy account of the important men of England. Fuller traveled
constantly for years, collecting information from out-of-the-way sources
and gaining a minute knowledge of his own country. This, with his
overflowing humor and numerous anecdotes and illustrations, makes lively
and interesting reading. Indeed, we hardly find a dull page in any of his
numerous books.
JEREMY TAYLOR (1613-1667). Taylor was the greatest of the clergymen who
made this period famous, a man who, like Milton, upheld a noble ideal in
storm and calm, and himself lived it nobly. He has been called "the
Shakespeare of divines," and "a kind of Spenser in a cassock," and both
descriptions apply to him very well. His writings, with their exuberant
fancy and their noble diction, belong rather to the Elizabethan than to the
Puritan age.
From the large number of his works two stand out as representative of the
man himself: _The Liberty of Prophesying_ (1646), which Hallam calls the
first plea for tolerance in religion, on a comprehensive basis and on
deep-seated foundations; and _The Rules and Exercises of Holy Living_
(1650). To the latter might be added its companion volume, _Holy Dying_,
published in the following year. _The Holy Living and Dying_, as a single
volume, was for many years read in almost every English cottage. With
Baxter's _Saints' Rest, Pilgrim's Progress_, and the _King James Bible_, it
often constituted the entire library of multitudes of Puritan homes; and as
we read its noble words and breathe its gentle spirit, we cannot help
wishing that our modern libraries were gathered together on the same
thoughtful foundations.
RICHARD BAXTER (1615-1691). This "busiest man of his age" strongly suggests
Bunyan in his life and writings. Like Bunyan, he was poor and uneducated, a
nonconformist minister, exposed continually to insult and persecution; and,
like Bunyan, he threw himself heart and soul into the conflicts of his age,
and became by his public speech a mighty power among the common people.
Unlike Jeremy Taylor, who wrote for the learned, and whose involved
sentences and classical allusions are sometimes hard to follow, Baxter went
straight to his mark, appealing directly to the judgment and feeling of his
readers.
The number of his works is almost incredible when one thinks of his busy
life as a preacher and the slowness of manual writing. In all, he left
nearly one hundred and seventy different works, which if collected would
make fifty or sixty volumes. As he wrote chiefly to influence men on the
immediate questions of the day, most of this work has fallen into oblivion.
His two most famous books are _The Saints' Everlasting Rest_ and _A Call to
the Unconverted_, both of which were exceedingly popular, running through
scores of successive editions, and have been widely read in our own
generation.
IZAAK WALTON (1593-1683). Walton was a small tradesman of London, who
preferred trout brooks and good reading to the profits of business and the
doubtful joys of a city life; so at fifty years, when he had saved a little
money, he left the city and followed his heart out into the country. He
began his literary work, or rather his recreation, by writing his famous
_Lives_,--kindly and readable appreciations of Donne, Wotton, Hooker,
Herbert, and Sanderson, which stand at the beginning of modern biographical
writing.
In 1653 appeared _The Compleat Angler_, which has grown steadily in
appreciation, and which is probably more widely read than any other book on
the subject of fishing. It begins with a conversation between a falconer, a
hunter, and an angler; but the angler soon does most of the talking, as
fishermen sometimes do; the hunter becomes a disciple, and learns by the
easy method of hearing the fisherman discourse about his art. The
conversations, it must be confessed, are often diffuse and pedantic; but
they only make us feel most comfortably sleepy, as one invariably feels
after a good day's fishing. So kindly is the spirit of the angler, so
exquisite his appreciation of the beauty of the earth and sky, that one
returns to the book, as to a favorite trout stream, with the undying
expectation of catching something. Among a thousand books on angling it
stands almost alone in possessing a charming style, and so it will probably
be read as long as men go fishing. Best of all, it leads to a better
appreciation of nature, and it drops little moral lessons into the reader's
mind as gently as one casts a fly to a wary trout; so that one never
suspects his better nature is being angled for. Though we have sometimes
seen anglers catch more than they need, or sneak ahead of brother fishermen
to the best pools, we are glad, for Walton's sake, to overlook such
unaccountable exceptions, and agree with the milkmaid that "we love all
anglers, they be such honest, civil, quiet men."
SUMMARY OF THE PURITAN PERIOD. The half century between 1625 and 1675 is
called the Puritan period for two reasons: first, because Puritan standards
prevailed for a time in England; and second, because the greatest literary
figure during all these years was the Puritan, John Milton. Historically
the age was one of tremendous conflict. The Puritan struggled for
righteousness and liberty, and because he prevailed, the age is one of
moral and political revolution. In his struggle for liberty the Puritan
overthrew the corrupt monarchy, beheaded Charles I, and established the
Commonwealth under Cromwell. The Commonwealth lasted but a few years, and
the restoration of Charles II in 1660 is often put as the end of the
Puritan period. The age has no distinct limits, but overlaps the
Elizabethan period on one side, and the Restoration period on the other.
The age produced many writers, a few immortal books, and one of the world's
great literary leaders. The literature of the age is extremely diverse in
character, and the diversity is due to the breaking up of the ideals of
political and religious unity. This literature differs from that of the
preceding age in three marked ways: (1) It has no unity of spirit, as in
the days of Elizabeth, resulting from the patriotic enthusiasm of all
classes. (2) In contrast with the hopefulness and vigor of Elizabethan
writings, much of the literature of this period is somber in character; it
saddens rather than inspires us. (3) It has lost the romantic impulse of
youth, and become critical and intellectual; it makes us think, rather than
feel deeply.
In our study we have noted (1) the Transition Poets, of whom Daniel is
chief; (2) the Song Writers, Campion and Breton; (3) the Spenserian Poets,
Wither and Giles Fletcher; (4) the Metaphysical Poets, Donne and Herbert;
(5) the Cavalier Poets, Herrick, Carew, Lovelace, and Suckling; (6) John
Milton, his life, his early or Horton poems, his militant prose, and his
last great poetical works; (7) John Bunyan, his extraordinary life, and his
chief work, _The Pilgrim's Progress;_ (8) the Minor Prose Writers, Burton,
Browne, Fuller, Taylor, Baxter, and Walton. Three books selected from this
group are Browne's _Religio Medici_, Taylor's _Holy Living and Dying_, and
Walton's _Complete Angler_.
SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Milton_. Paradise Lost, books 1-2, L'Allegro, Il
Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas, and selected Sonnets,--all in Standard English
Classics; same poems, more or less complete, in various other series;
Areopagitica and Treatise on Education, selections, in Manly's English
Prose, or Areopagitica in Arber's English Reprints, Clarendon Press Series,
Morley's Universal Library, etc.
_Minor Poets_. Selections from Herrick, edited by Hale, in Athenaeum Press