CHAPTER VIII.

ENGLISH MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE: A COURSE OF READING.'

NDER the heading of "Miscellaneous Literature," I propose to bring together the best of the books which my plan has not yet permitted me to notice, chiefly books in that department of belles lettres which is so vague and so uncertain in its boundaries. Still adopting the chronological order, I come, in the first place, to Sir Thomas Malory's recension of the Arthurian romances, A Book of the Noble Hystoryes of Kynge Arthur" (written in 1469, and printed by Caxton in 1485), which, apart from its philological interest, appeals to the reader on the ground of the use made of it by Spenser and Tennyson. Its English is admirable, and the spirit of chivalry lives and breathes in it. There is a good epitome by J. T. K., called "The Legend of King Arthur," while Caxton's edition has been reprinted in the "Globe Library." Sir Thomas Elyot's "Boke named the Governor" (1531), and his "Defence or Apologye of Good Women" (1545), are the essays of a man of experience and good sense; the first-named should be compared with Ascham's "Schoolmaster" (1565) and Milton's "Tractate on Education." In 1523 appeared a fascinating version of Froissart's "Chronicles" by John Bouchier, Lord Berners; its racy and picturesque English"made a landmark in our tongue." It was written at the suggestion of Henry VIII., a liberal patron of letters, to whom John Leland (1506-52), the learned author of the "Itinerary" (a description of English towns and antiquities), owed his appointment as "the King's Antiquary."

John Foxe's "Acts and Monuments of these Latter Perillous Days" (1563), popularly known as Foxe's " Book of Martyrs," contributed in no slight degree to the spread of anti-Papal sentiment, among the English people; nor at this day is its influence wholly extinct. There is coarseness in it and credulity; but the narratives are related with a very effective straightforwardness, and their general trustworthiness is beyond doubt. Indeed, the most fertile fancy would have failed to invent the tales of horror and pity that Foxe has brought together. The old folio edition, by the way, is illustrated with the quaintest engravings imaginable,

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Some eliZABETHAN writers.

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which one can hardly contemplate without feeling as strong a Protestant as Foxe himself could have desired. Much excellent criticism on poets and poetry occurs in "The Art of English Poesie" (1569), by George Puttenham, designed to help the courtiers and gentlewomen of the court to write good poetry," or, as its author elsewhere says, intended for those who desired "to become skilful in their mother tongue, and for their private recreation to make now and then ditties of pleasure." Not less interesting is "The Palace of Pleasure: beautified, adorned, and well furnished with pleasant Histories and excellent Novels," which was edited about this time by William Painter, Queen Elizabeth's clerk of the armoury, chiefly from the tales of Biondello and Boccaccio. To Shakespeare and his fellow-dramatists it furnished suggestions for dramatic plots; when first published, its popularity was immense. So was that of Richard Tottel's "Miscellany (1557), and "The Paradise of Dainty Devices" (1576), which supplied the Elizabethan public with a variety of songs and sonnets, elegies and epigrams, and fed the popular appetite for poetry. William Camden's "Britannia," an elaborate description of "the Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Adjacent Islands," was one of the great works of Elizabeth's reign. It was published in 1586, and doubtless helped to fan and swell that spirit of patriotism which, two years later, grappled successfully with the Spanish Armada. In compiling it Camden was no miser of his labour. "I have travelled," he says, "over all England for the most part; I have conferred with most skilful observers in each county; I have studiously read over our own country writers, old and new, all Greek and Latin authors which have once made mention of Britain; I have had conference with learned men in the other parts of Christendom; I have been diligent in the records of this realm; I have looked into most libraries, registers, and memorials of churches, cities, and corporations; I have pored over many an old roll and evidence, and produced their testimony as beyond all exception, when the cause required, in their very own words-though barbarous they be-that the honour of verity might in no wise be impeached." It is not improbable that William Warner derived the inspiration or idea of his "Albion's Englande" (1586) from Camden's masterpiece; they most certainly influenced the flowing alexandrines of George Chapman's "Polyolbion" (1612), which first gave dignity to topography. Camden's "Britannia" always seems to me the initial work of our patriotic literature. John Stow (1525-1605), with his "Survey of London" and "Flores Historiarum," followed in his footsteps.

1 There is probably," says Hallam, "no poem of this kind in any other language comparable in extent and excellence to the 'Polyolbion;' nor can any one read a portion of it without admiration for its learned and highlygifted author. Yet perhaps no English poem, known so well by name, is so little known beyond its name.'

SELDEN-BISHOP WILKINS.

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Of John Selden (1584-1654), who played an important part in the constitutional controversy of Charles I.'s reign, Lord Clarendon says:-"He was of so stupendous a learning in all kinds and all languages, as may appear in his excellent writings, that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant amongst books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his humanity, affability, and courtesy were such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good-nature, charity, and delight in doing good exceeded that breeding." He is now best known by his "Table-Talk," a collection of his wise and witty sayings made by his amanuensis,-the first book of the kind in our language, so vigorous, so racy, so shrewd, that they inspire the reader with delight. Many of them have become proverbial. There is "more weighty bullion sense" in the "Table-Talk," says Coleridge, than is to be found in the same number of pages of any uninspired writer. We may assume in this a characteristic exaggeration, and yet allow that it commands the highest praise. His "Treatise on Titles of Honour," his "History of Tithes," and his "Mare Clausum," are works of great learning and honesty, but a busy world is compelled to pass them by.

Just before the outbreak of the Great Civil War, Bishop Wilkins (1614-72), then an ingenious and fanciful young man, published his "Discovery of a New World, or a Discourse tending to prove that it is probable there may be another Habitable World in the Moon; with a Discourse concerning the Possibility of a Passage thither." This work has no serious interest, but it may be read for its whimsicality, and possibly there is a latent irony in it which the reader may detect. As for the mode of conveyance to the moon, the writer suggests the construction of a flying chariot, adding slyly that it may be made on the same principles by which Archytas made a wooden dove and Regiomontanus a wooden eagle. Or, he says, if there be such a great bird in Madagascar as Marco Polo mentions, the feathers of whose wings are twelve feet long, "it is but teaching one of these to carry a man, and he may ride up thither.' Or it is not impossible that a man may be able to fly by the application of wings to his own body. Bishop Wilkins was a great observer and promoter of experimental philosophy, and his "Discourse Concerning a New Planet" (1640) is one of the earliest substantiations of the Copernican system, which, in 1632, was fully developed by Galileo.

In 1691 John Ray, the son of an Essex blacksmith, who had travelled largely and observed closely, gave to the world his "Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation." This was an important contribution to Natural Theology, which had never before been presented in a clear and popular form (see page 225). It was followed in 1714 by Derham's "Physico-Theology" and "AstroTheology," in both of which "the argument from design" is ably

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THE "EIKON BASILIKE."

exhibited; and in 1802 by Paley's "Natural Theology," which, like Aaron's rod, swallowed up its predecessors. The "Bridgewater Treatises," founded by the eighth Earl of Bridgewater, are all in illustration and expansion of the same argument, which at present seems to be somewhat unjustly depreciated, from a supposition that it is inconsistent with, or invalidated by, the theory of Evolution. The "Bridgewater Treatises" were written by Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Kidd, Dr. Whewell, Sir Charles Bell, Dr. Roget, Dr. Buckland, the Rev. William Kirby, and Dr. Pinet. Of these, the most popular are, or were, Sir Charles Bell on The Hand" and Dr. Buckland on "Geology and Mineralogy;" but the latter is no longer of much utility.

A book with a certain historical interest attaching to it is the celebrated "Eikon Basilike, or the Portraiture of his Most Sacred Majesty in his Solitude and Sufferings," published a few days after the death of Charles I. It produced an extraordinary effect from the skill with which it portrayed the hopes and sorrows and piety of the royal" martyr ;" and Milton was employed by the Council of State to counteract its influence by his "Eikonoclastes." In this he alludes to the dubious question of its authorship. "As to the author of these soliloquies," he says, "whether it were undoubtedly the late King, as is vulgarly believed, or any secret coadjutor, and some stick not to name him, it can add nothing, nor shall take from the weight, if any be, of reason which he brings." The royal authorship was naturally supported by the more vehement Royalists, while, on the other hand, strong evidence was adduced to substantiate the claim of Dr. Gauden, Bishop of Worcester. In 1786 were published some of Gauden's letters addressed to Lord Clarendon, in which he rested his petition for preferment entirely on the ground that the "Eikon" was wholly and only his invention, making, and design, in order to vindicate the King's wisdom, honour, and piety. These letters have been generally accepted as settling the question; but Mr. S. R. Gardiner, the historian, has recently intimated a belief that Charles was really the author, and that Gauden was an impostor, and apparently promises that testimony to this effect will be forthcoming. It may be added that the book itself possesses no special literary merit.

Bishop Earle's "Microcosmography, or a Piece of the World Discovered, in Essays and Characters" (1628), is a book worth reading by students with sufficient leisure. It shows the influence of the Elizabethan drama, which had turned the attention of writers to the study of human character, and also the wider range which our prose literature was rapidly taking. It was preceded by Bishop Hall's "Characters of Virtues and Vices" in 1608, and Sir Thomas Overbury's graphic "Characters, or Wittie [i.e., epigrammatic or pithy] Descriptions of the Properties of Sundry Persons," in 1608, and has had many (and mostly indifferent) successors. Owen

Feltham's "Resolves, Divine, Moral, and Political," first published in 1628, may be described as a series of brief essays and sketches, marked by considerable reflective power. Note that the word "Resolves" is used in the sense of "Solutions," the writer stating and answering a variety of questions. It is used in this sense by Shakespeare:-" Resolve my doubt" ("3 Henry VI.," a. iv., s. 1), and "resolve the propositions of a lover" ("As You Like It," a. iii., s. 2). This form of composition, which Bacon had introduced and popularised, was adopted by Abraham Cowley, the poet (1618-67), whose " Essays" are perhaps second only in matter and manner to those of Bacon. Readers acquainted only with Cowley's poems, and their elaborate and involved style, overloaded with inversions, ellipses, and conceits, will be surprised by the directness and simple force of his prose, which he manages with masterly ease. Among the "Essays," those on Solitude, Liberty, the Garden, and the Uncertainty of Riches, are specially admirable for their tranquil thoughtfulness. To the same category I shall ascribe Izaak Walton's "Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man's Recreation," which is simply a collection of essays on rural scenes and enjoyments, on Nature and the delights of Nature, broken up into conversational form. It is one of the most justly popular books in the language; one of those which are so thoroughly original in conception and execution that they can never be surpassed. The style is exquisitely transparent and harmonious; the descriptions are as vivid as accurate; the illustrations picturesque ; the reflections spontaneous, just, and healthy; and from first to last it is saturated with a deep, warm, unaffected love of Nature, which bubbles up in almost every sentence and brims over in every page. "What would a blind man give," he says, "to see the pleasant rivers and meadows and flowers and fountains that we have met with since we met together! I have been told that if a man that was born blind could obtain to have his sight for but only one hour during his whole life, and should, at the first opening of his eyes, fix his sight upon the sun when it was in full glory, either at the rising or setting of it, he would be so transported and amazed, and so admire the glory of it, that he would not willingly turn his eyes from that first ravishing object to behold all the other various beauties this world would present to him. And this and many other like blessings we enjoy daily." Walton's book, to one in city pent, will bring back the fresh fragance of the hawthorn hedges, and the innocent beauty of the cowslips, and the music of the murmuring stream. It breathes everywhere of the country.

For strenuous, manly, copious English prose, a better model could hardly be desired than that which John Dryden, the poet of the Restoration, furnishes in his "Critical Essays" and "Prefaces."1

1 It will be remembered that Fox the statesman, in writing his "History of England," would employ no word which Dryden had not used. Dryden's prose was also highly esteemed by Burke.