Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

But the most eloquent of all the old English divines are the two celebrated prelates of the reign of Charles I., Joseph Hall (1574-1656) and Jeremy Taylor (1613-1671), alike eminent for Christian piety and conscientious zeal. Besides his pulpit discourses, Bishop Hall has left a series of "Contemplations" on passages of the Bible, and "Meditations," which are particularly rich in beautiful descriptions. Among the most practical and popular of Taylor's works are his "Holy Living" and "Holy Dying," while his sermons distinguish him as one of the great ornaments of the English pulpit. The chief theologian of the close of the period was Richard Baxter (1615-1691). His works have great value for their originality and acuteness of thought, and for their vigorous and passionate though unpolished eloquence. His "Call to the Unconverted" and "The Saint's Everlasting Rest" deserve their wide popularity. Among the semi-theological writers of the time are Fuller, Cudworth, and Henry More, Fuller (1608-1661) is most widely known through his "Worthies of England," a book of lively and observant gossip. Cudworth and More, his contemporaries, deviated in their philosophical writings from the tendencies of Bacon and the sensualistlc doctrines of Hobbes, and regarded existence rather from the spiritual point of view of Plato; in the preceding generation, the skepticism of Lord Herbert of Cherbury taught a different lesson from theirs.

In this period we encounter in the philosophical field two of the strongest thinkers who have appeared in modern Europe, Bacon and Hobbes. Bacon (1561-1620) aimed at the solution of two great problems, the answers to which were intended to constitute the "Instauratio Magna," the great Restoration of Philosophy, that colossal work, towards which the chief writings of this illustrious author were contributions. The first problem was an Analytic Classification of all departments of Human Knowledge, which occupies a portion of his treatise "On the Advancement of Learning." Imperfect and erroneous as his scheme may be allowed to be, D'Alembert and his coadjutors in the last century were able to do no more than to copy and distort it. In his "Novum Organum" he undertakes to supply certain deficiencies of the Aristotelian system of logic, and expounds his mode of philosophizing; he was the first to unfold the inductive method, which he did in so masterly a way, that he has earned, with posterity, the title of the father of experimental science. His "Essays," from the excellence of their style and the interesting nature of the subjects, are the most generally read of all the author's productions. No English writer surpasses Bacon in fervor and brilliancy of style, in force of expression, or in richness and significance of imagery. His writings, though they received during his lifetime the neglect for which he had proudly prepared himself, gave a mighty impulse to scientific thought for at least a century after his time. In his will, the following strikingly prophetic passage is found: "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own country, after some time is passed over."

The influence of Hobbes on philosophy in England has been greater than that of Bacon. In politics, his theory is that of uncontrolled absolutism, subjecting religion and morality to the will of the sovereign; in ethics he resolves all our impulses regarding right and wrong into self-love. His reasoning is close and consistent, and if his premises are granted, it is hardly possible to avoid his conclusions. Other departments in the prose literature of this period were amply filled and richly adorned. Speculations upon the Theory of Society and Civil Polity were frequent. Among them are the Latin works of Bellenden "On the State," the "New Atlantis," a romance by Lord Bacon, the "Oceana" of Harrington, and the "Leviathan" of Hobbes.

In the collection of materials for national history the period was exceedingly active. Camden and Selden stand at the head of the band of antiquaries. Hobbes wrote in his old age "Behemoth, or a History of the Civil Wars," and the "Turkish History" of Knolles has been pronounced one of the most spirited narratives in the language.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), while lying in the Tower under sentence of death, wrote a "History of the World," from the Creation to the Republic of Rome. The narrative is spirited and pervaded by a tone of devout sentiment.

The accomplished Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), in his "Defense of Poesy," pays an eloquent tribute to the value of the most powerful of all the literary arts. His "Arcadia" is a ponderous combination of romantic and pastoral incidents, the unripe production of a young poet, but it abounds in isolated passages beautiful alike in sentiment and language.

Towards the close of the period, Milton manifested extraordinary power in prose writing; his defense of the "Liberty of Unlicensed Printing" is one of the most impressive pieces of eloquence in the English tongue. His style is more Latinized than that of most of his contemporaries, and this exotic infection pervades both his terms and his arrangement; yet he has passages marvelously sweet, and others in which the grand sweep of his sentences emulates the cathedral music of Hooker.

The press now began to pour forth shoals of short novels, romances, and essays, and pamphlets on various subjects. Among other productions is Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," a storehouse of odd learning and quaintly-original ideas; it is deficient, however, in style and power of consecutive reasoning. Far above Burton in eloquence and strength of thought is Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), whose writings have all the characteristics of the age in a state of extravagant exaggeration. The thoughtful melancholy, the singular mixture of skepticism and credulity, and the brilliancy of imaginative illustration, give his essays a peculiarity of character that renders them exceedingly fascinating. The poet Cowley, in his prose writings, is distinguished for his undeviating simplicity and perspicuity, and for smoothness and ease, of which hardly another instance could be produced from any other book written before the Restoration.

The English drama has been called Irregular in contrast to the Regular drama of Greece and that of modern France, founded upon the Greek, by the French critics of the age of Louis XIV. The principal law of this system, as we have seen, prescribed obedience to the Three Unities, of Time, of Place, and of Action; the two first being founded on the desire to imitate in the drama the series of events which it represents, the time of action was allowed to extend to twenty-four hours, and the scene to change from place to place in the same city. But by Shakspeare and his contemporaries no fixed limits were acknowledged in regard either of time or place, the action stretching through many years, and the scene changing to very wide distances. The rule prescribing unity of action, that everything shall be subordinate to the series of events which is taken as the guiding-thread, is a much more sound one; and in most of Shakspeare's works, as well as those of his contemporaries, this unity of impression, as it has been called, is fully preserved.

Before the year 1585 no perceptible advance had been made in the drama, and for the period of sixty years, from that date to the closing of the theatres in 1645, on the breaking out of the Civil War, the history of Shakspeare's works forms the leading thread. Men of eminent genius lived around and after him, but there were none who do not derive much of their importance from the relation in which they stand to him, and hardly any whose works do not owe much of their excellence to the influence of his.