composition could be wanting as exemplars. That the good sense of the age was aware of the value of these writers, in point of style, though surrounded by innovations supported by rank and fashion, may be concluded from the admonitions of Peacham, who in his chapter "Of stile, in speaking and writing," not only describes the style which ought to be adopted, but enumerates the authors who have afforded the best examples of it for the student. "Let your style," he admirably observes, "bee furnished with solid matter, and compact of the best, choice, and most familiar words; taking heed of speaking, or writing such words, as men shall rather admire than understand.—Flowing at one and the selfe same height, neither taken in and knit up too short, that, like rich hangings of Arras or Tapistry, thereby lose their grace and beautie, as Themistocles was wont to say: nor suffered to spread so farre, like soft Musicke in an open field, whose delicious sweetnesse vanisheth, and is lost in the ayre.
"To helpe yourselfe herein, make choice of those authors in prose, who speake the best and purest English. I would commend unto you (though from more antiquity) the Life of Richard the third, written by Sir Thomas Moore; the Arcadia of the noble Sir Philip Sidney, whom Du Bartas makes one of the foure columnes of our language; the Essayes, and other peeces of the excellent master of eloquence, my Lord of S. Albanes, who possesseth not onely eloquence, but all good learning, as hereditary both by father and mother. You have then M. Hooker, his Policy: Henry the fourth, well written by S. John Heyward; that first part of our English Kings, by M. Samuel Daniel. There are many others I know, but these will tast you best, as proceeding from no vulgar judgment."[447:A]
With regard to the state of colloquial language during this epoch, it may safely be asserted, that a reference to the works of Shakspeare will best acquaint us with the "diction of common life," with the tone of conversation which prevailed both in the higher and lower
ranks of society; for the dialogue of his most perfect comedies is, by many degrees, more easy, lively, and perspicuous, than that of any other contemporary dramatic writer.
It is by no means, however, our wish to infer, from what has been said in praise of the prose writers of this period, that they are to be considered as perfect models in the nineteenth century; on the contrary, it must be confessed, that the best of them exhibit abundant proofs of quaintness and prolixity, of verbal pedantry and inverted phraseology; and though the language, through their influence, made unparalleled strides, and fully unfolded its copiousness, energy, and strength, it remained greatly deficient in correctness and polish, in selection of words, and harmony of arrangement.[448:A]
These defects, especially the two latter, are to be attributed, in a great measure, to philological studies being almost exclusively confined to the learned languages, a subject of complaint with a few individuals, who lamented the neglect which this classical enthusiasm entailed on their native tongue. Thus Arthur Golding, in some verses prefixed to Baret's Alviarie, after observing that
———————— "all good inditers find
Our Inglishe tung driven almost out of kind,
Dismembred, hacked, maymed, rent and torne,
Defaced, patched, mard, and made a skorne,"