Of the tone in which Stubbes book is written no inaccurate judgment may be formed from the various passages which we have already quoted; but the following short extract will more fully develope perhaps, the acrimony of his pen than any paragraph that has yet been brought forward. He is speaking of the neglect of Fox's Book of Martyrs, "whilst other toyes, fantasies and bableries," he adds, "wherof the world is ful, are suffered to be printed. Then prophane schedules, sacraligious libels, and hethnical pamphlets of toyes and bableries (the authors whereof may vendicate to themselves no smal commendations, at the hands of the devil for inventing the same) corrupt men's mindes, pervert good wits, allure to baudrie, induce to whordome, suppresse virtue and erect vice: which thing how should it be otherwise? for are they not invented and excogitat by Belzebub, written by Lucifer, licensed by Pluto, printed by Cerberus, and set a broche to sale by the infernal furies themselves to the poysning of the whole world."[502:B]
The works of Gosson and Stubbes are now chiefly valuable for the numerous illustrations which they incidentally give of the manners, customs, dress, and diversions, of their age, and especially for the light which they throw on the character and costume of the stage.
The progress of discussion has at length brought us to the third class of Miscellaneous Writers, who may be considered as possessing a more decorous and philosophic cast in composition than the authors who have just fallen beneath our notice. The individuals of this genus, too, are numerous, but we shall content ourselves with the mention of three, who were more than usually popular in their day, Thomas Lodge, Abraham Fleming, and Gervase Markham. Lodge was educated at Oxford, which he entered about 1573; he took his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Avignon, and practised as a physician in London, where he died in 1625. He was a dramatic poet as well a miscellaneous writer, and was considered by his contemporaries as a man of uncommon genius. He appears to have been, not only a scholar, but a man of the world, to have possessed no small share of wit and humour, and to have uniformly wielded his pen in support of morality and good order. Of his pieces no doubt many have perished; in his professional capacity, only one remains, a Treatise on the Plague; but the productions which acquired him most celebrity were written to expose the follies and vices of the times, and of these, about half a dozen are preserved. He is now best known by his "Wits Miserie and the Worlds Madnesse. Discovering the Devils incarnate of this Age. Lond. 1596:" a tract which, although so extremely rare as to be in the possession of only one or two collectors, has been frequently quoted, owing to its containing some interesting notices of contemporary writers. The principal faults in the literary character of Lodge seem to have been a love of quaintness and affectation; the very titles of his pamphlets indicate the former; the alliteration in the one just transcribed is notorious, and another is termed "Catharos. Diogenes in his Singularitie. Wherein is comprehended his merrie baighting fit for all men's benefits: Christened by him, A Nettle for Nice Noses, 1591." From a passage in The
Returne from Pernassus it is evident that he was thought to be deeply tainted with Euphuism, the literary folly of his time. The poet is speaking of Lodge and Watson, both, he says,
—— "subject to a crittick's marginall.
Lodge for his oare in every paper boate,
He that turnes over Galen every day,
To sit and simper Euphue's legacy."[504:A]
Abraham Fleming, the corrector and enlarger of the second edition of Holinshed's Chronicle in 1585, was prodigiously fertile, both as an original writer and a translator. In the latter capacity he gave versions of the Bucolics and Georgics of Virgil, both in rhyme of fourteen feet, 1575, and in the regular Alexandrine without rhyme, 1589; of Ælian's Various History in 1576; of Select Epistles of Cicero, 1576, and in the same year, a Panoplie of Epistles from Tully, Isocrates, Pliny, and others; of the Greek Panegyric of Synesius, and of various Latin works of the fifteenth century. As an original miscellaneous writer, his pieces are still more numerous, and, for the most part, occupied by moral and religious subjects; for example, one is called The Cundyt of Comfort, 1579; a second, The Battel between the Virtues and Vices, 1582, and a third The Diamond of Devotion, 1586. This last is so singularly quaint both in its title-page and divisions, so superior, indeed, in these departments, to the titles of his contemporary Lodge, and so indicative of the curious taste of the times in the methodical arrangement of literary matter, as to call for a further description. The complete title runs thus: "The Diamond of Devotion: Cut and squared into sixe severall pointes: namelie, 1. The Footepath of Felicitie. 2. A Guide to Godlines. 3. The Schoole of Skill. 4. A swarme of Bees. 5. A Plant of Pleasure. 6. A Grove of Graces. Full of manie fruitfull lessons availeable unto the leading of a godlie and reformed life." The Footepath of Felicitie has ten divisions, concluding with a "looking glasse for the Christian
reader;" the Guide to Godlines, is divided into three branches, and these branches into so many blossoms; the first branch containing four blossoms, the second thirteen, and the third ten; the Schoole of Skill is digested into three sententious sequences of the A. B. C.; the Swarme of Bees is distributed into ten honeycombs, including two hundred lessons; the Plant of Pleasure bears fourteen several flowers, in prose and verse; the Grove of Graces exhibits forty-two plants, or Graces, for dinner and supper, and the volume concludes with "a briefe praier."