Dignum laude virum musa vetat mori,
Cælo musa beat.
Hor. Car. lib. iii.
London, Printed for Lawrence Lisle, and are to bee sold at
his shop in Paule's Church-yard, at the signe of the Tiger's head. 1614. 4to."[510:A] The characters in this edition amount to twenty-two, but were augmented in the eleventh, printed in 1622, to eighty. So extensive was the sale of this collection, that the sixteenth impression appeared in 1638.
Both the poem and the characters exhibit no small share of talent and discrimination. In Overbury's Wife, observes Mr. Neve, "the sentiments, maxims, and observations with which it abounds, are such as a considerable experience and a correct judgment on mankind alone could furnish. The topics of jealousy, and of the credit and behaviour of women, are treated with great truth, delicacy and perspicuity. The nice distinctions of moral character, and the pattern of female excellence here drawn, contrasted as they were with the heinous and flagrant enormities of the Countess of Essex, rendered this poem extremely popular, when its ingenious author was no more."[510:B] The prose characters, though rather too antithetical in their style, are drawn with a masterly hand, and are evidently the result of personal observation.
Numerous imitations of both were soon brought forward; in 1614 appeared "The Husband. A poeme expressed in a compleat man;" small 8vo.: and in 1616, "A Select Second Husband for Sir Thomas Overburie's Wife; now a matchlesse Widow:" small 8vo.; which were followed by many others. The prose characters established a still more durable precedent, for they continued to form a favourite mode of composition for better than a century. Of these the most immediate offspring were, "Satyrical Characters" by John Stephens, 8vo. 1615, and "The Good and the Badde, or Description of the Worthies and Unworthies of this Age. Where the Best may see
their Graces, and the Worst discerne their Basenesse," by Nicholas Breton, 4to. 1616. Perhaps the most valuable collection of characters, previous to the year 1700, is that published by Bishop Earle, in 1628, under the title of Microcosmography, and which may be considered as a pretty faithful delineation of many classes of characters as they existed during the close of the sixteenth, and commencement of the seventeenth, century.[511:A]
One of the earliest attempts at miscellaneous Essay-writing, since become a most fashionable and popular species of literary composition, may likewise very justly be ascribed to a similar epoch. In 1601, Thomas Wright published in small octavo a collection of Essays, on various subjects, which he entitled The Passions of the Minde. This volume, consisting of 336 pages independent of the preface, was re-issued from the press in 1604, enlarged by nearly as much more matter, and in a quarto form; and a third edition in the same size appeared in 1621.
The work is divided into six books, and, from the specimens which we have seen, is undoubtedly the production of a practised pen and a discerning mind. It is termed by Mr. Haslewood, "an amusing and instructive collection of philosophical essays, upon the customary pursuits of the mind;" and he adds, "though a relaxation of manners succeeded the gloomy history of the cowl, and the abolition of the dark cells of superstition; it was long before the moralist ventured to draw either example, or precept, from any other source than Scripture, and the writings of the fathers. Genius run riot in some instances from excess of liberty, but the calm, rational, and universal essayist was a character unknown. In the present work there are passages that possess no inconsiderable portion of ease, spirit, and freedom, diversified with character and anecdote that prove the author mingled with the world to advantage; and could