WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616)
From the Chandos portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Harrison furnishes a contemporary opinion on “the new veine of writing”:—
“This further is not to be omitted, to the singular commendation of both sorts and sexes of our courtiers here in England, that there are verie few of them, which have not the use and skill of sundrie speaches, beside an excellent veine of writing before time not regarded. Trulie it is a rare thing with us now, to hear of a courtier which hath but his owne language. And to saie how many gentlewomen and ladies there are, that beside sound knowledge of the Greeke and Latine toongs, are thereto no lesse skilful in the Spanish, Italian, and French or in some one of them, it resteth not in me; sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen and gentlemen do surmount in this behalfe, so these come verie little or nothing at all behind them for their parts, which industrie God continue, and accomplish that which otherwise is wanting.”... “The ladies of the court employ themselves in continuall reading either of the holie scriptures, or histories of our owne or forren nations about us, and diverse in writing volumes of their owne, or translating of other mens into our English and Latine toongs.”... “Finallie, to avoid idlenesse, and prevent sundrie transgressions, otherwise likelie to be committed and doone, such order is taken, that everie office hath either a bible, or the booke of the acts and monuments of the church of England, or both, beside some histories and chronicles lieing therein, for the exercise of such as come into the same; whereby the stranger that entereth into the court of England upon the sudden, shall rather imagine himselve to come into some public schools of the universities, where manie give eare to one that readeth, than unto a princes palace if you conferre the same with those of other nations. Would to God all honorable personages would take example of hir graces godlie, dealing in this behalfe, and shew their conformitie unto these hir so good beginnings which if they would, then should manie grievous offenses (wherewith God is highlie displeased) be cut off and restreined, which now doo reigne exceedinglie, in most noble and gentlemen’s houses, whereof they see no paterne within hur graces gates.” (Holinshed’s Chronicles.)
Leaving the great masters, let us consider a little the more popular literature of the day; the kind which has its run among the people and is forgotten; the current literature, the books of the time, the works which were bought and read by those of the citizens who read at all, probably as large a proportion as we should find at the present day, when the newspaper is the only reading of multitudes. It is not difficult to arrive at what constituted a library. There were religious books, such as Hooper’s Sermons; there were collections of songs, such as The Court of Venus, against which the clergy spoke vehemently; books of chivalry and novels in great numbers, such as Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick, Arthur of the Round Table, Huon of Bordeaux, Oliver of the Castle, Four Sons of Aymon, The Witless Devices of Gargantua and Howleglas. There were the English stories, Robin Hood, Adam Bell, Friar Rushe, The Foole of Gotham. There were satires and fables; Æsop, Erasmus’s Praise of Folly, The Schoolhouse of Women, The Defense of Women, Piers Plowman, Raynolde the Fox, The Palace of Pleasure. There were translations, as Virgil, Seneca, and Apulosius; there were books of instruction, as The Boke of Carvynge, The Boke of Cokerye, The Boke of Nurture for Men servants, The Boke of Fortune, The Boke of Curtesey, The Boke of Chesse, and The Hundred Points of Good Husserye. These titles are taken from actual lists before me; the presses were extremely active and the output of books was very considerable during the whole of Elizabeth’s long reign. In a word, there was as great a variety of books for the reader’s choice as there is now, setting aside the modern books in science; there were poets by the hundred, dramatists, novelists of all kinds, historians, preachers, moralists, and essayists. It would take too much space and time were I to attempt an estimate or an account of the Elizabethan literature.
EDMUND SPENSER (1552(?)–1599)
From an engraving by George Vertue.
There was, however, one form of literature then playing a very important part in the education of the people which has been too much neglected by those who write of the sixteenth century. It was the ballad. In the last century, if a man had a thing to say, he wrote a pamphlet; at present if he has a thing to say and desires that the people at large should hear it, he either casts it into the form of a novel, or he sends it to the papers as a letter or as a communication. The Elizabethan, on the other hand, cast it into the form of verse; the ballad expressed the popular opinion; by means of the ballad that opinion was formed and taught; by means of the ballad events were recorded and remembered. Every event produced its own ballad. I have before me a list of a hundred ballads, taken at random from the registers of the Stationers’ Company, published for the Shakespeare Society in 1849 by Payne Collier. From these registers it is evident that the ballad, as sung in private houses, in taverns, at fairs, and where people congregated; in the streets, in the markets, and at the Carrefours where stood the Cross and the Conduit, taught and led the people as the Press now teaches and leads them. There was a great competition in the production of new ballads; the printers vied with each other in getting the latest or the most striking event turned into ballad form and put upon the market. These ballads were written on every conceivable subject. In order to illustrate their importance I have compiled the following list roughly classified. The titles in almost all cases indicate the contents and aim of the ballad. Some of them are very well written.
I.—RELIGIOUS
O Lord who harte in Heaven so high.
The XV. Chapter of St. Paule.