Halleck's New English Literature Part 18

She had a law pa.s.sed restoring the supremacy of the monarch, "as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things as temporal." The prayer book of Edward VI. was again introduced and the ma.s.s was forbidden.

She was broad enough not to inquire too closely into the private religious opinions of her subjects, so long as they went to the established church. For each absence they were fined a shilling. Next to churchgoing and her country, she loved and encouraged plays.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACSIMILE OF ELIZABETH'S SIGNATURE TO A LICENSE FOR THE EARL OF LEICESTER'S COMPANY OF PLAYERS, 1574.]

For more than twenty years she was worried by fear that either France or Spain would put her Catholic cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, on the English throne. With masterly diplomacy, Elizabeth for a long time managed to retain the active friendship of at least one of these great powers, in order to restrain the other from interfering. She had kept Mary a prisoner for nineteen years, fearing to liberate her. At last an active conspiracy was discovered to a.s.sa.s.sinate Elizabeth and put Mary on the throne. Elizabeth accordingly had her cousin beheaded in 1587. Spain thereupon prepared her fleet, the Invincible Armada, to attack England. When this became known, the outburst of patriotic feeling was so intense among all cla.s.ses in England that the queen did not hesitate to put Lord Howard, a Catholic, in command of the English fleet. The Armada was utterly defeated, and England was free to enter on her glorious period of influencing the thought and action of the world.

In brief, Elizabeth's reign was remarkable for the rise of the middle cla.s.ses, for the growth of manufactures, for the appearance of English ships in almost all parts of the world, for the extension of commerce, for greater freedom of thought and action, for what the world now calls Elizabethan literature, and for the ascendancy of a great mental and moral movement to which we must next call attention.

Culmination of the Renaissance and the Reformation.--We have seen that the Renaissance began in Italy in the fourteenth century and influenced the work of Chaucer. In the same century, Wycliffe's influence helped the cause of the Reformation. Elizabethan England alone had the good fortune to experience the culmination of these two movements at one and the same time. At no other period and in no other country have two forces, like the Renaissance and the Reformation, combined at the height of their ascendancy to stimulate the human mind. One result of these two mighty influences was the work of William Shakespeare, which speaks to the ear of all time.

The Renaissance, having opened the gates of knowledge, inspired the Elizabethans with the hope of learning every secret of nature and of surmounting all difficulties. The Reformation gave man new freedom, imposed on him the gravest individual responsibilities, made him realize the importance of every act of his own will, and emphasized afresh the idea of the stewardship of this present life, for which he would be held accountable. In Elizabethan days, these two forces cooperated; in the following Puritan age they were at war.

Some Characteristics of Elizabethan Life.--It became an ambition to have as many different experiences as possible, to search for that variety craved by youth and by a youthful age. Sir Walter Raleigh was a courtier, a writer, a warden of the tin mines, a vice admiral, a captain of the guard, a colonizer, a country gentleman, and a pirate.

Sir Philip Sidney, who died at the age of thirty-two, was an envoy to a foreign court, a writer of romances, an officer in the army, a poet and a courtier. Shakespeare left the little town where he was born, to plunge into the more complex life of London. The poet, Edmund Spenser, went to turbulent Ireland, where he had enough experiences to suggest the conflicts in the _Faerie Queene_.

The greater freedom and initiative of the individual and the remarkable extension of trade with all parts of the world naturally led to the rise of the middle cla.s.s. The n.o.bility were no longer the sole leaders in England's rapid progress. Many of Elizabeth's councilors were said to have sprung from the ma.s.ses, but no reign could boast of wiser ministers. It was then customary for the various cla.s.ses to mingle much more freely than they do now. There was absence of that overspecialization which today keeps people in such sharply separated groups. This mingling was further aided by the tendency to try many different pursuits and by the spirit of patriotism in the air. All cla.s.ses were interested in repelling the Spanish Armada and in maintaining England's freedom. It was fortunate for Shakespeare that the Elizabethan age gave him unusual opportunity to meet and to become the spokesman of all cla.s.ses of men. The audience that stood in the pit or sat in the boxes to witness the performance of his plays, comprised not only lords and wealthy merchants, but also weavers, sailors, and country folk.

Initiative and Love of Action.--The Elizabethans were distinguished for their initiative. This term implies the possession of two qualities: (1) ingenuity or fertility in ideas, and (2) ability to pa.s.s at once from an idea to its suggested action. Never did action habitually follow more quickly on the heels of thought. The age loved to translate everything into action, because the spirit of the Renaissance demanded the exercise of youthful activity to its fullest capacity in order that the power which the new knowledge promised could be acquired and enjoyed before death. As the Elizabethans felt that real life meant activity in exploring a new and interesting world, both physical and mental, they demanded that their literature should present this life of action. Hence, all their greatest poets, with the exception of Spenser, were dramatists. Even Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, with its abstractions, is a poem of action, for the virtues fight with the vices.

ELIZABETHAN PROSE LITERATURE

Variety in the Prose.--The imaginative spirit of the Elizabethans craved poetry, and all the greatest authors of this age, with the exception of Francis Bacon, were poets. If, however, an Elizabethan had been so peculiarly const.i.tuted as to wish to stock his library with contemporary prose only, he could have secured good works in many different fields. He could, for instance, have obtained (1) an excellent book on education, the _Scholemaster_ of Roger Ascham (1515-1568); (2) interesting volumes of travel, such as the _Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation_, by Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616); and _The Discovery of Guiana_, by Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618); (3) history, in the important _Chronicles of England, Ireland, and Scotland_ (1578), by Raphael Holinshed; the _Chronicle (Annals of England)_ and _Survey of London_, by John Stow (1525-1604); and the _Brittania_, by William Camden (1551-1623); (4) biography, in the excellent translation of _Plutarch's Lives_, by Sir Thomas North (1535-1601?); (5) criticism, in _The Apologie for Poetrie_, by Sir Philip Sidney; (6) essays on varied subjects by Francis Bacon; (7) works dealing with religion and faith: (_a_) John Foxe's (1516-1587) _Book of Martyrs_, which told in simple prose thrilling stories of martyrs and served as a textbook of the Reformation; (_b_) Hooker's _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_, a treatise on theology; (8) fiction,[1] in John Lyly's _Euphues_ (1579), Robert Greene's _Pandosto_ (1588), Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcardia_ (1590), Thomas Lodge's _Rosalynde_ (1590), Nashe's _The Unfortunate Traveler_ (1594), and Thomas Deloney's _The Gentle Craft_ (1597).[2]

Shakespeare read Holinshed, North, Greene, Sidney, and Lodge and turned some of their suggestions into poetry, which we very much prefer to their prose. We are nearly certain that Shakespeare studied Lyly's _Euphues_, because we can trace the influence of that work in his style.

It was the misfortune of Elizabethan prose to be almost completely overshadowed by the poetry. This prose was, however, far more varied and important than that of any preceding age. The books mentioned on page 123 const.i.tute only a small part of the prose of this period.

Lyly, Sidney, Hooker.--In 1579, when Shakespeare was fifteen years old, there appeared the first part of an influential prose work, John Lyly's (1554?-1606) _Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit_, followed in 1580 by a second part, _Euphues and his England_. Much of Lyly's subject matter is borrowed, and his form reflects the artificial style then popular over Europe.

Euphues, a young Athenian, goes to Naples, where he falls in love and is jilted. This is all the action in the first part of the so-called story. The rest is moralizing. In the second part, Euphues comes to England with a friend, who falls in love twice, and finally marries; but again there is more moralizing than story. Euphues returns to Athens and retires to the mountains to muse in solitude.

In its use of a love story, _Euphues_ prefigures the modern novel. In _Euphues_, however, the love story serves chiefly as a peg on which to hang discussions on fickleness, youthful follies, friendship, and divers other subjects.

Lyly aimed to produce artistic prose, which would render his meaning clear and impressive. To achieve this object, he made such excessive use of contrast, balanced words and phrases, and far-fetched comparisons, that his style seems highly artificial and affected. This quotation is typical:--

"Achilles spear could as well heal as hurt, the scorpion though he sting, yet he stints the pain, through the herb _Nerius_ poison the sheep, yet is a remedy to man against poison... There is great difference between the standing puddle and the running stream, yet both water: great odds between the adamant and the pomice, yet both stones, a great distinction to be put between _vitrum_ and the crystal, yet both gla.s.s: great contrariety between Lais and Lucretia, yet both women."

Although this selection shows unnatural or strained ant.i.thesis, there is also evident a commendable desire to vary the diction and to avoid the repet.i.tion of the same word. To find four different terms for nearly the same idea "difference," "odds," "distinction," and "contrariety," involves considerable painstaking. While it is true that the term "euphuism" has come to be applied to any stilted, ant.i.thetical style that pays more attention to the manner of expressing a thought than to its worth, we should remember that English prose style has advanced because some writers, like Lyly, emphasized the importance of artistic form. Shakespeare occasionally employs euphuistic contrast in an effective way. The sententious Polonius says in _Hamlet_:--

"Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHILIPPE SIDNEY. _After the miniature by Isaac Oliver, Windsor Castle._]

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) wrote for his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, a pastoral romance, ent.i.tled _Arcadia_ (published in 1590).

Unlike Lyly, Sidney did not aim at precision, emphatic contrast, and balance. For its effectiveness, the _Arcadia_ relies on poetic language and conceptions. The characters in the romance live and love in a Utopian Arcadia, where "the morning did strow Roses and Violets in the heavenly floor against the coming of the Sun," and where the shepherd boy pipes "as though he should never be old."

Pa.s.sages like the following show Sidney's poetic style and as much exuberant fancy as if they had been written by a Celt:--

"Her breath is more sweet than a gentle southwest wind, which comes creeping over flowery fields and shadowed waters in the extreme heat of summer and yet is nothing compared to the honey-flowing speech that breath doth carry."

The _Arcadia_ furnished Shakespeare's _King Lear_ with the auxiliary plot of Gloucester and his two sons and inspired Thomas Lodge to write his novel _Rosalynde_, which in turn suggested Shakespeare's _As You Like It_.

To Sidney belongs the credit of having written the first meritorious essay on criticism in the English language, _The Apologie for Poetrie_. This defends the poetic art, and shows how necessary such exercise of the imagination is to take us away from the cold, hard facts of life.

Richard Hooker's (1554?-1600) _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_ shows a third aim in Elizabethan prose,--to express carefully reasoned investigation and conclusion in English that is as thoroughly elaborated and qualified as the thought. Lyly's striking contrasts and Sidney's flowery prose do not appeal to Hooker, who uses Latin inversions and parenthetical qualifications, and adds clause after clause whenever he thinks it necessary to amplify the thought or to guard against misunderstanding. Hooker's prose is as carefully wrought as Lyly's and far more rhythmical. Both were experimenting with English prose in different fields, serving to teach succeeding writers what to imitate and to avoid.

Unlike _Euphues_ and the _Arcadia_, _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_ is more valuable for its thought than for its form of expression. This work, which is still studied as an authority, is an exposition of divine law in its relations to both the world and the church. Hooker was personally a compound of sweetness and light, and his philosophy is marked by sweet reasonableness. He was a clergyman of the Church of England, but he shows a spirit of toleration toward other churches. He had much of the modern idea of growth in both government and religion, and he "accepts no system of government either in church or state as unalterable."

FRANCIS BACON, 1561-1626

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANCIS BACON. _From the painting by Van Somer, National Portrait Gallery._]

Life.--A study of Bacon takes us beyond the limits of the reign of Elizabeth, but not beyond the continued influences of that reign.

Francis Bacon, the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under Elizabeth, was born in London and grew up under the influences of the court. In order to understand some of Bacon's actions in later life, we must remember the influences that helped to fashion him in his boyhood days. Those with whom he early a.s.sociated and who unconsciously molded him were not very scrupulous about the way in which they secured the favor of the court or the means which they took to outstrip an adversary. They also encouraged in him a taste for expensive luxuries. These unfortunate influences were intensified when, at the age of sixteen, he went with the English amba.s.sador to Paris, and remained there for two and a half years, studying statecraft and diplomacy.

When Bacon was nineteen, his father died. The son, being without money, returned from Paris and appealed to his uncle, Lord Burleigh, one of Elizabeth's ministers, for some lucrative position at the court. In a letter to his uncle, Bacon says: "I confess I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends; for I have taken all knowledge to be my province." This statement shows the Elizabethan desire to master the entire world of the New Learning. Instead of helping his nephew, however, Lord Burleigh seems to have done all in his power to thwart him. Bacon thereupon studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1582.

Bacon entered Parliament in 1584 and distinguished himself as a speaker. Ben Jonson, the dramatist, says of him "There happened in my time one n.o.ble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking. No man ever spoke more neatly, more presly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end." This speaking was valuable training for Bacon in writing the pithy sentences of his _Essays_. A man who uses the long, involved sentences of Hooker can never become a speaker to whom people will listen. The habit of directness and simplicity, which Bacon formed in his speaking, remained with him through Life.

Among the many charges against Bacon's personal code of ethics, two stand out conspicuously. The Earl of Ess.e.x, who had given Bacon an estate then worth 1800, was influential in having him appointed to the staff of counselors to Queen Elizabeth. When Ess.e.x was accused of treason, Bacon kept the queen's friendship by repudiating him and taking an active part in the prosecution that led to the earl's execution. After James I. had made Bacon Lord High Chancellor of England, he was accused of receiving bribes as a judge. He replied that he had accepted only the customary presents given to judges and that these made no difference in his decisions. He was tried, found guilty, fined 40,000, and sentenced to be imprisoned in the Tower during the king's pleasure. After a few days, however, the king released him, forgave the fine, and gave him an annual pension of 1200.

The question whether he wrote Shakespeare's plays needs almost as much discussion on the moral as on the intellectual side. James Spedding, after studying Bacon's life and works for thirty years, said: "I see no reason to suppose that Shakespeare did not write the plays. But if somebody else did, then I think I am in a position to say that it was not Lord Bacon."

After his release, Bacon pa.s.sed the remaining five years of his life in retirement,--studying and writing. His interest in observing natural objects and experimenting with them was the cause of his death. He was riding in a snowstorm when it occurred to him to test snow as a preservative agent. He stopped at a house, procured a fowl, and stuffed it with snow. He caught cold during this experiment and, being improperly cared for, soon died.

The Essays.--The first ten of his _Essays_, his most popular work, appeared in the year 1597. At the time of his death, he had increased them to fifty-eight. They deal with a with range of subjects, from _Studies_ and _n.o.bility_, On the one hand, to _Marriage and Single Life_ and _Gardens_ on the other. The great critic Hallam say: "It would be somewhat derogatory to a man of the slightest claim to polite letters, were he unacquainted with the _Essays_ of Bacon. It is, indeed, little worth while to read this or any other book for reputation's, sake; but very few in our language so well repay the pains, or afford more nourishment to the thoughts."

[Ill.u.s.tration: t.i.tLE PAGE OF BACON'S ESSAYS, 1597.]

The following sentence from the essay _Of Studies_ will show some of the characteristics of his way of presenting thought:--

"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man: and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not."

We may notice here (1) clearness, (2) conciseness, (3) breadth of thought and observation.

A shrewd Scotchman says: "It may be said that to men wishing to rise in the world by politic management of their fellowmen, Bacon's _Essays_ are the best handbook hitherto published." In justification of this criticism, we need only quote from the essay _Of Negotiating_:--

"It is generally better to deal by speech than by letter... Letters are good, when a man would draw an answer by letter back again, or when it may serve, for a man's justification, afterwards to produce his own letter, or where it may he danger to be interrupted or heard by pieces. To deal in person is good, when a man's face breedeth regard, as commonly with inferiors, or in tender cases, where a man's eye upon the countenance of him with whom he speaketh may give him a direction how far to go, and generally, where a man will reserve to himself liberty either to disavow or to expound."

Scientific and Miscellaneous Works.--_The Advancement of Learning_ is another of Bacon's great works. The t.i.tle aptly expresses the purpose of the took. He insists on the necessity of close observation of nature and of making experiments with various forms of matter. He decries the habit of spinning things out of one's inner consciousness, without patiently studying the outside world to see whether the facts justify the conclusions. In other words, he insists on induction.

Bacon was not the father of the inductive principle, as is sometimes wrongly stated; for prehistoric man was compelled to make inductions before he could advance one step from barbarism. The trouble was that this method was not rigorously applied. It was currently believed that our valuable garden toad is venomous and that frogs are bred from slime. For his knowledge of bees, Lyly consulted cla.s.sical authors in preference to watching the insects. Bacon's writings exerted a powerful influence in the direction of exact inductive method.

Bacon had so little faith in the enduring qualities of the English language, that he wrote the most of his philosophical works in Latin.

He planned a Latin work in six parts, to cover the whole field of the philosophy of natural science. The most famous of the parts completed is the _Novum Organum_, which deals with certain methods for searching after definite truth, and shows how to avoid some ever present tendencies toward error.

Bacon wrote an excellent _History of the Reign of Henry VII_., which is standard to this day. He is also the author of _The New Atlantis_, which may be termed a Baconian Utopia, or study of an ideal commonwealth.

General Characteristics.--In Bacon's sentences we may often find remarkable condensation of thought in few words. A modern essayist has taken seven pages to express, or rather to obscure, the ideas in these three lines from Bacon:--