is Richard Hakluyt (1553-1616), Lecturer on Cosmography at Oxford, and an active correspondent with the foreign geographers, Ortelius and Mercator. In 1598, 1599, and 1600, he published "The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over Land, to the Remote and Farthest Distant Quarters of the Earth, within the compass of these 1500 years.' Very interesting reading for persons with the proper taste for their subject-matter, Hakluyt's narratives have no charms of style. The same may be said of Samuel Purchas (15771628), 'Hackluytus Posthumus,' B.D. of Cambridge, who continued Hackluyt, and wrote 'Purchas his Pilgrimage,' containing an account of all the religions of the world.

Some of the hardy mariners told their own story—as John Davis (of Davis Straits, an early searcher for the North-West Passage), and Sir Richard Hawkins, who went in quest of land to the south. Sir Walter Raleigh, the "discoverer of Guiana," will be mentioned presently.

MISCELLANEOUS.

The versatile Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) wrote some of the most flowing and modern-looking prose of this period; and had his subject-matter been less antiquated, we should have gone over his peculiarities at some length. He is, perhaps, the most dazzling figure of his time: his high position at the Court of Elizabeth, gained not by birth, but by personal charms and merits; his conduct against the Armada and at Cadiz; his American enterprises; his two new imports, tobacco and the potato; his unjust imprisonment by King James,-made him to the people of London the most wonderful of living men; and he still holds the highest rank

among our traditional heroes. His principal writings are- The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana,' published in 1596, and his History of the World,' composed during his imprisonment. The 'Discovery' is a matter-of-fact record of his own voyage, his dealings with the natives, and his impressions of the scenery. It was much ridiculed at the time by his jealous enemies, but there is nothing incredible in what he professes to have seen, though he was too sanguine in his beliefs as to the splendour of the parts of the empire that he had not seen. As regards the style, he "neither studied phrase, form, nor fashion;" yet at times he shows his natural power of graphic description. The following is perhaps his best; he describes the "overfalls of the river of Caroli, which roared so far off":

"When we ran to the tops of the first hills of the plains adjoining to the river, we beheld that wonderful breach of waters, which ran down Caroli; and might from that mountain see the river how it ran in three parts, above twenty miles off, and there appeared some ten or twelve overfalls in sight,

every one as high over the other as a church tower, which fell with that fury, that the rebound of waters made it seem as if it had been covered all over with a great shower of rain; and in some places we took it at the first for a smoke that had risen over some great town."

6

The History of the World' is a work of erudition rather than a narrative-going off into general dissertations on the origin of government, the nature, use, and abuse of magic, &c.; comparing the personages of Scripture with the personages of heathen mythology; discussing at great length such vexed questions as the site of Paradise, the place where the ark rested, the local dispersion of the sons of Noah, &c.; and in the classical history criticising accounts of battles and campaigns with the sagacity of a practical man. The only parts of the book that any modern reader would care to peruse are some parts of the Greek, Macedonian, and Roman history-where his estimates of events in war and in policy are entitled to respect ;-the preface to the work; and the conclusion. Only the preface and the conclusion have much literary value; they are among the finest remains of Elizabethan prose. Critics often incautiously speak as if the whole work were written in the same strain. A grave melancholy runs through them, the natural mood of an ambitious spirit and a strong confident wit chastened but not broken by slander and imprisonment, writing in "the evening of a tempestuous life." Especially remarkable are the passages on Death. In the preface he says:—

"But let every man value his own wisdom, as he pleaseth. Let the rich man think all fools, that cannot equal his abundance; the Revenger esteem all negligent that have not trodden down their opposites; the Politician, all gross that cannot merchandise their faith: Yet when we once come in sight of the Port of death, to which all winds drive us, and when by letting fall that fatal Anchor, which can never be weighed again, the navigation of this life takes end: Then it is, I say, that our own cogitations (those sad and severe cogitations, formerly beaten from us by our health and felicity) return again, and pay us to the uttermost for all the pleasing passages of our life past."

In the same strain he concludes his history :—

"It is therefore death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and insolent that they are but Abjects, and humbles them at the instant; makes them cry, complain, and repent; yea, even to hate their forepassed happiness. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him a beggar; a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing, but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a Glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness; and they acknowledge it.

"O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, culty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet."

Raleigh's other works are a treatise on Ship-building, Maxims of State,' the Cabinet Council,' the 'Sceptic,' and 'Advice to his Son.' In worldly wisdom, this last is equal to Bacon's Essays, though the subjects of advice are more commonplace.

William Cecil, Lord Burleigh (1522-1598), like Raleigh, wrote advice for his son under the title Precepts or Directions for the Well-ordering and Carriage of a Man's Life,' a digest of commonplace advice on the choice of a wife, the management of a household, the danger of suretiship, and suchlike.

Thomas Dekker, the dramatist, an antagonist of Ben Jonson's, wrote 'Seven Deadly Sins of London' (1606), 'The Gull's Hornbook' (1609), and other ephemeral productions-burlesque satires of the extreme fashionable world, of the bucks and girls of the period.

King James I. had a literary turn: he wrote 'A Counterblast to Tobacco,' and a work on Demonology.' Neither of these pedantic compositions would have survived had they been written by a less distinguished personage.

The unfortunate Sir Thomas Overbury (1531-1613),—who, after figuring brilliantly at the Court of James as the favourite of the King's favourite, Robert Carr, was mysteriously cut off by slow poison, in consequence of his opposing Carr's marriage with the Countess of Essex,-wrote Characters of Witty Descriptions of the Properties of Sundry Persons.' Fanciful word-play, we have seen, existed at Court before Lyly's 'Euphuism': the sermons of the King's admired preachers are one evidence that it continued when the temporary fashion of Euphuism was gone; Overbury's characters are another and a stronger. Take as a sample his description of a tinker :

"He seems to be very devout, for his life is a continual pilgrimage; and sometimes in humility goes barefoot, therein making necessity a virtue. His house is as ancient as Tubal-Cain's, and so is a renegade by antiquity; yet he proves himself a gallant, for he carries all his wealth upon his back; or a philosopher, for he bears all his substance about him. So marches

he all over England with his bag and baggage; his conversation is irreprovable, for he is ever mending. He observes truly the statutes, and therefore had rather steal than beg, in which he is irremovably constant, in spite of whips or imprisonment. Some would take him to be a coward, but, believe it, he is a lad of mettle. He is very provident, for he will fight with but one at once, and then also he had rather submit than be counted obstinate."

WERE we to place authors strictly according to age, we should include Bacon in the same generation with Sidney and Hooker. But we have an eye rather to the dates of the composition of their works; and most of Bacon's works were written after 1610.

As the "founder of Inductive Philosophy," his great reputation is literary rather than scientific; he advanced Science as an advocate, not as a labourer in the field. He recalled men from speculation, and urged them to study facts. He was an eager and acute observer, whenever he found time; but only a fraction of his time was devoted to Science. His service lay not so much in what he did himself, as in the grand impulse he gave to others.

The merits of his style, as of every other style in that age, are variously estimated. Addison praises his grace, Hume calls him stiff and rigid, and many persons would be unable to see that either of these criticisms has any peculiar application. But all admit that he is one of the greatest writers of prose during the reigns of Elizabeth and James.

His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was Elizabeth's Lord Keeper; his mother, Anne Cooke, a woman of Lady Jane Grey accomplishments, translated Bishop Jewel's 'Apology' in 1564. Born at his father's house in London, Francis was sent at the age of twelve to Trinity College, Cambridge, and remained there for two years and a half under the care of Whitgift, then Master of Trinity. Of these early days little is known, except that he was an exceedingly grave and precocious child, and was called by Elizabeth her

"young Lord Keeper"; it is said, also, that before he left Cambridge he had begun to dislike Aristotle as being barren of prac tical fruit. Previous to his father's death in 1579, he had spent more than two years in laris with the English ambassador there. His ideal at this time seems to have been to make statecraft his profession, and reserve a considerable part of his time for study. But his father's death leaving him without adequate provision, and his uncle Burleigh refusing to find him a sinecure, he was compelled to take up the profession of law. He was admitted as an utter barrister in 1582; and thenceforth his time was distributed between the practice of law, public business, and his great literary projects. Under Elizabeth his promotion was not rapid: the Queen thought him "showy and not deep" in law; he had enemies at Court in his uncle and cousin; and his generous patron, Essex, did him more harm than good by indiscreet urgency. He got nothing but the reversion of the Clerkship of the Star-Chamber, which did not fall in for twenty years; he applied in vain for the Attorney-Generalship, the Solicitor-Generalship, and the Mastership of the Rolls. Under James, he became Solicitor-General in 1607, Attorney-General in 1613, Lord Chancellor in 1617. In 1620 appeared the 'Novum Organum.' In 1621 he underwent the well-known censure of Parliament, being fined and deprived of the Great Seal. The remainder of his life was passed in studious retirement, during which he composed the greater part of his literary works. In the spring of 1626 he caught a chill when experimenting with snow, and died on Easter-day, April 9.

.

His chief English works are the 'Essays,' the 'Advancement of Learning,' the History of Henry VII.,' the New Atlantis,' and 'Sylva Sylvarum.' Of the Essays there were three different issues? ten essays in 1597, under the title Essays, Religious Meditations, Places of persuasion and dissuasion;' thirty-eight in 1612, entitled 'The Essays of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, the King's SolicitorGeneral;' fifty-eight in 1625, entitled 'The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, of,' &c. The Advancement of Learning' (which he translated into Latin, and enlarged during his retirement, calling it 'De Augmentis Scientiarum') was published in 1605. The 'History of Henry VII.' was his first work after he was banished from Court. The 'New Atlantis' was written about the same time; it is a romance somewhat after the manner of More's 'Utopia,' the design being to describe a college fully equipped for the study of Nature on the inductive method. Sylva Sylvarum' or the Natural History,'-a collection of facts touching the qualities of bodies, made partly from observation, partly from books-was the last work of his life.

Bacon seems to have been in person a little, broad, square