ment of Learning, afterwards written in the Latin language, and intended to be worked up by the addition of the Novum Organum and the Sylva Sylvarum into the treatise of the Instauratio Magna, which Bacon meant to be a philosophy of human knowledge, raises it into the realm of pure literature.”

"The works of Bacon afford very little food for ordinary human feelings. All the pleasure we gain from them is founded upon their intellectual excellencies. Even the similitudes are intellectual rather than emotional, ingenious rather than touching or poetical. To adapt an image of Ben Jonson's, the wine of Bacon's writings is a dry wine. As we read, we experience the pleasure of surmounting obstacles; we are electrified by unexpected analogies, and the sudden revelations of new aspects in familiar things; and we sympathise more or less with the boundless exhilaration of a mind that pierces with ease and swiftness through barriers that reduce other minds to torpor and stagnancy. The opinions contained in his Essays, observations and precepts on man and society, are perhaps the most permanent evidence of his sagacity. In this field he was thoroughly at home; the study of mankind occupied the largest part of his time."- William Minto.

"JOHN FLORIO's translation of the Essays of Montaigne, 1603, is also worth mentioning, because Shakespeare used the book and because we trace Montaigne's influence on English literature even before his retranslation by Charles Cotton.

History, except in the publication of the earlier Chronicles by Archbishop Parker, does not appear again in Elizabeth's reign; but in the next reign Camden, Spelman, and John Speed continued the antiquarian researches of Stow and Grafton. Bacon published a history of Henry VII., and SAMUEL DANIEL, the poet, in his History of England to the Time of Edward III., 1613, 18, was one of the first to throw history into such a literary form as to make it popular. KNOLLES' History of the Turks and SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S vast sketch of the History of the World show how, for the first time, history spread itself beyond English interests. Raleigh's book, written in the peaceful evening of a stormy life, and in the quiet of his prison, is literary not only from the ease and

vigor of its style but from its still spirit of melancholy thought.

The Literature of Travel was carried on by the publication in 1589 of HAKLUYT'S Navigation, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, enlarged afterwards in 1625 by SAMUEL PURCHAS, who had himself written a book called Purchas, his Pilgrimage; or The Relations and Religions of the World. The influence of a compilation of this kind, containing the great deeds of the English on the seas, has been felt ever since in the literature of fiction and poetry.

In the Tales, which poured out like a flood from the dramatists, from such men as Peele and Lodge and Greene, we find the origin of English fiction and the subjects of many of our plays; while the fantastic attempt to revive the practices of chivalry, which we have seen in the Arcadia, found food in the translation of a new school of romances, such as Amadis of Gaul, Palmerin of England, and the Seven Champions of Christendom."

BIBLIOGRAPHY. SIDNEY AND HOOKER.-Disraeli's Amen. of Lit.; R. Southey's Fragment of Life of; Marsh's Orig. and Hist. Eng. Lit.; E. P. Whipple's Lit. of the Age of Eliz.; Minto's Man. of Eng. Prose Lit.; Littell, v. 3, 1863; N. A. Rev., v. 88, 1859; Ecl. Mag., Apr., 1847; and Dec., 1855; N. Br. Rev., v. 26, 1856–7.

BACON.-Essays with Annotations by Whately; Works with Life by B. Montagu; Minto's Man. of Eng. Prose Lit.; Boyd's Autumn Holidays; Littell, 1863, v. 3; Nat. Quar. Rev., v. 6, 1863; Fraser's Mag., v. 55, 1857; N. Br. Rev., v. 27, 1857; Ecl. Mag., Oct., 1849; Feb., 1855; and Feb., 1857.

LESSON 20.

From Sidney's Defence of Poetrie.

Nowe therein of all Sciences is our Poet the Monarch. For he dooth not only show the way but giveth so sweete a prospect into the way as will intice any man to enter into it. Nay, he dooth, as if your journey should lie through a faire Vineyard, at the first give you a cluster of Grapes, that, full of that taste, you may long to passe further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margent1 with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulnesse; but hee

1 Margin.

cometh to you with words set in delightfull proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well enchaunting skill of Musicke; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you-with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner. And, pretending no more, doth intende the winning of the mind from wickednesse to vertue; even as the childe is often brought to take most wholsom things, by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant tast; which, if one should beginne to tell them the nature of Aloes or Rubarb they shoulde receive, woulde sooner take their Phisicke at their eares then' at their mouth. So is it in men, (most of which are childish in the best things till they bee cradled in their graves) glad they will be to heare the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, and Aeneas: and hearing them, must needs heare the right description of wisdom, valure, and justice; which, if they had been barely, that is to say, philosophically set out, they would sweare they bee brought to schoole againe.

2

Sith,3 then, Poetrie is of all humane1 learning the most auncient, and of most fatherly antiquitie, as from whence other learnings have taken their beginnings; sith it is so universall, that no learned Nation dooth despise it, nor no barbarous Nation is without it; sith both Reman and Greek gave divine names unto it, the one of prophecying, the other of making; and that indeede that name of making is fit for him considering that, where as other Arts retaine themselves within their subject and receive, as it were, their beeing from it, the Poet onely, bringeth his owne stuffe, and dooth not learne a conceite5 out of a matter, but maketh matter for a conceite; sith neither his description nor his ende containeth any evill, the thing described cannot be evill; sith his effects be so good as to teach goodnes and to delight the learners; sith therein (namely in morrall doctrine, the chiefe of all knowledges,) hee dooth not onely farre passe the Historian, but for instructing is well nigh comparable to the Philosopher, and for moving leaves him behind him; sith the holy scripture (wherein there is no uncleannes) hath whole parts in it poeticall, and that even our Saviour Christ vouchsafed to use the flowers of it; sith all his kindes are not onlie in their united formes but in their severed dissections fully commendable, I think (and think I thinke rightly) the Lawrell crowne appointed for triumphing Captaines, doth worthilie (of al other learnings) honor the Poets tryumph.

So that sith the ever-praiseworthy Poesie is full of vertue-breeding delightfulnes, and voyde of no gyfte that ought to be in the noble name of learning; sith the blames laid against it are either false or feeble; sith the

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1 Than. 2 Valor. Since, Human. 5 Conception. Its not yet in the language,

cause why it is not esteemed in Englande is the fault of Poet-apes not Poets; sith, lastly, our tongue is most fit to honor Poesie, and to bee honored by Poesie, I conjure you all that have had the evill lucke to reade this incke-wasting toy of mine, even in the name of the nyne Muses no more to scorne the sacred misteries of Poesie; no more to laugh at the name of Poets, as though they were next inheritours to Fooles; no more to jest at the reverent title of Rymer: but to beleeve with Aristotle that they were the auncient Treasurers of the Græcians Divinity; to beleeve with Bembus that they were first bringers in of all civilitie; to beleeve with Scaliger that no Philosophers precepts can sooner make you an honest man, then the reading of Virgill; to beleeve with Clauserus that it pleased the heavenly Deitie, by Hesiod and Homer, under the vayle of fables, to give us all knowledge, Logick, Rethorick, Philosophy, naturall and morall; to beleeve with me that there are many misteries contained in Poetrie, which of purpose were written darkely, lest by prophane wits it should bee abused; to beleeve with Landin that they are so beloved of the Gods that whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury; lastly, to beleeve themselves when they tell you they will make you immortall by their verses,

2

Thus doing, your name shal florish in the Printers shoppes; thus doing, you skall bee of kinne to many a poeticall Preface; thus doing, you shall be most fayre, most ritch, most wise, most all, you shall dwell upon Superlatives; thus doing, though you be Libertino patre natus, you shall suddenly grow Hercules proles; thus doing, your soule shal be placed with Dantes Beatrix or Virgils Anchises. But if (fie of such a but) you be borne so neere the dull making Cataphract of Nilus that you cannot heare the Plannet-like Musick of Poetrie; if you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift it selfe up to looke to the sky of Poetry; or rather, by a certaine rusticall disdaine will become such a Mome1 as to be a Momusă of Poetry; then, though I will not wish unto you the Asses eares of Midas, nor to bee driven by a Poets verses (as Bubonax was) to hang himselfe, nor to be rimed to death, as is sayd to be doone in Ireland; yet thus much curse I must send you in the behalfe of all Poets, that, while you live, you live in love and never get favour for lacking skill of a Sonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an Epitaph.

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1 Of a father who was a freedman. 2 Of the race of Hercules (son of Jupiter). 3 There were three celebrated cataracts of the Nile. 4 A dolt. 5 God of raillery. Ears lengthened for holding Pan's reed to be superior to Apollo's lyre.

From Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.

The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them, delighteth the eye; but that foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministereth to the other nourishment and life are in the bosom of the earth concealed; and, if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labor is then more necessary than pleasant both to them which undertake it and for the lookers on. In like manner, the use and benefit of good laws all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort; albeit the grounds and first original causes from which they have sprung be unknown, as to the greater part of men they are. But when they who withdraw their obedience pretend that the laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious, for better examination of their quality it behoveth the very foundation and root, the highest well-spring and fountain of them, to be discovered.

All things that are have some operation not violent or casual. Neither doth anything ever begin to exercise the same without some fore-conceived end for which it worketh. And the end which it worketh for is not obtained unless the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto every end every operation will not serve. That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term a Law. So that no certain end could ever be obtained unless the actions whereby it is obtained were regular, that is to say, made suitable, fit, and correspondent with their end by some canon, rule, or law. As it cometh to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered that after a law is once published it presently takes effect far and wide, all states framing themselves thereunto, even so let us think it fareth in the natural course of the world; since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of his law upon it, heaven and earth have hearkened unto his voice, and their labor hath been to do his will. "He made a law for the rain; he gave his decree unto the sea, that the waters should not pass his commandment." Now, if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubilities? turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now