Chapter VI (2)

Carew, Suckling, Lovelace are poets whose merits, in their various styles, would deserve a separate examination, but we must pass on to three other poets, who have been more known to modern readers, and who would of themselves have stamped their age as one of genuine inspiration--Herbert, Herrick, and Quarles. Herbert and Herrick, like Donne, were clergymen, and in their quiet country parsonages poured forth some of the most exquisite lyrics which enrich any language. Herrick may be said to be the born poet of nature--Herbert of devotion. Robert Herrick (_b._, 1591; _d._, 1674) was of an old family of Leicestershire. His lyrics, so full of grace, are the very soul of Nature's melody and rapture. He revels in all the charms of the country--flowers, buds, fairies, bees, the gorgeous blossoming May, the pathos and antique simplicity of rural life; its marriages, its churchyard histories, its imagery of awaking and fading existence. The free, joyous, quaint, and musical flow and rhythm of his verse have all that felicity and that ring of woodland cadences which mark the snatches of rustic verse which Shakespeare scatters through his dramas. His "Night Piece to Juliet," beginning--

"Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee,
And the elves also
Whose little eyes glow
Like sparks of fire, befriend thee!"

is precisely of that character. His "Daffodils" express the beautiful but melancholy sentiment which he so frequently found in nature:--

"Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hastening day
Has run
But to the evensong,
And having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.

"We have short time to stay as you,
We have as short a spring,
As quick a growth to meet decay
As you, or anything.
We die,
As your hours do; and dry
Away
Like to the summer rain,
Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again."

Herrick's works are his "Hesperides" and his "Noble Numbers," the latter being religious, and not equal to the former.

In religious tone, intensity, and grandeur, George Herbert (_b._, 1593; _d._, 1633) is his superior. Herbert was in early life a courtier; his eldest brother being the celebrated sceptical writer, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Herbert's hopes of Court preferment fortunately ceasing with the death of King James, he took orders, grew extremely religious, married an admirable wife, and retired to Bemerton parsonage, about a mile from Salisbury, where he died of consumption at the age of forty. Herbert was the very personification of Chaucer's "Good Parson." His life was one constant scene of piety and benevolence. Beloved by his parishioners, happy in his congenial wife, and passionately fond of music and his poetry, his days glided away as already in heaven. The music which he loved was poured into his poetry, which overflows with tender and profound feeling, the most chaste and seraphic imagination, and the most fervent devotion. James Montgomery, of later times, not a little resembled him in his pure and beautiful piety; but there is in Herbert a greater vigour, more dignity of style, and finer felicity of imagery. There is a gravity, a sublimity, and a sweetness which mingle in his devotional lyrics, and endear them for ever to the heart. His "Temple" is a poetic fabric worthy of a Christian minstrel, and stands as an immortal refutation of the oft-repeated theory, that religious poetry cannot be at once original and attractive. What can be more noble than the following stanzas from his poem entitled "Man"?--

"For us the winds do blow;
The earth doth rest, heavens move, and fountains flow.
Nothing we see but means our good,
As our delight, or as our treasure:
The whole is either our cupboard of food
Or cabinet of pleasure.

"The stars have us to bed;
Night draws the curtain which the sun withdraws,
Music and light attend our head.
All things to our _flesh_ are kind
In their _descent_ and _being_; to our _mind_
In their _ascent_ and _cause_.

"Each thing is full of duty:
Waters united are our navigation;
Distinguished, our habitation;
Below, our drink--above, our meat:
Both are our cleanliness. Hath one such beauty?
Then how are all things neat!

"More servants wait on man
Than he'll take notice of: in every path
He treads down that which doth befriend him
When sickness makes him pale and wan.
Oh! mighty love! man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him."

Besides his "Temple," Herbert wrote a prose work, "The Priest to the Temple; or, the Country Parson," which is charmingly full of the simple, child-like piety of the author. He also collected a great number of proverbs, under the title of "Jacula Prudentum."

The third of the trio of poets who seem to class themselves together by their quaintness, their fancy, and their piety, is Francis Quarles, (_b._, 1592; _d._, 1644) a man who has been treated by many critics as a mere poetaster, but who is one of the most sterling poets which English genius has produced. Quarles was a gentleman and a scholar; in his youth he was cup-bearer to Elizabeth of Bohemia, and was finally ruined by taking the Royal side in the Civil Wars. He wrote various poetical works; "Argalus and Parthenia," "A Feast for Worms," "Zion's Elegies," and a series of elegies on the death of a friend, the son of Bishop Aylmer. But the great work of Quarles is his "Emblems," which originated in a Latin poem by Herman Hugo, a Jesuit, called "Pia Desideria." This book, condemned and overlooked by the great critics, like Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," has, from generation to generation, adorned with curious woodcuts, circulated amongst the people in town and country, till it has won an extraordinary popularity: and that it has well deserved it, we need only read such verses as these to convince ourselves:--

"I love, and have some cause to love, the earth:
She is my Maker's creature--therefore good;
She is my mother--for she gave me birth;
She is my tender nurse--she gives me food.
But what's a creature, Lord, compared with Thee?
Or what's my mother, or my nurse, to me?

"I love the air: her dainty sweets refresh
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me;
Her shrill-mouthed quires sustain me with their flesh
And with their Polyphonian notes delight me.
But what's the air, or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compared to Thee?

"I love the sea: she is my fellow-creature--
My careful purveyor; she provides me store;
She walls me round, she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore.
But, Lord of oceans, when compared to Thee,
What is the ocean, or her health to me?

"To heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky.
But what is heaven, great God, compared to Thee?
Without Thy presence, heaven's no heaven to me.

"Without Thy presence, earth gives no refection;
Without Thy presence, sea affords no treasure;
Without Thy presence, air's a rank infection;
Without Thy presence, heaven itself's no pleasure.
If not possessed, if not enjoyed in Thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me?"

William Browne's "Britannia's Pastorals," written at this period, have been much and justly celebrated for their faithful transcripts of nature and country life. There are others, besides, that sue for recognition as among the genuine poets of those times--Raleigh, as a lyrical poet; Sir Henry Wotton; Henry Vaughan, the author of "Silex Scintillans" and "Olor Iscanus," a disciple of Herbert's, who would demand a notice were it only to show how freely Campbell borrowed the poem of "The Rainbow" from him:--

"How bright wert thou when Shem's admiring eye
Thy burning, flaming arch did first descry!
When Zerah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot,
_The youthful world's grey fathers_ in one knot,
Did with attentive looks _watch every hour
For thy new light_."

And so Campbell:--

"When on the green, undeluged earth,
Heaven's covenant, thou didst shine;
How came _the world's grey fathers_ forth
_To watch thy sacred sign_."

Altogether, no age--not even our own--has produced such a constellation of poets, nor such a mass of exquisite, superb, and imperishable poetry. Whilst Shakespeare was fast departing, Milton was rising, and during this period wrote many of his inimitable smaller poems. Even honest Andrew Marvell, when freed from his labours in the great struggle for the Commonwealth, solaced himself with writing poetry, English and Latin, and some of it of no contemptible order, as in his boat-song of the exiles of the Bermudas:--

"Thus they sang in the English boat
A holy and a cheerful note,
And all the way, to guide the chime,
They with the falling oars kept time."

So he forgot occasionally polemics and politics in "a holy and a cheerful note" of his own. Even the saturnine Sir Thomas Overbury, whom Somerset and his wife had murdered in the Tower, could brighten up in poetry as in his "Choice of a Wife:"--

"If I were to choose a woman,
As who knows but I may marry,
I would trust the eye of no man,
Nor a tongue that may miscarry;
For in way of love and glory
Each tongue best tells his own story."

The prose of the age was equally remarkable. First and foremost stands Francis Bacon (_b._, 1561; _d._, 1626) with his "Novum Organum," a new instrument of discovery in philosophy, and other works of a kindred character. He tells us that in his youth he took a great aversion to the philosophy of Aristotle; being, he said, a philosophy only strong for disputations and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the life of man; and in this mind he continued through life. Besides other works of less note, in 1605 he published one of great importance on "The Advancement of Learning;" soon after he published the outline or groundwork of his "Organum," under the title of "Cogitata et Visa; or, Things Thought Out and Seen," and proudly boasted of it as the greatest birth of time. He afterwards published the "Wisdom of the Ancients," and it was not till 1621, and when he had reached the summit of his profession, and been made Viscount of St. Albans, that he brought out his great work, "The Instauration of the Sciences," of which the "Novum Organum" is the second part. No work was so little understood at the time or has occasioned such a variety of opinions since. Bacon was well aware that such would be the case, for in his will he says that he leaves his name and memory to foreign nations, and to his own countrymen after some time be passed over. Bacon asserted that he had superseded the Aristotelian philosophy, and introduced a new and accurate method of inquiry, both into mind and matter, by experiment and induction. By one party he is declared to be the great renovator of true knowledge, and the father of the modern sciences by this method; by another, that he is nothing of the kind, and that modern discovery would have progressed as well without his New Instrument; that Aristotle pursued this method of induction himself, and that Galileo discovered the motion of the earth by the same means that Bacon taught at the same time. But whoever has acquainted himself with the system of Aristotle, and, still more, with the loose and absurd method by which it was taught in the schools before Bacon's time, must see that Bacon, if he did not altogether introduce the system, reduced it to precision and accuracy, and thus put an end to the windy logic and abortive practice of the schools. They were accustomed to assume false and visionary premises, and reason from them by syllogisms which, of course, proved nothing. Bacon, by proceeding by analysis and synthesis--by first extracting from a substance, or a topic, everything that did not really belong to it, and then bringing these expurgated matters into contrast--drew sure conclusions, and advanced towards positive discovery. True, Galileo worked by the same method; but Bacon taught it, and made it clear to all understandings. To say, therefore, that modern science owes nothing to Bacon is to utter a self-evident falsity. Both in experimental philosophy and in metaphysical inquiry, it is Bacon's light, and not Aristotle's, which is followed. That Bacon himself made no great discoveries in prosecuting his own method proves nothing; because, though he was not sufficiently advanced in the actual knowledge of the properties of Matter, he saw and taught clearly how such knowledge was to be acquired, and applied to the legitimate development of Science. How completely ignorant was the age of real experimental philosophy, is shown by the ridicule and contempt which was cast on the "Novum Organum." Such men as Ben Jonson and Sir Henry Wotton expressed their profound admiration of it, but by the wits of the time Bacon was laughed at as little better than a maniac. King James said, in his almost blasphemous way, that it was like the peace of God--passing all understanding; and Lord Coke said--

"It deserveth not to be read in schools,
But to be freighted in the ship of fools."

He was represented by men eminent in the world's opinion as "no great philosopher--a man rather of show than of depth, who wrote philosophy like a lord chancellor." Abroad, as Bacon had foreseen, his work was received in a different manner, and pronounced by the learned one of the most important accessions ever made to philosophy. Whoever will carefully study it, will find not merely the exposition of his method, but views stretching into the heights and depths, not only of our own nature but of the nature and life of the Universe in which we move, thoughts which stamp the mind of Bacon as one of the most capacious, many-sided, and profound that ever appeared.

Next to Bacon's we should place the prose writings of John Milton (_b._, 1608; _d._, 1674) in general importance and intellectual greatness. As Bacon's were directed to the advancement of true liberty in philosophy, Milton's were directed to the liberation of the Church and State from the tyranny of king and custom. His "Areopagitica," a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing, is a grand plea for the freedom of the press; his "Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes," and the "Best Means of Removing Hirelings out of the Church," go to the root of all hierarchical corruption. Besides these, his "Defence of the People of England" in reply to Salmasius, his "Second Defence," in reply to Peter du Moulin, and his "Eikonoklastes" in refutation of the "Eikon Basiliké," attributed to Charles I., but written by Dr. Gauden, and others of his prose works, are written in a somewhat stiff but lofty and massive style. They foreshow the great national poet of "Paradise Lost;" and cannot be read without a deep veneration for the great Puritan champion of the liberties and fame of England.

Next to these we should name the great advocates of Protestantism, Hales and Chillingworth. The "Discourse on Schism" is the writing of Hales which brought him into notice, and led to the most important consequences. It struck at the very root of tradition and submission to the authority of the Fathers, which Laud and his party had exerted themselves to establish; and it was followed out by Chillingworth (_b._, 1602; _d._, 1644) in his "The Religion of Protestants, a Safe Way to Salvation." In this work, which has since been styled the "bulwark of Protestantism," Chillingworth endeavoured to prove the Divine authority of the Bible on the basis of historic evidence, and having done that to his satisfaction, he declared that the religion of Protestants was the Bible, and nothing but the Bible. By this rule alone they are, in his opinion, to be judged; the Scriptures alone are to be the standard of their doctrines. He thus cut off all the claims of Popery built on tradition, and established the right of private judgment. In this he served not only the Established Church, to which he belonged, but every body of Christians whatever; for they had, according to his reasoning, the same right to interpret the Bible for themselves. This gave great scandal to the bigoted party in the Church. They declared that he had destroyed faith by reducing it to simple reason. He was violently attacked by both Catholics and Puritans. Knott, a Jesuit, and Dr. Cheynell, one of the Assembly of Divines, were his most determined opponents. Cheynell wrote against him, "Chillingworthi Novissima; or, the Sickness, Heresy, Death, and Burial of W. C., with a Profane Catechism selected out of his Works." Not satisfied with this, he attended his funeral, made a violent harangue against him, and flung the "Religion of Protestants" into his grave, crying, "Get thee gone, thou cursed book, which has seduced so many precious souls--get thee gone, thou corrupt, rotten book, earth to earth, dust to dust, go and rot with thy author." The Protestant Church has fully acknowledged the services of Chillingworth. Even those who deem that there are other evidences of Christianity than the historic evidences, or even the deductions of criticism, admit that his arguments go far to demonstrate the genuineness of the Bible records, and therefore of the Christian religion. The highest encomiums have been paid to the reasoning and eloquence of Chillingworth, by Locke, Clarendon, Gibbon, Dugald Stewart, and all our theological writers.

What Chillingworth did for Protestantism, Cudworth, in his great work, "The True Intellectual System of the Universe," did for religion in general, demolishing most completely the philosophy of atheism and infidelity. Barrow, Henry More, and Jeremy Taylor, added much wealth to the theological literature of the age. More and Barrow belong more properly to the next period. Taylor (_b._, 1613; _d._, 1677), who was the son of a barber, became one of the most celebrated preachers of that time, and both his sermons and his other works have received from many of our chief critics and historians the most encomiastic praises. He has been represented as a modern Chrysostom. Much of this praise he undoubtedly deserves, but readers coming to him after such extravagant laudation, experience a sensible disappointment. His "Holy Living and Dying" may be taken as the most favourable specimen of his writings; and though grave, pleasing, and consolatory, it does not strike us by any means as highly or brilliantly eloquent. His sermons, especially on the "Marriage Ring" and on the "House of Feasting," are of the same character. They are full of piety, sweetness, and grace, but they are not eloquence of the highest class. His sentences are often wearyingly long, his illustrations do not always appear very pertinent, and his manner is too much that of the father of the fourth century, whom he appears to have greatly formed himself upon.

The writings of Archbishop Ussher and the sermons of Bishop Andrews deserve mention; but the works of Thomas Fuller, the author of the "Worthies of England," "The Church History of Great Britain," "The Holy and Profane States," and other books, are undoubtedly the most witty and amusing of the whole period. Next to Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," a work, too, of this time, they have furnished to modern authors more original ideas, more frequent and pregnant sentiments and allusions than any others in the language. They have been rivers of thought to men who had very little of their own. Harrington's "Oceana"--a political romance, written to illustrate the opinion that the great power of nations consists in their property--has ideas to repay a reader who has leisure and patience. A writer who has always taken a high rank for originality is Sir Thomas Browne, the author of "Religio Medici," "Urn Burial," "The Garden of Cyrus," etc. Browne ranges freely from the "quincunx" of the gardens of the ancients to the highest flights of metaphysical speculation. He is quaint, abrupt, and singular, but at the same time he is extremely suggestive of thought, and extends the sphere of human inquiry and sympathy far beyond the physical limits of most writers of his class. There is also a school of historians of this age of eminent merit, at the head of which stands Sir Walter Raleigh with his "History of the World;" Knowles with his able "History of the Turks;" Daniel with his "History of England" to the reign of Edward III.; and Thomas May, with the "History of the Long Parliament," and his "Breviary of the History of Parliament," two invaluable works. Camden's "Britannia" and "Annals" appeared at this epoch. Various chronicles were also issued at this period--Hall's "Union of the Families of York and Lancaster," Grafton's "Chronicle," Holinshed's, and Baker's. The works of Stow and Speed appeared in the early part of it,--Stow's "Summary of the English Chronicles," in 1565; his "Annals," 1573; his "Flores Historiarum," an enlarged edition of his chronicle, 1600; his "Survey of London," 1598. Speed's "Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain" belongs to 1606; and his "History of Great Britain" to 1614. Besides these appeared the "Memoirs" of Rushworth. Thurloe's and Whitelock's were written, but did not appear till a later period. The commencement of the Long Parliament marked also a remarkable era, that of the first English newspapers, under the name of "Diurnals," or daily records of Parliamentary proceedings. The idea once started, newspapers rapidly spread, so that between the Civil War and the Restoration, nearly two hundred were published, but none more frequently than once a week for some time, nor afterwards oftener than twice or three times a week. It was, moreover, an age of political tracts and pamphlets. In science the discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey, and the invention of logarithms by Napier, were the great events of that department. On the whole, the intellectual development of the age was as great and marvellous as was its political advance. To no other modern nation can we point, which in one and the same period has produced three such men as Shakespeare, Milton, and Bacon, amid a host of lesser, but scarcely less precious lights, at the same time that it was working out one of the most stupendous revolutions in human government, and the imperishable principles of it, that the world has seen. On reviewing this period, well might Wordsworth exclaim:--

"Great men have been amongst us; hands that penned,
And tongues that uttered wisdom, better none;
The later Sydney, Marvell, Harrington,
Young Vane, and others who called Milton friend.
These moralists could act and comprehend;
They knew how genuine glory is put on;
Taught us how rightfully a nation shone
In splendour."

And well did he add:--

"We must be free, or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spoke: the faith and morals hold
That Milton held. In everything we are sprung
Of earth's best blood--have titles manifold."

Some of the eminent musical composers already mentioned (_See_ Vol. II., pp. 378-9) continued to embellish the reign of James. Amongst these were Ford, Ward, Weelkes, and Orlando Gibbons. The first three are distinguished for their madrigals, and Weelkes for ballads, which are unrivalled. Ward's "Die not, Fond Man," is still as popular as ever. Gibbons composed both madrigals and cathedral music. He was organist of the Royal Chapel, and was made Doctor of Music by the University of Oxford. The sacred music of Gibbons is enough of itself to exempt England from the often advanced charge of being unmusical. In 1622, Dr. Heyther, a friend of Camden, the antiquary, established a professorship of music at Oxford. Charles I. was not only fond of music, but played himself with considerable skill on the _viol da gamba_. Dr. William Child, himself an excellent composer, was the organist of his chapel, and Lawes, the friend of Milton, who is referred to in his sonnets and in "Comus," was patronised by him. Lawes was greatly admired, and justly, by other poets, especially Herrick and Waller. Charles I., however, set a bad example, by encouraging foreign musicians instead of his own subjects. He made Lanieri, an Italian, a man in real musical science far inferior to several Englishmen then living, "Master of our Music," and his example was only too diligently followed by princes and nobles in after times.

The rise of the Commonwealth was the fall of music in England. The stern Puritans, and especially the Scottish Presbyterians, who dubbed an organ "a kist o' whistles," denounced all music as profane, and drove organs and orchestras from the churches. Nothing was tolerated but a simple psalm tune. Cromwell, however, did not partake of this fanaticism. He was fond of music, and frequently had musical entertainments at Whitehall and Hampton Court. The great organ which had been pulled out of Magdalen College, Oxford, he had carefully conveyed to Hampton Court, where it was one of his greatest solaces. Under Cromwell the lovers of music brought out their concealed instruments, and there was once more not only domestic enjoyment of music, but open musical parties.

If the Civil War in England was auspicious to liberty, it was disastrous to art. From the time of Henry VIII. the British monarchs had shown a decided taste for the arts. Henry had munificently patronised Holbein, and had made various purchases of foreign _chefs-d'œuvre_. Prince Henry inherited the taste of his mother, instead of the coarse buffoonery of his father, and showed a strong attachment to men of genius and to works of genius. He began a collection of paintings, bronzes, and medals, which fell to his brother Charles. Charles was an enthusiast in art, and had he not possessed his fatal passion for despotism, would have introduced a new era in England as regarded intellectual and artistic pursuits. The study of Italian models, both in literature and art, by the aristocracy, enabled the nobles to embrace the tastes of the monarch; and England would soon have seen the fine arts flourishing to a degree which they had never enjoyed before, and which would have prevented the dark ages that succeeded. During Charles's early rule the greatest artists of the Continent flocked over to England, and found a liberal reception there. Rubens, Vandyck, Jansen, Vansomer, Mytens, Diepenbeck, Pölemberg, Gentileschi, and others visited London, and Vandyck, the greatest of them all, remained permanently. The works of Vandyck, in England, are numerous, and if we except his famous picture of "The Crucifixion" at Mechlin, we possess the best of his productions. At Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, Blenheim, Wilton House, and Wentworth House, the bulk of his finest pictures are to be seen. His portraits of our princes and the chief nobility of the time are familiar to all English eyes, and place him only second to Titian in that department. At Wilton House alone there are twenty-five of Vandyck's paintings; the portrait of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, with his family, is declared by Walpole to be itself a school of this master. His dramatic portrait of Strafford and his secretary, Mainwaring, at Wentworth House, Walpole asserts to be his masterpiece. Charles had proposed to him to paint the history of the Order of the Garter on the walls of the Banqueting House at Whitehall, but the sum he demanded--said to be eighty thousand pounds, but more probably a misprint for eight thousand pounds--caused Charles to delay it, and his political troubles soon put an end to the scheme. He painted several pictures of Charles on horseback, one of which is at Windsor, and another at Hampton Court.

Rubens came to England only as an ambassador, but Charles seized the opportunity to get him to paint the apotheosis of James, on the ceiling of the Banqueting House at Whitehall. This he, however, merely sketched whilst in London and painted it at Antwerp, receiving three thousand pounds for it. The Duke of Buckingham purchased Rubens's private collection of pictures, chiefly of the Italian school, but containing some of his own, for ten thousand pounds. These were sold by the Long Parliament, and now adorn the palaces of the Escurial at Madrid, and the Belvedere at Vienna. The large pictures in the latter gallery, "St. Francis Xavier preaching to the Indians," and "Loyola casting out Devils," are amongst the very finest of his productions.

Charles, besides making collections, and drawing round him great artists, projected the establishment of an academy of arts on a princely scale. But this remained only an idea, through the breaking out of the Revolution. Parliament, in 1645, caused all such pictures at Whitehall as contained any representation of the Saviour or the Virgin to be burnt, and the rest to be sold. Fortunately there were persons in power who had more rational notions, and much was saved. Cromwell himself secured the cartoons of Raphael for three hundred pounds, and thus preserved them to the nation, and as soon as he had the authority, he put a stop to the sale of the royal collections, and even detained many pictures that had been sold.

The native artists of this period were chiefly pupils of Rubens or Vandyck. Jamesone, called the Scottish Vandyck, was a pupil of Rubens at the same time with Vandyck--Charles sat to him. William Dobson, a pupil of Vandyck, was serjeant-painter to Charles, and Robert Walker, of the Vandyck school, was Cromwell's favourite painter, to whom we owe several admirable portraits of the Protector. There were also several miniature painters of the highest merit--the two Olivers, Hoskins, and Cooper.

Up to this period engravings had become by no means prominent in England. That there had been engravers we know from various books having been illustrated by them. Geminus and Humphrey Lloyd were employed by Ortelius, of Antwerp, on his "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum." Aggas had executed a great plan of London, and Saxon county maps. Various Flemish and French engravers found employment, as Vostermans, De Voerst, and Peter Lombard. Hollar, a Bohemian, was employed extensively till the outbreak of the Civil War, and illustrated Dugdale and other writers. But the chief English engraver of this period was John Payne.

Sculpture was by no means in great advance at this period. There were several foreign artists employed in England on tombs and monuments, but as they did not at that date put their names upon them, it is difficult to attribute to every man his own. Amongst these Le Sœur, who executed the equestrian statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross, Angier, and Du Val were the chief. John Stone, master mason to the king, was by far the most skilful native sculptor. Amongst his best efforts are the monuments of Sir George Holles at Westminster, and the statue of Sir Finnes Holles, also at Westminster. Sir Dudley Carleton's tomb at Westminster, and Sutton's tomb at the Charterhouse are also his. But the greatest boon to sculpture was the introduction at this period, by the Earl of Arundel, of the remains of ancient art, hence called the Arundel Marbles.

This was the epoch of the commencement of classical architecture. The grand old Anglo-Gothic had run its course. It fell with the Catholic Church, or continued only in a mongrel and degraded state, showing continually the progress of its decline. From Henry VIII. to James this state of things continued; the miserable tasteless style, which succeeded the downfall of the picturesque Tudor, being the only architecture. The change to the classical was destined to be made by Inigo Jones, whose is the great name of this period. Jones had studied in Italy, and became aware of the graceful style which Vitruvius had introduced by modulation of the ancient Greek and Roman, and which Palladio had raised to perfection. The merit of Jones is that he imported Palladio's style substantially and completely, ready as it was to his hands, and wholly unknown in England. By this means Jones acquired a reputation for genius to which nothing that he has left justifies his claim. He was first engaged in designing the scenery and machinery of the masques which Ben Jonson wrote for the queen of James I. He was appointed architect to the queen and Prince Henry. On the death of the prince he went back to Italy, but on his return to London he was appointed Surveyor-General of the Royal Buildings. The first thing which he planned was the design for an immense palace for James on the site of Whitehall. There is a simple grandeur in the drawings of it which are left, which may fairly entitle him to a reputation for the introduction of an elegant domestic architecture, although it does not warrant the extravagant terms of eulogy which have been lavished on him. The only portion of this palace which was built is the Banqueting House (afterwards the Chapel Royal) at Whitehall, being the termination of the great façade, and which contains nothing very remarkable. Jones added a chapel to Somerset House, and a west front to St. Paul's, neither of which remains. That he was far from having conceived the true principles of architecture was shown by the fact that his west front of Old St. Paul's was a classical one engrafted on a Gothic building, and this solecism he was continually repeating. One of the most glaring instances of the kind is a classical screen which he raised in the Norman Cathedral of Durham. Amongst the chief remaining buildings of Inigo Jones from which an idea of his talent may be drawn, are the Piazza and St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, of which Quatremere de Quincy says that the most remarkable thing about it is the reputation that it enjoys; Ashburnham House, Westminster; a house on the west side of Lincoln's Inn Fields originally built for the Earl of Lindsay; an addition to St. John's College, Oxford; and by far his finest work,--if his it be, which is doubtful--Heriot's Hospital at Edinburgh. He also superintended the erection of Old Greenwich Palace.

The general aspect of the towns and streets remained the same at this period as in the former. James issued proclamation after proclamation, ordering the citizens to leave off the half-timbered style, and build the fronts, at least, entirely of brick or stone; but this was little attended to, and many a strange old fabric continued to show the fashions of past ages.

If we are to believe the memoir writers and dramatists of this period, the national manners and morals had suffered a decided deterioration. Licentious as was the court of Queen Elizabeth, there was a certain dignity and outward decorum preserved, but James introduced such coarseness and grossness of manner, such low debauch and buffoonery, that even the salutary restraint which fashion had imposed was stripped away, and all classes exhibited the most revolting features. In the reign of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, we had such women as the daughters of Sir Thomas More, Lady Jane Grey, Catherine Parr, and others, who cultivated literature and philosophy, the Queens Mary and Elizabeth themselves setting the example in reading and translating the most illustrious classical authors. But after James came in, notwithstanding all his learned pedantry, you hear nothing more of such tastes amongst the Court ladies, and it is very singular that amid that blaze of genius which distinguished the time under review, we find no traces of feminine genius there. On the contrary, both English dramatists and foreign writers describe the morals and manners of women of rank as almost destitute of delicacy and probity. They are described as mingling with gentlemen in taverns amid tobacco smoke, songs, and conversation of the most ribald character. They allowed liberties which would startle women of the lowest rank in these times, were desperate gamblers, and those who had the opportunity were wholesale dealers in political influence. Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, boasts of the effect of the bribes that he was accustomed to distribute amongst them. Whilst such women as the infamous and murderous Countess of Essex and the Dowager Countess Villiers were the leading stars of the Court, the tone of morals must have been low indeed. Whilst the ladies were of this stamp, we cannot expect the gentlemen to have been better, and there is no doubt but that the honours and wealth and royal favour heaped on such men as Somerset, Hay, Ramsay, and Buckingham, made debauchery and villainy quite fashionable. The character of Englishmen on their travels, Howell tells us, was expressed in an Italian proverb:--

"_Inglese Italianato
E Diavolo incarnato._"

"An Italianised Englishman is a devil incarnate." This was said of the debauched conduct of our young men on their travels. At home they were a contemptible mixture of foppery and profanity. Buckingham and the other favourites led the way. We have recorded the audacious behaviour of Buckingham at the courts of France and Spain, and the enormous foppery of his apparel. He had a dress of uncut white velvet, covered all over with diamonds, valued at eighty thousand pounds, a great feather of diamonds, another dress of purple satin covered with pearls, valued at twenty thousand pounds, and his sword, girdle, hatbands, and spurs were thickly studded with diamonds. He had, besides these, five-and-twenty other dresses of great richness, and his numerous attendants imitated him according to their means. They began now to patch their faces with black plaister, because the officers who had served in the German wars wore such to cover their scars; and the ladies did the same. Duelling was now introduced, cheating at play was carried to an immense extent, and the dandy effeminacy of the Cavaliers was unexampled. They had the utmost contempt of all below them, and any attempt to assume the style or courtesies of address which they appropriated to themselves was resented as actual treason. The term "Master" or "Mr." was used only to great merchants or commoners of distinction; and to address such as "gentlemen" or "esquires" would have roused all the ire of the aristocracy. In proceeding through the streets at night, courtiers were conducted with torches, merchants with links, and mechanics with lanthorns.

We may imagine the feeling with which the sober and religious Puritans beheld all this, and the proud contempt with which their strictures were received. When the Civil War broke out, which was a war of religious reform as much as of political, the Puritans displayed a grave manner, a sober dress, and chastened style of speech; and the Cavaliers, in defiance and contempt, swore, drank, and indulged in debauchery all the more, to mark their superiority to the "sneaking Roundhead dogs."

Charles endeavoured to restrain this loose and indecent spirit, but it was too strong for him; and though the Puritans put it effectually down during the Commonwealth, it came back in a flood with the lewd and ribald Charles II. Charles I. also introduced a more tasteful style of Court pageants and festivities. Under James all the old fantastic masques and pageantries--in which heathen gods, goddesses, satyrs, and giants figured--prevailed. Charles gave to his pageantries a more classical character, but when the Puritans came in they put them all down, along with Maypoles, and all the wakes, and church-ales, and the like, which James had encouraged by his "Book of Sports." The Court festivals, so long as the monarchy remained, were marked by all the profusion, displays of jewellery, and dresses of cloth of gold and embroidery, which prevailed in the Tudor times. The old-fashioned country life, in which the gentlemen hunted and hawked, and the ladies spent their leisure in giving bread to the poor and making condiments, preserves, and distilled waters, was rapidly deserted during the gay days of James and Charles, and the fortune-making of favourites.

Merchants and shopkeepers were growing rich, and though they still conducted their businesses in warehouses which would appear mean and miserable to City men of to-day, and in shops with open fronts, before which the master or one of his apprentices constantly paraded, crying, "What d'ye lack?" had stately suburban houses, and vied with the nobles in their furniture and mode of living. The moral condition of the people of London at this period, according to all sorts of writers, was something inconceivably frightful. The apprentices, as we have seen, were a turbulent and excitable race, who had assumed a right to settle political matters, or to avenge any imagined attack on their privileges. At the cry of "Clubs!" they seized their clubs and swords and rushed into the streets to ascertain what was amiss. They were easily led by their ringleaders against any body or any authority that was supposed to be invading popular rights. We have seen them surrounding the Parliament House, demanding such measures as they pleased, and executing their notions of suitable chastisement of offenders by setting fire to Laud's house, and breaking down the benches of the High Commission Court. They were equally ready to encounter and disperse the constabulary or the City Guard, and to fight out their quarrels with the Templars, or others with whom they were at feud.

The riots of the apprentices, however, had generally something of a John-Bullish assertion of right and justice in them; but the streets and alleys of London were infested with an equally boisterous and much more villainous crew of thieves and cut-purses. Pocket-picking was then, as now, taught as a science, and was carried to a wonderful perfection of dexterity. All kinds of rogueries were practised on country people, the memory of which remains yet in rural districts, and is still believed applicable to the metropolis. These vagabonds had their retreats about the Savoy and the brick-kilns of Islington, but their headquarters were in a part of Whitefriars called Alsatia, which possessed the right of sanctuary and swarmed with debtors, thieves, bullies, and every kind of miscreants, ready on an alarm, made by the sound of a horn, to turn out in mobs and defend their purlieus from constables and sheriffs' officers. Walking the streets in the daytime was dangerous from the affrays often going on between the apprentices and the students of the Temple, or between the butchers and weavers, or from the rude jostling and practical jokes of bullies and swashbucklers; but at night there was no safety except under a strong guard. Then Alsatia, the Savoy, and the numerous other dens of vice and violence, poured forth their myrmidons, and after nine o'clock there was no safety for quiet passengers. If we add to this description the narrowness of the roads and alleys, the unpaved and filthy state of the streets, and undrained and ill-ventilated houses, London was anything at this period but an attractive place. The plague was a frequent visitant, and we are told that kites and ravens were much kept to devour the offal and filth of the streets, instead of scavengers. In the country, things were not much better. The roads were terrible, and were infested by sturdy bands of robbers. In the neighbourhood of London, Finchley, Blackheath, Wimbledon, and Shooter's Hill were places of widespread fame for daring highwaymen. It was high time for the Puritans to come into power, and to put both town and country under a more wholesome discipline. Cromwell's soldiers, quartered in various parts of the metropolis, and his major-generals administering martial law in different parts of the country, soon altered the face of things. He shut up Spring Gardens, a place of nocturnal resort for assignations for traffickers in political corruption, and for various licentiousness; and instead of fellows prowling about the streets with sweetmeats in their pockets to kidnap children, and sell them to the plantations, he sent these scoundrels freely thither themselves. Amongst the gloomy features of this period was the relentless persecution of old women, under the belief that they were witches; a practice commenced by James, but continued by the Puritans, who sent out Hopkins, the notorious witchfinder, who, in the years 1645 and 1646, traversed the country, condemning and putting to death hundreds of them, till he himself was accused of being a wizard, and was subjected to the same fate. From 1640 to the Restoration, four thousand persons are said to have perished under charge of witchcraft. In Scotland this terrible practice was carried on with even aggravated cruelties, in order to extort confession.

The sports of the aristocracy, gentry, and merchants were much the same that they had been hitherto. Hunting was the favourite pastime of James, and therefore was not likely to be neglected by the country gentry. He was also fond of hawking, and kept alive that pastime, which was dying out, some time longer. Ball games had much superseded the jousts and tournaments of other days. Tennis retained its high favour, and billiards and pall-mall, or striking a ball through a ring suspended to a pole, were becoming fashionable. Bowling, cards, dice, dancing, masques, balls, and musical entertainments varied town life. The common people stuck to their foot-ball, quoits, pitching the bar, cricket, shovel-board, bull- and bear-baiting, and cock-fighting. The Puritans put down May-games, Whitsun-ales, morrice-dances, and all amusements that savoured of a Catholic origin. They also humanely suppressed, as far as they could, the savage sports of bear and bull-baiting. Pride and Hewson killed all the bears at the bear-garden to put an end to that cruel pastime, and thence originated Butler's "Hudibras." The bowling-greens of the English were famous, and horse-racing was much in vogue. In Scotland the Reformation put to flight all sorts of games, dancing, and merry-makings, as sinful and unbecoming of Christians, and polemic discussions were the only excitements which relieved the ascetic gloom.

The interiors of houses were in this period greatly embellished, and the splendour of hangings of beds and windows had strikingly increased. Rich velvets and silks embroidered with cloth of gold and cloth of silver, and coloured satins of the most gorgeous hues abounded. The cushions of couches and chairs were equally costly, and instead of the ancient tapestry, paper and leather hangings, richly stamped and gilt, covered the walls. The Flemish artists had been called in to paint the ceilings with historical or mythological scenes, and on the walls hung the masterpieces of Flemish and Italian art. Carpets were beginning to supersede rushes on the floors, but were more commonly used as coverings for tables. In addition to the carved cabinets of oak, ebony, and ivory, and the richly-covered cushioned and high-backed chairs of the Tudor dynasty, Flemish and Dutch furniture of somewhat formal but still elegant design abounded. Superb ornaments of ivory and china had found their way from the East, and became heirlooms in great mansions. Altogether, the houses of the wealthy of those times presented a scene of stately elegance and luxury that has not since been surpassed.

The costume of the reign of James was but a continuation of that of Elizabeth. The men still wore the stiff plated ruff, occasionally varied by a plain horizontal one with lace on its edges. The long peasecod-bellied doublet continued, and the large stuffed Gallic or Venetian hose, slashed and quilted, had assumed more preposterous dimensions from James's timidity; he having both these and the doublets quilted to resist the stabs of the stiletto. Towards the end of his reign a change was noticeable. Instead of the long-waisted doublet there were short jackets, with false hanging sleeves behind; the trunk hose were covered with embroidered straps, tucked short at the thigh, and the hose gartered below the knee. We are told how they covered their cloaks and dresses with jewels on State occasions. They wore feathers at such times in their hats. Taylor, the Water Poet, says the gallants of his time

"Wore a farm in shoestrings edged with gold,
And spangled garters worth a copyhold;
A hose and doublet which a lordship cost,
A gaudy cloak, three mansions' price almost;
A beaver band and feather for the head,
Prized at the church's tithe, the poor man's bread."

The old cloth stockings were obsolete, and stockings of silk, thread, or worsted used.

The ladies of the Court were still in the stiff Elizabethan farthingale, elevated collar, and hair dressed in the lofty style. Anne of Denmark was Elizabeth over again. But in domestic life we find the ladies attired in a far more natural style, without the farthingale, with falling collars, plain or edged with lace, and the hair with ringlets falling on each side; and this simple and more elegant fashion became at length universal in Charles's reign.

The male costume of Charles's time was extremely elegant. At the commencement of the Civil War no contrast could be greater than that of the appearance of the Cavaliers and the Roundheads. The Cavalier dress consisted of a doublet of silk, satin, or velvet, with large loose sleeves slashed up the front, the collar covered by a falling band of the richest point lace, with Vandyck edging. The long breeches, fringed or pointed met the tops of the wide boots, which were also commonly ruffled with lace or lawn. A broad Flemish beaver hat, with a rich hatband and plume of feathers, was set on one side of the head, and a Spanish rapier hung from a most magnificent baldrick, or sword belt, worn sash-wise over the right shoulder, and on one shoulder was worn a short cloak with an air of carelessness. In war this short cloak was exchanged generally for the buff coat, which was also richly laced, and sometimes embroidered with gold and silver, and round the waist was worn a broad silk or satin scarf tied in a large bow behind or over the hip; or a buff jerkin without sleeves was worn over the doublet, and the lace or lawn on the boots dispensed with. The beard was worn very peaked, with small upturned moustaches, and the hair long and flowing on the shoulders. In contrast to this the Parliamentarians wore their hair cut short--whence the name of Roundhead--and studied a sober cut and colour of clothes. The first appearance of Cromwell in Parliament, described by Sir Philip Warwick, has been taken as a sufficient specimen of his costume when Protector. But Cromwell was then but a gentleman-farmer, and appeared in careless rustic habit. "I came one morning into the House," says Warwick, "well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom I knew not, very ordinarily apparelled, for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor. His hat was without a hatband." But no one knew better than Cromwell what was necessary to the decorum of station, and very different is the account of his appearance when going to be sworn Protector. "His Highness was in a plain but rich suit, black velvet, with cloak of the same; about his hat a broad band of gold."

The ladies' dresses of Charles's time rapidly changed from the stiff ruffs and farthingales to a more natural and elegant style. With Mrs. Turner, their introducer, went out in James's time the yellow starch ruffs and bands, for she appeared, when hanged for her share in Sir Thomas Overbury's murder, in her own yellow ornaments at the gallows. But all ruffs grew obsolete in Charles's reign, and a lady of that day would scarcely be distinguished from a lady of this. The hair was dressed much as in modern manner, the dress fell naturally without hoops, and the broad collar lay gracefully on the shoulders. The citizens' and Puritans' wives, as well as country women, wore the broad high-crowned hat, and country women appeared still in plaited ruff, and a muffler over the mouth in cold weather, tied up to the back of the head. A lady had generally her feather fan in her hand, as the modern one has her parasol.

Armour was fast disappearing; it was of little use against cannon and matchlocks. James thought armour a very good invention, for it hindered a man as much from hurting his enemy as it defended himself. But in his time little but a cuirass for the body and a helmet or bonnet was used. To the rest for the heavy matchlock in this reign was affixed a long rapier blade, called a "swine's feather," or "bristle," and used as a soldier now uses the bayonet. In the Civil War most of the officers wore only a cuirass over a buff coat; and though some of the infantry were almost fully sheathed in armour, it was soon found to be too cumbersome for rapid movements, and with the exception of the cuirassiers, who were clad in armour except the legs, they were seldom defended by more than a back- and breast-plate, and a head-piece. During the war the cavalry was divided into cuirassiers, lancers, arquebusiers, carbineers, and dragoons, according to the different weapon or armour which they carried,--the cuirass, the lance, the musket, the heavy arquebus, the carbine, or the dragon, a sort of blunderbuss. At this period the firelock was introduced by the poultry-stealers of Holland, and called after them the snaphance, or hen-stealer. The superiority of the flint-lock over the match- or cumbrous wheel-lock was soon seen and adopted.