Chapter III: Introduction (2)

It is natural to inquire, after dwelling so much on the practical power of English literature in society and life, what is its value in the world of art, in that sphere where questions of perfection in the form, of permanence in the matter, and the like, arise. If the standards of an academic classicism be applied, English literature will fall below both Latin and Greek, and the Italian and French, and take a lower place with German and Spanish, to which it is most akin. But such standards are pseudo-classical at best, and under modern criticism find less ground in the ancients. The genius of the English is romantic, and originated romantic forms proper to itself, and by these it should be judged. The time is, perhaps, not wholly gone by when the formlessness of Shakespeare may be found spoken of as a matter of course, as the formlessness of Shelley is still generally alleged; but if neither of these has form in the pseudo-classic, the Italian and French, sense of convention, decorum and limit, they were creators of that romantic form in which English, together with Spanish, marks the furthest original modern advance. The subject is too large, and too much a matter of detail, for this place; but it is the less necessary to expand it, for it is as superfluous to establish the right of Shakespeare in the realm of the most perfect art as to examine the title-deeds of Alexander's conquests. He condensed romanticism in character, as was said above; and in the power with which he did this, in the wisdom, beauty and splendor of his achievement, excelled all others, both for substance and art. The instinct of fame may be safely followed in assigning a like primacy to Milton. The moment which Milton occupied, in the climax of a literary movement, is, perhaps, not commonly observed with accuracy. The drama developed out of allegorical and abstract, and through historical, into entirely human and ideal forms; and in Shakespeare this process is completed. The same movement, on the religious as opposed to the secular line, took place more slowly. Spenser, like Sackville, works by impersonation of moral qualities, viewed abstractly; the Fletchers, who carried on his tradition, employ the same method, which gives a remote and often fantastic character to their work; nor was moral and religious poetic narrative truly humanized, and given ideal power in character and event, until Milton carried it to its proper artistic culmination in Paradise Lost. Milton stands to the evolution of this branch of poetic literature, springing from the miracle-plays, precisely as Shakespeare does to the branch of ideal drama; and thus, although he fell outside of the great age, and was sixty years later than Shakespeare in completing the work, the singularity of his literary greatness, his loneliness as a lofty genius in his time, becomes somewhat less inexplicable. The Paradise Lost occupies this moment of climax, to repeat the phrase, in literary history, and, like nearly all works in such circumstances, it has a greatness all its own. But, beyond that, it lies in a region of art where no other English work companions it, as an epic of the romantic spirit such as Italy most boasts of, but superior in breadth, in ethical power, in human interest, to Ariosto or Tasso, and comparing with them as Pindar with the Alexandrians; it realized Hell and Eden, and the world of heavenly war and the temptation, to the vision of men, with tremendous imaginative power, stamping them into the race-mind as permanent imagery; and the literary kinship which the workmanship bears to what is most excellent and shining in the great works of Greece, Rome and Italy, as well as to Hebraic grandeur, helps to place the poem in that remoter air which is an association of the mind with all art. No other English poem has a similar brilliancy, aloofness and perfection, as of something existing in another element, except the Adonais. In it personal lyricism achieved the most impersonal of elegies, and mingled the fairest dreams of changeful imaginative grief with the soul's intellectual passion for immortality full-voiced. It is detached from time and place; the hunger of the soul for eternity, which is its substance, human nature can never lay off; its literary kinship is with what is most lovely in the idyllic melody of the antique; and, owing to its small scale and the simple unity of its mood, it gives forth the perpetual charm of literary form in great purity. These two poems stand alone with Shakespeare's plays, and are for epic and lyric what his work is for drama, the height of English performance in the cultivation of romance. Other poets must be judged to have attained excellence in romantic art in proportion as they reveal the qualities of Shakespeare, Milton and Shelley; for these three are the masters of romantic form, which, being the spirit of life proceeding from within outward, is the vital structure of English poetic genius. This internal power is also a principle of classic art in its antique examples; but academic criticism developed from them a hardened formalism to which romantic art is related as the spirit of life to the death-mask of the past. Such pallor has from time to time crossed the features of English letters in a man or an age, and has brought a marble dignity, as to Landor, or the shadow of an Augustan elegance, as in the era of Pope; but it has faded and passed away under the flush of new life. Even in prose, in which so-called classic qualities are still sought by academic taste, the genius of English has shown a native obstinacy. The novel is so Protean in form as to seem amorphous, but essentially repeats the drama, and submits in its masters to Shakespearian parallelism; in substance and manner it has been overwhelmingly of a romantic cast; and in the other forms of prose, style, though of all varieties, has, perhaps, proved most preservative when highly colored, individualized, and touched with imaginative greatness, as in Browne, Taylor, Milton, Bunyan, Burke, Carlyle, Macaulay; but the inferiority of their matter, it should be observed, affects the endurance of the eighteenth-century prose masters--Steele, Addison, Swift and Johnson, to name the foremost. Commonly, it must be allowed, English, both prose and poetry, notwithstanding its triumphs, is valued for substance and not for form, whether this be due to a natural incapacity, or to a retardation in development which may hereafter be overcome, or to the fact that the richness of the substance renders the fineness of the form less eminent.

In conclusion, the thought rises of itself, will this continuity, assimilative power, and copiousness, this original genius, this serviceableness to civilization and the private life, this supreme romantic art, be maintained, now that the English and their speech are spread through the world, or is the history of the intellectual expansion of Athens and Rome, the moral expansion of Jerusalem, to be repeated? The saying of Shelley, "The mind in creation is a fading coal," seems to be true of nations. Great literatures, or periods in them, have usually marked the culmination of national power; and if they "look before and after," as Virgil in the Æneid, they gather their wisdom, as he too did, by a gaze reverted to the past. The paradox of progress, in that the _laudator temporis acti_ is always found among the best and noblest of the elders, while yet the whole world of man ever moves on to greater knowledge, power and good, continues like the riddle of the Sphinx; but time seems unalterably in favor of mankind through all dark prophecies. The mystery of genius is unsolved; and the Messianic hope that a child may be born unto the people always remains; but the greatness of a nation dies only with that genius which is not a form of human greatness in individuals, but is shared by all of the blood, and constitutes them fellow-countrymen. The genius of the English shows no sign of decay; age has followed age, each more gloriously, and whether the period that is now closing be really an end or only the initial movement of a vaster arc of time, corresponding to the greater English destiny, world-wide, world-peopling, world-freeing, the arc of the movement of democracy through the next ages,--is immaterial; so long as the genius of the people, its piety and daring, its finding faculty for truth, its creative shaping in art, be still integral and vital, so long as its spiritual passion be fed from those human and divine ideas whose abundance is not lessened, and on those heroic tasks which a world still half discovered and partially subdued opens through the whole range of action and of the intellectual and moral life,--so long as these things endure, English speech must still be fruitful in great ages of literature, as in the past these have been its fountainheads. But if no more were to be written on the page of English, yet what is written there, contained and handed down in famous books and made the spiritual food of the vast multitude whose children's children shall use and read the English tongue through coming centuries under every sky, will constitute a moral dominion to which Virgil's line may proudly apply--

His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono:
Imperium sine fine dedi.

One Hundred Books
Famous in English Literature

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.
TENNYSON

Whan that Apprill with his shouris sote
And the droughte of marche hath pa'd [.y] rote
And badid euery veyne in suche licour
Of whiche vertu engendrid is the flour
Whanne zepherus eke with his sote breth
Enspirid hath in euery holte and heth
The tendir croppis and the yong sonne
Hath in the ram half his cours y conne
And smale foulis make melodie
That slepyn al nyght with opyn ye
So prikith hem nature in her corage
Than longyng folk to gon on pilgremage
And palmers to seche straunge londis
To serue halowis couthe in sondry londis
And specially fro euery shiris ende
Of yngelond to Cauntirbury thy wende
The holy blisful martir for to seke
That them hath holpyn when they were seke

And fil in that seson on a day
In Suthwerk atte tabard as I lay
Redy to wende on my pilgremage
To Cauntirbury with deuout corage
That nyght was come in to that hosterye
Wel nyne & twenty in a companye
Of sondry folk be auenture y falle
In feleship as pilgrymys were they alle
That toward Cauntirbury wolden ryde
The chambris and the stablis were wyde
And wel were they esid atte beste

Reduced Leaf in original, 7 × 10 inches

O moral Gower
CHAUCER

This book is intituled confessio amantis / that is to saye in
englysshe the confessyon of the louer maad and compyled by Johan
Gower squyer borne in walys in the tyme of kyng richard the
second which book treteth how he was confessyd to Genyus preest
of venus vpon the causes of loue in his fyue wyttes and seuen
dedely synnes / as in thys sayd book al alonge appyereth / and
by cause there been comprysed therin dyuers hystoryes and fables
towchyng euery matere / I haue ordeyned a table here folowyng of
al suche hystoryes and fables where and in what book and leef
they stande in as here after foloweth

¶ Fyrst the prologue how johan gower in the xvi yere of kyng
rychard the second began to make thys book and dyrected to harry
of lancastre thenne erle of derby folio ¶ ii

Of thestate of the royames temporally the sayd yere folio ¶ iii

Of thestate of the clergye the tyme of robert gylbonensis namyng
hym self clemente thenne antipope folio ¶ iv

Of the estate of the comyn people folio ¶ v

How he treteth of the ymage that nabugodonosor sawe in his sleep
hauyng an heed of golde / a breste of syluer / a bely of brasse
/ legges of yron / and feet haffe yron & halfe erthe folio vi

Of thenterpretacion of the dreme / and how the world was fyrst
of golde / & after alwey werse & werse folio vii

¶ Thus endeth the prologue

¶ Here begynneth the book

And fyrst the auctor nameth thys book confessio amantis / that
is to say the shryfte of the louer / wheron alle thys book shal
shewe not onely the loue humayn / but also of alle lyuyng
beestys naturally folio ¶ ix

How cupydo smote Johan Gower with a fyry arowe and wounded hym
so that venus commysed to hym genyus hyr preest for to here hys
confessyon folio ¶ x

How Genyus beyng sette / the louer knelyng tofore hym prayeth
the sayd confessor to appose hym in his confessyon folio ¶ xi

The confessyon of the amant of two of the pryncipallist of his
fyue wyttes folio ¶ xi

How atheon for lokyng vpon Deane was turned in to an herte
folio ¶ xi

Of phorceus and hys thre doughters whiche had but one eye / &
how phorceus slewe them folio ¶ xii

How the serpente that bereth the charbuncle stoppeth his one ere
wyth hys tayle and that other wyth the erthe whan he is
enchaunted folio ¶ xii

How vlyxes escaped fro the marmaydys by stoppyng of hys eerys
folio ¶ xii

Here foloweth that there ben vii dedely synnes / of whome the
fyrste is

Reduced Leaf in original, 8.68 × 12.75 inches.

Flos regum Arthurus
JOHN OF EXETER

After that I had accomplysshed and fynysshed dyuers hystoryes as
wel of contemplacyon as of other hystoryal and worldly actes of
grete conquerours & prynces / And also certeyn bookes of
ensaumples and doctryne / Many noble and dyuers gentylmen of
thys royame of Englond camen and demaunded me many and oftymes /
wherfore that j haue not do made & enprynte the noble hystorye
of the saynt greal / and of the moost renomed crysten kyng /
Fyrst and chyef of the thre best crysten and worthy / kyng
Arthur / whyche ought moost to be remembred emonge vs englysshe
men tofore al other crysten kynges / For it is notoyrly knowen
thorugh the vnyuersal world / that there been ix worthy & the
best that euer were / That is to wete thre paynyms / thre jewes
and thre crysten men / As for the paynyms they were tofore the
jncarnacyon of Cryst / whiche were named / the fyrst Hector of
Troye / of whome thystorye is comen bothe in balade and in prose
/ The second Alysaunder the grete / & the thyrd Julyus Cezar
Emperour of Rome of whome thystoryes ben wel kno and had / And
as for the thre jewes whyche also were tofore thyncarnacyon of
our lord of whome the fyrst was Duc Josue whyche brought the
chyldren of Israhel in to the londe of byheste / The second
Dauyd kyng of Jherusalem / & the thyrd Judas Machabeus of these
thre the byble reherceth al theyr noble hystoryes & actes / And
sythe the sayd jncarnacyon haue ben thre noble crysten men
stalled and admytted thorugh the vnyuersal world in to the
nombre of the ix beste & worthy / of whome was fyrst the noble
Arthur / whos noble actes j purpose to wryte in thys present
book here folowyng / The second was Charlemayn or Charles the
grete / of whome thystorye is had in many places bothe in
frensshe and englysshe / and the thyrd and last was Godefray of
boloyn / of whos actes & lyf j made a book vnto thexcellent
prynce and kyng of noble memorye kyng Edward the fourth / the
sayd noble jentylmen jnstantly requyred me temprynte thystorye
of the sayd noble kyng and conquerour kyng Arthur / and of his
knyghtes wyth thystorye of the saynt greal / and of the deth and
endyng of the sayd Arthur / Affermyng that j ouzt rather
tenprynte his actes and noble feates / than of godefroye of
boloyne / or

Reduced Leaf in original, 7.87 × 11.25 inches.

So judiciously contrived that the wisest may exercise at once
their knowledge and devotion; its ceremonies few and innocent;
its language significant and perspicuous; most of the words and
phrases being taken out of the Holy Scriptures and the rest are
the expressions of the first and purest ages.
COMBER

THE
booke of the common praier
and administracion of the
Sacramentes, and
other rites and
ceremonies
of the
Churche: after the
vse of the Churche of
Englande.

LONDINI, _in officina Richardi Graftoni,
Regij impressoris_.

_Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum._

_Anno Domini._ M.D.XLIX.
_Mense Martij._

Reduced Leaf in original 7 × 10.5 inches.

The author of Piers Ploughman, no doubt, embodied in a poetic
dress just what millions felt. His poem as truly expressed the
popular sentiment on the subjects it discussed as did the
American Declaration of Independence the national thought and
feeling on the relations between the Colonies and Great Britain.
Its dialect, its tone and its poetic dress alike conspired to
secure to the Vision a wide circulation among the commonalty of
the realm, and by formulating--to use a favorite word of the
day--sentiments almost universally felt, though but dimly
apprehended, it brought them into distinct consciousness, and
thus prepared the English people for the reception of the seed
which the labors of Wycliffe and his converts were already
sowing among them.
MARSH

THE VISION
of Pierce Plowman, now
fyrste imprynted by Roberte
Crowley, dwellyng in Ely
tentes in Holburne.
Anno Domini.

1550.
Cum priuilegio ad imprimend[=u]
solum.

By far the most important of our historical records, in print,
during the time of Queen Elizabeth.
DIBDIN

1577.

THE
Firste volume of the
_Chronicles of England, Scotlande_,
and Irelande.
CONTEYNING,

The description and Chronicles of England, from the first
inhabiting vnto the conquest

The description and Chronicles of Scotland, from the first
originall of the Scottes nation, till the yeare of our Lorde.
1571.

The description and Chronicles of Yrelande, likewise from the
firste originall of that Nation, vntill the yeare. 1547.

_Faithfully gathered and set forth, by_
Raphaell Holinshed.

AT LONDON,
Imprinted for George Bishop.

God saue the Queene.

Reduced Leaf in original, 7.75 11.12 inches

Our historic plays are allowed to have been founded on the
heroic narratives in the Mirror for Magistrates; to that plan,
and to the boldness of Lord Buckhurst's new scenes, perhaps we
owe Shakespeare.
WALPOLE

¶_A MYRROVR FOR_
Magistrates.

Wherein maye be seen by
example of other, with howe greuous
plages vices are punished: and
howe frayle and vnstable werldly
prosperity is founde, even of
those whom Fortune seemeth
most highly
to fauour.

_Fælix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum._

_Anno._ 1563.

¶_Imprinted at London in Fletestrete
nere to Saynct Dunstans Churche
by Thomas Marshe._

Two chieftaines who having travailed into Italie, and there
tasted the sweete and stately measures and stile of Italian
Poesie, as novices newly crept out of the schooles of Dante,
Arioste, and Petrarch, they greatly pollished our rude and
homely maner of vulgar Poesie, from that it had bene before, and
for that cause may justly be sayd the first reformers of our
English meetre and stile.
PUTTENHAM

¶_SONGES AND SONETTES
Written by the right honorable
Lord Henry Haward late
Earle of Surrey, and
others._

_Apud Richardum Tottell._
1567.

_Cumpriuilegio._

It is full of stately speeches, and well-sounding phrases,
clyming to the height of Seneca his stile, and as full of
notable moralitie, which it doth most delightfully teach, and so
obtayne the very end of Poesie.
SIDNEY

¶The Tragidie of Ferrex
and Porrex,
set forth without addition or alteration
but altogether as the same was shewed
on stage before the Queenes Maiestie,
about nine yeares past, _vz._ the
xviij. day of Ianuarie. 1561.
by the gentlemen of the
Inner Temple.

=Seen and allowed, &c.=

Imprinted at London by
Iohn Daye, dwelling ouer
Aldersgate.

These papers of his lay like dead lawrels in a churchyard; but I
have gathered the scattered branches up, and by a charme, gotten
from Apollo, made them greene againe and set them up as
epitaphes to his memory. A sinne it were to suffer these rare
monuments of wit to lye covered in dust and a shame such
conceipted comedies should be acted by none but wormes. Oblivion
shall not so trample on a sonne of the Muses; and such a sonne
as they called their darling. Our nation are in his debt for a
new English which he taught them. "Euphues and his England"
began first that language: all our ladyes were then his
scollers; and that beautie in court, which could not parley
Eupheueisme was as little regarded as shee which now there
speakes not French.
BLOUNT

EVPHVES.
THE ANATOMY
_of Wit_.

Verie pleasant for all
_Gentlemen to reade_,
and most necessary to
remember.

_Wherein are contayned the_
delightes that wit followeth in
_his youth, by the pleasantnesse of loue_,
and the happinesse he reapeth
in age, by the perfectnes
of wisedome.

_By_ Iohn Lylie, _Maister of Art_.

Corrected and augmented.

_AT LONDON_
Printed for Gabriell Cawood,
dwelling in Paules Church-yard.

The noble and vertuous gentleman most worthy of all titles both
of learning and chevalrie M. Philip Sidney.
SPENSER

THE
COVNTESSE
OF PEMBROKES
ARCADIA,

WRITTEN BY SIR PHILIPPE
SIDNEI.

LONDON
Printed for William Ponsonbie.
_Anno Domini_, 1590.

Our sage and serious poet Spenser (whom I dare be known to think
a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas).
MILTON

THE FAERIE
QVEENE.

Disposed into twelue books,
_Fashioning_
XII. Morall vertues.

VBIQUE FLORET (in printer's mark)

LONDON
Printed for William Ponsonbie.
1590.

Who is there that upon hearing the name of Lord Bacon does not
instantly recognize everything of literature the most extensive,
everything of discovery the most penetrating, everything of
observation of human life the most distinguished and refined?
BURKE

Essaies.

Religious Meditations.

Places of perswasion
and disswasion.

Seene and allowed.

LONDON
Printed for Humfrey Hooper
and are to bee solde at the
blacke Beare in Chauncery
lane. 1598.

They contain the heroic tales of the exploits of the great men
in whom the new era was inaugurated; not mythic like the Iliads
and the Eddas, but plain, broad narratives of substantial facts,
which rival legend in interest and grandeur. What the old epics
were to the royally or nobly born, this modern epic is to the
common people. We have no longer kings or princes for chief
actors to whom the heroism, like the dominion of the world, had
in time past been confined. But, as it was in the days of the
Apostles, when a few poor fishermen from an obscure lake in
Palestine assumed, under the Divine Mission, the spiritual
authority over mankind, so, in the days of our own Elizabeth,
the seamen from the banks of the Thames and the Avon, the Plym
and the Dart, self-taught and self-directed, with no impulse but
what was beating in their own royal hearts, went out across the
unknown seas, fighting, discovering, colonizing, and graved out
the channels, paving them at last with their bones, through
which the commerce and enterprise of England has flowed out over
all the world.
FROUDE

THE
PRINCIPAL NAVIGATIONS, VOIAGES, TRAFFIQVES AND DISCOUERIES
of the English Nation, made by Sea or ouer-land, to the
remote and farthest distant quarters of the Earth,
at any time within the compasse of these 1500.
yeeres: Deuided into three seuerall Volumes,
according to the positions of the
Regions, whereonto they were
directed.

This first Volume containing the woorthy Discoueries,
&c. of the English toward the North and Northeast by
Sea, as of _Lapland_, _Scriksinia_, _Corelia_, the
Baie of S. _Nicholas_, the Isles of _Colgoieue_,
_Vaigatz_, and _Noua Zembla_, toward the great
riuer _Ob_, with the mighty Empire of _Russia_,
the _Caspian_ sea, _Georgia_, _Armenia_,
_Media_, _Persia_, _Boghar_ in _Bactria_,
and diuers kingdoms of _Tartaria_:

Together with many notable monuments and testimonies
of the ancient forren trades, and of the warrelike
and other shipping of this realme of _England_
in former ages.

_Whereunto is annexed also a briefe Commentarie of
the true_ state of _Island_, and of the Northren
Seas and lands situate that way.

_And lastly, the memorable defeate of the
Spanish huge Armada, Anno_ 1588. and
the famous victorie atchieued
at the citie of _Cadiz_,
1596. are described.

_By_ RICHARD HACKLVYT _Master of_
Artes, and sometime Student of
Christ-Church in Oxford.

Imprinted at London by GEORGE
BISHOP, RALPH NEWBERIE
and ROBERT BARKER.
1598.

Reduced Leaf in original, 7 × 10.87 inches.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
KEATS

_Mulciber in Troiam, pro Troia stabat Apollo._

HOMER

THE
WHOLE WORKS
OF
HOMER;
PRINCE OF POETTS
In his Iliads, and
Odysses.

_Translated according to the Greeke,
By
Geo: Chapman._

De Ili: et Odiss:

_Omnia ab his: et in his sunt omnia: siue beati_
_Te decor eloquij, seu rer[=u] pondera tangunt. Angel Pol:_

* * * * *

_At London printed for Nathaniell Butter.
William Hole Sculp:_

Qui Nil molitur
Ineptè

ACHILLES HECTOR

Reduced Leaf in original, 7.06 x 10.93 inches.

Within that awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries!
Happiest they of human race,
To whom God has granted grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch, and force the way;
And better had they ne'er been born
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
SCOTT

THE
HOLY
BIBLE,

Conteyning the Old Testament,
and the New:

¶_Newly translated out of_
the Originall Tongues: and with
the former Translations diligently
compared and reuised by his
Maiesties speciall Commandement,

¶_Appointed to be read in Churches._

* * * * *

¶IMPRINTED
at London by _Robert
Barker_, Printer to the
Kings most excellent
Maiestie.

* * * * *

ANNO DOM. 1611.

Reduced Leaf in original 9.37 x 13.25 inches

O rare Ben Jonson
EPITAPH

THEATRVM

GVL LOCVM TENEANT S CEN

THE
WORKES
of
_Beniamin Jonson_

--_neque, me vt miretur turba
laboro:
Contentus paucis lectoribus._

_Imprinted at
London, by
Will Stansby_
PLAVSTRVM VISORIVM
_An. D._ 1616. Guhel _Hole fecit_

Reduced Leaf in original, 5 × 7.62 inches.

Scarce any book of philology in our
land hath in so short a time passed
so many impressions.
FULLER

_THE_
ANATOMY OF
MELANCHOLY,

_WHAT IT IS_.

WITH ALL THE KINDES,
CAVSES, SYMPTOMES, PROG_NOSTICKES,
AND SEVERALL
CVRES OF IT_.

IN THREE MAINE PARTITIONS
with their seuerall SECTIONS, MEMBERS,
and SVBSECTIONS.

_PHILOSOPHICALLY, MEDICINALLY,
HISTORICALLY, OPENED
AND CVT VP._

BY

DEMOCRITVS _Iunior_.

With a Satyricall PREFACE, conducing to
_the following Discourse_.

MACROB.
Omne meum, Nihil meum.

_AT OXFORD_,

Printed by IOHN LICHFIELD and IAMES
SHORT, for HENRY CRIPPS.

_Anno Dom._ 1621.

He was not of an age, but for all time!
JONSON

M^R. WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARES
COMEDIES,
HISTORIES, &
TRAGEDIES.

Published according to the True Originall Copies.

_Martin Droahout sculpsit London_

LONDON
Printed by Isaac Jaggard, and Ed. Blount. 1623.

Reduced Leaf in original 8.56 x 13.25 inches

This most tragic of all tragedies
save King Lear.
SWINBURNE

THE
TRAGEDY
OF THE DUTCHESSE
OF Malfy.

_As it was Presented priuatly, at the Black-Friers;
and publiquely at the Globe, By the_
Kings Maiesties Seruants.

The perfect and exact Coppy, with diuerse
_things Printed, that the length of the Play would_
not beare in the Presentment.

Written by _John Webster._

Hora.----_Si quid----
----Candidus Imperti si non bis vtere mecum._

* * * * *

_LONDON:_

Printed by NICHOLAS OKES, for IOHN
WATERSON, and are to be sold at the
signe of the Crowne, in _Paules_
Church-yard, 1623.

To me Massinger is one of the most
interesting as well as one of the most
delightful of the old dramatists, not so
much for his passion or power, though at
times he reaches both, as for the love
he shows for those things that are
lovely and of good report in human
nature, for his sympathy with what is
generous and high-minded and honorable
and for his equable flow of a good
every-day kind of poetry, with few
rapids or cataracts, but singularly
soothing and companionable.
LOWELL

A NEW WAY TO PAY
OLD DEBTS
A COMOEDIE

_As it hath beene often acted at the Phoenix
in Drury-Lane, by the Queenes
Maiesties seruants._

The Author.

PHILIP MASSINGER.

NOLI ALTVM SAPERE (in printer's mark)

LONDON,
Printed by _E. P._ for _Henry Seyle_, dwelling in _S.
Pauls_ Church-yard, at the signe of the
Tygers head. Anno. M. DC.
XXXIII.

Ford was of the first order of poets. He
sought for sublimity, not by parcels in
metaphors or visible images, but
directly where she has her full
residence in the heart of man; in the
actions and sufferings of the greatest
minds. There is a grandeur of the soul
above mountains, seas, and the elements.
Even in the poor perverted reason of
Giovanni and Annabella we discover
traces of that fiery particle, which in
the irregular starting from out of the
road of beaten action, discovers
something of a right line even in
obliquity, and shows hints of an
improvable greatness in the lowest
descents and degradation of our nature.
LAMB

THE
BROKEN
HEART.

A Tragedy.

_ACTED_
By the KINGS Majesties Seruants
at the priuate House in the
BLACK-FRIERS.

_Fide Honor._

_LONDON:_
Printed by _I. B._ for HVGH BEESTON, and are to
be sold at his Shop, neere the _Castle_ in
_Corne-hill_. 1 6 3 3.

Next Marlow, bathed in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave sublunary things
That the first poets had; his raptures were
All air and fire which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
DRAYTON

_The Famous_
TRAGEDY
OF
THE RICH JEW
OF _MALTA_.

AS IT WAS PLAYD
BEFORE THE KING AND
QVEENE, IN HIS MAJESTIES
Theatre at _White-Hall_, by her Majesties
Servants at the _Cock-pit_.

_Written by_ CHRISTOPHER MARLO.

_LONDON_,
Printed by _I. B._ for _Nicholas Vavasour_, and are to be sold
at his Shop in the Inner-Temple, neere the
Church. 1 6 3 3.

Sir, I pray deliver this little book to
my dear brother Farrar, and tell him he
shall find in it a picture of the many
spiritual conflicts that have passed
betwixt God and my soul, before I would
subject mine to the will of Jesus, my
Master, in Whose service I have now
found perfect freedom. Desire him to
read it; and then, if he can think it
may turn to the advantage of any
dejected poor soul, let it be made
public; if not, let him burn it; for I
and it are less than the least of God's
mercies.
HERBERT

THE
TEMPLE.
SACRED POEMS
AND
PRIVATE EJACULATIONS.

By M^r. GEORGE HERBERT.

PSAL. 29.
_In his Temple doth every
man speak of his honour._

CAMBRIDGE

Printed by _Thom._ _Buck_,
and _Roger Daniel_, printers
to the Universitie.
1 6 3 3.

Did his youth scatter poetry wherein
Lay Love's philosophy? Was every sin
Pictured in his sharp satires, made so foul,
That some have fear'd sin's shapes, and kept their soul
Safer by reading verse: did he give days,
Past marble monuments, to those whose praise
He would perpetuate? Did he--I fear
Envy will doubt--these at his twentieth year?
But, more matured, did his rich soul conceive
And in harmonious holy numbers weave
A crown of sacred sonnets, fit to adorn
A dying martyr's brow, or to be worn
On that blest head of Mary Magdalen,
After she wiped Christ's feet, but not till then;
Did he--fit for such penitents as she
And he to use--leave us a Litany
Which all devout men love, and doubtless shall,
As times grow better, grow more classical?
Did he write hymns, for piety and wit,
Equal to those great grave Prudentius writ?
WALTON

POEMS,

_by_ J. D.

WITH
ELEGIES
ON THE AUTHORS
DEATH.

LONDON.
Printed by _M. F._ for IOHN MARRIOT,
and are to be sold at his shop in S^t _Dunstans_
Church-yard in _Fleet-street_. 1633.

It is not on the praises of others, but
on his own writings that he is to depend
for the esteem of posterity; of which he
will not easily be deprived while
learning shall have any reverence among
men; for there is no science in which he
does not discover some skill; and scarce
any kind of knowledge, profane or
sacred, abstruse or elegant, which he
does not appear to have cultivated with
success.
JOHNSON

à coelo salus

Religio,
Medici.

_Printed for Andrew Crooke. 1642. Will Marshatt. scu._

Waller was smooth.
POPE

THE
WORKES
OF
EDMOND WALLER
Esquire,
Lately a Member of the Honourable
HOUSE of
COMMONS,
In this present Parliament.

_Imprimatur_
NA. BRENT. _Decem. 30. 1644._

LONDON,
Printed for _Thomas Walkley_.
1645.

O volume, worthy, leaf by leaf and cover,
To be with juice of cedar washed all over!
Here's words with lines, and lines with scenes consent
To raise an act to full astonishment;
Here melting numbers, words of power to move
Young men to swoon, and maids to die for love:
_Love lies a-bleeding_ here; Evadne there
Swells with brave rage, yet comely everywhere;
Here's _A Mad Lover_; there that high design
Of _King and No King_, and the rare plot thine.
So that where'er we circumvolve our eyes,
Such rich, such fresh, such sweet varieties
Ravish our spirits, that entranc'd we see,
None writes love's passion in the world like thee.
HERRICK

COMEDIES
AND
TRAGEDIES

{FRANCIS BEAVMONT}
Written by { AND } Gentlemen.
{IOHN FLETCHER }

Never printed before,

And now published by the Authours
Originall Copies.

* * * * *

_Si quid habent veri Vatum præsagia, vivam._

* * * * *

_LONDON_,

Printed for _Humphrey Robinson_, at the three _Pidgeons_, and for
_Humphrey Moseley_ at the _Princes Armes_ in _S^t Pauls
Church-yard_. 1647.

Reduced Leaf in original, 8.37 x 13.12 inches

What mighty epics have been wrecked by time
Since Herrick launched his cockle-shell of rhyme!
ALDRICH

_HESPERIDES_:
OR,
THE WORKS
BOTH
HUMANE & DIVINE
OF
ROBERT HERRICK _Esq._

* * * * *

OVID.
_Effugient avidos Carmina nostra Rogos._

* * * * *

* * * * *

_LONDON_
Printed for _John Williams_, and _Francis Eglesfield_,
and are to be sold at the Crown and Marygold
in Saint _Pauls_ Church-yard. 1648.

Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
EMERSON

_THE
RULE AND
EXERCISES
OF HOLY
LIVING_

_By Jer. Taylor D:D._

_Non magna loquimur
sed vivimus_

_LONDON printed for R. Royston
in Ivye Lane. 1650._
_Ro: Vaughan sculp._

That is a book you should read: such
sweet religion in it, next to Woolman's,
though the subject be bait, and hooks,
and worms, and fishes.
LAMB

_The
Compleat Angler
or the
Contemplative man's
Recreation_

Being a Discourse of
FISH and FISHING,
Not unworthy the perusal of most _Anglers_.

* * * * *

Simon Peter said, _I go a_ fishing: _and they said, We
also wil go with thee_. John 21. 3.

* * * * *

_London_, Printed by _T. Maxey_ for RICH. MARRIOT, in
S. _Dunstans_ Church-yard Fleetstreet, 1653.

Yet he, consummate master, knew
When to recede and when pursue.
His noble negligences teach
What others' toils despair to reach.
He, perfect dancer, climbs the rope,
And balances your fear and hope;
If, after some distinguished leap,
He drops his pole, and seems to slip,
Straight gathering all his active strength,
He rises higher half his length.
With wonder you approve his slight,
And owe your pleasure to your fright.
PRIOR

HUDIBRAS

* * * * *

THE FIRST PART.

* * * * *

_Written in the time of the late Wars._

* * * * *

_LONDON._
Printed by _J. G._ for _Richard Marriot_, under Saint
_Dunstan_'s Church in _Fleetstreet_. 1663.

The third among the sons of light.
SHELLEY

Paradise lost.

A
POEM
Written in
TEN BOOKS

By _JOHN MILTON._

* * * * *

Licensed and Entred according
to Order.

* * * * *

_L O N D O N_

Printed, and are to be sold by _Peter Parker_
under _Creed_ Church neer _Aldgate_; And by
_Robert Boulter_ at the _Turks Head_ in _Bishopsgate-street_;
And _Matthias Walker_, under St. _Dunstons_ Church
in _Fleet-street_, 1667.

Ingenious dreamer! in whose well-told tale
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail;
Whose humorous vein, strong sense, and simple style,
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile;
Witty and well-employed, and, like thy Lord,
Speaking in parables his slighted word:--
I name thee not, lest so despised a name
Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame.
COWPER

THE
Pilgrim's Progress
FROM
THIS WORLD,
TO
That which is to come:

Delivered under the Similitude of a
DREAM
Wherein is Discovered,
The manner of his setting out,
His Dangerous Journey; And safe
Arrival at the Desired Countrey.

* * * * *

_I have used Similitudes_, _Hos._ 12. 10.

* * * * *

By _John Bunyan._

* * * * *

Licensed and Entred according to Order.

* * * * *

L O N D O N,
Printed for _Nath. Ponder_ at the _Peacock_
in the _Poultrey_ near _Cornhil_, 1678.

Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear
Two coursers of ethereal race,
With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace.
GRAY

ABSALOM
AND
ACHITOPHEL.

* * * * *

A
POEM.

* * * * *

----_Si Propiùs stes
Te Capiet Magis_----

* * * * *

L O N D O N,
Printed for _J. T._ and are to be Sold by _W. Davis_ in
_Amen-Corner_, 1681.

Reduced Leaf in original, 7.75 × 12.56 inches.

Few books in the literature of
philosophy have so widely represented
the spirit of the age and country in
which they appeared, or have so
influenced opinion afterwards as Locke's
_Essay concerning Human Understanding_.
The art of education, political thought,
theology and philosophy, especially in
Britain, France and America, long bore
the stamp of the _Essay_, or of reaction
against it.
FRASER

AN
E S S A Y
CONCERNING
=Humane Understanding=.

* * * * *

In Four BOOKS.

* * * * *

_Quam bellum est velle confiteri potius nescire quod nescias,
quam ista effutientem nauseare, atque ipsum sibi
displicere!_ =Cic. de Natur. Deor.= _l._ 1.

* * * * *

_L O N D O N:_
Printed by _Eliz. Holt_, for =Thomas Basset=, at the
_George_ in _Fleetstreet_, near St. _Dunstan_'s
Church. MDCXC.

Reduced Leaf in original, 7.18 × 12.62 inches

Oh! that your brows my laurel had sustained,
Well had I been deposed if you had reigned!
The father had descended for the son;
For only you are lineal to the throne.

* * * * *

Yet I this prophesy: thou shalt be seen,
(Though with some short parenthesis between,)
High on the throne of wit; and, seated there,
Not mine (that's little) but thy laurel wear.
Thy first attempt an early promise made,
That early promise this has more than paid;
So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,
That your least praise is to be regular.

* * * * *

Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage;
Unprofitably kept at heaven's expense,
I live a rent-charge on his providence.
But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
Be kind to my remains; and, oh defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,
But shield those laurels which descend to you:
And take for tribute what these lines express:
You merit more, but could my love do less.
DRYDEN

THE
Way of the World,

A
COMEDY.

As it is ACTED
AT THE
Theatre in _Lincoln's-Inn-Fields_,
BY
His Majesty's Servants.

* * * * *

Written by Mr. _CONGREVE_.

* * * * *

_Audire est Operæ pretium, procedere recte
Qui mæchis non vultis----_ Hor. Sat. 2. l. 1.
_----Metuat doti deprensa.----_ Ibid.

* * * * *

L O N D O N:
Printed for _Jacob Tonson_, within _Gray's-Inn-Gate_ next
_Gray's-Inn-Lane_. 1700.

Reduced Leaf in original, 6.5 × 8.5 inches.

For an Englishman there is no single
historical work with which it can be so
necessary for him to be well and
thoroughly acquainted as with Clarendon.
SOUTHEY

THE
HISTORY
OF THE
REBELLION and CIVIL WARS
IN
ENGLAND,
Begun in the Year 1641.

With the precedent Passages, and Actions, that contributed
thereunto, and the happy End, and Conclusion thereof by
the KING's blessed RESTORATION, and RETURN upon the
29^{th} of _May_, in the Year 1660.

Written by the Right Honourable
EDWARD Earl of CLARENDON,
Late Lord High Chancellour of _England_, Privy Counsellour
in the Reigns of King CHARLES the First and the Second.

* * * * *

[Greek: Ktêma es aei.] Thucyd.

_Ne quid Falsi dicere audeat, ne quid Veri non audeat._ Cicero.

* * * * *

VOLUME THE FIRST.

* * * * *

_O X F O R D_,
Printed at the THEATER, _An. Dom._ MDCCII.

Reduced Leaf in original, 11 × 17.5 inches.

It is incredible to conceive the effect his writings have had
upon the Town; how many thousand follies they have either quite
banished or given a very great check to! how much countenance
they have added to Virtue and Religion! how many people they
have rendered happy, by showing them it was their own fault if
they were not so! and lastly how entirely they have convinced
our young fops and young fellows of the value and advantages of
Learning! He has indeed rescued it out of the hands of pedants,
and fools, and discovered the true method of making it amiable
and lovely to all mankind. In the dress he gives it, it is a
most welcome guest at tea-tables and assemblies, and is relished
and caressed by the merchants on the Change. Accordingly, there
is not a Lady at Court, nor a Broker in Lombard Street, who is
not easily persuaded that Captain _Steele_ is the greatest
Scholar and Casuist of any man in England.
GAY

THE
LUCUBRATIONS
OF
Isaac Bickerstaff Esq;

* * * * *

VOL. I.

* * * * *

[Greek: ou chrê pannychion heudein boulêphoron andra.] Homer.

* * * * *

* * * * *

_L O N D O N_,
Printed: And sold by _John Morphew_, near _Stationers-Hall_. MDCCX.

_Note_, The Bookbinder is desired to place the INDEX after
[_Tosler, N^o. 114_] which ends the _First Volume_ in Folio.

Reduced Leaf in original, 9.50 × 14.37 inches

Whoever wishes to attain an English
style, familiar but not coarse, and
elegant but not ostentatious, must give
his days and nights to the volumes of
Addison.
JOHNSON

NUMB. 1

The SPECTATOR.

* * * * *

_Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem
Cogitat; ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat._ Hor.

* * * * *

To be Continued every Day.

* * * * *

_Thursday, March 1. 1711._

I Have observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with
Pleasure 'till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a
fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a
Batchelor, with other Particulars of the like nature, that
conduce very much to the right Understanding of an Author. To
gratify this Curiosity, which is so natural to a Reader, I
design this Paper, and my next, as Prefatory Discourses to my
following Writings, and shall give some Account in them of the
several Persons that are engaged in this Work. As the chief
Trouble of Compiling, Digesting and Correcting will fall to my
Share, I must do my self the Justice to open the Work with my
own History.

I was born to a small Hereditary Estate, which I find, by the
Writings of the Family, was bounded by the same Hedges and
Ditches in _William_ the Conqueror's Time that it is at present,
and has been delivered down from Father to Son whole and entire,
without the Loss or Acquisition of a single Field or Meadow,
during the Space of six hundred Years. There goes a Story in the
Family, that when my Mother was gone with Child of me about
three Months, she dreamt that she was brought to Bed of a Judge:
Whether this might proceed from a Law-Suit which was then
depending in the Family, or my Father's being a Justice of the
Peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it
presaged any Dignity that I should arrive at in my future Life,
though that was the Interpretation which the Neighbourhood put
upon it. The Gravity of my Behaviour at my very first Appearance
in the World, and all the Time that I sucked, seemed to favour
my Mother's Dream: For, as she has often told me, I threw away
my Rattle before I was two Months old, and would not make use of
my Coral 'till they had taken away the Bells from it.

As for the rest of my Infancy, there being nothing in it
remarkable, I shall pass it over in Silence. I find that, during
my Nonage, I had the Reputation of a very sullen Youth, but was
always a Favourite of my School-Master, who used to say, _that
my Parts were solid and would wear well_. I had not been long at
the University, before I distinguished my self by a most
profound Silence: For, during the Space of eight Years,
excepting in the publick Exercises of the College, I scarce
uttered the Quantity of an hundred Words; and indeed do not
remember that I ever spoke three Sentences together in my whole
Life. Whilst I was in this Learned Body I applied my self with
so much Diligence to my Studies, that there are very few
celebrated Books, either in the Learned or the Modern Tongues,
which I am not acquainted with.

Upon the Death of my Father I was resolved to travel into
Foreign Countries, and therefore left the University, with the
Character of an odd unaccountable Fellow, that had a great deal
of Learning, if I would but show it. An insatiable Thirst after
Knowledge carried me into all the Countries of _Europe_, where
there was any thing new or strange to be seen; nay, to such a
Degree was my Curiosity raised, that having read the
Controversies of some great Men concerning the Antiquities of
_Egypt_, I made a Voyage to _Grand Cairo_, on purpose to take
the Measure of a Pyramid; and as soon as I had set my self right
in that Particular, returned to my Native Country with great
Satisfaction.

I have passed my latter Years in this City, where I am
frequently seen in most publick Places, tho' there are not above
half a dozen of my select Friends that know me; of whom my next
Paper shall give a more particular Account. There is no Place of
publick Resort, wherein I do not often make my Appearance;
sometimes I am seen thrusting my Head into a Round of
Politicians at _Will_'s, and listning with great Attention to
the Narratives that are made in those little Circular Audiences.
Sometimes I smoak a Pipe at _Child_'s; and whilst I seem
attentive to nothing but the _Post-Man_, over-hear the
Conversation of every Table in the Room. I appear on _Sunday
Nights_ at _St. James's Coffee_-House, and sometimes join the
little Committee of Politicks in the Inner-Room, as one who
comes there to hear and improve. My Face is likewise very well
known at the _Grecian_, the _Cocoa-Tree_, and in the Theaters
both of _Drury-Lane_, and the _Hay-Market_. I have been taken
for a Merchant

Reduced Leaf in original, 8.12 × 13.12 inches.

It breathes throughout a spirit of piety
and benevolence; it sets in a very
striking light the importance of the
mechanic arts, which they who know not
what it is to be without them are apt to
undervalue. It fixes in the mind a
lively idea of the horrors of solitude,
and, consequently, of the sweets of
social life, and of the blessings we
derive from conversation and mutual aid;
and it shows how by labouring with one's
own hands, one may secure independence,
and open for one's self many sources of
health and amusement. I agree,
therefore, with Rousseau, that this is
one of the best books that can be put
into the hands of children.
BEATTIE

THE
LIFE
AND
STRANGE SURPRIZING
ADVENTURES
OF
_ROBINSON CRUSOE_,
Of _YORK_, MARINER:

Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all
alone in an un-inhabited Island on the
Coast of AMERICA, near the Mouth of the
Great River of OROONOQUE;

Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck,
wherein all the Men perished but himself.

WITH

An Account how he was at last as
strangely deliver'd by PYRATES.

* * * * *

_Written by Himself._

* * * * *

_L O N D O N:_
Printed for W. TAYLOR at the _Ship_ in _Pater-Noster-Row_.
MDCCXIX.

Anima Rabelasii habitans in sicco
COLERIDGE

TRAVELS
INTO SEVERAL
Remote NATIONS
OF THE
WORLD.

* * * * *

In FOUR PARTS.

* * * * *

By _LEMUEL GULLIVER_,
First a SURGEON, and then a CAPTAIN
of several SHIPS.

* * * * *

VOL. I.

* * * * *

_L O N D O N:_

_Printed for_ BENJ. MOTTE, _at the
Middle_ Temple-Gate _in_ Fleet-street.
MDCCXXVI.

I think no English poet ever brought so
much sense into the same number of lines
with equal smoothness, ease, and
poetical beauty. Let him who doubts of
this peruse the _Essay on Man_ with
attention.
SHENSTONE

AN
ESSAY
ON
MAN
Address'd to a FRIEND.

* * * * *