sequence of her professional dealings with the countess of Essex, was at the head of the diviners of her day. Many persons from the circles of fashion, and of both sexes, were present in their carriages to witness her end. It may also be worth while to remark that the red coats, as they were called, whose courage saved the credit of the parliament army at Edgehill, consisted mostly of men who had passed their youth in London, and whose apprentice frays we may suppose had prepared them, in some measure, for the shock of a graver conflict.

country.

In the country there was doubtless less vice than in London; but generally there was also less intelligence, and, we may add, Society in the less public spirit. Eating, drinking, and the sports of the field, formed the chief occupations of not a few among the gentry, and the dependents of such men would not aspire to any thing more elevated. We have an account of the king's entertainment at the house of Oliver Cromwell, uncle and godfather to the subsequent Protector, which presents an instructive picture of the sort of establishment which distinguished this class of English gentlemen at the commencement of the seventeenth century. It is related, that James, on his way from Scotland, "passed in state to Master Oliver Cromwell's house, where his majesty, and all his followers, with all comers whatsoever, had such entertainment as the like had not been seen in any place before since the first setting out from Scotland. There was such plenty and variety of meats, such diversity of wines, and those not riff-ruff, but ever the best of the kind, and the cellars open at any man's pleasure. And if it were so common with wine, there is little question but the butteries for beer and ale were more common. As this bounty was held back to none within the house, so, for such poor people as would not press in, there were open beerhouses erected, wherein there was no want of bread and beef for the comfort of the poorest creatures. Neither was this provision for the little time of his majesty's stay, but it was made ready fourteen days, and after his highness's departure to as many as had mind of it." We learn further, that on parting from his sovereign, Master Cromwell presented him with a choice number of hawks, hounds, and horses, with many other proofs of loyalty; especially a large gold cup, distributing fifty pounds as a farewell token among his followers. This generous commoner lived to see the protectorate of his godson, but never deigned to solicit his favour; though much before that time his jovial habits had greatly diminished his inheritance *.

It is obvious that mansions of this description were more likely to be the schools of cavaliers than of roundheads, and in fact, it was in such connexions chiefly that Charles found those chivalrous untaught sentiments of loyalty which enabled him to maintain so protracted a warfare in so doubtful a cause. The nobility at this time were few in number,

* Nichols's Progresses, III. ubi supra.

and their weight in society was small, compared with that of the more substantial commoners. There are facts also which show that among those commoners, the majority were more restrained in the matter of animal indulgence, and more discriminate in the matter of loyalty, than Master Oliver Cromwell appears to have been. When in Northamptonshire alone we find some "three or four score gentlemen" signing a petition to the king in favour of the puritan clergy, well knowing how obnoxious the sufferers were to his majesty; and when we find in every parliament and session of this reign that the great majority in the commons consisted of men who were not to be either menaced or inveigled into a neglect of popular interests, whether as relating to the church or the state, we are justified in looking to the gentry of England in those times, as forming, on the whole, a healthy portion of the body politic. We have said nothing with respect to the frivolity and corruption of the court, that is not borne out but too manifestly by facts; and society, especially in the capital, became seriously tainted by its complicated vices-but it so happened, that throughout the reign of James I., if we except what is indicated in the proceedings of the lower house of parliament, the impurities of the social state, as forming the most patronized portion of it, were constantly floating on the surface, and accordingly appear to be much more considerable as compared with the mass than they really were. There was an under current, deep and powerful, with which these light and filthy properties had little connexion. This is placed beyond all reasonable doubt by the character of the men who were sent to parliament, not only from the boroughs, and cities, but from the counties; and by the general struggle of the next reign in favour of the principles of which those men were the unwearied advocates. For this, however, the people were indebted, under the favour of heaven, to themselves, not to the house of Stuart.

But if the influence of the court was so far limited with respect to State of lite- the morals and spirit of the nation, it is not less gratifying

rature. to perceive that there were circumstances which conferred a similar exemption on our literature. Not that this matter, any more than our natural sense of justice and moral propriety, was without its injuries from that source. The great fault of our prose-compositions at this period was in a quaint pedantic mannerism-while in our poetry, these blemishes were increased by an affected adulatory language in reference to the fair and the powerful; and, in productions for the theatres, by a frequent, and often, it would seem, a studied indecency. This last fault, which is too broadly and frequently indulged to be endured by any modern auditory, is said to have been no more prominent than was imperatively demanded by the taste of the play-goers; so much so, that pieces by authors who seem most censurable on this account are reported to have failed simply in consequence of their not

being sufficiently adapted to the prevailing taste for grossness and obscenity. Shakspeare, though by no means innocent in this respect, is much less an offender than any man of his time; but it seems to have required all his genius to gain for him impunity in so far refusing to cater for such appetites. The inference to be deduced from this fact with respect to the condition of a large portion of society in the metropolis is too obvious to need pointing out.

But admitting these grave exceptions, and some others of less weight, there remains enough in the productions of the English mind from about the middle of the age of Elizabeth to the beginning of the civil war, to render it certain that, with respect to the achievements of original genius, this is the brightest period in our history as a people,—or, perhaps, in the history of any people. It was not an age of the most refined taste, nor was its knowledge so extended, or in all respects so skilfully exhibited and applied as in later times; but no other half century had done so much to discover and accumulate those precious materials with which the taste and the reason of man were meant to be conversant, nor so much, in fact, to improve those faculties themselves. The momentous freedom conferred on the human mind by the reformation, the sharp collision of its powers immediately consequent on that event, and the fashion of patronizing literary men which obtained in the court of Elizabeth, were among the more proximate causes of this brilliant era in our literary history. The works produced during this interval, though partaking of the greatest variety, all bear a sort of family impress, and intimate the operation of causes at once prevalent and powerful. One remarkable feature in them is, that whatever their faults may be, they were not themselves exotics, but almost uniformly characterized by an untrammelled freedom, by a singular fearlessness, and by a larger share of originality than ever adorned the creations of the human spirit. For it must be remembered, that to aid the minds of this period, scarcely any thing had been done at home, and that a tacit agreement seems to have been formed not to submit to vassalage from abroad. Such was far from being the case in France under Lewis XIV., in Rome during the reign of Augustus, or even in Greece during the age of Pericles. Before the day of that munificent statesman, the colonies of Asia Minor, and the inspiration of Homer, had supplied the Athenians with all the elements of their ultimate greatness. The interval in which these nations gave existence to their great models of art or genius was in each instance short-each people seeming to have but their one brief season of harvest, which neglected, was never to return. But in our own case

the harvest season was not only short, as in theirs, but it seems almost to have come without its seed time, as though the soil had only needed to be slightly disturbed, in order to send forth its treasures with all the spontaneousness, variety, and power of nature.

It is true, the languages which contained the remains of ancient learning and genius were commonly and assiduously studied;-but it is not less true, that the works of those ancients were far from being regarded as affording the only, or even the best guides to excellence. There was a buoyancy in this spring time of our national faculties, if we may so speak, which prevented sympathy with views that have so often repressed the native and varied powers of the mind, and doomed men to be mere copyists of the past, who might have created models for the future. The dramatists of this period selected their materials from the ancients or the moderns at pleasure, but it was that, in their luxurious freedom, they might fix their own impress upon them: Their scenes might be placed in other lands, or in distant times, but the developement of those scenes is generally rather native than alien,—the picture of present manners more than of the past. This may not be deemed creditable to their learning or their judgment, but it proved the source of much in the character of their works, which makes them peculiarly interesting and valuable to us, and was particularly favourable to that bold originality, which, with all its faulty accompaniments, places them in such advantageous contrast with works of the same description in a later and more critical age.

Among the prose-writers whose productions contribute to render this period so illustrious are Sidney, Hooker, Raleigh, and Bacon, with whom it commenced; and Hall, Hobbes, Taylor, and Clarendon, with whom it closed-all men whose minds were formed at this juncture, though the principal works of some of them did not appear until afterwards.

The poetry, however, of this age, beginning with Spenser and ending with Milton, is more remarkable than its prose. It embraces the whole of that class of writers who are known under the name of our old dramatists." These include the names of Green, Marlow, Lyly, Legge, Lodge, Shakspeare, Daniel, Beaumont and Fletcher, Marston, Chapman, Middleton, Jonson, Field, Dekker, Webster, Ford, Rowley, Massinger, Suckling, Heywood Phillips, and Heminge, not to mention others. Now the student of our literature who shall apply himself to the study of these writers, even the greatest among them, must not come to his object with a mind pledged to admire nothing which fails to have been perfected according to the principles of a later criticism. In these works he will find the most elaborate proofs of learning and knowledge, the richest fund of thought; sallies of fancy and imagination, sometimes the most energetic, and sometimes the most playful, and often the most dexterous anatomy of the human heart, and of its workings; -but all this he must expect to meet in connexion with many things so feeble and fantastic as to make it difficult at times to suppose that the one and the other proceeded from the same mind, or even belonged to the

same age. The traveller in a strange land should not allow what is strange to unfit him for perceiving what is excellent. Nor should the blemishes of some things be suffered to prevent his seeing the beauty of others. And let this humanized discrimination-a compass and mellowness of thought of this sort, be brought to an examination of the works now adverted to, and the effect must be a large amount of gratification and improvement.

and her science existed

From the The arts.

England, at this time, had no school of art; in embryo rather than in any advanced state. accession of the house of Tudor, the patronage of sovereigns and of the nobility had served to attract foreign artists to our shores, and to diffuse a considerable taste for painting. Sir Antonio More visited this country for the practice of his art in the reign of Philip and Mary, and was followed by several painters of talent from Holland and Flanders, until the day when Rubens and Vandyke were so much employed in depicting our leading men. Elizabeth discovered a fondness for the possession of pictures, and was surpassed in her zeal in this way by lord Buckhurst, whose collection of portraits, it is said, may still be seen at Knowle. Music also was deemed an important branch of general education with both sexes. The lessons for the virginal practised by Elizabeth show her proficiency, and the viol de gamba might not only be seen on the walls of every respectable house, but often heard in the shop of the barber, who found his advantage in having some one to amuse his guests by this means. A music-seller in London, toward the close of the reign of Elizabeth, thus expresses himself in a dedication to one of his works on the then taste for music in the capital. "Since I first began to keep house in this city, it has been no small comfort unto me, that a great number of gentlemen, and merchants of good account, as well of this realm as of foreign nations, have taken in good part such entertainments of pleasure as my poor ability was able to afford them, both by the exercise of music daily used in my house, and by furnishing them with books of that kind, yearly sent me out of Italy and other places, which being for the most part Italian songs, are, for sweetness of air, very well liked of all, but most in account with them who understand the language*."

Architecture, in its more matured state, occupies a high rank among ornamental arts, and is intimately connected with some of Architecture. the most important branches of science. Inigo Jones is almost our only name in this department at the period under review, and of him it is not a little to say that, if inferior to Sir Christopher Wren in mathematical and general knowledge, and in native expanse of mind, he has been described by some as upon the whole the superior of that artist in taste, and as more of an architect by education, and, * Musica Transalpina.