[ca. 1603-1625 A.D.]

GENERAL STATE OF SOCIETY

Now this description, it will be remembered, is not that of a morbid Puritanism, but one coming from a man whose temper and habits were in nothing alien from the usual gaieties of a court; nor was there anything in the conduct of James towards the writer that can be regarded as disposing him to look on the English court at this time with an eye of prejudice.

Added to the intemperance described, and to the many secret or open vices attendant on it, was the practice of gaming, which the king not only encouraged on all occasions by his presence, but by frequent participation. The temperament of James, and other causes, made him almost insensible to the attraction of women; but he had always much to do with intrigues relating to them as prosecuted by others, a memorable instance of which we have in the affair of the countess of Essex. It is not a trivial portion of the guilt attaching to that detestable transaction which rests upon the sovereign; and the difference of natural constitution makes the encouragement given to licentiousness by a Charles II almost excusable when compared with the same conduct in a James I. In brief, the leading characteristics of the English court under the first of the Stuarts may be said to have been frivolity, intemperance, looseness of principle generally, and especially an habitual opposition to everything connected with the liberty of the subject, and to every graver view of religion; and all these traits in the court resulted in no small degree from the character of the monarch. There were, no doubt, exceptions to this order of things, but they were mere exceptions.

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LONDON MANNERS

Something of the spirit of society in the metropolis at this time may be perceived in the nature of those public ordinaries which now became common in the city and its neighbourhood. Those tables were soon known as a place very general resort to persons in the middle and higher classes of society, and scenes where they contributed with singular success to deprave each other. The repast in those places was too generally followed by inebriation; in this state the less suspecting were lured to the board of the gamester, and, in the end, often became victims of the sharper and the money-lender, perhaps of the duellist. Debauchery of every description followed in the train of these evils. In such schools a large portion of the cavaliers of the next reign were formed. It is amidst the growing prevalence of such manners that contemporary writers themselves no precisionists in religion-begin to publish their complaints with respect to "the notorious debauchery of the Episcopal clergy."

Already the term Puritan had become a designation of reproach which the profligate were pleased to cast on every appearance of conscientiousness, whether relating to the affairs of this world or the next. "Under that term, says Osborne,d "were comprehended not only those brain-sick fools who opposed the discipline and ceremonies of the church and made religion an umbrella to impiety, but such as out of mere honesty restrained the vices of the times were branded with this title. Neither was any being charged with it, though of the best relation, thought competent to preferment in church or commonwealth; which made the bad glory in their impiety, and such as had not an extraordinary measure of grace, ashamed of any outward profession of sanctity. Court sermons were fraught with bitter invectives against these

[ca. 1603-1625 A.D.]

people, whom they seated far nearer the confines of hell than papists. To avoid the imputation of Puritanism-a greater sin than vice in the way of preferment our divines, for the generality, did sacrifice more time to Bacchus than to Minerva, and being excellent company, drew the most ingenious laity into a like excess."

Dean White,e who was no Puritan, but a prelatist of a different order from "the generality," above described by Osborne, addressed himself to a London auditory in the following terms: "No sin is so great but it is among us, and the greatest sins many times either least punished or not at all. And this course is so general that he begins to be counted very precise that will not swear and swagger with the worst. The torrent of these things is so strong that it seems manifestly to tend to the dissolution of society. Three things maintain society religion, justice, and order. Religion is pitifully violated by atheism, blasphemy, heresy, and horrible profaneness. Justice is destroyed by oppression, rapine, bribery, extortion, and partiality. Government and order are profaned by contention. The walls of Babylon," he exclaims, "might be kept in repair for as little cost as our women are; when a lady's head-dress is sometimes as rich as her husband's rent-day." The men, he remarks, were in this respect little better, and the evil was altogether so desperate that he could not hope to see it controlled. As to drunkenness, it is described as so general "through the kingdom," that the Germans were likely "to lose their charter" in that kind of indulgence. In general, these pulpit representations should not be applied to the purposes of history without some material deductions. But in this instance the report of the layman from his study and of the clerk from his rostrum are to the same effect.

White complains of the city theatres as being scenes of the greatest disorder and profanity; and the secretary Winwood at the same time writes, "The players do not forbear to present upon their stage the whole course of this present time, not sparing either king, state, or religion, in so great absurdity, and with such liberty, that any would be afraid to hear them." It is somewhat singular, and perhaps to his credit, that James should so far have permitted this license. But a piece called Eastward Ho! produced by Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, contained a satirical passage on the Scotch residents in England, which gave so much offence to persons about the sovereign, that the authors were committed to prison and in danger of losing their ears, or of having their noses slit.2 The free satirical temper of the drama at this time was, in part, an effect of the spirit of the age, and reacted on that spirit, upon the whole, with advantage.

We know not how far the incentives of the theatre may have contributed to the excesses of those bands among the London populace, who, under the name of Roaring Boys, and Roysters, and other designations, beset the streets of the city at night, assailing the peaceable inhabitants, and spreading general

1 James' love of wit or of what he took for it, had something to do with his forbearance in this respect. Howell in one of his letters writes that the king, while listening to the reading of an abusive satire upon his court, declared once and again that the author should "hang for it"; but when the concluding couplet came,

Now God preserve the king, the queen, the peers,
And grant the author long may wear his ears!

the monarch exclaimed, "By my soul, so thou shalt for me; thou art a bitter, but thou art a witty, knave.

Jonson's mother is said to have procured poison for the purpose of taking it herself and administering it to her son rather than see him subject to so ignominious a punishment. But James had too much respect for the poet to make it probable that he would proceed to such extremities.

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alarm. But so much of turbulent material was there in the capital, and so manifestly feeble was the government, that these disgraceful uproars seemed to bid defiance to all possible attempts to suppress them.

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 patronised 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 undercurrent, deep and powerful, with which these light and filthy properties had little connection. 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.

STATE OF LITERATURE

But if the influence of the court was so far limited with respect to the morals and spirit of the nation, it is not less gratifying to perceive that there were circumstances which conferred a similar exemption on literature. Not that this matter, any more than the natural sense of justice and moral propriety, was without its injuries from that source. The great fault of the prose-compositions at this period was in a quaint pedantic mannerism; while in the 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.

Shakespeare, 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 the history of the English 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.

[ca. 1603-1625 A.D.] 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 patronising literary men which obtained in the court of Elizabeth, were among the more proximate causes of this brilliant era in 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 characterised by an untrammelled freedom, by a singular fearlessness, and by a large share of originality.

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 the "old dramatists." These include the names of Greene, Marlowe, Lyly, Legge, Lodge, Shakespeare, Daniel, Beaumont and Fletcher, Marston, Chapman, Middleton, Jonson, Field, Dekker, Webster, Ford, Rowley, Massinger, Suckling, Heywood Phillips, and Heming, not to mention others.

THOMAS HOBBES

(1588-1679)

THE ARTS

England at this time had no school of art, and her science existed in embryo rather than in any advanced state. From the accession of the house of Tudor, the patronage of sovereigns and of the nobility had served to attract foreign artists and to diffuse a considerable taste for painting. Sir Anthony More (Attoni Moro) 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 the leading men. Elizabeth discovered a fondness for the possession of pictures, and was surpassed in her zeal in this way by Lord Buckhurst. Music also was deemed an important branch of general education with both sexes.

Inigo Jones is almost the only name in architecture 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

[ca. 1603-1625 A.D.]

taste, and as more of an architect by education, and though unequal, he was certainly capable of imparting to his works some features both of beauty and grandeur. His principal works are seen at Greenwich, in the chapel at Whitehall, and in the hall and chapel of Lincoln's Inn; but the water-gate at York House is regarded by many as his most beautiful production.

LORD BACON AND SCIENCE

With respect to the natural sciences, nearly everything relating to their state during this period may be found in the writings of Francis Bacon. It was reserved to the genius of that extraordinary man to direct the scientific mind not only of his country, but of Christendom, into the true path of knowledge; to call the attention of men from metaphysical abstraction to the facts of nature; and in this manner to perform the two most important services that could be rendered to the future world of philosophy-first, by indicating how much it had to unlearn and how much to acquire; and, secondly, by pointing out the method in which the one process and the other might be successfully conducted. This was not to be done, except by a mind well informed as to the existing state of scientific knowledge, and one which might furnish from the stores of its own intelligence many of the seeds of positive improvement. But the object of Bacon was less to effect a marked progress in any one field of inquiry, than to show how the whole might be cultivated so as to exclude the thorn and the

briar, and to make the soil productive in a hundred fold.

The conclusions admitted into the Baconian system of knowledge were all to be deduced from the ascertained facts of the physical universe, and from these facts selected in sufficient numbers, and so far examined and compared, as to impart to the conclusions deduced from them the character of certainty and law. The dependence, accordingly, of this system on the most rigid and comprehensive processes of experiment has obtained for its illustrious author the title Father of Experimental Philosophy. Not that experiment-the examination of nature's self-the interrogating, as it is called, of her appearances, had been hitherto wholly neglected. The name of Roger Bacon and the history of alchemy are enough to show the contrary; and while Galileo was the contemporary of Francis Bacon, Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and Copernicus were among his predecessors; and Gilbert had investigated the laws of magnetism upon the purest principles of rigorous induction. But, unhappily, the experiments made were, generally speaking, so isolated, so devoid of comprehensiveness and system-and, above all, the metaphysics of the Schoolmen were allowed to dominate so injuriously over the whole region. of physical things-that the rays of truth which had been elicited by this means were too often made to do the office of the ignis fatuus, rather than any better service.