Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/400

386 palm and laurel, and on the other two antique shields, one bearing the cross and the other the harp, surrounded by the words God with us. Their small silver coins had the arms only without any legend. Those were all parliament money, but there were half-crowns, shillings, and sixpences with milled edges. The coins of the protectorate boar the head of Cromwell laurelled like a Cæsar, and round the head, ''Olivar. D. G. R. P. Amj. Sco. Hib. etc. Pro.'' On the reverse a shield, having in the first and fourth quarters St. George's cross, in the second St. Andrew's, in the third a harp, and in the centre a lion rampant on an escutcheon— Cromwell's own arms. This shield supported a royal crown. The circumscription was Pax quxrilur Bello, and the date 1656, or 1658. These coins were from the dies of Symonds, and were superior to any which had appeared since the time of the Romans. The coins of the commonwealth were the same for Ireland and Scotland as for England. This was not the case in the reigns of James and Charles, which, though bearing the same arms, had generally a very different value. For Ireland James coined silver and copper money of about three-quarters of the value of the English, and called in the base coinage used by Elizabeth in the time of the rebellion. Charles only coined some silver in 1641, during the government of lord Ormond, and therefore called Ormonds. Copper halfpence and farthings of that period are supposed to have been coined by the rebel papists of 1642.

AGRICULTURE AND GARDENING.

In these arts the English were still greatly excelled by their neighbours the Dutch and Flemings. Towards the latter part of this period our country began to imitate those industrious nations, and to introduce their modes of drainage, their roots and seeds. In 1652 the advantage of growing clover was pointed out by Bligh, in his "Improver Improved," and Sir Richard Weston recommended soon after the Flemish mode of cultivating the turnip for winter fodder for cattle and sheep. Gardening was more attended to, and both culinary vegetables and flowers were introduced. Samuel Hartlib, a Pole, who was patronised by Cromwell, wrote various treatises on agriculture, and relates that in his time old men recollected the first gardener who went into Surrey to plant cabbages, cauliflowers, and artichokes, and to sow early peas, turnips, carrots, and parsnips. Till then almost all the supply of these things in London was imported from Holland and Flanders. About that time, however, 1650, cherries, applet, pears, hops, cabbages, and liquorice were rapidly cultivated, and soon superseded the necessity of importation; but Hartlib says onions were still scarce, and the supply of stocks of apple, pear, cherry, vine, and chestnut trees was difficult from want of sufficient nurseries for them. There was a great tendency to cultivate tobacco, but that, as we have seen, was stopped in favour of the colonies. There was a zealous endeavour to introduce the production of raw silk, and mulberry trees and silk worms were introduced, but the abundant supply of silk from India, and the perfection of the silk manufactured in France, rendered this scheme abortive,—and to this circumstance we owe the general diffusion of the mulberry tree in this country. In Markham's "Farewell to Husbandry," published in 1620, the various agricultural and gardening implements may be seen.

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND THE FINE ARTS.

Whilst James was hunting and levying taxes without a parliament, and Charles was in continual strife with his people for unconstitutional power and revenue, literature and art were still at work, and producing or preparing some of the noblest and choicest creations of genius. Shakespeare and Milton wore the great lights of the age; but around and beside them burned a whole galaxy of lesser, but not less exquisite, luminaries, whose selected beauties are just as delightful now as they were to their contemporaries. The names of this period, to which we still turn with admiration, reverence, and affection, are chiefly Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Marlowe, Massinger, Webster, Selden, Herrick, Herbert, Quarles, Bunyan, Bishop Hall, Hales, Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor, Raleigh, Sir Thomas Browne, Burton (of the "Anatomy of Melancholy"), and Drummoud, of Hawthornden. But there are numbers of others, more unequal or more scholastic, to whose works we can occasionally turn, and find passages of wonderful beauty and power.

As we come first to Shakespeare, who figured largely on the scene in the days of queen Bess, and whose poetry we have already renewed, we may take the drama of this period also in connection with him. A formal criticism on Shakespeare would be worse than superfluous—it would be almost an insult to any reader of the present day, who is as familiar with his character and his beauties as he is with his Bible, and perhaps, in many cases, much more so. There are whole volumes of comment on this greatest of our great writers both in this language and others. The Germans have written volumes on his genius and works, and pride themselves on understanding him better than ourselves. They cannot believe but that he must have been in Germany, to represent so completely their feelings and philosophies; and, were there any obscurity about his birthplace, would certainly claim him. The Scandinavians equally venerate him, and have an admirable translation of his dramas. Even the French, the tone and spirit of whose literature are so different from ours, have, of late years, began to comprehend and receive him. The fact is, Shakespeare's genius is what the Germans term spherical, or many-sided. He had not a brilliancy in one direction only, but he seemed like a grand mirror, in which is truly reflected every image that falls on it. Outward nature, inner life and passion, town and country, all the features of human nature, as exhibited in every grade of life—from the cottage to the throne—are in him expressed with a truth and a natural strength, that awake in us precisely the same sensations as nature itself. The receptivity of his mind was as quick, as vast, as perfect, as his power of expression was unlimited. Every object once seen appeared photographed on his spirit, and he reproduced these lifelike images in new combinations, and mingled with such an exuberance of wit, of humour, of delicious melodies, and of exquisite poetry, as has no parallel in the wide range of literature, including all ages and all countries. The learned have always been astonished that he could be all this without an academic education, as if the