Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/649

 ENGLAND (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) 637 pros rath the chui y and accomplished cavaliers and courtiers, the "Ballad upon a Wedding" and many er poems of Suckling, admirable for their witty levity ; the odes and songs of Love- lace ; the miscellaneous poems of Fanshawe ; and, superior to all others, the graceful oc- casional poems of Cowley and Waller. The melodious verse of Waller was especially ad- mired, and was diligently studied by Pope. Cowley (1618-'67), though full of metaphysical conceits, was the most popular poet of his time. His Anacreontics, the happiest of his pieces, are lively, joyous, and charmingly em- bellished. The " Cooper's Hill " of Denham is at once meditative, vigorous, and rhythmical, and the "Gondibert" of Davenant was for a time regarded as a monument of genius. The religious poems of Quarles, Crashaw, and Vaughan may be classed together. The pro- ductions of Herrick and Wither exhibit play- fulness of fancy and delicacy of sentiment, varied in the former by frequent grossness and indelicacy. Butler's "Hudibras," a work of inexhaustible wit, which was perpetually quo- ted for half a century, belongs chronologically, as do many of the later poems of Milton and his contemporaries, to the age when Dryden (1631-1700) and the comic dramatists were prevalent. Dryden's rapidity of conception and ease of expression made him a voluminous contributor to various departments of litera- ture. The greatest of his satires are " Absalom and Achitophel" and u MacFIecknoe," and the first lines of his fine controversial poem, "The Hind and Panther," are among the most musi- cal in the language. His various, though not his greatest, excellences appear in his "Fables " and his " Ode for Saint Cecilia's Day." Among his contemporaries, a few of whose poems still survive, were Marvell, Rochester, Charles Cot- ton, Sedley, John Philips, Oldham, Roscommon, Mulgrave, Dorset, and Pomfret. English prose begins with Sir John Mandeville's narrative of his travels, written in Latin, French, and English, soon after his return to England in 1355. It is a medley of his own observations, with ancient fables and the marvels reported other travellers. Nothing like the excel- ce of later English prose was produced for e next century and a half, during which e Trevisa translated Higden's Latin Poly- ronlcon, Wycliffe began to show the copious- and energy of the language in his transla- ion of the Bible, Chaucer composed two of the Canterbury tales and two other works in prose, Bishop Peacock wrote in favor of reason " er than constraint as a means of bringing e Lollards within the pale of the Catholic church, Tiptoft translated Cicero's De Ami- citia, Lord Rivers became an author by his " Diets of Philosophers," and Sir John Fortes- cue (died about 1480) surpassed all of his pre- decessors in the style of his treatise on " The Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy." The first book printed in England is supposed to have been " The Game of Chess," by Caxton, in 1474. As an author, by trans- lating from the French, and often by continu- ing the works which he printed, Caxton prob- ably exerted a greater influence on prose literature than any other individual between Chaucer and the reign of Henry VIII. Chron- iclers nearly contemporary with him were Robert Fabyan and Edward Hall. A curious collection of letters has been preserved, writ- ten by members of the Paston family in the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Henry VII., w^hich forms the oldest body of private letters in any modern European language. To the reign of Henry VIII. belongs Sir Thomas More's " History of Edward V.," the first ex- ample of a pure and perspicuous prose style. His Utopia, in which he developed his theory of a perfect society, was first published in Latin, and was scarcely excelled in spirit and originality by any previous Latin work written in Europe since the revival of letters. Prior to Elizabeth, or early in her reign, were writ- ten also the "Itinerary" of Leland, the " Gouvernour " of Sir Thomas Elyot, the " Art of Rhetorique " of Thomas Wilson, the biography of Wolsey by Cavendish (first printed in 1641), the translations of the Bible by Tyn- dale and Coverdale, the sermons and letters of Latimer, and the " Toxophilus " of Roger As- cham, who was the first accomplished scholar that composed his chief works in English. : The old English prose writers are generally distinguished for sterling sense, and for a style copious to redundancy. Their diction is de- formed by pedantry, their collocation of words and phrases is in imitation of the Latin, and their periods are tediously prolonged and un- rhythmically constructed; yet they are ner- vous and effective, and seldom degenerate into indefinite and aimless phraseology. The most admirable prose writer of the Elizabethan period is Richard Hooker (1553-1600), whose " Ecclesiastical Polity " is one of the master- pieces of English eloquence ; and its richness of style and fulness of imagery, united with condensation of thought, was unapproached by any other writer during the next century. The Novum Organon of Bacon (1561-1626), the most influential and original philosophical work produced in England, was written in Latin. He compared his " Advancement of Learning," a "globe of the intellectual uni- verse," with a note of those parts not yet im- proved by the labor of man, to the noise which musicians make in tuning their instruments, " which is nothing pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter afterward ;" and at the close of his survey he predicted that "the third period of time will far surpass that of the Grecian and Roman learning." His style, usually sententious and somewhat stiff, became more imaginative, richer, and soft- er with his increasing years; but though his fancy was of the brightest, he allowed to it no other office than that of ministering to reason. His application of thought to purposes of utili-