Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/650

 638 ENGLAND (LANGUAGE AND LITERATUEE) ty and progress, with a view to the practical restitution of man to the sovereignty of nature, has entered as a characteristic element into the public mind of England. His " Essays " are among the masterpieces of English prose, and are equally eminent for power of expres- sion and for compact and solid wisdom. Con- temporary productions were the "Arcadia" and the " Defence of Poesy " of Sir Philip Sid- ney, the former of which was universally read and admired ; the " History of the World " of Sir Walter Kaleigh, written in the tower ; the " Chronicle of England " and " Survey of Lon- don " of John Stow ; the chronicles of Raphael Holinshed ; the collection of voyages by Rich- ardHakluyt; the "Purchas his Pilgrims" of Samuel Purchas ; the "Relation of a Journey," &c., of George Sandys; the "Epistolaa Ho- EliansD " of James Howell ; the " History of the Turks " of Richard Knolles ; and the ser- mons of Bishop Andrews and Dr. Donne, mosaics of quaintness, quotation, wisdom, folly, subtlety, and ecstasy. The writings of John Lilly produced a marked effect on much of the Elizabethan literature. His "Euphues," a dull story of a young Athenian, in a smooth style, full of affected conceits and recondite similes, was the model after which wits and gallants formed their conversation and writing. The ladies of the court were among his pupils, and Blount (1632) remarks that the beauty who could not "parley Euphuisme" was as little regarded as one that could not speak French. Under James I. was produced the translation of the Bible which is still the stan- dard English version, and which did much to make the language of the Elizabethan age the permanent speech of the English people. Be- tween Bacon and Locke, the most acute of English metaphysicians was Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), whose political theories are col- lected in his "Leviathan." His style is uni- formly excellent, a merit which belongs to none of his predecessors. Among his con- temporaries were the skeptical philosopher Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who wrote also a history of the reign of Henry VIII. ; the antiquaries William Camden, Sir Henry Spel- man, Sir Robert Cotton, and John Speed ; John Selden, the author of a " Treatise on Titles of Honor," whose admirable " Table Talk " was published after his death ; the chronologist Archbishop Usher ; William Chil- lingworth, whose " Religion of Protestants " is a model of perspicuous reasoning ; Peter Hey- lin, a wit and divine, the author of "Micro- cosmus ;" John Hales, a preacher and contro- versialist ; John Gauden, the probable author of the famous " Eikon Basilike," which pro- fessed to have been written by Charles I. ; and the two most eloquent of the old English di- vines, Joseph Hall (1574-1656) and Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), whose works are monu- ments of their own abilities and of the pedan- tic tastes of the age. The " Contemplations " of Hall are superior to any of the writings of Taylor in continuity of thought, but the latter has perhaps had no equal in the pulpit in the splendor of his imagination, and is often called the Shakespeare of divines. The most curious works of the time are the " Anatomy of Mel- ancholy " of Robert Burton (died about 1640), composed largely of apt and learned quotations from rare authors, constantly intermingled with the writer's own thoughts, which exhibits in every part great spirit and power, and has the charm of a full and vigorous style; and the " Religio Medici," " Urn Burial," and other works of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), elaborately quaint compositions, fascinating from their pensiveness akin to melancholy, their paradoxes, and their occasional subtlety and imaginative brilliancy. Under the head of essays or sketches may be classed the " Gull's Hornbook " of the dramatist Decker, the " Characters " of Sir Thomas Overbury, the "Resolves" of Owen Feltham, the "Mi- crocosmography " attributed to Bishop Earle, the miscellaneous pieces of Sir Henry Wotton, and the " Discourses by way of Essays " of Cowley. The last are written in a perspicuous style, very unlike the affected obscurities of his poems, and may be reckoned among the earliest models of good writing in English prose. John Locke (1632-1704) is the author of treatises on civil government, education, and the reasonableness of Christianity, which diffused a spirit of liberty and toleration in opinion and government ; but his most impor- tant work is the " Essay concerning the Human Understanding," which was for a time the ac- knowledged code of English philosophy, and displays and inculcates a careful, tentative ob- servation of intellectual habits. It helped to convert metaphysics from scholastic problems into practical and clearly intelligible analyses, but its indefinitness in the use of the phrase "ideas of reflection" has left the essential character and tendency of the Lockean sys- tem in dispute between sensationalists and idealists. Two writers who at this time de- viated from the track which English specula- tion has chiefly followed, and in whom Pla- tonic tendencies predominated, were Ralph Cudworth, author of " The Intellectual Sys- tem of the Universe," a vast storehouse of learning and an unrivalled exhibition of sub- tle speculation, and Henry More, author of " The Mystery of Godliness," " The Mystery of Iniquity," and other works which were once very popular. The sermons of Barrow, South, and Tillotson were respectively esteemed for strength, wit, and unction, but the last have re- tained least of their former popularity. To this period belong most of the prose writings of Milton, which test the power of the language in vigorous and lofty declamation, the Origines Sacra of Stillingfleet, the theological treatises of Sherlock, the " Exposition of the Creed " of Pearson, the " Exposition of the XXXIX. Ar- ticles " of Bishop Burnet, the " Saint's Ever- lasting Rest " and other works of Baxter, the