privileges. He published a great variety of legal, political, and antiquarian tracts, replete with learning, and displaying in many parts no small share of good sense, but none of which, except his Table Talk, are now very popular. HALL, bishop of Norwich, whose poetical satires have already been alluded to, wrote Occasional Meditations, which still retain popularity as a devotional work, besides many controversial pamphlets, which made a strong impression in their own day. His prose composition is admired for its sententious firmness, and brevity. LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY (1581-1648), is remarkable as the first infidel writer in the English language; he was a man of lively and eccentric genius, and wrote also the first autobiography in the language. The work for which he is now chiefly valued, is his history of the Reign of Henry VIII. THOMAS HOBBES (1588-1679), of Malmesbury, is celebrated as the first great English writer on political philosophy. Being a zealous friend of monarchy, he began in 1628 to publish a long series of works, designed to warn the people as to the consequences of their efforts for the reduction of the royal power. The most remarkable of these, was one published in 1651, to which he gave the singular title of the Leviathan; this was designed to prove philosophically, that the only source of security, which is the grand end of government, is in a monarchical form, which the people have no right to challenge. His peculiar sentiments on this point, which have never been popular in this country, are excused by the admirers of his writings, on account of his naturally timid character, which had been violently shocked by the events of the civil war. It is very curious that, while Hobbes maintained the necessity of an established church under the supremacy of a temporal monarch, he expressed doubts of the existence of that deity, whose worship it is the business of a church to encourage. He is said to have read very little of the works of preceding philosophers, yet he was able to pursue his arguments with great logical

dexterity; he trusted almost entirely to his own reflection, and used to say, 'If I had read as much as other people, I should have been as ignorant as they.'

JEREMY TAYLOR, born of mean parents at Cambridge, between the years 1600 and 1610, is one of the most admired English writers, especially in the department of theology. He was equally devoted, with Hobbes, to the monarchy and the church, and on that account was obliged to live in obscurity during the time of the Commonwealth; after which, he was raised by Charles II. to the bishopric of Downe and Connor. His principal works are, The Liberty of Prophecying, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living, and The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying. The Liberty of Prophecying is remarkable as the first treatise published in England, in which it was assumed, and attempted to be proved, that no man has a right to prescribe the religious faith of another, or to persecute him for difference of opinion. The Holy Dying is considered the best of the other two works, and is still a favourite book with serious people. He also published many sermons, which contain some strikingly fine passages. An eminent critic says of Bishop Taylor, that, in any one of his prose folios, there is more fine fancy and original imagery—more brilliant conceptions and glowing expressions-more new figures and new applications of old figures-more, in short, of the body and soul of poetry, than in all the odes and epics that have since been produced in Europe.' This excellent divine died in 1667.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE is another of the eloquent and poetical, though somewhat quaint writers, of this great literary era. He was born in London in 1605, educated at Oxford, and spent the greater part of his life as a physician in Norwich. His first work, entitled Religio Medici, [The Religion of a Physician,] published in 1635, contains innumerable odd opinions on things spiritual and temporal. Another work, published in 1646, under a learned title, which has been exchanged for the familiar one of Browne's

Vulgar Errors, displays great eloquence, learning, and shrewdness, in exposing the erroneous sources of many commonly received opinions. His most celebrated work is Hydriotaphia, a discourse upon some sepulchral urns dug up in Norfolk. Sir Thomas here takes occasion to speculate upon the vain hopes of immortality cherished by men respecting their worldly names and deeds, since all that remains of those buried in the Norfolk urns is a little dust, to which no name, nor the remotest idea as to individual character, can be attached. Many of his thoughts on this subject are truly sublime, and the whole are conveyed in the most impressive language.

One of the most important literary undertakings of this era, was the present authorized translation of the Bible. At the great conference held in 1604 at Hampton Court, between the established and puritan clergy, the version of Scripture then existing was generally disapproved of, and the King, consequently, appointed fifty-four men, many of whom were eminent as Hebrew and Greek scholars, to commence a new translation. In 1607, fortyseven of the number met, in six parties, at Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster, and proceeded to their task, a certain portion of Scripture being assigned to each. Every individual of each division, in the first place, translated the portion assigned to the division, all of which translations were collected; and when each party had determined on the construction of its part, it was proposed to the other divisions for general approbation. When they met. together, one read the new version, whilst all the rest held in their hands either copies of the original, or some valuable version; and on any one objecting to a passage, the reader stopped till it was agreed upon. The result was published in 1611, and has ever since been reputed as a translation generally faithful, and an excellent specimen of the language of the time.

Among the less important prose-writers of the reigns of James and Charles, may be mentioned, John Speed, a tailor of the city of London, who compiled large works

SPELMAN-BROWNE.

71

on the geography and history of Great Britain, in a style superior to his predecessors; Sir Henry Spelman, an eminent writer on legal antiquities; Sir Robert Cotton, a historical and antiquarian writer, whom posterity has to thank for the valuable collection of historical manuscripts now preserved in the British Museum; Samuel Purchas, the compiler of a great collection of voyages, and of an account of all the religions in the world; Thomas May, author of a History of the Long Parliament; James Usher, Archbishop of Armagh (1581-1656), who wrote many able and learned works in controversial theology and ecclesiastical history; James Howell (1596-1668), a Welshman, who had travelled in many countries, and in 1645 published a series of letters, referring to historical and political subjects, which are considered the first good specimens of epistolary literature in the language; Dr Peter Heylin, a noted writer of ecclesiastical history, but full of prejudices; and lastly, the sovereigns themselves, whose works, however, are now only estimated in the light of curiosities.

The

During the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles, literary language received large accessions of Greek and Latin, and also of the modern French and Italian, and made a great advance in flexibility, grace, and ease. prevalence of Greek and Roman learning was the chief cause of the introduction of so many words from those languages. Vain of their new scholarship, the learned writers delighted in parading Greek and Latin words, and even whole sentences; so that some specimens of the composition of that time seem to be a mixture of various tongues. Bacon, Burton, and Browne, were among those who most frequently adopted long passages from Latin authors; and of Ben Jonson it is remarked by Dryden, that he did a little too much to Romanize our tongue, leaving the words which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them.' It would appear that the rage, as it may be called, for originality, which marked this period, was one of the causes of this change in our language.

Many think,' says Dr Heylin in 1658, that they can never speak elegantly, nor write significantly, except they do it in a language of their own devising; as if they were ashamed of their mother tongue, and thought it not sufficiently curious to express their fancies. By means whereof, more French and Latin words have gained ground upon us since the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign, than were admitted by our ancestors (whether we look upon them as the British or Saxon race), not only since the Norman, but the Roman conquest.' To so great an extent was Latin thus naturalized among English authors, that Milton at length, in his prose works, and also partly in his poetry, introduced the idiom, or peculiar construction of that language; which, however, was not destined to take a permanent hold of English literature; for we find immediately after, that the writings of Clarendon, Dryden, and Barrow, were not affected by it.

FOURTH PERIOD.

THE COMMONWEALTH, AND REIGNS OF CHARLES II. AND JAMES II.-[1649-1689.]

THE forty years comprehended in this period, produced, in the department of poetry, the great names of Milton and Dryden-in divinity, those of Barrow and Tillotson -and in philosophy, those of Temple and Locke. This was also the era of Bunyan, who was the first successful instance of the unlettered class of writers, since become so numerous. It may be called a period of transition; that is to say, the ease, originality, and force of the Elizabethan era, were now in the process of being exchanged for the artificial stiffness and cold accuracy which marked our literature during the eighteenth century.