418 ENGLISH LITERATURE [ELIZABETHAN. Without further preface let us turn to the consideration of that amazing phenomenon, the literature of the Eliza- Elizabethan age. Many circumstances, many slowly Ijethan elaborated changes, had prepared the way. The cautious liters- peace-policy of Elizabeth, her wise love of economy, and
- ure " her care to surround herself with able counsellors, produced
their natural fruits in a state of general prosperity never experienced before. Every adventurous and inquiring mind was stimulated by the reports continually arriving of the discovery of " islands far away," of riches and beauty which the earth had hitherto veiled from her children revealed to wondering eyes in America and the East, of inventions which enlarged the power, and discoveries which widened the knowledge, of man. Again, the greatly augmented use of the language as a literary instrument, consequent upon the religious dissensions now temporarily, silenced, had, as already explained, made it a much fitter organ for thought than it had been in the reign of Henry VIII. Lastly, the powerful influences now pressing in from abroad must be duly weighed. The genius of Ariosto had clothed mediaeval romance in a splendid garb, which, for the first time since the 13th century, made the subject attractive to cultivated minds. Tasso s epic, with its sustained grace and sweetness, had shown how the shades and half-shades of sentiment in which refined spirits delight can be expressed by corresponding nuances of language. Certain eminent writers in France, especially Du Bellay and Ronsard, had consecrated considerable powers and incessant activity to the work of reforming the language and literature of their own country through the concentrated study and fearless imitation of ancient models. Consider ing all these various elements, we shall be better able to understand how, given a gorgeous imagination like that of Spenser, and a mind of universal range like that of Shake speare, these writers were able to place that enormous difference between themselves and their predecessors which separates the Faerie Queene from the Pastime of Pleasure, and the comedies of Shakespeare from those of Still and Udall. Without stopping to criticise, and reserving the drama for separate consideration, we must endeavour by a brief description to convey some notion of the poetical exuber- Spenser. ance of the Elizabethan era. Spenser s Faerie Queene, a colossal fragment of a still more colossal design, relates ostensibly the romantic advsntures of brave knights and fair ladies ; but every incident has an allegorical meaning, and the propagation of the several moral virtues is the professed object of the entire work. The well-known stanza which he invented, consisting of nine lines, the last an alexandrine, with three rhymes, is so skilfully con structed and so well adapted to our language, that it has been frequently employed since, with marked suc cess, by eminent poets. Burns used it for the Cotter s Satiirday Night, and Byron for Childe Harold. The rhymes in it are better arranged than in the standard metre of Italy, the ottava rima, because the distribution is such as to bind the whole structure better together, and to avoid that palpable break between the first six lines and the concluding couplet which is noticeable in the stanza of Tasso and Ariosto. Again, the extra syllables in the ninth line seem exactly to counterbalance the risk of monotony which the additional line would otherwise entail. The Shake- sonnets of Shakespeare, if we accept the acute interpreta- speare. tion of Mr Simpson, indicate the influence of some aristo cratic friend of the poet, who, having travelled much in Italy and formed the acquaintance of members of the learned "academes" for which Italian cities, were then famous, had learned from them those Platonizing specula tions about love and its kinds the vulgar, the civil, the chivalrous, and the ideal love which are partially repro duced in the sonnets. Among Shakespeare s other poems the chief were Venus and Adonis and iis Rape of Lucreece , pieces remarkable for their luscious melody and ornate elegance. The classical and mythological themes attest at once the receptivity of the intellect of Shakespeare, a country-bred youth who had studied at neither university, and the strength of the Renaissance movement, from which no mind, even the most powerful, could then hold itself aloof. Of the same class is Marlowe s beautiful poem of Hero and Lcander, translated from the Greek of the pseudo- Musseus. George Chapman produced, about 1601, a com plete translation of the Iliad in long fourteen syllable lines. It was the first time that this feat had been accomplished in any modern language ; and the fact well typifies the in tensity of force with which the English intellect was now working in every direction. Robert Southwell, the Jesuit, Sout put to death by the Government in 1696, left behind him well. a few religious poems of great beauty. He is by some con sidered the first of the metaphysical school of poets ; but the credit (or discredit) of that leadership rather belongs to Donne. Marston, Hall, and Gascoigne (the author of the Steel Glass) may be regarded as the founders of English satire. Sir Philip Sidney, the ornament of Elizabeth s court, wrote sonnets and songs, which, though imitated from Italian and Spanish models, were freighted by his powerful mind with a burden of thought and passion not to be found in the originals. The attempts of Daniel and Dray ton in the epic style ( Wars of the Roses, Barons Wars), were failures ; but wherever we meet with many ventures, it cannot be but that some will fail. Of such poems as Warner s Albion s England, or Drayton s Poly-Olbion, or Tusser s Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, it is unnecessary to speak. The class of poets to whom Johnson attached the name p et; " metaphysical," while Milton calls them " fantastics," in- conct eludes Donne their founder, Cowley, Crashaw, Cleveland, . and several others. In date they belong rather to the reigns of James I. and Charles I. than to that of Elizabeth. They are distinguished by their fondness for " conceits," or intellectual tours deforce, the general aim of which was to gain credit for ingenuity, and a deep insight into the nature of things, by tracing resemblances or analogies between objects apparently remote and diverse. This poetry of conceit, which nearly corresponded to the estilo culto of Spain, is usually said to have been invented by the Neapolitan poet Marini, author of the Sospetto di Erode, and by him propagated in France, whence it came to Eng land. It was merely another development of that tendency to the mystical in thought and the far-fetched in language, characteristic of the Gothic ages, which we have seen more fully exemplified in the countless allegories and moral plays of previous periods. In Donne the style is insufferable ; " conceits " are strewn about his pages like puns about the conversation of a punster, and they are not half so amusing. Cowley, on the other hand, was a true poet ; the daring Cowl flights of his fancy, the tenderness of his feelings, and the grace and profoundness of his musings, still rescue much that he wrote from oblivion. Composing, in imitation of Pindar (though he did not really understand the Pindaric metres), irregular passages of song which . he called " Pindariques," he gave the first example of a class of poems which comprises performances so memorable as the Alexander s Feast of Drydeu and the Bard of Gray. Crashaw, the translator of the Sospetto di Erode, is in the highest degree a worshipper of the far-fetched. He is the author of the celebrated line, describing the miracle of Cana in Galilee, Lympha puclica Deum vidit, et erulmit. The conscious -water saw her God, and blushed.
Edmund Waller, though his earliest writings betray an