more full of traps and pitfalls; of hair-breadth accidents by flood and field; more waylaid by sudden and startling evils; it trod on the brink of hope and fear; stumbled upon fate unawares; while the imagination, close behind it, caught at and clung to the shape of danger, or "snatched a wild and fearful joy" from its escape. The accidents of nature were less provided against; the excesses of the passions and of lawless power were less regulated, and produced more strange and desperate catastrophes. The tales of Boccaccio are founded on the great pestilence of Florence,* Fletcher the poet died. of the plague,† and Marlowe was stabbed in a tavern quarrel. The strict authority of parents, the inequality of ranks, or the hereditary feuds between different families, made more unhappy loves or matches.

"The course of true love never did run smooth." §

Again, the heroic and martial spirit which breathes in our elder writers, was yet in considerable activity in the reign of Elizabeth. The age of chivalry was not then quite gone, nor the glory of Europe extinguished for ever." Jousts and tournaments were still common with the nobility in England and in foreign countries: Sir Philip Sidney was particularly distinguished for his proficiency in these exercises (and indeed fell a martyr to his ambition as a soldier), and the gentle Surrey was

*The black death of 1348.-ED.

† The plague of 1625. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Saviour's, Southwark, which afterwards received the mortal remains of Massinger.-ED.

According to Beard's Theater of God's Judgments, 1597; and indeed the same story, which is doubtless founded on fact, is to be found elsewhere. It occurs in the common-place book of Henry Oxenden, of Canterbury, 1647, related as it is to be found (copied from an early MS. memorandum) in Mr. Dyce's edition of Marlowe, 1850. But, in the Oxenden MS., the name of the narrator is given in full.-ED.

§ Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1.

still more famous, on the same account, just before him. It is true, the general use of fire-arms gradually superseded the necessity of skill in the sword, or bravery in the person and as a symptom of the rapid degeneracy in this respect, we find Sir John Suckling soon after boasting of himself as one—

66

"Who prized black eyes, and a lucky hit

At bowls, above all the trophies of wit."

It was comparatively an age of peace,

"Like strength reposing on his own right arm;"

but the sound of civil combat might still be heard in the distance, the spear glittered to the eye of memory, or the clashing of armour struck on the imagination of the ardent and the young. They were borderers on the savage state, on the times of war and bigotry, though in the lap of arts, of luxury, and knowledge. They stood on the shore and saw the billows rolling after the storm: they heard the tumult, and were still." The manners and out-of-door amusements were more tinctured with a spirit of adventure and romance. The war with wild beasts, &c., was more strenuously kept up in country sports. I do not think we could get from sedentary poets, who had never mingled in the vicissitudes, the dangers, or excitements of the chase, such descriptions of hunting and other athletic games, as are to be found in Shakspeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, or Fletcher's Two Noble Kinsmen.

With respect to the good cheer and hospitable living of those times, I cannot agree with an ingenious and agreeable writer of the present day, that it was general or frequent. The very stress laid upon certain holidays and festivals, shows that they did not keep up the same Saturnalian licence and open house all the year round. They reserved themselves for great occasions, and made

the best amends they could for a year of abstinence and toil by a week of merriment and convivial indulgence. Persons in middle life at this day, who can afford a good dinner every day, do not look forward to it as any particular subject of exultation: the poor peasant, who can only contrive to treat himself to a joint of meat on a Sunday, considers it as an event in the week. So, in the old Cambridge comedy of the Return from Parnassus,* we find this indignant description of the progress of luxury in those days, put into the mouth of one of the speakers:

"Why is't not strange to see a ragged clerk,

Some stammell weaver, or some butcher's son,
That scrubb'd alate within a sleeveless gown,
When the commencement, like a morrice dance,
Hath put a bell or two about his legs,
Created him a sweet clean gentleman:
How then he 'gins to follow fashions.
He whose thin sire dwells in a smoky roof,
Must take tobacco, and must wear a lock.
His thirsty dad drinks in a wooden bowl,
But his sweet self is served in silver plate.
His hungry sire will scrape you twenty legs
For one good Christmas meal on New-year's Day,
But his maw must be capon-cramm'd each day." †

This does not look as if in those days "it snowed of meat and drink," as a matter of course, throughout the year! The distinctions of dress, the badges of different professions, the very signs of the shops, which we have set aside for written inscriptions over the doors, were, as Mr. Lamb observes, a sort of visible language to the imagination, and hints for thought. Like the costume

* Printed in 1606, 4to, but written during the reign of Elizabeth. It is a shrewd and lively dramatic satire on many of the poets and playwrights of the period, like the Great Assizes holden in Parnassus, 1645, and Suckling's Session of the Poets.-ED.

† [Act iii. sc. 2. Hawkins' Origin of the English Drama, 1773, iii. 248-9.]

of different foreign nations, they had an immediate striking and picturesque effect, giving scope to the fancy. The surface of society was embossed with hieroglyphics, and poetry existed "in complement extern." * The poetry of former times might be directly taken from real life, as our poetry is taken from the poetry of former times. Finally, the face of Nature, which was the same glorious object then that it is now, was open to them; and coming first, they gathered her fairest flowers to live for ever in their verse:-the movements of the human heart were not hid from them, for they had the same passions as we, only less disguised, and less subject to control. Decker has given an admirable description of a madhouse in one of his plays. But it might be perhaps objected, that it was only a literal account taken from Bedlam at that time: and it might be answered, that the old poets took the same method of describing the passions and fancies of men whom they met at large, which forms the point of communion between us: for the title of the old play, A Mad World, my Masters,† is hardly yet obsolete; and we are pretty much the same Bedlam still, perhaps a little better managed, like the real one, and with more care and humanity shown to the patients!

Lastly, to conclude this account: What gave a unity and common direction to all these causes, was the natural genius of the country, which was strong in these writers in proportion to their strength. We are a nation of islanders, and we cannot help it, nor mend ourselves if we would. We are something in ourselves, nothing when we try to ape others. Music and painting are not our forte for what we have done in that way has been

* Othello, i. 1.

†The title of this play by Thomas Middleton, printed in 1608, was probably adopted from its popularity, and was borrowed by other writers.-ED.

masses.

to be wished we had in no Our situation has given us

little, and that borrowed from others with great difficulty. But we may boast of our poets and philosophers. That's something. We have had strong heads and sound hearts among us. Thrown on one side of the world, and left to bustle for ourselves, we have fought out many a battle for truth and freedom. That is our natural style; and it were instance departed from it. a certain cast of thought and character; and our liberty has enabled us to make the most of it. We are of a stiff clay, not moulded into every fashion, with stubborn joints not easily bent. We are slow to think, and therefore impressions do not work upon us till they act in We are not forward to express our feelings, and therefore they do not come from us till they force their way in the most impetuous eloquence. Our language is, as it were, to begin anew, and we make use of the most singular and boldest combinations to explain ourselves. Our wit comes from us, "like birdlime, brains and all." We pay too little attention to form and method, leave our works in an unfinished state, but still the materials we work in are solid and of Nature's mint; we do not deal in counterfeits. We both under and over do, but we keep an eye to the prominent features, the main chance. We are more for weight than show; care only about what interests ourselves, instead of trying to impose upon others by plausible appearances, and are obstinate and intractable in not conforming to common rules, by which many arrive at their ends with half the real waste of thought and trouble. We neglect all but the principal object, gather our force to make a great blow, bring it down, and relapse into sluggishness and indifference again. Materiam superabat opus, cannot be said of us. We may be accused of grossness, but not of flimsiness; of extravagance, but not of affectation; of want of art and