[1] Sir Simonds d'Ewes feelingly describes in his will, his "precious
library." "It is my inviolable injunction that it be kept entire, and
not sold, divided, or dissipated." It was not, however, to be locked
up from the public good. Such was the feeling of an eminent
antiquary.
A later Sir Simonds d'Ewes was an extravagant man, and seems to have
sold everything about 1716, when the collection passed into the
possession of the Earl of Oxford.
[2] Tirabosohi, VI. pt. i, 131.
[3] See Gutch's edition of Wood's "Annals of the University of
Oxford," vol. I. pt. ii. p. 928.
[4] The vigilant curiosity of Tom Hearne, the antiquary, collected
the singular correspondence of the Founder of the Bodleian Library
with Dr. James, the first librarian, and published it under the title
of "Reliquiae Bodleianae, or Some Genuine Remains of Sir Thomas
Bodley," 1703, 8vo. The curious reader will find in Gutch's edition
of Wood's "Annals of the University of Oxford" many letters by
Bodley, and his liberal endowments to provide a fixed revenue after
his decease.
EARLY WRITERS, THEIR DREAD OF THE PRESS; THE TRANSITION TO AUTHORS BY
PROFESSION.
At the close of the reign of Elizabeth, the public, awakening at the
first dawn of knowledge, with their stirring passions and their eager
curiosity, found their wants supplied by a new race of "ready writers,"
who now teased the groaning press--a diversified race of miscellaneous
writers, who had discovered the wants of the people for books which
excited their sympathies and reflected their experience, and who caught
on their fugitive pages the manners and the passions of their
contemporaries. No subject was too mean to be treated; and had domestic
encyclopaedias been then invented, these would have been precisely the
library the people required: but now, every book was to be separately
worked. The indiscriminate curiosity of an uneducated people was
gratified by immature knowledge; but it was essential to amuse as well
as to inform: hence that multitude of fugitive subjects. The mart of
literature opened, and with the book-manufactory, in the language of
that primeval critic, WEBBE, of innumerable sorts of English books, and
infinite fardles of printed pamphlets, "all shops were stuffed."
It has been attempted to fix on the name of that great patriarch, the
Abraham of our Israel, who first invented our own book-craft; but it
would be indiscreet to assign the honour to any particular person, or
even to inquire whether the cupidity of the book-vender first set to
work the ingenuity of the book-weaver. Who first dipped his silver pen
into his golden ink, and who first conceived the notion of this literary
alchemy, which transmutes paper into gold or lead? It was, I believe, no
solitary invention; the rush of "authors by profession" was
simultaneous.
Former writers had fearfully courted fame; they were the children of the
pleasures of the pen; these were a hardier race, who at once seized on
popularity; and a new trade was opened by the arts of authorship. In
the primitive age of publication, before there existed "a reading
public," literary productions were often anonymous, or, which answered
the same purpose, they wore the mask of a fictitious name, and were
pseudonymous, or they hid themselves under naked initials, by which
means the owners have sometimes lost their own property. It seems a
paradox that writers should take such great pains to defraud themselves
of their claims.
This coyness of publication was prevalent among our earliest writers,
when writing and publishing were not yet almost synonymous terms. Before
we had "authors by profession," we had authors who wrote, and seemed to
avoid every sort of publicity. To the secluded writers of that day, the
press was arrayed with terrors which have ceased to haunt those who are
familiar with its daily labours, and our primeval writers trembled
before that halo of immortality, which seemed to hang over that
ponderous machinery. Writers eagerly affixed their names to polemical
tracts, or to devotional effusions, during the melancholy reigns of
EDWARD the Sixth and MARY, as a record of their zeal, and sometimes as
an evidence of their voluntary martyrdom; but the productions of
imagination and genius were yet rare and private. The noble-minded
hardly ventured out of the halcyon state of manuscript to be tossed
about in open sea; it would have been compromising their dignity, or
disturbing their repose, to submit themselves to the cavils of the
Cynics, for even at this early period of printed books we find that the
ancient family of the _Malevoli_, whom Terence has noticed, had survived
the fall of Rome, and here did not find their "occupation gone." With
many scholars, too, it was still doubtful whether the vernacular muses
in verse and prose were not trivial and homely. In the inchoate state of
our literature, some who were imbued with classical studies might have
felt their misgivings, in looking over their "gorgeous inventions," or
their "pretty devices," as betraying undisciplined strength, bewildering
fancies, and unformed tastes. They were not aware, even at that more
advanced period, when a series of "poetical collections" appeared, of
what they had already done; and it has been recently discovered, that
when the printer of "England's Helicon" had innocently affixed the
names of some writers to their pieces, to quiet their alarms, he was
driven to the clumsy expedient of pasting slips of paper over their
names. This was a spell which Time only dissolved, that great revealer
of secrets more deeply concealed.
When publication appeared thus terrible, an art which was not yet valued
even the artists themselves would slight. We have a striking instance of
this feeling in the circumstance of a sonnet of our Maiden Queen, on the
conspiracies then hatching by the party of her royal sister of Scotland.
One of the ladies of her bedchamber had surreptitiously transcribed the
poem from her majesty's tablet; and the innocent criminal had thereby
cast herself into extreme peril. The queen affected, or at least
expressed, her royal anger lest the people should imagine that she was
busied in "such toys," and her majesty was fearful of being considered
too lightly of, for so doing. The grave sonnet might, however, have been
accepted as a state-paper. The solemn theme, the grandeur of the queenly
personages, and the fortunes of two great nations at issue, communicated
to these verses the profound emotions of contemplative royalty, more
exquisite than the poetry. Yet Elizabeth could be checked by "the fear
to be held too lightly by such toys."
The same motive had influenced some of the great personages in our
literature, who, by the suppression of their names, anxiously eluded
public observation, at the very moment they were in reality courting it!
_Ignoto_ and _Immerito_, or bare initials, were the concealing
signatures of Rawleigh, of Sidney, and of Spenser. The works of the Earl
of Surrey, then the finest poems in the language, were posthumous. "The
Arcadia" of Sidney possibly was never intended for the press. The noble
Sackville, who planned the grand poem of "The Mirror of Magistrates,"
willingly left his lofty "Induction" anonymous among the crowd. In the
first poetical miscellany in our language collected by the printer
Tottell, are "The Poems of _uncertain Authors_;" so careless were the
writers themselves to preserve their names, and so little aware of
having claims on posterity. Some years after, when those other poetical
collections, "The Paradise of Dainty Devices" and "England's Helicon,"
were projected by their publishers, they were borrowed or stolen from
manuscripts which lay neglected with their authors, and who for the most
part conceal themselves under quaint signatures.
The metropolis, in the days of Elizabeth and James, bore a pretty close
resemblance to those ancient cities now existing before us on the
Continent, famous in their day, but which, from causes not here
necessary to specify, have not grown with the growth of time. Cologne,
Coblentz, and Mayence, are such cities; and the city of Rouen, in its
more ancient site, exhibits a picture of the streets of London in the
days of Shakspeare. Stationary in their limits and their population, the
classes of society are more distinctly marked out; but the individual
lives more constantly under the survey of his neighbours. Their art of
living is to live in the public eye; to keep up appearances, however
this pride may prove inconvenient. No one would seem to have an
established household, or always care to indicate its locality; their
meals are at a public table, and their familiar acquaintance are found
in the same public resorts; their social life becomes contracted as
their own ancient narrow streets.
Such was London, when the Strand was a suburb, with only a few scattered
mansions; the present streets still retain the family names, thus
separating London from its regal sister. The glory of the goldsmiths and
the mercers blazed in Cheapside, "the beauty of London;" and
Fleet-street was the Bond-street of fashionable loungers. In this
contracted sphere, where all moved, and the observers had microscopical
eyes, any trivial novelty was strangely magnified, and the great
personage was an object for their scrutiny as well as the least
considerable. Thus we find that the Lord Chancellor Bacon is censured by
one of the gossiping pens of that day for his inordinate pride and pomp
on the most ordinary occasions. He went in his state robes "to cheapen
and buy silks and velvets at Sir Baptist Hicker's and Burner's shops."
James the First, I think, once in Parliament alluded to the "goldsmiths
at Cheap, who showed not the bravery of former days," as a mark of the
decline of national prosperity. One of the popular alarms of that day
was "the rising of the apprentices," whenever the city's clumsy "watch
and ward" were put to the rout; the apprentices usually made an attempt
on their abhorrence, Bridewell, or pulled down two or three houses on
Shrove-Tuesday. Once, on the trying of some ordnance in Moorfields, the
court was seized by a panic of "a rising in the city." From all this we
may form some notion of the size of the metropolis, and its imbecile
police. In a vast and flourishing metropolis the individual in liberty
and security passes among the countless waves of this ocean of men.
A metropolis thus rising from its contracted infancy, extending in
growth, and diversified by new classes of society, presented many
novelties in its crowded scenes; mutable manners, humorous personages,
all the affectations or the homeliness of its citizens. Many writers,
among whom were some of admirable genius, devoted their pens to fugitive
objects and evanescent scenes, sure of finding an immediate reception
from the sympathy of their readers. New modes of life, and altered
manners during a lengthened peace, brought men into closer observation
of each other; the ranks in society were no longer insulated; their
haunts were the same localities, the playhouse, the ordinary, and Paul's
Walk. There we find the gay and the grave--the disbanded captain--the
critic from the inns of court--fantastic "fashion-mongers"--the
coney-catcher who watches "the warren,"--and the gull, "town or
country," a term which, unlike that of "the coney-catcher," has survived
the times before us, and is imbedded in the language.[1] They even
touched on the verge of that last refinement in society, critical
coteries. We learn from Jonson, that there was "a college of critics,"
where a new member, "if he could pay for their suppers," might abuse the
works of any man, and purchase for himself "the terrible name of a
critic;" and ladies "lived free from their husbands," held coteries, and
"gave entertainments to all the wits." This was the incipient state of
the new world of manners, and what we now call "society;" and society
provokes satire!
It was at the close of the Elizabethan period that our first
town-satirists arose, from whom we learn the complicate system of
manners, in the artifices practised in society; and in looking on their
phantasmagorias, we are often startled among their grotesque forms by
discovering our own exact faces. Satires on manners, descriptive of the
lighter follies and the more involved artifices of social life, could
hitherto have had no scope. The great in station alone constituted what
may be considered as society, without any of those marking differences
resulting from the inequalities of fortune. Satire then, as with
Skelton, was an invective discharged at some potent individual at the
risk of life; or it was an attack on a whole body, as Piers Ploughman's
on the clergy of the times, while Will, or John, or Piers, whatever was
his name, hid himself behind a hedge on Malvern Hills. Society, in the
modern acceptation, of a miscellaneous mixture, which equalizes men even
in their inequality, supplying passing objects for raillery or
indignation, opened that wider stage, which a growing metropolis only
could exhibit. We must become intimate with men to sound even the depths
of superficial follies, and declamation may even fall short in the
conception of some enormous criminal. Society must have considerably
advanced before a town-satirist could appear.
The change in style was not less remarkable than that in manners.
Towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, after the wild luxuriance
of fancy which had everywhere covered the fresh soil of the public mind,
in the riot of our genius, a great change was occurring in the minds of
our writers. Nature, in her open paths of sunshine, no longer busied
them, while they stole into the bye-corners of abstract ideas, and roved
after glittering conceits. Philosophy introduced itself into poetry, and
wit became the substitute for passion. It was then that Sir John Davies
wrote his "Immortality of the Soul," which still remains a model of
didactic verse; and Donne, "The Progress of the Soul," a progress which
he did not venture to conclude--a poem the most creative and eccentric
in the language, but which must be reserved for the few. Donne, who
closed his life as a St. Austin, had opened it as a Catullus.
The depth of sentiment was contracted into sententious epigrams, alike
in prose and verse; and in the display of their ingenuity, the remotest
objects were brought into collision, and the most differing things into
a strange coherence, to startle by surprises, and to make us admire
these wonders by their novelty. They cast about them their pointed
antitheses, and often subsided into a clink of similar syllables, and
the clench of an ambiguous word.
In all matters they affected curt phrases; and it has been observed that
even the colloquial style was barbarously elliptical. They spoke gruff
and short, affecting brevity of words, which was probably held to be
epigrammatic. It became fashionable to write what they entitled books of
"Epigrams" and books of "Characters." They appear to have taken their
notion of an epigram from the Greek anthology, where the term was
confined to any inscription for a statue or a tomb, or any object to be
commemorated. Modern literature, in adopting the term, has applied it to
a different purpose from its original signification. An epigram now is a
short satire closing with a point of wit. Wit, in our present sense, was
yet unpractised, and the modern epigram was not yet discovered. Ben
Jonson has composed books of epigrams; but, though he has censured Sir
John Harrington's as not being epigrams, but mere narratives, has
written himself in the prevalent style of his day. They are short poems
on persons, and on incidents in his own life, which he poured out to
relieve his own feelings when they were outraged, and, so far, they are
a reflection of the poet's state of mind--the autobiography of his
potent intellect. As among these epigrammatists we never had a Martial,
so among these character-writers we could hardly expect a La Bruyere for
his refined causticity; but the most skilful, as Sir Thomas Overbury and
Bishop Earle, are so witty as to seem grotesque, but it is human nature
disguised in the fashions of the day.[2]
This infection of style must have come from a higher source than a mere
fashionable affectation of the day, for it endured through half a
century. The axiomatic style of Bacon in his "Essaies," which first
appeared in 1597, probably set the model of the curt period for these
Senecas in prose and verse, who found no difficulty in putting together
short sentences, without, however, having discovered the art of short
thoughts.
This change in style is considered as characteristic of the age of
James, but it began before his reign. The age of this monarch has been
universally condemned as the age of pedantry, and of quibbles and
conceits, all which, indeed, have been liberally ascribed to his taste;
but in the plentiful evidence of his wit and humour, it would be
difficult to find an instance of these bastard ornaments of style.
In the history of literature the names of sovereigns usually only serve
to mark its dates; and an "author-sovereign," to use Lord Shaftesbury's
emphatic expression, can exercise no prerogative, and yields even his
precedence. In more than one respect JAMES THE FIRST may form an
exception, for the barren list of his writings alone might serve to
indicate the age; their subjects were not so peculiar to this monarch's
taste as they were common with higher geniuses than his majesty.
When on the throne of England, it was deemed advisable to collect his
majesty's writings, the honour of the editorship was conferred on
Montague, Bishop of Winton, whom Fuller has characterised as "a potent
courtier;" and the courtly potency of the prelatical editor effuses
itself before the "majesty of kings" in the most awful of all prefaces.
Cavillers there were, who, on distinct principles, objected to a king
being a writer of books, carrying on war "by the pen instead of the
pike, and spending his passion on paper instead of powder." This was a
military cry from those whose "occupation had long gone." Others, more
critically nice, assumed that, "since writing of books had grown into a
trade, it was as discreditable for a king to become an author as it
would be for him to be a practitioner in a profession." Such objectors
were not difficult to put down, and the bishop has furnished an ample
catalogue of "royal authors" among all great nations; and, in our own,
from Alfred to Elizabeth. The royal family of James were particularly
distinguished for their literary acquirements. As that was the day when
no argument could be urged without standing by the side of some
authority, the bishop had done well, and no scholar in an upper class
could have done better; but this bishop was imprudent, his restless
courtliness fatigued his pen till he found a _divine origin of
king-writing_! "The majesty of kings," he asserts, "is not unsuited to a
writer of books;" and proceeds--"_The first royal author_ is the King of
kings--God himself, who doth so many things for our imitation. It
pleased his divine wisdom to be _the first in this rank_, that we read
of, that did _ever write_. He wrote on the tables on both sides, which
was the work of God." This was in the miserable strain of those
unnatural thoughts and remote analogies which were long to disfigure the
compositions even of our scholars. How James and the bishop looked on
one another at their first meeting, after this preface was fairly read,
one would like to learn; but here we have the age!
One work by this royal author must not pass away with the others; it is
not only stamped with the idiosyncrasy of the author, but it is one of
those original effusions which are precious to the history of man. "THE
BASILICON DORON, or His Majesty's Instructions to His Dearest Son Henry
the Prince," is a genuine composition in the vernacular idiom; not the
prescribed labour of a secretary, nor the artificial composition of the
salaried literary man, but warm with the personal emotions of the royal
author. He writes for the Prince of Scotland, and about the Scottish
people; he instructs the prince even by his own errors and misfortunes.
Some might be surprised to find the king strenuously warning the prince
against pedantry; exhorting his pupil to avoid what he calls any
"corrupt leide, as book-language and pen-and-ink terms;" counselling him
_to write in his own language_, "for it best becometh a king to purify
and make famous his own tongue." To have ventured on so complete an
emancipation from the prevalent prejudices, in the creation of a
vernacular literature, is one evidence, among many, that this royal
author was not a mere pedant; and the truth is, that his writings on
popular subjects are colloquially unostentatious; abstaining from those
oratorical periods and rhetorical fancies which the scholar indulged in
his speeches and proclamations--the more solemn labours of his own hand.
It is due to the literary character of James the First to notice his
prompt sympathies with the productions of genius. This monarch had not
exceeded his twentieth year when we find him in an intercourse with men
of letters and science at home and abroad. The death of Sidney called
forth an elegiac poem, and the works of the astronomer Tycho Brahe are
adorned by a poetical tribute from the royal hand; during the winter the
king passed in Denmark he was a frequent visitor of the philosopher, on
whom he conferred an honour and a privilege. That he addressed a letter
to Shakspeare, grateful for the compliments received in _Macbeth_, there
is little reason to doubt; for Davenant, the possessor of the letter,
which was finally lost, told it to the Duke of Buckingham; few
traditions are so clearly traced to their source; and indeed some mark
of James's attention to Shakspeare is positively told by Ben Jonson in
his Elegy on "The Swan of Avon"--
--------What a sight it were,
To see thee on our waters yet appear;
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza and OUR JAMES![3]
Hooker was the favourite vernacular author of James; and his earliest
inquiry, on his arrival in England, was after Hooker, whose death he
deeply regretted. James wrote a congratulatory letter to Lord Bacon on
his great work; the king at least bowed to the genius of the man. It
was by the especial command of this royal "pedant," twenty-four years
after the publication of Fairfax's _Tasso_, that a second edition
revived that version; and he provided Herbert the poet with a sinecure
or pension, that his muse might cease to be disturbed. James the First
was not only the patron of Ben Jonson, but admitted the bard to a
literary intercourse; and it is probable that we owe to those
conferences some of the splendour of the Masques, and in which there are
many strokes of the familiar acquaintance of the poet with his royal
admirer. More grave and important objects sometimes engaged his
attention. It was James the First who assigned to the learned Usher the
task of unfolding the antiquities of the British churches; and it was
under the protection of this monarch that Father Paul composed the
famous history, which, as fast as it was written, was despatched to
England by our ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton; and, in this country, this
great history was first published. These are not the only testimonies of
his strong affection for literature and literary men; but they may
surprise some who only hear of a pedant-king, who in reality was only a
"learned" one.