lowing his philosophy, but not in the honour he had probably expected, for he died, as it were, in disgrace. 66 5. As a philosopher and a writer we can only admire Bacon. His great work is, of course, his Philosophy; but he also wrote some Essays, which were published while Elizabeth lived. There were ten essays in the first, fifty-eight in the second edition—all showing great wisdom and acquaintance with men of all ranks. By an essay" Bacon meant a trial or testing of things to find their true value. Some of the things he tested according to the method of his new philosophy were Friendship, Studies, Truth, Travel, Gardens, Buildings. Another work of his still often read is The Advancement of Learning, which is really the first book of his philosophy. 6. Bacon called his great philosophical work by a Latin name meaning "the great building up." The thing to be built up was knowledge; and instead of taking the foundations ready made, as Aristotle and his followers had done, Bacon proposed to lay those foundations themselves, so that one could be sure of their firmness. His way was not to take a great truth as a matter of fact and build upon that, but to go step by step from one little bit of knowledge or fact to another, trying each carefully, and then when the building was completed, saying, I know each separate bit of building is firm, so the whole must be. The method of trial is called experiment. Bacon's great work was to have been in six books, but some books were left unfinished. 7. Here is an example of the way Bacon worked. Instead of taking for granted that all animals breathe out carbonic acid gas, and saying, "A dog is an animal, therefore a dog breathes out carbonic acid gas," Bacon would begin by trying an experiment with all the different kinds of animals that are known, including dogs, and finding that all breathed out carbonic acid gas, would say, "Then all dogs, being animals, must breathe out carbonic acid gas." After once having tried the experiment, however, we can take for granted the truth we have come to, and use it without always proving it, as Aristotle did. We need both Bacon's new way and Aristotle's old one. 8. Bacon did great good by rousing in people an interest in nature and in the world around them; for before his time many people thought it wrong to pry into the secrets of nature, and believed that those who did so were in league with evil spirits. That was what had been thought of a good and wise monk named Roger Bacon, who lived in the thirteenth century. He, too, like the Francis Bacon of the sixteenth century, tried to discover the secrets of nature, and was said to be one who was in league with the devil. 9. Besides those writers of whom I have told you, there were many others in that great Elizabethan age of whom I should like to tell you more. But I can only mention them. There were writers of stories, for which the taste of the people of England was growing ever stronger. Perhaps the greatest of these was JOHN LYLY, who also wrote several plays. A book of his, which was read by nearly every one at that time, was called Euphues that is, "the fine speaker"—and tells of the adventures of a young Greek gentleman who was sent, as was then the fashion, to finish his education in Italy. It was meant to show that this fashion was not a wise one; that young men often got more harm than good from their life in Italy, where the people of high rank usually lived only for pleasure, and scoffed at religion and everything good. 10. The book was written in the Italian style, with such tricks as always comparing one thing to another, playing upon words or using them in different meanings, and stringing together a number of words beginning with the same letter. This style came to be called euphuism—that is, finely sounding talk-and for a time was very fashionable at court. Court ladies and gentlemen talked in this high-sounding language. Shakespeare makes some of his characters use it; and very funny it sounds, especially when spoken by an uneducated man like the old watchman Dogberry.1 11. There was a good deal of writing about religion in Elizabeth's time, some of a rather quarrelsome kind; for people were still very much divided about what should be the form of the 1 Dogberry, in the comedy Much Ado About Nothing. English Church. Several bishops and others wrote their opinions on the matter, and some tracts appeared, written by different people whose names were not known. They were all given forth as the work of Martin Mar-prelate. Though they were meant to be odd and witty, some people thought them coarse and even wicked-among others Lord Bacon, who wrote very strongly against them. 12. But there was one religious writer who avoided all those quarrels, or if he had to join in them, never spoke angrily even of those who thought differently from him. This was RICHARD HOOKER, one of the wisest men of that age, and also one of the gentlest and humblest. He had been court preacher; yet after his marriage, while he was a poor clergyman with a scolding wife, he would patiently mind the sheep or rock the cradle, sometimes with a book in his hand, sometimes thinking out the great work which he afterwards published, called Ecclesiastical Polity-that is, church government. He lived just long enough to finish the eight books, leaving the care of revising the last three to his friends. It is a wise and learned book, full of sound sense and earnestness. 13. We must not forget a very quaint book of Elizabeth's time which people still love to read, The Schoolmaster. It was written by ROGER ASCHAM, the kind, clever tutor of Edward the Sixth, Queen Elizabeth, and Lady Jane Grey. Lady Jane was his favourite pupil, perhaps because she loved her Greek and Latin lessons so much, and had ever a welcome for her tutor. CHAPTER XI. THE SCHOLARS AND WRITERS OF KING JAMES'S TIME. 1. When Elizabeth died, Shakespeare was still alive, writing his best plays; Ben Jonson was also writing for the stage, and so were many others. But the taste of the time was gradually changing. The people were more interested in religion than in anything else; and a sect had arisen called Puritans, who thought it wicked to go to plays. Many of the middle class were Puritans, so the audience at the theatres was now drawn chiefly from the court party. And, alas! the court of James the First had the bad taste to prefer foolish and often wicked plays to the fine histories and tragedies of Shakespeare, or the good comedies of Ben Jonson; so perhaps the less said about the plays and play-writers of James the First's reign the better. 2. But a great religious work was accomplished in that reign. That was the revision of the Bible. There had been a great meeting of clergy at Hampton Court to try to settle on some form of church for the whole of England, and so end the disputes between the Established Church of England and those who would not conform, thence called Nonconformists. They could not agree; but one result of the meeting was the resolve that the English people should at least all use the same Bible, -not as they had been doing, some keeping to the Bishops' Bible, the translation made by some bishops in Elizabeth's reign; while the Puritans used only the Geneva Bible, a version made by the Protestants who fled from England to Geneva during the persecutions of Queen Mary's reign. King James sought out the most famous scholars of the time, forty-seven in all- some Churchmen, some Puritans-and set them to prepare a new translation of the Bible. It took three years to do, and was published in 1611. Until lately it was the only version used in English Protestant Churches, and still many people keep to it, though an even more careful version was published in 1885. The old Bible has grown dear by its very familiarity; people have grown to love its simplicity and quaintness. 3. In King James's reign there lived many scholars and students of history. Among the historians was SIR WALTER RALEGH, who, during his long imprisonment in the Tower, wrote a History of the World up to the Second Macedonian War.1 A wise and clever lawyer named JOHN SELDEN, who 1 The Second Macedonian War, carried by both Greece and Macedonia passing on by the Greeks and the Romans against under the Roman power. Macedonia (200 B.C.-197 B.C.). It ended was a diligent student of the history of past ages, wrote some learned books. He joined the Parliament, and was one of those who sided most strongly against Charles the First. 4. We cannot say much for the poetry of the time of James the First. Euphuism was still in fashion, but people were not so clever in using it as they had been in Elizabeth's time, or at least they thought far too much of the form and far too little of the meaning of their verses. Indeed some of the most elaborate poetry of that time has very little meaning, the language is so artificial and fanciful. Some of it is written in various shapessuch as wings, tables, pillars, trees-and as the lines must be made to fit into the shape, the meaning had to take its chance, and too often seems to have been left out. 5. King James considered himself an author of some note, though few other persons thought so; and his books are now never read except as curiosities. CHAPTER XII. THE CAVALIER POETS. 1. The reign of Charles the First was a more exciting time in history than his father's reign had been. There were the questions of Church differences, growing ever more important; and both Churchmen and Puritans were ready to suffer death for their faith. Then there arose the question of government, and two parties began to form-the one round the king, the other round the Parliament-both with widely different opinions, but each alike in this, that they were honest in these opinions, and ready to fight and die if need be,—the one side for their king, the other for the law. So most people put aside or forgot their own selfish cares, and thought of little else but these great matters. In all parties there were great and good men, and also poets and prose writers, who could put their feelings into action and into verse or prose. 2. The best kind of literature of that time was the short |