CONTENTS The starting-point-Tottel's Miscellany-Its method and authorship - The characteristics of its poetry--Wyatt-Surrey-Grimald-Their metres- The stuff of their poems-The Mirror for Magistrates—Sackville—His contributions and their characteristics-Remarks on the formal criticism of poetry-Gascoigne - Churchyard-Turberville-Googe-The trans- lators-Classical metres-Stanyhurst-Other miscellanies Pages 1-27 Outlines of Early Elizabethan Prose-Its origins-Cheke and his contem- 28-49 Spenser His life and the order of his works-The Shepherd's Calendar-The minor poems-The Faërie Queene-Its scheme The Spenserian stanza-— Spenser's language—His general poetical qualities—Comparison with other English poets -- His peculiar charm-The Sonneteers-Fulke Greville -Sidney-Watson-Barnes-Giles Fletcher the elder-Lodge-Avisa -Percy-Zepheria - Constable- Daniel - Drayton-Alcilia--Griffin-- Lynch-Smith-Barnfield-Southwell-The song and madrigal writers— Raleigh-Dyer-Oxford, etc.-Gifford -Howell, Grove, and their con- temporaries -The historians-Warner-The larger poetical works of Difficulty of writing about Shakespere-His life-His reputation in England 157-206 Bacon-Raleigh—The Authorised Version-Jonson and Daniel as prose-writers --Hakluyt-The Pamphleteers-Greene-Lodge-Harvey-Nash-Dek- ker-Breton-The Martin Marprelate Controversy-Account of it, with Sylvester-Davies of Hereford-Sir John Davies-Giles and Phineas Fletcher MILTON, TAYLOR, CLARENDON, BROWNE, HOBBES The quintet--Milton's life-His character-His periods of literary production -First Period, the minor poems-The special excellences of Comus- Lycidas-Second Period, the pamphlets--Their merits and defects— Milton's prose style-Third Period, the larger poems-Milton's blank verse-His origins-His comparative position-Jeremy Taylor's life--His principal works-His style-Characteristics of his thought and manner- Sir Thomas Browne-His life, works, and editions-His literary manner- Characteristics of his style and vocabulary—His Latinising—Remarkable adjustment of his thought and expression-Clarendon-His life-Great merits of his History-Faults of his style-Hobbes-His life and works- Herrick-Carew-Crashaw-Divisions of Minor Caroline poetry-Miscellanies -Quarles-More-Beaumont-Habington-Corbet-Cartwright, Sher- burne, and Brome-Cotton-The general characteristics of Caroline poetry In a work like the present, forming part of a larger whole and preceded by another part, the writer has the advantage of being almost wholly free from a difficulty which often presses on historians of a limited and definite period, whether of literary or of any other history. That difficulty lies in the discussion and decision of the question of origins—in the allotment of sufficient, and not more than sufficient, space to a preliminary recapitulation of the causes and circumstances of the actual events to be related. Here there is no need for any but the very briefest references of the kind to connect the present volume with its forerunner, or rather to indicate the connection of the two. There has been little difference of opinion as to the long dead-season of English poetry, broken chiefly, if not wholly, by poets Scottish rather than English, which lasted through almost the whole of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries. There has also been little difference in regarding the remarkable work (known as Tottel's Miscellany, but more properly called Songs and Sonnets, written by the Right Honourable Lord Henry Howard, late Earl of Surrey, and other) which was published by Richard Tottel in 1557, and which went through two editions in the summer of that year, as marking the E.L. II B |