Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

214

THE EIKON BASILIKE.”

at Oxford, he went with Queen Henrietta to France, where he lived for twelve years. Disappointed after the Restoration in his hopes of preferment, he retired to Chertsey by the Thames, where his old timbered house is still pointed out. There he lived, in studious quiet but not content, for seven years, when in 1667 a neglected cold killed him after a fortnight's illness. He wrote Miscellanies, the Mistress or Love Verses, Pindaric Odes, and the Davideis, an heroic poem upon David. His light sparkling renderings of Horace and Anacreon are his happiest efforts. In many of his works there is a constant straining after effect, which has been well named wit-writing. His prose is simple, pure, and animated. No poet of his day was more popular than Cowley, who is now but little read.

WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE, of Shaftesbury in Dorset, born in 1619, wrote two long poems, which Campbell rescued from obscurity. They are Love's Victory, a tragi-comedy; and Pharonnida, an heroic poem. The latter, especially, contains some fine and varied scenes. Chamberlayne died in 1689. A country doctor practising at Shaftesbury, he associated little with the great men of his day.

CHARLES COTTON, the witty poet-friend of Walton, was a Derbyshire man, born there in 1630. His father, Sir George, left him the encumbered estate of Ashbourne. Cotton was always in money difficulties; but his light, easy nature enabled him to pass through life unsoured. The Dove, a noted trout-stream of his native shire, was the great resort of Cotton and his old friend Izaak, to whom many of his poems were addressed. The poet died in 1687.

PROSE WRITERS.

JOHN GAUDEN was born in 1605, at Mayfield in Essex, and was educated at St. John's, Cambridge. He is considered, upon satisfactory evidence, to have written the celebrated work, Eikon Basiliké,* or the Portraiture of His Most Sacred Majesty (Charles I.) in his Solitude and Sufferings, which came out some days after *The Royal Image.

BROWNE, CUDWORTH, AND EVELYN.

215

the king's death. Some still think that Charles wrote the book himself: it was published under the royal name. But Gauden's complaining letters to Clarendon, coupled with other evidence, seem to prove that this Royalist clergyman was the author of the "Eikon." Fifty editions were sold in one year. Milton, in his Eikonoklastes (Image-breaker), smote the "Eikon" with his weighty pen: but it bravely stood the blow. Gauden, who was made, under Charles II., Bishop of Exeter, and afterwards Bishop of Worcester, died in 1662.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE, born in London in 1605, was a physician in practice at Norwich. His works-Religio Medici, or the Religion of a Physician (1642),-Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors (1646), and Hydriotaphia, a treatise on the Sepulchral Urns of Norfolk (1658)-display, perhaps, the most extreme specimens our literature affords of that style, loaded with heavy Latin words, which was so dear to Dr. Johnson's pen. Coleridge, with whom Browne was a favourite author, praises the enthusiasm and entireness with which the eccentric doctor handles every subject he takes up. Browne died in 1682.

RALPH CUDWORTH, born in 1617, was Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge. He published in 1678 a great work, entitled The True Intellectual System of the Universe; in which he maintains that there is an Almighty, All-wise God,—that there is an everlasting distinction between justice and injustice,—and that the human will is free. This work was intended to combat widespread atheistic doctrines. A treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality, also from Cudworth's pen, appeared after his death; and many of his manuscript works are preserved in the British Museum. He died in 1688.

JOHN EVELYN, born in 1620 to the enjoyment of a good fortune, spent his abundant leisure in popularizing science. The Sylva, which contains an account of forest trees and their uses, proved the means of stirring up proprietors to plant oak-trees largely over the country, for use in ship-building. Terra, a work on agriculture, appeared in 1675. But the most interesting of Evelyn's works is bis Diary, which presents us with a clear view of English life,

216

MARVELL, SIDNEY, AND BOYLE.

especially under Charles II., and a description of all great public events, in which the writer had any interest. The "Diary" was not published till 1818. Evelyn's snug house and beautiful gardens at Deptford were shamefully abused by his imperial tenant, the Czar Peter, who used often to amuse himself by riding on a wheelbarrow through a great holly hedge. Evelyn died in 1706.

ANDREW MARVELL, Milton's friend, wrote both poetry and prose. He was born in Lincolnshire in 1620-21. Upon finishing his education at Cambridge, he travelled, and afterwards acted as secretary to the embassy at Constantinople. In 1657 he became assistant to Milton, the Latin Secretary. As member for Hull, he is said to have refused a bribe of £1000 offered by Charles II. His treatise on Popery and Arbitrary Government in England was, perhaps, the greatest effort of his pen. His poems are marked with elegance and pathos. In 1678 he died, it was rumoured, by poison.

ALGERNON SIDNEY, son of the Earl of Leicester, was born about 1621. He was a colonel of cavalry in the Parliamentary army during the Civil War; but was no friend to Cromwell, whose assumption of power he condemned. After the Restoration he remained on the Continent for seventeen years; and then, having received a pardon from the King, he returned to see his aged father. Placing himself in opposition to the court, he was beheaded in 1683, on a charge of conspiracy against the government. A folio of 462 pages, entitled Discourses on Government, is the only important work of Sidney that we possess. It was written in opposition to the doctrine of divine right. The establishment of a republic in England was Sidney's life-long dream.

ROBERT BOYLE, son of the Earl of Cork, was born at Lismore in 1627. Distinguished for his researches in Chemistry and Natural Philosophy, he was one of the original members of the Royal Society. Air and the air-pump were his favourite subjects. His numerous works consist of philosophical treatises, and several works on religious topics. His Occasional Reflections on Several Subjects, published in 1665, gave origin to Swift's well-known caricature, Meditation on a Broom-stick. Boyle died in 1691.

TEMPLE, RAY, TILLOTSON, AND BARROW.

217

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, noted as the negotiator of the Triple Alliance, and as that English envoy at the Hague who arranged the marriage between William of Orange and the Princess Mary of England, was born in London in 1628. His scheme of a Council of Thirty, to bring the perplexed government of Charles II. into order, proved a failure. During the intervals of public life Temple wrote many clear and musical Essays on various subjects, among which we may note those on the Netherlands, Government, and Learning. Gardening, too, his favourite recreation, employed his pen. His last days were spent at Moor Park in Surrey, where young Jonathan Swift was for a time his secretary. He died in 1699.

JOHN RAY, a blacksmith's son, born in 1628, at Black Notley in Essex, was a very celebrated naturalist. His General History of Plants, and his popular work on the Wisdom of God in the Works of Creation are his chief productions. Birds, fishes, insects, and quadrupeds, all attracted the attention of Ray; but botany was his favourite study. He died in 1705.

JOHN TILLOTSON, who became Archbishop of Canterbury afte the Revolution, was originally the son of a Puritan clothier at Sowerby near Halifax, where he was born in 1630. His associations at Cambridge, and certain books he read, gradually led to a change of views; and he entered the Church of England after 1662. He first became celebrated as a preacher at St. Lawrence's in the Jewry. Having held the primacy for only three years, he died in 1694. His Sermons, sold after his death for nearly £3000, are his only literary remains. They are strong and sensible, but often without much literary grace.

ISAAC BARROW, the predecessor of Newton in his mathematical professorship at Cambridge, was born in London in 1630. His father was a linen-draper. Barrow was a man of versatile talent. Anatomy, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, Greek, optics, and theology,-all engaged his attention at various times; and in all he did well. His literary works are chiefly mathematical and theological. The former are in Latin; the latter, consisting of sermons and polemical treatises, were written with much care,

[blocks in formation]

and are remarkable for easy fertility of thought. Barrow died of fever in 1677, having attained the honourable stations of Master of Trinity, and Vice-Chancellor of his University.

SAMUEL PEPYS, son of a London tailor, rose, by the help of his cousin Montagu, to be Secretary to the Admiralty under Charles II. and James II. He is worth remembrance as the writer of a most amusing Diary, originally kept in short-hand, which depicts the life of the time even to the minutest details of dinners, lace, and coat-buttons. The vanities and faults of the writer himself are displayed with comical unconcern. But the poor fellow had little notion that readers of the nineteenth century would have many a hearty laugh over his secret memoranda.

in 1703.

He died

ROBERT SOUTH, reputed to have been the wittiest of the old English divines, was the son of a London merchant, and was born in 1633 at Hackney. Educated at Oxford, he was chosen Public Orator in 1660. Besides being chaplain to Lord Chancellor Clarendon and rector of Islip in Oxfordshire, he held some other valuable livings. South's wit, unhappily, was often mixed with venom. Extreme in his opinions, he held all Nonconformists in abhorrence. But his love of royalty was fully as strong as his attachment to the National Church. No clergyman of his day exceeded him in the fervour of those sermons in which he maintained the doctrines-so delightful to the Stuarts—of passive obedience and divine right. South died in 1716. In spite of his intolerance as a public preacher, he bore the private reputation of a good and charitable man.

« ElőzőTovább »