No More Learning

Hence, the ready adoption of the interesting, but, to a great extent,
irrelevant and otiose, discussions about the abstract virtue of
poetry. Hence, the undue haste to teach the infant, or hardly
adolescent, drama the way it should go, without waiting to see
what would come of the way in which it was going.
It was a partial misfortune-but partial only because the
efforts made were far better than none at all that the chief and
most abundant modern critical treatises available were either
mere echoes of the classics or devoted to a modern language-
Italian—which has but small affinities with English. The Spanish
critics began just too late to give much assistance, even had
English writers been disposed to take lessons from Spain; and, in
their own country, their voices were soon whelmed. The French
required very careful reading not to do more harm than good.
And, above all, behind the whole of at least poetical, and especially
prosodic, criticism, there was easily perceivable, though, perhaps,
not consciously perceived, the dread of relapse into doggerel—the
aspiration after order, civility, accomplishment, as contrasted with
'barbarous and balductoom' vernacularity. And, outside the
strictly literary sphere, numerous influences determined or affected
some, at least, of the issues of criticism : the puritan distrust of
poetry and, specially, of the stage; the Anglican dislike of possible
2


## p. 310 (#332) ############################################

310
Elizabethan Criticism
6
Roman influences in foreign literature, the contempt of the whole
period for medieval things.
Yet it is remarkable how, from the very first and throughout,
there is a glimmering sense that, after all, English must 'do for
itself'--that 'the kingdom is within,' here as elsewhere. In the
act of abusing rime and recommending' verse,' Ascham admits more
than a misgiving as to whether the English hexameter is possible. In
the act of limiting English poetry as a matter of actual observation
to dissyllabic feet, Gascoigne is careful to remark that we have
had' others, and, apparently, rather wishes that we may have
them again; while it is remarkable how directly he goes to the
positive material of actual poetry for the source of his rules.
Sidney, classiciser as he is, practically assures us, by that famous
confession as to Chevy Chace, that we need be under no apprehen-
sion but that English verse will always appeal to the Englishman
as no other can. A rather sapless formalist like Puttenham does
adopt, and with not so very scanty knowledge, that historical
method in which all salvation lies ; and so, in his more blundering
way, does even an enthusiast for innovation like Webbe. Finally,
we find Daniel striking into and striking out in the full stream of
truth. "We shall best tend to perfection by going on in the
course we are in. ' Tu contra audentior ito!
Yet, at the same time, the critical literature of the period not less
distinctly avoids the mistake, too well known elsewhere, of neglecting
the comparative study of other languages and literatures, ancient
as well as modern. Indeed, half the mistakes that it does make may
be said to come from overdoing this comparison. At the particular
stage, however, this mattered very little. It was, undoubtedly, up
to this period, a defect of English that, though constantly trans-
lating and imitating, it had translated and imitated, if not quite
unintelligently, yet with no conscious and critical intelligence
in a blind and instinctive sort of way. This is now altered.
Sidney's not daring to allow Spenser’s ‘framing of his style to an
olde rusticke language . . . since neither Theocritus . . . Virgill . . .
nor Sanazara . . . did affect it,' is, indeed, altogether wrong. It is
wrong, as a matter of fact, to some extent, as regards Theocritus ;
it is inconsistent as ranking a mere modern like Sanazzaro, of
certainly no more authority than Spenser himself, with Theocritus
and Vergil; and it is a petitio principii in its assumption that
Greeks, or Latins, or Italians, can serve as prohibitory precedents
-as forbidders, merely by the fact of not having done a thing-
to Englishmen. But the process is literary and critical, if the


## p. 311 (#333) ############################################

Summary
311
procedure and application are erroneous. English, so to speak,
is, at least, 'entered in the general academy of literatures ; it
submits itself to competition and to co-examination; it is no
longer content to go on-not, indeed, as Ascham vainly says, 'in
a foul wrong way' but—in an uncultivated and thoughtless way.
It is taking stock and making audit of itself, investigating what
has been done and prospecting for what is to be done. Nor
should it be forgotten that there is such work as Mulcaster's, which,
though not strictly literary criticism, is linguistic and scholastic
criticism of no unliterary kind. Mulcaster', in his Positions and
Elementary, following Thynne and others, almost founds the
examination of the language itself; as does that part of Ascham's
Scholemaster which has hitherto been passed over and which
concerns the teaching of the classical tongue by means of English-
a process which, as all sound thinking on education has seen since,
involves, and carries with it, the teaching of English by means of
the classical tongues. The whole body of effort in this kind is one
great overhauling of the literary and linguistic resources of the
nation—a thing urgently required, long neglected, yet, perhaps,
not possible to have been attempted with any real prospect of
benefit until this particular time.
Nor would it be wise to over-estimate the futility of the
futilities, the mistake of the mistakes, that were committed. The
worst and most prominent of them all—the craze for 'versing'-
sprang from a just sense of the disorderliness of much recent
English poetry, and led almost directly to the introduction of a
new and better order. As for what may seem to us the idle
expatiations on the virtues of poetry in the abstract, or the super-
fluous defences of it, these were things which, according to all
precedent, had to be gone through, and to be got over. Even on
the side where there was still most to seek—the diligent and
complete exploring of the actual possessions of English in a really
historical spirit-more must have been done than is obvious on the
surface, or we should not be able to find, a few years after Elizabeth's
death, a man like William Browne acquainted with the poems of
Occleve, who had never been favoured by the early printers, and
actually reproducing Occleve's work among his own. That there was
even some study of Old English is well known. On the whole, there,
fore, though these various efforts were not well co-ordinated, and, in
many cases, not even well directed to their immediate objects, it
would be the grossest oï errors to belittle or misprise them; and
i See also chap. xix.


## p. 312 (#334) ############################################

312
Elizabethan Criticism
it is only a pity that the taste for critical enquiry was not better
represented in the first two generations of the seventeenth-century
itself. For, in that case, Dryden, who actually availed himself of
what he could get from Jonson, would have found far more to go
upon; and, with his own openness of mind and catholicity of
appreciation, would have done even more than he did to keep his
successors in turn from falling into that pit of ignorant contempt
for older literature which engulfed too many of them. Even as it
was, the Elizabethan critics did something to give pause to the
hasty generalisation that periods of criticism and periods of creation
cannot coincide. If they did not lay much of a foundation,
Gascoigne, Sidney and Daniel, in their different ways, did some-
thing even in this way; they did a good deal towards clearing the
ground and a good deal more towards surveying it. It is unfor-
tunate, and it is a little curious, that they did not devote more
attention to prose, especially as their guides, the ancients, had left
them considerable assistance; but they were, no doubt, misled
(as, for that matter, the ancients themselves were, to a great extent)
by the exclusively rhetorical determination of ancient criticism in
this respect. For poetry, however, they did not a little ; and, after
all, there are those who say that by 'literature' most people mean
poetry.
>


## p. 313 (#335) ############################################

CHAPTER XV
CHRONICLERS AND ANTIQUARIES
The chroniclers and antiquaries of the Tudor period, various
as they were in style and talent, shared the same sentiment, the
same ambition. There breathed in each one of them the spirit
of nationality. They recognised that the most brilliant discovery
of a brilliant age was the discovery of their own country. With
a full voice and a fervent heart they sang the praise of England.
They celebrated with what eloquence they possessed her gracious
climate, her fruitful soil, her brave men and her beautiful women.
Both by precept and by example they did honour to their native
tongue. 'Our English tongue,' said Camden, 'is as fluent as the
Latin, as courteous as the Spanish, as Court-like as the French,
and as amorous as the Italian. ' Camden praised by precept
alone, and composed all his works, save one, in Latin. The other
chroniclers, discarding Latin and writing in their own English,
paid the language a far higher tribute—the tribute of example.
All agreed with Plutarch that “a part of the Elisian Fields is to
be found in Britain. And, as they regarded these fair fields with
enthusiasm, so they looked back with pride upon Britain's legendary
history and the exploits of her kings. Steadfast in observation,
tireless in panegyric, they thought no toil, no paean, outran the
desert of England. Topographers, such as Camden and Leland,
travelled the length and breadth of England, marking high road,
village and township, collecting antiquities, copying inscriptions
and painting with what fidelity they might the face of the country.
The ingenuity of Norden and Speed designed the maps which
have acquired with time an unexpected value and importance.
The popular historians, gentle and simple, gathered the truth and
falsehood of the past with indiscriminate hand, content if they
might restore to the world the forgotten splendour of England,
and add a new lustre to England's ancient fame.
Their good will and patriotism were limited only by their talent.


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314
Chroniclers and Antiquaries
Zealous in intention, they were not always equal to the task they
set themselves. The most of them had but a vague sense of history.
They were as little able to sift and weigh evidence as to discern
the true sequence and meaning of events. Few of them were even
dimly interested in the conflict of policies or in the science of
government. What they best understood were the plain facts of
battle and death, of plague, and famine, of sudden comets and
strange monsters. The most of their works are the anecdotage
of history, and not to be wholly despised on that account, since
an anecdote false in itself is often the symbol of the truth, and
since, in defiance of research, it is from the anecdotes of the
Tudor chroniclers that we derive our knowledge of English
history. For that which had been said by others they professed
an exaggerated respect. They accepted the bare word of their
predecessors with a touching credulity. In patient submission and
without criticism they followed the same authorities. There is no
chronicler that did not use such poor light as Matthew Paris and
Roger Hoveden, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gildas, Giraldus
Cambrensis and Polydore Vergil could afford. Each one of them
borrowed his description of Agincourt from Titus Livius, and, with
a wisdom which deserves the highest applause, they all adapted to
their purpose the account of Richard III's reign attributed to Sir
Thomas More. With one or two exceptions, then, the Chronicles
are not so much separate works as variations of the same legend.
Their authors pillaged from one another with a light heart and
an unsparing hand, and, at times, did what they could to belittle
their robberies by abusing the victims.
If their sense of history was small, small also was their tact
of selection. They looked upon the world with the eye of the
modern reporter. They were hot upon the discovery of strange
'stories. ' They loved freaks of nature and were never so happy
as when a new star flashed into their ken. Their works, indeed,
hold a place midway between history and what we should now call
journalism. Stow, for instance, tells us that, in 1505, 'on S. Thomas
Day at night, afore Christmas was a bakers house in Warwike Lane
brent, with the Mistres of the House, ii women servants, and iii
others’; and he brings his Chronicle to an end, not upon the praise
of England or of queen Elizabeth but upon a monstrous birth. "The
XVII day of June last past,' he writes, in the year 1580,‘in the
parish of Blamsdon, in Yorkshire, after a great tempest of lightning
and thunder, a woman of foure score years old named Ales Perin,
was delivered of a straunge and hideous Monster, whose beade


## p. 315 (#337) ############################################

Edward Hall
315
was like unto a sallet or heade-peece. . . . Which Monster,' adds
Stow; devoutly, 'brought into the world no other news, but an
admiration of the devine works of God. ' Not even Camden,
scholar though he was, rose always superior to the prevailing
habit of gossip. 'I know not,' he writes, under the year 1572,
whether it be materiall or no, here to make mention, as all the
Historiographers of our time have done, how in the moneth of
November was seene a strange starre. ' And, presently, he inter-
rupts his account of a mission to Russia, in 1583, with this comment
upon Sir Hierome Bowes, the ambassador:
Hee was the first that brought into England, where the like was never
seene (if an Historian may with good leave make mention of so small a thing)
a beast called Maclis, which is a creature likest to an Alçe, very swift, and
without joynts.
Camden at least apologised for his amiable irrelevancy, and it is
not for modern readers to regret a practice which has preserved
for them the foolish trivial excitements of the moment. But it
is a truth not without significance that the chroniclers, who might
have kept before their eyes the example of the classics, and who
might have studied the two masters of what was then modern
history-Macchiavelli and Commines—should have preferred to
follow in the footsteps of the medieval gossips and of the ambling
Fabyan. And, as they thought no facts too light to be recorded,
so they considered no age too dark for their investigation. They
penetrated, with a simple faith, “the backward and abysm of time. '
The most of them begin their histories with Brute, who, they say,
was born 1108 B. C. , and thus prove that, for all their large interests
and their love of life, they were not without a spice of that
pedantry which delights to be thought encyclopaedic.
The chroniclers, then, share the same faults and the same
virtues. But beyond these similarities of character there is
room enough for the display of different temperaments and
personal talents. Each one will be found to possess a quality or
an interest which the others lack, and it is by their differences
rather than by their resemblances that they must be judged. The
first of them, Edward Hall, holds a place apart. Of the man
himself we know little. Of gentle parentage, he was educated
at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. He entered Gray's Inn
in due course, was appointed common serjeant of the city of
London in 1532 and was afterwards a judge in the sheriff's
court. The first edition of his Chronicle was printed by Berthelet,
in 1542, and was so effectively burnt by the orders of queen


## p. 316 (#338) ############################################

316
Chroniclers and Antiquaries
Mary that it exists only in fragments. Reprinted by Grafton, in
1548 and 1550, it won and deserved esteem and is now com-
monly regarded, for one reign at least, as an authority at first
hand. The truth is, Hall wrote as an eye-witness as well as a
chronicler, and his work is naturally divided into two parts, far
distant from one another both in style and substance. The title
of the book gives an instant clue to this natural division. The
"
Union of the two noble and illustrate famelies of Lancastre and
Yorke,' thus Hall describes it in his grandiloquent language,
beeyng long in continual discension for the croune of this noble realme, with
all the actes done in bothe the tymes of the Princes, both of the one linage, and
of the other, beginnyng at the tyme of Kyng Henry the Fowerth, the first
aucthor of this devision, and so successively proceadyng to the reigne of the
high and prudent prince, King Henry the Eight, the indubitate flower and
very heire of both the sayd linages.
So far as the death of Henry VII, Hall is a chronicler after the
fashion of Holinshed and Stow. He accepted the common autho-
rities, and translated them into his own ornate English, or em-
bellished them with new words and strange images. With the
accession of Henry VIII he began a fresh and original work.
Henceforth, he wrote only of what he saw and thought from day
to day. And, in thus writing, he revealed most clearly what manner
of man he was. His patriotism equalled his loyal worship of king
Henry VIII, the greatest monarch, in Hall's eyes, who had sat
upon the English throne. The reformation had his full sympathy,
and he looked upon the see of Rome with protestant suspicion.
When the king was proclaimed supreme head of the church,
Hall's enthusiasm was unbounded. Hereafter, he says, 'the Pope
with all his college of Cardinalles with all their Pardons and
Indulgences was utterly abolished out of this realme. God be ever-
lastyngly praysed therefore. ' And, if he was a patriotic Englishman
first, he was, in the second place, a proud and faithful Londoner.
He championed the interests of his fellow-citizens with a watchful
eloquence. When, in 1513, the fields about Islington, Hoxton
and Shoreditch were enclosed by hedges and ditches, that youth
might not shoot nor old age walk abroad for its pleasure, Hall
triumphantly records that a mob of citizens, armed with shovels
and spades, levelled the hedges and filled the ditches with so
diligent a speed that the mayor bowed in submission, and that the
hateful restraints were never afterwards set in the way of young
or old. He was, moreover, the first to raise the cry of 'London
for the Londoners. He hated the alien with a constant heart, and
a


## p. 317 (#339) ############################################

Edward Hall
317
in the many quarrels which arose between the citizens and the
French artificers, Hall was always on the side of the citizens.
And it was this feeling for London which intensified Hall's dislike of
the proud cardinal. A student rather of the world than of politics,
he could not appreciate at their proper worth the grandeur of
Wolsey's schemes. He knew only that Wolsey was extortionate,
that, whenever he was in need of money, he came to the city, and
he echoed the cry of the aldermen: 'For Goddes sake, remembre
this, that riche merchauntes in ware be bare of money. '
It has been thrown at Hall for a reproach by some of his
critics that he was too keenly interested in the pomp of the
court, in the shows and sights of the streets. One of his editors
has gone so far in misunderstanding as to expunge or curtail
many of his characteristic descriptions. This perversity seems the
stranger, because a love of display was in Hall's blood. He lived
in an age, and a city, of pageants. King and cardinal vied with
one another in splendour and ingenuity. They found a daily
excuse for some piece of well-ordered magnificence. May Day,
Christmas and Twelfth Night each had its appointed festival.
The king and his friends lived in a perpetual masquerade, and
Hall found the right words for their every extravagance. No
writer ever employed a more variously coloured vocabulary. Turn
his pages where you will, and you will find brave pictures of
banquets and disguises. And his style rises with the occasion.
The Field of the Cloth of Gold inspires his masterpiece. The
pages dedicated to this royal meeting-place are brilliant with
jewels and the precious metals. Gold and the cloth of gold,
tissue and hangings of cramosyn, sackbuts and clarions flash and
re-echo like the refrain of a ballade, and everywhere 'Bacchus
birls the wine,' which 'by the conduyctes in therth ranne, to all
people plentiously with red, white, and claret wyne, over whose
hedde was writen in letters of Romayn in gold, faicte bonne
chere quy condra. ”
I have said that Hall's Chronicle is made up of two separate
works. With a wise sense of propriety he employs two separate
styles. If this distinction be not made, it is not easy to admit
the justice of Ascham's famous criticism. Now, Ascham, in urging
the use of epitomes, illustrates his argument thus from Hall's
Chronicle :
As if a wise man would take Halles Cronicle, where moch good matter is
quite marde with Indenture Englishe, and first change strange and inkhorne
tearmes into proper, and commonlie used wordes: next, specially to wede out


## p. 318 (#340) ############################################

318
Chroniclers and Antiquaries
that, that is superfluous and idle, not onelie where wordes be vainlie heaped
one upon an other, but also where many sentences, of one meaning, be so
clowted up together, as though M. Hall had bene, not writing the storie of
England, but varying a sentence in Hitching schole.
The censure implied in this passage is amply justified by the first
part of Hall's Chronicle. Where he is adapting the words of
other writers, he does not check his love of 'Indenture Englishe';
he exults in 'inkhorne tearmes'; and he clowtes' up his
sentences with superfluous variations. But no sooner does he de-
scribe what he sees, no sooner do his brain and hand respond to
his eye, than he forgets the lessons of 'Hitching schole,' and
writes with a direct simplicity which in no sense deserves the
reproach of Ascham. Though it is true that the simplicity of
his time was not the simplicity of ours, Hall employs with ex-
cellent effect the words of familiar discourse, and records that of
which he was an eye witness with an intimate sincerity, which
separates him, on the one hand, from journeymen like Stow, and,
on the other, from scholars like Camden and Hayward, whose
ambition it was to give a classic shape and form to their
prose.
Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and
Ireland are wider in scope and more ambitious in design than
the work of Hall. Though they are not more keenly critical, they
are, at least, more widely comprehensive than any of their rivals.
They begin with Noah and the Flood, and the history of the
British Isles descends well-nigh to the day of publication. And,
if Richard Stanyhurst may speak for them all, the industrious
compilers took a lofty view of their craft.
The learned,' says
Stanyhurst,
have adjudged an historie to be the marrow of reason, the cream of sapience,
the sap of wisdome, the pith of judgment, the librarie of knowledge, the kernell
of policie, the unfoldresse of treacherie, the kalendar of time, the lanterne of
truth, the life of memorie, the doctresse of behaviour, the register of antiquitie,
the trumpet of chivalrie.
If Holinshed's history were all these, it is not surprising that it
was fashioned by many hands, and in nothing did the editor prove
his wisdom more clearly than in the selection of his staff. Of
Holinshed himself little is recorded. He came of a Cheshire
family, and is said by Anthony à Wood to have been educated
at Cambridge and to have been a minister of God's word. ' All
that is certain is that he took service with Wolfe, the publisher,
to whom, says he, he was 'singularly beholden,' and under whose
auspices he planned the Chronicles which bear his name. The
6


## p. 319 (#341) ############################################

Raphael Holinshed
319
death of Wolfe, in 1573, was no interruption to the work, and
in 1578 appeared the first edition, dedicated, in the familiar terms
of adulation, to Sir William Cecil, baron of Burghley. Each portion
of the Chronicles is assigned to its author with peculiar care. The
Description of England is William Harrison's. It is Holinshed
himself who compiled the Historie of England from the accustomed
sources. The Description of Scotland is a 'simple translation'
made by William Harrison. His vocation, he tells us, calls him
to a far other kind of study, 'and this is the cause,' he writes,
wherefore I have chosen rather, onlie with the loss of three or foure daies to
translate Hector out of the Scotish (a toong verie like unto ours) than with
more expence of time to devise a new, or follow the Latine copie. . . . How
excellentlie if you consider the art, Boetius hath penned it, . . . the skilfull are
not ignorant, but how profitablie and compendiouslie John Bellenden Arch-
deacon of Murrey his interpretor hath turned him from the Latine into the
Scotish toong, there are verie few Englishmen that know.
From the same Hector Boece, together with Johannes Major and
Jovian Ferreri Piedmontese,' 'interlaced sometimes with other
authors,' Holinshed digested his Historie of Scotland. The De-
scription of Ireland was the work of Richard Stanyhurst and
Edmund Campion, his ‘first friend and inward companion,' and
Richard Hooker provided the translation of Giraldus Cambrensis,
which served Ireland for a chronicle.
The work, done by many hands, preserves a uniformity of
character. Holinshed, it is true, made the apology which his
age seems to have demanded. "The histories,' he says, 'I have
gathered according to my skill . . . having had more regard to
the manner than the apt penning. Again, declaring that his
speech is plain, he disclaimed any rhetorical show of elegance.
Thus the Elizabethans deceived themselves. Plainness was the
one virtue beyond their reach.
They delighted in fine phrases
and far-sought images. Even while they proclaimed their devotion
to truth unadorned, they were curious in the selection of 'deck-
ing words,' and Holinshed and his colleagues wrote with the
colour and dignity which were then within the reach of all. The
history which was of his own compiling is of a better scholarship
than we expect of the time. He cites his authorities at first hand,
though he still accepts them without question ; he avoids the
trivialities which tempt too many of the chroniclers; and he con-
cludes the reign of each king with a deftly drawn character. The
popularity which the work achieved is not surprising. The simple
citizen found in its pages the panegyric of England which was
grateful to his patriotism. The poet sought therein, and sought
not in vain, a present inspiration. Master Holinshed,' said
6


## p. 320 (#342) ############################################

320
Chroniclers and Antiquaries
Spenser, ‘hath much furthered and advantaged me. ' Shakespeare
borrowed from his pages the substance of his historical plays,
and, paying him the same compliment which he paid to North,
did not disdain to turn his rugged prose into matchless verse-
a compliment which, of itself, is sufficient for immortality.
As Hall's Chronicle is memorable chiefly for the vivid sketch
it affords of life as it was lived in the reign of Henry VIII, so
it is Harrison's Description of England which gives a separate
distinction to the history of Raphael Holinshed. No work of
the time contains so vivid and picturesque a sketch. In his
first book, Harrison makes the customary concession to the en-
cyclopaedic habit of the Elizabethans. He begins with a description
of the whole earth, accepts with a simple credulity the familiar
legends and wonders gravely whether the land was ever inhabited
by giants. But no sooner does he leave the province of fairy-
stories for the province of fact, than he displays a knowledge as
wide as his interest is deep. His is a very vigilant treatise. His
theme is whatever was done or thought in the England of his day.
Nothing comes amiss to him. He is as learned in the history of
the church as in the speech and rascality of the Egyptian rogues,
his account of whom closely follows Harman's Caveat or Waren-
ing for Commen Corsetors. He is eloquent concerning either
university, as in duty bound, since he belonged to both. For
fine and excellent workmanship he praises “the moold of the
king's chapell in Cambridge,' next to which in beauty he sets the
divinity school at Oxford. For the rest, he finds perfect equality
between them; they are the body of one well ordered common-
wealth, divided only by distance; in brief 'they are both so deere
unto me,' says he, 'as that I can not readilie tell unto whether of
them I owe the most good will. ' Thereafter, he discusses the food
and diet of the English, approving'our tables plentifully garnished,
and deploring the cooks of the nobility, who are ‘for the most
part musicall headed Frenchmen and strangers. Our apparel
and attire suggest to him a chapter of fine invective. He is the
resolute enemy of foreign fashions. He cannot bear the fantastical
folly of our nation more easily than Shakespeare. He is at pains
to prove that nothing is more constant in England than incon-
stancy of attire. "Such is our mutabilitie,' he writes
that today there is none to the Spanish guise, to morrow the French toies
are most fine and delectable, ere long no such apparell as that which is after
the High Almaine fashion, by and by the Turkish maner is generallie best
liked of, otherwise the Morisco gounes and the Barbarian sleeves make such a
comelie vesture that except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see anie
so disguised, as are my countrie men of England.
6


## p. 321 (#343) ############################################

Harrison's Description of England 321
In the same spirit he describes the building and furniture of
Englishmen, their cities and towns, their fairs and markets, their
gardens and orchards, their woods and marishes, their dogs,
especially the mastiff or banddog, stubbourne, ougly, eagre,
burthenous of body (and therefore but of little swiftnesse),
terrible and feareful to behold, and more fearse and fell than
any Archadien curre. ' And to all things animate and inanimate
he brings the criticism of an active and humorous mind, which
not even patriotism can warp to a false judgment.
And, in describing England, he has half knowingly described
himself. It is our own fault if this amiable, shrewd and scholarly
parson be not our familiar friend. Born in London, in 1534, he
was educated at Westminster school and (as has been said) took
* his degrees at both universities. Henceforth, he lived the tranquil
life of a country clergyman, endowed with forty pounds a year,
which, computatis computandis, he thought no great thing. He
was household chaplain to Sir William Brooke and rector of
Radwinter in Essex, and, wherever he sojourned, he pursued most
zealously the calling of scholar and antiquary. He devised the
chronology which served as a guide to Holinshed. He collected
coins, he examined monuments; in brief, he neglected nothing which
could throw a light upon the history of his country. While his
wife and her maids brewed his beer with such skill and economy
'that for my twentie shillings I have ten score gallons of beere
or more,' he boasted of his garden, whose whole area was little
above 300 foot of ground, and which yet contained three hundred
simples, 'no one of them being common or usuallie to be had. '
An untravelled man, he wrote often of what he knew only by
hearsay. 'Untill nowe of late,' he confesses to Sir W. Brooke,
except it were from the parish where I dwell, unto your Honour in Kent; or
out of London where I was borne, unto Oxford and Cambridge where I have
bene brought up, I never travelled 40 miles foorthright and at one journey in
all my life.
And not only was he something of a recluse, but he wrote his
Description when his books and he'were parted by fourtie miles
in sunder. ' Nevertheless, he managed to consult the best authori-
ties. He was one of the unnumbered scholars who owed a debt to
Leland's famous notes. Stow and Camden were of his friends, and,
doubtless, lent him their aid, and he acknowledges a debt to
'letters and pamphlets, from sundrie places and shires of England. '
Yet, if we leave his first book out of our count, he was far less
beholden than the most of his contemporaries. He had the skill
21
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6
of making the facts of others his own. And as the substance, so
the style, of the book belongs to him. Though he proffers the
same apology as Holinshed, he proffers it with far less excuse.
He protests that he never made any choice of words, 'thinking it
sufficient truelie and plainlie to set foorth such things as I minded
to treat of, rather than with vaine affectation of eloquence to paint
out a rotten sepulchre. ' And then straightway he belies himself
by describing his book as 'this foule frizeled Treatise of mine,'
which single phrase is enough to prove his keen interest, and
lively habit, in the use of words.
In love of country he yielded to no man of his age. Herein,
also, he was a true Elizabethan. The situation of the island, its
soil, its husbandry (“my time fellows can reape at this present
great commoditie in a little roome'), the profusion of its hops,
which industrie God continue,' the stature of its men, the comeli-
ness of its women--all these he celebrates in his dithyrambic
prose. He is one of the first to exalt the English navy. Certes,'
says he, 'there is no prince in Europe that hath a more beautifull
and gallant sort of ships than the queenes majestie of England
at this present. ' And, like many other patriots, he fears the en-
croachment of softer manners and of growing luxury. Comfort
he holds the foe of hardihood. The times, in his view, were not
what they were. When, indeed, have they been? He contemplates
the comely houses and the splendid palaces which made a paradise
of Tudor England with a kind of regret. He sadly (and un-
reasonably) recalls the past, when men's houses were builded of
willow, plum, hornbeam and elm, when oak was dedicated to
churches, palaces and navigation. And yet see the change,' says
. ‘
he, in a characteristic passage,
for when our houses were builded of willow, then had we oken men; but now
that our houses are come to be made of oke, our men are not onlie become
willow, but a great manie, through Persian delicacie crept in among us,
altogither of straw, which is a sore alteration.
Harrison's lament was ill-founded. In less than a score of years,
the men of willow, or of straw, defended their oaken ships with
oaken hearts against the armada.
Withal, Harrison was of an ingenious mind and simple character.
When he had wandered, in fancy, the length and breadth of England,
he wrote down in all gravity the four marvels of his country. And
they were: a strong wind, which issueth out of the hills called
the Peak; Stonehenge; Cheddar Hole; and “Westward upon
certeine hilles '--this may be cited only in his own words-
>
6


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John Stow
323
'a man shall see the clouds gather togither in faire weather unto
a certeine thicknesse, and by and by to spread themselves abroad
and water their fields about them, as it were upon the sudden. '
These wonders surprise by their simplicity. Simple, also, are
Harrison's wishes, yet all save one are still ungratified. 'I could
wish,' he wrote,
that I might live no longer than to see foure things in this land reformed,
that is: (1) the want of discipline in the church: (2) the covetous dealing
of most of our merchants in the preferment of the commodities of other
countries, and hinderence of their own: (3) the holding of faires and markets
upon the sundaie to be abolished, and referred to the wednesdaies: (4) and
that everie man, in whatsoever part of the champaine soile enjoieth fortie
acres of land and upwards, after that rote, either by free deed, copie hold, or
fee farme, might plant one acre of wood, or sow the same with oke mast, hasell,
beech and sufficient provision be made that it may be cherished and kept.
Thus, in his wishes as in his life, Harrison was a wise patriot. He
sought nothing else than a knowledge of his country, and her
advantage. A scholar and a man of letters, he was master of
a style from which the wind of heaven has blown the last grain
of pedantry. Best of all, he painted an intimate portrait of him-
self, in painting also the truest picture that has come down to us
of the England that Shakespeare knew and sang.
John Stow and John Speed were chroniclers of a like fashion
and a like ambition. They were good citizens, as well as sound
antiquaries, and, by a strange chance, they followed the same
craft. 'We are beholding to Mr Speed and Stow,' writes Aubrey,
echoing Sir Henry Spelman, ‘for stitching up for us our English
history. It seems they were both tailors-quod N. B. ' And if
Speed found a pleasanter employ, a tailor Stow remained unto the
end of his days. One in their pursuits, they were one, also, in
disinterestedness. The love of England and of letters brought
neither of them any profit. Stow 'made no gain by his travail, '
and died poor. With a sort of pathos, he pleads that men who
have brought hidden Histories from duskie darkness to the sight
of the world' deserve thanks for their pains, and should not be
misrepresented. 'I write not this,' says he, 'to complain of some
men's ingratitude towards me (although justly I might). ' There
is the pith of the matter enclosed within parentheses, and Stow,
may be, was thinking of Grafton's reckless animadversion on the
memories of superstitious foundacions, fables and lyes foolishly
stowed together. ' Speed lags not behind in reproach of the world,
and felicitation of himself. He describes his work as 'this large
Edifice of Great Britain's Theatre,' and likens himself to the
6
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Chroniclers and Antiquaries
a
silkworm, that ends her life in her long-wrought clue. "So I in
this Theatre have built my owne grave,' he writes; 'whose Archi-
tecture howsoever defective it may be said to be, yet the project
is good, and the cost great, though my selfe have freely bestowed
this paines to the Presse, without pressing a penny from any man's
purse. Yet neither the one nor the other complained justly of
'
neglect. Stow won all the honour, both in his lifetime and after,
which belongs to the lettered citizen. He grew into a superstition
of homely wit and genial humour. Henry Holland, Philemon's
son, calls him the merry old man,' and Fuller celebrates his
virtues as Stow himself would have them celebrated. He admits
that he reported toys and trifles, res in se minutas, that he was
a smell-feast, who could not pass by Guildhall without giving his
pen a taste of the good cheer, and he excuses this on the ground
that 'it is hard for a citizen to write history, but that the fire
of his gun may be felt therein. ' So much may be truly said in
dispraise. For the rest, Fuller has nothing but applause. He
declares that our most elegant historians have thrown away the
basket and taken the fruit-even Sir Francis Bacon and Master
Camden. And ‘let me add of John Stow, he concludes, 'that
(however he kept tune) he kept time very well, no author being
more accurate in the notation thereof. ' And Speed, even if he
pressed no penny from any man's purse, did not ask the aid of
any scholar in vain. Sir Robert Cotton opened his library and
his collections to the chronicler's eye. Master John Barkham
gave such help as he alone could give, while Master William
Smith, Rouge Dragon, was ever at hand to solve the problems of
heraldry. Surely no citizen ever found better encouragement,
especially in the telling of a thrice-told tale.
Stow was the more industrious of the two. In 1561, he pub-
,
lished an edition of Chaucer's works. Four years later came his
Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles, and then, in 1580, he dedicated
to Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, a far better book, The Chronicles
of England from Brute until this present yeare of Christ 1580.
His purpose it is to celebrate 'the worthie exploits of our Kings
and governors,' and of that purpose he takes a lofty view. He
regards himself not only as a historian, but as an inculcator of
sound morals. “It is as hard a matter,' he says in pride,
6
for the Recorder of Chronicles, in my fansie, to passe without some colours of
wisedome, invitements to vertue, and loathing of naughtie factes, as it is for a
welfavoured man to walk up and downe in the hot parching Sunne, and not
to be therewith sunburned.


## p. 325 (#347) ############################################

John Speed
325
His knowledge is not often better than that of his predecessors.
He believes in the same fairy-tales; he accepts without question the
same rumours. But, in one respect, he differs from all his rivals: he
possesses an interest in literature which they lack. Under the year
1341, he records the death of John Malvern, fellow of Oriel College,
and author of the book entitled The Visions of Pierce Plowman,
and, in due course, he laments Geoffrey Chaucer, 'the most ex-
cellent poet of Englande, deceased the XXV of October, 1400. '
His knowledge of literature did not give him a lettered style.
His prose is the plainest and most straightforward of his time,
and he deserves whatever praise may be given to the diligent and
conscientious journeyman.
John Speed, on the other hand, was a born rhetorician. His
love of words outstripped his taste. When Richard I dies, 'now
ensued,' says he, 'the fatall accident, which drew the blacke cloud
of death over this triumphal and bright shining Starre of Chevalrie. '
The battle of Agincourt inspires him to such a piece of coloured
writing as Hall would not have disdained. Whatever the occasion
be, he is determined to attain what he thinks is a brilliant
effect, and his Historie of Great Britaine is marred by a monstrous
ingenuity. One virtue he has which must not be passed over :
he supports his narrative more often than the others from un-
published documents. He quotes the Life of Woolsey, which Stow
had quoted before him without acknowledgment, and ascribes it
honourably to George Cavendish. His character of Henry VII is
borrowed, with some verbal differences, from the manuscript of
Sir Francis Bacon, 'à learned, eloquent knight, and principall
lawyer of our time. In brief, truth and patriotism are his aims.
Like all the chroniclers, and with an unrestrained eloquence, he
hymns the glory of England, 'the Court of Queene Ceres, the
Granary of the Western world, the fortunate Island, the Paradise
of Pleasure and Garden of God. '
With William Camden, the chronicle reached its zenith. His
Rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum Annales, regnante Elizabetha
is by far the best example of its kind. Though it is 'digested
into annals,' according to the practice of the time, though
its author bundles marriages, deaths, embassies and successions
together, like the common ‘stitchers of history,' though he does
not disdain strange stars and frozen rivers, it is informed through-
out with a sense of history and with a keen perception of con-
flicting policies. Old-fashioned in design alone, the work is a
genuine piece of modern history, in which events are set in


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Chroniclers and Antiquaries
a proper perspective, and a wise proportion is kept of great and
small. Its faults are the faults inherent in the chronicle: no sure
plan of selection, a rigid division into years, an interspersion of
the text with documents. Its virtues are its own : clearness
of expression, catholicity of interest, a proud consciousness of
the great events, whereof Camden was at once the partaker and
the historian.
He declares in his preface that William Cecil, baron Burghley,
opened unto him first some memorials of state of his own,' and
that afterwards he
6
sought all manner of help on every side . . . for most of which (as I ought) I
hold myself chiefly bound to Sir R. Cotton, who with great expense and happy
labour hath gathered most choice variety of Histories and antiquity; for at
his torch be willingly suffered me to light my taper.
He learned much, also, by his own observation and by converse
with those who had played their part in affairs, and, heedless of
himself, he made no sacrifice save to truth. Nor does he vaunt
his achievement in any lofty terms. He will be content, he says,
with professional modesty, to be 'ranked amongst the lowest
writers of great things. ' He would have been placed far higher
in the general esteem, if he had not, by an unhappy accident,
composed his book in Latin. This misfortune, the greater because
he was one of the last to inflict so grave an injustice upon himself,
was mitigated by the skill and loyalty of his translators. The first
part of his Annales, the substance of which had already been
communicated to Thuanus, was published in 1615, and, ten years
later, translated out of the French into English by Abraham
Darcie, who gave his own flourishing title to the book : The True
and Royall History of the famous Empresse Elizabeth, Queene
of England France and Ireland &c. True Faith's defendresse
of Divine renowne and happy Memory. The second part, which
describes the affairs of the kingdom from 1589 to the queen's
death, was printed posthumously in 1627, and translated into
English by Thomas Browne, student of Christ Church, under the
title of Tomus Idem et Alter (1629).
Such is the history of the book. Its purpose and motive are
apparent upon every page: to applaud the virtues of the queen and
to uphold the protestant faith. In devising fitting titles for Eliza-
beth, Camden exhausts his ingenuity. She is the Queen of the
Sea, the North Star, the restorer of our naval glory. He defends
her actions with the quiet subtlety which suggests that defence is
seldom necessary. His comment upon the death of Mary of


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William Camden
327
Scotland is characteristic. Thus were achieved, he thinks, the two
things which Mary and Elizabeth always kept nearest their hearts:
the union of England and Scotland was assured in Mary's son,
and the true religion, together with the safety of the English
people, was effectively maintained. But Camden was not wholly
engrossed in the glory and wisdom of the queen. He looked
beyond her excellences to the larger movements of the time.
None understood better than he the spirit of enterprise which
was founding a new England across the sea. He pays a just
tribute of honour to Drake and Hawkins, he celebrates the
prowess of John Davis and William Sanderson and he hails the
rising colony of Virginia. Of Shakespeare and the drama he has
not a word to say. The peculiar glory of his age escaped him.
The death of Ascham, it is true, tempts him to a digression, and
persuades him to deplore that so fine a scholar should have lived
and died a poor man through love of dicing and cock-fighting.
And he fires a salute over the grave of Edmund Spenser, who
surpassed all English poets, not excepting Chaucer, and into
whose tomb the other poets cast mournful elegies and the pens
wherewith they wrote them. But, in the end, he returns to his
starting-place, and concludes, as he began, on a note of panegyric.
No oblivion,' he says,
shall ever dim the glory of her Name: for her happy and renowned memory
still lives, and shall for ever live in the Minds of Man to all posterity, as of
one who (to use no other than her successor's expression) in Wisedome and
Felicitie of goverment surpassed (without envy be it spoken) all the Princes
since the days of Augustus.
6
Master Camden, as his contemporaries call him with respect,
was well fitted for his task by nature and education. He was
a man of the world as well as a scholar. Born in 1551, he was
brought up at the Blue Coat school, and sent thence, as chorister
or servitor, to Magdalen College, Oxford. Presently, he migrated to
Broadgate's Hostel, now Pembroke College, and, afterwards, to Christ
Church. In 1582, he took his famous journey through England,
the result of which was his Britannia; ten years later, he was
made headmaster of Westminster school ; and, in 1597, was ap-
pointed, successively, Richmond Herald, and Clarencieux King of
Arms. His life was full and varied ; his character, as all his
biographers testify, candid and amiable. The works he left behind
speak eloquently of his learning and industry. To our age, he is
best known as the historian of Elizabeth. To his own age, he
was eminent as an antiquary, and it was his Brilannia, published
>


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Chroniclers and Antiquaries
.
in 1582, and rescued from Latin by the incomparable Philemon
Holland in 1610, which gave him his greatest glory. Anthony
à Wood calls him 'the Pausanias of the British Isles. ' Fuller, not
to be outdone in praise, says that he restored Britain to herself. '
Like all the other topographers of his century, he made use of
Leland's notes, but the works of the two men are leagues apart.
Camden's Britannia is, in effect, a real piece of literature. It is
not intimate, like Harrison's England. It is not a thing of shreds
and patches, like the celebrated Itinerary. Wisely planned, nobly
written and deliberately composed, it is the fruit of deep and
diligent research. Camden loved England and loved to embellish
her with his phrases. He carried his readers along the high-roads,
through the towns and cities of his native country, revealing, as
he went, her natural scenery, her antiquities, her learning and her
strength. And if, to-day, we shared his pride in England, we should
still echo, with all sincerity, the praises lavished upon his work
by his contemporaries.
Ralph Brooke, with more malice than discretion, charged Camden
with making an unacknowledged use of Leland's Collectanea. The
acknowledgment was generously given, and Leland's Collections
were made but to be used. Camden, in fact, was only following
the general practice of his age. There was no topographer who
did not take what he wanted from Leland, and there was none
who did not improve what he took. If Leland's inchoate notes
were of service to Harrison and Camden, they did all that could
be expected of them. The truth is, Leland was a superstition.