DRAMA.

The development of English literature in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries may be traced in this tabular arrangement of authors' names and dates :

THE RULERS.

PROSE.

POETRY.

CHAPTER IV

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

FROM BACON TO DRYDEN

1. The Last of the Elizabethans: Francis Bacon.
II. The Puritan Movement: John Milton.

III. Seventeenth Century Lyrics.

IV. The Restoration: John Bunyan, John Dryden.

I. THE LAST OF THE ELIZABETHANS: BACON.

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Ir has, perhaps, been noted that the term Elizabethan, as used to designate an epoch in the history of our literature, is allowed to include much more than the reign of that remarkable queen. It was in the thirteenth year of King James that Shakespeare died, and Jonson lived until the twelfth of Charles I. Lesser contemporary dramatists, poets, and prose writers many of whom cannot be mentioned in this work still described as Elizabethans. Even Milton is sometimes included in the group, although removed by more than a generation from the period in which most of these men flourished: but the likeness in tone, the quality of the verse, and the sweep of a great imagination these characteristics are the distinctive marks of an Elizabethan writer; not the precise limits of a definite area of time.

Francis
Bacon,

Next to the dramas of Shakespeare, the prose works of Francis Bacon are regarded as contributing most to the glory of English literature in the age of Elizabeth and James. Bacon represents the intellectual type of that age; dispassionate in

1561

1626.

judgment, coldly impartial even in his friendships, he practically applied his talents to gathering up all the fruits of scholarship, and in a tone itself resonant of his time, declared in a letter to Lord Burghley that he had taken all knowledge to be his province.

This son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, was born at York Early House in the Strand, London, January 22, Life. 1561. His mother was a zealous Calvinist, strict and stern. The boy was precocious, and bore himself with such an air of gravity that Elizabeth, visiting his father, called him her little Lord Keeper. At twelve years of age Francis Bacon entered Trinity College, at Cambridge, remaining at the University till the end of 1575. In the year following he began to study law at Gray's Inn. Admitted to the bar in 1582, he entered Parliament in 1584, representing the district of Melcombe, later sitting for Middlesex. During this period of his life Bacon was following the unpleasant and rarely profitable career of a suitor for royal patronage. His progress was slow. The famous Burghley, Elizabeth's prime minister, was his uncle; but from his hand the young solicitor received no favor. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, the generous patron of Edmund Spenser, one of the most admired and also one of the most irresponsible of courtiers, was now the special favorite of the queen to him Bacon turned for assistance. With the aid of Essex, he tried to secure an appointment to the office of Solicitor-General in 1593, and was disappointed; but the liberality of his patron was shown in a gift of the beautiful estate of Twickenham Park, whither Bacon retired for a while to rest and study. In 1597 appeared the first edition of the Essays, ten in number.

The relations between Bacon and Essex furnish one

The Earl of Essex.

of the problems in an analysis of Bacon's character, while the results which developed out of those relations have much to do with the shadow which rests on this great author's fame. The Earl was six years younger than the man whom he had befriended, impulsive and headstrong as he was brilliant. In all honesty Francis Bacon seems to have done his best to tone down and to rectify the careless temper of his patron, and in vain. Essex, in spite of Elizabeth's indulgent kindness, at last became so involved in his folly that he fell liable to charges of treason, and in 1601 was brought to trial. In the process of the case Bacon appeared - unwillingly, as he declared -and as Queen's Counsel presented the argument against the Earl with such precision that only one event became possible: Essex was beheaded. Bacon accepted £1200 from the fines imposed on Essex's estate, and justified his conduct in the affair by a published defense in which he asserts that the maintenance of the State is superior to the ties of friendship. In 1607 Bacon's ability finally received suitable recognition; he was made Solicitor-General. James I. In 1613 he became Attorney-General; four years later he was appointed Lord Keeper of the Seal, and in 1618 rose to his highest office as Chancellor of England. He received the title of Baron Verulam, and afterward was made Viscount of St. Albans. For three years Francis Bacon enjoyed all the privileges and honors of his high position. His manner of living was that of a prince; his magnificence became proverbial. At the same time his devotion to study had never been forgotten; his philosophical work, the Novum Organum, or The New Method, appeared in 1620, and Bacon was recognized as the foremost scholar of his time. At the beginning of 1621 he was at the

Under

summit of his prosperity, and then came one of the most notable reverses of fortune which ever overtook a man of fame.

The career of the Chancellor had been a brilliant one. A long accumulation of untried suits had been disposed of, and there seem to have been no Bacon's complaints of injustice against the court. But Fall Bacon had powerful enemies nevertheless, and at their instigation charges were sent to the Lords, by the House of Commons, affirming that the Chancellor was taking bribes. This was in March. Committees were appointed to investigate. Witnesses declared that bribes had been accepted, specifying sums of £300, £400, and £1000. Bacon fell ill; he offered no defense. 66 My Lords," he said to those who had been sent to ask if his written confession was to stand, "it is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your Lordships be merciful to a broken reed." Bacon's punishment was announced in April. It was ordered that he be fined £40,000, be imprisoned during the sovereign's pleasure, and be banished forever from both Parliament and court. The fine was remitted, and Bacon was released from the Tower in June. He was fully pardoned by the king in September, but never participated again in public affairs.

The disgrace of Lord Bacon was the fruit rather of a bad system than of deliberate crime. The bribes were always referred to as "presents," and it had been long the custom for high officials to accept gifts from those who had causes before them. It has never been shown that Bacon's decisions were influenced by these means. The pathetic side of the affair is most impressive. "All rising to great place is by a winding stair," said Francis Bacon, the philosopher, in his essay Of Great Place; "the standing is slippery and the re