decisions, and other professional writings. All these are marked by a vigorous and ornamented style, and are among the finest specimens of the prose literature of that age.

For more extended reading on this topic consult Macaulay's essay on Bacon, Whipple's essays in The Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy, Hallam's Literature of Europe, The Baconian Philosophy, by Tyler, Fischer's Bacon and His Times.

decisions, and other professional writing.

marked by a vigorons and ornamented eye, wich was going the finest specimens of the prose iterative of sur nga

For more extender readme of the tour content by the Whipple's essays 11 The Luersum of the age of thes History of Philosophy Hainz - Zueraur g bange. I've thevine Kuwandy

Tyler, Fischer's Buon, anu. He Irina.

AL

CHAPTER XII.

THE SO-CALLED METAPHYSICAL POETS.

LTHOUGH the literature of the seventeenth century indicates no marvellous outburst of creative power, it has yet left deep and enduring traces upon the English thought and upon the English language. The influences of the time produced a style of writing in which intellect and fancy played a greater part than imagination or passion. Samuel Johnson styled the poets of that century the metaphysical school; that tendency to intellectual subtilty which appears in the prose and verse of the Elizabethan writers, and occasionally extends its contagion to Shakespeare himself, became with them a controlling principle. As a natural consequence, they allowed ingenuity to gain undue predominance over feeling; and in their search for odd, recondite, and striking illustrations they were guilty of frequent and flagrant violations of reason. Towards the close of the period Milton is a grand and solitary representative of poets of the first order. He owed little to his contemporaries. They were chiefly instrumental in generating the pseudo-correct and artificial manner which characterizes the classical writers of the early part of the eighteenth century.

John Donne (1573-1631) has been mentioned already among our first satirists. He was a representative of the highest type of the extravagances of his age (50). His ideal of poetical composition was fulfilled by clothing every thought in a series of analogies, always remote, often repulsive and inappropriate. His versification is singularly harsh and tuneless, and the crudeness of his expression is in unpleasant contrast with the ingenuity of his thinking. In his own day his reputation was very high. "Rare Ben" pronounced him "the first poet in the world in some things," but declared that "for not being understood he would perish.” This prophecy was confirmed by public opinion in the eighteenth