136 HERRICK, SUCKLING, LOVELACE, CA

best representatives of the gayer poets are Robert Herrick (1591– 1674) (101), Sir John Suckling (1609–1641) (102), Sir Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) (103), and Thomas Carew 1589-1639) (104). Herrick, after beginning his life in the brilliant and somewhat debauched literary society of the town and the theatre, took orders; but he continued to exhibit in his writings the voluptuous spirit of his youth. His poems were published under the names of Hesperides and Noble Numbers. They are all lyric, and the former are principally songs concerning love and wine; the latter are upon sacred subjects. In him we find the strangest mixture of sensual coarseness with exquisite refinement; yet in fancy, in spirit, in musical rhythm, he is never deficient.

Suckling and Lovelace are representative Cavalier poets; both suffered in the royal cause; both exemplify the spirit of loyalty to the king, and of gallantry to the ladies. Suckling's best production is the exquisite Ballad Upon a Wedding, in which, assuming the character of a rustic, he describes a fashionable marriage. Lovelace is more serious and earnest than Suckling; his lyrics breathe devoted loyalty rather than the passionate, half-jesting lovefancies of his rival. Such are the beautiful lines to Althea, composed while the author was in prison.

Carew's lyrics reflect the same spirit as Suckling's. His Inquiry, his Primrose, and his "He that Loves a Rosy Cheek" have all the grace, vivacity and elegance which should characterize such works.

CHAPTER XIII.

THEOLOGICAL WRITERS OF THE CIVIL WAR AND THE COMMONWEALTH.

THE

HE Civil War of the seventeenth century was a religious as well as a political contest; and the prose literature of that time, therefore, exhibits a strong religious character. The Church of England exhibited her most glorious outburst of theological eloquence in the writings of Jeremy Taylor, Barrow, and the other great Anglican Fathers; and in the ranks of the dissenters many remarkable men appeared, hardly inferior to the churchmen in learning and genius, and fully equal in sincerity and enthusiasm.

William Chillingworth (1602-1644), an eminent defender of Protestantism against the Church of Rome, was converted to the Roman Catholic religion while studying at Oxford, and went to the Jesuits' College at Douay. He subsequently returned to Oxford, renounced his new faith, and published his celebrated work against Catholicism, entitled The Religion of the Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation (113). This has been esteemed a model of perspicuous logic. "His chief excellence," says Mr. Hallam, "is the close reasoning which avoids every dangerous admission, and yields to no ambiguousness of language. In later times his book obtained a high reputation; he was called the immortal Chillingworth; he was the favorite of all the moderate and the latitudinarian writers, of Tillotson, Locke, and Warburton."

The writings of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), though miscellaneous rather than theological, belong, chronologically as well as by their style, to this department (114). He was an exceedingly learned man, and passed the greater part of his life in practising physic in the ancient city of Norwich. Among the most popular of his works are the treatise on Hydriotaphia, or Urn

Burial, and essays on Vulgar Errors, or Pseudoxia Epidemica. But the book which affords the most satisfactory insight into his character is the Religio Medici, a species of confession of faith which gives a minute account of his own religious and philosophical opinions. These writings are the frank outpourings of one of the most eccentric and original minds that ever existed. They show varied and recondite reading; and their facts and suggestions are blended and vitalized by a strong and fervent imagination. At every step some extraordinary theory is illustrated by unexpected analogies, and the style is bristling with quaint Latinisms, which in another writer would be pedantic, but in Browne seem the natural garb of thought. All this makes him one of the most fascinating of authors; and he frequently rises to a sombre and touching eloquence.

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) has in some respects an intellectual resemblance to Browne. Educated at Cambridge, he entered the Church, and soon rendered himself conspicuous in the pulpit. At the outbreak of the Civil War he incurred the displeasure of both factions by his studied moderation; but was for a time attached as chaplain to the Royalist army. During his campaigning Fuller industriously collected the materials for his most popular work, the Worthies of England and Wales. This, more than his Church History, has made his name known to posterity. His Sermons exhibit peculiarities of style which render him one of the most remarkable writers of his age (115). His writings are ever amusing, not only from the multitude of curious details, but also from the quaint yet frequently profound reflections suggested by these details. The Worthies contains biographical notices of eminent Englishmen, with descriptions of the botany, scenery, antiquities, and other matters of interest connected with their shires. It is an invaluable treasury of racy and interesting anecdotes. Of whatever subject Fuller treats, he places it in so many novel and piquant lights that the attention of the reader is constantly stimulated. One source of his picturesqueness is his frequent use of antithesis; not a bare opposition of words, but the juxtaposition of apparently discordant ideas, from whose sudden contact there flashes forth the spark of wit. But the spark is always warmed by a glow of sympathy and tenderness; for there is no gloom in Fuller's thought. The genial flash of his fancy brightens the gravest topics.

The greatest theological writer of the English Church at this period was Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667). He was a thoroughly educated man, and from his early years was conspicuous on account of his talents and his learning. He entered the service of the Church, and is said, by his youthful eloquence, to have attracted the notice of Archbishop Laud, who made him one of his chaplains, and procured him a fellowship in All Souls' College, Oxford. During the Civil War he stood high in the favor of the Cavaliers and the Court. After the downfall of the king, Taylor taught a school, for a time, in Wales, and continued to take an active part in religious controversies. His opinions were of course obnoxious to the dominant party, and on several occasions subjected him to imprisonment. At the Restoration he was made a bishop, and during the short time that he held the office he exhibited the brightest qualities that can adorn the episcopal dignity.

Taylor's writings deal with sacred thoughts. In order to be reverent towards his subject, he did not find it necessary to curb his fancy, or to quench his rhetorical fervor. His style is uniformly magnificent and impressive, and his periods roll on with a soft yet mighty swell, often having somewhat of the charm of verse. Jeffrey called him "the most Shakespearean of our great divines;" but it would be more appropriate to compare him to Spenser. He has the same pictorial fancy, the same harmony of arrangement as Spenser, and lacks the energy and the profound philosophy of the great dramatist, though like him, he draws his illustrations from the most familiar objects, and knows how to paint the terrible and the sublime as well as the tender and affecting. Together with Spenser's sweetness he has somewhat of the languor of Spenser's style. His intense study of ancient authors seems to have infected him with their Oriental and imaginative mode of thought. In his scholarly writing there may be an occasional indication of pedantry; in his religious life there is no cant, no hypocrisy. He was nearer abreast the truth than any former religious man of letters had been. In argument, in exhortation, he writes with the freedom and exuberance of his honest, happy soul. This man, with the genial style springing from his happy nature, is a most interesting character among polemical writers. His geniality did not prevent his being firm in his convictions. Living in an age when convictions assaults, even Jeremy Taylor was

had to be maintained against

compelled to enter the arena with other thinkers. His polemical writings are unique. They are free from personal abuse; they are as broad in spirit as they are lofty in style. They are thoroughly benevolent. His style is unfit for the close reasoning of the polemic. His wanton fancy will beguile him from the direct line of an argument.

The best known of Taylor's controversial writings is the treatise On the Liberty of Prophesying. That work gives him the glory of being the one who put forth the "first famous plea for tolerance in religion, on a comprehensive basis and on deep-seated foundations." Although intended by Taylor to secure indulgence for the persecuted Episcopal preachers, it is, of course, equally applicable to the teachers of all forms of religion. An Apology for Fixed and Set Forms of Worship was an elaborate defence of the noble ritual of the Anglican Church. Among his works of a disciplinary and practical tendency may be mentioned The Life of Christ, or the Great Exemplar, in which the scattered details of the Evangelists and the Fathers are co-ordinated in a continuous narrative. Still more popular than these are the two admirable treatises, On the Rule and Exercise of Holy Living, and On the Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying, which mutually correspond to and complete each other. The least admirable of Taylor's productions is the Ductor Dubitantium, a treatise on questions of casuistry. His Sermons are very numerous, and are among the most eloquent, learned, and powerful in the whole range of Christian literature. As in his character, so in his writings, Taylor is the ideal of an Anglican pastor; in both he exemplifies the union of intellectual vigor and originality with practical simplicity and fervor.

Many men eminent for learning, piety, and zeal, appeared in the ranks of the Nonconformists at this time; but if we omi the grandest, -Milton and Bunyan,—who are reserved for subsequent chapters, the only writer claiming a distinct notice is Richard Baxter (1615-1691). He was the consistent and unconquerable defender of the right of religious liberty; and in the evil days of James II. was exposed to the virulence and brutality of the infamous Jeffreys. With the exception of The Saint's Everlasting Rest and A Call to the Unconverted, his works are little known at the

* Hallam Vol. II., p. 425.