CHAP. XI. the predecessors of the Mohawks of the eighteenth century, were some of the titles given to those men, the refuse of every rank, who were always as ready to cut a purse as a throat, and whose occupation was to insult, wound, and kill passengers on the streets, and unroof the houses of rich citizens for the purposes of plunder. Another class of thieves and robbers was, the coneycatchers, cheats who attended every wake and fair, and plundered out-houses and poultry-yards as they traversed the country; the Savoy and the brick-kilns of Islington were their favourite haunts. Cozeners, cut-purses, foysters, and nippers were appellations of other rogues who practised every kind of thieving, swindling, and kidnapping, with even greater dexterity than their successors of later days. While the streets of London were thus infested, the highways were equally dangerous; bands of robbers, armed with pikes and fire-arms, scoured the country in every direction; and to escape justice, they disguised themselves with visors, wigs, and false beards, and even had false tails for their horses. After the civil war was over, many of the impoverished cavaliers became dashing highwaymen; the chief places they infested being Salisbury Plain, and Gadshill, in Kent. When such was the state of the country as regarded its police, the office of a magistrate was no sinecure; and the prisons of London were so constantly overcrammed that the jail fever broke out periodically, and thus carried off those whom the gibbet did not destroy. The night watchmen and constables had the most dangerous office, however; but they were well armed with partisans, and they made no ceremony in knocking a bully or a gallant on the head, so that, as an old writer quaintly observes, many "summed up their days at the end of a watchman's bill."* 13. Diet and mode of living. The character of James I., in domestic living as in other matters, did not tend to refine or elevate, but rather brutalized, the manners of the courtiers, as well as increased the expense and extravagance of feasting. No dish was valued except it was smothered with butter, ambergris, cream, and marrow, or enriched with lemons, oranges, dates, and dried fruits. A herring-pie seems to have been a dainty dish, and was filled with all sorts of villainous compounds; snails, also, and the legs of frogs, were stewed or fried in a variety of ways, with oil, spices, wine, vinegar, and eggs. During the Commonwealth, the intemperance in eating and drinking which had disgraced the reigns of James and his son, was discountenanced; the dishes were simple, and even coarse; a pig * Pict. Hist, III., 635-638. 1603-60 stewed in a coating of clay among the hot ashes of the stokehole, Scotch collops, and sausages, and marrow puddings, were standing dishes on the Protector's table. Elaborate French dishes were also served up, but only for show. The Danish custom of drinking healths, introduced by Christian, King of Denmark, when he visited King James in 1606, was prohibited by the Puritans; but, after Cromwell's banquets, there generally ensued much boisterous merriment, though no music but that of trumpets and drums enlivened the feast. Potatoes, which the discovery of America introduced into Europe, were as yet very rare, and could only be had at a royal table; they cost 2s. a pound, and, in 1619, they formed, for the first time, a dish on the royal table. Cauliflowers cost more than a shilling each; and artichokes were 16 for 3s. 4d. Tea was not imported to any extent before 1637, when the charter of the East India Company was renewed. Coffee and sugar, also, were not unknown; but they were luxuries known only to a very few. 14. Houses and furniture. The common dwelling-houses of the seventeenth century were, for the most part, in the same condition as they had been in the previous century, being still built of lath and plaster, with gay, but flimsy, fronts of stuccowork. Government, indeed, often interposed, to produce a better style of building. James I., like his predecessor, issued proclamations, commanding brick or stone to be used in all street fronts, and some examples were set of the new mode of building in houses of note. Specimens of the old timber houses of this period are very common in our old towns, York, Chester, Newcastle, &c. The modern classical style of architecture dates from the reign of James I., and it owes its establishment in this country to one man-Inigo Jones, the architect, who was born in Inigo Jones. London in 1572, and, after having resided in Italy for several years during the period when architecture attained its zenith, returned to England, and was warmly patronised by James. The peculiar style which he introduced is called the Palladian, from Palladio, the celebrated Italian architect, under whom he studied; and his chief works were, the Banqueting House at Whitehall, the only fragment erected of his splendid design for a palace at Whitehall; Heriot's Hospital, at Edinburgh; part of St. John's College, Oxford; the portico of Old St. Paul's, &c.* He died in 1652. In the interiors of houses, the large and stately saloons and * Pict. Hist., III., 571-573. Picture CHAP. XI. galleries began to be decorated with paintings and galleries. sculpture. The Earl of Arundel, as early as 1615, began to collect statues and pictures, and his gallery at Arundel House was the first collection of art treasures in Great Britain. He lived to see them scattered by the Puritans; but they were preserved to the country; the statues and marbles being now at Oxford, the busts at Wilton, and the gems at Marlborough House. Charles I. was also a large purchaser of paintings, and his galleries were adorned with several glorious works of Raffaelle and Titian, of Correggio and Guido. He brought Raffaelle's cartoons into England; invited Vandyke to his court; Mytens was another artist whom he encouraged; and Rubens painted for him the ceiling of the Banqueting House. When rooms were thus so grandly furnished by the best artists of Europe, we may expect to find domestic furniture exceedingly Furniture. sumptuous; rich embroidery was used for curtains and bed-hangings; tables were covered with rich carpets from Turkey and Persia; although floors were still covered with rushes and mats. Chairs, tables, couches, wardrobes, &c., were made of the hardest and finest woods, and richly carved and polished; and china-ware began to be regular articles of importation by the East India Company. SECTION III.-LITERATURE, LEARNING, AND EDUCATION. 15. Education. The literary education of youth was still confined almost wholly to Latin and Greek. Discipline was extremely rigid, and the fame of being a "learned and lashing master' was generally esteemed the highest commendation. To qualify this severity, certain seasons of saturnalia were allowed, the chief of which was the barring-out, too well known to need The Eton description. Another was the Eton Montem, which Montem. probably originated in the festival of the Boy-Bishop, and was practised as early as the reign of Elizabeth. The study of modern languages, especially that of Italy, was gradually introduced, and also the study of philosophy, which soon acquired that sound practical character which Bacon's Novum Organum was so well calculated to encourage. education Besides intellectual acquirements, however, education still partook of a chivalrous character, and the young nobility were A chivalrous trained, by skilful professors, in fencing, vaulting, still given. shooting with the musket and cannon, and sometimes even in the use of the bow and mounting the great war-horse. In the intervals of study, also, the pupils were taught to perform 1603-60 military evolutions and to use arms, by regularly appointed drillsergeants of skill and reputation. When the whole round of education was finished, travelling on the continent succeeded; care being taken by the government that the tourists did not reside long in those cities where popery and Jesuitism predominated. The education of females had much deteriorated since the reign of Elizabeth; and ladies, during this period, fell from the high position they had occupied under that glorious princess.* 66 Royster Gurton's 16. Dramatic Literature. At the commencement of the second half of the sixteenth century, England could boast of little in the shape of dramatic literature, besides the Scripture mysteries, and the more popular moral plays. The latter furnished abundant opportunities for satire on the times, for ludicrous humour, and for attacks on the old or the new religion. They, therefore, gradually drew nearer to regular comedies, the earliest of which, properly so called, was "Ralph Royster Doyster," written Ralph by Udall, one of the masters, first at Eton, and afterwards Doyster. at Westminster. The author calls it a comedy of interlude," which latter title was the name given to those dramatic productions that appeared in the transition period, when the moralities were undergoing the change above mentioned. The chief writer of these interludes was John Heywood. Another celebrated piece among the early comedies was "Gammer Gurton's Gammer Needle," written about the year 1565, by Still, Bishop of Needle. Bath and Wells, as is commonly supposed. It is impossible to conceive anything meaner, in subject and characters, than this strange farce; but the progress of literature soon excited, in one person, an emulation of the ancient drama, and Sackville, in writing the tragedy of "Gorboduc; or, Ferrex and Porrex," has the honour of having led the way.. The story, which is borrowed from our fabulous British legends, is full of slaughter, as The was then customary in dramatic writings, but the language Gorboduc. is vigorous, the political maxims are grave and profound, and it is evidently the work of a powerful mind. It was first represented before Elizabeth, in 1562. Many other dramas now followed; in 1546, a Master of the Revels was first appointed to regulate their representation before the court; and, as we have before seen, regular theatres arose, in which they were publicly exhibited. The immediate precursors of Shakspere now appeared-Peele, tragedy of Pict. Hist., III., 632. + See Pict. Hist., III., 579, for description of one. The before CHAP. XI. Marlow, Greene, Lily, Kyd; Lodge, and Nash, who may dramatists be considered as the real founders of the modern English Shakspere. drama.* Marlow was the greatest of them. He was born in 1562, graduated at Cambridge, and, in 1586, produced his tragedy of "Tamburlaine the Great," which has more spirit and poetry than any which preceded it; has more action on the stage; a shorter and more dramatic dialogue, a more figurative style, and a far more varied and skilful versification. A better kind of blank verse was used in it, so much so, that Marlow has been said to have re-established this species of composition; it certainly became, in his hands, the finest instrument that the tragic muse had yet employed in any country. The Jew of Malta," Faustus," and "Edward II.," are other works of this writer, better known. His life was like his writings, wild, fervid, and erratic; and he came to a melancholy end in a tavern fray, at the early age of thirty-one (1593). Sketch of life. 66 We Much as Marlow and his contemporaries did for the drama, the latter remained incomplete till their great master came-William Shakspere, who was Shakspere's born at Stratford-on-Avon, in Warwickshire, in April, 1564. Although we know him better than any human writer, we scarcely know anything of his history. His boyhood and youth were spent in a rural life; at the age of eighteen he married; and about 1587, being then twenty-three years old, he repaired to London, after which we cannot trace him distinctly for some time. first find him one of the proprietors of the Blackfriar's Theatre; and, in 1598, he had already produced his best plays, and had acquired the character of being by far the best English dramatic writer of his day. At the same time, his fortune seems to have kept pace with his reputation; he had property in several theatres, and lived the life of a gentleman and a courtier, was patronised by Elizabeth, and an acquaintance of the highest characters of her court. But his chief delight appears to have been to mingle with the learned and intellectual of the day; and, at the club at the Mermaid tavern in Friday-street, Cheapside, which was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, he met Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Cotton, Carew, Selden, Donne, Martin, and most of the great wits and scholars of the day. At the age of forty-eight, he retired to an estate which he had purchased in the neighbourhood of his native town, and, four years afterwards, died in 1616. For obvious reasons, we shall say nothing here upon the works of a poet so universally known and read, and shall, therefore, pass on to his contemporaries, first among whom stands Ben Ben Jonson. Jonson, who, after being educated at Westminster School, and passing through Cambridge, adopted the trade of his stepfather-that of a bricklayer; married at twenty, and then became a dramatic author; his comedy of "Every Man in his Humour" being brought out at the Rose Theatre when he was twenty-two (1596). Unlike Shakspere, who had generally drawn his comic scenes from Italian novels, or laid them in foreign |