grateful exaggeration in Ben Jonson's eulogy, we can still believe that Bacon was indeed a very convincing speaker. He was not a declaimer; he would not seem to have spoken with heat and fervour: if we raise upon Ben Jonson's description a picture of a hushed audience listening to a glowing orator, we shall be very far from the probable reality. A studied orator, he affected gravity and weight; speaking "leisurely, and rather drawingly than hastily," on the principle that "a slow speech confirmeth the memory, addeth a conceit of wisdom to the hearers, besides a seemliness of speech and countenance." From all that we know, it seems unmistakable that he addressed chiefly the self-interest and confirmed passions of his audience. The main study of his life was how to "work" men.

His verbal ingenuity was great, and carefully cultivated. Under the title of Promus of Formularies and Elegancies,' Mr Spedding has published some specimens of his store of happy expressions, repartees, epigrams, quotations from all sources, laid up for use upon fitting occasions. His collection of apothegms was another part of the same elaborate preparation. In his Preface he says: Certainly they are of excellent use. They are mucrones verborum, pointed speeches. Cicero prettily calls them salinas, salt-pits; that you may extract salt out of, and sprinkle it where you will. They serve to be interlaced in continued speech. They serve to be recited upon occasion of themselves. They serve if you take out

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the kernel of them, and make them your own."

Another of his studies for Persuasion appears in a fragment first published in 1597, entitled 'Of the Colours of Good and Evil,' or, more fully, 'A Table of Colours or Appearances of Good and Evil, and their Degrees, as places of Persuasion and Dissuasion, and their several Fallaxes and the Elenches of them." In the beginning he says that "the persuader's labour is to make things appear good or evil, and that in higher or lower degree; which as it may be performed by true and solid reasons, so it may be represented also by colours, popularities, and circumstances, which are of such force, as they sway the ordinary judgment either of a weak man, or of a wise man not fully and considerately attending and pondering the matter." One of these "Colours" may be quoted as an example of his ingenuity: he himself would probably have been prepared to use and enforce either side according as he found it necessary:

"That course which keeps the matter in a man's power is good; that which leaves him without retreat is bad; for to have no means of retreating is to be in a sort powerless; and power is a good thing.

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Appertaining to this persuasion, the forms

are,

you shall engage yourself; on the other side, tantum quantum voles sumes ex fortuna, &c.—you shall

keep the matter in your own hands. The reprehension of it is, that proceeding and resolving in all actions is necessary; for as he saith well, not to resolve is to resolve; and many times it breeds as many necessities, and engageth as far in some other sort, as to resolve.

"So it is but the covetous man's disease translated into power; for the covetous man will enjoy nothing, because he will have his full store and possibility to enjoy more; so by this reason a man should execute nothing, because he should be still indifferent and at liberty to execute anything. Besides necessity and this same jacta est alea" ["the die is cast"]"hath many times an advantage, because it awaketh the powers of the mind, and strengtheneth endeavour."

OTHER WRITERS.

DIVINES UNDER JAMES.-During the reign of James the Puritans gave little trouble. Forbearing open controversy, they gained ground among the people by their exemplary lives, and left the literary champions of conformity to other employment. Richard Field, 1561-1616, celebrated at Oxford as a disputant, and a favourite royal chaplain under James, wrote a treatise to prove that the English Church was the Church of early Christianity, and that the Roman Catholic peculiarities were of modern origin. His style is periodic and sonorous, without containing unidiomatic inversions. He argues with considerable vigour, and occasionally warms into impressive declamation. Lancelot Andrewes, 15551626, Bishop of Winchester, and a Privy Councillor, was a man of greater vivacity. He was a favourite with Bacon, who records some of his witty apothegms. As a bishop he was hospitable and munificent. He was celebrated for his knowledge of languages. The fact that he was the most popular preacher at Court, both with Elizabeth and with James, shows us whence the fashions of cumbrously superfluous quotation and fanciful word-play came into the sermon - writing of this and the following period. In redundant display of learning he goes beyond even Jeremy Taylor; and his word-play is after the manner we have illustrated from Ascham and Lyly. Bishop Morton, 1564-1659, a descendant from Cardinal Morton, was a voluminous author, chiefly of controversial works; but the length, abstemiousness, and kindly generosity of his life, and the troubles of his later years, will do more to preserve his memory than genius either in thought or expression. John Donne, 1573-1631, the founder of the "Metaphysical" school of poetry, having ruined his prospects of advancement in secular office by an imprudent marriage, after some ten years' uneasy waiting for employment, was urged by King James to enter the Church, and was ordained in 1616. As compared with Andrewes, Donne has the same characteristics of excessive quotation and fanciful wit; still the two are very different. For one thing, though that is not so striking, they draw their quotations

In

from different sources: Donne is specially read in the Latin classics. They differ chiefly in force of intellect. Donne is more powerful and original; divides and distinguishes with greater subtlety, and fetches his images from a greater distance. Donne's sermons, an intellectual epicure not too fastidious to read sermons will find a delicious feast. Whether these sermons can be taken as patterns by the modern preacher is another affair. It will not be contended that any congregation is equal to the effort of following his subtleties. In short, as exercises in abstract subtlety, fanciful ingenuity, and scholarship, the sermons are admirable. Judged by the first rule of popular exposition, the style is bad-a bewildering maze to the ordinary reader, much more to the ordinary hearer. In the specimens that we quote there is no want of distinct order, but the expression is in the highest degree abstract and subtle. They are taken from a sermon on St Paul at Malta, the text being, "They changed their minds, and said that he was a god:"

"The first words of our text carry us necessarily so far back as to see from what they changed; and their periods are easily seen their terminus a quo and their terminus ad quem, were these; first that he was a murderer, then that he was a god. An error in morality; they censure deeply upon light evidence: an error in divinity; they transfer the name and estimation of a god upon an unknown man. Place both the errors in divinity (so you may justly do); and then there is an error in charity, a hasty and inconsiderate condemning; and an error in faith, a superstitious creating of an imaginary god. Now upon these two general considerations will this exercise consist; first that it is natural logic, an argumentation naturally imprinted in man, to argue, and conclude thus great calamities are inflicted, therefore God is greatly provoked. These men of Malta were but natural men, but barbarians (as S. Luke calls them), and yet they argue and conclude so: Here is a judgment executed, therefore here is evidence that God is displeased. And so far they kept within the limits of humanity and piety too. But when they descended hastily and inconsiderately to particular and personal applications,-This judgment upon this man is an evidence of his guiltiness in this offence, then they transgressed the bounds of charity; that because a viper had seized Paul's hand, therefore Paul must needs be a murderer.

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"So that for this doctrine" (the natural "argumentation" above spoken of) a man needs not be preached unto, a man needs not be catechised; a man needs not read the fathers, nor the councils, nor the schoolmen, nor the ecclesiastical story, nor summists, nor casuists, nor canonists; no nor the Bible itself for this doctrine; for this doctrine, that when God strikes He is angry, and when He is angry He strikes, the natural man hath as full a library in his bosom as the Christian.

"The same author of ours, Moses, tells us, 'The Lord our God is Lord of lords, and God of gods, and regardeth no man's person.' The natural man hath his author too, that tells him, Semper virgines furia,-the furies (they whom they conceive to execute revenge upon malefactors) are always virgins, that is, not to be corrupted by any solicitations. That no dignity shelters a

man from the justice of God, is a natural conclusion, as well as a divine. We have a sweet singer of Israel that tells us, Non dimidiabit dies, The bloody and deceitful man shall not live out half his days;' and the natural man hath his sweet singer too, a learned poet, that tells him, that seldom any enormous malefactor enjoys siccam mortem (as he calls it), a dry, an unbloody death. That blood requires blood is a natural conclusion as well as a divine. Our sweet singer tells us again, that if he fly to the farthest ends of the earth, or to the sea, or to heaven, or to hell, he shall find God there; and the natural man hath his author that tells him, Qui fugit, non effugit, he that runs away from God does not scape God. That there is no sanctuary, no privileged place, against which God's Quo Warranto does not lie, is a natural conclusion as well as a divine. Sanguis Abel, is our proverb, that Abel's blood cries for revenge; and Sanguis Esopi is the natural man's proverb, that Esop's blood cries for revenge; for Esop's blood," &c.

Besides his Sermons, Donne's most famous prose work is 'Biathanatos,' a treatise on Suicide.

DIVINES UNDER CHARLES I.-Joseph Hall, 1574-1656, is illustrious in the Church history of England chiefly through his efforts to reconcile Dissenters with the Established Church. Though professedly anxious for religious union, he was a stanch adherent to Episcopacy, and wrote in its defence against both Presbyterianism and Romanism. His literary career extends through nearly sixty years. His first work consisted of three books of Satires,' published in 1597, and other three published the following yearperformances which are praised even by such an authority as Pope. In 1608-11 he published his 'Epistles.' His best-known prose works are his Contemplations' on Scripture, often quoted in popular commentaries, and his 'Occasional Meditations,' one of his latest productions. Both as a writer and as a preacher his reputation stands high. With less scholarship and wit than Andrewes, and less original power than Donne or Taylor, he writes with great fluency and energy, and with much better taste than any of these writers. Some have called him the best preacher of that century-no small honour among such giants; and undoubtedly, for pulpit oratory, his strong feelings and fluent expression, guided by superior taste, would be more effective than the undisciplined profusion and originality of his great rivals. Certainly, though he had not the genius of Donne or Taylor, he is a man of great mark in the history of our literature. The variety as well as the power of his writings challenges attention. Over and above his voluminous works connected with religion, he claims to be the first English Satirist, the first English writer of Epistles,

1 These Epistles are sometimes said to be the first collection of "letters" in the English language. Such a statement involves a slight confusion of names. Hall's Epistles are not "letters" at all in the sense of correspondence on passing events, but are really moral and religious discussions in the epistolary form. To prevent confusion, they had better be allowed to keep their title of Epistles.'

and his 'Mundus Alter et Idem' (Another World yet the Same) is said (though that is disputed) to have furnished Swift with the idea of Gulliver's Travels.'1'

The character and opinions of the "immortal Chillingworth," 1602-1644, attract interest; his style is as finished, clear, and vigorous as any that was written in his day; and he argues with great force. He was a distinguished student at Oxford, a versatile scholar, eminent both in mathematics and in poetry, and noted for the confident independence of his views, and fearlessness in asserting and acting up to them. His patron was Laud, and it needed no little policy to keep so erratic and independent a genius in the orthodox track. He was first gained over by the Roman Catholics; and when regained, he refused to sign the Church formulas, consenting only when it was urged that they were merely bonds of peace and union, and that subscription did not imply belief of the whole. At the siege of Gloucester, he showed his versatility by proposing certain siege engines on a Roman model. Before the King at Oxford, he boldly attacked the vices of the Cavaliers. His chief work is 'The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation,' &c., 1637. It is a remarkably bold and liberal book. He is not tied down to his own Church; by the "religion of Protestants" he understands neither "the doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melanchthon; nor the Confession of Augusta, or Geneva; nor the Catechism of Heidelberg, nor the Articles of the Church of England-no, nor the harmony of Protestant Confessions," but "the Bible, and THE BIBLE ONLY." His work is undoubtedly the germ of Taylor's 'Liberty of Prophesying,' published ten years later; and it breathes a still bolder and wider spirit of tolerance :

:

"I see plainly, and with mine own eyes, that there are Popes against Popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the Church of one age against the Church of another age. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon. Propose me anything out of this Book, and require whether I believe or no, and seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this. God hath said so, therefore it is true. In other things I will take no man's liberty of judgment from him; neither shall any man take mine from me. I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian: I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me. I am fully assured that God does not, and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man than this, to believe the Scripture to be

1 Like other writers of the time, he has his pedantic nickname. Sir Henry Wotton called him the English Seneca, probably because he wrote Satires, Epistles, and Moral Essays. Fuller says-" He was commonly called our English Seneca, for the pureness, plainness, and fulness of his style; not ill at controversies, more happy at comments, very good in characters, best of all in meditations."