ments were assumed, without being proved by experiment. As soon as a general statement has been formed by careful induction, reasoning can again take the place of experiment. Thus, when it is fully established as a general law that "at certain degrees of heat all metals become liquid," we need not in particular cases make use again of experiment; but we can use Aristotle's method, and say "At certain degrees of heat all metals become liquid; iron is a metal, therefore at a certain degree of heat it will become liquid." Bacon also taught, that as soon as general laws had been established by careful induction, the next process was to discover by reasoning, or deduction, how they could be turned to account in useful inventions for the help and comfort of man.

Bacon's writings on Nature, and the right way of gaining a knowledge of it, roused many persons to a patient, careful study of the world around them. At first the strife of the civil war, and the intense interest of the political struggle for constitutional freedom, so engrossed men's minds, that they could scarcely feel the importance of anything else; but even in the midst of the conflict there were a few persons who began to study Nature on Bacon's method. They met together to compare the results of their experiments; and after the restoration of Charles II. they formed themselves into a society for the pursuit of science, which still exists as the Royal Society.

CHAPTER XII.

JAMES 1. AND CHARLES I. (1603-1649).

As we pass from the age of Elizabeth to that of James I. we shall find that the conditions of the new time were in many respects less favourable to the growth of English Literature. But notwithstanding this, some of the old life was active and strong, and there were still many men who saw more clearly than others the true ideal, and who strove to express it in different forms—

"Giving virtue a new birth,

And a life that ne'er grows old."

And indeed some of these forms were higher than any literature, for they were practical efforts to raise human life and the world to the highest ideal, and thus to make reality of the noble dreams of the best men.

We have seen how the drama had been one of the chief glories of the Elizabethan literature. During the first half of James I.'s reign, Shakespeare was writing his best plays, and Ben Jonson was still at work; so also were other play-writers who had grown to manhood and had begun their work before Elizabeth's death. But even before these passed away the play-writers of the Stuart time began to lose sight of the high purpose which the Elizabethan dramatists had kept in view. There was a change also in the audience at the theatres. The Puritans looked on earthly life as opposed to spiritual, and this caused them to strongly object to the drama, which represents human

life more vividly than any cther form of literature, and thus a number of truth-loving, right-minded persons of the middle class, who in Elizabeth's days made up a great part of the audience at the theatres, gave up going to plays. At Court, and among those who followed Court fashion, low views of lite prevailed, and a corrupt taste had sprung up for stories of evil passions. It was for such an audience that the playwriters of the Stuart time wrote their plays. At the end of the reign of Charles I., when the Puritans were in power, the theatres were closed by Act of Parliament.

Religious controversy was still active, but there was less dispute respecting reforms in the Church. On James's accession he had called a conference of the clergy and the Puritans at Hampton Court, and the objections of the Puritans to the Book of Common Prayer were stated; but it was found that the alterations proposed by the Puritans affected the constitution of the Church itself, and nothing was done. From that time the hope of making the English 'Church what they wished was given up by the Puritans, and they began more and more to establish congregations outside of the National Church.

The controversies of James's reign are chiefly important on account of their having led to two other lines of work— the new translation of the Bible, and the study of history and antiquities. When James I. came to the throne, two translations of the Bible were in use-the Bishops' Bible and the Geneva Bible. The Bishops' Bible was a translation made in Elizabeth's reign under the direction of Archbishop Parker. The translators were fifteen learned men, most of whom were bishops. The Geneva Bible was a translation made by the English Protestants who took refuge at Geneva during the persecutions in Queen Mary's reign. At the Hampton Court Conference the clergy quoted the Bishops' Bible and the Puritans the Geneva, in support of their arguments, and the difference in the two trans

lations often raised new disputes as to which was cor rect. It was thought that even if the idea of all the English people forming one outward Church must be given up, they might at least have one Bible, and that this would in fact be a means of drawing religious parties together, and giving union to their religious feelings and opinions. King James, therefore, appointed a commission, on which were fortyseven of the most eminent scholars of the time, both among the clergy and the Puritans, and these men worked for three years with earnest care in preparing the best translation of the Bible which could then be made. In 1611 it was published by royal command, and became the authorised version to be used by all English people. It is valuable not only for its correctness and fidelity to the original languages in which the Word of God was written, but also for its language and style, which is the pure, simple mother-tongue of the English people, altogether free from the faults and fashions of the literary style of that time, or of any time. Our English Bible has thus its own place in the story of our English Literature.

The religious and political controversies of the time led also to the study of history and antiquities, in order that the combatants might find support from the past. Thus Usher, in order to show that the English Church was originally independent of Rome, wrote with careful research "A Discourse on the Religion Anciently Professed by the Irish and British ;" and this was followed by a larger work on the Antiquities of the British Church. Sir Walter Raleigh wrote in prison his "History of the World," as far as the second Macedonian War. Bishop Andrewes, in his controversy with Cardinal Bellarmin, had to produce arguments from Church history and the writings of the Fathers. John Selden was, however, perhaps one of the most intelligent students of the past. He was a lawyer of great learning and remarkable memory, and had a vast

store of information on many subjects; but he studied the past, not for the sake of finding arguments to support a party, so much as to gain from it all the light he could, in order wisely to understand the present. He saw more clearly than most men of the time how certain influences had been, and still were at work, and how they must produce certain results; he thus understood how seeming evil works out good, and how men must work with their times, or else their lives will be a useless striving for a vain purpose of their own. A man like Selden is almost sure to be misjudged by the parties of the day, and he fell under the displeasure of the king and the suspicions of the Puritans. He wrote in James's reign two books, one on "Titles of Honour," and the other on the "History of Tithes." In 1624 he entered Parliament, and used his vast legal learning and historical knowledge in defending the constitutional rights of the English people against the king's misuse of the royal power.

Poetry during James's reign suffered much from the influence of that particular style of writing called Euphuism. In Elizabeth's reign it had been but the outside form in which vigorous thought and bright imagination had been expressed, but later it became the great object of a writer to show skill in inventing curious fantastic phrases, and in using words that began or ended with the same sounds, whether they best expressed the idea or not. The sense was often thus made obscure, and real feeling, which always finds expression in simple natural words such as come most readily to the mind, was lost. As a great deal of poetry is the expression of feeling, sentiments were invented, or affected, for the purpose of being put into euphuistic verse, and the ideas became as fantastic and unnatural as the style. Many poems were written in fanciful shapes, such as altars, pillars, wings; and then each, line had to be made the exact length to fit into its place. One