as big as an oxe, etc.' Mr. Rous gives at some length the description of the country and the adventures of the crew of the Salutation, who, by some accident, got left behind at Bell's Sound from August until May, and endured great hardships by the excessive cold.

The Essay was another form of writing which had a great vogue at this time; it was brought into fashion by Bacon, who found it an appropriate vehicle for his lighter thoughts, and suited to a variety of subjects, being capable of expansion to suit a discursive theme such as his most charming dissertation on Gardens, or of contraction to an almost epigrammatic brevity to convey some didactic reflections on Friendship, Religion, or the like. Dr. Earle made use of the same form for his clever satirical little character sketches in his Microcosmography, for which it was equally well suited. Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici is really a series of essays, though in the shape of numbered sections of a long treatise. His dissertation upon Urn Burial, called Hydriotaphia, appeared in pamphlet form, as did most antiquarian papers or articles on kindred subjects, for the day of the magazines was not yet.

The Verneys do not appear to have been great readers; Sir Ralph's anxious inquiries as to the welfare of Turkeywork cushions and armour which he fears might have fallen a prey to moth and rust, include but slight mention to books; a casual inquiry about 'The Booke of Martirs and other bookes in the withdrawingroom' comprises his anxiety on that head; but in the unoccupied leisure and dulness of a French country town, he turned to reading as a resource and wrote to Dr. Denton to send him books. His taste leaned to politics and religion; he asks for no poetry and no romances, though Mary had a weakness for the latter for which Uncle Denton rebukes her. Ralph's request was for 'Milton's Iconoclastes; the Levellers 'vindicated; Prynne's Historical Collection of ancient 'Parliaments; an Impeachment against Cromwell and 'Ireton; Ascham; Bishop Andrews 2 manuals; Hooker

'his 6 and 8 books; History of Independency; 2 Sclaters.' In answering Dr. Denton 'heartily recommends Sclater to landlady's reading.' This was one of his pet names for Mary. It treats or rather indeed mencions AntiXt . . 'tell her it is now time to leave her romanz; to please 'me it is one of the best books I ever read; he is 'strangely piquante and short and strangely convincing.'

Sir Ralph, though he never attained much fluency in speaking French, had a competent knowledge of it for reading and writing, and Dr. Denton, anxious no doubt to suggest a wholesome occupation to him that should keep him from brooding on his troubles, suggests, 'If you would do a good worke indeed you should translate Canterbury and Chillingworth their books into French, ' for certainly never any books gave a greater blow to 'papacy than those two.' 'Canterbury's' book is probably the one written by Laud in answer to Fisher the Jesuit: a book which King Charles thought very highly of and bequeathed to his little daughter Elizabeth 'to ground 'her against Popery.' After the execution of the Archbishop Henry Verney sent to his brother his last sermon and prayer, 'it is, I assure you,' he wrote, 'a true book ' and a good one.'

The King was a great reader, and the list of his books which he had with him in captivity, and which were in Mr. Herbert's charge, show what were his tastes; they comprised a Bible, Bishop Andrews' Sermons, Hooker's 'Ecclesiastical Polity, Dr. Hammond's works, Villapandus upon Ezekiel, Sands's Paraphrase upon King David's 'Psalms, Herbert's Divine Poems; and also Godfrey of 'Bulloigne, writ in Italian by Torquato Tasso, and done

6

into English Heroick verse by Mr. Fairfax, a poem his 'Majesty much commended, as he did also Ariosto by 'Sir John Harrington, a facetious poet much esteemed by Prince Henry his master; Spenser's Fairy Queen ' and the like for alleviating his spirits after serious studies.' 'In many of his books,' continues Mr. Herbert, 'he

'delighted himself with the motto Dum spiro spero which 'he wrote frequently. He understood authors in the 'original, whether Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, or 'Italian, which three last he spoke perfectly and none 'better read in histories of all sorts, which rendered him 'accomplisht and also would discourse well in Arts and 'Sciences, and indeed not unfitted for any subject.'1

In these lists of books, whether of royal or private readers fiction appears to take the lowest place, the middle region is occupied by travels, essays, and history, while the highest honours are accorded to Poetry and Divinity. A classification which, it must be owned, has much to recommend it.

1 Memorials of the Last Days of King Charles, by Sir Thomas Herbert,

CHAPTER X

NEWS

WITH what eager interest must news have been looked for during the stirring years of the second quarter of the century. Long before the war actually broke out the ferment was working, and thoughtful men were looking anxiously for developments of a strained situation. Clarendon speaks of the opening years of the reign of Charles I. as a time of great peace and prosperity, but from the very beginning the fires of discontent were smouldering, and from the moment of the meeting of the Long Parliament no man could tell what a day might bring forth. And as yet there were no daily papers, no morning news of the debates overnight; men had to wait with what patience they might for the weekly newsletter, and perhaps for several days after it had arrived in the neighbourhood for their turn for a sight of it.

Though by the time the war began an immense number of Diurnalls and Correntes were in circulation, they did not for long supplant the private newsletter which was such a feature of the time, and upon which most country dwellers depended for reliable information of what was passing. And this for obvious reasons: the Censor was then a power beyond the privilege of the Press. Not Lord Kitchener himself could be more strict about war correspondents than were those in power on either side, and no news was permitted to pass which had not been authorised. But the news-letter was a private

matter. A gentleman living in the country, or two or three neighbours combining to share the expense would arrange to have news supplied regularly by some professional writer, of whom there were at that time many in town, who sent copies to several patrons at a certain fixed rate, and a cipher would be agreed upon to convey dangerous matter in case of the letters being opened. Impartiality, of course, was no more to be expected than in the public prints, and would not have been acceptable; the writer knew what views were expected, and wrote accordingly, but at least he was unmuzzled. A recent book by Lady Newdigate, strangely called Cavalier and Puritan, though dealing with post-Restoration times, gives very interesting specimens of this kind of correspondence, carefully preserved by the descendants of Sir Richard Newdigate, to whom the letters were supplied, and though they do not bear on the period under consideration, they give a very fair idea of the kind of channel of communication that existed, when several days' journey over bad roads lay between many a country home and the news of the town.

For long the public newspapers were neither daily nor even weekly; the earliest were yearly. Gallo Belgicus, which was supposed to be the first published in England, was a kind of Annual Register or History of our own Times. A note to Earle's Microcosmography says: 'It was writ in Latin and entitled Mercurii Gallo-Belgici : sive, rerum in Gallia et Belgia potissimum: Hispania 'quoque, Italia, Anglia, Germanica, Poponia, Vicinisque locis 'ap anno 1588, ad Martium anni 1594, gestarum nuncii. Vol. I. printed in 8vo at Cologne, 1598, and published annually till 1605; then half-yearly. There was certainly a great advantage in the use of a common tongue, so that one newspaper could supply the nations of Europe without translation.

Mercurius seems to have been the favourite title, though the papers are sometimes mentioned as Corente