Elizabethan

“ In the great Elizabethan age, when the English nation was finally hammered out, in the great eighteenth century when the British Empire was being built up everywhere, where in all these times, where was this symbolic stoical Englishman who dresses in drab and black and represses his feelings? ”

“ But her reign was disastrous, and the nation hailed with enthusiasm the Accession of Elizabeth. accession of Elizabeth, on the 17th of November, 1558. With her reign commences a new epoch, even in the history of Europe. Who does not talk of the Elizabethan era, when Protestantism was established in England, when illustrious poets and philosophers adorned the literature of the country, when commerce and arts received a great impulse, when the colonies in North America were settled, and when a constellation of great statesmen raised England to a pitch of glory not before attained? ”

“ The Elizabethans, as a nation, though brilliantly intellectual, were in many respects immature,—as if the characteristics of childhood were set in a body of manhood. Their delight in rapid changes of scene, in rapidly succeeding varied emotional sensations, above all, in their dislike of long and continuous mental strain—these are qualities peculiar to them as a nation. ”

“ England stood forth as the centre of opposition against Philip, and under the unwilling leadership of Elizabeth entered on its epic period of heroism, was stimulated to that remarkable outburst of energy and intellect and power which we call the Elizabethan age. ”

“ This Is a delightful characteristic. It is a noble characteristic. It is because of this that we forget and forgive the disagreeable and the savage, and, for we sometimes meet them, the foolish characteristics of the Elizabethan. We forget and forgive all this and express our idealisation of the country of Queen Elizabeth by the phrase "In Merry England." ”

“ All men of that age whose calling led them to adventure and enterprise could scarcely fail to find opportunity for heroism, self-denial, and sacrifice, and thus the Elizabethan Englishman of whatever station stands out to us of these later days as a great figure—the type and emblem of the England that was to be. ”

“ Elizabeth promoted commercial speculations, which diffused a vast increase of wealth among her people. The Elizabethan era was one of general prosperity. Her good spirits and gayness created a happy mood in the nation. ”

“ Visionary, impractical, restless, adventurous, these later Elizabethan heroes—bowing to no yoke, insisting on their own rights and scorning often the laws of others, yet careful to retain the best and most advantageous customs of any conquered country—naturally came from those nearest Elizabethan countries which lay abandoned behind them. ”

“ Not easily shall we find, either in Elizabethan times or in any other, a happier combination of solid good sense with eager poetic sentiment, of sound scholarship with wide-glancing intelligence, than in this little tractate of some thirty or forty ordinary pages, which dispelled the delusions of two generations, and made the poetical fortune of England sure. ”

“ Lately, when I've been reading up the Elizabethans, and one or two other periods, I've been amazed more than ever at the way things change. Even in talking to my uncle of seventy about the Victorians, it comes out astoundingly. The whole machinery of life, and the minds of every class and kind of man, change beyond recognition every generation. I don't know that 'Progress' is certain. All I know is that change is. These solid solemn provincials, and old maids, and business men, and all the immovable system of things I see round me, will vanish like smoke. ”

“ Merry England he calls it; Merry England has become a by-word, but it applies to a time long ago, before the Puritans swept away the Maypole and the Christmas revels. After all, despite the cruel punishments, the baiting of bears, cock-fighting, and the branding of criminals, the England of Elizabeth was a merry, wholesome England, hardly even to be fancied in these prosaic times.
To this credulous people, whose savage nature was undergoing a rapid progress of refinement, must be attributed the open mind and the willing heart. ”

“ English Whiggism, English liberalism, English nonconformity have made the world over anew. America, in particular, would have been infinitely poorer without the Puritan ferment. Should we have had the New England migration at all, if England had continued its calm and homogeneous development under Elizabethan influences? ”

“ The limit of the present work precludes a more detailed reference to the art of horsemanship and of farriery, arts, however, that were so intimately associated with the daily life of the Elizabethans that references to them are found continually in the dramatic literature of the time. ”

“ As in other cases and departments this century offers a curious "split" between its earlier part which declines [19] —not in goodness but like human life in vitality—from, but still preserves the character of, the pure Elizabethan, and its later, which grows up again—not in goodness but simply in the same vitality—towards the Augustan. This relationship is sufficiently illustrated in the actual letters. The great political importance of the Civil War of course reflects itself in them. ”

“ The rush of foreign influences on the England of Elizabeth's time, stimulated alike by the printing press, by religious movements, by the revival of ancient learning, and by the habits of travel and commerce, has not been equalled in force and volume by anything else in history. ”

“ It is my belief that conditions of life have so changed in three centuries, that, unless one can in some way get into the Elizabethan state of mind, view a play, so to speak, from the Elizabethan point of view, many parts of Shakespeare's dramas will be unappreciated to the same extent as were the class-day allusions by my friend. ”

“ We must be satisfied in such cases with an approach to exactness, and it is certain that while most of the men just named had made some appearance in the latest years of Elizabeth, and while one or two of them lasted into the earliest years of Charles, they all represent, in their period of flourishing and in the character of their work, the Jacobean age. In some of them, as in Middleton and Day, the Elizabethan type prevails; in others, as in Fletcher, a distinctly new flavour—a flavour not perceptible in Shakespere, much less in Marlowe—appears. ”

“ We need seek no further for a reason why the England of Elizabeth surpassed all other communities. Having all material wealth beyond any other people, at no time has the doctrine of universal labour and repudiation of the fictitious riches of metallic hordes or usurious accumulations been so invariably denounced. ”

“ With Shakspere as with his fellow-countrymen the Crown is still the centre and safeguard of the national life. His ideal England is an England grouped around a noble king, a king such as his own Henry the Fifth, devout, modest, simple as he is brave, but a lord in battle, a born ruler of men, with a loyal people about him and his enemies at his feet. Socially the poet reflects the aristocratic view of social life which was shared by all the nobler spirits of the Elizabethan time. ”

“ One who would comprehend the style of Elizabethan dress must, for the time being, set aside all notion of simplicity or fit. In fact, the people of that time carried their idea of what was proper in wearing apparel to such a ridiculous extreme that they were made the subject of innumerable satires; and dress was the most popular point of attack by all the abusive writers on reform. Bright colours, elaborate trimmings, and excessive padding are the most notable characteristics of Elizabethan dress. ”

“ The Elizabethan fondness for fads goes beyond anything known to-day. The modern linguistic imitation of certain fables in slang so familiar to us of this generation is a mere bagatelle in comparison with the imitation of the more ponderous and often meaningless phrases derived from Lyly's novel. ”

“ There are numerous allusions to the pancake diet in the Elizabethan dramas; and of the pancake-bell Taylor, the Water Poet, has the following to say: "Shrove-Tuesday, at whose entrance in the morning all the whole kingdom is unquiet, but by that time the clock strikes eleven, which (by the help of a knavish sexton) is commonly before nine, then there is a bell rung, cal'd pancake-bell, the sound whereof makes thousands of people distracted, and forgetful either of manners or humanity." ”

“ To one of us, who may live a lifetime without seeing a man die a violent death, nothing is so difficult to comprehend as the Elizabethan callousness to bloodshed. Life with them was a rough, rude game of broil and turmoil. Every man wore commonly a sword by his side in public. When justice failed the individual did not scruple to take the law into his own hands. Here are a few illustrations taken from the old records, illustrations that show how quick every one was to shed blood upon small provocation. ”

“ Often the ghost returned to earth to make a revelation: sometimes of hidden treasure, sometimes to ease his conscience with a confession, sometimes to warn loved ones on earth against impending danger, perhaps more often, as in Hamlet, to demand revenge, to be enacted by those alive.
One need not go further than the accessible Elizabethan plays to learn almost the complete list of ghost traditions. Hamlet alone affords a score. From this play we learn that the appearance of a ghost implied something momentous ”

“ It was the tendency to believe in the marvelous that made the age one of fortune telling and prophecy. Palmistry, alchemy, and astrology were probably then more popular than they have ever been before or since. The fact that the practice of these professions was frowned upon by the authorities, coupled with their mysterious nature, tended to make them dear to the Elizabethan heart. The very nature of these so-called arts was especially tempting to dishonest people. London swarmed with quack astrologers and alchemists who have become through lineal descent the bunco men of to-day. ”

“ This credulity manifests itself again in the national attitude toward superstition, to be dealt with more at length in later pages. No country-fair or horse-fair is to-day a more profitable field for the operation of quacks and fakirs than were the streets of London from January to December. Let me once again suggest the danger of inferring that an Elizabethan writer lacks skill and accuracy in the drawing of character because he makes an intelligent man subject to a foolish credulity. ”

“ It was by these great men that Elizabeth was ruled,--so far as she was ruled at all,--not by favorites, like her successors, James and Charles. The favorites at the court of Elizabeth were rarely trusted with great powers unless they were men of signal abilities, and regarded as such by the nation itself. ”

“ Elizabeth, daughter of Henry and a disgraced and decapitated Queen, wore the crown of England. If heredity had been as much talked of then as now, England might have feared the child of a faithless wife, and a remorseless, bloodthirsty King. But while Mary, daughter of Katharine, the most pious and best of mothers, had left only a great blood-spot upon the page of History, Elizabeth's reign was to be the most wise, prosperous and great, the Kingdom had ever known. ”

“ There was no promise of happiness for England in the accession of a prince or princess of this house to its throne.
But the Stuarts came—and the troubles of England began in real [Pg 53] earnest. Elizabeth's reign had been, as it then seemed to all Englishmen, and as in very many respects it was, the golden age of Britain. Never had art, and literature, and material prosperity, risen to so high a level. The world seemed opening to a new and glorious life, like a rose bursting into bloom. ”

“ There was great rejoicing all over the land when the Lords of the Council went down to Hatfield, to hail the Princess Elizabeth as the new Queen of England. Weary of the barbarities of Mary's reign, the people looked with hope and gladness to the new Sovereign. The nation seemed to wake from a horrible dream; and Heaven, so long hidden by the smoke of the fires that roasted men and women to death, appeared to brighten once more. ”

“ In some reigns, the kingdom is in the most terrible confusion, in others it appears mean and corrupt; in Charles II.'s time, what a figure we make with French measures and French mistresses! But when our times are written, England will recover its glory; such conquests abroad, such prosperity at home, such prudence in council, such vigor in execution, so many men clothed in scarlet, so many fine tents, so many cannon that do not so much as roar, such easy taxes, such flourishing trade! ”

“ Yet with all this fine but rude material for future greatness, it was nevertheless a glaring fact that the condition of England on the accession of Elizabeth was most discouraging,--a poor and scattered agricultural nation, without a navy of any size, without a regular army, with factions in every quarter, with struggling and contending religious parties, with a jealous parliament of unenlightened country squires; yet a nation seriously threatened by the most powerful monarchies of the Continent, who detested the doctrines which were then taking root in the land. ”