of Shakespeare's great tragedies. The Broken Heart, is a tale of unutterable woe, of tortured feelings and agony of spirit.

We are nearing the end of the drama's hold upon the public. In 1633 appeared Histrio-Mastix; The Player's Scourge, a Puritan pamphlet by one William Prynne, which proved indeed a violent but most effective scourge upon a stage that had grown morally unfit. Characteristically it also condemned "Dancing, Music, Laughter, Bonfires, New-Year's gifts, Health-drinking, Long Hair, with other pagan customs." The theatres were closed by public order in 1642.2

PROSE BEFORE THE RESTORATION

Early seventeenth century prose is not, like the drama of the same period, a highly developed literary form fallen into decay under adverse influence, but a medium still in its nonage. It is in part the survivor of Elizabethan prose, carrying on the tradition of Lyly and Sidney, but it is still more a somewhat weakened product of the revival of learning. It may be defined as the humanism and scholarship of the Renaissance separated

2 But a few of the notable dramatists contemporary with Shakespeare have been mentioned; others may appeal to the curious student. George Chapman was, like Ben Jonson, a moralist and a classical scholar as his famous translation of Homer proves. By "elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of authentical tragedy," he attempted to impose classical rules upon the drama. Bussy d'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy are melodramas charged with moral reflection. Thomas Middleton, a dramatist of much talent, in A Trick to Catch the Old One painted the humours of London life. The Changeling in its comic parts, portrays with cold cynicism madhouse horrors. A similar want of freshness characterizes the work of Philip Massinger, whose A New Way to Pay Old Debts is a late imitation of the Jonsonian comedy.

from vital currents that were then a part of a new and very different stream or tendency. This divorce of literature and life is in fact the chief matter of importance about the whole period before the Restoration. Milton's work in prose, it is true, was wholly controversial, concerning itself with the immediate business of practical affairs; but neither Milton nor any other prose writer before 1660 employed anything like a modern means of communication. Inheriting the Latinized structure of their predecessors, they wrote a formless prose, for neither sentence nor paragraph existed as a true rhetorical unit. Through them all runs a quaint pedantry; for they were all bookish men, heirs of the humanists who had collected and commented upon the precious Greek manuscripts so suddenly rescued from oblivion. Only, whereas the earlier scholars enthusiastically attacked the task of making their beloved masters a part of the form and spirit of their age, these men, as the clouds of war darkened, withdrew to their study and indulged themselves in the delights of reading and contemplation.

The art of biography, developed by Thomas Fuller, Izaak Walton, and Lord Herbert of Cherbury; the vogue of "character" writing, little sketches in imitation of the classical master Theophrastus; and diaries like those of Pepys and Evelyn reveal an increased interest in the lives of men and a sober endeavor to take stock of their intellectual resources. The distinctive characteristic of the century is the steady growth toward a positive and critical view of life.

The quaintest of the earlier prose writers was ROBERT BURTON (1577-1640). The Anatomy of Melancholy is a pseudo-scientific inquiry into the causes, symptoms, and cure of melancholy. Pedantry, odd bits of humor, the

citation of out-of-the-way authorities, and a huge mass of learning make the substance of the book. Among other things, the author makes a study of love melancholy and religious melancholy. Dr. Johnson confessed that this book got him out of bed two hours before he wished to arise; and its influence upon Laurence Sterne and Charles Lamb was notable. With all its quaintness, it has often been praised by physicians for the justness and the shrewdness of its diagnoses.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682) is the most eloquent of these gentlemen. His writing suffers from the 'vices of contemporary literary prose enormous involved sentences and an excessively Latinized vocabulary-but probably through this very means he has at times attained a majesty of style quite unmatched in any other prose of the period. Sonorous and exalted, his slow periods move with the solemnity befitting these meditations on Death and Eternity. Religio Medici, the Religion of a Doctor, is the confession of faith of a physician and a man of science. Browne seems to have been influenced both by the older religious faith and the new science emanating from Bacon and culminating in the establishment of the Royal Society. His tolerant skepticism toward religious controversy throws our attention forward to the time when Darwin created so much confusion among the creeds, but Browne shows none of the agony of spirit apparent in a period like the nineteenth century when changing faiths caused havoc among thinking men. He rather expresses the faith of a worker in science in the wonder of existence. "Methinks," he says, "there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith; the deepest mysteries ours contains have not only been illustrated, but maintained, by syllogism and

the rule of reason. I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an O altitudo!" Charm of style, mystical exaltation, and quiet contemplation make this one of the delightful books of the century.

Hydriotaphia, or Urn Burial, is another of Browne's works that mark the highest reach of that lofty prose which was written before the beginning of the modern period. This little book discusses the discovery of certain burial urns recently found in Norfolk, and in the course of his remarks the author offers some wonderfully eloquent reflections upon death, fame, and immortality.) A few lines from Urn Burial will illustrate its exalted character.

But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostatus lives that burnt the temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations; and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the factor of the everlasting register the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle.

Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story before the flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic, which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of

life, and even pagans could doubt whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right descensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, and have our light in ashes; since the brother of death daily haunts us with dying mementos, and time, that grows old in itself, bids us hope no long duration: diurturnity is a dream and folly of expectation. . .

Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us. A small fire sufficeth for life; great flames seemed too little after death, while men vainly affected precious pyres, and to burn like Sardanapalus. But the wisdom of funeral laws found the folly of prodigal blazes, and reduced undoing fires unto the rule of sober obsequies, wherein few could be so mean as not to provide wood, pitch, a mourner, and an urn.

A group of writers who published about the middle of the century possess a charm and quaintness and gentle contemplation that contrast strangely with the hurlyburly of war and the severe Puritan despotism that had grown up about them. Though THOMAS FULLER (1608-1661) wrote on serious subjects, he is the jester of the period, and his writings are full of quaint quips that made him the dearest friend of Elia. The Holy State and The Worthies of England tell the story of some of the heroes and divines of the past. His curious love of paradoxical figures and far-fetched comparisons may be seen in the following bit from the Life of Queen Elizabeth:

For these reasons Lady Elizabeth was closely kept and narrowly sifted all her sister's reign, Sir Henry Bedingfield, her keeper, using more severity towards her than his place required, yea, more than a good man should-or a wise man would have done. No doubt the least tripping of her foot should have cost her the losing of her head, if they could have caught to be privy to any conspiracies.

This lady as well deserved the title of "Elizabeth the Con