Two Noble and Illustrious Families of York and Lancaster," in 1548; of Richard Grafton's "Chronicle at Large, down to the First Year of Queen Elizabeth," in 1569; of Raphael Holinshed's "Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland," in 1577; and of Sir Richard Baker's "Chronicle of the Kings of England," written while its author was confined for debt in the Fleet Prison, where he died in 1645, and first published in a folio volume in 1641. Baker declares his

chronicle to be compiled "with so great care and diligence, that, if all others were lost, this only will be sufficient to inform posterity of all passages memorable or worthy to be known." This book was a great favourite with our ancestors for two or three succeeding generations, but has now lost all interest except for a few passages relating to the author's own time. Of much greater value are

the various publications of the laborious antiquaries John Stow and John Speed; namely, Stow's "Summary of the English Chronicles," 1565; his "Annals," 1573; his "Chronicle of England," 1580; his "Flores Historiarum" (an enlarged edition of his Chronicle), 1600; his "Survey of London," 1598; and Speed's "Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain," 1606; and his "History of Great Britain," coming down to the accession of James I., 1614. All these works of Stow and Speed rank among the head sources or fountains of our knowledge in the department of national antiquities. Neither Whitelock's Memorials nor the great collections of documents by Rushworth, Thurloe, and Rymer, came from the press till after the termination of the present period.

With the first year of the Long Parliament commences the era of English newspapers. The oldest English newspaper that has been discovered is a quarto pamphlet of a few leaves entitled "The Diurnal Occurrences, or Daily Proceedings of Both Houses, in this great and happy parliament, from the 3rd of November, 1640, to the 3rd of November, 1641: London, printed for William Cooke, and are to be sold at his shop at Furnival's Inn Gate, in Holborn, 1641."* More than a hundred newspapers, with different titles, appear to have been published between this date and the

See Chronological List of Newspapers from the Epoch of the Civil Wars, in Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman, pp. 404-442.

death of the king, and upwards of eighty others between that event and the Restoration. "When hostilities commenced," says the writer from whom we derive this information, " every event, during a most eventful period, had its own historian, who communicated News from Hull, Truths from York, Warranted Tidings from Ireland, and Special Passages from several places. These were all occasional papers. Impatient, however, as a distracted people were for information, the news were never distributed daily. The various newspapers were published weekly at first; but in the progress of events, and the ardour of curiosity, See Chronological List in Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman, p. 114.

they were distributed twice or thrice in every week.* | Such were the French Intelligencer, the Dutch Spy, the Irish Mercury, and the Scots Dove, the Parliament Kite, and the Secret Owl. Mercurius Acheronticus brought them hebdomadal News from Hell; Mercurius Democritus communicated wonderful news from the World in the Moon; the Laughing Mercury gave perfect news from the Antipodes; and Mercurius Mastix faithfully lashed all Scouts, Mercuries, Posts, Spies, and other Intelligencers."+ Besides the newspapers, also, the great political and religious questions of the time were debated in a prodigious multitude of separate pamphlets, which appear to have been read quite as universally and as eagerly. It has been stated that the number of such pamphlets printed in the twenty years from the meeting of the Long Parliament to the Restoration was not less than thirty thousand, which would give a rate of four or five new ones every day.

With the exception of a magnificent edition of Chrysostom, in eight volumes folio, by Sir Henry Savile, printed at Eton, where Savile was provost of the College, in 1612, scarcely any great work in the department of ancient scholarship appeared in England during this period. "The Greek language, however," observes Mr. Hallam, "was now much studied; the age of James and Charles was truly learned; our writers are prodigal of an abundant erudition, which embraces a far wider range of authors than are now read; the philosophers of every class, the poets, the historians and orators of Greece, to whom few comparatively had

In December, 1642, however, Spalding, the Aberdeen annalist, in a passage which Mr. Chalmers has quoted, tells us that" now printed papers daily came from London, called Diurnal Occurrences, declaring what is done in parliament."-Vol. i. p. 336.

Chalmers, p. 116.

paid regard in the days of Elizabeth, seem as familiar to the miscellaneous writers of her next successors as the fathers of the church are to the theologians. A few, like Jeremy Taylor, are equally copious in their libations from both streams. But, though thus deeply read in ancient learning, our old scholars were not very critical in philology." The present period, however, produced a number of works written in Latin by Englishmen, which still retain more or less celebrity; among others, the illustrious Camden's Britannia, first published in 1586, but not enlarged to the form in which its author ultimately left it till the appearance of the sixth edition, in 1607; the same writer's "Annales Rerum Anglicarum regnante Elizabetha," the first part of which was printed in 1615, the sequel not till after Camden's death; John Barclay's two political romances of the "Euphormio," the first part of which was published in 1603, and the more famous "Argenis," 1621; Lord Herbert's treatise "De Veritate," 1624; the "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano" and "Defensio Secunda" of Milton, already mentioned; and the "De Primordiis Ecclesiarum Britannicarum (afterwards styled "Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates"), 1639, and the "Annales Utriusque Testamenti," 1650 and 1654, of the learned Archbishop Usher.

دو

The history of science in England in the reign of James I. is illustrated by the two great discoveries of the method of logarithms by Napier, and the circulation of the blood (as is commonly admitted) by Harvey; but we shall reserve our account of the progress both of the mathematical and the physical sciences throughout this century till the next Book.

Lit. of Europe, iii. 12.

HE furniture of the palaces and mansions of our princes, nobles, and gentry during the seventeenth century acquired a degree of splendour and comfort scarcely surpassed by that of the present day, and certainly much beyond the miserable attempts at imitation of classical models introduced at the commencement of this century. Many of the houses of our nobility, especially those in the country, contain even now rooms which have remained almost in statu quo from the days of the Jameses and the Charleses; and the elaborate paintings of the Dutch and Flemish artists of that period, who revelled in interiors, enlighten us as to the fittings up of more humble apartments.

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In a warrant to the great wardrobe issued by King James I., in 1613, on the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Elector Palatine, there is a copious list of articles of furniture and a description of the materials of

which they were composed. We will give a few extracts, modernizing the spelling:-" Item, to William Brothericke, our embroiderer, for embroidering one whole suit of hangings upon crimson velvet, richly garnished and broidered all over with cloth of gold and cloth of silver, laces of gold, partly with plates, and chain-lace of gold without plates, Venice twists, and gold and silver and coloured Naples silk; for embroidering the several parts of a sparver bed of crimson velvet as the head part, ceeler, double valance, and curtains of velvet and satin; a very large cupboard-cloth of crimson velvet, carpet and screen-cloth, chair, stools and cushions, all very richly garnished all over with cloth of gold, cloth of silver, and coloured satin, &c., &c. . . . Item, to John Baker, our upholsterer, for making a suit of hangings of crimson velvet, containing five pieces and two windowpieces embroidered, lined with died canvas; . . . . for making one cupboard-cloth, one carpet, and one screen-cloth of like crimson velvet, embroidered, all lined with taffeta, and garnished with fringes of gold and silk; for making two large window-curtains of crimson damask, lined with fustian, copper rings, lyer of thread, and other necessaries to them; ... for one bed, one bolster, and two pillows of Milan fustian filled with down, sewed with silk; three quilts of

fustian cased with taffeta, filled with wool and sewed with silk; two pair of blankets of Milan fustian of five breadths and five yards long the piece, sewed with silk; two pair of fine Spanish blankets; . . . . two counterpoints of plush, both sides alike sewed with silk. . . . Item, to Henry Waller, joiner, for one frame for a canopy for a cushion-cloth, with iron-work to it, for the timberwork of one chair, two low stools, and two little tables; . . . . . for one folding table of walnuttree;" &c., &c.*

Anne, queen of James I., had a walnut-tree chest of drawers in her room.-Fosbroke, Ency, of Antiq.

Paper and leather-hangings were invented early in the seventeenth century, and the walls of the wealthier classes were now enriched with the magnificent paintings of Rubens, Vandyke, Teniers, Rembrandt, Terburg, &c., in addition to those of Holbein and Jansen; and the chefs d'œuvres of the earlier great masters of Italy were displayed in gorgeous frames, and amidst objects of art and virtù worthy of their companionship. Ornaments of china-ware had been brought from Italy in the time of Elizabeth, but, in 1631, they were regular articles of importation by the East India ships. Turkey and Persian carpets are seen in paintings

of this period covering the tables of even the middling classes of society, floors being still matted or strewed with rushes even in palaces, excepting those of throne or bed-rooms, where carpets were laid down in front of the throne or by the side of the bed. The ceilings of state apartments were also adorned with paintings of historical or allegorical subjects by the first artists.

The costume of the latter part of Elizabeth's reign continued in fashion apparently for some time after the accession of James I. The king himself had his clothing made larger, and even his

doublets quilted, through fear of assassination, his breeches in great plaits and full stuffed. The frontispiece to a book of hunting, published in this reign, gives us a good specimen of this style of dress as worn by the monarch, his courtiers, and attendants, when pursuing James's favourite amusement-the chase. In Decker's Gull's Horn Book, first printed in 1609, we are told that the noblest gallants, when "they consecrate their hours to their mistresses and to revelling, wear feathers then chiefly in their hats, being of the fairest ensigns of their bravery." But very rich hatbands and