Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Harmony of the Essays, Etc; Of Francis Bacon, Vol. 27: Viscount St. Alban, Baron Verulam, &C
Literature as well as Dress has its fashions, its varying modes of expressing the Taste of the day. Since printed English books have been, one kind of Subject or one Style of writing, rather than all others, has been in favour both with writers and readers: just as it was consonant with the intelligence and movements, the social, political, and religious life of the Age. This Subject or Style has maintained its pre-eminence until some change in the national life or the advent of some new strong writer has created interest in a fresh topic or occasioned delight through some new phase of expression. So that as time wore on, not only have books multiplied immensely, but the Literature has vastly increased in species, classes, and kinds of writings. To quote a few late examples. In the last century, the existing style of Essay writing was initiated by Addison and Steele; English Romances of Travel were founded in De Foe's Robinson Crusoe; our earliest modern Novels were written by Richardson, Fielding, and Goldsmith; and Dr. Johnson compiled the first of our present recognized Dictionaries. Quite recently also, we have seen that fungus variety of Fiction - the Sensation Novel - live its day and pass away. 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.'
2. Within the century since Caxton had established the use of printing in England, there had come into vogue Allegorical Verse in Stephen Hawes' Pastime of Pleasure, which kind of composition had recently been revived in Spencer's Faery Queene. Another class of poetry, Pastoral Verse, had been represented by Baclay's Egloges, Spencer's Shepheardes Calender, Lodge's Phillis, Watson's Melib us (in English), and Barnfield's Affectionate Shepheard. The Reforming spirit sometimes had used the lash of Satirical Verse, as in Roy's Rede me and be nott wrothe, and the many unprinted Ballad Invectives and Complaints that have come down to us. Then Classical literature had come in like a flood, and there had arisen a school of severe Criticism in Greek, Latin, and English, including such scholars as Sir J. Cheke, Walter Haddon, and Roger Ascham. Then there had been the almost universal habit among Gentlemen of Sonnetting, of which no one knows the entire existing remains. Then had arisen the fashion of Plays: Comedies first, arising out of the Miracle, Mystery, and Morality plays: afterwards Tragedy, in imitation of the Dramas of Seneca. Then had come the fashion of collecting the Sonnets and kindred verse into Poetical Miscellanies. So much poetry occasioned Discussions and Controversies the Art of Poetry, begun by Gascoigne and which were destined to continue, with hardly a break, beyond the time of Dryden.
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