Manufactures and Commerce--Trade under the Stuarts--English Commerce and Dutch Competition--The East India Company--Vicissitudes of its Early History--Rival Companies--The American Colonies and West Indies--Growth of London--National Revenue--Extravagance of the Stuarts--Invention of the Title of Baronet--Illegal Monopolies--Cost of Government--Money and Coinage--Agriculture and Gardening--Dramatists of the Period--Shakespeare and his Contemporaries--Poets of the Occult School--Herbert, Herrick, Quarles--A Wealth of Poetry--Prose-Writers--Bacon's "Novum Organum"--Milton's Prose Works--Hales, Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor, Fuller, and other Theological Writers--Harrington's "Oceana"--Sir Thomas Browne--Historians and Chroniclers--First Newspapers--Harvey's Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood--Napier's Invention of Logarithms--Music--Painting, Engraving, and Sculpture--Architecture--Manners and Customs--Sports and Pastimes--Furniture and Domestic Embellishment--Costumes--Arms and Armour--Condition of the People. In the reigns of James and Charles England neither maintained the reputation of her navy acquired under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, nor made great progress in foreign commerce. The character of James was too timid for maritime or any other war, and when he was forced into action it was only to show his weakness. He put to death the greatest naval captain of his time, Raleigh, who, if well employed by him, might have made him as much respected at sea as was Elizabeth. Nevertheless, he built ten ships of war, and for some years spent thirty-six thousand pounds annually on the navy. The largest ship which had yet been built in England was built by him, but it was only of fourteen hundred tons. As for commerce, he was too much engaged in theological disputations, in persecution of Papists, in wrangling with his Parliaments, and in following his hawks and hounds, to think of it, and consequently grievous complaints of the decay of trade were heard every session. The Dutch were fast engrossing both the commerce and the carrying trade of England. During James's reign they traded to England with six hundred ships, and the English traded to Holland with sixty.