We have had our glimpse of the first (English) Stuart King, as he made his shambling way to the throne--beset by spoilsmen; we had our glimpse, too, of that haughty, high-souled, unfortunate Sir Walter Raleigh, whose memory all Americans should hold in honor. We had our little look through the magic-lantern of Scott at the toilet and the draggled feathers of the pedant King James, and upon all that hurly-burly of London where the Scotch Nigel adventured; and through the gossipy Harrison we set before ourselves a great many quaint figures of the time. We saw a bride whose silken dresses whisked along those balusters of Crosby Hall, which brides of our day may touch reverently now; we followed Ben Jonson, afoot, into Scotland, and among the pretty scenes of Eskdale; and thereafter we sauntered down Ludgate Hill, and so, by wherry, to Bankside and the Globe, where we paid our shilling, and passed the time o’ day with Ben Jonson; and saw young Francis Beaumont, and smelt the pipes; and had a glimpse of Shakespeare. But we must not, for this reason, think that all the world of London smoked, or all the world of London went to the Globe Theatre. _Gosson and Other Puritans._ There was at this very time, living and preaching, in the great city, a certain Stephen Gosson[8]--well-known, doubtless, to Ben Jonson and his fellows--who had received a university education, who had written delicate pastorals and other verse, which--with many people--ranked him with Spenser and Sidney; who had written plays too, but who, somehow conscience-smitten, and having gone over from all dalliance with the muses to extremest Puritanism, did thereafter so inveigh against “_Poets, Players, Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of the Commonwealth_”--as he called them--as made him rank, for fierce invective, with that Stubbes whose onslaught upon the wickedness of the day I cited. He had called his discourse, “_pleasant for Gentlemen that favor Learning, and profitable for all that will follow Vertue_.” He represented the Puritan feeling--which was growing in force--in respect to poetry and the drama; and, I have no doubt, regarded Mr. William Shakespeare as one of the best loved and trusted emissaries of Satan.