The Power of Shakspeare--Meagre Early History--Doubts of his Identity--What is known--Marries and goes to London--"Venus" and "Lucrece"--Retirement and Death--Literary Habitudes--Variety of the Plays--Table of Dates and Sources CHAPTER XV. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE (CONTINUED). The Grounds of his Fame--Creation of Character--Imagination and Fancy--Power of Expression--His Faults--Influence of Elizabeth--Sonnets--Ireland and Collier--Concordance--Other Writers CHAPTER XVI. BACON, AND THE RISE OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. Birth and Early Life--Treatment of Essex--His Appointments--His Fall--Writes Philosophy--Magna Instauratio--His Defects--His Fame--His Essays CHAPTER XVII. THE ENGLISH BIBLE. Early Versions--The Septuagint--The Vulgate--Wiclif; Tyndale--Coverdale; Cranmer--Geneva; Bishop's Bible--King James's Bible--Language of the Bible--Revision CHAPTER XVIII. JOHN MILTON, AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH. Historical Facts--Charles I.--Religious Extremes--Cromwell--Birth and Early Works--Views of Marriage--Other Prose Works--Effects of the Restoration--Estimate of his Prose CHAPTER XIX. THE POETRY OF MILTON. The Blind Poet--Paradise Lost--Milton and Dante--His Faults--Characteristics of the Age--Paradise Regained--His Scholarship--His Sonnets--His Death and Fame CHAPTER XX. COWLEY, BUTLER, AND WALTON. Cowley and Milton--Cowley's Life and Works--His Fame--Butler's Career--Hudibras--His Poverty and Death--Izaak Walton--The Angler; and Lives--Other Writers CHAPTER XXI. DRYDEN, AND THE RESTORED STUARTS. The Court of Charles II.--Dryden's Early Life--The Death of Cromwell--The Restoration--Dryden's Tribute--Annus Mirabilis--Absalom and Achitophel--The Death of Charles--Dryden's Conversion--Dryden's Fall--His Odes 207 CHAPTER XXII. THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE GREAT REBELLION AND OF THE RESTORATION. The English Divines--Hall--Chillingsworth--Taylor--Fuller--Sir T. Browne--Baxter--Fox--Bunyan--South--Other Writers 221 CHAPTER XXIII. THE DRAMA OF THE RESTORATION. The License of the Age--Dryden--Wycherley--Congreve--Vanbrugh-- Farquhar--Etherege--Tragedy--Otway--Rowe--Lee--Southern 233 CHAPTER XXIV. POPE, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL. Contemporary History--Birth and Early Life--Essay, on Criticism--Rape of the Lock--The Messiah--The Iliad--Value of the Translation--The Odyssey--Essay on Man--The Artificial School--Estimate of Pope--Other Writers 241 CHAPTER XXV. ADDISON, AND THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE. The Character of the Age--Queen Anne--Whigs and Tories--George I.--Addison: The Campaign--Sir Roger de Coverley--The Club--Addison's Hymns--Person and Literary Character 254 CHAPTER XXVI. STEELE AND SWIFT.