It may have occurred to the reader that the words which Ben Jonson quoted about Shakespeare, _Sufflaminandus erat_--he flowed so freely that he needed stopping--indicate the great fault of Elizabethan and Jacobean Literature. The authors did not know where to stop. The age was luxuriantly rich in genius; and was over-wealthy in new ideas, gained from Greece, Rome, France, Spain, and Italy; from the clash of religions, the discoveries in the new world, and the re-discoveries of the treasures of the old world. What the English poets did not re-discover was the Greek lucidity, brevity, condensation, and orderliness. Even in plays of Shakespeare these graces are lacking: even Shakespeare's construction is not his strong point. The intellectual wealth of the poets tempted them to prolixity; the abundance of their ideas provoked them to that fashion of "conceits," of comparisons between the things most remote in heaven, earth, and the world of fancy. There was a taste which reappears now and then in literature, from early Icelandic poetry to Browning and George Meredith, for wilful abruptness, harshness, and obscurity. But industrious prolixity is not the fault of Donne, whom we now approach: his error lay in harshness, obscurity, and a measureless indulgence in conceit. Through these the light which is in him is darkened. Meanwhile rank over-abundance, the inability to stop, renders Daniel and Drayton and Phineas Fletcher burdensome, while Giles Fletcher crowds with conceits and points of wit a poem on the most sacred theme. These poets are not now commonly read, except in selections of their best things, and such selections give no idea of their pervading faults. When we extend our knowledge of the authors, and mark the formless character of the age in poetry, the sudden appearance of Milton indicates as great a miracle of genius as the existence of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare in the throng of their contemporaries.