capes: the nobler spirits were arriving at a clearer grasp and understanding of what lay before them; the machinations of Spaniard, Pope, and Priest were, it seemed, finally defeated; everything was ready for the work of such men as Raleigh and Drake. Then, alas! Gloriana died, and the world of poetry sank sadly back into prose, and that for the most part of the tamest and the most creeping; an age followed when King and people were no longer in touch; when foreign politics were a betrayal and a surrender; when the whole dream of the King was not to extend and enrich his realm, but to encroach upon the people’s liberties, and the whole power of the people was required to resist the encroachments of the King. How mean and miserable is the policy of Charles compared with that of Elizabeth! How paltry are the pretensions of King and Archbishop! How wretched, save for the figure of the great Protector, is the history of the seventeenth century, compared with the history of the sixteenth under the great Queen! [Illustration: SIR FRANCIS BACON (1561–1626) From the painting by Paul Van Somer in the National Portrait Gallery, London.] [Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616) From the Chandos portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, London.] Harrison furnishes a contemporary opinion on “the new veine of writing”:— “This further is not to be omitted, to the singular commendation of both sorts and sexes of our courtiers here in England, that there are verie few of them, which have not the use and skill of sundrie speaches, beside an excellent veine of writing before time not regarded. Trulie it is a rare thing with us now, to hear of a courtier which hath but his owne language. And to saie how many gentlewomen and ladies there are, that beside sound knowledge of the Greeke and Latine toongs, are thereto no lesse skilful in the Spanish, Italian, and French or in some one of them, it resteth not in me; sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen and gentlemen do surmount in this behalfe, so these come verie little or nothing at all behind them for their parts, which industrie God continue, and accomplish that which otherwise is wanting.”... “The ladies of the court employ themselves in continuall reading either of the holie scriptures, or histories of our owne or forren nations about us, and diverse in writing volumes of their owne, or translating of other mens into our English and Latine toongs.”... “Finallie, to avoid idlenesse, and prevent sundrie transgressions, otherwise likelie to be committed and doone, such order is taken, that everie office hath either a bible, or the booke of the acts and monuments of the church of England, or both, beside some histories and chronicles lieing therein, for the exercise of such as come into the same; whereby the stranger that entereth into the court of England upon the sudden, shall rather imagine himselve to come