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precedents and facts rather than theories, it prepared
the advancement of science by the method of observation.
Newton was a contented member of a university, and never thought to rebel against the limits that nature has set to the human powers in the pursuit of science.
The inmost character of the
English mind, in the various epochs of its history, was imprinted on its poetry.
Chaucer recalled the joyous heroism, and serious thought, and mirth, and sadness, that beguiled the pious pilgrimages, or lent a charm to the hospitality of Catholic
England.
Spencer threw the dim halo of allegory round the monotonous caprices of departing chivalry.
Shakespeare, ‘great heir of fame,’ rising at the proud moment of the victory of English nationality and Protestant liberty over all their enemies, seeming to be master of every chord that vibrates in the human soul, and knowing all that can become the cottage or the palace, the town or the fields and forests, the camp or the banqueting hall, unfolded the panorama of English history, and embodied in ‘easy numbers’ all that is wise, and lovely, and observable in English manners and social life, proud of his countrymen and his country, to him
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world.
Milton, with his heroic greatness of mind, was the stately representative of English republicanism, eager to quell the oppressor, but sternly detesting libertinism and disorder, and exhorting to ‘patience,’ even in the days of the later
Stuarts.
Dryden, living through the whole era of revolutions, yielded to the social influences of his time, and reproduced in his verse the
