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Prose

Notes of that kind of writing; which was much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and opposition
that the propounders of those (primitive but seeming new) opinions had against the schoolmen;
who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings were altogether in a differing style
and form; taking liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express their own sense and to
avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call it) lawfulness
of the phrase or word. And again, because the great labor then was with the people, (of whom the
Pharisees were wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba, qua non novit legem,) [the wretched crowd that has
not known the law,] for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price
and request eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity
of the vulgar sort. So that these four causes concurring, the admiration of ancient authors, the hate
of the schoolmen, the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an
affectionate study of eloquence and copie of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew
speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more after words than matter; and more after the
choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet
falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than
after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of
judgment. Then grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price.
Then did Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the orator and Hermo-genes
the rhetorician, besides his own books of periods and imitation and the like. Then did Car of
Cambridge, and Ascham, with their lectures and writings, almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes,
and allure all young men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of learning.
Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing echo : Decem annos consumpsi in legendo
Cicerone, [I have spent ten years in reading Cicero :] and the echo answered in Greek, one, Asine.
Then grew the learning of the school-men to be utterly despised as barbarous. In sum, the whole
inclination and bent of those times was rather toward copie than weight.”
Bacon closes his survey with the generation which immediately preceded his own. The detachment
with which he viewed the refinements of the artificial writers shows that he at least had accepted
different standards and ideals of writing. To complete the sketch, it would be necessary to add
certain developments of English prose in the direction of order and moderation of which Bacon’s
own writings are signally illustrative. And it is with these developments that the survey undertaken
in the following pages will come to an appropriate conclusion.
The limits of the present undertaking imply certain exclusions. This unit is neither a bibliographical
nor a biographical history of English literary prose, nor is it a dictionary of reference to all prose
monuments for the period it covers. No attempt has been made to give a critical survey of the
paper wars that have centered about debated points, though it will be found, it is hoped, that the
references given supply the clew to all the rest. Thus the earlier bibliography of Euphuism may be
derived from the studies mentioned in the text or notes. Biographical details are included only
when they seemed useful for the better understanding of such writings as are discussed, and titles
are mentioned only for the purpose of indicating with certainty the sources of the various passages
cited or quoted in the text. Passages within double quotation marks are quoted exactly—except
that, for the sake of consistency, the modern custom in the use of u and v has been followed.
Passages within single marks are the author’s literal modernizations. The temptation to quote
more frequently and at greater length has been strong, but a single volume of reasonable size
cannot be both history and anthology. Quotation can never take the place of the reading of texts,
and fortunately, for those who have not access to large libraries and for students in college classes,
several collections of illustrative extracts are available.
The author has assumed the liberty of saying nothing about works and about writers that, to his
mind, required no mention. It might be a satisfaction to put down all the results of one’s
investigations, if one could only be sure in so doing that the reader’s share in this pleasure would

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