Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles | Page 2

great
men. Its rulers and statesmen, its soldiers and politicians, its lawyers
and divines, all who played a prominent part in the public life, have
with few notable exceptions been described for us by their
contemporaries. There are earlier characters in English literature; but as
a definite and established form of literary composition the character
dates from the seventeenth century. Even Sir Robert Naunton's
_Fragmenta Regalia, or Observations on the late Queen Elizabeth her
Times and Favourites_, a series of studies of the great men of
Elizabeth's court, and the first book of its kind, is an old man's
recollection of his early life, and belongs to the Stuart period in
everything but its theme. Nor at any later period is there the same
wealth of material for such a collection as is given in this volume. The
eighteenth century devoted itself rather to biography. When the facts of
a man's life, his works, and his opinions claimed detailed treatment, the
fashion of the short character had passed.
Yet the seventeenth century did not know its richness. None of its best
characters were then printed. The writers themselves could not have
suspected how many others were similarly engaged, so far were they
from belonging to a school. The characters in Clarendon's History of
the Rebellion were too intimate and searching to be published at once,
and they remained in manuscript till about thirty years after his death.
In the interval Burnet was drawing the characters in his History of His
Own Time. He, like Clarendon, was not aware of being indebted to any
English model. Throughout the period which they cover there are the
characters by Fuller, Sir Philip Warwick, Baxter, Halifax, Shaftesbury,
and many others, the Latin characters by Milton, and the verse
characters by Dryden. There is no sign that any of these writers copied
another or tried to emulate him. Together, but with no sense of their
community, they made the seventeenth century the great age of the
character in England.

I. The Beginnings.

The art of literary portraiture in the seventeenth century developed with
the effort to improve the writing of history. Its first and at all times its
chief purpose in England was to show to later ages what kind of men
had directed the affairs and shaped the fortunes of the nation. In France
it was to be practised as a mere pastime; to sketch well-known figures
in society, or to sketch oneself, was for some years the fashionable
occupation of the salons. In England the character never wholly lost the
qualities of its origin. It might be used on occasion as a record of
affection, or as a weapon of political satire; but our chief character
writers are our historians. At the beginning of the seventeenth century
England was recognized to be deficient in historical writings. Poetry
looked back to Chaucer as its father, was proud of its long tradition,
and had proved its right to sing the glories of Elizabeth's reign. The
drama, in the full vigour of its youth, challenged comparison with the
drama of Greece and Rome. Prose was conscious of its power in
exposition and controversy. But in every review of our literature's great
achievement and greater promise there was one cause of serious
misgivings. England could not yet rank with other countries in its
histories. Many large volumes had been printed, some of them
containing matter that is invaluable to the modern student, but there
was no single work that was thought to be worthy of England's
greatness. The prevailing type was still the chronicle. Even Camden,
'the glory and light of the kingdom', as Ben Jonson called him, was an
antiquary, a collector, and an annalist. History had yet to be practised as
one of the great literary arts.
Bacon pointed out the 'unworthiness' and 'deficiences' of English
history in his Advancement of Learning.[1] 'Some few very worthy, but
the greater part beneath mediocrity' was his verdict on modern histories
in general. He was not the first to express these views. Sir Henry Savile
had been more emphatic in his dedication to Queen Elizabeth of his
collection of early chronicles, _Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post
Bedam_, published in 1596.[2] And after Bacon, somewhere about
1618, these views were again expressed by Edmund Bolton in his
_Hypercritica, or a Rule of Judgement for writing or reading our
Histories_.[3] 'The vast vulgar Tomes', he said, 'procured for the most
part by the husbandry of Printers, and not by appointment of the Prince
or Authority of the Common-weal, in their tumultuary and centonical

Writings do seem to resemble some huge disproportionable Temple,
whose Architect was not his Arts Master'. He repeated what he calls the
common wish 'that the majesty of handling our history might once
equal the majesty of the argument'.