y had too much neglected. In an age when men
were busy with romance and philosophy, he insisted that the first object of
education is to make a man familiar with his natural environment; from
books he turned to men, from theory to fact, from philosophy to nature,--
and that is perhaps his greatest contribution to life and literature. Like
Moses upon Pisgah, he stood high enough above his fellows to look out over
a promised land, which his people would inherit, but into which he himself
might never enter.

RICHARD HOOKER (1554?-1600) In strong contrast with Bacon is Richard
Hooker, one of the greatest prose writers of the Elizabethan Age. One must
read the story of his life, an obscure and lowly life animated by a great
spirit, as told by Izaak Walton, to appreciate the full force of this
contrast. Bacon took all knowledge for his province, but mastered no single
part of it. Hooker, taking a single theme, the law and practice of the
English Church, so handled it that no scholar even of the present day would
dream of superseding it or of building upon any other foundation than that
which Hooker laid down. His one great work is _The Laws of Ecclesiastical
Polity_,[158] a theological and argumentative book; but, entirely apart
from its subject, it will be read wherever men desire to hear the power and
stateliness of the English language. Here is a single sentence, remarkable
not only for its perfect form but also for its expression of the reverence
for law which lies at the heart of Anglo-Saxon civilization:

Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of
God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do
her homage; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not
exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what
condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with
uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.

SIDNEY AND RALEIGH. Among the prose writers of this wonderful literary age
there are many others that deserve passing notice, though they fall far
below the standard of Bacon and Hooker. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), who
has already been considered as a poet, is quite as well known by his prose
works, _Arcadia_, a pastoral romance, and the _Defense of Poesie_, one of
our earliest literary essays. Sidney, whom the poet Shelley has eulogized,
represents the whole romantic tendency of his age; whi