et produced."[121] Wherever the golden
mean between these two extremes of opinion may lie, there is no doubt that
for introducing readers to an appreciation of the great things in English
literature, Hazlitt still remains without an equal.

I

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH

The age of Elizabeth was distinguished, beyond, perhaps, any other in our
history, by a number of great men, famous in different ways, and whose
names have come down to us with unblemished honours; statesmen, warriors,
divines, scholars, poets, and philosophers, Raleigh, Drake, Coke, Hooker,
and higher and more sounding still, and still more frequent in our mouths,
Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Bacon, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, men
whom fame has eternised in her long and lasting scroll, and who, by their
words and acts, were benefactors of their country, and ornaments of human
nature. Their attainments of different kinds bore the same general stamp,
and it was sterling: what they did, had the mark of their age and country
upon it. Perhaps the genius of Great Britain (if I may so speak without
offence or flattery), never shone out fuller or brighter, or looked more
like itself, than at this period. Our writers and great men had something
in them that savoured of the soil from which they grew: they were not
French, they were not Dutch, or German, or Greek, or Latin; they were
truly English. They did not look out of themselves to see what they should
be; they sought for truth and nature, and found it in themselves. There
was no tinsel, and but little art; they were not the spoiled children of
affectation and refinement, but a bold, vigorous, independent race of
thinkers, with prodigious strength and energy, with none but natural
grace, and heartfelt unobtrusive delicacy. They were not at all
sophisticated. The mind of their country was great in them, and it
prevailed. With their learning and unexampled acquirement, they did not
forget that they were men: with all their endeavours after excellence,
they did not lay aside the strong original bent and character of their
minds. What they performed was chiefly nature's handy-work; and time has
claimed it for his own.--To these, however, might be added others not less
learned, nor with a scarce less happy vein, but less fortunate in the
event, who, though as renowned in their day, have sunk into "mere
oblivion," and of whom the only record (but that the noblest) is to be
found in their works. Their work