rginia_, _The Duchess of Malfy_, and _The White Devil_.
Hazlitt says "his _White Devil_ and _Duchess of Malfy_ come the nearest to
Shakspeare of anything we have upon record."

Francis Beaumont, 1586-1615, and John Fletcher, 1576-1625: joint authors
of plays, numbering fifty-two. A prolific union, in which it is difficult
to determine the exact authorship of each. Among the best plays are _The
Maid's Tragedy_, _Philaster_, and _Cupid's Revenge_. Many of the plots are
licentious, but in monologues they frequently rise to eloquence, and in
descriptions are picturesque and graphic.

Shirley, 1594-1666: delineates fashionable life with success. His best
plays are _The Maid's Revenge_, _The Politician_, and _The Lady of
Pleasure_. The last suggested to Van Brugh his character of Lady Townly,
in _The Provoked Husband_. Lamb says Shirley "was the last of a great
race, all of whom spoke the same language, and had a set of moral feelings
and notions in common. A new language and quite a new turn of tragic and
comic interest came in at the Restoration."

Thomas Dekker, died about 1638: wrote, besides numerous tracts,
twenty-eight plays. The principal are _Old Fortunatus_, _The Honest
Whore_, and _Satiro-Mastix, or, The Humorous Poet Untrussed_. In the last,
he satirized Ben Jonson, with whom he had quarrelled, and who had
ridiculed him in _The Poetaster_. In the Honest Whore are found those
beautiful lines so often quoted:

... the best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.

Extracts from the plays mentioned may be found in Charles Lamb's
"Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of
Shakspeare."

CHAPTER XVI.

BACON, AND THE RISE OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.

Birth and Early Life. Treatment of Essex. His Appointments. His Fall.
Writes Philosophy. Magna Instauratio. His Defects. His Fame. His
Essays.

BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF BACON.

Contemporary with Shakspeare, and almost equal to him in English fame at
least, is Francis Bacon, the founder of the system of experimental
philosophy in the Elizabethan age. The investigations of the one in the
philosophy of human life, were emulated by those of the other in the realm
of general nature, in order to find laws to govern further progress, and
to evolve order and harmony out of chaos.

Bacon