versification.

In Donne's satires, when carefully inspected, there appear some flashes
of wit and ingenuity; but these totally suffocated and buried by the
harshest and most uncouth expression that is any where to be met with.

If the poetry of the English was so rude and imperfect during that
age, we may reasonably expect that their prose would be liable to still
greater objections. Though the latter appears the more easy, as it is
the more natural method of composition, it has ever in practice been
found the more rare and difficult; and there scarcely is an instance,
in any language, that it has reached a degree of perfection, before the
refinement of poetical numbers and expression. English prose, during the
reign of James, was written with little regard to the rules of grammar,
and with a total disregard to the elegance and harmony of the period.
Stuffed with Latin sentences and quotations, it likewise imitated
those inversions, which, however forcible and graceful in the ancient
languages, are entirely contrary to the idiom of the English. I shall
indeed venture to affirm, that, whatever uncouth phrases and expressions
occur in old books, they were chiefly owing to the unformed taste of
the author; and that the language spoken in the courts of Elizabeth and
James, was very little different from that which we meet with at present
in good company. Of this opinion, the little scraps of speeches which
are found in the parliamentary journals, and which carry all air so
opposite to the labored: rations, seem to be a sufficient proof; and
there want not productions of that age, which, being written by men who
were not authors by profession, retain a very natural manner, and may
give us some idea of the language which prevailed among men of the
world. I shall particularly mention Sir John Davis's Discovery.
Throgmorton's, Essex's, and Nevil's letters. In a more early period,
Cavendish's life of Cardinal Wolsey, the pieces that remain of Bishop
Gardiner, and Anne Boleyn's letter to the king, differ little or nothing
from the language of our time.

The great glory of literature in this island during the reign of James,
was Lord Bacon. Most of his performances were composed in Latin; though
he possessed neither the elegance of that, nor of his native tongue. If
we consider the variety of talents displayed by this man, as a public
speaker, a man of business, a wit, a courtier, a companion, an author, a
philosopher, he is ju