reign parts looked to a genuine
English traveller early in the seventeenth century, and so forth. Moreover,
the book was long a very popular one, and an unusual number of anecdotes
and scraps passed from it into the general literary stock of English
writers. But Howell's manner of telling his stories is not extraordinarily
attractive, and has something self-conscious and artificial about it which
detracts from its interest. The _Characters_ of Overbury were followed and,
no doubt, imitated by John Earle, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and a man
of some importance. Earle, who was a fellow of Merton, called his sketches
_Microcosmography_. Nothing in them approaches the celebrated if perhaps
not quite genuine milkmaid of Overbury; but they give evidence of a good
deal of direct observation often expressed in a style that is pointed, such
as the description of a bowling green as a place fitted for "the expense of
time, money, and oaths." The church historian and miscellanist Heylin
belongs also to the now fast multiplying class of professional writers who
dealt with almost any subject as it might seem likely to hit the taste of
the public. The bold and fantastic speculations of Bishop Wilkins and Sir
Kenelm Digby, and the _Oceana_ or Ideal Republic (last of a long line) of
James Harrington (not to be confounded with the earlier Sir John Harington,
translator of Ariosto), deserve some notice. The famous _Eikon Basilike_
(the authorship of which has perhaps of late years been too confidently
ascribed to Dr. Gauden independently, rather than to the king, edited by
Gauden) has considerable literary merit. Last of all has to be mentioned a
curious book, which made some noise at its appearance, and which, though
not much read now, has had two seasons of genuine popularity, and is still
highly thought of by a few good judges. This is the _Resolves_ of Owen
Feltham or Felltham. Not much is known of the author except that he was of
a respectable family in East Anglia, a family which seems to have been
especially seated in the neighbourhood of Lowestoft. Besides the _Resolves_
he wrote some verse, of which the most notable piece is a reply to Ben
Jonson's famous ode to himself ("Come Leave the Loathed Stage")--a reply
which even such a sworn partisan as Gifford admits to be at least just if
not very kind. Felltham seems also to have engaged in controversy with
another Johnson, a Jesuit, on theological subjects. But save for the
_Resol