The earliest English author is Chaucer, "the morning-star of English song," who was born in 1328, and produced his first poem, The Court of Lore, in 1347 ing his life he enjoyed the favor of ward 111. and his son, John of Gaunt. lie filled various diplomatic stations, among others that of ambassador to Genoa. During his residence in Italy, he became familiar with the works of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrareh, and is supposed to have visited the latter. Ile also wrote Troilus and Cressida, The House of Pante, and The Canterbury Tales, his most famous work, an tion, in poetry, of the Decameron, Ile died in 1400. The first prose works in the English language wore translations of the gospels and of seine of tho classics. the Reformer, who first made an English version of the Bible, was a contemporary of Chaucer. Sir Thomas Wyatt, and henry Howard, Earl or Sur rey, who ilouriehed under the reign of Henry VIII., in the beginning of the sixteenth century, are the next English poets of note. They wrote principally songs and odes. Surrey was beheaded on charge of treason in 1547.
The reign of Elizabeth, at the elose of the sixteenth century, was the golden age of English literature. Shakspeare, Spen ser, Raleigh, Sidney, Ben Jonson, Beau mont and Fletcher, formed a constella tion of poets and dramatists, such as no other age or country ever produced. Spenser, born in 1553, became early as sociated with Sir Philip Sidney, to whom, in 1579, he dedicated his first work, the Shepherd's Calendar, a pastoral. From 1586 to 1598, he was sheriff of the county of Cork, in Ireland, and resided at Kil column Castle, where his greatest work, The Faery Queen, was composed This is an allegory in 12 books, written in stanza of his own invention, (modelled, however, on the Italian ottava rima,) and which now bears his name. He died in 1599. Sidney, who was born in 1554, is best known as the author of Arcadia, a pastoral romance, and the Defence of Poetry. Ile is the first writer who gave an elegant and correct form to English prose. Shakspeare, the greatest dramat ic poet of any age, was born in 1564. Ile commenced his career by preparing for the stage the plays of some of his pre decessors, and this fact has thrown some doubt about the authenticity of two or three of the plays included among his works. The order in which his own plays appeared has never been satisfactorily ascertained. The following, however, arc known to have been written before 1593 : The Two Gentlemen of Verona ; Love's Labor Lost; The Comedy of Er ; Midsummer Night's Dream ; Romeo and Juliet ; Merchant of Venice; Richard II.; Richard III.; Henry IV., and King John. The Tempest, which appeared in 1611, is believed to be his last dramatic work. lie also wrote the poems of and Adonis, and The Rape of Lacrece, a lyric called The Passionate Pilgrim, and a great num ber of sonnets, some of which are the fin est in the language. Ile died 1616. Ben Jenson was burn in 1574, and pub lished his first. dramatic work, the com edy of Every Man in his Humor, in 1596. In addition to other comedies, the
best of which are Volpone, the Fox, and The Alchymist, he wrote many exquisite songs and madrigals. Sir Walter Ral eigh is more distinguished as a gallant knight and daring adventurer than as an author, yet his lyrics and his History of the World, written during twelve years' imprisonment in the Tower, give hint full claim to the latter title. Ile was born in 1552 and was beheaded by order of James I. in 1617. Beaumont and Fletcher, contemporaries and in some degree imitators of Shakspeare, deserve the next place after him, among the dra matists of that period. Beaumont is sup posed to have been the inventive genius of their plays, and Fletcher to have sup plied the wit and fancy. The Faithful Shepherdess is the work of Fletcher alone. Many dramatists flourished dur ing this and the succeeding generation, whose works are now but little read, but who would have attained eminence but for the greater lights with which they are eclipsed. The most noted of them are Marlowe, Marston, Chapman, Decker, Webster, Ford and Messinger.
Between Shakspeare and Milton, the only name which appears in English lit erature is Cowley, the author of the. Davideis, a forgotten epic. Milton was borne in 1608, and in his early boyhood exhibited the genius which afterwards made him the first English poet, and one of the great masters of English prose. His Hymn on the Natirity, was written in his twenty-first, and his mask of Co mas, in his twenty-third year. L' Alle gro, 11 Penseroso, and Lycidas suon af terwards appeared. Atter his return from Italy, he devoted his attention to theology and polities. Ills treatise on Marriage was published in 1643, his Arcopagitica in 1644, and his fatuous re ply to Salmasius in 1651. In the follow ing year he lost his sight, and was obliged to retire from public service. His Pa ra dise Lost appeared in 1665, and was fol lowed by Paradise Regained in 1671, and Samson Agonistes. the died in 1674. Dryden, who, born in 1631, was known as a poet during Milton's life, introduced a new school of poetry—the narrative and didactic. His first noted poem, the An nus Mirabilis, was produced in 1666, his satire of Absalom and Achitophel in 1681, and shortly afterwards his Hind Panther, a religious satire. Ile also wrote several rhymed tragedies and an Essay on Dramatic Poesy. Defoe. born in 1663, wrote the world-renowned nar rative or Robinson crusoc, which was first published in 1719. The seventeenth century was also an important epoch for English philosophical literature. Lord Bat on, burn in 1361, published his De dig titate et a tegmentis Seientarum in 1605, and his celebrated NO1711111, Orga ?WM in 1620. These, although written in Latin, are the most important philosophi cal works which have ever emanated from an English author. Hobbes, a writer on polities, jurisprudence and moral phi leiophy, died in 1679. Locke, born in 1632, first published his Essay on the Hunan Understanding, in 1690.