H o ■

A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OP

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH BIOGRAPHICAL WRITING

Gerald A. Craven

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

August 1971

proved by Doctoral Committee Advisor © 1971

Gerald Allen Craven

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE NOTE:

Some Pages have indistinct print. Filmed as received.

UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS il

ABSTRACT

In order to understand and properly judge seventeenth- century English Biography, it is necessary to know, insofar as possible, what the various biographers .were attempting to accomplish within what they understood to be the limitations of the genre. The purpose of this study is to examine their reasons for writing, their biographical methodology, and their various concepts of life-writing as a branch of literature.

The dissertation is divided into two parts; the first section deals with biographical sketches, the second with book-length biographies. Each section examines the goals, the concepts of form, and the methodology of representative writers so that their successes and failures can be assessed by applicable standards. Only works written by one man about the life of another are considered; autobiographies, diaries, and mémoires do not fall within the scope of this s tudy.

The conclusion points out that modern readers who condemn seventeenth-century English biographers, as many do, for failure to give the appearance of objectively reporting the lives and personalities of their subjects are applying standards of biographical writing which developed later. Such censure interferes with perceiving the real accomplishments of these writers by approaching their work with pre-conceived definitions of form which they would not have understood. Ill

For John J. Gross iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ...... 1

PART I: SHORT BIOGRAPHY...... 21

1. The Historians ...... 22

2. The Biographical Dictionaries...... 42

PART II: LONG BIOGRAPHY...... 65 1. General Trends ...... 66 2. Biography of Political Figures ...... 69

3. Intimate Biography ...... 88

4. Izaak Walton ...... 104

CONCLUSION ...... 115 FOOTNOTES...... 126 BIBLIOGRAPHY 143 INTRODUCTION Z

Modern readers of seventeenth-century English biography are generally disappointed by its characteristic sketchiness and irrelevancies. This response is natural enough consider­ ing that most twentieth-century readers make stringent demands upon the genre. "Pure biography," states a recent literary handbook, "centers its whole attention on the character and career of its subject." This view is amplified in the hand­ book’s extended definition of biography: It must be a history, but an accurate history; one which paints not only one aspect of the man but all important aspects. It must be the life of a ’par- . ticular’ man focused clearly on that man with more casual reference to the background of the social and political institutions of his time. It must present the facts accurately and must make some effort to interpret these facts in such a way as to present character and habits of mind. It must avoid panegyric and the didactic as the man himself might avoid the plague. But, on the other hand, it must emphasize personality. And this personality must be the central thesis of the book. If the biographer looks at the times, it must be only with the purpose of presenting a well-constructed and unified impression of the personality of his subject; if he introduces letters and anecdotes (as he surely will) it will be only such anecdotes and letters as reflect this central con­ ception of personality.!

Since seventeenth-century biographies consistently violate various of these dictums, it is easy to dismiss their efforts as failures. Such a judgment, however, not only unfairly applies standards that developed later,2 but also prevents the examination of their accomplishments and failures in methodology from the point of view of the standards of the age In which the biographies were written. 3 A description of biography which would encompass seventeenth-century biographical writing would necessarily be much less restrictive than a description based on modern biographies. In order to be inclusive, a brief definition of the genre as it appeared in the seventeenth century must be very broad: biography had for one of Its principal goals the description of something about the career or personality, or both, of its subject. Such a brief description, however, can tell nothing of the other important goals of any particular biography, nor can it indicate the extent to which a bio­ grapher illuminates the life and character of the person about whom he is writing.

In order to understand and properly judge seventeenth- century biography, it is necessary to know, insofar as possible, what the various biographers were attempting to accomplish within what they understood to be the limitations of the genre. Thus it is important to examine their reasons for writing, their biographical methodology, and their various concepts of life-writing as a branch of literature.

It was during the seventeenth century that the concept of biography as a separate branch of English literature first emerged. Before 1600 no significant biographical work had been published in English.3 By the end of the century this situation had changed radically: men of literary talent, 4

such as Izaak Walton, John Aubrey, and Abraham Cowley, had written biographies of lasting merit, and men of lesser artis­

tic abilities, such as Samuel Clarke, David Lloyd, and William

Winstanley, had published numerous biographical collections.

Also, much biographical writing appeared In the contemporary histories of the period. One of the most striking aspects of this body of bio­ graphical writing is the apparent inefficiency with which the various writers approached the task of recording the im­ portant facts of their subject's life and character. For one thing, most of the portraits appear inadequate: we are presented with sketchy factual information and insufficient individualizing detail. Also, much that is seemingly irrele­ vant Is included, such as moral pronouncements and political propoganda. In part, this condition of biographical method­ ology is due to the fact that the form was new; there were few models for the biographer to use as a pattern for his work, and English writers were beginning for the first time to grapple with some of the problems inherent in the form.

How much can ethically be revealed of a man's private life?

When facts are not available, how much conjecture is allowed? Should a man's personal letters and journals be made public?

Should minor details about his life be included? Is the life of a man who is not a saint, a king, or a stateman worth recording? And how should a biographer approach his task: 5 as artist or as historian? Indicative that biographical writing was new on the English literary scene is the fact that the word biography itself was not used in its modern sense until 1683.^

The lack of an English tradition in biographical writing meant that writers were more free to be innovative and to use their own biographical methods to better achieve their particular ends, which were not always in harmony with presenting a believable flesh-and-blood portrait to their readers. John Aubrey often sought to be entertaining rather than accurate; Thomas Fuller and Samuel Clarke found bio­ graphical writing both financially profitable and useful as a vehicle for instructing the reader in moral lessons, often at the expense of biographical accuracy; Lord Clarendon and Bishop Burnet included much polemical writing in their por­ traits of political figures. This is not to say that such biographers did not seek to record accurately their impres­ sions of the lives and personalities of their subjects, but it is important to recognize that presenting a literary por­ trait was often only one of their goals, and frequently this

purpose was not of central importance. Seventeenth-century English writers produced much biographical writing, but only that which is typical or influential, that which aspires to literary merit need be examined.5 The most important forms of biographical writing 6 of the period--those which give most biographical information-- have traditionally been divided into two categories: long, or book-length biographies, such as Bacon’s account of Henry VII, and short biographies, such as those found in biographical collections.6 This division is convenient but can be somewhat misleading. The uninitiated reader might assume that because a biographical work is long it might contain more information about and a better portrait of the subject than would one of the short biographies. In some cases this assumption would be true, but often it is not. Frequently the writers of the longer works concerned themselves with a political history of the time in which their subject lived, almost to the exclusion of discussing the subject himself. Nevertheless, the division between long and short biographies is worth maintaining because of the degree of uniformity in methodology among the longer works and because there is a definite, if slight, development during the century of book-length biography. Also, there is uniformity, though to a lesser degree, in the methods used by writers of brief biographies. If those seventeenth-century writers who turned their attention to biographical writing were aware of medieval biographies as models for their form of life-writing, they chose not to acknowledge their debt. However, some writers, such as Samuel Clarke and David Lloyd, were clearly Influenced by semi-biographical exemplary works such as the medieval 7 saint's lives. This influence too often resulted in bio­ graphies which emphasized aspects of the subjects which were typical of humanity (for the purpose of moralizing) rather than his idiosyncrasies that might make him interesting as a unique person.

Before the beginning of the seventeenth century, two exceptional English biographies were written which, had they been published earlier, would have provided workable models for biography: George Cavendish's life of Wolsey, which re­ mained in manuscript form until its first printing in 1641 under the title The Negotiations of Thomas Wolsey, The Great

Cardinal of England, and William Roper's Life of Thomas More, first printed in 1621. In selection of detail and presenta­ tion of character traits, the biography of Wolsey is far superior to any biographical writing previously published in

English; but Cavendish was overly zealous in his determination to impose form and order upon the life he was recording. He saw the story of Wolsey as material for de casibus tragedy, showing Wolsey climbing "up Fortune's Wheel" only to suffer the fatal consequences of being overly fond of the vanities of this world. He announced this intention early in the book: Fortune smiled so upon him. But to what end she brought him, ye shall hear after. Therefore let all men to whom fortune extendeth her grace not trust too much in her fickle favor and pleasant promises, under cover whereof she carrieth venom­ ous gall. For when she seeth her servant in most highest authority and that he assureth himself most 8

assuredly In her favor, then turneth she her visage and pleasant countenance unto a frown­ ing cheer and utterly forsaketh him, such assurance is in her inconstant favor and sugared promise.7 Throughout the work Cavendish suspends his narrative to re­ peat this kind of moralizing. And in the closing sentences of the book he says, 0 madness, 0 foolish desire, 0 fond hope, 0 greedy desire of vain honors, dignities and riches, 0 what inconstant trust and assurance is in rolling Fortune!8

In spite of the great amount of factual information the work contains about Wolsey, it remains in intent and design a moral exemplum, a work which focuses upon the life of Wolsey prin­ cipally because it provides such an excellent text for ser­ monizing about proper moral conduct.9

Although Roper's life of More provides modern biographers of More with much material for biography, as a whole it also is in the tradition of didactic biographical writing. Unlike Cavandish, Roper does not repeatedly assert that his book is a moral exemplum; only in the opening sentence does he state his didactic intent: Forasmuch as Sir Thomas More, Knight, sometime Lord Chancellor of England, a man of singular virtue and of a clear, unspotted conscience, as witnesseth Erasmus, more pure and white than the whited snow, and of such an angelical wit as England (he saith) never had the like before, nor never shall again, universally, as well in the laws of our own realm, a study in effect able to occupy the whole life of a man, as in all other sciences right well studied, 9 was in his days accompted a man worthy perpetual memory,^0 Nevertheless, Roper's method was to make every incident in the

hook illustrative or More's piety, integrity, and dedication

to justice. In spite of their limitations and flaws, Cavendish's

Life of Wolsey and Roper's Life of Thomas More do present portraits—but distorted ones--of their subjects. Had their publication not been delayed until the next century, these two works certainly would have provided better models for biography for the later sixteenth century than did any of the medieval works.

Some seventeenth-century biographers, Including Izaak

Walton, cited Plutarch's Parallel Lives as a model for their writing, and, because of this, many literary historians have concluded that Plutarch's Lives were of great importance in the formation of seventeenth-century biography. There is, however, little resemblance between the methodology of Plutarch and that of his supposed followers. Neither the long biogra­ phies of the period nor the biographical sketches were much affected by Plutarch's example. Claiming Plutarch as a model seems little more than an attempt to dignify biography as a genre by associating it with a classical writer. Plutarch's Parallel Lives were widely read in late six­ teenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Montaigne, for example, was most enthusiastic for reasons that point to Plutarch's 10

chief strength as a biographer: Historians are pleasant and easy; and at the same time, man in general, the knowledge of whom I seek, appears in them more alive and entire than in any other place--the diversity and truth of his inner qualities in the mass and in detail, the variety of ways he is put together, and the accidents that threaten him. Now those who write biographies since they spend more time on plans than events, more on what comes from within than what happens without, are most suited to me. That is why in every way Plutarch is my man.H

Montaigne illustrates his love of Plutarch with an apt

reference to the life of Brutus:

I have regretted a thousand times that we have lost the book that Brutus had written on virtue. . . . But since the preachings are one thing and the preacher another, I am as glad to see Brutus In Plutarch as in a book of his own. I would rather choose to know truly the conversation he held in his tent with some of his intimate friends on the eve of a battle than the speech he made the next day to his army; and what he was doing in the public square and in the senate.!2

Certainly such details were present in Plutarch, but

Montaigne's emphasis on this aspect of the Parallel Lives

(known to him through Amyot's 1559 translation) tells us more about Montaigne than it does about the real nature of Plutarch's Lives. Montaigne was fascinated by the individuality

of men, so he responds most warmly to Plutarch when he

individualizes. But what is most striking about Plutarch is his engaging use of narrative, not his phsycological insights.

Typical Is this passage from the life of Marius:

Marius was no sooner out of the city, but they that were in his company forsaking him, dis- 11

persed themselves here and there being dark night: and Marius himself got to a house of his in the country, called Solonium and sent his son to one of his father-in-law Mutius' farms not far from thence, to make some provision for victuals. But Marius in the meantime, went before to Ostia, where one of his friends Numerius had prepared him a ship, in the which he embarked immediately, not tarrying for his son, and hoised sail, having only Granius his wife's son, with him. In the meantime the younger Marius being at his father-in-law Mutius' farm, stayed so long in getting of provision, in trussing of it up, and carrying it away, that broad daylight had like to have discovered him: for the enemies had advertisement whither he was gone, where­ upon certain horsemen were sent thither supposing to have found of their coming, and preventing them also before they came, sodainly yoked his oxen to the cart which he loaded with beans, and hid this younger Marius under the same. And pricking the oxen forward with his goad, set out, and met them as he went towards the city, and delivered Marius in this sort into his wive's house: and there taking such things as he needed, when the night following came, went towards the sea, and took ship, finding one cross-sailed, bound towards Africk.13

It is chiefly this entertaining, novel-like quality that made

the translations of Plutarch so popular.

Plutarch's influence on seventeenth-century biography was largely to confirm the general notion that biography was reserved for great men. All of his subjects are dealt with because of their importance as political figures--founders of

states, military commanders, or important political leaders.

People not much in the public eye, poets and other artists were excluded from consideration.

During the seventeenth century, the popularity of character-writing along with an increased interest in anti- 12

quarianism and in the lives of literary figures during the

century contributed much to the development of biography. But

these influences, important as they were In aiding the emer­

gence of biography as a separate genre, did not necessarily

encourage the various writers to concentrate upon accurate,

careful presentation of personality. Character-writing tended

to be general and much given to moralizing; the antiquarians

not only confused biography with history but also recorded

quaint, irrelevant detail; and literary biographers mixed

commentary on the literature with presentation of the writer's

life.

The effect of character-writing on biography is not easy to determine. The important thing to notice here is that the

description in essay form of a general type of political or social being emerged as a separate genre early in the seven­

teenth century. This genre, of which the most popular volume

was Thomas Overbury His Wife (1614), only vaguely approximates

biography as we know it. But--and herein lies its importance

to the student of biography--men like Lord Clarendon, Bishop

Burnet, Thomas Fuller, Anthony'a Wood, and John Aubrey were to varying degrees indebted to character-writings as models for their brief biographical sketches. Even Walton's lives were in some ways Influenced by character-writing; for example,

Walton ends his life of Donne with a brief description of

Donne's distinguishing characteristics in a form suggestive of 13 the character. For many of the writers later in the century,

especially Clarendon and Burnet, it is not going too far to

consider their biographies as little more than extensions of

the character genre. Clarendon's life of the Earl of Carnar­

von, for example, sounds very like an Overburian character.

Of Carnarvon, Clarendon writes, After the troubles began, having the command of the first and second Regiment of Horse that was raised for the King's service, he wholly gave himself up to the office and duty of a Souldier, no man more diligently obeying, or more dextrously commanding, for he was not only of a very keen courage in the exposing his person, but an excellent discerner and pursuer of advantage upon his enemy, and had a mind and understanding very present in the article of danger, which is a rare benefit in that profession. Those infirmities and that licence which he had formerly indulged to himself, he put off with sever­ ity, when others thought them excusible under the notion of a souldier.14 This could pass for an excerpt from Overbury's "A Worthy Com­

mander in the Wars": He knows the hazard of battles, not the pomp of ceremonies, are soldiers' best theaters, and strives to gain reputation, not by the multitude but by the greatness of his actions. He is the first in giving the charge and the last in retiring his foot. Equal toil he endures with the common soldier; from his example they all take fire, as one torch lights many. 5

In approach, these two excerpts are very like the medieval biographical sketches in Lydgate's The Fall of Princes (1439): they present the subject in general terms rather than arriving at general conclusions from specific details and actions.

Many of the biographical sketches written in the latter 14 part of the seventeenth century provide lists of known facts about a man's life, to which are added character tags or traits inferred by the biographer. This is especially true of the method employed by Anthony'a Wood, who compiled the Athenae

Oxonietises. Typical of Wood is this opening sentence of one of his lives:

Edward Kelley, otherwise Talbot, was born in the city of Worcester at about 4 of the clock in the afternoon on the first day of Aug., 1553 (3 of Q. Mary), whose nativity being afterwards calculated, it did appear that he was born to be a man of clear understanding, quick apprehension, of an excellent wit, and of great propensity to philo­ sophical studies and the mysteries of nature.16

Seldon in Wood, or in the other writers of brief lives, do we find any attempt to integrate facts with inferences regarding character; the two simply exist side by side, a result of confusing biography with history and of the failure to sub­ ordinate and utilize the facts of a man's life as a means of relating his character. Earlier, Francis Bacon was guilty of the same indifference to presenting the whole man. He divides his History of Henry VII into a chronicle of the events of Henry's reign followed by a description of what Henry was like. Two notable antiquarians, Thomas Fuller and John Aubrey, introduced into the biographical sketch the kind of humanizing detail essential to biography. Both men were fond of gossip and often included Incidents in their writing simply because 15 they were interesting, without bothering to verify them or to

relate them logically and coherently to the biography.

In explaining why he wrote The Worthies of England, which

is among other things a county history of England and a kind

of biographical dictionary, Fuller says,

Know then, I propound five ends to myself in this Book: first, to gain some glory to God: secondly, to preserve the memories of the dead: thirdly, to present examples to the living: fourthly, to enter­ tain the reader with delight: and lastly (which I am not ashamed publicly to profess), to procure some honest profit for myself.1?

His third purpose, to write exemplum, takes his writing out

of the realm of biography. The poem he used to preface the

work shows how seriously he took this objective:

Here, from Fame's wardrobe, you may dress to please, in suits adorned, and shaped to all degrees; Each genius hence may graceful habits take; No mind so warp'd, some mould won't straighter make.lo

Many of his biographies were written with pious regard for

his subject. Fortunately, however, Fuller took his fourth reason for writing, to entertain, as seriously as his third.

He further explains:

I confess, the subject is but dull in itself, to tell the time and place of men's birth, and deaths, their names, with the names and number of their books; and therefore this bare skeleton of time, place, and person must be fleshed with some pleas­ ant passages. To this intent I have purposely interlaced (not as meat, but as condiment) many delightful stories, so that the reader, if he do not arise (which I hope and desire) religiosior or doctior, with more piety or learning^ at’ least he mav depart jucundior, with more pleasure and law­ ful delightW^----- 16

It is as a result of this intent to entertain that he writes

some of his most memorable passages--such as that in his life

of Shakespeare where, in describing the conversation between Shakespeare and Jonson, he compares Jonson's wit to a Spanish

'galleon and Shakespeare's to an English man-of-war.

But it is John Aubrey rather than Fuller who made best use of apt detail and telling incident in his brief biogra­ phies, thus focusing more upon biographical writing than extraneous matters. Aubrey, whom Anthony eiWood described as

"roving and magotie-headed, and sometimes little better than erased,"20 never managed to choose a profession; he spent his life studying whatever interested him--history, astrology, architecture--and jotting down notes about the lives of his contemporaries and famous men of the past. Had he better disciplined his genius for character study, he might have produced the kind of biography Boswell was to write a century later. But he lacked the discipline to revise and rewrite; so his Brief Lives are often merely random notes. Aubrey's strength as a biographer lies in the fact that he gives the sort of detail previous biographers almost never Included. Of Bacon, for example, Aubrey says, "He had a delicate, lively, hazel Eye; Dr. Harvey told me it was like the

Eye of a viper"; and of William Davenant: "He got a terrible clap of a Black handsome wench that lay in axe-yard, West­ minster. . .which cost him his nose, with which unlucky mis­ 17 chance many wits were too cruelly hold.” He writes of Sir

Walter Raleigh: "He had a most remarkable aspect, an exceed­

ing high forehead, long-faced and sour eye-lidded, a kind of

pig-eye. His Beard turned up naturally." It is unfortunate

that Aubrey lacked the power to turn such notes into a

unified, continuous narrative.

It was, in part, the increased interest in the lives of

literary figures that encouraged Aubrey and Fuller to give so

much attention to English writers. Literary biography--that written about a man solely because he had distinguished him­

self as a literary artist--was almost non-existent before the middle of the seventeenth century. One principal reason for this situation, says Richard D. Altick, was that the professional man of letters was not considered worth writing about:

Grub Street had already come into existence, and its citizens were quickly stereotyped In the upperclass imagination as penniless, bibulous hacks, striking humiliating bargains with booksellers or licking the boots of titled potential patrons. That any of them would be judged worthy of a biography in an age when biography was devoted to monarchs and Protestant martyrs and ecclesiastics was incredible.21

Altick also points out that the Renaissance view of the poet as mouthpiece, as one possessed rather than as originator, made his personality and experiences irrelevant to under­ standing his work.22 Thus it is not until the Restoration, until the man of letters became a respected member of society-- and until some of the critical notions of the Renaissance were 18

laid aside--that any significant literary biography was

produced. And even then such works were not always considered

worthy of the effort it took to produce them. Gerard Lang-

baine concluded the preface to his 1691 publication, An Account

of the English Dramatic Poets, with this apologetic note:

And if I can be so happy as to obtain a Pardon from the solid part of Mankind, for having misspent my Time in these Lighter Studies, I promise for the future, to employ myself on Subjects of more Weight and Importance. In spite of this attitude, many literary biographies, or

biographical sketches, were written in the latter part of the

seventeenth century, and these laid the groundwork for the

development of the form in the eighteenth century by Johnson and Boswell. Gerard Langbaine, Edward Phillips, and other writers of brief literary biographies evidently felt compelled to judge a writer's work in the process of telling about his life.

Usually this meant merely stating that the writer's works are good or bad; occasionally the biographer—critic offers reasons for his judgments. Unfortunately, from the point of view of one who is looking for biographical information, these critical assessments are often given more attention than the description of the writer's life. The best biographer of the century--and certainly the most widely read today--is Izaak Walton. The other writers who produced book-length biographies did not succeed nearly so 19 well as Walton In concentrating on the character of their

subjects. Works such as George Buck's The History of the

Life and Reign of Richard III (1646), Edward Herbert's The

Life- and Reign of King Henry the Eighth (1649)> and Thomas Gumble's The Life of General Monck (1671) tell us more about

the political activities of their subjects than about their

personalities, and are more valuable as histories than as

biographies. Other biographies, such as John Evelyn's The

LifeJ of Mrs. Godolphin (1678) and Gilbert Burnet's Some

Passages of the Life and Death of the Right' Honorable John,

Earl of- Rochester (1680), are primarily didactic In intent.

Walton's biographical writing is also marked by digressions for moral pronouncements, but he does provide the reader with

some vivid glimpses of his subjects.

All seventeenth-century biographical writing, including

Walton's, fails to give the appearance of objectively and thoroughly reporting a man's life and character; all con­ centrate only on certain aspects of their subject's person­ alities and include information which has nothing to do with informative biography. Seventeenth-century biographers, however, did not understand the genre in terms of objective presentation of personality and behavior for its own sake, but as a vehicle for presenting various kinds of information and opinions which they saw as related to biographical writ­ ing. If one wishes to understand the life-writing of the 20 period, it is therefore necessary to read it from the point of view of its own standards. PART I Short Biography 22

1. The Historians

Edward Hyde, the first Earl of Clarendon,! and Bishop

Gilbert Burnet,2 who are generally recognized today as the

two most important English historians during the seventeenth century, personally witnessed the events which they recorded;

they were important enough in the structural hierarchy of

the state that they came into personal contact with many of

the ecclesiastical and political leaders. Both men made

great efforts to be accurate reporters of events; and they

were also committed to explaining why things happened as they

did. Clarendon, especially, loses no opportunity to praise

or blame those whom he considered responsible for various

events. Since Clarendon and Burnet believed that history

was made by powerful political figures, it is logical that

they should Include many biographical sketches of contem­

porary leaders in their attempts to interpret recent events.

Also, since both men were concerned enough to write lengthy

histories of their own times so that they could explain events

as they saw them, they took great care with style and rhetoric, especially in their biographical sketches, in order

to make their assertions more persuasive. The most important thing that motivated Clarendon, Burnet and other seventeenth-century biographer-historians

to write the way they did was the Puritan upheavals. The religious and civil disturbances in the middle of the century 23 caused many to write histories in order to vindicate their

beliefs and actions. Some of the titles of the histories

produced in the period Illustrate quite well this concern

with the Puritan upheavals:

Joshua Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, England1s Recovery: Being the History of the Motions, Actions, and Successes of the Army under the Immediate Conduct of His Excellency, Sir Thomas Fairfax, Kt. (1647)

Bulstrode Whitelock, Memorials of the English Affairs from the Beginning of the Reign of Charles t'he' First to King Charles the Second His Happy Restauration (16991 Thomas Fuller, The Church History of Britain (1655) Gilbert Burnet, History of My Own Time (pub. 1724-34)

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion (pub. 1702-04)

In writing recent history, these historians often dealt with

the careers of men whom they knew personally and often included character sketches drawn from their own observation. Joshua Sprigge, for example, who knew Thomas Fairfax, wrote in his history of Fairfax "a brief character of the General" early in the book: "Sir Thomas Fairfax," he stated,

eldest son of the Lord Fairfax, of Denton in the county of York: martially disposed from his youth; not finding action suitable to him in his own country (for through the great goodness and long suffering of God, England hath been a quiet habita­ tion these 80 years) and there being employment in Holland, he went over thither to enable himself in military experience; and upon his return into England, he matched into a most noble and martial family, taking to wife one of the daughters of that ever renouned general, the Lord Vere. And thus the reader may take notice, how not only his extraction, 24

disposition, and education bespake him for a soldier, but his contract also portended nothing else.3

In this, one of the few character sketches in the volume,

Sprigge evidently felt he should explain what in the charac­

ter of Fairfax led him to become a soldier before launching

into the history of Fairfax as a military leader.

Most seventeenth-century historians deemed a character

sketch--at least for their principal figures--so important

that if they could not construct one from personal exper­

ience, they often borrowed from others. In his church his­

tory, Memorials of Thomas Cranmer (1694), for example, John

Strype included an entire chapter entitled "A Prospect of

the Archbishop's Qualities," most of which is made up of direct quotations from notes provided by "one Morice, a man of worship."^ When, in the writing of the History of His Own

Time', Bishop Burnet had occasion to discuss the king of

Sweden, he wrote to John Robinson, "who had lived above thirty years in that court, and is now Bishop of Bristol, for a particular character of that king."5 Robinson sent the sketch, which Burnet used in his History.

In blending biography with historiography, seventeenth- century historians were not innovative; they were making use of a tradition in historical writing. Francis Bacon, in 1605, concluded that there were four types of histories: natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary; he divided civil history 25 into chronicles, lives, and narrations. "For History of

Times," he further explains, representeth the magnitude of actions and the public faces and deportments of persons, and passeth over in silence the smaller passages and motions of men and matters. But Lives, if they be well written, propounding to themselves a person to represent in whom actions both greater and smaller, public and private, have a commixture, must of necessity contain a more true narrative and lively representation.6

Clarendon and Burnet, as did other historians of the seven­ teenth century, adapted the notion that life-writing was a branch of historical writing to suit their own particular

purposes. Using Bacon's terminology, what Clarendon and

Burnet did was to write a "History of Times" which included

"Lives" because they felt that "the smaller passages and motions of men" should not be passed over in silence but should be incorporated into the history as a means of Inter­ preting and explaining events.

The tradition of Overburian character writing provided precisely the kind of literary model Clarendon, Burnet, and other historians could use for describing virtues or vices of particular political leaders who, because of their charac­ ter makeup, were responsible for, or contributed to the history of the times. Thus the tendency to overlap histori­ ography and biography together with the example of capsule summations of character provided by the-Overburian writers were important literary influences upon the form of Clarendon's 26

and Burnet's biographical writing.

Also, Clarendon and Burnet made use of rhetoric, as it was understood in the Renaissance, in constructing their biographical sketches. Thomas Wright, in The Passions of

the Mind- in General' (1604), explained how attention to rhetorical style could be effective;

Our reasons should be largely declared, and yet with sharp, and short variety interlaced; resembling a volley of shot speedely delivered, but not without bullets to batter down the walls of wilful affections, and for this cause we may use pithy, short descriptions, compounded of some metaphor annexed with some propriety, which is most usual with orators: as Cicero commendeth histories: for saith he, Histories are the wit­ nesses of times, the light of truth, the life of memory, the mistress of life, the messenger of antiquity, so may we in like manner describe a man to be a shadow of pleasure, a glorious flower, a fading rose, an unsatiable appetite, a circle of fancies, a running river, a mortal angel, a reasonable beast, a vitious monster declining from his nature. Many similitudes, or disimili­ tudes, examples, contrarities, effects repugnant, may be easily invented, readily delivered, and in a moment understood;; so that by this means pro­ found conceit shall be facilited, and therewith auditors instructed, delighted, and moved? /(italics are mine/.

In the Advancement of Learning (l605) Francis Bacon said essentially the same thing: "The duty and office of Rhetoric is to apply Reason to Imagination for the better moving of the will," then added a warning that rhetoric can be abused: For we see Reason is disturbed in the administra­ tion thereof by three means; by Illaqueation or Sophism, which pertains to Rhetoric; and by Passion or Affection, which pertains to Morality. And as 27 in negotiations with others men are wrought by cunning, by importunity, and by vehemency; so this negotiation within ourselves men are under­ mined by Inconsequences, solicited and importuned by Impressions or Observations, and transported by Passions.8

Although it would be presumptious to accuse Clarendon or

Burnet of deliberately misrepresenting the truth in their biographies "by cunning, by importunity, and by vehemency," it is advisable to notice that they employ rhetorical devices to convince the reader of the efficacy of what they think is the truth. Knowing that the reader might suspect distorta- tion in something so subjective as character assessments, which are clearly based on impressions or observations rather than reason or logic, Clarendon wrote his biographical sketches as persuasively as possible. Burnet also employed rhetorical devices in order to convince, but to a lesser degree than did

Clarendon. Of the historians, Edward Hyde, First Earl of Clarendon, wrote the most biographical sketches in his great work,

History of- the Rebed!ion.9 In his history, Clarendon narrated the events, as he saw them, before, during, and immediately after the English civil war. At times he was concerned with relating what he witnessed, and at times with vindicating the actions of the Royalist forces which he had so firmly sup­ ported. 10 Throughout he strove for accuracy; when he had access to records and documents he was careful with his details 28

But some sections were written wholly from memory, and in

these there are many inaccuracies in factual information. Im­ portunately this lack of research materials did not affect

his biographical sketches, all of which were drawn from memory.

It was Clarendon's desire to explain the causes of the

Civil War that caused him to include so many brief biograph­

ical sketches in his History. He had little understanding of the religious and economic basis for the civil disturb­ ances; instead, he blamed various individual people for the

conflict. "I shall not," he said,

lead any man further back in this journey, for the discovery of the entrance into these dark ways, than the beginnings of this King's Charles I's reign. For I am not so sharp-sighted as those who have discerned this rebellion contriving from, if not before, the death of Queen Elizabeth, and fomented by several princes and great ministers of state in Christendom to the time that it brake out.12

His conviction was that the Civil War was the result of a series of political mistakes for which many people were re­ sponsible. He holds the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Weston responsible, for example, for "the abrupt and ungracious breaking of the two first Parliaments."13 And he often speaks of "errors," as in his account of the first trouble Charles

I had with Scotland:

The pomp of this journey of his majesty (for it was rather like a progress than a march) was the first error committed, and was in truth the ground of all the errors and misfortunes that ensued.14 29 In writing about the revolution, Clarendon felt it was his

duty as a historian "to show not only by what accidents it

had occurred, but also, how easily it could have been

prevented."15

If human error was the cause of the conflict, then it followed that understanding the personalities of those who

made and were affected by the mistakes would be necessary

for understanding why the war broke out. Clarendon attempted

to provide such explanation by writing character sketches of

the leaders of both the Parliamentary and the Royalist forces

D. Nichol Smith was essentially correct in describing the

History of the Rebellion as "a Stuart portrait gallery, and the greatest portrait gallery in the English language."16

Although Clarendon used no set formula for writing his biographical sketches, his usual approach is simple. He suspends his historical narrative upon introducing an impor­ tant person in much the same fashion as George Bernard Shaw halts the action for a reader of his plays in order to give stage directions describing the attitudes of a character that has just entered the scene. In Clarendon's historical drama, as in Shaw's plays, the length of the description depends upon the importance of the person in the ensuing action. Clarendon's sketches range from as few as thirty words to as many as two thousand, though the usual number is somewhere between six and nine hundred. 30 Generally, though not always, Clarendon begins with

praise, then proceeds to some adverse criticism. He care­

fully constructs his brief biographies to produce the effect he wants; he is so skillful in structuring the essays that his judgment generally seems sufficiently detached and, fair to permit a reader easily to adopt Clarendon's attitude without feeling manipulated. His account of the Duke of

Buckingham, whom he did not like, begins with a mixture of praise and adverse criticism. This great man was a person of a noble nature and generous disposition, and of such other endowments as made him very capable of being a great favourite to a great king.17 Clarendon's unstated purpose in giving a sketch of

Buckingham's character was to show how King James and Charles

I were misled by the advice of Buckingham. In order to strengthen his argument by lending it the appearance of objectivity, Clarendon compliments the Duke for his bravery and kindness, but the praise slowly turns into criticism:

He was of a most flowing courtesy and affability to all men who made any address to him; and so desirous to oblige them, that he did not enough consider the merit of the person he chose to oblige; from which much of his misfortune resulted. . . . His kindness and affection to his friends was so vehement that It was so many marriages for better and worse, and so many leagues offensive and defensive; as If he thought himself obliged to love all his friends, and to make war upon all they were angry with, let the cause be what it would.Io

Clarendon continues at some length with this process of 31 naming admirable qualities of the Duke which became flaws

through intemperance or carelessness. Then he seemingly

praises Buckingham, yet so negatively that it is scarcely

praise: "nor was it ever known that the temptation of money

swayed him to do an unjust or unkind thing."19 Clarendon

closes the sketch with what might pass for an explanation

or an apology for Buckingham's behavior:

If he had an immoderate ambition, with which he was charged, and is a weed (if it be a weed) apt to grow in the best soils, it does not appear that it was in his nature, or that he brought it with him to the Court, but rather found it there, and was a garment necessary for that air. Nor was it more In his power to be without promotion and titles and wealth, than for a healthy man to sit in the sun in the brightest dog-days and remain without any warmth. He needs no ambition who was so seated in the hearts of two such masters.20 Thus the sketch of Buckingham begins with praise and ends with seeming praise and an apology; the tone of the essay is cool and detached, and Clarendon, on the surface at least, seems fair. Yet Buckingham is not an admirable character.

Clarendon makes it clear, though in the most diplomatic of terms, that here is a dangerous man. Though diplomacy is typical of Clarendon's treatment of those whom he dislikes, he is not always gentle. He was a master of scorn, and when he wished to sneer, he did so unmistakably, as in his sketch of the Earl of Arundel (which is the most unsympathetic treatment of anyone in the entire

His tory): 32 He resorted sometimes to the court, because there only was a greater man than himself; and went thither the seldomer, because there was a greater man than himself.21

After asserting that Arundel was stupid and that "as to all

parts of learning he was most illiterate," Clarendon faintly

offers a note of praise:

It cannot be denied that he had In his person, in his aspect and countenance, the appearance of a great man, which he preserved in his gait and motion, which drew the eyes of most, and the rever­ ence of many, towards him, as the image and repre­ sentative of the primitive nobility and native gravity of the nobles, when they had been most vulnerable.22

This, however, is merely a device that enables Clarendon to

be even more scornful: But this was only his outside, his nature and true humour being so much disposed to levity and vulgar delights, which indeed were very despicable and childish. He was never suspected to love anybody, nor to have the least propensity to justice, charity, or compassion; so that, though he got all he could, and by the ways he could, and spent much more than he had got or had, he was never known to give any thing.23

This is one of the few biographical sketches In which Claren­

don forgoes even the appearance of objectivity.

In portraying people he admires, Clarendon strives to

seem objective and unbiased in order to make his judgment of character appear fair and ultimately accurate. It is hard, for example, to dislike the Earl of Pembroke after reading Clarendon's account of him. Clarendon cleverly 33 places the sketch of Pembroke immediately after that of

Arundel so that the great contrast between the two men makes

Pembroke seem even better. Most of the sketch praises

Pembroke highly. Then Clarendon offers criticism, which gives him the appearance of being objective:

Yet his memory must not be so flattered that his virtues and good inclinations may be believed without some allay of vice, and without being clouded with great infirmities, which he had in too exorbitant a proportion. He indulged to himself the pleasures of all kinds, almost in all excess.24

But the only specific vice Clarendon mentions is that Pem­

broke "was immoderately given up to women." And, just as

Clarendon turns praise of Buckingham into criticism, so he

makes this criticism of his friend Pembroke into a virtue:

But therein he likewise retained such a power and jurisdiction over his very appetite, that he was not so much transported with beauty and outward allurements, as with those advantages of the mind as manifested an extraordinary wit and spirit and knowledge, and administered great pleasure in the conversation.25

One of the most interesting--and most slanted—of Clarendon's portraits is that of Charles 1.26 Charles,

according to Clarendon, was "that blessed martyr,"27 a man whose faults were few and quite easy to forgive:

He had an excellent understanding, but was not confident enough of.it; which made him often­ times change his opinion for a worse, and follow the advice of a man that did not judge so well as himself.28

Some of his mistakes, Clarendon declares, stemmed from his 34 being a virtuous man faced with an evil world:

his not applying some severe cures of approaching evils proceeded from the lenity of his nature and the tenderness of his conscience, which in all cases of blood made him choose the softer way, and did not hearken to severe councils, how reason­ able soever urged.29

Charles received greater praise than any other personage in the entire History. Clarendon was apparently sincere In eulogizing Charles I as being as near to perfection as a man could be:30

To conclude, he was the worthiest gentleman, the best master, the best friend, the best Christian, that the age in which he lived had produced. And if he was not the best King, if he was without some parts and qualities which have made some kings great and happy, no other prince was ever unhappy who was possessed of half his virtues and endowments, and so much without any kind of vice.31

One might expect, given this type of extreme praise of one whom Clarendon considered a very good man, and given

Clarendon's great ability to express disdain for such men as the Earl of Arundel, that Clarendon would have presented

Oliver Cromwell, the arch-villain of the History, as wholly bad, as a man with no redeeming characteristics. But such is not the case; instead, Clarendon assigns him qualities that in other men might be counted virtues, "for he could never have done half that mischieve" Clarendon says, "without great parts of courage and industry and judgment."32 clarendon praises Cromwell for having "totally declined Machiavell's 35 method"33 in his refusal to execute the friends and families

of those he overthrew. "In a word," Clarendon concludes,

as he had all the wickedness against which damna­ tion is denounced and for which hell-fire is prepared, so he had some virtues which have caused the memory of some men in all ages to be celebrated; and he will be looked upon by posterity as a brave bad man.34

Throughout his brief biographies, Clarendon's concern

is with the opinions and attitudes of the men who contrib­

uted to the great events of the English Civil War. Only

seldom does he offer specific incidents from the lives of his

characters to illustrate his points, and never does he allow

the reader to judge for himself through observing a charac­

ter in action. Clarendon, as were most of the other writers

of biographical sketches, was concerned with opinions of his

subjects, not with the facts of their lives.

Bishop Gilbert Burnet's biographical sketches, which appear in his History of His Own Time, are very like Claren­ don's in form and content. He, too, presents a minimum of factual material about the subject's life, concentrating instead upon abstract character traits distilled from ob­ served behavior. Burnet's approach to writing biographical sketches is somewhat different from that of Clarendon. Unlike Clarendon, who usually wrote a biography whenever he intro­ duced a new and important figure into the historical narra­ tive, Burnet began his history with a portrait of Charles II, 36 followed by twenty-two sketches of men who were prominent political figures in the period--men like Lord Clarendon,

Anthony Ashley Cooper, and Edward Montague. There are eighteen other biographies throughout the history; these appear as digressions after the character has been introduced, or as comments on the subject's life after Burnet has given an account of his death. Burnet's biographical sketches differ from Clarendon's in several ways. They are noticeably more uneven; many are too brief and give the appearance of being hastily written.35 Two of them, however, the accounts of Charles II and William of Orange, are better than any of Clarendon's sketches in their use of examples and detail.

In one of his two portraits of Charles II, Burnet says,

"The ruin of his reign, and of all his affairs, was occasioned chiefly by his delivering himself up at his first coming over to a mad range of pleasure."36 Clarendon would have left such a generalization without further explanation; but Burnet continues with more specific substantiation of his statement: One of the race of Villiers, then married to Palmer, a papist, soon after made earl of Castlemain, who, afterwards, being separated from him, was advanced to be duchess of Cleveland, was his first and longest mistress, by whom he had five children. She was a woman of great beauty, but most enormously vicious and ravenous: foolish but imperious, very uneasy to the king, and always carrying on intrigues with other men, while yet she pretended she was jealous of him.37 37 Burnet's biographical sketch of Charles II begins, as do most of Clarendon's biographies, with praise: "He had a very good

understanding. He knew well the state of affairs both at

home and abroad,"38 And, just as Clarendon was careful to undermine any praise given to someone he disliked, Burnet then states,

He had a softness of temper that charmed all who came near him, till they found how little they could depend on his good looks, kind words, and fair promises; in which he was liberal to excess, because he intended nothing by them, but to get rid of importunities and to silence all farther pressing upon him.39

Again and again, Burnet begins a sentence with what seems to be a compliment to Charles but ends by being critical. "He understood navigation well," says Burnet, "but above all he knew the architecture of ships so perfectly, that in that respect he was exact rather more than become a prince."40

Toward the end of this portrait, Burnet makes no attempt to seem objective by searching for ways to compliment Charles.

"He had great vices," Burnet declares,

but scarcely any virtues to correct them. He was, during the active part of his life, given up to sloth and lewdness to such a degree, that he hated business, and could not bear the engaging in any­ thing that gave him much trouble, or put him under any constraint.41

It is a mark of his integrity as well as his diplomacy that Clarendon did not write a biographical sketch of Charles

II, To have falsified the facts would have been a breach of his honesty as a historian, and to have told the truth would 38 have offended the king. Burnet was frank because he did not

intend for anyone to read his history during his lifetime; in his will he stipulated that the History should not be pub­ lished until six years after his death.

In the more extended biographical sketch of Charles II that appears after the account of his death, Burnet says,

"He loved to talk over all the stories of his life to every new man that came about him,"^2 then provides an illustration that the serious-minded Clarendon would never have related about any of his subjects: His stay in Scotland, and the share he had in the war of Paris, in carrying messages from the one side to the other, were his common topics. He went over these in a very graceful manner; but so often, and so copiously, that all those who had been long accustomed to them grew weary of them: and when he entered on these stories they usually withdrew; so that he often began them in a full audience, and before he had done there were not above four or five left about him: which drew a severe jest from Wilmont, earl of Rochester. He said, he wondered to see a man have so good a memory as to repeat the same story without losing the least circumstance, and yet not remember that he had told it to the same persons the very day before.43 Burnet often included details which reveal his subjects as convincingly real and human; these details go beyond the usual collection of generalized traits of various degrees and Intensities that are characteristic of Clarendon's biographies. Of Bishop Leighton, for example, he writes,

"When he was a bishop he chose to preach to small auditories, 39 and would never give notice beforehand; he had Indeed a very low voice, and so could not be heard by a great crowd.

And occasionally Burnet offers physical description, which is

quite rare in the brief biographies (except for those of

John Aubrey). Burnet begins his account of William of

Orange with this description: He had a thin and weak body, was brown-haired, and of a clear and delicate constitution; he had a Roman eagle nose, bright and sparkling eyes, a large front, and a countenance composed to gravity and authority: all his senses were critical and exquisite.45

In tone, most of the biographical sketches of Burnet are different from those of Clarendon. Clarendon's prose is argumentative; his biographies are bent upon making a point— which is usually to illustrate that the subject is essentially a hero or a villain, depending on whether he was a Royalist or a Parliamentarian, an enemy or a friend, while seemingly maintaining an air of detached objectivity. While Burnet also indulges in this sort of character assessment (as he did in his portrait of Charles II) his personal likes and dislikes are often more open, less disguised by rhetorical devices. Burnet's account of Clarendon, for example, sounds much like a newspaper editorial which does not pretend to present more than the author's opinion: He never seemed to understand foreign affairs well: and yet he meddled too much in them. He had too much levity in his wit, and did not always observe 4o the decorum of his past. He was high, and was apt to reject those who addressed themselves to him, with too much contempt. He had such a regard to the king, that when places were disposed of, even otherwise than he advised, yet he would justify what the king did, and disparage the pretensions of others, not without much scorn; which created him many enemies.46

The biographical writings of Clarendon and Burnet are much alike in that they present their subjects in very general terms, so that many sketches resemble caricatures rather than portraits. Never is the reader allowed to see a character through examining his actions and the details of his life; we are permitted to see only what the author distilled from his vision of the subject's life. But, while we might regret that Clarendon, Burnet, and other such historians did not make greater attempts to objectify their responses by presenting more detail and less interpretation, we cannot condemn them for not doing so. There was, after all, no literary precedent for giving many details in biographical writing. The Overburian character sketches, which Clarendon and Burnet apparently used as models for their biographies, could not have inspired the use of accumulated detail for character portrayal. Furthermore, Clarendon and Burnet were primarily historians; they wrote biography only because they felt understanding the personalities of great men was necessary for understanding historical events. And for this purpose, a generalized biographical account was quite 41

sufficient.

Though many seventeenth-century historians Included brief biographies in their works, Clarendon and Burnet wrote

the greatest number of such sketches to be found in seven­

teenth-century historiography. But the History of the

Rebellion was not published until 1702 nor the History of

His Own Time until 1724, so that neither was known to

seventeenth-century readers. There were, however, many short

biographies being written and published during the period, many of which belonged to the popular literature of the day.

For this, we must turn to the biographical dictionaries. 42

2. The Biographical Dictionaries

Many collections of biographical sketches were written during the second half of the seventeenth century, some of which were published and became popular enough to be printed in several editions. The biographical writing that appeared in these collections often resembles the biographies of

Clarendon, Burnet, and other historians in that generalized assessments of character predominate over presentation of factual Information about the subject's life. But this sim­ ilarity is superficial, and should not be overemphasized or taken as evidence that either group of writers--the historians and the compilers of biographical collections--was directly influenced by the other. In the first place, the men who wrote collections of biographies^ did so for a number of dif­ ferent reasons, which resulted in their biographies being greatly varied in form and structure. The biographical methods of Thomas Fuller and Anthony a Wood for example, are as different from each other as they are from the sketches of the historians. In the second place, it seems most likely that the similarity between the biographies of the historians and those in the biographical dictionaries was in large part due to the example of the Overburian character writers.

Beginning in I65I with Thomas Fuller's Abel Redivldus, writers in increasing numbers turned their attention to 43 writing biographical dictionaries. Many of these biographers,

such as Thomas Fuller and Samuel Clarke, wrote for religious

reasons: to provide exemplary works which might inspire the

reader to improve his moral conduct; to preach puritan ethics;

to attack Roman Catholicism. Some (David Lloyd, for example) wrote for such political reasons as condemning men who sided with Cromwell during the Interregnum, or praising Royalists who sacrificed much for their King. Other writers, like

Anthony a Wood, channeled their interest in antiquarianism into preserving and illuminating the careers of great men of the past. And some, like John Aubrey, wrote in order to entertain. This is not to say that these men turned to biog­ raphy in order to achieve a single goal; many of the compilers of biographical dictionaries were inspired by a multiplicity of reasons. Clarke, Fuller, Lloyd, Wood, and Aubrey never­ theless typify the general trends of the age in approach to writing short biographies. Most of the seventeenth-century biographical dictionaries were inspired by the religious convictions of the author. The idea that proper moral behavior could be learned from observing virtue in others led pious clergymen to publish biographical collections about men who led saintly lives.

Samuel Clarke,2 who wrote several such books, explained his didactic purpose in the introduction to A Collection of the

Lives of Ten Eminent Divines: 44 Good examples are good for Imitation, bad for evitation. Good examples put a kind of life into men; even tired Jades seeing other Horses to gallop, will chiefly put into a gallop also; and experience shows, that its a good means for our quickening, duely to observe the examples of such as have been forward in godliness.3

The biographical writing resulting from this type of pious and didactic intentions tends to be overly general and lack­ ing in believable presentation of character. Even as instructive literature, the biographies of Samuel Clarke were not durable enough to last beyond Clarke's own era: none of

Clarke's books have been published since 1683.

In the introduction to one of his collections, Clarke lists six rules to be observed "that we may receive good from examples."^ His observance of one of these rules is chiefly responsible for his life-writing being so unsatis­ factory when read for biographical information. We must look at other men's lives, says Clarke, "for imitation: we must look upon the best, and the best in the best."5 For Clarke, this standard meant that he should record only good quali­ ties in his biographies, that he should never mention charac­ ter flaws, especially when dealing with eminent divines since "evil examples are hurtful in cell" and "are most pernicious in Superiors.

Another reason Clarke is so uninformative as a biographer is that he did not waste time recording matter not relevant to his moral purpose. Thus he omits such information as 45 dates and physical description. Apparently Clarke felt that specific detail and incidents of his subjects' lives were irrelevant, that it was Important only to describe virtues in general terms. His publication of 1683, The Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons in This Later Age, contains "A Table of the

Principal things contained in these lives," which lists page numbers where the reader can find such items as "Christ pre­ ferred above all," "Comfort," "Charity," "Diligence,"

"Humility," "Industry," and "Hypocrisy." Indicative of

Clarke's concentration on admirable traits is the fact that there are twenty-eight pages listed for "Industry," and only one for "Hypocrisy."7

Perhaps the principal reason Samuel Clarke's works were not read by succeeding generations was his failure to provide incidents or actions which would qualify and explain general­ ized terms such as "humility" and "industry." Clarke's formula for biography was overly simple. He began with a brief account of the subject's birth, education, and career; if his family was mentioned, it was only to say how many children he had, or how pious his wife was. The greater part of the sketch is given to enumerating the subject's good points in order to provide the reader with a model for holy living. A sample of the marginal notes from one of Clarke's lives is sufficient to give an accurate impression of what the biography contains: "His holy life"; "His usefulness to 46 others"; "His charity"; "His Hospitality"; "His Humility"; p "Hi-s mirth."0 None of these descriptions are given in terms of specific incidents in the subject's life; even the account of "His mirth" does not get beyond impersonal didacticism:

In his mirth (to which he sometimes unbended him­ self to recreate his overwearied mind, that with renewed strength he might return to his more seri­ ous, and severer studies) he strictly observed the bounds of honesty, civility, modesty, and the gravity of his place.9

This approach produces bad biography as well as dull reading.

Because passages can be shifted from one life to another without noticeable change, no reader who examines more than one of Clarke's biographical sketches could even pretend that

Clarke is presenting an informative account of an individual.

Judged as exemplary writing, Clarke's biographies are again failures--or, at best, very limited in appeal. Since he fails to particularize qualities such as "humility" and

"charity," since he does not relate them to events and deeds, the words communicate little more than a general notion of what the words mean, a notion which varies with each reader's definition. By giving examples, Clarke could have been more precise; he could have, for example limited and intensified the reader's idea of the word humility through reporting acts of humility. But he did not, so his moralizing amounts to little more than saying "this man is good, he has humility; imitate him and you too will be good because you will possess 47 humility." While this method is elaborate, it communicates no more to the reader than the naked admonition "cultivate

humility in yourself," a statement that leaves each reader to

construct his own idea of what the word means in terms of

specific behavior.

Not only did Clarke fail to understand the importance

of specific detail for clarifying his moral pronouncements,

but he also displayed an ignorance of or indifference to the function of other aspects of style in making prose interest­

ing and convincing. His sentences are loose, long, and rambling; he gives little attention to prose rhythm; and he shows little imagination in his use of figurative language.

In short, his style is neither elegant nor appealing. Typical of his sentences is this from "The Life and Death of Dr.

Hill": And then after some good time spent in his private studies in the Colledge, for his further perfect­ ing, and the more happy seasoning of his spirit, he went and sojourned with that man of God (now also with the Lord) Mr. Cotton at Boston in Lincolnshire, where, by Gods rich blessing upon his most godly directions, and example, and the society he had with him, and other eminent Christians in that place, he was much improved and furthered, as otherwise, so especially in Heavensway, which happily went along with him to his journies end.10

This sentence illustrates Clarke's main failings as a prose stylist. He was fond of long, grammatically unbalanced sentences which usually contain between fifty and one hundred words, many of which are unnecessarily repetitive ("he went 48 and sojourned with"), while others are only vaguely informa­ tive ("other eminent Christians in that place"). Perhaps

it was Clarke's fondness for coordinating conjunctions,

especially the word and, that led him to construct such cum­

bersome sentences. This liberal use of and to stick together

loosely-connected clauses and phrases gives the sentences the

appearance of having been written before the writer was sure

about the subject-matter the sentence should contain.

Another stylistic failure is that Clarke seldom used figura­ tive language; but even when he did choose to write metaphor­

ically, he was seldom original or informative. Clarke's

statement, for example, that Dr. Hill associated with Mr.

Cotton "for the more happy seasoning of his spirit" communi­

cates very little.

It should be noted that in spite of his failings as an

informative biographer and a prose stylist, Samuel Clarke was widely-read in his own day. His biographical sketches appealed to his contemporaries, who were apparently receptive to his kind of moralizing. But since then, Clarke's sketches have almost sunken into oblivion. Later generations, if they bothered to read Clarke at all, no doubt found him instructive, but not persuasive nor very informative.

While Samuel Clarke typifies the well-meaning non­ professional writers who thought it important to provide the

English reading public with examples of virtuous lives, it 49 was Thomas Fuller,H a more talented and better known

literary figure, who first published such a collection of

exemplary biography. Abel Redivivus; or the Dead Yet

Speaking; The Lives and Deaths of the Modern Divines (1651)

was edited and, for the most part written, by Thomas Fuller.

Waldo Dunn calls this "the first biographical volume pub­ lished in the English language."12

As was to become standard for similar publications,

the title page of Abel Redivivus announces the didactic

purpose of the work: it was written "for the benefit and

satisfaction of all those that desire to be acquainted with

the Paths of Piety and Virtue." The title page also quotes

Proverbs 10.7: "The memory of the just is blessed, but the

name of the wicked shall rot." In the introduction, Fuller

strikes a note of urgency in presenting the lives as moral

exempla. Writing In the midst of the English Civil War, he

notes the current political and religious disorder and is convinced that "the sad condition of our dayes" is "coming short of the former Age, and daily wayning." He is much concerned that whilst the present generation of eminent Divines, maketh haste to their graves, able ministers will be almost drayned dry in the kingdom: the rather, because. . . Episcopacy put off, and another Govern­ ment not as yet close buckled on, Prophanenesse and Licensiousenesse have given a great & grevous wound to the Church of God.13

For Fuller, this volume was, in part, an attempt to help 50 restore morality and the social order by providing examples

of virtuous lives that men might follow.

Another of Fuller's purposes was to attack Roman

Catholicism. Samuel Clarke also displayed his antipathy

to the Church of Rome; "we see how diligent," Clarke says,

the Papists have been to write and publish the lives of their Rome-canonized Saints, though most of them were but Ignes fatui that led men into Boggs of Errour, or blinde leaders of the blinde, as the Pharisees were in our Saviours time, till both fell into the ditch: How much more diligent and careful should we be, to perpetuate the Memories of those who were fixed Stars, not in the Antichristian, but in the true Church of Christ.l^

Unlike Fuller's Abel Redivivus, however, Clarke's works generally kept such invective in the background. Fuller was more open; in his "The Life and Death of Berengarus," the first selection In Abel Redivivus, Fuller writes,

We read Acts 27.20 when Saint Paul was tossed with the Tempest, that neither sunne nor starres for many dayes appeared: This may pass for the doleful Embleme of the dismall darkenesse in the depth of Popery, wherein Berengarius lived.15

Such Invective against Roman Catholicism is found in most of the lives in the collection, especially In those written by Fuller. Most of the biographies in Abel Redividus follow the same pattern: they tell when and where the subject was born where educated, the deed or deeds that distinguished him

(which were usually anti-Catholic in nature), the manner of 51 his death, the catalog of his virtues, and they conclude with a short bit of doggerel verse. The conclusion of the life of Berengarius is typical;16

Most worthily may this Divine Old Berengarius, fairely shine Within this skie of lustrious Starres, Who, ’gainst Romes errours fought Truths warres; Confuting, with high approbation, Romes figment, Transubstantiation; Which did that Hierarchie so vex, And with such passion so perplex That they would never give him rest, But did his Soule so much molest, That at the last, by fraud and force. They made him (with most sad remorse) Two several times his cause recant. Him of his crown thus to supplant. Thus, 0 thus, oft, Sols raye most rare, With duskie clouds ecclipsed are.17

Anti-Catholic sentiment is expressed quite vehemently and quite often, both in the prose and in the absurd; jingly verse. One other "poem" is worth quoting in its entirety, the one that summarizes "The Life and Death of Wicklief":

With our old English Writers rare, John Wicklief, justly might compare; For Learning, Life, and solid Witt, And many works he rarely writt; Contending stoutly, 'gainst Romes Errours, Nere daunted by their threats or terrours; But, to his death, still, fought faiths fight, And thus went out this Lamp of Light. But, being dead, Rome did so rave, 'Gainst this Faith's Champion, that from's grave, They digged up his Bones, with ire, And burnt (as Hereticks) in fire. Thus was Romes Folly, Rage, exprest, To burn dead bones, of Soules, at rest.1°

The biographies in Abel1 Redivivus vary in length and in the amount of factual information set forth; some of them 52 include bibliographies. But almost all place heaviest em­ phasis upon the subject's virtues. An extreme illustration is "The Life and Death of Andrews," one-fifth of which is given to the facts of his life while the other four-fifths enumerates his virtues. Thomas Fuller’s The History of the Worthies of England

(1662) is another work that, in part, is a dictionary of exemplary lives, though it is much more. After reading the brief lives by Fuller in Abel Redivivus, one might expect his biographies in The Worthies of England to be similar in tone: highly moral, very serious, and firmly anti-Roman Catholic.

Many are, in fact, presented as moral exempla, and many are serious; but Fuller's anti-Catholicism fades considerably, he frequently jests, and he includes passages merely to enter­ tain. The urgent desire expressed in Abel Redivivus in I65I to present the public with examples of piety in order to improve the moral atmosphere of the kingdom has vanished.

In this work, published eleven years later, we find Fuller writing in a more leisurely vein; he is clearly less frantic than he was earlier about the threat of both Roman Catholicism and of general moral anarchy. He begins The Worthies by announcing his reasons for writing; among these are "To present examples to the living," "To entertain the reader with delight," and (something few writers were willing to admit) "to procure some honest profit for myself." He 53 carries out these intentions quite well, making The Worthies one of the more readable of the biographical collections, though the biography it contains is somewhat less detailed than that in many other biographical dictionaries. Abel

Redivivus is largely polemical in nature, and The Worthies is largely informative, similar to later almanacs; neither was written primarily as biography. The Worthies of England surveys each of the English shires; it gives a brief history of the shire, lists Its

"natural commodities" (Cambridgeshire, for example, has eels, hares, saffron, and willows), describes its famous buildings, discusses the local proverbs ("A Boisten horse and a

Cambridge Master of Art, are a couple of creatures that will 'A< give way to nobody"19), and catalogs its famous men, some of whom are given brief biographical sketches. These "worthies" are divided into several categories: martyrs, prelates, statemen, soldiers, writers, lord mayors, the gentry, and sheriffs. The biographical sketches generally contain little in­ formation. In his life of Chaucer, for example, Fuller devotes most of his energy to considering whether Chaucer was born in Berkshire, London, or Oxfordshire. After listing the claims of all three locations, he asks, "Now, what is to be done to decide the difference?"20 Hesitantly, he decides on Oxfordshire, then gives this of Chaucer's life: He was a terse and elegant poet (the Homer of his age): and so refined our English tongue, 'ut inter expolltas gentium linguas potuit recte quidem con- nUmerarl.' His skill in mathematics was great (being instructed therein by Joannes Sombus and Nicholas of Lynn); which he evidenceth in his book 'De Sphaera.' He, being con ^emporary with Gower, was living anno Domini 1402.2

Quite often Fuller selects his subjects because he felt their piety might be instructive. Many, such as John Balle, impressed Fuller solely by their Godly lives: Indeed he lived by faith, having but small means to maintain him (but 20 pounds yearly salary, besides what he got by boarding his scholars); and was wont to say he had enough, enough, enough. . . . Notwith­ standing his small means, he lived himself comfortably, competently, and died piously.22 Others of Fuller's subjects were included because they were Interesting or odd, as was Jeffrey of Okeham, a dwarf: It was not long before he was presented in a cold baked pie to king Charles and queen Mary at an entertainment; and ever after lived in great plenty.¿3 Such accounts are entertaining, if trivial. Though the quality of biography in The Worthies of England is no improve­ ment over the entries in the earlier Abel Redivivus, the sketches are at least more readable. Fuller's Worthies justi­ fiably remains his most popular book. A number of interesting biographical dictionaries that are political in nature appeared after the Restoration. Writers like David Lloyd, William Winstanley, James Heath, and George Bates wrote or compiled collections of biographies on persons who suffered because of their allegiance to the king during the Civil War. These volumes owe much of their method to the exemplary lives of Fuller and Clarke.

Typical of the collections of political biographies is 55 one by David Lloyd (1635-1692), entitled Memorials of the Lives, Actions, Sufferings, and Deaths of those Noble, Reverend, and Excellent Personages, that suffered by Death, Sequestration, Declimation, or otherwise, for the Protestant Religion, and the great Principle thereof, Allegi­ ance to their Soveraigne, In our late Intestine Wars, From the Year 1637> 1° the Year 1660, and from thence continued to 1666 (London, 1668),

Lloyd begins with a brief essay, "Preparations to the Last

Civil War, from 1550 to 1640," then launches into the bio­ graphies. These sketches amount to little more than plead­

ing a political cause. They concentrate on the subject's

service to the king; some include lengthy debates between

the subject and his adversaries, usually presented as debate

in Parliament. There are many digressions which abandon the

biography to argue the Royal cause. Most of the articles

give some facts of the subject's life, such as where he was born and educated; but these facts are generally given to

explain why he chose the Royalist side in the Civil War.

Most of the lives include a character portrait that resembles those in the exemplary lives, except that Lloyd concentrates on political rather than spiritual traits, as he does in

"The Life and Death of Robert Dormer, Earl of Carnavon": To this conduct of a General, he added the industry of a Souldier, doing much by his performances, more by his examples; that went as an active soul to enliven each part, and the whole of his brave Squadron.24

The portraits in the biographical collections of political 56

figures resemble those found the dictionaries of exemplary-

lives in that both give only generalized accounts of the

subject, and from a single point of view; ministers such as

Clarke and Fuller paint latter-day saints while writers like

David Lloyd give us political martyrs. One of the most extensive of the biographical diction­

aries of the century was compiled by Anthony a Wood25 (1632-

1695). The title page of the 1721 edition tells much about

its scope: Athenae Oxonienses. An exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their education in the most antient and Famous University of Oxford from the Fifteenth Year of King Henry the Seventh, A.D. 1500, to the Author's Death in November, 1695. Representing the Birth, Fortune Preferment, and Death of all those Authors and Prelates, the great incidents of their Lives, and the Fate and Character of their Writings. The collections of exemplary and political biography no doubt

served, at least initially, as models for this massive work. But Wood was not concerned with reforming public morals or with arguing a political cause, so that Athenae' Oxonienses

is neither religious nor political propaganda. Wood was a dedicated antiquarian, a crusty, difficult man; he was, says Oliver Dick, so ill at ease in his own times, he was at last driven to seek refuge in the past, for only there could he show the affection which he was unable to give to his contemporaries. 'Sweet chucks,' he wrote, 'beat not the bones of the buried: when he breathed, he was a man.'‘!26 57 Anthony sa Wood gives most of his attention to the

facts of his subject's life, not to sketching his character.

His placement of emphasis is opposite from that found in the

brief biographies of Clarendon, Burnet, and the other his­

torians who gave few facts and many observations on character.

Wood's usual method is to give what he could discover about

the subject's birth, family, and education, followed by a brief character sketch (if details for this were available);

next he quotes any historian who has anything to say about

the man; and he concludes with a critical bibliography of

the subject's writing. In spite of his scorn for Aubrey's methodology, Wood used a great deal of the material Aubrey provided, at times transcribing Aubrey's notes directly into the Athenae

Oxonienses without acknowledging his source. Uusally, though, Wood edited Aubrey's notes, cutting out what he considered "fooleries," keeping only factual information.

The Brief Lives of John Aubrey27 are quite different from those of Wood--and from any of the other short biographies of the day. Oliver Dick's description of Aubrey's method of composition accounts for this difference: Having decided to write a life, Aubrey selected a page in one of his notebooks and jotted down as quickly as possible everything that he could remem­ ber about the character concerned: his friends, his appearance, his actions, his books, and his sayings. Any facts or dates that did not occur to him on the spur of the moment were left blank, and as Aubrey 58 was so extremely sociable that he was usually suf­ fering from a hangover when he came to put pen to paper, the number of these omissions was often very large. 28

Although Wood used much of the material Aubrey provided for

him (Aubrey voluntarily acted as his research assistant in

compiling Athenae Oxonienses), Wood did not trust Aubrey's

scholarship. "He was," Wood wrote in his journal,

a shiftless person, roving and magotie-headed, and sometimes little better than erased. And being exceedingly credulous, would stuff his many letters to A.W. with fooleries, and misinformations, which sometimes would guid him into paths of error.29

The differences between Wood's and Aubrey's lives of

John Popham illustrate well the difference in their biograph­

ical method. Wood gives a dry, factual account of Popham, telling of his education, career, writings, and the terms of

his will. Aubrey devotes at least one-third of his account

of Popham to a sensational murder case over which Popham presided as judge. Aubrey also devotes some time to dis­ cussing the "iron Schackells" that Popham had hanging in his house (this is the kind of "fooleries" that Wood complained about). Aubrey does, however, include interesting passages that would have given some life to Wood's factual, dull biography: "I have seen his picture," Aubrey writes of Popham; "he was a huge, heavie, ugly man. He left a vast es­ tate to his son, Sir Francis (I think ten thousand pounds per annum) he lived like a hog."30 59

This is not to say that Wood, like Clarke or Lloyd, always avoids interesting, humanizing detail. Of John Birken­ head, for example, Wood says,

he retired to London, suffered several imprisonments for his majesty's cause, lived by his wits in helping young gentlemen out at dead lifts in making poems, songs, and epistles, on, and to, their respective mis­ tresses, as also in translating and writing several little things, and other petite employments.31

Still, such detail falls short of the personal touches in

John Aubrey's account of Birkenhead;

He was exceedingly bold, confident, witty, not very grateful to his benefactors; would Lye damnably. He was of midling stature, great goggli eies, not of sweet aspect.32

It was part of Aubrey's method to record anything inter­ esting he heard about his subject without bothering to check its authenticity. In his account of Thomas More, for example, he writes,

In his Utopia his lawe is that all the young people are to see each other stark-naked before marriage. Sir William Roper, of Eltham, in Kent, came one morning, pretty early, to my Lord, with a proposall to marry one of his daughters. My Lord's daughters were then both together abed in a trucklebed in their father's chamber asleep. He carries Sir William into the chamber and takes the Sheete by the corner and suddenly whippes it off. They lay on their Backs and their smocks up as high as their arme-pitts. This awakened them, and immediately they turned on their bellies. Quoth Roper, I have seen both sides, and so gave a patt on the buttock, he made choice of, sayeing, Thou art mine. Here was all the trouble of the wooeing.33

Aubrey then gives his source, which makes the story more 60

doubtful than If he had kept silent about where he got it:

This account I had from my honoured friend old Mris. Tyndale, whose grandfather, Sir William Stafford, was an intimate friend of this Sir W. Roper, who told him the story.

Aubrey also often includes delightful digressions which

are totally unrelated to the biography he Is writing. He

concludes, for example, his life of Sir John Birkenhead with

this irrelevant note: I remember at Bristow (when I was a boy) it was a common fashion for the women to get a Tooth out of a Sckull in the Church yard; which they wore as a preservative against the Tooth-ach. Under the Cathedral-church at Hereford is the greatest Charnel- house for bones, that ever I saw in England. In A° 1650 there lived amongst those bones a poor old woman that, to help out her fire, did use to mix the dead- men's bones: this was thrift and poverty: but cunning alewives putt the Ashes of these bones in their Ale to make it intoxicateing.34

Although this and many similar passages are completely divorced from the biography in which they appear, few readers today would regret Aubrey's having included them. Though Aubrey was determined to entertain his reader, frequently at the expense of biographical facts, he did try in some of his accounts to render accurately his impression of the subject's personality. In writing about someone he had not known personally, Aubrey reported any gossip he heard.

But he was more discriminating in writing about people whom he knew, choosing to give most attention to recording his own observations and what he had gathered from conversations with 61

the subject. His biography of Thomas Hobbes, who was a

personal friend, is one of his most vivid portraits. Few

biographers in the seventeenth century thought it worth while

recording the kind of detail Aubrey gives in his life of

Hobbes:

In his old age he was very bald (which claymed veneration) yet within dors, he use to study, and sitt bare-headed, and sayd he never tooke cold in his head, but that the greatest trouble was to keep- off the Flies from pitching on the baldness. Face not very great; ample forehead; whiskers yellowish-redish, which naturally turned up--which is a sign of brisque witt. Belowe he was shaved close, except a little tip under his lip. Not but that nature could have afforded a venerable Beard, but being naturally of a cheerfull and pleasant humour, he affected not at all austerity and gravity to look severe. He desired not the reputa­ tion of his wisdom to be taken from the cutt of his beard, but from his reason. He had a good eie, and that of a hazell colour, which was full of Life and Spirit, even to the last. When he was earnest in discourse, there shone (as it were) a bright live-coale within it. He had two kinds of lookys: when he laugh't, was witty, and in a merry humour, one could scarce see his eies; by and by, when he was serious and positive, he open'd his eies round (i.e. his eie-lids.) He had midling eies, not very big, nor very little.35

This passage represents Aubrey at his best: he writes a detailed, lucid description that both informs and entertains the reader. And here we can trust his accuracy since he is not recording hear-say, but his own observations. In an age in which biography is given almost exlusively to moralizing or to political propaganda, Anthony a Wood and

John Aubrey are refreshingly innovative. Although no one 62

today would want to read Athenae Oxonienses straight through, this, the first Who1s Who published in England, is interesting to dip into; and it is a source of much factual information that can be found nowhere else. Aburey's Brief Lives, on the other hand, is fascinating throughout; one turns to it not so much for facts as for colorful anecdotes and interesting gossip about the men of the age. Most of the compilers of biographical dictionaries in the seventeenth century were hack writers who were taking advantage of the reading public's new interest in the lives of men who had distinguished themselves for their piety or political activity. Some few collections—such as Edward

Phillips' Theatrum Poetarum (1675) and William Winstanley's

The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (l687)--were written about men who had become famous as writers (such collections frequently gave lists of what a man had written rather than much biographical information). The vogue for biographical collections lasted into the eighteenth century, though it was at its height, judging from the number of col­ lections published, from about 1660 to 1700. The title page of Jeremy Collier's biographical collection (1694) illustrates Collier's attempt to appeal to as many readers as possible by touching on nearly every aspect of the fad:

The Great Historical, Geographical, Genealogical and Poetical Dictionary; being A Curious Miscellany 63 of Sacred and Prophane History. Containing, in short, The Lives and most remarkable Actions of the Patriarchs, Judges, and Kings of the Church; Of Popes, Cardinals, Bishops &c. Of Heresiarchs and Schismaticks, with an Account of their Prin­ cipal Doctrines; Of Emperors, Kings, Illustrious Princes, and Great Generals; Of Ancient and Modern Authors; Of Philosophers, Inventors of Arts, and All those who have recommended themselves to the World, by their Valour, Virtue, Learning, or some Notable Circumstances of their Lives.

Donald Stauffer aptly calls this work "the ultimate distension in biographical collections."36

Collier's book and most of the other seventeenth- century biographical dictionaries have no universal appeal; they were part of the popular culture of the period, and have been of little or no interest to succeeding generations. The three writers whose collections of biographies have found readers In later ages--Fuller, Wood, and Aubrey—have not survived because they wrote accurate biographies, but mainly because they chose to entertain or inform rather than moralize or defend political causes.

When judged as informative biography, as literature which presents substantial factual Information about a man's life and personality, seventeenth-century biographical dictionaries are hardly as competent as modern works such as the Dictionary of National Biography, and perhaps are best considered notes and sources for informative biography. Indeed, the DNB does rely on Wood, Aubrey, Fuller, and others for some of its information about seventeenth-century figures. 64

But such early biographers were little Interested In the kind

of scholarly accuracy that appealed to the compilers of the

DNB. Fuller and Clarke wanted to tell their contemporaries

how to live better Christian lives and to warn the world of

the dangers of the Church of Rome; Wood wanted to erect a monu­

ment to the great men of Oxford; Floyd (probably with an eye

on his own political advancement) celebrated men whose

politics were acceptable to God and the Crown; Aubrey sought

to preserve interesting information about people he found fascinating. Except for Aubrey, whose works appeared only in

fragmented form and under Wood's name during the period, all

of these writers were well-received by their reading public.

If they have failed to appeal to later generations, it is

mostly because biography as a genre developed with later

writers into other forms which only vaguely approximate the genre as perceived by seventeenth-century writers and because

the political and religious causes argued within the genre by Fuller, Clarke, and Floyd ceased to be significant issues

as the political and religious turbulence of the seventeenth century was replaced by problems of later ages. Succeeding generations have relegated the biographies of Clarke, Floyd,

Wood and the other writers of whom these are representative

to the libraries of social historians; but the quaint charm

of Thomas Fuller and John Aubrey has assured them a small but

secure place among seventeenth-century writers. PART II

Long Biography 66

1. General Trends

As with the brief biography, many of the long biograph­ ical works of the seventeenth century are so different from one another in approach and methodology that only a general­ ized statement of definition would encompass them all. Broadly speaking, three varieties of book-length biography appeared in the period: (1) a history of the life and times of a great person, (2) a celebration of an intimate friend, and

(3) an exemplary account of a pious person. In the latter variety, the biographer focuses upon his subject because the life Illustrates moral preaching which the author might well have written in another genre, such as sermon literature or in a conduct book, had he not found the life such a conven­ ient sounding board for his didactic pronouncements. The extreme examples of such works are little different, except in length, from the writings of Samuel Clarke, and merit little attention. It is the first two varieties, the political biographies of the life-and-times variety and the intimate biographies, which achieve most success as informa­ tive biography, especially when judged by their own standards. Once it is understood what Edmund Bohun, Izaak Walton and others were trying to do with biography as they understood it, their methodology--their selection and arrangement of information--often calls for praise rather than condemnation 67 as biographical failure. This, of course, is not always the

case; frequently biographers failed in terms of their own

goals. But these failures are generally understandable given

their own as well as their reading public's attitudes toward

why and how a writer should record for public persual the

personality and actions of a man who, even in death, had the

right to keep his private life, especially his faults, from

public view.

In order to fully appreciate the excellencies of early

biographers such as Izaak Walton and Edmund Bohun, and to

avoid misjudging the accomplishments of less talented but

competent writers, it is necessary to read their works with

an awareness of the tradition of biographical writing they inherited as well as an understanding of their particular

reasons for writing. Many writers did not explain why they

turned to biography, so that their own standards must be distilled from what they produced. Early in the century, biographers,--especially political biographers—tended to be

silent about their reasons for writing. The extent to which writers of long biography relied upon such literary models as the short biographies is difficult, if not impossible to assess adequately. It can be said definitely that long and short biographical forms co-existed during the century, with short biography appearing in great quantity after a few of the more significant lengthy 68 biographies had been published, and that the two forms shared some common characteristics. In the latter part of the seventeenth century long biographies frequently incorporated and elaborated upon the methodology employed by earlier writers. This sort of development is especially evident in the political biographies, almost all of which were directly influenced by Francis Bacon's The History of the Reign of

King Henry VII. 69 2, Biography of Political Figures

If biographies of political figures were the only form

of life-writing to appear in the seventeenth century, there

would be no difficulty in defining and describing the

biographical methodology of the period. The "life-and-times

biographies," as they are generally called by literary

historians, all follow, with slight variations, a simple

structure: they present a history of the political events

during the period in which the subject lived (concentrating

on the affairs of state in which he played a major role),

and they conclude with a character sketch. It was the

example of Francis Bacon's The History of the Reign of King

Henry VII (1622) that led to many writers to divide their

long biographies into an historical narrative and a character

analysis. Writers such as Lord Herbert of Cherbury who

closely followed Bacon's example are more accurately classi­ fied as historians than biographers since they give most of

their attention to historical events, relegating most of their biographical writing to a brief essay at the end of the book in such a form as could easily pass for an entry in one of the biographical dictionaries. But as the century progressed, some writers included more biographical information in the text of their historical survey and lengthened the concluding character descriptions 70

at the end so that their works are more clearly biographies

rather than histories. Thomas Gumble's The Life of General

Monck (1671) is representative of many works which follow

Bacon's formula but place more emphasis upon the lives of

their subjects. Still, writers such as Gumble limited their

effectiveness as informative biographers not only by follow­

ing Bacon's division between history and biography, but by

attempting to maintain the tone of impersonal dignity and

grandeur found in Bacon's history and generally expected of

historical works. Perhaps only Edmund Bohun's The Character

of Queen Elizabeth (1693) is genuinely innovative as biog­ raphy while maintaining the general structure of the life-and

times formula. In any case, there is noticeable development

within a restricted framework of biographical methodology

from Bacon early in the period to Bohun in the last decade of the century.

Francis Bacon clearly intended his history of the reign of Henry VII to be exactly what it is.- a historical account of a particular era in English history. In 1605 in The Advancement1 of1 Learning Bacon had distinguished between "history of times" and "lives," declaring that a history of

times "representeth the magnitude of actions and the public faces and deportments of persons, and passeth over in silence the smaller passages and motions of men and matters."1

Thus one could hardly expect the history of The Reign’ of King 71 Henry VII to present the personality and private life of

Henry. Yet Bacon did include enough biographical writing in

this history to encourage, by example, historians later in

the seventeenth century to write similar works which blended

"history of times" and "lives" even more, and which might have

disturbed Bacon's sense of what is appropriate in the writing

of civil history had he lived to read them. Bacon began his history with the death of Richard; he

tells nothing of Henry VII before his victory at Bosworth

Field, and he concludes with Henry's death. Since the work

is history of the period in which Henry was responsible for

the important events of state, Bacon did include passages

which reveal something of Henry's personality, though being biographically informative was not, judging from the in­

frequency of such passages, Bacon's motivation for doing so.

Bacon felt it appropriate to attach a character portrait of

Henry at the end of the book. Thus it is possible to regard

the history as, in part at least, a biographical work, and it is easy to see how other writers could turn to Bacon's history as an example of how to organize biographical his­ tories . Bacon's historical narrative is quite impersonal and his style lofty. He presents and comments upon the important historical events without examining the personalities of the people involved. Unlike the principals in the later 72 histories of Clarendon and Burnet, the characters in Bacon's history are wooden and lifeless. Bacon exerts no effort to make them seem human; instead, he works to make the kings and ambassadors in his pages grand and stately, larger-than-life in their olympion majesty. Bacon often has the characters speak, but seldom in the speech of ordinary mortals, as in this account of the French ambassador addressing Henry "to this effect":

My lords, the King our master, the greatest and mightiest king that reigned in France since Charles the Great, whose name he beareth, hath nevertheless thought it no disparagement to his greatness at this time to propound a peace, yea, and to pray a peace with the King of England.2

And Bacon continued to "quote" the ambassador's almost two- thousand word speech.

Although most of the historical narrative is formal and impersonal, there are a few passages which present Henry more personally, more as a believable human being. The most intimate of such passages is a conversation Bacon reports that supposedly took place between Henry and the King of Castile in which Henry,

choosing a fit time, and drawing the King of Castile into a room, where they two only were private, and laying his hand civilly upon his arm, and changing his countenance a little from a countenance of entertainment, Henry said to him, 'Sir, you have been saved upon my coast, I hope you will not suffer me to wreck upon yours.' The King of Castile asked him what he meant by that speech? 'I mean,' saith the King, 'by what same harebrain wild fellow, my subject the Earl of Suffolk, who is protected in 73 your country, and begins to play the fool, when all others are weary of it.' The King of Castile answered, 'I had thought, sir, your felicity had been above those thoughts; but if it trouble you, I will banish him.1 The king replied, 'Those hornets were best in their nest, and worst when they did fly abroad; and that his desire was to have him delivered to him.1 The King of Castile, herewith a little confused, and in a study, said, 'That can I not do with my honour, and less with yours; for you will be thought to have used me as a prisoner.' The king presently said, 'Then the matter is at end, for I will take that dishonour upon me, and so your honour is saved.' The King of Castile, who had the king in great estimation, and besides remembered where he was, and knew not what use he might have of the king's amity, for that himself was new in his estate of Spain, and unsettled both with his father-in-law and with his people, composing his countenance, said, 'Sir, you give law to me, but so will I to you. You shall have him, but, upon your honour, you shall not take his life.' The king embracing him said, 'Agreed, '3

From the point of view of the student of biography, it is regrettable that Bacon did not include more of such incidents. Bacon's is a stately, serious history written in the same grand and solemn style used in The Advancement of Learning. As such, the tone of the work necessarily excludes less serious events, comments, and anecdotes, that do not relate directly to the events of state, but which might have served to present a more vivid impression of Henry. It is not until the character sketch at the end that Bacon even slightly relaxes the gravity of his tone to say of Henry that "Toward his children he was full of paternal affection," or that

his queen, notwithstanding she had presented him with divers children, and with a crown also, 74 though he would not acknowledge It, could do nothing with him. His mother he reverenced much, heard little.4

But the seriousness of the history forbade the presentation

of specific examples illustrating such matters. Later

writers who used Bacon's history as a model for their politi­

cal biographies thus depended upon an example which led them

to overdependence upon editorializing comments and the

propensity to exclude detailed examples of general comments

on character.

While it is true that Bacon's example did not foster

satisfactory biographical methodology in his imitators, it

must be remembered that The History of the Reign of King

Henry VIZ was only incidentally biographical writing and cannot legitimately be condemned for not being informative

biography in itself. Lord Herbert of Cherbury,5 one of Bacon's important

imitators, however, does leave himself open to censure for failing to write biography as he himself conceived it. Herbert's The Life and Reign of King Henry the Eighth (1649) follows Bacon's example of dividing biography into two parts: the first is an historical narrative of the major political events in England between 1509 and 1547; the second is a characterization of the king. Herbert begins with a recog­ nition of one of the problems inherent in biographical writing. "It is impossible," he says, "to draw his picture 75 well who hath several countenances."6 Herbert's solution to this problem is hardly satisfactory; "His History," Herbert says at the end of the book, "will be his best character and description."7 Had Herbert made his historical narrative one whose purpose was to reveal the character of the king, the history would have been his "best character and description."

But the historical account given presents Henry as only one of the many important figures. At every point in the narra­ tive where he could advantageously have focused upon the character of the king, Herbert failed to do so. He includes, for example, a touching letter from "Anne Bollen" to King

Henry; the letter was written while she was in the tower a- waiting trial. In quoting it, he has an excellent opportunity to tell us something about Henry; but his only comment is that he is not sure if Anne wrote the letter or if someone else wrote it for her.

Unlike Bacon's treatment of Henry VII, Herbert's account of Henry VIII is, if we are to believe Herbert's own pro­ clamations, more than simply a history; it is an attempt to present the life and character of the King. Thus biographical information, which was incidental in Bacon's history, becomes very important in Herbert's work, and the fact that Herbert does not select, present and order his details in such a way as to present a clear portrait of Henry could be taken as evidence that Herbert failed to fulfill his promise to the 76 reader. If, however, the work is considered a failure, it is

an understandable one since Herbert's biographical method--

dividing his work into a historical narrative and a charac­

ter sketch--was borrowed from a work which in itself is not

biography but history. Moreover, presenting the personality

of Henry was only one of Herbert's purposes; his principal

goal, to write an historical narrative, is, by the standards of the period, admirably accomplished.

Another of Herbert's objects in writing the book was to praise Henry VIII and to answer criticisms that had been made to the King. In the concluding character sketch, he sweeps aside charges of cruelty and covetousness; but he has some problem with the charge of lust, though he does his best to reduce the enormity of the sin: As for the third Vice, wherewith he was justly charged, being Lust and Wantonness; there is little to answer, more than it was rather a personal fault, then damageable to Publick: Howbeit, they who re­ prove it, ought not only to examine circumstances (which much aggravate or extenuate the fact) but even the complexions of men. That concupiscence which in some is a vice, being in others a disease of Repletion, in others a necessity of nature. It doth not yet appear that this fault did hasten the death of his Queens; he being noted more for prac­ ticing of private pleasures, then secret mischiefs: so that if any undue motive did co-operate herein, It may be thought an inordinate desire to have Posterity (especially masculine) which might be the undoubted Heirs of him and the Kingdom, rather than anything else.8

Such a respect for the king could have been expressed in the historical narrative, and might have led to the inclusion of 77 more information that would have better delineated the king's

character. But Herbert did not interfuse the two sections

of the book, nor is there any real reason why we should expect

him to have done so. He presented his arguments precisely and

reasonably and wholly within what he understood to be the proper structure for such a biographical account.

During the last half of the seventeenth century, the per­ iod during which collections of brief biographies appeared in increasing numbers, many political biographies structured similarly to Bacon's and Herbert's histories were published. When read either as histories or as biographies, most of these life-and-times works are indadequate. Typical of these books is Thomas Gumble's The Life of General Monck (1671), which deserves some attention because it is representative of the ways in which a number of writers were using and altering the same formula Herbert had borrowed from Bacon for writing as account of a famous public figure.

Thomas Gumble9 was influenced by the example of didactic

Puritan biographers: perhaps by compilers of biographical dictionaries such as Samuel Clarke, perhaps by some of the writers of book-length didactic biographies which were begin­ ning to appear, and likely by both. Certainly Gumble was motivated to write his history by several desires, one of which was to provide an example of good living for his readers More important perhaps was his desire to perpetuate the memory 78 of a man whom he knew and loved. In this respect, and in his

desire to preach on conduct, Gumble is similar to Bishop

Burnet, John Evelyn, and other writers of intimate biography;

but he differs from them In that he divides his book into an

historical narrative and a character sketch, using the charac­

teristic formula of the political biographers. Gumble's historical narrative presents Monck from only

one point of view: as a soldier.10 On the first page Gumble

tells something of Monck's father, then says, "His second son

George was always designed to be a soldier." The only thing

Gumble relates of Monck's early life is an incident which

took place when he was sixteen: George took it upon himself

to beat an under-sheriff for an injustice done to his father. This, says Gumble, hastened the resolution that he would be­

come a soldier. Gumble's Life is mainly a history of England from the time of Monck's Imprisonment in the tower in 1644 to the restoration of Charles II, with most attention given to those events in which General Monck played an important role. The historical narrative is marred by many digressions, most of which are didactic. At the mention of New England, for example, he launches into a discussion of some of its problems, beginning with this instructive note; "The great end of the discovery of those great and formerly unknown Countries, by

Almight God, was, that the Knowledge of his Name, and of his 79 Son Jesus Christ, might be manifested."H And in addition to the long digressions, Gumble includes many short passages of moral reflections. He gives little about the General's personal life, concentrating instead on the affairs of state.

He generally neglects to supply important details, such as dates of major events.

Most of the biographical information appears in the character sketch. This section contains the usual praise: statements about Monck's courage, justice, temperance, and charity. And, as in the historical narrative, Gumble misses no chance to preach. In discussing Monck's temperance, Gumble notes that he suffered from the dropsy, a thirsty disease," yet Monck still refused to drink too much. "A lesson of Temperance," Gumble declares, "that I could wish many would learn that censure others of excess, yet spend their days in coffee-houses and taverns."12

Biographical material that Gumble could well have included and presented at greater length so as to better portray the character of Monck is given in synoptic form: After he was fourty years of Age he married, and had two sons, the youngest son George died at Dalkeith, and was buried in the Chancel of that Church: never father took the loss of a child with more tears and grief, which would seem incredible, that a man of so great an heart should yield to such sorrows, but it was certainly evidence of a great sweetness of Temper, and of a tender affection.13

Nowhere in the book does Gumble relate any of Monck's 80 flaws. Even Bacon and Lord Herbert, who worked hard to

present their respective subjects in the most favorable

light, mentioned specific character flaws. For Gumble,

though, it was enough to state simply that Monck was not

perfect: "I have set his brightest side to the world, but

stood too near him to assert that he was all Gold, without

any mixture,"14 pn this attitude, Gumble is typical of most

seventeenth-century biographers.

Perhaps the only thing unusual about The Life of General

Monck is that the laudatory character sketch does not con­

clude the volume; instead, Gumble chose to end with "The

Case of the Duke of Albemarle, as it was found in Dissection,

Jan. 4, 1669": The Belly and all containing parts found, large and very fat; in the Cavity of it about a Bottle of discoloured water: the Liver very good and fair, considering the length of his distemper; the Bladder and Gall full, and no passage to be made by the common Ductus into the Duodenum, caused by a Tartareous Concretion of the colour of the Gall, that wholly obstructed the passage: the Duodenum full of a viscous matter, of the same but deeper colour: and the Pancreas fair, sound and good, the Stomach and Spleen good and natural. The rest of the Intestines fair and good, the Kidneys good but unnatural. In the Bladder nothing but Urine; and its body and figure very natural.15

This autopsy report goes on to discuss the condition of other parts of Monck's anatomy, concluding with, "The Head opened, and nothing in it found preternatural."16 pt is regrettable that Gumble was not as detailed in his description of Monck's 81 personality--or even external physical appearance--as he was

in his account of Monck's internal organs.

At the end of the century, biographers of political

figures were still confusing historical writing with bio­

graphy, and were still dividing their works into historical

narrative and character description. The title page of

Edmund Bohun's The Character of Queen Elizabeth (1693) well illustrates that the example set by Bacon was still being followed:

A Full and Clear Account of Her Policies and The Methods of Her Government both in Church and State. Her Virtues and Defects. Together with the Charac­ ters of Her Principal Ministers of State. And the Greatest Part of the Affairs and Events that Hap­ pened in Her Time.

In the preface, Bohun makes it clear that he Is writing a history. He complains, as did Bacon nearly a century earlier, that England had produced no great works of historiography:

"No Nation in Europe hath exceeded the English in Martial

Bravery; but for want of good History, much of the Honour of our Ancestors is lost both at home and abroad."17 His work on Queen Elizabeth is intended as a beginning In supplying England with badly needed historiography. Although Bohun describes the activities of the Queen's life separately from the description of her personality, he nevertheless writes a more successful biography than anyone else in the century who so divided his work. In part, his success is due to the fact that he did not duplicate many 82 of the mistakes made by previous writers, and in part his

work is superior because he extended and exploited the form

more than had anyone else.

In tine first place, Bohun avoids the moralizing and

didacticism typical of the biographies of writers like Thomas

Gumble. Bohun does state that

this is not intended so much as a regular Story of those Times, as a Collection of Examples, that others may thereby be instructed what to chuse or avoid, what to commend or blame, what had a good, or an ill event.18

But this statement is more of an acknowledgement that such

works are supposed to be exemplary than an apt description of

the biography. If the book is didactic, the moral lessons

are to be inferred by the reader; Bohun does not state them

overtly. Second, Bohun does not attempt to present only the good

side of the Queen, as Gumble did with Monck. Bohun acknow­ ledges, lists, and discusses her flaws. But the work is not

polemic; Bohun greatly admired Elizabeth. "The mixing of the Faults of great Persons with their Virtues," he says, "abates

the envy of Mankind, and purchaseth a kind and ready Accep­

tance of the whole,"19 in his attempt at objectivity, Bohun does not attempt to improve the general Image of Elizabeth; in his history he proves himself a better reporter than was

Bacon, who slanted his account of Henry VII, or than Lord

Herbert, who served as an apologist for Henry VIII. 83 Finally, Bohun's life of Elizabeth is superior as bio­ graphy to similarly constructed works because he greatly

extended the character discussion that follows the historical

narrative: the history goes to page 301; the character study

is on pages 301-71, which is considerably longer than the few pages given by Bacon, Lord Herbert, and others. Also,

Bohun improves the quality of the character sketch by supplying frequent examples to support his generalizations about the Queen; and--more important--he included many details that previous biographers would have deemed too trivial.

The first part of Bohun's book, the historical narrative, begins with a brief account of Elizabeth's education, then narrates the major political events from the reign of Edward to the death of Elizabeth. Unlike Bacon and Herbert, Bohun gives much attention to the personalities of the major political figures of the day. Like Clarendon and other contemporary historians, Bohun intermingles brief biographies with his historical narrative, giving sketches of such persons as the Earl of Essex, Lord Burleigh, and Mary, Queen of Scotts. Bohun's book is thus a composit of a number of seventeenth-century traditions in historiography and bio­ graphical writing. Writing as he was in the early l690's, Bohun had the advantage of being able to learn from the examples of many biographical and historical works which had 84 appeared during the century. While the basic structure of his book is essentially that which the political biographers of the mid-century had distilled from the example of Bacon's history of Henry VII, Bohun, either because of familiarity with intimate biographers such as Izaak Walton or because of his own innovative genius, produced a political biography which is unique in seventeenth-century biographical methodology

No other writer of life-and-times biographies concentrated so much upon writing biography, upon giving a clear portrait of an individual personality as did Bohun in describing Queen

Elizabeth. The second section of the book, the character sketch of

Elizabeth, frequently offers little more than generalized statements about Elizabeth's personality in much the same fashion that Bacon, Herbert, and Gumble had done with their subjects. But Bohun was not always content to editorialize without giving specific details. Drawing from such works as William Camden's Annals of Elizabeth, John Foxe's Imprison- ment of the Princess Elizabeth, and Fulke Greville's Life of Sidney’, Bohun collected anecdotes and details to illustrate his generalizations. In saying, for example, that the Queen was often too severe, Bohun, unlike previous political bio­ graphers of famous personages who left such statements naked and unexplained, illustrated with a brief anecdote. Sir John

Perrot, who, Bohun says, had a bad temper, was "for some 85 expressions that fell from him in a passion," tried, found

guilty, and "imprisoned to the day of his death, suffering want, and nastiness of a common Gaol."20 None of the political biographers of the period gave

as much attention to physical description as did Bohun.

"She was a lady of Great Beauty," he wrote of Elizabeth,

of a Decent Stature, and of an Excellent Shape: In her youth she was adorned with a more than usual Maiden Modesty.; her Skin was pure white, and her hair of a yellow colour; her Eyes were beautiful and lively; in short, her whole Body was well made, and her Pace was adorned with a wonderful and sweet Beauty and Majesty. This Beauty lasted till her Middle Age, tho it declined; In her Old Age she became deformed with wrinkles, Leanness, and fallen Lips; so it was hard to believe she had ever had that excellent Composure, and Lovely Beauty.21

This section goes on to tell how courtiers removed or broke all the mirrors in the palace because in her old age Eliza­ beth was offended when she was reminded that she was no longer beautiful. Bohun adds other humanizing touches; "She detested as ominous and unfortunate, all Dwarfs and Monstrous Births. She loved little Dogs, Singing Birds, Parrots, and Apes."22

Also, we are told that She was not subject to the love of Sleep, or any of the other Pleasures of Human Life. She eat very little, but then she chose what was pleasant, and easy of digestion; and in her declining Age she became more Temperate than before; but she eat whensoever she was hungry: She seldom drank above three times at a meal, and that was common Beer, 86 and she rarely drank again til supper, She loved alicant Wine above any other.23

Although The Character of Queen Elizabeth is, especially when compared to similar works, moderately successful as biographical writing, its organization prevents it from being more than moderately good. But Bohun deserves much praise for what he did accomplish within the restrictions of the tradition he inherited. This tradition in biography, the separating of an individual's life from an account of his character, lasted well into the eighteenth century, affecting the methodology of writers of intimate as well as political biographies.

Even Boswell concluded his Life of Samue1 Johnson with an acknowledgement of the tradition: The character of Samuel Johnson had, I trust, been so developed in the course of this work, that they who have honoured it with a perusal may be considered as well acquainted with him. As, however, it may be expected that I should collect into one view the capital and distinguishing features of this extra­ ordinary man, I shall endeavour to acquit myself of that part of my biographical undertaking, however difficult it may be to do that which many of my readers will do better for themselves.24

Boswell adds a short character sketch because it is expected of him; but it is hardly necessary because throughout he had so thoroughly integrated the history of Johnson's life with delineation of character. Most of the writers of political biography In seventeenth century England did not know their subjects personally and 87 were more concerned with writing a history than an intimate biography, so that their omission of even publicly acceptable details about a man's private life is understandable. There is, however, a substantial number of biographies written during the period about personal friends of the biographer, some of which make attempts to present a more intimate por­ trait of a personality•and which employ a wider range of biographical methods to achieve their goals. 88

3. Intimate Biography

Seventeenth-century intimate biographies--those written of close friends--do not possess the uniformity in structural organization found in the political biography of the period. Those similarities in methodology that do exist among the more intimate works are largely the result of the goals of the writers being much alike and of their general conviction that life-writing should not reveal unbecoming character traits. Most of these biographers wanted to preserve the memory of a friend as he should be remembered, not necessar­ ily as he actually was; and most regarded their writing as an opportunity to preach about moral and ethical conduct. In general, the main difference in approach between political and intimate biography is that the major concern of the writers shifts from the political to the didactic. If preach­ ing was not always of central importance to intimate bio­ graphers, most did moralize, if only in passing.

Excluding Izaak Walton, who deserves special attention in a separate chapter, Margaret Cavendish, John Evelyn, and Bishop Burnet wrote intimate biographies which are superior to most similar works and which, at the same time, typify the biographical methodology of this body of writing. Like most such biographers, the works of Cavendish,

Evelyn, and Burnet appeared in the latter part of the seven­ 89 teenth century, so that these writers had a tradition of

sorts to draw upon for models. Pulke Greville, Lord Brooke,1

however, wrote an important intimate biography early in the

century at a time in which there were no significant English

biographies in print.

Lord Brooke's life of Sidney (written in l6ll, but not

published until 1652), illustrates well the fact that biogra­

phy as a genre was not clearly defined in the minds of those

who, in the early seventeenth century, turned their attention

to life-writing. Brooke himself did not call this work a

"life," but "a dedication to Sir Philip Sidney";2 ^he title,

The Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney, was given by the

publisher in I652. The book is best classified as biography,

though it also resembles historical writing, panegyric, and

sermon literature. In giving his reasons for writing the book, Brooke says,

For my own part, I observed, honoured, and loved him so much; as with what caution soever I have passed through my days hitherto as among the living, yet in him I challenge a kind of freedome even among the dead. So that although with Socrates, I professe to know nothing for the present; yet with Nestor I am delighted in repeating old newes of the ages past; and will therefore stir up my drooping memory touch­ ing this man's worth, powers, wayes, and designes: to the end that in the tribute I owe him, our nation may see a sea-mark, rais'd upon their native coast, above the levell of any private Pharos abroad: and so by a right meridian-line of their own, learn to sayl through the straits of True Vertue, into a calm and spacious ocean of humane honour.0

Few people were in a better position to give us such a por­ 90 trait of Sidney, to relate his "worth, powers, wayes, and designs," than Lord Brooke. He knew Sidney quite well; Brooke could have told us much about Sidney's mannerisms and habits, and no doubt could have included letters and other documents that would have helped to reveal the personality of the man he wished to commemorate. But he did none of this. The work contains no narrative of Sidney's life; it gives no account of his personal relationships with friends. Instead of a vivid Impression of Sidney, we get a generalized account of his character. The book is mostly a history of political problems during Elizabeth's reign, with Sidney's views on them. And even the impersonal historical narrative is some­ what vague because of its lack of details. Since Brooke evidently wrote this book entirely from memory, without consulting documents, the work contains no dates and omits many names. This vagueness, this lack of detail is chiefly what prevents the work from being useful as notes for biography, much less as biography in itself. Unfortunately, Brooke was content to tell us what a great man Sidney was rather than to present the man performing some of his great deeds:

Indeed he was a true modell of worth; a man fit for Conquest, Plantation, Reformation, or what action soever is greatest and hardest amongst men: withall, such a lover of mankind and goodnesse, that whoever had any reall parts, in him found comfort, participation, and protection to the utter­ most of his power: like Zephyrus he giving life where he blew. The Universities abroad and at home, 91 accompted him a general Meeaenas of learning; dedicated their books to him; and communicated every invention, or improvement of knowledge with him. Souldiers honoured him, and were so honoured by him as no man thought he marched under the true banner of Mars, that had not obtained Sir Philip Sidney's approbation. Men of affairs in most parts of Christendome, enter­ tained correspondency with him. But what speak I of these, with whom his own waies, and ends did concur? since--to descent--his heart and capacity were so large, that there was not a cunning Painter, a skilfull Engenier, an excel­ lent Musician, or any other artificer of extra­ ordinary fame, that made not himself known to this famous spirit, and found him his true friend without hire; and the common Rende-vous of Worth in his time.4

This is a most uninformative sketch; it sounds like the

panegyric of a funeral elegy. Even the biographical sketches

of Clarendon and Burnet offer more vivid detail than this.

Only once does the book show us Sidney in such a way

that we can learn about a facet of his real character instead of what we recognize to be merely Lord Brooke's editorialized

idealization of the man. This is in the account of Sidney receiving his death-wound on the battle-field. This moving episode is the best piece of writing in the book, and is worth quoting: Howsoever, by this stand, an unfortunate hand out of those fore-spoken trenches, brake the bone of Sir Philip's thigh with a musket-shot. The horse he rode upon, was rather furiouslie cholleric, than bravely proud, and so forced him to forsake the field, but not his back, as the noblest, and fittest biere to carry a martiall commander to his grave. In which sad progress, passing along by the rest of the army, where his uncle and generall was, and being thirstie with excess of bleeding, he called 92 for drink, which was presently brought him; but as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor souldier carryed along, who had eaten his last at the same feast, gastly casting up his eyes at the bottle. Which Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his head, before he drank, and delivered it to the poor man, with these words, 'Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.' And when he had pledged this poor souldier, he was presently carried to Arnheim. Where the principal chirurgions of the Camp attended for him; some mercinarily out of gain, others for-honour to their art, but the most of them with a true zeal--compounded of love and reverence-- to doe him good, and--as they thought--many Nations in him.5

Even this section, however, is marred by being drawn out too

long and by Brooke's inevitable didacticism and moralizing.

Two-thirds of the book is given to the "biography" of

Sidney, which is mostly eulogy, into which is interlaced the

history of Elizabeth's reign during the years that Sidney was

a renowned courtier. Brooke also gives rambling comments on

his own writing (all of which he dedicates to Sidney), many

of which he says were inspired by Sidney: So that to saile by his compasse, was shortly--as I said--one of the principall reasons I can allege, which perswaded me to steale minutes of time from my daily services, and employ them in this kind of writings.6

Brooke introduces the final long section of the work with this apology: Let the reader pardon me, if I presume yet again to multiply digression upon digression, in honour of her to whom I owe my selfe, I mean Queen Elizabeth.7

This introduces a rambling essay of about fifteen thousand 93 words on the character and political policies of the Queen.

Again, details are lacking: Brooke gives no dates and few names.

Even though one of Brooke's stated purposes in writing his account of Sidney was to perpetuate the memory of the

"worth, powers, ways, and designs" of the famous courtier, his failure to be thorough In doing so should not be overly condemned. This was, after all, only one of Brooke's goals; giving his attitude toward the policital events of his era and moralizing about social conduct were also important to him and demanded much of his energy in writing the book.

Furthermore, Brooke was concerned with relating the character of Sidney as he perceived it; objectivity of presentation apparently never occurred to him, nor were there any examples of English biography available that might have encouraged him to particularize his generalized assessments with anec­ dotes or details of any sort.

In 1667 when Margaret Cavendish^ published The Life of William Cavendish, there were numerous biographical works in print, and Lady Cavendish was apparently familiar with some of them. She says in the preface I am resolved to write in a natural plain style, without Latin Sentences, moral Instructions, politick Designs, feigned Orations, or envious and malicious Exclamations, this short history.9

This is an apt summary of some of the major faults of the political biographies, and shows that she had given some 94 thought to the form of biography before writing one herself.

Unfortunately, though, she adopts Bacon's conception of his­

torical writing: she divides historiography into three types:

"1. A General History. 2. A National History. 3. A Particular History," and hers is dominantly Bacon's third

variety, namely "the history of the life and actions of some particular person.she also fuses the second and third

varieties of history, making hers, in part, a history of

England during her husband's lifetime.

Following the example of the political biographers, Lady

Margaret divides her book into a history of the events in

the Duke's life and a more personal section designed to de­

scribe his character. Two-thirds of the book is historical narrative, mostly of her husband's activities during the

English Civil War. The historical account is quite impersonal

it is designed mainly to show what a loyal, honorable man

William Cavendish was in his support of the right causes.

Typical is this passage explaining the Duke's aid to King Charles I: My Lord lent his Majesty 10000 1. and raised Him­ self a Voluntier-Troop of Horse, which constituted of 120 knights and Gentlemen of quality, who marched to Berwick by His Majesties Command, where it pleased His Majesty to set this mark of Honour upon that Troop, that it should be independent, and not com­ manded by any General Officer, but only by his Majesty Himself.H

Lady Margaret begins the more personal section of her book with a statement that promises a careful characteriza­

tion of her husband: Thus having given you a faithful Account of My Lords Actions, both before, in, and after the Civil Warrs, and of his Losses, I shall conclude with some particular heads concerning the descrip­ tion of his own Person, his Natural Humour, Disposi­ tion, qualities, Virtues; his Pedigree, Habit, Diet, Exercises, etc. together with some other remarks and particulars which I thought requisite to be inserted, both to illustrate the former Books, and to render the History of his Life more perfect and compleat. -I-2

She does offer a few personal touches, but for the most part this section Is disappointing as biography. This is partly because the life was written artd published during her hus­ band's lifetime, and she was forced, to her disappointment, to omit material that might prove offensive. She says,

The history of your lordship's life I have endeavoured to render as perspicuous as ever I could, yet one thing I find hath much darkened it; which is, that your Grace commanded me not to mention any thing or passage to t.he prejudice or disgrace of any Family or particular person (although they might be of great truth, and would illustrate much the actions of your Life) which I have dutifully performed to satisfie your Lord- ship . 13 There is much in the second section of the book that is impersonal--such as her long catalogues of the Duke's losses during the Civil War and the list of army officers who served under him. But there are some personal notes, such as this entry listed under the caption "Of His Habits":

He is neat and cleanly; which makes him to be somewhat long in dressing, though not so long as many effeminate persons are. He shifts 96 ordinarily once a day, and every time when he uses Exercises, or his temper is more hot than ordinary.14

It is part of Lady Cavendish's method to illustrate her generalizations about her husband's character. For example, instead of merely declaring him to be wise (as was the habit of most biographers of the period), she recounts an example of his wisdom. She says that once while the Duke was con­ versing with Thomas Hobbes, he argued that even given mechan­ ical wings man could never fly because his arms are not attached in the same way birds' wings are, "Which Argument

Mr. Hobbes liked so well, that he was pleased to make use of it in one of his Books called Leviathan, if I remember well."15

Lady Cavendish concludes the book with eighty-five short passages of aphoristic wisdom "Gathered from the Mouth of My Noble Lord and Husband." These statements, such as, "Great Princes should not suffer their chief Cities to be stronger than themselves,"-^ add little to the portrait of the Duke; they are included to illustrate that he was both wise and noble. Although The Life of William Cavendish contains much irrevelant information and fails to focus upon the essentially important aspects of the Duke's life that would illustrate his character, it is nevertheless one of the best of the intimate biographies produced in the seventeenth century.

In her own way, Lady Margaret Cavendish was an innovative 97 biographer; she had evidently examined previous biographies and found them inadequate, so she experimented with the form by greatly expanding the character discussion that tradition­ ally followed the factual account of the subject's life. She was remarkably successful, when compared with most of her contemporaries, in her attempt to present the life and person­ ality of her subject. And, though this is a negative virtue, one reason her biography is superior to those by Evelyn and

Burnet is that Lady Cavendish wanted above all to portray her husband, not to moralize about proper conduct. The Life of William Cavendish is, in fact, one of the few long bio­ graphies that avoid overt didacticism.

John Evelyn's The Life of Mrs. Godolphin (written in

1678) is, at first glance, little more than a modernized saint's life. Samuel Lord, the Anglican bishop who, in 1847, was the first to publish this work, found it to be an excel­ lent moral exemplum. In his introduction, Lord expressed hope that the reader might "learn in secret, for himself, those lessons of heavenly wisdom which adorned life and glorified the death of Margaret Godolphin.nl7 John Evelyn^ would have applauded such a statement; on the first page of the book, he refers to Mrs. Godolphin as "that blessed Saint now in heaven." And his pious regard for his subject is found throughout: "it would become a steadier hand," he states, "and the penn of an Angells wing"19 to describe 98 properly this saintly lady. Evelyn ends the book with the inevitable character sketch in which he praises her for being a generous person, a loyal wife, a sincere freind, and so on.

No doubt Evelyn was even more impressed with Mrs.

Godolphin's piety since it manifested itself amid the debauch­ ery of Charles Il's court. As lady-in-waiting to the queen, Mrs. Godolphin was placed in close proximity to a court which the Puritanical Evelyn deplored. "I am never to forget," he wrote in his diary on February 1, 1685,

the unexpressable luxury, and prophanesse, gaming, and all dissolution, and as it were total forget- fulnesse of God (it being Sunday Evening) which this day sennight, I was witnesse of; the King sitting and toying with his concubines Portsmouth, Cleaveland, and Mazarine: & c: a french boy singing love songs, in that glorious Gallery, whilst about 20 of the great Courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Basset round a large table, a bank of at least 200 in Gold before them. Given the contrast between the behavior of the court and that of Mrs. Godolphin, Evelyn's generous praise of the lady's conduct is more understandable.

Although we might suspect Evelyn of being too enthusi­ astic in his extreme praise of Mrs. Godolphin's virtues, it must be admitted that he argues a good case for her piety by citing specific evidence. She spent much of her time at court, he says, reading scripture, praying, and sewing to avoid the Idle conversation she feared falling into. To illustrate his point, Evelyn quotes from her diary, an 99 unusual technique for seventeenth-century biographies: "Talk little when you are there," she reminds herself in one entry;

"if they speak of any body I can't commend, hold my peace, what jest soever they make," and "When they speak filthyly, tho' I be laughed at, look grave."20 often, Evelyn is not content merely to praise her vertues in the abstract, as was the habit of many biographers, but gives some evidence, however slight, in order to illustrate his generalizations.

Rather than the flat statement that she was compassionate, for example, he says, "She loved to be at funerals and in the house of mourning," and "she was a constant visitor of the sick and of people in distress."21

Evelyn makes his case, perhaps too well. Surely, we feel, Evelyn has tunnel vision; surely no one could be that good without some flaw of character. But we should not sus­ pect Evelyn of falsifying the facts as he understood them. To him Mrs. Godolphin apparently was that good, so he wrote her biography both out of respect for her saintliness and in order to provide for the world a perfect example of Christian, living. Although Evelyn presents his subject from only one point of view, he at least gives evidence to support his position, supplying the reader with some details of Mrs. Godolphin's life. Many didactic biographies of the period did not give 100

details, but concentrated only on relating generalized

virtues. The anonymous The Life and1 Death of Mrs. Margaret

Andrews (1680), for example, was written "to convince the

World that the Religion of our Saviour Jesus Christ is really

practicable in far higher degrees than we ordinarily observe it, "22 and, in spite of its length, offers no more informa­

tion about the life of Mrs. Andrews than does Samuel Clarke

in his didactic short biographies.

One other intimate biography deserves some attention:

Bishop Burnet's Some Passages of the Life and Death of the

Right' Honourable John, Earl of Rochester (1680), This is

an exemplary work designed to show the repentance of a

notorious libertine, set forth to warn and "to awaken those

who run on to all the excess of riot,"23 Burnet knew

Rochester only during his final illness, so the book is taken

from a "long and free conversation with him for some months."24 Burnet admits that his limited acquaintance with

Rochester puts him at a disadvantage in writing his life: I have endeavoured to give his Character as fully as I could take it: for I who saw him only in one light, in a sedate and quiet temper, when he was under a great decay of Strength and loss of Spirits, cannot give his Picture with that life and advantage that others may, who knew him when his Parts were more bright and lively.25

But even had he known Rochester better, Burnet still would

have presented his characters "in one light." Burnet sub­

scribed to the general conviction of seventeenth-century 101

biographers that they should avoid exposing the character

flaws of their subjects. "I write with one great disad­

vantage," Burnet says apologetically, "that I cannot reach

his chief Design, without mentioning some of his Faults."

But he quickly assures the reader that he will "say no more

of his faults, than is necessary to illustrate his Repent­ ance . "26 The first thirty-four pages of Burnet's book are a

combination of observations on Rochester's character and a

narrative of the major events in his life; the remainder

of the book is of little interest as biography. In the

first section of the book, Burnet's generalizations are

usually left without detailed support. Sometimes, however,

he gives specific examples. He says, for instance, that

Rochester too often gave in to "a violent love of Pleasure,

and a disposition to extravagant Mirth," which led him into

"many odd adventures."27 Burnet relates, briefly, some of

these adventures: Being under an unlucky Accident, which obliged him to keep out of the way; He disguised himself, so that his nearest Friends could not have known him, and set up in Tower-street for an Italian Mountebank, where he practiced Physick for some Weeks not without success.28

Burnet further explains, "he took pleasure to disguise him­

self as a Porter, or as a Beggar; sometimes to follow some mean Amours," The modern reader might wish Burnet to be more 102 specific than he is in such statements as, "meerly for diversion, he would go about in odd shapes";29 but by seven­ teenth-century standards, Burnet's work is quite detailed.

The second portion of Burnet's life of Rochester is mainly a report on "the three chief things we Talked about," which were "Mortality, Natural Religion, and Revealed Reli­ gion, Christianity in particular."30 This section of the book reads like a sermon; ostensibly it concerns Rochester's repentance, but in reality it is a device that Burnet uses to express his concept of proper ethical behavior. The work ends with a brief character sketch of Rochester and a call for the reader to make use of such an example of Christian repentance and holy dying.

The remarkable thing is not that Burnet failed to tell as much as he knew about Rochester, but that he told as much as he did since many of the details he gives are not really necessary in order to make his moral pronouncements. Also,

Burnet did well considering that he did not approve of placing a man's private life before the public. Thomas Sprat best articulated this objection in his Life of Cowley (1668). In speaking of Cowley's private letters, Sprat said,

In these he always expressed the native tenderness, and innocent gayety of his mind, I think, Sir, you, and I have the greatest Collection of this sort. But I know you agree with me, that nothing of this Nature should be publish'd. . . . The truth is, the letters that pass between particular Friends, if 103 they are written as they ought to be, can scarse ever be fit to see the light. They should not consist of fulsome Complements, or religious Polities, or elaborate Elegancies, or general Fancies. But they should have a Native clear­ ness and shortness, a Domestical plainess, and a peculiar kind of Familiarity; which can only affect the humour of those to whom they were intended. The very same passages, which make Writing of this Nature delightful amongst Friends, will loose all manner of taste, when they come to be used by those that are indifferent. In such letters the Souls of Men should appear undress'd: And in that negligent habit, they might be fit to be seen by one or two in a chamber, but not to go abroad into the Streets.31

It is this attitude, along with the conviction that life­ writing should be exemplary, that prevented intimate biogra­ phy in the seventeenth century from presenting a fuller and more accurate account of a man's life. Even Izaak Walton, the one real biographical genius of the period, was given to frequent moralizing and was squeamish about relating some aspects of a man's private life. io4 4. Izaak Walton

Readers have both highly praised and firmly condemned

the biographies of Izaak Walton.The extremes! of Walton's

detractors, who dismiss his work as hagiography, fail to

perceive that his subjects were indeed men of great piety

and, more importantly, fail to view his writing against the

background of other seventeenth-century biographies; on the

other hand, those who pay high tribute to Walton's biogra­ phies frequently do so not for the accuracy of his methodology,

but because of his charming presentation. William Wordsworth's

sonnet on Walton is representative of the reaction of many

enthusiastic readers:

There are no colours in the fairest sky So fair as these. The feather, whence the pen Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men, Dropped from an Angel's Wing. With moistened eye We read of faith and purest charity In Statesman, Priest, and humble Citizen: Oh could we copy their mild virtues, then What joy to live, what blessedness to die! Methinks their very names shine still and bright; Apart--like glow-worms on a summer night; Or lonely tapers when from far they fling A guiding ray; or seen--like stars on high, Satellites burning in a lucid ring Around meek Walton's heavenly memory.

Certainly Walton's Lives' are charming; but the charm often stems from "meek Walton's" own appealing personality which appears in the pages of his biographies of Donne, Wotton,

Hooker, Herbert, and Sanderson. And Walton's readers are even more charmed with his Lives if they are acquainted with 105 this grand old man through reading his rambling autobio­

graphical work, The' Compleat Angler. Most striking is

Walton’s humble meekness, his mild humor, his desire to be truthful without giving offense to anyone, and his love of

irrelevant, romanticized anecdotes.

In the prefaces to the various lives, Walton feels

compelled to apologize for presuming to undertake the task

of a biographer; he repeatedly proclaims lack of skill for

so demanding a task. "That I," Walton exclaims in the pre­ face to his Life of Dr. John Donne, "who profess myself artless, should presume with my faint light to show forth his life, whose very name makes it illustrious!"2 After listing his reasons for writing the life of George Herbert,

Walton says, "If I have prevented any abler person, I beg pardon of him and my reader."3 Again and again Walton presents himself as the humble and artless layman who pens the lives of great men solely from a sense of obligation and love. But he is not always wholly serious: Walton's sense of humor is as subtle as it is appealing. In reading The Complfete' Ahg'ler', we encounter his quiet wit often; but in the Lives it crops up less frequently and always unexpect­ edly: "The reader has a liberty to believe," he tells us of

Hooker, "that his modesty and dim sight were some of the reasons why he trusted Mrs. Churchman to choose his wife."4 106

Walton's propensity to include irrelevant, romanticized

anecdotes also does much to make his writing appealing. A

typical example is his account of the parish clerk who, after Hooker's death, was shocked to see "the sacrament as in

Geneva" administered in Hooker's church; 'I will never come more into this church; for all men will say, my master Hooker was a good man, and a good scholar; and I am sure it was not used to be thus in his days:1 and report says the old man went presently home and died; I do not say Immediately, but within a few days after.5

Clearly Izaak Walton's Lives are interesting reading because Izaak Walton Is interesting, and he reveals much of himself in his work. But as biography, the Lives leave much to be desired. After reading them for their biographi­ cal information, Harold Nicolson Impatiently declares,

His Lives of Wotton, Herbert, and the rest are, I am assured, literary masterpieces: they are beautifully balanced; their style is tranquil and limpid; they constitute delightful essays on the charms of studious quiet, on the fretting illusion of active ambition. They are unques­ tionably works of art; but are they unquestion­ ably pure biography? Where Walton fails is in truth: he fails to present us with complete or even probable portraits.° This is an overstatement; Walton does give us believable portraits; the problem is that they are limited to a single angle. Walton carefully selects and manipulates his details so that we see the man as Walton thought we should see him. The portrait is real enough, as far as it goes; its limita­ tion is that it fails to show us the figure from many other 107 angles, all of which would be equally real, and all of

which would be necessary in order to perceive the man as a

living, breathing entity. Walton's reasons for writing the various lives affects

his organization and biographical method, though basically all five lives are much alike. The most striking similarity

among the Lives is their overt didacticism. Walton's desire to produce exemplary biography for the moral edification of

the reader is the quality that is most offensive to modern

readers. "My prejudice against him," says Harold Nicolson,

"is due to the fact that he represents a reversion to hagio­

graphy.'^ gut when compared to the other seventeenth-century biography, Walton's moralizing can hardly be labeled a rever­ sion. Indeed, Walton's didacticism is far less obtrusive than that of most other biographers of the period.

In his prefaces, Walton explains why he wrote each of the biographies. Sir Henry Wotton, who was to write the life of Donne, died before he could do more than collect a few notes. Walton, seeing Donne's sermons were to be pub­ lished without being prefaced with an account of his life, was moved to "indignation or grief--indeed I know not which, and took it upon himself to finish the job Walton had started.

This was printed with the 1640 edition of Donne's sermons.

Writing the life of Donne, Walton explains, "begot a like necessity of writing the Life of his and my ever-honoured 108

friend, Sir Henry Wotton."9 which he completed in 1651.

After this, Walton "lay quiet for twenty years," then John

Gauden--that untrustworthy gentleman who wrote Eikon' Basillke for Charles I--"published the life of Mr. Richard Hooker (so

he called it), with so many dangerous mistakes, both of him and his books,"10 that, encouraged by the Archbishop of

Canterbury, Walton wrote a better biography of Hooker. This

was published in 1665. The Life of Herbert (1670) was "a free-will offering," Walton says; "it was writ chiefly to

please myself. "H The Life of Dr. Robert Sanderson was completed in 1678, when Walton was in his eighties.

Walton expressed reasons for writing are thus strikingly

different from those of Evelyn, Clarke, and others who pro­

claimed their biographies to be morally instructive. Walton is primarily concerned with raising a memorial for the subjects

of his biography; if the memorial could prove morally instruc­ tive, so much the better. The canons of taste of the period demanded that character flaws be suppressed in life-writing,

and Izaak Walton' s charitable nature affirmed this dictum. Also, the men whom Walton chose to write about were pious, saintly men. Under these circumstances, it seems inevitable that Walton's Lives should be exemplary as well as commemorative.

When compared with the other biographies of the period, Walton's lives are surprisingly good. They show Walton to be little influenced by the biographies of contemporary writers. 109 Only In The Life of Dr. John Donne do we find the traditional

character sketch affixed to the end of the narrative--and

here it is hardly necessary because it merely repeats what

Walton asserts again and again in the text of the work. Only

in The Life of Mr. Richard Hooker does he venture to give a

history similar to those found in the "life and times" bio­

graphies, and this is presented as a digression, not as the

major part of the text. Walton's biographical method surpasses that of any of his contemporaries. Aside from the negative virtues of not

making some of their mistakes, Walton made his biographical

portraits more vivid by frequent use of specific incidents and

details. He also made us of personal letters to better illus­

trate character, a device which none of his contemporaries

employed. Sprat, as we have seen even went so far as to con­ demn such publication of personal correspondence. Once one accepts the inevitability of Walton's moralizing,

his most annoying habit for modern readers is his frequent digression. Walton often halts his narrative to give a sketch

of someone whom he deems important in the biography--such as in his account of George Herbert's mother. In this, Walton's writing resembles that of the historians of the period who

included biographical sketches of important men in their histories. Frequently, though, Walton digresses to portray people who are irrelevant to the biography, as in his account 110 of Arthur Woodnot In the biography of Herbert.

In none of his biographies does Walton ever allow the

reader to forget his presence as omniscient narrator. He

makes no attempt to refine himself out of the narrative, as

Lytton Strachey was later to do skillfully and convincingly.

Walton constantly judges the actions he narrates; he offers

praise or condemnation in such a way that the reader never feels free to judge for Himself. Furthermore, Walton overtly manipulates the activity of his characters by dismissing them and re-introducing them whenever he feels it necessary. For example, he suspends his account of Hooker's life in order to give a "character of the times," then says,

And now after this long digression, made for the information of my reader concerning what follows, I bring him back to venerable Mr. Hooker, where we left him in the Temple, and where we shall find him as deeply engaged in a controversy with Walter Travers.12

Walton worked hard to present a unified impression of his subjects, and in this he succeeded admirably: The outline of Herbert's portrait reveals the good parish priest; the Life' of Donne' is controlled by that vision of the Angel in the Pulpit seen by his humble parishioner; and Hooker and Sanderson are seen as meek but effective defenders of the rights of the Church against the encroachments of Puritanism."13

Although this kind of two-dimensional portrayal is enough to make us doubt Walton's accuracy as a reporter of factual information, we must remember that his vision of his subjects

was such that he consciously sought to paint such portraits, Ill and, moreover, felt free to present conjecture as fact when he felt it would help convey his impressions. In the life of George Herbert, for example, Walton said the following statement was made by Herbert on his deathbed:

I now look back upon the pleasures of my life past, and see the content I have taken in beauty, in wit, in music, and pleasant conversation, are now all past by me like a dream, or as a shadow that returns not, and are now all become dead to me, or I to them; and I see, that as my father and generation hath done before me, so I also shall now suddenly (with Job) make my bed also in the dark; and I praise God I am prepared for it; and I praise him that I am not to learn patience now I stand in such need of it; and that I have practiced mortification, and endeavored to die daily, that I might not die eternally; and my hope is, that I shall shortly leave the valley of tears, and be free from all fevers and pain; and, which will be a more happy condition, I shall be free from sin, and all the temptations and anxieties that attend it: and this being past, I shall dwell in the New Jerusalem; dwell there with men made perfect; dwell where these eyes shall see my master and Saviour Jesus; and with him see my dear mother, and all my relations and friends. But I must die, or not come to that happy place. And this is my content, that I am going daily towards it: and that every day which I have lived, hath taken a part of my appointed time from me; and that I shall live the less time, for having lived this and the day past.l4 Walton's principal source for this and other similar speeches was, apparently, his concept of what Herbert might have said in the given circumstances. But this speech also shows Walton using Herbert's writing as a source. In having Herbert refer to "the content I have taken in beauty, in wit, in music, and pleasant conversation," Walton is clearly borrowing from the following lines in Herbert's poem, "The Quip:" 112 First, Beauty Crept into a rose Which when I pluckt not, "Sir," said she "Tell me, I pray, whose hands are these? But thou shalt answer Lord, for me.

Then money came, and chinking still "What tune is this, poor man?" said he: "I heard in music you had skill." But thou shalt answer Lord, for me.

Then came quick Wit-and-Conversation, And he would needs a comfort he, And, to be short, make an oration. But thou shalt answer Lord, for me.

Walton thus deliberately alters his source material to better

serve his dramatic purpose in the narrative, but he does not

falsify the logical interpretation of the material he chooses to work with. If his biographical method is to be criticized,

his selection, not his utilization of sources should be

closely scrutinized.

Walton is much like a portrait painter who in his paint­

ing purposely balances color and light to achieve the desired effect. If, for example, certain things Walton knew about Donne's youth detracted from his idealized vision of

Donne as the pious Dean of St. Paul's, these he omitted or presented in such a way that they did not detract from the central impression of Donne. Such was his treatment of Donne's treatise, Biathanatos, in which Donne heretically claimed that suicide is not always a sin; the work, says Walton, was an exact and laborious treatise concerning self- murder, called Biathanatos; wherein all the laws violated by that act are diligently surveyed, and judiciously censured.15 113 Also, Walton frequently quoted various of Donne's poems to

illustrate his devotion to his family and to God; but there

are no direct references to Donne's erotic verse. And the

only reference to Donne's perhaps less-than-saintly behavior

as a young man appears in a letter Walton quotes in which

Donne explained his reluctance to take holy orders because

"some irregularities of my life have been so visible to some men."

What we seen then, in Walton's lives Is not the men as they were, but as Walton wanted us to see them--and as such, the lives are successful. But If we want to see the men as they actually were, we must be content with the glimpses

Walton provides. If his total effect is misleading, Walton was, nevertheless, one of the few biographers of the period who bothered to record the kind of detail found, for example, in his description of Hooker. Hooker, said Walton, was

but an obscure, harmless man; a man in poor clothes, his loins usually girt in a coarse gown, or canonical coat; of a mean stature, and stooping, and yet more lowly in the thoughts of his soul; his body worn out, not with age, but study and holy mortifications; his face full of heat pimples, begot by his unacti­ vity and sedentary life. And to this true character of his person, let me add this of his disposition and behaviour: God and nature blessed him with so blessed a bashfulness, that as in his younger days his pupils might easily look him out of countenance; so neither then, nor in his age, did he ever willingly look any man in the face: and was of so mild and humble a nature, that his poor parish clerk and he did never talk but with both'their hats on, or both off, at the same time; and to this may be added, that though he was not purblind, yet he was short or weak- 114

sighted; and where he fixed his eyes at the begin­ ning of his sermon, there they continued till it ended.16

Though Walton carefully selects and manipulates his materials in order to paint his particular concept of his subject and nothing else, we cannot deny the vividness of his portraits. 1

CONCLUSION 116

By its very nature, biography is dependent upon selec­

tion and arrangement of a small1 amount of information (no matter how thorough the biographer), and upon the arrangement

and interpretation of this Information in order to give the

illusion of reality, of the total complexity of fact and

event, act and experience which compose a man's life.

Ideally, a biographer is one who, from amid staggering heaps

of undeniably factual material on his subject, selects pre­

cisely the right details and orders them in such a way that

the reader is given an account which is typical and represent­

ative of the whole. There are some who, along with Harold

Nicolson, believe the ideal biography is possible. "A pure

biography," Nicolson states, is written with no purpose other than that of con­ veying to the reader an authentic portrait of the individual whose life is being narrated. A bio­ graphy is rendered impure when some extraneous purpose Intrudes to distort the accuracy of presentation.

Given this definition and the assumption that biography can be written without distortion, Nicolson finds little of value as biography in seventeenth-century biographical writing.

Of Walton he declares impatiently,

His lives of Wotton, Herbert, and the rest are, I am assured, literary masterpieces: they are beautifully constructed, beautifully balanced; their style is tranquil and limpid; they consti­ tute delightful essays on the charms of studious quiet, on the fretting illusion of active ambi­ tion. They are unquestionably works of art; but are they unquestionably pure biography?2 117 What Nicolson fails to understand is that his standards for "pure" biography cannot be met by anyone. Assuming that

a biographer is aware of the criterion for ideal biography

(which Walton certainly was not), about all that can be hoped

for is that he has sufficient literary skill to present those facts and anecdotes which appear representative of his sub­

ject and that he be clever enough to make it seem that he

has refined his own personality out of his writing. A bio­

grapher who is honest with himself might well go so far as to examine his own psyche for the real reasons he is writing the life of another man and why he selects the material he uses from that which is available to him. Perhaps an honest biography should be two works in one: a biography of the

subject and an autobiographical assessment of the biographer's reasons for writing, which would serve the purpose of admit­ ting the essential subjectivity in selection, arrangement, and interpretation of source material. This would destroy the illusion that subjective experiences can be handled objectively and would allow the reader to better come to terms with the question of the reality of what the biographer pre­ sents. Thus Walton's Lives’ might be among the most honest biographies ever written since both Walton's own character and what is clearly his vision of the character of his sub­ jects are often placed almost equally before us. In Walton's case, however, this kind of honesty is clearly accidental 118 since he showed no evidence of grappling with the problems

of presenting subjective reality.

Basically, it is the failure to achieve the appearance

of complete and objective presentation of a man's life and

character that renders most seventeenth-century biographical

writing unpalatable to modern taste. Typically, a bio­ grapher of the period presents his subject as a man possessed

of an unbelievably limited number of personality traits, like

a character in a Dickens novel. Nowhere in all the biography

of the seventeenth century do we have a vivid, seemingly real

portrait of an individual. Instead, we find caricatures,

men presented as variations of a type (the good Christian,

the soldier, the good wife, the dedicated leader); or at best we find individualized but two-dimensional character portraits

But this type of life-writing is precisely what the writers

of the age wished to produce. It might appear that seven­ teenth century writers wrote biography for the wrong reasons. But they were not writing solely for posterity; they were writing to fulfill certain immediate needs, needs which we must recognize if we are properly to judge their accomplish­ ments . Seventeenth-century biographers frequently gave reasons for their writing. The general concept was that biography should be utilitarian; it should serve some moral or ethical purpose. Thomas Fuller declared in Abel Redividus (1651) 119 "This was a main motive of publishing the ensuing Treatise,

to furnish our present Age with a Magazeen of religious pat­

terns for their Imitation."3 Samuel Clarke also felt he was

performing a public service by writing lives of famous

divines; God in his wisdome hath not Regestred them, that they should be known onely as a matter of Story for our delight, but for our direction and imita­ tion; and to shew that the things which he requires of us are possible, seeing they have been done by others before us, as also to shew the way and means more plainly how to do them.

John Evelyn says he wrote his Life of Mrs; Godolphin because

of his esteem for this worthy lady, but he misses no oppor­

tunity to point out how morally instructive her life is.

Gilbert Burnet's account of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester would not have been written had Burnet and Rochester both

not felt that the biography would prove morally useful to others: "My end in writing this," says Burnet, "is so to dis­

charge the last Commands this lord left on me, as that it may

be effectual to awaken those who run on to all the excesses 5 of Riot." Similarly, Izaak Walton was convinced that his biographies were useful as exempla.

However noble the reasons for writing ethical and exemplary biography, such a concept of life-writing adversely affects accuracy in presentation of character. It causes the writer to concentrate on useful virtues and to exclude other information not conducive to upright moral conduct, .120 however useful such Information might be for fuller delinea­

tion, if it were considered at all, was not central, but

incidental to writing this kind of biography.

The exclusion of faults was not due solely to the fact that biography was often viewed as conduct literature. Writers in the seventeenth century felt it only polite to gloss over weaknesses; many felt It was indecent to reveal any but the best side of an individual. Thomas Fuller, in anticipating criticisms of his method in The Worthies of England states,

Exception 4. You only report the virtues, but conceal the faults of many persons within our own memories. Answer. I conceive myself bound so to do, by the rules of charity. When an operator was to praise a person deceased, gener­ ally and justly hated for his viciousness, it was suspected that he would, for his fee, force his conscience by flattery, to commend him whose expectations he thus defeated, ’This dead person,' saith he, ’must in one respect be spoken well of by all, because God made him; and in another res­ pect should not be spoken ill of by any, because he is dead. How much more, when men have many good virtues, with some faults, ought the latter to be buried in their graves with forgetfulness.°

Gilbert Burnet was somewhat troubled in the writing of Rochester's biography because he could hardly avoid mention­ ing some of Rochester's faults. "I write with one great disad­ vantage," Burnet explains apologetically, "that I cannot reach his chief Design, without mentioning some of his Faults: But I have touched on them as tenderly as the Occasion would bear."7

Such suppression of character flaws removes an entire dimension of character presentation. The type of commitment 121

to truth in biography found in the pages of Boswell would

have seemed shockingly impolite to writers like Fuller,

Burnet, Evelyn, and Walton. Biographical writing used as an auxiliary to historio­

graphy also severely limited the scope of biography. Edward

Hyde, the first Earl of Clarendon, and Bishop Gilbert Burnet,

the principal historians in the seventeenth century who

incorporated biography into their historical writing, made

their biographical sketches secondary to a larger purpose:

that of reporting and explaining major historical events.

As such, these brief biographies give only enough information

about a man to explain his contribution to the outcome of

particular events. Aspects of the subject's character which

had no bearing upon the affairs of state are generally excluded.

The influence of Overburian character sketches, coupled with the confusion of biography with history led many writers to divide their so-called "lives" sharply between an imper­ sonal historical narative in which the subject of the biography appears as a principal character, and a discussion of the subject's personality, which is placed at the end of the historical account. This division serves the purpose of the writer, which is to present the reader with an historical work centered upon a single important figure; but it hardly 122

results in satisfactory biography. The subject is presented

from a limited point of view: Bacon's Henry VII, for

example, is a noble king and little else; and Thomas Gumble's

General Monck is presented mainly as a successful soldier.

The use of biography to provide moral exempla and as an

approach to historiography were the two main reasons for

life-writing in the seventeenth century. But there were

other reasons also. Thomas Fuller lists as his first reason

for writing The Worthies of England "to gain some glory to

God," a purpose to which most seventeenth-century writers

ascribed. This, says Fuller

ought to be the aim of all our actions; though too often our bow starts, our hand shakes, and so our arrow misseth the mark. Yet I hope that our describ­ ing so good a land, with the various fruits and fruitful varieties therein, will engage both writer and reader in gratitude to that God who hath been so bountiful to our nation. In order whereunto, I have not only always taken, but often sought occasions to exhort thankfulness, hoping the same will be inter­ preted no straggling from my subject, but a closing with my calling.°

But digressions explaining God's bounty and praising his good­ ness can be counted as nothing else but "straggling" from the subject. Fuller is not alone in using this type of intrusive

digression in his biography; Walton, Burnet, Evelyn--in fact, all biographers of the period who had pious regard for their subjects—often suspended their biographical writing to insert prayers of thanksgiving.

Thomas Fuller also admitted that he wrote, in part, 123 "to procure moderate profit to myself In compensation of my pains."9 Biographical collections, judging from the great number of them published in the Restoration period, were quite popular. "Hitherto no stationer hath lost by me,"^^

Fuller states in 1662, which indicates that, although Abel

Redivivus was not issued a second time, it sold well enough.

Much biography was written with a special political cause in mind. The extreme of this kind of propagandizing through the use of biographical writing is polemical; it is pseudo­ biography, and thus of no concern to the student of biography.

Such is the case of Eikon Basilike, ostensibly the autobio­ graphy of Charles I, which was written by John Gauden for the purpose of gaining sympathy for the executed king.

Similarily, one of David Lloyd's collections (1668) is polemical in intent: Mémoires of the Lives, Actions, Sufferings, and Death of those that Suffered For the Protestant Religion, And the Great Prinicple thereof, Allegi­ ance to their Soveraigne, In our late Intestine Wars. " The sketches in this work do provide some biographical information; but in each case, the subject is presented nar­ rowly; men are portrayed as primarily important because of their political activity. Any information which Lloyd gives about their lives and personalities that is not related to their service to the king is purely incidental.

Some biographies were written out of friendship and love. 124

Such works were seldom very successful as informative bio­ graphy; generalized, and too often become mere panegyric.

Lord Brooke concludes his account of Sir philip Sidney with this statement: For my own part I confess, in all I have here set downe of his worth and goodnesse, I find myself still short of that honour he deserved, and I desired to doe him. I must therefore content my selfe with this poor demonstration of homage.11

Lord Brooke contents himself with repeated declarations that

Sidney was true, kind, loyal, and so on, without bothering to present him in such a way that would illustrate his great qualities. John Evelyn does the same with his presentation of Mrs. Godolphin. Of the biographies written because of personal affection for the subject, only Izaak Walton's

The Life of Dr, John Donne and The Life of1 SirJ Henry Wotton are moderately successful in recording something of the personality of the subject of the biography; and even here, as we have seen, Walton gives us a limited view of his subjects. To dismiss seventeenth-century English biographers for their introduction of extraneous information rather than their having concentrated upon giving the appearance of complete and objective accounts of their subjects is to misunderstand or ignore their accomplishments in terms of their concept of the genre and their goals in turning to it. If, after examining in proper perspective the biographies of such writers 125 as Burnet, Evelyn, or Walton, a modern reader still condemns their work for some such reason as its didacticism, he should at least concede that the fault is not so much with the biographer, but with his own inability to respond to seventeenth-century standards of moral preaching. Seventeenth- century biographers used biography to achieve numerous goals; that the genre in the hands of later writers became more limited in its scope, and that much of what these early writers attempted is no longer considered worth accomplishing should not obscure the fact that, for their purposes they often wrote successful biography. 1

FOOTNOTES 127 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

William Thrall, Addison Hibbard, and C. Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, 2nd ed. (New York: Odyssey Press, i960), s. v. Biography.

2 It is worth pointing out that the description of bio­ graphy from A Handbook to Literature is prescriptive and is questionably limiting even for modern biography. It assumes, for example, that a biographer can be thorough and accurate, an assumption which overlooks possible distortions stemming from the biographer's own personality. Not only might a reader suspect that a biographer's interpretation of facts is colored by his prejudices, but the very selection of facts and details used as a basis for interpretation might reflect the personality of the biographer as much as or more than it does that of his subject.

3 Cavendish's biography of Wolsey and Roper's account of More were not published until the seventeenth century.

"Biographist was used by Fuller 1662, biography by Dryden 1683, biographer by Addison 1715> biographical by Oldys 1738” (OED).

5 Because seventeenth-century England produced a mul­ tiplicity of forms of life-writing, it is more accurate to use biographical writing as a generic term to encompass the entire body of literature than it is to overload the word biography by making it refer to works which are biographical in nature, but not primarily so. Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, for example, contains much biographical writing, but the total work could not accurately be described as biography. Likewise, Jeremy Taylor's funeral sermons are frequently biographical, but were not Intended to be pub­ lished and read as biography. And the same is true of other works of the period, Including some of the poetry.

6 Literary historians too often overlook significant biographical writing found in the pages of contemporary histories. The biographical sketches of Lord Clarendon and Bishop Burnet can be extracted as complete pieces in them­ selves, and an examination of Clarendon's and Burnet's meth- 128 odology reveals close ties between their sketches and those found in the biographical collections of the day.

7 George Cavendish, The Negotiations' of Thomas Wolsey (London, 1641), in Two Early Tudor Lives, ed. R. S. Sylvester and D. P. Harding (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), pp. 13-14.

8 Ibld- > P- 192.

9 For a different view of Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, one which praises Cavendish as a biographer, see Willard Farnham, The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Tragedy (1936; rpt. Oxford: Blackwell") 1963), pp") 274-77.

10 William Roper, The Life of Thomas More (publ. London, 1621), in Two Early Tudor Lives, ed. R. S. Sylvester and D. P. Harding (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1962), p. 192.

11 Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Works of Montaigne., trans. Donald M. Frame (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1948), p. 303.

12 ^bid*> P. 302.

d3 Plutarch, Parallel Lives of The Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. Thomas North (publ. London, 1579) in Selected Lives from the Lives of the Noble Grecians and * Romans, ed. Donald M. Frame (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1962), I, 174.

Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion, ed. W. Dunn Macray (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888), I, '20. The biographical sketches by Clarendon and Burnet were written as part of larger historical works, but are complete in themselves and can be extracted from context arid printed separately.

d5 Thomas Overbury, The Conceited News of Sir Thomas Overbury arid His Friends, introd. J. E. Savage (l6l4j rpt. Gainesville, Fla.: Scholars' Facs. & Rpts., 1968), p. 150.

16 Anthony sa Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, ed. Philip Bliss (London: F. C. & J. Rivington, 1813), I," 639. 129

47 Thomas Fuller, Fuller's Worthies of England, ed. P. A. Nuttall (1840; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1965), I, 1.

48 ibid., p. xxiii.

49 ibid., p. 2.

q Cl Oliver Lawson Dick, ed. , Aubrey 's Brief Lives (194-9; rpt, Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1957), P. xciv.

24 Richard D. Altick, Lives and Letters (New York: Knopf, 1965), P. 10.

22 ibid., p. 12.

PART I Short Biography 1. The Historians

4 Clarendon was born in 1609 in Wiltshire; he was edu­ cated at Magdalen College (B.A. 1625) and at the Middle Temple. He entered Parliament in 1640 and was expelled from The House of Commons in 1642 because of his Royalist activi­ ties. Charles I knighted him in 1643 and made him Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1646 Clarendon began writing what became The History of the Rebellion. In 1651 he joined Charles II in Paris. Clarendon was Lord Chancellor from 1658 to 1667. He died in 1674 in exile at Rouen.

2 Burnet was born in Edinburgh. At age fourteen he received his M.A. from Marischal College of Aberdeen. He entered the church in 1661 and by 1673 had attracted enough attention with his writing to be made chaplain to Charles II. In 1675 Harbottle Grimstone made him chaplain to the Rolls Chapel, a position he lost in 1684 when he offended James with a sermon against Roman Catholicism. In 1687 Burnet, at the Invitation of the Prince of Orange took up residence at the Hague. In 1688 Burnet was made Bishop of Salisbury. He died in 1715.

3 Joshua Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, introd. Harry T. Moore (1647; rpt. Gainesville, Fla,: Scholar's Facs. & Rpts., I960), pp. 7-8. 130

John Strype, Memorials of Thomas Cramer, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1840"/, II, 6l4.

3 Bishop Gilbert Burnet, History of His Own Time, 3rd ed. (London: William Smith, 1838)'/ II, 844/

8 Francis Bacon, Selected Writings of Francis Bacon, ed. Hugh D. Dick (New York: Modern Library, 1955), P. 235.

7 Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Mind in General (London, l6o4), pp. 191-92.

8 Bacon, p. 309.

9 The six-volume edition of History of the Rebellion edited by W. Dunn Macray (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958) is standard. Macray provides headnotes for each page which are helpful in locating Clarendon's biographical sketches.

12 C. H. Firth, "Clarendon's History of the Rebellion," EHR, 19 (1940), 26.

H Ibid. Firth divides the History roughly into three parts: "There is Hyde's original narrative of public events written between 1646 and 1648 his first exile. . . . There is, secondly, the autobiography written by Hyde in his second exile, between 1668 and 1670. . . . Finally, there is the published History of the Rebellion, which was put to­ gether in 1671 by the simple process of dove-tailing the 'History' into the 'Life' and adding a certain amount of new material to supplement and complete the two."

12 Clarendon, I, 3.

13 ibid., p. 6.

lbld- > P- 99. 13 H. R. Trevor-Roper, "Clarendon and the Practice of History," in Milton and Clarendon (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, I965), p. 35. 131 46 D. Nichol Smith, Characters from the Histories and Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford; Clarendon Press, 1918), P. xviii.

47 Clarendon, p. 38

18 Ibid., P. 39.

19 Ibid., P. 43.

20 Ibid..

21 Ibid., P. 69. 22 Ibid., P. 70.

23. Ibid.

24 Ibid., P. 72.

25 Ibid.

26 See Maurice Ashley, England in the Seventeenth Century (1952; rpt. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 196l),pp. 56-57 a tempered, balanced evaluation of Charles I.

Clarendon, IV, 488. 9« 4b4d-’ P- 489.

29 ibid.

36 d, Nichol Smith says, "The sense of Fate overhangs the portrait in which Clarendon paints for posterity the private virtues of his unhappy master. The easy dignity of the style adapts itself to the grave subject. This is one of Clarendon's greatest passages. It was written twenty years after Charles's death, but Time had not dulled his feelings." P. 270.

31 Clarendon, IV, 492.

32 ibid., VI, 91. 132

33 Ibid-’ P- 97.

34 Ibid, See Maurice Ashley, pp, 91-107» for a modern appreciation of Cromwell.

The Marquis of Halifax, who knew Burnet personally, observed that "He produces so fast, that what is well In his writing calls for admiration, and what is incorrect deserves an excuse." George Saville, Marquis of Halifax, Miscellanies (Glasgow: Robert Urie, I75I), p. 342.

J Gilbert Burnet, History of His Own Time, 3rd ed. (London: William Smith, 1838), I, 61.

33 Ibid., p. 62.

38 lbld.> P. 64 •

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

4d Tbi d, . 395. Rocester's quip, "The King never said a silly thing, and never did a wise one," and other contemporary sketches bear out Burnet's statements. Dr. Wellwood observed in his Memoirs of Charles II, "He did not love business; and sought every occasion to avoid it, which was one reason he passed so much time with his mistress" (Wellwood is quoted at some length in Burnet, I, 62-63).

42 Ibid., p. 395.

43 ibid.

44 Ibld>, P- 90. 45 Ibid., II, 702.

46 Ibid. I, 62. 133 2. The Biographical Dictionaries

1 For the sake of simplicity, these works will he referred to as "Bibliographical dictionaries."

2 Samuel Clarke was born in 1559 at Wolston, Warwick­ shire. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1616, and by 1622 had been ordained and held charges in Warwickshire and Cheshire. In 1648, along with 56 other ministers, he signed a petition against the execution of the King. He published A Collection of the Lives of Ten Eminent Divines in 1662, adding to it after his retirement in 1(666. He died in 1683 at Isleworth, 3 Samuel Clarke, A Collection of the Lives of Ten Eminent Divines (London, 1662), sig. A3V. ¿1 Ibid.

Ibid., sig. A3.

Ibid., sig. A4V, 7 1 Clarke, Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons in This Later Ago (London, 168*3) > sig. A1-A2V. 8 Clarke, A Collection of the Lives of Ten Eminent Divines, pp. 4o-43.

3 Ibid., p. 43.

10 Ibid., pp, 85-86.

Thomas Fuller was born in 1608 in Northamptonshire. He was educated at Queen's College where he received his B.A. in 1625 and his M.A. three years later. He took holy orders in 1630 and held a number of Church posts until 1641 when he abandoned his living at Salisbury because of civil disturb­ ances. He supported himself mainly through his writing during the interregnum and did not return to his post at Salisbury until 1660 when he also became Chaplain to the King. He died in 1661; his History of. the Worthies- of England.. was not pub­ lished until 1662. 134 42 Waldo Dunn, English Biography (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1916), p. 50. The first English biographical dictionary was John Bale's (1495-1663) Index of British and Other1’ Writers , which was not published until 1902.

43 Thomas Fuller, Abel Redivivus (london, 1651), sig. A5V.

44 Clarke, A Collection of the Lives of Ten Eminent Divines', sig. A2.

45 Fuller, p. 1.

18 In the introduction to Abel Redivivus, Fuller states "Save the most part of the poetry was done by master Quarles, Father and Son, sufficiently known for their abilities therein. The rest the Stationer got transcribed out of Mr. Holland and other authors" (sig. A4).

47 ibid., pp. 7-8.

48 ibid., p. 11.

19 < Thomas Fuller, Fuller's Worthies of England, I, 226.

20 Fuller, III, 21.

21 Ibid.

22 4bid., p. 23.

28 Ibid., p. 4l. 24 David Lloyd, Memorials, (London, 1668), p. 371.

25 Anthony ’a Wood was born in 1632 near Merton College from which, in 1652 he received his B.A.; he completed his M.A. in 1655. In 1656 he began collecting notes for a book on Oxfordshire which he published in 1674 in Latin. In 1691-92 he published his Athenae Oxonlenses and in 1693 was convicted of libeling Edward Hyde, First Earl of Clarendon because of an entry provided for him by John Aubrey. He died in 1695. 135 26 Oliver L. Dick, ed. Aubrey's Brief Lives (1949; rpt. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1962), p. 1. For an excellent character portrait of Wood, see, pp. xlix-1.

27 John Aubrey was born in 1626 in Wiltshire. In 1642 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a gentleman commoner, but left without a degree because of the Civil War. In 1646 he became a student at Middle Temple, but never com­ pleted his law training. In 1667 he met Anthony a Wood and began collecting notes for Athenae’ Oxonienses. When he died in 1697 at Oxford, none of his Brief Lives had been published under his name, though many had appeared in Wood's collection.

28 Dick, p. xiii.

ibid., p. xlix.

32 John Aubrey, Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. Oliver L. Dick (1949? rpt. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1957)» P. 246.

31 Wood, III, 1203.

32 Aubrey, pp. 23-24.

33 lbld.> P. 214.

34 lPld.> P. 24.

35 ibid., p. 154.

P6 J Donald Stauffer, English Biography Before 1700 (Cambrdige: Harvard Univ. Press, 193O), p. 306.

PART II Long Biography

2. Biography of Political Figures

d Francis Bacon, Selected Writings of Francis Bacon, ed. Hugh D. Dick (New York: Modern Library, 1955)» P. 235. 136

Francis Bacon, "The History of the Reign of King Henry VII," The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Basil Montagu (Phila­ delphia: A Hart and Hart, I85I), III, 338.

3 ibid-’ P- 379.

4 Ibid., p. 382.

6 Edward Herbert was born in 1582. He was educated at Oxford, after which he was in the King's Diplomatic service as ambassador to France. He is known for his versatility as historian, philosopher, and poet. He died in 1648, a year before his history of Henry VIII was published. 8 Edward Herbert, The’ Life and Reign o_f King Henry the Eighth, 2nd ed. (London, 1672), p. 1

7 P^id., p. 634.

8 > P. 638.

9 Thomas Gumble was born sometime in the early seven­ teenth century. In 1655 he became chaplain to General Monck, with whom he stayed for five or six years. In 1661 his loyalty to the crown was rewarded with a living at Winchester and a D.D. from Cambridge. His only book was his life of Monck. He died in 1676.

P6 This emphasis is understandable enough given the current notion of biography and the nature of Monck's career: born in 1608; served with the Dutch army 1629-38; 1640 was lieutenant-colonel fighting the Scots; 1642-43 fought in Ireland; 1644-46 was imprisoned in the Tower by Parliamentary forces; 1647-49 fought with Parliamentary forces against the Irish; went with Cromwell In the 1650 invasion of Scot­ land and was left in command when Cromwell returned to England 1652-53 was an admiral in the commonwealth navy; 1654-59 was military governor of Scotland; 1659 returned with an army to England and declared the restoration of Charles II. Charles put him in charge of the admiralty, so in 1666 he was again leading English forces, this time against the Dutch. He died in 1669. 137 11 Thomas Gumble, The Life of General Monck (London, 1671)» P. 13.

12 Ibid., P. 469

13 Ibid., P. 475.

14 Ibid., P. 475.

15 Ibid., PP . 476-77.

16 Strangely enough, after such a dissection , Monck's body was taken to "one of his Majesty's Palaces and there exposed with a Royal state and attendance for many weeks" (p. 478). In an age when preservatives were little known, it surely is a mark of their esteem for the deceased that, after such lengthy exposure, the body was buried with "Glory, Pomp, and love."

Edmund Bohun, Th.e. Character .&£. Q,u.e.S.h. KlXz.a4.eJ4i (London, 1693)» sig. A8V.

Ibid., sig. A6V

4 9 ibid. , sig. A6.

20 » PP. 319-20.

21 ibid., pp. 301-02.

22 Ibid;, p. 354.

28 Ibid., p. 343.

24 James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, ed. Roger Ingpen (Lath: George BoynRun~'l92'5 ),' II', Tl45. 138

3. Intimate Biography

1 Fulke Greville was born in 1554 in Warwickshire. He met Philip Sidney at Shrewsbury School in 1564, when both were ten years old, Greville matriculated at Jesus College, Cambridge, then joined Sidney at Court where he became a favorite of the Queen. He spent most of his life in the service of Elizabeth and James, who made him Treasurer of the Navy. He died in 1628,

2 Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, The Works in Verse and' Prose Complete of Fulke Greville, ed. Alexander B. Grosart (1870; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1966), III, v.

3 Ibid-? P. 7.

21 Tbld- > P- 37.

5 ibid., pp. 130-31.

6 Ibld-> P- d50.

3 Ibid., p. 162. Digressions are found in all the long biographies of the period. Perhaps this is due to the in­ fluence of Plutarch, who frequently digressed. It should be noted, though, that most seventeenth-century prose contains digressions. o Margaret Cavendish (1623-74), judging from her autobio graphy, was intelligent, industrious, and an altogether dedi­ cated wife. In addition to her autobiography and her account of her husband, she published some of her moral and meta­ physical reflections in Poems’ and Fancies and Philosophical Fancies (1653).

3 Margaret Cavendish, The’ Life of William Cave nidi she', DUke of Newcastle', and of His Wife, Margaret, Duchess of' Newcastle', ed. Mark A. Lower (London: J. R. Smith, 1872), p. xxxii.

10 Ibid., pp. xxix-xxx.

11 Ibid;, p. 9. 139 12 Ibid., p. 138.

43 ibid., pp. xix-xx. In writing her autobiography, she suffered no such restraint, so that it contains many interest­ ing, personal anecdotes.

14 1 Ihid-’ PP- 493-94.

15 Ibid., P. 183.

16 Ibid., p, 207.

17 Samuel Lord, ed. The Life of Mrs. Godolphin (London: William Pickering, 1847), P. xviii.

43 John Evelyn was born at Wotton, Surrey, in 1620. He studied at Middle Temple and Balloil, but received no degree (until he was given an honorary degree in 1669). He found favor with both Charles H and James II, and spent much time at court from l660 until 1688, when he retired. He died in 1706 at Wotton. He was best known during his life for his writing on gardening; his most important work, his diary, was not published until 1818.

49 John Evelyn, The Life of Mrs Godolphin, ed. Samuel Lord (london: William Pickering, 1847), P. 4.

20 4bid.> P- 22.

21 ibid., p. 14. p p The L'iPe and Death of Mrs1. Margaret Andrews (London, 1680), sig. A2v_a2. 23 Gilbert Burnet, Some Passages of the Life and Death of the Hight Honourable’ John, Earl of Rochester (London, TF8o'y) sig. A6. 24 Ibid., p. 30.

28 Ibid., sig. A6-A7V.

26 Ibid., sig. A5V. 140

29 Ibdd•> P. •

28 Ibld-’ P- 27 •

29 Ibid., pp. 27-28.

30 Ibld-’ P. 35.

31 Thomas Sprat, "An account of the Life and Writings of Mr. Abraham Cowley," The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley (London, 1668), sig. d.

4. Izaak Walton

1 Izaak Walton was born in Stafford in 1593. He received no university education; he made his living as an ironmonger and a storekeeper. During the Interregnum, Walton, a royal­ ist, retired, probably to Stafford, where he wrote The Compleat' Angler (1653) and some of his biographies. In 1662 he moved into Bishop Morley's palace at Winchester, where at the age of seventy-two, he completed his life of Hooker. In 1678 he published his final biography, that of Robert Sanderson. Walton died in I683.

2 Izaak Walton, Izaak Walton Lives (London: T. Nelson & Sons, nd.), p. 16.

3 lbld-’ P* 23°.

4 Ibld-> P- 195.

3 Ibid;,'p. 196.

6 Harold Nicolson, The' Development' of English Biography' (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company ,“T928), p, 65.

3 Ibid., p. 69.

8 Walton, p. 15. For a thorough account of Walton's writing and revisions of his Lives, see David Novarr, The Making of Walton's Lives (Ithaca: Cornell Univ, Press, 1958).

3 Ibid., p. vii. 141

b0 Ibid., p. viii.

11 Ibld.

12 Ibid-’ P- h?78 -

48 John Butt, Biography in the Hands of Walton, Johnson, and Boswell (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1966), p. 16.

b4 Walton, p. 282.

13 lbid-> P. 58.

18 Ibid., p. 195.

Conclusion

4 Harold Nicolson, "The Practice of Biography," in Biography as Art, ed. James L. Clifford (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, I982), p. 197.

2 Nicolson, The Development of English Biography, p. 65.

3 Puller, Abel Redivivus, sig.-A2

4 Clarke, The Lives-of Ten Eminent Divines, sig. A3V,

5 Burnet, Some’ Passages’ of’ the' Life and Death of' the Right Honourable' John, Earl of Roches't'e'r, sig. Ab. 6 Puller, Fulke's Worthies of England, I, 100.

7 Burnet, sig. A5V.

8 Fuller, I, 1.

5 Ibid., p. 2.

10 Ibid. 142

Fulke Grevllle, Lord Brooke, The Works In Verse and Prose Complete' of Fulke Grevllle, Lord Brooke, III” 145. j 43

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