The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton.
§ 1. London in the times of Elizabeth and James
S
Such degeneracy, however, was not universal. Ever since Tudor times, the evils of progress had met with strong opposition from the steadier and sounder portion of the nation. Brinkelow, Bansley, Awdeley, Copland, Harman, Bullein, Gosson and a host of anonymous writers had lamented specific abuses of society, and reflected the feeling of discontent which oppressed the people. But their work was not adjusted to the new conditions. In the last half of the century, London had grown to twice the size it had reached at the reformation, and this vast concentration of human beings, together with new activities, luxuries and temptations, occasioned problems of existence which the Tudor pamphlets were powerless to solve. Besides, the number of educated men had increased enormously. Grammar schools had been multiplied; the universities were in closer touch with the capital; a literary atmosphere was being created; intellectual interests were bringing men together. It became fashionable to read books, to criticise them and to introduce their phraseology into conversation. But the social writers of Tudor times had not that subtle persuasiveness which comes from style, and without which the man of taste can never be won. And it was this type, whether courtier, graduate, divine, soldier, lawyer, merchant, or ’prentice, who now formed the reading public. Among them arose a generation of brilliant, but mostly penurious, youths who, urged by the pinch of hunger or the spur of ambition, now came forward as authors. Their task was to interpret the features of London social life and, at the same time, to gratify the existing tendency towards literary style and conversational witticisms. In their efforts to meet this double demand, they created a literature of comment and observation which was, eventually, to evolve some of the best work in the language.