Englsh Studies Or Essays In English History And Literature

ENGLISH STUDIES OR ESSAYS IN ENGLISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE BY THE LATE J. S. BREWER M. A. PREACHER AT THE BOLLS PBOKBJS30B OF ENGLISH LITEBATUIIB AND MODERN HISTORY IN KINOS OOLLBGB LONDON . EDITED WITH A PREFATORY MEMOIR BY HENRY WAOE M. A. 1881 CONTENTS. PREFATORY MEMOIR ......... vii LIST OP MB. BREWERS PUBLICATIONS .... A SERMON ON The Psalmist of Israel ESSAYS. ON NEW SOURCES OP ENGLISH HISTORY 1 ON GREENS SHORT HISTORY OP THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. . . 50 HOUSE . . 104 ON THE STUARTS 102 ON SHAKBPEARB 208 4 ON THE STUDY OP SHAKSPEARE 273 ON THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 297 PASSAGES FROM THE LIPE OP ERASMUS 344 ON THE STUDY OP HISTORY 370 ON THJG STUDY op ENGLISH HISTORY 400 ON ANCJCBNX LONDON 424 PREFATORY MEMOIR.. THE intrinsic interest of the essays contained in this volume, together with the high reputation of their author as a historian, a scholar, and a divine, might seem to render it unnecessary to recommend them to the attention of the reader by any prefatory observations. But, in addition to the value they will other wise possess, it is hoped they will serve as some memorial of a character and a career which ought to be better known, and which deserve to be permanently remembered. The circumstances, indeed, of the authors life which concern other than private friends are few and simple. But they are connected with some of the chief movements of thought during the last half-century they add a peculiar value to all he wrote, and a knowledge of them will enhance the interest of this volume. He had also a very large number of friends and pupils among whom the present writer had the privilege of being numbered who will be grateful for a brief record of his life and work. John Sherren Brewerwas born in the year 1810, and was descended from old Kentish family His father, who had the same Christian names, was born in the-communion of the Church of England, hut joined that of the Baptists. He was a learned Biblical scholar, and devoted himself during his spare hours to the study of Hebrew. He naturally held a high position among the Dissenters, and for many years conducted with great success a school at Norwich. Out of a - very large family, only four sons arrival at mans estate, of whom the eldest is the subject of this memoir. Notwithstanding his fathers dissenting predilections he was sent to Oxford, and after a short time joined the Church of England. But the years he had passed in a dissenting communion were probably the origin of one branch of his extensive reading. He possessed a most intimate and most rare knowledge of the writings of the Puritans and this circumstance adds a special value to the views he subsequently held respecting the history of the Stuart times. At Oxford he took a First Class In Litteris Humanionbus in one of the most distinguishable years of, a period when the class lists in that school contained a remarkable number of names which have since become eminent. There were only two other members of the same First Class in Easter term, 1832, one the present Lord Blachford, then Mr. Frederick Rogers, the other Sir Francis Doyle. Traditions are still current at Oxford of the usuals range of reading in which Mr, Brwer offered to be examined. He became a singular master of the most charismatic scholarship of that university his whole mind was imbued with its classical and philosophical influences. His subsequent career at Oxford was, However, but brief.He married very early, and was thus precluded from obtaining a Fellowship. He-resided, however, at the university for a while, giving instruction as a private tutor and an edition of Aristotle's Ethics which he prepared during this period, though long, out of print, still maintains a place among the text-books on that subject, and is valued for some peculiar excellences...