ared under the titles
respectively of _Humour's Ordinarie, where a man may be verie
merrie and exceeding well used for his sixpence_, and the _Knave
of Clubs_. Either work would now cost much more than sixpence,
and probably fail to make the reader very merry, or even merry at
all. One of the epigrams, however, of the first work may be
quoted as of more than ephemeral truth and interest:--

"Who seeks to please all men each way,
And not himself offend,
He may begin his work to-day,
But God knows when he'll end."

Little appears to be known of Rowlands, but, like Bishop Hall, he
could turn his pen to various purposes with great facility; for
the prayers which he is thought to have composed, and which are
published with the rest of his works in the admirable edition of
1870, are of as high an order of merit as the religious works of
his more famous contemporary.

The only wonder is that the Archbishop did not enforce the
burning of much more of the literature of the Elizabethan period,
whilst he was engaged on such a crusade. He may well, however,
have shrunk appalled from the magnitude of the task, and have
thought it better to touch the margin than do nothing at all.
And, after all, in those days a poet was lucky if they only burnt
his poems, and not himself as well. In 1619 John Williams,
barrister, was actually hanged, drawn, and quartered, for two
poems which were not even printed, but which exist in manuscript
at Cambridge to this day. These were _Balaam's Ass_ and the
_Speculum Regale_. Williams was indiscreet enough to predict the
King's death in 1621, and to send the poems secretly to his
Majesty in a box. The odd thing is that he thought himself justly
punished for his foolish freak, so very peculiar were men's
notions of justice in those far-off barbarous days.

CHAPTER II.

BOOK-FIRES UNDER JAMES I.

Despite Mr. D'Israeli's able defence of him, the fashion has
survived of speaking disdainfully of James I. and all his works.
The military men of his day, hating him for that wise love of
peace which saved us at least from one war on the Continent,
complained of a king who preferred to wage war with the pen than
with the pike, and vented his anger on paper instead of with
powder. But for all that, the patron and friend of Ben Jonson,
and the constant promoter of arts and letters, was one of the
best literary workmen of his time; nor will any one who dips into
his work