Chapter VI

THE PROGRESS OF THE NATION UNDER JAMES I., CHARLES I., AND THE
COMMONWEALTH.

Manufactures and Commerce--Trade under the Stuarts--English
Commerce and Dutch Competition--The East India
Company--Vicissitudes of its Early History--Rival Companies--The
American Colonies and West Indies--Growth of London--National
Revenue--Extravagance of the Stuarts--Invention of the Title
of Baronet--Illegal Monopolies--Cost of Government--Money
and Coinage--Agriculture and Gardening--Dramatists of the
Period--Shakespeare and his Contemporaries--Poets of the
Occult School--Herbert, Herrick, Quarles--A Wealth of
Poetry--Prose-Writers--Bacon's "Novum Organum"--Milton's
Prose Works--Hales, Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor, Fuller, and
other Theological Writers--Harrington's "Oceana"--Sir Thomas
Browne--Historians and Chroniclers--First Newspapers--Harvey's
Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood--Napier's
Invention of Logarithms--Music--Painting, Engraving, and
Sculpture--Architecture--Manners and Customs--Sports and
Pastimes--Furniture and Domestic Embellishment--Costumes--Arms and
Armour--Condition of the People 165