Cassell's History of England, Vol. 3 (of 8) From the Great Rebellion to the Fall of Marlborough.
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