New-York tribune., 1921-09-04
Sixteenth Century IN England
Shown as Era Of lndividualisn
Our knowledge and Appreciation of Elizabethan
Age Enriched by Lewis Einstens
Interpretative Study

vast store Of individuaIism which was
released after the lone confinement ct
the Middle Ages. A furtheT manifesto
tion of individualism is to be found in
the moral and ethical standards Of the
time. The old sanctions Of custom, au-
thority and tradition were so much
weakened that men felt pretty free TO
do as seemed right in their own eyes.
For good or for evil human conduct
was determined by personal concep-
tions of honor or expediency far more
than any binding general code
1t was only under the Tudors that
England commenced to emerge as
great sea power. Previously the mer-
chants of Venice and Genoa, of Ham
burg and Cadiz. had been more ad-
venturous than their British rivals.
The early voyages of discovery set out
from Spanish, Portuguese and Italian
ports. But the discovery Of the New
World, coinciding with notable awak-
cning OF English national conscious
ness, created new instinct for mari
time adventure. Drake, Hawkins,
Raleigh Frobisher and many others
laid the foundation for England's SUBJ
sequent proud boast that ahe ruled
the waves.
The history of the Sixteenth Century,
as Mr.. Einstein proves with numerous
concrete examples, is full of moral
contradictions and paradoxes. Latimer
and Cranmer under Mary, the Jesuits
under Elizabeth, could die with the ut
most constancy for their religious
faith. Yet the opinion was widely held
that the sovereign possessed the right
to decide the belief of his subjects;
and IL is to this theory, as much as to
servility or Indifference, that the fire.
quent shifts of creed must be ascribed.
1t is doubtful if the power of the
crown was ever greater in England.
The old check imposed by the medieval
barons was destroyed; and parliament
was not yet strong enough to oppose
the royal will effectively. Yet liberal
and even republican theories were not
uncommonly encountered in the writ
iEgs of the time. Erasmus and More
and other philosophers lifted their
voices persuasively against the horror
and folly of war; but warfare was
almost universal and was waged with
the most -cvolting cruelty Neither +le
Renaissance nor the Reformation
really accomplished much in inculcat-
ing respect for the sacredness Of hui
man life.
Tudor England is all the more inter-
esting on account of its contradictions
and Inconsistencies. By vividly delin-
eating the essential tendencies and
characteristics of the period, Mr.. Elm
stein has achieved a masterpiece of
historical recreation His book is CAL
culated to inspire the wish that a simi-
lar technique of intelligent psychologist
cal appreciation could be brought to
bear upon other historical cycles. What
Mr.. Einstein has done for England
Burckhardt has already done. on
monumental scale, for the Renais-
sance; and Taine, despite his conserv-
ative bias, has proceeded along similar
lines in his works on the old regime
and the French Revolution. But there
is room for far more books of this
kind. Some enterprising scholar
should attack the problem of England
in the seventeenth century and explain
why the British, with their double
genius for compromise and conserva-
tism, ever INDUCED in such radical
excesses as the Commonwealth and
the Puritan dictatorship.