1600 to 1699: Mourt's Relation to Bacon's Essays.

Mourt. (Author of the Preface). American. 1622. Narrative. Mourt’s Relation. Earliest narrative of the Plymouth pilgrims. Letters from the colonists. William Bradford’s journal.

Thomas Middleton and William Rowley. British. 1623. Play. The Changeling. Young noblewoman arranges the murder of her betrothed because she is in love with another. The killer, her ugly servant, claims her as his mistress lest he tell all. She marries the man she loves, but substitutes her virgin servant girl in the marriage bed because she is afraid she will be found not to be a virgin. Confronted with the truth, her husband kills both her and the killer who had claimed her as his mistress.

John Donne. British. 1624. Meditation. Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. Series of meditations on the variable, therefore, miserable, condition of man. Metaphorical and complex. Contains “No Man Is An Island.”

Philip Massinger. British. 1625. Play. A New Way to Pay Old Debts. Avaricious Sir Giles Overreach manipulates lives and eventually loses his mind.

Francis Bacon. British. 1625. Essays. The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral. On personal and public conduct. Philosophical, religious witty, pithy and metaphorical. Highly original style. Contains the famous essay, "On Studies." Some books are to be tasted, some to be swallowed and some few to be read thoroughly and carefully.