Chapter XI (1)

PROGRESS OF THE NATION FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO THE GREAT REVOLUTION.

Religion: Nonconformist Sects--Imprisonment of Bunyan--Fox
and the Society of Friends--The Punishment of James
Naylor--Expulsion of Roger Williams--Other Religious
Sects--Literature: Milton--His Works--Cowley--Butler--Dryden--Minor
Poets--Dramatists of the Restoration--Prose Writers: Milton and
Dryden--Hobbes--Clarendon--Baxter--Bunyan--Walton--Evelyn and
Pepys--Founding of the Royal Society--Physical Science--Discoveries
of Napier, Newton, and Flamsteed--Mathematicians and
Chemists--Harvey and Worcester--Painting, Sculpture, and
Engraving--Coinage--Music--Furniture--Costume--Manners and
Customs--State of London--Sports and Amusements--Country
Life--Travelling--The Clergy--Yeomen--Village Sports--Growth
of the Revenue and Commerce--Growing prosperity of the North
of England--The Navigation Act--Norwich and Bristol--Postal
Arrangements--Advantages Derived from the Industries of the
Foreign Refugees--The East India Company--Condition of the People:
Wages--The Poor Law--Efforts of Philanthropists.

The struggles of the Church we have sufficiently traced in our recent chapters. With the Restoration it came back to full power and possession of its revenues and honours, and held them firmly against all rivals till James menaced them with the recall of the Roman hierarchy, when, joining with the alarmed public, it compelled the monarch himself to fly, and continued on its own vantage-ground. The only notice of religious phenomena at this period demanded of us is rather what regards the sects which now became conspicuous.

The leading sects, the Presbyterians, the Independents, and the Baptists--then called Anabaptists--differed little in their faith. They were all of the Calvinistic school, whilst the Episcopal Church was already divided by the contending parties of Calvinists and Arminians. We have related the struggles of the Presbyterians, English and Scottish, for the possession of the Establishment in England to the exclusion of all other faiths; the triumph of the Independents, with more liberal views, through Cromwell and the army, and the expulsion of both these parties from the national pulpits following on the Restoration. The Baptists, though many of them were high in the army and the State during the Commonwealth, never displayed the political ambition of the other two great denominations. They cut, indeed, no figure in the secular affairs of the nation, but they were most honourably distinguished by their assertion of the right of private opinion. They were as tolerant of religious liberty as the Independents, or more so, from whom they differed only in their views of the rite of Baptism. Their early history in England was adorned by the appearance in their pulpits of one of the most extraordinary men of modern times--John Bunyan, whose "Pilgrim's Progress" continues to delight all classes of men, and will continue to do so as long as the English language is read. Bunyan, a tinker by trade, was serving in the Parliamentary army at Leicester, at the time of the battle of Naseby; and when Charles I. fled to that town John was ordered out as a sentinel, and his life was saved by another soldier volunteering to take his duty, who was shot at his post. Bunyan was thrown into prison for daring to preach under Charles II., and lay in gaol twelve years and a half, solely because he had a conscience of his own; and was only liberated on the Declaration of Indulgence by James II. A Mr. Smyth, a clergyman of the Church of England, who adopted their faith, was the first to open a chapel for the Baptists in London, and, encouraged by his example, others were soon opened, and the views of the denomination soon spread over England and Wales, in later times to be eloquently expounded by Robert Robinson and Robert Hall.

But the most remarkable organisation of a religious body was that of the Society of Friends, or, as they soon came to be nicknamed, Quakers, whose founder, George Fox, was born at Drayton, in Leicestershire, in 1624. His father was a weaver, and George was apprenticed to a shoemaker, who also had a little farm. He informs us in his own journal that he preferred the farming, and chiefly devoted himself to it. When he was about nineteen he became deeply impressed with a religious feeling. It was a time when religious discussion was making rapid progress amongst the people from the more general access to the Bible, and many were dissatisfied with the different churches, which seemed too much engaged in attempts at worldly aggrandisement, and at achieving a dominance over each other. George was one of these. In seeking for clear views of religious faith, such as could set his mind at rest, he went to various clergymen of the Established Church first, but he found no light. One of them bade him take tobacco and sing psalms; and another, Cradock of Coventry, was beginning to speak comfortably to George as they walked in the garden, when the embryo reformer unluckily happened to set his foot on a flower-border, which threw the clergyman into such a rage that the discourse was abruptly brought to an end.

Finding no relief or illumination from professors, as he called them, Fox wisely took his Bible, and used to retire into a hollow tree in the fields, where he read and prayed earnestly to God to enlighten his understanding to comprehend the sacred volume, and the genuine will of the Lord. The result was that he came to a clear and steadfast conviction that Christianity was strictly a spiritual thing, having nothing specifically to do with States and Governments, with worldly pomp and power, and strivings after mortal honours and high places; that Christ simply and strictly defined it when He said, "My kingdom is not of this world." He saw that it was the grand principle by which the soul of man is intended to be regenerated--born again, in fact, and made fitting to enter into the kingdom of disembodied souls, in the presence of God and His angels. He found himself, in a word, called back from the conflicting views and empty ceremonies of the time to Christianity as it existed among the Apostles--a perfectly spiritual, and holy, and disinterested thing, embodying the wisdom and the truth of God, and inhabiting, not formal creeds and outward ceremonies, but the heart of man, and thence influencing all his thoughts and actions for good. George perceived that all fixed creeds, all rites and ceremonies, all investments in State power, were but as cobwebs and old rags with which the self-interest and self-love of men had enveloped, encumbered, and degraded it; and he felt himself called to go forth and proclaim this, which he emphatically styled "the truth."

Fox carried his great Christian text into every act and department of life. He was the first to elevate woman to her true place--an intellectual, moral, and political equality with man; basing his principle on the apostolic declaration that male and female are all one in Christ Jesus. Acting on this principle, the women of his Society became preachers, and transacted their own affairs of association in their own meetings. He refused to take an oath before a magistrate, because Christ expressly forbade His disciples to swear at all under any circumstances; he refused to say "Thou" to a poor man, and "You" to a rich one, as was then the odious practice; he refused to take off his hat as a mark of homage to the wealthy and great, on the same principle that it was a custom of pride and invidious distinction; and he addressed prince or magistrate with the respectful boldness which became a man sensible that the only true dignity was the dignity of truth. The sufferings which were brought upon him and his followers by these novel doctrines and practices from all parties were terrible. About three thousand of them were imprisoned, even under the more liberal rule of the Commonwealth, and as many under Charles II. Their property was spoliated, their meeting-houses were pulled down, and their families grossly insulted in their absence. Yet the doctrine spread rapidly, and many eminent men embraced it; amongst others, William Penn, the son of Admiral Penn, and the learned Robert Barclay, who wrote the celebrated vindication of their faith.

At the same time the violent agitation of the period, and the enthusiasm of this new doctrine, led some of Fox's followers into considerable extravagances. The most prominent case was that of James Naylor, who for a time was undoubtedly led into insanity by the effervescence of his mind under his religious zeal; and allowed women to lead his horse into Exeter, crying "Holy! holy! holy!" and spreading their scarves and handkerchiefs in the way before him, as if he had been the Saviour come again. Naylor professed that this homage was not offered to him personally, but to Christ within him. His case occupied the House of Commons for nearly two months altogether. There were violent debates on it from morning till night; but at length, on the 17th of December, 1656, it was voted that he should be set in the pillory in Palace Yard for two hours; then be whipped from Westminster to the Old Exchange, London, twice, wearing a paper containing a description of his crimes; should have his tongue bored through with a hot iron by the hangman for his blasphemy; be branded on the forehead with the letter B; that he should be sent to Bristol, and there whipped through the city on a market-day, paraded face backwards on a saddleless horse, and then sent back to Bridewell, in London, where he should be kept to hard labour, and debarred from the visits of his friends, and from access to pens, ink, and paper.

All this was rigidly inflicted upon him, and borne heroically. After two years' confinement in Bridewell he was dismissed, thoroughly cured of his hallucination, ready to admit it, but as firm in his adhesion to the principles of Quakerism as ever; and the Society, pitying his fall, never withdrew from him their sympathy or the enjoyment of his membership. He died soon after his release.

In America, in New England, the Quakers were more fiercely persecuted than in England by the Puritans, who had themselves fled from persecution. In Massachusetts and Connecticut they were ordered to have their ears cut off if men, to be publicly whipped if women; and for a second offence to have their tongues bored through if they dared to come into these colonies; and this not deterring them, they hanged several men and women. Endicott, the Governor of Connecticut, when one of them quoted the words of St. Paul, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being," irreverently replied, "And so does every cat and dog."

This intolerance of the Puritans was equally exerted against one of their own members, the venerable Roger Williams, who was driven from Massachusetts for courageously advocating the doctrine of perfect freedom of conscience. In fact, Roger Williams was one of the very first, if not the first man, who proclaimed this great doctrine; and therefore deserves to be held in eternal remembrance. The honour of being the earliest publisher of the right of spiritual freedom must, perhaps, be awarded to Leonard Busher, who published a work on the subject in 1614, and dedicated it to King James. Roger Williams, expelled from Massachusetts, proceeded to Narraganset Bay, and became the founder of the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, where the most perfect freedom of religious faith was allowed.

Besides the sects in England already enumerated, there were many minor ones. The "Millenarians," or "Fifth Monarchy Men," whose views we have already explained. To this sect Major-General Harrison belonged; and they created a riot under Venner, the wine-cooper. There was a sect called "The Seekers," amongst whom Fox once fell, and many of them joined him, believing they had found what they sought. There were the "Ranters," a body noted for their noise and vociferation; "Behmenists," or disciples of the German mystic, Jacob Behmen; "Vanists," followers of the religious views of Sir Harry Vane; and lastly, "Muggletonians," the disciples of one Ludovick Muggleton and John Reeve.

Muggleton was a journeyman tailor, and he and Reeve pretended to be the two witnesses mentioned in the eleventh chapter of "The Revelation." They were fanatics of the wildest and most furious character, and professed to have power to save or damn all whom they pleased, and they "dealt damnation round the land" with the utmost freedom. The Quakers and Behmenists were the objects of their most violent denunciations, probably because Fox and Penn protested against their wild and fanatic doctrines, which were the antipodes of those of Fox; for, instead of representing God as a pure spirit, they asserted that He had a corporeal body, and came down to earth in it as Christ, leaving the prophet Elias in heaven to rule in His absence. They contended that man's soul is inseparably united to his body, dies and rises again with it. They professed to have an especial knowledge of "the place and nature of heaven, and the place and nature of hell;" with the persons and natures of devils and angels. The truculent ravings of these fanatics may be seen in the works and letters of Muggleton, still extant. In one letter he delivers sentence of damnation on six-and-twenty Quakers at once. "Inasmuch," he says, "as God hath chosen me on earth to be the judge of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, therefore, in obedience to my commission from the true God, I do pronounce all these twenty-six persons whose names are above written, cursed and damned in their souls and bodies from the presence of God, elect men, and angels in eternity." But this was little: he declared all Quakers, and Behmenists, and numbers of other people damned and cursed for ever.

This repulsive apostle of perdition was tried at the Old Bailey, and convicted of blasphemy in 1676, and died in 1697, at the age of eighty-eight.

We have seen with what a desolating sweep the bloody conflicts of the Parliament against the encroachments of kingship prostrated the pursuits of literature and art. We might have expected that the return to established tranquillity under restored monarchy would have caused a new spring of genius. But in no reign in England, and in no country except France, have debauchery and the most hideous grossness so defiled the productions of poetry and the drama.

Amid the satyr crew of degraded men and women who then represented the literary world of England, some few, however, maintained a pure and dignified career. At the head of these, equally exalted above the rest by genius and purity of life and morals, stood John Milton (_b._ 1608; _d._ 1674), one of the greatest epic poets, if not the greatest, that the world has produced. Milton had saturated himself with the poetic spirit, imagery, and expression of the Prophetic bards, as well as with knowledge of those of Greece and Rome; and he brought to bear an immense mass of varied learning on his subject with a power of appropriation that gave to it a new and wonderful life instead of the aspect of pedantry. The names of people and places which he moulds into his diction seem to open up to the imagination regions of unimagined grandeur and beauty amid strains of solemnest music; and the descriptions of scenery, such as abound in "Comus," "Lycidas," and "Arcades," as well as those diffused through "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained," are like the most exquisite glimpses into the most fair and solitary landscapes, breathing every rural fragrance, and alive with all rural sounds and harmonies.

But it was when he was old, and poor, and blind, and living among the hatred and the ribald obscenity of the Restoration, that he had scaled those sublime altitudes of genius, and seemed to walk on the celestial hills amid their pure and glorious inhabitants, rather than on earth surrounded by rankest impurities and basest natures. It was when

"His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart,"

when he had fallen on evil days, that he had alone allowed himself leisure to work out these the earliest of his aspirations. Long before--when he had returned from his pleasant sojourn in Italy, where he saw Galileo in his prison, and was himself received and honoured by the greatest men of the land, as in anticipation of his after glory, and was now engaged in defending the sternest measures of the Republicans--in his "Reasons of Church Government urged against Prelacy" he unfolded the grand design of his master work, but kept it self-denyingly in his soul till he had done his duty to his country. The views which he cherished in his literary ambition are as exalted in their moral grandeur as his genius was in its native character. These were, he said, "That what the greatest and choicest arts of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy and those Hebrews of old did for their country, I, in my proportion, with this over and above of being a Christian, might do for mine, not caring to be named once abroad, though perhaps I could attain unto that, but content me with these British islands as my world." At this period, it seems, he had not made up his mind whether he should adopt "the epic form, as exemplified by Homer, Virgil, and Tasso, or the dramatic, wherein Sophocles and Euripides reign; or in the style of those magnificent odes and hymns of Pindarus and Callimachus, not forgetting that of all those kinds of writing the highest models are to be found in the Holy Scriptures in the Book of Job, in the Song of Solomon, and the Apocalypse of St. John, in the grand songs interspersed throughout the Law and the Prophets." But in one thing he was fixed--that the work should be one "not raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher fury of some rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases."

"So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the bard,
Holiest of men."

So he waited, fighting the battles of his country side by side with Cromwell and Hampden, Pym and Marvell; and when at length he found leisure to achieve his last great triumph, he was left alone in the field. He had outlived the long battle of king and people, in which extraordinary men and as extraordinary events had arisen, and shaken the whole civilised world. Blind, poor, and old, as if some special guardianship of Providence had shielded him, or as if the very foes who had dragged the dreaded Cromwell from his grave feared the imprecations of posterity, and shrank from touching that sacred head--there sat the sublime old man at his door, feeling, with grateful enjoyment, the genial sunshine falling upon him; or dictating immortal verses to his daughters, as the divine _afflatus_ seized him.

Much has been said of the small sum received for his "Paradise Lost," and the slow recognition which it met with. But it is not a fact that "Paradise Lost" was coolly greeted. Long before Addison gave his laudatory critique in the _Spectator_, the glory of Milton's great poem had been attested by Barrow, Andrew Marvell, Lord Anglesea, who used often to visit him in Bunhill Fields, by the Duke of Buckingham, and by many other celebrated men. Sir John Denham appeared in the House of Commons with a proof-sheet of "Paradise Lost" in his hand, wet from the press, and, being asked what it was, replied, "part of the noblest poem that ever was written in any language or age." The poem went into two editions during the author's life, and he corrected it for a third, which was published soon after his death. In fact, Milton's fame had to rise from under piled heaps of hatred and ignominy on account of his politics and religion, for he had attacked the Church as formidably as the State in his treatise on "The Best Mode of Removing Hirelings" out of it, as well as in his book against prelacy; but it flung off all that load of prejudice, and rose to universal acknowledgment.

We need not detain ourselves with much detail of his other poetical works, which are now familiar to all readers. They consist of his early poems, including the exquisite "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," his "Comus" and "Lycidas," a mask and an elegy: his magnificent sonnets, his "Samson Agonistes," a sacred drama, but constructed strictly on the Grecian model. It has been often said that Milton had no genius for the drama; the "Samson" is a sufficient refutation of that opinion. It is full of dramatic power and interest; it is like some ancient piece of sculpture, unique, grand, massive, and solemn; and, indeed, had Milton devoted himself to the drama, it would have been rather in the style of Sophocles than of Shakespeare, for he was too lofty and earnest in his whole nature for real humour, or for much variation in mood and manner. He could never have been a comic poet, but, had he willed it, would undoubtedly have been a great tragic one. The epic character, however, prevailed in him, and decided his career.

(_After the Picture by Munkacsy._)]

Besides these poetical works, were his odes, including the splendid ones of the "Nativity" and the "Passion," and a great number of translations from the chief poets of Greece, Rome, and Italy, original poems written in Latin and Italian, portion of the Psalms "done into metre," and "Paradise Regained." This last poem, though bearing no degree of equality to the "Paradise Lost," is yet a noble poem, and would have made a great reputation for any other man. It is clearly not so well thought out and elaborated as the "Paradise Lost," which was the dream of his youth, the love and the labour of his prime. "Paradise Regained," on the other hand, was the chance suggestion of Thomas Elwood, his Latin reader, and closed with the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, instead of including the Crucifixion and Ascension, which might have given the poet a scope equal in magnificence to that of his former great epic. Of his prose works we shall speak presently.

The most popular of all poets of this period was Abraham Cowley (_b._ 1618; _d._ 1667). He is a striking example of those authors whom the critics of the time cry to the skies, and whom more discriminating posterity are willing to forget. Cowley, in his lifetime, had ten times the fame of Milton. Johnson, so unjust to many of our poets, can hardly be said to be so to Cowley. He says--"Though in his own time considered of unrivalled excellence, and as having taken a flight beyond all that went before him, Cowley's reputation could not last. His character of writing was not his own; he unhappily adopted that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to present praise; and, not sufficiently inquiring by what means the ancients have continued to delight through all the changes of human manners, he contented himself with a deciduous laurel."

He, in fact, for popularity's sake, preferred art, or rather artifice, to nature. Yet there are many beautiful thoughts, much real fancy and wit scattered through his poems; but they are too often buried in outrageous conceits and distorted metre. He never seems really in earnest, but always playing with his subject, and constructing gewgaws instead of raising immortal structures.

Cowley was a zealous Royalist; he went over to France when the queen of Charles I. retired thither, and became her secretary for her private correspondence with Charles. Afterwards he was sent over in the character of a spy on the Republican party and its proceedings. "Under pretence of privacy and retirement, he was to take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in this nation;" but became suspected, and was arrested. He then fawned on Cromwell, wrote verses in his honour, which, however, were only shown in private; and, when the Commonwealth began to exhibit signs of dissolution, he again hastened to the exiled Court in France, and came back in the crowd of Royalists eager for promotion. But his flattering of Cromwell had been reported, and he was treated with coldness. Yet after some time, through Buckingham and the Earl of St. Albans, he obtained a lease of some lands, and, after the ill reception of his play of "The Cutter of Colman Street," he retired into the country, first to Barn Elms, and next to Chertsey, in Surrey, where he died in his forty-ninth year.

The great satirist of the age was Samuel Butler (_b._ 1600; _d._ 1680), who in his "Hudibras" introduced a new kind of poetry--a comic doggerel, now styled, as _sui generis_, Hudibrastic. Butler was the son of a yeoman, and had been educated for the Church without those connections which lead to promotion. With an immense accumulation of learning, and talent enough to have made half a dozen bishops, he became at one time a clerk to one Jeffreys, a justice of the peace at Earl's Coomb, in Worcestershire, and afterwards to Sir Samuel Luke, at Woodend, in Bedfordshire. In these situations he gleaned the characters and materials for his "Hudibras," a burlesque on the Puritans. Sir Samuel Luke was the actual Hudibras. The poem ridicules the Puritans in every way, but especially for attempting to put down bear-baiting; and accordingly the first canto--

"The adventure of the bear and fiddle
Is sung, but breaks off in the middle."

Hudibras and his man Ralpho attack the bear, but are defeated, and then Hudibras retires and makes love to a rich widow. He is a Presbyterian, and Ralpho an Independent; and in the course of the story all the leading characters of the Commonwealth, Cromwell, Fleetwood, Desborough, Lambert, are ridiculed by name, as are Pym, Calamy, Case, Byfield, Lentham, and the rest under more or less transparent nicknames, as Ashley Cooper, under the name of the "politician," and John Lilburne, under that of "brother haberdasher." The first part was published in 1663, the second in 1664, and the third in 1678, fourteen years later. Still the poem remained unfinished. It did not require, however, even the second part to make it famous. It was received with one universal burst of laughter and applause by the Royalists. Charles II. and his courtiers were merrier over it than all, and Charles quoted it continually with unfailing gusto. The Earl of Dorset resolved to seize the opportunity, and introduce the author, through Buckingham, to Charles. Buckingham gave him an audience, but just as they were entering on conversation, Buckingham saw some ladies of loose character going past, ran out after them, and the poet was not only forgotten, but could never get a second interview. Clarendon, however, promised to see him duly rewarded, but never kept his word, and Butler lived poor and died neglected, at the age of eighty. This shameful neglect has been much commented on; but no one seems to have reflected that there may have been more in this than mere neglect. Butler, in his double-edged satire, made some very hard hits at the Church, and, while ridiculing the Puritans, gave some not very light back-strokes to the licentiousness of the Royalists. He wrote an avowed "Satire on the Licentiousness of the Age;" and in his third part so far vented his resentment at his neglect as to satirise Charles himself for being led by the apronstrings of his numerous mistresses. He laughed at the sages of the newly established Royal Society in his "Elephant in the Moon;" and such a man is more frequently kicked than rewarded. The Church did not forget his sallies against it, and refused him burial in Westminster Abbey. When he wrote the questions and answers between the man disguised as a devil and Hudibras--

"What makes a church a den of thieves?--
A dean, a chapter, and white sleeves.
What makes all points of doctrine clear?--
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was proved true before,
Prove false again?--Two hundred more"--

though the sting was intended for the Puritans, the Puritans laid hold on the passage, and quoted it against the Church, and this and like blows rebounded, no doubt, on the poets head.

The most illustrious name of this period next to that of Milton is that of John Dryden (_b._ 1631; _d._ 1701). He wrote almost every kind of poetry--satires, odes, plays, romantic stories--and translated Juvenal, Persius, the epistles of Ovid, and Virgil. It was unfortunate for the genius of Dryden that he was generally struggling with poverty, and by marrying an aristocratic and uncongenial wife, the sister of Sir Robert Howard, he was all the more compelled to exert his powers to live in the style which their circumstances demanded. Hence he produced an immense mass of writings which added little to his fame. Foremost amongst these are his plays, nearly thirty in number, which were mostly unsuccessful, and which abound with such gross indecencies that, had they even high merit otherwise, they would be found to be unperusable. He had the presumption to new-model Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" and the "Tempest"--two of the most poetical compositions in existence--and blurred them with the foul leprosy of obscenity. He treated the "Paradise Lost" in the same way; nor did his necessities lead him to these enormities only; but there is little doubt they drove him to apostatise from his religion, and from his original political faith. His first poem of any note was a most eulogistic elegy on the death of Cromwell, in which, amongst many other such things, he said--

"Heav'n in his portrait showed a workman's hand,
And drew it perfect, yet without a shade."

His very next poem, and that of some length, was "Astræa Redux; a Poem on the Happy Restoration and Return of his Sacred Majesty Charles II.," immediately followed by "A Panegyric on his Coronation," in which he heaps still more glowing praise on the young royal libertine, and flings dust as liberally at his late idol:--

"While our cross stars denied us Charles's bed,
Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed,
For his long absence Church and State did groan,
Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne;
Experienced age in deep despair was lost,
_To see the rebel thrive_, the loyal crossed."

The accomplished sycophant received as his reward the office of Poet Laureate, with three hundred pounds a year; and he paid officiously more than his peppercorn of praise in the "Annus Mirabilis, or Year of Wonders, 1666," in which the sea fights with the Dutch and the Fire of London were commemorated in elegiac stanzas, and the most fulsome and almost impious adulation was poured in showers on both the king and his heir apparent, the Duke of York--not forgetting an especial poetical address to the duchess on her husband's victories over the Hollanders. No doubt Dryden made himself sure that his Laureate salary was safe, but he was mistaken. James, though "the best who ever bore the name," could forget benefits, and even flatteries; but he never forgot an ill turn, or anything that endangered his great design of restoring Popery; and Dryden, to please the Church and the late king, whom he did not know to be at heart a Papist, had written his "Religio Laici," in which he had pulled the Catholic Church to pieces, and lauded superlatively the Anglican hierarchy. James first took away his butt of sack, and then his salary; whereupon Dryden directly turned Catholic, and wrote "The Hind and the Panther," to beslaver Popery, kick down Protestantism, and reconcile the public to James's invidious scheme of abolishing the Test Act for his own purposes. This succeeded, and Dryden continued to receive his pay, and do his dirty work during James's reign. It was expected that he would wheel round again on William and Mary's success; but he lived and died Catholic.

With all respect for the genius of Dryden, it is thus impossible for a truthful historian to take any but a melancholy view of his personal character, and of the mass of his writings. They are, in fact, mostly on subjects that do not fall within the legitimate province of true poetry. His "Absalom and Achitophel"--written to ridicule Monmouth and Shaftesbury, with their accomplice, Buckingham, under the name of "Zimri," and to damage the Whig party generally--is transcendently clever; but even the highest satirical and political verse is not poetry--it is only cleverness in verse; and this is the grand characteristic of Dryden's poetry--it is masterly verse. There is no creative faculty in it; it is a matter of style rather than of soul and sentiment; and in style he is a great master. This made Milton say that Dryden was a good rhymester, but no poet; and in Milton's conception of poetry, and in that which has taught us to venerate Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, and others, Dryden was not a poet of the highest rank. A modern critic has given him great credit for "creative power and genius" in his adaptations of some of Chaucer's tales; but this is a mistake. The creative genius is Chaucer's; Dryden has only remodelled the tales in modern language; the ideas, the invention, are all Chaucer's; Dryden's share consists in his wonderful, elastic, musical diction, in which he undoubtedly excels every English author in the heroic measure. Pope's is more artificial, but is far behind in musical rhythm and elastic vigour. Dryden's heroic verse is music itself, and music full of its highest elements. In it the trumpet sings, the drum beats, the organ blows in solemn thunder, the flute and fife shrill forth eloquence, and all mingled instruments seem to chorus in a combination of blissful sounds and feelings. In the latter part of his life Dryden, standing independent of all Government drudgery, shows more worthily both in life and verse. His translation of Virgil yet remains the best in our language. He had done with his contemptible squabbles with Elkanah Settle and Shadwell, who won from him the honours and profits of the theatre; and his "Fables," as he called them--tales from Chaucer--seemed to inspire him with a more really poetic feeling. In them he seemed to grow purer, and to open his soul to the influences of classical and natural beauty, to the charms of nature, and of old romance. These tales will always remain the truest monuments of Dryden's fame. His odes, much as they have been praised, are rather feats of art than outpourings of poetic inspiration. His "Alexander's Feast" is but a description of the effects of music on a drunken conqueror and a courtesan. Who now would dream of placing it by the side of Coleridge's "Ode to France," or Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Childhood"? But any one turning to "Palamon and Arcite" will find himself in a real fairyland of poetry, and perceive how much Keats, Leigh Hunt, and other modern poets have formed themselves on his style, and have even adopted his triplets.

We have given so much space to these the greatest poets of this period, that we have little for the rest. We have mentioned Andrew Marvell's beautiful ballad, "The Emigrants" (p. 180), and Wither's poems (p. 178), in our previous review. Sir John Denham's descriptive poem, "Cooper's Hill," had great popularity, and is a good specimen of that class of verse. Waller was a reigning favourite for his lyrics, which are elegant, but destitute of any high principle or emotion, as the man was, who wrote a panegyric on Cromwell and another on Charles II.; and when Charles told him he thought that on Cromwell the better, replied, "Sir, we poets never excel so well in writing truth as in writing fiction." Amongst the courtiers of Charles, Buckingham and Rochester were poets. Buckingham's comedy, "The Rehearsal," which was written to ridicule the heroic drama copied by Dryden from the French, still finds admirers; and the genius of Rochester was unquestionable, but still inferior to his obscenity. Sir Charles Sedley, another courtier, wrote comedies and songs almost equally famous for their dissoluteness. Charles Cotton, the author of "Virgil Travestied," was a writer of much wit, but nearly equal grossness, though he was the intimate friend of Izaak Walton, who was also no mean poet. The Earls of Roscommon and Dorset were popular, the first for his "Essay on Translated Verse," written in verse, and the other for his splendid ballad written at sea, commencing "To all you ladies now on land." Pomfret, a clergyman, wrote a didactic poem called "The Choice," which Dr. Johnson declared to be more frequently read than almost any poem in the language, and which Southey believed to be the most popular poem in the language. It is, in reality, one of the common-places gone by. Sir William Davenant, a reputed son of Shakespeare, wrote "Gondibert," a heroic poem in elegiac stanzas, which has good parts, but, as a whole, is intolerably dull. Sir Richard Fanshawe was celebrated as a translator, especially of Guarini's "Pastor Fido." Another translator from Greek and Spanish was Thomas Stanley, the learned editor of Æschylus, and the author of "The History of Philosophy." Besides these may be mentioned Bulteel, a popular songwriter; Philip Ayres, a lyrical poet; Dr. Henry More, author of a poem, "The Life of the Soul," in Spenserian stanzas; and Flatman, an imitator of Cowley.

The dramatic writing of the period was rather voluminous than first-rate. Davenant wrote above twenty plays, masks, etc.; but the most eminent dramatists were the unfortunate Otway, Nathaniel Lee, Sir George Etherege, Wycherley, Crowne, Southern, and Jasper Mayne. Otway's "Orphan" and "Venice Preserved" still maintain their fame; he wrote altogether ten plays. Nathaniel Lee wrote ten tragedies, a great mixture of talent and bombast. The most celebrated of them are his "Theodosius" and his "Rival Queens." Crowne wrote seventeen plays, in which the selections made by Charles Lamb in his "Dramatic Specimens" show that there exists perhaps the most pre-eminent dramatic genius of the age. Etherege is the author of three comedies of great polish and brilliancy, and set the pattern for Wycherley, and for Congreve, Farquhar, and Vanbrugh in the next period. Wycherley wrote four comedies equally remarkable for vigour and indecency. In fact, it is scarcely necessary to repeat that the whole of the dramatic literature of this period is thoroughly disfigured with the coarsest and most revolting sensuality and obscenity. Southern belongs properly to the next era, as he produced only two of his plays during this period--his tragedy of "The Loyal Brother," and his comedy of "The Disappointment." Shadwell and Settle inundated the stage with worthless plays; and Mrs. Aphra Behn, a courtesan as well as writer, was the author of a whole host of comedies, novels, and poems. Of the two comedies by Jasper Mayne--who, by-the-by, was a clergyman--"The City Match" is the better. Perhaps we ought not to close this review of the poets without a mention of the most successful poetaster of the age, Nahum Tate, who was in such estimation as to be allowed to supply our churches with his most wretched version of the Psalms, and to be employed by Dryden to continue his satire of "Absalom and Achitophel."

At the head of the prose writers of this period, as of the poets, we must place Milton. Though his writings are for the most part on controversial subjects, they were subjects of such immense importance that they acquired a lasting value. They bear a certain relation to his poetry. This in its highest exhibition celebrated the triumph of the Deity over the powers of evil. His prose writings were employed to support the struggle of liberty against the advocates of all political evil--absolutism. Poetry seemed to have become the habitual expression of his mind, and, therefore, there is in his prose style a certain awkwardness and stiffness. He moves like David in armour that he had not well proved; and his utterance, solemn and full of deep thought and erudition, is, as it were, forced and formal. But when he warms up with the greatness of his subject, he runs into a strain of grave eloquence which has scarcely an equal in the language.

The great prose works of Milton comprise his "History of England" from the earliest times to the Conquest, including all the old legends of the chroniclers, the arrival of Brute from Rome, the story of King Lear, and those fine fables which have been the storehouses of poets and dramatists; his "Tractate on Education;" his magnificent "Areopagitica;" his "Tenure of Kings and Magistrates;" the "Eikonoklastes;" the "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano" and "Defensio Secunda"--vindicating the conduct of England in deposing impracticable kings; his "Treatise on the Best Manner of Removing Hirelings out of the Church;" his essay on "Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes;" his "State Letters," written at the command of Cromwell; an "Art of Logic;" a "Treaty of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and what Best Means may be used against the Growth of Popery;" and his "Familiar Letters," in Latin. Besides these he left in manuscript a "Brief History of Muscovy," and a "System of Theology"--both since published. It may be safely said that scarcely any other writer has left such a sound and profound body of knowledge of all that is necessary for the maintenance of freedom, civil and religious, in the State.

Dryden is also a vigorous prose writer; but nothing can be more characteristic of the two men than the prose of Milton and Dryden. The one is grave, solemn, independent, upholding the sacred interests of religion and liberty; the other, that of Dryden--besides short lives of Polybius, Lucian, and Plutarch, and an "Essay on Dramatic Literature"--consists chiefly of a mass of his dramatic writings, couched in the most extravagant and unmanly terms of flattery. It is in vain to say that this was the spirit of the time; we have only to turn to Milton and behold that a great soul despised such sycophancy as much then as now.

Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion" and Memoirs of his own life assume a permanent importance from the position which he occupied in the struggles of those times; as literary compositions they are unique in style, but as historical authority, it is necessary to read them with caution.

Hobbes (_b._ 1588; _d._ 1679), the celebrated philosopher of Malmesbury, was one of the most powerful minds of the age. By his works, called the "Leviathan," his treatise on "Human Nature," on "Liberty and Necessity," and his "Decameron Physiologicum," with others of the like kind, he became the head of a great school of writers, which found wide acceptance in France, Germany, and England. Mr. Mill says--"Hobbes is a great name in philosophy, on account both of what he taught, and the extraordinary impulse which he communicated to the spirit of free inquiry in Europe." But, on the other hand, it has been well observed by a modern writer that, "as for what is properly to be called his system of philosophy--and it is to be observed that in his own writings his views in metaphysics, in morals, in politics, are all bound and built up together into one consistent whole--the question of the truth or falsehood of that seems to be completely settled. Nobody now professes more than a partial Hobbism. If so much of the creed of the philosopher of Malmesbury as affirms the non-existence of any essential distinction between right and wrong, the non-existence of conscience or the moral sense, the non-existence of anything beyond mere sensation in either emotion or intelligence, and other similar negatives of his moral and metaphysical doctrine, has still its satisfied disciples, who is now a Hobbist either in politics or mathematics? Yet certainly it is in these latter departments that we must look for the greater part of what is absolutely original in the notions of this teacher. Hobbes's philosophy of human nature is not amiss as a philosophy of Hobbes's own human nature. Without passions or imagination himself, and steering his own course through life by the mere calculations of an enlightened selfishness, one half of the broad mass of Humanity was to him nothing better than a blank."

Hobbes was a thorough advocate of personal monarchy, as is testified by his "De Corpore Politico," his "Leviathan," and "Behemoth," the last being a history of the Civil War from 1640 to 1660. Hobbes lived to a great age, praised by his admirers as an example of independence. His arguments were ably answered by Cudworth, by Clarendon, Bishops Cumberland, Bramhall, and Tenison, by Dr. Henry More in his "History of Philosophy;" by Eachard, and others.

A writer who has had a different influence was Richard Baxter (_b._ 1615; _d._ 1691). Baxter held the same position in the religious world as Halifax in the political one. Halifax gloried in the name of a "Trimmer." He was constantly occupying the middle post in the world of party. Sometimes one party congratulated itself that it had him, but presently it found him defending measures of its opponents. In fact, he was an independent thinker, and, extending his hand to either party as he thought it right at the moment, he turned the balance of conflicting opinions. Exactly so with Baxter; a clergyman of the Church of England, he was yet a decided Nonconformist. He was a Monarchist in theory, but was so disgusted with the Royalists for their licentiousness and notions of absolutism, that he went over to the camp of Cromwell and preached in it. But when Cromwell assumed the supreme power, again Baxter was on the other side, condemning to his face his usurpation. Baxter's mediating views led him to hope, on the return of Charles II., that Nonconformity and the Church might shake hands. He believed in Charles's "Healing Declaration," and drew up an accommodating Liturgy, but found himself deceived; the Hierarchy rejected such compromises. He became a sufferer from Nonconformity, and yet remained an advocate of Conformity to a certain extent. So was it in his theological views; with one hand he embraced Calvin, with the other Arminius. He rejected Calvin's doctrine of Reprobation, yet accepted his theory of Election--that is, that certain persons are pre-ordained from all eternity as instruments for certain work by God; but he agreed with Arminius's assertion that all men whatever are capable of salvation, for that Christ distinctly declared that He died for all, and that whoever believed should be saved. The views of Baxter were adopted by large numbers, who became a sect under the name of "Baxterians;" but they were gradually absorbed into the different denominations of the Independents, Baptists, etc., who may now be considered as generally holding Baxter's mild and amiable opinions. Watts and Doddridge were eminent professors of Baxter's creed. The chief works of Baxter are his "Methodus Theologiæ," his "Catholic Theology," and his "Saints' Everlasting Rest." The last is by far the most popular. It has been circulated by tens of thousands into all quarters where the English language reaches, and, like the "Pilgrim" of Bunyan, is to be found on the shelves of the cottage and the farm in the remotest nooks. Perhaps no book ever gave so much consolation to the spirits of so many simple and earnest seekers after religious rest as this work of the venerable Richard Baxter.

Bunyan (_b._ 1628; _d._ 1688) was a contemporary of Baxter, but a man of a more robust and sturdy temper. Lying twelve years in Bedford gaol for his religious faith, he there produced his immortal "Pilgrim's Progress," a work which, as the production of an illiterate tinker, was contemptuously ignored by the critics and the learned of the time, till it had spread like a flood over the whole land and was become the delight of the nation. The "Pilgrim" is a wonderful work for any man, and Bunyan was undoubtedly a genius of the very first class.

With Baxter and Bunyan, the gentle angler, Izaak Walton (_b._ 1593; _d._ 1683), claims a place for his "Lives of Religious Worthies," and not less for his "Complete Angler," one of the first works, along with "Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," which awoke the love of nature.

Side by side with these worthies stands John Evelyn (_b._ 1620; _d._ 1706), a man who mixed with the Court in Charles II.'s reign without defiling himself. He was the model of a true English gentleman--pious, honourable, and exerting himself at once to maintain sound morals and to promote science. His Memoirs present a lively picture of the dissolute age in which he lived; and he sought to draw men away from the sink of corruption by encouraging them to plant and cultivate their estates. For this he wrote his "Sylva; or, a Discourse of Forest Trees," still a standard and most delightful work. He was one of the first members and promoters of the Royal Society, and wrote "Numismata, a Discourse of Medals;" a "Parallel of Ancient and Modern Architecture;" a work on Theology; and the first "Gardener's Almanac."

As a memoir-writer of the same period Samuel Pepys (_b._ 1632; _d._ 1703) is more popular than Evelyn. Pepys was Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II.; and his inimitably-gossiping volumes of whatever he saw during those times have been often reprinted and read everywhere with great unction. Pepys, besides this, continued a most invaluable collection of old ballads begun by Selden, from which Bishop Percy amply helped himself in collecting his "Reliques;" so that to Pepys and John Selden we really owe much of that great revolution in taste and poetry which we ascribe almost exclusively to Percy. Another Memorialist of this period was Sir William Temple, a man who, like Evelyn, maintained a high moral status, and was held in great esteem for his philosophical essays. In Scotland Sir George Mackenzie stood conspicuous for his "Institution of the Laws of Scotland," and not less for various works of taste, as his "Aretina; or, The Serious Romance," and his "Religio Stoici; or, The Virtuoso." Burnet, the author of "The Sacred Theory of the Earth," also belongs to this period. In his work the Biblical account of the origin of the earth is made the foundation of a scientific treatise.

The Church at this period possessed great and eloquent men--Tillotson, Sherlock, Barrow, South, Stillingfleet, and others. Their sermons remain as storehouses of religious argument. They were nearly all of the Arminian school. Barrow was, besides, one of the ablest geometricians that have appeared.

During the period now under review a great step in the progress of science was made by the foundation of the Royal Society. The honour of originating this famous society belongs to Mr. Theodore Haak, a German, who was resident in London. At his suggestion a number of scientific gentlemen, including Dr. Goddard, a physician in Wood Street, but also a preparer of lenses for telescopes; Dr. Wallis, the mathematician; Dr. Wilkins, afterwards Bishop of Chester; Drs. Ent, Gisson, and Merrit, and Mr. Samuel Foster, professor of astronomy in Gresham College. These meetings began in 1645, and were held at one of their houses, or in Gresham College, or at apartments in Cheapside. Though some of these gentlemen were removed by promotion, others continued to join it, as Boyle, Evelyn, Wren--afterwards Sir Christopher. In 1662 a royal charter was obtained, and in the following year additional privileges were granted under a second charter. The first President was Lord Brouncker, and the first council consisted of Mr.--afterwards Lord--Brereton, Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir Robert Moray, Sir William Petty, Sir Paul Neile, Messrs. Boyle, Slingsbey, Christopher and Matthew Wren, Balle, Areskine, Oldenburg, Henshaw, and Dudley Palmer, and Drs. Wilkins, Wallis, Timothy Clarke, and Ent. Balle was the first treasurer, and Wilkins and Oldenburg the first secretaries. The Society was pledged not to meddle with questions of theology or State, and their chief subjects of notice were the physical sciences, anatomy, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, navigation, statistics, chemistry, magnetism, mechanics, and kindred topics. In the spring of the second year the Society numbered a hundred and fifteen members; amongst them, besides many noblemen and gentlemen of distinction, we find the names of Aubrey, Dr. Barrow, Dryden, Cowley, Waller, and Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. The Society commenced the publication of its Transactions in 1665, which became a record of the progress of physical and mathematical science for a long series of years.

During the short period over which the present review ranges--that is, from the Restoration in 1660 to the Revolution in 1688, that is, only twenty-eight years--some of the greatest discoveries in science were made which have occurred in the history of the world; namely, the discovery of the circulation of the blood by Dr. William Harvey; the improvement of the tables of logarithms constructed by Napier; the invention of fluxions by Newton, and the calculus of fluxions, or the differential calculus, by Leibnitz; the discovery of the perfected theory of gravitation, by Newton; the foundation of modern astronomy, by Flamsteed; and the construction of a steam-engine by the Marquis of Worcester, originally suggested by Solomon de Caus, a Frenchman.