oftenest studied and estimated by piecemeal only. Though it be so taken, and though its unbroken and weighty solemnity should at length have caused weariness, it cannot but have left a vivid impression on all minds not quite unsusceptible of fine influences. The stately march of its diction; the organ-peal with which its versification rolls on; the continual overflowing, especially in the earlier books, of beautiful illustrations from nature or art; the clearly and brightly coloured pictures of human happiness and innocence; the melancholy grandeur with which angelic natures are clothed in their fall: these are features, some or all of which must be delightful to most of us, and which give to the mind images and feelings not easily or soon effaced. If the poet has sometimes aimed at describing scenes, over which should have been cast the veil of reverential silence, we shall remember that this occurs but rarely. If other scenes and figures of a supernatural kind are invested with a costume which may seem to us unduly corporeal even for the poetic inventor, we should pause to recollect that the task thus attempted is one in which perfect success is unattainable; and we shall ourselves, unless our fancy is cold indeed, be awed and dazzled, whether we will or not, by many of those very pictures.

"The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Milton, is the extreme remoteness of the associations by means of which it acts on the reader. Its effect is produced, not so much by what it expresses, as by what it suggests; not so much by the ideas which it directly conveys, as by other ideas which are connected with them. He electrifies the mind through conductors. The most unimaginative man must understand the Iliad; Homer gives him no choice; but takes the whole on himself, and sets his images in so clear a light that it is impossible to be blind to them. Milton does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline: he strikes the key-note, and expects his hearer to make out the melody."

* Macaulay: Essays from the Edinburgh Review.

R

1. Social and Literary Character of the Period.-PROSE. 2. Theology— Leighton-Sermons of South, Tillotson, and Barrow-Nonconformist Divines-Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress-The Philosophy of Locke-Bentley and Classical Learning.-3. Antiquaries and Historians-Lord Clarendon's History-Bishop Burnet's Histories.-4. Miscellaneous ProseWalton-Evelyn- L'Estrange-Butler and Marvell-John Dryden's Prose Writings-His Style-His Critical Opinions-Temple's Essays.POETRY. 5. Dramas-Their Character-French Influences-Dryden's Plays-Tragedies of Lee, Otway, and Southerne-The Prose Comedies -Their Moral Foulness.-6. Poetry Not Dramatic-Its Didactic and Satiric Character-Inferences.-7. Minor Poets-Roscommon-Marvell -Butler's Hudibras-Prior. 8. John Dryden's Life and Works.-9.

Dryden's Poetical Character.

1. THE last forty years of the seventeenth century will not occupy us long. Their aspect is, on the whole, far from being pleasant; and some features, marking many of their literary works, are positively revolting.

In the reign of Charles the Second, England, whether we have regard to the political, the moral, or the literary state of the nation, resembled a fine antique garden, neglected and falling into decay. A few patriarchal trees still rose green and stately; a few chancesown flowers began to blossom in the shade: but lawn and parterre and alley were matted with noisome weeds; and the stagnant waters breathed out pestilential damps. When, after the Revolution, the attempt was made to re-introduce order and productiveness, many of the wild plants were allowed still to cumber the ground; and there were compartments which, worn out by the rank vegetation they had borne, became for a time altogether barren. In a word, the Restoration brought in evils of all kinds, many of which lingered through the age that succeeded, and others were not eradicated for several generations.

Of all the social mischiefs of the time, none infected literature so deeply as that depravation of morals, into which the court and the

aristocracy plunged, and into which so many of the people followed them. The lighter kinds of composition mirrored faithfully the surrounding blackness. The drama sank to a frightful grossness: the tone of thinking was lowered also in other walks of poetry. The coarseness of speech survived the close of the century: the cool, selfish, calculating spirit, which had been the more tolerable form of the degradation, survived, though in a mitigated degree, very much longer. This bad morality was in part attributable to a second characteristic of the time, which produced likewise other consequences. The reinstated courtiers imported a mania for foreign models, especially French. The favourite literary works, instead of continuing to obey native and natural impulses, were anxiously moulded on the tastes of Paris. This prevalence of exotic predilections endured for more than a century.

Amidst all these and other weaknesses and blots, there was not wanting either strength or brightness. The literary career of Dryden covers the whole of our period, and marks a change which contained improvement in several features. Locke was the leader of philosophical speculation: and mathematical and physical science, little dependent on the political or moral state of the times, had its active band of distinguished votaries headed by Newton;

Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone!"

That philosophy and science did not even then neglect goodness, or despise religion, is proved by the names which we have last read; and, in many other quarters, there were uttered, though to inattentive ears, stern protests against evil, which have echoed from age to age till they reached ourselves. Those voices issued from not a few of the high places of the church; and others were lifted up, sadly but firmly, in the midst of persecution. The Act of Uniformity, by silencing the puritan clergy, actually gave to the ablest of them a greater power at the time, and a power which, but for this, would not so probably have bequeathed to us any record. The Nonconformists wrote and printed, when they were forbidden to speak. A younger generation was growing up among them: and some of the elder race still survived; such as the fiery Baxter, the calm Owen, and the prudent Calamy. Greatest of all, and only now reaching the climax of his strength, Milton sat in the narrow chamber of his neglected old age: bating no jot of hope, yielding no point of honesty, abjuring no word or syllable of faith; but consoling himself for the disappointments which had darkened a weary life, by consecrating its waning years, with redoubled ardour of devotion, to religion, to truth, and to the service of a remote posterity.

PROSE LITERATURE.

2. Among those good and able Churchmen, who passed from the troubles of the Commonwealth and Protectorate to the seeming victory but real danger of the Restoration, were Jeremy Taylor, and several other men of eminence. Of those who, so situated, have not yet been named, the earliest we encounter is Leighton, Archbishop of Glasgow; a man whose apostolic gentleness of conduct endeared him deeply to his contemporaries, and whose devoutly meditative eloquence made him, in our own day, the bosom-oracle of Coleridge.

Much more famous, and possessed of much greater natural power, were three Theologians whose writings, all able and learned, yet want the charm of sentiment which Leighton's warmth of heart diffuses over all his works. These were South, Tillotson, and Barrow.

b. 1633.

South was a man of remarkable oratorical endowments: d. 1716. but probably no one would now claim for him a high rank as a Christian preacher. Dogmatical, sarcastic, and intolerant; shrewd in practical observation, unhesitatingly abundant in familiar wit, and possessing a wonderful stock of vigorous and idiomatic phrases: he is often impressively strong in his denunciation of prevailing vices, stronger still when he ridicules clerical brethren, (as in his parody of Taylor's peculiarities,) and strongest of all in fierce polemical attacks on papists, and nonconformists, and all b. 1630. dissenters from the Church of England. Tillotson's writd. 1694.ings are pervaded by a much higher and better spirit. They are not only kindly and forbearing towards opponents, but warmly earnest in their inculcation of religious belief and duty. But, in point of eloquence, he never rises above what has justly been called a noble simplicity: his fancy prompts to him no striking illustrations; and his style always tends to being both clumsy and feeble. His fame as a preacher must have been owing, in a great degree, to the well-founded reliance which was placed on his sound judgment and excellent character, and to the ability with which he combated the papal doctrines on the one hand and those of b. 1630. the puritans on the other. Barrow's sermons cannot but d. 1677. strike every one as being the works of a great thinker: they are, in truth, less properly orations, than trains of argumentative thought. His reasoning is prosecuted with an admirable union of comprehensiveness, sagacity, and clearness: and it is expressed in a style which, at once strong and regular, combines many of the virtues of the older writers with not a few of those that were appearing in the new.

In this age, however, we have lost, almost wholly, that force of un

disciplined eloquence, which had been so commanding in the first half of the century. None of the writers that have been named come nearly up to the point: and there is still less of the old strength of impressiveness in those divines who, like Stillingfleet, Pearson, Burnet, Bull, and the elder Sherlock, hold a more prominent place in the history of the church than in that of letters.

Among the contributors to theological literature were several of the leading men of science. Barrow was one of the greatest mathematicians of our country: Bishop Wilkins was one of the founders of the Royal Society. Such also were three distinguished laymen : the amiable and excellent Boyle; Ray, a Nonconformist, in whose writings are to be found the principles of the Natural System of Botany; and the philosopher whose name would alone have made the age immortal, the illustrious Sir Isaac Newton.

The Nonconformist clergy were active writers, casting bread on the waters, to be found after many days. But, though Baxter lived to see the Revolution, he has already been named among the men of that previous generation, to which in spirit he belonged: nor were there in the younger race any who, in a literary view, are entitled to be ranked as his equals. Yet the excellent John

b. 1630. d. 1705.

Howe, whose "Living Temple" is still one of our religious classics, was not far from being worthy of a place by his side. At once through his enlightened kindliness, and his contemplative piety, he merited to be described by Baxter as heavenlyminded: and, though his turn of style has little regularity or compactness, and his diction no fine felicities of genius, there are in his works not a few passages that rise, nearer than anything of his time, towards the old force of eloquent persuasiveness. Owen, esteemed highly as a theologian, alike sound, and able, and learned, is a very indifferent writer: to the praise of eloquence he has no claim whatever; nor is he very clear in thinking, or very precise in style. The pious Flavel, and other authors of the class, possess still less literary importance. But the great though untrained b. 1628. genius of Bunyan may most conveniently be commemorated d. 1688. here; unless indeed we were, in virtue of the form of his best work, to set him down in another department, as a writer of romances. The fervently religious temper of "The Pilgrim's Progress" needs no commendation; and as little do the richness of characteristic representation, the ingenuity of analogy, and the semi-scriptural force and quaintness of style, which have placed the name of the self-trained tinker of Bedford on the file of our permanent literature.

b. 1632.

Last among the religious writers, John Locke might be d. 1704. named, in virtue of some of his works. This celebrated