truths astrology, for instance, lost its hold on the teachers of the people; witchcraft ceased to be believed in. The world was freed from a dead weight of idle terrors. Bacon's influence, too, helped to turn the current of men's thoughts to material progress, so that what we feel to be the underlying principles of modern civilization began to be fixed towards the end of the seventeenth century. Admiration for intellectual greatness does not produce this feeling of kinship so surely as does agreement in looking at practical questions, and our full comprehension of the past, and our consequent sympathy with it, begin practically with the generation to which Dryden belonged. All before then seems to belong to the imagination; he and his contemporaries appear to be the first to fall within. the range of our observation. Then, too, not only is the sequence of thought unbroken since that time-for, it must be distinctly borne in mind, this sequence cannot be broken-but we have abundant material from which to study its advance; and the whole intellectual life of the present century is the direct outcome of what was hoped or feared, taught or denounced, in the last century. It is time that we cease to repeat one of its faults, and learn to treat our predecessors with the respect they deserve.

This is particularly our duty now when we boast our ability to enjoy all varieties of literary work, when we have a kind word for every man who has any claim to greatness. Of one thing we may be sure, that this universal taste accompanies meagre performance in the way of creation. Now, for instance, when the English drama is entirely a thing of the past, the taste of the reading public is exceedingly catholic; but if at the present time real plays were written which interested us, our feelings would be enlisted in behalf of any older dramatist who seemed to support our theory of how plays should be

written, and against those who did not. At the time of the Restoration, Shakspere's fame had greatly diminished; yet there was considerable interest in the drama, and the qualities that were most admired were very different from those of the Elizabethan era: the zeal which animated the playwrights after 1660, their eagerness for correctness, rendered them only more sensitive to what seemed to them to be Shakspere's roughness. Moreover, to take the dramatic literature alone, the original native vigor had gone out, giving place, as we shall see more at length hereafter, to a form of dramatic composition which substituted a very artificial mode of composition for the wild luxuriousness of the great play-writers. The time had become a critical one: people had begun to study methods and workmanship, to make comparisons between different theories, and to let observation replace inspiration. This, too, is another point of resemblance between that time and our own.

II. Another reason why this period seems closely connected with the present is, that it was then that English prose began to be written—a prose which we can understand without difficulty, which, except that it is much more intelligible, is practically the prose of the present day. This may be better illustrated by a few examples than it can be described in many pages. Thus, to study some of the earlier prose* in Hobbes's "Leviathan (1651), we find this method of writing (p. 170): “And as to Rebellion in particular against Monarchy; one of the most frequent causes of it, is the Reading of the books of Policy, and Histories of the ancient Greeks, and Romans; from which, young men, and all others that are unprovided

*Nathanael Ingelo's "Bentivoglio and Urania," 1650, is exceptionally well written.

of the Antidote of solid Reason, receiving a strong and delightful impression of the great exploits of war, atchieved by the Conductors of their Armies, receive withal a pleasing Idea of all they have done besides; and imagine their great prosperity not to have proceeded from the æmulation of particular men, but from the vertue of their popular form of government : not considering the frequent Seditions, and Civil wars, produced by the imperfection of their Policy. From the reading, I say, of such books, men have undertaken to kill their Kings, because the Greek and Latin writers, in their books and discourses of Policy, make it lawful and laudable, for any man so to do; provided before he do it, he call him Tyrant. For they say not Regicide, that is, killing of a king, but Tyrannicide, that is, killing of a Tyrant, is lawfull. From the same books, they that live under a Monarch conceive an opinion, that the Subjects in a Popular Common-wealth enjoy Liberty; but that in a Monarchy they are all slaves. I say they that live under a Monarchy conceive such an opinion; not they that live under a Popular Government: for they find no such matter. In summe, I cannot imagine how anything can be more prejudicial to a Monarchy, than the allowing of such things to be publiquely read, without present applying of such correctives of discreet Masters, as are fit to take away their Venome: Which Venome I will not doubt to compare to the biting of a mad Dog, which is a disease the Physicians call Hydrophobia, or fear of Water. For as he that is so bitten, has a continual torment of thirst, and yet abhorreth water; and is in such an estate, as if the poyson endeavoured to convert him into a Dog: So when a Monarchy is once bitten to the quick, by those Democratical writers, that continually snarle at that estate; it wanteth nothing more than a strong Monarch, which nevertheless, out of a certain Ty

rannophobia, or fear of being strongly governed, when they have him, they abhorre."

Another example may be taken from Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" (1621): "Chess-play is a good and witty exercise of the mind for some kind of men, and fit for such melancholy, Rhasis holds, as are idle, and have extravagant, impertinent thoughts, or troubled with cares, nothing better to distract their mind, and alter their meditations invented (some say) by the general of an army in a famine, to keep soldiers from mutiny: but if it proceed. from overmuch study, in such a case it may do more harm than good; it is a game too troublesome for some men's brains, too full of anxiety, all out as bad as study; besides it is a testy, choleric game, and very offensive to him that loseth the mate. William the Conqueror, in his younger years, playing at chess with a Prince of France (Dauphiné was not annexed to that crown in those days), losing a mate, knocked the chess-board about his pate, which was a cause afterward of much enmity between them."

Perhaps more characteristic is this: "He that shall but see that geometrical tower of Garezenda at Bologna in Italy, the steeple and clock at Strasburg, will admire the effects of art, or that engine of Archimedes, to remove the earth itself, if he had but a place to fasten his instrument Archimedis Cochlea, and rare devices to corrivate waters, musical instruments, and tri-syllable echoes, again, again, and again repeated, with myriads of such. What vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice, speculation, in verse or prose, etc.! their names alone are the subject of whole volumes, we have thousands of authors of all sorts, many great libra-. ries full well furnished like so many dishes of meat, served out for several palates; and he is a very block that is affected with none of them."

There is no need of many such instances to prove the general rule that English prose is a modern acquirement. Even Milton, with his wonderful ear for rhythm, was often as clumsy as the others when he undertook to write prose, which was the work, as he said, of his left hand. For instance ("The Reason of Church Government Urged Against Prelaty," lib. i. chap. i.): "To come within the narrowness of Household Government, observation will shew us many deep Counsellors of State and Judges do demean themselves incorruptly in the settled course of affairs, and many worthy Preachers upright in their Lives, powerful in their Audience; but look upon either of these Men where they are left to their own disciplining at home, and you shall soon perceive, for all their single knowledge and uprightness, how deficient they are in the regulating of their own Family; not only in what may concern the virtuous and decent composure of their minds in their several places, but that which is of a lower and easier performance, the right possessing of the outward Vessel, their Body, in Health or Sickness, Rest or Labour, Diet or Abstinence, whereby to render it more pliant to the Soul, and useful to the Common-wealth: when if men were but as good to discipline themselves, as some are to tutor their Horses and Hawks, it could not be so gross in most households.” These extracts are not intended to throw doubts on Hobbes's humor, Burton's learning, or Milton's eloquence; and I pass over Bacon's simplicity, Hooker's fine harmonies, and Jeremy Taylor's poetical prose, contenting myself with showing that before the Restoration there was no practical, every-day prose. Milton, when, as he said, he wished “to soar a little,” had a magnificent abundance of words at his command, and at times he broke out into a rich poetical prose. But when he had to write some plain description, his prose lumbered as clumsily as a heavy cart