1 PURITAN AGE. A.D. 1649-1660. SUBJECTION OF ALL SECULAR AND INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS TO FANATICISM. PRODUCTION OF THE GREAT ENGLISH HEROIC EPIC, "PARADISE LOST," BY JOHN MILTON. CULMINATION OF ENGLISH ALLEGORY UNDER JOHN BUNYAN. OUTBURST OF THEOLOGICAL ELOQUENCE—“ THE AUGUS TAN AGE OF ENGLISH DIVINITY." CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PURITAN AGE, WITH HISTORICAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND ART NOTES. A.D. 1649-1660. Puritanism exercised a more or less direct influence over English politics, English religion, and English literature during the greater part of the seventeenth century, but culminated in the Commonwealth decade, when national government, creed, and intellect were essentially moulded to its theological dogmatism. The age was not long enough to embrace the entire lives of its representatives nor all of their works. Milton, Bunyan, and Baxter lived to be persecuted and condemned by the succeeding antagonistic era, with whose profligacy and liberality they had no sympathy; "Paradise Lost," the epic of Puritanism, “Pilgrim's Progress," the allegory of Puritanism, and many of Baxter's polemical writings in defence of Puritanism, did not appear till after the Restoration, but they were like strangers in a foreign land and among foreign manners. [COMMONWEALTH.] SUBJECTION OF ALL SECULAR AND INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS TO FANATICISM. PURITAN austerity suppressed all secular tastes and amusements. All public entertainments were forbidden: Parliament closed the theatres, and had the actors publicly whipped; poetic festivals were prohibited; while even the May-pole dance and the innocent sports of children-games, dancing, wrestling, and bell-ringing-were sternly put down. Sculpture and painting were denounced as idolatrous, and Establishment by Parliament of a republican form of government under the title of "The Commonwealth," 1649. Charles II. takes refuge in Publication of "Icon Basiliké," reported to have been written by the martyr king, its answer by John Milton, Latin Secretary of State, 1649. the pictures and statues which ornamented the churches were destroyed. Everything Italian was condemned as impious and profane, while Charles I., and eloquent and brilliant composition and classical taste were rejected as ungodly. Religious ecto the Council stasy took the place of reason, and philosophy and intellectual pursuits were narrowed down to theological controversy. Under such a condition of things an extensive and abundant literature could not exist. Ordinary poetry could not issue from such a conception of life: the drama was exiled; philosophy was abandoned as untrustworthy. But out of this artistic desolation sprang three powerful writers, whose natural genius spontaneously supplied them with those requisites of literary art which their surroundings and opinions condemned-the isolated Puritan poet, Milton; the master of allegory, Bunyan; and the eloquent preacher, Richard Baxter. Conquest of PRODUCTION OF THE GREAT ENGLISH HEROIC EPIC, "PARADISE LOST," BY JOHN Milton. Milton writes his "Defensio Populi Anglicani" in reply to Salmasius's attack. "John Milton is not only the highest but the completest type of Puritanism." His life covered the entire period in which Puritanism was a distinct element in English affairs, and just as the Puritan Age is independent in its characteristics of other epochs in English history, so his immortal epics stand apart by themselves in English literature, unparalleled and unrivalled. "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained" are world poems, and bear comparison with Homer's "Iliad" or Dante's "Divina Commedia." CULMINATION OF ENGLISH ALLEGORY UNDER JOHN BUNYAN. Foundation of English Psychology by John Bunyan (1628-1688) was the son of a tinker, and brought up amidst ignorance, pov Thos. Hobbes (1588-1679), who first pro pounded in Great Britain that sensation al philosophy human knowl -claiming all edge to be derived from sensation-which culminated in the next centu ry been upheld in Age by the with David Hume, and has the Victorian psychologists Bain, Herbert G. H. Lewes. early associated and Descartes, J. S. Mill, Spencer, and Hobbes was with Galileo and for some erty, and profanity. From his childhood he heard voices, saw visions, and was tortured with an overpowering sense of sin. At length converted through the efforts of his religious wife, he became a Baptist, and devoted much of his time to the study of the Bible, of which he acquired a thorough knowledge. In the civil war he took the side of Cromwell. Having become a leader among the Baptists, he was persecuted after the Restoration, and for refusing to abstain from preaching was confined for twelve years in Bedford jail, where he wrote his famous allegory, "Pilgrim's Progress." On his release from prison he was chosen teacher of the Baptist congregation at Bedford, and became widely reputed for his eloquent and impressive discourse. "Pilgrim's Progress" (the first part published in 1678) is perhaps more widely known than any other book except the Bible. It has been translated into nearly all European lan- The Leviaguages, and is read with equal relish by old and young, learned and ignorant, rich and poor. is Puritan to the core, and the pilgrimage of Christian is but the record of the life of an ecstatic Puritan of the time, "seen through an imaginative haze of spiritual idealism, in which its commonest incidents are heightened and glorified." Bunyan's other important works were The Holy War," another religious allegory, and "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners," a religious autobiography of remarkable interest. time matheto the exiled prince afterl matical tutor wards Charles II. His chief works were than," published in 1651, and "The Behe It moth." OUTBURST OF THEOLOGICAL ELOQUENCE "THE AUGUSTAN AGE OF ENGLISH DIVINITY." of Cromwell as The prose literature of the time of the Civil | Appointment War and of the Commonwealth was of a religious nature, and on account of its abundance Lord Protector monwealth, of the Com |