royal court, the ambition of nearly every writer of his day, he accepted a small charge in the country where for a score of years he lived a simple bachelor life, taking religious duties none too seriously, apparently, and finding during his long exile his greatest solace in recording in verse the simple pleasures of rustic life. He is best known today, perhaps, of all the Cavalier poets. Prose works Taylor and Belonging more strictly to Puritan and Cavalier times than either the songs or the dramas, which are but survivals from Elizabethan days, is a considerable quantity of prose sermons, histories, political and scientific tracts, etc., for the most part without the pale of pure literature, though it would be easy to select half a dozen prose writers whose works are still rated as classics. Bishop Taylor's Holy Living and its companion piece Holy Dying are perhaps the best representatives of devotional literature; but of all the prose writers of the period save one, the securest place has been gained by Izaak Walton, a man of little education, but a book-lover, who was for many years a London shopkeeper, though the last twenty years of his long life were spent in the palace of his friend the Bishop of Winchester. He was the first to write short, informal biographical sketches; but he is better known by his Complete Angler, published in his sixtieth year, which remains not only the best but the only manual on the art and pleasure of fishing that is recognized as belonging unmistakably to pure literature. It is a delightful volume. Needless to say, the greatest writer of the century is John Milton, who with Shakespeare constitutes the supreme glory of our literature. It is well to remember how closely related these two Milton men are in point of time; Milton was eight years old when Shakespeare died. He is often termed the last of the Elizabethans, so unmistakably do his writings reflect the influence of the Renaissance. This is true of his earlier poems, written during his seven years at Cambridge and the succeeding five years passed at Horton, his father's country seat, in a continuation of his study of Greek, Latin, Italian, and English literature. The very best of the lyric poetry mentioned in an earlier paragraph is Milton's, composed in his young manhood days. It is truly Elizabethan in spirit. Following this early period came twenty years during which Milton wrote little save prose, much of it controversial, for he became the literary champion of the Puritan cause. It was in his later years that he returned to poetry. Then it was that, blind, poor, his life for a time in danger because of the prominent part he had played during the Commonwealth, he composed his great epic Paradise Lost, soon followed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. In these as in his earlier works we see the influence of his close study of Greek and Latin classics, yet even more marked is the influence of the Bible. Paradise Lost is itself the story of Adam's fall, based upon Old Testament narrative. It marks the conclusion of that long line of sacred poetry which began with the Caedmon paraphrases. Thus it is right to say that in Milton are combined the best that the Renaissance and the Reformation brought to England. Milton was the son of a wealthy, cultured London scrivener, a Puritan who loved music and was himself a musician of ability. He received every Bunyan advantage that could come from a good Puritan home, from college education, and from travel abroad. In marked contrast is John Bunyan, the second great Puritan of the century. He was the son of a poor kettle-maker, received but little schooling, read few books, and never looked upon literature save as a means for converting sinners. He became what we should call an evangelist, and in time a famous preacher of great influence throughout England. Many years of his life were spent in jail, for in those days dissenting preachers were considered law-breakers, and while in jail he composed many of his works. His masterpiece, The Pilgrim's Progress, stands alone, the greatest allegory in all English literature and, next to the Bible, the one book that has most greatly influenced the moral life of the English people. It should be noted that Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress, the only great Puritan masterpieces, belong chronologically to the next period, for they were not published till after the Restoration The Puritans in 1660. As a class, the Puritans were not art-loving; to many of them music and poetry and art were vanities, or worse. Literature, save that of great genius which no unfavorable conditions can ever suppress, could not be expected from people holding such views. Yet to think that these two masterpieces are the only products of Puritanism would be as great an error as to think that Puritanism came to an abrupt end when the banished Stuarts returned to England. The political supremacy of the Puritans was brief, but their influence upon national character was lasting; and the character of a nation is sure to be reflected in its literature. CHAPTER XXVII RESTORATION PERIOD: 1660-1700 John Dryden 1631-1700 Plays, satires, translations, critical essays; †Alexander's Feast Rebound from When Charles II and his followers returned to England after their long banishment, there was a notable rebound from the straight-laced Puritan rule of Commonwealth days. The theatres, closed since 1642, were reopened, and for the first time the French custom of permitting women to act was followed. Few of the older dramatists remained, but new playwrights straightway appeared whose clever, witty comedies picturing the follies of polite society delighted the town. We should like to believe these pictures overdrawn, so shamelessly dissolute are they; but we have only to read the diary of Samuel Pepys, a London tailor's son who rose to be secretary to the admiralty, to be convinced that fashionable London was as immoral as it was gay. This gossipy diary in which Pepys recorded, in cipher, the minutest details of his life, was intended for his eye alone. Its testimony is therefore reliable. The French influence Many have attributed this state of affairs to the King's long stay in France. Certain it is that writers of tragedy were influenced by French models in which rhyme took the place of blank verse, and the classical unities of time, place, and action were observed. How inferior Restoration tragedy is to Elizabethan may be seen by comparing Dryden's All for Love with Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, two plays based upon the same historic events. Although the dramatists constructed their plays after French rules, they recognized Shakespeare's genius. He was considered somewhat barbarous and antiquated, however, and a number of his plays were rewritten, the plot construction changed, the language modernized, and rhyme substituted for blank verse! Satirical poetry Of the non-dramatic literature of this period, it is noticeable that a large part is satirical poetry. One of the most popular books of the day was Samuel Butler's Hudibras, a burlesque romance ridiculing the Puritans. It was an age of criticism and satire, and poetry was made to do much of the mean work of political warfare now carried on by our newspapers. But the political wrangles of those early times when the Whig and Tory parties were newly formed are so far away from us that the long, clever, biting satires of the day are no longer read save by students. As for prose, the Restoration period was preëminently one of prose, most of which lies without the pale of pure literature, if we except the comedies already A period of mentioned. Sermons, histories, scientific prose preworks, and the like, we may disregard, eminently though pieces of much less excellence have received notice in earlier periods. When in 1662 the Royal Society (for the cultivation of the natural sciences) was founded, one of its regulations urged the members to strive after clearness, directness, and conversational ease in their writings rather than after cleverness and ornamentation. Purity, clearness, combined with ease and polish, formed the ideal which chastened Restoration prose generally. No attempt was made to render it poetical, after the manner of the Elizabethans. |