are not surprised to learn that Bunyan imagined that he saw and conversed with these characters. The Pilgrim's Progress is a prose drama. Note the vivid dramatic presentation of the tendency to evil, which we all have at some time felt threatening to wreck our nobler selves :

"Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, 'I am void of fear in this matter; prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den that thou shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul.""

It would be difficult to find English prose more simple, earnest, strong, imaginative, and dramatic than this. Bunyan's style felt the shaping influence of the Bible more than of all other works combined. He knew the Scriptures almost by heart.

SUMMARY

The Restoration introduced a change in both the subject matter and the form of literature. With the Elizabethans and their successors, intellectual action was but the prelude to a richness of emotional life. They regarded man as a being who could love and feel joy and grief. The Restoration, on the other hand, looked at man chiefly from the coldly intellectual side. The masterpieces are for the most part couched in a satiric and a didactic vein. The finest work of Dryden, the great representative of the age, is his satiric and didactic verse. To the voice of nature speaking through the buds of spring, the russet leaves of autumn, or the song of bird, the poetry of the Restoration turns a deaf ear.

France exerted the predominating foreign literary infl ence. Increasing attention was paid to the ma

HAL. ENG. LIT.- - 15

expressing thought. Literature began its long period of worship at the shrine of formal excellence.

In prose there was a decided advance. Dryden's prose might have been written by a modern hand. Few modern writers have surpassed Bunyan in simplicity, energy, and imaginative power.

REQUIRED READINGS FOR CHAPTER VI

HISTORICAL

Gardiner,1 pp. 578-671; Green, pp. 616-700; Underwood-Guest, pp. 477-507; Guerber, pp. 275-290; Wakeling's King and Parliament, pp. 69-115; Traill, IV., 346–511.

LITERARY

Prose. An idea of the best prose of the age may be gained from the following works: —

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Craik's English Prose Selections, Vol. III., pp. 84-96), Dryden's critical Essays (Craik, III., 148-166, or No. 161 in Cassell's National Library, 10 cents), Locke's Conduct of the Understanding (Craik, III., 180-183).

In what does the secret of Bunyan's popularity consist in his style, or in his subject matter, or in both? What is specially noteworthy about his style? In what respect was his style appreciably affected by his familiarity with any other work? Select and comment on some of Dryden's best critical dicta. Why is Locke's work considered a classic? How does it indicate the spirit of the age? In what respects does the prose of this age show advance?

Poetry. Read the selections from Butler's Hudibras, in Ward's English Poets, Vol. II., pp. 400-408; from Dryden's Alexander's Feast (Ward, II., 478); from Absalom and Achitophel (Ward, II.. 454). As a specimen of Dryden's argumentative or didactic verse, read the opening lines of Religio Laici (Cassell's National Library, No. 98), or the selections in Ward, II., 463–468.

1 For full titles, see list at end of Chap. I.

What characteristic of the age is reflected in Hudibras? What are the qualities of this new school of poetry, of which Dryden is the most famous exponent? What are his special excellences and defects? Compare him with Shakespeare and Milton.

WORKS FOR CONSULTATION AND FURTHER STUDY

(OPTIONAL)

Sydney's Social Life in England from the Restoration to the Revolu

tion.

Macaulay's History of England.

Taine's History of English Literature, Book III., Chaps. I., II., III. Gosse's History of Eighteenth Century Literature begins with 1660. Garnett's The Age of Dryden.

Phillips's Popular Manual of English Literature, Vol. I., pp. 375

434.

Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature, pp. 312–341.

Saintsbury's Life of Dryden.

Macaulay's Essay on Dryden.

Lowell's Essay on Dryden, in Among My Books.

Dryden's Essays on the Drama, edited by Strunk.

Fowler's Life of Locke.

Ward's English Poets, Vol. II., pp. 396–496.

Craik's English Prose Selections, Vol. III., pp. 1–229.

Froude's Life of Bunyan.

Venable's Life of Bunyan.

Macaulay's Essay on Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress.

CHAPTER VII

THE FIRST FORTY YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY,

1700-1740

Ideals of the Age. The greater part of the eighteenth century in England was marked by the existence of a low moral standard. It was an age of double dealing and corruption. The political situation was partly responsible for this. In 1688 James II. was driven from England because of his tyrannical and lawless methods. His son-in-law and daughter, William and Mary, succeeded him. For more than fifty years after James had been dethroned, he, and after him his son and grandson, made repeated efforts to return. Many of the leading men of the nation tried to keep the favor of the exiled princes as well as of the actual rulers. It was at times impossible to tell in which direction the balance would turn, hence double dealing was resorted to by many whose example had wide influence because of their prominent position.

The age was dull, unimaginative, and brutal. Drunkenness was extremely common. Not only the lower classes, but also ministers of state and women of fashion drank to excess. Bribery was the rule. The greatest prime minister of the age had for a motto: "Every man has his price."

Although hanging was the penalty for stealing a few shillings and for numerous other offenses, this punishment

seemed to have little restraining power. Men and women of fashion would go out in parties to see droves of poor wretches hanged. For minor' offenses, the culprits were tied fast in the pillory and often maimed for life with stones, bricks, and other missiles. All ranks of society felt the degrading influence of such brutality. In this soil nobility of soul and sympathy with one's kind did not thrive. The eighteenth century furnished Swift sufficient suggestions for his pictures of the Yahoos. Those who object to such pictures are merely resenting the fact that the ideals of the age left their mark on the literature. There was not a single writer with Bunyan's moral power, no Milton calling through a silver trumpet:

"Mortals, that would follow me,

Love Virtue; she alone is free." 1

Literary Form preferred to Matter. The desire for polish and veneer, which had become marked during the age of the Restoration, now attained the greatest intensity. There was not a single masterpiece of the creative imagination. The age was in one sense a critical one; that is, it was very particular about the way in which a thing was said. The matter was considered of far less importance.

In

The age lacked enthusiasm and moral earnestness; it lacked imaginative comprehension of higher realities. poetry there was nothing to correspond to the Shakespearean conception as embodied in the following lines:

"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name." ་་2

1 Comus, line 1018.

2 A Midsummer Night's Dre