His

ties not only a competent part, but actually the main feature of his verse. A very learned man, of much original power, and endowed with a real though not a powerful vein of poctical genius, he was totally unable, or at any rate unwilling, to curb that fantastic spirit which appears equally in his sermons, which were very famous in their day, and in his poetry. works are stiff reading, the windings of his perverted ingenuity being often difficult to trace. Many other writers followed the affected strain adopted by Donne, but they are now nearly all forgotten with the exception of Abraham Cowley [1618-1667]. He was born in London, and educated at Westminster and at Cambridge. While very young he read and admired Spenser's "Faerie Queen," a poem which has exercised a vast influence over many juvenile bards, and was so fascinated with it that its perusal made him, as he says, irrecoverably a poet. When only fifteen years of age he published a volume of poems, which, if its abstract merits are not great, at any rate bears witness to the wonderfully precocious nature of his genius. At Cambridge, where he pursued his studies with great zeal, he wrote the greater part of his "Davideis," an unreadable epic, and two or three forgotten comedies. Ejected from Cambridge in 1643, on account of his Royalist opinions, by the Puritan visitors, he went to Oxford, where he gained great favour among prominent members of the King's party, “by the warmth of his loyalty and the elegance of his conversation." When Oxford surrendered to the Parliament, followed the Queen to Paris, where he became secretary to Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and was employed in such correspondence as the royal cause required, and particularly in ciphering and deciphering the letters that passed between the King and Queen, an employment of the highest confidence and honour." In 1647 appeared his "Mistress," a collection of amorous verses, making no pretence to genuine passion, and full of conceits, often highly ingenious, but very unsuitable to anything aspiring to the name of poetry. In 1656 he returned to England, where he was arrested as being in communication with the exiled party, but was soon

"he

Edmund Waller.

127

liberated on bail. In the same year he published his poems, with a preface expressing his earnest desire "to forsake the world for ever, by retiring to some of the American plantations." He then applied himself to the study of medicine; and received the degree of Doctor of Physic in 1657, but never practised. He had, however, a considerable interest in natural science, particularly in botany, and was one of the first members of the Royal Society. After the Restoration his loyalty was rewarded by the grant of certain lands of the annual value of about £300. He then retired to Chertsea, where he passed the evening of his life in the solitude he had so often longed for, without, however, finding that retirement had. all the advantages which his imagination had pictured it to possess.

Some of Cowley's shorter poems show that if he had not been under "metaphysical" influence he might have acquired great and permanent fame, if not in the higher walks of poetry, at any rate as a writer of gay songs and occasional verses. He had a highly inventive and ingenious intellect; his works convey a strong impression of great intellectual powers misused and wasted. His prose writings, which go into a very small volume, are excellent, and have none of the faults of his poems. "No author," says Johnson, "ever kept his verse and his prose at a greater distance from each other. His thoughts are natural, and his style has a smooth and placid equability, which has never yet obtained its due commendation. Nothing is far sought or hard laboured, but all is easy without feebleness, and familiar without grossness."

Among the "metaphysical" poets Denham and Waller are included by Johnson. But they can scarcely be said to belong to that school; occasional passages in their works may show its influence, but they are not pervaded by it. Denham [16151668] is remembered chiefly as the author of "Cooper's Hill," one of the earliest and one of the best of our descriptive poems. Waller [1605-1687] was one of the many men who shamefully changed sides at the Restoration, employing his pen first in commemorating the virtues of Cromwell, and then in pane

gyrising Charles II. "Elegant" is the term by which his verses, dealing largely with trifling subjects, may be best characterised. In the technical accuracy of his style, the smoothness of his numbers, and the conventional tone of his sentiments he preluded the school of Dryden and Pope, which long reigned paramount in English poetry.

IV.

THE RESTORATION.

Butler; Dryden; Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Sheridan ; Otway, Lee, Rowe; Barrow, Tillotson, Stilingfleet, Sherlock, South; Gilbert Burnet; Locke; Newton.

N

EVER was a monarch welcomed with more general and heartfelt joy than was manifested when, in May, 1660, Charles II. landed at Dover. Not only those staunch cavaliers who through evil report and through good report had remained steadfast in their allegiance to the "good old cause," but the nation at large felt as glad to be relieved from the iron sway of Puritanism as a schoolboy, wearied of tasks and punishments, is when the longwished-for holiday-time comes at last. All the numerous class of men who make a point of adhering to the winning side, whatever it may happen to be, hastened to abjure Puritanism, and added their voices to the general shout of delight which hailed the arrival of King Charles. "It is my own fault," said the King, "that I had not come back sooner; for I find nobody who does not tell me that he has always longed for my return." Immediately the fierce reaction against the enforced moralities and decencies of the Commonwealth set in. The stern moroseness of the Puritans had made their very virtues so odious, that it was considered that a loyal gentleman could not better show his detestation of the Commonwealth and his joy at the Restoration than by indulging in vice openly and unashamed. The king himself, dissolute, cool, clever, ready to sacrifice anything to the pursuit of pleasure, and

never making even the faintest attempt to cover his excesses with a cloak of outward decency, was a fair specimen of the courtiers who surrounded him; not so heartless and brutal as some, but as sensual, and as destitute of honour and conscience as the worst of them could be. The new literature was a fair reflex of the prevalent social morality. The shameless indecency of some of the noble versifiers of the period was more than surpassed by the deliberate obscenity, the gross pandering to vicious tastes, the heartless immorality of the comic drama, which aspired to be, and no doubt was, a faithful representation of the fashionable society of the time. In a moral atmosphere so fetid and unhealthy, literature of the highest kind could not be expected to flourish, yet even during this age we find not a few writers whose works the world would not willingly let die.

About the close of 1662 appeared a poem which in striking and witty fashion gave forcible expression to the long-accumulated hatred of the Puritans which thousands had nourished in their breasts during the time of the Commonwealth. The work was admirably adapted to suit the prevailing taste, and its success was instantaneous. The King read it and was much amused by it; in all the coffee-houses its merits were discussed by the wits; everywhere it was applauded as the most successful of the many assaults made on the fallen party. This poem was the first part of the "Hudibras" of Samuel Butler, who, though a man of fifty, had not, till the time of its publication, given any evidence of his talents as a writer. Of the story of his life not very much is known. He was born in 1612, the son of a farmer in Worcestershire, and received a good education at the cathedral school of that town. It is not known for certain whether he was ever sent to either of the universities. In his youth he acted as secretary to Thomas Jefferies, a justice of peace in Worcestershire, and he afterwards held a similar office in the household of the Countess of Kent in Bedfordshire. In the latter situation he had the advantage of an excellent library, when, doubtless, he amassed a large store of that curious erudition which we find in “Hudibras.” There