kind called heroic or rhyming plays, for which the taste and the model had been brought together from France by the returning court; they referred solely to very elevated historical characters, and were written in an inflated metaphysical style, as if intended to represent a superior sort of human nature; and all the lines terminated in rhyme. Such dramas had long been fashionable in the neighbouring country, where they were carried to their greatest height of perfection by the celebrated Racine and Corneille. The principal writer of them in England was Dryden, whose most celebrated plays of this kind are, The Indian Emperor, and The Conquest of Grenada. Sir Robert Howard, brother-in-law to Dryden, and the Earl of Ossory, were likewise writers of heroic plays, very eminent in their own day, but now quite forgotten. It is still a mystery by what means common audiences were prevailed upon to tolerate a kind of dramatic representation involving such absurdities. At length, in 1671, these dramas were exposed to so much ridicule by a burlesque play entitled The Rehearsal, of which the chief author was the Duke of Buckingham, that they were soon after banished from the stage. The subsequent tragedies of Dryden were divested of rhyme, and written in a more rational strain; and of these, All for Love and Don Sebastian are the most celebrated. The same style was followed by other writers, and thus a return was in some measure effected to the natural taste of the preceding era. But no tragedy of this period, not even those of Dryden, has taken such hold of the stage as the Venice Preserved of THOMAS OTWAY, which appeared in the year 1682. Otway, who died soon after, at the age of thirty-four, was the son of a clergyman, and by profession a player and a poet, though unsuccessful in both capacities. After a life spent in the utmost poverty, degradation, and wretchedness, he is said to have died in consequence of eating, when almost famished, a roll which had been given to him in charity. Out of ten plays written by this unfortunate author, Venice Preserved is the only one now in repute; it exhibits very successfully some of the darker and more violent passions of human nature, beautifully

relieved and contrasted with the sorrows of an unoffending and virtuous female.

The comedies of this period are as remarkable for their representations of the lowest scenes of debauchery, as the tragedies were at first distinguished for their highflown dignity. Previously to the Commonwealth, the impurity of the comic productions of Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ben Jonson, was in the course of being somewhat repressed; and, if decency had not fallen into contempt through the patronage conferred on it by the enemies of royalty, the theatre might have now been comparatively pure. But as the friends of the monarchy made a point of considering looseness of manners as the test of loyalty, and virtue as the characteristic of a man who was a foe to Church and State, the theatre naturally resumed, at the Restoration, all, or more than all, its former license. The comedies produced by Dryden and others, are full of gross and shameless language, and turn upon events which never occur except among men abandoned to the most detestable vices. The king, it appears, was fond of the Spanish comic drama, which abounds in profligate intrigue, plot, and surprise, carried on by means of disguises and ambuscades; and accordingly it became the business of the English comic writers to introduce these peculiarities into their own compositions. Dryden's principal comedies are The Spanish Friar, The Maiden Queen, and Amphitryon; and they are all constructed on this principle, so unfavourable to the decencies of domestic life. Next to him, the most celebrated comic writer of the period was WILLIAM WYCHERLY (1640-1715), whose Plain Dealer and Country Wife were for a long time popular plays, but are now neglected. Wycherly had some wit and power of delineating character; but all his merits are lost in the coarse licentiousness which characterised every thing he wrote.

PROSE WRITERS.

-The productions of this period, in the department of prose, bear a high character; possessing much of the nervous force and originality of the preceding era, they

make a nearer approach to that elegance in the choice and arrangement of words, which has since been attained in English composition. The chief writers in philosophical dissertation are Milton and Cowley (already spoken of as poets), Sidney, Temple, Thomas Burnet, and Locke; in history, the Earl of Clarendon and Bishop Burnet; in divinity, Barrow, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Sherlock, South, Calamy, Baxter, and Barclay; in miscellaneous literature, Fuller, Walton, L'Estrange, Dryden, and Tom Brown. Bunyan, author of the Pilgrim's Progress, stands in a class by himself. Physical science, or a knowledge of nature, was at the same time cultivated with great success by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Dr. Barrow, Sir Isaac Newton, and some others, whose writings, however, were chiefly in Latin. An association of men devoted to the study of nature, which included these persons, was formed in 1662, under the appellation of the Royal Society-a proof that this branch of knowledge was beginning to attract a due share of attention.

MILTON began, at the commencement of the Civil War, to write pamphlets against the established Episcopal Church, and continued through the whole of the ensuing troublous period to devote his pen to the service of his party, even to the defence of that boldest of their measures, the execution of the king. His stern and inflexible principles, both in regard to religion and to civil government, are displayed in these essays; some of which were composed in Latin, in order that they might be read in foreign countries as well as in his own. Milton wrote a History of England, down to the time of the Norman Conquest, which does not possess much merit; a Tract in favour of the liberty of the press, distinguished by great eloquence and dignity of language; an Essay on Education, containing many striking original views; and a Treatise on Christian Doctrine (in Latin), which was not published till the year 1825. His prose writings in general refer to subjects of such temporary interest, that they are not now much read. They display, however, much of the sublime and ethereal spirit of the man, and might be referred to for passages of the utmost poetical excellence.

The prose works of COWLEY extend but to sixty folio pages, and consist chiefly of philosophical essays. It is allowed that he writes with more natural ease, and is therefore more successful in prose than in verse.

The Civil War naturally directed the minds of many philosophical men to the subject of civil government; in which it seemed desirable that some fixed truths might be arrived at, as a means of preventing future contests of the same kind. Neither at that time nor since has it been found possible to lay down a theory of government to which all mankind might subscribe; but the period under our notice nevertheless produced some political works of very great merit. The Leviathan of Hobbes, which we have found it convenient to allude to in an earlier section, was the most distinguished work on the monarchical side of the question; while the Oceana of Sir James Harrington, published soon after the accession of Cromwell to supreme power, and some of the treatises of Milton, are the best works in favour of the republican doctrines. ALGERNON SIDNEY, who was executed in December, 1683, upon a groundless charge of high treason, wrote Discourses on Government, which were not published till fifteen years after his death. They are chiefly designed to show the necessity of a balance between the popular and the monarchical parts of a mixed government, and have obviously a particular reference to the political evils of his own time, to which, unfortunately, he was himself a victim.

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE (1628-1698), who held several important offices during the reign of Charles II., and was one of the few eminent men of that period who preserved both public and private virtue, wrote various memoirs, letters, and miscellanies, upon subjects of morality, philosophy, and criticism. They have been frequently printed, and are still admired. Šir William was the first patron of the celebrated Jonathan Swift. DR. THOMAS BURNET published, in 1680, a work of considerable magnitude, entitled The Sacred Theory of the Earth, which presents a conjectural account of the geological formation of this planet and all its various vicissitudes. The work is totally worthless in a scientific view, from its want of a basis of ascertained facts; but it

abounds in fine composition and magnificent imagery. The same learned person published various other works of a theological character, which are considered as in some measure at variance with revelation. He died in 1715.

The greatest philosophical writer of the period was JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704), who was originally reared for the profession of medicine, but spent the most part of his life in studious retirement. Locke was not only a man of extraordinary ability, but of singularly amiable character, and perfect simplicity of manners. His principal work is the Essay on the Human Understanding, published in 1690; the chief peculiarity of which, as distinguishing it from other works on the mental faculties, is, that, rejecting the doctrine which presumes men to have ideas born with them, to be in time developed, it endeavours to show that the senses and the power of reflection are the only sources of what we know. Mr. Locke also wrote a treatise on Toleration, of which he borrowed the plan from Jeremy Taylor; an essay on Education; and Two Treatises on Civil Government, the design of which was to defend the condition of affairs as settled by the Revolution. All these works contain views much in advance of the age in point of liberality, and add to the reputation of the author. As a specimen of the philosophical writing of the period, we give Locke's notions respecting

PRACTICE AND HABIT.

We are born with faculties and powers capable of almost anything, such at least as would carry us farther than can be easily imagined; but it is only the exercise of those powers which gives us ability and skill in anything, and leads us toward perfection.

A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever be brought to the carriage and language of a gentleman, though his body be as well-proportioned, and his joints as supple, and his natural parts not any way inferior. The legs of a dancing-master, and the fingers of a musician, fall as it were naturally, without thought or pains, into regular and admirable motions. Bid them change their parts, and they will in vain endeavour to produce like motions in the members not used to them, and it will require length of time and long practice to attain but some degrees of a like ability. What incredible and astonishing actions do we find rope-dancers and tumblers bring their bodies to; not but sundry in almost all manual arts are as wonderful; but I name those which the world takes notice of for such, because on that very account they give money to see them. All these acquired motions, beyond the reach and almost the conception of unpractised spectators, are nothing but the mere effects of use and