happens, this class had, in the late seventeenth century, a figure almost as representative as Bunyan. Samuel Pepys was a busy man of affairs, a clerk of the Navy Board, and secretary of the Admiralty under James II. Between 1660 and 1669 he kept a diary in cipher, which he left with his library to Magdalen College, Cambridge. It was deciphered and published in the nineteenth century, and was recognized at once as a personal document of great interest. Pepys's diary is scarcely to be called literature. It is a transcript of the observations, doings, thoughts, and feelings of a commonplace burgher, all set down with the greatest fidelity. If Pepys goes on a picnic he mentions the time of starting, the dishes of the luncheon, the substance of the conversation by the way, the company he met, the sheep which he saw ("the most pleasant and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life"), the shepherd whose little boy was. reading the Bible to him, the flowers, the glow-worms which came out in the evening, and the slight accident by which he sprained his foot. In its detail the diary reflects the patient, industrious habits by which business and science were to thrive in the next century-for Pepys was a scientist and President of the Royal Society. In its uniformity of tone, its lack of emphasis and dramatic interest, it illustrates again the sober modernity which the citizen's life was beginning to assume. In its worldliness, its reflection of perfectly unashamed delight in mere comfort, well-being, and success, it shows the bourgeois ideal of life. And finally, the pleasure in his own life, which sustained the author in the mechanical toil of recording its happenings, is to be connected with the interest in human life in general, which was the force behind the development of realistic fiction in the following century. The Restoration Drama.-One result of the Restoration was to re-open the theatres of London, which had been closed since 1642. Though the great generation of dramatists had come to an end, the drama had retained its hold on the masses. Dryden found the production of plays the most lucrative of literary employments, and he wrote many, both comedies and tragedies, in prose, blank verse, and rhyme. His most characteristic dramatic works are his "heroic plays" in rhyme, the use of which he defended on the ground that "it bounds and circumscribes the fancy. For imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless that it is like an high ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it lest it outrun the judgment." Dryden's two dramatic masterpieces, however, All for Love and Don Sebastian are in blank verse. In the main, the tragedy of the period interests us only as a survival. The Restoration comedy, however, is a genuine reflection of the temper, if not of the actual life, of the upper classes of the nation. As practised by Shakespeare, English comedy had been romantic in spirit. However seriously it concerned itself with the essentials of human nature, it had comparatively little to do with the circumstances of actual human life. In Ben Jonson we find more realistic treatment of the setting, the social surroundings, of the play. Following his lead, the comedians of the Restoration, of whom William Wycherley and William Congreve are the chief, devoted themselves to picturing the external details of life, the fashions of the time, its manners, its speech, its interests. For scene they turned to the most interesting places they knew, the drawingrooms, the coffee-houses, the streets and gardens of London. Their characters were chiefly people of fashion, and their plots, for the most part, were love intrigues,-both often enough. uninteresting and improbable. For these deficiencies, however, the dramatist made up in part by the brilliancy of his dialogue. In tendency these plays are, almost without exception, immoral; they represent the reaction of the playgoing public against Puritanism. They are anti-social, in that they represent social institutions, particularly marriage, in an obnoxious or ridiculous light. This anti-social influence of the plays of the time was clearly perceived, and protest was not lacking. In 1698 a clergyman, Jeremy Collier, published his "Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage," and Dryden, who was one of the dramatists particularly attacked, admitted the justice of the rebuke. Its immediate effect was not sufficient to do away with the coarseness of Restoration comedy, but in Steele's plays, early in the next century, the drama is in full alliance with the forces which were making for morality and decent living. REVIEW OUTLINE.-The Restoration is held by some writers to mark the beginning of modern English history. In the period which followed, English life begins to assume its modern form, and to show the beginnings of that political, commercial, industrial, artistic, and social development, the results of which make the England of to-day. It was, in the main, a period of peaceful growth. How do you account for its calmness? What was the character of Charles II.? What were some of the events of his reign? What caused the Revolution of 1688 ? Contrast the age of Charles II. with the century which preceded it. Why was the former a period of interest in society? How did the ideal of social conduct as opposed to that of individual expression affect literature? Where did men find rules for writing? What was the influence of France? How did poetry in its form reflect the tendency of the time? What is the heroic couplet? How did the writers of this period differ from Chaucer in their use of it? Outline the early life of Dryden, and mention his early poems. What is the general subject-matter of these poems? Sketch the political situation out of which Dryden's great series of satires arose. What was his position before and after 1688? Mention his chief later works. What was the place of the coffee-house in the literature of the time? In what sense was Dryden a literary dictator? Give your view of Dryden's personal character. Explain that character in the light of his age. State your opinion of his poetic quality. Why did Dryden choose political subjects? What is the form of his poetry? What virtues has it? What was the importance of criticism in Dryden's time? Compare his reform in prose with that in verse? What is Hudibras? Look up several passages from it in a book of quotations. Who was Samuel Pepys? Of what class was he representative? What is the nature of his diary? How does it reflect the ideals of the time? Who were the chief writers of comedy in the Restoration? What is the difference between the Restoration comedy and the comedy of Shakespeare? What is the moral tendency of the former? Who protested against it? Was the protest effective? (See also page 201.) READING GUIDE.- "Palamon and Arcite" is an excellent example of Dryden's poetry, and if the poem be compared with its original, Chaucer's "Knight's Tale," the result of making over a story to suit the classic taste of the time may be observed. Numerous school editions are accessible. Of Dryden's other poems, " Alexander's Feast" should be read as an example of his power of sustaining lyric effects through a variety of metres. The poem is included in The Golden Treasury. Of Dryden's prose, examples may be found in Craik's English Prose. Selections from Pepys's Diary may be chosen from the several volumes in Cassell's National Library, and no better pictures of English life of the time are to be found. For fuller treatment of the general condition of society in the Restoration, the third chapter of Macaulay's "History of England" will be found crowded with interesting details. The life of Dryden, by Mr. Saintsbury in the English Men of Letters series (Harper), is satisfactory; and the pupil will enjoy R. L. Stevenson's vivid portrait of Pepys in "Memories and Portraits" (Scribner). Extended criticism of the Restoration writers is given in Mr. Edmund Gosse's "From Shakepeare to Pope." An appreciation of the comedy of the Restoration may be gained from Thackeray's lecture on Congreve, in "The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century." TABULAR VIEW FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE DEATH OF DRYDEN: 1660-1700 HISTORICAL EVENTS NON-DRAMATIC LITERATURE DRAMA Later JOHN DRYDEN. The Wild Gallant, 1660-1685 JOHN MILTON, 1608-1672. CHARLES II. Severe laws against Dissenters, 1660-1663 War with the Dutch. 1665 Great Plague (afterwards de |