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594 produce; but De Foe, Addison, Steele, Thomson, and Pope, if they do not lift us to the highest creative plane, give us glimpses and traits of what is found there. For the rest, however full of power, there hangs a tone of "town," of a



vicious and sordid era, about them, of artificial and by no means refined life, a flavour of the grovelling of the politics which distinguished the period, and of the low views and feelings which occupied and surrounded the throne during the greater portion of this term. The monarchs were engaged in wars, the statesmen in miserable cabals for their own power, and in miserable subservience to the mediocre and selfish monarchs who ruled after the death of William and Mary, and these things gave a tone to society which had a baneful effect on literature. The Georgian era has been praised as the Augustan era of England; we have only to see what went before it and what has come after it, to appreciate it at its true value. There was no lack of learning, much ability, wit, and smartness, but little comparatively of the grandeur and the magnanimous beauty of first-rate minds. There is much that we must admire, more that we must condemn; but, with the exception of "Robinson Crusoe," Thomson's "Seasons," some of the papers of Addison in the "Spectator," and some of the poems of Pope, little; that we embrace with that unreserved and cordial love with which we chug to the great works of our noblest writers. Some of the writers of the last period were still existing in this. Dryden was living, and wrote some of his most perfect works, as his "Fables," and his "Alexander's Feast," as well as translated Virgil, after the Revolution. He was still hampered by his miserable but far more successful rivals dramatic rivals, amiable dramatic rivals, Shadwell and Elkanah Settle. Nathaniel Lee produced in William's time his tragedies, "The Princess of Cleve," and his "Massacre of Paris." Etherege was yet alive; Wycherley still poured out his licentious poems; and Southerne wrote the greater part of his plays. His "Oronooka" and his "Fatal Marriage" were produced now, and he received such prices as astonished Dryden. Whilst Dryden never obtained more than a hundred pounds for a play, Southerne obtained his six or seven hundred. We may satisfy ourselves as to Dutch William's appreciation of poetry by the fact that Shadwell was his first poet-laureate and Nahum Tate the next. Dr. Nicholas Brady and Nahum Tate made the version of the Psalms which still disgraces our church service. Sir William Temple, Baxter, Sir George Mackenzie, Stillingfleet, and Evelyn, as well as some others flourishing at the end of the last period, still remained.

PROSE WRITERS.

Amongst the earliest of these may be mentioned the theological authors. Cumberland was the author of a Latin treatise, "De Legibus Nature," in which he successfully combated the infidelity of Hobbes. Bull, who, as well as Cumberland, became a bishop, had distinguished himself before the revolution by his "Harmonia Apostolica," an anti-Calvinistic work, and by his "Defensio Fidei Nicenæ." In 1694 he published his "Judicium Eccllesiæ Catholcæ." John Norris, of the school of Cudworth and Henry More, and nearly the last of that school called the English Platonlsts, published, besides many other works, his "Essay on the Ideal World" in 1701 and 1702. He also wrote some religious poetry of no particular mark. Tillotson and South were the great authors of sermons of this period. Tillotson was one of the most popular preachers of the time, but may



be said to have done more good by his liberal and amiable influence at the head of the church than by his preaching. There is a solid and genuinely pious character about the sermons of Tillotson which suited the better-trained class of