364 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



EXERCISE 29. 



1. Tienen peras. 2. Tenernos plumas. 3. Ella tieue hambre. 4. 

 Tengo sed. 5. Tengo temor. 6. Teneinos trio. 7. Teneis una 

 lampara. 8. ,J Quieu tieue nueces ? 9. Tennis espejos, 10. <j Que 

 especie de botones tiene V. ? 11. i Tenernos marmol ? 12. Tengo tres 

 hijos y dos hijas. 13. Teneis tres hermanos. 14. Maria tiene mucba 

 couiianza en el juez. 15. Temamos hambre. 16. Vms. teniais con- 

 fianza en mi hermano. 17. i Teniamos botas ? 18. Tuvierou mnnteca 

 ayer. 19. Tuvimoa calentura ayer. 20. Tuvisteis sillas ayer. 21. El 

 zapatero ha teaido mucho cuidado. 22. He tenido mucho liierro. 

 23. Has teiiido tres hijas. 24. Hetnos tenido dos hijos. 25. Maria ha 

 tenido calentura. 26. Habeis tenido mucho dinero. 27. Teiidre un 

 candelero. 28. Ella tendra un tenedor. 29. Tendras calor. 30. 

 Tendremos sed. 31. Tened paz con todos los hombres. 32. Tenga 

 plumas. 33. Tengau miel. 3-4. Quiero que mi madre tenga harina. 

 35. Probable es que tengan latnparas. 36. Quiero que yo tenga 

 medias de seda. 37. Es posible que tengais hambre. 38. No era 

 cstrafio que tuviesen peras. 39. No era estrafio que vmd. tuviese 

 aceito. 40. Si tuvieses botas, yo tendria zapatos. 41. No creo que 

 Pedro haya tenido rnanteca. 42. \ Ojala no hubieran tenido esos 

 libros ! 43. Si mis hijos tuvieran paciencia tendran suceso. 



LESSONS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. XV. 



THE CIVIL WAK AND THE COMMONWEALTH : PKOSE. 

 THE period upon which wo are now entering 1 presents in the 

 character of its literature the strongest contrast to that which 

 preceded it. In the Elizabethan ago wo saw the nation for the 

 first time fully roused from the long torpor of the dark ages, 

 and brought under the influence of that great intellectual 

 revival which throughout all Europe accompanied the restoration 

 of learning. We saw the nation, in the new-found strength of its 

 early manhood, seeking a vent for its energies in war, in travel, 

 in discovery, and above all in literature. In its literature we 

 find an eager pursuit of knowledge for its own sake ; a keen 

 search for every form of artistic beauty and intellectual plea- 

 euro. A period of great prosperity and unexampled national 

 glory left the genius of the age free to pursue its own ends in 

 its own ways. Controversies there were, no doubt, and of no 

 small importance, but they had not yet made their way into 

 the hearts of the people, or pressed the literary powers of the 

 nation into service on either side ; and consequently the leading 

 characteristics of the literature of the period are, besides its 

 power and extent, above all things, freedom and variety. In 

 the period to which we now come everything is changed. A 

 conflict, such as England had never seen since the miserable 

 days of the Wars of the Roses, divided and exhausted the nation. 

 Men opposed one another, not from mere prejudice in favour of 

 this or that candidate for power : their differences lay deeper. 

 In religion they began with the very bases of belief, included 

 the whole of their creed and forms of worship, and extended 

 to the minutest details of practice. Nor were men less pro- 

 foundly divided upon all that relates to the political and social 

 constitution. And these contests were so engrossing as to 

 absorb, or at least direct, the whole intellectual energy of the 

 nation. The most striking qualities in the literature cf the 

 Civil War and the Commonwealth are earnestness and con- 

 centration, and an intensely religious spirit. Shakespeare is, 

 in literature, the leading spirit of the one age ; Milton of the 

 other. 



One special circumstance affecting the character of this litera- 

 ture, and strengthening the contrast between it and the pre- 

 ceding age, ought not to bo overlooked. The great glory of the 

 Elizabethan period was . it3 drama. The dominance of the 

 Puritans was the death of the drama ; the fanatics of that party 

 closed the theatres and proscribed the dramatic profession. 



It follows naturally from the character of the times that the 

 prose literature bears a far higher proportion, both in extent 

 and in importance, to its poetry than in any former ago.. 



The controversy between Protestantism and the Church of 

 Rome, a controversy which in the preceding generation had 

 been carried on with very different weapons, now largely 

 occupied the deepest thinkers and most learned men of the age ; 

 and scarcely less absorbing was the contest between the three 

 chief schools within the ranks of Protestantism in England, the 

 Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents, even Milton 

 himself having, as we shall see hereafter, thrown all his energies 

 into this latter controversy. 



John Halea was born towards the close of the reign of Eliza- 



beth, and lived till nearly the end of the Commonwealth. He 

 was a divine of vast learning and great powers as a reasoner, 

 and his style is admirable. As a controversialist, he took the 

 Episcopalian side, as against the strongly Puritan parties, and, 

 Like all other men of that day who expressed their own opinions 

 boldly and openly, he suffered much for his honesty when his 

 opponents were in power. Ho was also a determined antago- 

 nist of the claims of the Church of Rome. 



Scarcely less famous than Hales in his own day, and even 

 more so with posterity, was his contemporary, William Chil- 

 lingworth. Chilling worth, while a young man, was converted 

 to the Roman Catholic religion, but he subsequently returned to 

 bis original faith/ and became one of its most powerful cham- 

 pions against the Roman system. His great work is an elabo- 

 rate defence of the Protestant position, entitled " The Religion 

 of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation." 



But by far the most important to the student of literature 

 among the theological writers of this period is Jeremy Taylor. 

 Taylor was born at Cambridge, in 1613, of very humble parent- 

 age. Ho received his education first at a grammar school in 

 that town, and afterwards at Caius College in the university. 

 The great reputation which he acquired at the university, fol- 

 lowed, it is said, by an accidental introduction to Archbishop Laud, 

 led to his advancement in the Church and his connection with 

 the Court party. Throughout the Civil War he attached him- 

 self to the party of the king, and, as chaplain to the army, fol- 

 lowed the fortunes of his royal master in the field. After the 

 final triumph of the Parliament over the king, Taylor lived, for 

 the most part, in retirement ; but, as he continued to write 

 freely in opposition to the dominant party, ho sometimes suffered 

 for his opinions at their hands. After the Restoration, Taylor's 

 fidelity to the royal cause was rewarded by his appointment to 

 the bishopric of Down and Connor. He died in Ireland seon 

 afterwards, in 1667. 



Among all the great men whom the Church of England has 

 produced, there is none to whom the members of that Church, 

 are accustomed to look up with more affectionate admiration 

 and pride than Jeremy Taylor. It is not alone his genius, but 

 still more, the purity and beauty of his character and the 

 devotion of his life, which have secured for him this regard. 

 And his works hold almost, if not quite, the first place among 

 the standard classics of his Church. Ho was a very volu- 

 minous writer, and his works are of various classes. His 

 devotional works are those which are in the present day the best 

 known, and upon which his fame mainly rests. The chief 

 among them are "The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living; " 

 "The Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying;" and "The Life 

 of Christ, the Great Exemplar." His numerous sermons,, 

 though less generally read in the present day than the works we 

 have mentioned, aro fully equal to them in beauty and power. 

 Of his works of an argumentative character, the most note- 

 worthy aro his "Apology for Fixed and Set Forms of Worship," 

 a work whose purpose sufficiently appears from its title ; and 

 his "Liberty of Prophesying," an argument in favour of 

 religious toleration. The student of literature who desires to 

 form some idea of Jeremy Taylor's powers, cannot do better 

 than select the last-named book for study. In judging of the 

 real liberality of Taylor's principles, it must bo remembered, 

 however, that when ho wrote this book, he was on the boaten 

 side, and the weaker party is always and necessarily in favour 

 of toleration. On the other hand, when we seo the narrow 

 limits within' which Taylor would confine toleration, we must 

 bear in mind the age in which ho wrote, and that in limiting 

 toleration as he does, ho did only what the most advanced 

 thinkers of his age did. Milton asserts these restrictions upon 

 toleration more strongly than Taylor does. Taylor was ex- 

 ceptional in the clear doctrines of toleration which ho laid down, 

 not in the qualifications which he placed upon them. 



The peculiar merit of Jeremy Taylor's writings is the marvel- 

 lous beauty of his style. In this he stands, probably, foremost 

 in the golden age of English prose. It is true that he is not 

 always free from pedantry; and one cannot find in Taylor 

 single passages of such surpassing splendour as may be met 

 with in Milton's prose works. Taylor's great power lies in 

 the equal flow of his eloquence, never deformed by harshness 

 or crabbedness, always musical and always dignified, unfailing 

 in wealth of illustration and in variety of structure. For this 

 very reason, because his charm lies not so much in the peculiar 



