ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



2ft 



torrow, Homo surpri$e, and BO on. The lint below contains those 



only that must commonly occur. 



KEY TO EXERCISES IN LESSONS IN GERMAN. 



EXERCISE 183 (Vol. III., page 380). 



1. \vrcu 5ic auf ba, mat i<$ 3(;neu faae? 2. 3a, id> b,otc auf ta, 

 HM 5 ic faa.cn. 3. (Slaubcn Sic, tan cr ii'iili.j auf jencu i>orjV)(aa. 6i>rcn 

 unrt V 4. ifflcnn @ic auf ta* actyttn, >ua tcr Scbrcr 31}nen vcrtrAjt, fo 

 crlangcn ic JTcnntniffe. 5. Xcnncn n>ir bet 3bncn Olcibcn, bi tcr Sturm 

 tucfniclaffcn bat ? 6. @obalt tcr JKc.jcn anfbort, nxvtcn Hnr unfcrc !Hcifc 

 fertfcfccn. 7. Cobalt nr itnfcrn I'cfircr crblicftcn, fyi-rtcn n>ir auf ju fpiclcn, 

 uuc firu-jcii an }it utrctbcn. 8. -ijuntcrte unb abcr -tjmntcrtc ccrlortn ifyr 

 S!cbcn bci tcr .'Ji'csolution in Sranfrcicb. 9. Slacbtcm fcinc unbctactytfame 

 peculation ilm ju runtc gcrtcbtct Ijattc, njurtc cr ttorftrbtigcr. 10. (53 

 gcrcicbt cincni flonigc jur ff^ro, n>cnn cr fein Sant in Srictcn rcgicrt. 11. 

 i'crjagc nicbt, tocnn tit ta lucf ntrbt Ktcbclt, otcr felbfl nxnn tu in ta 

 ticfi'te (Slcnt wrfunfcn bift ; tcnn tt faun JRatlj n>crtcn, cl)c tu cJ glaubfl, 

 tap tu allcr tcinct L'ctten burcty tie 5>orfebung cntfyobcn roirft. 



LESSONS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. XXI. 



THE RESTORATION PERIOD: THE DRAMATISTS 

 AND PROSE WRITERS. 



WB have already had to say something about the stage after the 

 Restoration, in speaking of the career of Drydcn. But with 

 all hi.s greatness as a poet, and all his famo as a play-writer 

 among his own contemporaries, Drydon's place amongst the 

 dramatists of his day is not, according to the unanimous 

 decision of modern critics, a high one. 



The tragic and comic drama were both alike diligently cul- 

 tivated in the period of which we are now speaking, and partly, 

 no doubt, through French influence and French example which 

 were then supreme, the line of demarcation between tragedy 

 and comedy was very carefully observed. 



In tragedy the highest place must be assigned to the un- 

 fortunate Otway. Thomas Otway was a man of good birth and 

 education, but his career, varied as it was in its incidents, was 

 one unbroken succession of misfortunes and distresses, and he 

 died at last in the most abject want and misery in 1685, when 

 only thirty-four years of age. The best of his tragedies, and 

 those upon which his fame now exclusively rests, are " The 

 Orphans" and "Venice Preserved." These plays show that 

 Otway possessed the power of pathos and the power of moving 

 our sympathies in a very rare degree. His conceptions of 

 character are powerful, if not always very natural, and his 

 style is vigorous and elevated. In his comedies, of which he 

 left a considerable number, Otway's genius shows to far less 

 advantage. His true domain was tragedy, and tragedy of the 

 saddest and most pathetic kind. 



Nathaniel Lee was also a writer of much tragic power, though 

 through all his plays there runs a vein of a kind of strange 

 wil.lnoss, which may be explained by the tendency to insanity 

 which on more than one occasion during his life became de- 

 veloped into actual madness. The best known of his pieces is 

 " The Rival Queens ; or, Alexander the Great." 



Thomas Southerne and Nicholas Rowe may be conveniently 

 mentioned here as belonging to t'.e same dramatic school with 

 1 those of whom we have spoken, though both of them in the 

 more active period of their lives were contemporaries rather of 

 Pope than of Dryden. Few plays appear to have enjoyed a 

 more genuine popularity than Southerne's tragedy of " Oroonoko." 

 Rowo was one of the most prominent of the men of letters of 

 his time. He edited the plays of Shakespeare, and filled the 

 office of poet laureate. Of his plays the most successful were 

 " Jane Shore " and " The Fair Penitent," the latter of which is 

 founded upon Massinger's " Fatal Dowry," of which we have 

 already given some account. 



Far more charaotorutie, however, than it* tragic stag* I* 

 the comic drams of the Rentoration. It in in it far more than 

 in any other branch of literature that we find the whole spirit 

 and temper of the Restoration reflected it* lightneas and 

 gaiety, iU utter want of earnestness or serious pnrpoae, it* 

 unenn, its rebellion against all role* as savouring of 

 Puritan austerity, its foreign tastes and sympathies. It* im- 

 morality is not like that which we find in ao many of the 

 Elizabethan comedies that groMnea* of thought and expres- 

 sion, that coarse animalism which always belong to an age of 

 great force and energy, but little refinement. The immorality 

 of the Restoration drama lies far deeper, and indicates a very 

 different tone and spirit in society. It is the immorality of an 

 age and class which knows no object worthy of pursuit but 

 pleasure, which not only ignores but despises every higher 

 principle, every noble end, and every more serious or earnest 

 pursuit. This is a spirit which has seldom been at all prevalent 

 in English society. And this has gone far to prevent the 

 comedies of the Restoration retaining with posterity anything 

 like the favour which they enjoyed in their own day ; and in the 

 present day their sheer indecency prevents their reproduction 

 on the stage. But we should convey a very false impression if we 

 led our readers to suppose that the dramatists of the Restora- 

 tion owed their success to their immorality or their frivolity. 

 In their faults they reflected the world they lived in. Their 

 genius was their own, and the greatest among them were men 

 of rare comic genius. The plays are full of the most humorous 

 delineations of character, are inexhaustible in variety of 

 amusing intrigues and incident, and sparkle with the highest 

 wit. 



The school of dramatists of which we are now speaking first 

 became prominent immediately after the Restoration, and was 

 distinctly its product, and for this reason we speak of it as 

 belonging to this period. But it must be remembered that 

 several of these dramatists, including the most distinguished of 

 them all, lived to see the final fall of the House of Stuart and 

 the accession of the reigning dynasty. The earliest of the 

 dramatists of this class was Sir George Etherege, a man who 

 presented a fair type of the cavalier in the days of his pros- 

 perity. His comedies are amusing, but their fame was soon 

 quite eclipsed by his more distinguished successors. 



William Wycherley was born in 1640, of a good family. He- 

 was educated in France, and returned to England, when the 

 exiled cavaliers were returning to enjoy their triumph in 

 England after the Restoration. He soon became the most 

 popular of dramatists, though by no means the most prolific. 

 Nor was he less successful in society than on the stage, his 

 brilliant wit, courtly manners, and handsome person securing 

 him an enviable position at the gay court of Charles II. But 

 with him, as with most others of his typo, court favour proved 

 uncertain, and pleasure passed with youth ; he fell into poverty, 

 purchased his release from want of James II., at the usual price, 

 by turning Roman Catholic in obedience to the royal com- 

 mand, and died in obscurity. His plays show in a very high 

 degree that resource and fertility of invention, that brilliancy 

 and brightness which are characteristic of the class of 

 dramatists to which he belonged ; but, in point of morality, 

 nothing can be more debased. He has been not unfairly 

 described as " the most licentious and hard-hearted of a 

 singularly licentious and hard-hearted school." The best of 

 his plays are " The Country Wife " and " The Plain Dealer." 



Sir John Vanbrugh was born in 1666, being the son of a 

 wealthy sugar-baker in London. The family was originally 

 Dutch, and was one of the many which settled in England 

 during the persecution of the Protestants under the Duke of 

 Alva. Of Vanbrugh' s education and early life very little is 

 known ; but he seems to have served for some time as a soldier 

 abroad. In later life he held positions of some dignity in the 

 Herald's College, and for his services of this nature was 

 kniphted by George I. But his real fame rests upon his 

 distinction in the two arts of architecture and the drama. 

 As an architect he acquired the highest reputation, though his 

 productions, of which Blenheim palace is the most important, 

 have been very variously judged by modern critics. As a 

 comic dramatist, his merits are very great. His characters are 

 drawn with singular freshness and clearness, and the conduct ol 

 his plots is admirable. Of his five comedies the best known 

 is, perhaps, " The Provoked Wife." Living as Vanbrugh did, 



