Bon. Yes, sir, I'm old Will Boniface, pretty well known upon this road, as the saying is.

Aim. O Mr. Boniface, your servant!

Bon. O sir! What will your honour please to drink, as the saying is?

Aim. I have heard your town of Litchfield much famed for ale; I think I'll taste that. Bon. Sir, I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; 'tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy; and will be just fourteen year old the fifth day of next March, old style.

Aim. You're very exact, I find, in the age of your ale.

Bon. As punctual, sir, as I am in the age of my children. I'll show you such ale! Here, tapster, broach number 1706, as the saying is. Sir, you shall taste my Anno Domini. I have lived in Litchfield, man and boy, above eight-and-fifty years, and, I believe, have not consumed eight-and-fifty ounces of meat.

Aim.

At a meal, you mean, if one may guess your sense by your bulk.

Bon. Not in my life, sir; I have fed purely upon ale, I have eat my ale, drunk my ale, and I always sleep upon ale.

Enter Tapster with a bottle and glass, and exit.

Now, sir, you shall see!

[Pours out a glass.] Your worship's health! Ha! delicious, delicious: fancy it Burgundy, only fancy it, and 'tis worth ten shillings a quart. Aim. [Drinks.] 'Tis confounded strong!

Bon. Strong! it must be so, or how should we be so that drink it?

Aim. And have you lived so long upon this ale, landlord?

Bon. Eight-and-fifty years, upon my credit, sir; but it killed my wife, poɔr woman, as the saying is.

Aim. How came that to pass?

Bon. I don't know how, sir; she would not let the ale take its natural course, sir; she was for qualifying it every now and then with a dram, as the saying is; . . . the fourth carried her off. But she's happy, and I'm contented, as the saying is.'

One or two higher spirits reach the passions of the other age,— Dryden in tragedy; and by his side a younger contemporary, Otway, in whose Venice Preserved we encounter the sombre imagination of Webster, Ford, and Shakespeare. Jaffier, a youth of merit and promise, but the sport of chance, rescues from a watery grave a senator's daughter, a genuine woman, who from that hour loves him; three years have passed since their vows were plighted; she is his wife, against the wishes of her proud sire; misfortune comes; he has just now left the presence of the offended aristocrat with his curse and his heart is heavy between love and ruin:

O Belvidera! Oh! she is my wife

And we will bear our wayward fate together,

But ne'er know comfort more."

She who has been his dependent and ornament in happier hours, proves his stay and solace in calamity:

'My lord, my love, my refuge!
Happy my eyes when they behold thy face!
My heavy heart will leave its doleful beating
At sight of thee, and bound with sprightly joys.
Oh, smile as when our loves were in their spring,
And cheer my fainting soul!

Were in their spring! Has, then, my fortune changed thee?
Art thou not, Belvidera, still the same,

Kind, good, and tender, as my arms first found thee?
If thou art altered, where shall I have harbour?
Where case my loaded heart? Oh! where complain?
Bel. Does this appear like change, or love decaying,
When thus I throw myself into thy bosom,
With all the resolution of strong truth?

I joy more in thee

Than did thy mother, when she hugged thee first,
And blessed the gods for all her travail past.
Jaf. Can there in woman be such glorious faith?
Sure, all ill stories of thy sex are false!

Oh, woman, lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man; we had been brutes without you!
Angels are painted fair, to look like you.'

These are but rare notes. For the most part, he moves, like the rest, in the murky waters of the great current. Like them, he is obscene; and from all, we have found it difficult to extract, without revolting decorum, something to suggest the new rhetoric, the sentiments and maxims of polite society, and the abyss from which that society and our literature have since ascended. Even here there were tokens of a more serious and orderly life, signs of a reaction in literary feelings and moral habits. A great reformer arose to accelerate the revolution, Jeremy Collier, a heroic Anglican, who threw down the gauntlet to the champions of the stage, and was victorious.

Prose.-The Restoration may be taken as the era of the formation of our present style. Imagination was tempered, transports diminished, judgment corrected itself, artifice began. Among the most agreeable specimens of the new refinement in form are the conversations of the drama. They foreshadow the Spectator. The easy and flowing manner of Cowley is continued by the polished Temple, a man of the world, a lover of elegance, who, if he assuages grief, must do it with dignity and facility:

'If you look about you, aud consider the lives of others as well as your own; if you think how few are born with honor, and how many die without name or children; how little beauty we see, and how few friends we hear of; how many diseases, and how much poverty there is in the world; you will fall down upon your knees, and instead of repining at one affliction, will admire so many blessings which you have received from the hand of God."

Observe how the following sentence glides along:

'I have indeed heard of wondrous pretensions and visions of men possessed with notions of the strange advancement of learning and science, on foot in this age, and the

progress they are like to make in the next; as the universal medicine, which will cer tainly cure all that have it; the philosopher's stone, which will be found out by men that care not for riches; the transfusion of young blood into old men's veins, which will make them as gamesome as the lambs from which 'tis to be derived; a universal language, which may serve all men's turn when they have forgot their own; the knowledge of one another's thoughts without the grievous trouble of speaking; the art of flying, till a man happens to fall down and break his neck; double-bottomed ships, whereof none can ever be cast away besides the first that was made; the admirable virtues of that noble and necessary juice called spittle, which will come to be sold, and very cheap, in the apothecaries' shops; discoveries of new worlds in the planets, and voyages between this and that in the moon to be made as frequently as between York and London.'

Smoothness was the distinguishing quality of the man, as it is of his manner, which sometimes relaxes into prolixity or remissness. Dryden has sounder taste, as well as more vigor. The rest are inferior in point of ornament, but, for the most part, have the same fundamental character-ratiocination. Hobbes is surprisingly dry, idiomatic, concise, strong. The most celebrated sermons are instruments of edification rather than models of elegance. Barrow is geometrical, revises and re-revises, then revises again, dividing and subdividing, having only one desire to explain and fully prove what he has to say. Tillotson has no rapture. no vehemence, no warmth. He wishes to convince, nothing more South, an apostate Puritan, is colloquial, energetic; more popula than these, because he is more anecdotic, abrupt, pointed,— vulgar, having the plain-dealing and coarseness which belong to the stage, and which his insincerity permits.

These sermons, once so famous, are now hardly read at all. They are outlived, in a far humbler sphere, by the little work of a London linen-draper, Izaak Walton, whose Complete Angler has what they have not,-the touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. Its natural description, as also its lively dialogue, has seldom been surpassed. A single extract can hardly suggest its abundance of quaint but wise thoughts, its redolence of wild flowers and sweet country air:

'Well, scholar, having now taught you to paint your rod, and we having still a mile to Tottenham High Cross, I will, as we walk towards it in the cool shade of this honeysuckle-hedge, mention to you some of the thoughts and joys that have possessed my soul since we two met together. And these thoughts shall be told you, that you also may join with me in thankfulness to the Giver of every good and perfect gift for our happiWe have been freed from these and all those many other miseries that threaten human nature: let us therefore rejoice and be thankful. Nay, which is a far greater mercy, we are free from the unsupportable burden of an accusing, tormenting conscience—a misery that none can bear: and therefore let us praise Him for His preventing grace, and say, Every misery that I miss is a new mercy. Nay, let me tell you, there may be many that have forty times our estates, that would give the greatest part

ness....

of it to be healthful and cheerful like us, who, with the expense of a little money, have eat and drunk, and laughed, and angled, and sung, and slept securely; and rose next day, and, cast away care, and sung, and laughed, and angled again, which are blessings rich men cannot purchase with all their money Let me tell you, scholar, I have a rich neighbour that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, and more money, that he may still get more and more money; he is still drudging on, and says that Solomon says, "The hand of the diligent maketh rich"; and it is true indeed: but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy for it was wisely said by a man of great observation, "that there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them." And yet God deliver us from pinching poverty, and grant that, having a competency, we may be content and thankful! Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound with riches, when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness; few consider him to be like the silkworm, that, when she seems to play, is at the very same time spinning her own bowels, and consuming herself; and this many rich men do, loading themseives with corroding, to keep what they have probably unconscionably got. Let us therefore be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, for a quiet conscience.

Let me tell you, scholar, that Diogenes walked one day, with his friend, to see a country fair, where he saw ribbons, and looking-glasses, and nut-crackers, and fiddles, and hobby-horses, and many other gimcracks; and having observed them, and all the other finnimbruns that make a complete country fair, he said to his friend: "Lord, how many things are there in this world of which Diogenes hath no need!"'

Evelyn, an amiable cavalier, begins the class of gossiping memoirs, so useful in giving color to history. He writes a Diary, with the tone of an educated and reflecting observer. picture of the court of Charles II:

Here is a

I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming, and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulness of God-it being Sunday evening-which this day se ennight I was witness of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarin, etc.; a French boy singing love songs in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at basset round a large table, a bank of at least £2000 in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who were with me made reflections with astonishment. Six days after, all was in the dust.'

And a sketch of the Great Fire:

ed Sept.-This fatal night, about ten, began the deplorable fire near Fish Street, London.

3d Sept.-I had public prayers at home. The fire continuing after dinner, I took a coach with my wife and son, and went to the Bankside in Southwark, where we beheld that dismal spectacle, the whole city in dreadful flames near the water side; all the houses from the bridge, all Thames street, and upwards towards Cheapside, were now consumed; and so returned exceedingly astonished what would become of the rest. The conflagration was so universal and the people so astonished, that from the begin. ning, feeling I know not what despondency or fate, they hardly stirred to quench it, so that there was nothing heard nor seen but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures, without at all attempting even to save their goods, such a strange consternation there was upon them, and as it burned in breadth and length, the churches, public halls, exchange, hospital, monuments and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner from house to house, and street to street, at great distances one from the other. For the heat, with a long set of fair and warm weather, had even ignited the

air, and prepared the materials to conceive the fire which devoured after an incredible manner, houses, furniture, and everything. Here we saw the Thames covered with goods floating, all the barges and boats ladened with what some had time and courage to save, as, on the other side, the carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strewn with movables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. O, the miserable and calamitous spectacle! such as haply the world has not seen since the foundation of it, nor can be out-done till the universal conflagration thereof. All the sky was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seen above forty miles round about for many nights. God grant that mine eyes may never again behold the like; who ever saw above 10,000 houses all in one flame? The noise and crackling and thunder of the impetuous flames; the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses and churches, was like a hideous storm, and the air all about so hot and inflamed that at the last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forced to stand still and let it burn on, which they did for near ten miles in length and one in breadth. The clouds of smoke also were dismal, and reached upon computation near fifty miles in length. . . . London was, but is no more.'

Readers who take an interest in the progress of civilization, will be more grateful to the garrulous old Pepys for his journal, than to professed historians for the military involutions and political intrigues that fill some of their pages. His memoranda, recorded solely for his own eye, include almost every phase of public and social life. Thus:

'Aug. 19.-... Home to dinner, where my wife had on her new petticoat that she bought yesterday, which indeed is a very fine cloth and a fine lace; but that being of a light colour, and the lace all silver, it makes no great show.'

'Nov. 29.-Lord's Day.—This morning I put on my best black cloth suit, trimmed with scarlet ribbons, very neat, with my cloak lined with velvet, and a new beaver, which altogether is very noble, with my black knit silk cannons1 I bought a month ago."

'Dec. 21.-To Shoe Lane to see a cock fight at a new pit there, a spot I never was at in my life; but, Lord! to see the strange variety of people, from parliament men, to the poorest 'prentices, bakers, brewers, butchers, draymen and what not, and all these fellows one with another cursing and betting. I soon had enough of it.`

Mr. Pepys at divine service:

May 26, 1667.-My wife and I to church, where several strangers of good condition came to our pew. After dinner, I by water alone to Westminster to the parish church, and there did entertain myself with my perspective glass up and down the church, by which I had the great pleasure of secing and gazing at a great many very fine women, and what with that, and sleeping, I passed away the time till sermon was done. . . .

Aug 18.-. . . I walked towards Whitehall, but, being wearied, turned into St. Dunstan's Church, where I heard an able sermon of the minister of the place; and stood by a pretty modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand; but she would not, but got further and further from me; and, at last, I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again—which, seeing, I did forbear, and was glad I did spy her design. And then I fell to gaze upon another pretty maid, in a pew close to me, and she on me; and I did go about to take her by the hand, which she suffered a little and then withdrew. So the sermon ended."

Tries to admire Hudibras:

Nov. 28.-To Paul's Church-yard, and there looked upon the second part of Hudibras, which I buy not, but borrow to read, to see if it be as good as the first, which the world

1 Ornamental tops to silk stockings.