Montgomery says, "Puritan fanaticism closed all places of amusement; it condemned mirth as ungodly; it was a sin to dance round a Maypole or to eat mince pie at Christmas. Fox hunting and horse racing were forbidden, and bear-baiting prohibited, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.""

Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 and his eldest son Richard succeeded to the protectorate only to be deposed after eight months of inefficient attempts to carry out the plans of his father. The sudden fall of Tumble-Down-Dick" marked the close of Puritan control and the restoration of the Stuarts in the person of Charles II, who came to the throne in 1660.

The English revolution brought about such changes not only in the government of the country but also in the religion, habits of thought and daily customs that the literature of the Puritan epoch could not be like that of the lively days of Elizabeth. Lightness and frivolity disappeared and in their place came the serious thought and devout belief of the Roundheads. Moreover, an age of war and bloodshed is not conducive to literary effort, especially when the cause for which the war is fought is one that involves the daily interests not only of the actual contestants but of the would-be quiet onlookers. The period, too, was a brief one. The reader is inclined to forget

this when he thinks of the events that crowded its daily history. When Shakespeare died Milton was eight years old.

PROSE

Though the period is short, it is worthy of most careful consideration. Its one great writer was Milton, and he is the greatest poet excepting Shakespeare that England has known. Bunyan stands for the prose of the epoch, though if Milton's fame as a poet had not been of such transcendent greatness he might himself have retained his reputation as a writer of strong argumentative prose. The writings of the time are full of religious experiences and personal theological beliefs. There were other prose writers but their chief title to remembrance is based upon the high principles they advocated rather than upon the excellence of their literary style.

Izaak

It was the period in which Jeremy Walton Taylor wrote his Holy Living and Dying, which to-day is a classic with people of strong religious tendencies; Richard Baxter wrote his The Saints' Everlasting Rest; Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) penned his Religio Medici; and Izaak Walton (most charming figure of all) gave us The Compleat Angler which every lover of nature and the piscatorial art still reads with unfailing delight. Hear what he says of angling :

"But turn out of the way a little, good scholar, towards yonder high honeysuckle hedge; there we'll sit and sing whilst this shower falls so gently upon the teeming earth, and gives yet a sweeter smell to the lovely flowers that adorn these verdant meadows.

"Look, under that broad beech-tree, I sat down when I was last this way a-fishing, and the birds in the adjoining grove seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree, near to the brow of that primrose-hill; there I sat viewing the silver streams glide silently towards their center, the tempestuous sea; yet sometimes opposed by rugged roots and pebble stones, which broke their waves, and turned them into foam: and sometimes I beguiled time by viewing the harmless lambs, some leaping securely in the cool shade, whilst others sported themselves in the cheerful sun, and saw others craving comfort from the swollen udders of their bleating dams. As I thus sat, these and other sights had so fully possessed my soul with content, that I thought, as the poet has happily expressed it, "'Twas for that time lifted above earth, And possessed joys not promised in my birth.'

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