off to full
advantage by contrast. France, indeed, had at that time an empire over
mankind, such as even the Roman Republic never attained. For, when Rome
was politically dominant, she was in arts and letters the humble pupil
of Greece. France had, over the surrounding countries, at once the
ascendency which Rome had over Greece, and the ascendency which Greece
had over Rome. French was fast becoming the universal language, the
language of fashionable society, the language of diplomacy. At several
courts princes and nobles spoke it more accurately and politely than
their mother tongue. In our island there was less of this servility than
on the Continent. Neither our good nor our bad qualities were those of
imitators. Yet even here homage was paid, awkwardly indeed and sullenly,
to the literary supremacy of our neighbours. The melodious Tuscan, so
familiar to the gallants and ladies of the court of Elizabeth, sank into
contempt. A gentleman who quoted Horace or Terence was considered in
good company as a pompous pedant. But to garnish his conversation with
scraps of French was the best proof which he could give of his parts
and attainments. [172] New canons of criticism, new models of style
came into fashion. The quaint ingenuity which had deformed the verses of
Donne, and had been a blemish on those of Cowley, disappeared from our
poetry. Our prose became less majestic, less artfully involved, less
variously musical than that of an earlier age, but more lucid, more
easy, and better fitted for controversy and narrative. In these changes
it is impossible not to recognise the influence of French precept and of
French example. Great masters of our language, in their most dignified
compositions, affected to use French words, when English words, quite as
expressive and sonorous, were at hand: [173] and from France was imported
the tragedy in rhyme, an exotic which, in our soil, drooped, and
speedily died.

It would have been well if our writers had also copied the decorum which
their great French contemporaries, with few exceptions, preserved; for
the profligacy of the English plays, satires, songs, and novels of that
age is a deep blot on our national fame. The evil may easily be traced
to its source. The wits and the Puritans had never been on friendly
terms. There was no sympathy between the two classes. They looked on
the whole system of human life from different points and in different
lights. The earnest of each was th