fore.

From the stern and gloomy morals of the Commonwealth we now turn to the
debaucheries of the court,--from cropped heads and dark cloaks to plumes
and velvet, gold lace and embroidery,--to the varied fashions of every
kind for which Paris has always been renowned, and which Charles brought
back with him from his exile;--from prudish morals to indiscriminate
debauchery; from the exercisings of brewers' clerks, the expounding of
tailors, the catechizing of watermen, to the stage, which was now loudly
petitioned to supply amusement and novelty. Macaulay justly says: "The
restraints of that gloomy time were such as would have been impatiently
borne, if imposed by men who were universally believed to be saints; these
restraints became altogether insupportable when they were known to be kept
up for the profit of hypocrites! It is quite certain that if the royal
family had never returned, there would have been a great relaxation of
manners." It is equally certain, let us add, that morals would not have
been correspondingly relaxed. The revulsion was terrible. In no period of
English history was society ever so grossly immoral; and the drama, which
we now come to consider, displays this immorality and license with a
perfect delineation.

The English people had always been fond of the drama in all its forms, and
were ready to receive it even contaminated as it was by the licentious
spirit of the time. An illiterate and ignorant people cannot think for
themselves; they act upon the precepts and example of those above them in
knowledge and social station: thus it is that a dissolute monarch and a
subservient aristocracy corrupt the masses.

DRYDEN'S PLAYS.--Although Dryden's reputation is based on his other poems,
and although his dramas have conduced scarcely at all to his fame, he did
play a principal part in this department of literary work. Dryden made
haste to answer the call, and his venal muse wrote to please the town. The
names of many of his plays and personages are foreign; but their vitality
is purely English. Of his first play, _The Duke of Guise_, which was
unsuccessful, he tells us: "I undertook this as the fairest way which the
Act of Indemnity had left us, as setting forth the rise of the great
rebellion, and of exposing the villanies of it upon the stage, to
precaution posterity against the like errors;"--a rebellion the
master-spirit of which he had eulogized upon his bier!

His second play, _The Wild G