In deserts where no men abide, "Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired; Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired. "Then die! that she The common fate of all things rare How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair." Of all Waller's songs I like this best, because it sounds most in earnest; for, after all, these early song-writers do not impress us as being very much in earnest in the tributes they pay to their Julias and Chloes and Sacharissas. Is it a charm or a defect of these dainty love-verses that they do not sound as if they came out of the depths of the heart? It may be a part of their charm that they make no large demands on our feeling. Thus, to go back to the elder poets and to read their lays is as restful as listening to that music that asks of the listener neither thought nor tears. They make no pretence of intensity or earnestness; they are as frank as was Waller when his Sacharissa, grown an old woman, asked, "When will you ever sing such songs about me again?" and he answered, “When you are again young and beautiful." So these poets sang to youth, to beauty, the bright eye and the red lip, the bloom on the The soul behind all these peach, the unwithered rose. they did not celebrate, except in rare verses, which are a solitary burst of music. Hence they carol like birds in the sky, clear, fresh, and full of joyousness, like the lark, "that singing still doth soar, and soaring ever singeth." INTRODUCTORY, EFORE going further with the history of the literature BEFO to touch upon a political struggle which came to an issue in the reign of Charles I., - the contest between the Puritans and the Royalists. The Puritans, who were a small body in Elizabeth's reign, had been constantly growing stronger. They were the party of extreme Protestants, who, not satisfied with the separation of the English Church from the Church of Rome, wanted many other reforms. They clamored for a change in manners, in politics, and in the church. Their leaders believed in plain meeting-houses and simple forms of worship, and opposed the ceremonies retained in the English Church, because they reminded them of the Church of Rome, which was so odious to them. In politics, their ideas were as revolutionary as their ideas in religion. The greater part of them belonged to the people of the middle class, who had done more than any other for the prosperity of England, but had not shared the privileges of the nobles, and began to feel they were shut out from many rights which they ought to claim. There were among them a strong spirit of revolt and many republican ideas. In the time of James I. a good deal had been said in the court circles and among the nobility about the "divine right of kings," which was especially hateful to the Puritans, who believed that the only power not to be questioned was the power of God, and denied divine right to either pope or kings. True, not all the nobles held these extreme ideas of monarchy. Walter Raleigh opposed them, and in some of his latest letters, written to the young Prince Henry, the eldest son of James I., while he was in the Tower, he urged him not to accept the extreme ideas of a monarch's power over his people. "Preserve to your future subjects,” Raleigh writes in one of these letters, “the divine right of being free agents, and to your own royal house the divine right of being their benefactors." But king and court were not so wise as was Raleigh, and, unfortunately, the young Prince Henry, who listened to and admired his counsels, died, and left the throne to the prince's narrow-minded brother, Charles I. If he had lived, we should probably have had a different chapter in English history, in which Oliver Cromwell would have been left out. In manners and modes of living, also, the Puritans favored a reform. They were inclined to wear clothes of plain cut and sober colors; they cropped their hair and shaved their faces, and so got the name of Roundheads from their opponents. Their speech was serious and full of Bible quotations, and it was claimed that their constant psalm-singing had given their voices a nasal twang. They took up for their guidance many of the laws of the Hebrews under Moses, and gave their children Hebrew names taken from the Old Testament. They were austere in conduct, discouraged games and amusements, and were especially hostile to the theatre. You can imagine, without my telling you, what an influence all these ideas would have on literature. The Royalists, who were also called Cavaliers, were in broadest contrast to the Puritans. The Cavalier loved mirth and revelry. He kept merry Christmas each year, and went to see a play when in London. He wore brightcolored silks and velvets, and his hair and beard were long and flowing. He had not been so long weaned from the Church of Rome that he could feel as if he were in church when he sat on a bench inside the four bare walls of a Puritan "meeting-house," and heard a preacher without a robe. He wanted cathedral and altar, fine singing in his choir, and the imposing ceremonies of worship. Above all, like every "true-born Englishman," he loved his sovereign, whether |