them, and rushing to them, had doubtless made an end of them himself, but that he fell into one of his fits (for he sometimes in sunshiny weather fell into fits), and lost, for a time, the use of his hands; wherefore he withdrew, and left them as before, to consider what to do." Then the prisoners consult together what is best to do. Christian is almost of the opinion that they would better die at once; but Hopeful sustains him, and persuades him to endure a little longer. "With these words did Hopeful, at present, moderate the mind of his brother; so they continued together in the dark that day in their sad and doleful condition. 66 'Well, towards evening the Giant goes down into the dungeon again to see if his prisoners had taken his counsel. But when he came there he found them alive; and, truly, alive was all: for now, what for want of bread and water, and by reason of the wounds they received when he beat them, they could do little but breathe. But I say he found them alive; at which he fell into a grievous rage, and told them that, seeing they had disobeyed his counsel, it would be worse with them than if they had never been born. "At this they trembled greatly, and I think that Christian fell into a swoon; but coming a little to himself again, they renewed their discourse about the Giant's counsel, and whether they had best take it or no. Now Christian again seemed for doing it; but Hopeful made reply as followeth : 666 "My brother,' said Hopeful, rememberest thou not how valiant thou hast been heretofore? Apollyon could not crush thee, nor could all thou didst hear or see or feel in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. What hardship, terror, and amazement hast thou already gone through, and art thou now nothing but fears? Thou seest that I am in the dungeon with thee, a far weaker man by nature than thou art. Also, this Giant hath wounded me as well as thee, and hath also cut off the bread and water from my mouth, and with thee I mourn without the light. But let us exercise a little more patience. Remember how thou playedst the man at Vanity Fair, and wast neither afraid of the chain nor cage, nor yet of bloody death; wherefore, let us, at least to avoid the shame that it becomes not a Christian to be found in, bear up with patience as well as we can.' "Now, night being come again, and the Giant and his wife being in bed, she asked him concerning the prisoners, and if they had taken his counsel; to which he replied: They are sturdy rogues; they choose rather to bear all hardships than make away with themselves.' "Take them into the castle yard to-morrow, and show them the bones and skulls of those thou hast already despatched, and make them believe, ere a week comes to an end, thou wilt tear them in pieces, as thou hast done their fellows before them.' "So when the morning was come, the Giant goes to them again, and takes them into the castle-yard, and shows them as his wife had bidden him. 666 These,' said he, 'were pilgrims, as you are, once, and they trespassed on my grounds, as you have done; and when I thought fit I tore them in pieces, and so within ten days I will do you; go get you down to your den again.' "And with that he beat them all the way thither. They lay, therefore, all day on Saturday in a lamentable case as before. Now, when night was come, and when Mrs. Diffidence and her husband the Giant were got to bed, they began to renew their discourse of their prisoners, and withal the old Giant wondered that he could neither by his blows nor counsels bring them to an end. And with that his wife replied, 66 6 “‘I fear,' said she, ‘that they live in hopes that some will come to relieve them, or that they have picklocks about them, by the means of which they hope to escape.' 666 'Sayest thou so, my dear?' said the giant; 'I will therefore search them in the morning.' "Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out into this passionate speech: 'What a fool,' quoth he, ‘am I, thus to lie in this stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty. I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle.' "Then said Hopeful, That is good news, good brother; pluck it out of thy bosom, and try.' "Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle yard, and with his key opened that door also. After that, he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; but that lock went desperately hard, yet the key did open it. Then they thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking that it waked Giant Despair, who, hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on and came to the King's highway, and so were safe, because they were out of his jurisdiction. 66 And when they were gone over the stile, they began to contrive with themselves what they should do at that stile to prevent those that should come after them from falling into the hands of Giant Despair. So they consented to erect there a pillar, and to engrave upon the side thereof a sentence: Over this stile is the way to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, who despiseth the King of the celestial country, and seeks to destroy his holy pilgrims.' Many, therefore, that followed after, read what was written, and escaped the danger. This done, they sang as follows: "Out of the way we went, and then we found Whose castle 's Doubting, and whose name 's Despair.'" I cannot better end my praise of this book, for which I have a profound love and reverence, founded on long and very early acquaintance, than by quoting a few words from Macaulay's essay on it: "There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language; no book which shows how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been improved by all it has borrowed. Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he dared not name John Bunyan in his verse, for fear of moving a sneer. ... We live in better days, and we are not afraid to say that although there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two great creative minds: one of those minds produced Paradise Lost, and the other, Pilgrim's Progress." XXXIV. ON THE DRAMA OF THE RESTORATION; JOHN DRYDEN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. TH HERE was a great falling off in dramatic poetry after Shakespeare's death, and that branch of literature seemed to decay as quickly as it had grown and blossomed. The Puritans, while they were in power, opposed the stage and all work written for it. They were inclined to think life too serious a business for amusement of any sort. This gloom and severity helped to cause the great reaction which followed when the Royalists came back to the control of affairs. As soon as Charles II. was proclaimed king, a dramatic merry-making began. Sir William Davenant, who had been poet-laureate to Charles I., took the management of a theatre, and imported such fine scenery from France as had never before graced the bare boards of the English stage. The witty men of the time, many of them nobles of Charles's court, began to write plays. Everybody thronged to the theatres, among the rest Samuel Pepys, who in January, 1661, writes in his diary: "To the theatre, where was acted Beggar's Bush, it being very well done, and here the first time that ever I saw women come upon the stage." Up to this date all the women's parts had been acted by men or boys, and one of the innovations of this new revival of the drama was to introduce actresses. Some of the poets I have before mentioned among the lyric poets were play-writers. Sir John Suckling, Abraham Cowley, Sir Charles Sedley, all were successful in that line. In the reign of Charles II. the dramatists were nearly as plenty as they had been in the Elizabethan age. Many of their works, which are now worthless as literature, are written in an easy, natural dialogue, that flows from the pen just as it falls from the lips; but one finds in these plays few touches of nobleness, or the indication of any good purpose in the writing. The worst vices of the dissolute age are faithfully reflected in these comedies. Some of the more marked names among the dramatists are Davenant, Otway, Lee, Shadwell, Etherege, and Wycherley. DAVENANT belonged both to the time of Charles I. and Charles II. He was a fertile writer of plays of the school founded in the Elizabethan age, and was an imitator of the great Shakespeare. OTWAY wrote one or two plays showing a good deal of power, and is interesting from his sad fate. He died of starvation, after a life of struggle and poverty. WYCHERLEY was a gifted writer of comedy, sparkling with wit and full of invention. If he had lived in an age of better manners and morals, his comedies might have delighted us at the present day; but as they held the mirror up to the vices of his own time, and reflected manners that are disgusting to a purer age, his works are almost entirely unknown. 1631-1700 The greatest dramatist who appeared after the great line of Elizabethan dramatists had vanished was JOHN DRYDEN. And it is not only as a dramatic poet that he holds a place in literature. He wrote odes, lyrics, satires, epics, poetry in almost every vein, and besides this, vigorous and manly prose. Dryden holds a high position in the history of literature, and had an influence over his own age which lasted long after his death. He helped to form a new taste in poetry, and to fix rules for poetic art which were more exact and elegant than had been used before. What we are most impressed with in the great Elizabethan poets is the spontaneity of their genius; we feel that they were poets born rather than made. In Dryden's time there was a marked change poetry began to be considered an art more than ever before; rules were laid down, criticism on form was more severe. This was partly through the influence of French taste, which had been exerted over the new school of writers who sprang up in the court of Charles II., many of whom had lived in France while that prince was exiled from his country. The French style was an artificial, highly |