crowd listened with admiration, and who soon became what the journalists of our own time have been calleda fourth estate of the realm.

Such are a very few of the features which help us to form a notion of England at the close of the seventeenth century.*

We must now mention the literary history of England since the time of Shakspere and Bacon. The latter part of the seventeenth century in England, in spite of the troubles which agitated the country, was prolific in great men in almost every branch of literature, if we except the drama, which, from the time when, under Shakspere and Jonson, it reached its culmination, gradually declined. This was owing to the predominance of the Puritans, who were much opposed to the amusements of the stage. The Long Parliament gave the old drama a final blow by a decree closing all the theatres in 1642. *

We shall first mention the names of some distinguished divines and theological writers. Among those belonging to the Church of England were Bishop Hall, Jeremy Taylor, two most eloquent preachers of the times of the Protectorate and Restoration. Somewhat later appeared South, long a favourite Court preacher; Tillotson, an amiable, accomplished, and tolerant primate, and the especial favourite of Queen Mary; and Barrow, an admirable reasoner on theological and philosophical subjects.

The ranks of the Nonconformists produced many zealous and able theologians. The subtle, versatile,

* See Macaulay's Hist. vol. i. chap. 2.

and laborious Baxter; the placid and lofty John Howe; the learned Owen; and the greatest allegorist of any age, John Bunyan, the Bedfordshire tinker. All these last mentioned flourished shortly before the revolution of 1688.

Turning to mental and moral philosophy, we find the name of Thomas Hobbes, who, beginning to write during the time of Charles the First, continued to do so after the restoration; Sir Thomas Browne, Burton, and John Locke, the great author of the "Essay on the Human Understanding." The age was prolific in books and pamphlets, discussing social, political, and ecclesiastical subjects. Most of these were of passing interest, but some have become classics. John Milton as almost as great a writer of prose as of poetry. His Areopagitica, or defence of the freedom of the press, is one of the noblest pieces of eloquence in the English tongue.

Among the historical writers of this period deserving mention here, are Lord Clarendon, who wrote the " History of the Great Rebellion," and of "His Own Times;" Bishop Burnet and Sir William Temple.

In poetry, the great names are John Milton, John Dryden, and Abraham Cowley. Milton had written lyrical and other poems in his youth before the civil wars. The great work of his later years, "Paradise Lost," was published in 1665.

Dryden was the literary chief of England from the middle of Charles the Second's reign to the accession of Queen Anne. Though he wrote many dramas once much admired, his fame with us depends on his satires,

the greatest of which is "Absalom and Achitophel," written against the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Duke of Monmouth in 1680.

The names just mentioned in various departments of literature, are among the most notable of those which adorned the seventeenth century.

CHAP. XXXIV.

QUEEN ANNE. 1702-1714.

QUEEN ANNE was the last sovereign of the house of Stuart. She was the second daughter of James the Second, and sister to the Pretender. She had married, some years before her accession, Prince George of Denmark; but the children of the marriage were all now dead. Anne was a woman of little firmness and mean abilities, but of a kindly disposition. She was easily governed by favourites, among whom the first and most influential was Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Anne was a firm supporter and warm friend of the Church of England, and she employed a considerable part of her income in assisting the poorer clergy of that Church, and in other charitable acts, which gained for her the title of the Good Queen Anne.

The war which she had inherited from her predecessor was begun and carried on with great vigour and The military glory of England was raised by the brilliant victories of Marlborough in Flanders and

success.

of the Earl of Peterborough in Spain. The power of France was broken by a succession of disastrous defeats in the Netherlands: Marlborough commanded the English army, and Prince Eugene their allies the Imperialists. The first great victory of Marlborough was Blenheim in 1704. In this hard fought battle the French lost 40,000 men. Marlborough was rewarded by the English Parliament by the grant of the royal manor of Woodstock, with Blenheim House, and a large pension.

He

In 1706 he again defeated the French at Ramilies, and in 1708 at Oudenarde and Malplaquet, on the borders of France. The military genius of Marlborough was great, but his moral qualities were low. was avaricious and miserly, and was accused of prolonging the war for his pecuniary advantages. These accusations were made by the Tory party, which was now becoming strong in Parliament and throughout the country. The Whigs had injured themselves by the foolish impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell, a bigoted divine imbued with high church and prerogative notions. Sacheverell, in a sermon preached before the lord mayor and aldermen, on the text "perils from false brethren,” accused the bishops of sin in tolerating Dissenters, characterised the Revolution of 1688 as an unrighteous change, and furiously libelled the characters of the Whig ministry. The House of Commons impeached him, and in February 1710 he was tried before the Lords in Westminster Hall. The clergy and high church party, throughout the country, regarded his trial as their own, and filled the populace with the notion that the Whigs wished to ruin the Church. The mob surrounded the Hall with loud cries of "High

Church and Dr. Sacheverell." The Queen openly countenanced him; but the House of Lords suspended him from preaching for three years. This light sentence was, however, regarded as a victory by the Tory party; who, by bonfires, illuminations, and addresses in favour of non-resistance, testified their joy at his triumph.

This prosecution of Sacheverell by the Whigs, though it ruined them, was of the highest use in a constitutional light, and it is not only the authentic exposition, but the authoritative ratification of the principles upon which the Revolution is to be defended.

The Duchess of Marlborough, so long the confidant of Queen Anne, was now supplanted at court by Mrs. Masham. This lady gave her influence to the Tory party, which was headed by Harley and St. John. The Whig ministry resigned their offices in 1712.

The most beneficial of all their measures was the Union with Scotland, effected in 1707. This union was not popular either in England or Scotland. The people of Scotland could not bear the thought of their national independence being, as they thought, absorbed by England; while the English were displeased at the advantages given to the trade and commerce of Scotland. By the Treaty of Union, the two countries were united under the name of Great Britain; both were to be represented in one parliament, in which sixteen peers and forty-five commoners should represent Scotland. But the laws of Scotland were to remain unaltered, and its church to continue as it had always been - Presbyterian; while freedom of commerce was to be enjoyed by the merchants of both countries. The measure, in spite of