ment. Their brief fever over, the sobriety and good-nature of Englishmen were disgusted at the licence and the cruelty of Whitehall; and though the Puritan experiment, once so thoroughly tried, could not be repeated, the struggles and sufferings of the Puritans bore certain, if tardy fruit. Milton died just half way between the Restoration and the Revolution. Fourteen years before his death the way to establish a free commonwealth had seemed to him 'ready and easy;' but it was not found till the spirit of compromise and concession (which he abhorred, but which it seems must ever rule Englishmen when engaged in lasting works of reform) had been evoked by a great emergency, and had rendered it possible to establish a settled liberty under the old forms of the constitution, and to afford conflicting tendencies scope and verge enough for their mutual opposition without danger to the national interests. 6 Looking back, 'in calm of mind, all passion spent,' at the great tragedy he had seen played out, Milton found no time or cause for lamentation. All is best, though we oft doubt.' A new acquisition of true experience had been gained, such as can be reaped even from the failures of true men. 'The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.' That would seem to be in brief the lesson of the great struggle of the seventeenth century. The elaborate machinery of government, readjusted and varied till its continual alteration produced and evinced the instability and anarchy it was intended to prevent; the attempt to attain exalted excellence by narrowing the idea of perfection; the continual self-conscious straining after a self-appointed rule of life; and the neglect or denial of those facts of life of which the rule took no account;-these were the failings and the errors of the Puritanic system. But the unconquerable will to do right (according to the system); the patient endurance of suffering in what was, at least in its beginning, the cause of freedom; and the assurance that that cause, being of God, must stand fast for ever and ever-here was the virtue and the faith that gave lustre and dignity to the Puritanic character. And if the virtue was sometimes marred by self-will, and the faith distorted by fanaticism, it was but as the light of the stedfast stars may be for awhile dimmed or hidden by the 'mists and vapours of this sin-worn mould.' If we do not refuse to the memory of the Puritans the just tribute of our gratitude, we must acknowledge that to them it was owing that England did not sink to the level of the France or the Spain of that day. We have entered into the labours of their might: if we have received from them any traditions not of sound doctrine, the fault is ours if we allow the authority of their opinion—which was but 'knowledge in the making'—to prejudice us against the teaching and the warning of their example. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. lxiv A.D. ENGLISH AND FOREIGN HISTORY. ENGLISH LITERATURE. 1608 Bancroft persecutes the Puritans; they emigrate Edward Hyde (afterwards Earl of Clarendon) b., to Virginia. 1609 1610 Henry IV of France assassinated, May 4. 1612 Earl of Salisbury, the younger Cecil d., May 1613 Princess Elizabeth married to the Palatine, April 1616 Cautionary towns surrendered to Holland; Con- 1617 Book of Sports; Episcopacy in Scotland; Ra- 1618 Bacon, Lord Chancellor, Jan. 4; Execution of Raleigh (66), Oct. 29.-Thirty Years' War begins, May. d. 1674; Thomas Fuller b., d. 1661; Sack- Sir Matthew Hale b., d. 1676; Sir J. Suckling Authorised Version of the Bible, May 22; Samuel Butler b., d. 1680; Polyolbion, First Jeremy Taylor b., d. 1667. Henry More (the Platonist) b., d. 1687. Shakespeare d. (52), April 23; Francis Beau- Joshua Sylvester, translator of Du Bartas, d. (55). lxv 1619 1620 The May-flower' sails, Sept.-Palatinate lost; 1621 Bacon condemned, May 3, and pardoned, Oct.; 1622 Samuel Daniel d. (57); William Harvey (1577- Publication of Sylvester's works, and of Burton's Polyolbion, Second Part published. 1623 Spanish journey, Feb.; the match broken, William Camden d. (72); Giles Fletcher d.; Nov. 1624 Disgrace and impeachment of Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, May. 1625 James I d. (59), March 27; Charles I married, June; First Parliament, June to August. 1626 Bacon's De Augmentis; First Folio of Shakespeare's Plays. John Fletcher (dramatist) d. (49); George Fox, b., d. 1690. Publication of Purchas' Pilgrims, and enlarged edition of Bacon's Essays. Bacon d. (65), April 9; Sir John Davies d. (56). 1627 Buckingham before Rochelle, July 7.-Arundel Thomas Middleton d. (56); Hakewill's Apo- 1628 Third Parliament, March 17; Petition of Right 1629 Oliver Cromwell's first speech in Parliament, Feb.; Protest and dissolution, March 2; Proclamation against Parliaments. 1630 Charles II b., May 27; mutilation of Alexander Leighton by sentence of Star-chamber. 1631 Battle of Leipsic, Aug. 28; Kepler d. (61). logy or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God. Lord Brooke d. (74); John Bunyan b., d. Vacation Exercise. 1688; Sir W. Temple b., d. 1699. Isaac Barrow b., d. 1677; John Tillotson b., lxvi 1632 Laud and Wentworth; Till 1638 lasts the period of Thorough.-Gustavus Adolphus killed at Lutzen, Nov. 6. 1633 Charles crowned in Edinburgh, June 18; Laud, 1634 First writ of ship-money, Oct. 20; Sir E. 1635 French Academy; Lopez de Vega d. (67). 30; Janet Geddes' outbreak, July.-Des- 1641 Judgment against Hampden cancelled, Feb.; ENGLISH LITERATURE. John Locke b., d. 1704; Herbert d. (39); Earl George Chapman d. (77); Thos. Randolph d. Comus acted at Ludlow, Mi(29); Inns Masque and Coelum Britannicum, Feb.; Habington's Poems. Richard Corbet, Bp. of Norwich, d. (53). Ben Jonson d. (63). Aug. 10; Chillingworth's John Ford d. (54); Thos. Carew d. (50); Sir Sir J. Suckling d. (33); Peter Lely comes to chaelmas. |