The age of Dryden followed, and not of Dryden only, but of South, and Locke, and Boyle, and Newton. It was a tamer period, in which accuracy of thought, and exactness of language, and symmetry and beauty of style, and repression of feeling, and caution in imagery, were all conspicuous. It was an age of repression and of criticism, as was natural after the real and imagined excesses of principle and feeling which had characterized the times of the commonwealth,-an age in which religion declined and immorality was less sustained, an age of free thinking and unbelief,-which were scarcely held in check by the efforts of Locke and Boyle. With an age thus characterized in the life of the people, the literature of the period sympathized. First of all, it was the period in which the modern and the better English style was developed and fixed-preeminently by Dryden. Next criticism itself was first applied with systematic aims and definite results. In both Dryden was preeminent. With more accurate thinking and careful writing, there were not wholly lost the fire of feeling and the splendor of imagination which had distinguished the earlier periods.

Then followed the age of Pope, and not of Pope alone, but also of Addison and Swift, of Shaftesbury and Bishop Butler, of Berkeley and Warburton, and they were followed by that of Richardson, Defoe, Fielding, and Sinollett. It was an age in no wise distinguished for earnestness or for faith, an age of conventionalities, gaiety, and frivolity, an age of free living, and of free thinking, an age in which satire and sneering criticism would be likely to flourish, and in which both were abundant. As was the life, such was the literature of the period, with here and there an exception. For the ease and felicity of its prose diction, and for the correctness and smoothness of its verse to the ear-it has been called the Augustan age of English literature but the perfection of form to which it brought this literature was ill compensated for the loss of these higher qualities by which the earlier periods were distinguished.

In the latter half of the same century there was a change for the better. This was the period of Johnson, and of Burke, of Thomson, Goldsmith, and Cowper. The national life grew

more serious. The lower classes had been moved to greater religious earnestness by Wesley, Whitfield, and others. The higher were tired with the emptiness and dissoluteness, with the heartlessness and frivolity of the generations before them,there was a longing after better things, and to this longing the literature of the period gave expression in manifold signs.

Then came the French Revolution, filling many hopeful and sanguine spirits with ardent enthusiasm, and stirring their minds with inquiries which led to profounder studies of the principles of moral, political, and theological faith-then the inevitable reaction, involving strong repressive measures, and dividing society into angry sections, then the long and costly wars of the allies, and the exciting career of the first Napoleon. All these movements in English thought, attended, as they were, by the corrupt demoralization of the court and example of the last of the Georges, were reflected in English literature as it presents itself in the first thirty years of the present century. This is the period of Scott, of Byron and Shelley, of Coleridge and Southey, of Wordsworth, Wilson, and Lamb, of Macaulay and Hallam, of Jeffrey and Mackintosh. Literature is sharply divided into opposing schoolsexpressing the divided sentiment and opinion of the English nation. Foremost among them is that catholic and comprehensive school which dared to free itself from the fashion of the day in both thought and diction, and to go back to the English writers of the earlier periods, and to vindicate Shakespeare, and Milton, and Hooker, and Bacon, from the neglect into which they had fallen. More than all, this school dared to vindicate for itself the liberty to use all the resources of the English language, as well as to sound all the depths of English thought and feeling after the ancient ways. While in one direction, as with Byron, literature is passionate and satanic, and in another, as with Shelley, it is blasphemous and atheistic; while in Scott it is brilliantly romantic; while with Hallain and Mackintosh it is solidly earnest; withColeridge, Wordsworth, Southey, and Wilson, it is more thoughtful and affectionate, it is mindful of nature and of God, and above all it dares to be true to all that is best in human character and literature. With this school and its awakened interest in all the older

literature, there arose also the spirit of historical and philosophical criticism, which has been the theme of this paper and which has largely contributed to the many sided, and in general, the elevated literature of the present generation. Of this literature we need not write, for to attempt to characterize it would lead us beyond our limits.

This English literature is our heritage, and to study it should be our delight and occupation. That it may be a delight, it must be, in some sense, an occupation. If we are to judge of it in a truly critical spirit,-if we are to understand historically its authors and the times in which they lived-if we are to judge of it philosophically, and to read intelligently its graver writers of the past, or the more novel and fresher of the present, we must read it earnestly and comprehensively; we must make it our study-not a study that is painful or repulsive—but one that is patient, systematic, and earnest.

English literature when once it has become a familiar field of intelligent study, brings this advantage, that it is a field which the student will never be able and never will desire to desert. To him who has learned to read aright, every week will bring some fresh tale, or poem, or essay, or history; every season will introduce some fresh author, who summons the reader to a new feast of delight, which will be none the less keenly enjoyed, because it is enjoyed with a chastened taste, and is judged with critical appreciation. All the life-long, amid its cares and its sorrows, its employments and its leisure, there will be at hand a capacity and a taste for these satisfying and elevating pleasures, which instruct while they delight,— which lead us upwards to heaven, while they make us content with the earth. No class of habits that are purely intellectual can possibly enter so largely into our happiness for life, as those habits of reading with discrimination and with ardor, which are formed by abundant studies in the history and criticism of English literature.

ARTICLE VIII.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS.

THE END OF THE WORLD, AND THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.*-We are informed that some two thousand, more or less, of our fellowbeings, of fair average intellect, are accustomed to attend upon the weekly ministrations of Rev. William Rounseville Alger. In order that outsiders, who do not attend upon those ministrations, may not be at disadvantage with these two thousand select, progressive souls, on the two subjects, The End of the World, and The Day of Judgment, we give in brief the doctrine of the above discourses.

Our preacher affirms that the notion of the End of the World is a vulgar, traditional superstition, common to all nationsHindus, Polynesians, Greeks, Scandinavians, and Persians, included.

Then comes a portrayal of the Hebrew scenic Eschatology, treated with that high local coloring peculiar to certain advanced artists at the "Hub," and closing with the inquiry and conclusion, "Is there any more reason for believing this doctrine, than for believing other kindred schemes? No! not a whit."

Next follows a comparison of the ecclesiastical and scientific doctrines of the End of the World, and we learn that both are objectionable, the scientific being the least so, because, as our preacher naively remarks, "we can contemplate the scientific prophecy of the End of the World with a peace of mind which the traditional prophecy does not permit ;" and, he adds, "We shrink in fright from the wrath and power of the personal Judge, the inexorable Foe of the Wicked," which constitutes the principle objection, in the mind of the preacher, to the ecclesiastical doctrine.

The scientific End of the World may be contemplated with calmness, because, in the first place, it is extremely doubtful whether it will ever occur at all. "A billion of centuries hence,"

* The End of the World, and the Day of Judgment. Two Discourses preached to the Music Hall Society by their Minister, the Rev. WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. Published by request. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870.

says our preacher, "the world may, perhaps, come to an end," and then, on the other hand, it may not, but if it does, we are not left wholly at a loss even in that contingency. Collective Hu manity and Science combined may ward off the fatal crisis.

We quote:-"A brilliant French writer has suggested that even if the natural course of evolution does of itself necessitate the final destruction of the world, yet our race, judging from the magnificent achievements of science and art already reached, may, within ten thousand centuries, which will be long before the foreseen end approaches, obtain such a knowledge and control of the forces of nature, as to make collective humanity master of this planet, able to shape and guide its tendencies, ward off every fatal crisis, and perfect and immortalize the system as now sus tained. It is an audacious fancy. But like many other incredi ble conceptions which have forerun their own still more incredible fulfillment, the very thought electrifies us with hope and courage."

Is the brain of Boston softening?

The conclusion from the preceding "investigation," as our preacher terms it, is "that the world is to last, and our race to flourish on it, virtually forever."

We have then a discourse upon The Day of Judgment, wherein that "catastrophic myth" is treated with the same warm, local coloring, although the execution might be characterized, in high art, as "spotty." The doctrine, so far as it hangs together at all, may be set forth in the preacher's illustration of the orthodox view. Here it is:

"The Judge will say to the orthodox on his right, You may have been impure and cruel,—lied, cheated, hated your neighbor, rolled in vice and crime, but you have believed in me, in my divinity; therefore, come ye blessed, inherit my kingdom.' To the heretical on his left he will say, 'You may have been pure and kind, sought the truth, self-sacrificingly served your fellow men, fulfilled every moral duty in your power,-but you have not be lieved in me, in my deity, and my blood; therefore, depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.'"

But the chief folly of the orthodox is in believing in any judg ment of the wicked at all. "It is," says the preacher, "a direct transference into the Godhead of the most egotistical and hateful feelings of a bad man. No good man, who had been ever so grossly misconceived, vilified, and wronged, if he saw his enemies prostrate in submissive terror at his feet, perfectly powerless