and he wrote two panegyrics, "one on Cromwell living and one on Cromwell dead." When the king was restored he was ready with a congratulatory ode. When Charles said very justly that it was not as good as his ode to Cromwell, he made the ready reply, "Sir, we poets never succeed as well in writing truth as in fiction," and the king, who liked wit better than truth, received him into favor. His amatory verses to the Lady Dorothy Sidney, though failing to move the lady, are graceful and comprehensible. Had he written many things as perfect as "Go Lovely Rose," perhaps she would have relented even though he addressed her as "Sacharissa." That little poem is enough to rescue him from oblivion. "Go lovely rose : Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. "Tell her that's young And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung 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 May read in thee; How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair!" Abraham Cowley, 1618-1667. Abraham Cowley was born in London and educated at Cambridge and Oxford. He is interesting on account of his extremely early development, for he read Spenser's "Faerie Queene" through before he was twelve and published a volume of poetry before he was sixteen. He was a consistent royalist, and followed the queen of Charles I. to France and had charge of the cipher correspondence between her and the king. He was a man of amiable character and of great industry, and though less simple than Waller in construction, was the favorite poet of his day. He introduced the form known as the irregular or Pindaric ode, based on a misconception of the meter of the Greek poet, which Cowley did not perceive to consist of groups of three stanzas of definite forms. Cowley's epic "The Davideis" is unfinished, and his verse has not life enough to be of interest to any but special students of the period. His work was much admired by Milton, who regarded him as the first poet of the language after Shakespeare and Spenser. Andrew Marvel, poet and politician, belonged to the party of the commonwealth. He was a man of great dignity and probity of character. Andrew He was a Cambridge man, and on Milton's recommenda1620-1678. tion became assistant secretary to the Cromwell government in 1657. After the Restoration he was a member of the House of Commons and, though tempted with bribes by the court party, retained his integrity and independence. He wrote a number of vigorous political satires in verse, the wit and point of which Charles II. relished although his own follies and vices were not spared. Marvel is one of the first to use satire in verse as a weapon to attack political opponents on vital questions of the day. Ben Jonson and Skelton had written satire, but animated with personal feeling rather than party spirit. Some of Marvel's lighter verse is by no means devoid of grace, and in his ode to Cromwell occur the admirable lines describing the appearance of Charles I. on the scaffold :"He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene, But with his keener eye The axe's edge did try; Nor called the Gods with vulgar spite To vindicate his helpless right; But bowed his comely head Down as upon a bed.” "The Song of the Emigrants in Bermuda" discloses his puritanic feeling. It begins: "Where the remote Bermudas ride Unto an isle so long unknown, And yet far kinder than our own? He lands us on a grassy stage Safe from the storms, and prelate's rage, He gave us this eternal spring Which here enamels everything."" John Milton represents the Puritan element in English literature most completely because he was a man of greater genius and more intense conviction than any of his contemporaries. His father, John Milton, Sr., was a man of grave puritanic John Milton, 1608-1674. piety, a prosperous scrivener (conveyancer and moneybroker) of London, living in Bread Street just off Cheapside. At that period houses were distinguished by a name instead of a number, and usually marked by some semiheraldic device. Mr. Milton's house was ornamented by the singularly inappropriate carving of a spread-eagle, for the owner was an "eminently safe" man and something of a musician and composer of sacred music. In Ravenscroft's compendium of church music, 1621, two of the tunes, known as "Norwich" and "York," were harmonized by Mr. Milton. No pains nor expense was spared on the education of his children. The eldest, John, the future poet, was provided with a tutor in his childhood and later sent to the famous school in St. Paul's churchyard founded by Dean Colet, and in due time, February, 1625, to Christ's College, Cambridge, the college most in favor with the better class of Puritan families. Here the young man remained seven years, taking his B. A. in 1628 and his M. A. in 1632, when he was twenty-three years and eight months old. He was an exceptionally diligent and conscientious student. After being graduated young Milton retired to his father's country house at Horton and spent some time in further reading and study. He had been destined for the Church, for it must be remembered that up to the death of James I. in 1625, and even later, those who were called Puritans did not constitute either a separate church or a political party in the full sense. They were a disaffected minority, holding to Calvinistic theology, to simple forms of worship, and rebelling at what they considered the arbitrary and absolute authority of the bishops. Some bodies of them, like the Brownists or Separatists, the Pilgrims who came to Plymouth, Massa |