Measures were in question
rather than principles, and there was little inspiration to the poet in
Exclusion Bills and Acts of Settlement.
Court and society, in the reign of Charles II. and James II., were
shockingly dissolute, and in literature, as in life, the reaction
against Puritanism went to great extremes. The social life of the time
is faithfully reflected in the diary of Samuel Pepys. He was a
simple-minded man, the son of a London tailor, and became, himself,
secretary to the admiralty. His diary was kept in cipher, and published
only in 1825. Being written for his own eye, it is singularly outspoken;
and its _naive_, gossipy, confidential tone makes it a most diverting
book, as it is, historically, a most valuable one.
Perhaps the most popular book of its time was Samuel Butler's _Hudibras_
(1663-1664), a burlesque romance in ridicule of the Puritans. The king
carried a copy of it in his pocket, and Pepys testifies that it was
quoted and praised on all sides. Ridicule of the Puritans was nothing
new. Zeal-of-the-land Busy, in Ben Jonson's _Bartholomew Fair_, is an
early instance of the kind. There was nothing laughable about the
earnestness of men like Cromwell, Milton, Algernon Sidney, and Sir Henry
Vane. But even the French Revolution had its humors; and as the English
Puritan Revolution gathered head and the extremer sectaries pressed to
the front--Quakers, New Lights, Fifth Monarchy Men, Ranters, etc.
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