months, for complaining in some of his writings of the wrongs the Puritans then suffered. The last years of his life were spent more peacefully. The Act of Toleration was passed on the accession of William III., and Baxter moved to London. He died in 1691, after lingering for some time in weak health, during which time Mr. Flavell, one of his friends, says of him-" Mr. Baxter is almost in heaven; living in the daily views and cheerful expectation of the saint's everlasting rest with God; and is left for a little while among us, as a great example of the life of faith."

CHAPTER XV.

FRENCH INFLUENCE-DRYDEN.

We have seen how the Italian style affected the form of English Literature during the sixteenth and part of the seventeenth centuries; we have now to find the same kind of influence exerted by French Literature through the latter half of the seventeenth and the greater part of the eighteenth centuries. We may consider the French influence to have entered England with the Restoration, when Charles II. and many of his courtiers returned from their exile in France. To understand what this precise influence over English Literature was, we must go to France for a little while, and see what had been going on in the formation of the French language and growth of the literature. The French language up to 1600 had been very unsettled. Two distinct dialects were spoken which were almost as different as two languages. These had been formed in this way. Ancient Gaul had been much more thoroughly conquered and colonised by the Romans than Ancient Britain, and the Latin language had become the language of the country, excepting in such out-of-the-way parts as were still held by the Gauls, and where Keltic was spoken. After the breaking-up of the Roman Empire, the Teutonic tribes who passed into Gaul brought with them their language; and in the northern districts where they settled, the common speech became Teutonic with a mixture of Latin; in the south of France the language remained Latin with a slighter mixture of Teutonic. The

difficulty of writing any literature which could be understood and appreciated by the whole of France was a check upon its production, and consequently France has no really national literature before the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Meantime the revival of learning had spread into France, and produced a taste for literature and for the study of the ancient languages of Greece and Rome. There were persons about the Court who read Italian literature, and among these the Marquise de Rambouillet was especially distinguished. She held reunions at her house, where ladies and gentlemen discussed poetry and plays, and questions regarding the French language, grammatical rules, and the choice of words. They set themselves to refine the language, and to cultivate elegance of expression. The Latin element in the French language being the most associated with learning, and the ladies and gentlemen, having a fancy for the more high-sounding Latin words and terms, preferred always the Latin-French to the Teutonic. It was from these reunions, probably, that the idea of a French Academy took its rise, which should exercise authority over the language, fix its rules, and choose its words, and thus constitute that standard of appeal which we seek in our best literature.

The Academy consisted of forty members, and they compiled a Dictionary and drew up a Grammar. The preference was given in these works to the Latin element in the language, and the result was that it acquired a preponderance over the Teutonic in all speaking and writing which aimed to be elegant and refined.

The Academy next proceeded to lay down authoritative rules for literature, prescribing the precise form for poetry and plays, and every kind of literary composition. For these the Academy went to the classical literature, which, though not itself cramped by outside rules, had its natural

laws of art. To find these out, and make them binding on French writers, was the purpose of much study and criticism. French literature started therefore in a dress already prepared for it, as it were; and as the first writers who adapted themselves to the prescribed forms and style were men of real vigour and genius, they gave the new rules an influence in other countries.

The special characteristics of the French influence over English literature were these. The first French literature was written for a courtly circle with narrow views of life and little knowledge of its deeper experiences, struggles, and sorrows; the plays were therefore stories of Court intrigues, the characters were kings and queens and persons about a Court, and it was made an object to introduce as much splendid scenery and gorgeous dress as possible. The poetry and plays expressed the overstrained sentiments of a thoroughly artificial life, instead of simple, natural feeling. A taste for classical allusions and long Latinised words crept into English literature and led to the formation of a style of expression called poetic diction, quite different from the words and phrases which spring to our lips in moments of really intense feeling. Both plays and poetry were written in rhymed couplets of five feet in each line; and care, was taken to preserve the neatness and finish of the verse, and to complete the thought within the limits of the stanza. There was no place in the even measure of the lines for that hesitation and broken utterance in which alone strong feeling can find expression, nor for the eager overflow of enthusiasm. In the form of the litera ture there was the same subjection to classical rules as in the French literature.

The adoption of these fixed rules, and the setting up of an artificial standard of appeal outside literature itself, led to the growth of a class of professed critics. It was easy to master the rules, and then apply them to the

criticism of great works, and this could be done by persons utterly incapable of producing a great work, or of even appreciating it; and thus many of our chief writers, even Shakespeare, were set aside by these critics as barbarous. When the taste for criticism is stronger than the love of literature, and tyrannises over it, the subjects of literature. are sure to be taken from the surface of society, or from those things which can be treated without the warmth of personal interest; and the best feelings of humanity are reserved from expression in literature. Human life cannot thus be painted truly and completely, but only certain phases of it, in which its weakness, its follies, or its evils are represented. Then literature fails to answer all its higher purposes, for it no longer teaches us to see and love the ideal, or enlarges our hearts by sympathy with human nature and love for our fellow-men. At such a time satire, which is often wisely used for an earnest purpose, becomes popular, and is cultivated for its own sake; and the faith in human progress and hope for the world's future are clouded by gazing on the evils of a single class or circle, while the real wish to improve even these is lost in the amusement of ridiculing them.

Many of these results of the French influence were felt more or less in the English literature of this time; but there was still that working together for good going on, which is the principle of constant progress, for as the blighted fruit of a season falls quickly and dies, and all that is good and sound has an enduring life and remains, so the good and lasting influence of the French style has its hold still on our literature in the clear grammatical English, the choice of fitting words, and the careful work which our best authors give to their writings, while the false effects have now passed away.

At the time itself it was of course the weaker minds only who were completely carried along by the current