entley; historians, like Clarendon and Burnet;
scientists, like Boyle and Newton; philosophers, like Hobbes and Locke.
But of poetry, in any high sense of the word, there was little between
the time of Milton and the time of Goldsmith and Gray.

{164} The English writers of this period were strongly influenced by
the contemporary literature of France, by the comedies of Moliere, the
tragedies of Corneille and Racine, and the satires, epistles, and
versified essays of Boileau. Many of the Restoration writers--Waller,
Cowley, Davenant, Wycherley, Villiers, and others--had been in France
during the exile, and brought back with them French tastes. John
Dryden (1631-1700), who is the great literary figure of his generation,
has been called the first of the moderns. From the reign of Charles
II., indeed, we may date the beginnings of modern English life. What
we call "society" was forming, the town, the London world. "Coffee,
which makes the politician wise," had just been introduced, and the
ordinaries of Ben Jonson's time gave way to coffee-houses, like Will's
and Button's, which became the head-quarters of literary and political
gossip. The two great English parties, as we know them to-day, were
organized: the words _Whig_ and _Tory_ date from this reign. French
etiquette and fashions came in and French phrases of convenience--such
as _coup de grace_, _bel esprit_, etc.--began to appear in English
prose. Literature became intensely urban and partisan. It reflected
city life, the disputes of faction, and the personal quarrels of
authors. The politics of the Great Rebellion had been of heroic
proportions, and found fitting expression in song. Rut in the
Revolution of 1688 the issues were constitutional and to be settled by
the arguments of lawyers. Measures were in {165} 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