of pleasure and demoralizing
amusements existed, when Charles was recalled. A general laxity of
morals was lamented by the wisest and best of the nation. The
religious convictions of enthusiasts survived their sympathies.
Hypocrisy and cant succeeded fervor and honesty. Infidelity lurked in
many a bosom in which devotional ardor had once warmly burned.
Distrust of all philanthropy and all human virtue was as marked, as
faith in the same previously had been. The ordinances of religion
became irksome, and it was remembered with bitterness that the
Puritans, in the days of their ascendency, had cruelly proscribed the
most favorite pleasures and time-honored festivals of old England. But
the love of them returned with redoubled vigor. May-poles,
wrestling-matches, bear-baitings, puppet-shows, bowls, horse-racing,
betting, rope-dancing, romping under the mistletoe on Christmas,
eating boars' heads, attending the theatres, health-drinking,--all
these old-fashioned ways, in which the English sought merriment, were
restored. The evil was chiefly in the excess to which these pleasures
were carried; and every thing, which bore any resemblance to the
Puritans, was ridiculed and despised. The nation, as a nation, did not
love Puritanism, or any thing pertaining to it, after the deep
religious excitement had passed away. The people were ashamed of
prayer-meetings, of speaking through their noses, of wearing their
hair straight, of having their garments cut primly, of calling their
children by the name of Moses, Joshua, Jeremiah, Obadiah, &c.; and, in
short, of all customs and opinions peculiar to the Extreme Puritans.
So general was the disgust of Puritanism, so eager were all to indulge
in the pleasures that had been forbidden under the reign of Cromwell,
so sick were they of the very name of republicanism, that Puritanism
may be said to have proved, in England, a signal failure.

Such were some of the reasons of popular acclamation on the
restoration of Charles II., and which we cannot consider entirely
without force. A state of mind existed in England as favorable to the
encroachments of royalty, as, twenty years before, it had been
unfavorable.

Charles was not a high-minded, or honest, or patriotic king; and
therefore we might naturally expect the growth of absolutism during
his reign. The progress of absolutism is, indeed, one of its features.
This, for a time, demands our notice.

On the restoration of Charles II., his su