which deforms the writings of Hall and of Lord Bacon, was almost
universal, had appeared that stupendous work, the English Bible,-
-a book which, if everything else in our language should perish,
would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and
power. The respect which the translators felt for the original
prevented them from adding any of the hideous decorations then in
fashion. The groundwork of the version, indeed, was of an
earlier age. The familiarity with which the Puritans, on almost
every occasion, used the Scriptural phrases was no doubt very
ridiculous; but it produced good effects. It was a cant; but it
drove out a cant far more offensive.

The highest kind of poetry is, in a great measure, independent of
those circumstances which regulate the style of composition in
prose. But with that inferior species of poetry which succeeds
to it the case is widely different. In a few years, the good
sense and good taste which had weeded out affectation from moral
and political treatises would, in the natural course of things,
have effected a similar reform in the sonnet and the ode. The
rigour of the victorious sectaries had relaxed. A dominant
religion is never ascetic. The Government connived at theatrical
representations. The influence of Shakspeare was once more felt.
But darker days were approaching. A foreign yoke was to be
imposed on our literature. Charles, surrounded by the companions
of his long exile, returned to govern a nation which ought never
to have cast him out or never to have received him back. Every
year which he had passed among strangers had rendered him more
unfit to rule his countrymen. In France he had seen the
refractory magistracy humbled, and royal prerogative, though
exercised by a foreign priest in the name of a child, victorious