show how much eighteenth-century prose had improved in form. Even in
England, modern prose may almost be said to begin with John Dryden, who
died at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In addition to improvement
in form, we may note the appearance of a new quality--humor. Our earliest
writers have few traces of humor because colonization was a serious life
and death affair to them.

DIFFERENT LINES OF DEVELOPMENT OF VIRGINIA AND NEW ENGLAND.--As we now go
back more than a hundred years to the founding of the Plymouth colony in
1620, we may note that Virginia and New England developed along different
lines. We shall find more dwellers in towns, more democracy and mingling of
all classes, more popular education, and more literature in New England.
The ruling classes of Virginia were mostly descendants of the Cavaliers who
had sympathized with monarchy, while the Puritans had fought the Stuart
kings and had approved a Commonwealth. In Virginia a wealthy class of
landed gentry came to be an increasing power in the political history of
the country. The ancestors of George Washington and many others who did
inestimable service to the nation were among this class. It was long the
fashion for this aristocracy to send their children to England to be
educated, while the Puritans trained theirs at home.

[Illustration: EARLY PRINTING PRESS]

New England started a printing press, and was printing books by 1640. In
1671 Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, wrote, "I thank God there
are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these
hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects
into the world, and printing has developed them."

Producers of literature need the stimulus of town life. The South was