The examiner. [volume] (Louisville, Ky.) 1847-1849, 1849-01-20
From Mscaalay,s Histor


4 AHc WINS GNU inc Iufitdns hdd never
been on friendly terms. There was no
sympathy between the two classes. They
looked on the whole system of human life
from different points and in different lights.
The earnestness Of each was the Jest of the
other. The pleasures of each were the
torments Of the other. To the stern pre-
cisian even the innocent sport Of the fancy
seemed crime. TO light and festive ma.
lures the solemnity Of the jealous brethren
furnished copious matter of ridicule. From
the Reformation TO the civil war, almost
every writer, gifted with a fine sense Of the
ludicrous. had iaken some opportunity OF
assailing the straight haired, snuffiing,
whining saints, who christened their chil-
dren our of the Book OF Nehemiah, who
groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack
in the Green, and who thought it impious
to taste plum pofridge on Christmas day.
At length time came when the laughers
began to look grave in their turn. The
rigid, ungainly zealots, after having farn-
ished much good sport during two genera.
tons. rose up in arms, conquered, ruled.
and, grimly smiling, tfod down under their
leer the whole crowd of Knockers. The
wounds inflicted by gay and petulant malice
were retaliated with the gloomy and i'm
placable malice peculiar TO bigots who mis-
take their own rancor for virtue. The
theatres were closed. The players were
logged. The press was put under the
guardianship of austere licensers. The
MUSES. were banished from their own favor.
lite haunts. Cowley was elected from Cam
bridge, and Crashaw from Oxford. The
young candidate for academical honors
was no longer required to write Ovidan
epistles or Virgilian pastorals, but was
strictly Intercepted by synod of Touring
Supralapsarians as TO the day and hour
when he experienced the new birth. Such
system was OF course fruitful of hypo-
critics. Under sober clothing and under
visages composed to the expression of aus
terity lay hid during several years the in.
tense desire of license and of revenge
AT length that desire was gratifed. The
restoration emancipated thousands of minds
from yoke which had become insuppor.
table. The old fight recommended, but
with an luminosity altogether new. 1t was
now not spOrtive combat, but a war TO
the death. The Roundhead had no better
quarter to expect from those whom he had
prosecuted than cruel slave driver can ex.
pect from insurgent slaves still bearing the
marks Of his collars and his scourges.
The war between wit and Puritanism
soon became a war between wit and NOR.
atty. The hostility excited by a grotesque
caricature of virtue did not spare virtue
herself. Whatever the canting Round.
head had regarded with reverence was in.
suited. Whatever he had prescribed was
favored. Because he had been scrupulous
about trifies. all scruples were treated with
derision. Because he had covered his fail.
ings with the mask Of devotion, men were
encouraged to obtrude with cynic impu.
dence all their most scandalous vices on
the public eye. Because he had punished
illicit love with barbarous severity. virgin
purity and conjugal fidelity were to be
made Jest. 10 that sanctimonious lar.
gon, which was his shibboleth, wits opposed
another jargon not less absurd and much
more odious. As he never opened his mouth
except in scnptural phrase, the new breed
Of wits and fine gentlemen never opened
their mouths without uttering ribaldry Of
which porter would now be ashamed, and
without calling on their Maker TO curse
them, sink them, confound them, blast them
and damn them.
1t is not strange, therefore, that our polite
literature, when It revived with the revival
OF the old civil and ecclesiastical policy.
should have been. profoundly immoral. A
few eminent men, who belonged to an ear.
her and better age, were exempt from the
general contaglon. The verse of Waller
still breathed the sentiments which had an.
imated more chivalrous generation
Cowley, distinguished at once as loyalist
and as man Of letters, raised his voice
courageously against the immortality which
disgraced both letters and LOYALTY. A
mlghtier spirit, unsubdued by pain, danger
poverty, obloquy, and blindness, meditaled
undisturbed by the obscene tumult WHICH
ragged all around, song so sublime and so
holy that it would not have misbecome the
lips Of those ethereal Virtues whom he
saw, with that inner eye which no calamity
could darken, flinging down on the Jasper
pavement their crowns of amaranth and
gold. The vigorous and fertile genius Of
Butler. if it did not altogether escape the
prevailing infection, took the disease in
mild form. But these were men whose
minds had been trained in world which
had passed away. They gave place in no
long time to younger generation of poets;
and oil that generation, from Dryden down
to Durfey, the common characteristic was
hard hearted, shameless, staggering licen-
tlousness, at once inelegant and inhuman.
The influence of these writers was doubt.
less noxlous. yet less noxious than il would
have been had they been less deprayed.-
The poison which they administered was
so strong, that it was, in no long time. re.
Jected with nausea. None Of them under.
stood the dangerous art of associatino inn.
ages OF unlawful pleasure with all that is
endearing and enrolling. None of them
was aware that certain decorum is essen.
tlal even TO voluptuousness, that draoery
may be more alluring than exposure. and
that the imagination may be far more DOW.
erfully moved by delicate hints which inn.
pei it to exert itself than by gross descrip-
tons which it takes in passiyely.
The spirit OF the Antinur;,a, ,sso,;o