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For most of his pictures seem, like Turkey carpets, to have been expressly designed not to resemble anything in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. The latter manner he practises most frequently in his tragedies, the former in his comedies. The comic characters are, without mixture, loathsome and despicable. The men of Etherege and Vanbrugh are bad enough.
"It was I that created your phantom-lover, and now I annihilate him! Your dream is rudely broken. Awake, Sylph Etherege, awake to truth! I am the only Edgar Vaughan!" "We have gone too far, Edgar Vaughan," said Mrs. Grosvenor, catching Sylvia in her arms.
The social change of the Restoration is illustrated by the picture of court life in Anthony Hamilton's "Memoirs of the Count de Grammont," by the memoirs of Reresby, Pepys, and Evelyn, and the dramatic works of Wycherly and Etherege. For the general character of its comedy see Lord Macaulay's "Essay on the Dramatists of the Restoration." The histories of the Royal Society by Thompson or Wade, with Sir D. Brewster's "Biography of Newton," preserve the earlier annals of English Science, which are condensed by Hallam in his "Literary History" (vol. iv.). Clarendon gives a detailed account of his own ministry in his "Life," which forms a continuation of his "History of the Rebellion." The relations of the Church and the Dissenters during this period may be seen in Neal's "History of the Puritans," Calamy's "Memoirs of the Ejected Ministers," Mr. Dixon's "Life of Penn," Baxter's "Autobiography," and Bunyan's account of his sufferings in his various works. For the political story of the period as a whole our best authorities are Bishop Kennet's "Register," and Burnet's lively "History of my own Times." The memoirs of Sir W. Temple, with his correspondence, are of great value up to their close in 1679. Mr. Christie's "Life of Shaftesbury" is a defence, and in some ways a successful defence, of that statesman's career and of the Whig policy at this time, which may be studied also in Earl Russell's life of his ancestor, William, Lord Russell. To these we may add the fragments of James the Second's autobiography preserved in Macpherson's "Original Papers" (of very various degrees of value), the "Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland" by Dalrymple, the first to discover the real secret of the negotiations with France, M. Mignet's "Négociations relatives
A few French romances, the last plays of Etherege, Dryden, and Shadwell, a volume of Cowley, and some amorous songs, lay on the table; and not far from them were a loomask, pulvil purse, a pair of scented gloves, a richly-laced mouchoir, a manteau girdle, palatine tags, and a golden bodkin for the hair.
"That is easily accomplished," replied Etherege, laughingly; "especially where you have a friend so devoted as myself. But do you mean to carry off Amabel to-night?" "Ay, now we come to business," interposed Pillichody. "Bolts and barricadoes! your lordship has only to say the word, and I will break into the house, and bear her off for you."
Part of this epistle transcribed will afford a specimen of her verification. Sir GEORGE ETHEREGE,
Although she met with much ridicule at the Court of Charles the Second, being satirized particularly by the libertine poets Etherege and Sedley, the fulsome praise of men of considerable intellect was lavished upon her, and even the sedate and usually truthful Evelyn, after a lengthy enumeration of the great women of history, flattered her with the assurance that all of those summed up together only divided between them what she retained in one!
Charles smiled at his favourite's rebuff, but, in common with the others, he could not help being struck by Amabel's extraordinary beauty and natural dignity, and he observed, in an under-tone, to Etherege, "Is it possible this can be a grocer's daughter?" "She passes for such, my liege," replied Etherege, with a smile. "But I cannot swear to her parentage."
But the worst English writings of the seventeenth century are decent, compared with much that has been bequeathed to us by Greece and Rome. Plato, we have little doubt, was a much better man than Sir George Etherege. But Plato has written things at which Sir George Etherege would have shuddered.
"You had better go to the main entrance," said one of the vergers; "I have the keys with me, and will admit you." "I will keep guard here till you return," said another verger Accompanied by Rochester and Etherege, Bloundel then proceeded to the chief door of the subterranean church.
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