of a gentleman, in the sense we attach to the word."[86] The stage was in perfect accord with its audience.  Morality was outraged by a constant association of virtue with all that is contemptible and of vice with all that is attractive.  Taste was outraged by a perpetual choice of degraded subjects and disgusting scenes.  Nature was outraged by the representation of man, not as a complex being, worthy of deep and skilful investigation, but as a creature influenced by two or three passions always apparent on the surface.  Thus the dramatists, notwithstanding their very exceptional abilities, produced little of enduring value, and nothing which could outlive a change in the popular taste.  They did, however, produce what was greatly admired by their contemporaries:  and the fact that the men and the women of the time enjoyed the plays provided for them, shows that they preferred to noble and elevating subjects, the literary reproduction of their own corrupt lives.  The theatre no doubt represented men as worse than they were.  But the friends of Buckingham and Rochester, both male and female, found in its long list of unprincipled men, of married women debauched, and of young girls anxious to be debauched, the reflection and justification of their own careers.

Posterity remembers little of the reign or the theatre of Charles II beyond their corruption.  Yet there is much that is worthy of remembrance, without which any remarks on the social condition of the time would be one-sided.  There are to be referred to that period many legislative enactments in the highest degree conducive to civil and religious liberty.  The foundation of the Royal Society marked the inauguration of a new interest in speculative enquiry, of a great activity in scientific research, and of a broader and more liberal habit of thought on questions connected with government and education.  These advantages were attained in spite of a worthless king, of corrupt ministers, and a licentious court, and they are due to the earnestness and vigor of the great body of the English people, qualities which have remained unchanged through every national vicissitude or success.  While Pepys and Grammont supply full details of the moral degeneration which weakened and debased the highest ranks of society, the sound morality, steady industry, and progressive nature of the nation are to be seen in the journal of the good Evelyn.  His character and occupations, as well as those of his friends, offset the coarse tastes and worthless lives which brought the time into discredit.  To the prevailing disregard of the marriage tie may well be contrasted the happiness of Evelyn’s domestic life.  His daughter, of whom he has left a beautiful description, was endowed with an elevation of character, a charm of disposition, and a purity of thought admirable in any age, and it cannot be doubted that she had many contemporary parallels.

[Footnote 84:  Destouches, “Glorieux,” v. 3.]