" Such passages as the following, and also the one quoted on page 51,
show this quality:--
"When we behold the fragrant rose and lily, we see His love and purity.
So the green trees and fields and singing of birds are the emanations of
His infinite joy and benignity. The easiness and naturalness of trees and
vines are shadows of His beauty and loveliness."
His favorite text was, "I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the
valleys," and his favorite words were "sweet and bright."
ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD
The great English writers between the colonization of Jamestown in 1607 and
the outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1754 are: (1) JOHN MILTON
(1608-1674), the great poetic spokesman of Puritan England, whose _Comus_
is addressed to those, who:--
"... by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity,"
whose _Sonnets_ breathe a purposeful prayer to live this life as ever in
his great Taskmaster's eye, and whose _Paradise Lost_ is the colossal epic
of the loss of Eden through sin; (2) JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688), whose
_Pilgrim's Progress_ addressed itself in simple, earnest English to each
individual human being, telling him what he must do to escape the City of
Destruction and to reach the City of All Delight; (3) JOHN DRYDEN
(1631-1700), a master in the field of satiric and didactic verse and one of
the pioneers in the field of modern prose criticism; (4) ALEXANDER POPE
(1688-1744), another poet of the satiric and didactic school, who exalted
form above matter, and wrote polished couplets which have been models for
so many inferior poets; (5) the essayists, RICHARD STEELE (1672-1729) and
JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719), the latter being especially noted for the easy,
flowing prose of his papers in the _Spectator_; (6) JONATHAN SWIFT
(1667-1745), a master of prose satire, whose _Gulliver's Travels_ has not
lost its fascination; (7) DANIEL DEFOE (1661?-1731) whose _Robinson Crusoe_
continues to increase in popularity; (8) SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761), and
HENRY FIELDING (1707-1754), the two great mid-eighteenth-century novelists.
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