3 MAY 1873, Page 24

CURRENT LITERATURE.

Plays and Puritans, and other Historical Essays. By Charles Kingsley. (Macmillan.)—The first of these essays is a very eloquent and vigorous vindication of the stand taken by the Puritans against the corrupt literature of the days of the first Charles. That these days wore not better than the days of the second Charles, that "so far from there having been a sudden change for the worse in the drama after the Restoration, the taste of the Courts of Charles I. and of Charles H. are indistinguishable that the common notion of a 'new manner' having been introduced from France, after the Restoration, or indeed having come in at all, is not founded on fact, the only change being that the plays of Charles IL's time are somewhat more stupid ; and that while five of the seven deadly sins had always had free licence on the stage, blasphemy and profane swearing were now enfranchised to fill up the seven," —this is Mr. Kingsley's contention. If he does not make out his case entirely, he makes it out sufficiently for his purpose, which is to show that the Puritans wore right, that modern thought has come round to their side, espe- cially the thought of that very party in the Church which had its representatives in that age, if it had them anywhere, in Laud and his followers. It is admirably done ; nothing could be finer than the manly, outspoken vehemence with which the writer denounces the detestable impurity of the Court party of those days, and the silly folly of those who in those days, while really hating the impurity, yet re- peat the slanders and lampoons with which those who denounced it were assailed. We only wish that some way could be found of driving all this home. The second of Mr. Kingsley's essays is on Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time ; " the third deals with Mr. Froude's History of England." Both of course are worth reading, but a good deal has turned up on both subjects since Mr. Kingsley wrote. About Sir W. Raleigh we have all that the latest biographer of Bacon has discovered, while as to Mr. Fronde and Henry VEIL, we have not by any means got to the end of that controversy.