Seventeenth Century Anthology (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Seventeenth Century Anthology A habit has prevailed among the less studious readers, of connecting the poets of the later seventeenth century with those of the early eighteenth. There is a common impression that the "Restoration" had already put on the perruque, raised the heel, and practised the strut. But it was not so. The long locks were arranged by a French coiffeur, but they grew where they were curled. Not to carry the slight parable too far, there was abundant nature in the poetry of that splendid time, naturel ven over abundant, and amid the "conceits" which the playful and impassioned pods practised with all ingenuity and artifice, there lived a wild sweetness of nature something wilder and more natural, more rapturous and unrestrained than the spirit of the simpler Elizabethans. The truth is that no two ages of English poetry are so unlike, so completely divided, so suddenly severed, as the seventeenth century and the eighteenth. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.