6. +The Second Half.+-- The second half of the great and unique seventeenth century was of a character very different indeed from that of the first half. The Englishmen born into it had to face a new world! New thoughts in religion, new forces in politics, new powers in social matters had been slowly, steadily, and irresistibly rising into supremacy ever since the Scottish King James came to take his seat upon the throne of England in 1603. These new forces had, in fact, become so strong that they led a king to the scaffold, and handed over the government of England to a section of Republicans. Charles I. was executed in 1649; and, though his son came back to the throne in 1660, the face, the manners, the thoughts of England and of Englishmen had undergone a complete internal and external change. The Puritan party was everywhere the ruling party; and its views and convictions, in religion, in politics, and in literature, held unquestioned sway in almost every part of England. In the Puritan party, the strongest section was formed by the Independents-- the “root and branch men”-- as they were called; and the greatest man among the Independents was Oliver Cromwell, in whose government +John Milton+ was Foreign Secretary. Milton was certainly by far the greatest and most powerful writer, both in prose and in verse, on the side of the Puritan party. The ablest verse-writer on the Royalist or Court side was +Samuel Butler+, the unrivalled satirist-- the Hogarth of language,-- the author of +Hudibras+. The greatest prose-writer on the Royalist and Church side was +Jeremy Taylor+, Bishop of Down, in Ireland, and the author of +Holy Living+, +Holy Dying+, and many other works written with a wonderful eloquence. The greatest philosophical writer was +Thomas Hobbes+, the author of the +Leviathan+. The most powerful writer for the people was +John Bunyan+, the immortal author of +The Pilgrim’s Progress+. When, however, we come to the reigns of Charles II. and James II., and the new influences which their rule and presence imparted, we find the greatest poet to be +John Dryden+, and the most important prose-writer, +John Locke+.