two-thirds were in the hands of Protestants. CHAPTER XXXVIII CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL. 1667-1674 LEADING DATES Reign of Charles II., 1660-1685 Treaty of Dover June 1, 1670 Second Dutch War of the Restoration March 13, 1672 Declaration of Indulgence March 15, 1672 Test Act March 29, 1673 Dismissal of Shaftesbury Nov. 9, 1673 Peace with the Dutch Feb. 19, 1674 1. =Milton and Bunyan.=--Whilst Clarendon and his allies were fortifying the legal position of the Church of England, the old Puritanism which they attempted to crush found a voice in literature. Milton, who had become blind, in consequence of his intense devotion to the service of the State, as the secretary of Cromwell, at last, after long preparation, gave to the world 'Paradise Lost,' in =1667=. The poem was Puritan, not only because its main theme was the maintenance or destruction of the purity of a single human soul, but because it based that purity on obedience to the commands of the great Taskmaster; whilst, in the solemn cadence of its blank verse there is something to remind the reader of the stern world of duty, in the midst of which the nobler spirits of the Commonwealth and Protectorate had moved. As Milton was the poet of Puritanism, John Bunyan was the prose-poet of Dissent. He had himself fought as a soldier on the side of Parliament in the Civil War, and, having become an earnest Baptist preacher, he continued to preach after the Restoration, and, boldly defying the law, was requited with a long imprisonment. His masterpiece, 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' was probably not written till =1675=, but many of his religious writings were published before that date. His force of imagination made him the greatest allegorist the world has seen. His moral aim lay in the preservation of a few choice souls from the perils and temptations of a society wholly given up to evil. [Illustration: John Milton in 1670.]