which, issuing from the court, threatened to deluge the whole country. Though "the saints" no longer enjoyed the fatness of the land, they still exercised great influence over the minds of the middle classes, and fostered in them a deep religious feeling, and a strict observance of decency, which were in direct opposition to the principles and practice of the sovereign and his court. At no period of our history, do the profligacy of one class and the piety of another appear in more striking contrast. On looking closer, however, it would seem that this effect is, in a great degree, produced by the approximation of the extremes of each,--of sinners who painted themselves blacker than they really were, and of saints who heightened their lights and exalted their purity, while they were in truth but as "a whitened wall." A slight glance at the literature of the time of Charles II, will show that mankind do not become worse as the world grows older: the depravity which existed in his reign, is generally dwelt on by historians and moralists, though but few take the trouble of informing their readers that correctives for it, in the shape of good books, were at no period more abundant. For a picture of the manners of the time, we are referred to licentious plays and obscene poems, as if they formed the staple literature of the day,--as if all men frequented the playhouse and read Rochester, but never went to church or conventicle, nor read the numerous moral and religious works which then issued from the press. In the time of Charles II, the representation of plays was almost exclusively confined to London; and it may be questioned if even one of the licentious comedies of the period was represented on a provincial stage. The obscene books which were written in his reign for the entertainment of the fashionable world have sunk into disrepute, and are only to be found in the libraries of collectors of what are termed "Facetiæ;" while those of higher purpose are in constant demand, and are known to millions. More copies of Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' have been sold than of all the bad books that ever were written through the encouragement of Charles II and his courtiers.