After the Restoration came in a different temper and view of life. On the one side were the gay and frivolous, who mocked at the grim Puritan with his terrific beliefs; on the other were the philosophers and the intellectual world, who explained by natural causes the so-called supernatural appearances. The Anglican Church held a middle course between the sceptics and the fanatics. There were some, like Joseph Glanvil, who, in 1681, took up the defence of witchcraft; and there were bishops who promulgated persecution. The clergy had a strong leaning to superstition, and inclined to the side of the fanatics; but they were restrained from the greatest excesses of the Puritans by the influence of the educational portion, whose learning and enlightenment reflected credit on the Church at a period when it greatly needed strengthening. CHAPTER X. WOMEN AND THE ARTS. Development of the arts in the seventeenth century--Introduction of women on the stage--Corruption of the period--Character of the drama--Wearing masks by spectators--The French company at Blackfriars Theatre--The first English company with women players--Famous actresses--English female artists in the Stuart period--Foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts--Angelica Kaufmann and Mary Moser elected members--Their career--Fanny Reynolds--Sir Joshua’s opinion of his sister’s work--Mrs. Cosway--Mrs. Carpenter--Character of eighteenth-century work--Women’s place in musical art--Musical education in early times--Love of music in the sixteenth century--Instruments played by women--Music abolished by the Puritans--Musical maidservants in the seventeenth century--The first English opera--Purcell’s early work--Performance at a ladies’ school. It is in the seventeenth century, remarkable for political and religious strife, and a general unsettling of society, that the history of the fine arts, as far as women are concerned, really begins. There is, in fact, very little to record of the progress of the arts in England before this period. Unfavourable as the age seemed for artistic progress when the public mind was so largely occupied with momentous questions affecting the national life, it was signalized by three notable events, viz. the introduction of women to the stage, the commencement of English opera, and the uprising of female painters. The dramatic revolution, as it may be called, being the most striking of these events, will be touched upon first.