Plays and Puritans

r say, 'The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He set a compass upon the face of the deep;' we shall leave aesthetic science to those who think that they comprehend it; we shall, as simple disciples of Bacon, deal with facts and with history as 'the will of God revealed in facts.' We will leave those who choose to settle what ought to be, and ourselves look patiently at that which actually was once, and which may be again; that so out of the conduct of our old Puritan forefathers (right or wrong), and their long war against 'Art,' we may learn a wholesome lesson; as we doubtless shall, if we believe firmly that our history is neither more nor less than what the old Hebrew prophets called 'God's gracious dealings with his people,' and not say in our hearts, like some sentimental girl who sings Jacobite ballads (written forty years ago by men who cared no more for the Stuarts than for the Ptolemies, and were ready to kiss the