Excerpt from The Dryden Epoch, Vol. 5 Court attempted a sort of rivalry. Everyone knows how Charles invented a new Court costume, and Louis retorted by dressing his lackeys in it. Certainly, many of the arts in which England has generally been wanting were kindled into activity by a Court patronage liberal enough at least in verbal encouragement. In this period we have painting represented by Lely and Kneller, architecture by Wren and Inigo Jones, music by Purcell and Blow, sculpture by Grinling Gibbons, scholarship by the great Bentley. As for science, with a king who was himself an amateur anatomist, the Royal Society came into being, with Pepys and Evelyn among its first members. At Cambridge Sir Isaac Newton was mount ing his telescope on the Great Gate of Trinity, and writing his Poincz'pz'a, which opened a new vista for science. Even Prince Rupert, the dashing cavalry leader, the fortunate Admiral in the Dutch wars, invented for Art the art of mezzotint, and for science Prince Rupert's drops. In a word, at the Restore tion we find the arts and sciences flourishing as they never flourished in England until the nineteenth century. The fine gentlemen of the Court, in their lace and periwigs, writing their elegant couplets to Bellamira and Araminta, spending their afternoons with Betterton and Mrs. Bracegirdle at the play, and their evenings at the Royal Society, hearing Mr. Boyle lecture these beam and Wits typify a period when civilization was complex, artificial, and self-conscious. Vire have exchanged a merrie England for a witty England, we have exchanged romance for elegance. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.