reply. 12. What is meant by "The loose train of thy amberdropping hair"; by "rushy-fringèd," "osier dank," " azurn sheen," "turkis blue," "printless feet," "rubied lip"?

The thought which Milton wishes to bring out in this play is that good is stronger than evil and can conquer it.

Read about Charles I, Cromwell, and Charles II in any good book of stories from English history.

Comus (Cō'mus).

clergyman (cler'ġỹ măn): a preacher

or minister of the church. L'Allegro (Läl le'gro): the cheerful

or merry one.

Il Penseroso (Ïl Pěn sẽ rõ ́sō): the meditative or thoughtful one. Lycidas (Lyç'i dăs).

pamphlets (păm ́flěts): small books without covers or with paper

covers.

dictated (dĭc'tát ěd): spoken so that

another may write it down. masque (mǎsk): an old play in which the actors wore masks.

Ludlow (Lud'lōw).

port: the manner in which a person

bears himself; behavior. stead (stead): service, advantage. unthread thy joints: take out the threads or ligaments that hold the bones together.

hæmony (haemonỹ): a mythical plant.

necromancer (něc ́rò măn çẽr): a magician or sorcerer.

HOW ROBINSON CRUSOE LEARNED TO USE
HIS HANDS

९९
FROM ROBINSON CRUSOE"

DANIEL DEFOE

[Charles the Second of England seemed to live chiefly for the purpose of enjoying himself; and enjoyment to him meant drinking and carousing and all kinds of dissipation. While he was engaged with this sort of 5 thing he let his followers do about as they pleased. The government of the Puritans had been perhaps too strict, but the government of Charles the Second was almost no government at all.

During these times the Puritan Milton, you will re10 member, was obliged to hide in order to save his life, and at last, when he was allowed to go freely about, returned to the writing, or dictating, of "Paradise Lost." John Bunyan, a Puritan or dissenting preacher, was put into prison because he insisted upon preaching, and there in 15 his cell wrote that great book "Pilgrim's Progress," which I hope you will read, for it is a wonderful story and the work of a wonderful man. John Dryden, the most popular writer of the day, had been a Puritan when the Puritans were in power, but was glad to turn Royalist 20 when Charles the Second came to the throne. He wrote poems and plays and translations, and some of his poems

were very good and some were not so good. We do not read them much to-day.

a

Into the midst of all this riot and turmoil, about 1661, another writer was born in London, who years afterwards was to become the author of another wonder- 5 ful book, "Robinson Crusoe." His father was a butcher named Foe, a good man, who knew that his son had talent and who wanted him to become a preacher Puritan or dissenting preacher, like Bunyan, for the Foe family were dissenters. So the boy Daniel was 10 sent to school for some five years or more. But he had no notion of becoming a preacher. Perhaps he thought the life of a dissenting preacher under such conditions was too hard; perhaps he thought he was not good enough, and very likely he was right about it; but he 15 decided that he would rather go into business. So he went into business and became a hosier, or, as we should say, a dealer in stockings. Then he started a factory for making tiles and brick-and if you will read his description of how Robinson Crusoe baked clay and made 20 pottery, you will see that he understood how it was done.

I am sorry to tell you that when he became a man he was foolish enough to change his name from Foe to Defoe. It is said that he used to write his name "D. Foe"; some took it to be all one name; he liked 25 the Frenchy sound and let it go at that. At all events, it was n't the name that his father, the honest butcher, bore.

At about the time that he became Defoe he began to wear a French wig, which was quite the style in those days. These wigs were absurdly large affairs and looked somewhat like the inside of a hair mattress. We should 5 not call them exactly beautiful, but the people of those days thought them very grand. Anything French was then considered right and proper.

While Defoe was wearing this wig of his, and was selling hose and making tiles and brick, he was writing 10 too—for he was a restless sort of person who was never satisfied if he was not doing half a dozen things at once. And about 1703 he wrote something that got him into trouble. There had been changes in England. Charles the Second had been succeeded by his brother, James the 15 Second, and James the Second by William of Orange. Then Queen Anne came to the throne. She didn't treat the dissenters any better than Charles or James had treated them, and when Defoe wrote a pamphlet criticizing her, she offered a reward of fifty pounds for his 20 arrest. Some one told the officers where he was, and got the fifty pounds, and the result was that the officers seized Defoe and put him in the pillory.

The pillory, as you perhaps know, was a plank with three holes in it, one of them just big enough to fit 25 about a man's neck and one for each of his wrists.

When any one had broken the law, he was locked into this plank, or pillory, and made to stand in some public