In this purpose Charles had the sympathy of a considerable part of the
people. The Puritan faith (S378), represented by such men as Hampden
(S436) and Milton (S450), was noble indeed; but unfortunately there
were many in its ranks who had no like grandeur of soul, but who
pushed Puritanism to its most injurious and offensive extreme. That
attempt to reduce the whole of life to a narrow system of sour
self-denial had at last broken down.
Now, under the Restoration, the reaction set in, and the lower and
earthly side of human nature--none the less human because it is at the
bottom and not at the top--seemed determined to take its full
revenge. Butler ridiculed religious zeal in his poem of "Hudibras"
(S457), which ever courtier had by heart. Society was smitten with an
epidemic of immorality. Profligacy became the fashion in both speech
and action, and much of the popular literature of that day will not
bear the light.