His brother Giles made a better attempt at the Spenserian manner.

His long poem, _Christ's Victory and Death_, shows for all its carefully Protestant tone high qualities of mysticism; across it Spenser and Milton join hands.
It was, however, in pastoral poetry that Spenser's influence found its pleasantest outlet.

One might hesitate to advise a reader to embark on either of the Fletchers.

There is no reason why any modern should not read and enjoy Browne or Wither, in whose softly flowing verse the sweetness and contentment of the countryside, that "merry England" which was the background of all sectarian and intellectual strife and labour, finds as in a placid stream a calm reflection and picture of itself.

The seventeenth century gave birth to many things that only came to maturity in the nineteenth; if you care for that kind of literary study which searches out origins and digs for hints and models of accented styles, you will find in Browne that which influenced more than any other single thing the early work of Keats.