Those qualities, indeed, define the character of later Restoration comedy. The best of Jonson's comedies are Volpone (1606) and The Alchemist (1610). Professing themselves his disciples, the dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher collaborated on a number of so-called tragicomedies (for example, Philaster, 1610?) in which morally dubious situations, surprising reversals of fortune, and sentimentality combine with hollow rhetoric.
The outstanding prose works of the Renaissance are not so numerous as those of later ages, but the great translation of the Bible, called the King James Bible, or Authorised Version, published in 1611, is significant because it was the culmination of two centuries of effort to produce the best English translation of the original texts, and also because its vocabulary, imagery, and rhythms have influenced writers of English in all lands ever since. Similarly sonorous and stately is the prose of Sir Thomas Browne, the physician and semiscientific investigator. His reduction of worldly phenomena to symbols of mystical truth is best seen in Religio Medici (Religion of a Doctor), probably written in 1635.

The Restoration Period and the 18th Century
This period extends from 1660, the year Charles II was restored to the throne, until about 1789. The prevailing characteristic of the literature of the Renaissance had been its reliance on poetic inspiration or what today might be called imagination. The inspired conceptions of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton, the true originality of Spencer, and the daring poetic style of Donne all support this generalisation. Furthermore, although nearly all these poets had been far more bound by formal and stylistic conventions than modern poets are, they had developed a large variety of forms and of rich or exuberant styles into which individual poetic expression might fit. In the succeeding period, however, writers reacted against both the imaginative flights and the ornate or startling styles and forms of the previous era. The quality of the later age is suggested by its writers' admiration for Ben Jonson and his disciples; the transparent and apparently effortless poetic medium of the “school of Ben,” along with its emphasis on good taste, moderation, and the Greek and Latin classics as models, appealed profoundly to the new generation.
Thus, the restoration of Charles II ushered in a literature characterised by reason, moderation, good taste, deft management, and simplicity.