According to Johnson, the writers before the Restoration are valued because they provide

• A. the most recent innovations
• B. new scientific terms
• C. the wells of English undefiled
• D. modern usage examples

Answer: (C)

The main idea here is that Johnson treats older writers as a pure, authoritative source for English. He uses the image of “the wells of English undefiled” to suggest that the language as used by writers before the Restoration preserves the language in its most genuine, uncorrupted form. These authors provide a reservoir of correct usage, familiar idioms, and solid syntactic patterns that later writers can draw from, helping to maintain linguistic integrity and a stable standard for English.

So, the writers before the Restoration are valued not for novelty or later innovations, but for offering a dependable foundation—the pure language from which current English can be learned and measured.