too, as an example, and cheated the readers of the old Knight's Tale' of sundry of their tears.”—Mrs. Browning. ILLUSTRATIONS. "Let this suffice: nor thou, great saint, refuse This humble tribute of no vulgar muse; "Our author, by experience, finds it true, 'Tis much more hard to please himself than you: Damns his laborious trifle of a play : Not that it's worse than what before he writ; But he has now another taste of wit; And, to confess a truth, though out of time, "Dulness is decent in the church and state. But I forget that still 't is understood, My faithful scene from true records shall tell, -Prologue to Troilus and Cressida. II. Precision-Mastery of Language." He had, beyond most, the gift of the right word. And if he does not, like one or two of the great masters of song, stir one's sympathies by that indefinable aroma so magical in arousing the subtle associations of the soul, he has this in common with the few great writers, the winged seeds of his thoughts embed themselves in the memory and germinate there. But his strong sense, his command of the happy word, his wit, which is distinguished by a certain breadth and, as it were, power of generalization, as Pope's by keenness of edge and point, were his whether he would or no. Pithy sentences and phrases always drop from Dryden's pen as if unawares."-Lowell. "He was the first writer under whose skillful management the scientific vocabulary fell into natural and pleasing verse. -Macaulay. "No English poet, perhaps no English writer, has attained as regards expression such undisputed excellence."-James Mitford. "Great Dryden next whose tuneful muse affords The sweetest numbers and the fittest words."—Addison. "Dryden purifies his own [style] and renders it more clear by introducing close reasoning and precise words. He bounds it [his thought] with exact terms justified by the dictionary, with simple constructions justified by the grammar, that the reader may have at every step a method of verification and a source of clearness."-Taine. "The felicity of his language, the richness of his illustrations, and the depth of his reflections, often supplied what the scene wanted in natural passion."-Sir Walter Scott. ILLUSTRATIONS. "Three poets in three distant ages born "Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease, O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down, "Whatever happy region is thy place, -Astræa Redux. Cease thy celestial song a little space; Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse, But such as thy own voice did practise here, And candidate of heaven." -An Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew. POPE, 1688-1744 66 Biographical Outline.-Alexander Pope, born in Lombard Street, London, May 21, 1688; father a Roman Catholic linen draper, in comfortable circumstances, who lived, after 1700, at Binfield in Windsor Forest; Pope is a precocious child, and is nicknamed "the little nightingale" because of the sweetness of his voice; in his eighth year he begins Latin and Greek with a priest as tutor, and in his ninth year he enters a Roman Catholic school at Twyford, near Winchester; later he attends school at Marylebone and at Hyde Park Corner; he was remembered at Twyford because he was once whipped for satirizing the master; in his eleventh year a severe illness, brought on by perpetual application," ruins his health and distorts his figure; after a few months at school he returns to his father's home, and is placed for a time under another priest-tutor, but is soon left to pursue his studies entirely by himself; he reads voraciously and, according to his own statement, studies Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and the English poets with as much zest as "a boy gathering flowers;" he begins early to imitate his favorite authors, and in his twelfth year makes a kind of play " from Olgiby's translation of Homer, which is acted by his school-fellows; he "does nothing but read and write;" during 1701-1703 he writes an epic poem entitled "Alexander," which he burns in 1717, with Atterbury's approval; about 1702 (when he is but fourteen) he makes also a translation from Statius, which he published in 1712; during his boyhood he also makes several other translations from the classics and from Chaucer. In his fifteenth year he goes to London to study French and Italian, but too severe application brings on an illness nearly fatal; he regains health through daily rides, and early begins to court the acquaintance of men of letters, who generally receive him with encouragement; he is especially aided by Sir William Trumbull, William Walsh, and Wycherley; he writes his "Pastorals" before he is eighteen, and publishes one of them in 1706, at the request of Tonson; he is much influenced by Wycherley, eighteen years his senior, whom Pope says he followed about "like a dog ; " he becomes first known to the literary world in general through the publication of his "Pastorals" in 1709; these are favorably received, and in May, 1711, he publishes, anonymously, his "Essay on Criticism; "the" Essay" is satirized by Dennis, but is praised by Addison, whom Pope soon afterward meets through the good offices of Steele, already an acquaintance of Pope's; his "Messiah" is first published May 14, 1712, in the Spectator; during the same year his "Rape of the Lock" and some of his minor poems appear in the "Miscellanies," published by Lintot; "The Rape of the Lock" is warmly praised by Addison, and is revised, greatly enlarged, and published by itself in 1714, adding much to Pope's reputation. In March, 1712-13, he publishes his "Cooper's Hill," partly written during boyhood, which, by its political character, wins for Pope the friendship of Swift; he also writes the prologue for Addison's "Cato," which was produced April 13, 1713, but, through literary intrigues most discreditable to Pope, his friendliness toward Addison is soon turned into hatred; about this time he is introduced by Swift to Arbuthnot, and with these two and Gay, Parnell, Congreve, and others, he helps to form the famous "Scriblerus Club; " in October, 1713, after encouragement by Addison, Swift, and many others, Pope publishes proposals for a translation of Homer's "Iliad;" the proposal is received with enthusiasm by both Whig and Tory writers, and the first four books of Pope's "Iliad" appear in 1715; other volumes follow in 1716, 1717, |