Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman who could every hour employ
With something new to wish or to enjoy!
Railing and praising were his usual themes,
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes:
So over violent or over civil

That every man with him was God or Devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.

Beggared by fools whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate.

He laughed himself from Court; then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief:
For spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom and wise Achitophel;

Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft,

He left not faction, but of that was left.

From this passage quote the lines which hint that Buckingham is respectively "a fool, a blockhead, or a knave" without actually calling him so. Quote other lines that seem to be particularly effective. Remark upon the style of the couplet: the meter, the position of the pause, and the kind of rhyme. Finally, write a paragraph summarizing the effect the passage produces on the reader.

7. The passage given below is an extract from Dryden's earliest printed poem (1658). Compare it with the passage given in the last exercise.

Each little pimple had a tear in it,

To wail the fault its rising did commit,

Who, rebel-like, with their own lord at strife,
Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.
Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
The cabinet of a richer soul within?
No comet need foretell his change drew on,
Whose corpse might seem constellation.

Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings

8.

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, the energy divine.

POPE

From the passages already quoted give extracts to show the truth of the above statement.

9. Use the following quotation to sketch the development of English prose from the death of Shakespeare to the death of Dryden:

When we find Chapman, the Elizabethan translator of Homer, expressing himself in his preface thus: "Though truth in her very nakedness sits in so deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora and Ganges few eyes can sound her, I hope yet those few here will so discover and confirm, that, the date being out of her darkness in this morning of our poet, he shall now gird his temples with the sun," we pronounce that such a prose is intolerable. When we find Milton writing: "And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem,"-we pronounce that such a prose has its own grandeur, but that it is obsolete and inconvenient. But when we find Dryden telling us: "What Virgil wrote in the vigour of his age, in plenty and at ease, I have undertaken to translate in my declining years; struggling with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my genius, liable to be misconstrued in all I write," then we exclaim that here at last we have the true English prose, prose such as we would all gladly use if we only knew how. Yet Dryden was Milton's contemporary.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

10. "A good deal of the unconquerable individuality of the earlier part of the century survives in it, and prevents monotony. After Addison everybody tries to write like Addison; after Johnson almost everybody tries to write like Johnson. But after Dryden everybody dare not yet try to write like Dryden." (Saintsbury.) Show how far this statement applies to the prose style of the age.

11. "The characteristic feature of The Pilgrim's Progress is that it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest." (Macaulay.) Show how

Bunyan, in plot, characters, and style, arouses this "strong human interest" in his allegory. From this point of view compare him with Spenser, who, Macaulay says, does not arouse this interest.

12. The period of Dryden is often called "the Age of Satire." Account for the prominence of satire in this period, and point out some of the effects it had on current and the succeeding writing.

13. What are the main features of Restoration drama? 14. "No man exercised so much influence on the age. The reason is obvious. On no man did the age exercise so much influence." (Macaulay.) How far is this statement true of Dryden?

CHAPTER VIII

THE AGE OF POPE

TIME-CHART OF THE CHIEF AUTHORS

The thick line shows the period of active literary work

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (1700–50)

In the beginning of the eighteenth century the old quarrels take on new features.

1. The Rise of the Political Parties. In the reign of Charles II the terms "Whig" and "Tory" first became current; by the year 1700 they were in everybody's mouth. About that time domestic politicians became sharply cleft into two groups that were destined to become established as the basis of the British system. Domestic affairs, while they never approached the stage of bloodshed, took on a new acrimony that was to affect literature deeply. Actual

points of political faith upon which the parties were divided are not of great importance to us here; but, generally speaking, we may say that the Whig party stood for the pre-eminence of personal freedom as opposed to the_Tory view of royal divine right. Hence the Whigs supported the Hanoverian succession, whereas the Tories were Jacobites. The Tories, whose numbers were recruited chiefly from the landed classes, objected to the foreign war upon the score that they had to pay taxes to prolong it; and the Whigs, representing the trading classes generally, were alleged to be anxious to continue the war, as it brought them increased prosperity. In the matter of religion the Whigs were Low Churchmen and the Tories High Churchmen.

2. The Foreign War. This War of the Spanish Succession was brilliantly successful under the leadership of Marlborough, who, besides being a great general, was a prominent Tory politician. The Tories, as the war seemed to be indefinitely prolonged, supplanted (1710) the Whigs, with whom they had been co-operating in the earlier stages of the war, and in 1713 they concluded the war by the unfortunate Treaty of Utrecht. Contemporary literature is much concerned both with the war and the peace.

3. The Succession. When Anne ascended the throne the succession seemed to be safe enough, for she had a numerous family. Nevertheless, her children all died before her, and in 1701 it became necessary to pass the Act of Settlement, a Whig measure by which the crown was conferred upon the House of Hanover. On the death of Anne, in the year 1714, the succession took effect, in spite of the efforts of the Tories, who were anxious to restore the Stuarts. The events of this year 1714 deeply influenced the lives of Addison, Steele, Swift, and many other writers of lesser degree.

THE AGE OF PROSE

The age of Pope intensified the movement that, as we have seen, began after the Restoration. The drift away