the imagination. The variety and excellence of prose works, and
the development of a serviceable prose style, which had been begun by
Dryden, until it served to express clearly every human interest and
emotion,--these are the chief literary glories of the eighteenth century.

In the literature of the preceding age we noted two marked tendencies,--the
tendency to realism in subject-matter, and the tendency to polish and
refinement of expression. Both these tendencies were continued in the
Augustan Age, and are seen clearly in the poetry of Pope, who brought the
couplet to perfection, and in the prose of Addison. A third tendency is
shown in the prevalence of satire, resulting from the unfortunate union of
politics with literature. We have already noted the power of the press in
this age, and the perpetual strife of political parties. Nearly every
writer of the first half of the century was used and rewarded by Whigs or
Tories for satirizing their enemies and for advancing their special
political interests. Pope was a marked exception, but he nevertheless
followed the prose writers in using satire too largely in his poetry. Now
satire--that is, a literary work which searches out the faults of men or
institutions in order to hold them up to ridicule--is at best a destructive
kind of criticism. A satirist is like a laborer who clears away the ruins
and rubbish of an old house before the architect and builders begin on a
new and beautiful structure. The work may sometimes be necessary, but it
rarely arouses our enthusiasm. While the satires of Pope, Swift, and
Addison are doubtless the best in our language, we hardly place them with
our great literature, which is always constructive in spirit; and we have
the feeling that all these men were capable of better things than they ever
wrote.

THE CLASSIC AGE. The period we are studying is known to us by various
names. It is often called the Age of Queen Anne; but, unlike Elizabeth,
this "meekly stupid" queen had practically no influence upon our
literature. The name Classic Age is more often heard; but in using it we
should remember clearly these three different ways in which the word
"classic" is applied to literature: (1) the term "classic" refers, in
general, to writers of the highest rank in any nation. As used in our
literature, it was first applied to the works of the great Greek and Roman
writers, like Homer and Virgil; and any English book which followed the
simple and n