65

III. SIR SAMUEL GARTH--AMBROSE PHILIPS--JOHN PHILIPS--NICHOLAS
ROWE--AARON HILL--THOMAS PARNELL--THOMAS TICKELL--WILLIAM
SOMERVILLE--JOHN DYER--WILLIAM SHENSTONE--MARK AKENSIDE--DAVID
MALLET--SCOTTISH SONG-WRITERS 96

PART II. THE PROSE WRITERS.

IV. JOSEPH ADDISON--SIR RICHARD STEELE 125

V. JONATHAN SWIFT--JOHN ARBUTHNOT 151

VI. DANIEL DEFOE--JOHN DENNIS--COLLEY CIBBER--LADY MARY WORTLEY
MONTAGU--EARL OF CHESTERFIELD--LORD LYTTELTON--JOSEPH SPENCE 180

VII. FRANCIS ATTERBURY--LORD SHAFTESBURY--BERNARD DE
MANDEVILLE--LORD BOLINGBROKE--GEORGE BERKELEY--WILLIAM
LAW--JOSEPH BUTLER--WILLIAM WARBURTON 207

INDEX OF MINOR POETS AND PROSE WRITERS 242

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 249

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WRITERS 253

INDEX 255

THE AGE OF POPE.

INTRODUCTION.

I.

The death of John Dryden, on the first of May, 1700, closed a period of
no small significance in the history of English literature. His faults
were many, both as a man and as a poet, but he belongs to the race of
the giants, and the impress of greatness is stamped upon his works. No
student of Dryden can fail to mark the force and sweep of an intellect
impatient of restraint. His 'long-resounding march' reminds us of a
turbulent river that overflows its banks, and if order and perfection of
art are sometimes wanting in his verse, there is never the lack of
power. Unfortunately many of the best years of his life were devoted to
a craft in which he was working against the grain. His dramas, with one
or two noble exceptions, are comparative failures, and in them he too
often

'Profaned the God-given strength, and marred the lofty line.'

In two prominent respects his influence on his successors is of no
slight significance. As a satirist Pope acknowledged the master he was
unable to excel, and so did many of the eighteenth century versemen, who
appear to have looked upon satire as the beginning and the end of
poetry. Moreover Dryden may be regarded, without much exaggeration, as
the father of modern prose. Nothing can be more lucid than his style,
which is at once bri