. There was a complexity in the incessant rise and fall of
Dryden's lines which mechanical verse-makers could only copy
imperfectly. The uniformity of Pope gave them little trouble. The
repetition soon fixed the brief lesson in their minds, and the petty
warblers almost rivalled their original in sound, though they were far
enough from approaching the beauty of his language, the terseness of his
style, the felicity of his ideas, and the weight of his sense.

As the Pastorals of Philips opened the sixth volume of Tonson's
Miscellany, De Quiucey conjectures that Pope's Pastorals may have been
placed at the end of the volume by his own desire. Both sets of verses,
by this arrangement, were more likely to attract attention, and invite
comparison. Pope appears not to have felt any jealousy at the outset.
Speaking of Philips's Pastorals in a letter to Cromwell, on October 28,
1710, a year and a half after the Miscellany was published, he said "he
agreed with the Tatler that we had no better eclogues in our language."
He particularly commended the lines which describe the musician playing
on the harp, and added that "nothing could be objected to them, except
that they were too lofty for pastoral." He changed his tone after the
essays on pastoral poetry had appeared in the Guardian. These papers
commenced with No. 22, and in No. 23, for April 7, 1713, some passages
are quoted from Philips to illustrate the qualities appropriate to the
pastoral style. In No. 30 there are more quotations from Philips to the
same purpose, and he and Spenser are singled out as the sole cultivators
of this species of composition, who "have copied and improved the
beauties of the ancients." The eulogium reached its climax in No. 32,
where it is asserted that there have been only four true masters of the
art in above two thousand years,--"Theocritus, who left his dominions to
Virgil; Virgil, who left his to his son Spenser; and Spenser, who was
succeeded by his eldest born Philips." It is not known who contributed
the essays, but it has been conjectured, without any evidence, that they
proceeded from Tickell. There cannot be a question that the author had a
friendship for Philips, or he would not have ranked him with Theocritus,
Virgil, and Spenser; and it is equally certain that he was not an
admirer of the Pastorals of Pope, which are passed over in silence, and
which violate the canons laid down by the critic. "I must observe," he
says, "that our co