o
his own 'nature.' The tragic art can, like other arts, only flourish
when it embodies spontaneously the emotions and convictions of the
spectators; when the dramatist is satisfying a genuine demand, and is
himself ready to see in human life the conflict of great passions and
the scene of impressive catastrophes. Then the theatre becomes naturally
the mirror upon which the imagery can be projected. But the society to
which Addison and his fellows belonged was a society of good,
commonplace, sensible people, who were fighting each other by pamphlets
instead of by swords; who played a game in which they staked not life
and death but a comfortable competency; who did not even cut off the
head of a fallen minister, who no longer believed in great statesmen of
heroic proportions rising above the vulgar herd; and who had a very
hearty contempt for romantic extravagance. A society in which common
sense is regarded as the cardinal intellectual virtue does not naturally
suggest the great tragic themes. Cato is obviously contrived, not
inspired; and the dramatist is thinking of obeying the rules of good
taste, instead of having them already incorporated in his thought. This
comes out in one chief monument in the literary movement, I mean Pope's
_Homer_. Pope, as we know, made himself independent by that performance.
The method of publication is significant. He had no interest in the
general sale, which was large enough to make his publisher's fortune.
The publisher meanwhile supplied him gratuitously with the copies for
which the subscribers paid him six guineas apiece. That means that he
received a kind of commission from the upper class to execute the
translation. The list of his subscribers seems to be almost a directory
to the upper circle of the day; every person of quality has felt himself
bound to promote so laudable an undertaking; the patron had been
superseded by a kind of joint-stock body of collective patronage. The
Duke of Buckingham, one of its accepted mouthpieces, had said in verse
in his _Essay on Poetry_ that if you once read Homer, everything else
will be 'mean and poor.'

Verse will seem prose; yet often in him look
And you will hardly need another book.'

That was the correct profession of faith. Yet as a good many Wits found
Greek an obstacle, a translation was needed. Chapman had become
barbarous; Hobbes and Ogilvie were hopelessly flat; and Pope was
therefore handsomely paid to produce a b