4 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
suffered much through Dennis’s severity of judgment he was finally 
provoked to take his revenge by satirizing Dennis in the Dunciad. 
It seemed to be a common state of things in the days of Pope for literary 
men to have inveterate quarrels. 
An estimate of Dennis’s standing may best be had by quoting a 
few literary opinions. 
Richard Steele, who suffered through Dennis’s critical attacks 
said of him: “Unhappy being! Terrible without! Fearful within! 
Not a wolf in sheep’s clothing but a sheep in wolf’s.” 
Isaac D’Israeli sums up his estimate of Dennis in a few pithy sen- 
tences: “He exercised the despotism of a literary critic. His learning 
was the bigotry of criticism. It was ever Aristotle explained by 
Dennis.” 
Cibber says concerning Dennis’s dramatic writings: “He saw with 
concern that love had got possession of the tragic stage, contrary to the 
authority of the ancients and the example of Shakespeare. He resolved 
to deviate a little and not make his heroes whining slaves to their amours. 
He made love appear violent but yet to be subdued by reason, and give 
way to some other more noble passion, as in Rinaldo—to glory; in 
Iphigenia—to friendship; and in Liberty Asserted—to the public good.” 
Cowper said in 1786: “ Pope and Addison had a Dennis, and Dennis, 
if I mistake not, held up as he has been to scorn and detestation, was a 
sensible fellow, and passed some censures upon both those writers, 
Englishman with the legitimate prejudices of the revolution, detesting 
the French, abominating the Italian Opera and deprecating as heartily 
the triumph of the Pretender as the success of a rival’s tragedy.” 
James Russell Lowell calls Dennis, “One of Pope’s typical dunces, 
a dull man outside his own sphere as men are apt to be, but who had 
some sound notions as a critic, and thus became the object of Pope’s 
fear and therefore of his resentment.” 
Lounsbury on Dennis, 1891: ‘In literary matters he was born a 
dissenter. He belonged by nature to the opposition and the cardinal 
principle on which he acted was to find fault with any new thing that 
had met with general approval. He could not fail to be at times right.” 
Edmund Gosse, 1897: “Dennis had a foolish attitude towards 
his younger contemporaries, but in his prime he was a writer of excellent 
judgment. He was the first English critic to do unstinted justice to 
Milton and to Moliére, preparing the way for the literary verdicts of 
Addison.” 
At the beginning of his career Dennis was possessed of independent 
means, but in his old age, suffering from blindness, he was reduced to 
extreme poverty. Kindhearted actors and actresses gave him a benefit 
night. Pope had an opportunity of being magnanimous on being asked 
