POPE. 287 



The shining leather that encased the limb ; 



Coffee became 



The fragrant juice of Mocha s berry brown : 



and they were as liberal of epithets as a royal christening of 

 proper names. Two in every verse, one to balance the other, 

 was the smallest allowance. Here are four successive verses 

 from &amp;lt; The Vanity of Human WisV s : 



The encumbered oar scarce leaves the dreaded coast 

 Through purple billows and a floating host. 

 The bold Bavarian in a hickless hour 

 Tries the dread summits of Ccesarian power. 



This fashion perished also by its own excess, but the criticism 

 which laid at the door of the master all the faults of his pupils 

 was unjust. It was defective, moreover, in overlooking how 

 much of what we call natural is an artificial product, above all 

 in forgetting that Pope had one of the prime qualities of a great 

 poet in exactly answering the intellectual needs of the age in 

 which he lived, and in reflecting its lineaments. He did in some 

 not inadequate sense hold the mirror up to nature. His poetry 

 is not a mountain-tarn, like that of Wordsworth ; it is not in 

 sympathy with the higher moods of the mind ; yet it continues 

 entertaining, in spite of all changes of mode. It was a mirror in 

 a drawing-room, but it gave back a faithful image of society, 

 powdered and rouged, to be sure, and intent on trifles, yet still 

 as human in its own way as the heroes of Homer in theirs. 



For the popularity of Pope, as for that of Marini and his sect, 

 circumstances had prepared the way. English literature for 

 half a century after the Restoration showed the marks both of 

 a moral reaction and of an artistic vassalage to France. From 

 the compulsory saintship and cropped hair of the Puritans men 

 rushed or sneaked, as their temperaments dictated, to the oppo 

 site cant of sensuality and a wilderness of periwig. Charles II. 

 had brought back with him from exile French manners, French 

 morals, and above all French taste. Misfortune makes a shallow 

 mind sceptical. It had made the king so ; and this, at a time 

 when court patronage was the main sinew of authorship, was 

 fatal to the higher qualities of literature. That Charles should 

 have preferred the stately decorums of the French school, and 

 should have mistaken its polished mannerism for style, was 

 natural enough. But there was something also in the texture of 

 the average British mind which prepared it for this subjugation 

 from the other side of the Channel. No observer of men can 

 have failed to notice the clumsy respect which the understand- 



