400 POPE. 



44 Which the clear spirit doth raise 

 To scorn delights and live laborious days," 



to the crown of a good preacher who sets 



" The hearts of men on fire 

 To scorn the sordid world and unto heaven aspire " ? 



Dean Swift, who aspired to the mitre, could write a 

 book whose moral, if it had any, was that one religion 

 was as good as another, since all were political devices, 

 and accepted a cure of souls when it was more than 

 doubtful whether he believed that his fellow-creatures 

 had any souls to be saved, or, if they had, whether they 

 were worth saving. The answer which Pulci's Margutte 

 makes to Morgante, when asked if he believed in Christ 

 or Mahomet, would have expressed well enough the 

 creed of the majority of that generation : 



" To tell thee truly, 



My faith in black 's no greater than in azure, 

 But I believe in capons, roast-meat, bouilli, 

 And in good wine my faith 's beyond all measure." * 



It was a carnival of intellect without faith, when men 

 could be Protestant or Catholic, both at once, or by 

 turns, or neither, as suited their interest, when they 

 could swear one allegiance and keep on safe terms with 

 the other, when prime ministers and commanders-in- 

 chief could be intelligencers of the Pretender, nay, 

 when even Algernon Sidney himself could be a pen- 

 sioner of France. What morality there was, was the 

 morality of appearances, of the side that is turned 

 toward men and not toward God. The very shameless- 

 ness of Congreve is refreshing in that age of sham. 



It was impossible that anything truly great, that is, 

 great on the moral and emotional as well as the intellec- 

 tual side, should be produced by such a generation. 

 But something intellectually great could be and was. 



* Morgante, xviii. 115. 



