LESSONS IN EN< 





.nig fifty acres, stand 108 such pines an tho whole 



\v,.rld iMiin..t rtmal. Twenty of these average seventy-fire feet 



in i-in uini'.T. -in <. When, some years since, it was resolved 



t these huge vegetable productions should bo 



tVlli-.l, it wiw fouiiil th:it nn iiv.' cir saw could ever complete its 



HO, after some deliberation, it was decided that, 



: .,f In-ill^ fulled in tho usual way, the " big tree" should 



be brought down by boring a complete zone or circle of auger 



iiti'l it, each hole penetrating to the centre. Five men 



nijiiod for twenty-two day* in completing the circle of 



Immense wedges were then introduced, and after much 



driving mid hammering, tho vast mass was sent crushing to 



tli. When stretched out on the ground, a fallen giant, 



16 measured 302 feet in length, and 96 feet in girth at 



the base, whilst the bark was a foot in thickness. Some idea 



may bo formed of the size of tho stump's surface when we state 



party, consisting of thirty-two ladies and gentlemen, 



duiH'cd cotillions on it, as though in a capacious ball-room. Fig. 



5 on page 265 represents, life-size, the cone and foliage of this 



most remarkable pine, which probably had reached full maturity 



long before England was first invaded by the Romans. It is 



somewhat remarkable that in the plant world the passing away 



of one description of tree should call into life, as it were, one of 



an entirely different species or family ; and this is markedly 



shown in tho regions where great forest fires have swept away 



vast tracks of pine woods, as in North America and Canada. 



Poplar, hockmatac, cedar, and fir follow tho true pines and 

 spruces. Hemlock- bearing lands, when burnt out, produce 

 alder and cedar. When woods composed of beech, maple, and 

 birch are destroyed, the succeeding growth will consist of 

 sumach bushes, spruce, and an abundance of wild raspberry and 

 gooseberry bushes. Examples of this change of tree-life may 

 be found in the bogs of Ireland, where submerged pine trunks 

 still abound in districts where now no fir is seen to grow ; and 

 in the vast lignite deposits of Bohemia, where the buried pine 

 forests of past ages have assumed a condition approaching that 

 of coal. 



LESSONS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. XXV. 



POPE AND THE CONTEMPORARY' POETS. 



ALEXANDER POPE, the great poet of the reign of Queen Anne 

 and her successor, was born in London in 1688. His father 

 was a linendraper in the same city, but before his son was of an 

 age to be influenced by the scenes around him, he had amassed 

 a competent fortune, and, leaving London, settled in a country- 

 house in tho neighbourhood of Windsor. The religion in which 

 he was born for his family were Roman Catholics would 

 alone have excluded Pope from the educational establishments 

 at which most of his compeers in literature received their early 

 training ; and, in addition, the extreme delicacy of his health 

 for his frame was small and deformed, and his constitution very 

 weakly prevented his being at any time sent from home for 

 the purpose of education for very long together. He was, 

 however, carefully taught, especially by a priest in Hampshire, 

 under whose care he was for some time. 



Pope's great abilities, and especially his poetical faculty, 

 showed themselves at an unusually early age, even from his 

 very childhood. " I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came," 

 he himself tolls. The ode on " Solitude " was written when 

 its author was a boy of twelve ; the " Pastorals " only two 

 years later ; and these were followed in rapid and unbroken 

 Buccession by other works of greater or less importance. His 

 poetical reputation was completely established by his " Essay 

 on Criticism," published in 1711. The same work was also the 

 cause of his first introduction into that atmosphere of con- 

 troversy and bitter personal conflict in which it seems the life of 

 every literary man was in those days destined to be passed. 

 Some of tho comments of Pope in his poetical essay were 

 bitterly resented by Dennis, a poet of some pretensions and 

 of some fame in his own day, but whose name would long have 

 been forgotten had it not been preserved in the satires of his 

 great antagonist. Dennis retorted upon Pope in a pamphlet 

 full of the most violent abuse and the coarsest scurrility ; and 

 thus began a quarrel which lasted as long as they both lived, 

 and which is still memorable as having given occasion to some 

 of Pope's fimest and keenest satire. 



About this Mune period Pope began to bo much in London, 

 and to cultivate the society of the loading mm of latter*, fro- 

 for thin pnrpOM the coffee-bonce* at which the wits 

 were wont to meet ; and by the impression which hu pnt 

 powers thus made on thote beat able to estimate them, scarcely 

 less than by his published work*, be gradually nttafotH the 

 extraordinary and commanding position in the world of letters 

 which ho hold until )UH death. Hi* society was cultivated and 

 his friendship sought by all who pretended to literary power 

 themselves, or had judgment enough to appreciate it in another. 

 Bolingbroke, the brilliant and versatile statesman and daring 

 free-thinker, and Warburton, the learned and ingenious divine, 

 were equally his friends. He was the chief and centre of a 

 literary clique of which Swift, Atterbury, Gay, and a number 

 of others whose names are scarcely less known, w.-re among the 

 members. 



In 1717, his father's death having left him with a considerable 

 inheritance, which, added to tho profits of bin own works, was 

 amply sufficient to maintain him in ease and comfort, be re- 

 moved to Twickenham, to the villa which his name has rendered 

 famous. Here he was able to indulge to the fnll his somewhat 

 artificial tastes in gardening and decoration, and to enjoy at 

 will the society of his many friends. 



The diligence of Pope as a writer was very great ; indeed 

 when we remember the extreme delicacy of his health (for his 

 delicacy lasted all through life), it becomes amazing. The first 

 part of " Windsor Forest," a descriptive poem in which Pope 

 dwells with affectionate recollection upon the scenes amid which 

 bis childhood was passed, and the " Temple of Fame," a 

 modernised imitation of Chaucer's " House of Fame," were un- 

 doubtedly very early works. So was, probably, the " Elegy to 

 the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady." These productions 

 were soon followed by tbe " Rape of the Lock," the second part 

 of " Windsor Forest," and the beautiful " Epistle of Eloisa to 

 Abelard." Immediately afterwards Pope undertook the great 

 task of translating Homer into English verse, and at intervals 

 from 1715 to 1720 the translation of the "Iliad" appeared. 

 The " Odyssey," so much of it at least as is the work of Pope, 

 very soon followed. His next important work was the 

 " Dnnciad," which in its first form appeared in 1728. For 

 some years after this time Pope's poetical powers were devoted 

 chiefly to a class of essays in verse, sometimes purely didactic, 

 sometimes mainly satirical ; the " Essay on Man " being of the 

 former class, the " Moral Essays " of the hitter. The last of 

 hia great poetical works, the " Dnnciad," in its second and 

 much altered form, appeared in 1742. Nor is this by any 

 means a complete enumeration of Pope's poetical works. 

 We have made no mention of a large number of short bnt 

 by no means unimportant pieces ; nor, with the exception of 

 Homer, have we spoken of his numerous translations from the 

 classical writers, or of his adaptations of the older English 

 poets. And his poems are not his only works : he wrote much 

 in prose, especially in the series of papers written by him in 

 conjunction with Swift and Atterbury, and published under the 

 name of Martinus Scriblerns. His correspondence was very 

 voluminous, and has been published. 



Pope died, in 1744, at the villa at Twickenham in which he 

 had resided for so many years. 



Pope, like almost every other great poet, is peculiarly the 

 representative of the age in which he lived ; and his works are 

 the most exact, as well as the highest example of the poetical 

 type prevailing in his day. French tastes and French influence 

 were predominant : and whenever French influence has made 

 itself felt in English literature its effect has always been to 

 develop great beauty of external form in poetry ; smoothness, 

 regularity, and finish of versification ; grace, accuracy, and 

 neatness of diction. But these beauties are generally accom- 

 panied either by a pompous, artificial unreality of sentiment 

 which arrogates to itself the title of heroic, as was the case in 

 the tragic drama of the Restoration ; or by a certain common- 

 placeness of thought and slightness of feeling. This latter 

 defect is very apparent in tho poetry of the period of which we 

 are now speaking. Passion it has little or none ; it neither 

 expresses nor stimulates any strong emotion. Its thoughts are 

 clear, correct, and appropriate ; it never brings us face to face 

 with those great riddles of nature and humanity which we 

 meet in every page not only of Shakespeare and Webster, of 

 Shelley and Byron, but even in the minor poets contemporary 



