POPE. 393 



This fashion perished also by its owu excess, but the 

 criticism which laid at the door of the master all the 

 faults of his pupils was unjust. It was defective, more- 

 (n'er, in overlooking how much of what we call natural 

 is an artificial product, above all in forgetting that Pope 

 liad one of the prime qualities of a great poet in exactly 

 answering the intellectual needs of the age in w-hich 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, 

 l)ut 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 centuiy 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 opposite cant of 

 sensuality and a wilderness of periwig. Charles II. had 

 brought back w^ith 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 quali- 

 ties 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 

 17* 



