Drydcn and the Critical Canons of the EigJitccntli Century 33 



surroundings and a technical dexterity in dealing with them for 

 such as might serve to form the character and control the conduct. 

 And this is the reason that the writings of the eighteenth century 

 would be so salutary for us, if we would only read them. In the 

 prevalence of the industrial idea we have pretty well forgotten 

 that there is such a thing as morality, that life is aught but busi- 

 ness or amenable to other than its dingy and dubious standards. 

 To struggle against the current of an entire civilization is impos- 

 sible ; but no less is it wise and wholesome to escape occasionally 

 from an atmosphere of this sort into an age in which every writer 

 was or sought to be a moralist in concerning himself mainly for 

 correct ideas about right living. Dryden, Addison, Swift, Pope — 

 they are all substantially in accord with Dr. Johnson. Of Shakes- 

 peare Dryden says : "He needed not the spectacle of books to 

 read nature; he looked inwards and found her there." ''The 

 proper study of mankind is man," declares Pope.^ In this sense 

 every great literature is moral : it is concerned first and foremost 

 for human nature ; it is, as Matthew Arnold says, a criticism of 

 life ;- and its perusal results in sound ideas about character and 

 conduct. But the literature of the eighteenth century was moral 

 in an even more obvious and didactic sense than this. It was in- 

 deed a criticism of life — not in any such metaphorical sense as 

 that in which Matthew Arnold declares Keats' line, 



"Forever wilt thou love and she be fair," 



to be a criticism of life,^ but in a very exact and literal sense. They 

 were critical not only in intention but also in method. The poet 

 of the time believed it his duty to analyze and divide, to comment 

 and moralize, to separate the good from the evil and hold them 

 up to contemplation as such, the one to praise and emulation, the 

 other to ridicule and detestation. Hence his poetry was of a 

 strongly disputatious stamp. It was intended to discuss and argue 

 moral questions and was expected to instruct and edify. Even 

 when its purpose is not so patently pedagogical, it is always more 

 or less conscious of some such conception of its poetic function. 



^ Essay on Man, epistle II. 



'Essays in Criticism, JJ^ordswortJi. 



'Ibid.' 



33 

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