Pope's Essay on Criticism, the finest piece of argumentative poetry in the English language, appeared in 1711, though it had been completed about two years before. Following this, in 1713, was The Rape of the Lock, which tells the story of a curl cut from the head of a maiden by a daring young nobleman. This little epic poem is not only a brilliant specimen of the mockheroic style, but it gives also a very vivid and faithful picture of fashionable English life. during the reign of Queen Anne.

Pope earned some reputation also as a translator. In 1712 he began the translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and completed his work in 1725. Much of his manuscript while making this translation was presented to the printer on scraps of paper and the backs of letters. For this translation he received eight thousand pounds, with which he bought himself a villa at Twickenham, surrounded by five acres of land.

The Dunciad, a bitter satire which appeared in 1729, was written by Pope to lash the enemies and critics who constantly annoyed him. They gained the notoriety they courted, but not in the way they desired.

Pope's most finished versification appears in his Essay on Man, a poem which is nearly perfect as a model of didactic poetry, but filled with dangerous sentiments.

The death of this great poet occurred at his home at Twickenham on the 30th of May, 1744. Here, with a loving mother, he had lived continuously from the time of his purchase of the Twickenham home to the time. of his death

CRITICISM BY REV. STOPFORD BROOKE.

POPE is our greatest master in didactic poetry, not so much because of the worth of the thoughts as because of the masterly form in which they are put. The Essay

on Man, though its philosophy is poor and not his own, is crowded with lines that have passed into daily use. The Essay on Criticism is equally full of critical precepts put with exquisite skill. The Satires and Epistles are also didactic. They set virtue and cleverness over against vice and stupidity, and they illustrate both by types of character, in the drawing of which Pope is without a rival in our literature. His translation of Homer is made with great literary art, but for that very reason it does not make us feel the simplicity and directness of Homer. It has neither the manner of Homer nor the spirit of the Greek life, just as Pope's descriptions of Nature have neither the manner nor the spirit of Nature. The heroic couplet, in which he wrote his translation and nearly all his work, he used in various subjects with a correctness that has never been surpassed, but it sometimes fails from being too smooth and its cadences too regular. Finally, he was a true artist, hating those who degraded his art, and at a time when men followed it for money and place, and the applause of the club and of the town, he loved it faithfully to the end for its own sake.

ESSAY ON MAN.

NOTE.-The following are the closing lines of Epistle I. of Pope's Essay on Man:

FAR as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends:
Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass!

ANALYSIS.-1. Supply ellipsis. What does this line modify? 1, 2. Name the subject and the predicate of the sentence.

2. sensual here means 66 material."

3. What is the subject of Mark. Name also the modifiers of Mark 4. in the peopled grass. What kind of modifier?

What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme!
The mole's dim curtain and the lynx's beam;
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood

To that which warbles through the vernal wood.
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense, so subtly true,
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew!
How instinct varies in the groveling swine,
Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier!
For ever separate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and reflection how allied!

What thin partitions sense from thought divide!
And middle natures--how they long to join,
Yet never pass the insuperable line!

5

ANALYSIS.-5. Supply the ellipsis. What does the adjunct betwixt, etc. modify?

6. Give the case of curtain and beam. Supply the ellipsis and explain the line.

7,8. Write this in prose, supplying the ellipsis, and give the grammatical construction of the words.

8. on the tainted green, on the grass tainted with the scent of game. What figure?

9. the life that fills the flood. Explain the figures.

10. Explain the line. Name the figure.

11. Name the subject and the predicate.

12. Supply the subjects necessary to complete the sense.

13. Dispose of so and subtly.

14 Name the subject of extracts.

16 elephant. Give the case.

with thine. Thine has the possessive form, but it is in the ob

ject've case after with.

18. For ever separate, etc. Supply the ellipsis.

19. Supply the predicate, and parse.

20. sense from thought divide, sensation from reason. 21. middle natures. Give the construction.

What figure?

Without this just gradation could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The powers of all subdued by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these powers in one?

See through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth!
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being, which from God began!-
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing. On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten-thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation roll

Alike essential to the amazing whole,

The least confusion but in one, not all

That system only, but the whole, must fall.

ANALYSIS.-24. these to those, or all to thee. Parse. 25. all subdued, etc. Give grammatical construction. 28. Dispose of quick and bursting.

29. What does above, how high, modify?

30. around, how wide! What do these words modify? What does how, deep, below, each modify?

31-35. These five lines, ending with the word nothing, are inderendent in construction.

33. what no eye can see, etc.; that is, microscopic beings.

34. What participle is understood before from infinite?

35, 36. On superior powers were we to press. Give the mode of each verb.

37 38. Give the mode of the verbs in these lines.

39 Give the construction of whatever.

40. What do tenth, ten-thousandth, and alike modify? 42. alike essential. What does each word modify? 13, 44. Supply ellipsis, and rewrite.

25

30

355

40

Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled,
Being on being wrecked, and world on world,-
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature trembles to the throne of God.

All this dread order break?-For whom? for thee?
Vile worm! O madness! pride! impiety!
What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread,
Or hand to toil, aspired to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repined
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another in this general frame;
Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing Mind of all ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul:

NJTES.-45, 46. Let earth un-154. Or hand to toil; that is, hand

ANALYSIS.-45. Dispose of unbalanced and fly.

46. Point out the figure. Dispose of lawless.

47. world on world. Supply ellipsis.

50. Point out the figure.

51. Dispose of order break.

52. Give the case of worm, madness, pride, impiety.

53. Name the modifiers of foot. Explain the meaning and force

of What.

54. Name the subjects of aspired.

57 Just as absurd, etc. Name the full modifier of absurd.

57, 58. Name the modifiers of claim.

59, 60. Explain the meaning.

60. What figure in the line?

61. Parse but. What does it limit?

62. Whose body.

God the soul.

Name the subject and the predicate.
Supply ellipsis, and analyze.