anonymous critic wrote (in 1697) of Davies' poem, Nosce Teipsum: "In reading such useful performances, the wit of mankind may be refined from its dross, their memories furnished with the best notions, their judgments strengthened and their conceptions enlarged, by which their minds will be raised to the most perfect ideas it is capable of in this degenerate state."

It is in some such way as has been sketched in this essay that the art of eighteenth century poetry should be approached. We must not overwork the word "formalism," but rather remember that without form there is no art, that form is art. And behind the Classic interest in form there was a philosophy of life, a philosophy that was noble and worthy of respect. It is useful here to compare one art with another. We admire the order, symmetry, and perfection of such things as the music of Handel, colonial domestic architecture, the portraits of Reynolds; we should enjoy the same qualities in the occasional verse of Prior or Waller, the fables of Gay, the chiselled quatrains and couplets of the host of minor poets. Even the least of these represents some conquest over disorder and formlessness, gives some experience to the reader of the peace and rest to be found in ideal beauty. It is true, there is no straining after an O altitudo, there is no reaching for the stars; but the eighteenth century is an abidingplace, and the style of Michael Angelo is less acceptable to domestic interiors. The eighteenth century found its type of the sublime, of the Grand Style, in Raphael, where the greatness is felt without a strain. Eighteenth century poetry is delightful to live with because it is not keyed to too high a pitch. It is the product of a social, communicative age, and a large part of it belongs

as truly as conversation to the manners of the period; a neat poem was a pleasant way of making oneself agreeable. But nothing could be agreeable to the gentlemen of the eighteenth century, unless it borrowed some grace from art; even their ideas on raising sheep were the better, they felt, for going abroad dressed up. Men ascended to meet. They desired the world wellregulated, they desired freedom, but with order, liberty, but with subordination; this comfortable, social, not unidealistic world is reflected in the calm beauty, the gentle dignity, the polished workmanship of eighteenth century poetry.

TABLE OF DATES

1688. Pope born. The great Revolution.

1709-1714. Pope becomes celebrated as a poet, and makes friendships in the world of the great.

1711. Essay on Criticism.

1712. Rape of the Lock (original edition).

1713. Windsor Forest. Wrote prologue for Addison's Cato.

Beginning of difficulties between Addison and Pope.

1713-1714. Meetings of the Scriblerus Club, a group of Tory wits, including Pope, Swift, Atterbury, Arbuthnot and Bolingbroke.

1714. Death of Queen Anne. Fall of Tory ministry. Dispersal of the Tory wits.

1715-1725. Pope makes himself independent financially by his translation of Homer and his edition of Shakespeare. 1715-1716. Quarrel with Addison.

1718. Pope settles at Twickenham with his mother. 1720. South Sea Bubble.

1723. Bolingbroke returns from exile in France.

1726-1744. Pope turns to philosophical and satirical poetry. His closest friends are leaders in the opposition to the prime minister, Robert Walpole.

1728. The Dunciad, Books I-III. Theobald the hero. 1732-1734. The Essay on Man.

1733-1738. The Satires.

1740. First meeting with Warburton.

1743. The Dunciad. Colley Cibber the hero.

1744. Death of Pope, May 30.