tions of Shakespeare and his comedies on the Puritanically minded middle-classes? Did the licentiousness of the stage continue long after the Revolution of 1689? What was Dryden regarded as by his contemporaries?

Summary: The literature of the Restoration Period is marked by the French "classical" influence and the reaction against the Puritan sobriety. The depraved manners of the Frenchified court of the Stuarts and their anti-Puritanic mind become most clearly visible in the comedy of the day, which is a debased imitation of Molière's, and in such fierce attacks on the Puritans as Butler's Sir Hudibras, a mock-heroic epic in doggerel verse, which describes the funny adventures of a hypocritical Justice of the Peace and his clerk, who set out to correct abuses and abolish amusements. The chief representative of the period was John Dryden, whose wide culture, rare poetic talent, and criticism made him a sort of literary dictator. Sticking fast to tradition, as became a good Englishman, Dryden endeavoured to adapt the irregular "romantic" drama of the Elizabethans to the "regular" drama of the French pseudo-classicists. What he championed his life long in his critical essays was Shakespeare's genius in the dress of a French courtier. His own rhyming tragedies, heroic plays in heroic couplets, were brilliant pageants which at the time had an immense success. As a writer of political satires and poems on religion, Dryden trimmed his sails according to the wind. His most effective satire is a Tory attack on the Whig leaders who wished to place the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II., on the throne, to the exclusion of the king's Roman-Catholic brother James. His poem Annus Mirabilis (1666) is mainly of historical interest. Dryden did best in his lyrical poems.

II. The Augustan

1. Alexander Pope.

Age.

1. Stunde: Alexander Pope is the chief representative poet of the Augustan Age. What's that? Well, scholars have so called the classical period of English literature, because in the reign of Augustus Caesar, in the Augustan age, Latin literature was classical i. e. at its best. Pope became the leader of literary fashion after Dryden. What then had been the fashion in literature since Dryden? Sch: it was the imitation of the French pseudo-classicists. Do you remember what metre: verse was introduced by Dryden? Sch: . . the heroic couplet. Pope carried the rhyming couplet to perfection. His English countrymen like to call him the "Prince of Rhyme". Pope greatly helped: advanced, promoted, brought forward English poetry by refining its language, by giving to it correctness of metre and polish of diction: style, wording and phrase. The elegance or smoothness of his verse, his polished wit, and satire made Pope the popular poet of the fashionable world, "the town", a society which had no eye for anything but townlife. His temper was in full accord with those witty circles of London which considered a polite selfishness, a brilliant, frivolousness, a biting irony as the ideal of life. Pope inspired dread: fear almost as soon as he had attracted admiration, and not even his best friends were safe from the stings or sharppointed spears of his sarcasms. I'll read to you some of his epigrams.

Epigram,

Engraved on the Collar of a Dog, which I gave to his Royal Highness

I am his Highness' dog at Kew;

Pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are you?

Epigram on Mrs. Tofts,

A handsome Woman with a fine Voice, but very covetous and proud.

So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song,

As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along;

But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride,

That the beasts must have starved, and the poet have died.

Epigram

On a Headmaster who made long Epitaphs.

Friend, for your epitaphs I'm grieved,

Where still so much is said;

One half will never be believed,

The other never read.

Pope was the only son of a rich London linen-draper, who had early retired from business. As a Roman Catholic, he was excluded from the great public schools and the universities. Does anyone know when Roman Catholics were admitted to them? Well, it was not till about a hundred years ago. As Pope was not allowed to attend Eton or Harrow, nor any other of the old schools, nor the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, he received his education mostly at home from private tutors1). He was a remarkably precocious boy, that is, too early developed. While quite young, he devoted himself to poetry, and soon made such fine verses as are rarely found at his tender age. When but fourteen years old, he asked a friend to take him to Will's coffee-house, the great literary rendez-vous: centre of the time, that he might catch a sight of the illustrious president of the club which used to gather there. Whom am I speaking of? Sch. of Dryden. Yes, the gray-haired master whom . the youth even then adored. After his father's death the poet removed with his aged mother from their house near Windsor to a small, but elegant villa at Twickenham (on the Thames). Here, he continued to reside: live during the remainder of his life. Just like a monarch, he received visits from all the distinguished characters of his day. Ministers of state, men of letters, poets, and the beauties of the day came to his residence to pay homage to the Prince of Rhyme. But he never sought the patronage of wealthy lords or ladies. He did not need their purse. He was himself a prosperous man. Few men of genius

1) S. Hausknecht, The English Student, Sketch XV.

have attained by their efforts such prosperity as he did. His wealth was the fair reward of his talents, bestowed on him: paid by the public. At fifty-five, his weak body: feeble constitution began to give way to disease. Pope was taken seriously ill, and he died soon after, in 1744. A constant nervousness, added to a life of uninterrupted study, had gradually exhausted, consumed, used up his powers. I'd rather say that his life was one long disease, for I must not forget to tell you that the sickly little man with the great piercing eyes look at this picture, hand it round, X.- was weakly and crook-backed from a child. His delicate health and deformity may account for, explain the cause of his excessive irritability. Pope's private character was a strange compound of vanity, ambition, jealousy, and meanness. The only amiable trait: lovable feature in it was his regard for his old mother, whose last years he had tended with loving care. He was an affectionate and dutiful son. Was Pope a poet? To answer this question, we must review his chief works. What sort of poetry did Pope write? from the biographical note in your "English Authors" you have learnt that Pope wrote well, A.? A: an essay on Criticism. right, and, B., another essay? - B: on Man. - And C. ? — C: he translated Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. And D.? D: he wrote the Dunciad. What's that? D: it's a satire. And what else did he write, E.? E: The Rape of the Lock. Translate the title into German. E: der Lockenraub. In plain English people would say, "The cutting off and carrying away of a curl of hair." What does Professor Förster call this piece of poetry? Sch: he calls it a mock heroic epic. - Pope had taken the motif from real life. What had happened? - Sch: a lord cut off a ringlet from the head of a beautiful young lady. - At the time of Queen Anne, ladies used to wear at either side of the face, between forehead and ear, a long curl of hair reaching down to the shoulders, and if one of these curls, which were then called "love-laces", was cut, the companion curl had to be cut, too. Well, the silly trick had led to a coolness between the two families. When Pope heard of it, he planned to reconcile the frowners by a good hearty laugh, and he made the trifling incident the subject of a funny poem.

All

2. Stunde. What fashion did Pope keep up as its leader, after Dryden? What is the age of Pope often called? Why? How could Pope become the most popular poet of

the "Town"? Mr. Delmer puts it thus: "Pope was the acknowledged master of satirical verse in the most satirical age there has ever been", he What metre did Pope carry says. to perfection? What honourable title (Honorary

= without

pay.) have the English conferred on him? What did I tell you about his life? (What about his education? What sort of boy was he? How was his life spent?

What enabled him to devote all his days to study and contemplation in rural retirement?) What do you know about his character? ungenerous, irritable, sarcastic. What may account in some degree for his irritability and sarcasm? weakly constitution, he was deformed. — There's one lovable feature in his character, which? How old was he when he died? What are the titles of his principal works? - Sum up what I told you last time about Pope's mock-heroic poem. Now I want to give you the contents of the poem. I'll read some characteristic verses of each of its five cantos in a German translation1), as I am afraid that you wouldn't understand much, if we read them in the original.

Belinda, the beautiful maid of honour at Queen Anne's court, is still in bed. She never gets up before mid-day, which is the hour for lap-dogs and the court to wake. Ariel, her guardian spirit, is respectfully sitting at her side. He tells her in a dream that some danger is coming, but he doesn't know what it is. "Beware of men", he says to the slumbering young lady. When at last Belinda has got up, she goes to her toilettable and gets dressed. Those of you who have got the Select Poetical Works of Pope in Tauchnitz' Edition may open their books and follow. I'm reading to you the description of her toilet-table: “Entschleiert nun die Toilette steht, &c."

Now Belinda is on a boating trip on the Thames. She is surrounded by handsome gentlemen and fair ladies. They are cheerful and gay (Die Nymphe zu der Menschheit . . . dienstund wohnhaft seid.). Ariel warns them to be extra watchful to-day (Der Schönsten drohet... vor dem drohenden Geschick.).

On returning to Hampton Court, the ladies and gentlemen play cards. Then they take a cup of coffee (Sieh her! Ein

1) Der Lockenraub. Ein komisches Heldengedicht v. Alexander Pope. Mit neun Zeichnungen von A. Beardsley. Im Inselverlag, Leipzig.