perfected this form, making it at once more artistic and more natural. He
discountenanced on the one hand run-on lines, alexandrines, hiatus, and
sequence of monosyllables; on the other, the resort to expletives and the
mechanical placing of caesura. If his verse does not move with the "long
resounding pace" of Dryden at his best, it has a movement better suited
to the drawing-room: it is what Oliver Wendell Holmes terms

The straight-backed measure with the stately stride.

Thus in form as in substance the poetry of the period voiced the mood,
not of carefree youth, nor yet of vehement early manhood, but of still
vigorous middle age,--a phase of existence perhaps less ingratiating than
others, but one which has its rightful hour in the life of the race as of
the individual. The sincere and artistic expression of its feelings will
be denied poetical validity only by those whose capacity for appreciating
the varieties of poetry is limited by their lack of experience or by
narrowness of sympathetic imagination.


II. ORTHODOXY AND CLASSICISM ASSAILED (1726-1750)

During the second quarter of the century, Pope and his group remained
dominant in the realm of poetry; but their mood was no longer pacific.
Their work showed a growing seriousness and acerbity. Partly the change
was owing to disappointment: life had not become so highly cultured,
literature had not prospered so much, nor displayed so broad a diffusion
of intelligence and taste, as had been expected. Pope's _Dunciad, Epistle
to Dr. Arbuthnot_, and ironic satire on the state of literature under
"Augustus" (George II, the "snuffy old drone from the German hive"),
brilliantly express this indignation with the intellectual and literary