less about the literature of modern Italy. His favorite models were
Latin. His favorite critics were French. Half the Tuscan poetry that he
had read seemed to him monstrous and the other half tawdry."[22]

There was no academy in England, but there was a critical tradition that
was almost as influential. French critical gave the law: Boileau,
Dacier, LeBossu, Rapin, Bouhours; English critics promulgated it: Dennis,
Langbaine, Rymer, Gildon, and others now little read. Three writers of
high authority in three successive generations--Dryden, Addison, and
Johnson--consolidated a body of literary opinion which may be described,
in the main, as classical, and as consenting, though with minor
variations. Thus it was agreed on all hands that it was a writer's duty
to be "correct." It was well indeed to be "bold," but bold with
discretion. Dryden thought Shakspere a great poet than Jonson, but an
inferior artist. He was to be admired, but not approved. Homer, again,
it was generally conceded, was not so correct as Vergil, though he had
more "fire." Chesterfield preferred Vergil to Homer, and both of them to
Tasso. But of all epics the one he read with most pleasure was the
"Henriade." As for "Paradise Lost," he could not read it through.
William Walsh, "the muses' judge and friend," advised the youthful Pope
that "there was one way still left open for him, by which he might excel
any of his predecessors, which was by correctness; that though indeed we
had several great poets, we as yet could boast of none that were
perfectly correct; and that therefore he advised him to make this quality
his particular study." "The best of the moderns in all language," he
wrote to Pope, "are those that have the nearest copied the ancients."
Pope was thankful for the counsel and mentions its giver in the "Essay on
Criticism" as one who had

"taught his muse to sing,