_Pilgrim's Progress_ addressed itself in simple, earnest English to each
individual human being, telling him what he must do to escape the City of
Destruction and to reach the City of All Delight; (3) JOHN DRYDEN
(1631-1700), a master in the field of satiric and didactic verse and one of
the pioneers in the field of modern prose criticism; (4) ALEXANDER POPE
(1688-1744), another poet of the satiric and didactic school, who exalted
form above matter, and wrote polished couplets which have been models for
so many inferior poets; (5) the essayists, RICHARD STEELE (1672-1729) and
JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719), the latter being especially noted for the easy,
flowing prose of his papers in the _Spectator_; (6) JONATHAN SWIFT
(1667-1745), a master of prose satire, whose _Gulliver's Travels_ has not
lost its fascination; (7) DANIEL DEFOE (1661?-1731) whose _Robinson Crusoe_
continues to increase in popularity; (8) SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761), and
HENRY FIELDING (1707-1754), the two great mid-eighteenth-century novelists.

The colonial literature of this period was influenced only in a very minor
degree by the work of these men, for a generation usually passed before the
influence of contemporary English authors appeared in American literature.
In the next chapter, we shall see evidences of the influence of Pope.
Benjamin Franklin will tell us how Bunyan and Addison were his teachers,
and the early fiction will show its indebtedness to the work of Samuel
Richardson.


LEADING HISTORICAL FACTS

Virginia and Massachusetts produced the most of our colonial literature.
There were, however, thirteen colonies stretched along the seaboard from
Georgia (1733), the last to be founded, to Canada. Although these colonies
were established under different grants or charters, and although some had