(1688-1744) in poetry and Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) in prose were the most
influential of this school. They are called _classicists_ because they
looked to the old classic authors for their guiding rules. Horace, more
than any other classic writer, set the standard for poetry. Pope and his
followers cared more for the excellence of form than for the worth of the
thought. Their keynote was:--

"True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."

[Footnote: Pope's _Essay on Criticism_, lines 297-8.]

In poetry the favorite form was a couplet, that is, two lines which rhymed
and usually made complete sense. This was not inaptly termed "rocking horse
meter." The prose writers loved the balanced antithetical sentences used by
Dr. Johnson in his comparison of Pope and Dryden:--

"If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer
on the wing.... Dryden is read with frequent astonishment and Pope with
perpetual delight."

Such overemphasis placed on mere form tended to draw the attention of the
writer away from the matter. The American poetry of this period suffered
more than the prose from this formal influence.

Since the motto of the classicists was polished regularity, they avoided
the romantic, irregular, and improbable, and condemned the _Arabian
Nights_, _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, _The Tempest_, and other "monstrous
irregularities of Shakespeare." This school loved to teach and to point out
shortcomings, hence the terms "didactic" and "satiric" are often applied to