HODOXY 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
shortcomings of the times.

A cause of the change of mood which was to be of more lasting consequence
than the failure of the age to put the traditional ideal more generally
into practice, was the appearance of a distinctly new ideal,--one which
undermined the very foundations of the old. This new spirit may be termed
sentimentalism. In prose literature it had already been stirring for
about twenty-five years, changing the tone of comedy, entering into some
of the periodical essays, and assuming a philosophic character in the
works of Lord Shaftesbury. Its chief doctrines, rhapsodically promulgated
by this amiable and original enthusiast, were that the universe and all
its creatures constitute a perfect harmony; and that Man, owing to his
innate moral and aesthetic sense, needs no supernatural revelation of
religious or ethical truth, because if he will discard the prejudices
of tradition, he will instinctively, when face to face with Nature,
recognize the Spirit which dwells therein,--and, correspondingly, when
in the presence of a good deed he will recognize its morality. In other
words. God and Nature are one; and Man is instinctively good, his
cardinal virtue being the love of humanity, his true religion the love of
Nature. Be therefore of good cheer: evil merely appears to exist, sin is
a figment of false psychology; lead mankind to return to the natural, and
they will find happiness.

The poetical possibilities of sentimentalism were not grasped by any
noteworthy poet before Thomson. _The Seasons_ was an innovation, and
its novelty lay not so much in the choice of the subject as in the
interpretation. Didactic as well as descriptive, it was designed not
merely to present realistic pictures but to arouse certain explicitly
stated thoughts and