wl. Of his ten tragedies, the
best are _The Rival Queens_, and _Theodosius, or The Force of Love_. The
rival queens of Alexander the Great--Roxana and Statira--figure in the
first, which is still presented upon the stage. It has been called, with
just critical point, "A great and glorious flight of a bold but frenzied
imagination, having as much absurdity as sublimity, and as much
extravagance as passion; the poet, the genius, the scholar are everywhere
visible."

THOMAS SOUTHERN, 1659-1746: wrote _Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage_, and
_Oronooko_. In the latter, although yielding to the corrupt taste of the
time in his comic parts, he causes his captive Indian prince to teach that
period a lesson by his pure and noble love for Imoinda. Oronooko is a
prince taken by the English at Surinam and carried captive to England.

These writers are the best representatives of those who in tragedy and
comedy form the staple of that age. Their models were copied in succeeding
years; but, with the expulsion of the Stuarts, morals were somewhat
mended; and while light, gay, and witty productions for the stage were
still in demand, the extreme licentiousness was repudiated by the public;
and the plays of Cibber, Cumberland, Colman, and Sheridan, reflecting
these better tastes, are free from much of the pollution to which we have
referred.

CHAPTER XXIV.

POPE, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.

Contemporary History. Birth and Early Life. Essay on Criticism. Rape of
the Lock. The Messiah. The Iliad. Value of the Translation. The
Odyssey. Essay on Man. The Artificial School. Estimate of Pope. Other
Writers.

Alexander Pope is at once one of the greatest names in English literature
and one of the most remarkable illustrations of the fact that the
literature is the interpreter of English history. He was also a man of
singular individuality, and may, in some respects, be considered a _lusus
naturae_ among the literary men of his day.

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.--He was born in London on the 21st of May, 1688, the
year which witnessed the second and final expulsion of the Stuarts, in
direct line, and the accession of a younger branch in the persons of Mary
and her husband, William of Orange. Pope comes upon the literary scene
with the new order of political affairs. A dynasty had been overthrown,
and the power of the parliament had been established; new charters of
right had secured the people from kingly oppression;