f mankind is man.

A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod;
An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Among the historical teachings of Pope's works and career, and also among
the curiosities of literature, must be noticed the publication of Pope's
letters, by Curll the bookseller, without the poet's permission. They were
principally letters to Henry Cromwell, Wycherley, Congreve, Steele,
Addison, and Swift. There were not wanting those who believed that it was
a trick of the poet himself to increase his notoriety; but such an
opinion is hardly warranted. These letters form a valuable chapter in the
social and literary history of the period.

POPE'S DEATH AND CHARACTER.--On the 30th of May, 1744, Pope passed away,
after a long illness, during which he said he was "dying of a hundred good
symptoms." Indeed, so frail and weak had he always been, that it was a
wonder he lived so long. His weakness of body seems to have acted upon his
strong mind, which must account for much that is satirical and splenetic
in his writings. Very short, thin, and ill-shaped, his person wanted the
compactness necessary to stand alone, until it was encased in stays. He
needed a high chair at table, such as children use; but he was an epicure,
and a fastidious one; and despite his infirmities, his bright,
intellectual eye and his courtly manners caused him to be noted quite as
much as his defects.

THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.--Pope has been set forth as the head of the
_Artificial School_. This is, perhaps, rather a convenient than an exact
designation. He had little of original genius, but was an apt imitator and
reproducer--what in painting would be an excellent copyist. His greatest
praise, however, is that he reduced to system what had gone before him;
his poems present in themselves an art of poetry, with technical canons
and illustrations, which were long after servilely obeyed, and the
influence of which is still felt to-day.

And this artificial school was in the main due to the artificial character
of the age. Nature seemed to have lost her charms; pastorals were little
more than private theatricals, enacted with straw hats and shepherd's
crook in drawing-rooms or on close-clipped lawns. Culture was confined to
court and town, and poets found little inducement to consult the heart or
to woo nature, but wrote what would please the town or court. This taste
gave character to the technical standards, to which Pope, more than any