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
other writer, gave system and coherence.
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