Most of the literati were men of
the town; many were fine gentlemen with a political bias; and thus it is
that the school of poets of which Pope is the unchallenged head, has been
known as the Artificial School.
In the passage of time, and with the increase of literature, the real
merits of Pope were for some time neglected, or misrepresented. The world
is beginning to discern and recognize these again. Learned, industrious,
self-reliant, controversial, and, above all, harmonious, instead of giving
vent to the highest fancies in simple language, he has treated the
common-place--that which is of universal interest--in melodious and
splendid diction. But, above all, he stands as the representative of his
age: a wit among the comic dramatists who were going out and the essayists
who were coming in; a man of the world with Lady Mary and the gay parties
on the Thames; a polemic, who dealt keen thrusts and who liked to see them
rankle, and who yet writhed in agony when the _riposte_ came; a Roman
Catholic in faith and a latitudinarian in speech;--such was Pope as a type
of that world in which he lived.
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