Pope, again, was one of the first, by practice and precept, to break through the old formal school of gardening, in which
No pleasing intricacies intervene,
No artful wildness to perplex the scene;
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.
The suffering eye inverted Nature sees,
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees,
With here a fountain never to be played,
And there a summer-house that knows no shade;
Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers,
There gladiators fight or die in flowers;
Unwatered see the drooping sea-horse mourn,
And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.
It would be impossible to hit off more happily the queer formality which annoys us, unless its quaintness makes us smile, in the days of good Queen Anne, when Cato still appeared with a
Long wig, flowered gown, and lacquered chair.
Pope's literary criticism, too, though verging too often on the commonplace, is generally sound as far as it goes. If, as was inevitable, he was blind to the merits of earlier schools of poetry, he was yet amongst the first writers who helped to establish the rightful supremacy of Shakespeare.
But in what way does Pope apply his good sense to morality? His favourite doctrine about human nature is expressed in the theory of the 'ruling passion' which is to be found in all men, and which, once known, enables us to unravel the secret of every character. As he says in the 'Essay on Man'—
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale.
Right reason, therefore, is the power which directs passions to the worthiest end; and its highest lesson is to enforce
The truth (enough for man to know)
Virtue alone is happiness below.
The truth, though admirable, may be suspected of commonplace; and Pope does not lay down any propositions unfamiliar to other moralists, nor, it is to be feared, enforce them by preaching of more than usual effectiveness. His denunciations of avarice, of corruption, and of sensuality were probably of little more practical use than his denunciation of dulness. The 'men not afraid of God' were hardly likely to be deterred from selling their votes to Walpole by fear of Pope's satire. He might