" Under
George I. he also edited Shakespeare, but with little profit to himself;
for Shakespeare was but a Philistine in the eyes of the French-classical
critics. But as the eighteenth century grew slowly to its work, signs of a
deepening interest in the real issues of life distracted men's attention
from the culture of the snuff-box and the fan. As Pope's genius ripened,
the best part of the world in which he worked was pressing forward, as a
mariner who will no longer hug the coast but crowds all sail to cross the
storms of a wide unknown sea. Pope's poetry thus deepened with the course
of time, and the third period of his life, which fell within the reign of
George II., was that in which he produced the "Essay on Man," the "Moral
Essays," and the "Satires." These deal wholly with aspects of human life
and the great questions they raise, according throughout with the doctrine
of the poet, and of the reasoning world about him in his latter day, that
"the proper study of mankind is Man."
Wrongs in high places, and the private infamy of many who enforced the
doctrines of the Church, had produced in earnest men a vigorous antagonism.
Tyranny and unreason of low-minded advocates had brought religion itself
into question; and profligacy of courtiers, each worshipping the golden
calf seen in his mirror, had spread another form of scepticism. The
intellectual scepticism, based upon an honest search for truth, could end
only in making truth the surer by its questionings.
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