century. There is nothing about him which reminds us of the nobleman that writes with ease: he is elaborate and self-conscious to the highest degree, embroidered with ornament of dainty phraseology, anxious to secure. harmony and yet to surprise the fancy. The style of Shaftesbury glitters and rings, proceeding along in a capricious, almost mincing effort to secure elegance, with a sort of colourless euphuism, which is desultory and a little irritating indeed, yet so curious that one marvels that it should have fallen completely into neglect. He is the father of æstheticism, the first Englishman who developed theories of formal virtue, who attempted to harmonise the beautiful with the true and the good. His delicate, Palladian style, in which a certain external stiffness and frigidity seem to be holding down a spirit eager to express the passion of beauty, is a very interesting feature of the period to which we have now arrived. The modern attitude of mind seems to meet us first in the graceful, cosmopolitan writings of Shaftesbury, and his genius, like a faint perfume, pervades the contemplation of the arts down to our own day. Without a Shaftesbury there would hardly have been a Ruskin or a Pater.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), was the Anthony Ashley son of the second Earl and his wife, Lady Dorothy Manners. It is more interesting Cooper that he was the grandson of the famous Lord Chancellor, whose brilliant and tragical (1671-1713) career came to an end in exile in 1683. The second Earl was a young man of very poor physique and intelligence, "born," as Dryden said, "a shapeless lump, like anarchy." The first Earl, "in concern for his family," commissioned the philosopher, John Locke, to look out for a wife of "good person and constitution" for his only son. This he did, and, being already physician to the Ashley Coopers, not merely helped to bring seven sons and daughters into the world, but arranged everything for their education. The philosopher, in his autobiographical sketch, styles Locke "my friend and foster-father." At the age of three the future philosopher was formally transferred to the guardianship of his grandfather, who placed him with a learned lady, Mrs. Birch, to be grounded in Greek and Latin. He showed a great proficiency in study. When his grandfather died, he was sent, in 1683 (as Lord Ashley), to Winchester; but he was made miserable there by the roughness of boys and masters alike, and in 1686 he was allowed to go abroad, in the charge of a Scotch tutor. He "spent a considerable time in Italy, where he acquired a great knowledge in the Polite Arts." Lord Ashley avoided "the conversation of other young English gentlemen on their travels," and devoted himself with close assiduity to the study of painting, sculpture, and music. He spoke French, and probably Italian also, so fluently and correctly, that his being a foreigner could not be observed Lord Ashley stayed abroad until he had become a finished connoisseur, and then, in 1689, returned to England, not, however, to engage in public life, but for five years more to devote himself to the study of literature. He "turned the Ancients into sap and blood."

In 1695 he seems to have considered that his intellectual apprenticeship was over, and he turned to practical life. He entered Parliament as member for Poole. When he made his first speech in the House he could not utter a syllable of what he intended," but contrived to give so adroit a turn to his confusion, that his embarrass

ment seemed intentional and a happy stroke of acting. After this, as long as his health permitted 1.im to remain in Parliament, Lord Ashley was a power there, although he was hated by his opponents, the "apostate" Whigs, who "gave out that he was too bookish, because not given to play, nor assiduous at Court; that he was no good companion, because rot a rake nor a hard drinker; and that he was no man of the world, because not selfish nor open to bribes." He became subject to asthma, and could not endure the fog and smoke of London, which was blown as far as his "little house" at Chelsea. He retired, with his father, to Rotterdam, where he met Bayle and other Frenchmen of light and leading. While he was in Holland, in 1699, his first work, the Inquiry after Virtue, was surreptitiously printed in England. After an absence of a year in Holland, Lord Shaftesbury died, and the philosopher succeeded as third Earl. He returned, and took a considerable part in politics, until the accession of Queen Anne, when the Whigs fell into disgrace. It was high time, for Shaftesbury's delicate health was again "mightily impaired by fatigues in the public affairs." He settled once more in Rotterdam, and stayed there, living very quietly, and devoting himself entirely to literature, until August 1704. He was now so much stronger that he ventured back to England, but after this time he very rarely attended the House of Lords. The improvement in his health was very provisional, and he soon became a confirmed invalid.

From this time forth his leisure was almost entirely occupied in collecting material for and in writing his great book. He was urged to marry, as his only brother, Maurice, did not seem to have any intention of taking a wife. Shaftesbury was not unwilling to be persuaded, and, as Locke had selected a partner for his father, so Molesworth was deputed to find one for him. Meanwhile, his thoughts being directed to the tender passion, Shaftesbury fell in love, on his own account, with the unnamed "daughter of an old lord." It would have been a perfect match, except that the lady's fortune was too large, and Shaftesbury could not brook the charge of marrying for money. This was early in 1709, and six months afterwards a young lady was discovered, poor enough to satisfy the philosopher's fastidious conscience, a Miss Jane Ewer of Herefordshire. We hear nothing of her beauty, but she was well educated, and she possessed "the plain qualities of a good mother and a good nurse." They

were married late in 1709, and on the 9th of February 1711 their heir and only child, afterwards the fourth Earl, was born at Reigate. Fragments of Shaftesbury's great work had, by this time, been published, the Letter concerning Enthusiasm in 1708, The Moralists in 1709, Advice to an Author in 1710, all anonymously. In 1711, at length, he produced the complete work on which he had for so many years been engaged, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, in three. handsome and costly volumes, with engravings after his own designs; the letters A. A. C., at the close of the preface, gave an indication of authorship.

The health of Shaftesbury could now no longer endure the climate of England, and in July 1711, in spite of the disturbed state of Europe, he determined to move to Italy. The Duke of Berwick very politely conducted him through his army on the borders of Piedmont, and Shaftesbury reached Naples in November. He seems to have felt extremely ill on his arrival, but he was still able to write and to enjoy the conversation of the virtuosi of Naples. His treatises on The Judgment of Hercules and on Design were composed at this time. A young Pole, called Crell, who acted as his secretary, has recorded that his increasing weakness and his despondency about public affairs in England did not interfere with Shaftesbury's "perfect cheerfulness and sweetness of temper." The fourth Earl, who wrote long afterwards a charming sketch of his father, attributes the surprising prolongation of Shaftesbury's life to "the excellence of the air of Italy and the uncommon care of my mother." He died at last, at Naples, on the 4th of February 1713. Shaftesbury, if universal report may be accepted, was one of the most gracious and lovable men who ever lived. His gentleness, his hospitality, his courage in the face of prolonged and hopeless ill-health, his gaiety and good humour, his absolute rectitude of conduct, public and private, were notorious, and even his political opponents suggest nothing against his character. "No philosopher," says the President of Corpus, "has ever attempted to show forth his philosophy in his life more completely than Shaftesbury."

Two paragraphs may give a slight indication of the style in which the Characteristics is written :

Nor is the enjoyment of a single beauty sufficient to satisfy such an aspiring soul. It seeks how to combine more beauties, and by what coalition of these to form a beautiful society. It views communities, friendships, relations, duties; and considers by what harmony of particular minds the general harmony is composed, and commonweal established. Nor satisfied even with public good in one community of men, it frames itself a nobler object, and with enlarged affection seeks the good of mankind. It dwells with pleasure amidst that reason and those orders on which this fair correspondence and goodly interest is established. Laws, constitutions, civil and religious rites; whatever civilises or polishes rude mankind; the sciences and arts, philosophy, morals, virtue; the flourishing state of human affairs, and the perfection of human nature-these are the delightful prospects, and this the charm of beauty which attracts it.

Still ardent in this pursuit-such as its love of order and perfection-it rests not here, nor satisfies itself with the beauty of a part, but extending further its communicative bounty, seeks the good of all, and affects the interest and prosperity of the whole. True to its native world and higher country, 'tis here it seeks order and perfection, wishing the best, hoping still to find a just and wise administration. And since all hope of this were vain and idle, if no Universal Mind presided; since, without such a supreme intelligence and providential care, the distracted universe must be condemned to suffer infinite calamities, 'tis here the generous mind labours to discover that healing cause by which the interest of the whole is securely established, the beauty of things, and the universal order happily sustained.

It is quite certain that the brilliant school of poets who began to make their appearance just as Shaftesbury was dying, owed to him the optimism of their religious and philosophical system. But it was mainly to the French that they were indebted for the impetus which started them; and if France had already made a deep mark on our literature between 1660 and 1674, it made another, not less indelible, in 1710. What the influence of Rapin, thirty-five years before, had done to regulate taste in England, and to enforce the rules laid down by the ancients, had not proved stimulating to poetic genius, and, with the death of Dryden, we have seen that poetry practically ceased to exist in England. When it returned it was mainly in consequence of the study of another Frenchman, but this time of a poet, Boileau, whose influence on the mind of Pope, carefully concealed by the latter, was really far greater than any critic has ventured to confess. There were certain qualities in Boileau which can but have appealed directly to the young Pope, who in 1710 was twenty-two years of age. Boileau had not been so closely wedded to pedantic rules as his friends the Jesuit critics were. He had insisted on inspiration, on the value of ceaseless variety, on obedience to the laws of language. The preface to the 1701 edition of his works is one of the landmarks of European criticism, and we can scarcely doubt that it awakened a high spirit of emulation in the youthful Pope. In it Boileau had urged that none should ever be presented to the public in verse but true thoughts and just expressions. He had declaimed against frigidity of conceit and tawdry extravagance, and had proclaimed the virtues of simplicity without carelessness, sublimity without presumption, a pleasing air without fard. He had boldly convicted his predecessors of bad taste, and had called his lax contemporaries to account. He had blamed the sterile abundance of an earlier period, and the uniformity of dull writers. Such principles were more than all others likely to commend themselves to Pope, and his practice shows us that they did.

We cannot think of the poetry of the age of Anne and not of ALEXANDER POPE. As little ought we to analyse Pope and fail to admit what he owes to Boileau. The "Law-giver of Parnassus" gave laws, it is certain, to the hermit of Windsor Forest. The work of no other great English writer has coincided with that of a foreigner so closely as Pope's does with that of Boileau. The French satirist had recommended polish, and no one practised it more thoroughly than Pope did. Boileau discouraged love-poetry, and Pope did not seriously attempt it. Boileau paraphrased Horace, and in so doing formulated his own poetical code in L'Art Poétique; Pope did the same in the Essay on Criticism. Boileau specially urged the imitation of Homer on young poets, and Pope presently devoted himself to the Iliad. In Le Lutrin Boileau had written the best mock-heroic, till Pope, in closely analogous form, surpassed him in the Rape of the Lock. The Satires of Pope would not have been written but for those of his French predecessor; and even Pope's Elegy and Eloisa

can be accounted for in the precepts of Boileau. The parallel goes very far indeed it is the French poet first, and not the English one, who insists. that the shepherds of pastoral must not speak as they do in a country village. Pope's very epitaphs recall Boileau's labours with the inscriptions of the Petite Académie. That purity and decency of phrase which the school of Pope so beneficially introduced into the coarse field of English literature had been strenuously urged on Frenchmen by Boileau. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that it

is not so much to Dryden, whose influence on Pope has certainly been exaggerated,

as to the author of Le Lutrin, N that the poetry of the age of Anne owed its general impulse, and its greatest poet the general tendency of almost every branch of his production. It is true that Pope told Spence that "I learned versification wholly from Dryden's works," his prosody being a continuation and development of that of Dryden; but in the use to which he put his verse, it was certainly the great Frenchman (who died two months before Pope's earliest important poem was published) that was his master. Walsh had told him, in 1706, that "the best of the modern poets in all languages are those that have the nearest copied the ancients"; but we may not doubt that it was through Boileau that Pope arrived at a comprehension of Horace, and so of Aristotle.

For more than thirty years Pope was so completely the centre of poetical attention in England that he may almost be said to have comprised the poetry of his time. There is no second instance of an English poet preserving for so long a period a supremacy comparable to his. It is possible to defend the position that one or two other versemen of the age did some particular thing better than Pope, though even this requires argument; but it is quite certain that he alone excelled over a wide range of subjects. The