They played the game
without any rules of fair play. No weapon was too vile or mean
to be used if by it the enemy might be injured.
You have often been told that it is rude to make personal
remarks, but the age of Anne was the age of personal remarks, and
they were not considered rude. The more cruel and pointed they
were, the more clever they were thought to be. To be stupid or
ugly are not sins. They ought not to be causes of scorn and
laughter, but in the age of Anne they were accepted as such. And
if the enemy was worsted in the fight he took his revenge by
holding up to ridicule the person of his victor. To raise the
unkind laughter of the world against an enemy was the great thing
to be aimed at. Added to this, too, the age was one of common
sense. All this does not make for poetry, yet in this age there
was one poet, who, although he does not rank among our greatest
poets, was still great, and perhaps had he lived in a less
artificial age he might have been greater still.
This poet was Alexander Pope, the son of a well-to-do Catholic
linen-draper.
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