" "To Deptford by water," writes
Pepys, in his diary for August 20, 1666, "reading _Othello, Moor of
Venice_; which I ever heretofore esteemed a mighty good play; but,
having so lately read the _Adventures of Five Hours_, it seems a mean
thing."
In undramatic poetry the new school, both in England and in France, took
its point of departure in a reform against the extravagances of the
Marinists, or conceited poets, specially represented in England by Donne
and Cowley. The new poets, both in their theory and practice, insisted
upon correctness, clearness, polish, moderation, and good sense.
Boileau's _L'Art Poetique_, 1673, inspired by Horace's _Ars Poetica_,
was a treatise in verse upon the rules of correct composition, and it
gave the law in criticism for over a century, not only in France, but in
Germany and England. It gave English poetry a didactic turn and started
the fashion of writing critical essays in riming couplets. The Earl of
Mulgrave published two "poems" of this kind, an _Essay on Satire_, and
an _Essay on Poetry_. The Earl of Roscommon--who, said Addison, "makes
even rules a noble poetry"--made a metrical version of Horace's _Ars
Poetica_, and wrote an original _Essay on Translated Verse_. Of the same
kind were Addison's epistle to Sacheverel, entitled _An Account of the
Greatest English Poets_, and Pope's _Essay on Criticism_, 1711, which
was nothing more than versified maxims of rhetoric, put with Pope's
usual point and brilliancy.
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