by a machine."[954] The witty and grotesque Hudibras of Butler, the tales, and many short poems of Prior, the humourous, satiric verses of Swift, the Songs and Fables of Gay, the Seasons of Thomson, the heroics of Pope, are all in dissimilar styles. Neither is the substance of the prose and verse, from the Restoration to the French Revolution, an invariable common-sense mediocrity. There is a great display of genius in political philosophy and political economy, in moral, metaphysical, and natural science, in manifold species of satire and fiction, and, omitting Milton, who was formed under earlier influences, in various kinds of poetry, short of the highest. M. Taine was partly conscious of the facts, as may be seen in his individual criticisms, which are a refutation of his general theory. There is this much truth in his view, that there was a growing tendency to cultivate style, and in some writers the art degenerated into the artificial. Among the numerous varieties of the defect one is a monotonous structure of verse and sentence, another the attempt to disguise the commonness of the thoughts by the elaboration of the workmanship. These are frequent faults in the poetry of Pope, and the mannerism remains when the execution is a failure. His style is admirable in parts, but he falls far below Dryden in the general elasticity of his composition, in the wealth of his language, and in the subtle intricacies of metrical harmony. His thoughts are often gems rendered lustrous by the skill of the cutter, but intermingling with them are counterfeit stones which impose by their glitter on the superficial observer, and when examined are found worthless. * * * * * TO THE READER.[955] As the epistolary way of writing hath prevailed much of late, we have ventured to publish this piece composed some time since, and whose[956] author chose this manner, notwithstanding his subject was high and of dignity, because of its being mixed with argument, which of its nature approacheth to prose. This, which we first give the reader, treats of the nature and state of man with respect to the universal system. The rest will treat of him with respect to his own system, as an individual, and as a member of society, under one or other of which heads all ethics are included. As he imitates no man, so he would be thought to vie with no man in these epistles, particularly with the noted author of two lately published;[957] but this he may most surely say, that the matter of them is such as is of importance to all in general, and of offence to none in particular.[958] THE DESIGN.[959]