Alexander Pope: A Life

MACK'S BIOGRAPHY of Pope (1688-1744), which evolved from a lifetime's study of his subject, is elegant, learned, and definitive. The narrative is slowed by massive detail and interrupted by commonplace remarks unfavorably comparing the modern to the Augustan age. But Mack provides a rich picture of the social and political background, especially of the Jacobites' threat to restore a Catholic monarch, which persisted for half a century, and which prompted ...