During the one hundred and fifty years following the Civil War English literature was partly under the domain of those principles which are generally known as neo-classical. For this reason the facts of Greek translation are very interesting and to a certain degree provide an index of the importance of Greek literature during these years. At least five hundred and four translations of Greek authors were published, of which two hundred and thirty-nine were reprintings of those previously printed. The average number published per annum between 1530 and 1650 was 1.30 +; whereas for these one hundred and fifty years the annual average is 3.36 +. This increase may be due to the fact that the reading public of these later years was larger than that of the preceding age; but I doubt if it was almost three hundred per cent larger. I would much rather attribute the increase to an equal growth of interest in Greek literature encouraged by the principles of literary art which were flourishing at that time and fostered by the steady development of Greek scholarship through those years. Aristotle's _Poetics_ was one of the sources of criticism during these years and, as I shall show in the next section, the interest in Greek philosophy was predominant throughout the period. The authority of the classics and the classics themselves were uppermost in the current of literary thought; hence it seems plausible that Greek translation should show a positive reaction at this time.
Before leaving this period I desire to point out one or two matters which have become evident upon a study of the chart at the beginning of this section. The curve as it passes through the decades after 1650 rises gradually to a peak in 1720. It is interesting to note that this was the hey-day of Pope: his _Iliad_ was published volume by volume between 1715 and 1720. Through the latter years of Pope's life the curve declines, reaching its lowest point four years before his death. Shortly after his death Doctor Johnson began to exert his influence on English literature, an influence which was powerfully classical. This continuation of the neo- classical principles raised the curve again; and Doctor Johnson himself assisted in producing that result by reprinting a number of translations in his _Works of the English Poets_, 1779-81. The decline of the last twenty years of this period, 1780-1800, is synchronous with the fading of the supreme authority of neo-classical principles; for with the death of Johnson in 1784 the last star of the first magnitude in the neo-classical firmament had set. The curve would go much lower but for the reprinting of a number of translations in Anderson's _Poets of Great Britain_, 1792-94. As appears from the chart Greek translation was waiting for the tide to turn and come forth into the nineteenth century with renewed vigor.