The controversy between Alexander Pope and Ambrose Philips on pastoral poetry, which had arisen as a result of personal animosity, grew larger as it became involved with the discord between their champions-namely the Scriblerus Club and the Kit-Cat Club. To understand the controversy, therefore, requires considerable background knowledge, social and political, but my paper is chiefly concerned with the literary background and attemps to answer the question as to how the controversy reflects the differences of literary opinion concerning pastoral poetry. Pope's theory of pastoral poetry is clearly presented in A Discourse upon Pastoral Poetry (1704) which was free from personal bias towards Philips because it was written before the controversy arose. Here Pope tries to systematize the theories of pastoral poetry existing in the late seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century rather than to formulate a new theory. Pope derives his theory directly from Rapin who advocates that pastoral belongs to the Golden Age, and from Fontenelle who insists that the pleasure of pastoral should come from the use of illusion. The idea of the Golden Age is quite different from the rationalistic idea of illusion, but both are similar in their contention that pastoral poetry should not be too rustic or realistic. Rapin's view allows for some refinement in this kind of poetry with the premiss that in the first age of the world shepherds were once persons of rank and dignity and the standpoint of Fontenelle emphasizes the delight and neatness of pastoral by contending that the effect of illusion will be weakened by an over-realistic use of description. Besides these two ideas there is another important principle of pastoral poetry in Pope's Discourse. This is the principle of decorum, which was regarded as a dominant principle controlling all kinds of poetry. According to this principle pastoral poetry should be mean and humble in its matter and style. Of couse, Pope pays highest respect to the law of decorum, but at the same time he considers the qualities of refinement basic to pastoral poetry as well. His insistence that the manner of pastoral poetry should not be too polite or too rustic and its expression humble yet pure is evidence that he tries to justify refinement in pastoral poetry without violating the law of decorum. Pope's Discourse, therefore, is in a sense rather complicated, but we may safely say that it shows a general tendency towards refinement and elegance, which was characteristic of the eighteenth century. Philips's own idea of pastoral can not be given exactly because he wrote nothing equal to Pope's Discourse except his short "Preface" affixed to the first edition of his Pastorals in 1708. But close examination of this preface reveals some differences of opinion between him and Pope on the following points: he does not refer to the Golden Age, though he says that pastoral is of the greatest antiquity; he emphasizes the quiet harmony of pastoral as did Fontenelle; and he pays attention to the delightful scenes and prospects of the country. Philips's theory of pastoral poetry is more rationalistic and realistic than Pope's in the sense that he lays little emphasis on the idea of the Golden Age and keeps his eye on the spectacle of nature. In the fourth part of my paper a comparison of Pope's Pastorals and Philips's Pastorals is made with reference to the above-mentioned differences in their respective theories. Pope's Pastorals is always unrealistic in substance and he avoids a "clownish" use of language, while Philips's Pastorals is rather coarse in matter and employs mean expressions and obsolete or archaic words. Pope's Pastorals is a graceful exploitation of pure artifice imitating for the most part Virgil's Eclogues though he has some difficulty in embellishing the low

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