Word: duelist
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Venomous Toad. Pope lived in a violent age. The celebrated Augustan calm was genuine marble, but it was a pavement laid over cellars where every violence flourished. Voltaire was cudgeled for his sharp tongue. Dr. Johnson was threatened by an offended duelist. Pope himself had seen his coreligionists, the Roman Catholic gentlemen of northern England, led, bound by halters, through the violent Protestant mobs of London. Such circumstances must give an edge of sincerity to satire. Pope's verses, light as dragonflies yet possessed of tempered strength, were written under the shadow of heavy penalties...