This is the first exhaustive handling of one of the most important and interesting types of English poetry in the period from 1700 to 1750. Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, Browne’s A Pipe of Tobacco, Shenstone’s The School-Mistress, and scores of other less-known burlesques are here analyzed. Full information is given on each in the Register, where the pertinent facts are arranged with the view to facilitate reference and to avoid hindering the progress of the main discussion. The nature of burlesque is defined, criticism of burlesque is presented at some length, the types are distinguished, and non-English examples are treated as they affected the eighteenth century.