nd;' and he
adds that his hearers will find, as they study Pope, that he has
expressed for them, 'in the strictest language, and within the briefest
limits, every law of art, of criticism, of economy, of policy, and
finally of a benevolence, humble, rational, and resigned, contented with
its allotted share of life, and trusting the problem of its salvation to
Him in whose hand lies that of the universe.' These remarks are added by
way of illustrating the relation of art to morals, and enforcing the
great principle that a noble style can only proceed from a sincere
heart. 'You can only learn to speak as these men spake by learning what
these men were.' When we ask impartially what Pope was, we may possibly
be inclined to doubt the complete soundness of the eulogy upon his
teaching. Meanwhile, however, Byron and Mr. Ruskin agree in holding up
Pope as an instance, almost as the typical instance, of that kind of
poetry which is directly intended to enforce a lofty morality. Though we
can never take either Byron or Mr. Ruskin as the representative of sweet
reasonableness, their admiration is some proof that Pope possessed great
merits as a poetical interpreter of morals. Without venturing into the
wider ocean of poetical criticism, I will endeavour to consider what was
the specific element in Pope's poetry which explains, if it does not
justify, this enthusiastic praise.

I shall venture to assume, indeed, that Pope was a genuine poet.
Perhaps, as M. Taine thinks, it is a proof of our British grossness that
we still admire the 'Rape of the Lock,' yet I must agree with most
critics that it is admirable after its kind. Pope's sylphs, as Mr. Elwin
says, are legitimate descendants from Shakespeare's fairies. True, they
have entered into rather humiliating bondage. Shakespeare's Ariel has to
fetch the midnight dew from the still-vexed Bermoothes; he delights to
fly--

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl'd clouds--

whereas the 'humbler province' of Pope's Ariel is 'to tend the fair'--

To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in showers,
A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs,
Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs.
Nay, oft in dreams invention we bestow
To change a flounce or add a furbelow.

Prospero, threatening Ariel for murmuring, says 'I will

rend an oak
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, until
Thou hast howled away tw