udes the definitive edition of the works has at last
performed the task with admirable skill and without too much shrouding
his hero's weaknesses. Meanwhile our pleasure in reading him is much
counterbalanced by the suspicion that those pointed aphorisms which he
turns out in so admirably polished a form may come only from the lips
outwards. Pope, it must be remembered, is essentially a parasitical
writer. He was a systematic appropriator--I do not say plagiarist, for
the practice seems to be generally commendable--of other men's thoughts.
His brilliant gems have often been found in some obscure writer, and
have become valuable by the patient care with which he has polished and
mounted them. We doubt their perfect sincerity because, when he is
speaking in his own person, we can often prove him to be at best under
a curious delusion. Take, for example, the 'Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,'
which is his most perfect work. Some of the boasts in it are apparently
quite justified by the facts. But what are we to say to such a passage
as this?--

I was not born for courts or great affairs;
I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers;
Can sleep without a poem in my head,
Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead.

Admitting his independence, and not inquiring too closely into his
prayers, can we forget that the gentleman who could sleep without a poem
in his head called up a servant four times in one night of 'the dreadful
winter of Forty' to supply him with paper, lest he should lose a
thought? Or what is the value of a professed indifference to Dennis from
the man distinguished beyond all other writers for the bitterness of his
resentment against all small critics; who disfigured his best poems by
his petty vengeance for old attacks; and who could not refrain from
sneering at poor Dennis, even in the Prologue which he condescended to
write for the benefit of his dying antagonist? Or, again, one can hardly
help smiling at his praises of his own hospitality. The dinner which he
promises to his friend is to conclude with--

Cheerful healths (your mistress shall have place),
And, what's more rare, a poet shall say grace.

The provision made for the 'cheerful healths,' as Johnson lets us know,
consisted of the remnant of a pint of wine, from which Pope had taken a
couple of glasses, divided amongst two guests. There was evidently no
danger of excessive conviviality. And then a grace in which Bolingbroke
joined co