ly wave. In short, he was the poet of
personality and of polished life. That which was nearest to him, was the
greatest; the fashion of the day bore sway in his mind over the
immutable laws of nature. He preferred the artificial to the natural in
external objects, because he had a stronger fellow-feeling with the
self-love of the maker or proprietor of a gewgaw, than admiration of
that which was interesting to all mankind. He preferred the artificial
to the natural in passion, because the involuntary and uncalculating
impulses of the one hurried him away with a force and vehemence with
which he could not grapple; while he could trifle with the conventional
and superficial modifications of mere sentiment at will, laugh at or
admire, put them on or off like a masquerade-dress, make much or little
of them, indulge them for a longer or a shorter time, as he pleased; and
because while they amused his fancy and exercised his ingenuity, they
never once disturbed his vanity, his levity, or indifference. His mind
was the antithesis of strength and grandeur; its power was the power of
indifference. He had none of the enthusiasm of poetry; he was in poetry
what the sceptic is in religion.

It cannot be denied, that his chief excellence lay more in
diminishing, than in aggrandizing objects; in checking, not in
encouraging our enthusiasm; in sneering at the extravagances of fancy or
passion, instead of giving a loose to them; in describing a row of pins
and needles, rather than the embattled spears of Greeks and Trojans; in
penning a lampoon or a compliment, and in praising Martha Blount.

Shakspeare says,

"------In Fortune's ray and brightness
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize
Than by the tyger: but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, why then
The thing of courage,
As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathise;
And with an accent tuned in the self-same key,
Replies to chiding Fortune."

There is none of this rough work in Pope. His Muse was on a
peace-establishment, and grew somewhat effeminate by long ease and
indulgence. He lived in the smiles of fortune, and basked in the favour
of the great. In his smooth and polished verse we meet with no prodigies
of nature, but with miracles of wit; the thunders of his pen are
whispered flatteries; its forked lightnings pointed sarcasms; for "the
gnarle