s appears almost
incredible without giving the instances, and no less so when they are
given.

"But of the two, less dangerous is the offence,
To tire our patience than mislead our sense."--_lines_ 3, 4.

"In search of wit these lose their common sense,
And then turn critics in their own defence."--_l._ 28, 29.

"Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense."--_l._ 209, 10.

"Some by old words to fame have made pretence,
Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense."--_l._ 324, 5.

" 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense."--_l._ 364, 5.

"At every trifle scorn to take offence;
That always shews great pride, or little sense."--_l._ 386, 7.

"Be silent always, when you doubt your sense,
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence."--_l._ 366, 7.

"Be niggards of advice on no pretence,
For the worst avarice is that of sense."--_l._ 578, 9.

"Strain out the last dull dropping of their sense,
And rhyme with all the rage of impotence."--_l._ 608, 9.

"Horace still charms with graceful negligence,
And without method talks us into sense."--_l._ 653, 4.

I have mentioned this the more for the sake of those critics who are
bigotted idolisers of our author, chiefly on the score of his
correctness. These persons seem to be of opinion that "there is but one
perfect writer, even Pope." This is, however, a mistake: his excellence
is by no means faultlessness. If he had no great faults, he is full of
little errors. His grammatical construction is often lame and imperfect.
In the Abelard and Eloise, he says--

"There died the best of passions, Love and Fame."

This is not a legitimate ellipsis. Fame is not a passion, though love
is: but his ear was evidently confused by the meeting of the sounds
"love and fame," as if they of themselves immediately implied "love, and
love of fame." Pope's rhymes are constantly defective, being rhymes to
the eye instead of the ear; and this to a greater degree, not only than
in later, but than in preceding writers. The praise of his versification
must be confined to its uniform smoothness and harmony. In the
translation of the Iliad, which has been considered as his masterpiece
in style and execution, he continually changes the tenses in the same
sentence for t