when
he is at his best, has the merit of being thoroughly alive; there are no
dead masses of useless verbiage; every excrescence has been carefully
pruned away; slovenly paraphrases and indistinct slurrings over of the
meaning have disappeared. He corrected carefully and scrupulously, as
his own statement implies, not with a view of transferring as large a
portion as possible of his author's meaning to his own verses, but in
order to make the versification as smooth and the sense as transparent
as possible. We have the pleasure which we receive from really polished
oratory; every point is made to tell; if the emphasis is too often
pointed by some showy antithesis, we are at least never uncertain as to
the meaning; and if the versification is often monotonous, it is
articulate and easily caught at first sight. These are the essential
merits of good declamation, and it is in the true declamatory passages
that Pope is at his best. The speeches of his heroes are often
admirable, full of spirit, well balanced and skilfully arranged pieces
of rhetoric--not a mere inorganic series of observations. Undoubtedly
the warriors are a little too epigrammatic and too consciously didactic;
and we feel almost scandalized when they take to downright blows, as
though Walpole and St. John were interrupting a debate in the House of
Commons by fisticuffs. They would be better in the senate than the
field. But the brilliant rhetoric implies also a sense of dignity which
is not mere artificial mouthing. Pope, as it seems to me, rises to a
level of sustained eloquence when he has to act as interpreter for the
direct expression of broad magnanimous sentiment. Classical critics may
explain by what shades of feeling the aristocratic grandeur of soul of
an English noble differed from the analogous quality in heroic Greece,
and find the difference reflected in the "grand style" of Pope as
compared with that of Homer. But Pope could at least assume with
admirable readiness the lofty air of superiority to personal fears and
patriotic devotion to a great cause, which is common to the type in
every age. His tendency to didactic platitudes is at least out of place
in such cases, and his dread of vulgarity and quaintness, with his
genuine feeling for breadth of effect, frequently enables him to be
really dignified and impressive. It will perhaps be sufficient
illustration of these qualities if I conclude these remarks by giving
his translation of Hector's