e moment we weep; and yet upon
reflection, find the passion so just, that we should be surprised if
we had not wept, and wept at that very moment.

"How astonishing is it again, that the passions directly opposite to
these, laughter and spleen, are no less at his command? that he is
not more a master of the _great_ than the _ridiculous_ in human
nature; of our noblest tendernesses, than of our vainest foibles; of
our strongest emotions, than of our idlest sensations!

"Nor does he only excel in the passions; in the coolness of
reflection and reasoning he is full as admirable. His _sentiments_
are not only in general the most pertinent and judicious upon every
subject; but by a talent very peculiar, something between penetration
and felicity, he hits upon that particular point on which the bent of
each argument turns, or the force of each motive depends. This is
perfectly amazing, from a man of no education or experience in those
great and public scenes of life which are usually the subject of his
thoughts; so that he seems to have known the world by intuition, to
have looked through human nature at one glance, and to be the only
author that gives ground for a very new opinion, that the
philosopher, and even the man of the world, may be _born_, as well as
the poet."

Nothing can be better. Dryden gave us large and grand outlines. Pope's is
closer criticism. But it is more than that which Johnson says, that all
the successors of Dryden have produced--an expansion only of his notions;
unless, in that sense in which every follower in time could by possibility
do nothing but expand the notions of the first critic who should have
said--"Shakspeare was a poet of the highest description, with a good many
troublesome faults." Pope's portraiture is drawn from near and intent
inspection; a likeness after the life, and reflecting the life; thoroughly
independent of any thing preceding him. Thus, THE COMPLETE SEVERING OF
NEARLY-ALLIED PERSONAGES (upon which Pope insists, and which, more than
the immense multiplicity, contemplated in a general way, of the some
hundred DRAMATIS PERSONAE, determines essential variety; attests the
constituting of every character, after the manner of Nature, from an
indivisible SELF, which at once rules it into unity, and holds it
unconfused with all others) is a finely-just observation, of which we have