rit of the poem consists in throwing into polished form
many of the views current at the time, so that they may be easily
understood. Before we read very far we come across such old
acquaintances as--

"The proper study of mankind is man."

"An honest man's the noblest work of God."

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet, seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

The _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_ and _The Dunciad_ are Pope's greatest
satires. In _The Dunciad_, an epic of the dunces, he holds up to
ridicule every person and writer who had offended him. These were in
many cases scribblers who had no business with a pen; but in a few
instances they were the best scholars of that day. A great deal of the
poem is now very tiresome reading. Much of it is brutal. Pope was a
powerful agent, as Thackeray says, in rousing that obloquy which has
ever since pursued a struggling author. _The Dunciad_ could be more
confidently consulted about contemporary literary history, if Pope had
avoided such unnecessary misstatements as:--

"Earless on high, stood unabash'd De Foe."

This line is responsible for the current unwarranted belief that the
author of _Robinson Crusoe_ lost his ears in the pillory.

General Characteristics.---Pope has not strong imagination, a keen
feeling for nature, or wide sympathy with man. Leslie Stephen says:
"Pope never crosses the undefinable, but yet ineffaceable line, which
separates true poetry from rhetoric." The debate in regard to whether
Pope's verse is ever genuine poetry may not yet be settled to the
satisfaction of all; but it is well to recognize the undoubted fact
that his couplets still appeal to many readers who love clearness and
precision and who are not inclined to wrestle with the hidden meaning
of greater poetry. One of his poems, _The Rape of the Lock_, has
become almost a universal favorite because of its humor, good-natured
satire, and entertaining pictures of society in Queen Anne's time.

He is the poet who best expresses the classical spirit of the
eighteenth century. He excels in satiric and didactic verse. He
expresses his ideas in perfect form, and embodies them in classical
couplets, sometimes styled "rocking-horse meter"; but he shows no
power of fathoming the emotional depths of the soul.

In the history of literature, he holds an important place, because,
more than any oth