is freedom, since, as
Johnson has pointed out, there will always be an irreconcilable
dissimilitude between Roman images and English manners. Moreover, the
aim of the two poets was different, Pope's main object being to express
personal enmities and to give an exalted notion of his own virtue.

In the opening lines of his First Satire Pope follows Horace pretty
closely. Both poets complain that some persons think them too severe,
and others too complaisant; both take the advice of a lawyer, Horace of
C. Trebatius Testa, who gives him the pithiest replies; and Pope of
Fortescue. Both complain that they cannot sleep, the prescription of a
wife and cowslip wine being given by the English adviser, while Testa
advises Horace to swim thrice across the Tiber and moisten his lips with
wine. Throughout the rest of the satire Pope takes only casual glances
at the Roman original, and if in the Second Satire the English poet
follows Horace in the first few verses in recommending frugality, and in
the advice to keep the middle state, and neither to lean on this side or
on that, the resemblance between the poets is seldom striking, and the
spirit which animates them is different,--Horace being classical, and
therefore open to the apprehension of all educated readers, while Pope
is in a sense provincial, and, as I have already said with reference to
the _Dunciad_, cannot be fully enjoyed or even understood without some
knowledge of the time and of the men whom he lashes in his satire. The
Sixth Epistle of the First Book of Horace, which Pope attempts to
imitate, is, as Mr. Courthope observes, 'incapable of imitation. Its
humour, no less than its philosophy, belongs entirely to the Pagan
World.' In a general sense it is also true that Horace's style, whether
of language or of thought, will not bear transplanting. Indeed, whatever
is most characteristic and most exquisite in a poet's work is precisely
the portion which cannot be clothed in a foreign dress.

'Life,' said Pope, 'when the first heats are over is all down hill,' and
with him the downward progress began at a time when most men are still
standing on the summit. Never was there a more fiery spirit in so weak a
body. He suffered frequently from headaches, which he relieved by
inhaling the steam of coffee. Unfortunately he pampered his appetite and
paid a heavy penalty for doing so. Every change of weather affected him;
and at the time when most people indulge in company, he tel