give pleasure to common readers; the man of learning may be sometimes
surprised and delighted by an unexpected parallel; but the comparison
requires knowledge of the original, which will likewise often detect
strained applications. Between Roman images and English manners, there
will be an irreconcilable dissimilitude, and the work will be generally
uncouth and party-coloured; neither original nor translated, neither
ancient nor modern[150].

Pope had, in proportions very nicely adjusted to each other, all the
qualities that constitute genius. He had invention, by which new trains
of events are formed, and new scenes of imagery displayed, as in the
Rape of the Lock; and by which extrinsick and adventitious
embellishments and illustrations are connected with a known subject, as
in the Essay on Criticism. He had imagination, which strongly impresses
on the writer's mind, and enables him to convey to the reader, the
various forms of nature, incidents of life, and energies of passion, as
in his Eloisa, Windsor Forest, and Ethick Epistles. He had judgment,
which selects from life or nature what the present purpose requires, and
by separating the essence of things from its concomitants, often makes
the representation more powerful than the reality: and he had colours of
language always before him, ready to decorate his matter with every
grace of elegant expression, as when he accommodates his diction to _the
wonderful multiplicity_ of Homer's sentiments and descriptions.

Poetical expression includes sound as well as meaning; "Musick," says
Dryden, "is inarticulate poetry;" among the excellencies of Pope,
therefore, must be mentioned the melody of his metre. By perusing the
works of Dryden, he discovered the most perfect fabrick of English
verse, and habituated himself to that only which he found the best; in
consequence of which restraint, his poetry has been censured as too
uniformly musical, and as glutting the ear with unvaried sweetness. I
suspect this objection to be the cant of those who judge by principles
rather than perception; and who would even themselves have less pleasure
in his works, if he had tried to relieve attention by studied discords,
or affected to break his lines and vary his pauses.

But, though he was thus careful of his versification, he did not oppress
his powers with superfluous rigour. He seems to have thought, with
Boileau, that the practice of writing might be refined till the
difficulty sho