ive ear, the softness or
ruggedness of juvenile verses depends upon the model. The imitative
faculty of boyhood is never more at home than in catching the trick of
metrical harmony. Dryden had used the heroic measure with consummate
skill, and no one who came after him could fall into the "harsh cadence"
of Oldham's Satires, and Cowley's Davideis, or rest satisfied with the
combination of rough and smooth in the productions of Sandys and Denham.
The music of the "mighty master" was on every tongue when Pope began "to
lisp in numbers." "I learned versification," he said to Spence, "wholly
from Dryden's works, who had improved it much beyond any of our former
poets; and would, probably, have brought it to its perfection, had not
he been unhappily obliged to write so often in haste."[16] What Dryden
did for Pope, Pope did for the next generation, and to compose
mellifluous verses became the common attainment of ordinary scribblers.
Cowper, in his Table Talk, has specially noticed this effect of Pope's
writings.

But he (his musical finesse was such,
So nice his ear, so delicate his touch)
Made poetry a mere mechanic art,
And every warbler has his tune by heart.

In metrical skill Pope was thought by most persons to have surpassed all
his predecessors. "He is the most harmonious poet," said Voltaire,
"that England ever had. He has reduced the sharp hissings of the English
trumpet to the sweet sounds of the flute."[17] Voltaire doubtless found
this opinion prevalent in the circle he frequented during his residence
in England, from 1720 to 1728; for his own knowledge of our language
would not have enabled him to distinguish the nicer shades of melody.
The English critics confirm his decision. Johnson declared that the
versification of the Pastorals had "no precedent, nor has since had an
imitation." Warton pronounced "that it was musical to a degree of which
rhyme could hardly be thought capable," and Bowles admitted that Pope
"had made the English couplet infinitely more smooth." To the few who
"censured his poetry as too uniformly musical, and as glutting the ear
with unvaried sweetness," Johnson replied, "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."[18] Bowles sided with the caville