_Essay on Man_, in which Pope versified the deism which he learned from
Bolingbroke, and which was characteristic of the upper circle
generally. I need not speak of its shortcomings; didactic poetry of that
kind is dreary enough, and the smart couplets often offend one's taste.
I may say that here and there Pope manages to be really impressive, and
to utter sentiments which really ennobled the deist creed; the aversion
to narrow superstition; to the bigotry which 'dealt damnation round the
land'; and the conviction that the true religion must correspond to a
cosmopolitan humanity. I remember hearing Carlyle quote with admiration
the Universal Prayer--

'Father of all, in every age,
In every clime adored,
By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,'

and it is the worthy utterance of one good legacy which the deist
bequeathed to posterity. Pope himself was alarmed when he discovered
that he had slipped unawares into heterodoxy. His creed was not
congenial to the average mind, though it was to that of his immediate
circle. Meanwhile, his most characteristic and successful work was of a
different order. The answer, in fact, to the problem which I have just
stated, is that the only kind of poetry that was congenial to his
environment was satire--if satire can be called poetry. Pope's satires,
the 'Epistle to Arbuthnot,' the 'Epilogue,' and some of the 'Imitations
of Horace,' represent his best and most lasting achievement. There he
gives the fullest expression to the general sentiment in the most
appropriate form. His singular command of language, and, within his own
limits, of versification, was turned to account by conscientious and
unceasing labour in polishing his style. Particular passages, like the
famous satire upon Addison, have been slowly elaborated; he has brooded
over them for years; and, if the result of such methods is sometimes a
mosaic rather than a continuous current of discourse, the extraordinary
brilliance of some passages has made them permanently interesting and
enriched our literature with many proverbial phrases. The art was
naturally cultivated and its results appreciated in the circle formed by
such men as Congreve, Bolingbroke, and Chesterfield and the like, by
whom witty conversation was cultivated as a fine art. Chesterfield tells
us that he never spoke without trying to express himself as well as
possible; and Pope carries out the principle in his p