POPE. 405 



that should hold Pope responsible for the narrow com- 

 pass of the instrument which was his legacy from his 

 immediate predecessors, any more than for the weari- 

 some thrumming-over of his tune by those who came 

 after him and who had caught his technical skill without 

 his genius. The question properly stated is, How much 

 was it possible to make of the material supplied by the 

 age in which he lived ? and how much did he make of 

 it ? Thus far, among the great English poets who pre- 

 ceded him, we have seen actual life represented by 

 Chaucer, imaginative life by Spenser, ideal life by Shake- 

 speare, the interior life by Milton. But as everything 

 aspires to a rhythmical utterance of itself, so conven- 

 tional life, itself a new phenomenon, was waiting for its 

 poet. It found or made a most fitting one in Pope. He 

 stands for exactness of intellectual expression, for per- 

 fect propriety of phrase (I speak of him at his best), and 

 is a striking instance how much success and permanence 

 of reputation depend on conscientious finish as well as 

 on native endowment. Butler asks, 



" Then why should those who pick and choose 

 The best of all the best compose, 

 And join it by Mosaic art, 

 In graceful order, part to part, 

 To make the whole in beauty suit, 

 Not merit as complete repute 

 As those who, with less art and pain, 

 Can do it with their native brain? " 



Butler knew very well that precisely what stamps a man 

 as an artist is this power of finding out what is " the 

 best of all the best." 



I confess that I come to the treatment of Pope with 

 diffidence. I was brought up in the old superstition 

 that he was the greatest poet that ever lived ; and when 

 I came to find that I had instincts of my own, and my 

 mind was brought in contact with the apostles of a more 



