POPE. 423 



Who but must laugh if such a man there be? 

 Who would not weep if Atticus were he?" 



With the exception of the somewhat technical image 

 in the second verse of Fame blowing the fire of genius, 

 which too much puts us in mind of the frontispieces of 

 the day, surely nothing better of its kind was ever writ- 

 ten. How applicable it was to Addison I shall consider 

 in another place. As an accurate intellectual observer 

 and describer of personal weaknesses, Pope stands by 

 himself in English verse. 



In his epistle on the characters of women, no one who 

 has ever known a noble woman, nay, I should almost 

 say no one who ever had a mother or sister, will find 

 much to please him. The climax of his praise rather 

 degrades than elevates. 



" 0, blest in temper, whose unclouded ray 

 Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day, 

 She who can love a sister's charms, or hear 

 Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear, 

 She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, 

 Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules, 

 Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, 

 Yet has her humor most when she obeys; 

 Lets fops or fortune fly which way they will, 

 Disdains all loss of tickets or codille, 

 Spleen, vapors, or smallpox, above them all 

 And mistress of herself, though china fall." 



The last line is very witty and pointed, but consider 

 what an ideal of womanly nobleness he must have had, 

 who praises his heroine for not being jealous of her 

 daughter. Addison, in commending Pope's " Essay on 

 Criticism," says, speaking of us " who live in the latter 

 ages of the world " : " We have little else to do left us 

 but to represent the common sense of mankind, in more 

 strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights." I 

 think he has here touched exactly the point of Pope's 

 merit, and, in doing so, tacitly excludes him from the 



