420 POPE. 



than for Pope. The rule he lays down would make Vol- 

 taire a greater poet, in some respects, than Shakespeare. 

 Byron cites Petrarch as an example ; yet if Petrarch had 

 put nothing more into his sonnets than execution, there 

 are plenty of Italian sonneteers who would be his match. 

 But, in point of fact, the department chooses the man and 

 not the man the department, and it has a great deal to 

 do with our estimate of him. Is the department of Mil- 

 ton no higher than that of Butler 1 Byron took especial 

 care not to write in the style he commended. But I 

 think Pope has received quite as much credit in respect 

 even of execution as he deserves. Surely execution is 

 not confined to versification alone. What can be worse 

 than this 1 



* At length Erasmus, that great, injured name, 

 (The glory of the priesthood and the shame,) 

 Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age, 

 And drove those holy vandals off the stage." 



It would have been hard for Pope to have found a pret- 

 tier piece of confusion in any of the small authors he 

 laughed at than this image of a great, injured name 

 stemming a torrent and driving vandals off the stage. 

 And in the following verses the image is helplessly con- 

 fused : 



" Kind self-conceit to some her glass applies, 

 Which no one looks in with another's eyes, 

 But, as the flatterer or dependant paint, 

 Beholds himself a patriot, chief, or saint." 



The use of the word " applies " is perfectly un-English ; 

 and it seems that people who look in this remarkable 

 glass see their pictures and not their reflections. Often, 

 also, when Pope attempts the sublime, his epithets be- 

 come curiously unpoetical, as where he says, in the 

 Dunciad, 



" As, one by one, at dread Medea's strain, 

 The sickening stars fade off the ethereal plain." 



