pope. 433 



men, rather than of human nature, if to be the highest 

 expression which the life of the court and the ball-room 

 has ever found in verse, if to have added more phrases 

 to our language than any other but Shakespeare, if to 

 have charmed four generations make a man a great poet, 

 — then he is one. He was the chief founder of an arti- 

 ficial style of writing, which in his hands was living and 

 powerful, because he used i + to express artificial, modes 

 of thinking and an artificial state of society. Measured 

 by any high standard of imagination, he will be found 

 wanting ; tried by any test of wit, he is unrivalled. 



THE ENDt 



