It cannot be denied, that his chief excellence lay more in
diminishing, than in aggrandizing objects; in checking, not in
encouraging our enthusiasm; in sneering at the extravagances of fancy or
passion, instead of giving a loose to them; in describing a row of pins
and needles, rather than the embattled spears of Greeks and Trojans; in
penning a lampoon or a compliment, and in praising Martha Blount.

Shakspeare says,

"------In Fortune's ray and brightness
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize
Than by the tyger: but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, why then
The thing of courage,
As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathise;
And with an accent tuned in the self-same key,
Replies to chiding Fortune."

There is none of this rough work in Pope. His Muse was on a
peace-establishment, and grew somewhat effeminate by long ease and
indulgence. He lived in the smiles of fortune, and basked in the favour
of the great. In his smooth and polished verse we meet with no prodigies
of nature, but with miracles of wit; the thunders of his pen are
whispered flatteries; its forked lightnings pointed sarcasms; for "the
gnarled oak," he gives us "the soft myrtle": for rocks, and seas, and
mountains, artificial grass-plats, gravel-walks, and tinkling rills; for
earthquakes and tempests, the breaking of a flower-pot, or the fall of a
china jar; for the tug and war of the elements, or the deadly strife of
the passions, we have