study and trim gardens, and visited the Alps, Snowdon, or the
Grampians--had he studied Boileau less, and Dante, Milton, or the Bible
more--we cannot tell; but he certainly, in this case, would have left
works greater, if not more graceful, behind him; and if he had pleased
his own taste and that of his age less, he might have more effectually
touched the chord of the heart of all future time by his poetry. As it
is, his works resemble rather the London Colosseum than Westminster
Abbey. They are exquisite imitations of nature; but we never can apply
to them the words of the poet--

"O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends, with kindred eye;
For Nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat."

_Read_, and admired, Pope must always be--if not for his poetry and
passion, yet for his elegance, wit, satiric force, fidelity as a painter
of artificial life, and the clear, pellucid English. But his deficiency
in the creative faculty (a deficiency very marked in two of his most
lauded poems we have not specified, his "Messiah" and "Temple of Fame,"
both eloquent imitations), his lack of profound thought, the general
poverty of his natural pictures (there are some fine ones in "Eloisa and
Abelard"), the coarse and bitter element often intermingled with his
satire, the monotonous glitter of his verse, and the want of profound
purpose in his writings, combine to class him below the first file of
poets. And vain are all attempts, such as those of Byron and Lord
Carlisle, to alter the general verdict. It is very difficult, after a
time, either to raise or depress an acknowledged classic; and Pope must