He already showed the power, in which he was probably unequalled, of coining aphorisms out of commonplace.

Few people read the essay now, but everybody is aware that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread," and has heard the warning-- A little learning is a dangerous thing, Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring-- maxims which may not commend themselves as strictly accurate to a scientific reasoner, but which have as much truth as one can demand from an epigram.

And besides many sayings which share in some degree their merit, there are occasional passages which rise, at least, to the height of graceful rhetoric if they are scarcely to be called poetical.

One simile was long famous, and was called by Johnson the best in the language.

It is that in which the sanguine youth, overwhelmed by a growing perception of the boundlessness of possible attainments, is compared to the traveller crossing the mountains, and seeing-- Hills peep o'er hills and Alps on Alps arise.
The poor simile is pretty well forgotten, but is really a good specimen of Pope's brilliant declamation.
The essay, however, is not uniformly polished.