Much of his work may be fairly described as rhymed prose, differing from prose not in substance or tone of feeling, but only in the form of expression.

Every poet has an invisible audience, as an orator has a visible one, who deserve a great part of the merit of his works.

Some men may write for the religious or philosophic recluse, and therefore utter the emotions which come to ordinary mortals in the rare moments when the music of the spheres, generally drowned by the din of the commonplace world, becomes audible to their dull senses.

Pope, on the other hand, writes for the wits who never listen to such strains, and moreover writes for their ordinary moods.

He aims at giving us the refined and doubly distilled essence of the conversation of the statesmen and courtiers of his time.
The standard of good writing always implicitly present to his mind is the fitness of his poetry to pass muster when shown by Gay to his duchess, or read after dinner to a party composed of Swift, Bolingbroke, and Congreve.