Nor can Pope often rise to that level at which alone satire is transmuted into the higher class of poetry.

To accomplish that feat, if, indeed, it be possible, the poet must not simply ridicule the fantastic tricks of poor mortals, but show how they appear to the angels who weep over them.

The petty figures must be projected against a background of the infinite, and we must feel the relations of our tiny eddies of life to the oceanic currents of human history.

Pope can never rise above the crowd.

He is looking at his equals, not contemplating them from the height which reveals their insignificance.