The poems contain some of Pope's most brilliant bits, but we can scarcely remember them as a whole.

The characters of Wharton and Villiers, of Atossa, of the Man of Ross, and Sir Balaam, stand out as brilliant passages which would do almost as well in any other setting.

In the imitations of Horace he is, of course, guided by lines already laid down for him; and he has shown admirable skill in translating the substance as well as the words of his author by the nearest equivalents.

This peculiar mode of imitation had been tried by other writers, but in Pope's hands it succeeded beyond all precedent.

There is so much congeniality between Horace and Pope, and the social orders of which they were the spokesmen, that he can represent his original without giving us any sense of constraint.