Still I cannot but discern and lament a great deficiency, which is common to them all.

I find in them abundance of ingenuity, of droll naivete, of profound and just reflection, of happy expression.

Manners, characters, opinions, are treated with "a most learned spirit of human dealing." But something is still wanting.

We read, and we admire, and we yawn.

We look in vain for the bacchanalian fury which inspired the comedy of Athens, for the fierce and withering scorn which animates the invectives of Juvenal and Dryden, or even for the compact and pointed diction which adds zest to the verses of Pope and Boileau.